I WILL PROBABLY UPDATE THIS PAGE ALOT!

President Biden
@POTUS
·
Mar 29

United States government official
I'm proud to announce that three weeks from today, 90% of adults will be eligible to get vaccinated — and 90% of Americans will live within 5 miles of a place to get a shot.

WE NEED TO END GUN VIOLENCE.

Tell President Biden: Cancel $50,000 in student debt!
Target: President Biden
235 Signers1,000 Goal
The $1.7 trillion student debt crisis is killing the American Dream for a generation of Americans. But there is a simple fix:

go to atadvocacy.com

Cancel the debt.
The president has the power to do this and he must. Add your name to demand President Biden cancel the first $50,000 in federally backed student debt!
Detractors say there's no need to forgive debts of the highest paid, best educated Americans, they have their facts wrong. For example, only 3% of Harvard students take out any debt while 84% of state college students do. Furthermore, 40% of student borrowers do not graduate, leaving them with without the earning power to pay off their loans.
Not only would this free up millions to pursue their dreams, it would dramatically improve racial equity. On average, Black college graduates owe $25,000 more than White graduates, with half of Black borrowers and a third of Latinos to default on their loans within 20 years.
But the truth is, everybody would win. Forgiving student loan debt and freeing up millennials to spend their hard-earned money is simply the best economic stimulus available.
Add your name to tell President Biden to cancel $50,000 in student debt!

Demand a $15 minimum wage!
Target: United States Senate
8062 Signers5,000 Goal
It is unconscionable that eight Senate Democrats, along with every Republican in Congress, told millions of essential workers earning poverty wages that they are "heroes" but don't deserve a $15 minimum wage. People across the country and across the political spectrum support raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. It's even passed as statewide ballot measures in red states!

PRESIDENT BIDEN'S PLAN TO PROVIDE DIRECT RELIEF TO AMERICANS, CONTAIN COVID-19, AND RESCUE THE ECONOMY

The American Rescue Plan is delivering direct relief to the American people, rescuing the American economy, and starting to beat the virus. The plan includes funding to:

Provide direct relief to Americans

Safely reopen schools

Mount a national vaccination program and contain COVID-19

For a full overview of what's in the the plan, click here.

How you can access direct relief:

Here's what you need to know about the direct relief the American Rescue Plan provides to working families:

$1,400 per-person checks

Increase the Child Tax Credit, Earned-Income Tax Credit, and Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit

Extend unemployment insurance

On Wednesday, April 14, 2021, the President signed into law:

H.R. 1868, which extends a suspension of Medicare sequestration and make other technical changes to Medicare payments and Medicaid eligibility.

Via Teleconference

11:12 A.M. EDT

MR. ZIENTS:  Good morning.  Thank you for joining us.  Today I will discuss the implications of the FDA and CDC's decision to pause the Johnson & Johnson vaccine administration, and also provide an update on our accelerating vaccination program.  Then I'll turn it to Dr. Walensky for an update on the state of the pandemic and on the Johnson & Johnson pause, followed by Dr. Fauci who will also provide his perspective on J&J.

As you know, yesterday, the FDA and CDC announced that out of an abundance of caution they have recommended a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as they review data involving six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the J&J vaccine.

I want to be clear that this announcement will not have a significant impact on our vaccination program.  The J&J vaccine makes up less than 5 percent of the more than 190 million recorded shots in the arms in the U.S. to date.

The President has always said that we are at war with the virus. And as such, we have mobilized a wartime effort so that we're prepared for a range of scenarios and contingencies.  This is why the President took aggressive action earlier this year to move up manufacturing, production, and delivery schedules for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and to secure enough Pfizer and Moderna doses for 300 million Americans by the end of July.

Over the last few weeks, we've made more than 25 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna available to states, Tribes, and territories and through federal channels each week. In fact, yesterday, we announced that this week we will make 28 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna available.  And as we've done from the beginning of this administration, we will continue to get supply out the door as soon as it's available.
Importantly, this means we have more than enough supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to continue the current pace of vaccinations, meet the President's goal of 200 million shots by his 100th day in office, and continue to reach every adult who wants to be vaccinated by the end of May.

We are working now with our state and federal partners to get anyone currently scheduled for a J&J vaccine quickly rescheduled for a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.   We're seeing this take place across the country.

The President has committed to the American people that his administration will always lead with science, tell the truth, and give Americans the facts as we know them.  Over the past 24 hours, we've been working to provide clear information to the public related to the J&J pause, engaging state and local health officials, governors, community leaders, clinicians, and medical experts.

And our public health officials will continue to appear on television, radio, and social media to communicate directly to the American people so Americans have the latest information and answers to their questions and the opportunity to learn more about the safety and the efficacy of the vaccines and the importance of getting vaccinated.

Stepping back, building vaccine confidence and increasing access to vaccination is central to our efforts to put this pandemic behind us.  That's why we've invested $3 billion to help states and community-based organizations build vaccine confidence, particularly in the hardest-hit and highest-risk communities.

We are getting fact-based messaging and resources into the hands of trusted local messengers.  And it's why we are making data on the state of the pandemic publicly available, holding these regular press briefings, and are committed to sharing the facts at every turn.

Yesterday's actions should give the American people confidence in the FDA and CDC, the thoroughness of their review process, and their commitment to transparency and protection of public health.

We believe that by empowering Americans with data and facts, we will strengthen the public's trust in government and increase their confidence in the vaccines.

Remarks by Vice President Harris at Virtual Roundtable of Experts on the Northern Triangle
APRIL 14, 2021 • SPEECHES AND REMARKS
Via Teleconference
Vice President's Ceremonial Office

10:08 A.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So I'm very much looking forward to our discussion this morning.  And by way of introduction to the discussion, as everyone knows, a few weeks ago, the President asked me to take on a role of leadership in addressing the root causes of migration and to focus on the Northern Triangle countries, similar to the work he did when he was Vice President years ago.

And so the work we are doing is informed by that approach and that strategy and that direction.  It is work that also is informed, for me, by certain — just basic principles and beliefs. 

One is that most people don't want to leave home.  They don't want to leave the place where their grandparents lived.  They don't want to leave the place where they are familiar with the culture and the language.  You know, to use a phrase from an old television show, "Cheers," you know, "Where everybody knows your name."  Most people don't want to leave home. 

And when they do, it is usually for one of two reasons, or a combination of the two: They are fleeing some harm, or to remain home is to remain in a position where there is no opportunity to meet essential needs that include feeding their children, keeping a roof over their head, and engaging in productive work. 

So that is one part of what informs my perspective on this issue of addressing the root causes. 

The other is this: There is an important four-letter word, which I hope always inspires us to do the work we do, and that word is "hope."  And in this regard, in — in our focus on the Northern Triangle, looking at the fact that we have an opportunity — as the United States of America, with the resources and with the will that we have — to provide the people of the Northern Triangle with some hope that if they stay at home, help is on the way and they can have some hope that the opportunities and the needs that they have will be met in some way. 

Now, I will say that — I'm very clear — I think — I know we all are.  This is a group of experts; I'm, again, really looking forward to hearing from you.  We are all very clear the work that we have the potential to do in the Northern Triangle will not evidence itself overnight by any stretch.

We are looking at issues that have been a long time in the making.  We are looking at issues that relate to the need for economic development, a need for resilience around extreme climate; looking at the fact that this is, in large part — these Northern Triangle countries — a large part of their economic base was agriculture, and then what the severe climate experiences have done in dampening and really harming their ability to have that economic driver in their countries. 

We are looking at issues that relate to violence and corruption. 

We are looking at extreme food insecurity and what must be addressed there. 

And so the focus that we are bringing to our work in the Northern Triangle is really about assessing and figuring out what we might do to encourage economic development, addressing what we know is — is present there in terms of the need to address issues that relate to integrity of government, rule of law, and corruption — but looking at it also in the context of what we can do with the resources we have to assist on issues like agriculture, farming, water irrigation.  I happen to really care a lot about water policy. 

We are looking at how we can internationalize our effort, and so there is great work that is already happening within our initiative.  That includes reaching out to our allies, through the U.N. 
There is the work that we need to do to look at, again, stability around food insecurity, but also stability around making sure that women and girls are being protected and have the opportunities that they deserve to have. 

So these are some of the areas of focus for us.  And we are convening this group of experts today to hear from you because you all have been working for years in this region.  And I want to learn from you and get your expert advice on what works and what does not work to address, again, the root causes of people leaving the Northern Triangle so that we can, as a member of the Western Hemisphere, do what we are able to do to address those — those needs, knowing that it affects the entire Western Hemisphere, and that means us.

So, with that, I want to thank everyone for being here today.  And I'm looking forward to beginning our discussion.

Q    Madam Vice President, will you visit the southern border.  Do you have a trip planned?  Will you plan one in the future if the situation with migration doesn't resolve itself?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, as I mentioned to the experts, the President has asked Secretary Mayorkas to address what is going on at the border.  And he has been working very hard at that, and it's showing some progress because of his hard work.  I have been asked to lead the issue of dealing with root causes in the Northern Triangle, similar to what then-Vice President did many years ago.

THIS PAGE IS ALSO JUST WHITE HOUSE UPDATES!

Jill Biden punches the clock
(CNN) — 
Jill Biden has no time for dawdling; she has work to do. At a vaccine clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last week, sensing hesitancy from a woman waiting to get her first shot, the first lady spoke up: "It's, like, so fast." The woman said she was scared, so Biden went to stand next to her. With an arm around her shoulder and her index finger pointed to her own face, she said, "Look at me. It doesn't hurt. Really. It's mostly in your head."

The woman got the shot.

For her first 100 days in office, Biden has been asking the country to do much the same: focus on what she has been saying – that we will recover, don't get overwhelmed.

Several people who spoke to CNN about the first lady's approach to her role these first few months said it's similar advice she has taken herself – there is a mission, make it happen.

There is no showiness, no fancy way to dress (most of her outfits are repeats from seasons' past), no spotlight to grab away or megaphone to yell into. Biden even hasn't had the time, or the spare energy, to yet hire an interior decorator for the White House residence, said a person familiar. She has enjoyed some special attention, however. Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz was spotted on the White House campus Monday, a tip-of-the-hat to an upcoming Vogue magazine cover.

Biden is neither a figurehead of American politics, nor a ceremonial placeholder for when President Joe Biden can't be there himself. "When you're with the first lady, the feeling is go, go, go," said a White House official who has worked with her.

She has so far traveled to 14 states and taken more than a dozen solo work-related trips since February – more than her husband has on his solo domestic travels – driven by an urgency to see the country and spread her message, be it about pandemic recovery, schools, vaccines, free community college or economic rehabilitation.

"It is virtually impossible to slow her down if there is something she wants to do," said another White House official with experience working for Biden. A person familiar with the first lady's travel said she is planning another trip out west very soon, likely concentrated on a mix of education, military, health and Latino outreach. For Biden, there is no such thing as doing one event on one topic if you can fit in four more, noted the official.

Donald Trump saw it coming
Opinion by Richard Galant, CNN

Updated 1:46 PM ET, Sun May 2, 2021 (CNN)Donald Trump saw it coming. Back in 2019, the moderate Joe Biden looked like a candidate uniquely suited to threaten his re-election as president. In a July 25 phone call, Trump asked Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky to have his government work with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and with then-US Attorney General William Barr to launch an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter.

That call, which Trump defended as "perfect," and the administration's pausing of security aid to Ukraine, would become the focus of his first impeachment, which ended with Trump's acquittal in the Senate.
The former president never could solve the riddle of how to defeat Biden, who he accused of being a puppet for the "radical left."In reality, Trump lost to him because the coronavirus pandemic changed everything — but only some people got the message. One of them was Biden.
In a speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday, with a soft-spoken, almost whispered urgency, President Biden made his case for a breathtaking overhaul of America's social contract.
The President's argument, in just his first 100 days, for $6 trillion in new spending would have been unthinkable before the coronavirus, which has killed more than half a million Americans and sickened 30 million others. When the pandemic hit, suddenly a nation skeptical of government began looking to Washington for help. Trump and Congress initially reacted by approving a series of Covid-19 relief packages, but Senate Republicans ultimately balked at the Democrats' $3-trillion HEROES Act. Biden is aiming much higher.
His "ambition is extraordinary," wrote Frida Ghitis. "His laundry list of initiatives and plans is enough to fill many presidencies. Biden is right when he views this presidency not only as a vehicle for improving the lives of Americans, but for showing the world the superiority of democracy over autocracy."

The image of two women — Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi—behind a US President at a joint session for the first time, Ghitis wrote, along with Biden's words, "were a reminder of how far we've come, how awful things were, and how far we still have to go."Biden is "developing a positive kind of populism," wrote Van Jones. "When Biden was elected, a lot of people -- particularly progressives -- underestimated him. After Wednesday night, it became clear Biden isn't holding anything back. He recognizes this is a once-in-a-century opportunity to reset the American system, and he's not going to let this chance go to waste."
The initiatives that Trump could once parody as "radical left" are much more in the American mainstream now, with polls showing many as broadly popular -- even though Biden's 53% approval rating is on the low side compared with other presidents (aside from Trump) at this point in their terms. "The best thing about President Joe Biden is that he's old," wrote historian Meg Jacobs. "He can remember a time before -- and not just before the rightward swing of former President Donald Trump or even the centrism of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He remembers a time before small-government proponent former President Ronald Reagan, when Democrats stood before the country and said unabashedly that a big and bold government was exactly what the country needed."That's precisely what alarms conservatives like Scott Jennings, who wrote, "Biden gave away the progressive game when he said he would 'turn crisis into opportunity.' His $1.9 trillion Covid bill spent excessively on liberal social programs, and Biden is doing it again in an infrastructure bill that spends just 5% of its $2.25 trillion on roads, bridges, waterways, ports, and airports. Name your crisis...and Biden is prepared to ride it like a Kentucky Derby jockey towards a liberal finish line of exploding debt and higher taxes."

In Lanhee J. Chen's view, Biden "could have used his considerable power -- both via the bully pulpit but also with his partisans in Congress -- to send a message that compromise isn't a dirty word. This was the theory he advanced during his campaign for president. But the reality of his first 100 days in office has been something entirely different."
Trump left Biden an "unholy mess," wrote David Axelrod, that included "a raging virus and resultant economic downturn, a fraught politics, a decayed bureaucracy and a bitterly divided Washington, DC." And while Biden has coped with those challenges, "the genius of Biden's first 100 days is his style. Even as he rammed the $1.9 trillion relief plan through a closely divided Congress on a partisan basis -- and even as he is pushing for more -- he has struck a decidedly nonconfrontational tone. He does not demand constant attention. He does not vilify his opponents or pick fights for sport. He is low-key, warm and empathetic."
Don't bet against Biden
Biden "has publicly called for the end of systemic racism in American society," Peniel E. Joseph noted. The challenge is to "turn his words into tangible policy deeds... But if the first president in American history to explicitly call out 'White supremacy' in an inaugural speech has shown the nation anything, that's to never bet against Joe Biden."
South Carolina's Tim Scott, the only Black member of the Senate Republicans, gave his party's response to Biden's speech, stressing his view that "America is not a racist country." Clay Cane pointed out that "it wasn't an actual rebuttal to Biden's remarks. Biden never said America was a racist country. Scott created a straw man talking point for his party's base so he could tell them what they wanted to hear. He was joyfully playing the role of the Black man who makes White Americans more comfortable."
The Ukraine scandal resurfaced this week when FBI agents executed a search warrant at Rudy Giuliani's home. Legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers saw that as an indication the "investigation is ramping up in a big way." Citing reporting by the New York Times, Rodgers wrote that investigators are looking into whether "while he was working on Trump's behalf to get Ukrainian officials to announce a criminal investigation into the Bidens, Giuliani was also lobbying US officials about matters of interest to Ukrainians with whom Giuliani was working, like the removal of then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch."

Joe Rogan told his huge podcast audience, "if you're like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I'll go no."
Dr. Jonathan Reiner questioned Rogan's assessment. Yes, most young people would survive a case of Covid, but it has already killed 2,374 Americans under 30, Reiner noted.
And it "doesn't have to kill you to wreck your life...more than 10% of health care workers recovering from relatively mild Covid-19 infections were still experiencing significant symptoms, such as loss of taste or smell, fatigue and breathing problems, eight months later." Even more importantly, adults between 20 and 49 accounted for about 70% of the disease's spread last year. "The reservoir for this virus in the United States is young, unvaccinated Americans."
Historically, young people tend to have "poor vaccination rates," according to Matt Alexander and Jesper Ke, who are Gen-Zers and medical students. "As vaccine supply catches up with demand, the nation's attention has centered on how to reach out to key vaccine holdouts like racial and ethnic minorities or White, evangelical Christians. However, it's important that we don't overlook Gen Z adults, who make up a sizable proportion of the movable middle. Throughout the pandemic, we've neglected to speak their language, include them in stimulus bills, and failed to adequately address its impact on their mental health."
The CDC this week loosened its mask-wearing guidance for vaccinated people in outdoor settings but some experts argue it should do more to stress the benefits of getting a vaccine, particularly for the benefit of those who are hesitant.
"We need a hard right turn on the narrative about vaccines," wrote Dr. Lucy McBride. "People need incentives to take one. We must empower people with facts about vaccine efficacy and shift the media's bad news bias to one of evidence-based optimism about post-vaccination life. We need visible public confidence in the vaccines' stunning efficacy and trusted messengers to deliver nuanced advice to vaccine-hesitant folks. Patients are motivated to get vaccinated when they realize that after vaccination they can liberalize their behaviors, see other vaccinated — and most unvaccinated — people without restrictions or fear, and unmask when appropriate."

India reported more than 400,000 new Covid-19 infections and 3,500 deaths Saturday. Crematorium workers are struggling to keep up with the shocking number of new deaths, CNN reported.
"As images of mass-cremation sites, overcrowded hospitals, and people gasping for air continue to overwhelm our social media feeds and news, one thing became apparent: People are on their own like never before," wrote Akanksha Singh, an Indian journalist. "The lack of resources and personnel is palpable on social media. Desperate cries for medication and oxygen tanks abound on Twitter and Instagram, where posts read, 'In need of ICU bed' or 'Plasma urgently required for treatment of Covid patient in Max Hospital, Delhi.'" A journalist who live-tweeted about his symptoms "died while waiting for help."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP party once promoted the image of "India shining" to signal its transformation from a backward, developing nation into a global economic powerhouse, wrote Meenakshi Narula Ahamed. But the pandemic "has revived images of India as a country of disease and death. With its health care system collapsing under the strain, for the first time in 15 years, the government is once again in the awkward position of asking for foreign assistance, despite the country being a vaccine manufacturing hub. Many blame the Modi government for this self-inflicted crisis."Republican members of Congress and voices in right-wing media concocted a story that Biden wants to limit Americans to eating no more than four pounds of beef a year. Rest easy, wrote Jill Filipovic: "Joe Biden isn't going to take away your hamburgers."
The false claim is part of a pattern, she noted. Conservative politicians realize that their views on policy "are increasingly radical and unpopular. To distract from what they actually stand for, they latch onto a series of often make-believe culture war claims that have no bearing on leadership and legislation, from 'cancel culture' to 'wokeness' to, now, red meat."
Indeed we live in the world of pants-on-fire lies, wrote Nicole Hemmer. It creates a predicament for journalists.
The lie that Barack Obama was born outside the US and thus ineligible to be president was spread eagerly by conservatives, aided by Donald Trump. Mainstream media fact checks debunked it, but didn't dent the conspiracy theory, "which actually grew in popularity during Obama's second term in office. The case of birtherism shows that debunking a lie, unless handled very carefully, doesn't work. Exposing a lie for the falsehood it is can actually spread misinformation further by repeating the false claims. So the more journalists try to do their work -- the work of exposure -- the worse the situation gets."
Police shootings
After the video of George Floyd's killing surfaced nearly a year ago, CNN's Fredricka Whitfield sat "on the stairs leading to my 16-year-old son's bedroom as he slept, with my face in my hands. I cried for George Floyd and too many others who have been senselessly killed."
"I'm sick with worry," Whitfield wrote. "I'm tired because I can't sleep, worrying about my two sons and daughter -- and other sons and daughters like mine.
"This comes at a time when I'm supposed to be over the moon about the milestones ahead for my 16-year-old son, who is nearing the end of his sophomore year in high school, starting his first job in a few weeks and looking forward to trading in his driver's permit for a permanent driver's license in a few months."
Sonia Pruitt is a retired police captain who teaches criminal justice and founded The Black Police Experience. She called out authorities in North Carolina, who have yet to release police body-cam footage that could shed light on the killing of Andrew Brown, Jr. in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. "The decision not to immediately release the full body camera video was offensive to the family, the Black community and anyone who is exhausted from the repeated deaths of Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement," she wrote. A fearful journey to America
Nina Trieu Tarnay was 6 years old when her family joined the exodus from Vietnam by boat. "Out on the water, the smell of diesel mixed with the ocean salt, the sound of the engine puttering along was slightly louder than my mom's muffled cries," she wrote. "I recall being terrified and wanting to cry, but knowing I shouldn't, I clenched my teeth and fought the urge."
The next morning, she woke up seasick and then realized, "My little brother and grandmother were on another side of the world, behind us. We were in the middle of the ocean, drowning -- at times -- in my mom's tears." Read and watch her story of the journey from being a refugee to an American.

How cops can de-escalate rather than fire their guns
Opinion by Eric Adams

Updated 10:53 AM ET, Thu April 29, 2021

(CNN)Last week, our country breathed a sigh of relief as a guilty verdict was handed down against former officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Soon after, though, news broke of a police shooting of Ma'Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl in Columbus, Ohio. The day after, Andrew Brown Jr., a 42-year-old Black man was killed in a police shooting in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Even as someone who spent 22 years as a police officer in the New York Police Department, and who is all too aware of how police treat people of color differently than their White peers, I find it difficult to make sense of these events, along with the recent shootings of Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo and others. That they continue happening, especially in an era when police across the country are already under heightened scrutiny, only underscores the urgency of deeper reforms.
While many questions still surround these tragedies, one thing is crystal-clear: Police departments across the country must do more to reduce fatal encounters, by investing further in de-escalation training and alternative means of subduing people they are trying to arrest. I know from firsthand experience that few officers received real training in de-escalation in our police academy (New York has the largest police department in the United States). And when departments do require such training, it tends to be reactive, rather than proactive. A report by The Wall Street Journal last year found that many departments in large cities increase de-escalation training for their officers in response to high-profile shootings and uses of force. By then, the relationship between police officers and the communities they have sworn to protect is already strained. De-escalation is a proven method of reducing violent encounters between police and citizens. The city of Newark, New Jersey, offers a particularly striking example: The city's department of public safety announced that Newark police didn't fire a single shot in all of 2020 amid global unrest over police violence, a success that leadership attributes to its robust de-escalation program. Programs like this include learning how to better assess the level of danger at a scene, verbally defuse a situation, and making sure that police departments objectively evaluate whether use of force by an officer is justified. This kind of discipline in turn breeds long-term trust between police and communities. As any seasoned officer will tell you, that is a critical component of upholding public safety in the long term. Why I'm not celebrating after the Chauvin verdict
Of course, these kinds of tactics can't be used in every circumstance. Police often face split-second decisions that can make the difference between life and death, leaving them no time to do the patient work of de-escalation. That's why departments also need to reinforce the message that officers should use their service weapons only as a last resort, and actively encourage and invest in non-lethal alternatives for all officers. To take one example: Three years ago, I held a demonstration at Brooklyn Borough Hall for the BolaWrap, a hand-held remote that allows officers to quickly fire barbed Kevlar cords toward suspects at speeds of 640 feet per second. These cords can restrain someone without causing them serious injury. Last year, it was reported that nearly 90 departments across the country have taken steps to purchase this product. While some have criticized the BolaWrap, this tool and others like it may reduce the need for firearms, making fatal police encounters like the ones we've seen in recent weeks much less likely.
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I often say that when we are facing a crisis, whether personal or societal, we need to come up with two kinds of solutions: one to deal with the short-term issue, the other to address the long-term issue. We are yet again confronting a national crisis of police killings, predominantly of people of color. In the long term, we must do more to address the deep disparities still baked into policing, taking steps such as diversifying every department so they look more like the communities they serve, deploying mental health professionals instead of police for those suffering from mental health crises, and investing in early intervention programs for underserved youth. But the immediate focus must be on stemming further loss of life.
Only by adopting proactive measures to stem these killings can we prevent another Daunte Wright, another Adam Toledo, another Ma'Khia Bryant, another Andrew Brown Jr.

Biden's magical thinking on Afghanistan
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
Updated 10:01 PM ET, Wed April 14, 2021

President Biden's decision to announce a date for pulling all US troops out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9/11 sets the stage for a predictable disaster. The absence of American troops doesn't equal peace, although, in the minds of many on both the left (the Biden administration) and the right (former President Donald Trump), the withdrawal of US soldiers is seen as a way to "end the war." A tour through history shows the fallacy in this thinking.
The United States has made this kind of blunder before, with disastrous consequences. In Afghanistan, in the 1990s. After occupying the country for a decade, the Soviet Union pulled out of the country in early 1989. The CIA officer responsible then for arming the Afghan resistance against the Soviets sent a cable to headquarters saying simply, "WE WON."
As the Soviets withdrew, the US closed its embassy in Afghanistan, abandoning the country.
The US was largely "blind" in Afghanistan during the years of civil war that followed. That led to the emergence of the Taliban, which then gave sanctuary to al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, of course, planned the 9/11 attacks from its base in Afghanistan and trained its hijackers there.
After 9/11, the United States then had to invade Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and remove al Qaeda from the country.
A lesson from Iraq
A similar dynamic played out a decade later when then-Vice President Joe Biden and his then-national security adviser, Tony Blinken, negotiated the pullout of all American troops from Iraq in December 2011. A headline from Reuters nicely captured the hubris of the moment: "Last U.S. troops leave Iraq, ending war."Three years later, ISIS took over much of the country, including Mosul, the second-largest Iraqi city. The group also seized large sections of neighboring Syria. In its safe haven, ISIS then trained terrorists for large-scale attacks in Western cities, such as Paris, where ISIS claimed credit for killing 130 people in coordinated attacks in November 2015. The group also inspired attacks in American cities such as Orlando, where 49 people were killed by an ISIS-inspired terrorist in 2016.
The US then had to send thousands of troops back into Iraq to destroy the ISIS regime, a process that took three-and-a-half years.
History often rhymes
There has to be some magical thinking going on for the Biden White House to expect that there will be a different outcome in Afghanistan. Yes, al Qaeda is a mere shadow of what it was on 9/11. That's because for the past two decades, the US and its allies have prevented Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda and allied groups. It's a policy that has worked. Now, that sound policy is being abandoned. Once the US leaves Afghanistan, America's NATO allies, who have 7,000 soldiers on the ground, will leave as well, since they rely on an American security umbrella. President Biden confirmed this in his speech to the nation Wednesday afternoon.
The pullout of US and NATO troops will likely enable the Taliban to take over much of the country.
Despite much wishful thinking that the Taliban won't host al Qaeda and other jihadist groups as they did before 9/11, according to a report by the United Nations released last year, "the Taliban regularly consulted" with al Qaeda during its recent peace negotiations with the United States, while guaranteeing that they "would honor their historical ties" with the terrorist group The UN also assessed that the links between al Qaeda and the Taliban "have remained strong" and "have been continually reinforced by pledges of allegiance" by al Qaeda's leaders to the leader of the Taliban. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden is expected to formally announce the planned withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, which will also mark the end of America's longest war -- a war many no longer remember or understand why we entered. But, trust me, the reasons we went in -- after the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan, gave shelter to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda as it carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC -- have not been fully addressed in the last two decades. Moreover, even a planned, or staged withdrawal as the administration has promised, will hardly eliminate that original threat of terrorism -- or the many other, often deadly, challenges that have emerged since America's arrival. Without question, between now and September, Biden and his top diplomats will be making their most valiant efforts to ensure a peace that can last beyond America's departure. Indeed, there may even be some Taliban elements who will do their best to negotiate a deal that can be sold to the American people as a face-saving victory and still pave the way for a rapid withdrawal of US forces.
But history can be guide on tricky diplomatic matters such as these. I remember nearly a half century ago when former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shared the Nobel Peace Prize with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho for the peace agreement that brought an end to the Vietnam War. That interregnum lasted barely two years before North Vietnamese troops rolled into Saigon and took over that whole country.
There is a substantial difference if America is to find a path forward in Afghanistan. In Vietnam, the communists never attacked the American heartland. They had a simpler goal: to seize control of their homeland from colonial interlopers -- first the French after World War II, then the Americans who saw as their mission the containment of communism in Asia. Eventually, Soviet communism collapsed and China had little need for Vietnam to expand its influence in Asia, so the threat this southeast Asian nation posed to democracy all but disappeared.

But Afghanistan is a modern clash of civilizations and faiths. The Taliban are a group founded on a deep belief in Sunni Islam and adhere to an austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law. And Afghanistan is a nation that the Taliban has been lusting to govern for two decades -- one where, under their previous rule, accused adulterers were executed in public squares, where thieves had their hands amputated, where women were denied access to education and had to cover themselves from head to toe, and where television was banned along with music and cinema.
And what clearer focus for their venom than the "Great Satan," the United States, which espouses religious freedom, gender equality and all forms of creative expression? It was that shared animosity that led the Taliban to give aid and comfort to the terrorist group al Qaeda, as it plotted to attack the United States two decades ago. And it was al Qaeda's attack, more than any one element of the Taliban's extremist and repressive rule, that finally propelled the United States to intervene.
But is the Taliban's vision of future rule a real and proximate interest to Americans in the second decade of the 21st century? Unlike communism, it should be. The Taliban have little incentive not to seek out their enemies wherever they might be found and use whatever means -- or allies -- to do so. As such, America needs to maintain some presence in this desperately unsettled nation for a long time to come -- as much as politicians on both sides of the aisle may not want to.

Still, a senior administration official explained to reporters Tuesday afternoon that "there is no military solution to the problems plaguing Afghanistan, and we will focus our efforts on supporting the ongoing peace process. And that means putting the full weight of our government behind diplomatic efforts to reach a peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government."Americans must face a harsh reality -- US troops will need to stay in Afghanistan for a very long time. That's probably not what President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken want to tell the American people, but a total troop withdrawal would only deal the Taliban another victory President Donald Trump, hoping to go down in history as the president who got America out of its longest war, signed an agreement with the Taliban in February of last year to withdraw the remaining 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. That deadline is fast approaching, and neither we nor our NATO allies are remotely prepared for what a hasty departure would mean for US national security or the fragile government still in power in Kabul.
Secretary of State Blinken showed a clear-eyed view of the state of play in a letter and detailed peace plan he sent to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in early March, proposing an interim power-sharing government between the Taliban and Afghan leaders. (The letter and the proposal were published by Afghanistan's Tolo News although the Biden administration refused to confirm or deny the correspondence.) This of courses leaves unanswered a central question: how do you share power with an insurgent group that is unelected and which is doing its best to defeat you? The answer is likely to be one that most Americans will not want to hear. That US forces must remain in place, guaranteeing a semblance of order, until or unless Washington can persuade Pakistan it is not longer in its interest to support the Taliban at all cost. Only then may the Taliban recognize this is a war that neither side can win. Blinken, who wrote that a US departure was still an active consideration, warned that a withdrawal could lead to "rapid territorial gains" by the Taliban. While Blinken wrote, "I am making this clear to you so that you understand the urgency of my tone," I would call his description of territorial gains somewhat of an understatement.
The Taliban know how to play a very long game. So, equally, we must not give in by sticking to a May 1 deadline for withdrawal when they have not held up their end of the bargain. They have neither shown any concrete indication they're cutting ties with al-Qaeda nor reduced violence. I have no doubt the Taliban are waiting for foreign troops to leave, confident that they will control Afghanistan within six months or a year after the last American soldiers head home.

If this comes to pass, we will be in an even worse situation than the last time the Taliban was in power before 9/11. The battle-hardened group -- which has launched intensifying attacks in Kabul -- is much better equipped to cement its hold if it gets another shot at the brass ring The dire situation in Afghanistan came into focus this week when the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released its 2021 High-Risk List, which identifies threats to the US' $143 billion reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.
"The Taliban have not significantly changed their tactics, high levels of violence, or political objectives, and terrorist groups in Afghanistan like Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) and al-Qaeda, although reduced, remain in the country," the report states. It doesn't help that enemy-initiated attacks have increased since the US-Taliban agreement was signed, according to the report. The report also went on to warn, "With or without a sustainable peace agreement and nationwide ceasefire, Afghanistan will likely continue to be threatened by multiple violent-extremist organizations. Any political agreement risks subordinate groups going rogue, possibly manifesting as another insurgency or insecurity from criminal gangs or networks. These issues could become even more pronounced if US forces are no longer in country." Remember that the Afghanistan war began because the Taliban regime had given shelter to al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, who directed the 9/11 attacks on the US. Without American forces on the ground, the hard-won progress women have made in Afghan society will quickly unravel. The illicit narcotics trade, one of the Taliban's leading funding sources, will only expand, and there will be little restraint on the operations of terrorist groups whose target is the United States, along with all western democracies The fact is, there is little that could compel the Taliban to meet the conditions for a full US troop withdrawal. The group is stronger now than it has been since 2001, and it recognizes its current position of strength -- especially with the support of its neighboring ally Pakistan. If America is to get out -- someday -- there is one critical step that must be taken, starting now. The US must become very good friends with Pakistan -- even if that means breaking our close ties with India. Pakistan shares a 1,640-mile border with Afghanistan, otherwise known as the Durand Line, which was established by the British in 1893. It is effectively one of the world's most enduring and contentious red lines. Pakistan, and especially the Inter-Services Intelligence, the military's intelligence arm, has cast itself as the Taliban's protectors and underwriters in a bid to limit India's influence. India, in turn, is wary that Pakistan will use Afghanistan as a base to launch attacks against its territory. Still, even now, the only road to our exit from Afghanistan runs through Islamabad. A Pakistan that is at least more neutral could be prepared to ease off its role in bankrolling, arming, training and providing sanctuaries in the wild frontier provinces, all of which, as Human Rights Watch observes "contribute to making the Taliban a highly effective military force."
Trump made no secret of his tilt toward India and its right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which only unsettled the Pakistani leader Imran Khan, a charismatic, Oxford-educated cricket champion who sought to maintain some relationship with Washington. While there is a new administration in Washington, it does not seem to be changing course when it comes to fostering a closer relationship with Pakistan.
Biden's Quad call on Friday with the prime ministers of Japan, Australia and India may have helped bolster American security interests in the South and East China Seas, but it did nothing to improve our position in Afghanistan. And when Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin make their first foreign visit this month to Japan and South Korea, Austin will go on to visit India, utterly ignoring Pakistan. A UN-convened meeting of foreign ministers from Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and the United States, tentatively scheduled for March 26, is also unlikely to get Pakistan on board with American priorities in the region.
While ultimately Afghanistan may need to develop a viable government structure that shares power with the Taliban, neither side has shown any particular interest in such an arrangement.
This might hold some hope for a path toward withdrawal, provided the US shows some willingness to return to more even-handed policies when it comes to dealing with India and Pakistan. It is only by focusing on Pakistan's support for the Taliban that there is any chance the US could force the insurgents to accept a viable compromise. Trump disliked having to comfort the bereaved families of service members who paid the ultimate sacrifice. But what do America's leaders say to the thousands of family members who lost their loved ones over 19 years of war -- only for the US to return to the status quo before the war? Where would a May 1 troop withdrawal land us, other than back where it all began? Errol Louis: Biden's speech was focused, sharp and brilliant Joe Biden took a pitch-perfect victory lap for reaching 200 million Covid vaccine doses administered in less than 100 days in office -- more than twice the number he'd originally promised -- and going back to his campaign slogan of "choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness."
His sales job for the infrastructure plan was politically sharp, focused on items with broad support, like creating clean water systems, building a power grid and new roads and bridges -- and aimed directly at independent and working-class votes that strayed from the Democratic Party in recent years.
By emphasizing that 90% of the estimated jobs to be created won't require a college degree and rolling out the benefits of the American Family Plan, Biden was talking to voters who were part of Donald Trump's base. "These are good-paying jobs that can't be outsourced," he said, calling it a "blue collar blueprint to build America" and signaling that he aims to slow and reverse the flow of working-class voters out of the Democratic Party. Grade: A-
Errol Louis is the host of "Inside City Hall," a nightly political show on NY1, a New York all-news channel.
Nicole Hemmer: The President puts spin on era of big government It was a night of powerful visuals: Two women — the first and second in the line of succession — sat behind President Joe Biden, the first time in American history women have held both of those positions. Wide shots of the House chamber showed a thinly populated room because of the ongoing pandemic. And those same wide shots also served as a reminder of the armed standoff that took place there almost four months ago during the insurrection at the Capitol.
But it wasn't just images that defined the night. Biden delivered a powerful argument: the era of big government is back. But big government with a Biden spin — he called the American Jobs Plan "a blue-collar blueprint to build America," and called on Congress to raise taxes on corporations and top earners, in order to "reward work, not wealth." It was a far cry from the days when former President Bill Clinton stood in the same chamber contrasting work with welfare.
These policy-heavy speeches are never particularly stirring, and Biden does better in more intimate settings. But in laying out a bold, progressive vision in clear terms, he set the tone, and the goalposts, for the next stage of his presidency. Grade: B+
Nicole Hemmer is an associate research scholar at Columbia University with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project and the author of "Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics." She co-hosts the history podcasts "Past Present" and "This Day in Esoteric Political History" and is co-producer of the new podcast "Welcome To Your Fantasy."
Scott Jennings: Biden showed his progressive flavor During his 2020 campaign, Joe Biden said "the words of a president matter." I wish he remembered that. Biden has been notably dishonest in his first 100 days, including in tonight's at times hyperbolic address.

Why Joe Biden isn't afraid of debt any more
Donald Trump and the covid pandemic have changed the politics of spending big IN 1993, WHEN Bill Clinton held his first full press conference as president, the national debt stood at 63% of GDP, and America was in a recession. He took pains in his opening remarks to emphasise that he would cut the deficit before he spoke about any plans to stimulate the economy.

In 2009, when the next Democratic president, Barack Obama, held his first press conference, the public debt was 77% of GDP, and America was reeling from the Great Recession. Before taking a question, he also tried to pre-empt Joe Biden asserts America's role in the fight against climate change
His virtual summit went smoothly, but the real work is still ahead Editor's note: This article has been updated to take in news of Joe Biden's climate summit, which occurred after The Economist went to press

MEETINGS OF GLOBAL leaders always combine, in varying proportions, pomp, substance, glitches and questionable set design. The first day of President Joe Biden's virtual climate summit on April 22nd was no different. There were lofty declarations and flurries of press releases. Presidents spoke from desks festooned by flags. Mr Biden—along with John Kerry and Antony Blinken, America's climate envoy and secretary of state, respectively—sat at a desk curved around an oddly scraggly patch of grass. And there was a long silence when America's president and most senior statesmen waited awkwardly while staring at a jumbo screen that showed Vladimir Putin, Senate Republicans insist bipartisan infrastructure deal is possible while slamming size and scope of White House proposal
By Alison Main, Nicky Robertson and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Updated 1:52 PM ET, Sun May 2, 2021 Collins: Up to Biden to counteroffer on infrastructure 13:57
(CNN)Several Senate Republicans insisted on Sunday that they were open to a bipartisan deal on a narrow infrastructure plan, despite slamming the size and scope of President Joe Biden's massive infrastructure proposal.

Biden unveiled a roughly $2 trillion dollar package in March that aims to improve the nation's infrastructure and shift to greener energy over the next eight years, while GOP senators have floated their alternative infrastructure plan closer to $600 billion. The White House has intensified conversations with key Republicans on infrastructure in recent days, but the two sides are still far apart on the bill's key elements, such as its price tag and corporate tax increases to pay for it -- leaving a bipartisan deal on the President's legislative priority in question. "Now that the Republicans have put forth a reasonable offer, it's up to the President to do a counteroffer to us," Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday.
She argued that the infrastructure package will be "a test on whether President Biden is truly interested in bipartisanship. If he is, we could get there on the core infrastructure package. And by that, I mean roads, bridges, highways, rails, waterways, and of course broadband."
White House officials on Sunday also signaled a willingness from the President to negotiate with Republicans on the size and scope of the package.
"He knows that negotiation requires comprise at some point, and that he wants to move this package forward in a bipartisan way, if that's possible," White House senior adviser Anita Dunn told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday, adding that for Biden, "his red line is inaction."White House chief of staff Ron Klain told CBS News that the administration was "starting to see some progress" in negotiations with Republicans on infrastructure.
He declined to say whether the administration and Democrats would pursue trying to pass the infrastructure package through the reconciliation process, saying, "We're going to take this one step at a time."Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso pointed to what he called the "trillions and trillions of dollars in reckless spending" in the Biden proposal as a key sticking point between the administration and Republicans, and later implied that some Senate Democrats may agree with him. "I will tell you, Democrats are also getting concerned, Martha, about all of this spending and borrowing, realizing that they're going to be held accountable in the 2022 election and some Democrats, publicly, but most privately, are saying this isn't sustainable. We cannot continue with this reckless borrowing and spending, especially with the taxes, coming out of a pandemic," he told ABC News' Martha Raddatz.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a key Democratic vote in the narrowly divided Senate, expressed his concerns about key elements of the Biden plan to CNN's Manu Raju last week. Here's what's in Biden's infrastructure proposal
By Tami Luhby, Katie Lobosco and Kate Sullivan, CNN
Updated 10:16 AM ET, Wed April 21, 2021 Now that his massive coronavirus relief package is law, President Joe Biden is laying out his next big proposal: A roughly $2 trillion plan for improving the nation's infrastructure and shifting to greener energy over the next 8 years. The nation's infrastructure is sorely in need of repair. It recently earned a C- score from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which said an additional $2.6 trillion in funding is required over the next decade. But Biden is also pitching his plan as an investment to benefit communities of color, rural Americans and others burdened by decay or lagging modernization.
He unveiled the effort, dubbed the American Jobs Plan, at a March event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- the opening move in what's expected to be a months-long negotiation with Congress.
The infrastructure spending plan is the first of a two-part proposal to help the nation's economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The President is expected to unveil his package focusing on the "care economy," including investments in education and child care, in coming weeks.
The President plans to pay for this part of his recovery package by raising corporate taxes -- a core campaign promise the administration says would raise more than $2 trillion over the next 15 years. Here's what we know so far about Biden's infrastructure proposal, according to the White House.

Funding improvements to roads, bridges, railways and other infrastructure has been a central piece of Biden's recovery plans. He has said that it will create "really good-paying jobs" and help the nation compete better. Biden would spend $621 billion on roads, bridges, public transit, rail, ports, waterways, airports and electric vehicles in service of improving air quality, reducing congestion and limiting greenhouse gas emissions His proposal calls for allocating $115 billion to modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads and main streets, and $20 billion to improve road safety for all users. It would fix the "most economically significant large bridges" and repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges Biden would also invest $85 billion to modernize existing transit and help agencies expand their systems to meet demand. This would double federal funding for public transit.
Another $80 billion would go to address Amtrak's repair backlog and modernize the Northeast Corridor line between Boston and Washington DC -- the line Biden relied on for decades to get home to Delaware -- as well as to connect more cities. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday that neither a gas tax nor a mileage tax would be part of President Joe Biden's sweeping infrastructure plan to be detailed on Wednesday.

"No, that's not part of the conversation about this infrastructure bill," Buttigieg told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" when asked whether a mileage tax, which would charge people based on how many miles they drive, would factor into paying for the plan. He added that "no," a gas tax would not be a part of the plan either. Buttigieg also reiterated Biden's prior pledge not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000.
The absence of both taxes to fund the infrastructure proposal marks a shift from Buttigieg's comments Friday, when he indicated during a CNBC interview that both ideas could be on the table.
"I think that shows a lot of promise," Buttigieg said of the mileage tax. "If we believe in that so-called user pays principle, the idea that part of how we pay for roads is you pay based on how much you drive."He continued, "The gas tax used to be the obvious way to do it -- it's not anymore, so a so-called vehicle-miles-traveled tax or mileage tax, whatever you want to call it, could be a way to do it."Of the gas tax on Friday, Buttigieg also said that "if there's a way to do it that doesn't increase the burden on the middle class, we can look at it, but if we do, we've got to recognize that's still not going to be the long-term answer."
Biden will lay out the first of a sweeping two-pronged infrastructure and jobs proposal Wednesday, with the administration launching its expected months-long effort to pass proposals that will total between $3 trillion and $4 trillion, according to senior administration officials. Biden will detail the infrastructure and climate piece of the proposal in Pittsburgh — where he launched his presidential campaign in 2019 — and is set to focus on repairing the physical infrastructure of the country while pushing for significant investments in climate infrastructure and research and development.
In conjunction with a second proposal focused on what's being termed the "care economy" with a focus zeroed in on key domestic economic issues, the plan marks a sweeping move toward enacting the key elements of the jobs agenda that Biden laid out in large part during his campaign for president. Biden's proposal will mark the first step of what are expected to be lengthy negotiations with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where Democrats have worked through their own versions of several key pieces of the proposal and are also in the midst of drafting potential revenue sources to pay for part, or all, of the plan, aides say.
Buttigieg on Monday cited encouraging conversations with both congressional Democrats and Republicans in emphasizing "a tremendous opportunity now to have bipartisan support for a big, bold vision on infrastructure."
"I hope we can work in good faith with folks across the aisle in Congress to get some votes there," Buttigieg said when asked of the possibility that Biden's first two major initiatives, the Covid relief package and now the infrastructure proposal, might not garner any Republican support.
"Ultimately it's up to them whether they are going to support something," he continued. "But we're going to work with them to try to shape it in a way that earns as much support as possible."
This story has been updated with additional details.

How Joe Biden is reshaping America's global role
His foreign policy isn't Donald Trump's. Nor is it Barack Obama's The big red button was meant as the emblem of a renewed, warmer relationship, and the Americans thought they had emblazoned it with the word "reset" in Cyrillic. "We worked hard to get the right Russian word," said the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, as she presented the gift to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. "Do you think we got it?"

Mr Lavrov smiled. "You got it wrong," he said, as the two of them pushed the button together. The word was in fact "overload".

President Biden should name Vice President Harris to launch and lead a police reform drive ASAP
Our View: Biden owes Black voters for his job and Senate control. It's past time to ramp up police reform and make it a priority. Lives depend on it.
The Editorial BoardUSA TODAY
"You've always had my back, and I'll have yours," President-elect Joe Biden said on Nov. 7 to the African American voters who had saved his candidacy in the South Carolina primary, put him over the top to win the presidency and — though he didn't know it yet — would hand his party control of the Senate by turning out in force in two January runoff elections in Georgia. George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

Not necessarily. The decision on the commission arose from a consensus among civil rights groups and the administration that it would be better to try to pass an actual reform law than to talk more about what reforms are needed.  And so the focus has shifted to the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which has passed the House and now awaits Senate action, or inaction. The act, which ends qualified immunity protection for police officers and gives the Department of Justice subpoena power in its "pattern or practice" investigations of police departments, is a "meaningful step" toward police accountability, says Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. But the only certainty in the Senate is that as long as Democrats are in control, they can bring up the bill. Whether it can pass is a separate question. Department of Justice team

When and if they are confirmed, Biden will also have a DOJ team well suited to ramping up police reform efforts. Vanita Gupta, his pick for associate attorney general, headed the DOJ civil rights division in the Obama administration, where she led efforts to reform police departments across the country. Gupta, on leave from her post as president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights since her nomination, has won praise and endorsements from many law enforcement organizations and could be confirmed as early as next week.

Biden administration announces new operation to crack down on human smuggling

The Biden administration announced Tuesday an operation focused on disrupting transnational criminal organizations, including human smugglers who have facilitated the illegal crossings of migrants at the US-Mexico border.

The administration has been up against human smugglers who in some cases have marketed their services on Facebook, a platform critics say has failed to uphold its content moderation commitments, and spread misinformation through word of mouth, encouraging migrants to journey north. "We will identify the smugglers and their associates and employ a series of targeted actions and sanctions against them. We will have a broad approach and a strong one. It will include every authority in our arsenal," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters. That includes revocation of travel documents, suspension and debarment of trade entities, and freezing of banking and other financial assets tied to the networks.
Earlier this year, the US launched a campaign abroad to dissuade migrants from taking the dangerous journey at the hands of smugglers, taking to social media and radio ads. Now, officials are ramping efforts by targeting smugglers.
A number of federal agencies will be involved in the operation, from US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations to the FBI and State Department. The US will also lean on foreign partners, Mayorkas said, including Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries.

Smuggling incidents along the US southern border have recently garnered national headlines. In one case, the Border Patrol released video of two young Ecuadorian sisters being dropped over a 14-foot-tall border fence in the desert.

On one side of the Dallas Convention Center earlier this month, hundreds of teens gathered for a high school volleyball tournament, complete with coaches, spectators and corporate sponsors. The sounds of their cheering were muffled but audible on the other side of the building, in a temporary shelter for hundreds of other children -- all of them unaccompanied minors who recently crossed the border and now face an uncertain future.

The Dallas site is one of more than a dozen temporary shelters the Biden administration frantically established to accommodate the record number of unaccompanied minors now arriving at the US southern border.
Details that have emerged in recent weeks reveal the race behind the scenes to set up the sites, recruit volunteers and staff, and then relocate children to a sponsor, like a parent or relative, in the United States while they continue with their immigration legal proceedings. Officials leaned on ordinary spaces, like convention centers, in the scramble to find suitable shelter for children, and while the sites are better than the jail-like Border Patrol facilities, they've also had problems.
In one instance, an emergency intake site only had about two dozen staff members to supervise more than 2,000 kids, according to a source familiar with the site, underscoring the rapid pace at which sites were being stood up as officials tried to get resources in place.
The growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the US-Mexico border -- many of whom were fleeing deteriorating conditions in their home countries -- presented an immediate challenge to the Biden administration, as officials raced to alleviate overcrowding in border facilities.
Inside the White House, some of the internal blame for the situation has fallen on Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who many of Biden's aides believe has failed to approach the matter with urgency. Senior White House officials have repeatedly pressed the health department in meetings to more quickly identify and set up facilities to house migrant children, according to people familiar with the conversations.
At first, the pop-up facilities took the shape of emergency shelters, offering basic necessities, but falling short of providing other services, like education and case management, to the hundreds of children housed at the sites. Under those conditions, the wait to be reunited with family in the United States or transferred to a long-term shelter equipped with more resources took its toll.

"At the beginning, we saw the kids, drawing, playing cards, making soccer balls out of what they could find and keeping themselves busy. There was much less of that this week," said Michelle Saenz-Rodriguez, an immigration attorney based in Dallas who's volunteered at the city's convention center. The Department of Health and Human Services Department, which is charged with the care of migrant children, has acknowledged the limited nature of these temporary sites, saying in a statement that they are intended to "initially provide potentially lifesaving services for unaccompanied children that are consistent with best practices/standards in emergency response in disasters or other humanitarian situations -- clean and comfortable sleeping quarters, meals, toiletries, laundry, and access to medical services."Need for staff and beds
In the past month, the department doubled its capacity by adding more than 14,000 emergency intake shelter beds, according to Mark Weber, a HHS spokesperson.
Conditions at emergency intake sites can vary -- and regularly change. Attorneys and advocates say, in some cases, sites have been better equipped over time. But the administration still faces challenges in its attempt to expand bed capacity.
Becerra told a House Appropriations subcommittee this month that providing services to the more than 21,000 unaccompanied children who are now in HHS custody has become "more taxing, more difficult, because the spaces that we're finding are fewer and fewer to be found."The department has also struggled to get volunteers to centers where minors are being housed, despite begging employees for weeks, an official on internal calls told CNN. Even once they are there, some who opted to volunteer have come home early, this official said. Senior officials have taken to warning potential volunteers of the stressful working conditions facing those who volunteer, such as scenarios where there are little to no set work spaces and 12-hour standing shifts, according to the source. In one call, officials put it bluntly: volunteering was not a vacation.y

Senior officials have taken to warning potential volunteers of the stressful working conditions facing those who volunteer, such as scenarios where there are little to no set work spaces and 12-hour standing shifts, according to the source. In one call, officials put it bluntly: volunteering was not a vacation. HHS has a licensed bed capacity of around 13,500 equipped with a myriad of services, like education and recreation, to accommodate kids who cross the US-Mexico border alone, until they can be relocated to a sponsor, like a parent or relative, in the US. But over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the department was operating under reduced capacity, catching the incoming Biden administration flat footed when the number of minors crossing the US southern border jumped.
"When we saw the numbers going up, the White House started to convene an inter-agency process...What we focused on, from the very beginning, is we need more beds, we need staffing and services to meet the kids' needs, we need to increase this throughput," said a White House official, adding that the prior administration didn't take precautionary measures to prepare for an influx on the border. Help wanted
The administration has since taken a series of steps to shore up additional resources and personnel. HHS' Office of Refugee Resettlement posted a job for a Field Program Specialist that's open to "current federal employees from any agency at any grade," and is described as a deployment to "support ORR at facilities for unaccompanied children."
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Shortages in staffing have become a point of tension between HHS and the Department of Homeland Security.
"They're struggling to meet the needs of the mission," a Homeland Security official said, adding that there's been tense conversations with the department, as DHS steps in to help with processing and volunteers.
More than 300 personnel from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency under DHS, are helping with case management -- the process of gathering a child's details and helping reunite him/her with a sponsor in the US -- according to HHS.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, also under DHS, is providing technical assistance to expand bed capacity and support to establish emergency intake sites "to provide immediate decompression" of border facilities, according to an agency spokesperson. As of April 21, 95 FEMA personnel have been deployed to sites in Texas, California, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the spokesperson added.
Looking for space
The emergency intake sites began to pop up in mid-March in an attempt to quickly get children out of Border Patrol facilities as custody numbers reached record highs. In a handful of cases, the administration leaned on spaces in convention centers to set up these sites, including in Dallas, San Diego, San Antonio and Long Beach, California.
In Dallas, HHS is using part of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center to accommodate up to 2,300 unaccompanied minors. The space looks more like a FEMA emergency shelter, than a traditional HHS shelter, with cots lined up in a large space. Sites, like the one in Dallas, are unprecedented, said Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and a former HHS official.
The newness of these types of sites was clear early on as officials raced to provide services to children and local groups urgently sought volunteers to provide immediate assistance.
Saenz-Rodriguez told CNN the effort is more organized now, compared to when the Dallas intake site opened in mid March.
"Definitely not as chaotic as it was in the beginning, but going on a month in one room has to take its toll on the mental health of those boys," she said. "It's heartbreaking to watch."
One previously announced site in Houston, meanwhile, abruptly transferred girls out of the facility, with no explanation from HHS.
Dean Hoover, an attorney for the National Association of Christian Churches which had been helping shelter children, said they were not consulted about the decision ahead of time. "We don't know why that decision was made frankly. It was made without consultation with NACC. We learned about it shortly before they started bussing women out," he told CNN.
Weber did not elaborate on why the girls staying at the facilities were transferred, adding that "contractual matters are between the government and vendors."
Another intake site, located in Midland, Texas, also temporarily stopped taking children early on.
Other sites have kicked off with more resources, like at the Long Beach Convention Center. Lindsay Toczylowski, an attorney who visited the site, described recreational areas equipped with soccer nets and hula hoops and offices set up for attorneys.
"While we appreciate the resources that the government has poured into ensuring that children are transferred out of border patrol facilities, we remain concerned that sufficient resources are not being invested into expanding licensed bed capacity," said Neha Desai, immigration director at the National Center for Youth Law.

Letters bearing Biden's name and informing Americans of Covid relief payments arriving in mailboxes
By Donald Judd and Jeff Zeleny, CNN
Updated 7:21 PM ET, Sat May 1, 2021
What Biden said he would do for the Covid-19 economy

What Biden said he would do for the Covid-19 economy 03:15
(CNN)Letters signed by President Joe Biden have begun to go out notifying beneficiaries of their direct payments under the administration's Covid relief package, CNN has learned.

The letters were sent out this past week, a White House official tells CNN, to notify recipients who received direct payments under the American Rescue Plan last month.
"My fellow American, On March 11, 2021, I signed into law the American Rescue Plan, a law that will help vaccinate America and deliver immediate economic relief to hundreds of millions of Americans, including you," the letter from the IRS reads. "This fulfills a promise I made to you, and will help get millions of Americans through this crisis."

The letters include both English and Spanish versions.
Under the package, which passed along strict party lines in early March, Congress mandates that the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Treasury, "shall provide such taxpayer with a written notice which includes the taxpayer's taxpayer identity...the aggregate amount of such payments made to such taxpayer during such calendar year, and such other information as the Secretary determines appropriate."

There is no requirement, however, that the President sign said written notice.
Previous tranches of Covid relief, passed and signed into law under then-President Donald Trump, included physical checks signed by Trump, which drew criticism from Democrats at the time, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called the decision "shameful." Those payments also required notifications from the IRS and Treasury, which were also signed by Trump.
Asked upon passage of the administration's Covid package, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden's signature would not appear on relief checks. "This is not about him," Psaki told reporters in March. "This is about the American people getting relief, almost 160 million of them."
CNN has reached out to the White House and Treasury for comment

Biden bets on his own, old-fashioned belief that Washington can work
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 12:22 AM ET, Fri June 25, 2021
See Biden's ultimatum on infrastructure compromise

See Biden's ultimatum on infrastructure compromise 01:04
(CNN)President Joe Biden is using words not heard in Washington for many a long year, like "trust," "consensus" and "compromise." He's even convinced that "friends" on the other side of the nation's deep political chasm will keep their word.

The unusual outbreak of civility heralded by a bipartisan infrastructure deal may well turn out to be a rare exception to the rule of raging partisan warfare, given the intricate task that lies ahead in getting it into law.
But for now, the agreement is offering what may be a temporary respite from the normally acerbic way of doing business between the White House and Capitol Hill. And it is offering new insights into how Biden views his presidency and his lonely belief that politically estranged Americans can come together.
The President can at least now look those who voted for him in the eye and tell them that so far he has delivered on a promise to suck the venom from politics and create space for lawmakers of goodwill to work.
This spirit of compromise was boosted on Thursday when bipartisan negotiators announced they had also agreed to a "framework" for reforms to policing in the wake of the murder of George Floyd last year -- although, as with the infrastructure bill, much work remains to be done.
After a succession of presidencies scarred by disconnects between the Oval Office and congressional leaders, and when democracy itself was attacked by ex-President Donald Trump, Biden is effectively offering a moment of national relief. The sight of the President surrounded by Republicans and moderate Democratic senators outside the West Wing on Thursday was a vision he had spent months invoking on the campaign trail that skeptics had doubted would happen.

Biden tells lawmakers he'll push for pathway to citizenship for millions in sweeping economic package
By Phil Mattingly and Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Updated 8:57 PM ET, Thu July 29, 2021

(CNN)President Joe Biden reiterated his support for a Democratic effort to include immigration policy in his multi-trillion anti-poverty package, assuring a group of lawmakers on Thursday that he would stand by them in their push to see a pathway to citizenship for millions signed into law.

"He knows the challenges we face. He's with us. He made it clear to us, unequivocally clear," Sen. Richard Durbin, the second-ranked Democrat in the Senate, said after a meeting with Biden in the Oval Office over the next steps for providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
Securing Biden's vocal -- and regular -- support is a critical piece of the effort by Democratic lawmakers to seize on an opportunity to include long-sought immigration policy priorities without needing Republican support. Several Democrats have gone as far as to say the inclusion of those proposals in the nascent $3.5 trillion budget proposal is essential for their overall support of the legislation, which will include key planks of Biden's agenda to direct hundreds of billions of dollars into education, home and child care and more robust and expansive paid leave proposals.
The group of 11 lawmakers, all leading players in immigration efforts, requested the meeting with Biden shortly after a federal judge in Texas ruled earlier this month that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields certain undocumented immigrants from deportation, was unlawful. Vice President Kamala Harris also attended Thursday's meeting.
That ruling, which Biden said earlier this month his Justice Department would appeal, blocked the administration from accepting new DACA applications and thrust into renewed doubt the fate of the hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants protected by the program, which was put into place by then-President Barack Obama. The fallout has added new fuel to the push by lawmakers to permanently address the Dreamer population through the sweeping package Democrats plan to move through a budgetary process that would allow legislation to pass in the Senate with a simple majority vote. For more than a decade, lawmakers have sought to find a pathway for bipartisan immigration reform, falling just short several times.
"We are confident, but time is of the essence," Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, told reporters Thursday. "And this isn't just important, this process, this opportunity right here truly is our moonshot and it's just -- we're just so grateful the President reaffirmed his support for the cause, for the issue and for this approach."

With the party in control of only 50 votes in the Senate and the latest iteration of bipartisan immigration reform talks stalled, lawmakers have trained their sights on including significant elements of immigration reform in the so-called reconciliation package.
"Reconciliation is the only option," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, told reporters.
The scale of the proposal is still a work in progress, the lawmakers said, but Democrats have said they will look to include a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, as well as for people with Temporary Protected Status and undocumented essential workers. Rep. Raul Ruiz, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said the group was looking to expand the scope of the effort, working off of a series of different immigration proposals to pull as many pieces together that could pass muster under the Senate rules guiding the process. That process is currently underway as congressional Democrats move forward on the dual track process to enact Biden's $4 trillion economic agenda.
"There will be more collaboration with building the path to get to yes with budget reconciliation in the both the Senate and the House working in collaboration," Ruiz told reporters.

But it's the Senate rules that have raised questions about whether the immigration efforts can survive the process at all, even if it has enough Democratic support in both chambers. The lawmakers made clear they were working to build a case for the immigration measures to survive.
"We have a strong case to make why this should be included" in the reconciliation package, Ruiz said.

1 hr 18 min ago
Here's how the Taliban regained control in Afghanistan
After 20 years of US intervention, thousands of deaths and at least $1 trillion dollars, the Taliban's advance in the country has been strikingly swift — here's a look back at how the situation evolved to where it stands today:

Less than a month after terrorists linked to al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks, American and allied forces begin an invasion of Afghanistan called Operation Enduring Freedom, to stop the Taliban from providing a safe-haven to al Qaeda and to stop al Qaeda's use of Afghanistan as a base of operations for terrorist activities.

On Dec. 7, 2001 the Taliban lost its last major stronghold as the city of Kandahar fell. Since then, the Taliban have attempted to gain ground in Afghanistan throughout the time US forces have been there and throughout multiple US administrations.

More recently, in January 2017, the Taliban sent an open letter to then-newly elected US President Trump, calling on him to withdraw US forces from the country.

Between 2017 to 2019 there were attempts at peace talks between the US and the Taliban that never finalized into an agreement.

During a surprise trip to Afghanistan in November 2019 for a Thanksgiving visit with US troops, Trump announced that peace talks with the Taliban were restarting. The peace talks resumed in Doha, Qatar, in December of that year.

The US and the Taliban signed a historic agreement in February 2020, which set into motion the potential of a full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. The "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan" outlined a series of commitments from the US and the Taliban related to troop levels, counter terrorism, and the intra-Afghan dialogue aimed at bringing about "a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire."

In the month following the signing of the Trump administration's peace deal with the Taliban, the insurgent group increased its attacks on America's Afghan allies to higher than usual levels, according to data provided to the Pentagon's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

In August 2020, Afghanistan's grand assembly of elders, the consultative Loya Jirga, passed a resolution calling for the release of the last batch of some 5,000 Taliban prisoner, paving the way for direct peace talks with the insurgent group to end nearly two decades of war. The release of the 400 prisoners was part of the agreement signed by the US and the Taliban in February.

In March 2021, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the Biden administration proposed to the Afghan government that they enter into an interim power-sharing agreement with the Taliban.

In April 2021, President Biden announced that the US would withdraw forces from Afghanistan by September 2021.

In August, just months after the US began withdrawing forces, the Biden administration sent in 5,000 troops into Afghanistan after the Taliban began gaining control in the country.

On Aug. 15, after the Taliban seized control of every major city across Afghanistan, apart from Kabul, in just two weeks, the Taliban engaged in talks with the government in the capital over who will rule the nation.

The Taliban is now edging closer to taking full control of the country and have seized the presidential palace in Kabul after President Ghani fled the country. Earlier talks to form a transitional government appear to have been scuppered by Ghani's departure.

CNN's Clarissa Ward, Tim Lister, Vasco Cotovio, Angela Dewan, Mostafa Salem and Saleem Mehsud contributed reporting to this post. Supreme Court won't halt court order forcing Biden to revive 'Remain in Mexico' policy
By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Updated 8:26 PM ET, Tue August 24, 2021

(CNN)The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined the Biden administration's request that it put on hold a lower court order requiring the revival of the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" immigration policy.

The court's three liberal justices publicly noted that they would have granted the request to halt the lower court's order.
The controversial policy forces migrants to stay in Mexico as they await their US immigration court dates. It was suspended at the beginning of President Joe Biden's term and formally terminated months later.
Texas and Missouri sued to challenge the Biden administration's termination of the program. Earlier this month, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, said that the Biden administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act -- which requires that agencies take certain procedural steps when implementing policy -- in how it went about unwinding the program, formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols.
The Supreme Court's brief and unsigned order on Tuesday said the Biden administration had failed to show that it was likely to defeat the claim that the termination of the program was arbitrary and capricious.
In the petition it filed with the Supreme Court last week, the Biden administration argued the order reviving the program "would result in irreparable harm."
Biden's immigration plan runs into on-the-ground realities
Biden's immigration plan runs into on-the-ground realities
"MPP has been rescinded for 2.5 months, suspended for 8 months, and largely dormant for nearly 16 months," the administration said. "The district court's mandate to abruptly re-impose and maintain that program under judicial supervision would prejudice the United States' relations with vital regional partners, severely disrupt its operations at the southern border, and threaten to create a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis."

The Supreme Court's rejection of the request sets the tone for how skeptically it will view emergency requests from the Biden administration, after, on several occasions during the Trump administration, the conservative court intervened to pause lower court orders interfering with that administration's policies.
"Tonight's decision not only leaves in place a district court ruling that requires the Biden administration to reinstate a program that has been defunct for months, but it also makes clear how much of a difference the change in administration makes when it comes to the justices and immigration policy," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
"Of the 28 requests for stays from the Justice Department that the court granted during Trump's tenure, 11 were to freeze lower-court injunctions of controversial immigration rules," Vladeck added. "Here, the first time the Biden administration asks for the same relief, the court refuses to freeze an injunction -- one that requires reinstatement of one of those controversial rules."

This story has been updated with additional details.

Biden orders review and potential release of classified documents related to September 11 attacks
By Donald Judd and Rachel Janfaza, CNN
Updated 4:23 PM ET, Fri September 3, 2021
smerconish 9/11 families biden demands cpt vpx _00003801

9/11 families told Biden not to come to Ground Zero unless he does this 06:21
(CNN)President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice and other federal agencies to conduct a declassification review of documents related to the FBI's investigation of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The review could result in the release of new documents, should the agencies find some that can be declassified.
"The executive order requires the Attorney General to release the declassified documents publicly over the next six months," Biden wrote in a statement. "My heart continues to be with the 9/11 families who are suffering, and my Administration will continue to engage respectfully with members of this community. I welcome their voices and insight as we chart a way forward."

The move comes about a month after more than 1,600 people affected by the September 11 attacks released a letter calling on Biden to refrain from going to Ground Zero in New York City to mark the anniversary of the event unless he releases additional documents and information the government has previously blocked. Not long after that letter, the Department of Justice announced that it would review what previously withheld information or documents related to the September 11, 2001, attacks it can disclose to the public.
A Justice Department spokesperson said in August that the government advised a Manhattan federal court that the FBI had recently closed an investigation related to certain September 11 hijackers.

"Although this development followed the U.S. District Court rulings upholding the government's privilege assertions, the FBI has decided to review its prior privilege assertions to identify additional information appropriate for disclosure. The FBI will disclose such information on a rolling basis as expeditiously as possible," the spokesperson said.
Biden praised the DOJ's decision at the time, saying it followed through on his campaign promise to have the department work on releasing 9/11 records.
"As I promised during my campaign, my Administration is committed to ensuring the maximum degree of transparency under the law, and to adhering to the rigorous guidance issued during the Obama-Biden Administration on the invocation of the state secrets privilege," Biden said in an August statement.
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He added that the Department of Justice filing "commits to conducting a fresh review of documents where the government has previously asserted privileges, and to doing so as quickly as possible."
The President also last month reiterated his commitment to the families of victims from the September 11 attacks, but Brett Eagleson, who lost his father that day and is an advocate for many families of the victims killed in the attacks, criticized the Justice Department's move, saying it did not go far enough toward full transparency.
"The DOJ/FBI have already had three years to 'review' the files and can act immediately to produce the documents including the unredacted 2016 FBI Review Report of the bureau's years-long investigation of Saudi government agents who 'are known to have provided substantial assistance to' the hijackers, as well as phone records and witness statements," Eagleson said.

Eagleson at the time urged the Biden administration to disclose the information pertaining to the FBI's investigation.
"The DOJ finally admitted that its investigation is actually closed, contrary to the bureau's prior claims about investigative status. We hope the Biden administration comes forward now to provide the information the 9/11 community has waited to receive for 20 years, so we can stand together with the President at Ground Zero on 9/11," he said.
This story has been updated with additional details.

Joe Biden's mandate will get 12 million more people vaccinated, Goldman Sachs predicts
By Chris Isidore, CNN Business
Updated 9:26 AM ET, Tue September 14, 2021
Strategist: Biden's vaccine mandate helps business get back to business

In this July 2, 2021 file photo, a United Airlines jetliner taxis down a runway for take off from Denver International Airport in Denver. United Airlines will require U.S.-based employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by late October, and maybe sooner. United announced the decision Friday, Aug. 6.
United Airlines CEO: Employee vaccine mandates are 'inevitable'
In this March 20, 2020, file photo, the Amazon campus outside the company headquarters in Seattle sits nearly deserted on an otherwise sunny and warm afternoon.
Companies delay return to offices

Business is 'insane': Fisherman struggles to meet demand with labor shortages
Diners are seated in the outdoor dining area of Gramercy Tavern, where owner Danny Meyer announced a vaccine mandate for all his restaurants, employees and diners will need to show proof of vaccination, New York, NY, July 30, 2021.
New York City will require proof of vaccination for restaurants and gyms
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 09: Equinox Hudson Yards is the brand's truest realization of its holistic lifestyle promise, giving members access to signature group fitness classes, a 25-yard indoor salt water pool, hot and cold plunge pools and a 15,000 square foot outdoor leisure pool and sundeck. The Equinox at Hudson Yards footprint offers ample opportunity for training, working, regenerating, socializing, community building, eating and more. Images photographed at Equinox Hudson Yards on February 9, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Matthew Peyton/Getty Images for Equinox)
Equinox exec: Requiring vaccinations is the best way to protect our community
MIAMI, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 15: A healthcare worker at the Jackson Health Systems receives a Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine from Susana Flores Villamil, RN from Jackson Health Systems, at the Jackson Memorial Hospital on December 15, 2020 in Miami, Florida. Jackson Memorial Hospital began the vaccination of frontline healthcare workers joining with hospital systems around the country as the COVID-19 vaccine is rolled out. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Businesses are taking a stand on vaccines

Why return to work is putting more of a burden on managers

Unemployed single mom: The economy is not booming for everybody
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 09: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about combatting the coronavirus pandemic in the State Dining Room of the White House on September 9, 2021 in Washington, DC. As the Delta variant continues to spread around the United States, Biden outlined his administration's six point plan, including a requirement that all federal workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Biden is also instructing the Department of Labor to draft a rule mandating that all businesses with 100 or more employees require their workers to get vaccinated or face weekly testing. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Strategist: Biden's vaccine mandate helps business get back to business
federal pandemic unemployment benefits expire yurkevich dnt lead vpx_00001530
Millions in US coping with loss of special jobless benefits
restaurant robots worker shortage texas affil vpx_00012002.png
These robots are filling open jobs at restaurants

Slow relief funds rollout means renters face uncertain future

OpenTable is helping restaurants verify vaccination status

Delta CEO: Unvaccinated employees face more stringent requirements

Maersk CEO: The trade pipeline is bursting at the seams

Demand for school supplies is high but the Delta variant could change that
In this July 2, 2021 file photo, a United Airlines jetliner taxis down a runway for take off from Denver International Airport in Denver. United Airlines will require U.S.-based employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by late October, and maybe sooner. United announced the decision Friday, Aug. 6.
United Airlines CEO: Employee vaccine mandates are 'inevitable'
In this March 20, 2020, file photo, the Amazon campus outside the company headquarters in Seattle sits nearly deserted on an otherwise sunny and warm afternoon.
Companies delay return to offices

Business is 'insane': Fisherman struggles to meet demand with labor shortages
Diners are seated in the outdoor dining area of Gramercy Tavern, where owner Danny Meyer announced a vaccine mandate for all his restaurants, employees and diners will need to show proof of vaccination, New York, NY, July 30, 2021.
New York City will require proof of vaccination for restaurants and gyms
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 09: Equinox Hudson Yards is the brand's truest realization of its holistic lifestyle promise, giving members access to signature group fitness classes, a 25-yard indoor salt water pool, hot and cold plunge pools and a 15,000 square foot outdoor leisure pool and sundeck. The Equinox at Hudson Yards footprint offers ample opportunity for training, working, regenerating, socializing, community building, eating and more. Images photographed at Equinox Hudson Yards on February 9, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Matthew Peyton/Getty Images for Equinox)
Equinox exec: Requiring vaccinations is the best way to protect our community
MIAMI, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 15: A healthcare worker at the Jackson Health Systems receives a Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine from Susana Flores Villamil, RN from Jackson Health Systems, at the Jackson Memorial Hospital on December 15, 2020 in Miami, Florida. Jackson Memorial Hospital began the vaccination of frontline healthcare workers joining with hospital systems around the country as the COVID-19 vaccine is rolled out. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Businesses are taking a stand on vaccines

Why return to work is putting more of a burden on managers

Unemployed single mom: The economy is not booming for everybody
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 09: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about combatting the coronavirus pandemic in the State Dining Room of the White House on September 9, 2021 in Washington, DC. As the Delta variant continues to spread around the United States, Biden outlined his administration's six point plan, including a requirement that all federal workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Biden is also instructing the Department of Labor to draft a rule mandating that all businesses with 100 or more employees require their workers to get vaccinated or face weekly testing. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Strategist: Biden's vaccine mandate helps business get back to business
federal pandemic unemployment benefits expire yurkevich dnt lead vpx_00001530
Millions in US coping with loss of special jobless benefits
restaurant robots worker shortage texas affil vpx_00012002.png
These robots are filling open jobs at restaurants

Slow relief funds rollout means renters face uncertain future

OpenTable is helping restaurants verify vaccination status

Delta CEO: Unvaccinated employees face more stringent requirements

Maersk CEO: The trade pipeline is bursting at the seams

Demand for school supplies is high but the Delta variant could change that
New York (CNN Business)President Joe Biden's push to mandate vaccines or weekly Covid tests for large companies should lead to about 12 million more people getting the vaccine, according to analysis by Goldman Sachs.

The order, announced last week, applies to businesses with 100 or more employees. Those employers have about 80 million out of the 125 million workers in the nation's private sector.
Additional mandates for health care workers, some workers in education as well as federal employees and contractors were also announced, which Goldman estimates will bring the number of workers under the mandate to 100 million.
"We estimate that the requirements will apply to about 25 million currently unvaccinated individuals, and boost the number of vaccinated individuals by 12 million ... through March next year," said the note from the firm. It based that estimate on surveys and France's experience with vaccine requirements.
Goldman said 7 million workers under the new mandates report that they will definitely not get the vaccine. Half of unvaccinated employees said they would leave their jobs if mandated to get the vaccine by their employers, according to a survey by health policy think tank KFF in June.

The order gives employers the option of having weekly Covid tests for those employees who refuse to receive the vaccine.
Concern over losing workers in a very tight labor market was one of the factors that kept some employers from mandating vaccines for their staff. But the federal rules were generally supported by leading business groups, which saw it as a way to raise the vaccination rates, lower health care costs and absenteeism among employees and level the playing field with similar sized employers.
Goldman's note said that the option to be tested regularly rather than be vaccinated will keep many of those workers on the job.
Here's who loves Biden's vaccine mandate: The companies that have to enforce it
Here's who loves Biden's vaccine mandate: The companies that have to enforce it

"The mandate's testing option should dampen negative employment effects, however, and many workers that do decide to quit should be able to find jobs at smaller firms not subject to the mandate," said the note.

Even with some workers leaving the labor force rather than getting shots, the mandates should grow employment and the economy, Goldman said in its note.
"Higher full vaccination rates will reduce virus spread, which should boost labor demand in high-contact services and labor force participation among some of the 3 million people who currently aren't working due to virus-spread concerns," it said.
Assuming that vaccinations for children ages 5 to 11 are approved in November, Goldman expects 82% of the total population, and 90% of adults, to be vaccinated with a first dose by mid-2022. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that as of September 9 about 177.4 million people, or 53.4% of the total US population, have been fully vaccinated, with 208.3 million people, or 62.7% of the total population, receiving at least the first dose.

If Joe Biden fails this week, his entire domestic agenda is done for at least 15 months
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 2:22 PM ET, Tue September 21, 2021
President Joe Biden, listens as he is joined virtually by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to speak about a national security initiative from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021.

'It was a mistake': US military general on Kabul drone strike

Reality Check: The politics of 'mental decline'
Adam Kinzinger trump biden Afghanistan newday vpx keilar _00005107.png
Kinzinger asked about reports of Trump's 'mental decline'
Matthew Braynard appears on CNN via a video call.
'Justice for J6' rally organizer speaks with CNN

'I can't sit by in silence': Lawmaker explains why he is leaving GOP

Trump responds to reporting about Gen. Milley's actions
partisanship biden appointees nominees avlon reality check vpx newday _00010215.png
Avlon calls out GOP senators for blocking Biden's nominees

Blinken cracks up at hearing over GOP senator's conspiracy theory
President Joe Biden, listens as he is joined virtually by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to speak about a national security initiative from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021.
This will be most consequential week of Biden's presidency

Trump sends letter to Raffensperger asking to decertify election

Nancy Pelosi asked about special relationship with the UK

Republican goes off on GOP members who think Trump owns the party

'Your way is failing': Tapper pushes back on GOP governor for Covid-19 response

Trump celebrates retirement of Republican who voted to impeach
Keilar Gohmert Split
Keilar rolls the tape on GOP support of January 6 insurrectionists

'It was a mistake': US military general on Kabul drone strike

Reality Check: The politics of 'mental decline'
Adam Kinzinger trump biden Afghanistan newday vpx keilar _00005107.png
Kinzinger asked about reports of Trump's 'mental decline'
Matthew Braynard appears on CNN via a video call.
'Justice for J6' rally organizer speaks with CNN

'I can't sit by in silence': Lawmaker explains why he is leaving GOP

Trump responds to reporting about Gen. Milley's actions
partisanship biden appointees nominees avlon reality check vpx newday _00010215.png
Avlon calls out GOP senators for blocking Biden's nominees

Blinken cracks up at hearing over GOP senator's conspiracy theory
President Joe Biden, listens as he is joined virtually by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to speak about a national security initiative from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021.
This will be most consequential week of Biden's presidency

Trump sends letter to Raffensperger asking to decertify election

Nancy Pelosi asked about special relationship with the UK

Republican goes off on GOP members who think Trump owns the party

'Your way is failing': Tapper pushes back on GOP governor for Covid-19 response

Trump celebrates retirement of Republican who voted to impeach
Keilar Gohmert Split
Keilar rolls the tape on GOP support of January 6 insurrectionists

'It was a mistake': US military general on Kabul drone strike
(CNN)It's impossible to overstate the stakes of this week's legislative horse-trading for the remainder of Joe Biden's presidency. In fact, what happens this week on Capitol Hill will almost certainly make or break Biden's entire first-term legislative agenda -- and determine the case he and his party can take to voters in the 2022 midterms and beyond.

First, let's set the scene.
There are two pieces of legislation moving through Congress -- both chambers of which are controlled by Democrats -- at the moment.
1. The bipartisan Infrastructure bill: This $1.2 trillion legislation, which is focused on so-called "hard" infrastructure like roads, bridges and the like -- has already passed the Senate, with 19 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats to support it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has previously promised Democratic moderates that she will bring the measure up in the House on September 27 (next Monday) and they are aggressively working to hold her to that promise. Meanwhile, liberals in the House have balked at voting for the hard infrastructure bill unless and until they have a vote on a much broader package of government spending -- upwards of $3.5 trillion -- that the party plans to attempt to pass on a purely partisan basis. Which brings me to...
2. The budget bill: Liberals in the House -- like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Pramila Jayapal of Washington -- don't want to vote for the infrastructure bill unless and until they can ensure passage of the much-larger budget bill, which effectively crams all of Biden's first-term priorities on everything from climate to jobs to immigration and back into a single measure. The problem? Democrats in the Senate don't have the 50 votes they need to pass anything close to a $3.5 trillion package. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (of Arizona) and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have made clear they will not vote for a measure with that high a price tag, with Manchin suggesting less than half that total might be workable. The other problem? Liberals including Bernie Sanders of Vermont want the package to be even bigger, seeing this as their best chance in a very long time to put a truly progressive vision in place.

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Viewed broadly, what is playing out in Congress -- and especially among Democrats -- right now is a battle for what role Democrats believe the government should play in society going forward.
There's no question that if Biden gets both his infrastructure bill and anything close to the $3.5 trillion budget bill, it will amount to a massive reinvestment in government and the role it should play in American lives. After decades in which the Democratic Party -- led by Bill Clinton's famous proclamation that the "era of big government is over" -- inched ever closer to the smaller-government-is-better-government mantra of the GOP, Biden's proposals mark a clear break with that view.
Touting the infrastructure plan this spring, Biden cast it in historic terms as a "once-in-a-generation investment in America, unlike anything we've seen or done since we built the Interstate Highway System and the Space Race decades ago."
Which is a bold vision for government re-involvement in nearly every aspect of American life. But it is also a massive gamble by Biden -- staking essentially the entirety of his agenda on two pieces of massive legislation that, at least currently, face very uncertain futures in the House and Senate.

What's more remarkable is that there doesn't appear to be a "plan B" for Biden and Democrats. The size of these two bills -- in terms of cost and scope -- as well as the time and attention they have drawn from the administration and Democrats in Congress means that there isn't going to be a second bite at this apple if the first one doesn't work. This is it. A one-shot deal.
Looming over all of these machinations are the 2022 midterm elections, which, if history and a handful of recent polling data is any guide, look likely to cost down-ballot Democrats dearly. The unstated but ever-present concern for congressional Democrats as well as the Biden White House is that if the party fails to pass these major agenda items in the coming week(s), they will lose the chance to do so before the 2022 midterms. And if as expected, Republicans take back control of at least one chamber of Congress (if not both), the chances of any major legislation like this passing in 2023 or 2024 is essentially nil.

All of which means that unless Democrats can all get on the same page over the next week, Biden's expansive agenda will be doomed. And Democrats' chances of transformational change in how government impacts every day Americans lives will disappear -- maybe forever.

This poll should terrify Democrats ahead of 2022
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 10:34 AM ET, Tue September 21, 2021

(CNN)It's the rare poll that makes an entire party sit up and take notice. The new Iowa poll is one of those polls.

Just 31% of Iowans approved of how Joe Biden is handling his duties as president while a whopping 62% disapprove. Biden's disapproval number is below the lowest ever measured by ace pollster J. Ann Selzer for former presidents Donald Trump (35%) and Barack Obama (36%).
"This is a bad poll for Joe Biden, and it's playing out in everything that he touches right now," Selzer told the Des Moines Register.
Biden's approval on pulling American troops out of Afghanistan stands at a meager 22%. Approval for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is now just 36% among Iowans.
This poll is rightly understood as a blaring red alarm for not just Biden but especially down-ballot Democrats -- in Iowa and elsewhere -- who will be running in the 2022 midterms.

While Iowa is not the pure swing state that it was in, say, 2000, it remains a place where Democrats can and do win -- both in statewide elections and in congressional districts. Democrats, as recently as 2020, controlled three of the state's four House seats although Republicans won both the first and second districts back last November. And both are considered Democratic re-takeover targets in 2022 -- depending, of course, on what the congressional map winds up looking like.
If Biden's numbers are anywhere close to this bad in other swing states -- and districts --- Democrats' hopes of holding onto their very narrow three-seat House majority are somewhere close to nonexistent.
While first term, midterm elections are, historically, very difficult for the president's party in the House, that trend is made far, far worse if the president's approval rating is below 50%. As Gallup wrote in 2018:
"In Gallup's polling history, presidents with job approval ratings below 50% have seen their party lose 37 House seats, on average, in midterm elections. That compares with an average loss of 14 seats when presidents had approval ratings above 50%."
That average is even higher in the wake of the 2018 midterms, where Republicans lost 40 House seats thanks in large part to Donald Trump's approval ratings being stuck in the low 40s.
The best news out of this poll for Biden and Democrats is that it is September 2021, not September 2022. Which means that Biden -- and the Democratic-controlled Congress -- have time to turn his numbers around, likely by finding a way to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill and some sort of major budget proposal (although both of those bills have an uncertain path forward at the moment).
But if the President's numbers in Iowa are anything close to where they are today, it is an absolute disaster for Democrats -- and would presage the near-certain loss of a large number of House seats (and their majority) come next November.

Biden chose humanity over geopolitics with Griner release

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Published 12:02 AM EST, Fri December 9, 2022
President Joe Biden speaks to reporters about the Brittney Griner's release by Russia, as Vice President Kamala Harris and Cherelle Griner listen, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington,December 8, 2022.
President Joe Biden speaks to reporters about the Brittney Griner's release by Russia, as Vice President Kamala Harris and Cherelle Griner listen, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington,December 8, 2022.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
CNN
—
Swapping an American jailed for a minor drugs offense in Russia for one of the world's most notorious arms traffickers known as "The Merchant of Death" might seem like a lopsided deal that could fuel dangerous national security precedents.

But President Joe Biden's decision to exchange WNBA star Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout goes beyond the exchange's bottom line. It represented a humane resolution to a painful dilemma that came after tortuous talks with a Russian regime that treats people as geopolitical pawns every day. In that sense, the Biden administration demonstrated the gulf between its moral grounding and that of Russian President Vladimir Putin who is currently demonstrating his inhumanity on another front, with a fearsome assault on Ukrainian civilians.

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But the tragic counterpoint to this diplomatic triumph – Biden's failure to also secure the release of Paul Whelan, another American incarcerated in a Russian penal colony – underscored the unforgiving moral conundrum he faced. And it prompted top Republicans to charge that he had prioritized a basketball superstar over an ex-marine who benefited from a vocal political pressure campaign on Biden.

The grave risks of the prisoner swap
There is no getting around the potential implications of the steps that Biden took, which followed earlier prisoner swaps with US adversaries conducted by his administration – including for an American and former US marine detained in Russia, Trevor Reed – and those of former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. There is now a considerable risk that other rogue nations or groups see Washington as open for business and may therefore see Americans abroad as increasingly valuable targets in a vicious cycle of more detentions.

President Joe Biden meets Cherelle Griner about the release ofher wife  Brittney Griner, Thursday, December 8, 2022, in the Oval Office.
Inside Biden's agonizing decision to take a deal that freed Brittney Griner but left Paul Whelan in Russia
Furthermore, the return of Bout, who has been linked to Russian security services, handed Putin a propaganda coup at a time of rising domestic pressure. It enabled him to demonstrate to intelligence operatives engaged in nefarious activity abroad that they will not be forgotten by the Kremlin. Those intelligence services are critical to the Russian leader's continued hold on power as his war in Ukraine deteriorates even further. Still, Biden's strategy also hinted at intriguing diplomatic possibilities, three days after he refused to rule out future talks with Putin, if Ukraine's agrees, aimed at ending the vicious war. He showed it was possible to deal with Russia, even amid an effective proxy war between the two old Cold War foes in Ukraine amid the worst relations between Moscow and Washington since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Another notable cog in this deal was Saudi Arabia, which helped facilitate the exchange alongside the United Arab Emirates – and also helped secure the release of US citizens captured fighting in Ukraine earlier this year. Whether the kingdom, which has relations with both Moscow and Washington and is seeking to increase its global leadership role, might emerge as a mediator over Ukraine remains to be seen. But its recent smoothing of US-Russia exchanges might put Biden's decision to travel to the country earlier this year and greet its ruthless Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump, in a slightly different light.

Ultimately, it's impossible for there not to be a sour aftertaste when dealing with an adversary as inhumane as Putin. But it is the job of a president to weigh these competing dynamics within the context of America's national goals and duty to its citizens.

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In cases like these, there is never a right answer.

Biden under pressure to free another American
The most immediate question now facing Biden is how to extract Whelan, whose hopes were raised and then smashed, as he remained in prison and Griner went home, after both Americans were at the center of US-Russia diplomacy.

"This is a precarious situation that needs to be resolved quickly," a deeply disappointed Whelan told CNN's State Department producer Jennifer Hansler in an exclusive phone interview. "I would hope that (Biden) and his administration would do everything they could to get me home, regardless of the price they might have to pay at this point."

The harsh truth for Whelan is that Russia refused every inducement the US could offer to include him in an exchange package, leaving Biden's capacity to free him in short order in doubt.

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Russian officials told the US side that a one-for-two swap was not acceptable but resisted wider options, US officials said.

Paul Whelan, a former US Marine accused of spying and arrested in Russia stands inside a defendants' cage during a hearing at a court in Moscow on August 23, 2019. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)        (Photo credit should read KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Exclusive: Paul Whelan tells CNN he is 'disappointed' that more has not been done to secure his release
John Kirby, the National Security Council's coordinator for strategic communications, told CNN that the Kremlin regarded Whelan in a different light than Griner, since he's facing espionage charges – even though the US says such allegations are a sham. This added dimension to Whelan's incarceration will fuel speculation that Moscow may leverage him as it seeks a three-way deal with Germany to free a former colonel from its domestic spy agency who was convicted of murder last year. CNN reported in August that Russia had requested Vadim Krasikov be included in a deal for the two Americans.

This adds another layer of complication for Biden as he seeks to get Whelan free, since it involves another government and would require German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to potentially agree to supersede his country's own legal system. Whether the new German leader has the political capacity to do so is unclear, as is the kind of Russian concession Berlin might require.

A senior administration official said on Thursday evening that there is a recognition in the White House that the US needs to make available "something more, something different" from what they have offered to the Russians so far, CNN reported.

While Biden is being castigated by some political opponents in Washington for doing a bad deal, administration officials insisted that he got the best one on offer.

"I want to be very clear – this was not a situation where we had a choice of which American to bring home. It was a choice between bringing home one particular American, Brittney Griner, or bringing home none," a senior administration official told reporters on Thursday.

Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, told CNN she thought Putin was never going to hand over Whelan and all along wanted to swap only Griner for Bout.

"It's happening now because Vladimir Putin wants this to happen now, he needs a win, he needs a victory in Russia because he is having trouble convincing the Russia people that it's a good idea to be at war with Ukraine," Farkas said.

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She added that there remained some hope for Whelan because the Griner exchange did show that "the Russians will make a deal if they think it's in their interests."

Whelan isn't the only American imprisoned in Russia. The family of US teacher Marc Fogel, who is serving a 14 year sentence at a hard labor camp, has also called for the White House to negotiate his release. Fogel was arrested last year in Moscow after traveling into the country with cannabis that his lawyer said was used for medical purposes.

A political controversy erupts over Griner release
The fierce political divides that now challenge every US foreign policy decision did not take long to bubble over after Griner was freed – alongside a more vicious reaction on social media as some conservatives questioned her patriotism.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was relieved Griner was free but raised questions about the wisdom of such exchanges and whether they could endanger other Americans.