Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Friday. How are you? President Joe Biden delivered a speech to congress on Wednesday night to look back on his first 100 days in office. And as always, Twitter had a lot to say. The speech certainly contained less fire-and-brimstone drama than the past four years of presidential addresses did, but it did stretch to an hour and four minutes... pretty long for a speech of its kind. Biden told congress and the American public that the government's job is to "prove democracy still works." He covered everything from vaccination progress to tax plans. President Biden definitely didn’t think this one through. While addressing to Congress on Wednesday evening Joe Biden referred to the January 6th incident at the U.S. Capitol as the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” The heated comment was part of a prepared remark released by the White House from President Biden’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress. Biden stated, “100 days since I took the oath of office, lifted my hand off our family Bible, and inherited a nation in crisis. The worst pandemic in a century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” As expected, the comments generated an immediate backlash from social media users, pointing out several national tragedies that have taken place since the Civil War including 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the multiple school shootings.
Throughout the Trump presidency, the women of Congress wore white on political occasions to symbolize unity and call back to the Suffragette movement; save for 2018, when the color was black in honor of #MeToo and the Time’s Up campaign. But now, after 100 days of Joe Biden in office, color speckled the Capitol building during his first joint session of Congress: hues of Democratic blue, seasonal fuchsia, and floral face masks could be spotted clearly throughout the small, socially distant crowd. Though it was First Lady Jill Biden who really stole the show. From the moment Dr. Jill Biden stepped out on inauguration day in that icy blue get-up by Markarian, it was clear she’d use her new platform to exhibit some seriously show-stopping looks. Who could forget, just this month, when she shocked the world by deplaning Air Force One in black fishnets and booties? Throughout her brief time as the First Lady, Biden has flaunted mainly American designers and Wednesday night, for her husband’s joint address, was no different. The 69-year-old Biden wore a dress created by the Uruguayan immigrant designer Gabriela Hearst. The navy sheath dress was overlaid with a hand-embroidered mesh top featuring the official flowers from all 50 states, in addition to the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories. Going into detail on her website, Hearst explained that a flower from her home state of Delaware, a peach blossom, was positioned above Biden’s heart with the other 55 blooms branching out from there. And if this look seems familiar, you’re not wrong. Biden wore a white version on inauguration night when she stepped out to view celebratory fireworks from the White House. Hearst’s designs are also well-known for their sustainability; in this case, Hearst explained the recycled journey of the dress’s materials on her Instagram: “The Silk Wool dress (and mask)was made entirely of existing fabrics. Made and embroidered in New York. It was originally used to fit the inauguration one. The First Lady requested to salvage for another occasion. Double repurposed. New is not always better..” Social media lit up Wednesday night, applauding Biden’s wardrobe choice and examining the visual details. Throughout President Joe Biden’s speech, VP Kamala Harris stood resolutely beside the president. This is standard procedure, of course, but as the first woman in the role, that means Harris’ sartorial choices are under sustained scrutiny. But she impressed in a cream-colored blazer set by Prabal Gurung. Harris has certainly faced some style criticism. But for the most part as Vice President, she’s flexed the creative fashion of many black designers, including Pyer Moss, Christopher John Rogers and Sergio Hudson. (Gurung, who Harris wore Wednesday night, is Nepalese and based out of New York.) No doubt the entire Emhoff-Harris family is fashion-forward. Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff recently signed with IMG models... along with the 2021 inaugural poet Amanda Gorman.
Last week, Fox News spread the false narrative that Democratic President Joe Biden’s climate requirements would force Americans to remove 90 percent of red meat from their diets. How the rumors of the Red Meat Consumption War Began The network’s false claims spread like wildfire on social media, causing most users... including GOP lawmakers like Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, North Carolina Rep Madison Cawthorn and Georgia rep Lauren Boebert... to become outraged. Donald Trump Jr, the former President’s son, tweeted that he was “pretty sure I ate four pounds off of red meat last yesterday. That is going to be a hard NO from me!” Fox Business host Larry Kudlow took the wild claims even further, saying that Americans would have to cut their “poultry… fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, and animal-based fats’ from their diets” with the Biden climate agenda. Fox News hosts Jesse Watters and Ainsley Earhardt also touted claims about the Democrat’s war against red meat, as did Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. The only problem was that it was fake news. New, inconvenient evidence forced top Fox stars, including senior Fox News anchor John Roberts, into an embarrassing climb down. He admitted that the network had “incorrectly implied that it was part of Biden’s plan for dealing with climate change”. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale wrote that “Biden… has not proposed any limit on Americans’ consumption of any food. The false claim about Biden trying to restrict people to four pounds of red meat per year appears to have originated with a deceptive Thursday article by the British tabloid The Daily Mail. The article baselessly connected Biden’s climate proposals to an academic paper from 2020 that is not about Biden… that claim is complete nonsense.” President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris have made climate change a top priority of the new administration. But as Tom Vislack, the Biden Administration’s Secretary of Agriculture said on Monday, “There is no effort designed to limit people’s intake of beef coming out of President Biden’s White House or USDA.” The network’s confusion seems to come from the fact that an April 2020 University of Michigan study recommended a large reduction in people’s consumption of red meat in order to cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent. While Biden’s climate plan also wants to reduce emissions at the rate 50 percent by 2030, conservative media has simply made a false connection based on a target shared by those who care about climate change around the world.
Rudy’s been raided! Wednesday FBI agents conducted a search on former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani‘s home and office in Manhattan. The federal investigators issue a search warrant at 6 a.m. and though Giuliani has not been charged, the move signifies the bureau is increasing its criminal investigation into former president Donald Trump’s notorious attorney. Now Trump has responded on Fox News. Feds raided both Rudy Giuliani’s apartment and office, retrieving electronic devices from both NYC locations: cellphones and computers. Giuliani’s son Andrew Giuliani first appeared before the press to defend his father. Then, in a statement about the raid, Giuliani called the search a “corrupt double standard” by Justice Department which he says ignores “blatant crimes” by Democrats like President Joe Biden. Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello added, “What they did today was legal thuggery.” As The New York Times pointed out, prior to becoming mayor of New York City, Giuliani was a Republican prosector for the same U.S. attorney’s office that’s now investigating him. In that position, he had a reputation for going hard after “corrupt politicians.” So this recent FBI raid rings with a certain sort of American irony. As a close associate of Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani has been under investigation for shady business dealings in Ukraine during the election cycle of 2019 and 2020. CNN reports that federal agents are trying to determine whether Giuliani was lobbying illegally on behalf that country. Ukrainian officials. For example, Giuliani pressured Trump to fire the career diplomat Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch who was openly critical of the Trump administration. Doing so to honor the wishes of Ukrainian officials would have violated serious laws regarding the influence of foreign agents. Additionally, law enforcement is looking into Giuliani’s collaboration with Ukrainians last year to unearth dirt on the Democratic candidate’s son, Hunter Biden. In 2014, Hunter Biden had joined the board of Burisma Holdings, the largest private oil and gas extracting company in Ukraine. Giuliani also received a $500,000 payment from Ukrainian businessmen Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. Both men were indicted in 2019 during Trump’s first impeachment... over soliciting Russian interference in the 2016 election... for illegally funneling foreign capital into pro-Trump groups in America. Since then, Parnas has implicated both Trump and Giuliani in various schemes. As Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani has traded his previous reputation... as the self-appointed “America’s Mayor”... in favor of brazen backroom Ukrainian quid pro quo. But it seems, for now at least, that he remains supported by the former GOP president. In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said, “Rudy Giuliani is a great patriot. He does these things. He just loves his country. And they raid his apartment. It’s so unfair. It’s a double standard that I don’t think anyone’s seen before. It’s unfair.” Trump’s message echoes Giuliani’s directly with the distracting term: “double standard.” Now most commentators and critics alike are wondering whether Trump’s words, rather than signifying loyalty, are a blueprint for his own defense… as he wonders whether or not he’s the next FBI target. Of course, this news was overshadowed by President Joe Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress last night marking his first 100 days in office. And that itself was overshadowed by Jill Biden’s memorable dress.
For the first time since Trump declared the novel coronavirus pandemic a national emergency last March, Americans can safely smile, frown, and even blow air kisses (from a distance) at strangers without the shroud of a face covering... as long as both parties are in a non-crowded outdoor space. That’s according to new guidance released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “If you are fully vaccinated you can start doing many things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” the new CDC guidance says. “Fully vaccinated” status is achieved two weeks after your second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccination. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky elaborated on the development Tuesday during a White House briefing, “If you are vaccinated, things are much safer for you.” The health official continued, elaborating on the updated mask guidelines, “If you are fully vaccinated and want to attend a small outdoor gathering... with people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated... or dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households, the science shows you can do so safely, unmasked.” The CDC is very clear when it is (and is not) safe to not wear masks outdoors. CDC-sanctioned, safe outdoor settings include: small, outdoor gatherings with a mixture of vaccinated and unvaccinated people, outdoor restaurants with friends and members of your household, outdoor spaces when walking, running, cycling, rollerblading, flying kites, unicycling, doing the macarena, etc. The aforementioned outdoor settings are so low risk that even those without a coronavirus vaccine may participate without wearing a face mask, according to the CDC. Whether you have received a COVID-19 vaccine or not, there are certain settings where you should wear a mask, according to the CDC. The CDC recommends that both vaccinated people and unvaccinated people should continue to wear masks in the following scenarios where social distancing may be difficult: Crowded outdoor events, like concerts, sporting events, and parades, indoor settings, including barbershops and hair salons, indoor malls and museums, movie theaters, and full-capacity churches, public transportation. The CDC is relaxing mask mandates now that more than 50 percent of American adults have obtained at least one dose of the vaccine. Even before the new guidelines, public health experts have long noted the low likelihood of becoming infected with an infectious disease while outdoors. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief infectious disease expert in the U.S., has called the risk of spread in outdoor settings “minuscule.” “Virus just cannot accumulate in the air outdoors,” Linsey Marr, a researcher at Virginia Tech, told NPR. “It’s like putting a drop of dye into the ocean. If you happen to be right next to it, then maybe you’ll get a whiff of it. But it’s going to become diluted rapidly into the huge atmosphere.” President Joe Biden has hailed the relaxation of mask requirements as a way to dispel vaccine hesitancy, urging unvaccinated citizens to do so... not just to protect themselves and those around them, but so they can begin returning to normalcy by “getting together with friends, going to the park for a picnic without needing a mask.”
It took almost 245 years for this to happen...
It’s about time. Finally, a reboot worth watching...
Hahahaha. When you were warned to take half but you wanted the full edible...
Any stroll through a store would have you believe that "pink is for girls" and "blue is for boys" are the associated gender roles are the very backbone of our society. Products from nail clippers to hand lotion are assigned genders when last time I checked, inanimate objects don't have gender identities. "I just want a bigger pocket please, is that too much to ask for? Sincerely, women everywhere."
You know what makes me chuckle? When people reenact pictures from their past... like this one...
Yes, that's me and my sisters... photo taken in 2014. The second one was. The first was way before that... 1980 or '81. Haha. It's never fun when you go above and beyond to plan a special day for your partner to celebrate an important anniversary or key relationship milestone, only to realize they completely forgot about it... Waking up when the sun rises to cook a fancy breakfast-in-bed with a trail of rose petals leading to a beautifully wrapped gift is a nice gesture, but if your partner fully forgot that today is the anniversary of your first date then things can get awkward. That being said, planning a fun day for someone you love should never be about expecting something in return, especially if it isn't a day you normally celebrate. Birthdays and wedding anniversaries are standard, but if you made up a holiday for the first day you ate pancakes on a plane together? Cut your wife some slack for the lack of pancakes and airport-themed decor... Looking back on meaningful memories in a relationship can be a fun, nostalgic way to honor the time you've spent together and the future plans you want to make, but putting pressure on your partner to put in the same exact enthusiasm and effort into important dates is a recipe for resentment and disaster. So, when a frustrated wife decided to consult the moral compass of the Phile about her husband's "vacation anniversary" celebration, I decided to help with a verdict.
"Am I wrong for forgetting my husband and I's 'vacation anniversary?' My husband and I have been married for four and a half years now. In the spring of 2018, we took a two-month long trip to Europe/Africa where we stayed in London, Barcelona, and Marrakesh. It was a great time for both of us and since then we've always wanted to do another long trip like that. So, this morning. My husband wakes me up at 7 a.m. with a gift. At this point, I'm a little pissed off because we had both gone to bed at 1 and I wanted to sleep in. So, I open the gift (which is an envelope), and inside are our plane tickets from our home airport to London dated on 4/29/2018. I mean... a little strange but okay? Then, he drags me into the kitchen where I see he's prepared a Spanish-style breakfast for me, which I thought was really sweet of him. He told me that since today was the day we left on our big trip and haven't been able to travel for a year, he wanted to do something special for me to commemorate. I mean, overall it was a really nice gesture even if I was sleep deprived. Our day then goes on as normal (we both work from home). Around noon I go into the kitchen to make some lunch for myself, and my husband comes in and says, 'So, I'm guessing you didn't get me anything?' At this point I'm pretty confused so I'm like, 'get you anything for what?' Then, he gets this exasperated look on his face and says, 'Our vacation anniversary?' I didn't know if this was a joke or not, because we've literally NEVER celebrated this 'vacation anniversary' before, despite it technically occurring already two times in 2019 and 2020. So, I laugh at it and tell him 'maybe next year I will.' He didn't appreciate the joke. He told me that our vacation was more 'significant than our wedding' and that it hurt him that I didn't remember. I apologized to him but he's still got a pissy attitude with me. Am I wrong?" Hmmmm. nope. This is not a yearly event you guys celebrate. You had no way of knowing he was planning to make a big deal about it this year. Can't your husband just do something sweet for you without expecting something in return? A vacation anniversary is a new one to me. Did he say why he considers your “vacation” more significant than your wedding? I mean, personally, I’ve never heard of such a thing so I don’t see how you could be wrong for not remembering to celebrate something you two have never celebrated before. Tell him that you’re “hurt” he didn’t remember for the past two years. I mean how were you supposed to magically know that THIS was the year to celebrate? You can't be in the wrong for something you didn't know was a thing. I'm also pretty bummed with your husband. That was kind of a cute thing he did... and it could have been a great day, but he had to ruin it by getting pissy with you. Ugh. You should talk with him to find out where his frustration came from and make sure there isn't something else going on that he needs help with or that you both need to work on. So, there you have it! This woman was not wrong at all to assume her husband's disappointment about their "vacation anniversary" was a joke, as it wasn't even a celebratory tradition they had established as a couple. Also, for him to say their "vacation anniversary" was more important than their wedding? You can't make up a fake holiday and then get upset that you didn't get a gift. Good luck, everyone! If you have a problem you want my help and opinion on then email me at thepeverettphile@gmail.com.
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