The Kids Are Alright
February 8, 2021
The Good News
- Pfizer expects to cut COVID-19 vaccine production time by close to 50% as production ramps up, efficiencies increase (USA Today)
- How Scientists Shot Down Cancer’s ‘Death Star’ (NYT, $). Another victory for the rebels.
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” — Nelson Mandela
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” — Frederick Douglass
Hopefully, Now The Kids Will Be Alright
(Bill Clark via Getty Images)
America spends less on child benefits than almost any other developed country. It also has one of the highest rates of child poverty. Accordingly, Democrats will introduce legislation Monday that would provide $3,000 per child to tens of millions of American families, as part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief package.
The 22-page bill is spearheaded by House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Richard Neal (D-Mass). The proposal calls for the IRS to provide over the course of the year $3,600 per child under age of 6, and $3,000 per child aged 6 to 17. The benefit size would decrease for Americans earning more than $75,000, and for couples earning more than $150,000, annually. $250 monthly payments would be sent to eligible families beginning in July, with eligibility based on families’ prior year income. Payments would be directly deposited in taxpayers’ bank accounts, and would not be deducted from any existing tax liability.
Neal’s proposal is estimated to cost at least $120 billion per year. But an analysis by Columbia University researchers found that it would slash the number of impoverished children by as much as 54%, the equivalent of 5 million children. More than a million Black children would be lifted out of poverty. The plan only creates the new benefit for one year, but Congressional Democrats and White House officials say they’ll push to make the policy permanent later this year.
There is bipartisan support for increased child benefits. Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced a proposal last week that would send even more in direct cash per child to American families. Romney’s plan would send payments to every American, regardless of income, through the Social Security Administration. Benefits going to affluent households would then be clawed back by the IRS at tax-filing time. But Romney’s plan includes the elimination of an existing federal welfare program and cuts to food stamp benefits, which Neal’s proposal does not.
A policy expert who helped craft Romney’s plan said that by tethering benefit payments to annual income, Democrats risk creating an administrative headache for both the IRS and taxpayers. Another expert concurred, noting that numerous countries with similar child benefit programs have “caused massive hardship (& political firestorm)” by creating surprise end-of-year bills for families who weren’t entitled to receive payments. She cited Australia, where about 350,000 families were overpaid benefits in 2015, and faced very aggressive debt-collection tactics. (WaPo, $)
A Cymbal Of The Ineffective Rollout Plan, Mexico’s Website Keeps Crashing
(Ricardo Castelan Cruz via Getty Images)
- Mexico has the third-highest number of Covid-19 deaths, and millions of people are desperate to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, the government registration website that launched last week crashes repeatedly. Users reported getting error messages for days. Even when the page loaded, other users reported more delays while a separate government agency checks official ID numbers, followed by a message of “No response.”
- Mexico was the first Latin American country to receive Covid-19 vaccines, and started vaccinating health workers on December 22. But the pace has slowed to just 4,365 doses a day, a rate that would take a decade to vaccinate all Mexicans. Health officials expect more doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 400,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine to start arriving later this month, but those quantities are insufficient to vaccinate the country’s 750,000 frontline healthcare workers.
- Complaints have been lodged that administrators and employees promoting government social programs are being vaccinated first. Questions have also been raised over vaccinating teachers in southern Campeche state — where infections are low — so classes can restart. “There’s no strategy,” said a healthcare analyst. “It’s been nothing but a series of random plans.” (Guardian)
Landmark ICC Ruling, But No Palestinian Leaders Could Attend. All Were Occupied.
- In a landmark ruling Friday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it has jurisdiction in the occupied Palestinian territories. The ruling paves the way for the ICC to investigate alleged war crimes committed in the 2014 Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the besieged Gaza Strip.
- The 50-day war devastated the coastal enclave and left a lopsided casualty count, with 2,251, mostly civilians, dead on the Palestinian side, and 74 dead on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers. Israel conducted over 6,000 air raids that also left 11,000 Palestinians wounded, 8,000 homes destroyed, and 73 medical facilities severely damaged.
- Several Palestinian rights groups welcomed Friday’s ruling and urged that immediate action be taken to “ensure justice and accountability for Palestinian victims.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the ICC ruling as “anti-Semitic” and a “perversion of justice,” and vowed to fight it. Israel is not a member of the court and has rejected its jurisdiction. (Al Jazeera)
Additional World News
- How will Ecuador’s elections affect the future of the Amazon? (Al Jazeera). When future generations hear “Amazon,” shipping boxes may be the only thing they imagine.
- Polls open in Ecuador’s tight presidential election (Al Jazeera)
- Haiti Braces for Unrest as a Defiant President Refuses to Step Down (NYT, $)
- Glacier Bursts in India, Leaving More Than 100 Missing in Floods (NYT, $)
- Myanmar’s military built a new capital as a haven for power. Other countries have tried that, too. (WaPo, $) The military coup playbook is well-defined.
- Myanmar coup: How citizens are protesting through art (BBC)
- Iran’s Supreme Leader: U.S. Must Lift Sanctions Before Any Return To Nuclear Deal (NPR)
- Iran calls for UN response over Israeli military action threat (Al Jazeera)
- Biden Moves To End Trump-Era Asylum Agreements With Central American Countries (NPR)
- Russia Expels Diplomats From 3 Countries, Saying They Attended Pro-Navalny Protests (NPR)
- Cuba opens up its economy to private businesses (BBC)
- From Ethiopia’s Tigray region to Yemen, the dilemma of declaring a famine (BBC)
- How archaic process of Queen’s consent is still used on modern laws (Guardian)
- UAE spies monitored Michelle Obama, Sheikha Moza emails (Al Jazeera)
Covid-19
- Global Initiative To Start Shipping Vaccines To Africa, Where Supplies Are Low (NPR)
- Argentina: human rights outrage at province’s ‘abusive’ quarantine (Guardian)
- How to heal the ‘mass trauma’ of Covid-19 (BBC)
- At Daily Pnut we love nature and being outdoors, especially when we can visit our nation’s beautiful national parks. There are a few brands we really feel aligned with and Parks Project is just one of them.
- Speaking of what we love! Don’t forget your significant other this Valentine’s Day. This V-Day, why not celebrate your love for the Earth? And one of the best ways to do that is with Park’s Project’s Tree Hugger collection.
- Look good and celebrate nature. In honor of Park Project’s newest collection, they’re working with The Nature Conservancy and their Plant a Billion Trees initiative to plant more than 6,000 trees in the Upper Great Lakes.
- Enter code “PNUT” at checkout for an exclusive 15% off! Don’t forget every purchase supports the parklands with over $1,200,000 given back to date.
On Setting Climate Policy, Auto Manufacturers Will Stop Backseat Driving
- More auto manufacturers are dropping their legal efforts to block California’s tough fuel economy standards in favor of shifting toward a clean-car future. In announcing the news last week, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, and others signaled the auto industry is ready to work with President Biden on his latest effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- The announcement had been anticipated following a 2020 commitment by five other companies — Ford, Honda, BMW, Volkswagen, and Volvo — to abide by California’s tough standards. Last week General Motors pledged to sell only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, putting the company in line with another recent California policy banning sales of internal-combustion vehicles by 2035.
- President Trump rolled back Obama-era auto pollution rules modeled after California’s, and even blocked the state’s authority to set such rules. But elections matter, and now President Biden is expected to use California as a model for swiftly reinstating national auto pollution rules. (NYT, $)
Taking ‘Em To The Bank
- The best way to stop people and organizations from doing bad things is to hit them where it hurts — in their pocketbooks. Lawsuits and legal threats from two obscure election technology companies have accomplished what years of advertising boycotts, public pressure campaigns, and liberal outrage could not — curb the flow of misinformation spewing from right-wing media.
- Smartmatic, a voting technology firm, was swept up in conspiracies, spread by Donald Trump and his allies at Fox News, that it had rigged votes and cost the former President the election. On Thursday, Smartmatic filed a multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire, and network anchors Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro. The nearly 300-page complaint alleges Smartmatic’s business was “decimated” by false accusations that it had helped steal the November 3 election.
- On Friday, Fox Business canceled its highest-rated show, “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” Two days earlier, the pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax cut off MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s mic after a rant about rigged voting machines. Another company that Trump accused of rigging votes, Dominion Voting Systems, filed defamation suits last month against two of Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, on similar grounds. (NYT, WaPo, $)
Additional USA News
- ‘An easy choice’: Inside Biden’s decision to go it alone with Democrats on coronavirus relief (WaPo, $)
- New Biden rules for ICE point to fewer arrests and deportations, and a more restrained agency (WaPo, $)
- Supreme Court Rules Against California Ban On In-Person Worship (NPR) & Supreme Court: Amy Coney Barrett’s surprisingly revealing first opinion (Vox)
- The Hopes That Rose and Fell With GameStop (NYT, $). What comes up must come down.
- The Economist Placing Value on Black Women’s Overlooked Work (NYT, $)
- Strong Trump Supporters Picked to Head Michigan Republican Party (NYT, $)
- Biden inherited a USPS crisis. Here’s how Democrats want to fix it. (WaPo, $). It’ll be tough, but Dems aren’t mailing it in.
- ‘The Pressure Is On’: Will Schumer Satisfy the Left? (NYT, $)
- Trump’s election fraud falsehoods have cost taxpayers $519 million — and counting (WaPo, $)
- Small pharmacies beat big chains at delivering vaccines. Don’t look so shocked. (WaPo, $)
- After Record 2020 Turnout, State Republicans Weigh Making It Harder To Vote (NPR). They’re not just going to rush into restricting voting rights; they have to weigh all the options.
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Signs Military ‘Stand Down’ Memo To Address Extremism (NPR)
- The crucial differences in Trump’s second impeachment trial (Guardian)
- Yellen: Too soon to say if new regulations needed to address recent volatility (Reuters)
- FAFSA: Black and Latino students are getting audited by the Education Department (WaPo, $)
Elon’s Final Frontier: Tunneling Through The Ocean
- Last month, tech CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he could solve Miami’s traffic and environmental impacts from cars by tunneling under the city. Writing that it would “be an example to the world,” Musk said he’d already spoken to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about the idea.
- On Friday, Musk told Miami’s mayor, Francis Suarez, that The Boring Company could dig a two-mile tunnel under the city for as little as $30 million— a fraction of the $1 billion price tag once quoted by local transit officials. Furthermore, Musk said the company could complete the job in six months, not the original four-year estimate. Suarez thought it was a great idea.
- The tweets back and forth caused local Miami newspaper New Times to ask the question: Does Musk know Miami is only six feet above sea level? The paper asked a University of Miami civil engineering professor for his opinion on Musk’s underground tunnel plan. The engineer said such a project was possible, although it could cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Building a tunnel under a city like Miami would involve waterproofing the structure during construction to ensure that construction equipment doesn’t get damaged and then maintaining a waterproof seal to avoid leaks while people drive through the tunnel.
- He also noted that because Miami is built on a foundation of porous limestone — essentially a sponge-like rock that makes it more susceptible to flooding — no houses have basements. The engineer said if Musk wanted to build a tunnel under the city, crews would have to seal the limestone with an impermeable material and pump out water and sludge continually throughout the process. Hopefully, saner heads will rule, but it’s Florida, so… (Verge, Miami New Times)
Additional Reads
- It’s Not Every Day We Get a New Blue (NYT, $). If only Miles Davis were alive to see a new kind of blue.
- Africa’s Hit Science Show For Kids Is Coming To The U.S. (NPR)
- GM’s Super Bowl ad shows the automaker is all about electric vehicles now (Vox). All it took was realizing Norway was beating us.
- A Natural Work of Art May Be Hiding Among Indian Cave Masterpieces (NYT, $)
- How Steel Might Finally Kick Its Coal Habit (Wired)
- The Working Woman’s Anthem ‘9 to 5’ Needed an Update. But This? (NYT, $)
- Protest art covered shuttered businesses for months at Black Lives Matter Plaza. Now it has a new home. (WaPo, $)
- Puppy training a robotic dog points to the future (BBC)
- Cabin pressure: the turbulent history of flight attendants (Verge)
- Kenyan recycles plastic waste into bricks stronger than concrete (Reuters)