My plan was to be the very last person to recommend “Ted Lasso” to you all and I do believe I’ve succeeded. I wish I could have been in the pitch meeting… “So, he’s… a saint? How is that funny?” “Trust us.” Tweet by Peter Sagal @petersagal Host of @WaitWait on @NPR. Author of “The Incomplete Book of Running,” from Simon and Schuster, now available at independent bookstores or via link below. Chicago simonandschuster.com/books/The-Inco…
Michele and I just binge-watched Ted Lasso on Apple. Looking at the previews, I didn’t really expect to enjoy it, but we were both captivated. Ted is an American football coach – and a very minor one at that – who is hired to coach a English Premier League football club (and we all know, including Ted, that a football team in England plays soccer). The premise is that Ted is a decent, optimistic, human being and, somehow, during this toxic time, that is enough to make it comforting.
It is a comedy, although it is often more touching than funny, I know that it is a comedy because each episode is only about thirty minutes. Ted Lasso is the kind of program that somehow makes us feel good. I’m not sure why or how, but I do know I went to bed smiling and feeling better and more generally optimistic than I have in weeks.
The forces arrayed against conservation in southern Utah were deeply rooted. County commissioners, state elected officials, the entire Utah congressional delegation — all were against the monument from the moment of its creation in 1996. They considered it a usurpation of local power, and they had acted at every chance to attack its legitimacy. A 2016 pro-Bears Ears & Grand Staircase National Monuments article in The High Country News.
Here it is in full: Restoring MonumentsBears Ears & Grand Staircase Nat’l Monuments + more. This beautiful restorative news. A Tweet by Terry Tempest Williams @TempestWilliams edges; words; and birds
The depth so far is what’s so powerful. We’re suddenly a very long ways from ‘do you believe in climate change? A Tweet from Bill McKibben @billmckibben Author, Educator, Environmentalist and Founder of http://350.org Opinions emphatically my own Vermont billmckibben.com
President Biden has come out jabbing and I love it. With a cascade of Executive Orders, President Biden has undone much of what President Trump did over the last four years. Of course, much of what Trump did was undoing what Obama had done several years earlier so now the undoing will be undone. In Executive Order 13990, Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis, Biden halted the Keystone pipeline which made the front pages of most newspapers, of more direct interest to me, he also essentially restored three National Monuments that Trump had downsized. Two of them, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, established by President Obama, are in Southeastern Utah and are among the beautiful places on earth.
When President Trump reduced both Monuments, I was disappointed but I thought it made some sense since all the local politicians representing the local counties and towns were against the Monuments. But, it turns out, the local governmental agencies were composed of old white guys elected and re-elected without much opposition and, just four years later, their composition has changed and now better reflects the real local attitude. Both of the affected counties, Grand and San Juan, and several of the local towns have written to the Biden Administration asking for the Monuments to be restored. As best I can tell – without spending the entire of next week reading the local papers – the change is for two reasons. The local economy has become more reliant on tourism rather than running cattle and the governing boards, themselves, because of new state laws, have changed from three-person executive/legislative governing boards to larger part-time legislative boards with full-time executive managers. In Grand and San Juan Counties, the new legislative boards are more ethnically diverse because the board members now have to represent different geographic areas. This has resulted in several Native American county board members who are pro-Monument. (The two biggest cities – Monticello at 1,972 souls and Blanding at 3,375 souls – in San Juan County still support getting rid of the Monument but the tide still seems to have turned.)
President Biden is making no secret that he is going directly after President Trump’s anti-environmental Executive Orders with Biden’s Executive Order 13990 saying: The heads of all agencies shall immediately review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions (agency actions) promulgated, issued, or adopted between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021, that are or may be inconsistent with, or present obstacles to, the policy set forth in section 1 of this order.
BTW, Executive Order 13990 also stops oil drilling in the Arctic which, as an aside, I don’t think I quite understand. Why would anybody spend the money to look for oil in the Artic when the biggest collection of oil fields ever found in the United States, the Permian Basin in West Texas, has barely been touched? It’s not like we are going ahead and continue to use oil – or any fossil fuel, really – no matter what the cost, and getting oil from above the Arctic Circle is going to be non-competitive in a diminishing market. End aside.
The most striking and probably the most important section in Executive Order 13990 is Sec. 5 which says It is essential that agencies capture the full costs of greenhouse gas emissions as accurately as possible, including by taking global damages into account. Doing so facilitates sound decision-making, recognizes the breadth of climate impacts, and supports the international leadership of the United States on climate issues. Acknowledging the damage we are causing to Earth by burning fossil fuels in making decisions is groundbreaking and even after reading the section three or four times, I find it hard to believe it is actually there. Biden must have thought about this and he must know how disruptive it is going to be and it shocks and thrills me that It is essential that agencies capture the full costs of greenhouse gas emissions made it all the way through a process that, at least in part, was set up to eliminate changes to the status quo. It will be very interesting to see if this actually plays out. I hope so.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed A nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished There is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it if only we’re brave enough to be it. — Amanda Gorman A Tweet by Ayanna Pressley @AyannaPressley Your Congresswoman. Proudly representing the MA 7th. Here to break concrete ceilings & shake the table. Personal account. She/hers. Retweeted by Rashida Tlaib @RashidaTlaib Unbossed Congresswoman #Michigan13th. Detroiter, Palestinian American, Muslima.
I know literally nobody for whom Joe Biden was their #1 choice when the 2020 race began, and in fact others might have been (or someday be) better Presidents, but he might be the perfect person to be President *now.* A Tweet by Peter Sagal @petersagal Host of @WaitWait on @NPR. Author of “The Incomplete Book of Running,”
Elections have consequences. Biden within hours of takin the oath of office was able to: revoke Muslim ban, rejoin Paris Climate Agreement, extend federal eviction moratorium, rescind Census orders to exclude non-citizens, preserve/fortify DACA and much more. It’s a new day. A Tweet by Ilhan Omar @IlhanMN Mom, Refugee, Intersectional Feminist, 2017 Top Angler of the Governor’s Fishing Opener and Congresswoman for #MN05. Join me. Minneapolisilhanomar.com
In a Washington DC locked down by National Guard troops, behind high fences crowned with razor wire, Joe Biden became the 46th President of the United States.
Wow! That seemed so incredibly unlikely way back in 1988 when he first ran and lost in the Democratic primary, against Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, Al Gore, Richard Gephardt, Paul Simon, and Michael Dukakis. It seemed just slightly less likely when he ran in 2008 and lost to Barrack Obama. Even way back in 1965, it couldn’t have seemed very likely when Joe Biden, on their first date, told Neilia Hunter he would be president. Even as late as a year ago, it seemed very unlikely when he came in fourth in the Iowa primary, but Biden persevered. He is tenacious. That tenacity, coupled with his deeply felt compassion and real love for the United States, makes him, I think, the best guy for the rough job that lies ahead.
During the primaries, Joe Biden was at the bottom of my wish list, but, today, I am feeling very optimistic. Thrilled, even. The day’s passion and Biden’s love for country brought me to tears several times, starting, actually, the night before the Inauguration with the remembrance ceremony for the Covid-19 Dead.
For a long time, I’ve been saying – I think saying, thinking, anyway – that we need a Roosevelt type president. Somebody who came from within the establishment but is not so lost in the bubble that they don’t understand the world outside Washington. To quote myself from 2013, As much as Obama – and Clinton – wanted to make a change when they became President, they found themselves in a world that they knew of more than knew and, even if they were critical when running, it is a world they admired and wanted to fit in. True, it was a world they thought they knew, but only from the outside, it is not a world they inhabited. It is a world they have been conditioned – for lack of a better word – to fit into. It is also a world, in which it was very easy to be intimidated when they actually got there. That will not be President Biden’s problem and, like Roosevelt – both Roosevelts, really – he promises to be willing to buck inside the beltway group-think.
I was concerned that Biden was too old and too stuck in his ways to meet the colossal number of problems facing the country. The first hint that Biden is up to the job, came at the Democratic Convention in August and it continued with the Biden Inauguration on Wednesday. Both were conducted in the strange environment of a National Lockdown and both met the challenge. It is telling, to my way of thinking, that both were met with a dexterity from the Biden Campaign/Administration that showed a willingness to adapt to reality rather than try to deny it. Both were innovated and fresh and it showed that Biden is willing to innovate and listen to younger and more expert voices. What came across to me, strangely, watching our Capitol under military lockdown with razor wire on the top of new fences, is how this new Administration feels more feminine, in the best of ways, open, empathic, and compassionate. As importantly, the new President, Joe Biden, seems like a genuinely warm guy who has been tested by some very rough times. These are indeed rough times and I think that Joe Biden is what the country wants and needs right now.
These GOP lawmakers trying to backtrack like “I was NOT voting to overturn the election with a lie I fed my white supremacist base, I was simply amplifying concerns that challenge the legitimacy of Black electorates in Philadelphia and Detroit and Latino electorates in Arizona” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOCUS Representative, NY-14 (BX & Queens). In a modern, moral, & wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live. % People-Funded, no lobbyist. She/her.Bronx + Queens, NYC ocasiocortez.com
Still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a bunch of people who think Bill Gates is going to inject them with a chip stormed the US Capitol with their cell phones’ location data enabled. Daniel Foster @DanFoster TypePrincipal at Roderigue Hortalez & Co. Multi award-winning chili chef.
In the early 70s, the leftist United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army were the most wanted group gang – organization may be too grandiose – bad guys in the United States. They were led by a Black man who called himself Field Marshal Cinque and who had escaped from prison and they supported themselves by robbing banks. Partially by accident, the authorities, which eventually included the FBI, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the LAPD, the California Highway Patrol, and the Los Angeles Fire Department trapped the SLA in a house in Los Angeles. Five thousand rounds later, the surrounded terrorists were dead. The system worked and they were no longer a threat to the body politic. Today is different.
Today, the most wanted terrorists, the rioters who took over the Capitol, are not outsiders, they are almost overwhelmingly white and they are from the right. Many of them are police officers and quite a few are prosperous small business owners. They will not be surrounded in a house and shot down but they will still have to be separated from the general population and jailed if we are going to stop worrying about them. That might not be easy. They are embedded insurgents and separating them from the general population will be hard. Yes, many of the insurgents have been arrested but most are out of jail without bail. White juries do not like jailing white cops or White small business owners.
BTW, several BTWs actually, some of the insurrectionists are rich enough to have taken private planes to the Capitol to demonstrate about how mistreated they are.
BTW, I keep reading that many Republican Congresspeople say they only voted against the election because their lives had been threatened and they were afraid (one dude, who did vote to certify, even bought body armor). I’m sure it is true that they are afraid and they know their fellow travelers better than I do, but I still find it fascinating that their defense for lying about the election is that they are cowards. Congresspeople, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ortigia Cortez get threatened almost every day and, every day, they get up and do what they think is the right thing. After years of complaining about being harassed, and being called snowflakes for it, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the bravest people in our country are minority women.
If you don’t believe that, you may be confusing a violent temperament and macho with bravery. Contrary to what we are told both subtly and overtly, white men are way more violent than anybody else. As our military switches its focus from conventional warfare – think grunts in Vietnam, tanks on the Polish Plain, or the overwhelming firepower we brought to both Iraq wars – to unconventional war fought with advisors and drones, Special Forces become more important. Special Forces are almost always professionals, the people who like war or think they like war, who want to be there, and they are overwhelmingly white. Let that sink in, White men make up a huge percentage of our most violent and honored units, the Seals, Delta Force, almost any Marine.
BTW, another way to look at the seriousness of the mob attack is to look at how the military has reacted, According to the Pentagon, there are currently 2,500 service members in Iraq, 2,500 in Afghanistan, about 25,000 in Washington DC.
It seems to me that there are people in America who would rather not have Democracy than see Black people join in.
Lastly, on a positive note, Marrit Garland, Biden’s nominee for Attorney General, has a great background in fighting Domestic Terrorism. He was the lead government attorney on the Oklahoma bombing case, the Unabomber case, and the Atlanta Olympics bombings.
Troops brought into the Capital for Black Lives Matter protest in early June, 2020.
Anyone claiming: -govt has defeated the insurrection -we have a functioning constitutional democracy -this will be resolved with the inauguration of Joe Biden -Jan 20 is an expiration date for when the govt will be required to address the threat of Trump is WRONG A Tweet by @BreeNewsomeartist – grassroots organizer – free black woman – scaled 30ft flagpole & removed sc confederate flag in protest on june 27, 2015 – Isaiah 54:17North Carolina, USA whentheyseeusvote.com
I like to think that I have a pretty good idea of what is happening but I did not foresee the breach and desecration of the Capitol by rioters a week, or so, ago, and it bothers me. At first, I thought I missed it because I was blinded by my Male White Filter (MWF)- I mean, these people are like me and I wouldn’t do that- and I’m sure that’s a factor (a friend asked me if I would have thought a Black Lives Matter crowd would do that and the answer is “No, I wouldn’t have.” Thinking about it, it just didn’t occur to me that anybody would do that. What I didn’t see coming was an act of such utter futility and stupidity. To me, it seems obvious that stopping the count of Electoral College votes is not going to result in Donald Trump remaining as president.
What exactly happened is going to take a while to unravel but there are good reasons to think the Capitol guards were undermanned on purpose and backup was purposely delayed in getting there. There does seem to be some rudimentary planning but, disrupting the Electoral College in front of a massive Mainstream News presence without securing the area and local communications is not really a well-thought-out game plan. The plan – such as it was – seemed to be to break-in and take prisoners thereby stopping the Electoral College vote. If no prisoners were available because they had been evacuated, the default plan – I guess – was to mill around, breaking and stealing things, until escorted out. No effort to control the media, no thought about locking down the country and securing Washington with troops, not much thought about anything really. It is such an amateur bungled job that it is easy to write off as not that big a deal.
That is exactly what some Republicans are trying to spin now, “let it go, it is time to start healing”, but it is a big deal and the White Supremacists are showing no sign of going away – “Not gonna lie … aside from my kids, this was, indeed, the best day of my life. And it’s not over yet.” Tweet by #CoupAttempt participant & former(?) sheriff’s lt. Roxanne Mathai – and President Trump is showing the opposite of remorse, saying “The impeachment hoax is a continuation of the greatest and most vicious witch hunt in the history of our country and is causing tremendous anger and division and pain, far greater than most people will ever understand, which is very dangerous for the U.S.A., especially at this very tender time.”
I do not see that the House of Representatives has any choice other than another impeachment of Donald Trump as they are doing at this very minute.
