‘Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like’
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a dire warning Tuesday to Senate Democrats as progressive activists demand an end to the legislative filibuster.
Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said the Senate would become a “100-car pileup” where “even the most basic aspects” of its business would be blocked to grind legislative progress to a halt should Democrats engage the so-called nuclear option to kill the filibuster.
“So let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues. Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” McConnell said. “None of us have served one minute in a Senate that was completely drained of comity and consent. This is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon, to proceed with a garden-variety floor speech.”
He continued: “I want our colleagues to imagine a world where every single task, every one of them, requires a physical quorum. Which, by the way, the vice president does not count in determining a quorum. This chaos would not open up an express lane for liberal change. … The Senate would be more like a 100-car pileup, nothing moving.”
The Democratic majority faces mounting pressure from progressives to kill the filibuster and pass major legislation to fulfill campaign promises from President Joe Biden. House Democrats have passed bills that would overhaul the U.S. election system, codify sexual orientation and gender identity protections into anti-discrimination law, criminalize unlicensed private firearm sales, among other progressive priorities that are unlikely to gain Republican support.
As long as any Republican filibusters a bill, the support of 60 senators is needed to overcome the filibuster, meaning most Democratic bills are dead on arrival in the 50-50 Senate.
Two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), have publicly opposed ending the legislative filibuster. But Manchin in recent weeks has signaled openness to making the filibuster “painful” to use, suggesting that senators who want to filibuster a bill be made to continuously hold the Senate floor by standing there or giving a speech for the entire duration of the filibuster (see: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington).
Others want the filibuster gone altogether. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Monday “everything is on the table” to pass President Biden’s agenda, including the nuclear option.
“The filibuster is still being misused by some senators to block legislation urgently needed and supported by strong majorities of the American people,” Durbin said. “This is what hitting legislative rock bottom looks like. Today’s filibusters have turned the world’s most deliberative body into one of the world’s most ineffectual bodies.”
Previously under President Donald Trump, Durbin and other Democrats claimed ending the filibuster “would be the end of the Senate.” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called attention to the Democrats’ hypocrisy, reacting to calls to reform the filibuster by telling reporter Igor Bobic: “I don’t recall them saying any of that over the last four years. And so anything they’ve said in the last four years I’m happy to adopt now. As I recall in the last four years they were very comfortable with how the filibuster worked.”
McConnell reminded Democrats that he resisted President Trump’s demands to end the filibuster and pass major components of his agenda into law. He also reminded them how they came to regret ending the filibuster for presidential nominations when Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett were confirmed to the Supreme Court and said without the legislative filibuster things would go poorly for them the next time Republicans have control of Congress.
“Touching the hot stove again would yield the same result but even more dramatic. As soon as Republicans wound up back in the saddle, we wouldn’t just erase every liberal change that hurt the country. We’d strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero input from the other side,” McConnell said.
“How about this,” he threatened. “Nationwide right to work for working Americans. Defunding Planned Parenthood and Sanctuary Cities on day one. A whole new era of domestic energy production. Sweeping new protections for conscience and the right to life of the unborn. Concealed carry reciprocity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Massive hardening of security on our southern border.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters at a press briefing from the southern border on March 15 that doctors at the U.S.–Mexico border in Texas told him that 10 percent of illegal immigrants are testing positive for the CCP virus before being released into surrounding communities.
“When I talk to the doctor to see when they’re being tested for COVID, when they get out, more than 10 percent are testing positive,” McCarthy said. “Well, they’re being stored together. In a time when the president will keep our country closed, when maybe we have hope for a Fourth of July, to get together just with our family, how much spread of COVID is he creating every single day by his policies along this border?”Play Video
Trey Mendez, mayor of Brownsville, Texas, told reporters in a Zoom call on March 15 that 7.3 percent of illegal immigrants arriving in his city have tested positive for the CCP virus, also known as the novel coronavirus.
In addition, the Republican leader criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies, particularly the reversal of Trump-era policies through executive orders.
“This is where [Biden] should talk to the border agents, and let them know that this is beyond a crisis,” McCarthy said. “He can continue to deny it, but the only way to solve it is to first admit what he has done, and if he will not reverse action, it’s going to take congressional action to do it.”
McCarthy said he sent a letter to President Joe Biden in hopes of meeting with him to discuss the crisis at the southern border, and specifically about the message his administration is sending migrants.
Opponents of Biden’s relaxed immigration policies say they’re fueling the surge of migrants at the border. In February, illegal crossings rose above 100,000, according to official data, with another 26,000 evading capture, according to provisional Customs and Border Protection figures reviewed by former Texas Department of Public Safety captain Jaeson Jones.
The Biden administration recently acknowledged, albeit reluctantly, that there’s a crisis at the border.
When pressed by reporters about why illegal immigrants aren’t required to have negative test results to enter the country like those who enter legally, White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the administration’s policies and said more could be done with testing and quarantining them if the governor of Texas would authorize it.
“Governor Abbott has referred to what’s happening at the border as … an open borders policy. That is absolutely incorrect,” Psaki said on March 11 during a White House press briefing.
“The border’s not open. The vast majority of individuals apprehended or encountered at the border continue to be denied entry and are returned.
“The other piece is, as the question about the testing of migrants at the border, or testing of migrants as they’re coming across, and we have DHS, and FEMA has stepped in and worked with local mayors, NGOs, and public health officials in Texas to implement a system to provide COVID-19 testing, and as needed, isolation and quarantine for families released from border patrol facilities.
“Their proposal and agreement would cover 100 percent of the expense of the testing isolation and quarantine, but Governor Abbott has decided to reject that.”
Renae Eze, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s press secretary, implied there were “strings attached” to the federal funding that Psaki referred to.
“The Biden Administration continues to pressure Texas to assist them in aiding their illegal immigration program,” Eze said in a statement. “We are focused on doing our job—protecting Texans.”
Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement: “Border security is strictly a federal responsibility. The federal government alone has the responsibility to test, screen, and quarantine illegal immigrants crossing our border who may have COVID.
“Instead of doing their job, the Biden administration suggested it did not have the sufficient resources and, remarkably, asked Texas to assist them in aiding their illegal immigration program. Texas refused.”
He said in a CNBC interview on March 11, “The Biden administration has been releasing immigrants in south Texas that have been exposing Texans to COVID.”
According to a Just the News/Rasmussen poll released on March 15, 90 percent of Americans think illegal immigrants should be tested for the CCP virus before being released into the country.
(The Public Discourse) The passage of the Equality Act would mean the death of religious liberty. It would force all religious institutions and citizens to prove to the government’s satisfaction that their convictions merit constitutional protection.
Will America sacrifice religious freedom for the sake of newly constructed sexual and gender identity liberties? We will know the answer to that question in short order, and the prospects for preserving religious liberty hang in a dangerous political balance.
The legislation known as the “Equality Act” represents the greatest present threat to religious liberty in the United States. The House of Representatives has passed the legislation twice—in 2019 and again in February of this year. The Democratic majority in that chamber has forwarded the bill to the Senate, which is soon to begin debate over the bill. President Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to sign the bill, and his administration is working hard to see the bill approved by the Senate and sent to his desk for signature.
The Equality Act represents a defining issue for the entire nation. The act would amend the Civil Rights Act to add sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity to protected classes covered by the bill. The scope of the bill is vast, covering housing, employment, public accommodations, education, credit, and all programs receiving federal funding. No aspect of American public life would be unchanged, and the bill would invade the private sphere as well.
Beyond the direct legislative reach of the bill, the Equality Act would send a clear moral message throughout the culture, with both national and international consequences. The forces pushing for the passage of the Equality Act clearly intend these consequences. A moral message will be telegraphed throughout society, normalizing virtually everything comprehended within the ever-expanding categories of LGBTQ.
Yet the Equality Act is not merely a message. It is a draconian threat of legal, political, financial, and cultural coercion, and the coercive powers of the new moral order will be directed—as the Equality Act makes clear—against any resistance. Make no mistake about it: That coercion will be brought against religious schools, ministries, non-profits, and all religious institutions. The bill does not even acknowledge the sacred rights of religious congregations and denominations. Individual believers too will be coerced into compliance with the new moral regime, which is coming with a vengeance.
The Equality Act is not merely a message. It is a draconian threat of legal, political, financial, and cultural coercion, and the coercive powers of the new moral order will be directed—as the Equality Act makes clear—against any resistance.
“It Will Be an Issue”
During the oral arguments for the Obergefell case before the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, arguing for same-sex marriage, was asked by Justice Samuel Alito if religious colleges and universities would eventually be forced to allow same-sex couples to live in student housing. Verrilli, without skipping a beat, honestly responded, “It will be an issue.”
You can bet it will be an issue. Student housing for married couples is but one in an apparently endless list of other accommodations that the LGBTQ community now demands. But note that Justice Alito’s question was pointedly defined with regard to the coercion of a religious college or university. The Solicitor General did not hesitate to affirm the threat against religious schools. As soon as the Supreme Court mandated the legalization of same-sex marriage in that very case, the coercion of Christians and other citizens of religious conviction became an issue.
The Obergefell decision was handed down in 2015, but arguments for the curtailment of religious liberty as the cost of newly declared LGBTQ rights were already widely circulated. Chai Feldblum, then a professor of law at Yale University, was asked years ago if she could think of any case in which religious liberty interests should take priority over the interests of LGBTQ liberation. Professor Feldblum responded that she could not think of a single case in which religious liberty should win. Not one.
In clear-minded dissents to the Obergefell majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Clarence Thomas joined Alito in warning of the threat to religious liberty posed by the decision.
Then, five years later, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, extending federal employment nondiscrimination rights to citizens claiming LGBTQ identity. The decision turned mostly on the sexual orientation and transgender issues, but the effects will cover the entire array of LGBTQ identity. Sadly, the majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who went so far as to acknowledge that the decision would pose legal vulnerabilities for religious believers and that the questions would “merit careful consideration.” In his dissent in this case, Justice Alito argued that the Court’s majority had created a threat to the religious liberties of religious Americans and their religious institutions. He was clearly right.
The Equality Act would not only establish Bostock as federal law; it would also expand the reach of the law far beyond the text of the Court’s decision. Put plainly, the legislation includes no acknowledgement of the right of Christian colleges and schools, for example, to hire teachers in accord with the school’s stated religious convictions. The same would be extended to all other dimensions of operation covered by the bill—and almost nothing would escape that coverage. Individual believers and their private businesses would be covered, as would any institutional entity.
Furthermore, the text of the Equality Act specifically precludes any claims of religious liberty based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was adopted by Congress in 1993 with overwhelming bipartisan support. This bill would actually put Congress in the position of denying in advance defenses made on the basis of its own previous action. The audacity is breathtaking, and the threat to America’s first liberty is all too real.
Put plainly, the Equality Act includes no acknowledgement of the right of Christian colleges and schools, for example, to hire teachers in accord with the school’s stated religious convictions.
“The Determination Will Have to Be Made”
The lead sponsor of the Equality Act in the House of Representatives is Rep. David Cicilline [D-RI], an openly gay congressman who is confident of ultimate victory in the current Congress: “This is going to be a vote that’s going to be remembered in the history books, and I think people are going to want to be on the right side of history.”
When he was asked about the threat the Act would present to religious institutions and their right to operate by their own religious convictions, Cicilline offered these chilling words: “The determination would have to be made as to whether or not the decisions they are making are connected to their religious teachings and to their core functions as a religious organization,” he explained, “or is it a pretext to discriminate?”
The determination will have to be made. With those words, every religious congregation, denomination, and institution is put on notice: The government will determine if your hiring and housing and student conduct and employee policies are truly “connected” to your religious teachings, or if you are merely using a claim of religious conviction as a “pretext to discriminate.”
These words mean the effective death of religious liberty, for the burden of proof will now fall to each religious institution to prove to the government’s satisfaction that its convictions are authentic.
Furthermore, the United States government would be effectively transformed into an anti-theological state. Note carefully that the specific forms of religion that are targeted by the Equality Act share one major theological distinctive. Each, in its own way, makes a claim to written revelation. Each of those religious texts defines sexuality, marriage, and gender in explicitly theological terms. The Torah, the Bible, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, and other religious texts are recognized as divinely inspired by American citizens and their religious bodies ranging, according to theological convictions, from Orthodox Judaism to Roman Catholicism to Evangelical Protestantism to Islam and Mormons and Seventh-Day Adventists and more.
Evangelicals and Catholics, Orthodox Jews and Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists and Mormons all understand the radical theological differences that separate us. But the factor common to all is the claim of an authoritative scripture. That is actually the central fact that explains the antipathy of the moral revolutionaries and their willingness to deploy the coercive powers of the state against believers. Those religious texts are incompatible with the normalization of LGBTQ identities, behaviors, relationships, and gender confusions.
The Equality Act, therefore, represents the threat of government coercion against a certain structure of theology, doctrine, and morality. This means the threat of the state directed against any claim of divine revelation that contradicts the new morality, the newly minted definition of marriage, and the newly constructed “rights” of the LGBTQ revolution.
Visible before our eyes is the threat of an anti-theological state and the end of authentic religious liberty in America. Don’t take my word for it—just take Congressman Cicilline at his.
Major U.S. banks and credit unions must make the first wave of stimulus payments available to eligible customers by Wednesday at 9:00 a.m., local time—the official payment date designated by the Internal Revenue Service.
KEY FACTS
The IRS announced that payments would begin rolling out last Friday, prompting a slew of complaints over the weekend from bank customers who couldn’t access their stimulus payments immediately.
Banks, including Wells Fargo and Chase, were quick to clarify that the delay was not on their end: “We are providing the payments to our customers as soon as possible on the date the funds are available, based on IRS direction,” a Wells Fargo spokesman told Bloomberg.
That disconnect happened because the banks had not yet received the money from the federal government, but they had received information from the IRS about the money’s final destinations, according to Nacha, the organization that oversees interbank settlements.
The IRS issued a warning Friday that some people might see direct deposits listed as “pending” or “provisional . . . before the official payment date of March 17.”
Nacha said that there is “no mystery” about stimulus checks’ whereabouts between the time payments were announced last week (and when payment files were sent) and Wednesday morning, when banks will receive the cash from the IRS to distribute to customers.
“[The money] is still with the government,” Nacha said in a statement, and will settle on the morning of Wednesday, March 17.
CHIEF CRITIC
“In America, Amazon can get anything in the world physically to your door in under 48 hours. It takes Uncle Sam six days to get digital money in your bank account,” Aaron Klein, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told MarketWatch.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Eligible individuals can check the status of their stimulus checks using the IRS’ Get My Payment tracking tool, which relaunched on Monday.
SURPRISING FACT
The fintech startup Chime was able to give its customers early access to the pending stimulus check deposits.
Stimmy Alert! We’ve already made ~$600M available to 250k members. These payments will be available at traditional banks on 3/17 but Chime members already have access and more is on the way. No reasons to wait till St. Pattys Day, at Chime you’re always lucky🍀🍺😜
100 million. That’s how many stimulus payments will be sent out by the middle of next week, President Biden said during prepared remarks on Monday, along with 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccines. “Shots in arms and money in pockets,” he said.
KEY BACKGROUND
Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan authorized a third round of direct payments, this time in the amount of $1,400. Individuals earning less than $75,000 per year will receive the full $1,400 payment, as will heads of household earning less than $112,500 per year and couples filing jointly earning less than $150,000. Eligible families will also receive $1,400 payments for dependents—both children and adults—and the payments will phase out as income rises. The first phase of payments will be sent to those with direct deposit information on file with the IRS, which will use 2020 or 2019 tax information (the most recent available) to determine eligibility.
The Vatican released a statement Monday announcing that churches have no power to bless same-sex marriage since God “cannot bless sin,” which clarifies Pope Francis’ stance on same-sex unions.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a formal response to a question about whether Catholic churches have the power to bless same-sex unions. The question comes when “plans and proposals for blessings of unions of persons of the same sex are being advanced” in some “ecclesial contexts.”
“… It is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage …,” the Vatican statement reads.
“As is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex. The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan.”
In a Monday interview with The Christian Post, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, which claims to be the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, said the statement was “very much” welcomed because it removed doubt about the Vatican’s position on this topic.
“This [decision] finishes it,” Donohue said. “There’s nothing left to discuss. It’s non-negotiable. The Vatican left nothing on the table with these people pushing this agenda. It made it very clear that the Church can bless homosexuals as individuals, but it will never ever bless homosexual unions, never mind gay marriage.”
Same-sex marriage can’t be considered lawful in the Church because there are no grounds to consider it “even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” the statement written by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, a Spanish Jesuit, shared.
The Vatican’s statement comes after Pope Francis said during a documentary interview last October that he believes civil union laws should be created to legally cover same-sex couples in the civil sphere.
“Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it,” the pope said.
Donohue said this was an awkwardly-phrased statement by the pope. But while some Catholics have urged Pope Francis to bless gay marriage in the past, the statement released today settles his position on same-sex unions.
Donohue said the statement came from the top doctrinal office of the Catholic Church and would not be released without receiving the Pope’s blessing.
“I was actually struck by the fact that it was so definitive,” Donohue said. “They really slammed the door shut on this issue. And I think it’s welcome because some Catholics and non-Catholics say, ‘Well, where is the Church on this issue? It seems to be bending toward their way.’ And now, I think this will put an end to it. And if people who are Catholic don’t like it, well, they are going to have to change their status then.”
In its statement, the Vatican said that the unlawful blessing of same-sex unions is not “a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them.”
The Vatican’s response said the Christian community and pastors should “welcome with respect and sensitivity persons with homosexual inclination” and find appropriate ways to “proclaim to them the Gospel in its fullness.”
“But [God] does not and cannot bless sin: he blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him. He in fact ‘takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are,’” the statement added.
The Catholic Church’s stance goes beyond gay marriage since it will not bless any union against God’s design of marriage, Donohue concluded.
“We can take it a step further,” he shared. “The Church will never bless cohabitation. This is not just with homosexuals. There are guys and gals who live together outside of marriage, and the Church does not recognize that. This is not strictly about homosexuals, although they are the ones who are pushing for it, obviously. But it would apply to any union that is outside of [licit marriage].”
President Joe Biden knows there is an immigration crisis at the nation’s border but “thinks by staying away from it, by hiding out, that the problem will go away,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Tuesday.
“It’s getting worse because of President Biden’s policies,” Scalise said on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria.” “What President [Donald] Trump was doing was working. Biden may not like President Trump, but if his policy was working, at least continue on with that.”
Biden can still reverse his own policies by executive order, and stop the humanitarian crisis that is happening with children arriving unaccompanied at the nation’s border.
“They’re overwhelming communities along the border, and it seems like he doesn’t care about their plight because he’s carrying out socialist agenda that the left wants,” Scalise said. “This isn’t some social experiment. This is having a devastating impact on these young children coming across without parents in many cases, left to just be fending for themselves after being exploited in many cases along the journey, the 20-plus-day journey for some of them.”
Even though the Biden administration continues to refuse to call the border situation a crisis, Scalise said that’s exactly what it is due to the president.
“He went on day one, stopped building the wall, ordered that they stop construction on the wall that was going on and it actually costs more money to stop executing those contracts,” Scalise said. “That wall that President Trump had put in place had been successful at securing our border.
“What President Biden did is put the open sign at America’s border and they’re coming in by the thousands every day.”
Scalise noted that Jeh Johnson, who was Department of Homeland Security secretary under former President Barack Obama, said if he saw more than 1,000 crossings in one day illegally, it was a “serious problem.” Now, between 3,000 and 4,000 immigrants are coming daily.
“This is a major humanitarian crisis,” Scalise said. “The young kids that are pulled across the border, many are brought across by cartels, by these coyotes who are paid money, many sexually exploiting the young women coming across.”
After the young immigrants arrive, they’re not being kept in proper places, as the system is “completely overwhelmed” – something Scalise said was Biden’s fault.
The president, however, refuses to visit the border, and instead is touring the nation to tout the $1.9 trillion COVID bill, Scalise said.
The administration also is reportedly making plans for the first major federal tax hike since 1993 to pay for the long-term economic program following the pandemic bill, and Scalise said the United States “needs to be rescued” from the “socialist agenda that’s being rammed through Congress.”
“Look at the [COVID] bill,” Scalise said. “Over 90% of this $1.9 trillion bill has nothing to do with health needs. We tried to put money in to double the number of vaccines and they rejected it. In this bill, they have $1,400 checks going to felons in federal prison. Does anybody really think that’s a COVID-related item?
“They banned states from cutting taxes in the bill, The money is being borrowed from our children and they’ll raise taxes on hard-working families to pay for this.”
A cascade of cautionary pauses that started last week picked up Monday. Denmark was the first to suspend the shots. Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands and Iceland have also said they would wait for Europe’s bloc-wide medicines regulator to investigate a small number of serious blood-clotting issues among people who had received the AstraZeneca shot.
That regulator, the European Medicines Agency, is expected by Thursday to give its verdict on safety and potential risks from a review of the reported cases.
A cascading number of European countries — including Germany, France, Italy and Spain — suspended use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine Monday over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients, though the company and international regulators say there is no evidence the shot is to blame.
AstraZeneca’s formula is one of three vaccines in use on the continent. But the escalating concern is another setback for the European Union’s vaccination drive, which has been plagued by shortages and other hurdles and is lagging well behind the campaigns in Britain and the U.S.
The EU’s drug regulatory agency called a meeting for Thursday to review experts’ findings on the AstraZeneca shot and decide whether action needs to be taken.
The furor comes as much of Europe is tightening restrictions on schools and businesses amid surging cases of COVID-19.
Germany’s health minister said the decision to suspend AstraZeneca shots was taken on the advice of the country’s vaccine regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which called for further investigation into seven cases of clots in the brains of people who had been vaccinated.
“Today’s decision is a purely precautionary measure,” Jens Spahn said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said his country will likewise stop dispensing the vaccine until at least Tuesday afternoon. Italy also announced a temporary ban, as did Spain, Portugal and Slovenia.
Other countries that have done so over the past few days include Denmark, which was the first, as well as Ireland, Thailand, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Congo and Bulgaria. Canada and Britain are standing by the vaccine for now.
In the coming weeks, AstraZeneca is expected to apply for U.S. authorization of its vaccine. The U.S. now relies on Pfizer’s, Moderna’s and Johnson & Johnson’s shots.
President Joe Biden’s plan for the first major tax hike in nearly 30 years is facing stiff opposition from Republicans who say the proposal is carved from the ideology of wealth redistribution and would seriously stunt any post-COVID economic recovery.
Biden and congressional Democrats intend to push a new major bill that could potentially be aimed at infrastructure, jobs, or climate, the Hill reported. News of the legislation comes on the heels of the passage last week of the $1.9 trillion COVID -19 package that ensured stimulus checks for many Americans and funding for a host of other non-pandemic Democrat priorities.
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, told Newsmax TV’s ‘Spicer & Co.’ on Monday that Biden’s coming tax plan is all about Democrats’ social agenda.
“This is not about revenue,” Turner said. “This is about their social agenda. You know, when you look at our economy, where we’re just recovering, and we may be coming out of the COVID lockdown, this is not the time to raise taxes. You don’t stimulate the economy then take money from the economy … That’s because this is not about revenue. This is about their philosophy that companies have too much money.”
As part of the coming bill, Biden is planning the first major tax hike since 1993, a boost that could include an increase in the corporate tax rate and the individual rate for individuals earning over $400,000 per year.
The changes would likely include the repeal of parts of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut legislation and could include a 7-point percentage increase in the corporate tax rate, from 21% to 28%, an expansion of the estate tax, and a raise in the capital gains tax for people earning more than $1 million per year.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that Biden is committed to his campaign pledge to not raise taxes on people making under $400,000 annually. She maintained that Biden’s eventual tax plan would focus on ensuring that wealthy people and corporations pay their “fair share.”
“That remains his overarching approach, but there isn’t a package yet where we’re talking about pay-fors yet,” she said. “I expect we can have more conversations about that down the road.”
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told CNBC that “in the next package, we’re going to see real serious tax increases on the corporate side, certainly which will drive us to the least competitive tax rate in the world.”
The tax increases would “have an impact on the economy, jobs, and wages,” Brady said.
The Hill reported that Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, predicted “there will be no Republican votes for the president’s tax increases.”
Norquist said Biden’s campaign tax proposals could end up affecting 401(k) retirement accounts, which could develop into a political problem for Democrats.
“You can’t talk to suburban moms and dads by raising their taxes and raising taxes on the companies they invest in,” he said.
Still, some Democrats are holding out hope an infrastructure and jobs bill can attract bipartisan support.
“Building on the popularity of the American Rescue Plan, it is my sincere hope that our Republican colleagues will join us at the negotiating table, so together, we can deliver a package that benefits all our constituents,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement Friday.
Americans now view China as the nation’s greatest enemy, more than doubling the rate from last year, when Americans were “equally as likely to say either China or Russia was the U.S.’s greatest enemy.”
According to a Gallup poll released Tuesday, 46 percent of Americans believe China is the greatest enemy, followed by Russia at 26 percent and North Korea at 9 percent. Iran ranked fourth, down 15 points to four percent.
China is up 23 percent from 2020, while Russia’s yearly adjustment is only up three.
“Over the past several years, there have been noticeable fluctuations between the country perceived as the nation’s greatest adversary; China last ranked No. 1 in 2014, Russia topped the list in 2020, 2019 and 2014, and North Korea ranked highest in 2018 and 2016,” the poll noted.
Moreover, the perception of China as the greatest threat is partisan. Seventy-six percent of Republicans view China as the greatest threat, while 22 percent of Democrats said the same. Conversely, only six percent of Republicans name Russia in contrast to Democrats, who set the mark at 47 percent.
Independents notably believe China is the greatest threat at 43 percent, placing Russia below at 24 percent.
“While Americans perceive China as the country’s top enemy, half also believe that China is the world’s leading economic power,” the poll found. Indeed, this change in perception may be based upon the slump in the U.S. economy due to coronavirus amid a period when China has experienced overall GDP growth.
In turn, the poll also found 63 percent of Americans believe “the economic power of China is a critical threat to the vital interests of the U.S. in the next 10 years. An additional 30% describe it as an important, but not critical, threat.”
Benny Thomas, Facebook’s Global Planning Lead, told a reporter from Project Veritas that his company is as powerful as a country, and needs to be broken up. “No king in history” is as powerful as Mark Zuckerberg, he claimed.
“No king in the history of the world has been the ruler of two billion people, but Mark Zuckerberg is,” Thomas told a Project Veritas reporter, in an interview published by Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe on Monday. Thomas claimed that Facebook is “doing a lot of damage in the world,” citing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s forays beyond social networking and into healthcare and even gene editing.
“The government needs to step in and break up Google and Facebook,” he said, adding that to do so would be “a better thing for the world.”
BREAKING: @Facebook Global Planning Lead Benny Thomas Reveals Dire Need for Government Intervention
'The Single Biggest Thing is this Company Needs to be Broken Up’
Thomas is not the first person to demand greater government regulation of the Silicon Valley tech giants. Republicans have long accused these companies of discriminating against conservatives, and former president Trump repeatedly called for Congress to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives social media platforms immunity from being sued over the content posted on their sites, and allows them to decide what content to host and what to remove from their sites at will.
On the other side of the aisle, Massachusetts senator and failed presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren revealed plans in 2019 to break up tech monopolies like Amazon and Facebook. Multiple US states launched their own investigations into Facebook’s alleged anti-competitive behavior, but the firm has not yet suffered any consequences.
Thomas’ beef with Facebook did not involve its business practices, however. In the snippets of speech included in the Project Veritas video, he lent weight to the conservative argument that Facebook’s algorithms are biased. “There’s always built-in [algorithmic] bias,” he said. “Guess what? Human beings wrote that code,” he added, according to Project Veritas.
Thomas also stated that by gathering so much data on its users, Facebook can profile them with ease. He told Project Veritas’ reporter that he can identify “racist people” from their data, and can take “five things” about a user and “pretty much figure out everything else” from that. Mark Zuckeberg told a Congressional hearing in 2018 that he was “not sure” how many data points Facebook gathers on its users, but a 2016 ProPublica investigation“collected more than 52,000 unique attributes that Facebook has used to classify users.”
Monday’s video is not the first Project Veritas sting targeting Facebook. The conservative watchdog group published internal videos last month in which Facebook staff lamented the firm’s excessive power, and last year released an interview with a Facebook whistleblower, who claimed that the company designed censorship algorithms to deliberately target “Republicans and conservatives.”
Much of Thomas’ interview is lacking context, and is edited into a series of soundbites. Project Veritas has been accused before of selective editing and bias, most notably in the runup to the 2020 election when a man portrayed as committing ballot fraud for Democrats in Minnesota came forward and said he was offered money by Project Veritas to say he was breaking the law. O’Keefe denied ever offering the man any money.
