A very Interesting Weekend Indeed

     Happy Monday! This weekend threw out a lot of punches and honestly some of it is unbelievable and some of it is deliciously normal. Grab your coffee and stay safe from the snow as we delve into all the top headlines of the last weekend.
      On Friday, most notably was that Lloyd Austin was confirmed as secretary of defense. He is the second confirmed cabinet member to be confirmed by the senate with an overwhelming 93-2 vote. It was also announced through the White House press office that President Biden will be having phone calls with both the Canadian Prime Minister and the President of Mexico. Those calls took place on Saturday. The president also had a phone call with the head of the National Guard to thank him and offer both federal assistance and his personal assistance if it is needed. The president and vice president also had a weekly lunch which was an old tradition from when President Obama was in office. They both have stated publicly that they look forward to bringing it back to the White House. Friday’s daily press briefing revealed that it will be awhile before the president undertakes a foreign trip given the current health emergency. Another topic that came up Friday was the president’s plan for church. The press secretary revealed he had not yet picked a new parish in Washington D.C. yet. I personally love that this was the burning questions on reporters mind’s. It’s a nice change. Later in the day, another executive order was signed regarding the economic issues facing the country. It included suspending student loan payments until September and allowing people to receive unemployment money if they’ve declined a job due to their health safety. In other news, the First Lady visited National Guard troops to thank them and to give them cookies as a small way to show appreciation for them. This came after a visit to the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington which focuses on treating and caring for cancer patients. She was hoping to highlight the additional strain that patients and caregivers have been placed under due to the ongoing pandemic. Finally, the New York Times released an article Friday evening all about the Rolex watch the president was photographed wearing. If this what qualifies as scandalous in this new administration, I’ll take it. Many other people couldn’t help but laugh at the stark change in news cycles so far and they’re also enjoying the refreshing change as well.
     Saturday brought more news on the vaccine front. Currently there are two approved COVID vaccines in the U.S.- Pfizer and Moderna. There are more expected to be approved by the end of March. Of the eleven currently in late-stage trials around the world, there are three front runners for the U.S. They are Johnson and Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Novavax. A potential $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill has yet to be approved by Congress. Many conservatives are on the fence because of the bill that was passed last month which gave Americans $600 in stimulus money. Another roadblock? The democrats have a tight majority and leaders Schumer and McConnell have yet to come to an agreement on how the chamber will run. The issues within Congress have not deterred the president from forging ahead on getting his agenda taken care of. In the first three days of his administration, President Biden signed thirty executive orders rescinding many of the Trump administration’s policies and dealing with issues such as the economy and the pandemic.
     More details have been released regarding the impeachment trial of former President Trump. It has been decided that the former President will receive two weeks to prep for the trial. This means that the trial would begin around February 9th but the length is unknown. Many are hoping that the proceedings would take only a couple of days but nothing has been set in stone. In order to convict, at least seventeen republicans will need to join the fifty democrats in voting yes to convict him. It is still unknown if it’ll go the way they want but dozens of influential republicans have been quietly lobbying their colleagues to vote with the democrats.
      As if we couldn’t learn anymore about Trump’s disgraceful behavior while in office, more stories have made their way to the surface. We all know that he had a difficult time accepting the results of the election so much so that he made calls to election officials in individual states, pressured Congress members to object to the counting of the electoral college vote, pressured his own Vice President to go against the constitution, and the cherry on top, incited a violent mob to storm the capitol. Turns out he also came up with a plan to oust the acting Georgia Attorney General, Jeffery Rosen as a way to pressure Georgia into changing the election results. This never came to fruition because Trump backed off after Rosen and Jeffery Clark (Trump’s co-conspirator in this plan) presented their cases during a bizarre meeting at the White House where they made their cases like they were on an episode of The Apprentice. Albeit, an episode where a constitutional crisis took place but apparently it was the only way to make Trump understand the potentially detrimental and insanely stupid decision he was going to make. 
      A busy weekend indeed! It’s been another shock-filled three days but I am going to keep holding out hope that once the impeachment issue has been taken care of a lot of those  you-can’t-make-this-up stories will cease to be the first thing we want to talk about in the morning. I’m just happy to be able to fall asleep without worrying what I’m going to wake up to when I look at Twitter. No more 3 am rage threads!