Last Call For Some Killer Diplomacy

President Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "killer" in this week's ABC News interview, and Moscow is having absolute fits over the subject.

President Vladimir V. Putin dryly wished President Biden “good health” on Thursday after the American leader assented to a description of his Russian counterpart as a “killer,” and long-running tensions morphed into a furious exchange of trans-Atlantic taunts.

The previous evening, Russia took the rare step of recalling its ambassador to Washington after Mr. Biden’s comments in a television interview, warning of the possibility of an “irreversible deterioration of relations.” On Thursday, seated in a gilded chair on the seventh anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Mr. Putin all but called Mr. Biden a killer himself.

“When I was a child, when we argued in the courtyard, we said the following: ‘If you call someone names, that’s really your name,’” Mr. Putin said, quoting a Russian schoolyard rhyme. “When we characterize other people, or even when we characterize other states, other people, it is always as though we are looking in the mirror.”

Despite Mr. Biden’s long-running criticism of Mr. Putin, some Russian analysts had voiced hope that the Kremlin could forge a productive working relationship with the new administration in Washington on areas of common interest. But Mr. Biden’s combative stance in an interview with ABC News that was broadcast on Wednesday seemed to puncture those hopes, even as many of Mr. Putin’s critics praised the American president’s comments.

In the interview, when asked whether he thought Mr. Putin was a “killer,” Mr. Biden responded: “Mmm hmm, I do.” He further pledged that Mr. Putin is “going to pay” for Russian interference in the 2020 election, which was detailed in an American intelligence report this week.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced sanctions against Russian officials after declassifying an intelligence finding that Russia’s domestic intelligence agency had orchestrated the poisoning of the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny.

“He said everything right,” a top aide to Mr. Navalny, Leonid Volkov, posted on Twitter, referring to Mr. Biden’s comments.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters Thursday that Mr. Biden stood by his words. “He gave a direct answer to a direct question,” she said.

 

Yes, Putin said "I know you are, but what am I?"

 

Putin's pretty pissed. That alone makes Biden better than Trump by orders of magnitude. 

These sanctions are going to hurt, gang.

 

 

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

 To recap why I call Republicans the party of White Supremacy, Wisconsin Republicans, in control of the state legislature by dint of the most gerrymandered districts in America by some accounts, chose to overwhelmingly honor the death of Rush Limbaugh, but voted down Black History Month. Again.

Wisconsin Senate Republicans voted 18-12 Tuesday to pass a resolution honoring Rush Limbaugh, the divisive conservative commentator and radio host who died February 17. Two Republicans, Sen. Dale Kooyenga and Eric Wimberger, did not vote.

In the same Senate session, Republicans turned down Democratic efforts to include slavery and Black history in a bill requiring public schools to teach the Holocaust and other genocides; they also rejected another attempt at a Black History Month resolution after passing on a similar effort last month.

“The Republicans have issues with who we as a Black body choose to honor, but yet we have to sit in this body and honor somebody like Rush Limbaugh who was a homophobic, xenophobic racist,” Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) said.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in a press conference earlier in the afternoon said some Republicans had objected to some of the people included on a list honoring Black History last month. Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, he said had the wide support of the GOP caucus.

“We asked them to do [a Black History Month resolution] that was more generic, like the ones we had done in the past. They really didn’t want to,” Vos said. “So we never reached consensus.”

 

Teaching kids about slavery is too controversial. Rush Limbaugh, a man who was an unrepentant, Black-hating racist for decades, is fine.

This is who Republicans are.

The Day Hell Froze Over In Texas, Con't

Remember that in the end, Republicans will take advantage of everyone they can find, then tell the victims those people are the bad guys while counting the money they took while people watch and applaud.

 

 

While many Texans last week were worried about sky-high electric bills from February’s winter storms, the state’s sole utility commissioner was privately reassuring out-of-state investors who profited from the crisis that he was working to keep their windfall safe.

Texas Monthly has obtained a recording of a 48-minute call on March 9 in which Texas Public Utility Commission chairman Arthur D’Andrea discussed the fallout from the February power crisis with investors. During that call, which was hosted by Bank of America Securities and closed to the public and news media, D’Andrea took pains to ease investors’ concerns that electricity trades, transacted at the highest prices the market allows, might be reversed, potentially costing trading firms and publicly traded generating companies millions of dollars.

“I apologize for the uncertainty,” D’Andrea said, promising to put “the weight of the commission” behind efforts to keep billions of dollars from being returned to utilities that were forced—thanks to decisions by the PUC—to buy power at sky-high prices, even after the worst of the blackout had passed.

Billed as “Learning the Texas Two Step: A Chat with the PUCT,” the call originally was scheduled for early February but was postponed until after the winter storm. The conversation shows a coziness between a top Texas regulator and some of the biggest players in the electricity market at a time when the PUC’s oversight is under fire from lawmakers. At one point, during a discussion about whether natural gas, which also saw huge price spikes during the crisis, would be “repriced,” D’Andrea said no, adding that most legislators understand that gas is priced by global markets and is out of their purview. “But I’ll let you know if I hear anything crazy on it,” D’Andrea said.

PUC spokesman Andrew Barlow said the call was part of regularly scheduled discussions between commissioners “with constituent groups across the spectrum who are interested in myriad issues.” He stressed that D’Andrea did not reveal confidential information or make comments that he hasn’t said publicly or in recent testimony before the Legislature.

Much of D’Andrea’s discussion focused on the issue of repricing some of the most expensive electricity trades during the crisis. Wholesale power prices rose 10,000 percent during the third week of February, hitting the state-imposed maximum of $9,000 per megawatt-hour and staying at those levels for days.

The PUC mandated that the $9,000 prices stay in effect for 32 hours after the market had returned to normal, a move that has angered many municipal utilities and retail electricity providers. Those providers are now struggling with huge bills that they say are unjustified and could push them into bankruptcy, while potentially eventually driving up bills for millions of residential and commercial consumers in Texas. The independent market monitor for ERCOT, the grid operator overseen by the PUC, has called the prices artificially inflated and recommended that billions be returned to purchasers. Some lawmakers have also called for contracts sold during that extended period to be repriced, and lawmakers are debating a bill this week that would force D’Andrea to issue refunds.

 

Understand that the job of Texas power grid regulators isn't to provide Texans with reliable power at a reasonable cost, it's to make Wall Street energy investors as much profit as possible. Once you understand that, everything makes sense.

Oh, and Arthur D'Andrea has resigned.

On Tuesday night, PUC chairman Arthur D’Andrea, who was appointed chairman by Governor Greg Abbott less than two weeks ago, has resigned. In a statement, Abbott said, “Tonight, I asked for and accepted the resignation of PUC Commissioner Arthur D’Andrea. I will be naming a replacement in the coming days who will have the responsibility of charting a new and fresh course for the agency. Texans deserve to have trust and confidence in the Public Utility Commission, and this action is one of many steps that will be taken to achieve that goal.”

 

Trust and confidence in being ripped off.

 

It's what Republican-led governments do.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

White supremacist terrorist insurrectionists continue to target Democrats for violence, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

 

D.C. police say a man they arrested outside of the Vice President’s residence on Wednesday afternoon had a rifle and a large capacity clip.

D.C. police responded to the scene in the 3400 block of Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest around 12:12 p.m.

U.S. Secret Service agents told FOX 5 that they’d also detained a man at that address.

Police charged Paul Murray, 31, of San Antonio, with carrying a dangerous weapon, carrying a rifle or shotgun outside of a business, possession of unregistered ammunition and possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device.

A rifle and ammunition were recovered from his vehicle.

Investigators have not indicated what the man was doing outside Number One Observatory Circle. However, a D.C. police source tells FOX 5 the man told uniformed Secret Service members that he wanted to talk to the president.

According to internal police bulletins obtained by FOX 5, Murray was said to be experiencing paranoid delusions and thought the government was after him. He purchased an AR-15 and told his mother he was in D.C. to "take care of his problem."

Authorities say Murray was an Army drone operator who started service in 2010 and was medically discharged in 2014. Documents say he recently complained to police that he wasn’t getting support from Veteran's Affairs and was not taking prescribed medication.

 

Luckily, nobody was hurt. But you notice two things: one, it's another white supremacist with a military background going to "take care" of Kamala Harris and/or Joe Biden, and two, being white, he was detained without incident.

 

And no, you can't dismiss him as a "lone wolf" like he will be. Not when there's potentially thousands more like him out there, waiting.

 

The Secret Service, DC Police, and the FBI have to stop every single one of them, too. 

The bad guys only have to get lucky once.

I Can't Recall Gavin, Con't

It looks increasingly likely that California Republicans have gotten enough signatures to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, but Newsom still has a lot of time before any election could take place.

 

Newsom's popularity has tumbled in recent months as public unrest spread over long-running school and business closures, a still-unfolding unemployment benefits scandal and his decision to attend a party with friends and lobbyists at an opulent restaurant while telling residents to stay home.

In a shopping plaza parking lot in the Sacramento suburb of Rocklin, Shannon Hile and Celeste Montgomery collected signatures earlier this month, operating from under a small white folding tent with bright yellow and red signs saying “Recall Gavin Newsom.”

Around lunch hour, more than a dozen people walked or drove up to sign. The two women and another volunteer gave detailed instructions to signers, reminding them to use the address where they are registered to vote and to be careful to write within the lines.

Neither woman voted for Newsom in 2018, when the former San Francisco mayor was elected in a landslide. They’re both outraged over school closings.

Hile moved from San Diego to the Sacramento area to be closer to family after she struggled to simultaneously take care of her 1-year-old while helping her 7-year-old navigate virtual learning at home. Montgomery, 31, also a mother of two, put her 5-year-old son in a private school so he could attend in-person classes, straining the family budget.

Newsom “gave nobody any options to survive this," Hile lamented. "He cut you off from everything and it literally was like sink or swim.”

Two Republicans have announced their candidacies: Kevin Faulconer, the former Republican mayor of San Diego, and Republican businessman John Cox, who was defeated by Newsom in 2018.

Another name being discussed in GOP circles is former President Donald Trump’s then-acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, who has not responded to requests for comment on a possible candidacy.

 

The election could cost California taxpayers $80 million, which is the entire point. Even if Newsom survives, he'll just face voters again next year, and he'll have to defend himself again.

Newsom loses either way, and so does California.

Oh Ricky You're So...Gone?

Some guy at Mar-a-Lago named "Ricky" singed for Donald Trump's lawsuit paperwork in a suit filed by Democratic Rep. Bennie Johnson of Mississippi, and nobody seems to know where the lawsuit...or Ricky...went for that matter.

 

In February, “Ricky” signed for a federal lawsuit delivered to former President Trump and then vanished.

Since then, people in both Trump’s camp and the team pressing the lawsuit on behalf of Mississippi Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson have been left scratching their heads, about who, exactly, the mysterious “Ricky” is and why he accepted mail for the former president.

Over the past couple of weeks, typically knowledgeable sources on both sides have responded to The Daily Beast’s inquiries with their own questions, such as “Who the hell is Ricky?” and “Do YOU know who Ricky is?”

Now, the “Ricky”—just “Ricky,” no last name listed—mystery has spilled into federal court where Trump’s attorney Jesse Binnall asked the judge for more time to respond to Thompson’s lawsuit in part following the difficulty in identifying the unknown signator. In a motion filed late Thursday evening, Binnall wrote that a “Ricky” appeared to have signed for a lawsuit sent to Trump—and then this person didn’t actually deliver the papers to the twice-impeached former president yet.

“Plaintiff attempted to serve Mr. Trump by certified mail on February 23, 2021. That parcel was signed for by an unknown individual identified only as ‘Ricky,’” the court filing reads. Binnall also states, “Mr. Trump contests whether that service was legally effective.”

A return of service receipt filed in early March shows that someone named “Ricky” signed for the documents at Trump’s private club of Mar-a-Lago in Florida, according to the document.

However, Binnall also said that his client’s position that the service was potentially botched “is moot because the parties have decided to focus on the substantive disputes at hand and have agreed to an extension of time for Mr. Trump to respond to the complaint, up to and including April 26, 2021.”

Judge Amit Mehta and attorneys for Democratic Rep. Thompson agreed to the Trump team’s request for an extension and the former president now has until April 26 to file a response to the suit.

 

So Trump gets to delay his lawsuit for six weeks because "Ricky" lost the paperwork.

If you believe that the lawsuit was lost, I have an oceanside golf resort in Florida to sell you, too.  The judge should be dropping Trump's ass in jail for such an asinine "Ricky ate my homework" excuse, but Trump has been dodging lawsuits using tactics like this for decades now, and he'll keep doing it.

StupidiNews!

• Atlanta police are investigating three deadly massage parlor shootings in the area on Tuesday, eight people were killed and another wounded, officials believe the killings may be linked.
• Joe Biden will hold his first White House presidential press conference on March 25th, taking questions from reporters in the White House Rose Garden.
• A new US intelligence report finds that Russian President Vladimir Putin most likely directed efforts to keep Donald Trump in the White House in 2020.
• President Biden says NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo should resign if the allegations against him are true, as calls from prominent Democrats for his ouster are increasing.
• Chinese smartphone maker Huawei says it will charge Apple and Samsung patent fees for every phone they sell in the US, recouping some revenue lost from US tariffs and sanctions.
  

Last Call For Double Checking Justice Kegstand

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is asking newly minted Attorney General Merrick Garland to double check the FBI's background check on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, mainly the question of who paid off Kavanaugh's six-figure credit card bills. Chuck Pierce explains:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is not kidding about tracing how dark money has come to influence the selection of judges for the federal bench. And now he’s found a big fish in a small barrel. From The Guardian:

Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse’s letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone at the bureau who would accept their testimony and that it had not assigned any individual to accept or gather evidence. “This was unique behavior in my experience, as the Bureau is usually amenable to information and evidence; but in this matter the shutters were closed, the drawbridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI,” Whitehouse said.

And, while the allegations regarding Christine Blasey Ford were grim and awful, Whitehouse also has had his teeth into what always has been the hinkiest part of that whole episode—namely, how Kavanaugh’s substantial personal indebtedness was settled up before he was confirmed.

Of course, this is of a piece with Whitehouse’s campaign to expose to daylight the money that fuels the conservative judicial assembly line. In fact, during the confirmation process, Whitehouse sent Kavanaugh 14 pages of follow-up questions regarding his finances. From Mother Jones:

Other questions from Whitehouse addressed Kavanaugh’s unusual debt history. Not long after Trump nominated him, the Washington Post reported that since joining the DC Circuit Court of Appeals as a judge in 2006, Kavanaugh had run up a significant amount of debt that often appeared to exceed the value of his cash and investment assets. His debts on three credit cards, as well as a loan against his retirement account, totaled between $60,000 and $200,000 in 2016, according to his financial disclosure forms. The next year, his debts vanished. When he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week for his confirmation hearing, his financial disclosure form listed no liabilities aside from his $815,000 mortgage. His disclosures don’t show any large financial gifts, outside income, or even a gambling windfall, as Sotomayor’s had when she hit the jackpot at a Florida casino in 2008 and won $8,283.

(And, no, I did not know that Justice Sotomayor had beaten The House for eight-large. Nice work, Madam Justice. Bill Bennett would like some tips.)

 

Republicans of course are Very Very Mad™ at Merrick Garland's Partisan Witch Hunt™.

I of course could not care less.

 

Busting The Filibuster, Con't

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is scared enough that Dems will actually end the filibuster that he's whining to WIN THE MORNING 2.0 about it and warning that the GOP will eventually have total control of Congress and the White House again and will take the country back to 1955.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) again warned Democrats on Tuesday that eliminating the legislative filibuster would "break the Senate" and turn the chamber into a "100-car pileup" where chaos reigns.

Why it matters: Democrats are under increasing pressure from progressives to set aside the filibuster for issues of exceptional importance, such as voting rights legislation that would counter the wave of voting restrictions being passed by Republicans at the state level.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said on Monday that the filibuster is "making a mockery of American democracy" and is holding the chamber "hostage." 

But moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have said they oppose abolishing the measure, as has President Joe Biden.

The big picture: The filibuster, which makes most legislation in the Senate subject to a 60-vote threshold, is meant to protect the interests of the minority. But it has increasingly led to deadlock and turned the Senate into a legislative graveyard for bills passed by the House.

What they're saying: McConnell warned on the Senate floor Tuesday that if Democrats eliminate the filibuster and Republicans take back the majority, "we wouldn't just erase every liberal change that hurt the country — we'd strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero, zero input from the other side." 

He promised that a Republican majority would immediately defund Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities, push abortion restrictions, ramp up security on the southern border and more. 

"Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like," the Republican leader warned.

 

Mitch is terrified, which makes me immediately ask why he didn't do this in 2017.  The reason is "he would actually have to be responsible for things" instead of blaming the Democrats for using the filibuster. Every vote in the Senate would be a tough vote, and Republicans are at heart, bullies and cowards. 

Mitch could have gotten rid of the filibuster at any time, but he didn't. Now he's warning that if Dems do it, he can blame them for what will happen in the future when he's running things.

That's an abuser's tactic, straight up. Dems should ignore him and kill the filibuster anyway.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

White supremacists in America have gravitated towards the US military and US police forces nationwide throughout history, and they've done it for several reasons (power, training, access to weapons, and legal immunity among the most common.) The US Capitol Police are no different in that respect.

A US Capitol Police officer has been suspended after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday, according to a department spokesperson. 

The spokesperson said in a statement that Capitol Police acting Chief Yogananda Pittman on Monday ordered the officer to be suspended and the officer will remain suspended pending an outcome of an investigation by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility. 

"We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously," Pittman said. "Once this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the officer to be suspended until the Office of Professional Responsibility can thoroughly investigate." 

The Washington Post first reported the officer was suspended after a congressional aide reportedly saw the document in plain sight at a checkpoint.

A printed copy of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion was left on a table inside an entrance to a House building, according to photos obtained by the Post. The text is a work of fiction published in a Russian newspaper in 1903, purporting to be documents showing a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The falsified papers were used as propaganda and influenced Adolf Hitler, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

Flags, signs and symbols of racist, White supremacist and extremist groups were displayed along with Trump 2020 banners and American flags at the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Explicitly anti-Semitic imagery was seen among rioters at the mob, and several police officers appeared to tolerate the rioters' behavior.

I mean it's just outright dumb at this point how obvious and blatant these clowns are even in a post-Trump era, and they expect there are enough pro-MAGA folks out there that they can get away with it. For the most part they are right, because that's how America has worked for 400 years.

For the most part.

They sometimes get caught, you see.

I still find it to be miraculous that no Democratic lawmakers were killed on January 6th. I really do.

StupidiNews!

• New Mexico Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland has been confirmed as Interior Secretary in a 51-40 vote, making her the first Native American confirmed to a cabinet secretary post.
• Convicted "Amityville Horror" serial killer Ronald DeFeo has died in prison custody at age 69, DeFeo killed his parents and four siblings in 1974.
• Stock markets ended Monday at record highs as wWall Street sees good news in Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party is vowing to fight back after taking historic regional losses on Sunday, putting the Green Party in position to determine the national government.
  
• India's government is considering a total ban on cryptocurrency, with the ruling party of PM Narendra Modi making mining, trading, or even holding currencies like Bitcoin illegal.

Last Call For Coked Up, Votes Down

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is going straight to magical GOP nonsense with the notion that Dems are going to use the For The People voting reform act to "buy votes with cocaine".

No seriously, that's his crackpot theory.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suggested on Sunday that H.R. 1, the sweeping election-reform bill recently passed by the House of Representatives, could eventually result in Democrats “using cocaine to buy votes.”

Appearing on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Abbott insisted to host Maria Bartiromo that the bill aimed at improving voting access would actually try to “institutionalize voter fraud in the United States of America” because it would expand the use of mail-in voting.

Describing his time as Texas attorney general, the governor then recalled an “amazing story” about vote-buying. “It was Barack Obama himself who knew about the dangers of ballot harvesting in the state of Texas,” he told a credulous Bartiromo. “Because under his administration, he sent his U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas as well as the FBI to south Texas to arrest and to prosecute people who were involved in ballot harvesting that were using cocaine to buy votes through the ballot harvesting process in the state of Texas. It is a way to commit voter fraud and it cannot be allowed.”

Bartiromo exclaimed in response: “This is absolutely extraordinary, governor!”

 

That story is complete hogwash, by the way. It was a local dealer trying to give dime bags to a couple of voters over a school board election in 2012 and he was arrested and charged for it. What Barack Obama had to do with it is mystifying, unless you're a Texas Republican Governor who's more than a little bit racist.

How that became "Democrats are going to pay voters in coke!" is a tale of moronic proportions.

Cleaning Up Trump's Mess, Con't

The Biden administration continues to take steps to clean up America after four years of drowning in Trump's toxic waste dump, this time the White House is looking at new measures to protect badly compromised government computer networks raided by Russia and China over the last several years, exposed last week by a major Microsoft vulnerability.

The White House is ramping up coordination with the private sector to address the ongoing fallout from a major breach of Microsoft software leaving thousands of American organizations vulnerable to hackers.

That includes for the first time including private companies in the meetings of an interagency taskforce dedicated to the incident, a senior administration official told reporters Friday.

“We still believe that public-private partnership is foundational in cybersecurity and we want to ensure we're taking every opportunity to include key private-sector participants early and directly in our remediation efforts,” a senior administration official said.

It's a major step towards transparency for the Biden administration, which is stressing strengthening relations between the private and public sector in the fallout from the Russian SolarWinds hacking campaign that infiltrated at least nine government agencies and about 100 companies.

The more recent Microsoft hack has added urgency to fixing those relations. Microsoft announced earlier this month a group of hackers tied to China exploited a vulnerability in its Microsoft Exchange product. Other cybercriminals have since swooped in to take advantage of servers that have not yet been updated to fix the vulnerability.

The situation escalated last week when Microsoft reported that hackers were targeting vulnerable servers with ransomware, a software loaded with a program allowing hackers to lock up computer systems and data for money. Vulnerable Microsoft users include hundreds of banks, health-care and government servers, researchers at the cybersecurity firm RiskIQ found. Pulling off a successful ransomware attack against any one of them could create major chaos.

A White House team is examining how to address concerns from the private sector over information-sharing with the government, the official said. Congress also is slated to roll out proposals regarding cybersecurity incident sharing in the coming weeks.

The Biden administration is weighing a number of potential solutions, including a ratings system for software, the official said. The grading system would be similar to that used by local health departments for restaurants. The idea of a cybersecurity rating has been pushed by Congress's bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission as well as some industry groups.

The administration also is mulling a law such as the one introduced in Singapore requiring home devices to come with security labels.

Executive orders addressing the two ideas are forthcoming, the senior official said.

The administration is not considering granting the government additional authorities to surveil domestic Internet traffic for hackers. Some experts and lawmakers worry that the blind spot created by the limited authorities has created an easy way for international hackers to avoid detection by using U.S. networks. The Biden official said the government is not exploring any expansion of domestic surveillance to make it easier for U.S. intelligence to monitor domestic traffic for hackers, a proposal that probably would spark an outcry from privacy advocates and in Congress.

 

Translation: even after years of being hacked by China and Russia, Republicans will not allow new cybersecurity legislation, even if several Dems weren't against it over civil liberties issues. It's going to have to come from President Biden's executive order pen. 

Still, Trump patently refused to do anything about these vulnerabilities, going so far as to fire the White house cybersecurity czar and eliminate the office, leaving the door wide open for Russia and China to reap devastating intelligence on US operations and corporations.

President Biden has a lot of work to do, but at least we're rolling up our sleeves.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

America is embracing President Biden's competence and the speedy actions of Democrats in Congress in cleaning up the Trump cesspool, and a new CBS News poll finds the majority of us see better days and sunshine ahead.

Though "exhausted" from a year-long pandemic, confidence about containing the coronavirus is hitting new highs as more vaccines roll out, and Americans say they're also "grateful" and widely optimistic about the coming months. The economy seems poised for its own shot in the arm, with Americans bullish about its prospects, both nationally and locally, and looking forward to fueling it by traveling, shopping and dining out more — once they think it's safe.

Precisely when they'll think it's safe is uncertain, and it won't be right away. For some, it won't be until they're vaccinated themselves. Others are waiting for cases to come down further, even if they've gotten the shot, and right now, many remain wary of venturing into crowded places. Concern about new variants weighs on others.

On the political front, this adds up to good marks for President Biden, who gets very high ratings for his handling of the outbreak, with over two-thirds approving, as well as for managing the vaccine distribution. Plus the just-signed relief bill remains extremely popular, with most feeling it will help both the economy and help them, personally.

But if all this optimism is predicated on America vaccinating everyone by summer, then partisan differences are injecting some added uncertainty: Republicans — particularly younger Republicans — continue to be more reluctant to get the vaccine, just as they've been less concerned about the virus generally, as well as more skeptical of restrictions.

As they look across many specific parts of the economy, national and local, most see reason for hope. They're optimistic about their local job market, their local economy and that businesses can reopen safely, as well for the stock market's prospects.

And a majority believes the newly signed relief bill will help them, personally, as well as help the economy overall — particularly for working-class and lower-income people more so than the wealthy.This optimism could spur growth if Americans return to activities they've avoided — and they say they're looking forward to doing just that, in sectors like travel, and restaurants — or by spending, as they look forward to things like "shopping" and "getting dressed up" again along with visiting friends.

 

All said and done, Biden's approval rating is 62% in this CBS poll. 

Things are improving something that still would not be happening under Trump.

StupidiNews!

• US Capitol Police are considering scaling back perimeter fencing and National Guard troops as lawmakers are calling for reductions in security procedures.
• The FBI is shifting January 6th terror investigations to Trump-aligned militia groups and known white supremacists as the scope of the investigation expands.
• At least 39 people are reported dead in Myanmar as protesters were assaulted by military troops, Chinese factories in the capital Yangon's industrial suburb were set ablaze. 
• Vaccine expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is suggesting that Donald Trump could save "thousands" of lives by convincing reluctant Republican voters to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
• The National Transportation Safety Board is blasting automaker Tesla over dangerous autopilot systems, and lax allowances by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.