President Biden departs the East Room yesterday. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“President Biden will keep this year's refugee admissions at the historic low set by the Trump administration.
The big picture: This is a walk-back of a campaign promise — and a reversal from February, when Secretary of State Tony Blinken told Congress the administration would raise the cap this fiscal year from 15,000 to 62,500.
A senior administration official said the administration grew concerned that the surge of border crossings by unaccompanied minors was too much and ‘had already overwhelmed the refugee branch of the Department of Health and Human Services,’ the N.Y. Times reports.
However, ‘migrants at the border go through a separate vetting process than those fleeing persecution overseas.’
Biden is adjusting limits to allow more slots for refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, and lifting Trump's restrictions on resettlement from Somalia, Syria and Yemen, reports Axios' Shawna Chen.
The Biden administration has admitted only 2,050 refugees at the halfway point of this fiscal year.” Read more at Axios
“Brandon Hole, 19, killed eight people and left several others wounded Thursday before shooting himself at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, police said Friday at a news conference.
FedEx officials say Hole was a former employee at the facility who last worked there in 2020, according to authorities, who added that there were at least 100 people in the building at the time of the shooting. The FBI interviewed Hole last year after his mother contacted law enforcement.
On Friday evening, police released the names of the victims. Gurpreet Singh, president of the Sikh Satsang, a local temple for the city’s vibrant Sikh community, said that four Sikh people were among the dead.” Read more at Washington Post
Screenshot: CNN
“The number of new coronavirus cases around the globe has almost doubled over the past two months, an alarming increase that the World Health Organization said Friday was nearing the pandemic’s peak infection rate.” Read more at Washington Post
“The world has surpassed three million COVID-19 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker, a shocking toll that comes amid new warning signs even as vaccinations progress.” Read more at The Hill
“Over 1,000 protesters gathered in a municipal park Friday evening in protest and remembrance of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, whose death from a police bullet has sparked a city-wide look at use of force policies and the way officers respond to neighborhood crime.
Spilling onto surrounding streets, some clogged with cars, volunteers passed out homemade masks to protesters. ‘Justice for Adam Toledo’ signs with an illustration of Adam against a backdrop of clouds were posted in windows of several small businesses in the area. Clusters of police on bikes surrounded the outskirts of the protest.
Outcry is growing after a watchdog agency released disturbing video Thursday of a Chicago police officer shooting Adam, who appeared to have his hands up, casting doubt on prior accounts from police and city officials who initially described the incident as an ‘armed confrontation.’” Read more at USA Today
“Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Friday rescinded a Trump administration policy that curbed the use of consent decrees to address police misconduct, as the Justice Department prepared to step up its role in investigating allegations of racist and illegal behavior by police forces amid a nationwide outcry about the deaths of Black people at the hands of officers.
Mr. Garland’s widely expected decision revives one of the department’s most effective tools in forcing law enforcement agencies to evaluate and change their practices. Consent decrees are court-approved deals between the Justice Department and local governmental agencies that create a road map for changes to the way they operate.
Mr. Garland’s announcement came against the backdrop of fresh unrest and protests sparked by the ongoing murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes before Mr. Floyd died, and the recent police killings of a motorist named Daunte Wright in the suburbs of Minneapolis and a 13-year-old boy named Adam Toledo in Chicago.
And it is one of the Biden administration’s first significant moves to hold police forces accountable in cases where they are found to have violated federal laws. President Biden has called Mr. Floyd’s death a travesty and signaled support for the George Floyd Justice in Policing legislation that Democrats in the House recently passed. But he has reversed course on a campaign promise to establish a police oversight commission during his first 100 days in office.” Read more at New York Times
“A member of the Oath Keepers militia who was charged in connection with the riot at the Capitol pleaded guilty on Friday and agreed to cooperate with the government — potentially against other members of the far-right extremist group.
The guilty plea by the Oath Keeper, Jon Ryan Schaffer, 53, of Indiana, was the first to be entered publicly by any of the more than 400 people who have been charged so far in the Jan. 6 attack. News of the plea emerged last week after sealed documents in Mr. Schaffer’s case were briefly — and accidentally — made available on a federal court database.
Mr. Schaffer’s cooperation with the government could prove instrumental in helping prosecutors pursue a separate and much broader conspiracy case against 12 other members of the Oath Keepers who stand accused of some of the most serious charges in the sprawling investigation into the storming of the Capitol. Though he was not charged as part of that case, Mr. Schaffer’s agreement to assist the government was apparently significant enough that prosecutors said at a court hearing on Friday that they would sponsor him for the witness protection program.
In recent days, the vast investigation into the Capitol breach has reached a kind of turning point as the nationwide flurry of arrests — an average of about four a day since Jan. 6 — has gradually slowed and lawyers for the rioters have started readying defenses. While Mr. Schaffer, a guitarist and songwriter for the heavy metal band Iced Earth, was the first defendant to publicly plead guilty, prosecutors expect that many more will follow.” Read more at New York Times
“The Kremlin said Friday it would expel 10 U.S. diplomats and blacklist eight current and former U.S. officialsincluding FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Susan Rice and John Bolton in response to U.S. sanctions and expulsions.
The expected tit-for-tat measures by Russia deepen the strains between the two countries, but Moscow kept its response relatively proportional. The Kremlin also signaled a willingness to consider a summit between President Vladimir Putin and President Biden even as tensions grow.
The Foreign Ministry released the list of people banned from entry into Russia, including Rice, a former ambassador the United Nations and now head of the Domestic Policy Council, and Bolton, who was dismissed as national security adviser by then-President Donald Trump in 2019.
Others include Attorney General Merrick Garland, the director of national intelligence, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Homeland Security chief, after earlier U.S. sanctions on Russian officials in similar posts. Former CIA director R. James Woolsey was also named.” Read more at Washington Post
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“A federal watchdog has found that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan misused State Department resources by having staff run personal errands for them, according to an internal investigation published on Friday.
The report from the State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that both the former secretary and his wife requested a political appointee and other employees in the Office of the Secretary to carry out personal tasks, such as picking up personal items; mailing Christmas cards; taking care of pets; and planning events unrelated to the State Department’s mission.
The investigation was launched in October 2019 in response to a whistleblower complaint that Pompeo and his wife were misusing State Department resources for personal purposes. It was one of a number of investigations into Pompeo’s conduct at the State Department as the nation's top diplomat in the former Trump administration.
Another report, released in August, found that the secretary followed the law in carrying out a multi-billion dollar weapons sale to Saudi Arabia but did not adequately address risks to civilian lives. Further details in the report raised questions among Democratic lawmakers over whether the secretary misrepresented a timeline of events to use the emergency declaration to authorize the weapons sale.
That report and the ethics probe were both delayed by Pompeo's actions, which included refusing and delaying sitting for interviews and firing the State Department's Inspector General Steve Linick in May.
Linick's firing prompted an investigation by Democratic lawmakers that criticized Pompeo for attempting to disrupt such investigations.
The report on ethics violations was largely completed by August, the report released Friday states, but was delayed for months over Pompeo’s refusal to sit for an interview, which he finally did on Dec. 23.” Read more at The Hill
“Several House Republicans, led by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.), are forming a caucus that calls for a ‘common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.’
A policy platform for the group, which calls itself the America First Caucus, declares that ‘a certain intellectual boldness is needed’ in order to ‘follow in President Trump’s footsteps, and potentially step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows for the good of the American nation.’
The seven-page document, first obtained by Punchbowl News, is explicit in its nativist rhetoric and describes American culture as dominated by ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and European influences.
‘America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions. History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country, particularly without institutional support for assimilation and an expansive welfare state to bail them out should they fail to contribute positively to the country,’ the platform states.” Read more at The Hill
“House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Friday that the Republican Party is not the party of ‘nativist dog whistles’ in an apparent response to a new right-wing caucus that explicitly calls for promoting ‘Anglo-Saxon political traditions.’
McCarthy issued a tweet that does not explicitly reference the new ‘America First Caucus’ — established by GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — but came hours after its policy platform began leaking to the media.
‘America is built on the idea that we are all created equal and success is earned through honest, hard work. It isn’t built on identity, race, or religion,’ McCarthy wrote.” Read more at The Hill
“From Michigan to California, and Las Vegas to rural Washington State, dozens of recently elected local officials have promoted elements of the outlandish Internet conspiracy theory that views former President Donald Trump as a messianic figure battling a cadre of deep-state operatives, Democratic politicians and Hollywood celebrities who molest and murder children.
It’s a symptom of how widely the QAnon delusion has spread in the U.S. In December, an NPR/Ipsos poll estimated that 1 in 3 Americans believed in some of the key tenets of the extremist ideology; another survey, by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, found 29% of Republicans agreed that Trump ‘has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites.’ On Facebook alone, QAnon groups amassed millions of members before they were shut down, according to an internal company audit in August. At least two dozen Republican candidates who embraced the conspiracy ran for congressional seats in 2020. Two of them won, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has falsely claimed Hillary Clinton murdered children and political opponents, dismissed mass shootings as ‘false flag’ operations, suggested California wildfires were sparked by space lasers and voiced support for the execution of prominent Democrats.
Since Trump’s defeat, the QAnon movement has quietly entered a different, and arguably more dangerous, phase. Adherents now hold local elected offices across the U.S.–from mayors to city-council members to school-board trustees–with the power to shape policies that directly affect the lives of millions of Americans from positions that offer a measure of credibility to delusional beliefs. In some places, like Grand Blanc, the election of QAnon believers to local office has met little organized resistance. In others, it’s prompted street protests, frantic PTA meetings, tearful city-council Zoom calls, and hundreds of angry emails and petitions.
It’s impossible to estimate how many elected officials believe in QAnon or have promoted its theories in the past. No organization keeps tallies, and it can be hard to parse the point where Trumpian provocation ends and true conspiracy thinking begins. But it’s clear from more than two dozen interviews with residents of communities where QAnon-tied officials have taken office that America is only beginning to grapple with the havoc that the cultlike conspiracy theory has wrought. Almost every resident who talked to TIME about their own local official’s links to the movement also pointed out others in the area they had noticed sharing QAnon content: a state legislator, a county commissioner, a sheriff.” Read more at Time
“The Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit on Friday against Roger Stone, the longtime GOP political operative and ally to former President Trump, accusing him of owing the government about $2 million in unpaid federal income taxes.
The lawsuit comes nearly four months after Trump pardoned Stone following his conviction on charges of lying to Congress and witness tampering.
In a federal district court in Florida, the Justice Department alleged Friday that Stone and his wife Nydia used a limited liability corporation called Drake Ventures to ‘receive payments that are payable to Roger Stone personally, pay their personal expenses, shield their assets, and avoid reporting taxable income to the IRS.’” Read more at The Hill
“Liberty University filed a lawsuit this week against its former president Jerry Falwell Jr., alleging that he breached his contract and fiduciary duties to the school as he sought to cover up a personal scandal.
The evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Va., is seeking more than $10 million in damages from the man who led it for 13 years. The suit filed Thursday in Lynchburg Circuit Court marked another twist in the saga of Falwell’s messy departure last year from Liberty.
Falwell, in a statement Friday, said the suit is ‘full of lies and half truths’ and pledged to fight it.
In early August, Falwell was put on leave after he posted on social media a picture of himself holding a glass containing a dark liquid and standing with an unrelated pregnant woman. Both had their zippers partially down, and Falwell joked that the drink was ‘a prop only.’” Read more at Washington Post
“Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy are constantly reminded about the importance of integrity.
The students must memorize an honor code, warning them to ‘not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.’ The words are inscribed in marble at the Honor Plaza, in an area of the campus where hundreds, perhaps thousands, of future U.S. Army officers walk by every day.
Now, Covid-19 has put that code to the test.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point this month concluded investigations into its largest cheating scandal in at least four decades. It punished dozens of cadets found to be dishonest on an exam while studying remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, though those avoiding expulsion won’t have a permanent blemish on their records.
A final summary report of their transgressions, including a decision to end a policy that for years has protected wayward cadets from being kicked out, is being reported for the first time by The Wall Street Journal.
The policy, known as the ‘willful admission process,’ can protect a cadet who admits to wrongdoing from being thrown out. It was put in place in 2015 to increase self-reporting without fear of removal and to encourage cadets to confront peers about honor violations without having them kicked out of school.
The policy, however, didn’t achieve the desired intent, said Lt. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, superintendent of the academy, in an interview. ‘It’s clear to me, it has to go.’” Read more Wall Street Journal
“Jimmy Lai has skewered the Chinese Communist Party for decades. The 73-year-old founder of a fiercely pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, Lai helped give voice to critics of the city’s leaders and their bosses in Beijing, winning friends in Washington and other places along the way.
Now, for one of his acts of defiance, Lai is going to prison.
A Hong Kong court on Friday sentenced Lai to 12 months in prison for his role in a peaceful demonstration in 2019 against Beijing’s encroachment over the semi-autonomous territory. Three activists and a labor leader were given sentences of eight to 18 months for their role in the protest.” Read more at Boston Globe
“NASA on Friday selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build spacecraft that would land astronauts on the moon for the first time since the last Apollo mission.
The award to SpaceX for the ‘human landing system’ was a stunning announcement that marked another major victory for the hard-charging company that vaults it to the top tier of the nation’s aerospace companies and solidifies it as one of the space agency’s most trusted partners.
In winning the $2.9 billion contract, SpaceX beat out Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which had formed what it called a ‘national team’ by partnering with aerospace giants Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. SpaceX also won over Dynetics, a defense contractor based in Huntsville, Ala. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
NASA had originally chosen all three companies for the initial phase of the contract, and was expected to choose two of them to build the lunar lander. In other major programs, NASA has chosen multiple providers to foster competition and to ensure it has redundancy in case one can’t deliver.” Read more at Washington Post
“One month after revealing that one child died and others were injured in accidents on Peloton treadmills, the at-home exercise company is fighting a federal safety agency’s request that the company recall the products and has delayed the agency’s investigation into potential safety problems, according to officials familiar with the incident.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission this week took the unusual step of issuing an administrative subpoena to require Peloton todisclose the name of the child who died and the family’s contact information so regulators can continue an inquiry into what went wrong, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The previously undisclosed dispute between the nation’s product safety regulator and Peloton — a $34 billion company famous for its stationary bicycles and online workouts — has so far taken place outside public view.” Read more at Washington Post
One child died and others have been injured in accidents on the Peloton Tread+. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating potential safety problems with the treadmill. (Peleton)