It’s Thursday aka Post Inauguration hangover day.
Today marks the first day of the Biden Administration’s first 100 days in office.
Day 1 starts last night when the Senate approved President Biden’s first nomination to a cabinet post.
In a vote 84-10 on late Wednesday, Avril Haines was confirmed as the first female Director of National Intelligence. Haines confirmation hearing was held Tuesday along with four other Biden nominees still awaiting a Senate vote.
The ten that voted against, were all Republican nays.
The 10 no votes: Blackburn (R-TN)
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 21, 2021
Braun (R-IN)
Cruz (R-TX)
Ernst (R-IA)
Hagerty (R-TN)
Hawley (R-MO)
Lee (R-UT)
Marshall (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID) https://t.co/k1bsHjkzFj
Biden responded to the confirmation via tweet.
As the News Blender featured on Wednesday night, we had our first press briefing from Biden administration Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
She said that when asked to fill the role of Press Secretary two of the goals of the administration was to bring back truth and transparency to the press briefing room and across the Biden administration.
In light of those goals, she announced she will be holding daily press briefings, Monday thru Friday. Thursday’s press briefing is scheduled for 4 p.m. D.C., time. My goal is to provide a live thread whenever possible to the dailies. Which on a personal note, I’m grateful are back to daily and just not when the former toddler in charge felt his ego needed defending.
With all new admins comes the flurry of Executive Orders and Executive Actions, usually to undo what the new admin believes are bad policy choices of the previous admin.
Biden was no different than other President’s before him in quickly signing late Wednesday a slew of EO’s.
The article from the New York Times lists the first batch of EO’s signed by President Biden. Here are is an example, not listed in the Abramson’s tweet.
In additional executive orders, Mr. Biden began the reversal of a slew of the Trump administration’s environmental policies, including revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline; reversing the rollbacks to vehicle emissions standards; undoing decisions to slash the size of several national monuments; enforcing a temporary moratorium on oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and re-establishing a working group on the social costs of greenhouse gasses.
New York Times. 1/20/21.
CNN provided a list of the actions taken by President Biden, showing which actions were reversals and which were new actions. The list can be sorted by topic, reversal, or summary of the action taken or reversed.
For full details on the actions taken you can visit White House.gov.
In confirmation news.
Currently happening on the Hill featured at the News Blender former Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg is testifying at his confirmation hearing regarding his nomination as Biden’s Transportation Secretary.
Politico reporter Connor O’Brien is reporting via Twitter that Lloyd Austin has been approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee. His nomination now heads to the House where a vote is expected around 3 p.m. D.C., time, for a wavier to allow Austin to serve as Defense Secretary.
In Insurrection News.
On Wednesday the Washington Post reported that the “Army falsely denied for days that Lt. Gen. Charles A. Flynn, the brother of disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, was involved in a key meeting during its heavily scrutinized response to the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol.”
According to the article Charles Flynn confirmed his presence in the tense meeting on January 6th, 2021 via a statement to the Post.
Charles Flynn confirmed in a statement issued to The Washington Post on Wednesday that he was in the room for a tense Jan. 6 phone call during which the Capitol Police and D.C. officials pleaded with the Pentagon to dispatch the National Guard urgently, but top Army officials expressed concern about having the Guard at the Capitol.
Flynn left the room before the meeting was over, anticipating that then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who was in another meeting, would soon take action to deploy more guard members, he said.
“I entered the room after the call began and departed prior to the call ending as I believed a decision was imminent from the Secretary and I needed to be in my office to assist in executing the decision,” Flynn said.
The Washington Post. 01/20/2021.
The Washington Post goes on to say that the presence of Charles Flynn that was not previously reported, but rather denied, came weeks after his brother Michael called on then President Impeached, Twice, to declare martial law. They have found no indication that Charles Flynn shares his brothers crazy extremists views or has failed to discharge his duties.
The general’s presence during the call — which has not previously been reported — came weeks after his brother publicly suggested that President Donald Trump declare martial law and have the U.S. military oversee a redo of the election. There is no indication that Charles Flynn shares his brother’s extreme views or discharged his duties at the Pentagon on Jan. 6 in any manner that was influenced by his brother.
[The Army had as mentioned denied Flynn’s involvement].
The Army’s initial denial of Flynn’s participation in the critical Jan. 6 meeting, despite multiple inquiries on the matter, comes as lawmakers demand transparency from the Defense Department in the aftermath of one of Washington’s gravest national security failures, which left one police officer and four rioters dead, the Capitol desecrated and the lives of Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress endangered.
The Washington Post. 01/20/2021.
On a personal note: As we adjust to the new admin, next week, hopefully, I will be better prepared in providing more details on actions taken. One goal as I mentioned already is to have daily press briefing threads, with other news like items related to the Biden Presidency. This will include the confirmation of cabinet members.
As Alienmotives asked this morning in his own article, I too would like to invite those interested in contributing thoughts and ideas to the News Blender via their own articles. If you have questions, or just ideas on what you’d like to see, feel free for those that tweet to reach out via Twitter’s Direct Messages. @NewsiesNeighbor. For those that don’t tweet, you can also hit me up in the comment section and we can figure out a way to communicate privately.
This is an Open Thread.
