President Biden is getting ready to launch a transportation-infrastructure-climate-change-and-other-stuff plan he hopes will deliver trillions into the economy. White House prepares massive infrastructure bill with universal pre-k, free community college, climate measures
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/03/22/infrastructure-biden-drug-reform/
As the Chinese embassy in London prepares to move into its new location, councilors voted to consider naming roads and buildings in the surrounding area of the site Tiananmen Square, Uyghur Court, Hong Kong Road, and Tibet Hill.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/19/uyghur-court-hong-kong-road-tower-hamlets-plans-name-changes-in-solidarity
Gunmen on motorcycles have attacked a series of villages near Niger's troubled border with Mali, leaving at least 137 people dead, Niger's government says. It's the deadliest violence to strike the African country in recent memory.
https://apnews.com/article/africa-niamey-niger-mali-f7d9fcb137a2a90ec3dca5ddcd9600a3
"I'm not liable for defamation because it should have been clear to everyone that I was just making s*%t up." Sidney Powell has moved to dismiss Dominion's defamation lawsuit. She argues that when she accused Dominion of being part of an election-rigging scheme with ties to Venezuela, "no reasonable person would conclude" those "were truly statements of fact"
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20519858/3-22-21-sidney-powell-defending-the-republic-motion-to-dismiss-dominion.pdf
A man identified as an Army Special Forces soldier from 2001-2016, Jeffrey McKellop, has been charged with assaulting four officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — including one speared in the face with a flagpole.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/former-soldier-charged-assault-insurrection-477014
Bernie Sanders making plans to push prescription drug reforms through reconciliation | On Tuesday, Sanders will introduce the three bills ahead of a hearing of his Budget Committee on the topic. One bill is designed to index the price of popular drugs according the global market. A second will give Medicare the opportunity to pay for drugs through a competitive bidding process, and the third would allow Americans to buy drugs at cheaper prices from foreign sellers. The policy proposals are very similar to ones Sanders has previously championed as a senator and as a Democratic Presidential candidate. | From his perch as Budget Committee chairman, Sanders wields a powerful weapon. He is able to push through legislation through the reconciliation process, which allows bills, which directly impact the federal budget, to pass the Senate with a simple majority, as opposed to standard pieces of legislation that must overcome a 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster to move forward.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/22/politics/bernie-sanders-prescription-drugs-reconciliation/index.html
Congressional Democrats are considering cracking down on drug prices to help pay for President Joe Biden's infrastructure package, several lawmakers including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Such a provision would be included in a package that lawmakers hope to pass as early as July 4 — if they can gain enough support for it. Under such a proposal, the government would play a bigger role in controlling drug prices, which would mean it spends less on prescriptions under Medicare, which mostly pays for healthcare for seniors. The savings would then be redirected to pay for the construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, waterworks, and other public facilities.
https://www.businessinsider.com/infrastructure-drug-prices-medicare-biden-stimulus-2021-3
Marty Walsh Confirmed For Sec of Labor
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Zlj6Jr23D4a-Ajzh1VtC_5HGB55DGO-leVWzQkTc1h8/edit#
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/us/politics/martin-walsh-labor-secretary-biden.html
Volunteers working to remove litter throughout a North Carolina community over the weekend discovered 10 dead dogs, mostly pit bulls, wrapped in trash bags and thrown into a ditch along the side of the road.
https://www.wftv.com/news/trending/10-dogs-found-dead-trash-bags-during-community-cleanup/UFXAOXYLHVC6DDTHPUQIWUSN4E/
USPS Pro-Trump Republican DeJoy to announce that it will take a day longer to deliver First Class mail standards, and will reveal massive cuts to Post Office hours. Mail delivery has remained sluggish since slowing down last year after DeJoy cut overtime and extra trips by delivery trucks in an effort to rein in costs. DeJoy, a donor to former President Donald Trump, was appointed by a Republican-majority board last year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/first-class-mail-to-take-extra-day-under-postal-service-plan
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/22/fact-sheet-small-and-less-populous-island-economies-salpie-initiative/
FACT SHEET: Small and Less Populous Island Economies (SALPIE) Initiative
March 22, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today the Biden administration launched the "Small and Less Populous Island Economies (SALPIE) Initiative," an economic cooperation framework designed to strengthen U.S. collaboration with island countries and territories in the Caribbean, North Atlantic, and Pacific regions.
The SALPIE Initiative signals the U.S. government's prioritization of cooperation with these economies to counter COVID-19 economic challenges, promote economic recovery, respond to the climate crisis, and advance longer-term shared interests. Pandemic-related economic disruptions have caused an unprecedented global crisis, and import and tourism-dependent island economies have not been spared. These same island communities are also among the most vulnerable to climate change; their economic resilience is increasingly threatened by more frequent and severe storms, rising sea levels, and warming ocean temperatures.
SALPIE partners are geographically diverse island economies that face similar challenges. Most have populations under 1 million, have been heavily impacted by COVID-related economic disruptions, and are especially susceptible to the effects of climate change. Many do not qualify for concessional foreign assistance programs due to their higher income levels per capita. Re-focusing our economic relationships with these partners will advance shared interests and promote economic recovery and resilience.
The Initiative builds on programming designed to elevate our economic cooperation to provide a framework for the United States to enhance bilateral, regional, and multilateral collaboration in SALPIE regions. Beyond addressing more immediate economic and humanitarian consequences of the pandemic and climate change, the U.S. government welcomes the opportunity to partner with these economies to advance important long-term objectives, including strengthening bilateral and regional economic ties, countering predatory investment practices by malign actors, and enhancing collaboration within international organizations.
The United States values the strong trade and investment ties we have with SALPIE and views this as an opportune time to reaffirm and reinvest in the importance of those relationships as we work together on economic recovery efforts. While not an all-inclusive inventory of U.S. cooperation with this set of economies, the SALPIE Initiative brings 29 U.S. departments and agencies together to coordinate ongoing and future engagements in the following areas:
Economic Growth: Programs that support generating rapid, meaningful, sustained, inclusive, and broad-based economic growth.
Climate/Sustainable Energy/Environment: Programs that support climate initiatives, sustainable energy development, natural disaster response and resilience, and other critical environmental and sustainability issues.
Development Finance: Programs in partnership with the private sector that leverage loans and/or other credit guarantees to finance projects.
Humanitarian/Social: Programs that directly support or promote capacity building to improve humanitarian and social conditions.
Diplomatic/Educational/Cultural: Programs with an economic focus that foster relationship building and enhance bilateral cooperation.
Political/Security: Programs aimed at establishing the conditions and capacity necessary for sustainable economic growth by promoting peace, security, stability, and sound democratic institutions and processes.
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/22/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-lina-khan-for-commissioner-of-the-federal-trade-commission/
President Biden Announces his Intent to Nominate Lina Khan for Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission
March 22, 2021 • Statements and Releases
WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Lina Khan for Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.
Lina Khan, Nominee for Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission
Lina Khan is an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School, where she teaches and writes about antitrust law, infrastructure industries law, and the antimonopoly tradition. Her antitrust scholarship has received several awards and has been published by the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and University of Chicago Law Review. Khan previously served as counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, where she helped lead the Subcommittee's investigation into digital markets. Khan was also a legal advisor in the office of Commissioner Rohit Chopra at the Federal Trade Commission and legal director at the Open Markets Institute. She is a graduate of Williams College and Yale Law School.
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The leading opposition presidential candidate in Congo-Brazzaville, who was seriously ill with Covid-19, has died hours after polls closed. Hours before, he appeared in a video removing his mask to tell supporters he was "fighting death."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56474855
The American Rescue Plan will reduce hunger, strengthen the food supply chain, and provide support to underserved, socially disadvantaged farmers. It will:
Extend the 15 percent increase in SNAP benefits through the end of September — about $28 per month per person.
Provide $888 million to deliver expanded access to more fruits and vegetables to moms and babies participating in WIC.
$37 million for senior nutrition and $1 billion in nutrition assistance for the territories.
It will support farmers of color with $4 billion toward debt relief for socially disadvantaged farmers to pay off burdensome debts, and $1 billion in funding to USDA to create a racial equity commission and address longstanding discrimination.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/22/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-22-2021/
"This is not the time to come. Our borders are not open."
The State Department continues to — we've placed an estimated 17,118 radio ads in Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras since January 21st in Spanish, Portuguese, and six indigenous languages. These ads played on 33 radio stations reaching an estimated 15 million individuals. The department has also worked with Facebook and Instagram on an advertising campaign that put out — put our migration messages in the social media streams of millions of individuals who fit the profile of intending migrants. These are very targeted, of course. A total of 589 digital ads in paid search, display, and social media supporting the ongoing migration campaign in Northern Triangle countries have reached more than 26 million people since Inauguration Day. These ads created over 73 million impressions in the targeted countries, and we're also taking creative approaches in different countries to make sure we're reaching people, meeting people where they are; in some ways, how we try to do things in the United States. So, as an example, Embassy San Salvador — "Oscuro" comic book and animated show seeks to deter irregular migration by addressing violence as a driver. Content focused on violent [violence] reduction reached 240,000 young Salvadorans in the targeted audience. The two animated episodes in this past year have been viewed by 3.6 million individuals. So each country is taking different approaches. Our embassies on the ground are obviously the experts working with countries — to your point, Steve — to figure out how to communicate clearly in languages that are — will be received by the people in these countries and communicate clearly, "This is not the time to come. Our borders are not open."
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/22/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-22-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, children presenting at our border who are fleeing violence, who are fleeing prosecution, who are fleeing terrible situations, is not a crisis. We feel that it is our responsibility to humanely approach this circumstance and make sure they are treated with — treated and put into conditions that are safe. I will say that, you know, these photos show what we've long been saying, which is that these Border Patrol facilities are not places made for children. They are not places that we want children to be staying for an extended period of time. Our alternative is to send children back on this treacherous journey. That is not, in our view, the right choice to make. And so our focus now is on putting in place — is on solutions and putting in place policies, including expediting processing at the border, opening up additional facilities — something that you've seen developments on over the past several days, and there'll be certainly more on — restarting our Central American Minors program, which was stopped in 2017. Thousands of kids should be eligible to apply for that so they're not making this journey. So our focus is on solutions and implementing them as quickly as possible.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/22/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-22-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, factually, the vast majority of people who come to the border are turned away. Adults, families, single people who are coming to the border are turned away. So that is a message we will continue to convey through a number of the means I have outlined for you. And the President has also conveyed that directly, as has our Secretary of Homeland Security. And as was noted earlier, there's obviously a trip to the region as well.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/22/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-22-2021/
Q Thank you, Jen. So now that Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley are letting adult migrants go without even issuing notices to appear, is the Biden immigration policy just becoming more of, like, the honor system?
MS. PSAKI: That is an inaccurate depiction of what's happening at the border. So there's no change in policy. The border remains closed. Families and single adults are being expelled under Title 42 and should not attempt to cross illegally. In the narrow, narrow circumstances in which families can't be expelled, the family is tested and quarantined as needed and placed in immigration proceedings to commence. In some cases, families are placed in removal proceedings further along in the release process. So if families are going to be — going to be deported and they're awaiting deportation, they don't need a court date and they don't need a notice to appear because it has already been determined that they will be sent back to their home countries. Sometimes that takes a minute to ensure there is proper transportation and steps in place to do that.
Q But if Secretary Mayorkas says the border is secure, the border is closed, how is that the case if these migrants are being processed on this side of the border and then put on a bus to points unknown on this side of the border?
MS. PSAKI: Well, again, there are limited cases where there are families — because they can't be held in Mexico — who are processed, tested, considered at the border. Most of them are sent back to their home countries. Those are very limited cases, and it's certainly not a depiction of the overarching policy.
Q Okay. Two years ago, President Biden said, "We are a nation that says 'You want to flee, and you're fleeing opposition, you should come.' They deserve to be heard. That's who we are." Now he says, "I can say quite clearly, 'Don't come over.'" So why was his position different campaigning than it is governing?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I think that sometimes there are — there's language that is used by some that is not complete, including the full context of his comments. I will say that he still believes that he wants our country to be a place where there is asylum processing at the border, where people are considered and go through a proper process — who are fleeing prosecution, who should be considered for immigration status. That is a process that is broken; it was broken by the last administration. And he wants to put in place a process — through an immigration bill, through steps taken by the Department of Homeland Security and HHS — to improve that process and make it safe, efficient, and effective. We're going to need some time to do that.
Q And the President says — he told us yesterday, "I know what's going on in [these] facilities." You say that he's been briefed with photos from the inside.
MS. PSAKI: Multiple times.
Q Multiple times.
MS. PSAKI: I mean, he's been briefed multiple times about immigration and often has a number of — and has regular sets of questions for his team.
Q So what is his concern about this being a super- spreader event, where you've got 400 kids stuffed into a pod built for 260?
MS. PSAKI: These kids are tested. If they need to be quarantined, they are quarantined. We also follow CDC guidelines to ensure that they are kept safe. One of the reasons that it took us some time to have some of these facilities or some of the shelters open to larger groups of kids is because we wanted to follow those CDC guidelines. So we certainly don't see it through that prism. We actually took the steps we did to keep these kids safe.
Q But where else in the country would it be okay to have 400 people in a space for 260 during the pandemic?
MS. PSAKI: Well, again, Peter, we are closely following the CDC guidelines. That's why we're opening up additional facilities, why they've been at limited capacity in a number of these shelters.
Q But if I may, I don't know that there are CDC guidelines that say you can be open with 400 —
MS. PSAKI: Duck Dodge Dive Lie
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/22/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-22-2021/
Q What will the U.S. do, if anything, if China doesn't change its approach? Is this, sort of, a one-stop sanction? Or down the road, will this be revisited and are further sanctions possible? I mean, they've given no indication that they would change approach; in fact, they have more or less doubled down that they're doing nothing wrong with respect to these minority groups.
MS. PSAKI: Well, clearly, sanctions are meant to deter behavior, but I'm not going to rule in or rule out any actions when we're at — not even day 60. What day are we at? Sixty-two? I'm not even sure — of the administration. I can assure you that, obviously, this is — again, we will be evaluating what the appropriate next steps are in close coordination with our partners and allies around the world. And as Secretary of State noted in his comments after this meeting, we are certain that the Chinese are noting that we are working much more closely with our allies and partners than had happened over the last four years, that we are focused on taking steps to invest in and improve our economic competition here at home. Those are all steps we are certain they're taking note of.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/22/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-22-2021/
Q — on the Guatemala trip: The President's proposal for $4 billion in aid for the Northern Triangle has made allusions to conditions that might be placed on it — reforms, anti-corruption effort, that sort of thing. Is this something that Ambassador Jacobson will raise at all? In other words, are you going to be seeking changes in exchange for any funding — aid funding that might go to the region during this trip? Will you specify any particular asks in that regard?
MS. PSAKI: It's a great question. I will also note that there's also — a part of the — part of the trip delegation is our new Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle, who I'm certain will be playing a prominent role in leading these efforts and negotiations moving forward. Obviously, addressing issues like corruption, violence in the region and in these countries is something that is often raised with the government because we need to work through this funding mechanism through the immigration proposal with our own Congress. I can't — I don't have anything to, kind of, detail for you in terms of what those conversations will look like, but I'm sure, when they come back, we will do a robust readout of their conversations.
Q Thank you.
MS. PSAKI: Go ahead.
Q Thank you. Why hasn't the administration sought, as supplemental funding, to send resources to the border to help the migrant children — the unaccompanied minors? Is that something that's in the offing?
MS. PSAKI: Well, from — I know Secretary Mayorkas has spoken to this exact question, which is a great one. And what he has conveyed is that the funding is not the root issue here, that there are larger issues or issues that we have been focused on working through, including processing, identifying additional facilities that we think will help address the challenges we're seeing at the border.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/22/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-22-2021/
Collecting all unpaid income tax from the top 1% would boost revenue to the U.S. Treasury by $175 billion a year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/tax-evasion-richest-1-of-americans-hide-20-of-their-income-from-the-irs
Beshear vetoes McConnell-backed Senate vacancy bill; signs bill capping insulin co-pays
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/ky-general-assembly/2021/03/22/gov-beshear-vetoes-sen-mcconnell-backed-senate-vacancy-bill/4798765001
Steph Curry didn't practice today. He is out against the Sixers tomorrow night. Third straight missed game because of that hard fall on his tailbone. Listed as day-to-day. Kerr: "He's not ready."
https://twitter.com/anthonyVslater/status/1374157617019285505
Recently acquired Bucks forward Rodions Kurucs pleads guilty to disorderly conduct
https://twitter.com/diamond83/status/1374104811034017797
Boulder shooting: Gunman kills at least 6, including police officer, at King Soopers
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/03/22/police-active-shooter-shooting-king-soopers-boulder/
As the dreadful details begin to trickle out from Boulder about yet another mass shooting, it needs to be said again that the frequency of these random massacres with firearms are a uniquely American phenomenon.
Like my fellow Coloradans, I am closely watching unfolding events at King Soopers in Boulder. My prayers are with our fellow Coloradans in this time of sadness and grief as we learn more about the extent of the tragedy.
Colorado Judge Andrew Hartman blocked Boulder from enforcing its assault-weapon ban. The city of Boulder enacted bans on assault-style weapons and large-capacity magazines in 2018 following the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. But a state district court judge ruled this month that Boulder could not enforce the bans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/us/boulder-colorado-gun-laws.html
Clippers were down 22 points to the Atlanta Hawks when Luke Kennard enters to play his first third quarter minutes in a month. He proceeds to shoot 8-8 FG, 4-4 from the 3, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 blocks, no turnovers to will the Clippers to victory
John Wall splits the double team and hits the 360 layup
https://streamable.com/66meio
After being questionable to play, Rudy Gobert finishes the game against Chicago with 21/10 on 9/11 shooting to go with 9 blocks!
Tyrese Haliburton sets a new career high with 28pts on 11/15 from the field and 4/5 from 3 in a win against the Cleveland Cavaliers
Jrue's step-back three puts Giannis to sleep on the bench
https://streamable.com/qilkj4
Clippers are trading Mfiondu Kabengele, a future second and cash to the Kings for a protected future second-round pick
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1374174131311280131
Kawhi drills the deep 3 to put the Clippers up 8
https://streamable.com/0hx69s
Per Clippers PR, Luke Kennard is the first player in franchise history to have at least 20 points, seven rebounds and four assists in under 20 minutes of play. The last player in the NBA to achieve the feat was Giannis Antetokounmpo on 11/30/19 vs. Charlotte.
Rockets' 4 starters besides John Wall played almost perfect, shooting the ball 27-39 (69%), with Wall going 8-30 from the field
Danuel House swishes the half court shot to give the Rockets a 5 point lead at the half
https://streamable.com/ydlk6a
DeRozan sinks the tough fading and-1
https://streamable.com/kuijzd
Biden Administration praises industries that rape and torture and murder billions of animals each year. Biden Administration praises industries destroying the global environment in totality. Biden Administration praising the very people causing anthropogenic global warming.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/22/readout-of-the-white-houses-meeting-with-oil-and-gas-company-leadership/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/03/22/a-proclamation-on-national-agriculture-day-2021/
A senior Saudi official issued a death threat against the independent United Nations investigator, Agnès Callamard, after her investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/23/top-saudi-official-issued-death-threat-against-uns-khashoggi-investigator
Richest members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) - including United States - blocked a push by over 80 developing countries in an effort to boost production of COVID-19 vaccines. South Africa and India renewed their bid to waive rules of the WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement, a move that could allow generic or other manufacturers to make more vaccines. South Africa argued the current TRIPS system does not work, pointing to the failure to secure life-saving medicines during the HIV/AIDS pandemic that had cost at least 11 million African lives. The South Africa and India proposal was backed by dozens of largely developing countries at the WTO, but opposed by Western countries, including Britain, Switzerland, EU nations and the United States, which have large domestic pharmaceutical industries.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-wto-idUSKBN2B21V9
Deshaun Watson lawsuits up to 14, with 24 accusers. Civil lawsuits do force criminal investigations.
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/03/23/deshaun-watson-lawsuits-up-to-14-with-24-accusers/
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021, the President signed into law: S. 579, which modifies the effective date of the elimination of the five month waiting period to receive Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance benefits for individuals diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/23/bill-signing-s-579/
The Colorado Mass Shooting Murder is the 7th Mass Shooting in 7 Days in the US
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/23/us/7-mass-shootings-7-days-trnd/index.html
Tuesday, March 16 Atlanta, Georgia
Eight people, including six Asian women, were killed when a White gunman stormed three spas, police said.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/21/us/metro-atlanta-shootings-sunday/index.html
Wednesday, March 17 Stockton, California
Five people who were preparing a vigil in Stockton, in California's Central Valley, were shot in a drive-by shooting, the San Joaquin Sheriff's Department said. None had life-threatening injuries.
https://www.facebook.com/SJSheriff/posts/1705390379663322
Thursday, March 18 Gresham, Oregon
Four victims were taken to the hospital after a shooting in the city east of Portland, police said in an initial report.
https://twitter.com/GreshamPD/status/1372540393405882371
Saturday, March 20 Houston
Five people were shot after a disturbance inside a club, according to police. One was in critical condition after being shot in the neck, the rest were in stable condition, according to CNN affiliate KPRC.
https://twitter.com/houstonpolice/status/1373185890646908929
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/03/20/hpd-5-injured-in-shooting-at-north-houston-club/
Saturday, March 20 Dallas
Eight people were shot by an unknown assailant, one of whom died, according to police.
https://twitter.com/DallasPD/status/1373297938147971074
Saturday, March 20 Philadelphia
One person was killed and another five were injured during a shooting at an illegal party, CNN affiliate KYW reported. "There were at least 150 people in there that fled and believed they had to flee for their lives," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/1-dead-5-wounded-in-150-person-philadelphia-party-shooting/2584836/
Monday, March 22 Boulder, Colorado
Ten people, including a Boulder police officer, were killed in a shooting at the King Soopers supermarket, according to police.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/colorado-king-soopers-shooting/h_afe55905fd18ff3746081c7f47985331
Lauren Boebert sends fundraising email saying 'hell no' to gun control after a mass murderer shot dead ten people in a store in her state, including a police officer. She also spent the day before on twitter attacking Biden while the shooting was happening.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/lauren-boebert-fundrasing-email-gun-control-b1821067.html
Whitenized Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, age 21, from Arvada, Colorado, is the alleged shooter[8] and was charged with ten counts of first-degree murder.[29][30] Alissa was found with a leg wound, and was transported to Boulder Community Health Foothills Hospital.[31] The suspect's older brother stated that Alissa has a history of paranoid, disturbed and anti-social behavior.[32]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Boulder_shooting#Suspect
Biden rightfully and thankfully calls for assault weapons ban in response to the Boulder shooting: "I don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps to save lives in the future." "We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the U.S. once again"
Ex-New York cop Sara Carpenter arrested on Capitol riot charges, told FBI she went there on Trump instructions
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/former-nypd-cop-sara-carpenter-arrested-for-trump-capitol-riot.html
10 victims killed in Boulder attack:
• Denny Strong, 20
• Neven Stanisic, 23
• Rikki Olds, 25
• Tralona Bartkowiak, 49
• Suzanne Fountain, 59
• Officer Eric Talley, 51
• Teri Leiker, 51
• Kevin Mahoney, 61
• Lynn Murray, 62
• Jody Waters, 65
The Toronto Raptors fined star forward Pascal Siakam $50,000 after directing several heated choice words toward head coach Nick Nurse after Sunday's loss in Cleveland
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1374406836628037632
LaMelo Ball had a successful surgery this morning on his right wrist fracture at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. 4 weeks recovery time for the surgery and then Ball will work on rehabbing.
https://twitter.com/ashstro/status/1374395834268229633
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/03/23/a-proclamation-honoring-the-victims-of-the-tragedy-in-boulder-colorado/
A Proclamation Honoring the Victims of the Tragedy in Boulder, Colorado
March 23, 2021 • Presidential Actions
As a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on March 22, 2021, in Boulder, Colorado, by the authority vested in me as President of the United States by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, March 27, 2021. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same length of time at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of March, in the year of our L-rd two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
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These children and teenagers made the journey from Honduras to be able to see their mother again, or finally meet the father who left for the U.S. before they were born. Both their parents live in the USA.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/-dream-meet-dad-crossed-border-alone-reunite-parents-rcna471
Schumer, Bernie, Wyden, Murray meeting with 8 terrrorist Democrats (including Sinema, Manchin, Hassan, King) who are refusing to support raising the federal minimum wage
https://politico.com/news/2021/03/23/democrats-moderates-minimum-wage-477651
In Georgia, Florida, Texas, it's easier to buy a gun than to register to vote. This says a lot about where America is headed in 2021.
President Biden full statement on Colorado shooting. "We can ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in this country once again...we should do it again."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1374415197201309696
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1374415197201309696
Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks has placed his baseless opposition to the certification of the presidential election at the centre of his campaign for Senate: "In 2020, America suffered the worst voter fraud, and election theft, in history."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/22/politics/mo-brooks-alabama-senate-campaign/index.html
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/us/texas-winter-storm-hurricane-harvey-houston.html?smid=tw-share
The 'Old American Dream,' a Trap as the Floods Keep Coming
In Houston's poorest neighborhoods, an unfamiliar winter storm stoked a familiar anguish, one fueled by recurring floods and what residents see as a pattern of neglect.
By Rick Rojas
Photographs by Tamir Kalifa
March 23, 2021Updated 11:57 a.m. ET
HOUSTON — In her kitchen, Juanita Hall routinely found opossums staring back at her from the cage trap she kept under the table. In one room, the flooring had simply washed away. The door to the back bedroom — her mother's, and still filled with her possessions — stayed closed. Those walls, like many others in the house, were streaked with mold.
And that was all before a winter storm last month left Ms. Hall shivering over a heater and caused pipes to leak. The culprit behind so much of the damage to her home had been Hurricane Harvey. The storm hit Houston in 2017, and for many, the trauma endured as a haunting memory. But for Ms. Hall, almost four years later, the devastation remained a grinding reality.
"I think about it every day, all day long," Ms. Hall, 59, said as she walked through the house she had lived in since childhood.
The modest house on Eugene Street, clad in white siding and shaded by a magnolia tree, was the embodiment of her father's aspirations for his family. It was the inheritance he left for Ms. Hall and the generations to come: a place to return to when relationships faltered or jobs were lost. No matter what, the house would be there, and it would be theirs.
Owning a home has long been part of Houston's promise for many working-class families, offering security and a foothold for upward mobility. But disasters — flood after flood — have kept coming. A changing climate threatens more. In Houston's poorest neighborhoods, the houses are no longer the safety net they were intended to be.
A few months before Harvey, Ms. Hall ran into her mother's bedroom and found her collapsed on the floor. Now, she cannot forget the request her mother made soon before she died: Don't y'all lose my house.
After all this time, and all this frustration, her patience had worn thin. "I'm tired of the unknown," Ms. Hall conceded. Still, she wanted so badly to keep her word.
On top of everything else, disaster
A storm, as it cuts its path, may not recognize race or class, but the pace of recovery very often does. It is an imbalance that becomes more pronounced with each storm: There are the neighborhoods that bounce back. And there are the others — with lower incomes and largely nonwhite residents — where every event arrives as another setback on an interminable slog.
The winter storm that enveloped Texas last month brought conditions that felt alien. Residents were stuck in dark, unheated homes in single-digit temperatures, fingers tingling and words slurring from the intense cold.
Yet it also plunged them into a familiar agony: no electricity, waterlogged homes (this time from burst pipes) and certainty that they faced more of a frustration they knew all too well from wrangling with bureaucracies for help that was rarely enough, if it ever came at all.
As temperatures and sea levels rise, as wildfire seasons grow more intense, and as hurricanes have become slower and stronger, more and more communities are grappling with friction powered by climate change — between practicality and the comfort of the status quo, the pull of home and the fatigue from pushing against the momentum of nature to stay there.
In a section of the northeastern part of Houston hemmed by intersecting freeways — in neighborhoods like the Fifth Ward, Kashmere Gardens and Trinity Gardens — many residents see the unevenness of their recovery fitting into a pattern of neglect. They drive down main thoroughfares where storefronts aren't just vacant, but long abandoned. They have to leave their neighborhoods to find supermarkets and pharmacies. Industrial pollution has been linked to cancer clusters. Poverty has become entrenched.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/health-science/2021/02/03/390571/5th-ward-cancer-cluster-houston-confirmed/
Even if residents wanted to move, in an increasingly expensive city their options were slim.
"They've lost in a lot of ways," said Letitia Plummer, a Houston city councilwoman. "These neighborhoods are just having issue after issue, and none of their original issues have been dealt with or resolved. This is layer upon layer of injury."
Tired but still at it
For nearly four years, Ms. Hall has spent every day at her home but has slept in a spare bed at her sister's apartment, lumbering up stairs her knees can barely take. Her brother, Clifton, refused to leave, and she feared for him. He'd had a stroke and mostly stayed in his dark, disheveled room watching television.
She said she received roughly $18,000 in government disaster relief after Hurricane Harvey, which helped but did not go far. She had contractors who assured her they would help clear out her house and then stopped taking her calls. Her home insurance had been canceled in 2016.
She had old flooring that still needed to be pulled up and walls that were only half torn down. There were holes that allowed vermin and wasps to sneak through. The musty stench of mold was heavy.
"I think he's clearing the air when I come in here," Ms. Hall said, having just recited the silent prayer she repeated every time she crossed the threshold into her home. "G-d is the only thing in my life that has not let me down."
The thread of hope that she was holding to was a federally funded program for rehabilitating and rebuilding homes hit by Harvey. She had tried before, but then the program became ensnared in a dispute between the state and the city officials who had been running it. Texas officials asserted that the city had lagged in making progress and wrested away control.
Now that the Texas General Land Office had taken over administering the program, Ms. Hall has had to essentially start anew. She tried to take the bureaucratic hurdles in stride. "My folks used to say, if it's easy, baby, question it," Ms Hall said. Even so, she acknowledged her exasperation, having to gather reams of documents again. Getting this far had taken a long time.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/houston-hurricane-harvey-housing-recovery-fund-glo-15624862.php
Since the hurricane, she joined neighbors in groups like the Harvey Forgotten Survivors Caucus, which helped patch up her house. She has shared her story in the pages of The Houston Chronicle, approached local officials to vent her frustration and tried to get word of her situation to Trae tha Truth, the Houston rapper who has been helping storm victims rebuild.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Three-years-after-Harvey-Houston-s-home-repair-15523516.php
https://www.khou.com/article/weather/hurricane/harvey/harvey-victim-displaced-two-years-headed-home-for-christmas-thanks-to-trae-tha-truths-relief-gang/285-b4056189-3d2f-4d03-875f-265c1e23a3aa
And she also learned that hers was, in many ways, a familiar set of circumstances, living in a home that had been handed down through family and amounted to just about the entirety of their wealth.
Just over a year ago, Mal Moses's mother died, and the house he grew up in became his. Mr. Moses, 63, has watched the neighborhood evolve: The community was drained of more than just white residents. Businesses left. So too did a sense of opportunity.
"The property value went down," Mr. Moses said. "The human value went down."
He did not have insurance, and his other efforts to gain assistance after Hurricane Harvey failed. West Street Recovery, a community nonprofit founded in the immediate aftermath of the storm, repaired his home, replacing drywall and flooring, making much of it livable again.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Opinion-We-have-to-be-a-swarm-of-mosquitos-15523128.php
Still, plenty of work remained: The piers of a back room were sinking, and last month's storm wrecked parts of his plumbing. He constantly hears "critters" (roof rats, mostly) skittering through his attic. On a recent afternoon, the house was still messy from the days of freezing cold and rotating power outages that meant only fleeting spurts of electricity.
His house was another thread in the skein of complications that consumed his life, all of which were caused or made worse by a lack of money.
But Mr. Moses can't afford to leave. His Social Security checks don't go far, and his girlfriend, who lives with him, makes $40 a day caring for her mother's bed-bound neighbor part time. "The only option is to stay where you're at," he said. "That's it."
'This is an assignment'
Ms. Hall was propelled by a sense of obligation. Even some of her siblings questioned if she dwelled too much in the past. "Some of my family say, 'You're holding onto a thing,'" she said. "It's my home. Don't call it a thing."
Back injuries forced her to leave the job she had with a state agency for more than 20 years. But it allowed her to do something more meaningful: Take care of her 5-year-old grandniece while the girl's mother works.
"My baby," she said, pulling out her cellphone to swipe through pictures. Her name is Bella, and she was the first child born in the family in 21 years.
Ms. Hall was 4 when her father, Clifton Sr., bought the house. He moved the family from Normangee, a tiny town outside Madisonville, a slightly less tiny town on the interstate between Houston and Dallas. He got a job as a truck driver, the job he held until he retired.
Her bond with her father had always been tight. He taught her how to change oil and repair light fixtures. When she discovered she could not have children, his words soothed her, telling her G-d meant for her to tend to the children around her who needed her care. "You're more of a mother to these children than the mothers," he told her. And when he died, he wanted her to oversee his estate.
Ms. Hall had finally assembled the documents she needed. She just had to figure out how to attach them to an email and send them to the state. Her caseworker had pumped up her optimism. The program determines if a home is salvageable and then, using the occupancy rules and the specific needs of a family, maps out a plan. (State officials said they were familiar with Ms. Hall's case and said she seemed like a strong candidate; they were just waiting on her documents.)
She had been through too much not to have skepticism. "Watch, something else will come up," she said. Still, she was already thinking about clearing the house in preparation for construction. She imagined Bella swinging in the backyard.
Given the condition of the home, it would most likely have to be torn down. She accepted that. She loved that house. She spent her childhood there. Her parents died there. But her commitment was less to the house in its physical form than the idea it represented. "The old American dream, they did it," she said of her parents. She would keep her promise to her mother.
"This is an assignment to me, and I want to get it done," Ms. Hall said sitting on her front porch, washed in the light of a crisp afternoon filtering through the leaves of the magnolia tree. "If I die the day after, I'm satisfied."
Her father's dream was now the one she held for Bella: No matter what, the house would be there, and it would be hers.
Rick Rojas is a national correspondent covering the American South. He has been a staff reporter for The Times since 2014. @RaR
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The Boulder mass murderer was born three days before the Columbine shooting. That's how long we've failed to take action.
Madison Cawthorn claimed there are "zero dollars" going to homeless veterans. The government is spending more than $2 billion this fiscal year on veteran homelessness — and the pandemic bill Cawthorn opposed includes big additional funds. Fact check:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/23/politics/fact-check-cawthorn-veterans-homelessness-migrants-hotels/index.html
Puerto Rico was granted immediate access to $912M in federal funds that had not been available to students in public and private schools on the island as a result of restrictions under the Trump admin., US Education Sec. Cardona says.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-gets-900m-education-funds-previously-restricted-trump-admi-rcna405
More diversity is good. But I dislike this erasure of Harris's South Asian descent. Duckworth said she felt "insulted" when that was pointed out to her. Well I feel insulted by this. I am tired of the erasure of South Asians and their contributions. I'm upset with Duckworth.
Nine of the people charged from the Jan. 6 attack received PPP loans and other pandemic-related loans. Among them:
-MAGA influencer Brandon Straka
-Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola
-The guy who sprayed Brian Sicknick with bear repellent
https://www.thedailybeast.com/congress-helped-their-businesses-during-the-pandemic-then-they-attacked-the-capitol
Also among the nine who received PPP loans and other pandemic business loans:
-The guy who kicked his boots up on Pelosi's desk
-A gym owner with a brother in the Secret Service
-A tech recruiter with 6 kids who ends his work bio with, "Work hard, play hard."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/congress-helped-their-businesses-during-the-pandemic-then-they-attacked-the-capitol
Let me tell you, it's weird to read online bios about an insurrectionist, to figure out that the guy who may be responsible for killing Brian Sicknick was the co-owner of a smoothie and Açaí bowl franchise.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/congress-helped-their-businesses-during-the-pandemic-then-they-attacked-the-capitol
Biden, at a cancer center in Ohio, says there are probably more military members coming home with brain cancer because of exposures to toxic garbage fires in Iraq. He says people should read the book "The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America's Soldiers."
https://pbs.org/newshour/health/biden-addresses-possible-link-between-sons-fatal-brain-cancer-and-toxic-military-burn-pits
Julius Randle has been fined $15k for language directed at referee and public criticism of officiating
https://twitter.com/SBondyNYDN/status/1374436689523863558
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/23/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-shooting-in-boulder-colorado/
Remarks by President Biden on the Shooting in Boulder, Colorado
March 23, 2021 • Speeches and Remarks
12:55 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: There's still a great deal we don't know about the killer and the motivation of the killer in Boulder, Colorado, and other critical aspects of this mass shooting. I've been briefed this morning by the Attorney General of the United States, the Director of the FBI. I've spoken with the governor, and I'll be speaking with the mayor on the aircraft.
We're working very closely with the state and local law enforcement officials, and they're going to keep me updated as they learn more. You're going to ask me to speculate — understandably, you're going to ask me to speculate on what happened, why it happened. And I'm not going to do that now because we don't have all the information — not until I have all the facts.
But I do know this: As President, I can use all the resources at my disposal to keep the American people safe. As I said: At this moment, a great deal remains unknown. But three things are certain. First, 10 lives have been lost, and more families have been shattered by gun violence in the state of Colorado. And Jill and I are devastated. And the feeling — I just can't imagine how the families are feeling — the victims whose futures were stolen from them, from their families, from their loved ones who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what's happened.
Less than a week after the horrific murders of eight people and the assault on the AAPI community in Georgia, while the flag was still flying half-staff for the tragedy, another American city has been scarred by gun violence and the resulting trauma.
And the state that — I even hate to say it because we're saying it so often: My heart goes out. Our hearts go out for the survivors. The — who had to — had to flee for their lives and who hid, terrified, unsure if they would ever see their families again, their friends again. The consequences of all this are deeper than I suspect we know. By that, I mean the mental consequences — a feeling of — anyway, it just — we've been through too many of these.
The second point I want to make is: My deepest thanks to the heroic police and other first responders who acted so quickly to address the situation and keep the members of their community safe. To state the obviously — the obvious, I commend the exceptional bravery of Officer Eric Talley. I send my deepest condolences to his family — his close, close family and seven children.
You know, when he pinned on that badge yesterday morning, he didn't know what the day would bring. I want everybody to think about this: Every time an officer walks out of his or her home and pins that badge on, a family member that they just said goodbye to wonders whether they'll — subconsciously — will they get that call. The call that his wife got.
He thought he'd be coming home to his family and his seven children. But when the moment to act came, Officer Talley did not hesitate in his duty, making the ultimate sacrifice in his effort to save lives. That's a definition of an American hero.
And thirdly, I want to be very clear — this is the one thing I do know enough to say on it, in terms of what's happened there: While we're still waiting for more information regarding the shooter; his motive; the weapons he used — the guns, the magazines, the weapons, and the modifications that apparently have taken place to those weapons that are involved here — I don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take commonsense steps that will save the lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act.
We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. It passed. It was law for the longest time, and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.
We can close the loopholes in our background check system, including the "Charleston loophole." That's one of the best tools we have right now to prevent gun violence. The Senate should immediately pass — let me say it again: The United States Senate — I hope some are listening — should immediately pass the two House-passed bills that close loopholes in the background check system. These are bills that received votes of both Republicans and Democrats in the House. This is not and should not be a partisan issue; this is an American issue. It will save lives — American lives — and we have to act. We should also ban assault weapons in the process.
I'll have much more to say as we learn more, but I wanted to be clear: Those poor folks who died left behind families — that leaves a big hole in their hearts. And — and we can save lives increasing the background checks so that they're supposed to occur, and eliminating assault weapons and the size of magazines. We don't know all the detail yet on that. But I'll be talking to you more later today or in the next couple of days about what else we know.
May G-d bless you all and those families who are mourning today because of gun violence in Colorado and Georgia and all across the country. We have to act so there's not more of you — there's fewer of you, as time goes on.
Thank you so much.
Q Will you introduce new gun legislation, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: I'll talk to you about that later. Thank you.
1:02 P.M. EDT
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Fracking Chemicals Found In Bodies Of Pennsylvania Children
https://truthout.org/articles/evidence-of-fracking-chemicals-found-in-bodies-of-pennsylvania-children/
NRA bragged that it blocked Boulder AR-15 ban just days before deadly shooting killed 10 people
https://www.salon.com/2021/03/23/nra-bragged-that-it-blocked-boulder-ar-15-ban-just-days-before-deadly-shooting-killed-10-people/
Biden Eyes Tax Hikes for Rich, Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies to Fund Infrastructure
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/23/biden-eyes-tax-hikes-rich-ending-fossil-fuel-subsidies-fund-infrastructure
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/03/23/a-proclamation-on-education-and-sharing-day-usa-2021/
A Proclamation on Education and Sharing Day, USA, 2021
March 23, 2021 • Presidential Actions
If the isolation and loss of the last year has taught us anything, it is just how much we need each other, how intertwined our lives are, and how deeply we crave conversation, connection, and community. We are at our best when we work together and help our neighbors, whether down the road or around the world.
This lesson is at the heart of Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., when we celebrate the role models, mentors, and leaders who devote themselves to the progress and success of each new generation, to reinforcing our common bonds, and to lifting up our highest ideals. Today, we mark the legacy of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a guiding light of the international Chabad-Lubavitch movement and a testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit. A witness to some of the 20th century's darkest events and greatest tragedies, he devoted his life to bringing healing by advancing justice, compassion, inclusivity, and fellowship worldwide. A tireless advocate for students of all ages, he sought to foster exchange, understanding, and unity among all people.
The global pandemic has brought some measure of struggle and sorrow to each of us, and amidst the larger tragedies — the tragic loss of so many lives and livelihoods — we have also missed the many small but meaningful moments that contribute to our shared humanity: a hug or handshake, a smile or a meal, the dignity of daily work, and the simple routines that give our lives greater structure and purpose. We have realized that one of the greatest gifts our schools give to our students and educators is time spent with each other — the daily opportunities to learn and grow together, face to face. There is no substitute for this experience and the wonder and wisdom it brings.
The American Rescue Plan will help to restore these connections. The plan dedicates the resources we need to defeat the pandemic and return to our lives and loved ones, and provides direct relief to families, small businesses, and communities. It also includes 130 billion dollars to help schools in every community reopen safely and soon, so that our children can return to the invaluable interactions with friends, teachers, and school staff that add up to so much more than the sum of their parts.
On this Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., let us recommit ourselves to building an America that is more just, equal, unified, and prosperous. Let us leave our children a nation and a world that is better than the one we inherited — and, in the spirit of history's greatest teachers, let us help all of our students to love learning; seek lives of dignity, decency, and respect; and work together for the common good.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 24, 2021, as Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A. I call upon all government officials, educators, volunteers, and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of March, in the year of our L-rd two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
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North Korea conducts its first weapons test of Joe Biden's presidency. These short-range missile launches are viewed more as a symbolic threat than one intended to inflict damage or hit any specific targets.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/23/politics/north-korea-weapons-test-biden/index.html
"Kim Jong Un likes to be sure we're paying attention to him and that we know he's not happy with the administration and its activities," said Anthony Ruggiero, former head of the National Security Council's North Korea directorate under Mr. Trump.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-koreas-military-carries-out-unusual-activities-near-border-11616508652
Trump's steel & aluminum tariffs turn 3 today. The verdict: Things Have Not Gone as Planned. US manufacturers need more than domestic steel and aluminum producers can provide. But Biden Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo wrongly says they've been "effective".
https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/third-anniversary-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs-things-have-not-gone-planned
Senate confirms Vivek Murthy as surgeon general
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/03/23/murthy-surgeon-general/
President Biden announced Tuesday he would extend the special enrollment period for Americans to purchase Affordable Care Act health plans until Aug. 15, as part of his admin.'s effort to address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-announces-second-extension-obamacare-enrollment-window-n1261877
President Biden when asked about threats from Sens. Duckworth and Hirono to block nominees until there are more AAPI appointments: "We have the most diverse Cabinet in history. We have a lot of Asian Americans that are in the Cabinet and in sub-Cabinet levels."
The bottom states in share of population vaccinated are Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah, Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, Idaho, and Missouri
I am heartbroken to announce that my Dad, my hero, Kevin Mahoney, was killed in the King Soopers shooting in my hometown of Boulder, CO. My dad represents all things Love. I'm so thankful he could walk me down the aisle last summer.
https://twitter.com/MahoneyEb/status/1374394946556362767
The Boulder shooting happened at the same time -- to the minute -- that the Iowa State Senate was voting to gut a state law requiring background checks and concealed carry permits. America's partisan divide has left a checkerboard of state gun laws.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/us/politics/gun-regulations-boulder.html
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/23/background-press-call-by-senior-administration-officials-on-the-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/
Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
March 23, 2021 • Speeches and Remarks
Via Teleconference
5:33 P.M. EDT
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hi. Good afternoon everyone, and thanks very much for joining us on short notice. Today's call is going to be on background, attributed to "senior administration officials." And the contents of this call are going to be embargoed until its conclusion.
Our speakers today are going to be [senior administration official] and [senior administration official]. I'll turn it over to our speakers for opening remarks, and then we're happy to take a few questions.
[Senior administration official], why don't you start us off.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Great. Thanks. Hi everybody. We wanted to give an update on what has been and will continue to be an intensive period for Indo-Pacific diplomacy.
As you all know, the President hosted a head of state Quad that was quickly followed by our Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State participating in two-plus-two dialogues in Japan and Korea, and then two days of meetings in Anchorage between U.S. and Chinese officials.
And we wanted to take a few minutes to update you on where things stand, particularly on North Korea, which was featured in all of those conversations. We also have some additional upcoming engagements on these issues I have tell you about as well. Relatedly, we're also aware of military activity last weekend by the DPRK that is not sanctioned under U.N. Security Council resolutions restricting the ballistic missile program.
While we take all of its military activity seriously and will continue to consult closely on this with partners and allies, we see this action in the category of normal activity — most normal military activity by the North. North Korea has a familiar menu of provocations when it wants to send a message to a U.S. administration: ballistic missiles of various range, mobile and submarine launch platforms, nuclear and thermonuclear tests. Experts rightly recognized what took place last weekend as falling on the low end of that spectrum.
On a related note, many of you have asked about the status of our North Korea policy review. We're in the final stages of that review, and next week plan to host the national security advisors of Japan and the Republic of Korea to discuss the outcomes and other issues. This is the first time that we will have convened the trilat at this level. And these will be among the most senior foreign officials to visit Washington since the start of the Biden administration. We look forward to a robust discussion on a wide range of issues on how the U.S., Japan, and South Korea can deepen our trilateral cooperation.
And I want to turn it over to my colleague for more details.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks. And thanks, guys, for all your patience and joining us today.
So let me just say that we've been working intensively since the beginning of the administration — actually, during the transition on thinking about next steps with regard to diplomacy or engagement on the Korean Peninsula.
We've consulted broadly throughout the interagency. We've engaged deeply with our allies. We've also had a series of conversations with Trump administration officials to get their sense of how their diplomacy with North Korea worked out over the last four years. And we've been in touch with virtually every individual who's been involved in diplomacy with North Korea since the mid-1990s. So this has been an extraordinarily thorough process, and we're nearing the conclusion of putting together our approach for North Korea.
And the next step for us will be, as [senior administration official] indicated, National Security Advisor Sullivan hosting his colleagues next week — at the end of next week for intensive consultations on the way ahead. I think we recognize that, you know, we are stronger if we approach these challenging issues in North Korea in partnership with Japan and South Korea.
I do just want to underscore here, quickly, before we get to questions: We are no — under no illusions about the difficulty this task presents to us. We have a long history of disappointment in diplomacy with North Korea. It's defied expectations of Republican and Democratic administrations alike. We've had working groups. We've tried it at the highest levels, at the head of state. And all the while, we've seen North Korea proceed ahead accordingly.
The situation is also more challenging in Northeast Asia. You've got more tensions between Japan and South Korea, and, of course, U.S.-China relations are heading into a complex period. All of those reasons underscore why the United States engaging effectively, with respect to the North Korean challenge, is so important as we go forward.
Why don't we stop here? We're happy to take questions.
I do just want to underscore very quickly a point that I think [senior administration official] made effectively. My colleague and I and others — we've been in administrations where the North Koreans have really tested with provocative actions: nuclear tests, long-range systems. I would say, generally speaking, what we saw this weekend does not fall in that category.
Q Can you hear me okay?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks, Demetri. I can hear you fine. Thank you.
Q Great. Thank you. Two quick questions. Can you just explain exactly what North Korea did over the weekend?
And the second: While in the Alaska summit, did the Chinese have any concrete suggestions for dealing with North Korea, either bilaterally or in a more multilateral framework?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes, look, I'll let [senior administration official] touch base on this further, Demetri. But I don't — there are some issues on classification which we can't get into.
I can underscore for you: This is a short-range system. And as [senior administration official] indicated, it is not covered by U.N. Security Council resolutions. And because, Demetri, you know those well — almost every kind of activity — missile, nuclear activity — is covered by U.N. Security Council resolutions. And so, because this does not, it probably gives you an indication of where it falls on the spectrum of concern.
Secondly, yes, we did discuss North Korea. I think the North Korean — the Chinese position is to support diplomacy. And they, I think, were curious about where we stood on our review. We've said we were in the process of concluding that effort. And then, of course, we will be engaging in debriefing China on our results and our proposed way forward in due course. But our first step will be to engage our allies and friends in the process.
Q Hello. I was wondering, on the activity over the weekend: How many missiles did you assess that they fired? And when exactly where they sent? What was it on Sunday — if you could give us a day?
I'm also curious why the U.S. and others, like South Korea and Japan, haven't mentioned it in real time. Is that to not give North Korea publicity?
And if you could explain how the U.S. came to assess that this happened.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: So again, I think, as [senior administration official] said, we're — there are some specifics as to what exactly occurred that we are not yet authorized to get into in detail because they come from intelligence. So, unfortunately — I know it's unsatisfying — we're probably not going to be able to go beyond the details that have been provided as to sort of the specifics of the incident.
[Senior administration official], I don't know if you want to speak to the other questions or I'm happy to —
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, so — so let me just say this, that it would be hard to find a place on the planet where there is more vigilance than the circumstances and situation surrounding North Korea. Our forces are always prepared; they're always on high alert.
It is common practice for North Korea to test various systems, and they also maintain relatively high readiness. We do not publicly respond to every kind of test.
What I think — what [senior administration official] and I are trying to underscore for you is that this is a system that is not covered by U.N. Security Council resolutions. It is a normal part of the kind of testing that North Korea would do.
We do not believe that it is in our best interest to hype these things in circumstances in which we would consider those activities as part of a normal — quote, quote, "normal" — set of a tense military environment like we see on the Korean Peninsula.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I guess I'd only add that we don't want to speak for our partners and allies — to their assessment, but I think their posture, related to the events of this weekend, suggest that they see this the same way that we do.
Q Hey, there. Thank you for doing the call. Do you see any value in suspending military exercises in the region or easing some sanctions on North Korea to try to bring them to the table? And have you made any further effort toward direct conversations with them recently?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Do you want to go ahead?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Do you want — yeah, sure, I'll take that. So, look, you know, we think, you know, the hope of diplomacy really rests on the reality of deterrence and our forward-deployed capabilities. And so, we thought that some of the efforts that were taken previously to turn off necessary exercises and the like were actually antithetical to our position as the keeper and the maintenance of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.
So I do believe that the United States is going to prepare to put a position out there for how to go forward with an engagement with North Korea. But I think we're going to do that on a principled basis. And I'm not going to get into steps that we might take the — to lure North Korea in. We believe that this kind of diplomacy is in everyone's interests, including North Koreans.
On the — what was your second question? I'm sorry, sir. I apologize.
Q Oh, whether it's a value to — well, you mentioned it: direct conversations.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: "Have we done further." I know you'll respect this and understand this. I will say that, you know, the content of our diplomacy with North Korea we tend, at this juncture, to keep between us directly. I will underscore that we have taken efforts and we will continue to take efforts. And we believe that that such diplomacy — in close coordination with South Korea and Japan and, frankly, with China — is in the best interests of all those concerned. We don't want a situation where it's perceived that our door is not open to talk.
Q Hi. Thanks. A couple of quick questions. I might have missed this, but who exactly will Sullivan be hosting in this meeting coming up?
Second, to follow on my colleague's question: You say that, you know, you don't want to talk about your discussions with North Korea, but can you just confirm that there is any kind of contact with North Korea? Because, you know, we were hearing for a long time that they were ignoring your calls.
And then, finally, you mentioned talking to Trump administration people and others. Can you tell us anything that you've actually learned from them — one or two things you've learned from them that you think will help you in — in your future negotiations? Thanks.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I can start at that, [senior administration official], if you'd like, if that's okay.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Either way. Yeah, go ahead.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, so let me start with the last one, and then I'll just go forward.
So, look, I think it would be fair to say, under Jake and Jon's leadership, there was broad encouragement to reach out to learn as much as possible about every element of diplomacy that under- — was undertaken over the course the last couple of years. And in that process, we had deep conversations with senior officials at the White House and the State Department about the diplomacy that took place both in Singapore and Vietnam and surrounding engagements. And we had discussions at the highest levels around — and we learned quite a bit about, you know, what took place in some private sessions and the like.
I think what we learned that was most relevant for the current circumstances is that since the President — President Trump — departed Vietnam — you know, it's over a year ago now — there has been actually very little dialogue or interaction between the United States and North Korea. And, you know, some of our interlocutors had some views about that. Some believe that this was a result of COVID and a reevaluation inside North Korea.
All I can tell you is that we are on our forward foot, in terms of wanting to clearly signal that we are prepared for continuing engagement in Northeast Asia with key partners and indeed with North Korea.
So that's the — that's the second question.
And, by the way, those consultations were polite, respectful. And I think [senior administration official] would underscore they were very helpful for us. They helped us understand what some of the contours and challenges that they faced — and I think we've taken full account of what we've learned as we put together our current approach more generally.
And then — I'm sorry. [Redacted.] What's the — what was the first question?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think it was just that — who is Jake hosting and —
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: — would be the national security advisors of Korea and Japan.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes, the national — national security advisors of Korea and Japan. Now, both of these — Korea has a longstanding national security advisor that serves President Moon, and Japan has a relatively recently established National Security Council.
And his counterparts, Kitamura-san and Suh Hoon, will be coming to the United States for about a daylong meeting. In those meetings, Mr. Sullivan will have a trilateral session, but also two bilateral engagements as well, in which we'll review, as [senior administration official] indicated, all the issues of critical concern. We'll debrief them on our — on the — what we — what are the central findings on the way ahead. We'll try to strategize about how best we can coordinate going forward. We'll listen to their views. And, you know, each of them have their own perspectives on key issues.
You will note that, for instance, the Japanese Prime Minister is very focused on abductees and South Korea is keenly interested in what might be possible on the economic front. Of course, we'll listen to those carefully and take those into account. We've already had serious discussions, but now we'll give them kind of where we think we're headed.
We'll also talk about bilateral issues between two — you know, the — Secretary Blinken was just in South Korea and in Japan. There are bilateral issues of critical importance: stepped up maritime activities in disputed areas. And I think we will do what we can, to be perfectly honest, to try to improve communications between Seoul and Tokyo because we believe a strong working relationship between Japan and South Korea is in the clear national security interests of the United States.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The only thing I'd add to [senior administration official]'s laydown — all which I agree with — is that the outreach from us to North Korea that he described follows over a year, across two administrations now, without active dialogue with North Korea, despite multiple attempts by the U.S. — again, across two administrations — to engage. And we do not see the activity that took place this weekend as closing that door.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: All right. Thanks, everyone, very much for joining us, again, on short notice. With the conclusion of this call, the embargo is lifted. And friendly reminder that the call is on background, attributed to "senior administration officials."
Thank you all.
5:51 P.M. EDT
______________________________________
China illegally shipping oil to North Korea
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/insider/north-korea-oil-supply.html
Netanyahu wins 5th election in a row
https://www.timesofisrael.com/interim-data-shows-election-turnout-is-lowest-since-2009/
60 largest banks in the world have invested $3.8 trillion in fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/24/how-much-the-largest-banks-have-invested-in-fossil-fuel-report.html
Myanmar: Girl, 7, shot dead in brutal crackdown on anti-coup protesters in Myanmar
https://news.sky.com/story/myanmar-girl-7-reported-shot-dead-in-brutal-crackdown-on-anti-coup-protesters-in-myanmar-12254593
Racist Idiot Tammy Duckworth drops threat to oppose Biden picks over diversity concerns.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/544636-duckworth-drops-threat-to-oppose-biden-picks-over-diversity-concerns
After shooting 7/10 from 3 tonight, Julius Randle is at a 42.8% 3-point percentage on over 200 attempts for the season. His career mark before this year was 29.5%.
The New Orleans Pelicans (19-24) defeat the Los Angeles Lakers (28-16), 128-111. No Lebron or Anthony Davis.
Harden dimes it to Blake from full court
https://streamable.com/a1aqba
Zion checks out with 27 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists on 9/13 shooting, 9/10 from the line, +25 in the game
Brandon Ingram Tonight: 36/3/4 on 14/21 shooting, 4/6 from three and 4/4 from the line
Enes Kanter tonight 19/19/6 on 6/8 FG and 7/8 FT shooting with a team-high +8. 10 of those rebounds were offensive boards
Furkan Korkmaz with the strategic airball to Tony Bradley for the easy lay-in
https://streamable.com/6co6vm
Trump alone didn't produce the sky-high ratings and clicks of 2020-21. There was pandemic, campaign, racial protests, Capitol riot, impeachment.
Prior to trade from Titans, Isaiah Wilson arrested at gunpoint in Georgia
https://broadwaysportsmedia.com/isaiah-wilson-arrest-gunpoint-titans-dolphins/
Biden administration to open emergency shelters with more than 16,000 migrant children in U.S. custody
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-migrant-children-emergency-shelters/
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021, the President signed into law: H.R. 1276, the "Strengthening and Amplifying Vaccination Efforts to Locally Immunize All Veterans and Every Spouse Act or the SAVE LIVES Act," which expands VA's authority to provide COVID-19 vaccinations.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/legislation/2021/03/24/bill-signing-h-r-1276/
Adrianne Todman, Nominee for Deputy Secretary at Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Adrianne Todman is currently the CEO of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO). Before joining NAHRO in 2017, Todman served as the Executive Director of the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) and served in several career positions at HUD. First, as a manager of HUD's $500 million grant competition that focused on the redevelopment of distressed public housing sites, then as a policy aide in both the Office of Public and Indian Housing, and the Office of the Secretary where she worked with staff across HUD's programs on policy solutions and streamlining implementation. She is widely recognized for her accomplishments in the affordable housing industry. She also served as a legislative director in then-Congressman Ron de Lugo's office, a long-serving delegate representing the U.S. Virgin Islands where Todman was born and raised. She is a graduate of Smith College and serves as a Trustee. She lives in Washington, D.C.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/24/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-adrianne-todman-as-deputy-secretary-for-housing-and-urban-development/
The problem is the severe overcrowding in CBP stations, including the Donna tent facility in the Cuellar photos and CBP handouts. That's the one at 1500% pandemic capacity
https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/24/senior-white-house-officials-visit-border-facility-allow-one-news-network-camera-inside/
US, Europe, NATO close ranks to counter 'aggressive' China
https://apnews.com/article/europe-antony-blinken-china-ursula-von-der-leyen-europe-6c7c4a0da00ed5a8f529efa3392975cd
I really wish Democrats would do a standalone bill on gerrymandering that's just really rock-solid on gerrymandering: The concept of public campaign financing is deeply unpopular to voters. 67% of voters strongly/somewhat oppose the idea in general, and 69% strongly/somewhat oppose it in regards to campaigns that have already raised millions of dollars.
https://twitter.com/EchelonInsights/status/1374755869322321924
An Arizona man is accused of forcing off the road a National Guard convoy transporting COVID-19 vaccines in West Texas and then holding 11 guard members at gunpoint. Larry Harris, 66, of Willcox, Arizona, told police that he stopped three vans because he believed people inside them had kidnapped a woman and child, authorities said. None of the National Guard members were injured, and Harris was arrested Tuesday morning when police responded to the scene.
https://apnews.com/article/larry-harris-accused-hold-national-guard-transport-vaccines-37efcb72b5116357af1ef08fe5bb16a5
Manchin saves imperiled Pentagon pick. Colin Kahl as Pentagon policy chief. Vote was 13-13, with Manchin voting YES, per Hawley. The deadlocked vote means Schumer will have to take procedural steps to advance the nomination but likely means that Kahl will be confirmed.
https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1374758457316933638
So, Manchin is going to receive credit or blame on every vote he casts for another year and a half. That's not how legislation, debate, or bipartisanship is supposed to work. The Senate is broken.
Moncef Slaoui, Trump vaccine chief, fired from board over sexual harassment allegations
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/moncef-slaoui-ex-trump-vaccine-chief-fired-board-over-sexual-n1261914
I never used any because sanitizers DO NOT sanitize, they spread viruses and bacteria and germs. Soap and water are the only things that sanitize: Carcinogens found in almost all hand sanitizers. Benzene is the third and most dangerous cancer-causing chemical the pharmacy has helped bring to light in product testing.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/carcinogen-found-in-hand-sanitizers-that-plugged-pandemic-gap
Hundreds Of Far-Right Militias Are Still Organizing, Recruiting, And Promoting Violence On Facebook. A new report identified more than 200 militia pages and groups on Facebook as of March 18, more than two months after the insurrection at the Capitol.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/far-right-militias-facebook-recruiting-report
Biden reinstates accountability measures stripped by Trump
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/544730-biden-reinstates-accountability-measures-stripped-by-trump
Further, at 4:45pm, the Senate will proceed to 2 votes on the following:
1. (If cloture is invoked) Confirmation of the Levine nomination @HHSGov
2. (If cloture is invoked) Confirmation of the Turk nomination @ENERGY
https://twitter.com/SenateCloakroom/status/1374503179795058689
___________________________________
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/biden-environmental-justice-refinery-st-croix/
The island where it rained oil
By Juliet Eilperin, Darryl Fears and Salwan Georges
March 24, 2021
ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands — Two hours after midnight in this island paradise, a cloudy vapor rose from a massive oil refinery and floated over nearby homes as quietly as a ghost.
The fine mist of oil and water from Limetree Bay Refining rained down on the community of Clifton Hill, showering the slick mix onto cars, gardens, rooftops and cisterns filled with rainwater that residents use for daily tasks.
https://www.limetreebayenergy.com/limetree-bay-response-to-flare-incident/
The vapor, caused by a pressure release valve triggered by an accident on Feb. 4, came just three days after the Limetree Bay refinery reopened for the first time in nearly a decade, and the incident prompted the Biden administration to investigate. The Trump administration had approved the reopening of the plant, which had shut down after facing a deluge of lawsuits alleging serious environmental violations.
Three miles from the refinery, Armando Muñoz still sees signs of oil everywhere.
"When it rains it doesn't wash out," said Muñoz, 59, who lives with his wife and 78-year-old mother-in-law. "It's in all the plants we have, avocado trees, and breadfruit trees, and fruit trees and regular household plants."
The refinery presents one of the earliest tests of President Biden's vow to clean up pollution in America's disadvantaged communities. Ushered back into existence in the waning days of Donald Trump's presidency, Limetree Bay refinery embodies the difficult tradeoffs Biden faces as he tries to deliver on promises to provide both a clean, safe environment and plenty of good-paying jobs.
This week Biden officials will withdraw a key permit for the refinery, according to two individuals briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it had not been announced yet. The Environmental Protection Agency's move will not close the plant but could lead to tighter pollution controls, marking the administration's most significant step yet in a campaign to ensure environmental justice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/01/26/biden-environmental-justice-climate/
Asked about the permit decision Tuesday, EPA declined to comment.
Many officials in the Virgin Islands support the plant, so any federal action poses significant implications. The pandemic has battered the local tourism industry, leaving the refinery and its adjoining logistics hub as a significant source of revenue worth at least $25 million a year to the U.S. Virgin Islands government. The two facilities also employ more than 400 full-time workers, virtually all of them territory residents, and 300 contractors.
"I'm going to be honest with you, the economy in the Virgin Islands, we were dead," said Herminio Torres, a community organizer in Clifton Hill. Retooling the plant brought contractors to the island at a crucial time. "Those workers buy our local food, our local products. The economy has moved forward."
Company officials said that they are addressing the contamination and that the plant is safe. According to a company report, when water gushed into a drum holding hot coke — an oil byproduct — the reaction triggered a safety valve that relieved the pressure. Refinery flares usually release a mix of water vapor and carbon dioxide: In this case tiny oil droplets entered the air, drifting as far as three miles away.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/limetree-bay-s-account-of-feb-4-accident/54af45f8-00dd-48e7-a2e2-d276987418ac/
https://apnews.com/article/dfb8cbb2a24b463296eada36eaeac247
"Limetree has worked closely with our community and our regulators, investing hundreds of millions of dollars to safely reopen a modernized refinery and create hundreds of high-skilled, well-paying jobs for St. Croix residents," said company spokesman Erica Parsons.
But the incident has revived uncomfortable memories of the bad old days before the refinery — then called Hovensa — shuttered. Residents recall times when the local high school closed because of the plant's intense fumes.
On the island's southern shore between the refinery and Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, dozens of oily clumps are once again washing up on the beach, reeking of gasoline. Their source could not be immediately determined.
"You can see the impact for miles," said Olasee Davis, an ecologist and historian at the University of the Virgin Islands, who attributed the clumps to tanker traffic. "When it comes to the refinery, the refinery always gets its way. The politicians here, they don't have the political will. People cannot do without it."
St. Croix ― where Biden celebrated New Year's 2019 with his family, and former vice president Mike Pence sought respite days after leaving office ― has idyllic stretches of beaches that offer habitat for leatherback sea turtles, roseate terns and other vulnerable wildlife. But it has also been a quasi-petro state for more than half a century.
https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2020/04/22/after-oil/
The territory's governor in the early 1960s, a White businessman named Ralph Paiewonsky, struck a deal with Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corp. to construct a refinery on 1,500 acres of the south shore. On the eve of the deal in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson dismissed concerns raised by a citizen that the trade winds would carry the plant's fumes and waste to the south shore's "magnificent beaches."
"As America grows," Johnson replied, "private industry will work with local officials and interested citizens to assure the preservation of choice spots of natural beauty and avert some of the unfortunate forms of destruction you describe."
Named for a partnership between Amerada Hess Corp. and Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the Hovensa refinery — along with a neighboring aluminum plant and rum distillery — transformed its part of the island into an industrial landscape. The refinery ran a mix of oil and water through pipelines that were buried in the sand and became corroded. By 1982, the company identified underground contamination that ultimately released at least 300,000 barrels of petrochemicals and polluted the island's one aquifer; In 1994 EPA determined all the pipes needed to be replaced..
https://www.epa.gov/hwcorrectiveactionsites/hazardous-waste-cleanup-hovensa-llc-christiansted-us-virgin-islands
Lawsuits from local residents, the U.S. Virgin Islands government and the EPA helped speed its demise. Hovensa's 2011 settlement with the EPA required it to pay a $5.3 million fine and spend $700 million to install modern pollution controls and offset its impact on local residents, including paying more than $300,000 to start a cancer registry. The EPA later determined that at the time of the agreement the plant posed the ninth-highest cancer risk among all U.S. refineries, but the total number of cases is hard to track because the island's health system is so threadbare that many people seek treatment in Florida or Puerto Rico instead.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nation-s-second-largest-refinery-pay-700-million-upgrade-pollution-controls-us-virgin-islands
https://doh.vi.gov/programs/chronic-disease-and-prevention/virgin-islands-central-cancer-registry
After suffering $1.3 billion in losses over the course of three years, the company halted operations in 2012 and declared bankruptcy three years later. The move meant it didn't pay for a full cleanup, and paid more modest amounts to settle four class-action suits: $4.7 million. Overnight the territory lost its largest private employer, which accounted for at least 13 percent of its GDP.
https://omb.vi.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/FY-2013-Executive-Budget.pdf
"There was no question that when Hovensa closed the operations in St. Croix, there were close to 4,000 folks that pretty much lost their jobs," said Kenneth Mapp, an independent who served as the U.S. Virgin Islands governor from 2015 to 2019.
In 2015, a subsidiary of the Boston-based equity firm ArcLight Capital bought the refinery. Its push to reopen enjoyed support among Trump administration officials, looking to expand U.S. oil production, and local politicians who were eager to find a new source of revenue. The devastation wrought by Hurricanes Maria and Irma added urgency to the territory's campaign for fast-track approval.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mountains-of-trash-left-behind-by-hurricanes-inflame-debate-in-us-virgin-islands/2018/02/22/30763f0e-1008-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html
Mapp personally appealed to Trump to expedite the reopening "for the benefit of the Nation's energy independence and the economic resurgence of the Virgin Islands of the United States."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/gov-kenneth-mapp-s-letter-to-president-trump/3fa56fc4-8fd8-4236-8e00-39d3a68f638c/
In August 2018, EPA head Andrew Wheeler directed EPA appointees to help Limetree Bay "resume operations," according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Officials from ArcLight — founded by GOP donor Daniel Revers — and its subsidiary worked with the Justice Department and the EPA to renegotiate the 2011 consent decree to restart the refinery. At one point, according to a document released under FOIA, Limetree Bay and its lawyers expressed "appreciation for [the EPA's] attention, coordination and responsiveness."
For Trump appointees at the EPA, the application provided a test case for reinterpreting the Clean Air Act, which the Trump administration sought to weaken. Bill Wehrum, who headed the EPA's air office from November 2017 until June 2019, wanted to make it easier for industrial operations to expand without being forced to install stricter pollution controls.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-regulator-skirts-the-line-between-former-clients-and-current-job/2019/02/24/b826b5fa-3767-11e9-a400-e481bf264fdc_story.html
In Limetree Bay's case, that meant the refinery would be treated as if it had never stopped operating, and would not require a new permit.
In meetings with White House officials, Wehrum cited Limetree as a model for how the Trump administration could greenlight plants across the nation more quickly, said two former federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2021/climate-environment/biden-climate-environment-actions/
Relying on a determination that Wehrum provided in an April 5, 2018 letter, Limetree Bay got a permit to operate from the U.S. Virgin Islands government on Dec. 30, 2019.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/epa-april-5-2018-letter/e29c9e99-d9ec-4811-bcb0-34e37b650783/
Limetree Bay also applied to the EPA for a new, plant-wide permit to process more oil. Trump officials set air emission limits based on the refinery's production a decade ago, when it processed more than 500,000 barrels a day — even though it planned to produce 200,000 barrels of low-sulfur marine fuel for its main customer, BP.
"We were literally in the dark for months, and not necessarily able to process or understand what was happening with the reopening of the refinery," said Jennifer Valiulis, who directs the St. Croix Environmental Association.
Parsons said the company spent $100 million on environmental improvements on the plant, and has permanently shut down part of it. "Because Limetree upgraded the facility and reduced its capacity, the Limetree refinery emissions will be much lower than its predecessor."
Even as the Trump administration helped usher through the company's applications, it documented how the refinery would affect nearby disadvantaged communities. The EPA found the adjoining neighborhoods — where nearly 27 percent of residents live below the poverty line and 75 percent are people of color — had "high risk vulnerability" to pollution. An earlier 2014 study, by the University of the Virgin Islands Eastern Caribbean Center, found that White residents constituted just 2 percent of area residents.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/epa-limetree-bay-environmental-analysis/cfa6bc0e-73a0-4c6a-b2e7-bc4b439bf6d5/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/2014-health-analysis-of-st-croix-s-industrial-area/b4e22e72-d5e0-4dbd-923d-eb45494ddd68/
"There is in fact a disproportionate burden in South-Central St. Croix," the EPA concluded in 2019, adding at one point, "it is difficult to conclude" the refinery "will not contribute to a disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effect" on nearby residents.
Shortly afterward, three air policy experts published a blistering Harvard Law School paper attacking how the Trump administration had interpreted these provisions of the law, singling out Limetree Bay as an example. The paper's authors included Joseph Goffman, EPA's acting assistant administrator for air, who is now with the Biden administration and has been reviewing Limetree's permit.
http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/NSR-paper-EELP.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/02/12/epa-jettison-major-obama-climate-rule-biden-eyes-bigger-push/
The University of the Virgin Islands 2014 study found that nearly twice as many residents "experienced asthmatic conditions during the past five years" compared with those living outside it, and more than twice as many had chronic bronchitis.
On Dec. 1, 2020 — less than two months before Trump left office — Wheeler took the unusual step of signing the permit allowing Limetree Bay refinery to expand or alter its operations, rather than leaving that to the regional office overseeing the island.
The refinery began producing fuel two months later.
The day it restarted, a coalition of groups — including the St. Croix Environmental Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club — challenged one of Limetree's key air permits with the EPA.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/challenge-to-limetree-bay-s-permit/2acb2293-372a-4281-907d-9c6feb1f8fea/
Several of these groups are also challenging the plantwide permit with the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board.
John Walke, NRDC's clean air director, said the Trump administration's interpretation of the Clean Air Act violated the law.
Valiulis said that residents remain in the dark and that some have moved out of the area because their health was compromised.
"A lot of people live with cistern water, rainfall off the roof. Whatever goes in there you drink," she said. "We're certainly outraged about the process, the lack of information. We don't know what the monitoring levels are, what they're allowed to do and if anybody is monitoring."
Neither the governor's office nor the territory's department of planning and natural resources responded to repeated requests for comment.
Mapp, for his part, said Limetree Bay has provided an economic lifeline for the territory during the pandemic. "Absent of that plant, the government of the Virgin Islands would have been in significant financial problems once its tourism industry was closed."
Several residents credited the company for being more responsive than its predecessor. According to the company, by March 3 it had contacted or inspected 213 homes; washed 208 cars; cleaned 134 roofs and sampled 135 cisterns. It has been delivering bottled water to many Clinton Hill residents, and has hired a local claims adjuster to negotiate how to pay for damages.
But residents in the contaminated neighborhood cannot bathe or easily wash dishes with bottled water. Limetree's contractors confirmed Muñoz's cistern is contaminated.
"We are very uncomfortable to hear oil is in the water," said Muñoz, but he wasn't surprised. "It had a little odor now and then, sometimes a little taste."
Sonya Rivera, whose husband, Errol, only ate from their organic garden, said 90 percent of it was lost because of the accident. "They destroyed all our foods," she said. "Everything was dead."
It's a concern, Rivera said, that Limetree should have addressed more rapidly and never allowed to happen again. "I'm infuriated," said Rivera, 53. "I know things happen. That plant just opened and things happen. But just take a little more consideration on this community. You know you caused this problem, just rectify it."
Another resident, Steve, who asked to be identified only by his first name because he is afraid of speaking out against the company, said he heard sirens blare from the refinery on the morning of Feb. 4. But Steve and his family did not understand what the siren meant and didn't find out about the accident until many days later.
"We didn't pay it no attention," he said. "At that time, we were eating and drinking whatever's there in the water."
___________________________________
Rachel Levine makes history as first openly transgender official confirmed by U.S. Senate. Rachel Levine confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services. She should be the Secretary of HHS, she's literally the most qualified person ever to work for the HHS. Republican Collins and Murkowski voted Yea. Levine will likely be making all the decisions as second-in-command because Xavier is unqualified for the job.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/24/rachel-levine-makes-history-confirmed-first-openly-transgender-official/6989380002/
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=117&session=1&vote=00134
The #Senate confirmed David Turk to be Deputy Secretary of Energy by a tally of 98-2; with Senators Hawley and Paul voting no. Currently voting on cloture on motion to proceed to H.R.1799, extending the paycheck protection program.
https://twitter.com/SenatePress/status/1374846739623112704
Much of Yang Jiechi's indictment seemed cribbed from the old Soviet playbook. American democracy is deeply flawed, Americans have no right to judge China, the U.S. is imperialist, etc. "The challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated," Yang said. "They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter." Blinken's response was disappointing. China's position is that America's failures and flaws are so deep and so profound, it has no right and no moral standing to condemn the actions and policies of the Chinese government. That's nonsense. Yes, America has flaws. But we fall short of our standards and ideals, not those of the Chinese Communist Party. The legacy of Jim Crow is shameful. But China has Jim Crow—and worse—right now. The majority Han Chinese bar some ethnic minorities from access to jobs, schools, and internal travel. And for some groups, such as the Uyghurs and Tibetans, the goal is outright ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide. There are an estimated 1 million Uyghurs in concentration camps, marked by forced reeducation, forced sterilizations, and forced labor under an express "no mercy" policy. Say what you will about America's shortcomings, we clear the bar of this sort of thing quite easily. And Blinken, whose stepfather was the only Holocaust survivor among the 900 children in his Polish school, surely knows this. Blinken is right that one of the things that distinguishes America is our willingness to debate and confront our shortcomings in the open. But this defense of America seems off point in the face of China's genocidal policies. It's possible Blinken's rejoinder was so anemic because he was sandbagged (which would raise questions about their situational awareness and preparation). But what really worries me is that Blinken does know better but felt he couldn't defend America more robustly for fear of eliciting a backlash from the left. American elites, in both parties, have lost the single most important ingredient of soft power: the ability to speak the language of patriotism convincingly. Soft power is the ability to lead by example, to convince and co-opt rather than coerce through military means—and that requires self-confidence. And to paraphrase Hillel the Elder, if America is not for itself, who will be for America? On the left, much of the rhetoric is obsessed with white supremacy, structural racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. It's difficult to speak proudly about American democracy, never mind condemn Chinese apartheid, when the activist base of your party seems to believe we have nothing short of Jim Crow and apartheid in America right now. And, on the right, it's difficult to express patriotic pride in democracy when a good share of the party holds that the previous election was stolen, the system is rigged and America was a sucker all those years we advocated for our ideals around the globe rather than "America first." I don't much care if China doesn't want to hear about the superiority of the American system. I'm much more concerned that a lot of Americans don't want to hear it either.
https://thedispatch.com/p/the-problem-with-americas-patriotism
The blue blobs are masses of ships waiting to get through the Suez Canal.
https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/suez-canal-blockage-closer-to-resolution-on-efforts-to-move-ship
Isaiah Wilson was arrested, and faces multiple charges from a high speed car chase
https://twitter.com/nflrums/status/1374825820338982913
The NBA is investigating possibly coordinating with national pharmacy chains to "to host on-site vaccination clinics for players, team and arena personnel, and household members at team facilities and arenas in the coming weeks," according to a league memo sent out today.
https://twitter.com/baxter/status/1374849040513310727
Three years ago, hundreds of thousands of protesters began walking down Pennsylvania Avenue for a nationwide rally to protest gun violence, which was prompted by the deadly school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
https://twitter.com/1stForAll/status/1374858617053143041/photo/1
George Segal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Segal
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001719/
Kyle Lowry gives the camera a peace sign as he possibly does his final walk to the locker room with the Raptors squad
https://streamable.com/k4b80g
Kyle Lowry finishes possibly his last game as Raptor as a +42, the highest mark of his career
The Detroit Pistons are trading guard Delon Wright to the Sacramento Kings for guard Cory Joseph and two second-round picks
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1374940745333927938
The Toronto Raptors (18-26) snap their losing streak, defeating the Denver Nuggets (26-18), 135 - 111
Caris Levert with a stepback dagger with 4.7 seconds left
https://streamable.com/blzn8w
Utah Jazz (32-11) defeat the Brooklyn Nets (30-15) by 118 - 88 with 27 points from Donovan Mitchell
De'Aaron Fox drops 37 points on 13/20 from the field, 3/4 from 3, and 8/9 from the line in a win against the Atlanta Hawks
The Indiana Pacers (19-23) defeat the Detroit Pistons (12-30) 116-111 behind Caris Levert's 28-4-6 Performance.
The Orlando Magic (15-29) defeat the Phoenix Suns (29-14), 112 - 111
Poku gets the steal and goes coast-to-coast for the slamma jamma
https://streamable.com/vvc0nc
Bruce Brown to referee: "You was right there, you see him flop"
https://streamable.com/gdz8ki
Halliburton throws the half-court lob to Chimezie Metu, bench loves it
https://streamable.com/jxlvhl
Bobby Portis sinks the three and immediately nabs a steal and breakaway dunk on the next defensive possession
https://streamable.com/xeftgn
Luka gets T'd up after tangle with Karl-Anthony Towns
https://streamable.com/euubnb
DiVincenzo and Lopez get clutch blocks and Middleton gets a deflection to end the Celtics' comeback at the end of the game
https://streamable.com/2kxpaf
Kawhi Leonard obliterates a Spur
https://streamable.com/ozigdm
North Korea launched two ballistic missiles Thursday. (Thursday local time in Pyongyang, that is.) Biden administration officials yesterday downplayed North Korea's weekend test of short-range cruise missiles because they did not violate UN resolutions. Those resolutions do bar North Korea from testing ballistic missiles, so would make for a more serious provocation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56518998
Storm-rattled areas of the southern United States from Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas to Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky will face more potentially damaging and dangerous weather conditions into Thursday night as the second and more powerful storm of the week threatens to bring violent thunderstorms and at the same time continues the risk of flooding rainfall.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/severe-weather/50-million-across-south-brace-for-new-severe-weather-outbreak/920520
The Bulls land Nikola Vucevic and Al Farouq Aminu for Otto Porter, Wendell Carter Jr., and two first-round picks. Huge addition for Chicago, who remains in pursuit of Lonzo Ball. The Magic are moving toward a rebuild now with Aaron Gordon deal on deck.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375101619218608128
The Cleveland Cavaliers are finalizing a deal to send JaVale McGee to the Denver Nuggets
https://twitter.com/shamscharania/status/1375085441259560965
Gary Harris, RJ Hampton and a first-round pick to the Magic for Aaron Gordon
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375122748989640705
The Nuggets are also getting Gary Clark in the Aaron Gordon trade. Am told "slight" protections on the first-round pick.
https://twitter.com/msinger/status/1375124032748613633
Washington is trading Troy Brown and Mo Wagner to Chicago for Daniel Gafford and Chandler Hutchinson
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375121942185906183
Boston and Orlando are finalizing the deal for Fournier now
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375107558709542921
Vucevic deserved better, he's going from shit team y to shit team z
Sacramento is finalizing a deal to send Nemanja Bjelica to the Miami
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375125424229994498
Toronto has traded Norm Powell to Portland for Gary Trent and Rodney Hood
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375126939078434817
The Oklahoma City Thunder are finalizing trading George Hill to the Philadelphia 76ers
https://twitter.com/shamscharania/status/1375126232489136129
Philadelphia is acquiring OKC's George Hill for Tony Bradley, Terrance Fergusson and two future second-round picks. Austin Rivers goes to OKC as part of a three-way deal.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375126832576610312
It's like Doc was trying to get (his son, whom he never raised....) Austin to the Sixers and accidentally sent him to OKC
Miami is sending Moe Harkless and Chris Silva to the Kings for Bjelica
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375126441462009857
Portland traded Gary Trent Sr. to the Raptors in 1998. Less than a year later, Gary Trent Jr. was born and today, Portland is trading his son to the Raptors 23 years later.
Reminder:
Houston Rockets receive Dante Exum, Rodions Kurucs, Caris LeVert, 3 First-Round Picks (via Nets), 2022 First-Round Pick (via Milwaukee), 4 First-Round Pick Swaps (via Nets)
Cleveland Cavaliers receive Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince, the draft rights to Aleksandar Vezenkov & a swap 2024 2nd round pick
Brooklyn Nets receive James Harden & 2024 Second-Round Pick
Houston Rockets receive Victor Oladipo
Indiana Pacers receive Caris LeVert, Second-Round Pick
Cleveland Cavaliers receive Future Second-Round Pick
Houston Rockers receive Kevin Porter Jr
Detroit Pistons receive Dennis Smith jr & 2021 Second-Round Pick (via Charlotte)
New York Knicks receive Derrick Rose
Oklahoma City Thunder receive Svi Mykhailiuk & 2027 Second-Round Pick
Detroit Pistons receive Hamidou Diallo
Miama Heat receive Trevor Ariza
Oklahoma City Thunder receive Meyers Leonard & Second-Round Pick
Phoenix Suns receive Torrey Craig
Milwaukee Bucks receive Cash Considerations
Milwaukee Bucks receive PJ Tucker, Rodions Kurucs & Bucks' 2022 first-round pick back to Milwaukee
Houston Rockets receive D.J. Augustin, D.J. Wilson, 2021 first-round pick (pick swap, Top 9 protected) & 2023 first-round pick
Sacramento Kings receive Mfiondu Kabengele, a future second & Cash Considerations
Los Angeles Clippers receive Protected future second-round pick
Sacramento Kings receive Delon Wright
Detroit Pistons receive Cory Joseph & two second-round picks (2021 via Lakers, & 2024)
Denver Nuggers receive Javale McGee
Cavaliers receive Isaiah Hartenstein & 2 future 2nd-Round Picks
Chicago Bulls receive Nikola Vucevic and Al Farouq Aminu
Orlando Magic receice Otto Porter Jr, Wendell Carter Jr, and 2 future 2nd-Round Picks
Orlando Magic receive 2 Second-Round Picks
Boston Celtics receive Evan Fournier
Chicago Bulls receive Troy Brown Jr, and Mo Wagner
Washington Wizards receive Daniel Gafford and Chandler Hutchison
Denver Nuggets receive Aaron Gordon & Gary Clark
Orlando Magic receive Gary Harris, RJ Hampton & 1st Round Pick
Portland Trailblazers receive Norman Powell
Toronto Raptors receive Gary Trent Jr & Rodney Hood
Oklahoma City Thunder receive Austin Rivers, Tony Bradley, 2 Second-Round Picks
Philadelphia 76ers receive George Hill & Iggy Brazdeikis
New York Knicks receive Terrance Fergusson & Vincent Poirier
Sacramento Kings receive Nemanja Bjelica
Miami Heat receive Moe Harkless & Chris Silva
Texas AG Ken Paxton refuses to release texts, emails sent during pro-Trump rally and Capitol riot
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Texas-AG-Ken-Paxton-refuses-to-release-texts-16051378.php
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2021/03/25/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-refuses-to-release-messages-about-attendance-at-pro-trump-rally/
Myanmar soldiers kill 7-year-old girl in her father's arms.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/asia/myanmar-protests-7-year-old-killed-intl-hnk/index.html
Decades of poaching and shrinking habitats have devastated elephant populations across Africa, conservationists said Thursday, warning that one sub-species found in rainforests was a step away from extinction
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210325-alarm-bells-as-african-elephants-see-sharp-decline-conservationists
Trump Holdovers At Social Security Are Blocking Relief Checks For 30 Million Americans
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2021/03/25/trump-holdovers-social-security-are-delaying-covid-relief-checks-30-million
Meanwhile, the new "fierce" warrior Cabinet Secretary certainly hit the ground running with a decision, just a few days after her swearing-in ceremony, withdrawing a Trump administration opinion that held the section of the Missouri River flowing through the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation—the land of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Nation—belonged to the state of North Dakota. For decades, legal precedent held that the Missouri riverbed belonged to the MHA Nation. The reversal of the Andrew Jacksonian-type Trump decision which gave North Dakota ownership of mineral rights under that portion of the Missouri River flowing through the Fort Berthold Reservation was a clear and outrageous violation of tribal sovereignty that the Biden administration has vowed to uphold. The Department of Interior under Haaland is getting off to a great start by sending a signal salvo in the 500-year-old Indigenous struggle for justice. Haaland has her work cut out for her, but she has the confidence of Indian Country and our unwavering, steadfast support. Further, we must be mindful that what is good for Native America is good for all of America.
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/interior-secretary-haaland-already-taking-giant-steps-forward-for-native-america/
Several Democratic lawmakers said on Thursday they will introduce a resolution on Friday that would reinstate Obama-era regulations for oil and gas operations targeting methane emissions that former President Donald Trump rescinded last year to ease burdens on industry. Democrats Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Independent Angus King of Maine are introducing the resolution in the Senate under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a 1996 law that allows Congress to reverse new federal rules with a simple majority. A House version will also be introduced by U.S. Representatives Diana DeGette, Scott Peters and Conor Lamb. The lawmakers aim to reinstate the 2012 and 2016 requirements for the oil industry's production and processing segments and the requirements for the transmission and storage of methane and volatile organic compounds that were rescinded in August 2020 by the Trump administration. "By passing this resolution of disapproval, Congress would be taking swift action to reinstate and strengthen responsible methane emission standards, which is critical to confronting the climate crisis and reducing the air pollution harming communities in New Mexico," Heinrich said in a statement. The CRA comes as the Biden administration is deploying all federal agencies to seek potential emissions reduction measures to help achieve the new U.S. 2030 target under the Paris climate agreement.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climate-methane/democrats-to-use-congressional-tool-to-reinstate-methane-rules-axed-by-trump-idUSKBN2BH2IJ
Oklahoma City Thunder now has a projected 34 draft picks over the next 7 years. 17- First, 17- Second.
https://twitter.com/BobbyMarks42/status/1375134639149477893
The Portland Trailblazers are the 6th ranked offensive team, 29th ranked defensive team and just traded their best asset (Gary Trent) for another score first guard. Teams don't make the finals without a top 10ish defence. You need to be good on both ends.
_____________________________
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/24/how-putin-is-starving-syria-and-what-biden-can-do-477685
How Putin Is Starving Syria — and What Biden Can Do
Through canny leverage at the UN, Russia is making the humanitarian disaster in Syria much worse. Before July, the U.S. will need to get serious about stopping it.
By CHARLES LISTER and JEFFREY FELTMAN
03/24/2021 01:48 PM EDT
Charles Lister is a senior fellow and the director of the Syria and Counterterrorism programs at the Middle East Institute.
Jeffrey Feltman, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, is former UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.
From Syria's northwest, one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world can look a lot like an endless traffic jam. Every day, lines of trucks loaded with food, water, clothes, medical supplies and construction equipment wait to cross from Turkey into the Syrian hills. Once they manage to get through, they pass into the Syrian town of Bab al-Hawa and head into a region that has seen more war than anywhere else in Syria.
For the 4.5 million people in northwestern Syria, living amidst the rubble of years of bombing by their own government, the cargo aboard those waiting trucks is a literal lifeline.
The bottleneck was not always so extreme. When the UN originally started sending cross-border aid in 2014, it had access to four crossings that ran through Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. By January 2020, only two remained open. And since last July, there has been just one: Bab al-Hawa, which has strained at the seams as the demand for humanitarian aid has intensified while COVID-19 spreads.
What changed was not the scale of need, which has actually increased since the UN aid program began and Syria's economy fell into crisis. Nor has violence gone down. What changed was Russia, which has been exploiting its veto power at the UN Security Council to systematically shut aid gateways, one after the other.
The aid flows to regions held by Syrian opposition forces, which are being systematically starved out by dictatorial president Bashar al-Assad. Russia considers Assad an ally, and so any aid—even for humanitarian reasons—is an affront to his rule. Accordingly, last January, during negotiations scheduled to determine the extension of aid access, Russia forced the closure of a crossing from northern Iraq and another from Jordan. Both had been providing a lifeline to northeastern and eastern Syria. Then last July, Russia used the same tactic to shut down the Bab al-Salam crossing from Turkey into northern Aleppo.
That left only one road for aid to arrive, via Turkey, at Bab al-Hawa. And now the Russians have already signaled their intention to shut that as well when it comes up for a vote in the UN Security Council this summer. If they succeed, it will cut off UN cross-border aid altogether—and all but sever northwestern Syria from the global community, and from any semblance of help.
Over the past decade, Syria's violent and intractable crisis has rarely offered policymakers a guaranteed opportunity to make a major positive difference. In the coming months, however, President Joe Biden does have such an opportunity—a chance to restore the uninhibited flow of humanitarian assistance to millions of civilians across northern Syria who are more in need of help than ever before. But the chance to have such a significant impact does not come for free. President Biden, alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken and incoming USAID Administrator Samantha Power, will need to lead a resolute effort to shift Russia's calculus leading into July. They will need to determine broader avenues to turn the screws on Moscow far beyond Syria and the Middle East, in order to decidedly heighten the potential costs for a humanitarian cut-off in Syria.
Vladimir Putin has backed Bashar al-Assad, Syria's strongman leader, for the full 10-year course of the Syrian uprising. When Syrian protesters, many clutching roses, began marching in support of political reform, Assad balked at their demands and responded with unforgiving violence. As the conflict curdled into civil war, Putin dug in, initially sending weapons and military advisors and from September 2015, launching a fully-fledged military intervention.
To Putin, the Syrian civil war has offered an opportunity to re-establish Russia as a powerful player in the region by protecting Russia's longest-standing ally in the Middle East, and defeating what is, in his mind, a U.S.-led regime change campaign.
In 2021, few would suggest any of those objectives have gone unachieved. In propping up Assad, Russia has worked intimately with Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps. And, crucially, it has secured the diplomatic backing of China, another UN Security Council member, which maintains a blanket opposition to Western support for democratic change abroad, as well as a diplomatic relationship of its own with Assad. Russian and Chinese diplomats have also indicated that their actions targeting cross-border aid access is linked to – or more pointedly, in retaliation against – American and European sanctions against Syria's regime.
The warfare component of the Syrian fight has been well documented, but Russia's exploitation of its diplomatic clout in the UN to further a siege-and-starve strategy is less well known. By cutting millions of people off from vitally needed aid, Russia seeks only one goal: to force populations to surrender to a regime that has shot, shelled, bombed and gassed them for a decade.
Its lever has been the UN Security Council. By 2014, at the height of Syria's war, the UN had already given up counting the dead after years of the Assad regime's ruthlessly blockading and carpet-bombing entire cities populated by opposition-aligned communities. The scale of the violence sparked and fueled an ever-expanding humanitarian crisis, which demanded an enormous aid response. But the regime did not want aid going to opposition communities. While international law requires that aid deliveries be coordinated and facilitated by a host government, meeting the huge humanitarian needs of opposition communities via Damascus proved all but impossible.
That prompted the UN Security Council to force through a rare vote in 2014 to permit the international community to provide vitally needed humanitarian aid to the millions of civilians living there—after informing Damascus, but not with its approval. Assad objected, but the Council set aside sovereignty concerns and authorized the use of four border posts for humanitarian deliveries into opposition-held areas. Council members recognized at the time that without cross-border assistance, millions of Syrians would starve.
The UN-led aid effort that followed swiftly turned into a mammoth operation, providing everything from food, water and baby formula to medical supplies, vaccines, and shelter to the displaced. By January 2021, nearly 44,000 trucks of aid had been delivered to opposition areas via UN-authorized crossings.
The international community consistently responded generously to UN humanitarian appeals in the months and years that followed, while the Assad regime did whatever it could to prevent life-saving assistance from reaching the Syrians who needed it. In some cases, humanitarian agencies were simply denied travel permits. In many other cases, the government stopped aid convoys and seized their most valuable and needed cargo, such as baby formula, and spoiled the rest (filling sacks of flour with glass and bird waste was one apparent favorite). Despite such interference, this cross-border aid effort helped blunt the impact of Damascus' intentional undermining of international humanitarian law.
That all changed when conflict lines began to freeze, as Syria's long over-stretched hodgepodge of local and foreign militias proved unable to advance any further. With Syria in an internal standoff, Russia began pursuing a different strategy to help Assad: using diplomatic levers to incrementally sever aid access to regions still opposed to Syria's regime. Even areas violently retaken by the regime no longer receive cross-border aid, while being all but abandoned by the bankrupt government in Damascus. In southern Syria, for example, which was administered by the opposition until mid-2018, living conditions are dire and communities have been forced to call upon relatives abroad to pool money together to rebuild things like water pipes and electricity lines.
The first step in Russia's diplomatic siege-and-starve strategy took place in January 2020, when it exploited its potential veto to force the UN Security Council to shut down an aid crossing, ending the mandate that allowed cross-border aid to arrive from Iraq via the al-Yaroubiya crossing. That meant that northeastern Syria's 2.5 million civilians lost almost all their access to humanitarian aid, and almost half of all medicine supplies, overnight. This is an area controlled by America's counter-ISIS allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Since the closure, it has been forced to rely upon far reduced, non-UN-mandated supplies arriving via a smaller crossing at Faysh Khabour, plus the negligible UN aid that arrives via Damascus. As a result, today in northeastern Syria, as U.S. troops continue to support a locally led campaign against ISIS, only 6 percent of hospitals are fully functional and supplies of food and other staple items has significantly reduced.
Six months later, in July 2020, Russia – again with Chinese backing – inserted itself aggressively into the scheduled negotiations to renew cross-border aid access into Syria and threatened to utilize its veto to shutter all aid. After long drawn-out negotiations and multiple vetoes, Russia and China managed to shut down everything except a single crossing at Bab al-Hawa, from Turkey into Syria's northwest, which was given a 12 month "extension." That compromise was in large part won by Turkey, whose government shares a border with northwestern Syria and remains locked in a complex love-hate dynamic with Moscow, sustained by both party's capacity to threaten the interests of the other in Syria.
That compromise is set to expire this summer, and Russian diplomats have repeatedly made clear their intention to veto any further extension—meaning all cross-border aid would cease.
At least 4.5 million civilians currently live in northwestern Syria, and all rely on cross-border international assistance. One in three children there currently suffers from severe malnutrition and display signs of stunting. Living conditions have deteriorated steadily since aid was restricted to Bab al-Hawa seven months ago and debilitating conflict remains one potential shell or airstrike away. With COVID-19 continuing to spread amongst communities with little if any access to healthcare, plans to provide COVID vaccines to Syria's northwest through the global COVAX scheme will be shelved entirely if Russia gets its way, as could much of Polio and Tuberculosis vaccination programs across the north.
As UN aid chief Mark Lowcock recently said in a briefing to the UN Security Council, if Russia gets its way in the UN in July, the humanitarian crisis in northern Syria will turn "from terrible to catastrophic."
The implications of a shutdown go beyond the immediately obvious humanitarian realm.
In the northwest, the most likely consequence would be a resumption of major hostilities. Though a very delicate ceasefire remains in place in the northwest, Russia and the Syrian regime have recently upped their targeting of critical infrastructure in the opposition zone – including hospitals, gas facilities, key roadways and depots used by cargo trucks. Beyond representing a flagrant violation of the ceasefire, this escalation appears to be a deliberate and targeted campaign to degrade living conditions, potentially in preparation for an aid cut-off in July and an all-out military offensive. The last time hostilities broke out here, one million people were displaced within weeks, precipitating the worst humanitarian crisis of the whole war and a small-scale refugee rush towards Europe.
A dramatic deterioration of living conditions and civilian suffering could spark new conflict fissures, fuel extremism and create conditions that challenge our ability to remain engaged in combating ISIS, which is already displaying worrying signs of a possible resurgence in regime areas.
Clearly aware of the optics associated with its intended veto, Russia has blocked Syrian civil society organizations and even the International Rescue Committee from speaking to the Security Council in recent weeks. The structure of the Security Council gives Russia leverage over Syria's aid delivery out of all proportion to its contributions to it. In this case, the U.S. and Europe fund over 90 percent of the UN aid effort to Syria, while Russia accounts for only 1 percent; and yet Russia's veto power at the UN provides Putin with overwhelming power to hold the UN hostage and potentially sever aid access altogether.
But the United States and Europe do have some leverage of their own. For the sake of maintaining awareness surrounding the need for aid and the human consequences of Russia's actions, the U.S. could convene Arria formula meetings in the coming weeks and months. Such meetings are less formal gatherings convened by Security Council members to provide a platform for candid discussion of otherwise sensitive issues. Though they are convened by council members, they are not officially under the purview of the council itself, meaning they are not subject to being blocked by other members. Holding such meetings would allow the United States to give a platform to vital evidence of the importance of humanitarian deliveries to be conveyed to Security Council members and the world at large.
More broadly, if the U.S. and allies are to stand any chance of preventing Russia and China's intended vetoes, they will need to act at the highest levels. Commendable efforts are underway within the UN and across parts of the U.S. and allied governments to avoid the seemingly inevitable, by maneuvering diplomatically to counter Russia's intentions while preparing contingency plans for non-UN mandated aid supplies. However, these efforts are unlikely to be enough. To change Russia's calculus, President Biden will have to take on this file himself, along with Blinken and Power – and not just interject once, but consistently in the lead-up to the July vote. President-level calls and Secretary-level negotiations will necessary to convey America's determination directly and to communicate likely consequences should aid be severed. It is hard to imagine President Putin taking anything else seriously. As is widely rumored, it took President Obama's direct and aggressive intervention in 2014 to persuade President Putin to allow the original UN cross-border aid resolution.
Russia has thus far escaped any sanctions related to its activities in Syria, which have included proven strikes on hospitals, schools, markets and other civilian targets – and that could and arguably should change. The Russian military has not just conducted war crimes on multiple occasions, it is also the key protector of Assad, against whom the international community holds more evidence of crimes against humanity than the Nuremberg Trials had against the Nazis. It is not hard to envision sources of diplomatic deterrence and leverage resulting from such facts – not to mention the many other possible avenues for pressure resulting from Russian actions in other corners of the world, including in the U.S. homeland.
Cross-border aid must be allowed to continue to assist the millions who remain so desperately in need – not just through Bab al-Hawa, but also again via al-Yaroubiya and Bab al-Salam. The challenge ahead of us today is even greater than it was in 2014, and the stakes are even higher. Beyond all the politics, this is a matter of humanitarian principles – with stakes that amount literally to millions of human lives. If we fail to prevent Russia this time, a truly terrible precedent will have been set, from which the world could well struggle to ever reverse.
_____________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/25/fact-sheet-biden-administration-announces-historic-10-billion-investment-to-expand-access-to-covid-19-vaccines-and-build-vaccine-confidence-in-hardest-hit-and-highest-risk-communities/
FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Announces Historic $10 Billion Investment to Expand Access to COVID-19 Vaccines and Build Vaccine Confidence in Hardest-Hit and Highest-Risk Communities
March 25, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Administration Makes Essential Workers Eligible for Vaccinations at Community Health Centers in Federal CHC Vaccination Program
Administration Also Announces New Program to Vaccinate Dialysis Patients Nationwide
As part of President Biden's continued efforts to ensure COVID-19 vaccines reach all people and all communities, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a series of actions to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines to the hardest-hit and highest-risk communities across the country. With funding in large part from the American Rescue Plan, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will invest nearly $10 billion to expand access to vaccines and better serve communities of color, rural areas, low-income populations, and other underserved communities in the COVID-19 response. This funding will expand access to vaccines for vulnerable populations and increase vaccine confidence across the country.
Equity is at the center of the Administration's COVID-19 response. The President has set up federally-run community vaccination centers in hard-hit areas; sent vaccines directly to local pharmacies and Community Health Centers that disproportionately serve vulnerable populations; launched hundreds of mobile clinics to meet people where they are; and created the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.
These actions are garnering initial results. In the past two months, 60 percent of doses at federally-run Community Vaccination sites were administered to people of color. In the federal retail pharmacy program, 45 percent of sites were located in zip codes with high social vulnerability scores – a CDC index that uses 15 U.S. census variables to identify communities that may need support. Finally, over 65 percent of the federal doses allocated to Community Health Centers have been administered to people of color.
But there is more work to do. That is why we're doubling down on the progress we are seeing through federal programs. Today's announcements include:
$6 Billion Investment in Community Health Centers to Expand Access to Vaccines in Underserved Communities. HHS will invest more than $6 billion from the American Rescue Plan into Community Health Centers nationwide to expand COVID-19 vaccinations, testing, and treatment for vulnerable populations; deliver preventive and primary health care services to people at higher risk for COVID-19; and expand health centers' operational capacity during the pandemic and beyond, including modifying and improving physical infrastructure and adding mobile units. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), will provide funding starting in April to nearly 1,400 centers across the country. Community Health Centers serve 1 in 5 people living in rural communities. More than 91% of health center patients are individuals or families living at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, and more than 60% are racial or ethnic minorities.
For detailed information on how this funding is being distributed to health centers nationwide, including state-by-state breakdowns and an interactive health center funding map, please visit: https://bphc.hrsa.gov/program-opportunities/american-rescue-plan/awards.
Expanding Eligibility for Vaccines to Patients Served by Community Health Centers. In addition to today's historic investment in Community Health Centers, Community Health Centers participating in the federal Health Center COVID-19 Vaccine Program are invited to expand eligibility to populations in the ACIP's 1C eligibility tier – this includes frontline essential workers and all persons 16 years and older with high-risk medical conditions. This means approximately 83% of the adults seen at Community Health Centers participating in the federal Health Center COVID-19 Vaccine Program will now be eligible for vaccinations. This follows the President's announcement that all adults will be eligible for vaccinations no later than May 1. Today's news will enable more people in need to receive vaccine doses.
$3 Billion to Strengthen Vaccine Confidence. HHS, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will invest $3 billion to support local efforts to increase vaccine uptake and equity. This funding will go directly to states, territories, and some large cities, enabling them to support local health departments and community-based organizations in launching new programs and initiatives intended to increase vaccine access, acceptance, and uptake. This funding will focus on reaching communities hit hardest by the pandemic, including those with a high social vulnerability index, minority communities, and rural areas. The awards will be made in early April and administered through CDC's existing immunization cooperative agreement with 64 jurisdictions. More than half of this funding is being made available thanks to the American Rescue Plan.
Examples of new programs this funding to jurisdictions could support include:
A rural, faith-based organization could receive funding to conduct door-to-door outreach to schedule vaccination appointments in partnership with a community health center;
A food assistance and housing nonprofit in a high-poverty community could receive funding to conduct vaccine outreach and education, and to ensure its clients, including those with disabilities or limited mobility, have transportation to a FEMA-supported mass vaccination site;
Funding could support hiring or extending the hours of community health workers who do culturally-competent bilingual health outreach, so they can make sure uninsured people who are receiving care also have the information they need to get a free vaccination.
Launch a Partnership to Vaccinate Dialysis Patients. The Administration is announcing a new partnership with dialysis clinics to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to people receiving dialysis and health care personnel in outpatient dialysis clinics. Kidney disease disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities as 34% of patients on dialysis are Black and 19% are Hispanic. People on dialysis who contract COVID-19 often have severe health outcomes and have a 50% hospitalization rate and a mortality rate between 20-30% from COVID-19. There are about 500,000 people in the U.S. who receive regular dialysis treatment. Through this partnership, the Administration will provide vaccines directly to dialysis treatment centers so patients who typically go three times a week for treatment are able to get vaccinated at their place of care.
$330 Million to Invest in Community Health Workers. HHS, through CDC, will provide $300 million to jurisdictions for community health worker services to support COVID-19 prevention and control, and an additional $32 million for training, technical assistance, and evaluation. This funding will be used to address disparities in access to COVID-19 related services, such as testing, contact tracing, and vaccinations, and it will help address factors that increase risk of severe COVID-19 illness such as chronic diseases, pregnancy, and food insecurity. For example, this funding could support nurses who are serving hard-hit areas or local community health workers conducting outreach efforts to make those at highest risk aware of vaccination opportunities. This effort will benefit populations with increased prevalence of COVID-19 and disproportionately impacted by long-standing health disparities related to sociodemographic characteristics, geographic regions, and economic strata.
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Pitcher Gio Gonzalez has announced his retirement. Joined the Marlins this Spring with hopes to play of his hometown team. Wonderful career.
White Sox outfielder Eloy Jimenez will miss 5-6 months with a ruptured pectoral tendon.
https://twitter.com/jeffpassan/status/1375147322116542467
Mass rape and ethnic massacres being carried out by the Ethiopian and Eritrean militaries in Tigray.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ethiopia-tigray-news-executions-rape-war-atrocities-genocide/
Massive ship blocking the Suez Canal brings billions of dollars in trade to a standstill
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/25/suez-canal-blocked-ship-billions-trade-standstill.html
The Raptors are keeping Kyle Lowry
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375163339844808708
Hawks are trading Rajon Rondo to the Clippers for Lou Williams
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375153035249389571
Houston traded Victor Oladipo to Miami for Avery Bradley, Kelly Olynyk and a draft swap.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375164242228342786
Dallas has acquired New Orleans' JJ Redick and Nicolo Melli. Mavericks also acquire Trey Lyles from the Spurs in this multi-team deal.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375160989734293504
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375166978973896706
Dallas sent James Johnson, Wes Iwundu and a second-round pick to New Orleans to acquire JJ Redick and Nicolo Melli. Mavericks acquiring two shooters to bolster their depth. Pelicans receive a gritty veteran forward in Johnson, young player and draft asset.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375167672053284866
The Hornets are acquiring Golden State's Brad Wanamaker
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375162024146141184
Boston is trading center Daniel Theis to Chicago
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375165200245133315
Golden State has traded Marqueese Chriss to the Spurs
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375164684937138182
Marqueese is out for the rest of the season though....
Mo Wagner goes to the Celtics
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375165416826413062
The Rockets final return for James Harden: Avery Bradley, Kelly Olynyk Unprotected first round picks from BKN in 2022, 2024, and 2026 Unprotected pick swaps from BKN in 2021, 2023, 2025, and 2027 Unprotected first round pick from MIL in 2023 First round pick swap from MIA in 2022
San Antonio Spurs are proceeding to buy out LaMarcus Aldridge in which he'll become an unrestricted free agent
https://twitter.com/ChrisBHaynes/status/1375168497236381696
Warriors will trade Wanamaker (to Charlotte) and Chriss (to San Antonio) for salary that can be waived. These are cash deals
https://twitter.com/wcgoldberg/status/1375165869383290880
The Golden Warriors are trading Marquese Chriss to the San Antonio Spurs for Cady Lalanne
https://twitter.com/chrisbhaynes/status/1375165613765656576
LeBron James from the time he got hurt last weekend has an expected 4-to-6 week recovery period."
https://twitter.com/Stadium/status/1375168263504674822
According to a league source, the Sacramento Kings are expected to release Jabari Parker.
https://twitter.com/James_HamNBCS/status/1375175048739295243
AGREED, WIGGINS MUST STAY, OUBRE MUST GO....: Steve Kerr on Oubre: "I'd love to have Kelly back next year. If that were to happen, it would be off the bench, more than likely, because we'd be looking at Klay Steph and Wiggs in the starting lineup."
https://streamable.com/ciz4l7
Boston Celtics receive Mo Wagner & Luke Kornet
Chicago Bulls receive Daniel Theis, Javonte Green, Troy Brown Jr & Cash Considerations
Washington Wizards receive Daniel Gafford
U.S. Supreme Court illegally and unconstitutionally widens ability to sue police for excessive force, making it impossible for police to arrest anybody
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2BH2I5
Airstrikes 'pummel' ISIS in Iraq as US prepares for talks with Baghdad
https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/airstrikes-pummel-isis-in-iraq-as-us-prepares-for-talks-with-baghdad-1.667199
The Hornets are acquiring Golden State's Brad Wanamaker
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375162024146141184
Mr. Biden has moved quickly to oust government officials whom unions deemed hostile to labor, and to reverse Trump-era rules that weakened worker protections. He has pushed through legislation sending hundreds of billions of dollars to cities and states, aid that public-sector unions consider essential, and tens of billions to shore up union pension plans.
A white woman who identifies as a Trump supporter uses a racist slur against a young Black man working at a bakery NY after refusing to wear her mask. She's also doubling down & unapologetic. This is the residue of the hatred radicalized by Trump.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/ny-racist-manhattan-bakery-incident-20210324-r2f3cazqafcudiiuyvmqggd52i-story.html
If ever there was a reason why Sen. Kyrsten Sinema might change her mind on the filibuster:
A new poll indicates a majority of independent voters in Arizona, 52%, favor a $15 federal minimum wage.
So do 72% of Democrats.
And 22% of Republicans.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2021/03/24/kyrsten-sinema-should-rethink-filibuster-press-minimum-wage/6987305002/
Biden: A
Press: F
Missouri Republicans illegally and unconstitutionally block funds for voter-approved Medicaid expansion
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article250170945.html
Biden excels at his first news conference. The media embarrassed themselves. After weeks of whining, the White House press corps attended its first official Biden presidential news conference on Thursday. President Biden used the event to pledge that 200 million covid-19 vaccinations would be administered by the end of his first 100 days, double his original goal. (The administration will reach 100 million shots on Friday, Day 58.) He also announced that a survey showed nearly half of K-12 schools are open full-time for in-person learning. (He expressed confidence it would be more than half by the 100th day, consistent with his goal.) Certainly, that should be near the top of any news coverage. Asked how "hard" he would work for his policy goals, he responded that "all my focus" so far has been on covid-19 and the economic recovery, but he promised he would get to other issues such as guns, immigration, climate change and voting rights. On immigration, he made clear that crowded facilities at the southern border are not the result of a policy change from his administration or the fact that migrants see him as a "nice guy." He pointed out that there was a higher surge under his predecessor last spring, which certainly was not because migrants believed the former president was a "nice" guy. "It happens every single solitary year," Biden noted. In his lengthy responses to questions on the border, he showed his skill in de-escalating issues. One message came across loud and clear: "We're building back up the capacity that should have been maintained and built upon that [Donald] Trump dismantled. It's going to take time." One reporter mentioned a 9-year-old she had seen at the border and asked if Biden's messaging was contributing to the problem. No, he responded, again offering a detailed answer about the problems refugees face in their home countries that create the outflow. Prodded with a question about whether overcrowding was "acceptable," he responded, "C'mon." Of course it was unacceptable, he said, listing steps he is taking to find more beds for unaccompanied minors. The repeated questions on the same topic were tiresome and a poor use of precious time. Try as they might to seem "tough," the media did not succeed in knocking Biden off message. Biden spoke in great detail and length to show not only his mastery of the issues but also to suck tension and conflict out of the room. He simply would not be lured into accepting a false premise devised by Republicans (i.e., that his nice demeanor prompts parents to send kids thousands of miles under deadly conditions). "I'm going to send him on a thousand-mile journey across a desert and up to the United States because I know Joe Biden is a nice guy and he'll take care of him? What a desperate act to take," he said. "The circumstances must be horrible." On the filibuster, he argued that "It's being abused in a gigantic way." He also suggested that the Senate return to the talking filibuster or reform it so it cannot be used to block legislation on "elemental" issues such as voting rights. He slammed Republican attempts to pass restrictions on voting as "sick" and said they make "Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle." He made clear that Republican voters he knows find such measures "despicable." Is the filibuster a relic of the Jim Crow era, one reporter asked? He answered simply: "Yes." At another point, he said if Republicans continued being obstructionist he would "go beyond" the filibuster, which means eliminating the filibuster. Biden said he "planned" to run for a second term, a somewhat meaningless response to a question about his intentions regarding reelection. In response to a mind-numbing question on whether he expected to run against his predecessor, Biden launched into an ode on helping working-class people, called out Republicans' hypocrisy on debt and denounced Republican tax cuts as mostly benefiting the rich. He seemed delighted to point out that Republicans are out of sync with many of their own voters. On foreign policy, he gave measured answers on Afghanistan (which he intends to leave) and North Korea (for which he will pursue diplomacy with goal of denuclearization). On China, he made clear we need to invest in U.S. workers and science to compete, repair our alliances and speak out firmly on human rights. He spoke eloquently about the world being in a "battle between the utility of democracies and of autocracies." The media did not distinguish themselves. By asking about immigration multiple times and echoing the false narrative that Biden had created a "surge," they showed they were more interested in sound bites than actual news. Their failure to ask about the pandemic, the recession, anti-Asian violence, climate change or even infrastructure (Biden had to bring it up himself) was nothing short of irresponsible. They pleaded for a news conference and then showed themselves to be unserious. They never laid a glove on Biden; they did, however, make the case for why these events are an utter waste of the president's time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/25/biden-excels-his-first-news-conference-media-embarrass-themselves/
Iranian government launches military strike on Israeli-owned cargo ship in Arabian Sea
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-25/iranian-missile-hit-israeli-owned-ship-in-arabian-sea-tv-12
Bertrand Tavernier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Tavernier
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0851724/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/mar/25/a-flesh-and-blood-lion-of-french-cinema-bertrand-tavernier
In The Electric Mist (2009)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910905/
The White House is pressing ahead with plans for a series of executive orders on gun control. The actions would classify so-called ghost guns as firearms, fund community violence intervention programs, and strengthen the background checks system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/us/politics/white-house-gun-control-executive-orders.html
Georgia lawmakers pass illegal and unconstitutional voting bill that ends almost all voting and voting ability and illegally and unconstitutionally gives state election control to Republican-controlled state legislature. The Republican governor is expected to sign the illegal and unconstitutional elimination of voting into law.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/georgia-voting-restrictions/2021/03/25/91009e72-8da1-11eb-9423-04079921c915_story.html
Georgia GovKemp has signed the legislation that ended almost all voting and ability to vote in GA and essentially eliminating the state election board of GA. He was adamant that there was no voter fraud in his state last year and the results were sound yet signed illegal and unconstitutional legislation ending almost all voting and said he did so in response to the "voter fraud" he said wasn't real.
Pelosi on the Committee of House Administration's review of the two contested results, including Iowa's 2nd District race: "I think it's Monday, they'll make a determination as to if these challenges meet certain criteria to go forward."
On Republican criticism of the House's review of state-certified results that gave Iow Republican Miller-Meeks the victory over Democrat Hart, Pelosi responded: "Now, if I wanted to be unfair, I would not have seated the Republican from Iowa." "Because that was my right on the opening day. I would have just said, 'You're not seated.' And that would have been my right as Speaker to do," said Pelosi. "But we didn't want to do that."
https://twitter.com/HouseInSession/status/1375197851433762816
https://twitter.com/HouseInSession/status/1375197852163575812
https://twitter.com/HouseInSession/status/1375197852994039810
White House announces that it will direct $10B, largely drawn from the recently enacted American Rescue Plan, to expand vaccination access for low-income, rural and minority communities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic. Much of the money, $6 billion, will go out next month to 1,400 federally funded community health centers that serve patients at high risk of infection and death from the coronavirus. The funds can be used to increase vaccinations, testing and treatment for those patients, as well as improve overall preventive care, by improving physical infrastructure, and adding mobile units, according to the White House. An additional $3 billion, half of which comes from the Covid-19 relief package, will go to education and outreach programs by local health departments and community-based organizations to increase vaccination access and acceptance in high-risk communities, the White House said. The money will go directly to states and large cities to distribute.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-announces-10-billion-vaccine-access-effort-aimed-hard-n1262014
"I remember one time after the war, I was about twelve my father had a job at the factory across the way. And because he lost his leg had to stump on a wooden artificial leg. And in the summer and there's nothing quite as ferocious as a New York August, he would work on this assembly line 8 hours a day. At the home, that night I heard him weeping in the dark around one o' clock in the morning. And I knew that no matter what I ever did, couldn't articulated exactly, that I have to honor that pain. You must honor that. I think that's the children of immigrants do, all of us. We know what they did. They gave up their country. Some cases they gave up their languages. They work in the lousiest rottenest job in order to put food on our table. We have to honor that the rest of our lives."
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2293850/
Biden said something so sublime it may well be lost in the mix, but it deserves to be highlighted. He defined the path for the United States going into the future: I predict to you, your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral theses on the issue of Who succeeded—autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake. . . . We're in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, of enormous consequence. Will there be a middle class? How will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology and the environment? How will they do that? Our democracy is equipped, because all of the people get to speak, to compete. . . . This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the twenty-first century and autocracies. . . . We've got to prove democracy works.
"I've been hired to solve problems, not create division."
Biden proved he could handle a press conference, now so must the idiot trash media ffs
On the culpability of social media for real world violence, Sacha Baron Cohen, who used to advocate murdering Jews and eliminating the Israeli state: "If someone like Mark Zuckerberg helps facilitate the death of people, if he spreads lies that kill people, if he spreads anti-Asian sentiment that leads to murders, if he allows death threats online that lead to people being killed, it's odd that he can't end up in jail. I mean currently he can't even be sued".
The Republican governor of Georgia just signed into law illegal and unconstitutional severe voting restrictions pushed by Republicans that those Republicans claim is needed to prevent voter fraud that does not exist.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it a "scandal bigger than Watergate," the Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused President Biden of "thoroughly faking mental sharpness" for more than an hour during his press conference on Thursday. "Doing everything he could to give the appearance of mental acuity, he answered questions in detail, stayed on point, and uttered suspiciously complete sentences," Carlson alleged. "I've seen some shameless stunts in my time, but this one takes the cake." Carlson said that Biden's "desperate charade" extended to "accomplishing concrete things to make himself seem competent." "When he said that he would double the number of vaccinations in his first hundred days, my jaw dropped," he said. "President Trump would never have tried to pull something like that."
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/tucker-carlson-accuses-biden-of-faking-mental-sharpness-for-more-than-an-hour
Biden press conference answered so many of the immigration issues that Psaki ducked dodged dived on
THE PRESIDENT: I think my Republican colleagues are going to have to determine whether or not we want to work together, or they decide that the way in which they want to proceed is to — is to just decide to divide the country, continue the politics of division. But I'm not going to do that; I'm just going to move forward and take these things as they come.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: The reason they're coming is that it's the time they can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way because of the heat in the desert, number one. Number two, they're coming because of the circumstances in-country — in-country. The way to deal with this problem — and I started to deal with it back when I was a United States senator — I mean, Vice President — putting together a bipartisan plan of over $700 million to deal with the root causes of why people are leaving. What did Trump do? He eliminated that funding. He didn't use it. He didn't do it. And in addition to that, what he did — he dismantled all the elements that exist to deal with what had been a problem and — and has been — continued to be a problem for a long time. He, in fact, shut down the — the number of beds available. He did not fund HHS to get people to get the children out of those — those Border Patrol facilities where they should not be and not supposed to be more than a few days — a little while. But he dismantled all of that. And so what we're doing now is attempting to rebuild — rebuild the system that can accommodate the — what is happening today. And I like to think it's because I'm a nice guy, but it's not. It's because of what's happened every year. Let me say one other thing on this. If you take a look at the number of people who are coming, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of people coming to the border and crossing are being sent back — are being sent back. Thousands — tens of thousands of people who are — who are over 18 years of age and single — people, one at a time coming, have been sent back, sent home. We're sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming. We're trying to work out now, with Mexico, their willingness to take more of those families back. But we — that's what's happening. They're not getting across the border. And those who are coming across the border, who are unaccompanied children, we're moving rapidly to try to put in place what was dismantled, as I said. For example, of all the children who are coming across the border, over 70 percent are either 16 or 17 years old. We're not talking about people ripping babies from mothers' arms or little three-year-olds standing on the border. Less than — I think it's one and a half percent fall in the category of the very young. So what we're doing is we're providing for the space, again, to be able to get these kids out of the Border Patrol facilities, which no child — no one should be in any longer than 72 hours. And today, I went to — for example, I used all the resources available to me, went to the Defense Department, and — and the Secretary of Defense has just made available Fort Bliss — 5,000 beds be made easily available. Five thousand beds on the Texas border. So we're building back up the capacity that should have been maintained and built upon that Trump dismantled. It's going to take time. And the other thing we're doing, I might add — am I giving you too long an answer? Because if you don't want the details —
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: We're in negotiations with the President of Mexico. I think we're going to see that change. They should all be going back, all be going back. The only people we're not going to let sitting there on the other side of the Rio Grande by themselves with no help are children. And what we're doing there, and it's an important point to understand — I know you understand; I don't mean to say it that way — an important point to focus on: The vast majority of people under the age of 18 coming to United States come with a telephone number on a wristband or come with a telephone number in their pocket in the United States — a mother, a father, a close relative, a grandmom or a grandpop. What was happening before is it was taking literally weeks and weeks, and maybe even months, before anybody would pick up the phone and call to see if there really was someone there. Well, we've set up a system now where, within 24 hours, there's a phone call made as that person or that child crosses the border. And then a verification system is being put in place as of today to determine quickly whether or not that is a trafficker being called or that is actually a mom, a dad, and/or a close relative. They're establishing that right off the bat. If it, in fact, is Mom or Dad, Dad says — to take the extreme case — "I got a birth certificate." Then guess what? We're getting that kid directly to that parent immediately. And so that's going to reduce significantly — there's two ways to reduce child populations in circumstances that are not acceptable, like being held at a Border Patrol station. One is to get them to the place where they have a relative and set a date as to when a hearing can be held. The second way to do it is put them in a Health and Human Services facility that we're occupying now — both licensed beds around the country that exist, as well as, for example, federal resources like Fort Bliss — to get them safely in a place where they can be taken care of while their fate is determined.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
GOOD: THE PRESIDENT: But here's the deal: As you observed, I'm a fairly practical guy. I want to get things done. I want to get them done, consistent with what we promised the American people. And in order to do that in a 50-50 Senate, we've got to get to the place where I get 50 votes so that the Vice President of the United States can break the tie, or I get 51 votes without her. And so, I'm going to say something outrageous: I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate. So the best way to get something done, if you — if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to — anyway — I — we're going to get a lot done. And if we have to — if there's complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster, then we'll have to go beyond what I'm talking about.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, the idea that I'm going to say — which I would never do — "if an unaccompanied child ends up at the border, we're just going to let him starve to death and stay on the other side" — no previous administration did that either, except Trump. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. That's why I've asked the Vice President of the United States, yesterday, to be the lead person on dealing with focusing on the fundamental reasons why people leave Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador in the first place. It's because of earthquakes, floods. It's because of lack of food. It's because of gang violence. It's because of a whole range of things. That — when I was Vice President and had the same obligation to deal with unaccompanied children, I was able to get it slowed up significantly by working with the heads of state of those communities to do things like — in one of the major cities, the reason people were leaving is they couldn't walk in the street because they were getting — their kids were getting beat up or shot or in gang violence. Well, what I was able to do is not give money to the head of state, because so many are corrupt, but I was able to say, "Okay, you need lighting in the streets to change things? I'll put the lighting in." We got a contractor. We got the type of lighting. We paid directly to the contractor; it did not go through the government. And violent crime significantly was reduced in that city. Fewer people sought to leave. When this hurricane occurred — two hurricanes — instead of us going down and helping in a major way, so that people would not have reason to want to leave in the first place because they didn't have housing or water or sustenance, we did nothing. We're going to do a lot in our administration. We're going to be spending that 700-plus million dollars a year to change the life and circumstances of why people leave in the first place. That mother did not sit around with — on the kitchen table and say, "You know, I got a great idea: The way I'm going to make sure my son get taken care of is I'm going to put a…" — how old was he, or she? Q He's — he's nine. I also met a 10-year-old. THE PRESIDENT: A nine-year-old. "I'm going to send him on a thousand-mile journey across the desert and up to the United States because I know Joe Biden is a nice guy and he'll take care of him." What a desperate act to have to take. The circumstances must be horrible. So we can do something about that. That's what the Vice President is going to be doing: what I did. When President Obama asked me to come and deal, I was in — I was in Turkey at the time, and he said, "You got to come home and take care of this." So we put together a plan and it had an impact. And so, the question here is whether — how we go ahead and do this; what we do. There's no easy answer.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
Q — right now, with mostly unaccompanied minors. There are kids that are sleeping on floors. They are packed into these pods. I've spoken to lawyers who say that they — some of these children have not seen the sun in days. What's your reaction — what is your reaction to these images that have come out from that particular facility? Is what's happening inside acceptable to you? And when is this going to be fixed?
THE PRESIDENT: Is — that's a serious question, right? Is it acceptable to me? Come on. That's why we're going to be moving a thousand of those kids out quickly. That's why I got Fort Bliss opened up. That's why I've been working from the moment this started to happen to try to find additional access for children to be able to safely — not just children, but particularly children — to be able to safely be housed while we follow through on the rest of what's happening. That is totally unacceptable.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
Q You just said "if we leave." Do you think it's possible that we–
THE PRESIDENT: We will leave. The question is when we leave.
Q Do you — sorry — do you believe, though, it's possible we could have troops there next year?
THE PRESIDENT: I — I can't picture that being the case.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: And rolling back the policies of separating children from — from their mothers, I make no apology for that. Rolling back the policies of "Remain in Mexico," sitting on the edge of the Rio Grande in a muddy circumstance with not enough to eat and — I make no apologies for that. I make no apologies for ending programs that did not exist before Trump became President that have an incredibly negative impact on the law, international law, as well as on human dignity. And so, I make no apologies for that.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: Let me say that, number one, U.N. Resolution 1718 was violated by those particular missiles that were tested — number one. We're consulting with our allies and partners. And there will be responses — if they choose to escalate, we will respond accordingly. But I'm also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization. So that's what we're doing right now: consulting with our allies.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: If you notice — don't you find it kind of interesting that my Republican friends were worried about that the cost and the taxes that had to be had — if there is any tax to be had, as they talk about it — in dealing with the — the act that we just passed which puts money in people's pockets — ordinary people. Did you hear them complain when they passed close to a $2 trillion Trump tax cut — 83 percent going to the top 1 percent? Did you hear them talk about that all? I love the fact that they've found this whole idea of concern about the federal budget. It's kind of amazing. When the federal budget is saving people's lives, they don't think it's such a good idea. When the federal budget is feathering the nest of the wealthiest Americans — 90 of the Fortune 500 companies making billions of dollars not paying a cent in taxes; reducing taxes to the point that people who are making — you know, if you're a husband and wife, a schoolteacher and a cop, you're paying at a higher rate than the average person making a billion dollars a year is — something is wrong. Their newfound concern. I'm concerned — look, I meant what I said when I ran. And a lot of you still think I'm wrong, and I respect that. I said, "I'm running for three reasons: to restore the soul, dignity, honor, honesty, transparency to the American political system; two, to rebuild the backbone of this country — the middle class, hardworking people, and people struggling to get in the middle class. They built America, and unions built them." The third reason I said I was running was to unite the country. And, generically speaking, all of you said, "No, you can't do that." Well, I've not been able to unite the Congress, but I've been uniting the country, based on the polling data. We have to come together. We have to. So, from my perspective, you know, it's a — to me, it's about just, you know, getting out there, putting one foot in front of the other and just trying to make things better for people — just hardworking people. People get up every morning and just want to figure out how to put food on the table for their kids, to be able have a little bit of breathing room, being able to have — make sure that they go to bed not staring at the ceiling, like my dad, wondering whether — since he didn't have health insurance, what happens if mom gets sick or he got sick. These are basic things. Basic things. And I'm of the view that the vast majority of people, including registered Republicans, by and large, share that — that same — that same view, that same sense of what is — you know, what's appropriate.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: I made it clear to him again what I've told him in person on several occasions: that we're not looking for confrontation, although we know there will be steep, steep competition. Two, that we'll have strong competition but we'll insist that China play by the international rules: fair competition, fair practices, fair trade. Thirdly, in order to compete effectively, I indicated that we're going to deal with China effectively, and we're going to need three things to do that. I tell him, our people. First, we're going to invest in American workers and American science. I said that all through the campaign and I say it again. And we're — and I'm setting up my administration to be able to do that, which is that, you know, back in the '60s, we used to invest a little over 2 percent of our entire GDP in pure research and investment in science. Today, it's 0.7 percent. I'm going to change that. We're going to change that. The future lies in who can, in fact, own the future as it relates to technology, quantum computing, a whole range of things, including in medical fields. And so what I'm going to do is make sure we invest closer to 2 percent. One of the reasons why I've set up the — the PAB [PCAST] — the President's board with scientists and the like, again — is we're going to invest in medical research — cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, the things — industries of the future — artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotech. And we're going to make real investments. China is out investing us by a longshot, because their plan is to own that future.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: And earlier this month — and apparently it got the Chinese's attention; that's not why I did it — I met with our allies and how we're going to hold China accountable in the region: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States — the so-called Quad. Because we have to have democracies working together. Before too long, I'm going to have — I'm going to invite an alliance of democracies to come here to discuss the future. And so we're going to make it clear that in order to deal with these things, we are going to hold China accountable to follow the rules — to follow the rules — whether it relates to the South China Sea or the North China Sea, or their agreement made on Taiwan, or a whole range of other things. And the third thing, and the thing that I admire about dealing with Xi is he understands — he makes no pretense about not understanding what I'm saying any more than I do him — I pointed out to him: No leader can be sustained in his position or her position unless they represent the values of the country. And I said as — "And, Mr. President, as I've told you before, Americans value the notion of freedom. America values human rights. We don't always live up to our expectations, but it's a values system. We are founded on that principle. And as long as you and your country continues to so blatantly violate human rights, we're going to continue, in an unrelenting way, to call to the attention of the world and make it clear — make it clear what's happening." And he understood that. I made it clear that no American President — at least one did — but no American President ever back down from speaking out of what's happening to the Uighurs, what's happening in Hong Kong, what's happening in-country. That's who we are. The moment a President walks away from that, as the last one did, is the moment we begin to lose our legitimacy around the world. It's who we are. So I see stiff competition with China. China has an overall goal, and I don't criticize them for the goal, but they have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world. That's not going to happen on my watch because the United States are going to continue to grow and expand.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
Q All right. Just to follow up on the meeting of democracies: Is that where you expect, in a multilateral way, to make these decisions about sanctions? Or —
THE PRESIDENT: No, that's not where I make the decision; that's where I make sure we're all on the same page. All on the same page. Look, I predict to you, your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake, not just with China. Look around the world. We're in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution of enormous consequence. Will there be middle class? How will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology and the environment? How will they do that? And are democracies equipped — because all the people get to speak — to compete? It is clear,
absolutely clear — and most of the scholars I dealt with at Penn agree with me around the country — that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies. If you notice, you don't have Russia talking about communism anymore. It's about an autocracy. Demand decisions made by a leader of a country — that's what's at stake here. We've got to prove democracy works.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
THE PRESIDENT: The next major initiative is — and I'll be announcing it Friday in Pittsburgh, in detail — is to rebuild the infrastructure — both physical and technological infrastructure in this country — so that we can compete and create significant numbers of really good-paying jobs. Really good-paying jobs. And some of you have been around long enough to know that used to be a great Republican goal and initiative. I still think the majority of the American people don't like the fact that we are now ranked, what, 85th in the world in infrastructure. I mean, look, the future rests on whether or not we have the best airports that are going to accommodate air travel, ports that you can get in and out of quickly, so businesses decide. Some of you, if you were ever local reporters, and you found your governor or mayor trying to attract business to your community, what's the first thing that businesses asked? "What's the closest access to — access to an interstate highway? How far am I from a freight rail? Is the water — is the water available? Is there enough water available for me to conduct my business?" All the things that relate to infrastructure. We have somewhere — I asked the staff to write it down for me, and they did — not for this, but for a longer discussion. We have somewhere, in terms of infrastructure — we have — we rank 13th globally in infrastructure. China is investing three times more in infrastructure than the United States is. Bridges: More than one third of our bridges — 231,000 of them — need repairs. Some are physical safety risks or preservation work. One in five miles of our highways and major roads are in poor condition. That's 186,000 miles of highway. Aviation: 20 percent of all flights — 20 percent of all flights weren't on time, resulting in 1.5 million hours lost in production. Six to ten million homes in America still have lead pipes servicing their water lines. We have over 100,000 wellheads that are not capped, leaking methane. What are we doing? And, by the way, we can put as many pipefitters and miners and — to work capping those wells at the same price that they would charge to dig those wells. So, I — I just find it frustrated — frustrating to talk about. Last point I'll make on the infrastructure — and I apologize for spending more time on it, but — is that if you think about it, it's the place where we will be able to significantly increase American productivity, at the same time providing really good jobs for people. But we can't build back to what they used to be. We have to build — the environment has — global warming has already done significant damage. The roads that used to be above the water level — didn't have to worry about where the drainage ditch was — now you got to rebuild them three feet higher. Because it's not going to go back to what it was before; it will only get worse, unless we stop it. There's so much we can do. Look at all of the schools in America. Most of you live in the Washington area now. But in your hometowns — I don't know where you're all from — how many schools where the kids can't drink the water out of the fountain? How many schools are still in the position where there's asbestos? How many schools in America we're sending our kids to don't have adequate ventilation? How many homes, buildings, office complexes are wasting billions of barrels of oil over time because they can't hold in the heat or the air conditioning because it leaks through the windows that are so porous and the connections? It's amazing. So there's so much we can do that's good stuff, makes people healthier, and creates good jobs.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
Q Thank you, Mr. President. We, too, have been reporting at the border. And just like Cecilia, we ran into a pair of siblings who came in on Monday, who were detained by CBP — had the phone number for their mother who lives in the U.S. We have contacted the mother. That's the only way they know her kids are here because CBP, today, Thursday, has not contacted that mother. So when can we expect your promise of things getting better with contacting and expediency and processing?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they're already getting better, but they're going to get real — they'll get a whole hell of lot better real quick, or we're going to hear of some people leaving, okay? We can get this done. We're going to get it done. I had a long meeting with the entire team and several Cabinet-level officers the other night. We're going to be moving, within the next — within the next week, over 100,000 — I mean, 1,000 people out of the Border Patrol into safe, secure beds and facilities. We're going to significantly ramp up. We're already out there contacting everyone, from getting some of the employees at HHS — and there's a lot of them doing other things — and move them into making those calls. We're in a — we're in the process of rearranging and providing for the personnel needed to get that done. But I admire the fact that you were down there; you're making the calls yourself. It's real. The next thing that has to happen though — as you well know has to happen — there have to be some certitude that this is the — actually mom, dad, or whomever. And there's ways to do that. There's ways to do that — a little bit like determining whether or not you got the right code for your credit card, you know? "What was your dog's name?" kind of a thing. I'm being a bit facetious, but not really. And also seeking harder data, from DNA to — to birth certificates, which takes longer. So, I want to do this as quickly as humanly possible and as safely as possible.
Q As you well know, treating the root cau- — causes in Latin America doesn't change things overnight. How do you realistically and physically keep these families from coming to the U.S. when things will not get better in their countries right away?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can't guarantee that. But I know, you know, that old thing: The journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step. You know as well as I do; you cover it: You have serious — it's not like somebody at a sitting hand-hewn table in Guatemala — I mean, in — in somewhere in Mexico or in Guadalupe, saying, "I got a great idea. Let's sell everything we have. Give it to a coyote. Have him take our kids across the border and into a desert where they don't speak the language. Won't that be fun? Let's go." That's not how it happens. People don't want to leave. When my great grandfather got on a coffin ship in the Irish Sea, expectation was: Was he going to live long enough on that ship to get to the United States of America? But they left because of what the Brits had been doing. They were in real, real trouble. They didn't want to leave. But they had no choice. So you got — we can't — I can't guarantee we're going to solve everything, but I can guarantee we can make everything better. We can make it better. We can change the lives of so many people. And the other thing I want to point out to you and I hope you point out: I realize it's much more heart wrenching — and it is — to deal with a five- and six- and seven-year-old. But you went down there, and you saw: The vast majority of these children — 70 percent — are 16 years old, 17 years old, and mostly males. Doesn't make it — that doesn't make it good, bad, or indifferent. But the idea that we have tens of thousands of kids in these G-d-awful facilities that are, really, little babies crying all night — and there's some; that's true. That's why we got to act. And yesterday, I asked my team — both the director of the two agencies, as well as others — I asked them what would they, in fact — and I asked their opinion because they're the experts — but I said, "Focus on the most vulnerable immediately." But there's no reason why, in the next month, as people cross the border, that phone call can't be made in the first 48 hours and begin.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
The Oklahoma City Thunder have waived center Meyers Leonard
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375193263397859336
Pacers' TJ Warren (foot) has been ruled out for the remainder of the season.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1375206333029486595
The Knicks are planning to waive 7-footer Vincent Poirier, who arrived from Sixers in the three-team deal with Oklahoma City
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375209788896907273
South Dakota Senator tweet that he's going to shoot Joe Biden and/or sic a dog on him | The Secret Service should pay Senator Mike Rounds a visit.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/mike-rounds-joe-biden-tweet
Sigh......Rays reliever Nick Anderson has partial tear of elbow ligament, likely to be out past All-Star break, no surgery recommend
https://twitter.com/TBTimes_Rays/status/1375237942285905921
New Zealand parliament unanimously approves paid leaves after miscarriage, a measure believed to be among the first in the world
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/world/asia/new-zealand-miscarriage-paid-leave.html
Meanwhile Republicans in the US have relentlessly tried criminalizing miscarriages as abortion....
Nikema Williams and others arrested sued the Georgia State Patrol over their arrests. They say the law that allows people to be arrested for disturbing a meeting or session of the Legislature is unconstitutionally vague. That suit is still pending.
http://ajc.com/politics/ga-state-senator-activists-sue-over-arrests-during-protest/MSRHSCF7EZCPHJK35GDCDSHA3Q/
The top oil and gas industry lobby group endorsed putting a federal price on carbon dioxide emissions, a reversal designed to show seriousness in addressing climate change.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/reversal-oil-gas-lobby-embraces-climate-focused-price-carbon-n1262056
A year later. I get tired of talking about this video. But it's a reminder of my journey. I couldn't get a job on TV because of my hood/Baltimore accent. I spent thousands on a speech coach. Fast forward, this week I learned I won an award from the Iowa Broadcast News Association
https://twitter.com/DeionBroxton/status/1375082165122297859
Twelve total Warriors players/coaches went yesterday to Kaiser and received the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine. That included Steve Kerr.
https://twitter.com/anthonyVslater/status/1375245041640165379
New York Becomes First City In U.S. To End Qualified Immunity For Police Officers
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/03/25/qualified-immunity-new-york/amp/
NYPD officers are no longer protected from civil lawsuits after city council passes police reform legislation
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/25/us/nyc-police-reform-nypd/index.html
Elephants in Africa Are Just a Step From Extinction | The threat of extinction has diminished the odds of spotting one of these wood-dwelling elephants in recent decades, according to a new I.U.C.N. Red List assessment of African elephants released Thursday. The Red List categorizes species by their risk of forever vanishing from the world. The new assessment is the first in which the conservation union treats Africa's forest and savanna elephants as two species instead of one. Both are in bad shape. The last time the group assessed African elephants, in 2008, it listed them as vulnerable. Now it says savanna elephants are endangered, one category worse. The shy forest elephants have lost nearly nine-tenths of their number in a generation and are now critically endangered — just one step from extinction in the wild. | Even during those few decades, the changes were drastic. The population of savanna elephants has fallen at least 60 percent, the team found. Forest elephants have declined by more than 86 percent. | It will be especially hard for forest elephants to bounce back, Dr. Roca added, because of how long they wait to reproduce — six years longer than the savanna elephants. The I.U.C.N. assessment also found that 70 percent of forest elephants might live outside protected areas, leaving them especially vulnerable to ivory poachers. | Where elephants disappear, they leave a big gap — not just physically, but also in the work they do. Some tree species depend entirely on forest elephants to eat their fruits, swallow their large seeds and deposit them elsewhere in a pile of dung. As they knock down trees and chew up huge amounts of plant material, both forest and savanna elephants change their environments in ways that create new habitat for other species. "Both of them really could be considered gardeners tending to the vegetation, more than probably any other animal," Dr. Gobush said. "We just can't afford to lose them, really."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/science/elephants-africa-endangered.html
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/181008073/181022663
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/181007989/181019888
Dwight Howard gets ejected
https://streamable.com/g36326
Reggie Miller: "So now what to you do with the loss of Dwight Howard? More Mike Scott obviously?" Doc Rivers: "Yeah, Mike has 2 fouls. I think our next biggest guy is me so, we'll see."
https://streamable.com/pbbsro
Tyrese Haliburton twirls Damion Lee's ankles drills the 3 and draws the 4-point play opportunity
https://streamable.com/4p4prg
Dwight Howard and Danny Green receive their rings before the 76ers vs Lakers game
https://streamable.com/k25vir
Dwight Howard recovers and wrecks Harrell at the rim
https://streamable.com/g7ntir
Reggie Miller: "Now the causal fan, will pick up the box score and say 'you know what? Ben Simmons, he only scored 7 points' No my friend. Ben Simmons created 41 points tonight - assisted on 34 points, 10 3 Pointers....Don't look at the 1-7"
https://streamable.com/npst06
Immanuel Quickley's first Mike Breen "bang" three for the lead
https://streamable.com/dvxhrj
Markieff Morris and Kyle Kuzma both expect Lebron to pick up Tobias Harris, leading to the wide open dunk
https://streamable.com/qaecdd
The Philadelphia 76ers (32-13) defeat the Los Angeles Lakers (28-17) 109-101, thanks to some heroics from Danny Green
De'Aaron Fox Tonight: 44/2/7 on 16/22 shooting, 3/7 from three and 9/10 from the line
Lillard draws the foul with a second left
https://streamable.com/0q5hc5
Kansas Patrol Has No Record To Release (Cover Up) On Lawmaker's Arrest | A Kansas Highway Patrol official says it does not have a document it can make public on last week's arrest of a legislative leader on suspicion of driving under the influence and attempting to flee law enforcement.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/kansas/articles/2021-03-25/kansas-patrol-has-no-record-to-release-on-lawmakers-arrest
Danny Green makes his 8th three of the game with 30 seconds left, giving the Sixers a 6-point lead
https://streamable.com/1lzm5u
De'Aaron Fox in his last 15 games: 29.0 PTS | 3.2 REB | 7.7 AST on 51% FG
The Portland Trail Blazers (26-18) defeat the Miami Heat (22-23), 125 - 122
RJ Barrett with 24 points 10 rebounds 5 assists 3 steals in Knicks comeback win vs Wizards
Seth gives Ben a no-look dime before spreading his wings and flying away
https://streamable.com/w9wog5
Ben Simmons with the beautiful touch pass to Danny Green for the corner 3
https://streamable.com/7028nu
Tyler Herro pulls up from the Heat logo as he now has 27 points off the bench
https://streamable.com/h2teez
The shorthanded Los Angeles Clippers (30-16) defeat the San Antonio Spurs (22-20) 98-85 behind Reggie Jackson's 28
Along with D'Aaron Fox's career high, Tyrese Haliburton and Richaun Holmes scorch Golden State for 21/0/1 on 7/11(6/7 3s) shooting and 25/11/1 on 10/14 fg respectively.
Enes Kanter in a win against the Miami Heat: 18 points (8/11), 16 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 1 steal and a team high +/- of +21. 9 offensive rebounds
Bam Adebayo against the Blazers: 29 points 9 rebounds 7 assists and 5 blocks on 13/16 shooting
Taj Gibson, Alec Burks and Immanuel Quickley combine for 53 points and 20 rebounds and +/- of more than +14 each. This unit won the game against Washington tonight.
Jordan Poole completes the 4 point play. He has 11 points in first two minutes of fourth quarter and has single-handedly brought Kings lead down to 14
https://streamable.com/if4k13
Simmons pulls up from deep to beat the shot clock
https://streamable.com/3qy6kl
Kanter picks up the big and-one to tie the game at 114
https://streamable.com/ycg0hk
Dominion Voting sues Fox for $1.6B over 2020 election claims
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-media-lawsuits-elections-912eea8e168f95d51dec02da78ac2760
Taiwan reports largest ever incursion by Chinese air force as 20 Chinese military aircraft enter Taiwan's air defence identification zone
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwna-china-security/taiwan-reports-largest-ever-incursion-by-chinese-air-force-idUSKBN2BI24D
The stranded Ever Given mega-container ship in the Suez Canal is holding up an estimated $9.6bn of goods each day
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56533250
Eritrea will pull its troops out of the Tigray region, Ethiopia's prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has said, a potential breakthrough in a conflict in which both countries have been accused of abuses against civilians.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/26/ethiopia-pm-eritrea-withdraw-troops-tigray-abiy-ahmed
These Mega-Businesses Are Already Back To Bankrolling American Terrorists
https://www.thedailybeast.com/these-mega-businesses-are-already-back-to-bankrolling-insurrectionists
U.S. civil rights groups sue Georgia over sweeping new voting restrictions
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-georgia-voting/u-s-civil-rights-groups-sue-georgia-over-sweeping-new-voting-restrictions-idUSKBN2BI2BP
https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2021/03/2021.03.25-Complaint-As-Filed-Misc.pdf
The Department of Justice has taken down two websites used by the Iraqi Shi'ite militia group Kata'ib Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, that regularly launches attacks against American and European targets in Iraq. Kata'ib Hezbollah is one of the most prominent Iran-aligned Iraqi groups agitating against U.S. forces. Formed in 2003, its fighters fought against American troops and gained prominence by uploading videos of such attacks online. The group was designated a terrorist organization and sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2009.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/united-states-seizes-websites-used-foreign-terrorist-organization
U.S. military had 'clandestine burning' of toxic chemicals in low-income neighborhoods
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/u-s-military-had-clandestine-burning-of-toxic-chemicals-in-low-income-neighborhoods-study-finds/
Evanston, Illinois, has become the first city in the United States to make reparations available to its Black residents for past discrimination and the lingering effects of slavery. The Chicago suburb's City Council voted 8 to 1 to distribute $400,000 to eligible Black households, with qualifying residents receiving $25,000 for home repairs or down payments on property. The program is being funded through donations and revenue from a 3% tax on the sale of recreational marijuana, and the city has pledged to distribute $10 million over 10 years. "There's no way to express how significant this is," says Danny Glover, an actor and activist who is a member of the National African American Reparations Commission. "Imagine how that resonates beyond Evanston, Illinois. Imagine the kind of discourse that happens, the discussions in community by ordinary citizens about reparations." We also speak with Robin Rue Simmons, a member of the Evanston City Council and reparations advocate, and Dino Robinson, a historian and executive director of the Shorefront Legacy Center, the only community archive for Black history on Chicago's suburban North Shore.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/evanston-illinois-becomes-first-u-s-city-pay-reparations-blacks-n1261791
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/23/980277688/in-likely-first-chicago-suburb-of-evanston-approves-reparations-for-black-reside
Arkansas governor signs transgender sports ban into law
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/arkansas-governor-signs-transgender-sports-ban-law-n1262162
Republican Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker Plans To Sign Landmark Democratic-Legislation Climate Bill Into Law. This wide-ranging climate legislation represents the most significant update to Massachusetts' environmental law since the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act. It codifies the ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse emissions to net-zero by 2050, and sets sector-specific emission reduction targets. It also requires the state buy more electricity from offshore wind, establishes new appliance efficiency standards and updates the opt-in building stretch code rules. The law contains new strong provisions about environmental justice. It defines an environmental justice community based on race, income and language-proficiency criteria, and lays out new pathways for residents of environmental justice communities to play a more meaningful role in the state's decision-making process for new developments, energy infrastructure or any other projects likely to impact air, water or soil quality. The law also, importantly, says that when the state is considering whether to approve any new project in an environmental justice community, it must look at cumulative impacts — essentially how the emissions or other impacts from a given project will add to any already existing environmental burden.
https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/03/25/baker-sign-climate-bill
https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/01/05/climate-bill-governor-wasser
Rui Hachimura in a loss against the Knicks: 21 points (9/16), 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block and a team-high +10 in 40 minutes in a 4-point loss
Good, the whole agency was turned into a Gestapo by Trump and Republicans and needs to be rebuilt and improved: Biden administration guts Homeland Security Advisory Council. The Biden administration has fired 32 members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. The Council will be reconstituted.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/26/biden-guts-homeland-security-advisory-council-478156
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000178-6ed9-dafe-ab7c-ffdd978a0000
Good: White House considers vehicle mileage tax to fund infrastructure
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/26/buttigieg-says-white-house-is-weighing-mileage-levy-to-fund-infrastructure.html
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls046922342/
Seema Nanda, Nominee for Solicitor of the Department of Labor
Seema Nanda served as Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Deputy Solicitor at the U.S Department of Labor in the Obama – Biden Administration. Before that, Nanda spent over 15 years in various roles as a labor and employment attorney, mostly in government service. She led the now named Office of Immigrant and Employee Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, served as a supervisor attorney in the Division of Advice at the National Labor Relations Board, and worked as an associate in private practice in Seattle. After the Obama – Biden Administration, Nanda led the Democratic National Committee as CEO and served as COO and Executive Vice President at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Nanda is presently a fellow at Harvard Law School's Labor and Worklife Program. She grew up in Connecticut and is a graduate of Brown University and Boston College Law School.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-members-for-the-department-of-labor-department-of-transportation-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-department-of-veterans-affairs-and-app/
Victoria Wassmer, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Budget and Programs and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Transportation
Victoria Wassmer is currently serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Finance and Budget at the Department of Transportation (DOT). She joined the Department from Ernst & Young, where she served as a Managing Director in the government and public sector practice. Previously, she worked as the Director of Agency Operations for DC Government. Victoria is no stranger to DOT, having served for many years as a Senior Executive for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Other senior positions at the FAA include serving as the Acting Deputy Administrator and Chief NextGen Officer as well as the Chief Financial Officer. In 2010-2011, Victoria served as Vice President of Administration and Finance at the Millennium Challenge Corporation in 2010-2011. Other professional highlights include six years at the Office of Management and Budget and work as a research assistant at the Development Bank of South Africa after the first democratic elections in 1994. Victoria holds a master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Bryn Mawr College. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, two sons and mother.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-members-for-the-department-of-labor-department-of-transportation-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-department-of-veterans-affairs-and-app/
Maryanne Donaghy, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Accountability and Whistleblower Protection, Department of Veterans Affairs
Maryanne Donaghy is an attorney and Senior Advisor at the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware, her alma mater. She started her career as a Certified Public Accountant, attended Temple University School of Law in the evening, and practiced law in Philadelphia, PA. Ms. Donaghy was a federal prosecutor for many years, and worked both in the U.S. Attorneys' Offices in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Delaware, where she focused on white collar fraud. Ms. Donaghy lectured extensively during her years as a federal prosecutor on financial fraud, money laundering and corporate wrongdoing. Since leaving the Department of Justice, Ms. Donaghy has counseled numerous organizations, including non-profits, large corporations and governmental agencies, on response to federal, state and congressional investigations, and on building effective compliance programs. Among other responsibilities, she has worked with a large University involving Title IX investigations, counseled a large pharmaceutical company under federal and state investigation involving marketing practices, and provided advice to a hospital system regarding research misconduct allegations. Working with the Inspector General of Philadelphia, Ms. Donaghy established a fully functional Inspector General's Office for the Philadelphia School District. As an adjunct lecturer at the University of Delaware, Ms. Donaghy has taught accounting, law and criminal justice courses. She has participated in numerous pro bono and community service activities through her career, including as a founding committee member of the Veterans' Committee for the Delaware State Bar Association. She is married and the mother of three sons, one of who currently serves in the Navy and another who is a Marine Corps veteran.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-members-for-the-department-of-labor-department-of-transportation-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-department-of-veterans-affairs-and-app/
Ronald Davis, Nominee for Director of the United States Marshal Service
Ronald L. Davis served in the Obama Administration as the Director of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office). In December 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Director Davis to serve as the Executive Director of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Prior to serving as COPS Director, Davis had a distinguished career in law enforcement serving over 8 years as Chief of Police of East Palo Alto (CA) and 20 years with the Oakland (CA) Police Department. Davis was recognized for his innovative community efforts and for working collaboratively with the community to dramatically reduce crime and violence in a city once named as the murder capital of the United States. Davis served as a member of the prestigious Harvard University and National Institute of Justice Executive Sessions on Policing and Public Safety and is currently a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine "Reducing Racial Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System" committee. Davis possesses a Bachelor's degree from Southern Illinois University and has completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-members-for-the-department-of-labor-department-of-transportation-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-department-of-veterans-affairs-and-app/
Jocelyn Samuels, Nominee for Member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Jocelyn Samuels was Executive Director at the Williams Institute, focusing on legal strategies to attain equality for sexual and gender minorities before joining the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. From July 2014 until January 2017, Samuels was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, where she oversaw civil rights enforcement with respect to hospitals, healthcare providers, insurers, and human services agencies and spearheaded development of regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Prior to her work at OCR, Samuels served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, and held other positions as a political appointee within the department. There, she oversaw work across a range of civil rights issues and supervised litigation combating discrimination in employment and education. Earlier in her career, Samuels served as the Vice President for Education & Employment at the National Women's Law Center, was Labor Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and spent ten years as a senior policy attorney at the EEOC. Samuels graduated magna cum laude, with Phi Beta Kappa honors, from Middlebury College and from Columbia University Law School, where she was a Note Editor for The Columbia Law Review.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-members-for-the-department-of-labor-department-of-transportation-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-department-of-veterans-affairs-and-app/
Gayle Conelly Manchin, Nominee for Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission
An educator from West Virginia, Gayle Manchin worked in Marion County Schools, served on the faculty of Fairmont State University, and was the Director of the university's first Community Service Learning Program. She directed the AmeriCorps Promise Fellows in WV and implemented a statewide initiative, WV Partnerships to Assure Student Success. Manchin previously served as West Virginia's First Lady and was appointed to serve as a member of the State Board of Education, serving her last two years as President. She is the Chair of the Board for Reconnecting McDowell, Inc., an AFT initiative serving rural WV, is a past president of the Vandalia Rotary Club of Charleston, and as an Emeritus Member of The Education Alliance. She also served as Cabinet Secretary for the West Virginia Office of Education and the Arts. Gayle Conelly Manchin attended West Virginia University, attaining her Bachelor of Arts in Language Arts and Education and a Master of Arts in Reading, and a second master's specialization in Educational Technology Leadership from Salem International University. While at WVU, Gayle met and married Joe Manchin, III, elected as US Senator from West Virginia, to fill the unexpired term of Senator Robert C Byrd in 2010, and re-elected in 2012, and 2018 for full terms. Joe and Gayle have been married for 53 years and have three children and ten grandchildren.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-members-for-the-department-of-labor-department-of-transportation-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-department-of-veterans-affairs-and-app/
MLB union boss says players ready to discuss moving All-Star Game from Georgia in wake of voter-restriction laws
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/sports/union-boss-says-baseball-players-ready-discuss-possibility-moving-all-star-game-out-georgia/
House Taps Military Official to Lead Security: The selection of Maj. Gen. William J. Walker as House sergeant-in-arms will place the security of both chambers of Congress in the hands of accomplished military leaders after the Jan. 6 riot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/us/politics/william-walker-sergeant-at-arms.html
______________________________
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/which-border-crisis/618420/
The Real Border Crisis
America has tried to solve its immigration problem for decades through brute force. It doesn't work.
10:41 AM ET
Adam Serwer
What is the border crisis? Is it the recent surge of migrants, or is it the treatment of those migrants in detention facilities? The answer to that question—or whether you consider the situation at the border to be a crisis at all—most likely determines what you think the Biden administration should do about it.
For conservatives, the answer is clear: Democrats invited the increase in migrants with their permissive, open-borders immigration policies. Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has accused President Joe Biden of announcing that "the United States will not secure our border, and that is a big welcome sign to migrants from across the world."
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/21/cotton-us-border-wide-open-477379
If the Biden administration's leniency is responsible for the increase, as Republicans like Cotton believe, then it follows that the U.S. government should employ harsh measures in the interest of deterrence, much like the Trump administration did.
Some Republicans have sought to have it both ways, accusing the White House of being too permissive while also attacking the administration for detaining large numbers of migrants. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida declared on Twitter that the increase in apprehensions was "caused entirely by President Biden's words & actions" and, on the same day, that the administration was "putting kids in cages."
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1372154171512737800
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1372156183344201734
In the kind of paradox that would be almost impossible in any other area of public policy, the distinctions between the Trump and Biden administrations' approaches to the southern border have been both under- and overexaggerated. The press has embraced the narrative of a border crisis—but that is consistent with how the media have covered immigration for decades, and how they covered the matter during the Trump administration. The problems at the border are very real, but they are also long-standing issues for which the crisis narrative offers only one, false solution: that illegal immigration can be prevented by the ruthless application of state violence.
"It's brazenly disingenuous for individuals who actively supported the Trump administration's anti-immigrant policies to use terms like kids in cages," Naureen Shah, a senior policy counsel for the ACLU, told me. "It is outrageous that so many elected officials feign concern and compassion for these kids, when they did not lift a finger to help them, and will prefer that they remain in perilous conditions on the other side of the border."
The talk of open borders is simply nonsense. There has been a large rise in apprehensions at the southern border, including of unaccompanied migrant children—but the increase in adult apprehensions is at least partly the result of people repeatedly trying to cross after being expelled under Title 42, a law that gives the government the authority to close the border for public-health reasons. Analyses from both the Cato Institute and the American Immigration Council have found that such repeated attempts at crossing after being turned away—and not a surge in the number of new individuals crossing—seem to be responsible for the rise in apprehensions.
https://www.cato.org/blog/border-looks-identical-2019-without-repeat-crossers
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/news/facts-about-current-situation-border
Republicans, some conservative Democrats, and much of the media also contend that the rise is Biden's fault. Last week, The Washington Post accused the Biden administration of "making appeals that seem directed more at liberal activists than the migrants they need to dissuade from coming to the country," and of "tearing down guardrails" that prevented migrants from coming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-border-surge/2021/03/20/21824e94-8818-11eb-8a8b-5cf82c3dffe4_story.html
The evidence for Biden's reversals having caused the rise to begin with is thin. The Biden administration did rescind the 2018 "remain in Mexico" policy, which was an attempt to effectively end migrants' legal right to apply for asylum and which, as the Post's Greg Sargent has written, "exposed migrants to violence, kidnapping and refugee camp conditions." The administration has also been allowing in a small number of families, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, "when Mexico's capacity is reached." And, most significant, it shifted away from a Trump-era policy of expelling unaccompanied children under Title 42, a policy that a federal judge struck down in December. The day the ruling was issued, the Trump administration shuttled 33 Guatemalan children out of the country, the last of some 16,000 to be expelled.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/12/20/secretary-nielsen-announces-historic-action-confront-illegal-immigration
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/29/qa-trump-administrations-remain-mexico-program
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/19/jd-vance-senate-ohio/
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/03/16/statement-homeland-security-secretary-alejandro-n-mayorkas-regarding-situation
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/18/21573799/court-migrant-children-deport-pandemic-border
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/immigrant-children-guatemala-ice-flight
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-03-19/a-year-of-title-42-both-trump-and-biden-have-kept-the-border-closed-and-cut-off-asylum-access
It is also true that some migrants may also have believed they would be treated more fairly under Biden than Trump. "Word travels very quickly through the smugglers' networks that a policy has changed, making people believe that now is the time to come," Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and the current director of the Migration Policy Institute's U.S. Immigration Policy Program, told me.
But even if that is the case, it could not account on its own for the rise in apprehensions at the border, which began last April, mirroring and potentially surpassing one that occurred in May of 2019. Migration surges like these rarely have a single cause—in this case, violence in the migrants' home countries, the coronavirus pandemic, and a series of natural disasters all appear to have played a role. But the harsh measures the Trump administration put in place did not prevent either the 2019 increase in migration or the rise that began last year; assuming the Biden administration's recent changes alone are responsible requires a breach in the space-time continuum.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/15/migrant-apprehensions-at-u-s-mexico-border-are-surging-again/
Moreover, most of the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration during the coronavirus pandemic have remained in place, including the use of Title 42—its application to unaccompanied children excepted. In the year since it was first applied, "of more than 650,000 … migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, fewer than 1% have been able to seek protection," according to the Los Angeles Times. The border, in other words, remains quite closed.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-03-19/a-year-of-title-42-both-trump-and-biden-have-kept-the-border-closed-and-cut-off-asylum-access
We cannot determine from this record whether the Biden administration's policies are wise or effective. What we can say is that the previous administration's approach—inflicting as much pain as possible on migrants to deter others from coming—did not work. No torture that American policy makers could devise and implement would crush the hope of desperate people seeking to make a better life for their children.
The rendering of an uncontrolled surge of undocumented immigrants being welcomed across an open border is completely false. But it nevertheless serves the interest of Republicans who want harsher border controls, former Trump-administration officials seeking to launder their escalation of the ingrained brutality of American immigration enforcement, and a media that had been committed to the excitement of the "border crisis" narrative long before Trump took office. The result is a chorus of voices accusing the Biden administration of being both too cruel and not cruel enough—whichever is most convenient.
Look at the images of migrant children being held in squalor in Border Patrol facilities and you will see an actual crisis: the continuing inhumane treatment of migrants, despite Biden's insistence that his administration would pursue a more humane policy than his predecessor's. And it is here where the Biden administration's critics have the strongest case that its policies are responsible.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah has said that "allowing unaccompanied minors to stay in the U.S. will yield a flood of unaccompanied minors," calling it a "de facto 'child separation policy'." There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that allowing unaccompanied children to apply for asylum in the U.S. has resulted in families in Central America sending their kids to the U.S. But not only is allowing these children to stay and apply for asylum arguably the only option under American law, the alternative—simply turning unaccompanied children away at the border—is monstrous. Under crisis logic, any problem can be solved by an escalation of barbarism.
https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1373996632560254983
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-smuggling-children-in-idUSKBN2BF2QB
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/18/21573799/court-migrant-children-deport-pandemic-border
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/05/18/trump-deportations-migrant-children-texas-coronavirus/
The crisis is not that these children—some 80 percent of whom, according to DHS, have relatives in the U.S.—are arriving and applying for asylum, which some of them will get and some of them won't. They are children; they are not a threat to American sovereignty, security, or stability. The crisis is that the American system so frequently treats them like refuse.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/03/16/statement-homeland-security-secretary-alejandro-n-mayorkas-regarding-situation
https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/630/
Under American law, detainees are supposed to be held for no longer than 72 hours in Border Patrol facilities, which are not equipped for long-term detention. When the number of migrants arriving at the border rises significantly, those facilities are quickly overwhelmed, leading to the horrific conditions seen in recently published photographs. The immigration-detention system has grown rapidly in the past two decades, even as the number of apprehensions has gone down—the result of policy makers' decision to invest in detention in a quixotic quest to "secure" 2,000 miles of territory without addressing the factors driving migration.
This quest has been bipartisan, but the prior administration pursued it to new levels of callousness. As one immigrant-rights advocate told me in 2019, "There were definitely parts of the Obama program that did similar—and, in fact, some of the same—things … But this all-encompassing skepticism of asylum seekers fleeing violence—justifying cruel treatment, justifying changes in the law, and justifying overcrowding to the point of unsafe and deadly conditions—[is] of a scale and a type that we haven't seen before."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-facilities/593239/
Whether the Trump administration escalated inhumane conditions through malice, incompetence, or both, the former president himself saw the resultant squalor as an asset to his policies. "If Illegal Immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detention centers, just tell them not to come. All problems solved!" he tweeted in 2019.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/190925acluhousejudiciaryicedetentionstatementforrecord.pdf
In the 1980s, according to a joint report on immigration detention by the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and the National Immigrant Justice Center, the U.S. immigration system held only about 2,000 people a day, on average—this was not an era of open borders, the vast majority of people attempting to cross the border were swiftly turned away. From 2000 to 2016, the average daily number of detainees rose from about 20,000 to 32,985, most of whom were held in facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under the Trump administration, that number skyrocketed to an average of more than 50,000 people in 2019. "When CBP facilities are included," the report noted, "the federal government has detained some 80,000 people at a time—far higher than the number detained in previous administrations."
https://www.aclu.org/report/justice-free-zones-us-immigration-detention-under-trump-administration?redirect=justicefreezones
This was a policy choice, not an inevitability. In 2000, there were 1,676,438 apprehensions, according to CBP's statistics. In 2019, during the last "border crisis," there were 859,501. America has the largest system of immigration detention in the world, because this is the course policy makers have chosen.
https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2020-Jan/U.S.%20Border%20Patrol%20Monthly%20Apprehensions%20%28FY%202000%20-%20FY%202019%29_1.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/detained-us-largest-immigrant-detention-trump
Under the current system, unaccompanied children are meant to be transferred to institutions managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, which then places them with a family member or guardian as soon as it can find one. But the sheer number of unaccompanied children arriving—close to 15,000 are now reportedly in the custody of various agencies—has overwhelmed some facilities, leading to migrants being held in disgraceful conditions the Biden administration vowed but failed to prevent.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/crowded-camps-border-unaccompanied-immigrant-minors
"You don't just release young people on this side of the border without checking out a sponsor and making sure that they will be safe, and that they will be taken care of when they are admitted to the United States," Meissner told me. "The difficulty continues to be with the Border Patrol facilities, which are more like holding cells."
None of this justifies the mistreatment of migrants under this administration or prior ones. But the fact that the Trump administration believed inhumane conditions would make its approach more effective, and the current one sees them as a problem to be fixed, is a relevant distinction.
"These are long-standing problems with CBP—committing horrific abuses on kids, on pregnant people, on anybody in their custody—but they all got turned up to the highest level of cruelty under the Trump administration, and they got a lot more spotlight," Shah told me. "It's not that the last four years, CBP and ICE were told by the Trump administration to do bad things, and then they did that … CBP and ICE did the things that they had been doing, and they were given a longer leash to do them."
Shah and others have argued that the current massive system of immigration detention is unnecessary—that the law allows most detainees, excluding the ones likely to pose a flight risk or a threat to public safety—to be released during their immigration proceedings. The current system is a relatively recent invention, and another course could be chosen.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/190925acluhousejudiciaryicedetentionstatementforrecord.pdf
But just as the detention system has grown, so has the power of those that maintain an interest in that system's expansion. That includes private prison contractors trying to fill beds as the incarcerated population shrinks, unions representing ICE and Border Patrol agents, and the politicians whose constituents are employed in such industries and who benefit from their contributions. For these factions, every immigration problem is a nail, and the solution is always a hammer. Their advocacy has done a great deal to shape a policy conversation where the only proposals taken seriously are those to expand that very system, or to make it more punitive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/prisons-immigration-detention.html
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-union-agreements-biden-policies
https:/www.propublica.org/article/the-fbi-is-investigating-massive-embezzlement-of-border-patrol-union-funds
This logic is not just false; it fails its own premises. The idea that cyclical migration patterns could not be disrupted through brute force was once accepted across the political spectrum. Despite some crucial disagreements, the consensus for how to fix America's immigration problem was once so broad that it included everyone from Karl Rove to Richard Trumka. The general idea was to create legal channels for immigrant labor, and legalize the status of those already here so that they are not exploited and do not unfairly compete against native workers. This would undercut the criminal cartels that profit from human smuggling, by shifting the incentives of their prospective clientele. People who believe they have a good chance to come to this country legally are less likely to risk their lives—or those of their children—with smugglers.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-republican-immigration-dilemma
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna50734045
Stricter enforcement was also a part of this strategy, but over the past decade and a half, it is the only element that has actually been pursued, for both political and structural reasons. Right-wing rebellions against immigration moderates in 2006 and 2013, combined with Trump's rise, have neutralized any political incentive for Republican legislators to support more comprehensive solutions. Contrary to the histrionics of the Ivy League "populists" seeking to follow in Trump's footsteps, corporate America is perfectly content with the status quo, which ensures a frightened and exploitable undocumented workforce. It does not fear a militarized border or strict enforcement, from which it can profit handsomely; it fears workers backed by the protections and solidarity of organized labor.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/19/jd-vance-senate-ohio/
https://www.epi.org/publication/labor-day-2019-immigration-policy/
Solving the border issue solely through punitive measures is popular because it sounds simple and effective. Instead, because it does not work, it simply creates demand for more and harsher border-security measures, which also cannot stem migration. Restrictionist politicians can then run forever on proposing solutions to a dilemma their methods cannot solve, their calls for further brutality only growing louder and more callous as the matter continues to fester. Immigration policy becomes a competition between the parties over which one can be more brutal—terrain on which the party of Trump is eager to fight.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5049707/
"The border will be much more enforceable if there is a new immigration law that is up to date that makes it possible for people to come to the country legally," Meissner told me. "Just responding through border measures is never going to be sufficient."
And yet, the enforcement-only approach is palatable to many Americans in part because of the nature of many news stories about a crisis at the border, which amplify the arguments of immigration restrictionists that America's militarized border enforcement is all that stands between the United States and annihilation.
Conservative media have eagerly seized on the situation at the border, describing it in the same apocalyptic terms that they employed during the Trump administration. The Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused the Biden administration of attempting to "import as many new citizens as we can in the United States to replace all the disobedient ones who didn't vote for us," a PG-13 paraphrase of the racist "white genocide" conspiracy theory. Others on the network sought to blame the small number of migrants being allowed into the country for the rise in COVID-19 infections in states lifting restrictions. Republican gains with Latino voters in Florida and along the Rio Grande Valley in the 2020 elections have yet to dampen the enthusiasm for genetic determinism in right-wing media.
https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/tucker-carlson-immigrants-are-being-brought-new-citizens-replace-disobedient-ones
https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/right-wing-media-recklessly-scapegoat-migrants-border-covid-19-surges
But it would be a mistake to assume that conservative media by itself is driving the conversation. The "border crisis" narrative follows an old and cherished formula that existed long before Trump came on the scene. Media bias is rarely as simple as mere partisanship or ideology—the strongest bias in media is toward there being a story at all. And in the case of immigration, the "border crisis" is the story the media like to tell over, and over, and over, to massive, if unintended, political effect.
In their 2015 book, White Backlash, the political scientists Marisa Abrajano and Zoltan Hajnal found that "positive stories on immigration are relatively rare. Even in the liberal bastion of the New York Times, negative stories on immigration outnumber positive articles by three to one," noting that "immigration coverage may have real, widespread effects because it is so lopsided, and immigration may be shifting white America to the right because that one-sided coverage is so negative." Abrajano and Hajnal are not picking on the Times, but using it as a representative example; their point is that although one outlet "may not be powerful enough to influence the partisan balance of power on its own … the media as a whole appears to be capable of doing just that."
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691176192/white-backlash
Although there were many dedicated immigration reporters at the Times and other outlets who did fantastic work uncovering Trump-era abuses, many others accepted the president's framing. In the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections for example, Trump successfully baited the political press into saturation-level coverage of a supposed crisis posed by a migrant caravan, which abated as soon as the midterms were over. Whatever the intentions of individual reporters or outlets, in the aggregate, Americans are and have been regularly faced with coverage that reinforces false Trumpian rhetoric of an imminent "invasion."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/gop-mid-term-campaign-all-identity-politics/573991/
https://apnews.com/article/38870e6a25d5469292253b4b716ecc17
To the extent that the United States has a border crisis, it is an enduring one: the mistreatment of human beings in American custody. That problem is resolvable, but only by the U.S. meeting its legal obligation to treat migrants humanely. Even the problem of migrant flows can be mitigated by fixing a byzantine and ineffective immigration system, and addressing root causes in migrants' nations of origin. But if the "border crisis" is the American government's failure to be as cruel as possible, there is no solution worth pursuing, and none that would actually work.
______________________________
Lou Williams: Yea, so I thought about retiring yesterday. You give so much to an organization and you wake up and boom, it's no more. Then in true clipper nation fashion I was reminded that my talent and contribution was appreciated and It made me reflect on what's to come. There's plenty left in my tank and I'm privileged to continue my career in my backyard. LA, thank you. Love you. Appreciate you. Great times and memories!!! ATL, LouWillVille. Mr. Williams, welcome home. 🙏🏾
https://www.instagram.com/p/CM4_JVsh7MD/
Saddened this week by deaths of "Naked City" alumni George Segal & Jessica Walter. But Nehemiah Persoff, who was in 7 episodes, is still going strong & will turn 102 in August.
Jacob Blake, the Black man who was paralyzed after he was shot in the back by a white police officer in Wisconsin, has filed a civil lawsuit accusing the officer of excessive force.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2021/3/25/22351565/jacob-blake-lawsuit-kenosha-police-officer
Louvre museum makes its entire collection available online
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/
President Biden responds to Georgia's restrictive voting law: "This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act. I once again urge Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act"
_______________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/26/statement-by-president-biden-on-the-attack-on-the-right-to-vote-in-georgia/
Statement by President Biden on the Attack on the Right to Vote in Georgia
March 26, 2021 • Speeches and Remarks
More Americans voted in the 2020 elections than any election in our nation's history. In Georgia we saw this most historic demonstration of the power of the vote twice – in November and then again in the runoff election for the U.S. Senate seats in January. Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process.
Yet instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience. Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can't cast their vote after their shift is over. It adds rigid restrictions on casting absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters. And it makes it a crime to provide water to voters while they wait in line – lines Republican officials themselves have created by reducing the number of polling sites across the state, disproportionately in Black neighborhoods.
This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act. I once again urge Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to make it easier for all eligible Americans access the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred right to vote.
And I will take my case to the American people – including Republicans who joined the broadest coalition of voters ever in this past election to put country before party.
If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.
###
_______________________________
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/26/expanding-voting-is-not-simply-political-inverse-limiting-voting/
Expanding voting is not simply the political inverse of limiting voting
By Philip Bump
March 26, 2021 at 2:42 p.m. EDT
In many ways, the debate over access to casting a ballot in the United States is more complicated than it needs to be. It can be distilled at its most basic to one question: How much do you care about getting as many people as possible who are eligible to vote to actually do so?
Some people are straightforward, arguing that not everyone who can vote should. Arizona state Rep. John Kavanagh (R) took that position when speaking to CNN earlier this month, saying that "everybody shouldn't be voting." It is fine not to encourage turnout from those who are "totally uninformed on the issues," he said, though polling shows that it's often Republicans who are uninformed or misinformed about key political issues.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/11/how-tell-if-you-are-casting-quality-vote/
Others express the same sentiment in other ways, from saying that only those who own property should vote to delineating more nuanced boundaries for participation. There are those who believe that every adult citizen should have the franchise and there are those who think that there are necessary boundaries, like prohibitions for those with criminal convictions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/28/steve-bannon-once-suggested-only-property-owners-should-vote-what-would-that-look-like/
These days, it's rarely the case that discussions of voting access involve explicitly stated opposition to large demographic groups voting. They used to, of course. A century ago — well, 60 years ago — Black Americans were barred from voting through often-indirect mechanisms. The effort to tamp down on Black voting was rationalized and manifested in a variety of ways but it is impossible to extricate race from those efforts. Whites were worried about Black Americans exercising their right as surely as they were worried about where Black people sat in theaters and so the White establishment came up with ways to prevent them from voting because they were Black.
Such considerations are not now manifested so concretely when they exist. Part of that is a function of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislation that forced race into the background of efforts to control who cast votes. Those seeking to limit Black power in the South began responding to more subtle cues offered by the Republican Party. The deepest divide in America these days is the partisan one, according to Pew Research Center polling — but that partisan divide is itself to some degree a representation of the country's racial divide. If you were to want to limit the number of people who vote for Democrats, it's often easier to target groups that vote heavily Democratic, like Black Americans.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/12/19/the-starkest-divide-americans-see-isnt-black-white-its-red-blue/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/18/democratic-party-was-more-racially-diverse-1996-than-republican-party-is-today/
Now the original question — how much you care about getting as many people as possible who are eligible to vote to actually do so — takes on a new timbre. If you ostensibly want as many people (including Black people and Democrats) to vote as possible but you are concerned about the practical effect of having that happen, you need to figure out how to rationalize limiting their ability to vote while still publicly endorsing the idea that everyone who wants to vote can.
All of which brings me, slowly but surely, to one of the most ridiculous sentence pairings I've read in years.
"Both parties are trying to game the election rules to their advantage," the subheadline for an article at the National Journal reads. "But the Democratic effort in the House is being hailed as a reform, while Republican efforts are slammed as voter suppression."
https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/713017/power-politics-couched-in-the-language-of-reform/
Consider that framing in the context of our original question: how many of those who are eligible should be encouraged to vote.
The Democratic effort at issue, a bill identified as H.R. 1, is predicated on the idea that the answer should be "as many as possible." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) describes the bill is being "about ensuring that Democrats remain in power and control for the next 100 years," which is revealing. His concern, like the concerns of so many Republicans, is that expanding systems for people to vote will lead to more Democratic electoral victories. Cruz, again like many Republicans, frames his objections in the context of purported voter fraud, a claim bullhorned into the political conversation by Donald Trump last year as he fretted (correctly, it turns out) about his reelection chances. But there has never been any evidence of widespread voter fraud and there remains no credible evidence of rampant fraud in last year's election.
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=5707
Fraud is the primary assertion being used to rationalize the limits Republicans seek.
Purported fraud is also the focal point of much of the second part of that National Journal descriptor. The "Republican efforts" being "slammed" as suppression are the more than 250 pieces of legislation that have been introduced in recent months, most of which are aimed at scaling back voting time periods, systems and eligibility. They're being "slammed" as suppressive because many are suppressive, definitionally. The laws will scale back early voting hours, or introduce new mandates for submitting a ballot by mail, or change oversight of elections or remove voting systems. Advocates have often positioned these changes as necessary for a variety of reasons that aren't always centered on this idea that fraud is a rampant problem, which it isn't. But the effect is the same: limiting the ways in which people can vote will unquestionably limit how many people vote.
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/voting-reform/state-voting-laws
That's not a popular position to hold. That's why the fraud claims are particularly useful, as they were for Cruz: he can object to an effort which will mean more people voting (which may mean more Democrats voting) by claiming that he's mostly just worried about more people voting illegally, something which doesn't happen to any significant degree even in places with liberal voting laws. It's like objecting to your husband buying the house where he lived with his first girlfriend by insisting that you're just worried that it's haunted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minuscule-number-of-potentially-fraudulent-ballots-in-states-with-universal-mail-voting-undercuts-trump-claims-about-election-risks/2020/06/08/1e78aa26-a5c5-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html
Others take a different tack in trying to juxtapose the Republican efforts to constrain voting with the Democratic effort to expand it. For the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove argued that Democrats should object to existing laws in blue states as ferociously as they do to proposed laws in red ones that would have the same effect, an argument that would likely generate a uniform response from many on the left: "Okay!"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/blue-state-voter-suppression-11616624579
And then there's the argument in that National Journal piece by Josh Kraushaar, that the parties are similarly trying to "game the election rules to their advantage."
It is true that increases in turnout among low-propensity voters would aid Democrats in many places. It is also true that Democrats are aware of this. But there is nonetheless a distinction between "trying to get more people to vote" and "trying to get fewer people to vote" which intertwines with our original question. Maybe Democrats are only trying to encourage more voting because they think it will lead to their winning more elections. But isn't having as many eligible people vote as possible a central tenet of democracy?
Kraushaar does a lot of work to equate the Democratic bill with the suppressive Republican proposals. He amplifies arguments that were common among Republicans in October and November, like the need to have elections resolved as close to Election Day as possible. He hand-waves other arguments, as when he asserts that "a month of early voting is excessive." (One argument he offers to justify this position is that important news can break shortly before the election, as though it can't similarly break shortly after and as though voters are incapable of judging the risks here themselves.)
Then there's this, referring to the decision of Republican legislators before the 2020 election not to make the counting of absentee votes easier:
"Republicans in several swing states (namely, Pennsylvania) didn't want an efficient count, the better to sow confusion on Trump's behalf. Thus they blocked early counting of early votes. And Democrats generally opposed absentee ballots coming in on time because procrastinating voters have historically favored their side. It's a bipartisan recipe for chaos."
Whether these things are equivalent, much less a "bipartisan recipe for chaos," you may judge for yourself. But he also frames Democratic support for counting ballots postmarked before Election Day that arrived after the election as being predicated on partisan scheming. If an older Republican put her ballot in the mail a week before the election but it arrived only the day after, that vote should simply be discarded even as votes cast on Election Day itself — six days after that Republican cast her vote — are counted? Thinking that's bizarre marks me as a Democratic apologist?
It's critical that the ballot arrive by Election Day, Kraushaar claims, because it's otherwise "difficult for even the most knowledgeable political observers to break down the election tallies on Election Night."
Oh.
We again return to our original question. How much do you care about getting as many people as possible who are eligible to vote to actually do so? If your answer is that you care about your party's voters being able to vote and no one else, we might praise your honesty, if not your commitment to democracy. If your answer is that rampant fraud necessitates tight controls on voting, we regret to inform you that you've been snookered by dishonest presentations of the risk such activity actually poses.
If your answer is that people who are eligible to vote should be given more opportunities to do so, opportunities that accommodate those who vote rarely or who work late hours or who move regularly, we have bad news for you: You are necessarily a rabid Democratic partisan.
Sorry. Those are the rules.
_______________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/statement-from-the-president-on-passover/
Statement from the President on Passover
March 26, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Jill and I send our best wishes to everyone celebrating Passover in the United States, the State of Israel, and around the world.
At its heart, the Passover story is one of overcoming adversity and finding hope, of summoning the resilience and resolve to emerge from a long dark night to a brighter morning.
It's a story of recognition that our own rights are bound up with the rights of our neighbors, and that none of us is free until all of us are free.
It's a story of faith, a reminder that even in the face of oppression, there is reason for hope.
Though this celebration is Jewish, its message is universal. This year, it resonates anew for a generation that has seen a terrible virus leave empty chairs at too many of our nation's tables, one that knows the oppression and injustice of our world all too well.
This year, we need the Passover story and the hope it provides more than ever.
As we close our Seders with the familiar refrain, "Next year in Jerusalem," we will now offer an additional prayer: Next year in person. Next year, together.
###
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Bernie Sanders aims to lower Medicare eligibility age as part of Democrats' recovery plan
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/26/bernie-sanders-aims-to-lower-medicare-eligibility-age-in-recovery-bill.html
Russian hackers launched a cyberattack against dozens of German policymakers. The hackers are believed to be linked to Russia's intelligence service. The attackers targeted at least seven members of Germany's federal parliament and another 31 state legislators
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-backed-hackers-target-german-legislators-report/a-57018097
Deadly tornadoes cut path of destruction across Alabama, Georgia
https://www.accuweather.com/en/severe-weather/supercell-alabama-spawns-deadly-long-tracking-tornado/921705
_________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-invites-40-world-leaders-to-leaders-summit-on-climate/
President Biden Invites 40 World Leaders to Leaders Summit on Climate
March 26, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, President Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Leaders Summit on Climate he will host on April 22 and 23. The virtual Leaders Summit will be live streamed for public viewing.
President Biden took action his first day in office to return the United States to the Paris Agreement. Days later, on January 27, he announced that he would soon convene a leaders summit to galvanize efforts by the major economies to tackle the climate crisis.
The Leaders Summit on Climate will underscore the urgency – and the economic benefits – of stronger climate action. It will be a key milestone on the road to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow.
In recent years, scientists have underscored the need to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. A key goal of both the Leaders Summit and COP26 will be to catalyze efforts that keep that 1.5-degree goal within reach. The Summit will also highlight examples of how enhanced climate ambition will create good paying jobs, advance innovative technologies, and help vulnerable countries adapt to climate impacts.
By the time of the Summit, the United States will announce an ambitious 2030 emissions target as its new Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement. In his invitation, the President urged leaders to use the Summit as an opportunity to outline how their countries also will contribute to stronger climate ambition.
The Summit will reconvene the U.S.-led Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which brings together 17 countries responsible for approximately 80 percent of global emissions and global GDP. The President also invited the heads of other countries that are demonstrating strong climate leadership, are especially vulnerable to climate impacts, or are charting innovative pathways to a net-zero economy. A small number of business and civil society leaders will also participate in the Summit.
Key themes of the Summit will include:
- Galvanizing efforts by the world's major economies to reduce emissions during this critical decade to keep a limit to warming of 1.5 degree Celsius within reach.
- Mobilizing public and private sector finance to drive the net-zero transition and to help vulnerable countries cope with climate impacts.
- The economic benefits of climate action, with a strong emphasis on job creation, and the importance of ensuring all communities and workers benefit from the transition to a new clean energy economy.
- Spurring transformational technologies that can help reduce emissions and adapt to climate change, while also creating enormous new economic opportunities and building the industries of the future.
- Showcasing subnational and non-state actors that are committed to green recovery and an equitable vision for limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, and are working closely with national governments to advance ambition and resilience.
- Discussing opportunities to strengthen capacity to protect lives and livelihoods from the impacts of climate change, address the global security challenges posed by climate change and the impact on readiness, and address the role of nature-based solutions in achieving net zero by 2050 goals.
Further details on the Summit agenda, additional participants, media access, and public viewing will be provided in the coming weeks.
The President invited the following leaders to participate in the Summit:
- Prime Minister Gaston Browne, Antigua and Barbuda
- President Alberto Fernandez, Argentina
- Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia
- Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh
- Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, Bhutan
- President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada
- President Sebastián Piñera, Chile
- President Xi Jinping, People's Republic of China
- President Iván Duque Márquez, Colombia
- President Félix Tshisekedi, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Denmark
- President Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission
- President Charles Michel, European Council
- President Emmanuel Macron, France
- President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Gabon
- Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India
- President Joko Widodo, Indonesia
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel
- Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Italy
- Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Jamaica
- Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Japan
- President Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya
- President David Kabua, Republic of the Marshall Islands
- President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico
- Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand
- President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria
- Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Norway
- President Andrzej Duda, Poland
- President Moon Jae-in, Republic of Korea
- President Vladimir Putin, The Russian Federation
- King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
- Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore
- President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa
- Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Spain
- President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey
- President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates
- Prime Minister Boris Johnson, United Kingdom
- President Nguyễn Phú Trọng, Vietnam
_________________________________
Dawnzer Lee Light. RIP. Cherished children's book author Beverly Cleary passed away yesterday, March 25, at 104 years old | Suzanne Murphy, President and Publisher, HarperCollins Children's Books shared: "We are saddened by the passing of Beverly Cleary, one of the most beloved children's authors of all time. Looking back, she'd often say, 'I've had a lucky life,' and generations of children count themselves lucky too—lucky to have the very real characters Beverly Cleary created, including Henry Huggins, Ramona and Beezus Quimby, and Ralph S. Mouse, as true friends who helped shape their growing-up years. We at HarperCollins also feel extremely lucky to have worked with Beverly Cleary and to have enjoyed her sparkling wit. Her timeless books are an affirmation of her everlasting connection to the pleasures, challenges, and triumphs that are part of every childhood." | As she recounts in her autobiography A Girl from Yamhill, she had a breakthrough one rainy Sunday afternoon: The outside world drizzled, the inside world was heavy with the smell of pot roast and my father's Sunday after-dinner cigar, and I was so bored I picked up The Dutch Twins to look at the pictures. Suddenly I was reading and enjoying what I read! It was a miracle. I was happy in a way I had not been happy since starting school. | Mrs. Cleary has also been honored with the American Library Association's 1975 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, the Catholic Library Association's 1980 Regina Medal, and the University of Southern Mississippi's 1982 Silver Medallion, all presented in recognition of her lasting contribution to children's literature. In addition, Mrs. Cleary was the 1984 United States author nominee for the prestigious international Hans Christian Andersen Award. In 2000, to honor her invaluable contributions to children's literature, Beverly Cleary was named a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress; in addition, she was awarded the 2003 National Medal of Art from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2009 her ever-popular Ramona series was made into a movie, Ramona and Beezus, and in 2010 she received the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award, marking the first time this honor has gone to an author of books for children. | Her books have sold more than 85 million copies and have been translated into twenty-nine different languages, which speaks to the worldwide reach and love of her stories.
https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/press-releases/harpercollins-mourns-the-loss-of-beloved-children-s-book-author-beverly-cleary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Cleary
While in college, Cleary worked odd jobs to pay her tuition, including working as a seamstress and a chambermaid.[19] In 1939, she graduated from the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Washington with a master's degree in library science[20] and accepted a year-long position as a children's librarian in Yakima, Washington. Her parents disapproved of her relationship with Cleary, a Roman Catholic, so the couple eloped and were married in 1940.[18][21] After World War II, they settled in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.[21][22] After her graduation from the University of Washington in 1939, she served as a children's librarian in Yakima, Washington, and then as the post librarian at the U.S. Army Hospital in Oakland, California. In 1942, she began working as a full-time writer for children.[23] As a children's librarian, Cleary empathized with her young patrons, who had difficulty finding books with characters they could identify with,[12] and she struggled to find enough books to suggest that would appeal to them.[11] After a few years of making recommendations and performing live storytelling in her role as librarian, Cleary decided to start writing children's books about characters that young readers could relate to.[24] Cleary has said, "I believe in that 'missionary spirit' among children's librarians. Kids deserve books of literary quality, and librarians are so important in encouraging them to read and selecting books that are appropriate."[16][20] Cleary's first book, Henry Huggins (1950), was accepted for immediate publication and was the first in a series of fictional chapter books about Henry, his dog Ribsy, his neighborhood friend Beezus and her little sister Ramona.[14] Like many of her later works, Henry Huggins is a novel about people living ordinary lives and is based on Cleary's own childhood experiences, the kids in her neighborhood growing up, as well as children she met while working as a librarian.[12][16]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Cleary
Pat Pflieger, professor of children's literature at West Chester University, commented: "Cleary's books have lasted because she understands her audience. She knows they're sometimes confused or frightened by the world around them, and that they feel deeply about things that adults can dismiss."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Cleary
The chief operating officer of a Chicago hospital has resigned amid reports that he gave COVID vaccines meant for low-income residents to employees at Trump's Chicago tower. The hospital's chief operating officer owns a $2.7 million condo in the Trump Chicago tower.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-vaccines-chicago/2021/03/24/3c9dc208-88c7-11eb-bfdf-4d36dab83a6d_story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_McMurtry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Bell_(third_baseman)
57 years ago today.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1375559518134894599
https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1375559518134894599
Dems are still pursuing a 1/6 commission, but privately lawmakers and aides say the new joint House probe is clearest sign yet that an agreement may not be possible.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/politics/capitol-riot-investigation-congress-democrats/index.html
Missourians have driven hours to find vaccines in rural counties — at least those with cars and the time. Tens of thousands of doses are waiting to be distributed, slowly being rolled out in a federal long-term care program. Waitlists are hundreds of thousands of people long. Black residents are getting left behind.
https://khn.org/news/article/missouri-public-health-defunding-vaccination-chaos/
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) gets a little nostalgic when talking about how Mexican meth has overtaken homemade Montana meth. Is he ... stumping for home-grown meth???
https://twitter.com/i/status/1375546495454343171
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1375546495454343171
On Ethiopia, "The crisis is just so horrific, from the humanitarian and human rights side, and the sexual violence off the charts—it's hard not to pay attention." Eritrea Withdraws From Ethiopia's Restive Tigray Region. The move could mark a turn in the nearly five-month conflict, or simply a tactical retreat in the face of international pressure.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/eritrea-withdraws-from-ethiopias-restive-tigray-region-11616789855
Ironic that in Georgia, the global headquarters of Coca-Cola, it is now against the law to give a Coke - or a Dasani - to someone waiting in line to vote.
In 1998, Gary Trent Sr. was traded from the Blazers to the Raptors 41 games into his 3rd NBA season. 23 years later, Gary Trent Jr. gets traded from Portland to Toronto 41 games into his 3rd NBA season.
Memphis has waived center Gorgui Dieng
https://twitter.com/shamscharania/status/1375553946614431745
The American Rescue Plan makes the single biggest investment in childcare since World War Two. This is hopefully going to help bring more women back into the workforce and address what the Vice President and the President have both called a crisis. It increases the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $3,000 per child and $3,600 for children under the age of six. It also gives families an additional tax credit to help out childcare costs for children younger than 13.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, first, let me convey the President has not made a decision at this point. As he said yesterday, it would be tough to meet the May 1st deadline for full withdrawal for logistical reasons. That's consistent what — with what Secretary of State Tony Blinken also said in Brussels earlier this week. Any withdrawal plan will be informed by consultation with key leaders within the administration and the thinking of our partners and allies, which is, of course, what our Secretary of State is working on doing. Our commitment is to bringing a responsible end to the conflict, removing our troops from harm's way, ensuring that Afghanistan can never again become a haven for terrorists that would threaten the United States or any of our allies. But right now, we're consulting with our allies and partners, and the President has not yet made a decision.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
Q And, separately, on North Korea, when do you expect your review of that policy to be completed?
MS. PSAKI: Well, we are in the final stages of our intensive multi-stakeholder North Korea policy review. And we're, of course, discussing our review with national security advisors of South Korea and Japan at our trilateral dialogue coming up next week. And those consultations are an important part of our review process.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
Q And then, last one on the forced labor in Xinjiang, in China. Some companies have come under pressure from the Chinese government, and some retailers have actually dropped pledges not to use products made with forced labor from that region. So, you know, what is the U.S. doing to stop or deter China from making those kind of threats against companies that have resulted in this problem?
MS. PSAKI: Well, we certainly have been watching this issue closely, as you well know, and we've taken our own strong actions in order to prevent China from profiting off of its horrific human rights abuses in Xinjiang and to stop imports of products made with forced labor in China. American consumers and consumers everywhere deserve to know that their goods are — that the goods they are buying are not made with forced labor, and many companies are standing up for consumers' rights. The international community, in our view, should oppose China's weaponizing of private companies' dependence on its markets to stifle free expression and inhibit ethical business practices. So it is something we are watching closely. We've, of course, taken our own action. I would expect that State and Commerce will have more to say on this later today.
Q And just one quick follow-up, though. It's — because it seems like you've been having this message out there for the first couple months of this administration, but it's — China only seems more emboldened to threaten these companies. So what more can be done from the White House to try to deter them from making these threats?
MS. PSAKI: Well, we can work with our international partners, obviously, as I conveyed, on how we're going to push back on China's efforts to weaponize private companies. And we can convey publicly, as we are now, and of course engage with private sector entities about these efforts. But a lot of that action would happen from Commerce and, in some cases, the State Department. And again, I expect they'll have more specifics to say later today on this.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
MS. PSAKI: I can't give you an exact timeframe, in part because they have to go through a review process, which is something that we do from here. You know, I will note that, you know, when we — when the President was the Vice President in the Obama-Biden administration, he helped put in place 23 executive actions to combat gun violence. It's one of the levers that we can use — that any federal government, any President can use to help address the prevalence of gun violence and address community safety around the country. At the same time, he continues to believe that there is an opportunity to engage with Congress. There are two background bill — background check bills that are — have been proposed, have been introduced, have been working their way through. There have also been legislation introduced to ban an assault weapon — ban assault weapons. But he also believes that there is an opportunity — and sometimes that the best path forward is working through states. And there has been progress made. We've seen over the last several years: 20 states now have extended background checks, 19 states have red flag laws, 7 states now have assault weapons bans. We know they work. And so we have to address this epidemic, address the threat of gun violence across many avenues. And he will — he's committed to doing that.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
Q And a follow on that, there are some concerns on the right that if you get rid of the filibuster, it effectively means one-party rule. So is that what the President was getting at when he was asked about 2024 and he said, "I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party."
MS. PSAKI: Well, that certainly wasn't what he was getting at, given, as part of his answer, he conveyed that his objective and his hope is to work with Republicans. He wants to get work done for the American people. He wants to put in place solutions, put people back to work, get the pandemic under control, make voting easier and more accessible. And it's really on Republicans in Congress to decide if they're going to be part of the solution or if they're going to be part of obstruction. So he's leaving it up to them to make the decision on what role they want to play in history.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
MS. PSAKI: And tens of thousands of people are coming to our border. We know that. And so the majority of adults are being turned away. Our policy remains the same: We are implementing Section [Title] 42. As the President touched on and I touched on a little bit earlier this week, we — there are capacity issues in Mexico which we are in discussions with them about addressing. And they are not in a position to accept and take the families that they have in the past. So that's part of the diplomatic discussions that we're having.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
Q Okay, and just one more about yesterday. We noticed, starting at the end of the campaign and then into the transition and here at the White House, anytime that the President has an event where he's given a list of reporters to call on, Fox is the only member of the five-network TV pool that has never been on the list in front of the President. And I'm just curious if that is an official administration policy.
MS. PSAKI: We're here having a conversation, aren't we?
Q Yes, but the President —
MS. PSAKI: And do I take questions from you every time you come to the briefing room?
Q Yes, but I'm talking about the President.
MS. PSAKI: Has the President taken questions from you since you came in — since you — since he came into office?
Q Unfortunately —
MS. PSAKI: Yes or no?
Q — only when I have shouted after he goes through his whole list. And the President has been very generous with his time with Fox. I'm just curious about this list that he is given.
MS. PSAKI: So —
Q The only member of the five-network pool never on it, dating back to when he resumed in-person events in Wilmington during the end of the campaign.
MS. PSAKI: Well I would say that I'm always happy to have this conversation with you, even about your awesome socks you're having on today — you're wearing today — and have a conversation with you even when we disagree. The President has taken your questions. And I'm looking forward to doing Fox News Sunday this Sunday for the third time in the last few months.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, first, actually, 76 percent of schools are — do have teaching, do have kids in the classroom for part of the week; and about 46 percent are back five days a week. And we expect that to continue to increase over time.
Q Right, but the President said, "the majority." He wants the majority to be back —
MS. PSAKI: Right, by day 100. And we're on —
Q — five days a week. Yes. Right.
MS. PSAKI: — track to meet that objective. I will say that we took a step, in this administration, to prioritize teachers through our pharmacy program. We — that program is working; it's effective. Teachers can go. They are prioritized at pharmacies. It's something we had the power to take and implement, even without — even — and we feel it's very much in line with the CDC guidelines because it is one of the mitigation steps. And it's a step we had the power to take and put into place. We actually don't see an issue coming up with schools not reopening. They are reopening. More are reopening every single week. And we certainly feel we're on track to meet our goal.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, first, the President understands their frustration, and he understands it as one of the few people in government who ever beat the NRA twice by leading the fight to pass the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban. He understands it as a person who led the effort of President Obama's request to strengthen gun measures after Sandy Hook and when that was voted down. Helped put in place 23 executive actions to combat gun violence. You'll see more executive action, as Josh and others were asking about — and that review is underway — and more efforts by him and the administration to move forward in the weeks ahead, whether that is on legislation; supporting efforts that are happening in states, which we have seen is very effective and impactful and largely due to the advocacy and activism of a lot of these groups. But, you know, we would say that the frustration should be vented at the members of the House and Senate who voted against the measures the President supports. And we'd certainly support their advocacy in that regard.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, the President was making the point that we have seen increases at the border: in 2014, when he was the Vice President; 2018 and 2019. And he conveyed that, over the last six months of the Trump administration, there was an increase of about 31 percent. We've seen an increase of about 29 percent over the last several months since he took office. So, the point is, we've dealt with this before. It is often seasonal. It is often cyclical. And he just wanted to convey that in his effort to communicate and be — provide educational information to the public. But that doesn't change the fact that he is addressing this by putting forward every resource at our disposal in the administration. Just in this past week, we've taken steps to bring a number of new facilities online, from Fort Bliss, where there are 5,000 beds; to Lackland Air Force Base, where there are 350 beds; San Diego Convention Center, 1,400 beds. These three sites alone provide, at peak capacity, an additional sixty — 6,750 beds. One of our biggest issues, as we've talked about before, is moving these kids out of the Border Patrol facilities into the shelters. And we need to have places that are safe, that have educational resources, health resources, mental health resources, legal resources. This is a step toward doing that. The other piece where he has been very focused, as we all have been, is on expediting processing at the border. And earlier this week, the Office of Refugee Resettlement also instituted a revised policy for certain children who have a parent or legal guardian in the United States. This will add more capacity and more swiftly unite kids with relatives and sponsors. So, of course, there should be a difference if it's a direct family member — a mother or father — and a different kind of adult. Right? So there are steps we are taking to try to expedite even the processing. So, our focus is on actions and solutions. We certainly know this is a challenge. It's something he is briefed on regularly and has — is pushing his team to take more rapid action.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
Q And then, if I could just follow up on something: You mentioned Title 42, which closes the border to nonessential travel. Several — before President Biden was President, several lawmakers, including then-Senator Harris, now Vice President obviously, called it an unconstitutional "executive power grab" that had "no known precedent or clear legal rationale." Why is that still something that is — that he has not rescinded? What is — is he reviewing that? What is the situation there? He clearly doesn't agree with the Vice President on that.
MS. PSAKI: It's in place for public health reasons, given we're in the midst of a pandemic. And that's why it's in place.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
Q Okay. And the other question is: When children arrive at the border — migrant children arrive — and they're not with their biological parents or with their aunts, uncles, grandparents, they are sometimes separated from them and they become an unaccompanied minor at that point. Is the administration looking at changing that policy to let (inaudible) stay together when they're not a biological parent?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I think that there are steps that are taken to ensure, because there has been a history of child trafficking — right? — and we want to prevent that from being a risk that is children are — that is posed to children. I'm not aware of any consideration of changes. I'm happy to check and see if there's anything underway.
Q This obviously would decrease the number of unaccompanied minors if they can stay with an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent.
MS. PSAKI: That certainly is true, but I think you have to — we have to ensure that individuals are vetted, that they are who they say they are. And there have unfortunately been cases in the past where that has not been the scenario, so we are mindful of that as well.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
Q Thank you, Jen. Has the President been briefed or seen the images of migrants that have passed away at the border in the past couple of days, including a nine-year-old girl? And does he have any response to that?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say this is — he's regularly briefed by his immigration team and kept abreast of all developments at the border. I would say that those images are a reminder of how dangerous this journey is and why this is not the time to come. And it's just — is a reminder of how important it is that we work together. This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue where we're talking about people's lives, children's lives. And we're focused on working with anyone who wants to be part of a solution to address the challenges we're facing.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/03/26/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-march-26-2021/
In its first three days of operation, 72 percent of the people who received Covid-19 shots from a federally run vaccination center at Detroit's Ford Field were white, an almost mirror reversal of the city's racial demographics.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/vaccine-data-suggests-biden-equity-goal-remains-elusive-n1262226
Democrats had 76 of 96 Senators at start of 1937. Even then, with real control, FDR gave up on court packing and the New Deal slowed down. Biden lives on Planet Earth and knows what presidents can and can't get.
Larry McMurtry, Novelist of the American West, Dies at 84. In "Lonesome Dove," "The Last Picture Show" and dozens more novels and screenplays, he offered unromantic depictions of a long mythologized region.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/books/larry-mcmurtry-dead.html
Coal company Teck fined $60M for contaminating B.C. rivers
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/teck-fined-60m-contaminating-bc-rivers-1.5965646
Norman Powell with his first bucket as a Trail BlazerHighlight
https://streamable.com/vng40g
Isiah Stewart elbows Blake Griffin in the jaw, gets ejected
https://streamable.com/82n0g0
Jayson Tatum hits the jumper over Giannis
https://streamable.com/i1stff
Harden with the oop to Blake Griffin, who throws it down against his former team
https://streamable.com/8rezko
Giannis at half-time: 4 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists, on 1/7 FG, 0/2 3PT, 2/4 FT in 15:57 minutes
Khris Middleton drains the khold blooded three in front of Brown
https://streamable.com/qhnrb8
Robert Timel-rd Williams at the half in his first start of the season: 0 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, 4 blocks in 16 minutes.
In 9 minutes of playing time with 2 whole quarters of play left Malik Monk has 21 Points against the Heat.
The company that owns the giant container ship stuck sideways across the Suez Canal said an attempt will be made to refloat the vessel by taking advantage of tidal action on Saturday. The clogged canal has caused a 200-ship traffic jam.
https://apnews.com/article/egypt-africa-red-sea-shipping-suez-canal-b96a9007a57d3c54439a4ecd967cb545
Mymanmar military mass murdering protestors
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics/at-least-50-protesters-killed-in-myanmar-on-day-of-shame-for-armed-forces-idUSKBN2BJ01O
Four Ukrainian troops are killed and two others are wounded in a Russian militant rocket attack
https://www.euronews.com/2021/03/26/kyiv-says-four-soldiers-killed-in-a-bombing-in-eastern-ukraine
U.S. trade chief readies tariffs against six countries over digital taxes
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-digital/u-s-trade-chief-readies-tariffs-against-six-countries-over-digital-taxes-idUSKBN2BI31K
More than 180 people are trapped inside hotel in northern Mozambique, under siege by Islamic terrorists
https://m.dw.com/en/multiple-people-trapped-in-mozambique-hotel-after-militant-attack/a-57022393
Jokic with the spin and a flash Euro that causes two Pelican defenders to collide, as he gets to the rack and puts the Nuggets up 3
https://streamable.com/theo0v
Zion Williamson Tonight: 39/10/5 on 16/19 shooting, 1/1 from three and 6/7 from the line
The Minnesota Timberwolves end the game on a 22-0 run to defeat the Houston Rockets by 6 points
James Harden Tonight: 44/14/8 on 14/30 shooting, 4/11 from three and 12/14 from the line
Here comes John Wall
https://streamable.com/8krziq
Ja Morant channels his name inner Jordan for the master adjustement over Gobert
https://streamable.com/gl43m5
Down 2 with 90 seconds left, Siakam tries to drive by Ayton, but gets stuffed
https://streamable.com/a9qbsz
The Boston Celtics (22-23) defeat the Milwaukee Bucks (29-15), 122 - 114
The Charlotte Hornets (23-21) defeat the Miami Heat (22-24), 110 - 105 behind 32 points (12/17 FG, 5/9 3P) from Malik Monk and 26/5/11 from Terry Rozier
Jayson Tatum Tonight: 34/6/7 on 13/18 shooting, 4/7 from three and 4/4 from the line
Blake Griffin tonight: 17/3/2/1 on 5/8, 2/2 3PT & 5/6 FT in 20 minutes vs Detroit. +5 for the night
KAT no-look behind-the-head pass to McDaniels for the dunk as part of the Timberwolves 22-0 run
https://streamable.com/f1jog1
Draymond Green checks out of the game with 0 points, 2 rebounds and 9 assists on 0-0fga (0-0 from 3) and 0-0 from the line
Warriors are 3-8 in their last 11 games. just fell to 1-6 without Steph Curry. They're now 22-24, on a steep recent descent. Warriors currently only one game ahead in the loss column of the NOLA, Kings and OKC. . Seven straight quarters of 30+ points against the Warriors defense.
James Wiseman with 18/5 on 7/13 shooting , 4/4 from the free throw line and a steal in 27 minutes in loss vs Hawks
Mo Wagner's face meets Mamadi Diakite's shoulder
https://streamable.com/8tth47
Robert Covington hits Kanter with a perfect pass then slams home McCollum's miss
https://streamable.com/eyz1kr
"Anthony Davis was re-examined by team medical staff earlier this evening. He continues to progress in his recovery and has been cleared to advance his on court work. Additional updates will be given when appropriate."
https://twitter.com/mcten/status/1375622294110932992
If Biden passes his $3 trillion infrastructure plan, it will be hard to attribute this leftward lurch in Democratic policymaking to changes in a balance of power — whether between capital and labor, or the party Establishment and its progressive wing. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/biden-fdr-lbj-transformational-presidency.html
More than 90 killed in Myanmar in one of bloodiest days of protests
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics/more-than-90-killed-in-myanmar-in-one-of-bloodiest-days-of-protests-idUSKBN2BJ01O
China, With $400 Billion Iran Deal, Could Deepen Influence in Mideast | The countries signed a sweeping pact on Saturday that calls for heavy Chinese investments in Iran over 25 years in exchange for oil — a step that could ease Iran's international isolation. | The foreign ministers of the two countries, Javad Zarif and Wang Yi, signed the agreement during a ceremony at the foreign ministry in Tehran on Saturday, according to Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency. That capped a two-day visit by Mr. Wang that reflected China's growing ambition to play a larger role in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades. "For the region to emerge from chaos and enjoy stability, it must break free from the shadows of big-power geopolitical rivalry, stay impervious to external pressure and interference and explore development paths suited to its regional realities," a spokeswoman for China's foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, said on Friday. "It must build a security architecture that accommodates the legitimate concerns of all sides." Iran did not make the details of the agreement public before the signing. But experts said it was largely unchanged from an 18-page draft obtained last year by The New York Times. That draft detailed $400 billion of Chinese investments to be made in dozens of fields, including banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, health care and information technology, over the next 25 years. In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil. The draft also called for deepening military cooperation, including joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence-sharing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/world/middleeast/china-iran-deal.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/world/asia/china-iran-trade-military-deal.html
10 Killed in Protests Against Modi's Visit to Bangladesh
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/world/asia/bangladesh-protests-modi.html
Michigan Republican chair seen on video calling state's female leaders "witches" and joking about murdering them and murdering Congressional Republicans who voted for Trump impeachment
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ron-weiser-michgan-republican-party-chair-comments-video/
Shots Fired at American Center in Myanmar
https://www.newsweek.com/shots-fired-american-center-myanmar-us-embassy-reports-1579238
Kansas Republican State Senate leader charged with DUI, reckless driving, evading police, and driving down the wrong side of the highway
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/kansas-gop-leader-charged-with-dui-and-evading-police-2021-3
Biden's New Foreign Policy Hire Considers Sanctions an Art Form | Richard Nephew, the lead sanctions expert on the Obama State Department's negotiating team for the 2015 nuclear deal, recently joined the Biden administration as deputy Iran envoy. Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, told The Nation that Nephew's hiring "exposes a moral dilemma" for Democrats. Unlike most others in Washington's foreign policy establishment, Nephew has made the rare admission that even targeted sanctions on so-called bad actors destroy economies, hurting civilian populations in the long run. He also takes credit for contributing to shortages in medicine and medical devices in Iran through sanctions he helped design, making these necessities too costly for the average Iranian. In his 2017 book, The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field, Nephew explains how sanctions are meant to inflict pain so intolerable that it forces "the target" to acquiesce to US demands, adding that the casualties and damage of sanctions can be less visible and seem less destructive than those of military conflict. US officials often deny that sanctions hurt civilians like this. In 2019, the special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, blamed the lack of access to medicine and other basic necessities on the Iranian government, claiming these items are exempt from sanctions. While this is technically true, restrictions on financial institutions, combined with the economic problems that lead to the depreciation of currency, ultimately have the same effect. That's what Nephew is counting on. "This no doubt explains part of the attractiveness of sanctions as a tool of force: it is preferable by far for a politician or national security official to accept and defend the loss of 1/4 percent of GDP than it is to accept and defend the loss of a thousand military servicepeople and civilians," he wrote. "And just because the damage wrought by sanctions may be less visible (at least, with some sanctions regimes), it need not be less destructive, particularly for economically vulnerable populations that may be affected."
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/richard-nephew-sanctions/
The Original 20 Guantánamo Detainees: A Roster, and Where They Are Now | Starting with the Bush administration, the United States has gradually transferred all but two of the first 20 prisoners at the wartime detention facility to other nations. Here's who, and where
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/us/politics/guantanamo-bay-detainees-history.html
__________________________________
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/us/politics/guantanamo-bay-detainees-history.html
The Original 20 Guantánamo Detainees: A Roster, and Where They Are Now
Starting with the Bush administration, the United States has gradually transferred all but two of the first 20 prisoners at the wartime detention facility to other nations. Here's who, and where, they are.
By Carol Rosenberg
March 27, 2021Updated 2:37 p.m. ET
Shabidzada Usman Ali, sent to Pakistan in 2003
Mr. Ali, a Pakistani citizen, was among the earliest people repatriated from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, at a time when the main prison facility, Camp Delta, held 680 detainees. The journalist Mark Bowden wrote that he traveled to Pakistan to meet some former Guantánamo prisoners and found Mr. Ali and another detainee, who said they had not been abused in American custody "except for some roughing up immediately after they were captured." Both were in their 20s, he wrote in a later account, from tiny villages in the mountainous region of Pakistan where Al Qaeda and the Taliban hid, and he described them as "hapless young Pakistanis" who were rounded up by "Afghani warlords" for a bounty of $4,000 a head.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/12-shabidzada-usman
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-interrogation/302791/
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/currents/20080921_The_Point__Disturbing_line_Palin_tossed_off_in_address.html
Feroz Abassi, sent to Britain in 2005
Mr. Abassi returned to England, attended university and assumed a new name. He was among a group of former prisoners who received compensation in 2010 from the British government. By 2011, he was divorced, had a son and was working part time for a moving company and for Cage Prisoners, an advocacy group based in Britain for people taken prisoner during the war on terrorism. Friends and lawyers who knew him from his Guantánamo days say he decided not to keep in touch, and he resisted overtures through intermediaries to discuss how he was doing.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/24-feroz-ali-abassi
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/world/europe/17britain.html
Omar Rajab Amin, sent to Kuwait in 2006
Little is known about what became of Mr. Amin since his repatriation. Moazzam Begg, a former detainee who is now a human-rights activist in London, said that he had heard through an intermediary that he "has a happy home and family and is taking it easy." Lawyers who had worked on his case said that, unlike other Kuwaiti detainees, Mr. Amin adopted a low profile. He graduated from the University of Nebraska about a decade before his capture by Pakistani troops along the Afghan border in 2001.
Mohammed al Zayly, sent to Saudi Arabia in 2006
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/65-omar-rajab-amin
The Saudi government sent an aircraft to fetch Mr. Zayly, along with 15 other citizens, from Guantánamo Bay. It was part of a brisk period of transfers under the Bush administration that sent some former detainees to prison, typically for leaving the kingdom without permission, and then to an early rehabilitation program for jihadists. Mr. Zayly spent a year in the rehabilitation program, married and became a father. He now works in the private sector, according to a Saudi official who provided the information on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic in the kingdom. "He lives in Saudi Arabia and has not been implicated in any legal wrongdoing since his release," he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/55-muhammed-yahia-mosin-al-zayla
David Hicks, sent to Australia in 2007
Mr. Hicks was among the best known of the early detainees because he was a Western convert to Islam at Guantánamo. He left the wartime prison after pleading guilty to a terrorism charge, a conviction that was overturned. In 2017, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that Australia violated his rights by imprisoning him for seven months on his return. He spurned efforts to reach him through intermediaries, but people who know him say he still suffers both physical and emotional distress because of his time in Guantánamo and no longer works as a landscape gardener. His last known public sighting was in 2017 entering a courthouse in Adelaide on a domestic violence charge, which was subsequently dropped.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/2-david-hicks
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/us/guantanamo-conviction-of-australian-is-overturned.html
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17053&LangID=E
https://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/david-hicks-makes-bizarre-appearance-outside-adelaide-court/news-story/8e3c3e9b608ddd574edca887bff95043
Fahad Nasser Mohammed, sent to Saudi Arabia in 2007
Mr. Mohammed was sentenced to two years in prison and completed the kingdom's rehabilitation program. He was released in mid-2008 for good behavior, married, had children and found work in the private sector. "He has not been implicated in any legal wrongdoing since his release," a Saudi official said. At the time of his return, it was common practice to imprison and charge former detainees with offenses that included leaving the kingdom without permission and carrying a weapon. From there, the men would be sent to the rehabilitation program.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/13-fahed-nasser-mohamed
https://ctc.usma.edu/the-saudi-process-of-repatriating-and-reintegrating-guantanamo-returnees/
Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, sent to Afghanistan in 2007
Mullah Zakir emerged as a powerful battlefield commander for the Taliban military in southern Afghanistan. At Guantánamo, he was held under an alias, Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, and was also identified as Mullah Abdullah. He was turned over to the Afghan government, which released him, said Bill Roggio, the editor of the Long War Journal, who carefully tracks the Taliban. Mullah Zakir is currently based in Pakistan, between Quetta and Peshawar, where he is associated with a senior Taliban chief, Mullah Muhammad Yaquob, the son of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the reclusive leader who died in 2013, and oversees jihadi troops that are trying to defeat Afghan's unity government. "He's one that shouldn't have been released from Guantánamo," Mr. Roggio said. "He's active to this day."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/8-abdullah-gulam-rasoul
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/world/asia/mullah-omar-taliban-death-reports-prompt-inquiry-by-afghan-government.html
Gholam Ruhani, sent to Afghanistan in 2007
Mr. Ruhani was released in the same transfer as Mullah Zakir, but little else is known about what became of him. "I confirmed with his family that he had indeed returned and was not imprisoned there," said his pro bono lawyer at the time, Rebecca Dick. "But I never spoke directly to him and I don't know what happened to him." Mr. Roggio of the Long War Journal described him as "a ghost" whose whereabouts he could not pinpoint. Mr. Ruhani was captured with his brother-in-law, one of the Taliban's negotiators, after going to what they believed was a negotiated meeting with U.S. forces.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/3-gholam-ruhani
Ibrahim Idris, sent to Sudan in 2013
The Obama administration agreed to repatriate Mr. Idris after, unusually, declining to contest his unlawful detention petition in federal court. He was treated at Guantánamo for schizophrenia and other health problems and later spent time in the psychiatric ward. Once released, he essentially lived as a shut-in, attended to by family in his native Port Sudan, disabled and unable to work. Another former Sudanese prisoner Sami al-Haj said that he suffered from ailments related to his torture at Guantánamo. Other early detainees and F.B.I. witnesses described an early interrogation practice that shackled some prisoners nude inside an over air-conditioned cell, while blaring loud music and flashing strobe lights at them, to gain their cooperation. He died on Feb. 10.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/36-ibrahim-othman-ibrahim-idris
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/ibrahim-idris-dead.html
Mullah Fazel Mazloom, sent to Qatar in 2014
Mullah Mazloom, sometimes identified as Mullah Mohammad Fazl, was among five Taliban members sent to Qatar in exchange for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held prisoner by the militant Haqqani network in the tribal area of Pakistan's northwest frontier. Mullah Mazloom, a former chief of the Taliban Army, is accused of having a role in the massacres of Shiite Hazara in Afghanistan before the United States invasion in 2001, crimes that cannot be tried by a military commission. In Qatar, he has emerged as a member of the Taliban negotiating team devising an agreement to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan and determine a power-sharing settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. He traveled to Pakistan as part of the negotiating team in the summer of 2020, with advance approval of the U.S., Qatari and Pakistani governments.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/7-mullah-mohammad-fazl
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/bowe-bergdahl-american-soldier-is-freed-by-taliban.html
Abdul Haq Wasiq, sent to Qatar in 2014
Mr. Wasiq, a deputy minister of intelligence before his capture in 2001, was also included in the Bergdahl trade and has joined the Taliban's political office in Doha, Qatar. His brother-in-law, Ghulam Ruhani, was repatriated in 2007. Both men were captured after attending a negotiating meeting with U.S. officials. Once transferred to Doha, where he remains, Mr. Wasiq also took part in the talks with the United States, which resulted in the release of more Taliban prisoners held by the Afghanistan government under a deal with the Trump administration that was meant to halt insurgent Taliban attacks on U.S. forces.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/4-abdul-haq-wasiq
Mullah Norullah Noori, sent to Qatar in 2014
Mullah Noori, who was a provincial governor in Afghanistan, has also joined the Taliban's political office in Doha, Qatar. He and the other four Taliban prisoners who were traded for the release of Sergeant Bergdahl live as guests of the Qatari government like many expatriates in Doha. They have been joined by family, send their children to a Pakistani school set up for foreign families, and live on government stipends in a compound. Their ability to travel is regulated by the Qatari government.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/6-mullah-norullah-noori
Abdul Rahman Shalabi, sent to Saudi Arabia in 2015
Mr. Shalabi became one of the best-known Saudi prisoners at Guantánamo because of his long-running hunger strikes, which at times required that he be force fed. After returning to Saudi Arabia in September 2015, he was immediately sent to prison on a three-year sentence that was cut short for "good behavior" and he was released in 2018 after a year or more in a rehabilitation program. He has married and became a father, making good on a wish his lawyer put before the Guantánamo parole board in April 2015 "to settle down, get married and have a family of his own, and put the past behind him."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/42-abdul-rahman-shalabi
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/us/politics/us-repatriates-a-saudi-detainee-from-guantanamo.html
https://www.prs.mil/Portals/60/Documents/ISN042/150421_U_ISN42_PUBLIC_SESSION_PUBLIC.PDF
Ali Ahmad al Rahizi, sent to the United Arab Emirates in 2015
Mr. Rahizi, a Yemeni citizen who the United States concluded could not safely be repatriated, is confined to a cell in the United Arab Emirates, according to activists who have spoken with the families of Yemenis who were sent there for resettlement by the Obama administration. American officials said that the Emirates had agreed to establish a step-down program for detainees who could not go home — moving from prison to a rehabilitation program to jobs in the area, which relies heavily on foreign labor. That never materialized. The Life After Guantánamo project, based in London, describes detention in the Emirates as grim and threatening, in part because the country has considered involuntarily repatriating former prisoners to Yemen, where they would be in danger.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/45-ali-ahmad-muhammad-al-rahizi
Abd al Malik, sent to Montenegro in 2016
Mr. Malik, a Yemeni who went by the name Abdul Malik al Rahabi, is living in Montenegro, where the United States sent him for resettlement, and trying to sell works of art he painted while at Guantánamo. He was joined by his wife and daughter, who found life there socially incompatible, so the family moved to Khartoum, Sudan. But life was difficult there, too, and they returned to Montenegro. Art sales stopped some time ago and Mr. Malik's idea to work as a driver and guide for tourists soured when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/37-abd-al-malik-abd-al-wahab
https://twitter.com/abdalmalik37/status/1232754767287504902?s=20
Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, sent to Oman in 2016
As a Yemeni, Mr. Moqbel was ineligible for repatriation because of the civil war, which made it impossible for the Obama administration to negotiate safe security arrangements. Instead, neighboring Oman agreed to take him, along with 29 other detainees, in one of the most successful resettlement programs. He has found work in a factory, married and is now father to two children, according to the former Guantánamo prisoner Mansour Adayfi, who chronicles life after detention for some former prisoners. As a rule, former detainees in Oman refuse to speak with foreign reporters, apparently at the urging of the host nation.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/43-samir-naji-al-hasan-moqbel
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/style/modern-love-marriage-class-at-guantanamo.html
Mahmoud al Mujahid, sent to the United Arab Emirates in 2016
Mr. Mujahid, a Yemeni, is one of 18 men imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates, which never made good on a deal with the Obama administration to rehabilitate the detainees and find jobs in the country, whose work force is mostly made up of foreigners. Efforts to address the issue mostly stalled during the Trump administration, which dismantled the State Department office that managed Guantánamo transfers. To fill the vacuum, some United Nations experts have expressed concern about the men, particularly over reports that the Emirates planned to repatriate them to Yemen, where the prisoners fear persecution, including death.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/31-mahmoud-abd-al-aziz-abd-al-mujahid
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/10/1075462
Mohammed Abu Ghanem, sent to Saudi Arabia in 2017
Mr. Abu Ghanem, a Yemeni, has a sister who is a naturalized Saudi citizen and sponsored his transfer to Saudi Arabia, where he started off in a rehabilitation program. The Obama administration made similar deals for several Yemeni men with strong family ties to the kingdom. Mr. Abu Ghanem was released a year later, is now married and has a job — something he said he aspired to do in his May 2016 appearance before the Guantánamo parole board. There is no implication of legal wrongdoing on his record, the Saudi official said.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/44-mohammed-rajab-sadiq-abu-ghanim
Ali Hamza al Bahlul, still at Guantánamo
Mr. Bahlul, a Yemeni, was the closest person to the Qaeda inner circle who was taken to Guantánamo on that January flight and is serving life in prison as the only sentenced convict among the 40 detainees there. He was convicted in 2008 of three separate war crimes for serving as Osama bin Laden's public relations director and personal secretary. Since 2011, appellate lawyers, who are paid by the Pentagon, have challenged his case and the legitimacy of the military commissions in the federal courts. They have successfully argued to have two of the three charges dismissed and are still appealing his remaining conviction, for conspiring to commit war crimes.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/39-ali-hamza-ahmad-suliman-al-
Ridah bin Saleh al Yazidi, still at Guantánamo
Mr. Yazidi, a Tunisian, was cleared for transfer in January 2010, but he has not agreed to meet with either Tunisian or U.S. officials to discuss his repatriation. He has not met with a lawyer for years, and it is not known why he has resisted release. A notation in his case file says that in 2002, he was convicted in absentia in Tunisia for being involved in a terrorist organization abroad, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Although the Arab Spring toppled his nation's long-running dictatorship in 2011, the courts from the period remain intact and he could still face punishment on his return.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/38-ridah-bin-saleh-al-yazidi
Carol Rosenberg has been covering the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, including detention operations and military commissions, since the first prisoners were brought there from Afghanistan in January 2002. She worked as a metro, national and foreign correspondent with a focus on coverage of conflict in the Middle East for The Miami Herald from 1990 to 2019. @carolrosenberg • Facebook
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Tonight's Injury Update: Giannis - Left Knee; Sprain (Doubtful) Donte - Left Foot; Plantar fasciitis (Doubtful) Jrue - Left Knee; Contusion (Doubtful) Rodi - Abdominal; Strain (Out) Khris - Left Hip; Contusion (Out) Bobby - Health and Safety (Out) PJ - Left Calf; Strain (Out)
https://twitter.com/bucks/status/1375924571522666500
Free agent LaMarcus Aldridge plans to sign with the Brooklyn Nets even though the Brooklyn Nets' roster is at the limit
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375928130360201226
At least 104 rescued from a hotel in Palma after 3-day siege by ISIS terrorists
https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/mozambique-104-rescued-in-palma-siege-20210327
Venezuelan soldiers killed civilians who fled to Colombia
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-venezuela/venezuelan-soldiers-killed-civilians-refugees-who-fled-to-colombia-say-idUSKBN2BJ0FB
A former president rationalizing political violence. A popular cable news host nodding at fascism. Legislators in Missouri ignoring a statewide referendum. A rollback back of voting access in Georgia. Thursday was not a great day for democracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/26/vivid-reminder-that-threat-american-democracy-remains/
As the Oklahoma City Thunder turn to younger players in the nightly rotation, five-time All-Star center Al Horford will be no longer active for games this season.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1375937862324129792
On Saturday, March 27, 2021, the President signed into law:
H.R. 1651, COVID-19 Bankruptcy Relief Extension Act of 2021.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/legislation/2021/03/27/bill-signing-h-r-1651/
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