Friday, January 29, 2021

In the news, Thursday, January 21, 2021


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JAN 20      INDEX      JAN 22
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from Competitive Enterprise Institute

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on January 13 published its long-awaited final rule on New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new fossil fuel power plants. This was the Trump administration EPA’s last major regulatory action. To the surprise of many observers (myself included), the new rule does not revise the standards adopted by the Obama EPA’s October 2015 final rule, nor does it revise the best system of emission reduction (BSER) analysis on which those standards are based.

The Biden “Modernizing Regulatory Review” plan is about gutting the restraint of the past four years, and if you read statements from the proponents of hyper-regulation, they aren’t coy about that. The new memorandum poses as a reinforcement of longstanding E.O. 12866 (from 1993) on reviewing the costs and benefits of significant regulations. But that order itself had changed a Reagan administration directive that benefits “exceed” costs to the one prevailing now that benefits “justify” costs. And the modern left and progressives do not want to keep even watered-down 12866 either. 

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

From CO2 emissions to jobs to investment, the president’s move will have the opposite of its intended effect.
1. Blocking the Keystone XL Pipeline May Actually Increase CO2 Emissions
2. Thousands of Jobs Will Be Lost
3. Regulatory Uncertainty Will Discourage Future Business Investment

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from Huffington Post
LEFT BIAS, MIXED, news and commentary site headquartered in New York City

The Texas senator got hit with an instant fact-check on Twitter.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is already bashing President Joe Biden, slamming his decision to reenter the Paris Agreement, a multinational pact on climate change. Cruz recycled a line that former President Donald Trump had used, tweeting: "By rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden indicates he’s more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh. This agreement will do little to affect the climate and will harm the livelihoods of Americans." But there are two problems with Cruz’s message. First, the deal isn’t about protecting the citizens of Paris. It’s named that because the international agreement was adopted by most nations of the world at a meeting in the French city. And second, Cruz himself made it clear he had no interest in the views of Pittsburgh earlier this month, when he was part of a failed attempt to reject Pennsylvania’s election results on behalf of Trump.

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from The Inlander
Media/News Company in Spokane, WA

Two days after U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler voted to impeach President Donald Trump, local Republicans in her southwest Washington district were busy planning her ouster. "It's already underway," says Brandon Svenson, the chair of the Lewis County Republican Party, who said dozens of people had contacted him between Wednesday and Friday upset with Herrera Beutler's vote. Elsewhere in the state, Republican leaders in Central Washington were similarly fuming over U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse's decision to support impeachment of the outgoing president. Debra Manjarrez, the chair of the Yakima County Republican Central Committee, says Newhouse's vote on impeachment would "absolutely" fuel a primary challenge to the Republican incumbent congressman in 2022.

Veracity is demanding, often requiring restructuring — new agreements, accountability, power distributions, resource allocations and vulnerability. Though demanding, inevitably truth has always been the better choice. The times I ignored intuition, blamed the other, took comfort in contrived conspiracies, or deluded and denied remain the most unflattering, the cause of many deep regrets. Inauthenticity severs connection — between the self and others. What-ifs, disassociation, shame, unavailability, misplaced aggression, abdication and avoidance are harmful tools and byproducts of dishonesty. An awful lot of heartbreak happens when we are silent about what really matters.

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from RedState
Joe Biden signed a boatload of executive orders on his first day and I’m going to do a breakdown later about how much it’s going to cost us. But immediately there was a big cost to one of those orders: killing the Keystone Pipeline. Now it makes no sense to kill it, except to pander to the left. Killing it also kills 11,000 jobs there would have been this year for Americans and will probably cost a rise in the gas prices for everyone. It will also impair the energy independence that President Donald Trump succeeded in achieving. All while we’re still in a pandemic, with a lot of people are still out of work and businesses hurting. Just to note, this also benefits Russia as did many other moves during the Obama/Biden administration. Oh and foreign energy companies like oh, I don’t know, Burisma?

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Amazon won’t be forced to immediately restore web service to Parler after a federal judge ruled Thursday against a plea to reinstate the fast-growing social media app, which is favored by followers of former President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said she wasn’t dismissing Parler’s “substantive underlying claims” against Amazon, but said it had fallen short in demonstrating the need for an injunction forcing it back online.

Pricey burgers are coming to a store near you. A spike in corn prices is keeping cattle out of feedlots, where they fatten up on the grain for months before going to slaughter. That means fewer animals coming to the market in the months to come – conditions that can result in expensive beef at grocery stores. “Higher prices for the next two to four years are pretty much set in stone,” Rich Nelson, chief strategist at Allendale Inc., said of both beef and cattle.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate home loan eased to 2.77% from 2.79% last week. By contrast, the rate stood at 3.60% a year ago. The average rate on 15-year fixed-rate loans, popular among homeowners seeking to refinance their mortgages, declined to 2.21% from 2.23%.

U.S. home construction jumped 5.8% in December to 1.67 million units, a 14-year high that topped the strongest annual showing from the country’s builders in 15 years. The better-than-expected December gain followed an increase of 9.8% in November when housing starts climbed to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.58 million units, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The December pace was the strongest since the building rate reached 1.72 million units in September 2006. For the year, construction began on 1.45 million units, up 4.8% from 2019 and the best pace since construction starts totaled 1.8 million units in 2006. That period included a massive U.S. housing boom that eventually burst, kicking off the catastrophic 2007-2009 recession.

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell slightly last week to 900,000, still a historically high level that points to ongoing job cuts in a raging pandemic. The Labor Department’s report Thursday underscored that President Joe Biden has inherited an economy that faltered this winter as virus cases spiked, cold weather restricted dining and federal rescue aid expired. The government said 5.1 million Americans are continuing to receive state jobless benefits, down from 5.2 million in the previous week. That suggests that while some of the unemployed are finding jobs, others are likely using up their state benefits and transitioning to separate extended-benefit programs. More than 10 million people are receiving aid from those extended programs, which now offer up to 50 weeks of benefits, or from a new program that provides benefits to contractors and the self-employed. All told, nearly 16 million people were on unemployment in the week that ended Jan. 2.

Amazon is offering its colossal operations network and advanced technologies to assist President Joe Biden in his vow to get 100 million COVID-19 vaccinations to Americans in his first 100 days in office. “We are prepared to leverage our operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts,” wrote the CEO of Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer division, Dave Clark, in a letter to Biden. “Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately in the fight against COVID-19, and we stand ready to assist you in this effort.”

Apricots aren’t the easiest tree to grow in our region. They often bloom very early in the spring and get hit by frost which kills the flower. Take heart though, with careful variety selection, you can assure yourself of a good harvest most years. The key to selecting the right variety is to look for ones that bloom later than other apricots. Normally, apricots bloom at the end of April. Late-blooming varieties bloom closer to mid-May, a timeframe that can avoid the last of the killing frosts. Another [key] is whether the variety is self-fertile or needs another apricot variety nearby to cross pollinate with.

Emergencies don’t usually have anniversaries, but we are fast approaching one. Last year on Feb. 29, Gov. Jay Inslee acted within his responsibilities to declare a state of emergency to protect “life, health, property or public peace” in Washington when a novel virus emerged in the U.S. For a while, we really were all in it together.

Census advocates were heartened Wednesday by President Joe Biden’s quick revocations of Trump’s order to produce citizenship data and the former president’s memo attempting to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from the apportionment count. The Biden administration also has pledged to give the Census Bureau the time it needs to process the data.

Seven Democratic senators on Thursday asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the actions of Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley “to fully understand their role” in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

In the days before Joe Biden became president, construction crews worked quickly to finish Donald Trump’s wall at an iconic cross-border park overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated in 1971 as a symbol of international friendship. Biden on Wednesday ordered a “pause” on all wall construction within a week, one of 17 executive orders issued on his first day in office, including six dealing with immigration.

The Biden administration announced Thursday a 60-day suspension of new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits for U.S. lands and waters, as officials moved quickly to reverse Trump administration policies on energy and the environment.

The United States will resume funding for the World Health Organization and join its consortium aimed at sharing coronavirus vaccines fairly around the globe, President Joe Biden’s top adviser on the pandemic said Thursday, renewing support for an agency that the Trump administration had pulled back from.

President Joe Biden has proposed to Russia a five-year extension of a nuclear arms treaty that is otherwise set to expire in February, the White House said Thursday. Biden proposed the extension even as he asked the intelligence community to look closely into Russia’s cyberattacks, its alleged interference in the 2020 election and other actions, press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

With a burst of executive orders, President Joe Biden served notice Thursday that America’s war on COVID-19 is under new command, promising an anxious nation progress to reduce infections and lift the siege it has endured for nearly a year. At the same time, he tried to manage expectations in his second day in office, saying despite the best intentions “we’re going to face setbacks.” He brushed off a reporter’s question on whether his goal of 100 million coronavirus shots in 100 days should be more ambitious, a point pressed by some public health experts.

Wearing mittens made out of recycled materials and a warm winter jacket, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders pulled off a casual inauguration outfit – and vibe – that only he could.

The Biden administration has moved quickly to remove a number of senior officials aligned with former President Donald Trump from the Voice of America and the agency that oversees all U.S.-funded international broadcasting. The actions address fears that the U.S. Agency for Global Media was being turned into a pro-Trump propaganda outlet. The agency announced Thursday that VOA’s director and his deputy had been removed from their positions and that the head of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting had resigned.

World leaders breathed an audible sigh of relief that the United States under President Joe Biden is rejoining the global effort to curb climate change, a cause that his predecessor had shunned over the past four years. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron were among those welcoming Biden’s decision to rejoin the the Paris climate accord, reversing a key Trump policy in the first hours of his presidency Wednesday.

President Joe Biden has confidence in FBI Director Chris Wray and plans to keep him in the job, the White House press secretary said Thursday. Wray was appointed in 2017 by President Donald Trump following Trump’s firing of James Comey. Wray later became a frequent target of Trump’s attacks, including by publicly breaking with the president on issues such as antifa, voter fraud and Russian election interference. The criticism led to speculation that Trump might fire Wray after the election.

Europe’s top human rights court on Thursday found Russia responsible for a swath of violations in Georgia’s breakaway regions after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. Georgia hailed the verdict by the European Court of Human Rights as a major victory. The August 2008 war erupted when Georgian troops tried unsuccessfully to regain control over the Moscow-backed breakaway province of South Ossetia, and Russia sent troops that routed the Georgian military in five days of fighting.

Sawsan Al Zouabi used to stand on her balcony and count the bombs falling on the horizon. So she’s certain of this – there were seven or eight bombs falling every day around her village for six months before her family fled Syria. After taking refuge in Jordan for three and a half years, the family arrived in Spokane in 2016, mere months before then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order dubbed “the Muslim ban” on Jan. 27, 2017. Wednesday, newly inaugurated President Joe Biden reversed that decision in his own executive order.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office has lifted an evacuation order for Warden residents near a fire at the Washington Potato Facility after about a third of the town was threatened by an ammonia tank that could have exploded in the blaze.

Salmon and steelhead advocates returned to court to again ask a federal judge to overturn the government’s plan to operate dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers in a way that pushes the fish closer to extinction. The National Wildlife Federation and several other conservation groups, including Idaho Rivers United and the Idaho Conservation League, contend a biological opinion issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and associated documents and decisions by the Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration violate the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Nearly a year after launching a research effort to study why moose populations in Idaho have been declining, researchers with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game are starting to get some answers. According to a Fish and Game news release, the agency partnered with researchers from the University of Idaho to attach radio tracking collars to 112 adult cow moose in early 2020 to study survival rates and causes of death.

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