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?