An illustration
from Juan Eusebio Nieremberg’s 1635 text
Historia natvrae, maxime peregrinae, libris XVI of a Su (also known as a Succarath): a fantastical beast rumored to inhabit the Patagonia region of South America, Something like a cross between a squirrel and a lion, said to carry its children around on its back, this animal remains unsubstantiated by modern science.
biden signed a whole bunch of executive orders today, all of which aiming to undo damage done by trump. i’m by no means a fan of biden, he’s a centrist at best and has a history of sexual assault and i despise how he’s pushing for “unity” instead of accountability right now, BUT here’s the full list of executive orders, because a little good news is good for you sometimes (but mostly because the news sites with this stuff are behind paywalls):
Restarting visa processing for people from the affected countries from the travel ban, and focusing on “addressing the harm caused to those who were prevented from coming to the US because of the ban”
Reinstating ties with the World Health Organization (after Trump withdrew the US’s membership and funding last year) and making Dr. Anthony Fauci the head of the American WHO delegation
Stopping the Border Wall construction and immediately terminating the national emergency declaration that allowed Trump to redirect billions of dollars to the wall
Revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline’s construction
Overturning Trump’s executive order that had stopped federal agencies, contractors, and other institutions from holding diversity and inclusion training
Immediately ending Trump’s 1776 Commission, a committee that aimed to give American students “patriotic” history lessons, which were widely criticized by historians and civil rights leaders as being “racist lies” and “nationalist propaganda” that whitewashed history and greatly downplayed how bad slavery was
Protecting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) and keeping Dreamers (people who were brought to the US as children) from being deported
Extending the national ban on evictions
Overturning a Trump executive order that had pushed “aggressive efforts” to find and deport immigrants
Blocking the deportation of Liberians, a group Trump had targeted specifically
Designating Susan E. Rice as the leader of a “robust, interagency” effort requiring all federal agencies to make “rooting out systemic racism” central to their work, and requiring federal agencies to submit detailed reports on equity in their ranks within 200 days
Reinforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to require that the federal government does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, a policy that reverses actions by Trump’s administration
Undoing Trump’s orders that slashed the size of several national parks (Trump had wanted to auction off parts of national parks and protected land, primarily to oil companies) and halting the oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Restoring the directorate for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council, a group Trump had disbanded, and requiring social distancing. A mask mandate would be met with significant legal opposition, but this order also requires masks on all federal property and by all federal employees
And lastly: immediately freezing all of Trump’s recent regulations he’d tried to sneak in at the last minute, so that the new administration can examine them much closer
also, this wasn’t an executive order, but in case anybody missed it: biden also chose rachel levine, a transgender jewish woman, as the assistant health secretary! from what i’ve seen, rachel seems great and has done a lot of good as pennsylvania’s health secretary, so that’s very exciting
He’s also extended the CARES Act Moratorium on federal student loan payments until September 30th, 2021. His administration is considering forgiving up to 10k of student loans per borrower, which while not as great as total forgiveness, would still be a huge help to a lot of people.
The first insect-focused conservation group, receiving its first big donation from Edward Gorey who willed that they would keep receiving funds from his estate to this day!
I didn’t know that! And I’m a big fan of Edward Gorey. Thank you for the addition.
Love that two of my coworkers have called out for the foreseeable future due to the rise in plague deaths and political instability in our nation’s capital. And me and my one remaining coworker were like. We didn’t know we could do that
Oh it turns out they both had FUCKING COVID and apparently according to our covid task force they didn’t have to tell any of us bc they both said they hadn’t been in to work on the same days as us since they got exposed in early January. One of them just showed up today an hour late and complained about all the security downtown and then was like “oh yeah i had covid but it’s been a week since i had a fever and two weeks since i got exposed” cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool
