Caught Between Their Principles And Cold, Hard Cash
December 17, 2021
The Good News
- Claudette Colvin’s juvenile record has been expunged, 66 years after she was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a White person (CNN)
- Quebec entrepreneur, 93, donates cherished island after protecting it from city sprawl (CBC News)
Please note: Today will be our last Daily Pnut until the New Year. Have a safe and happy holidays, everyone!
“Immigration is by definition a gesture of faith in social mobility. It is the expression in action of a positive belief in the possibility of a better life. It has thus contributed greatly to developing the spirit of personal betterment in American society and to strengthening the national confidence in change and the future.” – John F. Kennedy
Caught Between Their Principles And Cold, Hard Cash
Inflation is at an all-time high in the United States right now, with everything from gas and food to clothing and electronics reaching nearly-unaffordable prices for many. Republican lawmakers haven’t held back on their opinions that President Biden is to blame for the expenses. But despite repeated claims that the government spending is to blame for pricing out American families, Republican lawmakers are eager to accept money from the government’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package – the one that passed without a single Republican vote in favor back in March of this year.
Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota said that the funds her state received were critical, and explained that she would spend the nearly $1 billion allocated to her state on clean water, affordable housing, and child care. Noem has opposed pandemic restrictions, but when questioned as to why she didn’t turn the money away as she claims to have considered, she said, “It would be spent somewhere other than South Dakota. The debt would still be incurred by the country, and our people would still suffer the consequences of that spending.” In fact, the money would have gone back to the Treasury Department, not to another state.
Of the $1.9 trillion, $350 billion was set aside for state and local aid. No state has declined the money. Many Republicans have repeatedly called for Biden to stop spending money, while simultaneously accepting the money or even complaining that they did not get enough. Governor Ron DeSantis said that, because the bill allocated money based on a state’s jobless rate, Florida was being punished for opting out of shutdowns during the pandemic, saying, “we got the short end of the stick compared to these other states.” He justified keeping the $3.4 billion his state has received (of the $8 billion allocated) by saying it was necessary to offset the disruptions caused by the federal government imposition of mask mandates, shutdowns, and vaccination requirements.
States have until 2026 to spend the cash, but Americans certainly don’t have until 2026 to get inflation under control. The government has a tendency to blame corporate America for the issue, and vice versa. Last week, inflation hit a nearly forty-year high, with goods and services increasing by nearly 7% last month. That’s the highest rate of increase since 1982. Economists are concerned that, as prices continue to increase, wages won’t be able to keep up. Some states, including Florida, have said they’ll use their stimulus money to fund “worker retention,” but that may ultimately not make much of a dent in the issues facing the economy. (NYT, CNN)
Lithu-waning Trust
- Lithuania’s diplomats to China left the country on Wednesday after relationships between China and Taiwan continued to degrade. Beijing stepped up pressure for countries to sever ties with Taiwan in the past few months, and recently downgraded diplomatic ties with Lithuania after Taiwan opened a representative office in Lithuania’s capital in November.
- Lithuanian authorities said on Wednesday they had summoned their top diplomat back from China for “consultations,” and that the embassy would operate remotely for the time being. A diplomatic source confirmed that a group of 19 people left Beijing to head toward Paris, while other sources claim that the departure was a response to “intimidation.”
- China’s foreign ministry has not commented on the situation so far. Taiwan’s foreign ministry voiced that they held the “highest respect to the Lithuanian government and its diplomatic decision-making” on Wednesday. They also called on Taiwanese companies to support closer economic ties with the small Baltic republic. (Reuters)
Mask Murder
- Authorities in Dresden, Germany raided and arrested six members of an anti-vaccine movement who said they were planning to kill the Saxony state governor. The authorities stated that they seized weapons after searching multiple homes and are now investigating the five men and one woman.
- Among the weapons found during the raids on Wednesday were a gun and several crossbows, officials said. The authorities have reported that the group communicated their plans to kill the state governor, Michael Kretschmer, over the Telegram messenger service. Mr. Kretschmer has been backing strict rules, as Saxony has the lowest vaccination rate among German states and has one of the highest infection rates in the country.
- Partially driven by online disinformation, rhetoric from the populist Alternative for Germany party, and distrust in the government, only 62 percent of Saxons are fully vaccinated, nearly 8 percent under the national average. On Tuesday, Saxony registered 7,170 new cases, meaning that 824 people per 100,000 population were infected in a week. (NYT, $)
Additional World News
- Putin and Xi Show United Front Amid Rising Tensions With U.S. (NYT, $)
- Germany expels two Russian diplomats after murder conviction (CNN)
- Dutch MP ordered to delete Covid Holocaust social media posts (BBC)
- Bipartisan deal to crack down on China’s treatment of Muslims stalls in Senate (Politico)
- Iran allows IAEA to reinstall cameras at Karaj nuclear facility (Al Jazeera)
- Canadian Government Warns Residents to Avoid Nonessential Travel (NYT, $)
- Jacob Zuma: South Africa’s High Court orders former president to go back to jail (CNN)
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Building New Rules
- On Wednesday, a Miami-Dade county grand jury released a long list of recommendations for condo safety in the state of Florida. The jury’s recommendation followed the collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida six months ago. The jury’s 43-page report does not name a specific cause for the Seaside collapse, which killed 98 people, but does provide sweeping recommendations to protect tenants throughout the state.
- 3.5 million people live in condos in Florida, and many of the report’s recommendations match up with current reforms being pushed through Miami-Dade County. According to the report, The Florida Condominium Act “desperately needs serious revision,” and Florida’s 40-year condo recertification requirements should be reduced to 10-15 years between recertifications.
- They also said condo boards should be more involved in assuring their tenants’ safety, and the Florida Department of Business and Regulation needs restructuring for better oversight. The report also noted that concrete in condos located near the ocean face greater risk of corrosion due to salt in the air. (NPR)
Full Covid Press
- The nation’s biggest sports leagues are being delayed and disrupted by Covid-19 in a new wave of infections. The NBA, NFL, and NHL are all postponing games and sidelining players as increasing numbers of athletes are coming down with the virus. The NFL reported 88 cases among its athletes on just Monday and Tuesday this week, the league’s worst two-day span on infections since the pandemic hit.
- As an example, the Cleveland Browns have benched 18 players, including half of their 22-man starting roster, due to Covid protocols. According to the league’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills, the omicron variant has been detected in many of these cases, and the booster shot is the main way the league plans to minimize spread.
- Off the turf, the NBA is facing game delays and star players are being benched due to Covid protocols: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Zach LaVine, and Demar DeRozan all missed games due to the virus, and the Chicago Bulls have had two games rescheduled due to their inability to field the league’s minimum roster size.
- According to William Parham, a sports psychologist and professor at Loyola Marymount University, sports leagues have done well to avoid outbreaks until now. Unfortunately, though, Covid-19 doesn’t care how many points a star player is able to score: “If anything, coronavirus and its various strains, suggest it is an equal opportunity virus,” he said. “It doesn’t discriminate. And everybody is vulnerable including the best trained and gifted athletes…They’re not immune.” (NBC News)
Additional USA News
- Winds gusting up to 107 mph in Colorado topple semi-trucks and rip off roofs (CNN)
- Photographer sues House Jan. 6 committee over subpoena (Politico)
- A single Kentucky Republican travels with Biden to survey tornado and storm damage (CNN)
- Texas pipeline company charged in California oil spill (AP)
- Louisiana Judge, Michelle Odinet, Is Urged to Resign Over Racial Slur in Video (NYT, $)
- bell hooks, Pathbreaking Black Feminist, Dies at 69 (NYT, $)
- Sinema pops Democrats’ filibuster trial balloon on voting rights (Politico)
Congressional Redaction
- On Wednesday, the National Archives proudly released about 1,500 previously-classified documents about President John F. Kennedy, but the contents were largely disappointing, and JFK researchers are frustrated by the lack of transparency. Many are trying to uncover more information about Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, but say that a majority of the documents were just duplicates of previously-seen ones.
- The documents either have minor changes to the redactions that reveal a name or location that investigators had already figured out on their own, or have no changes at all. Over 10,000 documents remain unreleased, and won’t be seen until the end of next year. JFK researchers and the government have a long-standing rivalry, with researchers saying national security agencies are consistently violating federally-mandated releases.
- University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato, a leading scholar of the assassination, said that researchers don’t think they’re “going to find a smoking gun that changes the entire theory of who killed Kennedy.” He takes umbrage, however, with “the lack of transparency and the fact that getting these documents after 58 years is like pulling a whole mouthful of teeth — it tells you why we have so many conspiracy theories.” Public polling has shown that a majority of Americans do not believe the Warren Commission’s official finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone. (CNN)
Additional Reads
- Biden picks Michelle Kwan to be ambassador to Belize and Caroline Kennedy to be ambassador to Australia (CNN)
- 4 Dead Infants, a Convicted Mother, and a Genetic Mystery (Wired)
- Rare wispy ice formations streak across the sea near Antarctica in beautiful satellite images (LiveScience)
- Darwin’s finches ‘evolve’: Vampire fly threat is changing parental behavior (Phys.org)
- Perseverance rover makes ‘completely unexpected’ volcanic discovery on Mars (CNN)
- NASA’s most powerful telescope ever is about to change how we see the universe (CNET)
- The Log4J Vulnerability Will Haunt the Internet for Years (Wired)