Subterms
Called to act after violence in Charlottesville, Cameron Webb ran for Congress. He lost, but is still headed to WashingtonIn Charlottesville, there is before 12 August and there is after. So decisive is this date that it often appears in Virginia newspapers without a year attached. It is the local 9/11. Continue reading… More
In phone call, US and Canadian leaders discuss collaboration on vaccines and plan to meet next monthCanada’s Justin Trudeau and President Joe Biden plan to meet next month, the prime minister’s office said, following a call between the two leaders in which they agreed to join forces to combat coronavirus in North America.The White House said in a statement that the two leaders highlighted the “strategic importance of the US-Canada relationship” and discussed cooperation on a wide-ranging agenda including combating the Covid-19 pandemic and addressing the climate crisis. Continue reading… More
The Biden administration’s acting attorney general, a longtime career official named Monty Wilkinson, took part in a controversial 2017 decision to remove a justice department (DoJ) lawyer in Texas who had raised concerns about migrant children who were being separated from their parents.Emails seen by the Guardian show that Wilkinson, who is expected to serve as acting attorney general until Judge Merrick Garland is formally confirmed by the Senate, worked with another longtime career official, Iris Lan, in reviewing complaints about Joshua Stern, a prosecutor who had told colleagues he was “disturbed” by the Trump administration’s separation policy.The policy ultimately led to the separation of about 1,550 children from their parents, hundreds of whom have still not been reunited, although Joe Biden has said he would make that one of his top priorities.Stern, who is no longer employed by the DoJ, was ultimately removed from his post as a temporary detailee, two weeks after senior officials in Texas raised concerns about him to officials in Washington DC, including Wilkinson.Wilkinson, who Biden chose to serve as acting attorney general until Garland is confirmed, had been overseeing human resources, security planning and the library at the justice department before he was elevated to serve as acting attorney general.A recent report in the New York Times suggested that Wilkinson was a trusted longtime official, and that his “low profile” all but guaranteed that he was not involved in any of the myriad scandals that defined the justice department under Donald Trump and the former attorney general Bill Barr.But a report published by the Guardian in September 2020 revealed that Wilkinson was one of several career officials who reviewed complaints that ultimately led to the removal of Stern from the western district of Texas in 2017.The report was focused on the role a senior justice department official, Iris Lan, played in reviewing those complaints. Lan had been nominated to serve in a lifetime appointment as a federal judge, but the nomination was never taken up in the Senate after a number of immigrant rights groups raised concerns about Lan following publication of the Guardian’s article.It is not clear whether Wilkinson or Lan privately supported or criticized the administration’s child separation policy when they heard about Stern’s concerns.At the time of the controversy, Wilkinson was working as director of the executive office for US attorneys, a role that he had been appointed to by Eric Holder, the former attorney general for Bill Clinton.Emails seen by the Guardian show that a DoJ official in Texas named Jose Gonzalez sent a memo to the then acting US attorney for the western district, Richard Durbin, in September 2017 in which he outlined concerns about Stern, including complaints that Stern was “particularly disturbed” by cases in which defendants could not locate their children.The western district, in El Paso, was at the time involved in a pilot program to criminally prosecute migrants who were entering the country illegally, which in turn led to people being separated from their children, sometimes indefinitely.The policy was later expanded to include all border states, but was ended following an outcry in Congress and in the press, when stories about migrant children being separated began to become known.Stern had been sent to Texas to help deal with a significant influx in migrant cases. But emails show that he was deeply concerned and alarmed about the children who were separated, and told prosecutors that the parents who were being prosecuted were “often fleeing violence in their home countries”.He also told superiors in Texas that he had been contacting agencies to try to help locate missing children. The memo detailing what was seen as Stern’s insubordination was forwarded by Durbin to Lan, who told Lan that he did not believe Stern was “fully committed to the program”. Durbin was seeking to release Stern from the detailee program early.Lan, in turn, said she was not sure about the usual protocol, and said she wanted to share the memo with Wilkinson to get his “take” before “we proceed”. Wilkinson then responded to Lan and Durbin saying that he and Durbin had talked and that Durbin was going to send more “specific examples”.Stern was sent a termination letter that ended his posting on 20 September 2017, two weeks after concerns were first raised with Lan and, later, Wilkinson.Stern has not responded to questions by the Guardian.A spokesperson for the DoJ said in a statement: “The department cannot comment on specific personnel matters. Regarding the process for detail assignments from components to US Attorneys Offices, the decision on whether to continue a detail is between the lending and receiving components. EOUSA plays an administrative role related to the associated paperwork but does not make decisions on assignments.”It did not provide further comment on who did make the decision.A DoJ spokeswoman under the Trump administration said, in response to questions for the previous Guardian article on the matter, that Lan had received the memo about Stern because of her role as a liaison to US attorneys and did not handle personnel matters.“She routed it, consistent with her role,” she said.A recent report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Justice closely examined the role some officials at the department played in Trump’s separation policy.It said department leadership knew the policy would result in children being separated from their families and that the former US attorney general Jeff Sessions “demonstrated a deficient understanding of the legal requirements related to the care and custody of separated children”.“We concluded that the Department’s single-minded focus on increasing immigration prosecutions came at the expense of careful and appropriate consideration of the impact of family unit prosecutions and child separations,” the report said. 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The US Senate on Friday confirmed Joe Biden’s nominee, Lloyd Austin, to serve as the secretary of defense, making the retired four-star army officer the first African American to lead the Pentagon.The final vote was 93 to 2, with only two Senate Republicans – Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri – opposing Austin’s nomination.Austin said in a tweet that it was “an honor and a privilege” to serve as the defense secretary, adding that he was “especially proud” to be the first African American to hold the position.“Let’s get to work,” he wrote.Austin, 67, will oversee the 1.3 million active duty men and women who make up the nation’s military. The Senate vote gave Biden his second cabinet official, and another crucial member of his national security team, after Avril Haines was confirmed on Wednesday as the first woman to serve as the director of national intelligence. She was sworn in on Thursday by the vice-president, Kamala Harris.[embedded content]Austin’s confirmation required a special dispensation from both chambers of Congress, waiving a legal prohibition on military officials serving as secretary of defense within seven years of their retirement from active-duty service. The House and Senate easily approved the waiver on Thursday, despite concerns among some lawmakers about granting an exception from a law intended to maintain civil control of the military.It was only the third time Congress had granted the exception, including in 2017 for the retired marine general Jim Mattis to become Donald Trump’s first defense secretary in 2017.Austin sought to allay concerns over his recent service during his confirmation hearing, saying he was a “general and a soldier” who was prepared “to serve now – as a civilian – fully acknowledging the importance of this distinction.”Austin, raised in a rural town in Georgia, graduated from West Point and steadily rose through the nearly all-white ranks of the military, breaking racial barriers nearly every step of the way during his decorated 41-year career. In a video posted on Twitter, he reflected on the historic nature of his nomination and vowed that he “won’t be the last” African American to lead the military.I am enormously grateful for the service and the sacrifices of those who broke barriers before me—and although I may be the first African American Secretary of Defense, it’s my hope that I won’t be the last. pic.twitter.com/cT3fU6whmE— Lloyd Austin (@LloydAustin) January 12, 2021
Appearing before the Senate armed services committee this week, Austin was asked how he planned to address rightwing extremism and white nationalism within the military, particularly as officials investigate the involvement of current and former service members in the violent attack on the US Capitol.Austin said he was committed to rooting out domestic extremism, telling lawmakers: “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.”Biden nominated Austin to restore stability atop the Pentagon and to rebuild America’s relationship with allies, frayed by the Trump administration, and orient the defense department to confront threats ranging from potential future pandemics to the climate emergency to refugee crises.“In my judgment, there is no question that he is the right person for this job at the right moment, leading the Department of Defense at this moment in our nation’s history,” Biden said as he announced his nomination of Austin for the role last month. He called Austin the “definition of duty, honor and country” and a leader “feared by our adversaries, known and respected by our allies”.Shortly after he was sworn in on Friday, Austin made his first official phone call to the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, to reiterate the country’s “steadfast commitment” to the defense alliance that had been a target of Trump’s wrath for nearly four years. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said he would be sworn in “more ceremoniously” by Harris on Monday.The Senate finance committee also unanimously supported the nomination of Janet Yellen for treasury secretary on Friday morning, setting up a final confirmation vote. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the full chamber would vote on her confirmation on Monday.• This article was amended on 22 January 2020. An earlier version referred to Lloyd Austin as a retired marine officer; he is a retired army general. More
Joe Biden on Friday will sign a pair of executive orders aimed at providing immediate relief to millions of American families grappling with the economic toll of the Covid-19 pandemic and expanding safety protections for federal workers.Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterPressing ahead with an ambitious set of executive actions, the new administration is seeking to marshal an “all-of-government” effort to combat hunger as tens of millions of Americans face food insecurity amid historically high unemployment rates.“The American people can’t afford to wait,” said Brian Deese, the national economic council director, on a call with reporters. “So many are hanging by a thread.”The measures, he said, were a “critical lifeline” for American families, but were “not a substitute” for the nearly $2tn relief package Biden has called on Congress to pass.Biden will direct the Department of Agriculture increase a Covid-19 food program that helps families with children who would normally receive free or reduced-price meals at school, as well as expand the emergency increases approved by Congress to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for low-income Americans.He will also ask the Department of Treasury to update its process for delivering stimulus checks to millions of eligible Americans who reported issues or delays with the first rounds payments. And Biden will the Department of Labor to make clear that out-of-work Americans who refuse employment that could jeopardize their health would still qualify for unemployment benefits. Until now, workers who refused offers to return to their jobs out of concern for their safety no longer qualified for unemployment aid.The second order is aimed at expanding protections for federal workers by restoring collective bargaining powers and lay the groundwork for the federal government to implement a $15 federal minimum wage. As a first step, Biden will direct federal agencies to conduct a review of federal workers earning less than $15 an hour and develop recommendations for raising their wages.The latest executive actions come one day after a labor department report showed that unemployment claims remained at historically high levels, with 900,000 Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week. The figures reflected the magnitude of the economic challenges Biden inherited, amid a resurgence of the coronavirus this winter.Friday’s actions are part of a blitz of executive orders and directives Biden has taken since assuming the presidency.Hours after his inauguration, Biden signed an executive order extending a federal pause on evictions through the end of March, a move that will shield millions of Americans struggling to pay rent amid the pandemic. He also directed federal agencies to extend their moratorium on foreclosures of federally guaranteed mortgages and asked the education department to prolong its freeze on federal student loan payments through the end of September.On Thursday, he unveiled a “full-scale wartime” national Covid-19 strategy aimed at growing the production of vaccines, creating guidelines to reopen schools and businesses and imposing new requirements on mask-wearing.Biden has long argued that economic recovery is tied to combatting the coronavirus, a starkly different approach to his predecessor who urged states to lift restrictions even as infections rose.The centerpiece of Biden’s plan to address fallout from the pandemic is a $1.9tn relief package called the American Rescue Plan, which includes $1,400 direct payments to Americans, more generous unemployment benefits and billions of dollars for a national vaccination program.Already Republicans are objecting to the cost of the legislation, raising doubts about whether Biden will be able to attract bipartisan support as he had hoped. Several Republicans have questioned the need for an additional relief package weeks after they passed a $900bn coronavirus relief bill.Stressing that urgent action was needed, Deese declined to say how long the White House planned to court Republican support before potentially moving to a process that would allow Democrats to move the legislation forward without them.His team plans to hold a conference call with a bipartisan group of senators on Sunday to make the case for another round of stimulus, without which he said the nation’s economy would plummet further into “a very serious economic hole”.“When you’re at a moment that is as precarious as the one we find ourselves in,” he said at a White House press briefing on Friday, “the risk of doing too little the risk of undershooting far outweighs the risk of doing too much.” More
In her first solo address as first lady, Jill Biden hosted her first solo event by praising the work of teachers and promising them support during the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden hailed their ‘heroic commitment’ and explained that she was teaching a class on the morning of the inauguration of her husband, Joe Biden
Joe Biden to focus on economic recovery – US politics live More
Joe Biden’s new administration is faced with a monumental task in curbing the deadliest wave of the Covid-19 pandemic so far in a race against time before a new, more contagious coronavirus variant threatens already strained US health resources.The Biden administration has mere weeks to speed vaccine deployment, and convince more Americans to wear masks, wash hands and social distance. And it must be done amid a rocky transition, critical supply shortfalls, widespread new infections, shaky public trust and a vaccine rollout that “has been a dismal failure so far”.“Let me be very clear, things are going to continue to get worse before they get better,” said Biden, at a Covid-19 briefing on Thursday afternoon. “The memorial we held last night,” to mark 400,000 American deaths, “will not be our last one. The death toll will likely top 500,000 next month.”More than 408,000 Americans have so far died from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, and more than 24 million infected: by far the worst numbers in the world.To date, 16.5 million people in the US have been vaccinated, according to federal health authorities.At the same time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now issued stark warnings about a more infectious new variant of Covid-19, called B117. The variant has already forced England into a weeks-long lockdown.Various scenarios could play out. In one model, Covid-19 infections decline in March, only to crest again in late April and early May driven by B117 infections. This model assumed there was no widespread community vaccination. In another model, B117 still overtakes current strains, but it declines alongside current dominant strains. The decline would take place in an environment of overall reduced transmission, because people maintain social distance and vaccines are distributed to about 1 million a day.This endpoint can be reached, CDC modelers said, but only if people curb the spread of Covid-19 and vaccine uptake is high. Biden has repeatedly pledged to vaccinate 100 million Americans in 100 days, which would roughly match modeling by the CDC.“We need to ask average Americans to do their part,” said Jeff Zients, the White House Covid-19 response director. “Defeating the virus requires a coordinated nationwide effort.”In the worst-case scenario, already strained hospitals would be under more pressure, social distancing would need to be more stringent and extended, and more people would need to be vaccinated to make a difference. That scenario more closely matches England’s lockdown, undertaken when cases peaked in early January.Further, while B117 is the only variant known to be more contagious currently circulating, it is not the only variant to be worried about. Strains identified in South Africa and Brazil also hold the potential to be more transmissible, CDC researchers said.In the face of these new variants, Biden and his administration spent its first evening and full day in office building infrastructure to respond to the crisis.“The issue he wakes up everyday focused on is getting the pandemic under control,” said Jen Psaki, White House press secretary at the first press briefing on Wednesday evening. “The issue he goes to bed every night focused on is getting the pandemic under control.”Biden has signed a flurry of executive orders to try to control the situation, including setting up new federal vaccination sites, using the Defense Production Act to boost much-needed supplies, requiring masks to be worn on federal property and numerous other actions. Zients acknowledged on Thursday that the Trump administration’s vaccine rollout planning was, “so much worse than we could have imagined”, the New York Times reported.Buy-in by America’s state governments is also important for distributing vaccines quickly and equitably. Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who was closely aligned with Donald Trump, held a press conference on Wednesday to tell Biden not to bother coming to his state.“I saw some of this stuff Biden’s putting out, that he’s going to create these Fema camps. I can tell you, that’s not necessary in Florida,” DeSantis said, the Tampa Bay Times reported. “All we need is more vaccine. Just get us more vaccine.”Further, the urgency to vaccinate people has led some public health officials to shy away from documenting that vaccine recipients are members of priority groups, such as the elderly or essential workers.In Mississippi, the state’s top health official, Dr Thomas Dobbs, said requiring documentation is not something the state is “going to do” because he did not want to erect roadblocks to vaccination. He added: “We will get [the] vaccine out where we can as much as we can,” he said on Thursday. “It’s going to be a little bit lumpy, and that’s just the way it is.” More
Following Joe Biden’s presidential win in November, the governor of California quickly learned he had some big job vacancies to fill. With so many top officials in the state being recruited to help Biden build his new administration, Gavin Newsom joked that he might have to start trying to convince staff members to stick around.It was already a given that Californian interests would be well represented in Congress, with Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco serving as speaker of the House and Vice-President Kamala Harris, born and raised in the Bay Area, holding the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. But Biden has also tapped several Californians for key cabinet positions.Biden called on the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, to run the US health department. He nominated the former Federal Reserve chair and University of California, Berkeley, professor Janet Yellen to serve as treasury secretary. Yellen’s colleague Jennifer Granholm was nominated as the next energy secretary.Six others slated for top spots in the new government either teach at or graduated from Berkeley. Alejandro Mayorkas of Los Angeles is expected to become the first Latino to head the Department of Homeland Security and Isabel Guzman, current director of California’s office of the small business advocate, is likely to run the US Small Business Administration – to name a few.Now, instead of having to fight a federal government to enact policy priorities, California will have friendly faces in top spots. “It goes from headwinds to tailwinds, and that’s pretty obvious,” Newsom said at a press conference in November. “On early childcare … health and education, issues related to the environment and environmental stewardship and low-carbon, green growth,” he added, ”broadly, that’s a California agenda.”The Biden administration’s agenda is also expected to be modeled on some policies enacted or planned in California, and the new administration is likely to use the state’s successes and failures as a guide.“There is a wealth of ideas on the policy side that can come out of California,” said Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Pastor pointed at the state’s stances on immigrants’ rights and the minimum wage and its investments in climate mitigation.California has served as a living laboratory for progressive ideas, Pastor said, and there’s enough evidence that will help the federal government embrace the California approach. “California is America, only sooner,” Pastor added. “It’s no surprise that now we have an administration trying to reach into a place that’s always been on the edge of the future.”On his first day alone, Biden signed 17 new executive orders to undo some of the measures of the Trump administration, and the new president has promised to swiftly shift direction in the country.The new administration is looking into some of California’s signature policies – and even taking some a step further. Biden has proposed raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour (almost double what it is now), promised to bring “peaceful protesters, police chiefs, police unions, as well as civil rights groups” to the table to talk police reform, and made moves on new legislation for immigration reform.Biden is especially likely to follow California’s lead on the environment. “Where California will have its most influence is on climate change-related policies,” said Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at Stanford University and the director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. “While Trump was shutting down a lot of the climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, California continued to chug along.”Even after Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, California remained committed to keeping pace and brought 23 states on board with it. Now that Biden is preparing to re-enter the accord, the Democratic party’s environmental taskforce, co-chaired by the former secretary of state John Kerry, has told Biden to look to California for help, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Immediately convene California, due to its unique authority, and other states with labor, auto industry, and environmental leaders to inform ambitious actions,” the taskforce’s report read.While California officials are happy to help, it’s clear they hope the offer goes both ways. Calling their new partnership a “game-changer for Californians” in a letter to Biden, Newsom championed the new administration’s goals and acknowledged the role he expects his state will play shaping national policy.“Congratulations on your historic victory and for setting America on a path to build back better,” Newsom wrote. “California is eager to support your bold agenda by sharing our experiences implementing progressive policy on everything from workers’ rights to climate change.”Newsom included several requests, including reinstated funding for the high-speed rail that’s far behind schedule and badly over budget, help with financing programs to house the homeless, and additional emergency aid beyond what was already promised to the state in the December stimulus.Newsom also hopes the federal government will push back to 2023 the date when California’s unemployment debts – expected to reach close to $50bn this year – come due.Eric Schickler, a political scientist and co-director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, said he didn’t expect Californians to get everything they want out of the new administration. After all, even among Democrats, residents of the state – and their representatives – are highly diverse. “In terms of shaping the Democratic agenda, California Democrats are certainly in an advantageous place,” he said. Still, with the state facing significant challenges, including on housing, inequality, and the devastating impact from the Covid crisis, it will be helpful to have more allies than adversaries controlling the purse strings. “The state is facing some daunting challenges and will be looking to the federal government for help,” Schickler said. “The Biden administration is much more likely to be sympathetic to that.”At the very least, California won’t have to continue big battles against the federal government. Pastor sees this as the biggest opportunity for the state to push forward. “Not being in a war of resistance with the Trump administration will give California a chance – a needed chance – to reflect on its own shortcomings,” Pastor said. “The weight of hate has been lifted. And once it is lifted, you can look around and ask, well, how are we screwing up? California still has a lot of things it needs to fix.” More
