When COVID-19 besieged the United States, New York State emerged as the global “ground zero” for a deadly contagion that threatened the lives and livelihoods of millions. Quickly, Governor Andrew Cuomo provided the leadership to address the threat, becoming the standard-bearer of the organized response the country desperately needed. With infection rates spiking and more people dying every day, the systems and functions necessary to combat the pandemic in New York—and America—did not exist. So Cuomo undertook the impossible. He unified people to rise to the challenge and was relentless in his pursuit of scientific facts and data. He quelled fear while implementing an extraordinary plan for flattening the curve of infection. He and his team worked day and night to protect the people of New York, despite roadblocks presented by a president incapable of leadership and addicted to transactional politics.

Cuomo, did what he had to do but we have to note also that prior to his actions, he did not think that Covid-19 was a problem. When he realized the problem and tackled it, he did his best as much of our state and local leaders. The pandemic response varied from state to state then. In California, for example Gov. Gavin Newsom was the first Governor to install the shelter in place and California had a good success in Spring to Summer of bending the pandemic curve on infections and hospitalizations.

As we end 2020. Newsom even has a recall battle due to the state restrictions on lockdowns and mask while the State of CA's had a total of 2,245,379 cases where there was  27,237 today and 428 deaths  out of a total death of 25,386.

One of the biggest challenge of the pandemic crisis  from acknowledgement, testing to now vaccinations really boils down to a  national body or response. It's been a pin pointing between the Federal and State levels of government. The promised 20 million vaccinations as end 2020 was only 2 million. Meanwhile Astra-Zeneca's vaccine in the Uk just got approved and might get the English vaccinated by half of 2021. One of the debatable discussions is that the United Kingdom has a National Health Service.

Looking at the incoming Biden-Harris administration's Covid-19 plan, it talk's about:

Establish and fund a U.S. Public Health Service Reserve Corps to activate former Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers to expand medical and public health capacity. By creating the Reserve Corps, we will have a larger team of health professionals to deploy across the nation to help train health care systems in detection and response, educate the public, provide direct patient care as needed, and support the public health infrastructure in communities that are often under-resourced and struggling.

Looking at this plan, I found the paid sick leave for Covid-19 where California's paid sick leave tax incentive for employers expires tonight when the clock ticks to 2021. 

The Biden Plan calls for an emergency paid leave program that will ensure that all workers can take paid leave during the COVID-19 crisis. It calls for passage of the Healthy Families Act with the addition of an emergency plan that will require 14 days of paid leave for those who are sick, exposed, or subject to quarantines—while also ensuring that employers will not bear any additional costs for such additional leave in the midst of this crisis. 

So let's hope, watch and see moving forward for a new hope this 2021.

At this moment and time, the news media writes about the coup intents speculation caused by the the 45th President's failure to concede to the incoming 46th President elect and the worry that the Republican's and the 74 million Trump voters that will hinder the Biden presidency deeming it illegitimate.

At the same, while writing this blog on the eve of the deadline of the stimulus negotiations on Capitol Hill by Congress debates, the news media is also reporting on leak unverified oval office meetings about discussions on the intent of "Martial Law".  If your someone who have not seen Martial Law in a developing country then you wouldn't really understand the realities of this.  However, if you are then the first thing that will come to your mind will be for all these ages, why did America became the riches nation on earth, why did all the immigrants immigrated to America to make land of the free and make rich! As the only dictators that these ideas would even be an idea are the desperate autocrats who will do anything, I mean anything! in a third world country!

Hence is why The United States has a federal law against seditious conspiracy in Tile 18 of the US Code, 18 U.S.C. S. 2384. "The Sedition Act made it a crime, in effect, to criticize the president, Congress, the federal government as a whole, or its measures, whether by press or speech." As a result, Bird has properly called for a re-evaluation of the Act, dismissing previous historians' largely-successful attempts at whitewashing and rightly condemning the Act's powerful supporters, such as Alexander Hamilton, President George Washington, and President John Adams.

 Undocumented workers and their families contributed more than $1.6 trillion to the nation’s gross domestic product in 2018. This was while the Trump Administration launched it's Zero Tolerance policy on Immigration while undocumented neighbors buy groceries, pay taxes and support local businesses in economic activity that generates $190 billion in government revenue nationwide.

Undocumented immigrants disproportionately work in essential sectors and earn lower total wages compared to their US-born counterparts. A lot of them are in the food supply chain, groceries, meat packaging, manufacturing, transport, delivery, retail, housekeeping, maintenance, janitorial, farming, merchandising to name a few. COVID-19 infection rates for Latinxs are the highest of all ethnoracial groups in California and Los Angeles. California has one of the highest unemployment rates (over 30%) among the poorest and most vulnerable undocumented workers and their mixed-status family members (more than 5.3 million).

When these undocumented immigrants get sick with Covid-19, they cannot even claim for unemployment insurance.  Deferred action protections and legal work authorization should be immediately granted to all essential workers3. The important role of undocumented workers in the economy provides a strong argument for a policy of legalization and a pathway to citizenship within a broader program of immigration reform.

“Undocumented workers are fundamental to our economy, especially during the pandemic when many of them are the essential workers who are keeping us fed, safe and healthy,” said Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative. “It would be only fair to recognize their contributions by including them in recovery efforts, and it is also clear that we cannot rebound from this crisis if we leave them behind.”

 Most undocumented workers are employed on the front lines, earning less than their legalized counterparts despite sharing equal labor responsibilities and risks. They are also excluded from receiving financial assistance from federal, state, and local governments, even though they boost the economy through tax contributions and consumer spending and stimulate employment and local investment. The pandemic has revealed the important role undocumented workers play in keeping the economy afloat.

From the recent conclusions of our elections on the changing demographics of the different demographics and sectors, we know the major issues start from healthcare, race, economy, as well as the changing needs even in a particular culture. Our nation is still divided and still in need of healing but time is always takes precedence in this process. Yet to heal to start the process we need to recognize the disparities of the effects of the pandemic both on on the deaths, cases as well as those essential workers such as the essential workers whom a big part are the non-documented whom sometimes we don't hear about when we talked about essential workers on Covid-19. 

This unique and daunting process always involves at least some mistakes—in hiring, perhaps, or in policy priorities, or organizational design. Early blunders can carry serious consequences well into a president's term; minimizing them from the outset is critical. In What Do We Do Now? Stephen Hess draws from his long experience as a White House staffer and presidential adviser to show what can be done to make presidential transitions go smoothly. Here is a workbook to guide future chief executives, decision by decision, through the minefield of transition.

I start with this as in the most recent transition in 2016 was a very good example of the failures right from the start of the transition process. This transition is the most consequential and historical one in our lifetime considering the dynamics, demographics and show of election results in the last 2 nights in our elections. From the Miami Cuban and Puerto Rican  Conservative Latinos in Florida citizens fearing  of socialism, to the new Mexican Latinos in Arizona from California more Liberal, to the African American voter turn out's in Georgia and Texas. Another good point to note is on top of the voter's list is a recognition of the racial divide which is now well showcase on how the results of this elections has come to a divided House and Senate.

Whatever the results of the presidential vote on Nov. 3, the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day seems set to be a dark and terrifying 11 weeks in the history of the United States. However, perhaps there’s some comfort to be taken in the fact that we’ve experienced fraught transitions before—and longer ones. To wit: When Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860 and prepared to take the reins from James Buchanan, who had kept a promise he made in his inaugural address not run for a second term, we suffered through a four-month slog of turmoil, because until the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1933, inaugurations used to take place in March. And during Buchanan’s endless lame-duck period, quite a bit went down: Seven states declared for secession, and Southerners seized forts and garrisons, arming themselves for the war we know now was coming.    Quote from

As we go through the final hours of the last remaining electoral college numbers to get to 270 to solidify our Mr. President Elect, as a nation we should start lowering the temperature and shifting the message to  We should praise whoever concedes as that would make it so much easier to heal and to transition. We should also remember Covid-19 had just reach 100,000 cases. We have to get back to solving the problems on Covid-19 and the stimulus as January 21 is still months from now. Meanwhile, people are sick, cannot pay bills and rent so the sooner a transition gets to work the better while the current administration works on the stimulus.

For Now, Let Us Respect the results, Welcome the President Elect and Thank the President.

"The inability to fully participate in the democratic process translates into a lack of political power—the power to elect candidates with shared values and the power to enact public policy priorities. As a result, people of color, especially Black people, continue to endure exclusion and discrimination in the electoral process, more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery". quoted from the American Progress Organization. 

                               The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration can end census field operations early, in a blow to efforts to make sure minorities and hard-to-enumerate communities are properly counted in the crucial once-a-decade tally. The decision was not a total loss for plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the administration’s decision to end the count early. They managed to get nearly two extra weeks of counting people as the case made its way through the courts. 

At issue was a request by the Trump administration that the Supreme Court suspend a lower court’s order extending the 2020 census through the end of October following delays caused by the pandemic. The Trump administration argued that the head count needed to end immediately to give the bureau time to meet a year-end deadline. Congress requires the bureau to turn in by Dec. 31 the figures used to decide the states’ congressional seats — a process known as apportionment.

Apportionment is the process of dividing the 435 memberships, or seats, in the U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states based on the apportionment population counts from the decennial census.  The apportionment population count for each of the 50 states includes the state’s total resident population (citizens and non-citizens) plus a count of the overseas federal employees (and dependents) who have that state listed as their home state in their employers’ administrative records.

The resident population counts include all people (citizens and non-citizens) who are living in 

the United States at the time of the census. People are counted at their usual residence, which is the place where they live and sleep most of the time.

The resident population also includes military and civilian employees of the U.S. government who are deployed outside the United States (while stationed or assigned in the United States) and can be allocated to a usual residence address in the United States based on administrative records from the Department of Defense.

The resident population counts for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Island Areas are not included in apportionment calculations (because those areas do not have voting seats in the U.S. House of Representatives), but they are included in other data products.

Note: The resident population counts are available down to the lowest levels of geography (i.e. census block), but only the state totals are used for apportionment. The more detailed resident population data are included in other census data products that are used for redistricting and many other purposes.

On July 21, the White House released a memorandum regarding the 2020 Census with the subject line, “Excluding Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following the 2020 Census.” In the memo, signed by the president, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is ordered, after the census is completed this fall, to remove from each state’s count the number of “illegal aliens” living there. Only then will the census numbers be presented to congress for the reapportionment of the House.

One target in specific is California. “Current estimates suggest that one state is home to more than 2.2 million illegal aliens, constituting more than 6% of the State’s entire population.  Including these illegal aliens in the population of the state for the purpose of apportionment could result in the allocation of two or three more congressional seats than would otherwise be allocated.” The president is relying on a 2016 Pew Research Center study that stated there was 2.2 million undocumented residents in California. The same study reported that there are 725,000 undocumented residents in New York State.

So let us now focus now on the recent events. From the debates where we have heard  the words, "Stand by and Stand back",, " I'm Speaking", " Ka,,mam,,la, Ka,ba,,la", "Monster", to we have turn the corner. Such words that the only answer would be "democracy requires the full participation of its citizens"

In 2018, The United States Supreme Court gave the approval stamp for voter suppression Husted v. A. Philip Randolph when people skip elections. This is the same tactics being used today in this pandemic to prevent prevent from voting.

The 44th President was the opening for people of color, having the first black Asian minority woman vice presidential candidate can eventually create that opening that will be here to stay which is why it is such a threat unfortunately, But embracing it especially if it leads to victory will start a process of healing. It will not eradicate the persistent problem immediately. The structural reforms and conversations can be started for policies for the future generations not to be also victims.