Order to end travel curbs on Muslims
WEDNESDAY: PROCESS STARTS TO REJOIN IRAN N-DEAL
Biden takes helm; not of power, but possibilities WASHINGTON, Jan 20, (AP): Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, declaring that “democracy has prevailed” as he took the helm of a deeply divided nation and inherited a confluence of crises arguably greater than any faced by his predecessors.
Biden’s inauguration came at a time of national tumult and uncertainty, a ceremony of resilience as the hallowed American democratic rite unfurled at a U.S. Capitol battered by an insurrectionist siege just two weeks ago. The chilly Washington morning was dotted with snow flurries, but the sun emerged just before Biden took the oath of office, the quadrennial ceremony persevering even though it was encircled by security forces evocative of a war zone and devoid of crowds because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The will of the people has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded. We’ve learned again that democracy is precious and democracy is fragile. At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed,” Biden said. “This is America’s day. This is democracy’s day. A day in history and hope, of renewal and resolve.”
And then he pivoted to challenges ahead, acknowledging the surging virus that has claimed more than 400,000 lives in the United States. Biden looked out over a capital city dotted with empty storefronts that attest to the pandemic’s deep economic toll and where summer protests laid bare the nation’s renewed reckoning on racial injustice.
“We have much to do in this winter of peril, and significant possibilities: much to repair, much to restore, much to heal, much to build and much to gain,” Biden said. “Few people in our nation’s history have more challenged, or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we’re in now.”
His predecessor’s absence underscored the healing that is needed.
Flouting tradition, Donald Trump departed Washington on Wednesday morning ahead of the inauguration rather than accompany his successor to the Capitol. Though three other former presidents – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – gathered to watch the ceremonial transfer of power, Trump, awaiting his second impeachment trial, instead flew to Florida after stoking grievance among his supporters with the lie that Biden’s win was illegitimate.
Joe Biden has given himself an imposing to-do list for his earliest days as president and many promises to keep over the longer haul.
Overshadowing everything at the very start is Biden’s effort to win congressional approval of a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the coronavirus and the economic misery it has caused.
But climate change, immigration, health care and more will be competing for attention - and dollars. Altogether Biden has laid out an ambitious if not always detailed set of plans and promises across the range of public policy.
Drawn from a review of his campaign statements and a recent memo from Ron Klain, who’ll be his chief of staff, here’s a sampling of measures to expect right away, around the corner and beyond:
Wednesday, after the inauguration, mostly by executive action:
■ Declaration that the US is rejoining Paris climate accord.
■ Declaration that the US is rejoining World Health Organization.
■ Ethical standards for his administration and an order prohibiting interference in the operations of the Justice Department from other parts of government.
■ Start of a process to restore 100 public health and environmental rules that the Obama administration created and President Donald Trump eliminated or weakened.
■ Start of a process to rejoin the deal restraining Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
■ Executive action to end travel restrictions on people from a variety of Muslim-majority countries.
■ Executive action to protect from deportation people who came to the country illegally as children.
■ Executive action to make masks mandatory on federal property and when travelling out of state. Others will be asked to wear masks for 100 days.
■ Steps to extend pandemic-era restrictions on evictions and foreclosures.
■ Legislation to go to Congress proposing to repeal liability protections for gun manufacturers and tightening some other aspects of gun control.
■ Immigration legislation to go to Congress as part of an effort to offer a path to citizenship for 11 million people in the US illegally and to codify protections for people who came illegally as children.
■ Education Department to be asked to extend the existing pause on student loan payments and interest for millions with student debt.
Thursday
■ Executive action laying out new steps to expand virus testing, protect workers and set new public health standards.
Friday
■ Directive to agencies to take unspecified immediate action to deliver economic relief from the pandemic.
By Feb 1
■ Executive actions to strengthen “buy American” provisions.
■ Executive actions to address climate change.
■ First steps to expand access to health care, for lowincome women, women of color and other segments of the population.
■ First steps to reunite families still separated at the Mexican border.
Beyond (some may be tried sooner)
■ Ensure 100 million vaccines have been given before the end of his first 100 days.
■ Ensure 100 federally supported vaccination centers are up and running in his first month.
■ Expand use of the Defense Production Act to direct the manufacture of critical pandemic supplies.
■ Win passage of a $2 trillion climate package to get the US to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
■ Seek passage of a “Medicare-like public option” to compete alongside private insurance markets for working-age Americans; increase existing premium subsidies.
■ Eliminate certain corporate tax cuts where possible, by executive action, while doubling the levies US firms pay on foreign profits.
■ Make a plan within 100 days to end homelessness.
■ Expand legal immigration slots.
■ Freeze deportations for 100 days, then restore the Obama-era principle of deporting foreigners who are seen as posing a national security threat or who have committed crimes in addition to the crime of illegal entry, thereby pulling back the broad deportation policy of the Trump years.
■ Halt financing of further construction of the wall along the Mexican border.
■ Within 100 days, establish a police oversight commission to combat institutional racism by then.
■ Reinstate federal guidance, issued by Obama and revoked by Trump, to protect transgender students’ access to sports, bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity.
■ Ensure taxes are not raised on anyone making under $400,000.
WASHINGTON, Jan 20, (AP): Hours from inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden paused on what might have been his triumphal entrance to Washington Tuesday evening to mark instead the national tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic with a moment of collective grief for Americans lost.
His arrival coincided with the awful news that the US death toll had surpassed 400,000 in the worst public health crisis in more than a century — a crisis Biden will now be charged with controlling.
“To heal we must remember,” the incoming president told the nation at a sunset ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial. Four hundred lights representing the pandemic’s victims were illuminated behind him around the monument’s Reflecting Pool.
“Between sundown and dusk, let us shine the lights into the darkness ... and remember all who we lost,” Biden said.
The sober moment on the eve of Biden’s inauguration — typically a celebratory time in Washington when the nation marks the democratic tradition of a peaceful transfer of power — was a measure of the enormity of loss for the nation.
During his brief remarks, Biden faced the larger-than life statue of Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War president who served as more than 600,000 Americans died. As he turned to walk away at the conclusion of the vigil, he faced the black granite wall listing the 58,000-plus Americans who perished in Vietnam.
Biden was joined by Vice Presidentelect Kamala Harris, who spoke of the collective anguish of the nation, a not-so-subtle admonishment of outgoing President Donald Trump, who has spoken sparingly about the pandemic in recent months.
“For many months we have grieved by ourselves,” said Harris, who will make history as the first woman to serve as vice president when she’s sworn in. “Tonight, we grieve and begin healing together.”
Beyond the pandemic, Biden faces no shortage of problems when he takes the reins at the White House. The nation is also on its economic heels because of soaring unemployment, there is deep political division and immediate concern about more violence following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Biden, an avid fan of Amtrak who took the train thousands of times between his home in Delaware and Washington during his decades in the Senate, had planned to take a train into Washington ahead of Wednesday’s Inauguration Day but scratched that plan in the aftermath of the Capitol riot.
He instead flew into Joint Base Andrews just outside the capital and then motorcaded into fortress D.C. — a city that’s been flooded by some 25,000 National Guard troops guarding a Capitol, White House and National Mall that are wrapped in a maze of barricades and tall fencing.
“These are dark times,” Biden told supporters in an emotional sendoff in Delaware. “But there’s always light.”
Biden, who ran for the presidency as a cool head who could get things done, plans to issue a series of executive orders on Day One — including reversing Trump’s effort to leave the Paris climate accord, canceling Trump’s travel ban on visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries, and extending pandemic-era limits on evictions and student loan payments.
Farewell
Trump won’t be on hand as Biden is sworn in, the first outgoing president to entirely skip inaugural festivities since Andrew Johnson more than a century and a half ago.
The White House released a farewell video from Trump just as Biden landed at Joint Base Andrews. Trump, who has repeatedly and falsely claimed widespread fraud led to his election loss, extended “best wishes” to the incoming administration in his nearly 20-minute address but did not utter Biden’s name.
Trump also spent some of his last time in the White House huddled with advisers weighing final-hour pardons and grants of clemency. He planned to depart from Washington Wednesday morning in a grand airbase ceremony that he helped plan himself.
Biden at his Delaware farewell, held at the National Guard/Reserve Center named after his late son Beau Biden, paid tribute to his home state. After his remarks, he stopped and chatted with friends and well-wishers in the crowd, much as he had at Iowa rope lines at the start of his long campaign journey.
“I’ll always be a proud son of the state of Delaware,” said Biden, who struggled to hold back tears as he delivered brief remarks.
Inaugural organizers this week finished installing some 200,000 U.S., state and territorial flags on the National Mall, a display representing the American people who couldn’t come to the inauguration, which is tightly limited under security and Covid restrictions.
The display was also a reminder of all the president-elect faces as he looks to steer the nation through the pandemic with infections and deaths soaring.
Out of the starting gate, Biden and his team are intent on moving quickly to speed distribution of vaccinations to anxious Americans and pass his $1.9 trillion virus relief package, which includes quick payments to many people and an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Biden also plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on the first day of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the US without legal status. That would be a major reversal from the Trump administration’s tight immigration policies.
Some leading Republican have already balked at Biden’s immigration plan. “There are many issues I think we can work cooperatively with President-elect Biden, but a blanket amnesty for people who are here unlawfully isn’t going to be one of them,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, RFla., who is often a central player in Senate immigration battles.
Many of Biden’s legislative ambitions could be tempered by the hard numbers he faces on Capitol Hill, where Democrats hold narrow majorities in both the Senate and House. His hopes to press forward with an avalanche of legislation in his first 100 days could also be slowed by an impeachment trial of Trump.