It’s Sunday.
I know it’s Sunday and not Monday, but President Biden has a “schedule” of sorts for today, one thing being that this afternoon he’s going to offer remarks on the ongoing evacuation process happening in Afghanistan as well as a provide an update on the administrations response to maybe a Hurricane Henri.
While it’s not Monday, but Sunday, I was going to stop there, and continue forward with Coffee Talk, but given he’s going to offer remarks today, I decided to cover Friday’s tweets on Sunday, since the majority of those tweets focus on remarks he gave on Friday and I didn’t want confusion between today’s remarks and Friday’s.
When Biden Bits was published on Friday, President Biden had not tweeted. He added 7 tweets giving him a Friday Tweeting Total of 7 tweets and 0 retweets.
The YouTube stream is 27 minutes and 34 seconds long. President Biden’s full remarks can be found here.
President Biden (0:35): **Since I spoke to you on Monday, we’ve made significant progress. [And] now we have almost 6,000 troops on the ground, including the 82nd Airborne providing runway security, the Army 10th Mountain Division standing guard around the airport, and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit assisting the civilian departure. This is one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history. And the only country in the world capable of projecting this much power on the far side of the world with this degree of precision is the United States of America. *We’ve already evacuated more than 18,000 people since July and approximately 13,000 since our military airlift began on August the 14th. Thousands more have been evacuated on private charter flights facilitated by the U.S. government.
*text from the first tweet and included in the 47 second video*
**tweeted text only**
President Biden (3:54): We’re going to do everything — everything that we can to provide safe evacuation for our Afghan allies, partners, and Afghans who might be targeted if — because of their association with the United States. But let me be clear, any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.
President Biden (8:16): We have almost 6,000 of America’s finest fighting men and women in Ka- — at the Kabul Airport. And we’re putting their lives on the line — they’re doing it — in a dangerous place to save other Americans, our Afghan allies, and citizens of our al- — our allies who went in with us.
The 2 not related to Afghan tweets…
On Friday AFL-CIO announced that they had elected Liz Shuler as the Unions president. Shuler’s election comes weeks after Union President Richard Trumka passed away suddenly.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council today elected Liz Shuler, a visionary leader and longtime trade unionist, to serve as president of the federation of 56 unions and 12.5 million members. Shuler is the first woman to hold the office in the history of the labor federation. The Executive Council also elected United Steelworkers (USW) International Vice President Fred Redmond to succeed Shuler as secretary-treasurer, the first African American to hold the number two office. Tefere Gebre will continue as executive vice president, rounding out the most diverse team of officers ever to lead the AFL-CIO.
The election of Shuler and Redmond comes after the unexpected and untimely passing of Richard Trumka, who served as AFL-CIO president from 2009 until his death on Aug. 5, capping a more than 50-year career of dedication to America’s unions and working people.
[Shuler offered a statement]:
I am humbled, honored and ready to guide this federation forward. I believe in my bones the labor movement is the single greatest organized force for progress. This is a moment for us to lead societal transformations—to leverage our power to bring women and people of color from the margins to the center—at work, in our unions and in our economy, and to be the center of gravity for incubating new ideas that will unleash unprecedented union growth.
AFL-CIO.org. 08/20/2021.
Her term runs until June 22, 2022; when delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention in Philadelphia will elect leaders for new four-year terms.
As I mentioned in Saturday’s Coffee Talk, several school districts in Florida have decided to mandate masks as the coronavirus spikes have caused thousands of students to be isolated following either a coronavirus positive test or contact with someone who tested positive.
NBC-2.com reported on Friday that Broward School Board Chair Dr. Rosalind Osgood said that her district will “accept the cuts and keep their mask requirement without an opt-out option. However, she said the district will fight this in court.”
She is quoted as saying: It’s not legal what the governor is doing. We think he has overstepped his purview
According to the local report the state can’t take away from school board members salaries directly, “they’re threatening to deduct an amount equal to 1/12 of the total salary of the school board members who voted to impose the mask mandates. This means that board members will have to choose between forgoing salary or supplementing their salary cut with money from the education budget.”
They asked Osgood about the President’s offer to use federal money to fill the gap with Florida succeeds in withholding funds, she replied; Even if you take funds from somewhere else, it is still taking money away from education. We would prefer to use that money to help students. It’s about the kids.
Hurricane Henri has been downgraded to Tropical Storm Henri…
Some Afghan evacuation news…
President Biden’s remarks are expected at 4:00 p.m. D.C., time.
There is currently no live feed to his remarks…
We do know he will be addressing the country. I will add a live feed or more once they become available.
This is an Open Thread.
President Biden tweeted confirming his remarks at 4:00 p.m. D.C., time.
And shortly after the tweet a live feed was finally posted.
