“President Joe Biden is using his first full day in office on Thursday to begin taking charge of the campaign against the coronavirus, promising to use the kind of centralized authority that the Trump administration had shied away from.
In a 200-page National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness, previewed in a 21-page summary on Wednesday evening by Biden’s advisers, the new administration outlines the kind of federal response that Democrats have long demanded. To carry it out, Biden will sign a dozen executive orders or actions in an afternoon White House ceremony.
RELATED:Key takeaways from President Biden’s plan to stop the coronavirus
But the Biden plan is in some respects overly optimistic and, in others, not as aggressive at it appears. His promise to inject 100 million vaccines in his first hundred days is aiming low, since those 100 days should see twice that number of doses available. Because the currently approved coronavirus vaccines require two doses, Biden is promising only to vaccinate 50 million Americans.
Beyond that 100-day mark is where the problem lies. Federal health officials and corporate executives agree that it will be impossible to increase the immediate supply of vaccines before April at the earliest because of lack of manufacturing capacity. And no use of federal authority can quickly change that.” Read more at Boston Globe
“President Biden ordered a sweeping review on Thursday of American intelligence about Russia’s role in a highly sophisticated hacking of government and corporate computer networks, along with what his spokeswoman called Moscow’s ‘reckless and adversarial actions’ globally and against dissidents inside the country.
At the same time, White House officials said the president would seek a clean, five-year extension of the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the two countries, which expires in two weeks.
While Mr. Biden has long favored the extension, there was debate among his top aides about how long it should be. He chose the most time available under the treaty’s terms, in hopes, his aides said, of preventing a nuclear arms race at a time the new president expects to be in a state of near-constant, low-level competition and confrontation with Moscow around the world — and particularly in cyberspace.” Read more at New York Times
Dr. Fauci: “After surviving nearly a year of darts and undermining comments from Donald Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci is back and unleashed. He now speaks with the authority of the White House again. The doctor called it ‘liberating’ to be backed by a science-friendly administration that has embraced his recommendations to battle COVID-19. And Fauci made clear that he believes the new administration will not trade in the mixed messages that so often came from the Trump White House, where scientific fact was often obscured by the president’s political agenda, Jonathan Lemire reports.” Read more at AP
“Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is proposing to push back the start of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial by a week or more to give the former president time to review the case.
House Democrats who voted to impeach Trump last week for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riots have signaled they want a quick trial as President Biden begins his term, saying a full reckoning is necessary before the country — and the Congress — can move on.
But McConnell told his fellow GOP senators on a call Thursday that a short delay would give Trump time to prepare and stand up his legal team, ensuring due process.
Indiana Senator Mike Braun, a Republican, said after the call that the trial might not begin ’'until sometime mid-February.” He said that was “due to the fact that the process as it occurred in the House evolved so quickly, and that it is not in line with the time you need to prepare for a defense in a Senate trial.”
The timing will be set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who can trigger the start of the trial when she sends the House charges for ‘incitement of insurrection’ to the Senate, and also by McConnell and new Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who are in negotiations over how to set up a 50-50 partisan divide in the Senate and the short-term agenda.
Schumer is in charge of the Senate, assuming the majority leader post after Democrats won two Senate seats in Georgia and Vice President Kamala Harris was sworn in Wednesday. But with such a narrow divide, Republicans will have some say over the trial’s procedure.
Democrats are hoping to conduct the proceedings while also passing legislation that is a priority for Biden, including coronavirus relief, but they would need some cooperation from Senate Republicans to do that, as well.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday asked the FBI to conduct a ‘robust examination’ of the alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol siege of Parler, the now-disabled social media site that bristled with violent chatter before and after rioters stormed the Capitol in a rampage that left five people dead.
Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, the chairwoman, said the request is a step toward opening a formal committee investigation into sites that may encourage violence, including Parler. It became prominent last year as a freewheeling alternative to Twitter, gaining popularity in particular among conservatives.” Read more at Boston Globe
Judge says Amazon won’t have to restore Parler web service
“Amazon won’t be forced to immediately restore web service to Parler after a federal judge ruled against a plea to reinstate the fast-growing social media app favored by followers of Donald Trump. A U.S. District Judge in Seattle said she wasn’t dismissing Parler’s ‘substantive underlying claims’ against Amazon but said it fell short in demonstrating the need for an injunction forcing it back online. Amazon kicked Parler off its web-hosting service last week, and in court filings said the suspension was a ‘last resort’ to block it from harboring violent plans to disrupt the presidential transition.” Read more at AP
“President Biden is expected on Friday to significantly increase federal food assistance for millions of hungry families among executive actions intended to stabilize the deterioration of the economy weighed down by the raging coronavirus pandemic.
Biden is asking the Department of Agriculture to allow states to increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits — commonly known as food stamps — and to increase by 15 percent benefits awarded through a school meals programs for low-income studentsstarted during the pandemic, according to Biden administration officials. That could give a family of three children more than $100 in extra benefits every two months, officials said.” Read more at Washington Post
Border Wall: “Biden has ordered a ‘pause’ on all border wall construction, one of 17 executive orders issued his first day in office. The move leaves billions of dollars in unfinished work under contract after his predecessor worked feverishly to successfully to build 450 miles. A Senate aide tells the AP that the government has spent $6.1 billion of $10.8 billion under contract. The full amount under contract would have extended Trump’s wall to 664 miles. The Biden administration will negotiate cancellation fees and and look into whether what's left can be spent elsewhere, Elliot Spagat reports from San Diego.” Read more at AP
Taken together, the reactions across MAGA internet reveal a mosaic of anger, denial and disappointment that the former president let them down in his final days. | Ted S. Warren/AP Photo
“The pardons went to Democrats, lobbyists and rappers, with nary a ‘patriot’ among them. The mass arrests of Antifa campaigners never came. The inauguration stage at the Capitol, full of America’s most powerful politicians, was not purged of Satan-worshipping pedophiles under a shower of gunfire. Even the electricity stayed on.
The moment the clock struck noon on Wednesday, Jan. 20, it was over — and the extreme factions of Trump’s diehard base were left reeling.
In the days leading up to Trump’s departure from office, his online followers watched with horror as his pardons that were supposed to go to allies and supporters instead went to people who were inherently swampy: white-collar criminals convicted of tax fraud, family friends, Steve Bannon, even Democrat Kwame Kirkpatrick….
Taken together, the reactions across MAGA internet reveal a mosaic of anger, denial and disappointment that the former president let them down in his final days.
Without their leader to direct next steps, the MAGA coalition — the extremist militants, the hate groups, the conspiracy theorists, and the stans — is starting to turn on itself.” Read more at Politico
“Two suicide bombers detonated explosive vests in a crowded market in central Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 32 people in the biggest such attack in several years, according to the government.” Read more at New York Times
“Russia’s government is threatening Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty with multimillion-dollar fines and possible criminal charges against its employees, raising the possibility of the American-funded news organization being pushed out of Russia just as President Biden seeks to reorient the U.S. relationship with the Kremlin.
RFE/RL, one of the biggest online news outlets in Russia that does not toe the official line, says the government in recent weeks has notified it of dozens of individual violations of newly restrictive requirements that it label all of its content as being produced by a ‘foreign agent.’ Its editors say that unless the Kremlin changes course, they will be forced to shut down their official presence in the country for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
‘This is the existential moment for us,’ Daisy Sindelar, the editor in chief of RFE/RL, said in a telephone interview from its headquarters in Prague. ‘It is very clear that the Russian government seeks, in no uncertain terms, our withdrawal from Russia.’
The government’s recent escalation in a long-running pressure campaign against the news outlet shows how President Vladimir V. Putin is raising the stakes in his conflict with Washington just as Mr. Biden takes office. The Kremlin in recent days pledged to ignore Western calls to free the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, who was arrested immediately on his return to Russia on Sunday, and said that Russia would withdraw from a treaty that allows countries to fly military surveillance planes over each other’s territory.” Read more at New York Times
Brazil Vaccine: “The government is eagerly awaiting the arrival today of 2 million doses of vaccine from India. The shipment was announced as public health experts are sounding the alarm over insufficient supply in South America's biggest nation. Neither the government's Fiocruz Institute nor Sao Paulo state's Butantan Institute have yet received the technology to produce vaccines domestically and instead must import the active ingredient. There are only about 10 million doses available at the moment, and Brazil's government is estimated to need that many just to cover front-line health workers in the nation of 210 million people, Diane Jeantet and David Biller report.” Read at AP
Germany Deaths: “The death toll has passed 50,000, a number that has risen swiftly over recent weeks even as infection figures are finally declining. Germany had a relative small number of deaths in the pandemic’s first phase and was able to lift many restrictions quickly. But it saw much higher levels of infections in the fall and winter. Hundreds of deaths have been reported daily over recent weeks, Geir Moulson reports from Berlin.” Read at AP
Tokyo Olympics: “IOC President Thomas Bach and local organizers are pushing back against reports that the postponed Tokyo Olympics will be canceled entirely. Now set to open July 23, the Tokyo Games were postponed 10 months ago at the outbreak of the pandemic, and now the event appears threatened again. The local organizing committee did not address directly The Times of London story, but said the Olympics were going forward and had the support of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Stephen Wade reports.” Read more at AP
Wuhan Documentary: “China is rolling out a state-backed film praising Wuhan ahead of the anniversary of the 76-day lockdown in the central city where the coronavirus was first detected. The documentary, ‘Days and Nights in Wuhan,’ features contributions from 30 filmmakers portraying the suffering and sacrifices made by the city's 11 million residents, medical staff and front line workers, Emily Wang Fujiyama reports.” Read more at AP
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