Citizen Cartwright

Note to readers

I had the second dose of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine yesterday and seem to be having the full range of reactions. See you Monday.

Biden nominates 3 to postal board as DeJoy tells Congress ‘get used to me’

If confirmed by the Senate, the nominees to the Board of Governors would bring additional Democratic scrutiny to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor whose tenure has been mired by slow service and politicization, says The Associated Press.

 

Democrats have been pressing President Biden to nominate a slate of potential governors who could oust DeJoy. The postmaster general is hired and fired by the board, not the president.

 

Biden’s nominees are Ron Stroman, a former deputy postmaster general; Amber McReynolds, a mail voting advocate who leads the nonprofit National Vote at Home Institute; and Anton Hajjar, the former general counsel of the American Postal Workers Union. 

 

If all three are confirmed, the nine-member board would be made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans with McReynolds, "whose organization is a darling of left-leaning groups," as the lone independent, says The Washington Post.

 

The White House announcement of the nominations came just after a long and sometimes tense hearing Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, with DeJoy testifying about the agency’s ailing financial health.

 

DeJoy, a prominent supporter of Trump, has been under heavy criticism for a series of operational changes that slowed mail before the 2020 elections. The policy shifts raised fears that DeJoy was attempting to sabotage the agency on behalf of Trump, a vocal critic of mail voting, before it handled unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots. Despite the concerns, the agency said, it delivered more than 99 percent of ballots within five days.

 

After the election, the Postal Service struggled to handle the holiday season surge of packages and mail, leading to additional condemnation.

 

In his opening statement Wednesday, DeJoy said, “We must acknowledge that during this peak season, we fell far short of meeting our service targets. Too many Americans were left waiting for weeks for important deliveries of mail and packages. This is unacceptable, and I apologize to those customers who felt the impact of our delays.”

 

DeJoy said Biden hadn't called on him to resign, nor had any members of the board. Asked by Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., how long he planned to serve in his post, DeJoy said: “A long time. Get used to me.”

Also in the news

Australia's Parliament passes law to make Google, Facebook pay for news

 

Biden lifts Trump-era ban blocking most legal immigration to U.S.

 

Biden signs executive order aimed at securing 4 critical U.S. supply chains

 

Capitol repair, security, mental health costs in wake of attack will exceed $30 million, official tells Congress

 

Federal judge clears the way for California to enforce its net neutrality law

 

Black Lives Matter launches Survival Fund amid wait for federal coronavirus relief

 

Cherokee Nation addresses bias against descendants of African Americas enslaved by the tribe before the Civil War

Vox: QAnon’s future, explained by 8 experts

Politico Pro: Amazon insiders sound alarm over security, saying 'millions of people’s data is at risk'

 

FDA says single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson prevents severe coronavirus

 

How coronavirus vaccine makers would adapt to variants

 

KHN: Have a case of a coronavirus variant? Nobody's going to tell you

 

What's safe after you’ve had the coronavirus vaccine

 

Coronavirus antibodies appear to stop reinfection for months

 

CDC-backed site VaccineFinder.org seeks to help people find coronavirus vaccines

Defenders' testimony on how a mob was able to invade the Capitol

The takeaway from Tuesday’s joint hearing of two Senate committees is consistent with what I learned about politics and bureaucracy in my first political science classes and after 9/11.

 

Bureaucrats tend to point fingers elsewhere when things go wrong. They’re reluctant to act on their own, without sign-off from higher-ups. Coordination across jurisdictions is problematic. Training is unlikely for situations that are unlikely.

 

And so, we have this lead, from The New York Times:

"Three former top Capitol security officials deflected responsibility at a Senate hearing on Tuesday for security failures that contributed to the Jan. 6 riot, blaming other agencies, each other and at one point even a subordinate for the breakdowns that allowed hundreds of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol.

"Their testimony illustrated the chaos of the day, suggesting that officials were reluctant to accept responsibility for the politically charged issue of calling in National Guard troops even as the violence escalated. It also showed that the overlapping jurisdictions of the Capitol Police, the District of Columbia government and other agencies created utter confusion that hindered attempts to stop the most violent assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812.

 

"The officials testified that the FBI and the intelligence community had failed to provide adequate warnings that rioters planned to seize the Capitol and that the Pentagon was too slow after the attack began to authorize Guard troops to help overwhelmed police. They also gave their own conflicting accounts of communicating with each other as they sought to quell the riot in its early minutes.”

 

What textbooks would say happens next is that systems will be put in place to prevent a similar invasion (in military terms, fighting the last war). But if nothing further happens over the next few years, the training that will take place in support of the new systems will gradually wane and funding for those systems will gradually decline.

 

Does this sound overly pessimistic? Yes, and I don’t consider myself a pessimistic person. But studies of politics and bureaucracy are all about humans behaving humanly. And we know both the beauty and banality of that.

Also in the news

Ghana is first nation to receive coronavirus vaccines through U.N.-backed COVAX initiative for lower-income countries

 

Having won Syria’s war, President Assad is mired in economic woes

 

Iran officially starts restricting U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities

Federal judge bans enforcement of Biden’s 100-day deportation pause

 

Fed Chairman Powell tells Senate committee economic recovery is incomplete, high inflation unlikely

 

Hearing for Rep. Deb Haaland, first Native American pick to run Interior Department, focuses on fossil fuels

 

Senate confirms Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.N. ambassador on 78-20 vote

 

Tom Vilsack confirmed for second stint as Agriculture secretary on 92-7 vote

 

FiveThirtyEight: Possible reasons national polling was so off in 2020

 

Vox: Project for Good Information being created by Tara McGowan to counter far-right media with liberal content

 

AP: Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation opens up about its finances

At least 160 Confederate symbols were taken down in 2020, says Southern Poverty Law Center

 

WPost: If you have a consumer complaint, here’s how to get it before the right pair of eyes

 

New study describes the human toll of private equity firms’ purchase of nursing homes

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet who nurtured the Beats from his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, dies at 101

My surprise as Biden’s comments on 500,000 coronavirus deaths make me cry

In the middle of the night, tears are rolling down my face as I read what President Biden said on Monday evening as he marked the "truly grim, heartbreaking milestone” that more than 500,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus.

 

"That’s more Americans who have died in one year in this pandemic than in World War One, World War Two, and the Vietnam War combined,” he said. "That’s more lives lost to this virus than any other nation on Earth.”

 

But after noting that unwelcome measure of American exceptionalism, he immediately pivots in his comments to each person who’s been lost.

 

"We often hear people described as 'ordinary Americans,'" he says. "There’s no such thing; there’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary.”

 

As I’ve written these blog posts, I’ve often thought what an off-the-mark phrase “ordinary Americans” is. And it seems that Biden implicitly knows this. And I’m not sure how many modern presidents actually have known it. Regardless of where they started, by the time somebody becomes president, they’re a member of the elite. They’ve often, through no real fault of their own, lost touch with the public, from whom, after all, an entire Secret Service exists to protect them.

 

Yet each and every person is an expert in their own experience, extraordinary in their own way. The homeless person has as much to teach me as the president does. 

 

But this president's multiple tragic losses of family members seem to have given him a particularly profound understanding to share with us.

 

"For those who have lost loved ones, this is what I know,” he says: "They’re never truly gone. They’ll always be part of your heart. I know this, as well — and it seems unbelievable, but I promise you: The day will come when the memory of the loved one you lost will bring a smile to your lips before a tear to your eye. It will come. I promise you. My prayer for you though is that day will come sooner rather than later. And that’s when you know you’re going to be okay — you’re going to be okay.”

 

Biden supposedly has been elected president because he’s a decent guy with empathy. But what surprises me about his comments is just how real and deep his respect for each person seems to be. Given a president’s power to lift up or cast down, that’s an important quality — and one I find particularly touching at this time in our national life.

 

Here is the full text of Biden’s comments.  

Also in the news

Afghan peace talks resume, but path forward is anything but certain

 

Facebook says it soon will lift its ban on Australians sharing news

 

At confirmation hearing to be attorney general, Merrick Garland says he’ll prioritize combating extremist violence

Fraud checks, errors slowing small-business relief loans under renewed Paycheck Protection Program

 

FCC broadband plan includes $50 monthly subsidy for millions of households

 

Supreme Court sets the stage for release of Trump tax returns

 

State lawmakers defying governors in a coronavirus-era battle for power

 

NYTimes: 'What’s really behind corporate promises on climate change?’

 

Vox: 'Now is the time to revolutionize policing'

 

Watch NASA video of Perseverance rover's landing on Mars

 

KHN: After billions of dollars and dozens of wartime declarations, why vaccines still are in short supply

 

New variants mean coronavirus vaccines, tests may need tweaking, FDA says

 

What to expect after coronavirus vaccination — and why people under 55 can have more severe reactions

 

FiveThirtyEight: So you got vaccinated … and then you got the coronavirus. Now what?

 

Used to gauge coronavirus severity, pulse oximeters can be inaccurate on darker skin

Biden to allies: ‘America is back’

In a three-way video-link, President Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed the trans-Atlantic alliance at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

 

But even amid the "palpable sense of relief among allies at Biden’s full-throated commitment to mending frayed U.S.-Europe relations, plenty has changed over the past four years in ways creating new challenges," says The Associated Press.

 

China has cemented its place as a fierce economic competitor on the continent as the United States has reconsidered long-held national security and economic priorities embedded in the transatlantic alliance. Populism has grown throughout much of Europe. And other Western countries have, at times, sought to fill the vacuum as America stepped back from the world stage.

Merkel noted that some differences between the United States and Europe remain “complicated.” Europe sees China’s economic ambitions as less of an existential threat than the United States does and has its own strategic and economic concerns that aren't always in sync with Biden on Russia as well.

 

Macron made an "impassioned defense" of his concept of “strategic autonomy” from the United States, making the case that Europe can no longer be overly dependent on the United States as it focuses more of its attention on Asia, especially China, says The New York Times.

 

Biden celebrated America's return to the Paris climate agreement, which became official just before the meeting, and a new initiative, announced Thursday night, to join Britain, France and Germany in engaging Iran diplomatically in an effort to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement that President Trump exited.

 

Biden also spoke about the two-decade war in Afghanistan, where he faces a May 1 deadline to remove the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops under a Trump administration peace agreement with the Taliban.

 

While Biden announced that he would make good on an American promise to donate $4 billion to the campaign to expedite the manufacturing and distribution of coronavirus vaccines around the world — a move approved last year by a Democratic-led House and a Republican led-Senate — there were differences in approach during the meeting.

 

Macron has called on the United States and European nations to allocate up to 5 percent of current vaccine supplies to developing countries — the kind of vaccine diplomacy that China and Russia already are deploying.

Biden, who announced last week that the United States will have enough vaccine by the end of July to inoculate 300 million people, continues to be focused for now on making sure every American is vaccinated, administration officials say. 

 

Here is the text of Biden’s speech at the conference.

 

Biden also participated in a virtual meeting Friday of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, where leaders worked Biden’s campaign theme into their closing joint statement, vowing to “work together to beat COVID-19 and build back better.”

Also in the news

U.N.’s top human rights body opens session as Myanmar, other concerns loom

 

China censors the internet. Why doesn’t Russia?

 

How confusion, inaction at U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 delayed troop deployment

 

Disappointed by down-ballot losses in 2020, Democratic interest groups joining forces to examine what went wrong

 

AP explainer: Trump’s acquittal by Senate may not be the end of efforts to keep him from seeking presidency again

 

Erik Prince, Trump ally, pushes back against U.N. report accusing him of breaching arms embargo on Libya

 

Across the U.S., signs of the risks posed to aging infrastructure by increasingly extreme weather

 

NASA shows first images from Perseverance rover on Mars

 

Why some people in Texas are getting sky-high energy bills

 

Private equity firms piling on debt to pay dividends

Boeing calls for global grounding of 777s with a particular Pratt & Whitney engine

 

Demand is high for blue-light ‘computer glasses,' but scientists say they don’t do much

 

A third of coronavirus survivors have long-haul symptoms, even after mild cases, researchers say

Diplomacy revs up for U.S. return to Iran nuclear deal

The Biden administration on Thursday took a major step toward restoring the Iran nuclear deal the Trump administration abandoned, offering to join European countries in what would be the first substantial diplomacy with Tehran in more than four years, reports The New York Times.

In a series of moves intended to make good on one of President Biden’s most significant campaign promises, the administration also backed away from a Trump administration effort to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran that had divided Washington from its European allies, the Times says.

 

The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, Texas, called the Biden administration’s actions “concessions in an apparent attempt to re-enter the flawed Iran deal.”

State Department officials told reporters, “These are not concessions to Iran; these are concessions to common sense.”

 

Biden is to speak on Friday to leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies and later in the day to address the annual Munich Security Conference. At both, Biden is expected to discuss his commitment to multilateral diplomacy and his desire to undo damage Trump’s positions may have caused over the past four years, says The Associated Press.

The Trump administration withdrew from the deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions in 2018 and imposed heavy sanctions on Tehran that "left the country’s economy in shambles,” according to The Washington Post. In response, Iran began enriching uranium at higher levels than allowed in the deal, putting it closer to developing a nuclear weapon.

 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the administration believes simply restoring the old deal is insufficient. Other goals include extending and deepening the agreement in an effort to rein in Iran’s growing missile ability and its continued support of terrorist groups and the Syrian government, issues Iran has said aren't on the table.