Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed more than a dozen executive actions, some of which reverse decisions made by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Start a "100 Days Masking Challenge," calling for a nationwide face mask and social distancing mandate in federal buildings, on federal lands and by federal employees and contractors.

Restructure federal government coordination to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden White House is bringing back an Obama-era position called the "Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense," which was organized with additional staff within the National Security Council after the 2014 Ebola epidemic. This directorate office was dispersed into other roles during the Trump administration, but Biden and his campaign advisers argued the move decreased the preparedness of the federal government for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO), which the Trump administration was in the process of leaving. Mr. Biden is also looking to reestablish the U.S. as an active leader at the WHO.

Extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums. To do this, Biden will call on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to re-implement and extend the already defunct moratorium until at least March 31. The new president will also call on the Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs to extend the foreclosure moratoriums for their federally backed mortgages.

Continue "pause" on student loan payments until September 30. The Biden advisers continue to assert Biden still supports his campaign pledge to cancel $10,000 of student loans, but this will take time as it has to go through Congress.

Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. The Paris climate negotiations took place under the Obama administration and were led by incoming climate change czar John Kerry when he was secretary of state. This will take 30 days to go into effect.

End Keystone XL pipeline and revoke oil and gas development at national wildlife monuments. To do this, Biden's climate adviser Gina McCarthy explained the Biden administration will discard or redo more than 100 "harmful" presidential proclamations, memoranda or permits signed by the Trump administration that the new administration views as detrimental to the environment.

Actions to advance racial equity through the federal government. Incoming Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice explained President Biden wants every federal agency to review equity in their programs and actions. For example, with this executive action the Office of Management and Budget will analyze if federal money is equitably distributed in communities of color and other places of need, the outline of the executive action said. Rice also said Trump's "harmful" 1776 Commission, the 18-member board he formulated in September, will be stopped. The commission's goal was to study the president's concern that the American education system was taking a too liberal approach to American history.

Count non-citizens in U.S. Census again. This reverses President Trump's order in July 2020 to not count undocumented Americans, which would affect federal allocation of money and federal representation. Rice on the Wednesday press call said Trump's was an "approach that violates the Constitution and the Census Act and is inconsistent with our nation's history and our commitment to representative democracy." The Biden team's outline of the executive order said Biden "will ensure that the Census Bureau has time to complete an accurate population count for each state" and that "he will then present to Congress an apportionment that is fair and accurate so federal resources are efficiently and fairly distributed for the next decade."

Strengthen workplace discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. At agencies, this broadens the federal protections against sex discrimination to include LGBTQ Americans.

Defend "Dreamers" program for undocumented young Americans. Mr. Biden, in this executive order, calls on Congress to grant permanent status and a path to citizenship to Dreamers — almost a million undocumented young people who were brought to the country as children and shielded from deportation by President Obama. The Trump administration challenged the law but the Supreme Court upheld it.

End so-called "Muslim travel ban," which in 2017 restricted travel and immigration to the U.S. from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, before adding Eritrea, Nigeria, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, and Tanzania in 2020. The State Department is also instructed to restart visa applications for these countries.

Change Trump's arrest priorities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This executive order will repeal the changes Mr. Trump made in the first week of his presidency in 2017 to make interior immigration enforcement much stricter. Few specifics were listed in the outline of the executive order, but the incoming Biden White House team stated the Department of Homeland Security, in partnership with other agencies, will "set civil immigration enforcement policies that best protect the American people and are in line with our values and priorities."

Stop border wall construction. Mr. Biden will end the national emergency declaration cited by the Trump administration to divert money to the building of the southern wall.

Keep protections for a group of Liberians in the country. Liberians who have been in the United States for many years will be able to remain longer. Their "deferred enforcement departure" will be extended an additional year, until June 30, 2022. President Trump briefly considered ending this deferment before ultimately extending the program.

Freezing last-minute Trump administration regulatory actions. Technically, White House chief of staff Ron Klain will be charged with carrying out this out, and a presidential memo will formally state the regulations to be frozen.

Formulate Executive Branch ethics doctrine. Mr. Biden wants every executive branch appointee to sign an ethics pledge. The pledge also demands federal employees promise "to uphold the independence of the Department of Justice," the executive order outline states.

As President Joe Biden was sworn into office Wednesday, a uniformed man was seen paying silent tribute at the grave of Biden’s son Beau.

Delaware News Journal reporter Patricia Talorico captured the poignant image, showing the man kneeling with head bowed by Beau Biden’s grave at St. Joseph on the Brandywine church in Greenville, Delaware.

Talorico, who writes primarily about food, said she was on an assignment to see how Delaware was commemorating the incoming administration when she spotted the man. At the same time, she had her car radio set to CNN and noted that Biden was about to begin his inaugural address.

“I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt this poignant, solemn moment,” she later wrote. “I took some photos from a distance, and pulled my car over to a nearby roadway. I listened to the end of Biden’s speech and drove back to see if the man was still there. He was. And he was still kneeling, still had his head bowed.”
...
Talorico said she did not ask for the uniformed man’s name while visiting the cemetery Wednesday. “This person who once received a kind gesture from Beau when I needed it most knew it was a time to be respectful,” she explained, “and I drove away.”

I see the change of administration hasn't changed your limited responses

and vocabulary.

You are supporting a dictator who poisoned his political opponents and has embezzled more a billion quid's worth of prime real estate.

There's no getting away from what you are.

At this point, I'm going to make the effort to ignore and cease communication with certain users who continue to push the falsehood that Biden is an illegitimate president.

I have no issue with people disagreeing with President Biden’s actions throughout his term,

but I draw the line at anyone who sees the 2020 election as stolen as well as supporting the insurrectionists and rioters at the Capitol.

Sometimes, I wonder what that one user thought about the January 6th riots. I'm sure they would have said something inflammatory.

Newly sworn in President Joe Biden and his advisers are inheriting no coronavirus vaccine distribution plan to speak of from the Trump administration, sources tell CNN, posing a significant challenge for the new White House.

The Biden administration has promised to try to turn the Covid-19 pandemic around and drastically speed up the pace of vaccinating Americans against the virus. But in the immediate hours following Biden being sworn into office on Wednesday, sources with direct knowledge of the new administration's Covid-related work told CNN one of the biggest shocks that the Biden team had to digest during the transition period was what they saw as a complete lack of a vaccine distribution strategy under former President Donald Trump, even weeks after multiple vaccines were approved for use in the United States.

"There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch," one source said.

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."

The incoming White House now faces intense pressure to make good on the promises that Biden made during the campaign and the transition phase to drastically turn things around on the pandemic and conduct himself entirely differently from Trump when it comes to the virus and vaccine distribution.

Prior to Inauguration Day, some of Biden's Covid-19 advisers had wanted to be careful not to be overly critical in public of the Trump administration's handling of the virus and vaccine, given that the Biden transition team was already having a hard time getting critical information and cooperation from the outgoing administration, the source said.

Now that the transition of power has taken place, the Biden administration is hoping that they can quickly start to get a clearer picture of where things actually stand with vaccine distribution and administration across the country, going through something of a "fact-checking" exercise on what exactly the Trump administration had and had not done, they added.

CNN has previously reported that the Biden team's most urgent concerns on Covid-19 include potential vaccine supply problems, coordination between federal and local governments, as well as funding, staffing and other resource needs for local governments. That is in addition to the emerging Covid variants, which the new White House -- in consultation with scientists and experts -- is watching warily.

Biden has made clear that slowing down the spread of Covid-19 and getting 100 million vaccine shots into Americans' arms in his first 100 days in office are of utmost priority -- goals that will shape whether Biden's first years in office are ultimately deemed successful.

Within hours of being sworn into office, Biden signed an executive order requiring masks on all federal property, a part of his campaign promise to push for a federal mask mandate during his first 100 days in office.

"This is going to be the first of many engagements we're going to have in here," Biden said in his first appearance in the Oval Office as president. "I thought with the state of the nation today there's no time to waste. Get to work immediately."

On Biden's first full day in office on Thursday, the White House is focusing on Covid-19 by rolling out a national strategy for getting the pandemic under control including numerous executive actions related to vaccination and testing.

Criticizing the "lack of cooperation" from the Trump administration as an "impediment" for the new administration, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters on Wednesday that he was still confident that the administration can meet its 100 million vaccine shots in 100 days target.

"For almost a year now, Americans could not look to the federal government for any strategy, let alone a comprehensive approach to respond to Covid," Zients said. "And we've seen the tragic costs of that failure. As President Biden steps into office today ... that'll change tomorrow."

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

In the weeks following the Jan. 6 riot that enveloped Congress, there had been chatter on social media about more violent insurrection attempts at state capitols from Jan. 16 to Jan. 20. The FBI issued warnings last week that it had received intel concerning armed protests at the capitol buildings in all 50 states. Police departments across the country announced that they would be stepping up security in and around their state capitols. More than a dozen states also mobilized National Guard troops in preparation for the potential unrest. Yet, those threats failed to materialize on Inauguration Day. Photo dispatches from a variety of state capitols indicated that the protests were extremely sparse and peaceful. For example, only one Trump supporter showed up to the New York State Capitol; he was reportedly disappointed as he expected thousands to be in attendance.

A mere handful of people also gathered outside the Maine State House. They reportedly repeated false conspiracy theories about Democrats destroying ballots and stealing the election, but nevertheless did not go past the barricades that had were stationed around the perimeter.

Outside the Texas Capitol, a few Trump supporters protested socialism. The Texas Department of Public Safety activated troops to patrol Capitol grounds during the inauguration.

Getty photographers captured similar scenes at the capitols in Missouri and Washington state.

Earlier in the day, at the California State Capitol, only one Trump supporter in a red MAGA hat showed up and praised the Jan. 6 attack on Congress.

However, antifa members reportedly did show up to the California capitol later on to denounce both Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

And in the vicinity of the U.S. Capitol in D.C., Slate’s Aymann Ismail reported that journalists and law enforcement actually outnumbered the Trump supporters who came out to grouse about Biden’s win.

Rebelofnj wrote:

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

They are just trying to make excuses for Mr. Biden's incompetence.

I think there was a mob mentality in the Jan 6 attack, a belief that if everyone did it and Trump backed it there would be no accountability. Now people are being arrested, the instigator is out of office and people are seeing that everyday Americans do not support their violent actions. They are backtracking as hard as they can, cleaning up social media, keeping their heads down. The hard core ones will continue on, those who jumped on the bandwagon are getting off as fast as they can.

Charges against anti-government extremists and pro-Trump gang members show a coordinated attack on the democratic process.