| From: Joachim K | 1/21/2021 11:03:37 AM | | | | | | DAY ONE
Joe Biden rejoins Paris Agreement, requires masks on federal property in Day 1 directives
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden wasted little time Wednesday in working to undo President Donald Trump's policies that were anathema to Democrats during his four years in office.
Sitting in the Oval Office, Biden signed an order requiring masks and social distancing on federal property, followed by an order to provide support to underserved communities. As part of the third order he signed, Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate change, a treaty the United States formally exited in November after Trump withdrew in 2017.
Biden signed 15 executive orders and two other directives Wednesday, and several more will come over the next 10 days. The first three were signed on camera from the Oval Office.
Biden has ended construction of Trump's signature wall on the U.S.-Mexican border by proclaiming the "immediate termination" of the national emergency declaration Trump used to fund it. He also rejoined the World Health Organization, which Trump abandoned in July.
Biden also took executive action to reverse Trump's ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries.
The swiftness is meant to demonstrate urgency to turn the page on a divisive four years under the Trump administration, experts said. Most of the actions hit what the Biden team calls "four overlapping and compounding crises" – the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic damage, climate change and lagging racial equity.
"He's trying to show the American people, and the world more generally, that America is back to where it was before the Trump administration," said Todd Belt, professor and political management program director at George Washington University. By signing so many orders so soon, Biden will deliver a "repudiation of Trump's approach to governance," Belt said.
Biden's first 100 days: From reversing Trump’s immigration policies to COVID-19 relief, here’s what's on the agenda
Keystone pipeline, racial equity, 1776 Commission, immigration and more Also on his first day in office, Biden canceled the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to move oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, rescinding Trump's approval of a project long criticized by environmentalists.
Biden also extended the pause on student loan payments and nationwide restrictions on evictions and foreclosures.
The president signed an order launching a government-wide initiative directing every federal agency to review its state of racial equity and deliver an action plan within 200 days to address any disparities in policies and programs.
The Biden administration created an equitable data working group to make sure federal data reflects the country’s diverse makeup and direct the Office of Management and Budget to allocate more federal resources to underserved communities.
“Delivering on racial justice will require that the administration takes a comprehensive approach to embed equity in every aspect of our policymaking and decision-making,” Biden’s domestic policy chief Susan Rice said Tuesday.
Other Day One executive orders Biden signed include:
Rescinding Trump's 1776 Commission, a panel Trump established as a response to the New York Times' 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning collection that focused on America's history with slavery.Revoking Trump's plan to exclude noncitizens from the census.Prohibiting workplace discrimination in the federal government based on sexual orientation and gender identity and directing federal agencies to ensure protections for LGBTQ people are included in anti-discrimination statutes.Creating a COVID-19 response coordinator who will report directly to the president.Revoking Trump's 2017 Interior Enforcement Executive Order, which broadened the categories of undocumented immigrants subject for removal, restarted the Secure Communities program and supported the federal 287(g) deportation program.More action planned over next 10 daysKate Bedingfield, Biden's incoming White House communication director, called the executive orders "decisive steps to roll back some of the most egregious moves of the Trump administration" in an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "And he's going to take steps to move us forward," she added.
More orders will come Thursday, Biden's first full day in office, when he signs several executive actions related to the COVID-19 crisis and reopening schools and businesses, Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, said in a memo outlining the first 10 days of the administration. That includes expanded testing, protections for workers and establishing public health standards.
Friday, Biden will direct his incoming Cabinet to "take immediate action to deliver economic relief" to working families struggling financially as a result of the pandemic, the memo said.
Other orders confirmed by Biden's team include revoking the ban on military service by transgender Americans and reversing the "Mexico City policy," which blocks federal funding for nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion services abroad.
Next week, Biden will sign orders to carry out his "Buy American" pledge, "advance equity and support communities of color and other underserved communities" and implement criminal justice changes.
He will sign additional executive actions related to climate change, expanding access to health care – particularly for low-income women and women of color – and on immigration and border policies, including the process of reuniting families separated at the U.S.-Mexican border, according to Klain.
"Of course, these actions are just the start of our work," Klain said. "But by Feb. 1st, America will be moving in the right direction on all four of these challenges – and more – thanks to President-elect Joe Biden’s leadership."
Just one piece of the Biden agendaThe Biden team acknowledged that congressional action will be required to achieve much of Biden's early agenda. Topping that list is passage of a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, dubbed the American Rescue Plan, that Biden introduced last week.
Biden promised to introduce an immigration bill "immediately" upon taking office. It will include an eight-year pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the USA without legal status, an expansion of refugee admissions and the use of new technology to patrol the border.
"Over the first week and a half, he's going to do everything he can, within his power, to move us forward," Bedingfield said. "But that's only one piece of the agenda. The second piece of the agenda will be working with Congress."
Biden names White House team to work on racial equity, immigration and other domestic policy priorities
Biden begins his presidency seeking to unify a deeply divided nation, yet taking unilateral action. Executive orders became more common under the Obama and Trump presidencies, Belt said, as their administrations recognized it's easier to govern through executive power than legislation that needs congressional approval.
Trump issued eight executive orders by Feb. 3, 2017, and 210 over his four-year term. Obama had nine during the same time frame after inauguration and 276 over eight years. The last four presidents took only two Day One executive actions combined, according to the Biden team.
Other environmental orders in addition to Paris AgreementPerhaps no other early action will deliver a bigger statement symbolically than rejoining the Paris Agreement, which will show the world the United States is ready to work multilaterally again, a departure from the isolationist tendencies of Trump, experts said.
The historic deal signed by Obama in 2015 includes almost 200 nations in agreement to combat climate change. Although mostly nonbinding, the Paris Agreement requires countries to set voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Nations have to accurately report on their efforts. Rejoining would mean the United States would again provide funding to developing countries for its climate change efforts.
"It's a very strong signal to the world that President Biden is sharply reversing the Trump policies and rejoining the national effort to fight climate change," said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. "It will be warmly received by the rest of the world and put the U.S. back in a position of leadership."
Biden’s climate crusade: How his plan to cut carbon emissions, create jobs could impact US
The president plans to sign a broad executive order to reverse more than 100 Trump administration environmental policies and direct all agencies to review federal regulations and executive actions from the past four years to determine whether they were harmful to public health, damaging to the environment or unsupported by science, McCarthy said.
Within that order, Biden will direct the Department of Interior to restore protections for national monuments, including Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, which Trump sought to open to companies for mining and energy drilling, as well as place a temporary moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The order will reestablish the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases to examine whether emissions and climate risks in governmental activities are fully accounted for.
The US is out of the Paris climate change agreement; if Biden wins, that could change
"The Paris climate agreement itself is not particularly binding. It's more what it symbolizes. But Biden is going to obviously be taking lot of other measures to carry out the promises of Paris," Gerrard said.
Travel ban a 'stain on nation,' Biden team saysTrump's travel ban, ordered during his first week in office but reworked after legal challenges, was struck down multiple times in lower courts for being unconstitutional but was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Trump campaigned in 2016 on banning Muslims from entering the USA.
Trump's travel ban suspended the issuance of immigrant and nonimmigrant visas to applicants from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela. Last year, the Trump administration added six countries by suspending overseas visas for nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Nigeria and adding restrictions on Sudanese and Tanzanian nationals.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan called the Muslim ban “nothing less than a stain on our nation.”
“It was rooted in xenophobia and religious animus and President-elect Biden has been clear that we will not turn our back on our values with discriminatory bans on entry to the United States,” he said.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called it "very welcome news" to see Biden rescind "what was a totally, we believe, totally unconstitutional, un-American policy barring people based on their faith."
Trump expands controversial travel restrictions to six new countries
Supreme Court upholds President Trump's travel ban against majority-Muslim countries
He said CAIR hopes Biden will soon repeal other Trump policies on immigration and refugees. That includes prohibiting the separation of parents from children at the southern border and r emoving caps on refugees and asylum seekers.
"The actions taken on Day One are an indication of how they're viewed as being important – issues that need to be introduced immediately," Hooper said. "It's good the Muslim ban is one of those issues." |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/21/2021 11:50:41 AM | | | | | | Biden To Keep Christopher Wray On As FBI Director
BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, JAN 21, 2021 - 11:26
After months of speculation at the tail-end of the Trump administration that FBI Director Christopher Wray would imminently be fired given the open feuding about the origins of the investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged 'Russiagate'-related contacts with Putin's government, clearly Trump decided against it even in the last weeks.
And now it appears he's staying on under the new Biden administration:
US President Joe Biden is planning to keep Christopher Wray as FBI Director, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing a White House source.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked on Wednesday if Biden had confidence in Wray and said she had not spoken to the newly elected president about the matter.
Senior administration sources said the same to CNN, which the network called "a sign of confidence for the bureau's leader who has more than six years remaining in his term."
Initially appointed by Trump in 2017, Wray has a total 10-year term as is standard of all FBI directors.
White House correspondent for the NY Times Maggie Haberman had this interesting insight as to Biden's decision-making:
"And for Biden... [he] would have faced potential blowback given activities related to his son (another reason Garland made more sense for AG than Jones)."
She also noted that as for Trump during his final weeks, he "made clear to aides a week after the election he wouldn’t fire Wray, in part because he was afraid a new FBI director would be more incentivized against him." |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/21/2021 11:54:11 AM | | | | | | As promised, Biden lifts travel ban on people from jihadi hotspots that he falsely described as ‘Muslim ban’
JAN 21, 2021 7:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER
There was no “Muslim ban,” but a ban on travel from several Muslim and non-Muslim countries that would not or could not provide adequate information about those wishing to enter the country. To end this will mean that people about whom nothing is known will be able to enter the country freely, often from jihadi hotspots and other areas where criminal activity is rife. What could possibly go wrong? Sit back and watch, and hope you’re not among those who will be victimized.
“Border wall halt, Muslim ban reversal among Biden’s first executive orders,” by Elliot Spagat, Associated Press, January 20, 2021:
SAN DIEGO — For the opening salvo of his presidency, few expected Joe Biden to be so far-reaching on immigration.
A raft of executive orders signed Wednesday undoes many of his predecessor’s hallmark initiatives, such as halting work on a border wall with Mexico, lifting a travel ban on people from several predominantly Muslim countries and reversing plans to exclude people in the country illegally from the 2020 census.
Six of Biden’s 17 orders, memorandums and proclamations deal with immigration. He ordered efforts to preserve Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program known as DACA that has shielded hundreds of thousands of people who came to the U.S. as children from deportation since it was introduced in 2012. He also extended temporary legal status to Liberians who fled civil war and the Ebola outbreak to June 2022.
The Homeland Security Department announced a 100-day moratorium on deportations “for certain noncitizens,” starting Friday, after Biden revoked one of Trump’s earliest executive orders making anyone in the country illegally a priority for deportations.
That’s not it. Biden’s most ambitious proposal, unveiled Wednesday, is an immigration bill that would give legal status and a path to citizenship to anyone in the United States before Jan. 1 — an estimated 11 million people — and reduce the time that family members must wait outside the United States for green cards.
Taken together, Biden’s moves represent a sharp U-turn after four years of relentless strikes against immigration, captured most vividly by the separation of thousands of children from their parents under a “zero tolerance” policy on illegal border crossings. Former President Donald Trump’s administration also took hundreds of other steps to enhance enforcement, limit eligibility for asylum and cut legal immigration.
The new president dispelled any belief that his policies would resemble those of former President Barack Obama, who promised a sweeping bill his first year in office but waited five years while logging more than 2 million deportations.
Eager to avoid a rush on the border, Biden aides signaled that it will take time to unwind some of Trump’s border policies, which include making asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. Homeland Security said that on Thursday it would stop sending asylum-seekers back to Mexico to wait for hearings but that people already returned should stay put for now…. |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/21/2021 11:54:54 AM | | | | | | Biden renames US Ambassador to Israel ‘Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza,’ then quickly reverses course
JAN 21, 2021 8:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Despite reversing the change, the import of this is clear: the Biden administration is going to go even farther than the Obama administration in its hostility to Israel, and is going to block its attempts to assert its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
“Biden Reverses on Change to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Twitter Name to Include West Bank and Gaza,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, January 20, 2021:
The Biden administration on Wednesday reversed a change to the U.S. ambassador to Israel’s Twitter account name to read, “the official Twitter account of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza” after a Washington Free Beacon report highlighting the shift.
For a time on Wednesday, the official Twitter feed for the U.S. ambassador to Israel had its title changed to add “the West Bank and Gaza,” territories the United States has for decades avoided taking a stand on due to ongoing peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The title change sparked an outcry online, including among Republican lawmakers, and was quietly changed back to read only, “U.S. ambassador to Israel.” The State Department would not comment on the initial change or why it was changed back to its original form.
Embassy officials have speculated that the title was inadvertently changed by Twitter due to a technical glitch when the accounts were switched from the Trump administration over to the Biden administration. The Free Beacon could not confirm the veracity of these claims.
“The U.S. doesn’t have ambassadors to any other disputed territory in the world. Singling out Israel, once again, is wrong,” said Len Khodorkovsky, former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department. “Instead of building on all the progress that’s been made toward peace in the Middle East, the Biden administration seems to be reversing course toward the failed policies of the Obama years.”
During the Obama administration, former ambassador Dan Shapiro was referred to in official communications as the “U.S. Ambassador to Israel.”
While President Joe Biden has said he would maintain the U.S. embassy facility in Jerusalem—which former President Donald Trump moved in a historic policy shift—it is likely he will put greater emphasis on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have long been stalled. Biden also will grapple with the last administration’s decision to recognize the Golan Heights area along the Israel-Syria border as officially part of the Jewish state…. |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/21/2021 11:55:34 AM | | | | | | Iran jails American businessman for ‘spying,’ threatening Biden’s plans for rapprochement
JAN 21, 2021 9:00 AM BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
Already Iran is strong-arming the US in anticipation of a weak Biden administration, which it has determined will bow to the Iranian regime and be easily manipulated by it. Appeasement has never worked, nor will it ever work with Iran. Under the tough-on-Iran Trump administration, Iran released over 40 U.S. hostages and detainees.
“Iran jails U.S. businessman, possibly jeopardizing Biden’s plans for diplomacy with Tehran,” by Dan De Luce, NBC News, January 17, 2021:
WASHINGTON — Only weeks after the U.S. election and three days after an Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated, Iranian authorities convicted a U.S. businessman on spying charges, a family friend said.
The case threatens to complicate plans by the next administration to pursue diplomacy with Iran, as President-elect Joe Biden has said he would be open to easing sanctions on Tehran if the regime returned to compliance with a 2015 nuclear agreement.
The man, Emad Shargi, 56, who is Iranian American, was summoned to a Tehran court Nov. 30 and told that he had been convicted of espionage without a trial and sentenced to 10 years, a family friend said.
Shargi’s family has not heard from him for more than six weeks, the family said in a statement.
Only a year earlier, in December 2019, an Iranian court had cleared Shargi, but the regime withheld his Iranian and U.S. passports.
The about-face by the Iranian authorities took place only weeks after Biden won the U.S. presidential election and three days after the killing of a leading nuclear scientist and senior defense official, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, east of Tehran. Iran blamed Israel for the assassination; Israel has declined to comment…. |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/21/2021 1:12:50 PM | | | | | | Right On Cue For Biden, WHO Admits High-Cycle PCR Tests Produce COVID False Positives
BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, JAN 21, 2021 - 6:30
Were the 'conspiracy theorists' just proven right about the "fake rescue plan" for COVID?
Did the 'science-deniers' just get confirmation that it was political after all?
The short answer to both of these questions regarding the COVID-19 'casedemic' and the fallacy of asymptomatic PCR testing is YES and YES!
We have detailed the controversy surrounding America's COVID "casedemic" and the misleading results of the PCR test and its amplification procedure in great detail over the past few months.
As a reminder, "cycle thresholds" (Ct) are the level at which widely used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test can detect a sample of the COVID-19 virus. The higher the number of cycles, the lower the amount of viral load in the sample; the lower the cycles, the more prevalent the virus was in the original sample.
Numerous epidemiological experts have argued that cycle thresholds are an important metric by which patients, the public, and policymakers can make more informed decisions about how infectious and/or sick an individual with a positive COVID-19 test might be. However, as JustTheNews reports, health departments across the country are failing to collect that data.
In fact, as far back as October, we brought the world's attention to the COVID-19 "casedemic" and the disturbing reality of high-cycle threshold PCR tests being worse than useless as indicators of COVID-19 "sickness". PJMedia's Stacey Lennox said at the time:
Biden will issue national standards, like the plexiglass barriers in restaurants he spoke about during the debate, and pressure governors to implement mask mandates using the federal government’s financial leverage.
Some hack at the CDC or FDA will issue new guidance lowering the Ct the labs use, and cases will magically start to fall.
In reality, the change will only eliminate false positives, but most Americans won’t know that.
Good old Uncle Joe will be the hero, even though it is Deep-State actors in the health bureaucracies who won’t solve a problem with testing they have been aware of for months. TDS is a heck of a drug.
And now, as Lennox explains in detail below, we have been proved 100% correct as less than one hour after President Biden's inauguration, the WHO proved us right.
In August of last year, The New York Times published an article stating that as many as 90% of COVID-19 tests in three states were not indicative of active illness. In other words, they were picking up viral debris incapable of causing infection or being transmitted because the cycle threshold (Ct) of the PCR testing amplified the sample too many times.
Labs in the United States were using a Ct of 37-40. Epidemiologists interviewed at the time said a Ct of around 30 was probably more appropriate. This means the CDC’s COVID-19 test standards for the PCR test would pick up an excessive number of false positives. The Times report noted the CDC’s own data suggested the PCR did not detect live virus over a Ct of 33. The reporter also noted that clinicians were not receiving the Ct value as part of the test results.
Yet a PCR test instruction document from the CDC that had been revised five times as of July 13, 2020, specified testing and interpretation of the test using a Ct of 40. On September 28, 2020, a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases from Jaafar et al. had asserted, based on patient labs and clinical data involving nearly 4,000 patients, that a Ct of 30 was appropriate for making public policy. An update to the CDC instructions for PCR testing from December 1, 2020, still uses a Ct of 40.
Shortly before the New York Times article was published, the CDC revised its COVID-19 test recommendations, saying that only syptomatic patients should be tested. The media went insane, and Dr. Fauci went all over television saying he was not part of the decision to change the testing standards:
“I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is.”
So, of course, the Mendacious Midget™ had spoken, and the guidelines went back to testing everyone, all the time, with an oversensitive test.
The idea that asymptomatic spread was a concern as of August was just one of many lies Dr. Fauci told. At the beginning of the pandemic in late January, he said:
The one thing historically that people need to realize is that even if there is some asymptomatic transmission, in all the history of respiratory borne viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks. The driver of outbreaks is always a symptomatic person. Even if there is a rare asymptomatic person that might transmit, an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers.
There is not a single study or meta-analysis that differs from Fauci’s original assessment.
Today, within an hour of Joe Biden being inaugurated and signing an executive order mandating masks on all federal property, the WHO sent out a notice to lab professionals using the PCR test. It said:
WHO guidance Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 states that careful interpretation of weak positive results is needed (1).
The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load.
Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology.
literally one hour after Biden takes the oath, the WHO admits that PCR testing at high amplification rates alters the predictive value of the tests and results in a huge number of false positives pic.twitter.com/iDtXmappRw
— Andy Swan (@AndySwan) January 20, 2021This translates to “in the absence of symptoms, a high Ct value means you are highly unlikely to become ill or get anyone else sick in the absence of very recent exposure to an infected person.”
Dr. Fauci knew this in July when he said that tests with a Ct above 35 were likely picking up viral debris or dead virus.
Even at a Ct of 35, the incidence of virus samples that could replicate is very low, according to Jaafar et al.
The only state I know that requires reporting the Ct with every test is Florida, which started this policy in December.
The WHO went on, stating:
Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information.
In short, a positive PCR test in the absence of symptoms means nothing at a Ct of higher than 30, according to the experts interviewed by the New York Times and according to Jaafar et al. Yet positive tests is the number CNN loves flashing on the screen.
If the percentage found by the Times in August holds, there have been approximately 2.43 million actual cases to date, not 24.3 million.
There is also no way to calculate the deaths from COVID-19 rather than deaths with some dead viral debris in the nostrils.
What I have referred to as the “casedemic” since September will be magically solved just in time for Joe Biden to look like a hero. For doing absolutely nothing.
Do not tell me there is not a politicized deep state in our health agencies. Do not ever tell me I need to listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci again. And every business owner who has been ruined because of lockdowns due to a high number of “cases” should be livid. Any parent whose child has lost a year of school should be furious.
None of this was for your health. It was to get rid of Orange Man Bad.
now they will drop the cycle rates and you can watch the curve go negative... like magic... because the new magic man isn't the bad man and the masks he ordered worked!!!!!
— Andy Swan (@AndySwan) January 20, 2021As an aside, this also clearly explains the disappearance of the "flu" during this season as the plethora of high Ct PCR Tests supposedly pointing to a surge in COVID are nothing of the sort.
As Stephen Lendman noted previously, claiming “lockdowns stopped flu in its tracks, (outbreaks) plummet(ting) by 98% in the United States” ignored that what’s called COVID is merely seasonal influenza combined with false positives (extremely high Ct) from PCR-Tests.
And for that reason, the great 2020 disappearing flu passes largely under the mass media’s radar. Media proliferated mass deception and the power of repetition get most people to believe and having successfully "killed the flu", they will now do the same with COVID... and, if allowed by our betters, we will all return to the new normal they desire. |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/21/2021 9:07:04 PM | | | | | | Biden EO Lets Transgender Athletes Compete Against Biological Females, Chill In Locker Room
BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, JAN 21, 2021 - 17:00
On Wednesday, President Biden signed a flurry of 14 'Day One' Executive Orders, most of which are targeted at walking back President Trump's agenda - such as stopping border wall construction, rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, rejoining the World Health Organization, and ending the Keystone XL pipeline.
One of the orders, titled "Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation," has been advertised as providing workplace protections for gay and transgender individuals. The EO, however, also reinstates the Obama-era Title IX regulations which allow biologically male transgender athletes to compete in women's sports - a topic of heated debate as biologically female competitors continue suffer defeat at the hands of individuals with a well-established physical advantage.
Connecticut transgender athlete Andraya Yearwood dominates the 2018 state championships - setting records in the girls 100-meter and 200-meter racesPresident Trump famously ended the Title IX transgender provisions, saying that the Obama administration falsely identified sex as "gender identity" vs. "biological gender."
The Biden EO also allows athletes with gender dysphoria to hang out in the locker room of their choice.
"Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love. Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports," reads the Executive Order.
As author Ryan Anderson, PhD writes at Heritage.org, there are clear reasons 'for treating males and females differently (yet still equally).'
These differences do not have to do with how people choose to “identify.” They have to do with what men and women are: males or females of the human species.
The Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences published a report in 2001 titled “ Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter?” The executive summary answered the question in the affirmative, saying that the explosive growth of biological information “has made it increasingly apparent that many normal physiological functions—and, in many cases, pathological functions—are influenced either directly or indirectly by sex-based differences in biology.”
...
...Something similar is true for the Trump policies on Title IX and school sports. For an argument about discrimination to succeed, you’d have to say that an athlete with male muscle mass, bone structure, and lung capacity (to take just a few specifics) is comparable, similarly situated to an athlete with female muscle mass, bone structure, and lung capacity.
If you can recognize that these are not in fact comparable, similarly situated individuals, then it’s hard to make a claim that “discrimination” in the pejorative sense has occurred.
Yes, we’ve treated males and females differently—we have an NBA and a WNBA—but that is precisely in order to treat them equally. Equality—fairness—in athletic competition frequently requires taking the bodily differences between males and females seriously. - Heritage.org
Meanwhile, Biden's Executive Order clashes with Idaho state law, after Governor Brad Little signed the Fairness in Women's Sports act in March of 2020 - making it the first state to ban transgender girls from participating in girls and women's sports. In November, Trump's Justice Department filed a legal brief in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the Act, after an Idaho court found that it discriminated against some transgender athletes, allowing biological males to play in sports designed only for biological females.
Less than two weeks ago, transgender powerlifter JayCee Cooper sued USA Powerlifting, the sport's largest US-based organization, after she was barred from women's competitions on the basis of gender identity. Cooper's lawsuit, filed by the advocacy group Gender Justice, asserts that the USAPL is in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act, and notes that other powerlifting and athletic organizations have allowed transgender women to participate if their hormone levels are below certain thresholds.
JayCee Cooper In 2019, USA Powerlifting published guidelines surrounding transgender competitors.
"USA Powerlifting is not a fit for every athlete and for every medical condition or situation," reads the organization's Transgender Participation Policy. "Simply, not all powerlifters are eligible to compete in USA Powerlifting."
"Men naturally have a larger bone structure, higher bone density, stronger connective tissue and higher muscle density than women," it continues.
"These traits, even with reduced levels of testosterone do not go away. While MTF [male-to-female] may be weaker and less muscle than they once were, the biological benefits given them at birth still remain over than of a female."
As Kelli Ballard wrote last year, Save Women’s Sports produced an article on its website entitled “Male Athletes Are Taking Over Women’s Cycling.” In the piece, Mary Verrandeaux, a member of the 1985 U.S. National Team, said:
“It is without a doubt that allowing men, who identify as women, to continue to compete in women’s categories is the end of women’s sports. Women’s opportunities, records, scholarships, and championships are now being awarded to biological men. This has already destroyed the sanctified intent of women competing against other women – not women competing against biological men who ‘identify as women.’”
Recognizing and respecting people for who they are – biologically or emotionally — does not mean trouncing other individuals’ rights. Here’s a little food for thought. If transgenders who identify as females can’t understand the ‘danger’ they pose to the world of women’s sports, then how can they truly claim to be female? If they cannot identify with the challenges facing natural-born females as they usurp their titles and trophies, how can they claim womanhood?
Save Women’s Sports summarized the issue:
“This is the beginning of the end for women’s sports. We cannot allow this abuse of female athletes and mockery of women’s sports to continue. It is not bigotry to defend biology, and it is not hate speech to defend your rights.”
Is that really what Biden-voting mothers and fathers wanted for their athlete daughters? |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/22/2021 3:08:37 PM | | | | | | Biden's Federal Land Lease Ban To Send Oil Prices Higher: Goldman
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, JAN 22, 2021 - 11:30
Oil stocks tumbled following yesterday's one-two punch of Biden energy news, when first we learned that the Interior Department enacted a 60-day moratorium on issuing oil and gas leases that affects all federal lands, minerals, and waters, which was followed by news that Biden was set to fully suspend the sale of oil and gas leases on federal land, which accounts for about a tenth of U.S. supplies.
Yet while E&P companies sold off sharply on the news, one can argue that the decision wasn't exactly a surprise for the drillers themselves, because as the following chart from BofA shows, federal drilling permits spiked into year-end as companies clearly anticipated a ban on drilling on federal lands.
But it's not just speculation about what impact on drillers - and especially frackers will be - Biden's intervention will have: an just as important question is what to expect on the price of oil as a result.
Futures Rise with Investors Optimistic About More Stimulus Under Biden's Administration
Well, overnight, Goldman's commodity team said that a lack of urgency from the US government to lift Iranian sanctions and a push for larger fiscal spending support the constructive view on oil and gas prices; at the same time it estimated that a 2 trillion stimulus over 2021-2022 would increase US demand by 200k bpd and stated that delays in a full return of Iran production would support the bullish oil outlook.
Goldman's summary, which could say is obvious: "policies to support energy demand but restrict hydrocarbon production (or increase costs of drilling and financing) will prove inflationary in coming years given the still negligible share of transportation demand coming from EVs (and renewables)."
In short, just what Putin and the Crown Prince ordered.
Below we excerpt from Goldman's note:
Initial orders by the Biden administration include restrictions on North American hydrocarbon leasing, drilling and pipelines. In turn, initial comments suggest no urgency in lifting sanctions with Iran. Combined with a push for greater fiscal spending - and hence higher energy demand - these initial actions reinforce our constructive view on oil and gas prices.
As we have argued, policies to support energy demand but restrict hydrocarbon production (or increase costs of drilling and financing) will prove inflationary in coming years given the still negligible share of transportation demand coming from EVs (and renewables).
The Interior Department imposed on Wednesday a 60-day moratorium on oil and gas leases and drilling permits on federal lands, minerals, and waters.
This order is temporary and has no impact on near-term activity as producers had aggressively accumulated federal drilling permits. While temporary, this order nonetheless suggests that the new administration views its pledge to halt leasing on federal lands as a priority of its climate plan, with such a broader moratorium on federal leasing potentially scheduled for next week according to Bloomberg. As we argued ahead of the election, such actions point to both higher production and financing costs for shale producers in coming years as well as lower recoverable resources.
The additional orders to impose a moratorium on leasing activity in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to revoke Keystone XL’s border permit point to a similar regulatory shift.On their own, these actions do not point to a faster tightening of the oil market. in 2021-22, as a ban on permitting would still leave a window of up to two years to drill from elevated outstanding permits.
In fact, this would likely shift drilling activity away from private to federal land (for example from the Midland to the Delaware basin) for a couple years to minimize the loss of recoverable resources. While producers are focused on shareholder returns over production growth,investors may support more aggressive drilling to secure future cash flows, potentially creating a modest headwind to sharply higher oil prices in the next few years. The administration’s focus on fiscal spending and recent foreign policy comments are, however, likely to help tighten the oil market in 2021-22.The release of President Biden’s COVID-relief plan has led our economists to increase their assumption for additional fiscal measures from $750bn to $1.1tn. Larger boosts to disposable income and government spending will make this recovery energy intensive long before it hurts oil demand, in our view, especially as they come alongside those in China and the EU.
On our estimates, a $2 trillion stimulus over 2021-22 would for example boost US demand by c. 200 kb/d. Such spending would further contribute to a weakening dollar which itself lends support to oil prices.
A faster vaccination roll-out would in turn accelerate the rebound in jet fuel consumption, which still accounts for more than half of the remaining lost oil demand.
Finally, the new administration’s focus on reaching bi-partisan policy support suggest a lessened incentive to quickly revisit the divisive Iran nuclear deal.
While the US president has significant freedom to re-enter the JCPOA agreement (see Appendix),the confirmation hearing for the US Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary focused on the need for consultation with Congress and US allies, on Iran being non-compliant and on the goal of reaching a stronger and longer new deal. We view such statements as consistent with our assumption that the increase in Iran exports will remain moderate in 2021 (we assume 0.5 mb/d in 2H21) with in fact risks that our assumed full recovery in Iran production in 2Q22 proves optimistic.
Delays in a full return of Iran production would reinforce our bullish oil outlook since we already forecast a tight 2022 crude market with low OPEC spare capacity.Stronger demand and a slower ramp-up in Iran production would create a larger call non shale production, which will face higher regulatory costs, leading to further increases in long-dated oil prices.
The oil market experienced such an outcome in 2018, when the loss of Iran production and strong economic growth pushed oil prices sharply higher.
As we argued at the time, the rally to $80/bbl Brent prices was necessary to bring high-cost Bakken barrels to the global market by rail. Notably, the potential halt to Dakota Access Pipeline flows could recreate such conditions incoming years (the pipeline may need a new Environmental Impact Study from the Army Corps of Engineers, which is led by a presidential appointee which could stay its operations). |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Joachim K | 1/30/2021 5:23:43 PM | | | | | | Biden’s Pentagon to offer covid vaccines to 9/11 jihadis at Guantánamo before Americans have access to them
January 30, 2021 11:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Priorities, priorities. But you see, they’ve got to have them so that they can resume “war crimes hearings at the base’s Camp Justice compound.” That raises another question: why are there still hearings being conducted regarding these men? Way back in 2009 they essentially confessed by publishing a lengthy Islamic defense of their actions. Why are they still waiting to be tried so many years later? Who is protecting them?
“Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay will be offered vaccination, the Pentagon says,” by Carol Rosenberg, New York Times, January 28, 2021:
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to offer coronavirus vaccines to detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, possibly starting next week, according to a prosecutor in the case against five prisoners accused of conspiring in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The prosecutor, Clayton G. Trivett Jr., wrote to defense lawyers on Thursday “that an official in the Pentagon has just signed a memo approving the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine to the detainee population in Guantánamo.”…
Lack of vaccinations has been a major obstacle to resuming war crimes hearings at the base’s Camp Justice compound. It was not immediately known whether the defendants in the Sept. 11 case, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, would consent to be vaccinated…. |
| | The Biden Diary - America Held Hostage | Political Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| |
