WASHINGTON --- Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff who has steered President Biden's administration through two years of triumphs and setbacks, is expected to step down in coming weeks in the most significant changing of the guard since Mr. Biden took office two years ago.

Mr. Klain has been telling colleagues privately since the November midterm elections that after a grueling, nonstop stretch at Mr. Biden's side going back to the 2020 campaign, he is ready to move on, according to senior administration officials, and a search for a replacement has been underway.

The officials, who discussed internal matters on condition of anonymity, would not say whether a successor has already been picked or when the decision would be announced, but indicated that it would come at some point after the president outlined his agenda for the coming year in his State of the Union address on Feb. 7. Mr. Klain likely would stay around for a transition period to help the next chief settle into the corner office that has been his command post for many crises and legislative battles.

His resignation would be a striking moment of turnover at the top of an administration that has been relatively stable through the first half of Mr. Biden's term, and Mr. Klain takes pride that he has lasted longer than any other Democratic president's first chief of staff in more than half a century. But with Mr. Biden expected to announce by spring that he is running for re-election, advisers predict more moves as some aides shift from the White House to the campaign.

The departure would also come at a time when the White House faces a widening array of political and legal threats from a newly appointed special counsel investigating the improper handling of classified documents and a flurry of other inquiries by the newly installed Republican majority in the House. The next chief of staff will be charged with managing the defense of Mr. Biden's White House and any counterattack as the 2024 election approaches.

Among the possible choices to replace Mr. Klain mentioned by senior officials are Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh; former Gov. Jack A. Markell of Delaware, now serving as ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden; Steven J. Ricchetti, the counselor to the president; Jeffrey D. Zients, the administration's former coronavirus response coordinator; Susan Rice, the White House domestic policy adviser; and Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture.

Neither Mr. Klain nor any of those named as possible candidates to succeed him had any immediate comment on Saturday in response to messages. Ms. Dunn has flatly ruled out taking the job in conversations with colleagues.

Mr. Klain has been a singularly important figure in Mr. Biden's administration. Having worked for Mr. Biden off and on for more than three decades, Mr. Klain channels the president as few others can, admirers say. He is seen as so influential that Republicans derisively call him a virtual prime minister and Democrats blame him when they are disappointed in a decision.

For all the crossfire, Mr. Klain helped rack up an impressive string of legislative victories, including a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan, a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure program, the largest investment in combating climate change in history and measures to expand benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, lower prescription drug costs for seniors, spur development in the semiconductor industry and create a minimum 15 percent tax rate for major corporations.

Mr. Klain also helped oversee the distribution of vaccines that have curbed if not ended the Covid-19 pandemic and the enactment of a plan to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt for millions of Americans. And he set the tone for the White House message to the world through an active Twitter account that he used to promote victories and jab critics.

On Friday, for instance, he chided Republicans for their approach to federal spending. "How extreme is the House GOP plan to cut Social Security and Medicare?" he wrote. "So extreme that even Donald Trump is saying, 'Hey, that's too extreme for me!'"

He also reflected on the second anniversary of Mr. Biden's inauguration. "Two hard years," Mr. Klain wrote. "So much to be done. But so much progress."

At the same time, Mr. Klain has presided over a rash of troubles that have drained public support for Mr. Biden. While unemployment has remained near record lows and job creation was robust, inflation reached its highest rate in 40 years, gas prices shot up to an all-time high, economic growth stalled for a time and illegal immigration at the southwestern border surged to record levels.

Likely as a result, Mr. Biden's approval rating has been mired in the low 40 percent range for more than a year. But Mr. Klain is preparing to leave at a moment when gas prices have come back down, inflation is falling and Mr. Biden's political standing appears to have recovered somewhat after better-than-expected midterm elections.

"He is a truly unique chief of staff," said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution who studies administration personnel. Mr. Klain's broad experience in multiple administrations as well as on Capitol Hill, his reputation for managing tough political challenges and his long history with Mr. Biden made him the most important figure in the White House besides the president.

"Finding a successor who encompasses all of those skills will not be easy and may well be impossible," Ms. Tenpas said. "They are headed into a re-election campaign that also increases Ron's value in that he has campaign experience and political skills. In addition, the chief of staff's Capitol Hill experience could come in handy as they confront divided government."

By this point in his presidency, Donald J. Trump was already on his third chief of staff and his third national security adviser and had lost more than half of his original 15 cabinet secretaries. By contrast, none of Mr. Biden's statutory cabinet members have left. In fact, even Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who some had speculated might step down after the midterm elections, recently told Mr. Biden that she would stay.

Ms. Tenpas calculates Mr. Biden's turnover in his most important positions at 40 percent in the first two years, far lower than the 66 percent turnover in the same period under Mr. Trump, although higher than other recent presidents, like Barack Obama, who saw just 24 percent in his first two years.

Still, few of those who left were at the senior-most level or part of the president's inner circle, which has remained broadly intact. Mr. Biden's overall turnover rate is higher than it would have been otherwise in part because of turmoil in Vice President Kamala Harris's office, where staff members have come and gone with more frequency.

Other departures are anticipated, possibly after the president's State of the Union address, scheduled for Feb. 7. Brian Deese, the president's national economic adviser, is expected to leave later this year, while Cecilia Rouse is expected to leave her post as chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers to return to Princeton University.

Mr. Klain, 61, who grew up in Indiana, graduated from Georgetown and earned a law degree from Harvard, has now served under three presidents and brought more White House experience to his post than perhaps any of his predecessors. He was associate counsel to President Bill Clinton, counselor to Attorney General Janet Reno and then chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore. A central figure in Mr. Gore's futile fight to win the election recount in Florida in 2000, Mr. Klain was later played by Kevin Spacey in the 2008 HBO film "Recount."

Mr. Klain also worked for Mr. Biden's Senate office and served as Mr. Biden's chief of staff when he was vice president before becoming Mr. Obama's Ebola response coordinator. Altogether, he served under nine previous White House chiefs of staff. "I have worked for more White House chiefs of staff than any other White House chief of staff," Mr. Klain once boasted.

In 2015, Mr. Klain enlisted with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign without waiting until Mr. Biden announced he was not running, an act that was seen as a betrayal by some in Biden world. In an email later made public, Mr. Klain even lamented that he was "dead to them," meaning Mr. Biden's circle. But several current and former Biden advisers said it is a testament to Mr. Klain's strategic value that he worked his way back into the good graces of not only the president but also his wife, Jill Biden.

Mr. Klain has long been open that he expected to leave at the two-year mark, especially since the midterm elections. He told Chris Whipple, author of "The Fight of His Life," a new book on Mr. Biden's presidency published last Tuesday, that he was readying to depart at that point and predicted that his successor could be a woman, without naming her.

Officials said in recent days that it was not at all certain it will be a woman after all, however. But after the rough and tumble of his tenure, Mr. Klain took the midterm results as validation. "Maybe," he wrote Mr. Whipple in an email at 1:16 a.m. on election night, "we don't suck as much as people thought."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/us/politics/ron-klain-resigning.html

https://old.reddit.com/r/NativeAmerican/comments/10i5jn0/28billion_settlement_reached_in_classaction/

Here's a proposal for both Burgers and Leafs, shut up these annoying "Land Back" morons and either deport them to Antarctica or make them travel to Mongolia by boat.

And our Injun Activist "friends" felt they "had" to defend the idea that the Injuns never killed each other:

https://old.reddit.com/r/NativeAmerican/comments/w3bcpc/regarding_claims_natives_are_racist_and_genocidal/

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10hw075/ftc_tells_pharma_bro_martin_shkreli_he_cant_be_in/

Planned Parenthood sex educator shares how youths can get sex toys https://t.co/4l67PPD39g pic.twitter.com/ItVz4Gp5Sn

— New York Post (@nypost) January 21, 2023

Following the mass riots involving migrant youth on New Year's Eve, German-Iranian author and commentator Behzad Karim Khani is criticizing the debates about the young men of foreign origin, which he says are fueled by historical racism. He asserts that regardless of what Germans think about the riots, migrants are not only going to stay in the country but will eventually "inherit Germany" from ethnic Germans, who are "dying off."

"We are here --- not just for your pension funds, but because we make sure that the Aryan nightmare never becomes a reality in this country," he wrote in one of Germany's top media outlets, Berliner Zeitung in a piece entitled "Behzad Karim Khani on New Year's Eve: Integrate yourself!"

Khani, who was accepted to Germany as a political refugee from Iran, along with his family, when he was 10 years old, writes that migrants will inherent Germany. He adds that time is on the side of migrants, as ethnic Germans are "dying out."

I think we're at a point now where we should an honest look at the situation. Let's start with the simple statement that we --- migrants, foreigners, people with ... call us what you like --- are not going to leave that easily. And neither will you, dear organic Germans, though, demographically, you're definitely going away. You're dying out, and your country needs about 400,000 new workers (every year) over the next 15 years, that's about a million immigrants a year. We migrants will probably inherit this land. So we could play for time here, which is time you don't have."

Khani refers to the "bio deutsch," a slang term for ethnic Germans. He asserts that these Germans deserve to be demographically replaced for the country's actions during the Second World War.

"Strange things also happen when you gas, shoot, or exile almost all of your intelligentsia. And after the war is lost, there is a need for simple workers, people who can be brought in to rebuild the piles of rubble that until yesterday were still Berlin, Dresden or Cologne."

The author appears to assert that Germans to be uniquely evil in history, pointing not only to the Second World War, but also what he says is the country's Islamophobia. He makes no mention, for instance, of Muslims, Arabs and Persians waging imperialist wars of aggression throughout their history, including the colonial occupation of Spain and the Balkans, nor does he mention that Islamic nations were committing genocide against Greek and Armenian Christians as late as the 20th century. In addition, Khani's article omits the Arab slave trade, which involved the enslavement of approximately 1 million White Europeans across Europe's vast coastline, or Arab and Persian involvement in the African slave trade.

According to scholars, any non-Muslim could be enslaved according to Islamic doctrine, and prior to the 20th century, the number of slaves numbered between 12 and 15 million, which substantially dwarfs the number of slaves in the United States, which reached 4 million at its height.

Khani’s text, instead, is uniquely focused on ethnic Germans, even referring to an Israeli friend who once told him that “the Arabs are the Jews’ revenge on the Germans.” The author argues that those who start a world war based on the idea of ”racial purity” are sometimes forced to become an immigration country after defeat, adding that the “victorious powers (after World War II) also shared our mistrust of this society.”

Khani writes that the mistrust immigrants feel in Germany is behind why they rioted during New Year’s Eve, adding that it does not necessarily excuse their behavior, but it explains it.

During the riots, which were widely covered for days in the national news media, ambulances were pelted with projectiles, firefighters and police officers were hospitalized with severe injuries, and buses and vehicles set on fire across the country. However, all of these actions are explained, according to Khani, by the mistrust the Germans have sowed in the past. In his article, he makes no mention of the 2,500 women who were sexually assaulted across Germany during 2015 and 2016, or whether this would also be excused or explained by Germany's historical role in World War II.

He adds that Germany refuses to take responsibility for its "colonial legacy" and even for those Germans praising themselves for a unique culture of remembrance for the Second World War, he indicates this does not matter since "not a single synagogue, Jewish school or Jewish retirement home can do without police protection."

Data shows that the vast majority of attacks against Jews in Germany are perpetrated by Arabs and Muslims. Surveys also have shown that anti-Semitic sentiments are far higher among Muslims in Germany than non-Muslims.

According to another survey, Jewish victims of attacks in Germany have said that in 57 percent of cases, the attacker was either of a Middle-Eastern appearance or have belonged to a far-left group, while only in 20 percent of cases did they claim that the perpetrators belonged to a far-right group.

In the Netherlands, reportedly 70 percent of anti-Semitic incidents are perpetrated by Muslim attackers. In Sweden, Muslim attacks against Jews are rampant, leading Jews to flee cities like Malmö.

Khani has also described himself as having a substantial criminal background in his youth, which he writes about in his book "Dog, Wolf, Jackal." German public broadcaster, RBB, interviewed him shortly after the New Year's Eve riots:

RBB: You had a serious criminal youth yourself --- that's what you called it yourself. You grew up in Bochum in the 90s after your parents came to Germany from Iran. Why did you then drift into violence?

Khani: For me, it was about something completely different. I grew up in an area where violence was one of the only ways to maintain dignity. One does not abstain from violence by becoming a victim. At the point where the violence is, you have to react. Violence has its own logic.

Khani indicates that even if Germans do not like migrants in Germany, the migrants will stay in the country barring extreme violence.

"Without extreme violence, eclipsing that of Hitler's Germany, (the Aryan) nightmare will not come true," he writes.

Khani's statements come at a time during increasingly hostile comments and policies against ethnic Germans. For example, a Green party plan would see "organic Germans" banned from up to a third of jobs." Germany's new anti-discrimination minister, Ferda Ataman, who has a Turkish background, labeled ethnic Germans as "potatoes" in 2022.

Just last week, the Green party replaced their own justice minister in the state of Thuringia simply because he was a white male. An Afro-German female with no legal degree as well as no criminal justice or political experience took his position.

https://rmx.news/article/ethnic-germans-are-dying-off-and-migrants-will-inherit-germany-claims-iranian-commentator-in-one-of-germanys-largest-newspapers/

DNC or Biden trying to blackmail a sitting Supreme Court Justice?

A now-deleted Instagram account that authorities believe belonged to Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in the University of Idaho murders, followed the three female victims of the attack, according to a report citing sources in the investigation.

Investigators haven't said if the victims knew the suspect, however People magazine has claimed he reached out one of the female victims repeatedly via Instagram messenger.

Kohberger, a 28-year-old Ph.D. student in criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in connection with the slayings of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in the neighboring town of Moscow, Idaho.

All four bodies were discovered in an off-campus residence the three women shared on November 13. Chapin had been sleeping over with his girlfriend, Kernodle.

Kohberger was arrested at his parents' home in Pennsylvania on December 30 in connection with the stabbings. He was then extradited to Idaho and has yet to enter a plea. He has maintained his innocence, and his public defender in Pennsylvania previously said Kohberger is "eager to be exonerated".

After his initial appearance in an Idaho court on January 5, Kohberger was next seen in the courtroom on January 12. He consented to waive his right to a speedy trial, and his preliminary hearing date was set for June 26.

According to People, Kohberger followed Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle before the account was deleted. Two weeks prior to the multiple stabbings, in late October, he allegedly sent a message to one of the victims, followed by several more when he didn't receive a response.

"He slid into one of the girls' DMs several times, but she didn't respond," a source close to the investigation told the outlet. "Basically, it was just him saying, 'Hey, how are you?' But he did it again and again."

"These weren't angry messages, these weren't even sexual messages—these were just him saying 'Hey' and when she didn't respond saying 'Hey' again and again and again," Steve Helling, senior crime reporter at People, explained to NewsNation. "He never expressed any anger, you know, 'why aren't you responding to me?' or 'you stuck-up b-word'; that's not what he was doing. He was just trying to make some sort of contact."

"There's no indication that he was getting frustrated with her lack of response," the source said. "But he was definitely persistent."

The source said that the victim may not have seen the messages Kohberger reportedly sent, as Instagram users aren't notified when they're messaged by someone they don't follow, and investigators are still trying to determine "how aware the victims were of his existence."

The victim he allegedly messaged isn't something that authorities have yet made public. Asked about it, Helling said: "We don't. The police certainly do."

Earlier in the week, law enforcement seized stained bedding, strands of what could be hair and a single glove from Kohberger's apartment in Washington state, according to the Associated Press, citing new court documents. However, they have still yet to locate the weapon used in the attack.

A U.S. Marine Corps knife sheath was found on Mogen's bed with DNA evidence linked to Kohberger, an earlier affidavit of Corporal Brett Payne, of the Moscow Police Department, said.

Payne wrote that a single source of male DNA was found on the sheath, which on December 28 the Idaho State Lab found matched a DNA profile taken from trash from Kohberger's residence.

Newsweek contacted Kohberger's public defender for comment.

Update

https://old.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/10h68qc/1_bond_guy_arrested_again/

This is why we need mayocide

A highly contagious COVID-19 variant dubbed 'the Kraken,' after the mythical sea monster, has been confirmed in Davidson County and elsewhere in Tennessee as cases of the novel coronavirus continue to rise, public health officials say.

This strain of the virus, known technically as "XBB.1.5," is also now the leading strain of COVID-19 in the United States, accounting for an estimated 43% of confirmed cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In December, XBB.1.5, accounted for about 10% of U.S. cases, according to the John Hopkins University COVID Resource Center.

In the southeast U.S. region that includes Tennessee, the Kraken strain is the second-most prevalent strain, making up about 31% of all cases, CDC data show. State health officials are encouraging those who have not been vaccinated to do so. Those who are eligible to get the bivalent booster shots should also get them, they say.

"We are continuously monitoring COVID-19 in all its variants and forms," said Bill Christian, spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Health. "Vaccination is our best defense against COVID-19 and protects against severe outcomes, including death."

Christian would not comment when asked which counties have confirmed the presence of XBB.1.5.

The Metro Public Health Department for Nashville and Davidson County confirmed through genetic testing last week that the Kraken variant is circulating locally, said Leslie Waller, an epidemiologist with the Metro Public Health Department.

What's different about XBB.1.5, the so-called 'Kraken' variant?

According to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Resource Center, scientists believe the XBB.1.5 variant (a subvariant of the Omicron variant of COVID-19) has certain mutations that allow it to better bind to cells and, by extension, make it more transmissible. This is likely the reason that it is quickly becoming the dominant strain in the United States.

The World Health Organization has concluded that it's among the most antibody-resistant variants to date, suggesting that case counts may continue to rise in this country.

How likely are people to catch this variant?

Short answer: It depends.

While some sensational headlines have suggested that those who haven't caught COVID-19 yet are likely to catch this particular strain, it really depends on how well people are protected and if they are exposed, Waller said.

"People's immune systems are very different. People have a different combination of vaccines that they've received, ranging from none at all, all the way up to their second bivalent boosters," she said. "And then there are people who have chronic conditions that render their immune systems quite weak."

That said, previous infections don't seem to be a guarantee of protection, especially if they happened a long time ago. Public health experts also expect more infections as more people continue to gather in large crowds or in confined spaces without masks.

Dr. Ashish Jha, who leads the Biden administration's COVID-19 Task Force tweeted earlier this month that people who haven't recently been infected or gotten a bivalent booster "likely have very little protection" against infection.

Johns Hopkins University notes that even someone who has been infected with an earlier omicron variant is "likely susceptible" to an XBB.1.5 infection because natural immunity wanes over time and XBB.1.5 is more transmissible.

Is the 'Kraken' variant more dangerous?

For now, it doesn't seem to be.

The WHO is still assessing XBB.1.5 but notes that it doesn't have any mutations that make people sicker than the other variants.

"It's certainly something to keep an eye on, especially for those who are particularly vulnerable," Waller said. "But, in terms of worry and panic, I don't think that's particularly warranted at this time. There's not currently any indication that it makes people sicker."

Why is it called the 'Kraken?'

The Kraken, a mythological creature of Scandinavian lore often depicted as a giant squid or octopus, got attached to this particular version of COVID-19 reportedly by a biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

According to Fortune, Dr. Ryan Gregory was looking for a memorable name for variants and was inspired by a Twitter user who had dubbed another variant "Centaur." He came up with Kraken, which quickly picked up steam. Soon, a very click-baity new COVID variant was born.

they are also part of the Schengen zone now. Which means that European influence is still getting stronger with time.

Who do you thiink will become the next EU member state?

Will the EU ever surpass the US?

How long until the EU expands into all of Eastern Europe?