More Policies Unveiled by the Biden Administration

On our Monday episode, we catch up on the big news from late Friday and the weekend. We cover everything but the NFL's help with mass COVID vaccinations, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's fight against extremism in the military, a new Biden immigration policy regarding Central America, Lou Dobbs getting canned at Fox Business, and more!

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More Policies Unveiled by the Biden Administration

00:00:00 - 00:05:07

Today is Monday, February 8th. Thanks for joining me back here. Once again my name is Brett Spangler, and today we have a bunch of different stories again. Some smaller ones mostly smaller ones. We have a lot of covid stuff. We have a lot more Biden policy issues because he did his first national interview with Norah O'Donnell last Friday and we revisit a story that we did about a month ago about the flu in just the flu season the flu numbers for this year kind of interesting. Well i mean it has to be otherwise. I wouldn't waste your time with it so in any case. Let's jump right back into it. NFL commissioner roger. Goodell wrote a letter to President Joe Biden last week. He offered to President. Joe Biden to use every NFL stadium as a possible mass vaccination. This means that there are thirty. Nfl sites that would be up for grabs now. You might be thinking. Well, wait a second, there are 32 NFL teams but only 30 stadiums. Well, the thing is the jets and the giants share one as do the Los Angeles Rams in Los Angeles Chargers. Some of these are actually already open. They have one in Phoenix for the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta, Baltimore, the Carolina Panthers' stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, , Houston, and Miami New England (which is actually Foxborough, Massachusetts). Speaking of the NFL, the super bowl was yesterday and there were about twenty five thousand fans in attendance. Probably about a third of the usual number. That would be there. And as sort of a tribute to healthcare workers there were seventy five hundred completely vaccinated healthcare workers who showed up as part of that crowd. I saw a lot of chatter on twitter about it's not really honoring healthcare workers if you're creating like a superspreader event and you know i'm not sure how i feel about that. Honestly one thing to keep in mind. Is that the empty seats. They had a bunch of cardboard cutout people. So if you thought it looked packed it really wasn't necessarily as packed as it was looking also. The stadium is outdoors and as we know. Transmission outdoors is nearly well. I wouldn't go that far but it's pretty safe. That said the chances are pretty good. That people were still waiting in line for concessions. Maybe they didn't offer am. I didn't see that or somewhere. Outside of the seats. They were probably in closer. Groups are closer proximity than they were in the stands. And that's kind of what i worry about. But i dunno moving onto other good vaccination news pfizer says that it's been analyzing how they've been making the covid vaccine and they found a number of different ways to improve so that they can make their manufacturing process even quicker. The improvements that they've found should take the manufacturing time from about one hundred and ten days per batch to about sixty days per bench. And that's nearly cutting it in half. That is pretty impressive. The president of the Immunization Policy and Knowledge Translation consulting firm said that “Nobody’s ever produced mRNA vaccines at this scale, so you can bet your bottom dollar the manufacturers are learning as they go. I bet you every day they run into some vaccine challenge and every day they solve it, and that goes into their playbook.”

Some of these improvements include faster quality control and testing, adding manufacturing lines in the three plants where the vaccines are made, and speeding up the time it takes to make the DNA from 16 days down to about 9 or 10 days. 

As of this morning at 9AM eastern time, there have been 42  million COVID vaccines administered (so actually in people's arms), and there have been 59 million distributed. 

So over the weekend, the Biden administration announced that it is withdrawing the US  from agreements with three Central American countries: El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. These agreements required a lot of people who are trying to get asylum at the US- Mexico border to actually go to these countries and apply there for some reason. Reading here from the Bloomberg article that I found that Secretary of State Tony Blinken said the administration “intends to work with the Central American nations to reduce some of the insecurity and poverty that cause people to flee in the first place while maintaining the security of the U.S. border.”

Trump also started using COVID as an excuse to deport almost everyone who came to the border.

In other immigrations news, Biden also set up a task force to help reunite families that were separated as a result of Trump’s family separation policy. 

There was some news about this last week, but it became official over the weekend: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has signed a memo that directs his commanding officers and supervisors to do a one-day standdown sometime within the next sixty days to try to address the extremism that we're just finding out about or that we are confirming is going on in the armed forces. This means that on that particular day whatever day they choose, these leaders will have to lead discussions on the importance of our oath of office. A description of impermissible behaviors and procedures for reporting suspected or actual extremist behaviors”. Lloyd said in the memo that this training is just the first step in “what I believe must be a concerted effort to better educate ourselves and our people about the scope of this problem and to develop sustainable ways to eliminate the corrosive effects that extremist ideology and conduct have on the workforce.”

A recent study that was done by NPR found that nearly one in five people who have been charged in the Capit0ol Insurrection had some type of military history. This goes along with a two thousand nineteen survey that the military times conducted where they found that thirty six percent of active duty. Readers had seen quote evidence of white supremacist and racist ideologies in the military in just one year before in two thousand eighteen. That same number was only twenty two percent which is still ridiculously high. So now we have over a third in. That was like two years ago. Yeah i think this is gonna take more than one day just a really short follow up story here about our story on fox news getting sued from Friday years a sign that maybe i was right in that fox news wasn't actually that proud of their reporting about the 2020  election: on Friday night, Fox Business cancelled the show Lou Dobbs Tonight, which is actually the biggest show on their network into fuel. Remember Lou Dobbs was one of the three hosts that was named in that lawsuit and they still could be far from over for these people who are still lying about the election. Because listen to what this dominion spokesperson. The Dominion voting machine company. What he said that we should expect next from his company. Can you give us a preview of when the next lawsuits Dominion. We'll be filed. I'm not here to make news on that front but let me say this. Mike lindell is begging to be sued and at some point we may well oblige him. So here's the remaining scoop. On some other Biden administration policies. Here are a couple of videos about Biden talking about the urge and the need to pass the stimulus package relatively quickly purply. That's in fact we're going to be in a situation where a long long time and Appreciate y'all truman. Over because urgency mature movement. this about people's lives. this is not just about people's lives people. Are i tell any of. You are really hurting people of victims. Just look at all the number people who needed sneaky mental health services now. Suicides up people are really really drug abuse against when people are really feeling the whole on how to get out you give them a lot of hope. Hope the as they. So they're deliver the grace of god and goodwill encrypt not rise. We can really begin to do something. Consequentially so i wanna thank you all and but i you know president president bobby put me in charge of recovery act and it was hard as hell get the votes for to begin with and it was hard as hell getting a number retired but one thing we learned. Is you know we can't do too much. We can do to little do to sputter but again the end result is not just a macroeconomic impact on the economy and our ability to compete internationally. People's lives real live. People are hurting and we can fix. We can fix it. The irony of all ideas is when we held them. We are also helping our competitive capacity through the remainder of this decade. And it's real. It's got a chance to do something here. And i thank you for for last night yesterday much. You're going to be doing recovery. Act and i can hardly wait to sit down with. Putin defies not work on infrastructure. To thank you all for being here. Thank you for Trump hand. I know some in congress think we've already done enough to deal with the crisis in the country.

00:10:04 - 00:15:04

Others think that things are getting better and we can afford to sit back neither do little or do nothing at all. That's not what i see. I see enormous pain in this country. A lot of folks out of work a lot of folks going hungry staring at the ceiling tonight wondering what am i going to do tomorrow. A lot of folks trying to figure out how to keep their jobs and take care of their children. A lot of folks reaching the breaking point suicides are up. Mental health needs increasing violence against women and children's increasing. A lot of folks are losing hope. And i believe the American people are looking right now to their government for help to do our job to not let them down. So i'm going to act and i'm going to act fast. I'd like to be. I like to be doing it. With the support of republicans. Republicans some really fine people want to get something done. But they're just not willing to go as far as we have to go. I've told both republicans and democrats. That's my preference to work together. But if i have to choose between getting help right now to Americans who are hurting so badly and getting drier bogged down negotiation or compromise on a bill. That's that's up to the crisis this an easy choice. I'm going to help. The American people are hurting. Now that's why. I'm so grateful to the house and the senate for moving so fast on the American rescue plan in Friday spoke about that budget resolution that passed africa harris. Broke the tie. So let's just hear that call as our fifty. The nays are fifty. The senate being equally divided the vice-president votes in the affirmative and the concurrent resolution as amended is adopted. That is going to be fun to hear for at least the next two years. Then we have press secretary. Jen psaki not taking any bs from fox. News reporter let the thousands of fossil fuel industry workers whether it's pipeline workers or construction workers who are either work or will soon be out of work because by e when it is and where it is that they can go for their green job and that is something the administration has promised. There is now a so. I'm just curious when happens when those people well it certainly welcome you to present your data of all the thousands and thousands of people who won't be getting a green job. Maybe next time you're here you can present. That would be getting green jobs. So i'm just asking when that happened. Richard Trumka who is a friend longtime friend of Joe Biden says about that day one eastone. He says i wish he. The president has paired that. Were carefully with the thing that he did. second by saying. Here's where we are creating jobs. So there's partial evidence from Richard trumka. Well you didn't include all of his interview. Would you like to include. How about this. The international union of North America said the keystone decision will cost one thousand existing union jobs and ten thousand projected construction jobs. Well what mr Trump. Also indicated in the same interview was that president Biden has proposed a climate plan with transformative investments and infrastructure and laid out a plan that will not only create millions of good union jobs but also helped tackle the climate crisis. That guy was peter doocy from fox news and i always hate his questions because he takes four ever to get to the point he just beats around the bush because his conscience is fighting him the whole time and at least that's what it seems like. It's like that tiny little part of them that still has morals and ethics is trying to tell him. He's being deceiving and a bad journalist. But pete here just wants at fox news money one of the more unexpected Biden policies. I would say. Just because. I never thought he would actually do. It is that he announced on Friday. That Trump wouldn't be eligible to receive intelligence briefings anymore. This is the first time that a former president has been cut out of these briefings. But we've never truly had a president Trump, have we? Biden explained in that norah o'donnell interview saying quote. I just think that there's no need for him. To have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him. An intelligence briefing. What impact does he have at all other than the fact that he might slip and say something and he also said that has shown quote erratic behavior. Well that certainly the polite way to say that. He's been acting crazy honestly if he didn't read them well he was president. Why should he get them now. I mean the way. I imagine it. They practically had to create puppet shows and plays to get him the information that was in those briefings like they probably had to act it out for him. The man doesn't or possibly can't read so the story here as promised is about the flus really bad year sir remember.

00:15:04 - 00:21:26

I talked a couple weeks ago. About how bad well not. How bad how good for us it was that. This year's flu season is almost nonexistent. In that was in new york city as it turns out that sort of the case. Globally this reporting from the atlantic followed a doctor from the mayo clinic in rochester minnesota. And they just sort of talked it over with them. What they're seeing in. Why we might be seeing this really good flu season for us. He said on december first that they began testing all patients with respiratory symptoms for covert and the flu so thousands and thousands of these tests have turned up positive for covid but out of the twenty thousand flu tests that they've run which is ten times. The usual number zero have come back positive for the flu since early fall. Eight hundred thousand flu tests in the. Us have been done and only fifteen hundred have been positive. That's point two percent for context. That's about one hundred times so last year. We had a hundred times more cases at this time when we had done. Eight hundred thousand tests back then. The flu positivity rate was anywhere between twenty and thirty percent twenty and thirty percent a lot of other respiratory viruses have disappeared as well well disappeared in quotes because they're still out there somewhere including ones for the common cold. Obviously, the reason for this is the number of restrictions and precautions that we've had to put in place social distancing masks, etc and all of that help because the regular flu and COVID spread in pretty much the same ways however covert spreads more easily because it can be passed on by people who don't even have symptoms. For example, just look at all these super spreader events. That didn't happen before. It's not like if you went to the movie theater and just anyone had the flu. You all suddenly got the flu. There are also differences at the macroscopic level. Like how it sticks to the particles that we exhale when we breathe or talk like COVID sticks more easily so is easier to transmit of course doctors have some problems with all of this for one our bodies might start to sort of forget the flu, meaning that they won't be able to produce the right or enough antibodies to fight it off as effectively before. Although, I imagine if you got your flu shot this year. Probably in pretty good shape second. It makes it harder for the world health organization to recommend the right ingredients for the flu vaccine. For next year. I had always heard that it was like some crazy long process in that it took like a year to make them and they had to start planning a year in advance but this article finally went into detail about how the flu vaccine is made so the. Who meets twice a year to recommend vaccine ingredients to countries in the northern and southern hemispheres. There's one meeting for each sensor winters. Take place at opposite times and actually the northern hemisphere later this month when that happens the WHO recommends what to put in the vaccine based on the data that they've collected from the flu samples from all around the world from that data. They pick out which flows are causing the most trouble. And that's why it'll be tougher this year with fewer flu cases. There's also less data, so they have to guess more than they usually would on which flows will be around this winter now. The reason that they have to start doing this now in so early is that flu vaccines usually take about six months to make. However, this new technology that we're using for covid vaccines could make a huge difference with flu vaccines in just the very near future. A lot of companies are already studying this since the mr can be switched out pretty quickly and they can adjust though probably be able to make flu vaccines in just a few weeks once able to focus on that instead of covid so that would be pretty interesting now. The doctors did emphasize that. We're not just done with the flu. It is still out there and people and maybe people just aren't getting tested because they're always at home but still that's one silver lining. I can't imagine like residents’ homes if we had both at the same time because they struggle with flu anyways man. We dodged a bullet there. All right folks. that's gonna do for me here today for the news. Just remember no show tomorrow back on Wednesday and then back on Friday. Then it'll be our new schedule but if you wanna leave some feedback about quick news daily and what I can do to improve. There is still that linked to the form in the episode descriptions. You can fill out that google form and let me know what you think contributors to the show also have a direct line to me and speaking of which. Let's thank those contributors. We have our producer. Cathy and executive producer. One and we thank you so much as always for supporting the show into actually on the steady paycheck websites. Which is what. I'm still going through just for the time. Being unless there are special circumstances. I did cut it down from three tiers to two tiers. So for a dollar, you get some things including a shoutout at the end of Monday shows and then for five dollars you get some other things so go check out those new tears and maybe consider signing up. Teach your name on the show. If you want. Those links are in the description as well otherwise stay safe out there stay home if he can get vaccinated as soon as you can. And I’ll see you right back here on Wednesday.