Category: Joe Biden

Republican circular firing squad in full swing because their attacks on Biden are ineffective

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On Saturday, writing for Business Insider, columnist Eoin Higgins analyzed the fragmenting of the GOP caucus as Republicans fail to come up with a damaging line of attack against President Joe Biden and his agenda.

“Biden, a 78-year-old moderate Democrat, has a job approval rating hovering around 60% of Americans. He’s been buoyed by his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a resurgent economy, and a sense — earned or not — from voters that the new president has a firmer hand on the tiller than his chaotic predecessor,” wrote Higgins. “The result is a floundering GOP as the right-wing party tries to draw a contrast with a president who isn’t nearly as liberal as they try to make it seem. Lacking that contrast, Republicans are lost.”

With Republicans unable to either damage Biden or move on from their support of former President Donald Trump, many of them have been reduced to infighting and purges of their own for perceived disloyalty — including the exile of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from the caucus leadership and censure of Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach the former president for his role in the Capitol riot. Continue reading.

DeSantis Took $9 Billion From Biden’s COVID Relief Bill He Slammed

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been a vehement critic of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which the far-right Republican and ally of former President Donald Trump has slammed as “Washington as its worst.” But Steve Benen, in an op-ed published by MSNBC’s website on June 3, stresses that there is a major problem with DeSantis “railing against” that bill: his willingness to accept almost $9 billion in Rescue Plan funds from the federal government.

Benen explains, “Yesterday, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed his state’s budget, there were plenty of smiles, with the governor announcing $1,000 bonuses for teachers, principals and first responders. ‘We’re proud that we got the bonuses through,’ the Republican boasted. There was a detail, however, that DeSantis didn’t mention.”

That detail, Benen adds, is how much the Florida budget relies on federal funds from the Rescue Plan. On June 2, Politico‘s Matt Dixon reported that DeSantis “signed a $100 billion state budget bolstered by nearly $9 billion in expected federal stimulus funds, putting the Republican governor in the awkward political position of building his budget on a wave of cash from President Joe Biden…. The newly signed budget, the biggest in state history…. was made much easier to cobble together because of the American Rescue Plan, the Biden Administration’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package.” Continue reading.

G-7 commits to global minimum tax of at least 15 percent

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Top finance officials in the Group of Seven (G-7) on Saturday announced their commitment to push for a global minimum tax of at least 15 percent in international tax negotiations, a rate advocated by the Biden administration.

G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors said in a statement following a meeting in London that they strongly support the multilateral negotiations “to address the tax challenges arising from globalisation and the digitalisation of the economy and to adopt a global minimum tax.”

The G-7 consists of the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Continue reading.

The Biden administration seeks to rally allies and the private sector against the ransomware threat

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No longer considered only a criminal matter but a danger to national security

For years, the federal government treated ransomware as a criminal menace — not as urgent as hacking by foreign spies. But after a spasm of high-profile attacks that jarred the nation, the U.S. government now has begun framing the issue as a matter of national — and global — security.

The FBI director this week compared it to the challenge posed by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. On Thursday, a top White House cyber official urged corporate America to strengthen its computer security. And on Friday, the White House said that President Biden will raise the issue of Russia’s harboring ransomware criminals when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin June 16 in Geneva.

“We know that the ransomware threat is urgent, it’s complex, and it’s been increasing over the last several years,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “It feels new to us over the last couple of weeks, but it has been increasing rapidly around the world over the last several years.” Continue reading.

White House unveils plan to donate 25 million vaccine doses abroad

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The Biden administration on Thursday announced it will donate 25 million coronavirus doses abroad, with about three quarters of them allocated to the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative, and the rest donated directly to handpicked countries.

“We are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions. We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic, with the power of our example and with our values,” President Biden said in a statement.

The White House said it will donate about 19 million doses to COVAX, which purchases and distributes vaccines to low-and middle-income countries. Administration officials said about 6 million doses will go to Latin America and the Caribbean, 7 million doses will go to Asia, and 5 million will go to Africa. Continue reading.

Stimulus Checks Substantially Reduced Hardship, Study Shows

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Researchers found that sharp declines in food shortages, financial instability and anxiety coincided with the two most recent rounds of payments.

WASHINGTON — Julesa Webb resumed an old habit: serving her children three meals a day. Corrine Young paid the water bill and stopped bathing at her neighbor’s apartment. Chenetta Ray cried, thanked Jesus and rushed to spend the money on a medical test to treat her cancer.

In offering most Americans two more rounds of stimulus checks in the past six months, totaling $2,000 a person, the federal government effectively conducted a huge experiment in safety net policy. Supporters said a quick, broad outpouring of cash would ease the economic hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Skeptics called the policy wasteful and expensive.

The aid followed an earlier round of stimulus checks, sent a year ago, and the results are being scrutinized for lessons on how to help the needy in less extraordinary times. Continue reading.

Parliamentarian guidance deals blow to reconciliation strategy

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Senate rules referee says use of special procedure to pass multiple filibuster-proof bills should be reserved for ‘extraordinary circumstances’

Using a revised budget resolution to take an extra crack at reconciliation to advance Democratic priorities through the Senate appears unlikely during this Congress, given a new opinion from the Senate parliamentarian.

The new guidance, issued to Senate staff on Friday, suggests that Democrats will get just one more try this year to pass a filibuster-proof legislative package to enact additional priorities ranging from infrastructure to immigration policy proposed by President Joe Biden and party leaders on Capitol Hill. If they want to use reconciliation yet again, they’d need to adopt a fiscal 2023 budget resolution next year, but would likely get only one shot then as well.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough’s four-page opinion makes clear her view that the framers of the 1974 law establishing the modern budget process didn’t intend for lawmakers to be able to use the budget reconciliation process as many times as they could jam into a given year. Continue reading.

Biden unveils plan for racial equity at Tulsa Race Massacre centennial

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President Biden on Tuesday traveled to Tulsa, Okla., to meet with the survivors of the city’s 1921 race massacre, unveiling a broad plan to drive racial equity throughout the country while holding up the city’s past as evidence of the pervasive effects of racism.

Monday and Tuesday marked the centennial of the race massacre in which an angry mob of white Tulsans burned and looted Tulsa’s thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood. Biden is the first president to visit the neighborhood in recognition of the massacre in 1921, a point he highlighted in his remarks.

The president spent a significant portion of his speech giving a historical recounting of the events of 100 years ago in Tulsa. The massacre has gained attention in recent years after being an often overlooked instance of racism and violence. Continue reading.

Biden formally ends Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ immigration program

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The Biden administration on Tuesday formally nixed the “Remain in Mexico” program, the latest in a series of moves to dismantle the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies.

The program, known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), was a cornerstone of Trump’s border management policy; it forced potential asylum seekers to stay in Mexico to wait out the result of their case in U.S. immigration court.

In a memo ending the program Tuesday, Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said the MPP did not help with enhancing the border management. Continue reading.

Biden administration suspends oil and gas leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland orders new environmental review of the leasing program, saying the Trump administration did an ‘insufficient analysis’ of drilling’s impact

The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, targeting one of President Donald Trump’s most significant environmental acts during his last days in office.

The move by the Interior Department, which could spark a major legal battle, dims the prospect of oil drilling in a pristine and politically charged expanse of Alaskan wilderness that Republicans and Democrats have fought over for four decades. The Trump administration auctioned off the right to drill in the refuge’s coastal plain — home to hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl as well as the southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears — just two weeks before President Biden was inaugurated.

Now the Biden administration is taking steps to block those leases, citing problems with the environmental review process. In Tuesday’s Interior Department order, Secretary Deb Haaland said that a review of the Trump administration’s leasing program in the wildlife refuge found “multiple legal deficiencies” including “insufficient analysis” required by environmental laws and a failure to assess other alternatives. Haaland’s order calls for a temporary moratorium on all activities related to those leases in order to conduct “a new, comprehensive analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the oil and gas program.” Continue reading.