US Politics

Joe Biden continues to confound on the climate crisis. Hailed as America’s first “climate president”, Biden signed sweeping, landmark legislation to tackle global heating last year and has warned that rising temperatures are an “existential threat to humanity”. And yet, on Monday, his administration decided to approve one of the largest oil drilling projects staged in the US in decades.The green light given to the Willow development on the remote tundra of Alaska’s northern Arctic coast, swatting aside the protests of millions of online petitioners, progressives in Congress and even Al Gore, will have global reverberations.There are more than 600m barrels of oil available to be dislodged by ConocoPhillips over the next 30 years, effectively adding the emissions of the entire country of Belgium, via just one project, to further heat the atmosphere.The scale of Willow is vast, with more than 200 oil wells, several new pipelines, a central processing plant, an airport and a gravel mine set to enable the extraction of oil long beyond the time scientists say that wealthy countries should have kicked the habit, in order to avoid disastrous global heating.Biden’s approval of this is “a colossal and reprehensible stain on his environmental legacy”, according to Raena Garcia, fossil fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth. Even a group of Biden’s Democratic allies, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked the decision as ignoring “the voices of the people of Nuiqsut, our frontline communities, and the irrefutable science that says we must stop building projects like this to slow the ever more devastating impacts of climate change”.But the approval of the project is consistent with an administration that has approved nearly 100 more oil and gas drilling leases than Donald Trump had at the same point in his presidency, federal data shows. Biden may have promised “no more drilling on federal lands, period” during his presidential campaign, but the reality has been very different – not only have the hydrocarbons continued to flow, they are in a sort of boom, with both oil and gas production forecast to hit record levels year.The White House can point out it is in the middle of a set of confusing, and often contradictory, set of circumstances. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets and triggered a push to build new export terminals to ship US oil and gas to European allies, even as Biden toiled to pass $370bn in clean energy spending in the Inflation Reduction Act.Younger, progressive voters have urged the administration to do more on climate – the youth-led Sunrise movement said the Willow decision “abandons millions of young people” ahead of the 2024 election – even as Republicans have continued to hammer Biden for waging a supposed “war” on domestic energy and blamed him for rising gasoline prices.A series of court challenges, and a closely-divided Congress, have also forced Biden’s hand. All members of Alaska’s Congressional delegation, including newly-elected Democrat Mary Peltola, called for Willow to be approved, citing thousands of new jobs. “We all recognize the need for cleaner energy, but there is a major gap between our capability to generate it and our daily needs,” Peltola wrote in an op-ed on Friday with Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, the Republican senators from Alaska.Biden himself appears to share this view – in his recent state of the union speech, the president said “we’re going to need oil for at least another decade”, before adding “and beyond that”, after boos from some lawmakers. This sort of “rhetorical dualism (is) a call for ‘one last fossil bender before America goes green and sober,’” according to a note by analysts at ClearView Energy Partners on Sunday.Administration officials have stressed that the allowable Willow project is smaller than ConocoPhillips hoped, with three drilling sites allowed instead of the five proposed, and have signaled that the company would’ve likely prevailed in a court challenge if the project was rejected, given it has held leases in the region for more than 20 years.The department of interior has also unveiled proposed rules it has framed as a “firewall” against further drilling, with all of the US’ Arctic Ocean off-limits to future oil and gas exploration, as well as the blocking of leases on more than half of the 23m acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a vast area of the north slope that contains wildlife considered imperative for the subsistence of local native communities.This conservation action, appropriately announced in a whiplash-inducing way the day before the Willow decision was made public, shows that Biden “continues to deliver on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history”, the department of interior claimed.“Let’s be clear – this project, which the interior department has substantially reduced in size under considerable legal constraints, won’t stop us from achieving the ambitious clean energy goals president Biden has set,” an administration official said on Monday.But critics point out that the brutal reality of Earth’s climate system doesn’t recognize political expediency or future good intentions. The International Energy Agency, among others, has warned that no new oil and gas fields can be developed if the world is to avoid breaching temperature thresholds that scientists say will tip the planet into increasingly dangerous heatwaves, flooding, wildfires and other impacts.For all of the new wind and solar projects spurred by last year’s climate bill, and Biden’s enthusiastic promotion of electric vehicles, Willow is a sobering reality check – the project will wipe out the emissions cuts provided by all renewable energy developments over the next decade, adding the equivalent of 2m new gas-guzzling cars to the roads.“We don’t need to prop up the fossil fuel industry with new, multi-year projects that are a recipe for climate chaos,” as Gore told the Guardian on Friday. “Instead, we must end the expansion of oil, gas and coal and embrace the abundant climate solutions at our fingertips.” More

Joe Biden will announce on Tuesday that he is ordering the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to crack down on gun sellers who break the law, “moving the US as close to universal background checks as possible”, the White House said.The president will speak in Monterey Park, California, meeting victims’ families and community members devastated by a mass shooting that claimed 11 lives and injured nine other people in January.Opinion polls show that a majority of both Democrats and Republicans support universal background checks that would reveal whether a person is a convicted criminal or domestic abuser before allowing them to buy a gun. But with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, there is little hope of Congress heeding Biden’s pleas to pass legislation.On a swing through California, the president will acknowledge this political reality and unveil an executive order to enforce existing laws against gun sellers who, knowingly or otherwise, currently fail to run the background checks they should.On a conference call with reporters, a senior administration official said last year’s bipartisan gun safety legislation – the most sweeping of its kind in three decades – “created an opening” for Biden to direct the attorney general to move the US as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.He will ask Garland to clarify the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms, the official said. “Number one, to make it clear that those who are wilfully violating the law need to come into compliance with the law and, number two, to make it clear to people who may not realise that, under that statutory definition they are indeed in the business of selling firearms, they must become federally licensed firearm dealers and they must run background checks before gun sales.”The administration argues that this will mean fewer guns sold without background checks and therefore fewer guns ending up in the hands of criminals and domestic abusers. Garland will also devise a plan to stop gun dealers whose licenses have been revoked or surrendered from continuing to trade.There will be an effort to hold the gun industry accountable by naming and shaming federally licensed firearms dealers who are violating the law. Garland will release Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives records from the inspection of firearms dealers cited for breaking laws.The executive order also aims to boost public awareness of “red-flag” laws that allow individuals to petition a court to allow police to confiscate weapons from a person adjudged dangerous to themselves or others.These extreme risk protection orders have been enacted in 19 states and the District of Columbia but, the White House noted, are only effective if the public knows when and how to use them. Biden’s cabinet will be asked to work with law enforcement, healthcare providers, educators and other community leaders to ensure their effective use and to promote the safe storage of guns.The senior administration official insisted that, whatever the likely resistance from Republicans and certain localities, the president’s actions enjoy broad support. “These are not controversial solutions anywhere except for in Washington DC in Congress. The actions the president is proposing to move closer to universal background checks are just common sense.“Similarly, safe storage, extreme protection orders, these are things that have the support of the vast majority of Americans. The vast majority of Americans are looking for a leader in Washington who will take change and make their community safer and that is exactly what the president is doing here.”Biden, who has previously called gun violence in America “an epidemic” and “international embarrassment”, will further order efforts to counter a sharp rise in the loss or theft of firearms during shipping, enlist the Pentagon in improving public safety practices and encourage the Federal Trade Commission to issue a report analysing how gun makers market firearms to children, including through the use of military imagery.In addition, he will seek to improve federal support for gun violence survivors, victims and survivors’ families. The White House pointed out in a press release that, when a hurricane overwhelms a community, the Federal Emergency Management Agency steps in.But when a mass shooting does so, “no coordinated US government mechanism exists to meet short- and long-term needs, such as mental healthcare for grief and trauma, financial assistance (for example, when a family loses the sole breadwinner or when a small business is shut down due to a lengthy shooting investigation), and food (for example, when the Buffalo shooting closed down the only grocery store in the neighborhood)”. More

Wearing white cowboy hat, black suit and black tie, country singer and guitar virtuoso Brad Paisley strode on stage in the East Room of the White House before a bipartisan audience.It was a Saturday night and, fittingly, he began the 40-minute set playing his hit song American Saturday Night – but with an amended lyric. “I had to change the second line because it mentioned Russia, and I don’t do that any more,” he explained.When Paisley delivered its substitute – “There’s a Ukrainian flag hanging up behind the bar” – no one applauded louder than Joe Biden in the front row.It was a moment that illustrated Paisley’s engagement with Ukraine’s fight for survival and, before a gathering of governors from blue and red states, his efforts to bridge political divides. The 50-year-old from West Virginia, a three-time Grammy winner, describes himself as hard to categorise but optimistic that America can move beyond what has been called a cold civil war.That night last month at the White House, Paisley compelled Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah and an amateur musician, to join him in a duet. He also performed a new song, Same Here, marking the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Speaking by phone Nashville, Tennessee, Paisley recalls: “You had most of the states represented and you had all sides. I could see it in the room: let’s not lose what this is saying because it works. Face to face, left to right, it works. That’s the thing about something like this: when you put it out there, it’s going to be uncomfortable, but that’s OK. Art can be uncomfortable. I welcome the discussion.”The commercial release of Same Here features a voiceover from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking proudly about his country and people. Paisley’s royalties for the track will be donated to the United24 crowdfunding effort to help build housing for thousands of displaced Ukrainians whose homes were destroyed in the war.He describes the song – the first from his new album, Son of the Mountains – as an expression of empathy. “It’s about anybody who longs for freedom. Around this time last year, when I was seeing all this begin to happen, I was moved by the images of people fleeing – mothers, daughters, grandmothers crossing the border, all huddled in the backseat of a car, fleeing for their lives as the husband stayed behind to fight.“It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. It’s unlike anything any of us have seen in our lifetimes. It just felt so helpless to watch this and be a witness to this with nothing we could do. Maybe the most exciting thing for me in having this out is the idea that this is going to help rebuild homes for people, and it’s also raising some awareness.”Zelenskiy has worked tirelessly to promote his cause and build support around the world. The former actor, comedian and screenwriter delivered a rousing speech to the US Congress in Washington and has given video addresses at the Golden Globe and Grammy awards.Paisley reflects: “It’s an amazing thing. Who would have thought? You almost can’t write the script – they did, actually, that was his TV show – but he seems to be the right man at the right time in a way that just seems divine. It’s unbelievable.”The Ukrainian president was happy to collaborate with Paisley and even had some songwriting suggestions. “When he heard it, I got word that there were a few lines that he wondered about and so we worked on those and made sure that it came off the way it did.“It’s funny how much better it is now than when we began in the sense that it’s truly remarkable to hear this voice in the middle of this conflict with a melody. He had great suggestions. I don’t know if he’s got aspirations to write songs or not.”Paisley’s public shows of support for Ukraine has drawn attacks from bots – fake, automated accounts that became notorious after Russia employed them in an effort to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.It would be no surprise to find Paisley caught in political crossfire. The perils facing country music artists who venture into the political arena were spelled out when the Dixie Chicks faced fierce blowback for their condemnation of President George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq.During the 2016 election, a survey by the trade publication Country Aircheck found that 46% of industry professionals favored Republican Donald Trump while 41% preferred Democrat Hillary Clinton. Many stars prefer to remain apolitical, which may be pragmatic considering the risk of alienating half their audience.Nashville, the home of country music, has a Democratic mayor, but is surrounded by Republican red in Tennessee. Paisley does not declare himself to be either Democrat or Republican. “The bottom line is I defy category. I definitely am one of the more confusing people that way. The minute you affiliate, ‘Here’s what I am,’ are you all those things? I’m certainly not all of those things on either side.”“I’m a little hard to pin down. There will be songs when this album comes out where a lot of liberals will go, ‘Wait a minute, you can’t say that!’ I have written an album that does not pull punches. If I believe in something or if I want to tell a story, it’s on here on this album. I have literally bled for it – I’ve cut my hand a couple of times playing the guitar. I’ve written it to the degree that I’ve really tried to scope every word all the way from the very first line to the last line of this album.“The far left may say, ‘What are you doing?’ Harlan Howard, one of our great songwriters in country music, they used to give him flak. So many of the songs were cheating songs, drinking songs. They’re like, ‘Why do you write about that so much?’ He said, ‘When people stop, so will I!” He laughs. “That’s the thing people do. If people don’t do that any more then we’ll have to write country songs about all the other things. But there are songs in here about things people do.”It would not be the first time that Paisley has faced criticism from the left. Next month marks the 10th anniversary of Accidental Racist, Paisley’s ill-fated collaboration with rapper LL Cool J.Paisley began the song with an anecdote about a Black man taking offence at his Confederate flag T-shirt, explaining: “The only thing I meant to say is I’m a Skynyrd fan” – a reference to the southern rock band that often used the flag. He went on to sing about white people are “caught between southern pride and southern blame” a century and a half after the civil war.Paisley insisted that he was trying to foster an open discussion of race relations, but critics said it was tone deaf. An analysis by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic was headlined: “Why ‘Accidental Racist’ Is Actually Just Racist.” Demetria Irwin of the Black culture website the Grio called it “the worst song in the history of music”. Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted: “I can’t wait for Brad Paisley & LL Cool J’s next single: “Whoopsy Daisy, Holocaust, My Bad.”Did he learn lessons from the experience?“You can’t think of everything, and at some point the art you make should exist as the way you want it to exist, but if it can be better, and somebody has an opinion, you should listen to them. If it’s a valid opinion, if it’s not a bot, if it’s not some sort of strange agenda. In that sense, it’s all been a part of my journey for sure, learning from these things.”The entire nation has been on a vertiginous learning curve in the 10 years since Accidental Racist, witnessing a racial reckoning that has a reframing of American history via the 1619 Project and the removal of many Confederate statues across the south.Paisley comments: “I drove by these statues my whole life since I was 20 here in Tennessee and never really thought about them at all. Obviously I’m the wrong one to ask on whether they come down. It’s not important what I think. To me it’s about the people that feel something so deeply and feel so much hurt. Let’s talk about that.”The musician has long used his platform to advocate for causes, opening a free grocery store in Nashville with his wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and donating 1m meals during the coronavirus pandemic. He visited US troops in Afghanistan and has talked with Zelenskiy about performing in Ukraine. But he rejects that idea that Same Here is a case of mixing music with politics.“To me in no way, shape or form is it a political statement. I guess I have a world leader on and it’s interesting to say something is avoiding politics when you do that. But truthfully, for me, when you boil it down, here’s what we care about: crying at weddings, having a beer together in a remote place, families and soldiers and flags and freedom and all these things.“To me, if you want to call it political, call it whatever you want to call it. But let’s talk about this. These are key things in life that make us human.” More

Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and Anthony Albanese unveiled details of a plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines, a major step aimed at countering China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. The first of the new vessels are expected to be seaworthy by the end of 2030s, with Australia receiving theirs in the early 2040s More

Mitch McConnell was released from the hospital on Monday after the Republican leader of the Senate received treatment for a concussion, and he will continue to recover in an inpatient rehabilitation facility, a spokesman said.McConnell’s office said his doctors discovered over the weekend that he had also suffered a “minor rib fracture” after he tripped and fell at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington on Wednesday evening.“Leader McConnell’s concussion recovery is proceeding well and the leader was discharged from the hospital today,” said McConnell’s spokesman, David Popp, in a statement. “At the advice of his physician, the next step will be a period of physical therapy at an inpatient rehabilitation facility before he returns home.”The office did not give any additional detail on McConnell’s condition or say how long he will be out. Concussions can be serious injuries and take time for recovery, and even a single incident of concussion can limit a person’s abilities as they recover.It is unclear how his extended absence will affect Senate proceedings. The Senate returns to Washington on Tuesday evening after the weekend off and is scheduled to be in session for the rest of March.The Kentucky senator, 81, was at a Wednesday evening dinner after a reception for the Senate Leadership Fund, a campaign committee aligned with him, when he tripped and fell.McConnell’s head injury comes almost four years after he tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky, suffering a shoulder fracture that required surgery. The Senate had just started a summer recess, and he worked from home for some weeks as he recovered.At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, McConnell opened up about his early childhood experience fighting polio. He described how his mother insisted that he stay off his feet as a toddler and worked with him through a determined physical therapy regime. He has acknowledged some difficulty in adulthood climbing stairs.First elected in 1984, McConnell in January became the longest-serving Senate leader when the new Congress convened, breaking the previous record of 16 years.McConnell is one of several senators who have been absent lately due to illness or hospitalization. The 53-year-old Democratic senator John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke during his campaign last year, was expected to remain out for some weeks as he received care for clinical depression. And Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, said earlier this month that she had been hospitalized to be treated for shingles. More

White House rebukes Mike Pence over homophobic jokes about Pete ButtigiegFormer vice-president took aim at transportation secretary for taking maternity leave and getting postpartum depressionThe White House rebuked the Republican former vice-president Mike Pence on Monday, for making jokes about US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, maternity leave and postpartum depression that it said were homophobic and offensive to women.Mike Pence: history will hold Donald Trump accountable over Capitol attackRead more“He should apologise to women and LGBTQ+ people,” said Joe Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.Buttigieg is the first openly gay cabinet secretary confirmed by the US Senate.He and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, have twins. In October 2021, as the US faced supply chain problems and familiar issues with rail and air delays and safety, the two babies were hospitalised.At the time, Pete Buttigie described “a terrifying few days” for the family.He also responded to rightwing criticism and homophobic remarks from the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, calling criticism of his parenting and use of parental leave “strange”, from “a side of the aisle that used to claim the mantle of being pro-family”.Pence, an evangelical Christian who was a congressman and governor of Indiana before becoming Donald Trump’s vice-president, is now considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination.He spoke on Saturday at the Gridiron dinner, a bipartisan Washington event featuring light-hearted speeches. Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, spoke for Democrats and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke for the Biden administration.Pence made headlines for saying Donald Trump “endangered my family” on January 6 and rejecting attempts by right-wingers including Carlson to downplay the attack on Congress.But when it came to his jokes, Pence took aim at Buttigieg.Saying the secretary had taken “maternity leave” from his job, Pence added: “Thousands of travelers were stranded in airports, the air traffic system shut down, and airplanes nearly collided on our runways.“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression.”The Associated Press said the remarks prompted criticism “even before the dinner was over”.On Monday, Jean-Pierre said: “The former vice-president’s homophobic joke about Secretary Buttigieg was offensive and inappropriate, all the more so because he treated women suffering from postpartum depression as a punchline.“He should apologise to women and LGBTQ+ people, who are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”Pence’s former chief of staff dismissed the White House rebuke.“The hypocrisy is especially rich considering their own secretary of state, Antony Blinken, joked that he yearned for ‘the old days’ when ‘Jews did all the work’,” Marc Short tweeted, referring to another remark at the dinner.Chasten Buttigieg posted to Twitter a picture of his husband in hospital, holding one of the twins, and said he had “an honest question” for Pence.“If your grandchild was born prematurely and placed on a ventilator at two months old – their tiny fingers wrapped around yours as the monitors beep in the background – where would you be?”Pence did not immediately comment.Before running for president and then joining Biden’s cabinet, Buttigieg was for eight years mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Pence was governor for four of those years and the two men worked well together.But Pence also attracted widespread criticism for his views on LGBTQ+ rights. On the campaign trail in 2019, Buttigieg took aim at the older man.“If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said. “And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: that if you’ve got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”TopicsMike PencePete ButtigiegUS politicsLGBTQ+ rightsnewsReuse this content More

Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden is attempting to reassure Americans that the banking system will hold up.“Thanks to the quick action in my administration over the past few days, Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” the president said.“Your deposits will be there when you need them. Small businesses across the country that deposit accounts at these banks can breathe easier knowing they’ll be able to pay their workers and pay their bills. And their hardworking employees can breathe easier as well.”Washington is on tenterhooks, waiting to see if the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and the government’s efforts to ensure its depositors can get their money, cause wider chaos in the economy. Democratic senator and Wall Street foe Elizabeth Warren said the California-based institution’s debacle is a sign that rolling back financial regulations in 2018 was not a good idea, while Republicans are blaming everything from Twitter to the woke mob. And on the 2024 campaign trail, Nikki Haley described the government’s intervention with the most infamous b-word: bailout.Here’s what else happened today:
Joe Biden approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska while protecting the Arctic ocean and millions of acres elsewhere in the state from petroleum exploration. Environmental groups are furious.
Social security is like Silicon Valley Bank: so says Republican senator Bill Cassidy.
Barney Frank was a champion of financial regulation during his time in Congress, but then sat on the board of a now-closed bank and said he doesn’t think tighter rules would have stopped the recent insolvencies.
Rupert Murdoch has not watched Succession, it turns out.
Have you been affected by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank? Tell us.
The New York Times reports that after the GOP took control of the House, its oversight committee dropped an inquiry into whether Donald Trump profited improperly from his time as president.The investigation had ensnared Mazars USA, an accounting firm used by the former president until they cut ties with him a year ago, and the oversight committee’s top Democrat has alleged that its Republican leader colluded with Trump in ending it.“It has come to my attention that you may have acted in league with attorneys for former President Donald Trump to block the committee from receiving documents subpoenaed in its investigation of unauthorized, unreported and unlawful payments by foreign governments and others to then-President Trump,” Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin wrote to James Comer, the committee chair.In an interview with the Times, Comer confirmed that the committee had dropped the inquiry, essentially saying they were now focused on scrutinizing current White House occupant Joe Biden.“I honestly didn’t even know who or what Mazars was,” Comer said.“They’ve been ‘investigating’ Trump for six years. I know exactly what I’m investigating: money the Bidens received from China.”The consequences of the January 6 insurrection continue to reverberate across Washington, including among Republicans. Here’s The Guardian’s Sam Levine on the growing divide within the GOP over the attack:Some Republicans have rebuked efforts by Donald Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson to whitewash the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, underscoring a significant split in the party over attempts to downplay the events of the day.Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, turned over more than 40,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol to Carlson earlier this year. This week, Carlson aired selectively edited portions of that footage, falsely claiming the rioters were “sightseers” and “not insurrectionists”. At least 1,000 people have been arrested for their role in the January 6 attack. Five people died as a result of it.More than 999 people have been arrested so far, according to the justice department. Around 518 people have pleaded guilty to federal crimes to date and 53 have been found guilty at trial.Republican response to the January 6 Capitol attack divides partyRead moreFor more on how Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors will be made whole, and whether or not what the government is doing constitutes a bailout, here’s the Guardian Edward Helmore:When is a bailout not a bailout? It’s a question many people are asking after the dramatic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the US’s decision to rescue depositors on Sunday.Joe Biden, elected and appointed officials all insist the emergency interventions to protect deposits in Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, a second bank that failed on the weekend, or, indeed, any further bank failures, won’t come at taxpayers’ expense.On Monday, Biden was at pains to say that “no losses” would be borne by taxpayers, and the money would come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.Avoiding the ‘B-word’: is the US response to SVB’s collapse a bailout?Read moreRepublican senator Josh Hawley has spent the day accusing Silicon Valley Bank of promoting “woke” ideology, and now he wants to undermine the Biden administration’s efforts to make its depositors whole.Based in Santa Clara, California, Silicon Valley Bank did a lot of business with the venture capital community, including startups focused on fighting climate change, according to the New York Times. To Hawley, that’s enough to earn it the amorphous “woke” moniker:So these SVB guys spend all their time funding woke garbage (“climate change solutions”) rather than actual banking and now want a handout from taxpayers to save them— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 13, 2023
Now Hawley, who is perhaps best known outside his home state of Missouri for promoting Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and later running from the mob that attacked the Capitol, says he will stop the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from making a special assessment on American banks so that Silicon Valley Bank depositors don’t lose money:Now we learn the Biden Admin will impose “special assessments” (= fees) on banks across the country to pay for the SVB bailout. No way MO customers are paying for a woke bailout. I will introduce legislation preventing any bank from passing these fees on to customers -— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 13, 2023
And my legislation will exempt responsible community banks from the “special fees” to bail out the California billionaires— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 13, 2023
The Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports on the changing fortunes of Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, who is at the center of an increasingly intense controversy over his peddling of 2020 election conspiracy theories:Tucker Carlson was once seen as untouchable. Now the most popular TV host on American cable news is at the center of a firestorm threatening to engulf Fox News and also anger Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theory-laden political cause he has long championed and who his audience loves.Court filings attached to the $1.6bn Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit accuse Fox News of allowing its stars to broadcast false accusations about rigged voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.The documents contained numerous emails detailing the private views and concerns of senior Fox management and its stars, which often seemed at odds with what they were publicly broadcasting to their audience.Tucker Carlson firestorm over Trump texts threatens to engulf Fox News Read moreThe hit HBO show Succession is loosely based on his life as the patriarch of an unruly billionaire family, but that doesn’t mean Rupert Murdoch watches it.Though the head of the rightwing media empire is under growing pressure amid a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against his Fox News network, Murdoch recently took time to reveal that he has never watched the comedy-drama series that is set to launch its fourth season on 24 March, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports.A reporter for the media outlet Semafor got the scoop having contacted Murdoch after his email address was revealed in court filings pertaining to the lawsuit. Murdoch’s reply to the reporter’s email asking if he followed Succession reportedly was: “Never watched it.”‘Never watched it’: Rupert Murdoch answers cold email about SuccessionRead moreAn unlikely figure has found himself drawn into the recent wave of bank collapses: Barney Frank.The former House Democratic lawmaker’s name graces the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which tightened banking regulations following the global financial crisis. It turns out, he was serving on the board of Signature Bank, which regulators on Sunday closed, making it the third American bank to fail in five days.In an interview with Bloomberg News, he said he disagreed with the decision to shut down the New York-based institution. “I think that if we’d been allowed to open tomorrow, that we could’ve continued – we have a solid loan book, we’re the biggest lender in New York City under the low-income housing tax credit.”More interestingly, he disputed that the 2018 rollback of parts of the Dodd-Frank Act played any role in the failures of Signature and other similar sized institutions – like Silicon Valley Bank. That legislation, signed by Donald Trump, raised to $250bn the level at which banks are subjected to the most strict oversight. Both Signature and Silicon Valley were below that amount.“I don’t think there was any laxity on the part of regulators in regulating the banks in that category, from $50 billion to $250 billion,” Frank said in the interview.Washington is on tenterhooks, waiting to see if the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and the government’s efforts to ensure its depositors can get their money, cause wider chaos in the economy. Democratic senator and Wall Street foe Elizabeth Warren said the California-based bank’s debacle is a sign that rolling back financial regulation in 2018 was not a good idea, while Republicans are blaming everything from Twitter to the woke mob. And on the 2024 campaign trail, Nikki Haley described the government’s intervention with the most infamous b-word: bailout.Here’s what else has happened today:
Joe Biden approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska while protecting the Arctic ocean and millions of acres elsewhere in the state from petroleum exploration. Environmental groups are furious.
Social security is like Silicon Valley Bank: so says Republican senator Bill Cassidy.
Have you been affected by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank? Tell us.
Louisiana’s two Republicans senators have been getting a lot of air time on Fox News lately, with John Kennedy appearing yesterday to complain about how Joe Biden recently put the GOP on the spot over social security. Here’s Maya Yang’s story:The Republican senator John Kennedy accused Joe Biden of “demagoguing” the issue of how to fund social security and Medicare and protecting the two programs from Republican proposals to cut them, calling it a “very immature thing to do”.Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Kennedy took aim at Biden for mentioning in his State of the Union address last month that some Republicans have proposed to “sunset” social security and Medicare as part of attempts to balance the federal budget.“The problem is that President Biden in his State of the Union Address decided to demagogue the issue,” the Louisiana senator said. “We all saw it.“He basically said, ‘If you talk about social security or Medicare, I’m going to call you a mean, bad person.’ And that just took the issue off the table when the president decided to demagogue it … You can only be young once, but you can always be immature, and I thought it was a very immature thing to do.”Republican John Kennedy takes aim at Biden over social security fundingRead moreRepublican presidential contender Nikki Haley is describing the US government’s efforts to stop Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors from losing their money as a “bailout”.It’s a politically loaded word, considering how deeply controversial Washington’s 2008 decision to help large banks during the global financial crisis remain.Here’s her statement, on Twitter:Joe Biden is pretending this isn’t a bailout. It is.Now depositors at healthy banks are forced to subsidize Silicon Valley Bank’s mismanagement. When the Deposit Insurance Fund runs dry, all bank customers are on the hook. That’s a public bailout.Depositors should be paid by… https://t.co/LDmCR9NOCd— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) March 13, 2023
Meanwhile, Republican senator Bill Cassidy has compared social security – the government program credited with keeping many elderly Americans out of poverty – to Silicon Valley Bank.He made the comment in an interview with Fox News as he discussed social security’s very real problem of long-term funding:Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA): “Social Security is the Silicon Valley Bank of retirement systems.” pic.twitter.com/J5N8nhnXko— The Recount (@therecount) March 13, 2023
Joe Biden today authorized a major oil drilling project in Alaska that has angered environmental groups, who see it as a setback in Washington’s fight against climate change. In an effort to temper those criticisms, the president also banned drilling in the Arctic ocean, and protected millions of acres of land in Alaska. Here’s the Guardian’s coverage of one of the Biden administration’s most significant environmental decisions, from Oliver Milman, Nina Lakhani and Maanvi Singh:The Biden administration has approved a controversial $8bn (£6bn) drilling project on Alaska’s north slope, which has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists and some Alaska Native communities, who say it will speed up the climate breakdown and undermine food security.The ConocoPhillips Willow project will be on of the largest of its kind on US soil, involving drilling for oil and gas at three sites for multiple decades on the 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve which is owned by the federal government and is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US.It will produce an estimated 576m barrels of oil over 30 years, with a peak of 180,000 barrels of crude a day. This extraction, which ConocoPhillips has said may, ironically, involve refreezing the rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost to stabilize drilling equipment, would create one of the largest “carbon bombs” on US soil, potentially producing more than twice as many emissions than all renewable energy projects on public lands by 2030 would cut combined.Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in AlaskaRead moreFlorida governor Ron DeSantis is among the Republicans expected to soon jump into the 2024 presidential race, and in a Fox News interview yesterday, he blamed Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse on the liberal policies he’s built a reputation for railing against:DEI stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, the sorts of initiatives DeSantis’s administration in Florida has made a point of targeting. He also blames the “massive federal bureaucracy” for letting the collapse happen – which is interesting, because during his time as a House lawmaker in 2018, he voted for the legislation that rolled back some of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulations, which is now being blamed for Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. More

Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in AlaskaEnvironmentalists and some Alaskan Native communities had opposed the plan over climate, wildlife and food-shortage fearsThe Biden administration has approved a controversial $8bn (£6bn) drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope, which has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists and some Alaska Native communities, who say it will speed up the climate breakdown and undermine food security.The ConocoPhillips Willow project will be one of the largest of its kind on US soil, involving drilling for oil and gas at three sites for multiple decades on the 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve which is owned by the federal government and is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US.It will produce an estimated 576m barrels of oil over 30 years, with a peak of 180,000 barrels of crude a day. This extraction, which ConocoPhillips has said may, ironically, involve refreezing the rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost to stabilize drilling equipment, would create one of the largest “carbon bombs” on US soil, potentially producing more than twice as many emissions than all renewable energy projects on public lands by 2030 would cut combined.In its decision, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said that the approval “strikes a balance” by allowing ConocoPhillips to use its longstanding leases in the Arctic while also limiting drilling to three sites rather than five, which the company wanted.But the approval has been met with outrage among environmental campaigners and Native representatives who say it fatally undermines Joe Biden’s climate agenda. In all, the project is expected to create about 260m tons of greenhouse gases over its lifespan, the equivalent of creating about 70 new coal-fired power plants.“Approving the Willow Project is an unacceptable departure from President Biden’s promises to the American people on climate and environmental justice,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action, a climate group.“After all that this administration has done to advance climate action and environmental justice, it is heartbreaking to see a decision that we know will poison Arctic communities and lock in decades of climate pollution we simply cannot afford.”The approval came as the interior department announced it was going to ban any future oil and gas drilling in the US Arctic Ocean, as well as protect millions of acres of Alaska land deemed sensitive to Native communities. But the Willow decision has still stirred anger.“The Biden administration’s approval makes it clear that its call for climate action and the protection of biodiversity is talk, not action,” said Sonia Ahkivgak, social outreach coordinator at the Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic group.“The only reasonable solution to the climate emergency is to deny new fossil fuel projects like Willow. Our fight has been long and also it has only begun. We will continue to call for a stop to Willow because the lives of local people and future generations depend on it.”Opposition to the project has included more than a million letters sent to the White House, a Change.org petition with more than 3 million signatories, and a viral #stopwillow campaign waged on TikTok as well as other social media. The approval of the project is almost certain to face legal challenges.On Friday, former US vice-president Al Gore told the Guardian that projects of its kind are “recklessly irresponsible” and that allowing it would cause “climate chaos”.The approval comes after an environmental impact assessment was published last month by the US interior department, which recommended a scaled-back version of the project, reducing the number of sites from five to three, which ConocoPhillips Alaska said it considered a viable option.“Willow is a carbon bomb that cannot be allowed to explode in the Arctic,” Karlin Nageak Itchoak, the senior regional director at the non-profit Wilderness Society, said after the assessment was published in early February.According to the Native Movement, a grassroots Alaska-based collective, Willow developers have done little research on the impact of the cumulative projects across the Arctic slope of Alaska – the birthing grounds of the 60,000 Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd, which are a historically important food source. Residents of Nuiqsut, the closest Alaska Native community, have spoken out about sick fish, malnourished caribou and toxic air quality, directly caused by existing oil and gas extraction within their homelands.Approval has come after a long contentious process.After the project was given the green light by the Trump White House, a federal judge reversed that decision, ruling that an earlier environmental review was flawed.Alongside the interior department’s February review, officials expressed “substantial concerns” about even the scaled-back plan’s impact on wildlife and Native communities.Alaska’s two Republican senators and the state’s sole congressional representative, a Democrat, had urged the administration to approve the project, which they say would boost the state’s economy.Some Alaska Native tribal organizations, including the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and the Alaska Federation of Natives, have supported the project for similar reasons.The deal will make it “possible for our community to continue our traditions, while strengthening the economic foundation of our region for decades to come,” according to Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat group.But environmental groups and tribes including those in Nuiqsut have countered that any jobs and money the project brings in the short term will be negated by the environmental devastation in the long run.Alaska is at the forefront of the climate breakdown, caused by burning fossil fuels, and communities surrounded by oil and gas operations are already suffering poor air and water quality, health disparities and reduced food sources. The Nuiqsut mayor, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is the closest to the proposed development, is a prominent opponent, who has called the project a “climate disaster waiting to happen”. She said it will negatively affect the livelihoods and health of community members.Biden suspended oil and gas lease sales after taking office and promised to overhaul the government’s fossil fuels program. However, the administration dropped its resistance to leasing in a compromise over last year’s climate law.The administration’s continued embrace of oil and gas drilling has caused consternation among Democrats, with two dozen progressive members of Congress recently writing to Biden, warning that the Willow project will “pose a significant threat to US progress on climate issues”. The group called upon the president to block an “ill-conceived and misguided project”.The Biden administration has offered less acreage for lease than previous administrations. But environmentalists say the administration has not done enough. The US interior secretary, Deb Haaland, in a recent interview declined direct comment on Willow but said that “public lands belong to every single American, not just one industry”.Increased oil and gas extraction in the Alaska region has already affected caribou populations, which several communities in the area hunt for subsistence.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsAlaskaEnergyOilOil and gas companiesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More