Fogbow

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Sat Jul 03, 2021 4:00 pm I'm not nearly as upset by the jobs graph from the standpoint that Biden's job growth numbers are also a reflection of how horrible Trump's management of the pandemic was.

SuzieC wrote: ↑Sun Jul 04, 2021 8:07 pm This has never happened to me before. I watched President Biden's 4th of July speech with tears running down my face. Actually I never watched 4th of July speeches before and certainly shunned Trump's. I feel that our country has barely escaped a deeply terrifying horror.

I loved Biden's speech. I have hope.

They waited 54 years, until after most of them were dead. It was not until 1990 that Congress finally addressed this particular stain on our honor and granted them citizenship. (Their promised benefits were not even brought to a vote until 2008, when most of the happy men I saw that day were dead.)

Pentagon Cancels a Disputed $10 Billion Technology Contract
The decision puts an end to years of legal wrangling over the contract, for 10 years of cloud-computing services.

By Kate Conger and David E. Sanger
July 6, 2021

The Defense Department said on Tuesday that it would not go forward with a lucrative cloud-computing contract that had become the subject of a contentious legal battle amid claims of interference by the Trump administration.

The Pentagon had warned Congress in January that it might walk away from the contract if a federal court agreed to consider whether former President Donald J. Trump interfered in a process that awarded the $10 billion contract to Microsoft over its tech rival Amazon, saying that the question would result in lengthy litigation and untenable delays.

The Defense Department said in a news release on Tuesday that the contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, known as JEDI, “no longer meets its needs,” but it said it would solicit bids from Amazon and Microsoft on future cloud-computing contracts.

The Pentagon statement made for a quiet end to years of legal wrangling and dueling technology claims over what many considered to be the marquee contract for providing cloud-computing services to the federal government.

A senior administration official said that soon after the Biden administration took office, it began a review that quickly concluded that the costly arguments over JEDI had been so lengthy that the system would be outdated as soon as it was deployed.

“With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI cloud contract, which has been long delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the D.O.D.’s capability gaps,’’ the Pentagon said in an announcement.

Instead, the Pentagon proposed a new cloud architecture called the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability. And the Pentagon made clear that only Microsoft and Amazon Web Services had the capacity to build it. The Pentagon’s announcement suggested that it would buy technology from both companies, rather than awarding one large contract to a single provider, as it had for JEDI.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/06/tech ... elled.html

President Joe Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul after he refused to submit his resignation as the President had requested, a White House official told CNN.

Biden had asked for the top two officials at the Social Security Administration to submit their resignations, the White House official told CNN, but only Saul refused. Deputy Commissioner David Black agreed to submit his resignation, the official said, and it was accepted.

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1
President Biden has nominated the first out lesbian to an ambassador-level position in U.S. history. Chantale Wong has been appointed U.S. director of the Asian Development Bank, which works to foster economic growth in the Asia-Pacific Region.

"For the record," Carolyn Colvin (Obama's Social Security commish (who covered up Obama's social-security fraud )) resigned on January 20, 2017.

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:21 am bob - Questions. I haz them.

"For the record," Carolyn Colvin (Obama's Social Security commish (who covered up Obama's social-security fraud )) resigned on January 20, 2017.

noblepa wrote: ↑Sun Jul 11, 2021 2:42 pm

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:21 am bob - Questions. I haz them.

"For the record," Carolyn Colvin (Obama's Social Security commish (who covered up Obama's social-security fraud )) resigned on January 20, 2017.

Yeah. I didn't understand this comment, either. Is he seriously accusing Ms. Colvin of a crime, or is he being sarcastic and mocking the birthers? Is he trying to imply that her resignation constitutes some sort of confession?

But on Wednesday, all 11 Republicans on the committee signed a letter raising objections over an inspector general's investigation into a dysfunctional computer system and whether agency officials misled Congress and auditors about the extent of the problem.
[More Maryland news] Two women shot dead in Baltimore County in separate incidents; one person charged »

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the senior Republican on the committee, has placed a formal hold on her confirmation, complicating efforts to approve her this year.

Colvin said she will answer "forthrightly" a series of questions posed by the Republican senators by Monday.

"Many of the same questions they're asking now we already answered prior to my hearing," she said. "Other than that, there's not much I can say because it's an open investigation."

The six-year-old, $300 million computer program was intended to speed the processing of disability claims, but auditors say it has been able to handle only 700 out of millions of claims.

Aides have long noted that the program was implemented under Colvin's predecessor, Bush appointee Michael J. Astrue. And they have said that Colvin began a thorough investigation of the matter when she took over the agency last year.

What Hatch and other Republicans say concerns them now is an investigation that has since come to light into whether Social Security officials "misled or withheld any information from the Congress" about the scope of the problem.

To avoid a conflict of interest, the investigation is being conducted by the inspector general for the U.S. Small Business Administration. A spokesman for that agency was unable to answer questions about the probe.

"We cannot in good faith allow a nomination for any position that requires the advice and consent of the Senate to proceed to a vote as long as the specter of a potential criminal investigation surrounds the nominee and/or those in their inner circle," Hatch and the other Republicans wrote Wednesday.

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:21 am bob - Questions. I haz them.

"For the record," Carolyn Colvin (Obama's Social Security commish (who covered up Obama's social-security fraud )) resigned on January 20, 2017.

Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:12 pm Biden was on fire just now. TFG must be twitching his thumbs not being able to spit back on Twitter.

Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:12 pm Biden was on fire just now. TFG must be twitching his thumbs not being able to spit back on Twitter.

Olivia Rodrigo: Pop princess pushes president's plan for more jabs

Biden Administration Transfers Its First Detainee From Guantánamo Bay
The Biden team picked up where the Obama administration left off with the repatriation of a Moroccan man, reducing the prison population to 39.

By Carol Rosenberg and Charlie Savage
July 19, 2021, 5:02 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday transferred its first detainee out of Guantánamo Bay, repatriating a Moroccan man who had been recommended for discharge from the wartime prison starting in 2016 but nevertheless remained there during the Trump years.

The transfer of the man, Abdul Latif Nasser, 56, was the first sign of a renewed effort under President Biden to winnow the population of prisoners by sending them to other countries that promise to ensure the men remain under security measures. Mr. Nasser was never charged with a crime.

The transfer process, which was pursued by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, had atrophied under Donald J. Trump. With Mr. Nasser’s departure, there are now 39 prisoners at Guantánamo, 11 of whom have been charged with war crimes. At its peak in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan, the prison complex at the U.S. naval base there held about 675 men.

Far more complex policy decisions about transfers await the Biden team, including whether to transfer a mentally ill Saudi man, Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was tortured at Guantánamo and is considered to have been one of several candidates to be a potential 20th hijacker on 9/11.



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/us/p ... eased.html