The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

N.E. Brigand: LONG overdue IMO!

A clarification regarding the alleged Russian bounties on U.S. troops: the sanctions and expulsions are not in response to that happening. The U.S. only has moderate confidence in the intelligence on that story, and thus the U.S. response is, via diplomatic channels, to give Russia a chance to explain itself.

I also saw an announcement yesterday that Biden is planning to invite Putin to the White House. Would LOVE to be a fly on the wall during THAT meeting!

One article today said that the story last year about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan might have been leaked, despite U.S. intelligence agencies' uncertainty about it, in order to pressure the U.S. not to leave Afghanistan.

So it could be that the sanctions on Russia announced today, which included a comment about that uncertainty, were timed to follow Biden's announcement yesterday that U.S. troops (and NATO troops) will be leaving Afghanistan by September.

Here's a good story in the Washington Examiner, a conservative outlet, about whether or not Russian put bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan:

Inside the CIA and NSA disagreement over Russian bounties story

The CIA continues to have "moderate" confidence in this claim, based on five different information streams (including evidence of money transferred from the GRU to the Taliban and reports from sensitive sources in Afghanistan). The NSA, based on its own separate sources of information (or the lack thereof: they would expect to have collected communications by GRU officers setting up these payments, and they don't have that), has "low" confidence in the claim.

[N.E. Brigand]

By a 51-49 vote, Vanita Gupta today became Associate Attorney General (the number three position at the Dept. of Justice), a role which hasn't been held by a Senate-confirmed person since 2018. Even though the Presidency and the Senate were both in Republican hands from Jan. 2017 through Jan. 2021.

A large part of Biden's presidency is just returning to regular practices, and if the response to that is just, "So what? What's so impressive about behaving normally?", I guess I want to reply, "Why weren't you asking every day for the past three years when this important position was going to be filled?"

[Sunsilver]

This Earth Day, I’m proud to say science is back. - President Joe Biden

Thank you, Joe!

[N.E. Brigand]

Wouldn't statehood for the District of Columbia make life easier for Joe Manchin? The two additional senators would almost certainly be Democrats, and with Democrats thus holding a 52-50 lead, he would have more freedom to vote against his party, which ought to make him more popular in conservative West Virginia.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that for all of his denials, he enjoys being the tipping point.

[River]

I wonder if the Senate GOP realizes that, by denying DC statehood because of how they fear DC residents will vote, they've made a pretty serious concession about the viability of their party and its policies.

[Frelga]

I am confident that they do, and they don't care.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, unlike all of the other voter suppression efforts that they are engaged in, they can't even pretend to make a bad argument that the reason for their position is something other than keeping people likely to vote against them from voting.

[N.E. Brigand]

Larry Kudlow, who served in the Trump administration as the Director of the National Economic Council and now hosts a program on the Fox Business channel, is alarmed by Joe Biden's proposal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% over the next nine years. Kudlow warns that to meet such a goal, the U.S. would have to all but abandon meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy. This is the future he fears is coming:

"No steaks on the barbecue. I’m sure Middle America is just going to love that. Can you grill those Brussels sprouts? So get ready. You can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled Brussels sprouts and wave your American flag. Call it July 4th Green."

I'm not a beer-drinker myself, so I didn't realize before today that it was derived from meat.

[Frelga]

Grilled Brussels sprouts are delicious.

[Beorhtnoth]

I'm not a beer-drinker myself, so I didn't realize before today that it was derived from meat.

Not derived from meat, but most brewers use isinglass, from fish swim bladders, to clarify ale.

[N.E. Brigand]

Ah, fascinating!

[River]

Brussels sprouts are gross. A grilled portabella OTOH...yum.

As for Kudlow's panic...it used to be "They're going to ban cars!" or "There will be no electricity!" or "There will be no light bulbs!" and similar nonsense. Except technology advanced, those fear buttons got less viable so now it's "We're gonna be vegans!!"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Brussel sprouts are awesome.

the U.S. would have to all but abandon meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy.

[Inanna]

I love Brussels sprouts.

[River]

To me, they taste of death. Those and kale are the only leafy greens I have compatibility issues with. I'm not sure what kale does that collards can't. They've got similar cooking times so I just substitute.

[N.E. Brigand]

The U.S. Census Bureau has announced which states will gain and lose seats based on the 2020 decennial count.

Gaining:
+2 -- Texas
+1 -- Colorado
+1 -- Florida
+1 -- Montana
+1 -- North Carolina
+1 -- Oregon

Losing:
-1 California
-1 Illinois
-1 Michigan
-1 New York
-1 Ohio
-1 Pennsylvania
-1 West Virginia

If New York had counted just 89 more people (out of a statewide population of more than 19 million), it would have kept that seat.

- - - - - - - - - -
Addenda:

1. It appears that Republicans will control the redrawing of about 42% of Congressional districts wile Democrats will control the redrawing of about 16% of Congressional districts. The other 40% will be redrawn by neutral committees. This means that for the next ten years, the makeup of the House of Representative likely will again skew more Republican than the overall vote.

2. It had been expected that Texas would gain 3 seats, Florida would gain 2 seats, and Arizona would gain 1 seat. That they didn't suggests to some observers that Hispanics were undercounted -- something which many people thought was a goal of the Trump administration last year. How ironic (but not completely unforeseen) if it ended up hurting two states that voted for him in November.

Arizonans in particular had been assuming the state would grow from nine to ten seats. This will be the first time since 1950 that Arizona hasn't added a seat. Arizona's official population count per the 2020 Census is 7,158,923, which is actually *lower* than what the Census Bureau had estimated for Arizona in 2019, which was 7,278,717. Outside organizations had estimated that Arizona's 2020 population was close to 7.4 million, so it appears that more than 200,000 Arizona residents may not have been counted.

[N.E. Brigand]

Fox News issues a correction, acknowledging that nowhere does Joe Biden's climate plan call for people to eat less meat.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Fox News issues a correction, acknowledging that nowhere does Joe Biden's climate plan call for people to eat less meat.

Well, it should.

[N.E. Brigand]

Fox News issues a correction, acknowledging that nowhere does Joe Biden's climate plan call for people to eat less meat.

Well, it should.

A food website called Epicurious today announced that, in the interest of sustainability, it wouldn't be posting any new recipes that include beef. (Previously posted beef recipes apparently will remain accessible there.)

There were lots of outraged responses, but the funny thing is, buried deep in the Epicurious announcement, it says that the site actually stopped adding new beef recipes a year ago -- and nobody noticed.