Last Call For Clipping The Hawkeye

Democrats are already considering the question of Iowa's first in the Midwest caucus status heading into this time three years from now, and after the disaster that was the 2020 Iowa contest, a lot of Dems are finally ready to pull the plug on featuring a state that simply doesn't represent the Democratic party as a whole anymore.

While it's only 2021, a major question facing Democrats this year and next will be what to do about the presidential nominating calendar and whether Iowa, in particular, should retain its prized place at the front of the calendar in 2024.

Iowa's decades-long lock on the nominating process has been under threat since last year's disastrous caucus, when results were delayed for days due in part to a faulty smartphone app that was supposed to make things easier for precinct captains when they reported results. Ultimately, the Associated Press never declared a winner in the contest due to problems with the vote count, which was administered by the Iowa Democratic Party.

Iowa's voters are also older, more rural and more white than many other states and it's seen as increasingly out of step with the Democratic mainstream, which increasingly relies on voters of color and young people for its support.

President Biden's newly-installed pick to lead the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison of South Carolina, will get a chance to shake up the calendar by appointing members to the party's rules and bylaws committee. Unlike past presidents, Biden didn't win in Iowa (he came in fourth, after former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) and owes no political debt to the complex caucus process.

"I think on its merits that the Iowa caucus falls short of the values that we espouse as Democrats," Julian Castro said. Castro served as Housing and Urban Development Secretary for former President Barack Obama and ran for president himself in 2020.

Castro, who dropped out of the race before the Iowa caucuses, made the argument during the campaign that 2020 should be the last year Iowa goes first and that a primary election run by the state makes much more sense than a caucus run by the party.

"You have one person, one vote instead of an archaic formula to figure out who wins the whole thing," Castro said.

While Castro says that former President Obama's 2008 win in Iowa that helped propel him to the White House was wonderful, it was an exception when it comes to promoting the candidacies of diverse candidates.

"The diversity of Iowa and New Hampshire simply don't reflect the diversity of either our country or the Democratic Party," said Castro.

Expect a lengthy debate about the nominating calendar, says DNC member Clay Middleton from South Carolina.

"President Biden is going to have a say in this too" Middleton, who is close friends with Harrison. "Who better than Joe Biden to provide his assessment having run for president a few times and not winning Iowa?"

Harrison, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate last year, comes from another one of the early states - and the one that provided the crucial victory that kept Biden's candidacy alive. Many South Carolina Democrats are also Black, as is Harrison, a vital constituency inside the party.

One idea would be to have all the early states go closer together, says Wendy Davis, a DNC member from Georgia.

"If you look at those the first four states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada," said Davis. "Put together they actually are a good picture of America, right? And the diversity that is in America."

 

We'll see how this works out, but this is going to be Jaime Harrison's first real test as DNC chair. Fixing the Iowa (and New Hampshire!) problem is a major one, especially when the party is already majority-minority in a majority of states that Biden won.

The Beagle That Beat Mitch McConnell

Raphael Warnock won in Georgia thanks to some of the best positive political ads in recent memory, and the most effective ones co-starred a beagle named Alvin.

The dog had a lot of work to do.

He was co-starring in a political ad that had to showcase the candidate’s good-natured warmth. But the ad also needed to deflect an onslaught of racialized attacks without engaging them directly, and to convey to white voters in Georgia that the Black pastor who led Ebenezer Baptist Church could represent them, too.

Of course, Alvin the beagle couldn’t have known any of that when he went for a walk with the Rev. Raphael Warnock last fall as a film crew captured their time together in a neighborhood outside Atlanta.

Tugging a puffer-vest-clad Mr. Warnock for an idealized suburban stroll — bright sunshine, picket fencing, an American flag — Alvin would appear in several of Mr. Warnock’s commercials pushing back against his Republican opponent in the recent Georgia Senate runoffs.

In perhaps the best known spot, Mr. Warnock, a Democrat, deposits a plastic baggie of Alvin’s droppings in the trash, likening it to his rival’s increasingly caustic ads. The beagle barks in agreement, and as Mr. Warnock declares that “we” — he and Alvin — approve of the message, the dog takes a healthy lick of his goatee.

“The entire ad screams that I am a Black candidate whom white people ought not be afraid of,” said Hakeem Jefferson, a professor of political science at Stanford, who studies race, stigma and politics in America.

On Wednesday Mr. Warnock became the first Black senator ever from Georgia, after Democrats swept both the state’s Senate seats in the runoffs. The twin victories delivered Democratic control of the chamber and an enormous boost to President Biden and his chances to enact his agenda.

While there is no singular factor responsible for victories this narrow — Mr. Warnock won by less than 100,000 votes out of roughly 4.5 million and the other new Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff, won by even less — there is bipartisan agreement that the beagle played an outsized role in cutting through the clutter in two contests that broke every Senate spending record.

“The puppy ad got people talking,” said Brian C. Robinson, a Georgia-based Republican strategist. “It made it harder to caricature him because they humanized him.”

By the end of the campaign, Warnock aides saw dog references popping up in their internal polling, supporters hoisting up their own puppies at campaign rallies in solidarity and beagle-themed homemade signs staked into front yards. They even started selling “Puppies 4 Warnock” merchandise.

All of which would probably come as a surprise to Alvin. After all, he wasn’t even Mr. Warnock’s dog.

 

Whether you're a dog person or not, Alvin helped Warnock win, and Warnock's win helped push Mitch McConnell into the leadership of the minority party in the Senate. The puppy poop ad was brilliant, frankly.

So the personable pastor and the precious pup went on to score a victory in the Senate and quite possibly saved the country from Mad Mitch.

Good dog!

Great senator!

The Coup-Coup Birds Come Home To Roost, Con't

Yes, Donald Trump tried to oust Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen in early January and install a loyalist who would hand him the Georgia election as part of his planned coup in the first week of January.

 

The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.

The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.

The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?

The answer was unanimous. They would resign.

Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.

The previously unknown chapter was the culmination of the president’s long-running effort to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda. He also pressed Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels, including one who would look into Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election equipment that Mr. Trump’s allies had falsely said was working with Venezuela to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

This account of the department’s final days under Mr. Trump’s leadership is based on interviews with four former Trump administration officials who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.

Mr. Clark said that this account contained inaccuracies but did not specify, adding that he could not discuss any conversations with Mr. Trump or Justice Department lawyers. “Senior Justice Department lawyers, not uncommonly, provide legal advice to the White House as part of our duties,” he said. “All my official communications were consistent with law.”

Mr. Clark also noted that he was the lead signatory on a Justice Department request last month asking a federal judge to reject a lawsuit that sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the election.

Mr. Trump declined to comment. An adviser said that Mr. Trump has consistently argued that the justice system should investigate “rampant election fraud that has plagued our system for years.”

 

To recap:

 

Donald Trump planned a coup.

 

That's it, that the entire story. Trump was only stopped because the entire Justice Department senior leadership would have resigned en masse. That's it.

The guard rail held this time.

This time.

The next time, well, who knows?

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The Capitol insurrection was not a "spontaneous event"at all, but rather a pre-planned organized coup by Trumpist terrorists to hunt down and capture, gas, or kill members of Congress in order to allow Trump to take control of the country.

 

Self-styled militia members from Virginia, Ohio and other states made plans to storm the U.S. Capitol days in advance of the Jan. 6 attack, and then communicated in real time as they breached the building on opposite sides and talked about hunting for lawmakers, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

While authorities have charged more than 100 individuals in the riot, details in the new allegations against three U.S. military veterans offer a disturbing look at what they allegedly said to one another before, during and after the attack — statements that indicate a degree of preparation and determination to rush deep into the halls and tunnels of Congress to make “citizens’ arrests” of elected officials.

U.S. authorities charged an apparent leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group, Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Berryville, Va., in the attack, alleging that the Navy veteran helped organize a ring of dozens who coordinated their movements as they “stormed the castle” to disrupt the confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory.

“We have about 30-40 of us. We are sticking together and sticking to the plan,” co-defendant Jessica Watkins, 38, an Army veteran, said while the breach was underway, according to court documents.

“You are executing citizen’s arrest. Arrest this assembly, we have probable cause for acts of treason, election fraud,” a man replied, according to audio recordings of communications between Watkins and others during the incursion.

“We are in the main dome right now. We are rocking it. They are throwing grenades, they are fricking shooting people with paint balls. But we are in here,” a woman believed to be Watkins said, according to court documents.

A man then responds, “Get it, Jess,” adding, “This is . . . everything we f---ing trained for!”

The FBI said it recovered the exchange from Zello, a push-to-talk, two-way radio phone app.

FBI charging papers against Caldwell, Watkins and a third person, former U.S. Marine Donovan Crowl, 50, allege that Caldwell and others coordinated in advance to disrupt Congress, scouted for lodging and recruited Oath Keepers members from North Carolina and like-minded groups from the Shenandoah Valley. The group claims thousands of members who assert the right to defy government orders they deem improper. The plotters both anticipated violence and continued to act in concert after the break-in, investigators alleged in court documents. FBI papers also say that Caldwell suggested a similar event at the local level after the attack, saying in a message: “Lets storm the capitol in Ohio. Tell me when!”

 

If a few more things has gone the terrorist's way, we'd be mourning dozens of members of Congress. If specific things had gone their way, Donald Trump would still be in the White House. 

Trump dismantled as many of the law enforcement and military guardrails as he could. These scumbags should have never been able to breach the Capitol but they did. And it's only through some heroics by the Capitol police and quick thinking by congressional aides that America was saved.

So yes, I think a whole hell of a lot of people need to go to federal prison for a very, very long time.

Last Call For Cleaning Up The Crap

The Justice Department, under new management, is now looking into how the Trump regime may have forced the US Attorney for Northern Georgia out of office, possibly for refusing to open an investigation into Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on bogus "election fraud" charges.

The Justice Department inspector general has begun examining the abrupt departure this month of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta after then-President Donald Trump complained officials in Georgia were not doing enough to find election fraud, according to people familiar with the matter.

The investigation into the sudden resignation of Byung J. “BJay” Pak by Inspector General Michael Horowitz appears to be in its early stages. Investigators have not yet talked to Pak, and it is unclear how broad their inquiry will be, the people familiar with the matter said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe.

Pak unexpectedly announced Jan. 4 that he was stepping down that day as the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, surprising many in his office. Trump then bypassed Pak’s top deputy in selecting a temporary replacement, raising questions among legal observers about the possibility of political interference in law enforcement work.

Pak’s resignation came a day after The Washington Post reported on an extraordinary call in which Trump urged Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his election defeat in that state. Legal scholars said the request from Trump was an obvious abuse of power that might warrant criminal investigation. In the same conversation, Trump cited a “never-Trumper U.S. attorney” in Georgia — seemingly a reference to Pak — and hinted vaguely and baselessly that Raffensperger’s refusal to act on his unfounded fraud claims constituted a “criminal offense.”

Pak declined to comment for this story, as did a spokeswoman for Horowitz. On Thursday, the law firm Alston & Bird announced that Pak would be joining as a partner in its litigation and trial practice group in the Atlanta office. He had worked at the firm previously and had served as a state lawmaker before Trump appointed him as a U.S. attorney in 2017.

The circumstances of Pak’s departure remain something of a mystery. Two people familiar with the matter said Pak received a call from a senior Justice Department official in Washington that led him to believe he should resign. Trump had been upset with what he perceived as the agency’s lack of action on his unfounded claims in Georgia and across the country, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

Trump then appointed Bobby Christine, the top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Georgia, to replace Pak, and Christine brought with him to the new office two prosecutors who had recently been assigned to monitor possible election fraud. Spokespeople for the U.S. attorney’s offices in the Northern and Southern Districts of Georgia declined to comment.

Needless to say, when the truth of Pak's firing (because he was absolutely forced to resign) comes out, it's not going to go well for a lot of people working for the Trump regime. We're going to find out all kinds of crap like this over the next several months, and it all needs to be investigated.

And the first thing that needs to happen is that Biden needs to clean house in Justice, State, and Defense. Look for that soon.

Retribution Execution, Con't

It seems the first order of business for the House GOP leadership is to deal with Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney's fate as the third most-powerful Republican, with scores of angry Trump cultists in the caucus calling for her crucifixion after she indicated earlier this month that Donald Trump should be impeached.

The most immediate threat to Cheney — a push by Trump loyalists to oust her as conference chair — has gained momentum inside the House GOP, although the process is complicated and could still sputter out. But at least 107 Republicans, or just over a majority, have communicated to the leaders of that effort that they would support removing Cheney from leadership on a secret ballot, according to multiple GOP sources involved in the effort. Others are threatening to boycott future conference meetings if she remains in power.

And at least two members have privately signaled interest in replacing Cheney as the No. 3 Republican, sources say: Reps. Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin, two New Yorkers who both sprang to popularity in the party after fiercely defending Trump during his first impeachment.

If Cheney does lose her post, it will be the latest sign that the Trumpification of the Republican Party isn't stopping anytime soon, even after the ex-president flew off to Mar-a-Lago with a disgraced legacy in Washington. Some say the Cheney fight has already become a proxy battle for the heart and soul of the splintered GOP.

“She has proven that she is out of step with the vast majority of our conference and the Republicans across the nation,” said freshman Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), who is spearheading the resolution calling on Cheney to step down. “A lot of people within our conference have a problem with it.”

“There are other people who are absolutely interested in filling that void, I will tell you,” he added of potential Cheney replacements. “And they would have broad-based support.”

Long-simmering frustrations with Cheney — once a fast-rising star in the GOP — have spiked inside the GOP, especially among its right flank, according to interviews with over a dozen lawmakers and aides. Members are not only angry with her impeachment vote, but also furious that Cheney announced her position a day ahead — giving Democrats ample time to use her statement in all of their talking points, while also providing cover to the nine other Republicans who backed impeachment.

A compilation video of the multiple times Democrats and news media cited Cheney’s statement on impeachment has even been circulating in some GOP circles. As conference chair, Cheney is in charge of the party’s messaging efforts.

But several other senior Republicans think Cheney ultimately hangs on to her post, arguing most Republicans will have little appetite for creating more chaos in the conference at a time when the party is desperate to unite.

And behind the scenes, Cheney has been doing a bit of damage control: she has been making calls to all corners of the conference to hear lawmakers out and ensure the party is unified going forward, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

“Removing Liz as the Conference Chair when she did exactly what the Leader told all of us to do – vote her conscience – sends a bad message,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “And I’ve spoken with many members of our Conference who have expressed their support for Liz and her leadership. I have confidence she will remain in her position and she has my support.”

While GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Republican Whip Steve Scalise (La.) have both said they want Cheney to remain in her job, McCarthy also told reporters Thursday that “questions need to be answered,” such as the “style in which things were delivered.” Members will have an opportunity to air those grievances at next week’s closed-door conference meeting, McCarthy added.

Cheney's biggest problem is the fact Kevin McCarthy has allowed this mess to get this far in the first place. Cheney going off on her own like this is a direct threat to McCarty's leadership, and everyone knows it. So either he keeps a capable lieutenant who's obviously gunning for his job, or he tosses her to the howling inchoate mob. 

So now McCarthy and Cheney both have a choice. And as Mr. Miyagi once said:

Walk on road, hm? Walk right side, safe. Walk left side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later get the squish just like grape.

She can stay or she can go, but McCarthy needs to make a choice soon so he can remain the incompetent clown in charge and not be replaced by someone who might actually be able to organize the angry racist mob he runs. 

McCarthy's going to have to show Cheney the door or he's going to lose his own leadership position, and it looks like all ten of the Republicans who voted for impeachment will be stripped of donors, and any local party help in surviving inevitable primary challenges starting this time next year. Maybe even committee positions.

No, McCarthy will fold. Trump will demand it eventually. And this is the Trump Racism party now and in the future.

Full Court Pressed

Besides the nearly 420,000 dead from COVID-19, the next major casualty of the Trump regime is trust in the press, as now a majority of American no longer trust news at all.

Trust in traditional media has declined to an all-time low, and many news professionals are determined to do something about it.

Why it matters: Faith in society's central institutions, especially in government and the media, is the glue that holds society together. That glue was visibly dissolving a decade ago, and has now, for many millions of Americans, disappeared entirely.

By the numbers: For the first time ever, fewer than half of all Americans have trust in traditional media, according to data from Edelman's annual trust barometer shared exclusively with Axios. Trust in social media has hit an all-time low of 27%. 56% of Americans agree with the statement that "Journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations." 58% think that "most news organizations are more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than with informing the public." 

When Edelman re-polled Americans after the election, the figures had deteriorated even further, with 57% of Democrats trusting the media and only 18% of Republicans.

 

Our media is now badly wounded, and time will tell if the wounds are fatal or not. But without trust in media, America will absolutely fall to the next autocratic monster, and it will never recover.

Felix Salmon goes on to suggest that America's CEOs, who do have a very high level of trust in the Edelman polling, are the key to saving the media.

How it works: Media outlets can continue to report reliable facts, but that won't turn the trend around on its own. What's needed is for trusted institutions to visibly embrace the news media. CEOs (a/k/a the fourth branch of government) are at or near the top of Edelman's list of trusted institutions. 

By the numbers: 61% of Trump voters say that they trust their employer's CEO. That compares to just 28% who trust government leaders, and a mere 21% who trust journalists.

The bottom line: CEOs have long put themselves forward as the people able to upgrade America's physical infrastructure. Now it's time for them to use the trust they've built up to help rebuild our civic infrastructure.

I'm not convinced that this is the answer, as I'd argue corporatization of the media is indeed the largest single problem in the media today. But Salmon is right that with four out of five Trump voters refusing to trust or listen to the media, reporting the facts won't work by itself.

What else needs to be done?

Reforming the corporate media and big tech, for starters, but that's a huge undertaking. But that needs to be part of Biden's plan.

StupidiNews!

• Three National Guard soldiers were killed during a routine training mission in upstate New York, the crash occurred on Wednesday night south of Rochester.
• In his first overture to Russia since taking office, President Biden has offered to extend the START nuclear treaty that Donald Trump threatened to scrap last year.
• Senate Republicans say President Biden's immigration agenda has little chance of getting past a filibuster, with Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey calling passage "a Herculean task".
• Both the House and Senate have quickly approved a waiver to allow Ret. Gen. Lloyd Austin to serve as Secretary of Defense, Austin would be the first Black man to lead the Pentagon.
• Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel has been appointed the new chair of the FCC, replacing outgoing Republican Ajit Pai who left this week, Pai's replacement is expected to be confirmed quickly.
  

Last Call For Black Lives Still Matter

Protests in Portland and Seattle continued again this week as demonstrators took to the streets to let the incoming administration know that they don't see a dime's worth of difference between Biden and Trump.

Protesters in the Pacific Northwest smashed windows at a Democratic Party headquarters, marched through the streets and burned an American flag on Wednesday in a strident challenge by antifascist and racial-justice protesters to the new administration of President Biden, whose promised reforms, they declared, “won’t save us.”

In Portland, Ore., lines of federal agents in camouflage — now working under the Biden administration — blanketed streets with tear gas and unleashed volleys of welt-inducing pepper balls as they confronted a crowd that gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown. Some in the crowd later burned a Biden-for-President flag in the street.

Another tense protest in Seattle saw dozens of people push their way through the streets, with some breaking windows, spray-painting anarchist insignia and chanting not only about ICE, but the many other issues that roiled America’s streets last year under the administration of former President Donald J. Trump.

“No Cops, Prisons, Borders, Presidents,” said one banner, while another proclaimed that the conflict over racial justice, policing, immigration and corporate influence in the country was “not over” merely because a new president had been inaugurated in Washington, D.C.

“A Democratic administration is not a victory for oppressed people,” said a flier handed out during the demonstrations, during which protesters also smashed windows at a shop often described as the original Starbucks in downtown Seattle. The communiqués used expletives to condemn Mr. Biden and “his stupid” crime bill, passed in 1994 and blamed for mass incarcerations in the years since.

Hours after the inauguration of Mr. Biden, federal agents in Portland used tear gas and other crowd-control munitions to disperse demonstrators who had gathered to protest the harsh arrest and detention practices wielded by federal immigration authorities under the Trump administration.

Mr. Biden has signaled that immigration is going to be a key issue of his presidency, using some of his first executive orders on Wednesday to end construction of the border wall and bolster the program that provides deportation protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

The conflict in Portland capped a day of demonstrations in the liberal city, where different groups of protesters either decried Mr. Biden or called for activism to pressure the new president to take forceful action on immigration, climate change, health care, racial justice and income inequality.

 

Again, fair or unfair, Joe Biden will get no honeymoon as President on racial justice, criminal justice, and social justice. He has taken actions already through executive actions and priorities, but it's going to take a lot more than that to deal with America's white supremacy problem.

 

We've been dealing with it for 400 years now, and there's people on the left that will never find Biden acceptable, and will continue to protest him. It's too much to fix in one day of a new administration, and it's ludicrous to think that it can be fixed so quickly.

But it's also ludicrous to think that the demonstrators are going to go away quietly, either. If there's something last summer proved, it's that large-scale protests get noticed, and that they change minds. Black Lives still matter, folks. Activism matters. Disruption matters. Coverage of protests matter. Being in the spotlight matters. The root cause is still 100% there.

The problem has not been solved because Trump is gone. Police are still racist killers with military surplus equipment used on civilian populations or a regular basis. What Biden's election has done is created the space where real work can begin, but that work is going to need to accompanied by pressure every step of the way.

How Biden decides to respond to these ongoing demonstrations is completely up to him.

Black Lives Still Matter.

No matter who is president.

Operation Nation Inoculation

The Biden administration (but damn, that still feels good to write) has basically discovered in the first 24 hours that the failed Trump regime had zero plan for distributing the COVID-19 vaccine other than "Let the states handle requests and distribution" and that the team hitting the ground today, led by pointman Jeff Zients, has basically nothing to work with, having to start over from scratch.

Newly sworn in President Joe Biden and his advisers are inheriting no coronavirus vaccine distribution plan to speak of from the Trump administration, sources tell CNN, posing a significant challenge for the new White House. 

The Biden administration has promised to try to turn the Covid-19 pandemic around and drastically speed up the pace of vaccinating Americans against the virus. But in the immediate hours following Biden being sworn into office on Wednesday, sources with direct knowledge of the new administration's Covid-related work told CNN one of the biggest shocks that the Biden team had to digest during the transition period was what they saw as a complete lack of a vaccine distribution strategy under former President Donald Trump, even weeks after multiple vaccines were approved for use in the United States. 

"There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch," one source said. 

Another source described the moment that it became clear the Biden administration would have to essentially start from "square one" because there simply was no plan as: "Wow, just further affirmation of complete incompetence." 

The incoming White House now faces intense pressure to make good on the promises that Biden made during the campaign and the transition phase to drastically turn things around on the pandemic and conduct himself entirely differently from Trump when it comes to the virus and vaccine distribution. 

Prior to Inauguration Day, some of Biden's Covid-19 advisers had wanted to be careful not to be overly critical in public of the Trump administration's handling of the virus and vaccine, given that the Biden transition team was already having a hard time getting critical information and cooperation from the outgoing administration, the source said. 

The incoming White House now faces intense pressure to make good on the promises that Biden made during the campaign and the transition phase to drastically turn things around on the pandemic and conduct himself entirely differently from Trump when it comes to the virus and vaccine distribution. 

Prior to Inauguration Day, some of Biden's Covid-19 advisers had wanted to be careful not to be overly critical in public of the Trump administration's handling of the virus and vaccine, given that the Biden transition team was already having a hard time getting critical information and cooperation from the outgoing administration, the source said. 

Now that the transition of power has taken place, the Biden administration is hoping that they can quickly start to get a clearer picture of where things actually stand with vaccine distribution and administration across the country, going through something of a "fact-checking" exercise on what exactly the Trump administration had and had not done, they added. 

CNN has previously reported that the Biden team's most urgent concerns on Covid-19 include potential vaccine supply problems, coordination between federal and local governments, as well as funding, staffing and other resource needs for local governments. That is in addition to the emerging Covid variants, which the new White House -- in consultation with scientists and experts -- is watching warily.

Unfortunately, as unfair as the whole "pressure to make good on campaign promises" media and political attacks are on the first full day of the Biden Administration, this is a situation where thousands of Americans are dying daily of COVID-19. We lost a record 22,000 last week. Hell, we lost a record 4,600 just yesterday. Days matter. Hours matter.

So having to create a national vaccine program from scratch is going to cost lives measured in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Like it or not, Biden's president now. It's Biden's job to fix it, and people are dying at well over a September 11, 2001 death toll every day now.

The good news is the Biden administration is already on the case, with President Biden making the executive orders that Trump refused to, orders we should have had in place eleven damn months ago.

Hours after being sworn in as the 46th president on Wednesday, Biden signed more than a dozen executive actions in the Oval Office, including one requiring masks on federal property. He also plans to require masks on public transportation and negative Covid tests for anyone entering the country from overseas.

Biden will also use his executive powers to direct agencies to use the Defense Production Act to compel companies to prioritize manufacturing supplies that are necessary to the pandemic response. That could include protective equipment like masks, supplies needed to administer vaccines and testing supplies, the plan says. The Trump administration also invoked the act to make ventilators and other supplies.

The executive order, called “A Sustainable Public Health Supply Chain,” will also “direct the development of a new Pandemic Supply Chain Resilience Strategy” in an effort to bolster domestic manufacturing of critical supplies.

“It’s past time to fix America’s COVID-response supply shortage problems for good,” Biden’s plan says.

The administration will also seek to accelerate the rollout of vaccines by providing more funding to local and state officials, creating more vaccination sites and launching a national public education campaign. The plan says the administration will also “surge the health care workforce to support the vaccination effort,” which could include waiving some licensing requirements, for example.

The Biden mask mandate includes planes and trains as well as national parks, all federal buildings (including the US Capitol, this means you Republicans in Congress) and the White House. I fully expect to have Texas or Florida find a federal judge willing to block the mandate all the way up to SCOTUS to make sure the mandate never takes effect after this week, but it still needs to be done.

The adults are now in charge, folks. 

 

The GOP's Race To The Educational Bottom, Con't

Stephen Miller's last vile act is to unleash his Handy Guide to White Supremacy in K-12 Education for use in red state classrooms around the country, and I honestly hope that Biden's incoming Education Secretary, San Diego school superintendent Cindy Marten, has a plan to stop states from using this racist garbage.

A commission stood up by President Donald Trump as a rebuttal to schools applying a more accurate history curriculum around slavery in the US issued its inflammatory report on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

Trump announced that he was establishing the commission last fall, following a slew of Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the country. He blamed the school curriculum for violence that resulted from some of the protests, saying that "the left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools." 

The commission is an apparent counter to The New York Times' 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project aimed at teaching American students about slavery. Trump, speaking last fall, called the project "toxic propaganda." 

A sitting US president typically has the power to dissolve existing presidential commissions and advisory councils, which sometimes provide reports and recommendations to the White House. 

It's not clear what action President-elect Joe Biden will take with the commission once he's in office.  

 

I hope he disbands it on day one.  But the bigger problem is this flimsy "report" consists of dozens of pages of white grievance politics, and horrific "recommendations" that gaslight entire decades of American history.

Trump's presidency has been marked by his racist statements and actions, including his incitement of a mob, which included White supremacists, to storm the US Capitol on January 6 in protest of Biden's victory. 

A White House statement calls the report "a dispositive rebuttal of reckless 're-education' attempts that seek to reframe American history around the idea that the United States is not an exceptional country but an evil one." 

The report, released less than two weeks after supporters of the President stormed the US Capitol building, calls today's ideological divisions akin to those experienced during the Civil War. 

"Americans are deeply divided about the meaning of their country, its history, and how it should be governed. This division is severe enough to call to mind the disagreements between the colonists and King George, and those between Confederate and Union forces during the Civil War," the report states. 

The report's authors also argue that "the Civil Rights Movement was almost immediately turned to programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the founders," specifically criticizing affirmative action policies. 

"Today, far from a regime of equal natural rights for equal citizens, enforced by the equal application of law, we have moved toward a system of explicit group privilege that, in the name of 'social justice,' demands equal results and explicitly sorts citizens into 'protected classes' based on race and other demographic categories," the report states. "Eventually this regime of formal inequality would come to be known as 'identity politics.' " 

The commission is chaired by Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College. He drew criticism for his comments in 2013 when he said state officials visited the college to see whether enough "dark ones" were enrolled The commission's vice chair, Carol Swain, once wrote that Islam "poses an absolute danger to us and our children." 

The report argues that identity politics are "the opposite of King's hope that his children would 'live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.'" 

Commission members also took aim at feminists and the wide adoption use of ethnic and racial identities in American life, arguing that they were constructed by "activists." 

"A radical women's liberation movement reimagined America as a patriarchal system, asserting that every woman is a victim of oppression by men. The Black Power and black nationalist movements reimagined America as a white supremacist regime. Meanwhile, other activists constructed artificial groupings to further divide Americans by race, creating new categories like 'Asian American' and 'Hispanic' to teach Americans to think of themselves in terms of group identities and to rouse various groups into politically cohesive bodies," the report states. 

"While not as barbaric or dehumanizing," the report states, identity politics "creates new hierarchies as unjust as the old hierarchies of the antebellum South, making a mockery of equality with an ever-changing scale of special privileges on the basis of racial and sexual identities."

 

This is just a cascade of Angry White Millennial Male Grievance Politics. Unfortunately, I fully expect its recommendations to be adopted by a number of red states.

Last Call For Move, Mitch, Get Out The Way

With Vice President Harris swearing in both Georgia Democrats and her replacement, Alex Padilla, Democrats officially took control of the Senate this evening with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer now leading the Most August Deliberative Body and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy as President Pro Tempore.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is officially Senate majority leader after the inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris and the swearing-in of new Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).

Why it matters: With a 50-50 Senate, Schumer will control a narrow majority with Harris as the tie-breaking vote. Democratic control of the Senate is crucial to President Biden's agenda, from getting his coronavirus relief proposal passed to forgiving student debt.

The big picture: After more than 20 years in the Senate, Schumer will be taking the position from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who became majority leader in 2015. McConnell and Schumer met on Tuesday to discuss a power-sharing agreement for the new Senate and to sort out when to hold President Trump's second impeachment trial.

Context: The last time the Senate was divided 50-50 was in 2001, under former President George W. Bush. The Senate agreed on a power-sharing plan that gave Republicans "a narrow advantage on setting the agenda on contentious issues," Roll Call writes. 

Yes, but: The parties have become more divided since then and negotiations on how the power-sharing will work are likely to drag along, meaning Biden will not have any confirmed Cabinet members on his first day in office.

Details: Ossoff is Georgia's first Jewish senator. Warnock is Georgia's first Black senator. Padilla is the first Latino senator in California.

One fun thing: As Harris addressed "the certificate of the appointment to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California," she burst into laughter, adding: "Yeah, that was very weird."

New tags for our new Democratic senators. We'll need every one of them. And frankly, Chuck Schumer ain't Harry Reid, who was much better as both Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader than Schumer is capable of.

We'll see.

Hello Preisdent Biden And Vice President Harris!

 Damn but this feels good.

Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States on Wednesday, offering a message of unity and restoration to a deeply divided country reeling from a battered economy and a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans.

Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol exactly two weeks after a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building, Biden called for a return to civic decency in an inaugural address marking the end of Trump’s tempestuous four-year term.

“To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity,” Biden, a Democrat, said after taking the oath of office.

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this - if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.”

The themes of Biden’s brief speech mirrored those he had put at the center of his presidential campaign, when he portrayed himself as an empathetic alternative to the divisive Trump, a Republican.

The inauguration itself, one unlike any other in U.S. history, served as a stark reminder of both the tumult that defined the Trump era as well as the pandemic that still threatens the country.

Amid warnings of possible renewed violence, thousands of armed National Guard troops circled the Capitol in an unprecedented show of force. The National Mall, typically packed with throngs of supporters, instead was filled with nearly 200,000 U.S. flags. Attending dignitaries - including former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton - wore masks and sat several feet apart.

Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, became the first Black person, first woman and first Asian American to serve as vice president after she was sworn in by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina member.

The president spoke forcefully about the Jan. 6 Capitol siege when Trump backers breached the building, sending lawmakers fleeing for safety and leaving five dead, including a police officer. But Biden never mentioned his predecessor by name.

The violence prompted the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives to impeach Trump last week for an unprecedented second time, accusing him of incitement after he exhorted his backers to march on the building to press false claims of election fraud.

“Here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work on our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground,” Biden said. “It did not happen; it will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

 

New tag.

President Biden.

God bless these United States.

The End Before The Beginning

No matter what happens today, there is no conceivable way we can say that this was a smooth transition of power, and Donald Trump's legacy will be that of nearly destroying the Republic.

Twelve U.S. Army National Guard members have been removed from the presidential inauguration security mission after they were found to have ties with right-wing militia groups or posted extremist views online, according to two U.S. officials. There was no threat to President-elect Joe Biden, they said.

The officials, a senior intelligence official and an Army official briefed on the matter, did not say which fringe group the Guard members belonged to or what unit they served in. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Their removal from the massive security presence at the nation’s capital comes as the FBI worked to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops headed to the area for Biden’s inauguration Wednesday. U.S. defense officials have been worried about a potential insider attack or other threat from service members following the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 by Trump supporters that shocked the nation.

Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said in a statement Monday that vetting of National Guard troops continues and that the Pentagon has found no intelligence so far that would indicate an insider threat.

Washington has been on edge since the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, which has prompted extraordinary security measures ahead of Biden’s inauguration. A fire in a homeless camp roughly a mile from the Capitol complex prompted a lockdown Monday during a rehearsal for the inauguration.

U.S. Secret Service tightened security in and around the Capitol days earlier than usual in preparation, and the city center is essentially on lockdown with streets blocked, high fencing installed and tens of thousands of troops and law enforcement officers stationed around the area.

Federal law enforcement officials have also been wary of increased surveillance of military and law enforcement checkpoints and other positions after National Guard troops reported people taking pictures and recording them, said the law enforcement officials, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing security matters.

The Secret Service issued a bulletin over the weekend about what it sees as an “uptick” in National Guard troops posting pictures and details of their operations online.

The Associated Press obtained the “all concerned” message sent to all National Guard troops coming to Washington. Without getting into specific postings, the bulletin read: “No service members should be posting locations, pictures or descriptions online regarding current operations or the sensitive sites they are protecting” and urged them to stop immediately.

We've still got a long way to go back to the light of day. 

StupidiNews, Inauguration Day Edition!

• Good morning, it's Inauguration Day. We made it.
• Not everyone made it. Remember them.
  
• Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States at noon today, on 1/20/21, a very cool palindrome date.
  
• Thank God.
• Trump pardoned all kinds of people late last night but not himself or his family.
• Or Rudy, hah.
• So help me if anything stupid happens tomorrow...
• I mean it. 
• GOP Sen. Richard Burr is going to get away with insider trading on COVID stocks after all. 
• Missing Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma is alive after all.
• The DC Court of appeals threw out Trump's terrible "Clean Power Plan" and Joe Biden is free to fix the EPA as soon as he hits the ground.
• But I'm serious about just getting through the next 18 hours, guys.
• Have a good day.