Infrastructure Week has arrived!
And that’s not even an April Fool.
But first, allow me some Easter nostalgia.
Earlier this week, CorinaR posted a diary about cascarones. That brought back so many memories, I had to share them here. I grew up in Colton CA “Wyatt Earp retired here”, which is a primarily LatinX community with lots of special traditions. Mexican Independence Day is a big celebration day in this town. There’s a parade and carnival. But Easter traditions were the hit of the year. Big families get together to eat fried chicken and potato salad and do the egg hunt thing. But it was “egg hunt” on steroids. It was outdoors for good reason. First the little kids hunt for candy and boiled eggs and we made sure everybody got plenty. Then it was the older kids’ turn. They would search for the hidden cascarones. These are empty eggshells, decorated and filled with confetti. When you find one, you smash it on someone’s head, resulting in a cascade of confetti and pandemonium. By the end of the day, everyone is wearing a shawl of confetti. Finally it was the adults’ turn. There were cans of beer and soda hidden in the garden to be found by the adults. Why should the little kids get all the fun?
On to the good news and there is a lot of it.
“This is the moment America won the future” — Joe Biden
I mostly wanted to use this graphic. As some other gnushounds have started to do, I’ve described the image for vision impaired readers.
The American Jobs Plan
Biden Details $2 Trillion Plan to Rebuild Infrastructure and Reshape the Economy NYTimes 3/31/21 Jim Tankersley
“The largest investment in jobs since WWII.” On Wednesday, Joe outlined what he calls The American Jobs Plan.
The proposal is the first half of what will be a two-step release of the president’s ambitious agenda to overhaul the economy and remake American capitalism, which could carry a total cost of as much as $4 trillion over the course of a decade. Mr. Biden’s administration has named it the “American Jobs Plan,” echoing the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that Mr. Biden signed into law this month, the “American Rescue Plan.”Administration officials said the tax increases in the plan — including an increase in the corporate tax rate and a variety of measures to tax multinationals on money they earn and book overseas — would take 15 years to fully offset the cost of the spending programs. ...
The spending in the plan covers a wide range of physical infrastructure projects, including transportation, broadband, the electric grid and housing; efforts to jump-start advanced manufacturing; and other industries officials see as key to the United States’ growing economic competition with China. It also includes money to train millions of workers, as well as money for initiatives to support labor unions and providers of in-home care for older and disabled Americans, while also increasing the pay of the workers who provide that care.
Joe Biden isn’t fooling around. This is just the first half of his plan. The second part will be called The American Families Plan and I can’t wait to see what’s in THAT.
Your moment of schadenfreude — the former guy says Biden is cruel and heartless to tax the wealthy for American jobs.
The jobs outlook is promising
Rebounding confidence suggests big March jobs number Axios 3/31/21 Dion Raboiun
Confidence is returning to U.S. consumers as the government ramps up big spending programs that are putting money directly in Americans' bank accounts and COVID-19 vaccinations increase.
Why it matters: The return of confidence itself is reassuring, but more economists also are expecting that a major increase in hiring this month is behind the improvement.
If you haven’t gotten your vaccination yet, it’s coming soon
States race to make all adults eligible for vaccines NY Times 3/31/21 Apoorva Mandavilli
The pace of vaccinations has been picking up across the country as more states changed their eligibility timelines. As of Tuesday, an average of 2.7 million shots a day are being administered across the country, about 10 percent more than the average a week earlier, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New Mexico and South Dakota have been leading the country in getting shots in arms. About 47 percent of New Mexico’s total population have received at least one vaccine dose, the highest rate in the country, according to a Times analysis of C.D.C. data. South Dakota ranks third with 34 percent.
In all, 43 states have now sped up their vaccination efforts at a time when health officials are warning of a possible fourth surge of coronavirus cases.
Pfizer Reports Vaccine 100% Effective For 12- To 15-Year-Olds Crooks and Liars 3/31/21 Susie Madrak
Pfizer says its Covid-19 vaccine is safe and 100 percent effective in preventing the illness in teenagers ages 12 to 15.
"This is exactly the news that we hoped to hear," said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Creech was not involved in the Pfizer research.
It’s not just us. Biden’s awesomeness is contagious.
Joe Biden is giving left parties the world over a masterclass in how to use power The Guardian 3/26/21, Jonathan Freedland
Joe Biden campaigned as a moderate. The Right tried to paint him as a radical socialist, but it didn’t stick because everybody knows Joe. He has been around 50 years.
Two-thirds into its first 100 days, and the Biden presidency has easily secured the right to be described as radical. Usually sober observers of the White House are going further: just two months after Biden took the oath, they are branding him a transformational president. The comparisons to Franklin D Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson have already begun. And Biden is encouraging them. Earlier this month, he sat for two hours with a group of presidential historians, pressing them hard on how FDR and LBJ had moved swiftly to make changes so profound and systemic they endure to this day. At the Thursday press conference, Biden made explicit the scale of his ambition. “I want to change the paradigm,” he said, three times.
This is the first lesson that Biden is teaching would-be reformers. If you want to be radical in office, first reassure in opposition. If your goal is to win power, then in societies where people tend to be small-c conservative, your initial task is to persuade them that they have nothing to fear from you – that your concerns are their concerns.
And that’s the second key lesson from Biden, one as old as politics. The true radical is not the fiery deliverer of revolutionary speeches or writer of maximalist manifestos. The true radical is the one who wins power and uses it for good. Biden has achieved more in two months than those who like to trumpet their radicalism manage in a lifetime. And he’s done it because he understands something that eludes so many. He understands that the greatest hope is power.
I lived in Boston in 1992 when Bill Clinton was first elected. On the same ballot was the Mayor of Boston. Now, Boston had had only mayors of Irish descent since forever. But this year, they elected Thomas Menino, of Italian descent. This was a BFD. To change the whole country from Republican to Democrat took 4 months. To change Boston from Irish to Italian took 6 months. Then Mayor Menino stuck around as mayor for the next 20 years so I guess it all worked out. But what happened this month was an even greater BFD. Boston now has a female mayor and she is a woman of color.
'199 years is long enough': Kim Janey becomes Boston's first Black and first female mayor The Guardian 3/27/21 Sarah Betancourt
The outgoing mayor, Martin Walsh, just left to become Joe Biden’s labor secretary. As council president, Janey was next in line, with the title of acting mayor bestowed by the city’s charter.
The ascension is a far cry from when she was an 11-year-old being bussed from the predominantly Black neighborhood of Roxbury to a middle school in much whiter, grittier neighborhood of Charlestown in 1976, watching angry white faces protesting the effects of a court-mandated effort intending to desegregate the school district.
She will have to run a race to remove the word “acting” from her title, but I think Boston is in great hands.
Good news in prison reform
We have more people imprisoned than any other country in the world.
The Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles is one of the largest in the world. It was built in 1963 and is also one of the oldest county jails in California.
It is going to be torn down.
LAist 3/31/21 Robert Garrova
It will take 18-24 months and a large investment in expanded community mental health and substance use services before L.A. County will be able to close its aging Men’s Central Jail (MCJ), according to a report issued today.
The best part is that they aren’t just going to rebuild a bigger newer jail. They’ve put together a proposal in partnership with community groups and service providers to redirect a percentage of the population to mental health treatment instead of incarceration. They’ve quoted a study that says that 61% of the population were candidates for mental health diversion instead of incarceration. That would amount to about 3,600 individuals who don’t need to stay in jail.
In the same vein of prison reform, California can no longer detain people because they can't pay bail The Guardian 3/26/21
California’s highest court has ruled that judges in the state will have to consider a suspect’s ability to pay when they set bail, a major decision that essentially requires that those who can’t afford bail be freed unless they are deemed too dangerous to be released awaiting trial.
“The common practice of conditioning freedom solely on whether an arrestee can afford bail is unconstitutional,” the justices said in a unanimous decision on Thursday.
About damn time.
The end of the cold war has finally arrived
The Bombs That Never Went Off The Atlantic 3/27/2021 David Frum
The fall of the Soviet Union left behind a grim legacy of nuclear danger. After 30 years, the last weapons-grade uranium has been eliminated. You were probably busy with other things in September 2020.
So you might have missed a news item from Kazakhstan: the elimination of the last weapons-grade uranium in that country. In a program jointly operated with the United States, Kazakh scientists ground 2.9 kilograms of highly enriched uranium into a fine powder. They then mixed that powder with enough low-enriched uranium powder to render the whole batch useless for bomb-making. And with that operation, Kazakhstan’s career as a nuclear state came to an end.
…
Kazakhstan marks the 30th anniversary of its independence in December. In ways few Americans fully understand—and despite the cruel slurs of the Borat movies—the Kazakh state has proved one of the most helpful friends the United States has ever had. The program that did so much to mitigate post-Soviet hazards has faded into history. The civilization-saving job is done. Remembrance and gratitude are due.
Yes, can Sasha Baron Cohen quit with the Kazakh hate now?
Good News Confetti
Delta CEO calls new Georgia voting restrictions "unacceptable" Axios, 3/31/21 Ivana Saric Woopsie — turns out being opposed to democracy is bad for business. Gotta backpedal that hearty approval of fascism real quick-like. Coca-Cola? Your move.
Update!
Doug Emhoff: 'charming' second gentleman embraces supporting role The Guardian 3/28/21 Lauren Gambino
Endangered condors return to northern California skies after nearly a century The Guardian 3/27/21 Sierra Cistone
The Yurok Tribe will create a captive breeding facility in Redwood national park for birds that could be released as early as this fall
Photos: Reconstruction of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral msn
New York legalizes recreational marijuana
Mercedes Schlapp Freaks Out After Being Called A 'Grifter' I’d never heard of Chris Hahn before, but he’s terrific. He’s on Fox a lot and he always leaves them in tatters. And he calls the former guy “the former guy”. On Fox.
@seditiontrack is my favorite Twitter follow. It’s perp-walks of insurrectionists and new ones fill my Twitter feed every day. Makes me so happy.
Here’s another good one:
I’ve stolen this set of links from Goodie. We have to keep the pressure up.
The only way they can win is by keeping people from voting. They are working like heck to make that happen and we need to do all we can to keep 2022 from being a year when they grab the Senate and House back from us.
How do we do that? Fight voter suppression!
What can you do?
- Contact your local representative NOW to encourage them to pass the For the People Act. This link makes it easy to do!
- The ACLU plays a key role in filing lawsuits that often stop voter suppression. Get involved with them at this link.
- The League of Women Voters work year-round to combat voter suppression through advocacy, grassroots organizing, legal action and public education. You can get involved with them at this link
- Volunteer with Black Votes Matter at this link. They have on the ground work in 10 states and people from other states can write postcards, phone bank, fundraise, and text.
- Spread The Vote works to get voters IDs before voting begins. You can volunteer with them at this link.
- Finally, when it comes time to pass HR1 (the new voting rights act) the Democrats will have to end the filibuster to do it. It will not pass without that. 10 Republicans will not vote for it. So, when the time comes, you will need to call, call, call and call your Senators to push them to do this. If you live in Arizona, Montana, or West Virginia, you may want to put in for some vacation time to really devote yourself to it. It will be the only option. Get ready!
HERE’S HOW TO CONTACT CONGRESS:
U.S. House of Representatives:* Telephone: 202-225-3121
* Website: http://www.house.gov/
U.S. Senate:* Telephone: 202-224-3121
* Website: http://www.senate.gov/
Find your member of Congress and contact him or her:
Contact your Representative
Contact your Senator
And as you can see, I’m an utter failure at this. Not one doggie vid or cat pic. You guys will have to take up the slack.
See you in May.