President Biden signs Executive Order directing cabinet agencies to address ‘crisis of violence’ against Native Americans

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. (photo c/o debforcongress.com)

The Tribal Nations Summit: A thoroughly decent, yet necessary, act by the Biden administration. Why, in the year 2021, are Native American communities still in such dire shape and neglected by the population at large? At least the White House is doing something to address them, but few Americans will notice or care and the media will not bring attention to it. -

(CNN) - President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday directing federal agencies, including the departments of Justice, Interior and Homeland Security, to create a strategy addressing what the President called a "crisis of violence" against Native Americans. 

"Today, I'm directing federal officials to work with tribal nations on a strategy to improve public safety and advanced justice," Biden said at the White House's first-ever Tribal Leaders Summit. 

The President continued: "This builds on the work we did together on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, when we granted authority to tribes to exercise jurisdiction over non-Indian offenders who commit violence on tribal lands." 

"We're going to reauthorize that again, we're going to expand the jurisdiction to include other offenses like sex trafficking, sexual assault and child abuse," Biden said. 

First lady Jill Biden, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland -- the country's first Native American Cabinet Secretary -- Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stood next to Biden as he signed the order. 

The order "tasks DOJ, Interior and Homeland Security to address and create a strategy in 240 days for specific law enforcement issues and to provide tribal nations with support in implementing tribally centered responses as well," to combat violence against Native communities, an administration official said Sunday. The Department of Health and Human Services will also be charged with developing plans for violence prevention and victim support. (Read more)

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White House unveils $65 billion plan to combat future pandemics

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One better believe there are going to be more pandemics. We were caught unprepared for this one, so we better start preparing for the next one. The White House has put forth a plan, now we wait for congressional glory-hounds to start nit-picking and obstructing. -

The Biden administration laid out Friday a $65 billion plan U.S. officials say will help the nation combat the next biological threats after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides. 

The next pandemic will likely be “substantially different” than Covid, and so the U.S. government must prepare now to deal with any future viral threat, Eric Lander, President Joe Biden’s science advisor and director of the Office of Science and Technology, said on a background call with reporters Friday. 

The plan – released in a 27-page document titled “American Pandemic Preparedness: Transforming Our Capabilities” – calls for investing billions of dollars over the next decade to improve vaccines and therapeutics as well public health infrastructure, enhance the nation’s real-time monitoring capabilities and make upgrades to personal protective equipment that could be used against a wide range of pathogens. 

The Biden administration’s plan has been organized into five “pillars,” officials said, each addressing different parts of the public health system. It proposes $15 billion to $20 billion to jump-start the administration’s efforts. The funds would be go to a new “mission control” office at the Department of Health and Human Services that’s closely overseen by Congress, officials said. 

Lander said the ongoing Covid pandemic has exposed “fundamental issues” with America’s public health system, including inadequate funding and lack of coordination across federal, state and local governments. 

The nation is still grappling with the worst Covid outbreak in the world, with more than 39 million cases and at least 643,776 deaths as of Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Many recovered patients are still living with the long-term effects of the disease, he said. 

“We need better capabilities ... because there’s a reasonable likelihood that another serious pandemic, that could be worse than Covid-19, will occur soon, possibly even within the next decade,” he told reporters on the call. 

Officials said the administration’s call to invest $65 billion is “modest” when taking into account that the current pandemic has cost the U.S. an estimated $16 trillion in lost economic output. 

It’s also smaller than what the nation spends on other programs, such as missile defense and anti-terrorism, which cost U.S. taxpayers $20 billion and $170 billion a year, respectively, they said. (Read more) 

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Two Florida school districts defy DeSantis, refuse to allow students to opt out of mask mandate

Photo: Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images

Did any kids and/or their parents demand to opt out of the polio vaccination in the ‘50s? How well would that have gone over with the general public at that time? In 2021, and in a state of emergency, it is absurd any old idiot can just invoke God and be allowed to have their kids spreading a plague. I say that as a (very flawed) Christian. The GOP is a party of mass insanity now, perhaps more so in Florida than anywhere else. Via ABC News - 

Risking financial consequences from the state of Florida, two school district superintendents are refusing to allow parents to opt their children out of district-wide mask mandates without a medical reason.

Doing so directly defies an emergency rule issued Friday by the Florida Department of Health, which mandates that parents be allowed to stop their children from wearing masks in the classroom.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, in an executive order issued on July 30, gave the state education commissioner the green light to deny money to districts that don’t comply with rules to protect “parents’ rights ... to make health care decisions for their minor children.”

Some of Florida’s largest school districts, seemingly spooked by the threat of losing money, are allowing parents to opt their children out of mask mandates.

But superintendents Rocky Hanna and Carlee Simon, of Leon and Alachua Counties, are forcing the state’s hand.

In a press conference Monday, Hanna cited the need to keep students safe, as Florida reports increased numbers of infections of COVID-19 and hospital admissions in children.

The state has the highest number of confirmed pediatric hospitalizations from the virus, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services. (Read more)

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