“The Senate parliamentarian on Thursday dealt Democrats a disappointing blow in the fight for the $15 minimum wage, ruling that it can’t be included in a Covid-19 relief package if lawmakers want to use budget reconciliation.
That decision likely means that the $15 minimum wage is effectively dead — for now.”
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“Sanders, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), and other Democrats also floated the idea of establishing a tax penalty that incentivizes large corporations to pay their workers a $15 minimum wage and gives small businesses a tax credit for doing so. That change wouldn’t set a new federal standard for the minimum wage, but it could help nudge businesses into offering their employees better pay. Schumer, too, had offered his backing for a plan that dings corporations that don’t raise their wages. But over the weekend, Democrats determined the idea is a no-go for now.
Ultimately, Democrats may have to consider a potential compromise with Republicans to advance any type of standalone change to the minimum wage. Thus far, five Republicans — led by Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) — have backed legislation that would increase the minimum wage to $10 by 2025, a change that would also be tied to immigration enforcement. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), too, has introduced a bill that would require a $15 minimum wage at companies that make $1 billion or more in annual revenues.”
“At the height of the water crisis on February 19, nearly 15 million people across Texas lost access to clean water, according to Gary Rasp, a spokesperson for TCEQ. This number reflects the problems that occurred in the water system itself, rather than in people’s homes.”
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“As the storm hit, the rapidly escalating blackout on February 15 forced water treatment plants offline. At the same time, the freezing temperatures broke water mains and people started to turn on their faucets to prevent their pipes from freezing.
Due to the combination of a drop in supply from treatment plants failing and the increase in water demand from dripping faucets and leaks, the pressure dropped in the system.
A loss in pressure can lead to dangerous bacteria in the water supply, so millions of people were told to boil their water before drinking or cooking with it. Of course, this was an impossibility for those who were also hit by the power outage and lacked electricity to power their stove.
The winter storm didn’t just cause water issues in Texas. From Oklahoma City to Jackson, Mississippi, hundreds of thousands of people also faced water shortages due to dropping water pressure.”
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“in some cases, residents have been without water for weeks because of a confluence of failures.”
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“Rebecca Sanchez told Vox that many of the residents in her apartment complex, the Hillside Villas, have been left without any running water for two weeks after pipes burst. Repairs have been slow, and Sanchez said the property managers have failed to provide adequate emergency water supplies in the interim.”
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““We underinvest in maintenance to such a degree that these disasters tend to be pretty catastrophic,” she said. The failure of infrastructure is still being felt by the 390,000 people boiling their water in Texas today, and the nearly 2,000 people whose utilities were still not delivering water at all as of Friday, according to TCEQ.
“Adapting to extreme events and adapting to climate change is going to make all of this harder, but that’s not the only thing that is a problem,” Grubert said. “What we are really starting to have to face is this kind of combined issue where we have failed to invest in these systems for a very long time, and now we are also playing on hard mode.””
“As the Democratic candidate, Biden promised a swift return to the Iran nuclear deal. He then aimed to leverage that negotiation to curb other aspects of Tehran’s aggressive behavior — like its growing ballistic missile program — in follow-on chats.
But in the Oval Office, the president has found the Islamic Republic resistant to diplomacy — but willing to have proxies launch rockets at Americans in the Middle East. That led Biden to authorize a retaliatory strike in Syria against those militants, hoping that would deter future attacks while keeping the door open for talks.
And on the campaign trail, Biden called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state, vowing to make it “pay the price” for human rights violations, including the grisly 2018 murder of dissident, US resident, and columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Though he released an unclassified intelligence report on Friday directly blaming Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing, Biden declined to punish the nation’s de facto ruler outright. Instead of authorizing sanctions, a travel ban, or an asset freeze, the president created the “Khashoggi ban,” which imposes visa restrictions on people who try to silence dissidents abroad. It’s unclear if that includes heads of state, however.
That action — combined with the end of US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen and a freeze on weapons sales — was meant to “recalibrate,” not “rupture” US-Saudi relations, Biden administration officials say. A major consideration was that MBS, as the crown prince is known, may soon officially run the country, so targeting him personally could doom future relations between Washington and Riyadh.”
“Without making Israel earn U.S. favors with any concessions of its own, the Trump administration orchestrated a campaign of maximum pressure on Iran; declared Jerusalem Israel’s capital and opened an embassy there; turned a blind eye to Israel’s settlement expansion; recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; promulgated a peace plan that all but conceded 30 percent of the West Bank to Israel before negotiations with Palestinians had even begun; downgraded U.S. diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority; drastically curtailed U.S. assistance to the Palestinian people; and perhaps most significantly, made a major effort to facilitate normalization between Israel, the Gulf states and other Arab countries.
The Saudis also got in on the action. The Trump administration gave a blank check to Riyadh to pursue its disastrous military campaign in Yemen and aided and abetted it with U.S. military assistance for Saudi operations; acquiesced in MBS’s repression at home and covered up his role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi; and lavished arms sales on the Saudis over Congress’ objections.
If Trump made Israel and Saudi Arabia top foreign policy priorities, Biden seems intent on downgrading their importance. Much has been made of the nearly one month delay in Biden calling Netanyahu; Trump’s third call was to Netanyahu, and former President Obama reached out to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on day one. One delayed call does not a relationship make or break. But Biden was sending a message nonetheless: I’m busy with domestic recovery and the Middle East is not a top priority, he was saying. I’m pro-Israeli, but not necessarily a pro-Netanyahu president.
Biden has also set out to put some distance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Candidate Biden issued some very strong words about the Kingdom on the campaign trail, describing it as a pariah nation on human rights and promising to end U.S. support for its catastrophic campaign in Yemen. Days after Biden’s inauguration, the administration declared an end to American support for Saudi operations in Yemen and pledged to review current arms sales to Riyadh. And in an unmistakable sign of displeasure with the reckless and ruthless Crown Prince, White House press spokesperson Jen Psaki spoke of “recalibrating” U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and indicated Biden will be speaking with his counterpart King Salman not MBS.
Biden is sending an unmistakable message: We can still be friends but it has to be with more benefits for the United States. Given my focus on domestic and other foreign policy priorities, I may not have a great deal of time to focus on your problems; don’t make it harder for the United States in the region or things between us will get complicated.
Biden’s early warning signals to Israel and Saudi Arabia don’t necessarily mean he is seriously prepared to make significant changes in either of these relationships.”
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“Joe Biden is no revolutionary—at home or abroad. As a cautious moderate Democrat, he’s more interested in remodeling the house than in tearing it down. And that applies to Saudi Arabia and Israel, too. Saudi Arabia isn’t a U.S. ally; but it is an important partner—at least until the rest of the world weans itself off Arab hydrocarbons and America benefits from U.S.-Saudi cooperation on counter-terrorism. And Israel, the region’s only democracy—however imperfect—is the one state in the region that shares any real coincidence of both interests and values with the U.S., and is a subject fraught with domestic political risks for any U.S. president.
After four years of one-way street relationships, Biden is right to want to inject real reciprocity and a measure of conditionality into the U.S. relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia. He may well succeed if he simply recognizes that these two countries need America a hell of a lot more than we need them—and if he is prepared to use U.S. leverage to advance our national interests if they force his hand.”
“The attacks and retaliatory strike marked the first major military action of the Biden administration. The strike was calculated to signal to Iran that such attacks through proxies in the region would not be tolerated, the officials said, while avoiding escalation into a wider conflict as Biden seeks a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran on the Iran nuclear deal.
The “proportionate” military response was conducted along with diplomatic measures, including consulting with coalition partners, the Pentagon said.
“The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel,” said Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby. “At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both Eastern Syria and Iraq.””
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“”The targets were chosen to correspond to the recent attacks — the facilities are utilized by KSS and KH — and to deter the risk of additional attacks over the coming weeks,” the spokesperson said. “The strikes were necessary to address the threat and proportionate to the prior attacks.”
At around 6 p.m. EST on Thursday night, U.S. fighter jets dropped seven 500-pound precision bombs on seven targets in eastern Syria, the official said. All bombs hit their targets, a crossing used by several Iran-backed militia groups to move weapons and other goods across the border. Initial reports suggest there were no casualties, militant or civilian.
Biden made the strategic decision to conduct the strike in Syria, rather than on Iraqi soil, in order to avoid pressure on the Iraqi government, the official said.
Conducting an airstrike in Syria is also less politically complicated for the Biden administration than an operation in Iraq, said Becca Wasser, an analyst with the RAND Corp. The U.S. does not need to request the permission of the Syrian government as it does not recognize Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, she said.
The airstrike came after Biden spoke Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. The White House readout of the call hinted at the coming action. The men “discussed the recent rocket attacks against Iraqi and Coalition personnel and agreed that those responsible for such attacks must be held fully to account.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/26/biden-immigration-policy-471748
“even if Trump’s authoritarian bluster rarely cashed out into any real-world seizure of new powers for the president, it was far from harmless. Four years of 100-proof strongman rhetoric may have the effect of building up our tolerance if and when the real thing comes around in a smoother blend. When (at least) half of the political class feels driven by partisan loyalty to defend or downplay open contempt for constitutional limits, it’s likely to make well-planned assaults on those limits that much easier to execute. Donald Trump may yet end up being a “transformational” president, not because of the abuses he managed to carry out but thanks to the dangerous possibilities he revealed.”
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“By excusing or ignoring the 45th president’s disgraceful assaults on democratic norms, Republicans have largely abandoned any principled objection to such moves in the future. If and when an actually competent authoritarian comes along, what will their argument be? “Yeah, but our guy wasn’t any good at it”?”
“More than most members of Congress, Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) understands the desperation of individuals fleeing autocratic communist regimes.
Cruz’s father, Rafael, fled Cuba in 1957 with little more than a student visa and $100 sewn into his underwear—an oft-repeated detail that effectively conveys both the fear and hopefulness of the refugee experience. The other details in the story are familiar to anyone who has followed Cruz’s career, even in passing, given the prominence of those personal details in the senator’s speeches. Rafael bribed his way out of Cuba, reached the United States, enrolled in college, worked as a dishwasher, earned his degree, and eventually started a successful business. Importantly, he was granted political asylum when his student visa expired.
If not for that last detail, it’s highly unlikely that Rafael’s son would have ever had the chance to stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate and declare, as he did on Friday, that America ought to make it more difficult for individuals and families to flee other oppressive communist regimes. In blocking the passage of a bill that would have granted political asylum to anyone fleeing Hong Kong due to the Chinese government’s takeover of the formerly semi-autonomous city, Cruz not only dimmed America’s status as a bastion of freedom for the world’s oppressed people, but spat upon his own heritage as the son of a political refugee.”
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“In remarks delivered on the Senate floor Friday, Cruz outlined two objections to the bill. Both are misleading, at best.
First, Cruz politicized the attempt to provide an exit strategy for Hongkongers, calling the bill a Democratic plot to “advance their long-standing goals on changing immigration laws.” But the bill has a bipartisan list of cosponsors and passed the House earlier this month by a voice vote—usually an indicator of such broad support that no roll call is demanded.
Second, Cruz maligned Hong Kong refugees as potential spies, arguing that China would use the special immigration status to slip its agents into the United States. Except, well, China doesn’t seem to have any trouble doing that already, and recipients of political asylum would have to undergo a background check before their status is granted. If anything, the bill’s passage would ensure that immigrants from Hong Kong to America are subject to more vetting than they might otherwise receive.
Again, Cruz’s father’s story stands in stark contrast. Prior to fleeing to America, Rafael Cruz had worked for the Castro government in Cuba. If Ted were a member of the U.S. Senate at the time, would he have viewed his own father as a potential spy who should not be trusted with political asylum?”
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“Cruz’s biography aside, there is a more important and obvious point. Granting political asylum to Hongkongers looking to flee China is absolutely the right thing for the United States to do, politically and economically.
Politically, the image of tens of thousands of Hongkongers fleeing China’s takeover of the city by relocating to the United States would be an international humiliation for the regime in Beijing. That’s why China has tried to stop the United Kingdom from extending special immigration status to residents of Hong Kong—and the U.K. has responded, correctly, by turning its passport-making machines up to 11.
Economically, China’s loss would be America’s gain. An influx of people from Hong Kong—and the knowledge, skills, money, and entrepreneurship they would bring—would be an economic boon for the United States, particularly if they resettle in areas where the population is stagnant or declining.”