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Monday • February 1, 2021
COVID-19 relief package
Biden invites GOP lawmakers to White House talk
By aaMER MadHanI
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Joe
Biden has agreed to meet a group
of 10 Republican senators who have
proposed spending about one-third
of the $1.9 trillion he is seeking in
coronavirus aid, though congressio-
nal Democrats are poised to move
ahead without Republican support.
Sunday’s invitation to the White
House came hours after the lawmak-
ers sent Biden a letter urging him
to negotiate rather than try to ram
through his relief package solely on
Democratic votes. The House and
Senate are on track to vote as soon
as this week on a budget resolution,
which would lay the groundwork for
passing an aid package under rules
requiring only a simple majority vote
in the closely divided Senate.
The goal is for passage by March,
when extra unemployment assis-
tance and other pandemic aid ex-
pires. The meeting offered by Biden
would amount to the most public
involvement for the president in the
negotiations for the next round of
virus relief. Democratic and Repub-
lican lawmakers are far apart in their
proposals for assistance.
White House press secretary
Jen Psaki said Sunday that Biden
had spoken with the leader of the
group, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Though Biden is wanting “a full ex-
change of views,” Psaki reiterated
that he remains in favor of moving
forward with a far-reaching relief
package. A meeting could come in a
matter of days.
“With the virus posing a grave
threat to the country, and economic
conditions grim for so many, the
need for action is urgent, and the
scale of what must be done is large,”
Psaki said.
In challenging Biden to fulfill his
pledge of unity, the group said in its
letter that its counterproposal will
include $160 billion for vaccines,
testing, treatment and personal pro-
tective equipment and call for more
targeted relief than Biden’s plan to is-
sue $1,400 stimulus checks for most
Americans.
Winning the support of 10 Repub-
licans would be significant for Biden
in the 50-50 Senate where Vice Presi-
dent Kamala Harris is the tie-breaker.
If all Democrats were to back an
eventual compromise bill, the legisla-
tion would reach the 60-vote thresh-
old necessary to overcome potential
blocking efforts and pass under regu-
lar Senate procedures.
“In the spirit of bipartisanship
and unity, we have developed a
COVID-19 relief framework that
builds on prior COVID assistance
laws, all of which passed with bipar-
tisan support,” the Republican sen-
ators wrote. “Our proposal reflects
many of your stated priorities, and
with your support, we believe that
this plan could be approved quickly
by Congress with bipartisan sup-
port.”
See Virus aid / A4
GETTING HOOKED IN
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
dan White attempts to hook his heel onto a hold above a large outcropping while climbing a route at Smith Rock State Park on Saturday. White said he traveled from Portland to spend the day
exploring and rock climbing at the park with several of his friends.
FALSE CONJECTURE VS. FACTS
How wildfires became ripe areas for conspiracy theories
L
OS ANGELES — When Lilli
Heart fled California’s deadliest
wildfire in 2018, she was stuck
in traffic for two hours outside the
town of Paradise with her two cats in
a car that was running low on gas.
As the septuagenarian sat behind
the wheel on Neal Road — waiting
helplessly while the Camp Fire de-
stroyed her two-bedroom house —
she saw a huge, dark cloud in the sky.
She saw firetrucks. She saw the fear in
the eyes of others trying to escape.
“All I saw was a bunch of really, re-
ally scared people trying to get the hell
out of there,” said Heart, 74.
What Heart did not see is this: laser
beams.
TODAY’S
WEATHER
That, apparently, might come as a
surprise to a newly elected Republi-
can congresswoman known for sup-
porting the QAnon conspiracy theory,
making anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim
comments, and falsely suggesting that
school shootings in Newtown, Con-
necticut, and Parkland, Florida, were
staged.
The Camp Fire, which killed 85
people and destroyed more than
13,900 homes, is the latest focus of
conspiracy theories spread by U.S.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.,
who speculated that the blaze might
have been started by a laser beam in
space. Greene made the claim in a
now-deleted Facebook post that was
reported last week by Media Mat-
ters for America, a liberal watchdog
group.
“It’s crazy,” Heart said. “Eighty-
Cloud, a little rain
High 49, Low 42
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Comics
Dear Abby
Horoscope
five people died in that fire. I lost my
whole life of collections, artworks,
things that I worked for my whole life.
For someone to make light of it like
that — it really hurts.”
In the meandering November 2018
Facebook post, Greene theorized that
a space-based solar generator, used in
a clean-energy experiment with the
goal of replacing coal and oil, could
have beamed the sun’s energy back to
Earth and started the fire.
“There are all these people,” she
wrote, “who have said they saw what
looked like lasers or blue beams of
light causing the fires ... If they are
beaming the suns [sic] energy back
to Earth, I’m sure they wouldn’t ever
miss a transmitter receiving station
right??!! ... Could that cause a fire?
Hmmm, I don’t know.”
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Kid Scoop
Local/State
Nation/World
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Puzzles
Sports
Weather
Noah Berger/AP file
The remains of residences leveled by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. The 2018
wildfire, that killed 85 people in northern California, wiping out the town, has been
subject to conspiracy theories online.
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