President Biden says “the devil is in the details” of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. Turns out, there are a lot of details.
Mr. Biden and his team spent last week touting the benefits of the legislation. They will now have to fix some of the unintended consequences, which include looming Medicare cuts, a child credit that the IRS says it will struggle to implement on schedule, and language limiting states’ ability to cut taxes that has already triggered at least one lawsuit.
“I can’t give you a specific explanation as to how it got put in other than that kind of thing happens — always — when massive legislation like this is being crammed down without going through the committee,” Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told The Washington Times.
Mr. Crapo was referring to language Senate Democrats added to the bill that bars states from using the $350 billion in state and local aid to offset revenue losses that result from tax cuts.
The Treasury Department said the language doesn’t infringe on states’ ability to cut taxes in general.
That wasn’t good enough for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. He sued, saying the language is an unconstitutional attack on states’ rights.
Other Republican attorneys general have threatened similar action.
President Biden promised that “no one” from his “family and extended family” would be involved with his White House, pointing to the days of the Obama administration as an example.
The pledge – praised by establishment media outlets as a refreshing change from the Trump administration – was announced via a recent interview conducted by People magazine.
Sitting next to his wife, Biden professed:
“We’re going to run this like the Obama-Biden administration. No one in our family and extended family is going to be involved in any government undertaking or foreign policy. And nobody has an office in this place.”
But Biden’s claim that no one from his family worked in the Obama administration is patently false.
At age 26, Biden’s niece Casey Owens worked at the Treasury Department as a Special Assistant to the Senior Coordinator for China in the Obama administration.
She wielded considerable influence over the direction of U.S.-China relations between 2009 and 2011, as she described her team as “advising” former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and responsible for “coordinat[ing] the priorities within the agenda for the Dialogue” and “spearhead[ing] the negotiations of proposals.”
What’s more, an unearthed cable reveals Owens was part of the elite Strategic and Economic Dialogue II planning trip to Beijing as part of an economic with senior State and Treasury officials. And despite being out of the administration for five years, she attended the Obama administration’s final state dinner.
Former President Donald Trump, in an interview on Monday morning, decried the media landscape in the United States saying it no longer has a “free press.”
Using the current border crisis as an example of a lack of proper coverage, Trump said that “this is not a free press,” according to his interview on Lisa Boothe’s podcast on Monday morning. “This is a press that we have to be very, very smart to get around, but they don’t cover bad things if it happens to be bad for Democrats. It’s pretty amazing. You take a look at some of the coverage and some of the travesty that’s taking place at the border, and the coverage is not commensurate.”
The former commander-in-chief remarked: “If you look at NBC, ABC, CBS, and of course CNN and MSNBC, and see—if you look at some of those networks—it’s just not covered. It’s covered so little. It’s amazing. And it’s a massive story because it’s going to destroy—it’s going to destroy our country.”
Throughout his presidency, Trump decried the “fake news” media, using the pejorative to describe outlets that he believed promoted certain narratives that went against him or his policies while generally promoting his opponents or critics. The former president also repeatedly panned MSNBC, the New York Times, and CNN—saying these outlets are essentially wings of the Democratic Party.
Over the weekend, one longtime Getty photojournalist, John Moore, called on the Biden administration to allow media workers to observe U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents operate as a massive surge of illegal immigrants arrives at the Southern Border.
“I respectfully ask US Customs and Border Protection to stop blocking media access to their border operations,” Moore wrote on Twitter Friday. “I have photographed CBP under Bush, Obama and Trump but now—zero access is granted to media. These long lens images [were] taken from the Mexican side.”
“There’s no modern precedent for a full physical ban on media access to CBP border operations,” Moore added in another Twitter comment. “To those who might say, cut them some slack—they are dealing with a situation, I’d say that showing the U.S. response to the current immigrant surge is exactly the media’s role.
Recent polls have suggested that Americans are largely distrustful of corporate, mass media. A Gallup poll released last year showed that only 9 percent of Americans trust the media “a great deal” and 31 percent trust it a “fair amount.” Meanwhile, 33 percent have “no trust” at all in the media and 27 percent don’t trust the media “very much,” according to the survey. In other polls, a significant number of Americans have blamed mass media for exacerbating the political divide in the U.S.
Biden is the only President to repeatedly fall on the allegedly “tricky” Air Force One steps
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki placed blame for President Joe Biden’s repeated falls while attempting to board Air Force One last Friday on the aircraft’s boarding stairs, stating, “I don’t know if you’ve been up those steps, they’re a little tricky sometimes.”
When asked if Biden was okay following the repeated tumbles, Psaki said, “He’s a hundred percent fine, I don’t know if you’ve been up those steps, they’re a little tricky sometimes, but he’s doing great.”
Though multiple elected officials, such as former Presidents Gerald Ford and Barack Obama and former Vice President Mike Pence, have lost their footing on the Air Force One staircase, Biden is the only person to repeatedly fall over and over again while attempting to board the aircraft.
“Um, I’m not aware of that being required, there’s of course a doctor who travels with the President, any President of the United States,” Psaki said in response to a question about whether Biden, 78, had received medical attention, adding, “but, um, I’m not aware of it needing actual extensive medical attention.”
.@PressSec says President Biden is “100% fine” after falling up the stairs of Air Force One.
“I don't know if you've been up those steps, they’re a little tricky sometimes." pic.twitter.com/XWDJuVJddn
Microsoft announced Monday that it would begin allowing more workers back into its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., starting on March 29.
In this stage of reopening, which Microsoft described as Step 4 in a six-step “dial,” the Redmond campus will give nonessential on-site employees the choice to work from the office, home or a combination of both. Microsoft will also continue to require employees to wear masks and maintain social distancing.
Microsoft plans to open its office without restrictions only once the virus acts “more like an endemic virus such as the seasonal flu,” wrote Kurt DelBene, an executive vice president at the tech giant. But even then, office life for Microsoft’s 160,000 employees is not likely to look like what it did before the pandemic.
“Once we reach a point where Covid-19 no longer presents a significant burden on our communities, and as our sites move to the open stage of the dial, we view working from home part of the time (less than 50 percent) as standard for most roles,” Mr. DelBene wrote on the company blog.
Microsoft also released on Monday the results of a survey of that it says shows the work force has changed after a year of working remotely. In the survey of more than 30,000 full-time and self-employed workers, 73 percent said they wanted flexible remote work options to continue, and 46 percent said they were planning to move this year now that they could work remotely.
“There are some companies that think we’re just going to go back to how it was,” Jared Spataro, the corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, said in an interview. “However, the data does seem to indicate that they don’t understand what has happened over the last 12 months.”
Supporters of South Dakota’s Fairness in Women’s Sports bill are accusing Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of “betrayal” and “pandering to special interests” after she vetoed the legislation, sending it back to the state legislature with recommended changes.
The legislation, H.B. 1217, would prohibit any student at a state school from joining a sports team that does not match his or her biological sex. So, for example, a boy who identifies as female and takes hormones to affirm his gender identity would be prohibited from playing on girls’ sports teams or competing against girls.
Republican majorities in the state legislature sent the bill to Noem’s desk for her signature, and although at first she said she was “excited” to sign it, on Friday Noem issued a “style and form” veto, sending it back to lawmakers.
In a statement, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit legal group that supports social conservative causes, blasted the governor’s decision.
“Gov. Noem had an opportunity to protect women and girls by signing the Fairness in Women’s Sports bill, but instead she pandered to the demands of special interests,” Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner said. “In what was an abuse of her ‘style and form’ veto power, she gutted protections for collegiate athletes and took away legal recourse for girls forced to compete against biological boys.”
The South Dakota state constitution empowers the governor to send bills “with errors in style or form” back to the legislature with specific recommendations for change.
In a letter to lawmakers, Noem stated her belief that “boys should play boys’ sports, and girls should play girls’ sports,” but said she was “concerned that this bill’s vague and overly broad language could have significant unintended consequences.”
Among her concerns is that the bill is “unrealistic in the context of collegiate athletics.” Both the NCAA and the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce reportedly lobbied Noem against the bill. The NCAA objected to policies it views as discriminatory against transgender athletes, and the Chamber of Commerce was concerned that the state could lose millions of dollars of business revenue if South Dakota colleges and universities lose NCAA accreditation and tournament games are no longer held in the state.
“Competing on the national stage means compliance with the national governing bodies that oversee collegiate athletics,” Noem wrote to lawmakers.
“The proposed revisions limit House Bill 1217 to elementary and secondary school athletics, which are primarily conducted among South Dakota schools and at the high school level are governed by the South Dakota High School Activities Association, a creature of South Dakota law. The proposed revisions will also remedy the vague language regarding civil liability and the use of performance-enhancing drugs,” she said.
Republican sponsors of the bill said Noem’s proposed changes would significantly weaken the legislation and be morally inconsistent.
“The recommended changes will substantially change the content of the bill. The legality was removed, which leaves the bill with a very weak authority. Removing the collegiate is simply saying that biology matters in high school, but not in college,” Republican state Sen. Maggie Sutton, the bill’s lead sponsor in the state senate said.
Republican state Rep. Rhonda Milstead, H.B. 1217’s sponsor in the House, accused the governor of violating the state constitution with her veto.
The state constitution says: “Bills with errors in style or form may be returned to the Legislature by the Governor with specific recommendations for change.” Milstead argues the proposed changes go beyond “style” or “form” to be tantamount to legislation from the executive branch.
“It is overreaching by trying to legislate law as the executive branch,” Milstead said.
Noem’s explanation was also received poorly by the Alliance Defending Freedom.
“We are shocked that a governor who claims to be a firebrand conservative with a rising national profile would cave to ‘woke’ corporate ideology,” Waggoner said.
She continued: “The governor tried to explain her betrayal with claims that her hands were tied by NCAA policy. But there is no NCAA policy that requires schools to allow males to compete on women’s teams as Gov. Noem suggests. The governor also vetoed the part of the bill that gives girls any legal recourse against unfair policies that arise. What’s left is mere lip service for women and girls forced to compete against biological males.”
In a blistering dissent, Judge Laurence Silberman said The New York Times and Washington Post are ‘Democratic Party broadsheets.’
The control of major media by one political party is a dangerous threat to the country, a federal judge warned in a blistering dissent that called for courts to revisit libel laws that generally protect the press from being held liable for their reporting.
"One-party control of the press and media is a threat to a viable democracy," 👇🏼👇🏼
“It should be borne in mind that the first step taken by any potential authoritarian or dictatorial regime is to gain control of communications, particularly the delivery of news,” wrote Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit for the Court of Appeals. “It is fair to conclude, therefore, that one-party control of the press and media is a threat to a viable democracy.”
Silberman argued that it’s time for courts to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan, which has shaped press law in favor of media outlets for more than five decades. The New York Times and the Washington Post “are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets. And the news section of The Wall Street Journal leans in the same direction,” Judge Silberman wrote in his March 19 dissent.
He said that orientation also controls the Associated Press and most large papers in the country, including the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Boston Globe. “Nearly all television—network and cable—is a Democratic Party trumpet,” Judge Silberman added.
Silicon Valley also has “enormous influence” over the distribution of news and it “similarly filters news delivery in ways favorable to the Democratic Party,” wrote Judge Silberman, highlighting the shocking suppression of stories about Joe Biden and his family when he was running for president.
In that case, Twitter and Facebook censored media outlets that reported accurately about the Biden family’s dealing with foreign entities. Twitter suspended users, including sitting White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, for merely sharing accurate information, and prevented people from sharing the information privately on its platform. Facebook said it would censor coverage of the Biden family corruption pending a “fact-check,” an unprecedented privilege given to Biden in the closing days of one of the closest presidential elections in history.
Former President Donald Trump released a statement Sunday critical of President Joe Biden’s border policies, which Trump described as a “national disaster.”
Trump said his administration handed Biden “the most secure border in history,” only to see it all thrown away in just a few weeks following Biden’s reversal of most of Trump’s policies through executive orders.
Those orders have allowed undocumented immigrants to cross into the United States while awaiting asylum requests and have flooded holding facilities with thousands of unaccompanied children.
Trump’s statement, in full, reads:
“We proudly handed the Biden administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast.
“The pathetic, clueless performance of Secretary Mayorkas on the Sunday Shows today was a national disgrace. His self-satisfied presentation — in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer — is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS. Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world’s illegal aliens then the whole world will come.
“Furthermore, the Mayorkas Gag Order on our nation’s heroic border agents and ICE officers should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation. But it’s clear they are engaged in a huge cover-up to hide just how bad things truly are. The only way to end the Biden Border Crisis is for them to admit their total failure and adopt the profoundly effective, proven Trump policies.
“They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks — they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking. This administration’s reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our country is being destroyed!”
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb seemed to admit social distancing rules are not based on any scientific evidence.
In a recent interview, Gottlieb admitted social distancing measures were imposed due to mere assumptions about how the coronavirus spreads. He also said face masks will no longer be necessary in the next coming weeks.
“This six-foot distancing requirement has probably been the single costliest mitigation tactic that we’ve employed in response to COVID,” Gottlieb noted. “And it really wasn’t based on clear science.”
"This six-foot distancing requirement has probably been the single costliest mitigation tactic that we've employed in response to COVID," says @scottgottliebmd. pic.twitter.com/M5tmgj3kTY
Gottlieb added, the U.S. is nearing “herd immunity” to the coronavirus, which means the restrictive measures will not be necessary in the near future.
“I don’t think we’re going to have a fourth wave,” @ScottGottliebMD tells @margbrennan pointing to “prior infection" in the country plus a ramp up on vaccinations as reasons why it’s unlikely. pic.twitter.com/Z1Dwrsehmq
“We’re talking about some form of protective immunity in about 55% of the population,” Gottlieb said. “So there’s enough of a backstop here that I don’t think you’re going to see a fourth surge. I think what you could see is a plateauing for a period of time before we continue on a downward decline.”
The United States on March 22 announced sanctions on two more Chinese officials in connection with serious human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, where Washington says ethnic Muslims are the victims of genocide.
The U.S. Treasury Department named the officials as Wang Junzheng, secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), and Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB).
The two were targeted under the U.S. Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, it said, adding that the move complemented actions taken by the European Union, Britain, and Canada.
While the actions by the United States and others avoided targeting China’s top leadership, it was the first coordinated move under the Biden administration, which took office in January and has vowed to work closely with allies in pushing back against China.
The move follows two days of “tough and direct” talks between U.S. and Chinese officials last week in Alaska, which laid bare the depth of tensions between the world’s two largest economies at the outset of the Biden administration.
“Amid growing international condemnation, [China] continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who took part in last week’s talks, said in a statement while calling on Beijing to end the repression of Uighurs and other minority groups.
Monday’s moves block U.S.-linked assets of the individuals.
The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Xinjiang‘s Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of China’s powerful Politburo, and five other officials in July, when it also targeted the XPSB and the XPCC.
“Chinese authorities will continue to face consequences as long as atrocities occur in Xinjiang,” Andrea Gacki, director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.
“Treasury is committed to promoting accountability for the Chinese government’s human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention and torture, against Uighurs and other ethnic minorities,” she said.
The Treasury statement said the XPSB had used repressive tactics against the Uyghurs and members of other ethnic minorities in the region, including mass detentions and surveillance since at least 2016.
“Targets of this surveillance are often detained and reportedly subjected to various methods of torture and political reeducation,” it said.
