They’re sorta eighties, sorta fun! [WNYC]
impeachment
The Timeline for Trump’s Second Impeachment Trial
THE FEED
coronavirus stimulus
On COVID Relief, Dems Should Go Small Then Go It Alone
Austin gets in with an overwhelming majority
U.S. Senate votes 93-2 to confirm retired General Lloyd J. Austin III to be the next U.S. Secretary of Defense
—@EricLiptonNYT
Here we go again
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Schumer: Pelosi will transmit Trump impeachment article Monday, triggering trial of former president
—@jpaceDC
inauguration liveblog
Biden Makes Big Moves on Food Stamps: Live Updates
Politico compiled a list of the “day one” promises Biden didn’t keep, and it’s pretty short
Here are the promises he didn’t keep and the reasons why:
X “On day one, I’ll move to: eliminate the Trump tax cut for the super-wealthy, cut the unjustified loopholes in our tax code, and use that money to invest in America’s future.” June 27, 2019
X “On Day One, if I’m president of the United States, you’re going to see the end of Trump’s tax cut for the top 10th of 1%.” (Said during an address to the Philadelphia AFL-CIO in September 2019, according to Bloomberg)
These two economic priorities were put forward before the pandemic and the subsequent recession that led Biden to overhaul his initial economic agenda.
X “My first day of office, I’m going to send a bill to the Congress repealing the liability protection for gun manufacturers, closing the background check loopholes and waiting period.” Feb. 20, 2020
This is the most conspicuous First Day pledge that Biden has abandoned, an apparent concession to the reality of slim Democratic margins in Congress and a shift in post-pandemic priorities.
X “I’d double that tax [on foreign profits] and do that on Day One.” July 9, 2020
This was probably a Biden ad lib.
X “On Biden’s first day in office, he will restore federal employees’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and will direct his agencies to bargain with federal employee unions over non-mandatory subjects of bargaining.” The Biden plan for strengthening worker organizing, collective bargaining, and unions
Biden is scheduled to sign this one today. (A White House spokesman told us, “We’re thinking about ‘Day One promises’ not literally on Jan. 20, but across multiple days.”) Even without that caveat, Biden did indeed keep the overwhelming majority of Day One pledges that we could find from his speeches, press releases and interviews over the last two years.
“I’ve never in my entire career felt like I’ve been booted onto the curb and told, ‘Figure it out on your own,’” said one of the soldiers.
Scores of National Guard members were forced out of a U.S. Capitol cafeteria resting area and into a parking garage nearby, putting them in close quarters with moving cars, exhaust fumes and troops potentially infected with the coronavirus, two soldiers told The Washington Post.
The abrupt transfer came Thursday afternoon with no explanation, the soldiers said. Images of National Guard members sleeping on concrete Thursday night sparked outrage and an apparent reversal later in the night, as lawmakers said the service members would be moved back to the Capitol.
The soldiers said they were not given a reason for the initial transfer. But defense officials said Capitol police moved the Guard members off the grounds as foot traffic from lawmakers and other officials increased in the area.
wildlife
New York City’s Rats Are Doing Just Fine
coronavirus
What We Know About the New P.1 Strain of the Coronavirus
public policy
Should You ‘Wait Your Turn’ for the COVID-19 Vaccine?
biden administration
Biden Displays Basic Pandemic Competence With His COVID Executive Orders
politics
Biden Instantly Fires Trump-Appointed Anti-Worker Attorney
covid-19
Why Has America’s Vaccination Drive Suddenly Stalled?
trump organization
Trump’s Revenue Is Cratering at the Worst Possible Time
satire
Don’t Fall for Trump’s Latest Distraction
biden inauguration
Biden’s Unity Plea Is About Strategy, Not Surrender
impeachment trial
A McConnell-Backed Trump Conviction Is Just Fantasy
the city politic
‘It’s Everyone Against Andrew Yang’
Words to live by
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, @BernieSanders had this to say of the viral photo of him bundled up on Inauguration Day: It “makes people aware that we make good mittens in Vermont.” He added, “We have some good coats as well.”
—@jeffzeleny
Only somewhat?
Fauci on difference between working for Biden after Trump: “It is somewhat of a liberating feeling.”
—@Acosta
Google suggests Bowers has neither a fun mustache nor a history of public meltdowns so it’s unclear what he’s doing on Trump’s legal team
Breaking news right here
Trump has an impeachment lawyer
Butch Bowers of South Carolina.@PunchbowlNews https://t.co/dg451HnwW3 https://t.co/c2TJakUTmu
—@JakeSherman
Trump has an impeachment lawyer
Butch Bowers of South Carolina.@PunchbowlNews https://t.co/dg451HnwW3 https://t.co/c2TJakUTmu
the national interest
Why Are Conservatives So Angry Biden Denounced White Supremacy?
public space
New Union Square Plan Takes Over Streets to Make a Bigger, Greener Park
filibuster
The Defining Battle of Biden’s Presidency Is Already Raging in the Senate
This is what Biden is actually dealing with, contrary to Trump’s claim that he “saved or supported over 50 million jobs” and was leaving him the “greatest economy in the history of the world”
Another 900,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, former president Donald Trump’s last in office, a snapshot of the significant labor market challenges facing President Biden.
An additional 423,000 people in 47 states filed new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program created to help gig and self-employed workers.
Altogether, nearly 16 million people were claiming benefits as of Jan. 2, the last week available for that measurement. That number is expected to increase in the coming weeks as people who were dropped from the unemployment rolls after their benefits expired file new claims to take advantage of the extension passed by Congress at the last minute in December.
The number of new unemployment claims filed each week has remained above the pre-pandemic record of 695,000 since coronavirus cases starting rising last March. Jobless claims have also risen in recent weeks.
A complaint from Jeanine Pirro led to Trump staffers scrambling to put together a last-minute pardon for her ex-husband
Pirro was upset that her ex-husband Albert J. Pirro Jr. wasn’t on Trump’s final pardon list that came out early Wednesday morning, and that message was conveyed to the White House and its former resident, according to a former White House adviser. Albert Pirro was convicted on conspiracy and tax evasion charges after improperly deducting $1.2 million of his personal expenses in business write-offs.
A separate source familiar with the matter tells CNN that Albert Pirro was not on the pardon radar before Wednesday morning. It wasn’t until midmorning that day that aides, who were in the middle of off-boarding their duties to the new administration, were told it needed to be done.
The order came as a total surprise and had aides scrambling to make it happen before the noon ET deadline, when Trump’s term came to an end.
Minutes after Trump landed in Florida following his final flight aboard Air Force One from Washington, now-former deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere released a statement announcing that “Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a full pardon to Albert J. Pirro, Jr.”
Maybe Trump wasn’t a good president?
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.”
politics
Biden Will Run a Very Un-Waspy Government
2024 elections
Trump Won’t Start a Third Party — But He Might Break the GOP
covid-19
What We’re Not Telling the Public When They Get the Vaccine
Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription
Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription
Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription