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.
  

Last Call For These Disunited States, Con't

Trumpists are busy trying to purge their ranks of the unbelievers and destroy them as much as they are trying to destroy America, maybe even a little more so as the party makes it clear that loyalty to Dear Leader is the only thing that every mattered. 

 

Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney is finding this out the hard way as her political career may not survive this year, let alone a 2022 reelection campaign, after her vote to impeach Donald Trump last week.

 

On top of all this, GOP caucuses in states like Wyoming are now openly floating seceding from a Biden-led United States.

 

The chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party on Friday said Western states are "paying attention" to the effort by some in Texas' far-right to try to secede from the United States.

Appearing on former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast last week to discuss Rep. Liz Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump, Eathorne made the comment in response to a Bannon question about what conservatives should keep in mind in light of their movement's recent political losses.

“We need to focus on the fundamentals,” Eathorne said on the broadcast, which was recently banned by YouTube for peddling misinformation about the 2020 election. “We are straight talking, focused on the global scene, but we’re also focused at home. Many of these Western states have the ability to be self-reliant, and we’re keeping eyes on Texas too, and their consideration of possible secession. They have a different state constitution than we do as far as wording, but it’s something we’re all paying attention to.”

After a Star-Tribune reporter reached out for comment, Eathorne said the idea has not been a topic discussed by the Wyoming GOP.

"Only a brief conversation with the Texas GOP in earlier work with them," Eathorne wrote in the text. "Won't come up again unless the grass roots brings it up."

Bannon, who earlier in the program said that the populist, nationalist, conservative movement "is what people want,” pushed back on Eathorne’s statement, saying that as a native of Richmond, Virginia — the heart of the Confederacy — he was completely against any sort of secession. However, Bannon followed that statement by saying he would be open to talking about it further with Eathorne on a future program.

A 15-year-old fringe right-wing movement in the Lone Star State called “Texit” suggests it is not illegal for individual states to leave the United States — an occurrence that has not happened since the lead-up to the American Civil War.

Suggestions of secession have come up before. A week after the 2012 presidential election, nearly 700,000 Americans from all 50 states signed 69 petitions through the White House’s online petition system calling for the country to consider allowing states to peacefully secede from the United States — an opinion shared by one-quarter of Republican voters at the time, according to one 2012 poll. California once saw a fringe, left-wing movement to secede gain some momentum, and in 2017, Oklahoma state Sen. Joseph Silk introduced a bill seeking to remove the word “inseparable” from the sentence in the state constitution describing Oklahoma as “an inseparable part of the Federal Union.”

However, the question has been thrust into the mainstream in recent months as far-right groups have begun openly floating the idea.

In December, the conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh raised the subject to his 15.5 million listeners, saying in one broadcast, “I actually think that we’re trending toward secession.” A Mississippi state representative recently suggested to his Twitter followers that his own state — which had Confederate battle flag imagery in its state flag up until this past year — should consider breaking off from the country and forming its own state.

Earlier this month, Texas Republican Rep. Kyle Biedermann announced he would be sponsoring a bill in that Legislature’s 2021 session to put the question of secession to voters this fall, a step that comes roughly four years after the Texas Nationalist Movement came within two votes of adding Texas independence language to the state’s Republican platform.

 

You can be damned sure they're not going to be wanting "peaceful secession" from the Union this time. 2021 is going to continue to be an even worse year than 2020.

From Deportation Nation To Immigration Nation

Incoming President-elect Joe Biden is making it clear that reversing the racist, white supremacist deportation policies of Stephen Miller and the Trump regime is among his top priorities heading forward this week, and Democrats controlling Congress are already on board. WaPo's Seung Min Kim:

President-elect Joe Biden will roll out a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws the day he is inaugurated, including an eight-year pathway to citizenship for immigrants without legal status and an expansion of refugee admissions, along with an enforcement plan that deploys technology to patrol the border.

Biden’s legislative proposal, which will be sent to Congress on Wednesday, also includes a heavy focus on addressing the root causes of migration from Central America, a key part of Biden’s foreign policy portfolio when he served as vice president.

The centerpiece of the plan from Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris is the eight-year pathway, which would put millions of qualifying immigrants in a temporary status for five years and then grant them a green card once they meet certain requirements such as a background check and payment of taxes. They would be able to apply for citizenship three years later.

To qualify, immigrants must have been in the United States as of Jan. 1, a move meant to blunt any rush to the border.

Beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — which granted key protections for “dreamers” — and the temporary protected status program for migrants from disaster-ravaged nations could apply for a green card immediately. The details were described by transition officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The president-elect’s plan has been met with praise from pro-immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers who have toiled to overhaul the immigration system for decades. But it also comes at a time when the Republican Party, led by President Trump, has shifted far rightward on immigration, complicating efforts at a deal that can get enough GOP support.

In a significant contrast with the Obama administration — which was heavily criticized by the Latino community for not tackling immigration when Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House early in President Barack Obama’s tenure — Biden has made immigration his chief legislative priority behind the immediate health and economic relief stemming from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Having leadership makes a big difference,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in an interview Monday. “You cannot achieve immigration reform without presidential leadership, and from what I see, the seriousness of their purpose to start off with gives me a real good feeling that the president-elect is actually going to use capital to try to make this happen.”

The Biden effort would mark the most substantial attempt at a comprehensive immigration overhaul since the Senate passed legislation in 2013, only to have it collapse in the House, then controlled by Republicans, the following year.

After that collapse, pressure from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates pushed Obama to issue a wide-reaching effort aimed at protecting parents of U.S. citizen children and green-card holders in the country illegally, but that action promptly was blocked in the courts.

Good for Joe Biden and his team.

Now if they will only choose to do something about the fact that Senate Republicans will never, ever allow a word of this plan to become law, and realize that the Roberts Court will never allow a word of this to pass muster as an Executive Order.

We'll see.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

You know what?

 

I've written more than a hundred posts about this subject since 2009 and I swear to Christ I hope Joe Biden finally makes these assholes a top priority in his administration, because yes, they are basically engaging in conspiracies to commit white supremacist domestic terrorist attacks like the US Capitol attack and even this FBI has no choice but to go after them.

A heavy-metal guitarist, the alleged leader of a Colorado paramilitary training group and two self-styled militia members from Ohio have been charged with taking part in the riot at the Capitol last week, as the FBI ratchets up its investigation into the role extremist groups played in storming the building.

Jon Schaffer, an Indiana musician, turned himself in to the FBI on Sunday afternoon, officials said. On Jan. 6, Schaffer was photographed inside the Capitol, wearing a hat that said “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member.” Schaffer founded Iced Earth, a heavy-metal band, and music fans quickly recognized him as the FBI circulated wanted posters with his face on them.

Schaffer was charged with six counts, including engaging in an act of physical violence. Authorities said Schaffer was among the rioters who targeted U.S. Capitol Police with bear spray.

Also charged in a court filing made public Sunday was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Cripple Creek, Colo. Court papers say that Gieswein is affiliated with an Oath Keepers-related extremist group called the Three Percenters, and that he assaulted federal officers outside the Capitol with bear spray and a baseball bat; “encouraged other rioters as they broke a window of the Capitol building; entered … and then charged through the Capitol building.”

Gieswein runs a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs, and a patch for that group was visible on a tactical vest he wore during the attack on Congress, an FBI affidavit said.

Gieswein gave a media interview in which he echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the affidavit said, and said his message to Congress was “that they need to get the corrupt politicians out of office. Pelosi, the Clintons … every single one of them, Biden, Kamala.”

Also arrested Sunday were Donovan Crowl, 50, a former U.S. Marine, and Army veteran Jessica Watkins, 38. A bartender, Watkins recently told the Ohio Capital Journal that she formed the “Ohio State Regular Militia” in 2019 — a unit of the Oath Keepers, the FBI said — and that the group has appeared at a dozen protests to “protect people.”

The FBI said Watkins posted to Parler a photograph of herself in uniform on Jan. 6, writing, “Me before forcing entry into the Capitol Building. #stopthesteal #stormthecapitol #oathkeepers #ohiomilitia.”

Watkins and Crowl were among about 10 individuals recorded at the U.S. Capitol wearing combat helmets, ballistic goggles, tactical vests and Oath Keepers patches who “move[d] in an organized and practiced fashion and force[d] their way to the front of the crowd” to lead the siege and break-in, FBI affidavits said.

Lawyers for the four defendants could not immediately be identified.

The Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, have drawn particular attention from FBI agents investigating the attack on Congress, as they work to determine whether those groups organized or directed the violence to block certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. Officials have said the Proud Boys in particular are an important focus of the FBI investigation.

 

Would sure be nice if a hell of a lot more of these assholes ended up in the hole on providing material support and conspiracy charges.

Just saying.

 

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

The Republican on Michigan's state Board of Elections who was the deciding vote to certify the state's 2020 presidential election ballots is being summarily dismissed by Trump cultists demanding a sacrifice.

With party activists calling for certification to be blocked on Nov. 23, Aaron Van Langevelde, a policy adviser and deputy legal counsel for state House Republicans, joined the two Democrats on the four-member board to sign offon the results.

His term ends on Jan. 31. Instead of renominating him for a four-year term, the Michigan Republican Party has proposed three well-known activists to take his spot, according to a letter obtained by The Detroit News. Among them is Linda Lee Tarver, who was involved in a lawsuit that sought to have the GOP-controlled Legislature intervene in the results showing Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won.

Van Langevelde said he was never asked if he’d like another term on the board, unlike the first time he was nominated, when the party approached him about serving. He said the party’s decision came as no surprise, but he stood by his vote and said he was proud of the board’s decision.

“My conscience is clear, and I am confident that my decision is on the right side of the law and history,” Van Langevelde said in a Monday statement. “Time will tell that those who spread misinformation and tried to overturn the election were wrong, and they should be held responsible for the chaos and confusion they have caused.”

In addition to Tarver, a longtime former employee of the Michigan Department of State, the state Republican Party also nominated Tony Daunt, director of the conservative Michigan Freedom Fund, and Tori Sachs, a political strategist and executive director of Michigan Rising Action.

"Should you require any additional information, please contact my office," Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox wrote in a letter to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Jan. 8.

Under state law, the Michigan Republican Party can nominate three individuals for a seat on the Board of State Canvassers. Whitmer has until Wednesday to pick one for the position.

Van Langevelde "did not request to be considered for reappointment to the state canvasing board," said Tony Zammit, a spokesman for the Michigan Republican Party.

Van Langevelde cast the deciding vote to certify Biden's 154,000-vote lead in Michigan. The other Republican member of the board, Norm Shinkle, abstained. What is usually a procedural process was fraught with controversy as supporters of GOP President Donald Trump pushed to delay certification and overturn the state's results based on unproven claims of fraud.

"We have a clear legal duty to certify the results of the election, as shown by the returns that were given to us," Van Langevelde said during the meeting. "We cannot and should not go beyond that. As John Adams once said, 'We are a government of laws, not men.'" 

 

And for his actions, he is being crucified.  I still have little sympathy for anyone who remained in the GOP after Donald Trump was elected, but Van Langevelde did his job correctly and he is being fired for it, and I hope he gets to sue the pants off of somebody in the future.

 

Probably not, though. His political career is essentially over as a Republican.

 

He could always join the good guys, however.

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

Team Biden is taking the Trumpist white supremacist domestic terrorist threat seriously, assuring America that they are preparing for the worst and hoping for a smooth transition of power.

 

President-elect Joe Biden is still planning to take his oath of office on the west side of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday despite growing concerns over safety for the event, incoming White House Communication Director Kate Bedingfield said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

“Well, that is certainly our plan,” Bedingfield said when asked by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos if she was certain the ceremony would go forward as planned.

"I think that will send an incredibly important visual image to the world about the resilience of American democracy. And so our plan and our expectation is that President-elect Biden will put his hand on the Bible with his family outside on the West side of the Capitol on the 20th," Bedingfield said.

Authorities have been tracking an array of potential threats ahead of the inauguration, following the deadly riots at the Capitol. They have led to changes to Biden's inaugural plans -- already altered by the pandemic.

While the oath of office is moving forward as planned, Bedingfield said Sunday that the incoming White House staffers are preparing for any threats that should arise.

"We're in volatile times, and so we are making preparations," she said. "We'll begin meeting tomorrow, daily meetings with the outgoing leadership in national security and law enforcement to ensure that we're preparing for any scenario that should arise after noon on January the 20th."

Despite the increased threats, Biden told reporters on Friday that he felt safe with the inauguration plans, which include an outdoor ceremony where Biden is expected to deliver his inaugural address.

“What can Americans expect to hear on Wednesday? What is the major goal of this address?” Stephanopoulos asked Bedingfield.

"I think you can expect that this will be a moment where President-elect Biden will really work to try to turn the page on the divisiveness and the hatred over the last four years and really lay out a positive, optimistic vision for the country, and ... lay out a path forward that really calls on all of us to work together," Bedingfield said previewing the speech.

 

Biden's inaugural address will be historic for it merely being a public even held outside the US Capitol. I know I've seen people on social media, pundits, and columnists all argue that Biden should be taking the oath inside the Capitol, if not inside an undisclosed location.

But America needs this ceremony. It needs this to happen, for a couple of reasons, number one being We do not negotiate with terrorists, and number two, Biden's address will be one for the history books if only for the conditions under which Biden will be delivering them, to a nation divided almost as badly as it was in 1861, some 160 years ago, when Abraham Lincoln first addressed the country as President.

 

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” 

 

Our wounds are deep and still open. Let us hope, and help, Joe Biden close them and bring America together. Biden has to do this like every other President did after being elected, he has to do this in front of America and the world. This is the tough call to make, this is the right call to make, but in the end we have to have it.

But to solve the bigger problem, the problem of Trump, his cultists, his enablers, his terror squads willing to harm and even kill, we have to face up to it. We can't hide from these assholes any more. We need to take them on in order to heal the country, but to do that, we will need true reconciliation, and that only comes after real justice. 

Team Biden's Opening Day Lineup

Good morning as we head into the final days of Trumpeii.

 

With a bit more than 48 hours to go until inauguration, Joe Biden is definitely planning to hit the ground running on Wednesday after being sworn in, with a ream of executive orders ready to be signed from Day One through the end of January.

 

In his first hours as president, Joe Biden plans to take executive action to roll back some of the most controversial decisions of his predecessor and to address the raging coronavirus pandemic, his incoming chief of staff said Saturday.

The opening salvo would herald a 10-day blitz of executive actions as Biden seeks to act swiftly to redirect the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency without waiting for Congress.

On Wednesday, following his inauguration, Biden will end Trump’s restriction on immigration to the U.S. from some Muslim-majority countries, move to rejoin the Paris climate accord and mandate mask-wearing on federal property and during interstate travel. Those are among roughly a dozen actions Biden will take on his first day in the White House, his incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, said in a memo to senior staff.

Other actions include extending the pause on student loan payments and actions meant to prevent evictions and foreclosures for those struggling during the pandemic.

“These executive actions will deliver relief to the millions of Americans that are struggling in the face of these crises,” Klain said in the memo. “President-elect Biden will take action — not just to reverse the gravest damages of the Trump administration — but also to start moving our country forward.”

“Full achievement” of Biden’s goals will require Congress to act, Klain wrote, including the $1.9 trillion virus relief bill he outlined on Thursday. Klain said that Biden would also propose a comprehensive immigration reform bill to lawmakers on his first day in office.

Providing a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally will be part of Biden’s agenda, according to people briefed on his plans. Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum and among those briefed, said immigrants would be put on an eight-year path. There would be a faster track for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields people from deportation who came to the U.S. as children, and for those from strife-torn countries with temporary status.

On Thursday, the new president’s second day in office, Biden would sign orders related to the COVID-19 outbreak aimed at reopening schools and businesses and expanding virus testing, Klain said. The following day, Friday, will see action on providing economic relief to those suffering the economic costs of the pandemic.

In the following week, Klain said, Biden would take additional actions relating to criminal justice reform, climate change and immigration — including a directive to speed the reuniting of families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump’s policies.

More actions will be added, Klain said, once they clear legal review. 

 

This is exactly what Joe Biden needed to do, and he's charging in, pen blazing. Get ready. The work begins in earnest in two days. 

All hands on deck.

 

StupidiNews!

• Incoming CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warns that COVID-19 could claim another 100,000 lives by February 15 as the incoming Biden administration works to fix Trump issues.
• Multiple Texas newspaper editorial boards are calling for the resignation of GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in the wake of the US Capitol insurrection earlier this month.
• Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was immediately detained by Russian security forces returning to Moscow Sunday from Germany after recovering from a Russian poisoning attack.
• Democrats are pleading to intelligence agencies asking for Donald Trump to be cut off from tradition post-presidential intelligence briefings in the wake of his second impeachment.
• NASA's first major rocket ignition test in over a decade ended in failure Saturday as the Space Launch System failed a minute into a hot fire test at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.