Video of Schumer's first speech as Majority Leader

Someone is right now launching fireworks here in Boulder, Colorado.

Biden's 1st call to foreign leader will be to Trudeau Friday, says press secretary cbc.ca/news/world/press-briefing-biden-psaki-1.5881166

On his first day, President Biden signed 17 orders to dismantle Trump-era policies on the pandemic and immigration, among others. Here’s the full list.

National Labor Relations attorney whom the Biden administration had asked to resign is refusing to leave.

> Mr. Biden has signed a letter to re-enter the United States in the Paris climate accords, which it will officially rejoin 30 days from now.

(Robb was apparently particularly opposed to scabby the rat since he's a management side attorney)

A diplomatic row has broken out between the UK and EU over the status of the bloc's ambassador in London. The UK is refusing to give Joao Vale de Almeida the full diplomatic status that is granted to other ambassadors.

May I remind people that while the US Fascism arc is over, the UK sovereignty arc is still going strong

yeh we're still waiting on how that plays out

> reversing the rollbacks to vehicle emissions standards

I somehow compeltely missed Trump did this

What fucking garbage. I can't believe this man has so many supporters.

Luckily Biden reversed it.

> Mr. Biden will end the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission, which released a report on Monday that historians said distorted the role of slavery in the United States, among other history

I also somehow missed this

bUt TrUmP aNd ThE GoP aRn'T rAcIsT gUyS

article: nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/politics/…

> The White House on Monday released the report of the presidential 1776 Commission, a sweeping attack on liberal thought and activism that calls for a “patriotic education,” defends America’s founding against charges that it was tainted by slavery and likens progressivism to fascism.

> President Trump formed the 18-member commission — which includes no professional historians but a number of conservative activists, politicians and intellectuals — in the heat of his re-election campaign in September, as he cast himself as a defender of traditional American heritage against “radical” liberals.

Gotta keep pushing that America No.1 propaganda. Heaven forbid you actually taught children proper history. I'm sure the plan was to include this in the same textbooks that teach civil war was about state rights.

Thank Biden killed this

> The commission formed part of Mr. Trump’s larger response to the antiracism protests, some of them violent, that followed the May killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

lol holy fuck. "All these black people have forgotten their place! Time to whitewash history to remind them of their place! GET BACK TO THE COTTON FIELDS!" ~ Trump and the GOP, probably.

DOn't forget that while Trump might be gone, every currently elected GOP member helped enable him. They're just as guilty as he is, and they're still in power.

> “The biggest tell in the 1776 report is that it lists ‘Progressivism’ along with ‘Slavery’ and ‘Fascism’ in its list of ‘challenges to America’s principles,’” Thomas Sugrue, a historian at New York University, wrote on Twitter. “Time to rewrite my lectures to say that ending child labor and regulating meatpacking = Hitlerism.”

A national mask mandate in the US early in the COVID-19 pandemic could have led to as much as 47% less deaths nationally by the end of May, which roughly translates to up to 47,000 saved lives sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304407620303468

via reddit.com/r/science/comments/l0ykjf/…

lol oh boy. Reddit is such garbage. notice some folks further odnw, with quite a few upvotes, hating on this. Calling it the "peak of junk science".

Oh would you look at their post history... /r/pussypassdenied, trump supporters, transphobic remarks, seems to be covid denier... oh boy. I hate reddit.

@Wipqozn Note: this is an economics journal, NOT an epidemiology journal. I'd take it with a grain of salt

@Nzall Yeah

@Wipqozn i forgot the first one but i did remember the second one because they were doing it only to counter 1776 Unites

it was just petty

or was it the 1619 Project

crap, can't remember the year they used but Trump one was just a petty counter

@Memor-X petty, and racist!

Both very important

A green energy deal would be great. That's one thing NDP tried to do, but Alberta was all "OOOIIIIILLL".

It's honestly fucked how much Alberta is brainwashed by the oil companies. like yeah, OIL is why the industtry was booming for so long... but holy shit, those oil companies don't care about you. As soon as the oil is dried up, they leave all their waste around for the government to clean up.

Biden inheriting nonexistent coronavirus vaccine distribution plan and must start 'from scratch,' sources say

> Another source described the moment that it became clear the Biden administration would have to essentially start from "square one" because there simply was no plan as: "Wow, just further affirmation of complete incompetence."

Yet another "shocking, but not surprising" moment

READ: Transcript of Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem

So I don't know the significance (if any) of these particular names, but

President Joe Biden Announces Acting Federal Agency Leadership

Now that the Senate is under Democratic control, surely his actual nominees will get swift consideration?

@Jolenealaska Dear high school English and history teachers in the US, there's a weeks worth of teaching material in this poem. Please teach it.

@MBraedley The comments to the write-up in The Hill break my heart.

My god, you read the comments!? Wait, good comments or bad comments?

Yes, I'm a comment reader. The comments there are just gross.

@Jolenealaska I have a plugin that blocks most comment sections. Because comments are gross pretty much everywhere

> A judge DENIES the NRA's motions to dismiss, stay or transfer the NYAG's suit seeking its dissolution.

Like, one of the worst things you can do on any news media is read the comments, because people generally only comment if they disagree

whomp whooooomp

(they sought the stay on the basis of their bankruptcy filing)

> Atlantic City’s former Trump Plaza will be imploded on Feb. 17, the city's mayor said. Opened in 1984, Trump’s former casino was closed in 2014 and has fallen into a state of disrepair

> Rep. Greene has not introduced her promised Articles of Impeachment yet. According to a GOP source in her district, Greene "thought it would be a lot easier than it is."

lol

> The U.S. Embassy in Kabul will soon resume processing thousands of stalled special visa applications for Afghans who aided U.S. forces after halting visa interviews in March because of the pandemic.

Thank god

@TimStone It would have been so beautiful if they had planned it for noon yesterday

@TimStone Isn't this the one where they auctioned off pressing the big red button?

Yeah, they received a cease and desist from Carl Ichan I think because he's a) a conservative megadonor b) was like "that's not safe", which tbh maybe fair

@PrivatePansy That would be the Diet-Coke button.

@TimStone I'm curious: what would it take to introduce AoIs?

@Nzall One does not merely bring a resolution to the floor of the House.

> Well, they were right. Joe Biden is the president and the first thing he did was hurt God, just as they told us he would. He went right up to God and smote God, and now God is crying and Nietzsche has had to clamber back out of Hell to provide comfort.

Which, I know, doesn't explain anything

Joe Biden is president now and everything has happened just as we were warned

> U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order on Thursday that would require international air travelers to quarantine upon U.S. arrival ... Biden’s order says “to the extent feasible” air travelers must comply with applicable U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines concerning international travel “including recommended periods of self-quarantine.” It does not explain how it will be enforced.

I fail to understand the question of questioning the enforcement. The answer is trivial: 42 U.S. Code §§ 71.32(a), 71.33 allows the CDC to issue a legally binding federal quarantine order, which is enforceable per 42 U.S. Code § 271. We did this a year ago.

> Any person who violates any regulation prescribed under sections 264 to 266 of this title, or any provision of section 269 of this title or any regulation prescribed thereunder, or who enters or departs from the limits of any quarantine station, ground, or anchorage in disregard of quarantine rules and regulations or without permission of the quarantine officer in charge, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.

That should suffice.

I think it's more to do with how you'll know whether or not people are following the rules