Celebrating Biden — -already a calmer, more Just nation after only a week
(picture from the first article linked below)
The experts tell us that every change, even change for the good, is stressful. Certainly, that has been the truth about any stress I have had for the last week. Because certainly, the last week has been absolute heaven in comparison to the last four years. If I am honest, I have to admit that I have a case of combat fatigue. For four years and slightly more, I have been experiencing horror after horror. Every day, there was something nasty and unpleasant coming out of the mouth of the one in the White House. Someone or something was always under attack. I went from trying to get over one case of horror, to being shocked by yet another all in the course of one day…sometimes just a matter of hours or minutes. That has to take a toll on a person.
Don’t get me wrong. The last week, or slightly more, have been heavenly in a lot of ways. Of course, part of the pleasure has been that trump was denied one of his most disruptive platforms when Twitter cut him off finally. Say what you will about “censorship” but most of us will admit that being deprived of the rants of a man who spreads lies in order to whip up an insurrection as trump did on Jan 6th is no great loss to any of us.
But it is more than that. Biden has already done a lot of good, and I am going to remind us a bit of what he has accomplished through Executive Orders. Yes, I would like some of these things to be immediately made into law so they would be more difficult to overturn in the future, but I will settle for Executive Orders in the meantime since they are ALL a move in the right direction for We the People.
Here are some of those:
1. Jeffrey Dients appointed the official Covid-19 response person with the expectation that he will aggressively work to get vaccines to all who want them and turn this disaster of a pandemic around.
2. a directive to continue social distancing and wearing of masks for at least 100 days
3. re-inforced DACA, thereby giving assurance at least in the short term for those children brought into the country young and educated in this nation. This saves them from deportation and also saves our investment in their futures.
4. stopping the effort to remove non-citizens from the census. That was just a change for sake of change and would have penalized states with larger immigrant populations.
5. Stopped the unnecessary, ineffective grab of land for a border wall that was, as far as I could tell, an ego issue for trump with much less support, except with his most ardent supporters, than he tried to tell us. (yes, that means the border wall is no longer a focal point for Presidential-Congressional fighting)
6. ended the Muslim ban, instead directing the State Department to reopen visa processing, and create a way of verifying who everybody entering the nation is for security purposes.
7. Returning to the Paris Accord. Once again, we will be in the group working to overcome the pollution caused by Climate Change that is creating havoc on the entire world.
8. Stopping the must despised XL pipeline that was funneling Oil from Canada to the Gulf to be shipped who knows where…while decimating Native American land.
9. End the efforts of trump's 1776 commission that ended up being a literal “whitewashing” of the nation’s stance.
10. Susan Rice, appointed as Head of the Public Policy Council and instructs all departments to review their policies around hiring, making sure they do it in a racially appropriate manner and do not discriminate against any particular demographic.
11. Equality in hiring and public treatment for the LGBTQ population extended by an Executive Order declaring that Title VII of the 1964 Equality Bill extends to us as well, which sharply reverses trump’s policy. (hurrah!!!!!)
12. On the economy, he has moved to stop evictions, forgive up to 50,000 dollars in student debt…in some cases saving the former student from poverty.
13. Opened up a process of ethics to try and rebuilt the Citizens’ lost faith in government.
14. he is being much more aggressive with Covid-19, aiming at 100 million vaccine shots given in the first 100 days.
15. continuing on the Covid-19 them, he has started the process of getting families struggling to get food money to help that and to ensure safety in the workplace. Also, he is moving to raise the minimum wage at least for Federal employees to 15.00 per hour. Hopefully, that will put some pressure on private industry to pay their employees a living wage. If we think inflation might result, then the answer, as I see it, would be to limit the amount of profit the business is entitled to. After all, the employees are what allow them to make the product to sell in the first place. (obviously, that “solution” is my personal opinion)
16. Directed the Treasury to find ways to send stimulus money to the millions that have not yet received them. I admit on this one, I had assumed that everybody had already gotten the 1200 payment, and likely the 600 dollar payment by not. Glad he is doing something for those left out.
17. Now this might be seen as part of 11 above, but to be clear, he issued an Executive Order to the Pentagon reversing trump’s equality denying Executive Order jettisoning all transgendered persons from the military. They are allowed to serve again.
Much of the above is economic, but what isn’t, is a return to Obama’s level, making it even a bit further in some cases, of equality for ALL, defined to include our LGBTQ citizens as well as every racial and ethnic group with this melting pot of a nation. I see it as a return to the ideals for which we claim to stand.
As you see there is much to be happy about. There are many things left uncertain. For example, he has instructed efforts to actually write the equality he is ordered by Executive action into law with both the LGBTQ and the DACA population. Congress needs to move on to those two issues. Many of the DACA youth need their path to citizenship spelled out, and indeed for some, it is long overdue. The same with LGBTQ equality. But at least Biden has made a move in the right direction.
Not listed is another stimulus bill that Biden is pushing. This one would grant 1400.00 to bring the total of the “second” stimulus to 2000 as trump suggested he wanted, as part, in my opinion, of his effort to hang on to power. This may end up getting cut because of Republican objection, but it is in the process of being examined.
Thanks, Biden, for what you have done, and what you might just achieve for us in the future. Keep on fighting for the American People instead of the corporations and billionaires and I know I will be thrilled. I hope and pray that you are successful.
And yes, I support your fight against the White Nationalist and others that want to make this country something other than equal under the law for all. No one group deserves special privileges denied the rest of us. To say that another way, we the often disenfranchised want to be at the table also, and it is past time that we get that place.
