It’s Wednesday.
Wednesday marks President Biden’s 35th day in office.
For day 35, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with a bipartisan group of House and Senate Members to discuss the U.S. supply chains. After the meeting President Biden will be signing an Executive Order on the economy.
According to the fact-sheet posted by the White House, President Biden will sign an Executive Order to help “create more resilient and secure supply chains for critical and essential goods.”
Highlights from the fact-sheet:
First, the order directs an immediate 100-day review across federal agencies to address vulnerabilities in the supply chains of four key products.
White House.gov. 02/24/2021.
- APIs are the part of a pharmaceutical product that contains the active drug. In recent decades, more than 70 percent of API production facilitators supplying the U.S. have moved offshore. This work will complement the ongoing work to secure supply chains needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Critical minerals are an essential part of defense, high-tech, and other products. From rare earths in our electric motors and generators to the carbon fiber used for airplanes—the United States needs to ensure we are not dependent upon foreign sources or single points of failure in times of national emergency.
Semiconductors and Advanced Packaging. The United States is the birthplace of this technology, and has always been a leader in semiconductor development. However, over the years we have underinvested in production—hurting our innovative edge—while other countries have learned from our example and increased their investments in the industry.
Large capacity batteries, such as those used in electric vehicles: As we take action to tackle the climate crisis, we know that will lead to large demand for new energy technologies like electric vehicle batteries. By identifying supply chain risks, we can meet the President’s commitment to accelerate U.S. leadership of clean energy technologies. For example, while the U.S. is a net exporter of electric vehicles, we are not a leader in the supply chain associated with electric battery production. The U.S. could better leverage our sizeable lithium reserves and manufacturing know-how to expand domestic battery production.
White House.gov. 02/24/2021.
The order also calls for a more in-depth one-year review that will focus on six key sectors; the defense industrial base; the public health and biological preparedness industrial base; the information and communications technology (ICT) industrial base; the energy sector industrial base; the transportation industrial base; and supply chains for agricultural commodities and food production.
President Biden added 8 more tweets, to the one tweet covered in Tuesday’s Open Thread giving him a Tuesday total of 9 tweets.
11:58 a.m. D.C., time (it was totally missed by me, prior to post-time yesterday, sorry about that oversight), he says that a “Black man” should be able to jog without “fearing for his life.”
On Tuesday NPR reported that Wanda Cooper, Ahmaud Arbery’s mother filed a multi-million-dollar civil lawsuit against several people involved in the killing of her son or the subsequent investigation into his death.
As NPR notes, the lawsuit came on the one-year anniversary of her son’s murder.
The lawsuit filed by Wanda Cooper on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia comes exactly one year after her son’s killing.
The suit names Gregory and Travis McMichael, father and son, as well as William “Roddie” Bryan, all of whom are white and facing felony murder charges in connection with Arbery’s death.
The suit says the men “willfully and maliciously conspired to follow, threaten, detain and kill Ahmaud Arbery.”
The court filing also names law enforcement officials and local prosecutors and alleges they were intimately involved with an alleged cover-up in the investigation.
NPR.org. 02/23/2021.
Arbery was 25 years-old, no trial date has been set due to the coronavirus pandemic for the three men accused of murdering Arbery, all three have been denied bond.
At 1:33 p.m. D.C., time, he posted a live stream to a roundtable he was holding with his Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice and Black essential workers.
The event was 53 minutes and 6 seconds long. The White House has posted a transcript of the event.
At 3:01 p.m. D.C., time, he shared a photo of Major and Champ. Two of the few with walk-in privileges into the Oval Office.
I find it cute, for real, that both Major 3 years old and Champ 12 years old, have a Wiki-page. Aside from being presidential dogs, Major, is also the first ever rescue dog living at the White House, according to their Wiki-page, the Biden’s had fostered Major, when he was a rescued from a litter, in 2018 as a puppy after having been exposed to something “toxic” in his original home.
3:57 p.m. D.C., time, he said that he was looking forward to his bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The meeting with PM Trudeau was his first bilateral meeting with a foreign power and conducted virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At 6:21 p.m. D.C., time, he shared a live stream to his joint-statement with PM Trudeau.
The video is 11 minutes and 28 seconds long. The White House posted a transcript of the joint-statement where both leaders explained that the goal of both nations is to get the coronavirus pandemic under control.
At 8:05 p.m. D.C., time, he shared an image from his meeting with PM Trudeau.
At 8:41 p.m. D.C., time, he shares a video sniped from his remarks following the U.S. reaching the grim milestone of 500,000 plus people passing away due to the deadly virus.
][President Biden] Today [February 22nd, 2021], we mark a truly grim, heartbreaking milestone: 500,071 dead.
[12 second mark cuts to the words Every candle shown here represents 1,000 lives lost]
[President Biden] They’re people we knew. The son who called his mom every night just to check in. The best friend who was always there. The nurse who made her patients want to live. For the loved ones left behind, I know all too well. The day will come when the memory of the loved one you lost will bring a smile to your lips before a tear to your eye. This nation will smile again. This nation will know sunny days again. This nation will know joy again. And as we do, we will remember each person we’ve lost, the lives they lived, the loved ones they left behind.
[54 second mark it cuts away to the words in order to heal, we must remember.]
Excerpts taken from White House.gov. 02/22/2021.
He ended his tweeting Tuesday at 9:48 p.m. D.C., time, quote tweeting PM Trudeau.
For full Roadmap plans you can find it @ white house.gov.
Headers of the Roadmap:
Combating COVID-19:
The top priority of the President and the Prime Minister is to end the COVID-19 pandemic. They agreed to strengthen comprehensive and cross-sectoral efforts to control the pandemic, collaborate on public health responses, and build resilience against future outbreaks.
Building Back Better:
The Prime Minister and the President share a vision for a sustainable and inclusive economic recovery that strengthens the middle class, creates more opportunities for hard working people to join it, and ensures people have good jobs and careers on both sides of the border. They also recognized the opportunity for clean growth driven by workers, communities, businesses, and innovation.
Accelerating Climate Ambitions:
The President and the Prime Minister expressed their commitment to strengthened implementation of the Paris Agreement, including by working together and with others to increase the scale and speed of action to address the climate crisis and better protect nature.
Advancing Diversity and Inclusion:
The Prime Minister and the President discussed their shared commitment to addressing systemic racism, unconscious bias, gender-based discrimination, barriers for persons with disabilities, and all other forms of discrimination and exclusion.
Bolstering Security and Defense:
The President and the Prime Minister agreed that collective security is a shared responsibility.
Building Global Alliances:
The Prime Minister and the President affirmed their shared commitment to addressing global challenges, and reiterated their firm commitment to the United Nations, G7 and G20 as well as NATO, the WTO, and the Five Eyes community.
White House.gov. 02/23/2021.
For Wednesday he has tweeted 1 time so far.
9:58 a.m. D.C., time, he shared a link to sba.gov.
As the News Blender covered on Monday, President Biden announced changes to the Paycheck Protection Program. One of those changes was to institute a 14-day period where only businesses with fewer than 20 employees could apply for relief. The 14-day period started today.
And once-again, we are out of time to travel back-in time…one-day, we meaning me, will be able to catch us all up.
Wednesday’s daily briefing is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. D.C., time.
Live Feed: White House.
This is an Open Thread.
