Biden policy update

He cancelled the Muslim ban. How is that not good

1. Rejoined the World Health Organization and announced Dr. Anthony Fauci would serve as the head of the US delegation
   
2. Ended the previous administration’s travel restrictions on several Muslim majority countries
   
3. Swore in nearly 1,000 new administration appointees via Zoom
   
4. Cancelled permits for the Keystone XL oil pipeline
   
5. Created a new presidential appointee role, the COVID-19 Response Coordinator to assist with national vaccine distribution efforts
   
6. Launched the “100 Days Mask Challenge,” including an executive order mandating mask wearing on federal grounds and encouraging Americans to wear masks for 100 days
   
7. Extended the nationwide eviction and foreclosure moratorium until at least the end of March
   
8. Strengthened the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program via executive order
   
9. Avril Haines confirmed as the first woman to lead USIC as the new director of national intelligence
   
10. Rescinded the 1776 Commission, created under the Trump administration to help reshape how public schools teach the history of slavery
    
11. Rejoined the Paris Climate Accord via executive order
    
12. Reversed components of immigration enforcement expansion under previous administration via executive order
    
13. Paused student loans payments and the accruing of interest on all federal student loans until at least the end of September
    
14. Ordered a regulatory review at the Office of Management and Budget to undo the previous administration’s regulatory approval process
    
15. Halted the construction of new border security installations along the US-Mexico border
    
16. Announced new executive orders for school and business reopening plans
    
17. Ordered the inclusion of non-US citizens in the Census
    
18. Implemented new ethics pledges for executive branch employees
    
19. Signed executive order preventing workplace discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation
    
20. Extended work authorizations and deportation deferrals for select immigrants until at least June 2022
    
21. Attended the Virtual Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service alongside the first lady, vice president and second gentleman
    
22. Held the first White House press briefing led by Press Secretary Jen Psaki
    
23. Announced new executive orders to expand Covid-19 testing
    
24. Renovated the Oval Office, replacing interior decorations and adding a bust of Latino civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, as well as a portrait of Benjamin Franklin
    
25. Implemented White House Covid-19 precautions including mask wearing, frequent testing and new social distancing measures.
    
26. Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg began nomination hearings with the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee
    
27. Delivered additional calls for national unity with speeches by president and vice president at inauguration night concert
    
28. Created plans to host congressional leaders this week from both parties at the White House
    
29. Scheduled themed days for the next week to focus on specific policy priorities, including “economic relief,” “Buy America,” “Equity,” “Climate,” “Health Care,” “Immigration” and “Restoring America’s Place in the World.”
    
30. Prepared plans to overturn key Trump administration abortion policy restricting funding for overseas abortion providers
    
31. Redesigned the White House website to be more inclusive, with language translations and additional accessibility options
    
32. Ended the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols Policy, otherwise known as the Remain in Mexico policy
    
33. Sent a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress to further undo the previous administration’s legacy
    
34. Placed a moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
    
35. Added gender-neutral pronoun options to the online White House contact form
    
36. Fired Trump-appointed labor board general Peter Robb
    
37. Established interagency group on societal impact of carbon pollution
    
38. Asked Environmental Protection Agency to immediately reconsider methane regulations
    
39. Announced intention to revoke transgender military ban
    
40. Designated Domestic Policy Council Susan Rice to spearhead “robust, interagency” effort towards “rooting out systemic racism” in federal agencies.
    
41. Proposed new Covid-19 national strategy
    
42. Encouraged Congress to grant special waiver for Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd J. Austin III
    
43. Named acting Cabinet members until nominees slate can ben confirmed
    
44. Withdrew previous administration’s order limiting diversity trainings
    
45. Ordered federal agencies to develop plans to address “barriers to equal opportunity” in the next 200 days
    
46. Suspended all gas development projects at national wildlife monuments
    
47. Restructured immigration arrest priorities for ICE
    
48. Re-examine federal funding to ensure equitable distribution in communities of color and low income areas.
    
49. Directed agencies to “consider revising vehicle fuel economic and emissions standards”
    
50. Froze all last-minute regulatory actions taken by the previous administration
    

Coronavirus Pandemic

A series of measures will be enacted to tackle the pandemic which has claimed more than 400,000 lives in the US. There will be a mandate to wear masks and practice social distancing on all federal government property - a noticeable change from Trump’s more relaxed approach.

Biden also plans to create the position of COVID-19 Response Coordinator, who will report directly to the President and to launch a '100 Days Masking Challenge' asking Americans to mask up for 100 days and leading by example in the federal government.

Biden will also ensure that the US rejoins the World Health Organisation, and will be sending Dr. Anthony Fauci as the head of delegation to its executive board meeting - a move that will halt the process begun by the Trump administration to withdraw from the WHO.

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Racial equality

Biden is set to launch a whole-government initiative to advance racial equity.

The initiative is set to include 'Identifying Methods to Assess Equity' and 'Allocating Federal Resources to Advance Fairness and Opportunity'. The move towards this form of better racial equality was central to Biden's first Racial Equality Address - initially announced on January 21 and took place after Senators were sworn in for Trump's impeachment.

In a White House memorandum issued on Tuesday January 26, titled 'Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States', the new administration discussed the numerous failings of the previous government in stamping out this issue.

Alongside the statement, the new US president made a public pledge to crack down on xenophobia against Asian-Americans in the wake of an increase in violence and harassment during the pandemic, which some argue has been fuelled by Donald Trump’s frequent references to the 'China virus'.

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The memorandum reads, in part,: 'The Federal Government must recognise that it has played a role in furthering these xenophobic sentiments through the actions of political leaders, including references to the COVID-19 pandemic by the geographic location of its origin.'

The newly sworn in President echoed this sentiment throughout his accompanying speech and described the discrimination as 'un-American'.

The new order also calls for 'cultural competency' and sensitivity toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as part of its Covid response efforts. The memorandum also urges the US Department of Justice to partner with those communities to prevent hate crimes and harassment against them.

Immigration

Biden has also begun to put into motion the reversal of the unconstitutional Muslim ban and a Trump’s order that empowered harsh and extreme immigration enforcement - including the infamous building of the Mexico-US border.

Alongside this he has ordered that all appointees in the executive branch sign an ethics pledge, to avoid any further instances of internal corruption. Yes, it would see that this is a direct dig at the Trump tax returns fiasco.

Environment and Climate Change

Biden has signed an executive order beginning the process of rejoining the 2015 Paris climate agreement, from which Mr Trump formally withdrew the US from last year.

Additionally, Biden has revoked the Presidential permit granted to the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, which environmentalists and Native American groups have fought for more than a decade.

LGBTQ+ Rights

Biden has repealed a divisive law, passed under the Trump administration, which brings an end to Trump's ban on transgender Americans joining the military. The ban was announced by the former president during his first year in office.

In a statement released by the The White House on January 20 titled 'Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation', the explanation of the repeal reads:

Transgender service members will no longer be subject to the possibility of discharge or separation on the basis of gender identity, President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America's strength is found in its diversity.

The new US president then took to his official Twitter page to confirm that he had overturned the legislation, four years after Trump issued the ban and announced the news on Twitter.

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This decision will signal change for the LGBTQ+ community which has been at the centre of some of Trump's most stringent policies.

The news comes days after Biden said he would nominate Pennsylvania’s top health official, Rachel Levine, to be his assistant secretary of health - a move that would make Levine the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the US Senate.

'Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,' Biden said in a statement about the doctor's nomination.

--> @Intelligence_06

He cancelled the Muslim ban. How is that not good

It wasn’t a Muslim Ban lol

It’s a temporary ban, not on everyone, but on many. . . . We're not insulting. This is about security. It's not about religion. This is about security. We can't allow people to come into this country that have horrible thoughts in their mind.

A government watchdog study from a generally staid audit agency amounts to a wide-reaching condemnation of President Donald Trump’s botched response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The 346-page Government Accountability Office document, much longer than most, outlines broad Trump administration failures so alarming that the normally circumspect auditors pronounced themselves “deeply troubled.” That constitutes an anguished cry from an office that prides itself on just-the-facts, albeit dull, reports.

Almost 90 percent — 27 of 31 — of the GAO’s recommendations from June, September and November “remained unimplemented” as of Jan. 15, less than a week before Trump left office. The document was released last week.

“GAO remains deeply troubled that agencies have not acted on recommendations to more fully address critical gaps in the medical supply chain,” it said.

The medical supply chain covers a large range of actions and materials related to the pandemic, including coronavirus testing, vaccines, therapeutics and personal protective equipment. Even dollars have supply chain issues.

The report focused largely on the Department of Health and Human Services, which leads the government’s response. But the GAO’s comprehensive review included covid program integrity issues involving overpayments worth $1.1 billion in the Labor Department’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and 3,000 Small Business Administration loans to potentially ineligible companies.

The supply chain of money also has knots. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act provided $300 million to the Commerce Department in March for assistance to the fishery industry, which has taken a financial hit because the pandemic closed restaurants. As of Dec. 4, only $53.9 million — about 18 percent — had been disbursed, which is “inconsistent with Office of Management and Budget guidance on the importance of agencies distributing CARES Act funds in an expedient manner,” according to the GAO.

After the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed success in promoting rapid development of coronavirus vaccines — the one bright spot in its covid response — it failed to fully follow the GAO’s implementation recommendations. Now we suffer a rocky inoculation rollout, with jammed websites, clogged phone lines and canceled appointments.

“In September 2020, GAO stressed the importance of having a plan that focused on coordination and communication and recommended that HHS, with the support of the Defense Department, establish a time frame for documenting and sharing a national plan for distributing and administering COVID-19 vaccine, and among other things, outline an approach for how efforts would be coordinated across federal agencies and nonfederal entities,” the GAO said. “To date, this recommendation has not been fully implemented. GAO reiterates the importance of doing so.”

Trump’s HHS did not agree or disagree with the GAO’s recommendation.

The report details a bungled Trump administration response to a virus that has killed over 455,000 Americans, far more than in any other nation. Former HHS Secretary Alex Azar and a spokesperson for Trump did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did current HHS officials.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) did. He chairs the government operations subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee, which was one of the congressional panels that received the GAO report. “This independent report is a stunning indictment of the Trump administration’s total failure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic,” Connolly said. “Their inaction resulted in lives lost.”

When asked about the GAO report, the White House pointed to the national covid-19 strategy that President Biden released on his second day in office. Among other things, it outlines plans for national testing, supply chain strengthening and vaccine distribution and inoculation.

Regarding troubles with the government’s response to covid under Trump, the GAO said:

• HHS “has not issued a comprehensive and publicly available national testing strategy.”
  
• HHS has not developed a supply chain strategy with states and the private sector for providing supplies during a pandemic.
  
• The federal government cannot “systematically define and ensure the collection of standardized data across the relevant federal agencies . . . to help respond to COVID-19, communicate the status of the pandemic with citizens, or prepare for future pandemics. As a result, COVID-19 information that is collected and reported by states and other entities to the federal government is often incomplete and inconsistent.”
  

HHS did agree to take steps toward a national coronavirus testing strategy, the GAO reported, but department officials “expressed concern that producing such a strategy . . . could be overly burdensome” on federal, state and local officials “and that a plan would be outdated by the time it was finalized.” The GAO rejected those excuses.

The GAO’s conclusions are not faultfinding after the fact. In February 2020, before things got bad, “we emphasized the need for federal agencies to coordinate, establish, and define roles and responsibilities among those responding to the crisis, and provide clear, consistent communication,” the report said.

The bottom line of the report is that “urgent action is needed and required” to fight covid-19, A. Nicole Clowers, the GAO’s managing director for health care, said by phone. “We’ve been examining these issues for almost nine months now, and we’ve seen the lack of progress that’s been made.”

She acknowledged the report contains “strong language for GAO,” adding: “We’re trying to spur that action that we believe is needed.”

That’s up to Biden, whose serious approach to covid-19 is a sharp contrast to Trump’s.

“The Biden administration is now forced to simultaneously clean up Trump’s mess it inherited,” Connolly said, “while also responding to the greatest public health pandemic in a hundred years.”

--> @oromagi

Saying and doing something are two different things. He wanted a Muslim ban, but he can’t do it because it’s unconstitutional.

A long list, but only 3 policies explained and of those three, worthless to me as far as putting food on the table based on my limited ability to interpret your explanations.

So we agree that anybody who might call Trump's executive order a Muslim Ban would do so because the guy in your profile pic wanted it to be called that, wanted his ban to be thought of as a Muslim Ban,  and would have made an all Muslim Ban if the US Constitution did not protect our religious liberty from the likes of Trump.  Why are you lol'ing Intel for calling it  by the very name the people who promoted that ban wanted it to called?

I see, then consider yourself fortunate. Trump's America left many starving and struggling, especially if they reside(d) in ghettos.

Muslim Ban?, I got my own problems to deal with. there isn't a single Muslim on this planet that could give a shit about anybody's problems but their own Just like me.

Renovated the Oval Office, replacing interior decorations and adding a bust of Latino civil rights leader Cesar Chavez,