“Three hours and 19 minutes, while a riot raged at the Capitol.
That’s how long the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard says elapsed between then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund’s “frantic” plea for help quelling a violent mob and the ultimate approval of military aid by the Pentagon. The discrepancy between his estimate and the Pentagon’s conflicting testimony is now at the heart of lawmakers’ investigation into the security lapses that prolonged the siege on Congress on Jan. 6.”
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“D.C. National Guard chief William Walker told senators he was blocked from reacting quickly while Pentagon officials disputed his account.”
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” Walker, with evident exasperation, told two Senate committees that he preemptively loaded troops on buses amid the chaos of the insurrection while awaiting approval from acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. That approval took hours to arrive, he said. In the interim, top Army leaders — including the brother of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn — pushed back, worrying that the visual of National Guard troops ringing the Capitol could “inflame” the rioters, Walker said.
Pentagon officials challenge that account, saying Miller reacted rapidly but that his approval may not have been communicated to Walker efficiently. Nonetheless, Walker testified that earlier action by the Pentagon could have made a difference.
“We could have helped extend the perimeter and push back the crowd,” Walker said.”
“Many young Saudis support MBS’ Vision 2030 for its promises of employment, prosperity, and less stringent gender regulations, which are especially welcome to the generation of Saudi millennials who spent their college years abroad and are eager for their country to be “normal.” Americans should remember that the people of Saudi Arabia are not responsible for MBS’ crimes, so the economic and social transitions that MBS has accelerated should be encouraged, however offensive they consider the crown prince’s other actions.
Oil and the U.S. military are what keep Arab dictators in power. The global economy is slowly scaling back its addiction to the fossil fuels that are killing the planet. The U.S. can and should stop propping up Arab dictators with weapons sales and instead help wean their economies off of oil. While many rightly consider engagement with MBS distasteful, for the sake of Saudi and American citizens as well as the global climate, Biden should help MBS achieve his more admirable goals while constraining his malignant inclinations.”
“Last year, citing the pandemic, the White House strong-armed the Centers for Disease Control to invoke Title 42, an order that closes the border in times of emergency. Though for many classes of people the border has remained totally porous —businesspeople, vacationers and even many immigrants have crossed it freely for most of the pandemic — asylum seekers and refugees have been blocked. In the months since, a record-low number of refugees have been resettled, and just about every asylum seeker arriving on the southern border, except for some unaccompanied children, has been turned away or summarily deported.
While Biden has started to reopen those processes — people in refugee camps in Mexico as part of Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” plan have begun to enter the U.S. to make their cases for asylum — there are reasons to believe that on this front, Trump’s presidency will have a much longer-lasting effect. While Trump and Miller attacked immigration in all its forms, no would-be immigrants received more attention or provoked more action than refugees. And in turning asylum seekers into political ammunition in the American fight over immigration — conflating them with illegal border-crossers — Trump broke a fragile but powerful consensus that had lasted through Republican and Democratic presidents and had kept America open as a nation of refuge for more than a generation.
Biden may yet repeal Title 42, the order closing the door to refugees and asylum seekers, though the White House has said it will remain in place while it figures out how to implement an improved processing system. But that order was not the only way Trump damaged the system. He was the first major party candidate to run on an explicitly anti-refugee platform. And he continued to wage a campaign unapologetically against asylum seekers after taking office, putting through a barrage of rule changes, regulations and legal decisions that hobbled the system before he shut it down altogether in the pandemic.”
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“Since Trump mainly used executive action — circumventing Congress — to change policy, it may not be hard for Biden to reopen the U.S. to refugees and asylum seekers over the next four years. But in the longer term, closing the political divide that Trump widened on asylum will prove much more challenging. Thanks to the last administration, asylum in the U.S., once globally reliable, has become like the carpeting in the Oval Office: something that can be torn up and remade from president to president.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/03/bidens-unnecessary-border-crisis-473412
“The bill would prohibit racial and religious profiling by law enforcement at every level while banning chokeholds at the federal level and no-knock warrants in federal drug cases. The federal policies would be tied to law enforcement funding for governments at the state and local levels.
The measure would also eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement, mandate data collection on police encounters and create a nationwide police misconduct registry to hold accountable problematic officers who are fired or leave an agency.”
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“the bill’s fate in the upper chamber is still uncertain, as Democrats would need at least 10 Republicans to send the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk.”
“Suppose you’re a single parent raising two kids, ages 3 and 5. You were furloughed in the spring, when the big-box store you worked at downsized. You started getting hours again in the summer, enduring substantial risk by going to work with customers who didn’t always wear masks. Child care was a mess, and you had to scrape together help from family and friends.
It was a rough year — but you stayed afloat. In total, you ended up working about 1,000 hours last year at $14 an hour, or $14,000 total — plus there were the two stimulus checks the government sent out in April and December.
Less heralded but no less important to helping you pay the bills were a couple of tax credits the government offers: You got $1,725 through the complicated child tax credit (CTC) and another $5,600 from the earned income tax credit (EITC). That came out to $7,325 — a badly needed infusion. But as is the case every year, it was also a pain — you basically have to go to a tax preparer every tax season to help you with the paperwork to claim the credits.
This week, your member of Congress, in an unprecedented act of constituent outreach, asks you to hop on a Zoom. She’s working on legislation meant to make life easier for single parents like you, including a stimulus check. But it’s the two options to reform the tax credits that she wants to ask you about.
The first option: The government will increase your CTC a ton, so you get a whopping $7,200 a year ($3,600 per child), not just $1,725. Instead of a lump sum at tax time, the government will send you the money every month or so. Under this scenario, you’d still get the $5,600 from the EITC. The downside? You’d still have to go through all that tax prep every spring.
The second option: The government will junk the CTC — and will just send you $700 per month in the mail. That’s $350 per kid under 6, every month, regardless of whether you owe taxes. Perhaps just as appealing, there’s no tax-season paperwork to prepare. That’s $8,400 per year total, even more than the CTC in option one. The downside in this scenario: Under this plan, the EITC shrinks — and your EITC goes down to $2,000.
To recap: Both give you more money than you get now. Option one gives you more money than option two. But option two makes your life much easier logistically. You get big regular monthly payments whose amount doesn’t vary. And you would no longer be in a desperate rush every spring to get your tax return in for your big refund.
Option one above is what Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration want to do to tackle child poverty. Option two is Republican Sen. Mitt Romney’s plan to enact a new, simplified child allowance.”
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“If you make $14,000 a year, there are a bunch of state and federal programs out there to help you. And by “a bunch,” I mean a bunch.
Depending on the state you’re in, you may qualify for Medicaid. It’s not so simple, though — you’re eligible in every state that did the Obamacare expansion, but a bunch of states (Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi) set the eligibility cutoff much lower. In Texas, single parents have to make less than $277 a month to qualify, so in this scenario, you’d be way too “rich.” (And getting your kids covered through Medicaid or S-CHIP is a whole other can of worms.)
Need housing? You can apply for a housing choice voucher under the Section 8 program, but it’s underfunded so you will have to navigate years or decades of waitlists.
Need help with child care and early education? There’s Head Start and Early Head Start. In addition, there’s the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant — but you probably won’t get it; only about 15 percent of income-eligible families do, and depending on your state, you might have to be enrolled in a formal welfare-to-work program.
Speaking of which, you might get some money from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). But, again, most don’t, and for those who do it’s strictly time-limited and requires tedious “work reports” to prove you’re not too “lazy” to deserve it.
In the winter, if you need help with heat, there’s the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) — but only 20 percent of eligible families get it.
You’ll probably be able to get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, or food stamps, to help with groceries. If you have an infant, you can probably get aid from the nutrition program for women, infants, and children. There are probably some other programs I’m forgetting.
Conservatives and libertarians sometimes see this laundry list and think, “Look at how much we do for poor people!” I see it and think, “Look at how ridiculously complicated the system we make poor people navigate is.””
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“Romney’s child allowance plan is generous. The Democrats’ plan is even more so. But Romney’s plan has one edge: It simplifies things for the people it’s supposed to benefit.”