Enlarge / Vials in front of the AstraZeneca British biopharmaceutical company logo are seen in this creative photo taken on 18 November 2020. (credit: Getty| NurPhoto)
Dismal preliminary data on AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in South Africa—where the B.1.351/ 501Y.V2 coronavirus variant is spreading widely—led the government there to rethink its vaccination rollout and raised further international concern about the variant.
But the small study has so many limitations and caveats, experts caution that drawing any conclusions from it is difficult.
The study, which has not been published or peer-reviewed but presented in a press conference Sunday, began in June and enrolled only around 2,000 participants, about half of which received a placebo. Early in the study—before B.1.351 emerged—the vaccine appeared over 70 percent effective at preventing mild-to-moderate cases of COVID-19. That is largely in line with the conclusion of an international Phase III trial released by AstraZeneca and vaccine co-developer Oxford University, which showed mixed results for the replication-deficient adenovirus-based vaccine but an overall efficacy of around 70 percent.
A Utah public charter school is backtracking after initially considering it a good idea to allow parents to opt out of Black History Month activities for their children. As if it’s not heartbreaking enough that many schools relegate Black history education to a single month (if teaching it at all), Maria Montessori Academy Director Micah Hirokawa explained in a Facebook post on Saturday that opt-out forms were sent to parents after they received requests for the allowance.
“We are grateful that families that initially had questions and concerns have willingly come to the table to resolve any differences and at this time no families are opting out of our planned activities and we have removed this option,” Hirokawa said in the post. “In the future, we will handle all parental concerns on an individual basis. We are excited to celebrate the rich content of Black History Month at our school.”
In an earlier post the Standard-Examiner discovered Friday, Hirokawa said although it “deeply saddens and disappoints” him, he “reluctantly” sent a letter to the school community “explaining that families are allowed to exercise their civil rights to not participate in Black History Month at the school … We should not shield our children from the history of our Nation, the mistreatment of its African American citizens, and the bravery of civil rights leaders, but should educate them about it,” Hirokawa said. The administrator went on to explain to the Standard-Examiner that the school, with a student population that is less than 1% Black, would be incorporating Black history into its regular social studies lessons for February.
Hirokawa told the newspaper that as “someone whose great-grandparents were sent to a Japanese internment camp” he sees “a lot of value in teaching our children about the mistreatment, challenges, and obstacles that people of color in our Nation have had to endure and what we can do today to ensure that such wrongs don’t continue.”
His personal feelings, however, didn’t absolve him of blame with social media users and some parents at the school in North Ogden, which is about 50 miles north of Salt Lake City. “I was appalled to see the form sent out that allows parents to opt their kids out of this and to hear that this is all because some parents have requested it,” parent Rebecca Bennett wrote to the Standard-Examiner. “I echo others who are disappointed to hear this was even ever made an issue in the first place by some families in our school’s community.”
Alison Miller, a former Montessori educator, called Hirokawa’s message “disappointing and dangerous … This post reads as a celebration of your own humanity — but all I see is that you are ensuring others have the right to continue to willfully refuse to recognize the humanity of, and to perpetuate harm against, Black people,” Miller wrote.
Lars Johnson, an assistant professor at Wayne State University, tweeted on Saturday: “I would like to opt my children out of the effects of structural oppression and systemic racism.” Deen Freelon, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tweeted on Saturday: “Cool, cool. So can my kids opt out of white history?”
That's fine. Adapt black history into EVERY day education as it should be and let them OPT OUT of school.
Jemele Hill, the former ESPN host targeted when she tweeted that President Donald Trump is a “white supremacist,” weighed in on the school’s decision on Saturday. “You could argue that on a lot of levels our education system has been opting out of teaching black history for some time,” she tweeted. “I am no longer surprised by the depths this nation will go to erase black people.”
Who knew poetry would suddenly make a comeback. Not a bad result
Biden inaugural poet Amanda Gorman was called to action with her words once again ahead of Super Bowl LV, honoring community heroes with “Chorus of the Captains” which shouted out to Trimaine Davis, nurse manager Suzie Dorner and Marine Corps veteran James Martin, the three individuals who were named as honorary captains at the game.
Gorman’s words:
Today we honor our three captains for their actions and impact in a time of uncertainty and need.
They have taken the lead, exceeding all expectations and limitations, uplifting their communities and nation as leaders, healers, and educators.
James has felt the wounds of warfare but this warrior still shares his home with at-risk kids. During COVID he’s even lent a hand, live-streaming football for family and fans.
Trimaine is an educator who works non-stop providing his community with hot spots, laptops, and tech workshops, so his students have all the tools they need to succeed in life and in school.
Susie is the ICU nurse manager at a Tampa hospital. Her chronicles prove that even in tragedy, hope is possible. She lost her grandmothers to the pandemic, and fights to save other lives in the ICU battle zone defining the front line heroes risking their lives for our own.
Let us walk with these warriors, charge on with these champions, and carry forth the call of our captains. We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion, by doing what is right and just.
For while we honor them today, it is they who every day honor us.
In his inaugural address, President Biden described America as in the midst of an “uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal.” His invocation of a civil war and the American Civil War was provocative. It was also accurate. There is no formal definition of an uncivil war, but America is increasingly split between members of two political parties that hate each other.
In the same speech, Biden warned of the dangers of “a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism.” This too was accurate. Biden was delivering his address exactly two weeks after a group of supporters of then-President Trump, riled up by his false claims about voter fraud, stormed the Capitol to try to overturn the results of a free and fair election, an act of political extremism and domestic terrorism carried out by at least some people who believe in white supremacy.
Biden didn’t explicitly say that the extremism, domestic terrorism and white supremacy is largely coming from one side of the uncivil war. But that’s the reality. In America’s uncivil war, both sides may hate the other, but one side — conservatives and Republicans — is more hostile and aggressive, increasingly willing to engage in anti-democratic and even violent attacks on their perceived enemies.
The Jan. 6 insurrection and the run-up to it is perhaps the clearest illustration that Republicans are being more hostile and anti-democratic than Democrats in this uncivil war. Biden pledged to concede defeat if he lost the presidential election fair and square, while Trump never made such a pledge; many elected officials in the GOP joined Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results; and finally, Trump supporters arrived at the Capitol to claim victory by force. But there are numerous other examples of conservatives and Republicans going overboard in their attempts to dominate liberals and Democrats:
Trump, conservative lawyers and most Republican members of Congress tried to disqualify the election results in some swing states, which would have in effect invalidated the votes of millions of Americans, particularly Black people and residents of large urban areas. And, as mentioned earlier, that effort culminated in an attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
State-level GOP officials have limited cities and other localities from enacting policies meant to reduce the spread of COVID-19, essentially preventing elected officials in cities (usually Democrats) from taking measures to save the lives of their constituents.
GOP officials at the state level are engaged in a broader effort to preempt laws passed in Democratic cities, meaning that mostly white GOP state legislators elected in conservative, rural areas are often determining education, economic and other policies for heavily Democratic cities with large numbers of people of color.
We could also compile a long list of anti-democratic and hostile actions taken by Trump himself against Democrats. At the top of that list would be his attempt to coerce the Ukrainian government into announcing it would investigate the Biden family — essentially a scheme for Trump to use the power of his office to tilt the upcoming presidential election in his favor.
It’s important to be specific here, however. Many of the most aggressive actions against liberals have been taken not by Republican voters but largely by Republican officials, particularly at the state level.
“Many Republicans do not accept Democratic governance as a legitimate outcome” of elections, said Thomas Zimmer, a history professor at Georgetown University who is writing a book about political divides in America. “America is nearing a crisis of democratic legitimacy because one side is trying to erect one-party minority rule.”
Gretchen Helmke, a political scientist at the University of Rochester who studies the state of democratic governments around the world, said, “There is a marked asymmetry between the two parties,” with Republicans more engaged in “playing constitutional hardball and taking actions that are still within the letter of the law but [that] may violate the spirit of the law or common-sense ideas about fairness and political equality.”
Those types of actions are much harder to find on the Democratic side. There is no campaign by Democratic elected officials to disenfranchise white evangelical Christians, a constituency that overwhelmingly backs GOP candidates, just as Black voters overwhelmingly back Democratic candidates. There was no widespread, systematic attempt by Democratic officials four years ago to disqualify the votes that elected Trump or to spur Democratic voters to attack the Capitol to prevent the certification of his presidency. While the left-wing antifa movement has violent tendencies, it isn’t an organized group — nor is it aligned with Biden or Democrats. And at least right now, national security experts describe right-wing violence as a much bigger danger in America than any violent behavior from the left. In an October 2020 report, the Department of Homeland Security called violent white supremacists the “most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland.”
And, of course, Democrats did not embrace an anti-democratic figure like Trump as their standard-bearer. There are no Democratic politicians in Congress implying that conservative politicians are such dangers to the country that they should be killed.
“The GOP is a counter-majoritarian party now, every week it becomes less like a ‘normal’ party,” said Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University who has written extensively about the radicalization of the Republican Party. “The GOP has to make it harder to vote and harder to understand what the party is all about. Those are two parts of the same project. And it can’t treat its white supremacist and violent wings as extremists who should be isolated because it needs them. They provide motor and momentum.”
“The GOP has radicalized (and is still radicalizing) on its willingness to break democratic norms and subvert or eliminate political institutions. Don’t expect restraint where you’ve seen it in the past,” said Charlotte Hill, a Ph.D. candidate at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducts research on election and voting laws.
Because of this deep conservative antipathy for the liberal version of America, Joanne Freeman, a professor of history and American studies at Yale University, has compared the state of America today to the 1850s, right before the U.S. Civil War.
“Mass violence in Congress seemed possible in 1850. Now, 171 years later, it’s in the national mindscape once again. And for good reason. The echoes of 1850 are striking. We’re at a moment of extreme polarization when outcomes matter, sometimes profoundly,” Freeman wrote in a recent essay in The New York Times.
“The Republicans,” she continued, “whose ironclad grip on the Senate has dominated the federal government, feel entitled to that power and increasingly threatened; they know they’re swimming against the demographic tide in a diversifying nation. They have proven themselves ready and eager for minority rule; voter suppression — centered on people of color — is on the rise and has been for some time. And some of them are willing to protect what they deem right with threats of violence.”
To be sure, only a very, very small fraction of conservative Americans participate in acts of domestic terrorism. Most rank-and-file Republicans would likely describe themselves as opposed to individualized acts of racism (a workplace not hiring Black employees, for example) as well as systemic racism and white supremacy. Most Republican voters are not directly participating in moves by GOP officials to make it harder for people of color to vote. And there are a lot of Republican elected officials who have nottried to have the 2020 election results disqualified or promoted laws and rules to make it harder for people of color to vote.
At the same time, Republican voters have stuck with the party despite its recent shift toward move overt and aggressive anti-democratic behavior. “This stuff seems not a deal-breaker to the vast majority of Republican voters,” said Zimmer.
Susan Hyde, a political scientist at University of California, Berkeley, who studies democracy and democratic backsliding both in the U.S. and abroad, said that Republican voters tolerated the party’s anti-democratic tendencies because the party’s elites signaled that it was OK to do so. “Republican politicians have been lying to their own voters, and they need to stop doing that if we are going to have peace,” said Hyde, who was referring specifically to the false belief among a large bloc of Republican voters that Trump won the election.
The war is not completely one-sided, however. Liberals and Democrats are trying to enact what amounts to an equality agenda — to create a new America where LGBTQ Americans can openly participate in any institution; women can join and lead any institution; and women, Black people, Native Americans and other traditionally marginalized groups can have as much power, wealth and representation as the shares of the population they represent.
Of course, some conservative behavior, like trying to make it harder for Black people to vote, probably should be both shamed and called out as racist. That said, it’s important to understand that some liberal and Democratic policies will require conservative Christians in particular to live in a changed America that they simply do not wish to live in. And the liberal focus on ideas like systemic racism and white supremacy has left many conservatives feeling that their individual behaviors and choices are being unfairly cast as racist.
Conservatives “are reacting to something real,” said Zimmer. “Their version of ‘Real America’ — a white, Christian America — is under threat. Republicans are convinced they are waging a noble war against the demise of ‘Real America.’ Conservatives think their backs are against the wall.”
“[On the left] there is a demand for more redistribution and laws and programs that help some people and not others,” said Vasabjit Banerjee, a political scientist at Mississippi State University who studies political conflicts. For example, he described Black Lives Matter as a “form of status redistribution,” that might be threatening to non-Black Americans because the movement’s goal is to, in effect, make Black people truly “full citizens” in America, equal to white Americans.
Reflecting on the actions of both sides, you can see why conservative attacks on liberals are much more problematic than the inverse. And that’s why it is hard to imagine Biden being able to unify America or end this uncivil war — his side is not the one feeling most aggrieved and taking anti-democratic, even violent, measures to win.
In his inaugural speech, Biden said, “We have learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.”
He didn’t quite say why we had learned that democracy is precious, why it is fragile, or who or what it had prevailed against. But the reality is that some Republicans in America are so intent on defeating liberals that they are willing to erode America’s democracy, or even end it, along the way to victory.
And somewhere in season 3 they're going to be fucking. Sign me up.
Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan reprise their roles as Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, coming to Disney+ in March.
Marvel Studios did the Super Bowl right by releasing a lengthy two-minute trailer for its upcoming new series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan reprise their roles as Sam Wilson (the Falcon) and Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier) for the Disney+ show, which is set after the events of Avengers: Endgame. The pair will "team up on a global adventure that tests their abilities—and their patience."
(Some spoilers for prior MCU films below.)
You may recall that after the Avengers and their many allies finally defeated Thanos in Endgame, Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) handed over his shield to Sam so he could take on the mantle. But will Sam accept it? That's part of what The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will explore over the course of its six episodes, and showrunner Malcolm Spellman has said the tone will be similar to Captain America: Winter Soldier. Marvel is purportedly spending in the range of $25 million per episode to ensure a cinematic quality for the series.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds issued a proclamation on Friday lifting the state’s COVID mask and social distancing restrictions starting … Super Bowl Sunday.
After Reynolds made the announcement, #COVIDKim trended on social media.
We all know Kim Reynolds lifted restrictions because she has a Super Bowl party to throw this weekend. Let's see how Iowa is doing in 3 weeks or so. #CovidKimpic.twitter.com/lrJ6dqDutF
This is the part where Kim Reynolds asks Iowans to act responsibly almost a year into this pandemic expecting different results. https://t.co/rX7DOgmHaI
I've obtained exclusive footage of Kim Reynolds sending out her end-of-Friday press release declaring an end to Iowa's COVID-19 restrictions pic.twitter.com/PTSuugsO6v
Getting there :) make it quarterly or annual and then we've really got something to talk about
The FDA this week approved the use of once-a-month injectable Cabenuva for people living with HIV.
The FDA reports: “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Cabenuva (cabotegravir and rilpivirine, injectable formulation) as a complete regimen for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection in adults to replace a current antiretroviral regimen in those who are virologically suppressed on a stable antiretroviral regimen with no history of treatment failure and with no known or suspected resistance to either cabotegravir or rilpivirine. This is the first FDA-approved injectable, complete regimen for HIV-infected adults that is administered once a month.”
Said John Farley, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Office of Infectious Diseases in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research: “Currently, the standard of care for patients with HIV includes patients taking daily pills to adequately manage their condition. This approval will allow some patients the option of receiving once-monthly injections in lieu of a daily oral treatment regimen. Having this treatment available for some patients provides an alternative for managing this chronic condition.”
Plaintiff's counsel wants the Court to place under seal a full-page newspaper advertisement paying tribute to a recently-deceased partner, which Plaintiff's counsel purchased.
To say that the Court finds the Motion puzzling is to do a disservice to puzzles everywhere. The Third Circuit has held that Courts should only place public records under seal if an interest in secrecy outweighs the presumption of public access to those records. That requires a movant to show that the material is the kind of information that courts will protect and that disclosure will work a clearly defined and serious injury to the party seeking closure. Plaintiff's Motion fails on both counts.
First, there is nothing private about the advertisement. The advertisement is a touching tribute to a deceased partner and friend, designed for public consumption. Plaintiff's use of the word "privacy" to justify placing it under seal brings to mind The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Second, the Court cannot fathom what injury could arise from the public disclosure of something that Plaintiff's counsel paid a newspaper to make public. Indeed, other than to allow some sort of Weekend At Bernie's style caper, the Court cannot envision a reason to keep the tribute private.
Because there is nothing private or confidential about a paid advertisement in a newspaper—especially one as well-intentioned as the tribute here[—]the Court will deny Plaintiff's motion to file Exhibit B to her Response to the Court's Order to Show Cause under seal….
The ad was apparently introduced in support of the firm's request that the court consider an untimely response; the untimeliness, the firm argued, should be excused because it stemmed from the partner's unexpected death.
Israelis get the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in a gymnasium in the central Israeli city of Hod Hasharon, on February 4, 2021. | Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
There’s still a long way to go, but also a reason for hope.
Israel has outpaced the world in vaccinating its population against Covid-19. Now the results are starting to come in. And, so far, the news is good for both Israel and the world.
Maccabi Health Services, one of Israel’s four health maintenance organizations (HMOs), tracked 163,000 Israelis who had received both of the two required doses of the Pfizer vaccine; only 31 of those people tested positive for Covid-19, compared to an unvaccinated sample in which about 6,500 did.
According to data from the Israeli Ministry of Health, 531 of 750,000 fully vaccinated people over 60 years old tested positive for Covid-19 — which is just 0.07 percent. Out of the people who tested positive, only 38 were hospitalized, with symptoms ranging from moderate to critical. Another Israeli HMO, Clalit, found that Covid-19 positivity decreased by 33 percent among 200,000 people 14 days after they’d received just the first Pfizer dose compared to the same number of unvaccinated people.
This is all very promising, especially as the world banks on a vaccine as the best path out of this pandemic and as new variants of the virus emerge. “We say with caution, the magic has started,” Eran Segal, a scientist at the Weizmann Institute, posted on Twitter, accompanied by data showing a decline in hospitalizations and critical illness among the 60-and-over group in recent weeks.
But scientists caution that there’s still a long way to go. Experts noted that serious cases are declining, but overall infections are not diminishing as swiftly. And many of these studies rely on preliminary data, so these findings may change over time, especially with these new coronavirus variants emerging.
Israel also entered a strict lockdown in early January, just as the vaccination campaign was ramping up, which may have helped nudge cases downward.
Who’s getting vaccinated, and how people might behave once they get those shots, may also influence the findings. Those who got vaccinated early and have gotten their full two doses might have been highly motivated; now comes the more challenging part of inoculating vaccine-hesitant or more marginalized communities. Israel has also faced criticism for its failure to extend its vaccination program to Palestinians, which could make herd immunity harder to achieve.
Israel offers lessons in how to vaccinate a population quickly, but it’s also starting to show the challenges — and how difficult global immunization efforts are going to be. “Israel is the canary in the coal mine,” said Bruce Rosen, director of the Smokler Center for Health Policy Research at the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute (MJB) in Jerusalem.
How Israel’s vaccination program offered a real-world vaccination test case
Israel achieved this largely because of its existing health infrastructure, a universal, digitized system that gave the country a ready-made way to track and communicate with people.
All Israeli citizensare enrolled in one of four health maintenance organizations (HMOs) for their care. Everyone has an ID number, which allows for easy access to electronic records.
This system also allows health care workers to update a person’s vaccination status, monitor any side effects, and schedule an appointment for the next dose. Many Israelis said they got their appointment for the second dose shortly after getting injected with the first, usually scheduled for exactly 21 days later.
This public health infrastructure meant massive vaccination sites popped up quickly, places that were accessible and big enough to be able to space people out and keep them as socially distanced as possible. Experts told me in January that Israel’s knack for responding in emergencies meant it was particularly suited for the logistical and speed challenges of a vaccination campaign.
Israel also benefits from being a small country, and word of mouth did help in the vaccination rollout. Though Israel prioritized people over 60 and health care workers in the first phase of the campaign, it embraced a “no waste” policy, meaning vaccine providers prioritized using the doses above all else. If there were extra jabs at the end of the day or week, they might call in the pizza guy or the lady standing at the bus stop.
“For a vaccination campaign, we are well-prepared, but we’re also flexible,” Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health, told me in January. “When you plan, you don’t know, for example, how the cold chain will look, how many vaccines you will get — so you need to make rapid adjustments. And we are good at that.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who, with elections approaching, has a lot to gain from a successful vaccination campaign) has said that Israel’s population could be fully vaccinated by the end of March.
Experts said that’s still feasible, though it’s far from as simple as it sounds.
Important questions remain around Israel’s vaccination program — and the world’s
Israel’s data indicates that the vaccines are working at the individual level; the outcomes of those who have been inoculated compare favorably to those who haven’t. Israel’s streamlined health infrastructure makes it very easy to know who’s been vaccinated and how they’re responding, and compare it against those who haven’t.
But that system is also helping it win the vaccine race in another way: In a world where vaccines are in short supply, Israel is getting a regular stream in part because the country promised to provide the vast collection of vaccine data to Pfizer, so it can monitor the effects of the vaccine. (Israel, however, also reportedly paid a premium for the vaccine doses.)
But experts said it only gets more complicated from here, especially when it comes to achieving the goal of herd immunity — basically, when enough of the population is immune to the virus that it provides indirect protection to everyone else.
New variants of the virus pose a challenge, especially if those mutations make the virus better at getting around the protections offered by the vaccine. Right now, the vaccines available have been shown to be broadly effective against these variants, but that could change.
There are other questions scientists and public health experts want to answer. Brian Wahl, an epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that while the vaccines are effective against the disease, they’re still learning about its impact on transmission. That is, how likely it is that a vaccinated person who doesn’t get ill from Covid-19 could still spread it.
Another question is how long the protection from the vaccine will last. “We need to be continuing to look at how well the vaccine protects several months beyond administration, Wahl said.
This is also a new vaccine, and not everyone is enthusiastic about getting it. Often the people first in line for their doses want to be there; it doesn’t take much to get them to their appointments. This is not always the case for vaccine-skeptical or vaccine-hesitant people, and getting those people vaccinated is a challenge Israel, and other countries, face.
But Ann Blake, a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine who’s been studying Israel’s efforts, said she feels optimistic about Israel’s ability to overcome some of this hesitancy.
“Israel’s vaccination campaign showcases a coordinated and organized communications campaign that uses local community leaders and credible messengers in tandem with a synchronized message from the highest levels of government with the specific aim of encouraging vaccination among the vaccine hesitant,” she wrote in an email, addingthat it could serveas a model for other countries, including here in the United States.
Beyond hesitancy, experts pointed out that, right now, only people 16 or older are eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine, and scientists are unsure when kids will be approved for Covid-19 vaccinations. All of that leaves a chunk of the population that won’t get vaccinated and could still transmit the virus. “If you had 100 percent [of people] vaccinated, it would be one thing,” Rosen said. “But you don’t. So this is much more complicated in reality.”
Israel has also faced criticism for excluding Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from its vaccination campaign, despite making the shots available to Israeli settlers living in the West Bank.
Israel says that based on the terms of the Oslo Accords, the 1990s agreements signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian Authority is responsible for health care in the Palestinian territories. But human rights and health groups have pressured Israel to “ensure that quality vaccines be provided to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation,” arguing that restrictions imposed by the occupation limit the Palestinian Authority’s purchasing and distribution capabilities.
Israel did send about 2,000 Moderna doses to Palestinian authorities this week, with a promise of 3,000 more. But that is nowhere close to enough to serve the entire population of more than 4.5 million.
If Palestinians lack safe and effective vaccines, that could also undermine Israel’s efforts at achieving herd immunity, especially since many Palestinian workers move back and forth into Israel every day.
“We have to insist that Israel is responsible for Palestinian health as an occupier, especially during pandemics, and that infectious diseases do not know borders,” Rita Giacaman, a professor of public health at the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University in the West Bank, told me.
Indeed, the uneven distribution of vaccines will ultimately prolong the coronavirus crisis everywhere. Israel’s example shows how a rapid campaign can work, but also the limitations of just one country succeeding against the pandemic.
If you hear the keywords “GOP,” “Republican,” “transgender,’” and “sports,” you might be thinking: Which state can possibly be pushing more anti-trans legislation while we’re in a global pandemic? After all, as Daily Kos has covered, Tennessee, Idaho, and South Dakota have all recently pushed these efforts. The latest state? Utah.
First, the basics of the legislation. H.B. 302 would bar transgender girls from competing in women’s sports at the collegiate level, as well as in both public and private elementary, middle, and high schools. The bill defines sex as “biological” and specifies that it is the “physical condition” of being male or female that is determined “at birth.” This sneaky specification is, of course, to alienate trans folks who do get birth certificates updated.
And if schools don’t comply? They’re in for a world of headaches. According to the bill, students who believe they lost an opportunity or feel otherwise harmed by trans youth getting an opportunity could sue the school for damages. So, in theory, if a cisgender female student didn’t earn a spot on the girl’s soccer team, but a trans girl did, the student would have grounds to sue the school over it. Even though, as we know, a norm in sports is that not everyone makes the team ... But not everyone sues over it.
Republican Rep. Kera Birkeland, who sponsored the bill, said some cisgender female students have been concerned about competing against trans girls. In speaking to The Salt Lake Tribune, Birklenand argued: “They aren’t physically the same as a boy and don’t come to that same physicality as naturally.” She added to the outlet: “So to me, we’ve got to address this issue.”
Here’s the thing, though: Trans girls aren’t boys. They are girls. Are these issues complex and nuanced? Certainly. But solutions can only be found when people accept the fundamental reality that trans folks—including transgender youth— are valid. Trans boys are boys. Non-binary folks are non-binary. Agender folks are, in fact, agender. And so on and so forth.
Local outlet KUTV, in covering this same story at the time of writing, opened with the lead sentence: “House Bill 302, sponsored by freshman lawmaker Kera Birkeland (R-Morgan) seeks to keep male athletes from playing in sports designated for women.” What’s notable about that? These are not “male athletes.” Were they assigned male at birth? Most likely, yes. But these are girls. Transgender girls. Transgender young women. Teenage girls. Trans youth. Not males. That’s why they want to—and should have every right to—play on the girls' team, with other girls. Language is evolving, and it’s up to all of us to lean on the side of progress.
You can check out a helpful explainer video on H.B. 302 below, courtesy of Equality Utah via YouTube.
hallelujah. Amazing what an impact one messy project can have
The Google-sponsored Chromium project has cleaned up its act, and the result is a marked decline in queries to DNS root servers. From a report: As The Register reported in August 2020, Chromium-based browsers generate a lot of DNS traffic as they try to determine if input into their omnibox is a domain name or a search query. Verisign engineers Matthew Thomas and Duane Wessels examined the resulting traffic and reached the conclusion that it accounted for up to 60 billion DNS queries every day. Wessels has since penned a new post that went unreported when it appeared on January 7 -- the day after the US Capitol riot -- but was today resurfaced by APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry for the Asia-Pacific region. In the post he says the Chromium team redesigned its code to stop junk DNS requests, and released the update in Chromium 87. The result? "Before the software release, the root server system saw peaks of ~143 billion queries per day," he wrote. "Traffic volumes have since decreased to ~84 billion queries a day. This represents more than a 41 per cent reduction of total query volume."
Parler co-founder and CEO John Matze, who helmed the company through its explosive 2020 growth and even more explosive 2021 deplatforming, has reportedly been fired.
The company board ousted the former executive last Friday, The Wall Street Journal was first to report. In a statement, Matze said he "met constant resistance" to his "product vision," his "strong belief in free speech," and his view of how Parler should be run, adding that he advocated for "more product stability and what I believe is a more effective approach to content moderation." Matze claimed to have been within "days" of bringing Parler back online at the time he was ousted.
Matze's original approach to content moderation—i.e., not having any—is what landed Parler in hot water last month and resulted in it eventually being kicked off the entire Internet.
If a vital and hugely popular covid-19 relief bill can't get any Republican support, they won't allow any real governing to occur. Something has to change.
SolarWinds, the previously little-known company whose network-monitoring tool Orion was a primary vector for one of the most serious breaches in US history, has pushed out fixes for three severe vulnerabilities.
Martin Rakhmanov, a researcher with Trustwave SpiderLabs, said in a blog post on Wednesday that he began analyzing SolarWinds products shortly after FireEye and Microsoft reported that hackers had taken control of SolarWinds’ software development system and used it to distribute backdoored updates to Orion customers. It didn’t take long for him to find three vulnerabilities, two in Orion and a third in a product known as the Serv-U FTP for Windows. There's no evidence any of the vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild.
The most serious flaw allows unprivileged users to remotely execute code that takes complete control of the underlying operating system. Tracked as CVE-2021-25274 the vulnerability stems from Orion’s use of the Microsoft Message Queue, a tool that has existed for more than 20 years but is no longer installed by default on Windows machines.
Suddenly the GOP is finding limitations on presidential appointment power everywhere. Imagine that.
A Trump-appointed member of an administrative advisory board is suing President Joe Biden, alleging the new administration is unlawfully trying to oust him from his post.
Roger Severino, who was appointed to the council of the Administrative Conference of the United States in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, asserted that the White House Presidential Personnel Office asked him to resign by Wednesday afternoon. The suit alleges that if he refused, he would be fired.
Severino’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, said he believed that three other members of the council were given a similar ultimatum. The ACUS researches and advises on various administrative processes to maximize efficiency.
Trump announced his intention to appoint Severino to the advisory board in July, and Severino received his commission just over two weeks ago. He argued that the council is separate from any executive power and that the president does not have the authority to fire him at will. When he asked for a reason for his termination, the White House did not respond, the suit alleges.
“The Council does not wield any executive power — indeed, it does not wield any power at all as a purely advisory entity — so President Biden has no constitutional power to terminate Mr. Severino or any other member of the Council,” the lawsuit said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.
The suit comes as the Biden administration works to weed out political holdovers from the Trump presidency still working in the executive branch. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ousted members of 31 defense advisory boards who were appointed in the twilight days of Trump’s presidency. Other members of defense advisory boards, including those appointed by Trump himself, remain under review.
Severino had previously served as head of the Department of Health and Human Services civil rights office, where he shored up protections for health care workers objecting to abortions on religious reasons and defended a rollback of protections for LGBT patients.
The Republican tax giveaway to the richest people in our country extended into the businesses they owned. Then Majority-Leader Mitch McConnell told everyone that he believed the new jobs and trickling of wealth into society would make the tax cuts “be beyond revenue neutral." This means that the hit to our country’s collective coffers would be taken up by all the piles of money these businesses and wealthy folks would gift everybody. Right away every big business reported pulling in billions of dollars that they quickly pocketed or used for buybacks of their own stocks. McConnell said he was surprised that his plans of giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the wealthiest people in our society, with zero strings attached, didn’t work the way it never has and never will in the history of our country.
On the flip side workers’ wages have slumped under the Republican-version of the free market. Added to this is that instead of creatingmore jobs, big business and their tax cuts have laid off more workers during that time. Two of the biggest tax benefactors, telecoms Verizon and AT&T—who have pulled in tens of billions of dollars in government money over the past five years, are guilty of laying off almost 100,000 people during that same time. And now, after all of that, Republicans are once again nakedly calling for austerity measures to shore up our national debt. This play is being made in the hopes of chipping away further at the already weak social safety net programs, most of which are wildly popular—like Medicaid and Social Security.
New job reports have finally come out showing that AT&T has cut 50,000 jobs, or 18% of their workforce in 2015. And 41,000 of those jobs have come since the telecom got a Trump-era-sized $42 billion tax cut. AT&T cut almost 17,000 of those jobs in 2020 alone. Verizon only cut 2,800 jobs this year, but has already done its major slashing since 2015, closing down 45,000 workers’ positions. None of this is new news, but the numbers are a stark reminder of what has actually been taking place over the last few years, while big companies get government money to grow our economy.
After Lightreading posted the report about how many jobs these two companies have cut over the last five years, AT&T gave them this statement:
These actions align with our focus on growth areas along with lower customer demand for some legacy products and the economic impact and changed customer behaviors resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, there will be targeted, but sizable reductions in our workforce across executives, managers and union-represented employees, consistent with our previously announced transformation initiative. Reducing our workforce is a difficult decision that we don’t take lightly. For employees who are leaving as part of these changes, we’re offering severance pay and company-provided healthcare coverage for up to 6 months for eligible employees.
John Matze, CEO and co-founder of far-right friendly social media platform Parler, said on LinkedIn Wednesday that he has been terminated. Axios reports: Parler has been at the center of controversy since Amazon Web Services, Apple and Google unplugged the network last month for its lack of content moderation related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. In a memo obtained by Fox News, Matze said that the company's board of directors, controlled by Republican political donor Rebekah Mercer, terminated him last Friday. He did not participate in the decision, and the reason for the firing remains unknown.
"Over the past few months, I've met constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in free speech and my view of how the Parler site should be managed," Matze wrote. "For example, I advocated for more product stability and what I believe is a more effective approach to content moderation." "I have worked endless hours and fought constant battles to get the Parler site running but at this point, the future of Parler is no longer in my hands." Matze will take a few weeks off before looking for new opportunities, he told Parler colleagues.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: One day before he was named the next chief executive officer ofAmazon.com Inc., Andy Jassy reaffirmed his commitment to making video games while acknowledging the stark challenges the team has faced, according to an email to staff reviewed by Bloomberg. Jassy expressed support for Mike Frazzini, the head of Amazon Game Studios and the subject of a Bloomberg profile last week examining the troubles the company has faced in gaming. The story was based on interviews with more than 30 current or former Amazon employees. Both executives sent emails to their staff this week referencing the article, saying the accounts were exaggerated but recognizing that they had made mistakes.
"Some businesses take off in the first year, and others take many years," wrote Jassy, currently the head of Amazon's cloud computing division and Frazzini's boss. "Though we haven't consistently succeeded yet in AGS, I believe we will if we hang in there." "Being successful right away is obviously less stressful, but when it takes longer, it's often sweeter," Jassy wrote in the email Monday. "I believe this team will get there if we stay focused on what matters most."
The pledge of support from Jassy takes on added importance now that Amazon has said he will succeed Jeff Bezos as CEO this summer. The company's entry into video game creation in 2012 was originally ordered by Bezos, three people who worked with the founder have said. Since then, Amazon has spent billions of dollars, released two big-budget games -- both of which flopped -- and canceled many other projects. Its struggles reflect broader issues big tech companies have discovered when trying to break into gaming.
In the primaries, Joe Biden wasn’t the first choice of most climate hawks. For, example, the youth-led Sunrise Movement, which supports radical climate proposals, graded the top three candidates, putting Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in first and second place, Biden coming in third with a score less than half that of the two senators. But after Sanders ended his campaign in April and endorsed Biden, the two set up a unity task force that came up with far more ambitious climate-related plans. Consequently, although Sunrise never formally endorsed Biden, it encouraged its 10,000 members and other supporters to work on getting him elected. Said co-founder and executive director Varshini Prakash in July, “We’ve seen a pretty huge transformation in Biden’s climate plan. What I’ve seen in the last six to eight weeks is a pretty big transition in upping his ambition and centering environmental justice.” Still not as far as Sunrise and other climate hawks would prefer, but a good first step, she said, one that responded in a good way to past criticisms.
One change was Biden’s commitment to a public investment of $2 trillion over four years—up from his primary campaign’s pledge of $1.7 trillion over 10 years—to accelerate the transformation to a clean energy economy. This would generate millions of union jobs to build renewable energy infrastructure, get zero-emission cars and mass transit systems on the road, boost sustainable home construction, improve conservation, and perform a multitude of other tasks that decarbonizing the economy by 2050—as the president has pledged—will require.
Now, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has released the pre-publication draft of a 209-page study—Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System—which concludes that a net-zero economy is not only achievable by 2050, but would “also build a more competitive economy, increase high-quality jobs, and help address social injustice in the energy system.” The authors sped up the publication of their acceleration study specifically with the idea of influencing the direction of the new administration’s climate action, but without consulting the Biden-Harris team.
Stephen Pacala, the Frederick D. Petrie Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University and chair of the committee that wrote the report, said in press statement, “Because of dramatic decreases in the costs of renewable electricity and batteries, the U.S. can now—during the 2020s—make strides toward achieving a net-zero emitting energy system at a cost lower than investing in reduced air pollution alone. Because the energy system impacts so many aspects of society, a transition to net-zero will have profound implications well beyond climate and energy—and it is paramount that we maintain a strong social contract to ensure this transition benefits all communities.”
That perspective is one climate hawks have expressed for at least two decades even as the technology to make it happen has improved and gotten cheaper, some of it gradually, some of it by leaps and bounds.
Over the next 10 years, the authors state, $2 trillion in federal money should be invested in the green transformation that is already underway. And the funding for it? A $40 ton carbon tax increased by 5% annually possibly with dividends going to the more vulnerable population, especially those already harmed by environmental damage from the extraction, processing, and burning of fossil fuels. The tax, they say, would "would unlock innovation in every corner of the economy and send appropriate signals to encourage a cost effective route to net zero."
This, of course, is likely to be showstopper. While certain elements of a green transformation—say a point-of-sale tax credit for electric vehicles—can probably count on bipartisan backing in Congress the way previous credits have done, opposition to a carbon tax includes Americans on the right, left and center.
All the arguments for and against a carbon tax aside, there is no need for the government to raise taxes to pay for this investment any more than it needs to do so to cover the outlay for the American Rescue Act that will provide relief from the impacts of the Pandemic Recession. See Stephanie Kelton for a relevant analysis on the matter.
There is also the problem of timing. Biden originally proposed $1.7 trillion in green investment over a decade. The switch to $2 trillion in less than half the time takes the climate crisis more seriously. Once again, it’s worth remembering the stunning four-year transformation of the U.S. economy when it was remade to defeat the Axis fascists. Not even most of the 1940 isolationists were calling for a go-slow approach in 1942.
And there are the critics like Naomi Klein and Jacobin magazine who argue that dismantling capitalism is necessary if we are to fully address the climate crisis.
Critics aside, John Fialka at the paywalled ClimateWire reports on what the scientists specifically propose:
The report calls for tripling Department of Energy funding for research, development and demonstration of low- or zero-emission technologies over the next decade. It suggests that a number of federal agencies might have to be created to help industries and groups promote and implement new technologies.
They might include a federal "National Transition Task Force" to help evaluate long-term implications for transitioning workers, communities and families. Another could be the White House "Office of Equitable Energy Transitions" to act on its recommendations and track progress.
An independent "National Transition Corporation" might be needed to help communities and regions implement new technologies and help mitigate impacts, such as the loss of fossil fuel jobs. The panel also suggests that a "Green Bank" be capitalized by $30 billion to encourage rapid expansion of private investing.
Producing carbon-free electricity. The nation needs to double the share of electricity generated by non-carbon-emitting sources to at least 75 percent. This will require deploying record-setting levels of solar and wind technologies, scaling back coal and some gas-fired power plants, and preserving operating nuclear plants and hydroelectric facilities where possible.
Electrifying energy services in transportation, buildings, and industry. Fifty percent of new vehicle sales across all classes should be zero-emission vehicles. The U.S. should replace at least 20 percent of fossil fuel furnaces with electric heat pumps in buildings and initiate policies so that new construction is all electric except in the coldest climate zones. Where industrial processes cannot be fully electrified, they should begin the transition to low-carbon heat sources.
Investing in energy efficiency and productivity. Total energy use by new buildings should be reduced by 50 percent. In existing buildings, energy used for space conditioning and plug-in devices should be lowered every year to achieve a 30 percent reduction by 2030. Goals for industrial energy productivity (dollars of economic output per energy consumed) should increase each year.
Planning, permitting, and building critical infrastructure. The nation should increase overall electrical transmission capacity by approximately 40 percent in order to better distribute high-quality and low-cost wind and solar power from where it is generated to where it can be used across the country. The U.S. should also accelerate the build-out of the electric vehicle recharging network and initiate a national CO2 capture, transport, and disposal network to ensure that CO2 can be removed from point sources across the country.
Expanding the innovation toolkit. The nation should triple the U.S. Department of Energy’s investment in clean energy research, development, and demonstration in order to provide new technology options, reduce costs for existing options, and better understand how to manage a socially just energy transition.
Strengthening the U.S. economy. Studies estimate that the transition to a net-zero emissions economy could increase net employment by 1 million to 2 million jobs over the next decade and provide a net increase in jobs paying higher wages than the national average. Establishing a federal “Green Bank” to finance low- or zero-carbon technologies, business creation, and infrastructure would ensure industrial competitiveness.
Promoting equity and inclusion. Policies should work to eliminate inequities in the current energy system that disadvantage historically marginalized and low-income populations. For example, the U.S. should increase funds for low-income households for home electrification and weatherization and for broadband Internet access for low-income and rural areas, and increase electrification of tribal lands.
Supporting communities, businesses, and workers. Any fundamental technological and economic transition creates new opportunities as well as job losses and other associated impacts in legacy industries. Policies should promote fair access to new long-term employment opportunities and provide financial and other support to communities that might otherwise be harmed by the transition. Educational programs should be created to train the net-zero workforce, including a “GI Bill” style program. The report also recommends the creation of a two-year National Transition Task Force to assess the long-term implications of the transition for workers and communities, a White House Federal Office of Equitable Energy Transitions to act on that task force’s recommendations, and a new independent National Transition Corporation to provide support and opportunities for displaced workers and affected communities.
Maximizing cost-effectiveness. A cost-effective strategy (balanced by equity considerations) will reduce carbon emissions, strengthen the U.S. economy, and avoid undue burdens on American households and businesses during the transition to a net-zero emissions economy. If the country can avoid spending more than necessary to achieve net-zero emissions, additional resources will be available to meet other societal needs.
There is quite a lot of good stuff there.The scientists obviously did not provide a roadmap for implementing the Green New Deal and not surprisingly, since it was beyond their scope, they didn’t look at numerous details of the transformation that could make it more … transformational.
For instance, ownership. Not only would a broad municipalization of electric utilities mean democratizing a key element of our energy system, it would also provide an opportunity for a more people- and environment-oriented approach. About 15% of current systems are municipally owned, but most of them need more democratic governance. All the more important as more and households generate much if not all of their own electricity with rooftop solar. In addition, when the federal government invests in green technology, it should, just like private investors, get a tangible return on investment other than the mere promise of more jobs. But such moves would make getting a carbon tax look like a cakewalk.
Fifteen or even 10 years ago, the acceleration report would have been viewed as an extremist, no-way, no-how, pie-in-the-sky document. These days, it’s good to have an administration in the White House that seeks to go further faster and intends to do what it can to go around the opponents whose propaganda and obstructionism have for 40 years delayed taking action on the climate crisis and delivered us into our current circumstances.
Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell attend a joint session of Congress. | Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images
With the belated passage of the Senate organizing resolution, Democrats are finally able to take over as committee chairs.
Thirty-one days into the new Congress and weeks after the Georgia Senate runoffs gave them 50 seats, Democrats now officially control the functioning of the Senate.
It took weeks of negotiation between party leaders to decide how Democrats and Republicans would share power and resources in the evenly divided Senate, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stonewalled the process, trying to extract promises from Democrats about retaining the filibuster. That obstruction left Republicans chairing committees, despite the seating of a 50-50 Senate, in which Democrats, through Vice President Kamala Harris, hold the tie-breaking vote. But on Wednesday, the Senate finally passed an organizing resolution largely sharing power. The resolution was adopted by unanimous consent.
“Committees can promptly set up and get to work, with Democrats holding the gavels,” Majority Leader ChuckSchumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, announcing the deal. “Senate Democrats are not going to waste any time taking on the biggest challenges facing our country and our planet.”
SCHUMER: "I am happy to report this morning that the leadership of both parties has finalized the organizing resolution for the Senate."
Democrats take control of Senate committees, as McConnell and Schumer reach a deal on how to run a 50-50 Senate after weeks of negotiations. pic.twitter.com/iB6lz8HUCq
Under the agreement, Schumer will control what legislation gets brought to the floor and Democrats will chair committees. But due to the even split, committees will have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, as Vox’s Li Zhou explains.
Schumer and McConnell also offered a written colloquy emphasizing a fresh start for bipartisanship in the Senate, pledging to promote substantive debate over administrative obstruction through processes like “filling the amendment tree.”
It's now official: Senate just passed S.Res.27, the organizing resolution, by unanimous consent, along with resolutions naming Democratic and Republican committee appointments. Democrats are now chairs of all Senate committees.
The belated passage of the organizing resolution eliminates the trouble Democrats ran into trying to confirm President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees without technically being seated as the majority. In the Senate Judiciary Committee, for example, incoming Chair Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) had to request that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) schedule a hearing for Biden’s attorney general nominee, because Graham still held the gavel. Graham rejected the request, underscoring the stakes of the hold-up over the organizing resolution.
McConnell had previously held up negotiations because he wanted a commitment from Schumer that Democrats would not use the majority to blow up the filibuster, a piece of leverage Schumer was unwilling to concede. Because organizing resolutions can be filibustered and therefore need 60 votes to pass, McConnell could effectively block its passage. He agreed to move forward last week after two Senate Democrats — Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) — announced their support for maintaining the filibuster.
Now, Democrats can proceed with confirming Biden’s appointees, scheduling oversight hearings, and passing legislation. But the fight over the organizing resolution could foreshadow just how much difficulty they’ll run into while in control.
How the Senate organizing resolution will work
With the resolution in place, Democrats can seat their new members on committees and assume leadership roles.
As Vox’s Li Zhou has reported, the resolution mirrors the 2001 agreement between Sens. Tom Daschle and Trent Lott, who presided over the last 50-50 Senate.
“Because Democrats have the majority with Vice President Harris’s vote, they’ll hold the chair positions of every committee, but the resolution would split committee membership evenly, as well as office space and funding. Any measure that receives a tie vote in committee would also be able to receive some consideration for advancement on the floor.
As majority leader, Schumer will still control the floor schedule for legislation, and when to proceed to votes. “As for controlling the agenda, the Democrats will ensure they have standard majority party power, because in essence, they do,” Josh Ryan, a political scientist at Utah State University, told PolitiFact.”
The organizing resolution accounts for potential ties in committee, allowing those bills to come to the floor.
Six years have passed since the Democrats last held the Senate. Some senators will be returning to their previously held chairmanships, while others will be assuming gavels for the first time. The Democratic Senate chairs include:
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI), Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee
Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT), Appropriations Committee
Sen. Jack Reed (RI), Armed Services Committee
Sen. Sherrod Brown (OH), Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee
Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), Budget Committee
Sen. Maria Cantwell (WA), Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
Sen. Joe Manchin (WV), Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Sen. Tom Carper (DE), Environment and Public Works Committee
Sen. Ron Wyden (OR), Finance Committee
Sen. Robert Menendez (NJ), Foreign Relations Committee
Sen. Patty Murray (WA), Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
Sen. Gary Peters (MI), Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Sen. Mark Warner (VA), Intelligence Committee
Sen. Dick Durbin (IL), Judiciary Committee
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN), Rules and Administration Committee
Sen. Ben Cardin (MD), Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee
Sen. Jon Tester (MT), Veterans’ Affairs Committee
Sen. Bob Casey (PA), Special Committee on Aging
Sen. Chris Coons (DE), Select Committee on Ethics
Sen. Brian Schatz (HI), Indian Affairs Committee
Sen. Martin Heinrich (NM), Joint Economic Committee
Ensuring that everyone in the U.S. gets free access to the COVID-19 vaccine is both public health common sense and the right thing to do. But apparently incensed over a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement encouraging all people in the U.S. “regardless of immigration status” to get the vaccine once it’s available, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, sedition caucus member and the No. 2 Republican in the House, fired off a disgusting statement.
That statement, sent from an official House office, used the derogatory slur “illegal immigrant” to describe undocumented people, and claimed that to vaccinate them was “a slap in the face to millions.” Steve’s statement demanded vaccinations go to “Americans first.” Steve knew exactly what he was saying: this is the same guy who once made a speech to a white supremacist group headed by former Klansman David Duke, and once reportedly said that he was like Duke “without the baggage.” Again, Scalise is the No. 2 Republican in the House.
In his ridiculous, racist statement, Scalise further demanded that President Joe Biden “abandon this ridiculous plan and instead focus on getting the elderly, the vulnerable, frontline workers, and other essential Americans vaccinated as quickly as possible.” News flash for Steve: many undocumented immigrants are frontline workers, and unlike him, they’ve been essential amid this pandemic. In fact, the Center for American Progress (CAP) estimates that as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants are essential workers.
“They have worked as doctors and nurses caring for loved ones and fighting this pandemic, but these unique times have also highlighted their crucial work as agricultural workers harvesting Americans’ food; clerks stocking grocery shelves; and delivery drivers bringing food to the safety of people’s homes,” a CAP report said last year. “After decades of taking these jobs for granted, the country has come to realize just how essential these individuals and their contributions are.”
Well, many of us know it but also chose to acknowledge it. In Steve’s home state of Louisiana, thousands of undocumented immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America helped rebuild New Orleans following the Hurricane Katrina disaster. “Federal contractors lured them here from other states after airing Spanish television ads that promised high hourly wages and no threat of deportation,” The Atlanticreported in 2014. “The employers could hire undocumented immigrants because President Bush had temporarily suspended certain labor laws in the hurricane's aftermath.” But after the rebuilding, they began to be targeted by both police and ICE.
Across the nation, deportation agents have continued terrorizing undocumented essential workers since then, including carrying out huge raids at meatpacking plants. “To make matters worse,” Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity of Mississippi said last August on the one year anniversary of workplace raids in Mississippi, “the same communities impacted by the raid are today excluded from pandemic assistance, deemed unworthy of humanitarian aid because of their immigration status—despite most of them being ‘essential workers.’”
In the last few days, 100 members of Congress have called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth to include the legalization of undocumented essential workers in the pandemic recovery package, writing in their letter that “it is vital that we include protections for immigrant workers to secure the health of our nation and lay the foundation for a robust and dynamic economic recovery.” And recovery must include ensuring that all people, no matter their legal status, have free access to the vaccine.
“Rep. Raul Ruiz, the new chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a medical doctor who also has a public health degree, stressed that people need to have access to vaccines regardless of citizenship status to curb the spread of the disease,” Roll Callreported. “Rep. Scalise’s cruel politicization of this sentiment is a stupid public health approach that not only will prolong the pandemic but will endanger everyone’s health,” he said in the report.
You might have heard the name Lauren Boebert recently. She’s the newly elected, gun-loving, Colorado Republican who is suspected in having colluded a little bit with various members of the Jan. 6 insurgency on our Capitol building. She’s a QAnon fan, and like most Republicans climbing the social ladder while giving full-throated support to every fact-free conspiracy theory MAGA supporters voice, it seems she’s a bit loosey-goosey with how she makes her money.
The Denver Post reports that Rep. Lauren Boebert wrote herself two checks from her campaign account, totaling $22,259 for “mileage,” between January and mid-November of 2020. Using the IRS’s mileage rate of “57.5 cents per mile for 2020,” that would mean that the congresswoman drove about 38,712 miles in that time. But, as the Post points out, Boebert’s campaign had “no publicly advertised campaign events in March, April or July, and only one in May.” To put this into perspective, Boebert’s predecessor Rep. Scott Tipton reimbursed himself $9,575 from his business account for mileage … over 10 years in office.
Maybe she had to drive every single resident of her state back and forth to the polls? Probably not. And there’s more.
According to the report, the two checks are also what one might call a red flag, as the first one is for $1,060 at the end of March, while the second one is over $21,000 on Nov. 11. This means that “Boebert would have had to drive 36,870 miles in just over seven months between April 1 and Nov. 11 to justify the second payment.” The Earth’s circumference is 24,901 miles all the way around. Maybe Boebert is adding in the mileage of her conspiracy-addled brain spinning and spinning? Hard to say. Her campaign’s response is that Boebert’s intense travel was how she won.
This is probably true. Getting out and about helped the gun-toting policy-free campaign she was running to beat out Trump-supported Tipton in the primaries, but 38,712 miles, over a few months during that time? Unlikely. The Denver Post, using Boebert’s Facebook and other public campaign event schedules, was able to come up with less than half those miles traveled by Boebert.
Boebert’s sketchy campaign finance issues look like the symptoms of the sociopathic entitlement felt by all scam artists. Whether it’s fake medicine to make money off scared people, or fake revolution to make money off of scared people, the Republican Party seems to have locked into exactly how their bread is buttered.
A deportation flight carrying Black immigrants, many of them asylum-seekers, back to danger is scheduled to leave Louisiana on Wednesday, The Guardianreports. While President Joe Biden’s 100-day moratorium on most deportations was halted for now due to a window-shopped judge in Texas, ICE has discretion to not deport someone. Additionally, Biden’s separate order rescinding the previous administration’s deportation priorities wasn’t affected by the ruling.
Instead, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a rogue agency that’s intent on continuing to carry out its racist and abusive agenda, presidential orders be damned, with advocates saying that agents are rushing the deportation of Black immigrants in particular. They note that ICE carried out a deportation flight from San Antonio to Haiti on Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month.
“On this first day of Black History Month, as the nation pays tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled and continue to struggle through anti-Black structural racism, discrimination and violence, an ICE deportation flight took off this morning to Haiti,” Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “This deportation, which follows a deportation January 28 to Jamaica, represents the latest in a long history of intentional abuses by immigration authorities against Black women, children and families who seek safety and security in the United States.”
“The audacity to practice such cruelty on the first day of Black History Month, exemplifies the anti-Black sentiment that has always existed within the ranks of ICE officials,” UndocuBlack Network co-director Patrice Lawrence said. “ICE jumped at the opportunity to deport Black immigrants to the Caribbean, Central Central America and Sub-Saharan countries almost immediately after the issuance of the unjust, baseless, and legally unsound TRO on the 100-Day Deportation Moratorium. We know that at the top of the list, individuals from Cameroon, Mauritania, Angola, Congo, Haiti and Jamaica are immediately at risk.”
The intentional abuses by the agency, which has an annual budget of $8 billion, only seem to be worsening. The Guardianreports that in addition to the deportation flights of Black immigrants, advocacy groups Freedom for Immigrants, Al Otro Lado, and Advocates for Immigrants Rights have alleged that ICE agents have continued to torture Black asylum-seekers, including forcing them to agree to their own deportation.
“As one was pressing on my neck with their hands, the other came in front of me, pulling my head from above, straightening my neck so they could easily suppress me,” Cameroonian asylum-seeker, “H.T.”, said according the report. “One climbed onto my back. I had a lot of trouble breathing. This happened for more than two minutes. I was gasping for air. I told them: ‘Please, I can’t breathe.’ I asked them to release me. They said that they didn’t care; what they need is my fingerprint.”
This is a pattern by ICE, not an outlier. Advocacy groups exposed allegations of torture against Black immigrants last fall, and Black immigrants face greater risk of abuse and deportation overall. Following the last four years, the agency remains defiant. “Despite having a new administration,” Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network continued, “ICE continues to take advantage of the court-ordered temporary stay in President Joe Biden’s deportation moratorium, which a Texas judge extended on January 29 for an additional 14 days, until February 23.”
Indeed, The New York Timesnewly reports that agents beholden to the previous administration are set to defy the new administration’s policies. The report quotes Stephen Miller, the noted white supremacist who was architect of some of the previous administration’s most cruel, racist, and inhumane policies, as claiming that the Biden administration is “not going to be able to get” DHS officials “to change their deeply held convictions. They are going to make painfully clear to the politicals what the consequences are going to be if their advice is not followed.”
But Stephen doesn’t get to set the agenda anymore. Following the announcement of his official nomination last year, newly confirmed Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas said that “[w]hen I was very young, the United States provided my family and me a place of refuge. Now, I have been nominated to be the DHS secretary and oversee the protection of all Americans and those who flee persecution in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones.” He can put those words to action by firing rogue agents defying orders, and stopping the deportation flights. In a new letter, 120 law experts said he has total discretion to do this.
“This has to stop,” Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network said. “Affirmative, meaningful steps need to be taken now to make sure that every single ICE and CBP officer understands it’s a new day, and that they will be held accountable for continuing the cruelty of prior administrations.”
Country star Morgan Wallen apologized Tuesday night after video surfaced in which he used the N-word. Wallen’s use of the racial slur comes several days after he was cut from Saturday Night Live because a video surfaced in which he was partying while defying COVID protocols.
TMZ reported on the video: “The country star and a group of buddies had just spent a night out in Nashville. When they arrived at Morgan’s home at around midnight, they were extremely loud … honking horns and talking loudly … loud enough to piss off neighbors. One of the neighbors began recording the antics. As Morgan appears to stumble toward his house, he tells someone to watch over a guy in his group. He says … ‘take care of this “p****-ass mother******’ — and then goes on to say, ‘take care of this p****-ass n*****’ … before finally heading in.”
Said Wallen in a statement: “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.”
Country singer Morgan Wallen was axed from SNL after he was caught on video partying maskless and kissing several women.
Radio stations are dumping the country musician as his album Dangerous: The Double Album, appears at #1 on Billboard charts for a fourth week in a row, Variety reports: “Cumulus, which is especially powerful in the country radio sphere, sent out a directive to the program directors of all of its 400-plus stations with the header ‘MORGAN WALLEN — EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.’ The message read: ‘Team, unfortunately country music star Morgan Wallen was captured on video Sunday evening using a racial slur. Effective immediately we request that all of Morgan Wallen’s music be removed from our playlists without exception. More to follow.'”
Here’s the video of Wallen violating COVID protocols.
PERFORMANCE PULLED: Country singer Morgan Wallen has been dropped as this week’s musical guest on Saturday Night Live after breaking the show’s coronavirus protocols.
Wallen was seen on video not wearing a mask at a crowded bar and house party in Alabama this past weekend. pic.twitter.com/347GYNJwt9
Thanks to Democrats, Republicans face a decision: Will they take action against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her string of dangerous statements, or will they decide that people like her are too much of their base for her to face any consequences?
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had his promised meeting with Greene on Tuesday evening, to discuss whether he could get her to back off of enough of her various calls for violence against Democratic leaders and claims that the school shootings at Sandy Hook and Parkland were hoaxes to get Democrats to abandon their plan to have the full House vote to strip her of her committee assignments. “It must not have gone as well as McCarthy hoped,” Politico Playbook reports, deadpan. McCarthy then called an emergency meeting with the House GOP Steering Committee, which makes committee assignments.
The steering committee couldn’t bring itself to decide what to do about Greene. Keep an education committee slot for a woman who has chased the teen survivor of a school shooting down the street, harassing him because he dares support gun law reform, or no? Keep the education committee slot for a woman who in private tells the mother of a school shooting victim that she doesn’t believe Parkland and Sandy Hook were false flags, but refuses to say it in public, or no? Keep any committee slot for someone who has liked a social media comment that “a bullet to the head” would be the quickest way to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from office, or no?
“No, we are going to be working through some things,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise told reporters asking about a decision on Greene’s fate Tuesday night.
This is a difficult question for Republicans. Meanwhile, they’re going right ahead with a vote on whether to remove Rep. Liz Cheney from her role as House Republican conference chair, because she dared vote to impeach Donald Trump for his role in inciting a violent insurrection that left five people dead and the U.S. Capitol badly vandalized.
Holding one of these votes is a hard decision to House Republicans, the other is not. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are looking at Greene as a threat to their party and their chances going forward in Senate elections and are speaking out against her where House Republicans waver. Sen. Todd Young called her “an embarrassment to our party.” But he also said that “In terms of the divisions within our party, she’s not even part of the conversation, as far as I’m concerned,” which shows he may not be entirely aware of divisions within his party.
To get a handle on how Greene likely feels about such criticism, you have only to look at her response to criticism from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “The real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully,” she tweeted. This one is not going to be apologizing. She is like a force field of smug entitlement and absolute lack of concern for anyone beyond herself.
McCarthy is reportedly going to try to strike a deal with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, in which Republicans will remove Greene from the education committee while leaving her on the budget committee, if Democrats will abandon their plan to take her off of both. But even that plan would require the assent of the full Republican conference. Will they go for it, or will they shield the QAnon congresswoman?
Yesterday we reported that Jenny Cudd, a former mayoral candidate from Midland, Texas, charged in the U.S. Capitol insurrection and seen in photos and video parading around the damaged rotunda taking selfies, had asked a judge to let her take a pre-planned Mexican vacation before her trial.
The judge has given her permission.
USA Today reports: “The filing, obtained by USA TODAY, noted that Cudd has no prior criminal history and has remained in contact with her attorney and pretrial service officer, who had no objection to her proposed travel plan. Prosecutors took ‘no position’ on the request. A U.S. magistrate approved the request, ordering that her pretrial travel restrictions to be amended to allow the four-day trip.”
The Daily Beast reported: “An FBI affidavit alleged that Cudd was one of a number of rioters who broke into the Capitol and paraded around the rotunda. The government claims Cudd published a Facebook video after the riot in which she said, ‘We did break down the Nancy Pelosi’s office door’ [sic] and claimed to have no regrets about her actions. ‘F**k yes, I am proud of my actions. I f**king charged the Capitol today with patriots today,’ Cudd allegedly said.”
Here is Jenny Cudd, of Midland Texas, filming her confession for breaking and entering a federal building, destruction of private federal property, conspiracy to commit theft, vandalism, assault…and possibly felony murder. pic.twitter.com/MYYNAlTWJE
omfglearntoplay shares a report from ScienceAlert: There's already a long list of reasons to like trees, we know. Warding off depression could be the latest entry on that list, based on a study of 9,751 residents in Leipzig, Germany. For a more consistent measure, researchers used antidepressant prescriptions rather than self-reporting to gauge the mental health of communities, and then cross-referenced these statistics with the numbers of street trees in each area. They reported that more local foliage within 100 meters (328 feet) of the home was associated with a reduced likelihood of being prescribed antidepressants -- findings that could be very useful indeed for city planners, health professionals, and governments. The reduction in antidepressant use linked to street trees was particularly prominent in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. While it's important not to take such findings too far, the results do hint that urban trees could act as a simple and affordable way of boosting mental health and assist in closing health inequality gaps across society. The research has been published in Scientific Reports.
(@peepokiss) 
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