DL Open Thread: Friday, January 22, 2021

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on January 22, 2021

Biden Issues Sweeping Pandemic Orders.  Yes, you need a subscription to see it all.  It doesn’t hurt to subscribe to invaluable news sources, of which the NYTimes is one. In fact, I think you should.  Support quality journalism. Here’s the bare-bones list of orders:

Ramp up the pace of manufacturing and testing.

Require mask wearing during interstate travel.

Form better data collection systems.

Establish a health equity task force.

Publish guidance for schools, workers and employers.

Find more treatments for Covid-19.

Trump’s Businesses In Deep Doo-Doo.  Revel in the schadenfreude:

Financial disclosure forms, filed by the former president as he left office, revealed that his hotels, resorts and other properties had lost more than $120 million in revenue last year, as the pandemic forced long-term closures and kept customers home.

On Thursday, the company’s troubles grew: One of its banks and one of its law firms said they would cut their ties with the Trump Organization. They are the latest in a string of vendors and customers who severed their relationships with the company after Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol directly after he addressed them at a rally.

There’s so much more.  Get a subscription and read it all.  Suffice it to say, his post-presidential years will cause him great misery.  Which reminds me, I wonder when the first indictment will be announced…

Biden Seeks To Increase Food Benefits To Needy:

Biden is asking the Department of Agriculture to allow states to increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits — commonly known as food stamps — and to increase by 15 percent benefits awarded through a school meals program for low-income studentsstarted during the pandemic, according to Biden administration officials. That could give a family of three children more than $100 in extra benefits every two months, officials said.

A separate unilateral move aims to help get previously approved stimulus checks into the hands of Americans who haven’t received them yet. And another would ask the Labor Department to make clear that workers who refuse to return to working conditions that could expose them to the coronavirus should be eligible for unemployment insurance.

He’s doing everything he can via Executive Order.  He’s gonna need legislation, though, to do more, and he will need it soon.

Guardsmen Ordered To Leave Capitol Building.  Congress Protests. They’re now allowed back.  I’d love to know who gave that order.

Biden Seeks $15 Minimum Wage For Federal Workers & Contractors.  Again, he’s doing what he can through Executive Order.  He’ll need a functional Senate to do more.  Also:

Biden’s executive action will also restore certain collective bargaining provisions to federal workers and eliminate Schedule F, an employment classification former President Trump created in October that would strip most civil service protections and make it easier to fire them without cause.

Trump was often frustrated about the civil service and his inability to summarily dismiss career civil servants.

How Trump Administration Prevented International Cooperation To Address Right-Wing Extremism.  This will change. Bigly.

Biden Orders Federal Agencies To Prohibit Discrimination Based On Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity.  The Supreme Court had declared such discrimination unconstitutional, but Trump had refused to enforce it.

Here are my thoughts on the Biden kickoff:  More than perhaps any other president, he is acutely aware of how little time one has, and feels the need to accomplish as much as he can during his allotted time.  I think he has learned from the failures of the Obama years, and also from his own failings.  I’m sure the honeymoon, at least for me, will end soon.  But I couldn’t have asked for a more encouraging rollout than what I’ve seen so far.

What do you want to talk about?

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  1. BREAKING: John Fetterman Looking To Run For US Senate From Pennsylvania.

    I LOVE this guy. Combines a progressive worldview with a down-to-earth personality. He is the current Lt. Governor. Here’s what he wrote in this morning’s release:

    “You already know exactly where I stand. I haven’t had to ‘evolve’ on key issues, because I’ve always said what I believe is true and I’ve stood and worked for the same things for the last 20 years:

    Establish a living wage that is at least $15 an hour

    Pass legislation to ensure health care for all Americans as a fundamental human right indistinguishable from housing, food, and education

    Fight for second chances and reimagine criminal justice reform

    Combat climate change – which is a real, urgent, complicated threat that requires immediate and coordinated action

    Legalize weed nationwide for jobs, justice, veterans, farmers, and revenue

    Fight for the union way of life and our workers

    Protect our LGBTQIA communities and continue to push for equal protections under the law

    The point is, we have a consistent record to run on. Voters in Pennsylvania know me. They know I’ll always say what I believe. That’s why they elected me as their Lieutenant Governor.

  2. mouse says:

    Don’t criticize it!

  3. Jason330 says:

    ” I think he has learned from the failures of the Obama years,”

    ABOVE ALL, I hope he learned to not go into the mid-terms playing defense.

  4. BTW, I just read this, and it’s a MUST READ. (It requires a subscription to the NY Times).

    The most incisive analysis of what D’s must do to earn a victory in 2022. I agree with every word of it:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opinion/biden-inauguration-democrats.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

  5. All Seeing says:

    EL Som is right about the NYTimes. I have a senior subscription for $8 monthly digital. It is superb.
    In a deposition a witness said a guy was dangerous and the asked why? He said he reads the New York Times. In other words he had a mind of his own. It took me several years to find out his meaning but one of my female Doctors knew immediately. Hail to the NYTimes worth it weight in facts and information from around the world.
    Breaking News:
    https://www.justsecurity.org/74241/the-gaps-in-trumps-pardons-how-the-biden-administration-can-still-pursue-justice/