"As he ran for president last year, Joseph R. Biden Jr. contorted his campaign to appease both wings of the Democratic Party, trying to excite progressives with an ambitious policy platform while assuring moderates he opposed structural changes to the political process. Now, faced with the realities of governing and dual crises of public health and economic stagnation, Biden is increasingly squeezed by members of his own party who see an inevitable collision course between his deference to Washington norms and his promises of far-reaching change. Some progressive Democrats, who have been keeping their powder dry on Biden since he won the presidency, spoke out in frustration after he staked out two moderate positions at a town hall event in Milwaukee on Tuesday: a willingness to negotiate on the $15 minimum wage he had proposed, and skepticism of a sweeping student loan cancellation program. On Wednesday, after Biden also signaled flexibility on his sweeping immigration plans, activists said that they were willing to let him try for a bipartisan deal, but would not wait forever, and on Friday, it was the Biden administration’s turn to be concerned: Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, one of the most moderate Democrats in Washington, announced that he would oppose the president’s choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget, imperiling the nomination with an act of friendly fire. It is all a sign that the big tent of the Democratic Party is set for a stress test under Biden unlike any it has faced while in power in recent decades...."
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Of course, the Globe is happy it is a new day in DC:
"There is a parallel in the news industry, where reporters covering this new-old version of Washington say they are ready to get back to the type of journalism that does not involve deciphering a human mood ring. CNN and MSNBC, whose journalists and personalities have spent years challenging Trump’s policies, have quietly reduced the number of Trump-focused journalists working on contract in recent months. Trump has, of course, predicted that the political news complex will crumble without him. Members of that complex say they have some room to breathe and, crucially, to plan. Outside the insulated worlds of politics and the news media, there is no normal to return to. Washingtonians who don’t have to hang on the president’s every word are still struggling to adjust to life in a city where the Capitol and the White House have essentially been militarized, and where daily life has been upended by both the coronavirus and civil unrest. Amy Brandwein, a chef and the owner of Centrolina, has watched brunch-goers return to downtown on the weekends, but she and other restaurateurs have struggled for nearly a year to regain the business lost because of the pandemic. She is also afraid that the political turmoil will continue. Brandwein said her plans to install outdoor bubblelike structures to provide a socially distant dining option were delayed because of the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. As Washington staggers to its feet, it is clear that Trump is happy to haunt the dreams of anyone suddenly getting more sleep. He has issued news releases through his post-presidency office whose targets have included not only the entire Democratic Party, but also Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. In the meantime, a battered and bruised capital has adjusted to life at a calmer pace, with quieter activities and words replacing the obscenities, characters, and gibberish that used to shape how the days were spent. Bagels over Bannon. Grandchildren over golf. Church over covfefe....."
It must be nice to sit on your a$$ all day and not have to report on the corruption and filth that emanates from that place.
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Maybe the pwogre$$ives can take him to court:
"Democrats already maneuvering to shape Biden’s first Supreme Court pick" by Jonathan Martin New York Times, February 21, 2021
WASHINGTON — After meeting in the Oval Office earlier this month with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and his fellow senior House Democrats, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina made a beeline to Harris’s office in the West Wing to privately raise a topic that did not come up during their group discussion: the Supreme Court.
Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black American in Congress, wanted to offer Harris the name of a potential future justice, according to a Democrat briefed on their conversation. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs would fulfill Biden’s pledge to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court — and, Clyburn noted, she also happened to hail from South Carolina, a state with political meaning for the president.
There may not be a vacancy on the high court at the moment, but Clyburn and other lawmakers are already maneuvering to champion candidates and a new approach for a nomination that might come as soon as this summer, when some Democrats hope Justice Stephen Breyer, who is 82, will retire. With Democrats holding the narrowest of Senate majorities, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death still painfully fresh in their minds, these party leaders want to shape Biden’s appointment, including moving the party away from the usual Ivy League résumés.
They are trying to push Breyer out the door and into the light.
The early jockeying illustrates how eager Democratic officials are to leave their mark on Biden’s effort to elevate historically underrepresented contenders for a landmark Supreme Court nomination, but it also casts a spotlight on discomfiting issues of class and credentialism in the Democratic Party that have been just below the surface since the days of the Obama administration.
Some Democrats such as Clyburn, who have nervously watched Republicans try to repackage themselves as a working-class party, believe that Biden could send a message about his determination to keep Democrats true to their blue-collar roots by choosing a candidate like Childs, who attended public universities.
“One of the things we have to be very, very careful of as Democrats is being painted with that elitist brush,” said Clyburn.....
Yeah, Childs has a background that differs from most recent nominees and more significant is the matter of timing, and the only reason the Republicans are the party of the eviscerated working cla$$ is because Democrats are full-blown Commies now.
"Biden getting first shot at making mark on federal judiciary" by Mark Sherman The Associated Press, March 6, 2021
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has two seats to fill on the influential appeals court in the nation’s capital that regularly feeds judges to the Supreme Court.
They are among the roughly 10% of federal judgeships that are or will soon be open, giving Biden his first chance to make his mark on the American judiciary.
Barring an improbable expansion of the Supreme Court, Biden won’t be able to do anything about the high court’s entrenched conservative majority any time soon. Justice Clarence Thomas, at 72, is the oldest of the court’s conservatives and the three appointees of former President Donald Trump, ranging in age from 49 to 56, are expected to be on the bench for decades.
Well, if a couple are Scaliaed then you are talking, and they are not as conservative as you think save for Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch.
Democrats traditionally have not made the judiciary a focus, but that is changing after four years of Trump and the vast changes he made. Biden’s appointments are also the only concrete moves he has right now to affect the judiciary at large, though there is talk about expanding the number of judges on lower courts.
Since when?
Every four years they scream about the USSC!
This tent is already starting to stink.
The nearly 90 seats that Biden can fill, which give their occupants life tenure after Senate confirmation, are fewer than former Trump inherited four years ago. That’s because Republicans who controlled the Senate in the final two years of the Obama White House confirmed relatively few judges.
Included in the tally are 10 seats on federal courts of appeals where nearly all appeals, other than the few dozen decided by the Supreme Court each year, come to an end.
One seat is held by Merrick Garland, whose confirmation as attorney general is expected in the coming days. Another longtime judge on the court, David Tatel, has said he is cutting back on his duties, a change that allows Biden to appoint his successor.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Thomas were appellate judges at the courthouse at the bottom of Capitol Hill before they joined the high court atop the Hill.
The late Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg also served on the appeals court, where they first formed their lasting friendship.
Following Scalia's death just over five years ago. President Barack Obama nominated Garland to the Supreme Court, but Senate Republicans didn't give him even a hearing, much less a vote.
When Trump took office in January 2017, he had a high court vacancy to fill. Trump ended up making three Supreme Court appointments to go along with 54 appellate court picks and 174 trial judges, aided by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's determination to, as he put it, “leave no vacancy behind.”
Democrats and their progressive allies say they've learned a lesson or two from the Republicans, and intend to make judicial nominations a greater focus than in past Democratic administrations.
“It’s an exceptional situation where you have a president and the people around him people who really see this as a high priority,” said former Sen. Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who served with Biden in the Senate for 16 years. Feingold now is president of the American Constitution Society.
“I think President Biden knows that a part of his legacy will be undoing the damage done by Trump to the extent possible,” Feingold said.
So far, liberal groups are encouraged by the signals the White House is sending. White House counsel Dana Remus wrote senators in December that recommendations for new judges should come within 45 days of a vacancy.
Biden already has pledged to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court if a seat opens up. Justice Stephen Breyer, 82, is the oldest member of the court and could retire, but he has not announced any plans.
Democrats are in search of several kinds of diversity, following the Trump years in which more than 75 percent of judicial nominees were men and 85 percent were white.
In addition to race and gender, liberal groups are pushing for diversity of experience so that public defenders and public interest lawyers are considered along with big law firm lawyers and prosecutors who have predominated in recent administrations.....
Related:
"The case, the court’s first major encounter with a labor dispute since the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, has the potential to define what union organizers can do on California farms, but it could also have far-reaching consequences beyond such campaigns, including limiting the government’s ability to enter private property to conduct health and safety inspections of facilities like coal mines and pharmaceutical plants and to perform home visits by social workers charged with ensuring child welfare. There are reasons to believe the court will be skeptical of the access regulation. The court has in recent years dealt blows to public unions and limited the ability of workers to band together to take legal action over workplace issues. At the same time, the court has been protective of property rights......"
As they should be; however, the que$tion then becomes who$e property?
"Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued her first signed majority opinion for the Supreme Court on Thursday, siding with the government over an environmental group seeking draft agenda reports about potential harm to endangered species. The 7-to-2 opinion said the US Fish and Wildlife Service did not have to provide the Sierra Club the guidance it gave the Environmental Protection Agency about a proposed rule regarding power plants that use water to cool their equipment. The rest of the court’s conservatives joined Barrett’s opinion, as did liberal Justice Elena Kagan. Liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor issued a mild dissent. It is customary for a new justice to receive a lopsided — if not unanimous — ruling as a first assignment. Barrett’s opinion, assigned by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., was a fact-laden interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act, which provides the public with access to documents used by the government in making decisions, but there are exceptions to the law, and one concerns the “deliberative process privilege.” It protects documents generated during an agency’s deliberations about policy, as opposed to documents that explain the policy the agency adopts....."
So it was a softball thrown to her and not really a win?
"In a ruling that could be a Pyrrhic victory for conservation groups in New England, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday rejected a lawsuit brought by Massachusetts fishermen that challenged president Barack Obama’s creation of a vast marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean, the first of its kind off the East Coast, yet Roberts also raised significant concerns about the size of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a controversial, Connecticut-sized sanctuary that lies about 130 miles southeast of Provincetown. Indeed, the sharply worded decision provided a potential roadmap for a legal challenge against the monument and seemed to signal that the court would be willing to consider truncating or invalidating the 5,000 square miles of federally protected waters. Roberts criticized Obama’s decision to use the 1906 Antiquities Act to designate the monument, which he described as “part of a trend of ever-expanding antiquities” that have become national monuments....."
So much for property rights, and that's the death of America then:
"The US Supreme Court said Monday it will consider restoring the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, granting a petition by the Trump administration and creating a dilemma for President Biden, who has pledged to seek an end to federal executions. The high court’s decision to review the case, likely in the fall, evoked painful memories of the deadly terrorist attack and renewed the wrenching debate over whether Tsarnaev should be put to death. Biden has stated his opposition to capital punishment and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has expressed “great” concern about its application....."
Biden hasn’t spoken publicly about capital punishment since taking office while keeping a low profile, but there are whispers that we cannot hear.
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"Garland says as attorney general he will combat domestic extremism" by Katie Benner New York Times, February 21, 2021
WASHINGTON — Judge Merrick B. Garland plans to tell senators on Monday that he will restore the Justice Department’s commitment to equal justice under the law, combat a resurgent domestic terrorist threat, and work to root out widespread discrimination should he be confirmed as attorney general.
Garland laid out his top three priorities in an opening statement that he intends to deliver before the Judiciary Committee on Monday when he begins confirmation hearings.
When President Biden nominated Garland last month for the top law enforcement job, he said that the Justice Department’s 20th-century fight against the Ku Klux Klan showed that addressing domestic terrorism and systemic racism were historically one and the same.
The fight described by Biden — “to stand up to the Klan, to stand up to racism, to take on domestic terrorism” — illustrated the Justice Department’s pledge to protect the nation’s most cherished ideals and institutions.
Garland mirrored that sentiment in his prepared remarks, which the Justice Department released late Saturday. If confirmed as attorney general, Garland will inherit a Justice Department that was deeply demoralized under President Trump and his attorney general William Barr. Trump viewed the department as hostile toward him, treating it as either an enemy to be thwarted or a power to be wielded against his political enemies.
Barr’s tenure was largely shaped by the perception that he advanced the president’s personal and political agenda at the expense of the department’s independence, through actions such as undercutting its own inquiry into Russia and the Trump campaign, and his former deputies say that he was reluctant to take into account the recommendations of the department's career employees, particularly on issues of interest to Trump.
That's all it was, a perception, because the Deep $wamp creature Barr undercut him at every turn while protecting the "presidency" and their corrupt secrets and criminality.
The Trump administration was also considered openly combative toward the department’s mission to defend civil rights, as it worked to curb civil rights protections for transgender people, dismantle affirmative-action-related policies in college admissions, and do away with tools that people of color have used to change rules that effectively discriminate against them in housing, education, and employment.
Garland’s statement nods to that recent past.....
That's when I started to nod off.
I'm told he faces a resurgent peril after years fighting extremism as the fallout from the Capitol attack and the shadow of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing took center stage at the confirmation hearings with him saying his first focus would be on Capitol insurrection as the "the Justice Department is likely to return to its posture in the Obama administration," thus ipso facto Biden is Obama's third term (the string-pullers behind the curtain as it were).
The Globe is of the opinion that after a brutal year, Garland must work to reform the DOJ — and restore Black Americans’ trust -- which he did by convening a new grand jury and reviving the investigation into the death of George Floyd.
Anyway, the Senate panel voted 15 to seven in favor of Garland's nomination and he was confirmed soon after.
Related:
"Two months into one of the biggest criminal investigations in U.S. history, prosecutors are preparing to start plea discussions as early as this week with many of the more than 300 suspects charged in the U.S. Capitol riot — even as investigators race to piece together larger conspiracy cases against those suspected of the most serious crimes, according to people familiar with the discussions. The planned plea talks follow efforts by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is overseeing the prosecutions, to first create a system for efficiently organizing what they expect will be upward of 400 criminal cases and the growing pile of associated evidence, these people said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. “We hope to start extending plea offers within the next week or so,” said one person familiar with the investigation....."
OMG, the alleged insurrectionists who are really agent provocateurs and government instigators are going to be absolved and allowed back into the tent!
Also see:
"In a move with little precedent, Massachusetts campaign finance regulators say they will allow the state’s elected officials to use campaign funds to buy bulletproof vests, gas masks, and other gear to protect themselves and their staffs following the January attack on the US Capitol. The advisory opinion this month from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance came in direct response to a request from a state senator who, in citing the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol complex by a mob of Trump loyalists, warned that legislators and their aides “may be targets for violence.” The newfound guidance illustrates in stark terms the potential for danger officials say has pervaded their daily work. The toxicity of American politics — already on full display in Washington, ravaged by four years of former president Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric — is now manifesting itself in decisions that could reshape the routine accounting of political life on Beacon Hill, putting body armor alongside postage and fund-raising consultants as established campaign expenditures....."
No one can get in the Occupied Zone anyway, but I suppose they need to find a way to spend the campaign loot.
Just wondering how Garland intends to prosecute the stinking Democrat hypocrisy:
"House Democratic leaders are facing increased resistance from key members of both parties to an investigation into whether the results of an Iowa congressional race won narrowly by a Republican can be overturned by Congress. Several moderate House Democrats on Monday expressed opposition to or discomfort with Congress taking any action regarding the race. Their statements came after nine of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former president Donald Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a letter asking her to call off the investigation, warning it could further erode voters’ confidence in the electoral system. The focus of the debate is on the outcome of race in Iowa’s 2nd District, where Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks was declared the winner over Democrat Rita Hart following a recount in November with a difference of just six votes out of 400,000 cast. Hart alleges that 22 legally cast ballots were not considered during the initial November canvass and subsequent recount, resulting in the tightest congressional electoral outcome in modern history. The letter from the nine Republicans effectively seeks to flip a common Democratic complaint on its head: that the House’s examination of the race serves to bolster false claims by Trump and other Republicans that the country’s elections are rife with fraud....."
I think I'm going to be sick from the stench.
"Three months after its count of the presidential election results set off a riot at the Capitol, Congress has plunged once again into a red-hot dispute over the 2020 balloting, this time weighing whether to overturn the results of a House race in Iowa that could tilt the chamber’s narrow balance of power. At issue is the outcome of November’s election in a southeastern Iowa district, where state officials declared Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican, the winner in one of the closest contests in American history. Miller-Meeks prevailed by only six votes out of nearly 400,000 cast in the state’s 2nd Congressional District; in January, she took the oath of office in Washington, but her Democratic opponent, Rita Hart, has refused to concede the race, pointing to 22 discarded ballots she says would have made her the winner if counted. Now Democrats, who hold the majority in the House and spent months pushing back on President Trump’s falsehoods about a stolen election — including his claim that Congress had the power to unilaterally overturn the results — are thrust into the uncomfortable role of arbiters of a contested race. Hart has appealed to the House, including in a new filing Monday, to step in to overrule the state and seat her instead, sending Miller-Meeks back to Iowa. “This was not something I sought, believe me,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat from Calif., the chairwoman of the panel looking into the race. Lofgren and other Democrats say they have little choice but to take the appeal seriously under a 1960s law Hart has invoked. In recent weeks, Lofgren’s panel, the House Administration Committee, has opened a full-scale review into the contest that lawmakers say could lead to impounding ballots, conducting their own hand recount, and ultimately a vote by the full House to determine who should rightfully represent the Iowa district. Reversing the result would give Democrats a crucial additional vote to pad one of the sparest majorities in decades. The House is divided 219 to 211, with five vacancies. That prospect has rapidly reignited tensions in a chamber that has scarcely begun to heal from the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob trying to stop Congress from formalizing President Biden’s victory. House Republicans — more than half of whom voted that day to discard state certifications and overturn Biden’s win — are accusing Democrats who ostracized them of a screeching, 180-degree turn now that flipping an election result would be to their advantage......"
Yeah, somehow the Democrats LOST SEATS in the last "election" as the Republicans rode Trump's coattails -- with Trump not in the suit!
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Someone call a doctor:
"The Senate on Tuesday voted 57 to 43 to confirm Vivek H. Murthy as United States surgeon general, ensuring that a top ally of President Biden will play a visible role in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. All 50 Senate Democrats and Independents voted to support Murthy, joined by seven Republicans. The surgeon general, also known as the “nation’s doctor,” typically serves as a prominent spokesperson on public health issues but has a limited role in policymaking, but Biden has pledged that Murthy — who advised him in the Obama White House, on the board of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and, most recently, during the presidential campaign and transition — will have an expanded role in his administration. “He will be a key public voice on the covid response to restore public trust and faith in science and medicine,” Biden said when he nominated Murthy in December. The surgeon general also oversees the U.S. Public Health Service commissioned corps, a uniformed service of about 6,000 public health workers who have helped staff the coronavirus response and administer vaccines but struggled earlier this year to get vaccinations of their own. Murthy, 43, first served as surgeon general during the Obama administration, working on public health issues such as the opioid crisis. He also pursued his own work combating loneliness and the stigma of mental illness. He was the nation’s first Senate-confirmed Asian American surgeon general. His original 2013 nomination was stalled in the Senate for more than a year, in part because gun rights organizations faulted Murthy for saying gun violence was a public health problem — a stance Murthy has continued to espouse. Murthy’s nomination to return as surgeon general under Biden drew scrutiny from watchdogs who flagged that Murthy was paid more than $2 million in coronavirus-related consulting fees last year by companies in the cruise, travel and other industries, setting up a potential conflict in his role as public health spokesperson. Senate Democrats sidestepped the issue, and Senate Republicans said they generally support nominees with industry experience....."
Gee, the mass shooting events couldn't have been timed better!
That is when I got sick, and we now have quotas despite qualifications if you continue reading.
Time for a $econd opinion:
"Health secretary nominee Xavier Becerra told senators Tuesday that confronting the coronavirus pandemic will be his first priority if confirmed, but he also pledged to expand health insurance, rein in prescription drug costs, and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in medical care. “To meet this moment, we need strong federal leadership,” Becerra said at the first of two hearings on his nomination. “I understand the enormous challenges before us and our solemn responsibility to faithfully steward this agency that touches almost every aspect of our lives.” Becerra now serves as California’s attorney general and previously represented the Los Angeles area for more than 20 years in the US House. A liberal politician-lawyer, he faces opposition from many GOP senators, who question his support for abortion rights and government-run health insurance, along with his lack of a clinical background. However, in the past 25 years, only one medical doctor has led the Department of Health and Human Services in a permanent capacity. Appearing before the Senate health committee, Becerra seconded President Biden’s goals of 100 million vaccine shots in his first 100 days, increased coronavirus testing, ramped-up DNA mapping of the virus to track worrisome mutations, and reopening schools and businesses. On health insurance, he pledged to work to expand the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, though in the past he’s supported a government-run system like Senator Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All idea. He said he would act to lower drug prices, particularly the cost of insulin. It’s a goal that has bipartisan backing. Although leading Republicans are portraying Becerra as unfit, Democrats seem unfazed about his prospects, accusing the GOP of playing politics despite the urgency of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic....."
The Democrats' stinking hypocrisy knows no bounds, a hallmark of totalitarians, and his fearlessness that frightens his GOP foes leaves me unfazed as he squeaked by on a pure party line vote.
Beyond that, Biden wants to ‘reinvigorate’ American science with the brilliant, connected, and controversial Eric Lander as his lead $cience policy advi$or in the Broade$t $en$e and just when we need it most because $cience is in danger!
It's like they are $peaking a $ecret code we can not hear.
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I need some fresh air:
"Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico, President Biden’s pick to head the Interior Department, sought Tuesday to find the line between her past remarks as an activist opposing the fossil fuel industry, and her prospective role at the helm of an agency that oversees drilling and conservation on the nation’s more than 500 million acres of public land. In the first day of a two-part confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy Committee, Haaland’s most important audience was the panel’s chair, Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia., who has often sided with Republicans on environmental policy as he seeks to protect his home state’s coal industry. Privately, however, Democrats have warned Manchin against being seen as derailing the candidacy of Haaland, who, if confirmed, would make history as the first Native American Cabinet secretary. During his opening statement, Manchin signaled a cautious willingness to support her nomination. “As a former governor, I have always believed that a president should be given wide latitude in the selection of his Cabinet,” he said, “but I also take the Senate’s constitutional obligation to advise and consent to the president’s nominations seriously.” Haaland has previously called for a total ban on all fossil fuel exploration on public lands, and if confirmed, she would be charged with executing one of Biden’s most contentious policies: halting future hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and gas on public lands. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the energy committee’s ranking Republican, said that while her nomination deserved to be recognized for its historic nature, he was troubled by some of her views that he said would be viewed as “radical” in his home state. “If Representative Haaland intends to use the Department of the Interior to crush the economy of Wyoming and other Western states, then I’m going to oppose the nomination,” Barrasso said. Barrasso and other Republicans pressed Haaland about some of her past remarks, such as a 2019 interview in which she said, “I am wholeheartedly against fracking and drilling on public lands.” Haaland stressed that, if confirmed, she would enact Biden’s policies of pausing future fracking — rather than a full ban....."
I'm sure she will be able to find balance on energy and the climate while restoring and protecting the nation's sprawling federal lands, while still being a champion for the land who will set right the many betrayals of land ownership and use -- with a little help from Granholm at Energy.
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And away we go.....
"Leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations pledged during a call on Friday to sustain government spending to help economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic as they attempted to start a new chapter in multilateral cooperation. As President Joe Biden made his debut as leader on the world stage the discussion centered on how to, in the words of British host Boris Johnson, "build back better" after the health crisis. “We will continue to support our economies to protect jobs and support a strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive recovery,” the G-7 said in a statement published after the call. “Recovery from COVID-19 must build back better for all.” The G-7 nations committed to considering debt relief for developing nations and promised to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. They also underlined the importance of multilateralism, a sign that the group wanted to move past the Donald Trump era. It agreed to strengthen the World Health Organization, a body that the previous U.S. administration had chastised and then withdrawn from. "Drawing on our strengths and values as democratic, open economies and societies, we will work together and with others to make 2021 a turning point for multilateralism and to shape a recovery that promotes the health and prosperity of our people and planet," the leaders said in their communique. "We will intensify cooperation on the health response to Covid-19." The pledge to keep spending taps running also recalls the commitments made after the financial crisis of 2008, when leaders promised to coordinate policy. It's an acknowledgement that economies benefit from strong demand outside their own borders....."
Such a NWO and WEF tool as he destroys the dollar and ruins the U.S.
"The Senate confirmed President Biden’s choice to lead US diplomacy at the United Nations on Tuesday. The vote for Linda Thomas-Greenfield reflected a divide between the Biden administration’s determination to re-engage with the world body and former president Donald Trump’s diplomacy that often left the US isolated internationally. Senators voted 78 to 20 to confirm Thomas-Greenfield to the post, which will be a Cabinet-level position. Thomas-Greenfield, a retired 35-year veteran of the foreign service who resigned during the Trump administration, will be the third Black person and second Black woman to hold the job. Many Republicans opposed her because they said she was soft on China and would not stand up for US principles at the United Nations. Thomas-Greenfield had rejected those concerns during her confirmation hearing, telling senators that a 2019 speech she gave to the Chinese-funded Confucius Institute had been a mistake and was not intended to be an endorsement of Chinese government policies. In the speech, she had praised China’s $1 trillion Belt and Road global infrastructure program in Africa and called for “a win-win-win situation” where the US and China would promote good governance and the rule of law. [Blog editor wretches with dry heaves] She told senators that China is a strategic adversary and “their actions threaten our security, they threaten our values and they threaten our way of life, and they are a threat to their neighbors and they are a threat across the globe.” Thomas-Greenfield spoke of China’s diplomatic inroads during the Trump administration, which pursued an “America First” policy that weakened international alliances, and she made clear there will be a change under Biden to re-engage internationally and promote American values. She stressed that American leadership must be rooted in the country’s core values — “support for democracy, respect for universal human rights, and the promotion of peace and security,” and, she said that effective diplomacy means developing “robust relationships,” finding common ground and managing differences, and “doing genuine, old-fashioned, people-to-people diplomacy.” [That had to have been met with laughter, right?] The Senate also voted 92 to 7 Tuesday to approve Biden’s nomination of Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary — his second go at the job. Vilsack had been expected to have a smooth path to confirmation after the Senate Agriculture Committee voted unanimously this month to advance his nomination, and many Republicans voted in favor of his confirmation Tuesday, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senator Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina. Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, broke with Democrats to vote against Vilsack’s nomination. Vilsack had faced intense criticism from civil rights activists, who said that he did not go far enough to eradicate racial discrimination at the agency or support farmers of color during his first stint in the role in the Obama administration."
In the Obummer days he was known as Mr. Monsanto for his endorsement of GMO foods, but he is now inheriting a demoralized workforce at the two agencies when he took over as secretary of agriculture under Biden, and with 235 vacancies between them, the agencies continued to hire during the pandemic and administration change, but they are putting out work that is smaller in scope and less frequent, causing some farmers to look elsewhere for data they rely on to run their operations.
In other words, they have gone covert:
"William Burns, a veteran diplomat who helped lead secret negotiations with Iran and served as US ambassador to Russia, received a warm reception Wednesday from the Senate Intelligence Committee at his confirmation hearing to become CIA director. The notably uncontentious hearing focused on threats from China and Russia and gave Burns the opportunity to showcase his three decades of experience in foreign policy, during which he often worked closely with the spy agency. No senator raised even a hint of opposition to Burns’s nomination. At times, members were more interested in his views on what US policy ought to be toward foreign adversaries than on how he would organize the CIA. As Burns noted, the CIA doesn’t make policy; it supports those who do, but Burns, most recently deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, would bring a rare combination of policy-making experience and deep familiarity with intelligence to the job of CIA director....."
I think Schumer reminded them they had six ways from Sunday or something.
Also see:
The Senate voted 64-33 to confirm Miguel Cardona as education secretary, clearing his way to lead President Biden’s effort to reopen the nation’s schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, and he will keep the Sandy Hook secrets buried.
I know I'm fudging around that event but that is one of those issues where they will literally take you to the mat if the feud goes public before cutting you loose afterward.
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"President Biden will nominate Columbia Law School Professor Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission, arming the agency with an antitrust expert who rose to prominence by warning about the power of dominant technology companies. The White House on Monday announced Biden’s intent to nominate Khan to the five-member agency. He has yet to pick a permanent head of the commission. Khan’s selection for the FTC and the hiring of Columbia Law School’s Tim Wu as a White House adviser signal Biden is prepared to pursue a more interventionist antitrust agenda in which officials are quicker to challenge mergers and instances of market power by dominant companies. Khan’s confirmation would place at the top of US competition policy circles a proponent of breaking up technology giants to protect competition in digital markets. She is at the forefront of a school of antitrust thinking that says the traditional playbook for policing mergers and anticompetitive conduct is failing to do its job."
She was confirmed after a bloody confirmation fight and change of identity that was made in desperation because you can only block so many votes, so let the government $hakesdowns begin!
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Of course, when it comes to the border, it's a different story:
She won't have to worry about accidents because no one will be on road.
Related:
Many of them are smuggling pot in what is being called a green wave.
"Frozen immigration system begins to thaw, and towns on border brace for flood" by James Dobbins, Simon Romero and Manny Fernandez New York Times, March 20, 2021
EAGLE PASS, Texas — As the Biden administration thaws an immigration system that had largely been frozen over the past year, towns along the 1,954-mile border are bracing for what federal officials warn will be a sharp increase in releases of migrants in their communities in the coming weeks.
It is already happening in some places, prompting some mayors and other local officials to appeal for federal help. Aid workers who are operating shelters to help migrants along their way say they are feeling the strain on medical resources and their own facilities, although they discount fears that the newcomers are a threat. Most, they say, are eager to reunite with their family members elsewhere in the country and do not want to get in any trouble that would delay them.
We can't move, but they can bring CVD to your town and schools and initiate a summer surge, and this myth that they are all angels and not criminals, traffickers, and other unsavories is naive.
Officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been informing elected officials and nonprofit leaders along much of the border that the agency is preparing for even larger releases of migrants, basing assessments on shelter capacity in larger cities and on rules that require the agency to release migrants near where they are arrested and processed.
The warnings have prompted many to fear a repeat of the mass releases that strained border communities in 2019. The Trump administration largely shut down processing of new asylum claims along the border during the pandemic last year, and officials in cities along the border worry that the latest plan to get the system going again will present them with burdens they are not ready to take on.
It's a “crisis with an exclamation point,” and someone better tell DHS.
Federal officials have said they are doing the best they can to smoothly handle the growing number of migrants at the border and are working to expand the available space in federal shelters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week made $110 million of funding available to local nonprofit and government organizations that have helped to care for released migrants at the border.
That is NOT GOOD ENOUGH anymore, you corrupt $cum!
“The situation at the southwest border is difficult,” the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said in a statement this week. “We are working around the clock to manage it, and we will continue to do so.”
The overall numbers of released migrants are still relatively small, but volunteer groups along the border are preparing for a bigger influx after Mayorkas warned that the administration is expecting the largest number of migrant apprehensions in 20 years.
Most single adults and families are being quickly expelled under an emergency health order invoked by the Trump administration as a protection against the coronavirus. Migrant families, Mayorkas said, are being allowed to enter the United States when Mexico does not have the capacity to house them at its shelters — a situation that accounts for most of the releases in border towns in recent weeks.
I will get to him below because he has some really cryptic things to add.
The numbers could go far higher when, as expected, the Biden administration eases the pandemic-related border restrictions and many more migrants are able to pursue asylum petitions. More than 9,500 children and teenagers were in federally managed shelters this week, according to Biden administration officials.....
The New York Times fact-checks itself for you if you can believe it!
Turns out Trump had feet of wax after all and they melted in the glare of the hot Louisiana sun and under the pre$$ure of crunch time because the state to lose out on millions of dollars from the NCAA if it pulls out of sports tournaments -- as if anyone cared.
Now to Mayorkas:
"‘Border is closed,’ Mayorkas says as he defends Biden’s immigration strategy" by Amy B Wang The Washington Post, March 21, 2021
WASHINGTON — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended President Biden’s immigration strategy and emphasized in interviews Sunday that the US-Mexico border “is closed” as the Biden administration faces criticism over a record number of migrants seeking entry into the country from Mexico and Central America.
Mayorkas, who appeared on almost all of the major political shows Sunday morning, sought to push a consistent message as the Biden administration is being pressed about conditions in overcrowded detention centers for unaccompanied immigrant children.
I'm so glad I don't watch those anymore, and the pre$$'s dander is only up because they have now been denied access to kids in cages -- will be lifted in a couple days so the government can clean things up for the tour -- something Trump never did (nor did he jail journalists like Obummer).
“The border is closed. We are expelling families. We are expelling single adults,” Mayorkas said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, adding that unaccompanied minors should not attempt to make any journey to the US-Mexico border now. “We strongly urge, and the message is clear, not to do so now. I cannot overstate the perils of the journey that they take.”
Uh-huh.
That's only because of a judge's ruling.
Mayorkas said the administration’s “message has been straightforward and simple,” and Biden last week disputed that the surge was a result of his overturning some of former President Donald Trump’s policies, but the message coming from the administration has at times been conflicting, particularly Mayorkas’s message that asylum seekers should not come “now” while other members of the administration have said they should not come period, and that has frustrated even some of their Democratic allies steeped in immigration issues.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, blamed Biden for changing or doing away with Trump policies including “remain in Mexico,” which under the previous administration meant asylum seekers needed to wait outside of the United States for their cases to be decided.
"It was working. It disincentivized people from taking this dangerous trip," Ducey said of the policy on ABC's "This Week."
Stolen elections do indeed have consequences.
Republicans have blamed Biden's rollbacks for the rise in migrants arriving, saying he changed Trump's policies prematurely and without backup systems in place. Democrats have emphasized that they are attempting to take a more humane approach to immigration.
Encouraging a surge to pad your voter rolls is far from humane as they fast track a North American Union of some sort.
Mayorkas on Sunday reiterated that the Biden administration would not "expel into the Mexican desert" young, vulnerable children like the last administration did. He also blamed Trump for dismantling processes such as the Central American minors program, which laid out an "orderly, human and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under United States law in their home countries." It would take time to rebuild such processes, he said repeatedly.
"I think we are executing on our plans, and quite frankly, when we are finished doing so, the American public will look back on this and say we secured our border and we upheld our values and our principles as a nation," Mayorkas said.
Similarly, Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, laid the blame at the feet of the Trump administration, noting that Trump also cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, exacerbating the problem.
“This is a result of four years of failed policies, inhumane policies, and a systematic dismantling of the asylum system by Donald Trump,” Duckworth said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
What gall, blaming Trump!
They didn't start the journey until Biden was installed!
One point of bipartisan agreement is that the issue is increasingly urgent. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have recently sounded the alarm over "significant overcrowding" at migrant detention facilities. The Washington Post reported Saturday that there are more than 15,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services and of Customs and Border Protection. Biden this month deployed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help care for the influx of children arriving at the border.
On "Fox News Sunday," Mayorkas said the Biden administration is working with Mexico to improve the country's capacity to receive families expelled from the United States. He also said that the pandemic was preventing greater press access at the border — under criticism that the Biden administration was not being transparent about the conditions at border facilities — and that “we are in the midst of a pandemic, and we’re focused on operations and executing on our plans.”
Mayorkas did not comment on reports of migrants testing positive for the coronavirus but he said minors arriving are tested, isolated, and quarantined, and that pandemic policies are operated “very efficiently.”
It's all a plan being executed that they are quite happy with?
Related:
You will not believe who they turned back:
It was left to this woman to give them the bad news as a surge of migrants has hit the US southern border:
Roberta Jacobson, coordinator for the southwest border on the White House National Security Council, addressed a news conference at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 (Doug Mills/NYT).
Here is a closer look, and I would turn around and go back after seeing the bigger picture.
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Those not allowed in the tent, as per the gatekeeper:
"Last week, former Illinois governor Bruce Rauner was inspired to donate a quarter-million dollars to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s war chest. The hefty donation came about a month after Rauner’s ultrawealthy and exclusive community on the northern tip of Key Largo received enough coronavirus vaccine doses for 1,200 residents over the age of 65, according to a Miami Herald report on Wednesday evening. That vaccine access — at a time when many other older Floridians struggled to find doses — combined with donations to DeSantis by Rauner and more than a dozen other residents in the Ocean Reef Club have raised new concerns among critics of the Republican governor’s handling of the pandemic. ’'This is wrong on so many levels,” state Senator Annette Taddeo, a Democrat who represents part of Miami-Dade County, said in a tweet Wednesday night. Neither Rauner nor DeSantis immediately returned messages from The Washington Post late on Wednesday. The Ocean Reef Club and the medical center there also didn’t respond to messages from the Post. DeSantis spokeswoman Meredith Beatrice told the Herald that the governor played no role in choosing the Ocean Reef Club as a vaccine site. It’s not clear exactly how the vaccines ended up at the Ocean Reef Club. Statewide, DeSantis has taken a personal hand in directing “pop-up’” vaccination centers, the Herald reported. Last month, that led to ire from both Democrats and Republicans after he organized one in a mostly white, affluent part of Manatee County and then threatened to take the vaccines away from counties where officials criticized his approach. “If Manatee County doesn’t like us doing this, then we are totally fine with putting this in counties that want it,” DeSantis said at a news conference in February. “We’re totally happy to do that.” Critics have also accused DeSantis of using the vaccine distribution plan to appeal to donors; he has raised more than $2.7 million in February alone since he began the “pop-up” clinics, the Herald reported. DeSantis has disputed those allegations, saying his office is simply prioritizing getting the vaccine to seniors....."
That's the playbook, anyway, and the sad truth is the pandemic has revealed the
willful stupidity, perversity, and pugnacity that comes from the pre$$.
It's a lo$e-lo$e $ituation.
That's the reality, as complicated as that may seem and a dirty little secret that is out in the open.
Russia is escalating its offensive against the US as the curtain will soon be raised on World War III.
After all, it was a year ago that it became alarmingly clear that life as we knew it was about to change drastically -- as we were told then TWO WEEKS to FLATTEN THE CURVE and then life would go back to normal!
Talk about faulty memory and historical revisionism!
It's enough to make you Yelp in frustration at the never-ending lying!
