Biden administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Will UK follow US in demanding TikTok be sold by its Chinese owner?

      by

      When asked this week whether the UK would ban TikTok on government phones, Rishi Sunak’s response signalled a change in stance: “We look at what our allies are doing.”Previously ministers had seemed sanguine, even saying that whether or not the app stayed on someone’s phone should be a matter of “personal choice”.Not any more. The UK’s allies are turning against TikTok and it was when Sunak said he was watching their actions closely that a government ban became inevitable. The US, Canada and the EU’s executive arm have already decided to strip the app from official devices. It is now a matter of geopolitical choice.TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance. The fear among its critics on both sides of the Atlantic is that the Chinese state can access data generated by its more than 1 billion users and manipulate its recommendation algorithm in order to push a China-friendly point of view to unsuspecting users.There is no hard evidence this is the case and TikTok says it would refuse any data request from the Chinese government, although the UK government cited concerns about “the way in which this [user] data may be used” for the ban on Thursday. But tensions over Taiwan, concerns that China will supply weaponry to Russia, the shooting down of a spy balloon that hovered over the US and warnings of state espionage have created a toxic backdrop to those denials. And on Monday a refreshed integrated review of UK defence and foreign policy described China as an “epoch-defining” challenge.TikTok’s reputation was severely damaged last year when ByteDance admitted employees had attempted to use the app to spy on reporters.TikTok will be concerned that Sunak will match each upward ratchet in pressure from his counterparts. On Wednesday the Biden administration demanded the platform’s Chinese owner sell the app or face a complete ban. Will the UK ultimately threaten the same?If geopolitics is the leading factor in these moves, as opposed to hard proof that TikTok poses a security threat, then it is likely every deterioration in relations between China and the west will push the app further along the road to a complete ban or forced divestment from its owners in the UK and elsewhere. Indeed, a forced sale in the US – if the Chinese government lets TikTok’s owners do so – could lead to TikTok being peeled off from ByteDance in its entirety.The shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon off the east coast of the US last month was followed by reports that negotiations between TikTok and the Biden administration over a deal to resolve security concerns had stalled, while this week the White House gave its support to a Senate bill giving the president the power to ban TikTok.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTikTok’s attempts to assuage those concerns – for instance announcing plans to store US and European user data on third-party data servers – seem to have failed with the current American president in the same way they did with his immediate predecessor, who also tried to force a divestment of TikTok’s US business. The backstop used by TikTok’s critics is the existence of Chinese laws that could force ByteDance to cooperate with Beijing authorities, including the national intelligence law of 2017, which states that all organisations and citizens shall “support, assist and cooperate” with national intelligence efforts. For many, this is enough evidence.Perhaps eliminating the concerns over Chinese interference by selling TikTok to non-Chinese investors is the only way to quell the critics. But there are plenty of other aspects of the Chinese tech industry – from Huawei mobile phones to other electronic devices – that are just as capable of eliciting similar fears. Without strong supporting evidence there is no way of knowing how proportionate the UK government is being – and the same could be true for moves against other Chinese tech interests. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden just betrayed the planet – and his own campaign vows | Rebecca Solnit

      by

      The Willow project is an act of terrorism against the climate, and the Biden administration has just approved it. This massive oil-drilling project in the wilderness of northern Alaska goes against science and the administration’s many assurances that it cares about climate and agrees that we must make a swift transition away from fossil fuel. Like the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden seems to think that if we do some good things for the climate we can also do some very bad things and somehow it will all even out.To make that magical thinking more obvious and to try to smooth over broad opposition, the US federal government also just coughed up some protections against drilling in the Arctic Ocean and elsewhere in the National Petroleum Reserve (and only approved three of the five drilling sites for ConocoPhillips’ invasion of this wilderness). Of course, this is like saying, “We’re going to kill your mother but we’re sending guards to protect your grandmother.” It doesn’t make your mom less dead. With climate you’re dealing with physics and math before you’re dealing with morality. All the carbon and methane emissions count, and they need to decrease rapidly in this decade. As Bill McKibben likes to say, you can’t bargain with physics.You can try to bargain with the public, but the motivation behind this decision is hard to figure out. The deal was inherited from the Trump administration, and rejecting it would have been a break with convention, but convention dooms us, and we need the break.Biden was elected in no small part by the participation of young voters who supported his strong climate platform. As a candidate he promised: “And by the way, no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.” Six million letters and 2.3m comments opposed to the project were sent to the White House, many from young people galvanized by social media. The American public, Republican minority aside, is strongly engaged with the reality of climate crisis now and the urgency of doing something about it.I call it an act of terrorism, because this drilling project in Alaska produces petroleum, which will be burned, which will send carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it will contribute to climate chaos that will affect people in the South Pacific, the tropics, the circumpolar Arctic, will affect the melting of the Greenland ice shield (this month reaching a shocking 50F warmer than normal). It doesn’t just produce petroleum; it produces huge quantities of it, resulting in an estimated 278m metric tons of carbon emissions.This makes it, like the Permian Basin oil extraction in the US south-west and the tar sands in Alberta, a carbon bomb. Former vice-president Al Gore recently put it this way: “The proposed expansion of oil and gas drilling in Alaska is recklessly irresponsible … The pollution it would generate will not only put Alaska Native and other local communities at risk, it is incompatible with the ambition we need to achieve a net zero future.”Earlier, the New York Times reported, “The administration says the country must pivot away from fossil fuels but backed a project set to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil each day for 30 years.” In 30 years it will be 2053, three years after we are supposed to have achieved a fully fossil-free future.There is actual bargaining in the government’s record of decision, stating that “Permittee shall offset 50% of the projected net [greenhouse gas emissions] … in accordance with US commitments under the Paris Agreement. GHGs shall be offset through reforestation of land …” Pretending that trees are our atmospheric janitorial service belies both the ways that forests across the globe are devastated by climate crisis – burgeoning pests, drought, fire, ecosystems changing faster than trees can adapt – and that planting trees does not necessarily result in a healthy long-lasting forest.Each tree, according to this document, can sequester 48lbs of carbon dioxide a year. Except that tiny saplings will not be doing that, and it will be too late to help our current climate goals by the time the trees, if they survive, are full-grown. I asked a friend with a talent for math to crunch the data; he concluded that “12.8bn trees could sequester the produced carbon in one year; or, 1/100th of that – 128m trees – could sequester the produced carbon in 100 years”. That’s not a solution to emitting those 278m metric tons of carbon dioxide in the next few years.Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, an Indigenous Alaskan organization, pointed out in a letter to Biden that this project means devastation: “Approval of a project the size of Willow would be climate suicide. Coastal villages in Alaska are losing land to erosion at breakneck speed, permafrost thaw is causing dramatic changes to the ecosystem and the destruction of oil and other infrastructure, and Alaska Natives are at risk of losing their jobs, homes, and lives in a place which is warming at four times faster than the rest of the world.”We are already failing to stop runaway climate change. Adding this carbon bomb to the total makes it worse – both for the actual damage to the climate and for the signal the US is sending to the world. The Biden administration has made a colossal mistake.
      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Joe Biden to unveil executive order to crackdown on law breaking gun sellers

      by

      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

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Hard to ignore Julie Su’: Biden’s labor secretary pick fights for confirmation

      by

      ‘Hard to ignore Julie Su’: Biden’s labor secretary pick fights for confirmationSupporters fear Su, the deputy labor secretary, might have a hard time getting the needed Senate votes as some business groups oppose her nominationJulie Su has come a long way since she first made headlines in 1995 when she, then just 26 years old, was lead lawyer for 72 Thai workers who were essentially kept in slavery, toiling 18 hours a day at a sweatshop just outside Los Angeles.Last week Joe Biden nominated Su to be secretary of labor, the government’s top labor position, a move that many labor, immigrant and women’s groups vigorously cheered, while a few business groups – but not many – opposed the nomination. Now some supporters fear that she might have a hard time mustering the needed votes in the Senate to be confirmed.Starbucks fired a union organizer. New York City got him rehiredRead moreSu, the 54-year-old daughter of immigrants, has served as deputy labor secretary since 2021, having been narrowly confirmed 50 to 47. “I’m a huge fan,” said Liz Schuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main labor federation. “I can’t imagine someone more prepared. She’s been working hand in glove with Marty Walsh,” the current labor secretary, who is leaving to head the National Hockey League Players’ Association.“She has the expertise,” Shuler added. “She’s a hard worker. She’s creative. We know that she will defend workers, especially the most vulnerable. This pick is a home run.”When Biden nominated her, Su explained “my mom came to the United States on a cargo ship” from China because she couldn’t afford a passenger ticket. Born in Madison and growing up outside Los Angeles, Su went to Stanford and Harvard Law School, and then became a lawyer for an LA-based advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice.“At Harvard, we were taught to think like lawyers, but we did not learn to think like human beings,” Su often says. In 2001, Su, who is fluent in Mandarin and Spanish, won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant for her innovative work as a workers’ rights advocate.Immediately before becoming deputy secretary, she headed California’s labor and workforce development agency under Governor Gavin Newsom, and before that she oversaw California’s labor enforcement under Newsom’s predecessor Jerry Brown. She was known for aggressively cracking down on restaurants, garment factories and car washes that cheated workers out of wages. She also went after trucking companies that improperly classified their drivers as independent contractors in part to deny them minimum wage and overtime pay protections.Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, said: “She did extraordinary work in reaching out to unions and community partners, in strengthening enforcement of wage laws and in really identifying the pernicious problem faced by so many low-wage workers of color who were routinely becoming victims of wage theft.”As California’s top labor official, Su expanded apprenticeship programs to train workers without college degrees and helped run the business/labor Future of Work Commission. That panel proposed ideas to help the workforce of the future, such as creating a “California Job Quality Index” to define high-quality jobs and help workers know who are good employers offering good benefits.When Su was under consideration to be deputy secretary of labor, Allen Zaremberg, president of the California chamber of commerce, praised her “professionalism” and said: “Julie Su has always been open to the views of employers and is willing to listen to the concerns of the business community.”So far the US Chamber of Commerce and most other business groups have not taken a position on Su’s nomination. But the International Franchise Association was quick to oppose her.“Deputy Secretary Su has been consistently hostile to small businesses throughout her career,” said Michael Layman, the franchise association’s senior vice-president of government relations. He faulted her for supporting California law AB5, which made it harder for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors, a law that upset Uber and Lyft.Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, said she had long been impressed with how Su maintained good communications and relations with business. “She brought a perspective that labor law enforcement isn’t just good for workers, it’s also good for high-road businesses that are doing things right.”In 2017, when Su was California’s labor commissioner, she told me in an interview: “I passionately believe that our enforcement is good for employers. The legitimate businesses that are complying with the law are frustrated with the bad guys that aren’t complying.”Su was widely criticized over the billions of dollars that California’s unemployment insurance paid out due to fraud during the pandemic. But Su’s defenders noted that other states also experienced plenty of such fraud, that California’s unemployment insurance system was a mess long before Julie Su and that the nationwide rush to keep the pandemic-induced unemployed from going hungry made unemployment screening less rigorous than usual.The Franchise Association said that “based on her record, she does not deserve a promotion from a largely operations role to the [department’s] principal policymaker”. It urged the Senate to reject her just as it rejected David Weil, Biden’s nominee to head the labor department’s wage and hour division.Weil, who headed that division under President Barack Obama, was voted down 53 to 47. Business groups lobbied hard against Weil because he had pushed to stop gig companies, like Uber and Lyft, from what he said was improperly classifying their drivers as independent contractors.“From my own experience, I know what a razor’s edge the Senate is right now,” Weil said in an interview. “It’s all about two senators’ willingness to support her,” in a reference to Joe Manchin and Kysten Sinema, senators who were elected as Democrats but have voted with Republicans against progressive actions.Weil said Su would have a lot to do as labor secretary, although if the Senate fails to confirm her, she would remain as acting secretary of labor. “There are two or three major rules that have to be finalized,” Weil said, “and that gets harder and harder as you get closer to an election.”He mentioned rules to make it harder to misclassify workers as independent contractors and to increase the threshold, currently $35,500, below which employees would have to be paid overtime if they work over 40 hours a week.Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs with Justice, a labor rights group, praised Su for being innovative. “She’s been on the cutting edge of trying new stuff,” Smiley said. “She has an appetite for experimenting with policies that will benefit everyday people.”Normally the National Labor Relations Board – which is independent from the labor department – handles cases in which companies are accused of illegally shutting stores or operations in retaliation for unionization efforts. Pointing to Amy’s Kitchen’s decision and close its food prep operation in San Jose and lay off 331 workers as that facility faced a union drive, Smiley suggested that Su have the labor department provide emergency assistance to workers who lose jobs in such situations, just as other federal agencies provide disaster relief. She urged Su to speak out against companies like Starbucks that she said were engaged in aggressive union-busting.Biden and Congress have enacted three far-reaching laws that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs – on infrastructure, semiconductor investment and transitioning to clean energy. Many worker advocates are looking to Su to use her sway as secretary to make sure the bulk of those new jobs are good, middle-class jobs, and many hope they’re unionized jobs, too.One of Su’s biggest champions is Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants and someone Senator Bernie Sanders urged Biden to nominate as labor secretary. Right after Su was nominated, Nelson tweeted: “Fantastic news for the country.”“I was very clear from the very beginning that we already had someone eminently qualified for this position,” Nelson said. “She’s way more qualified for this job than I would be, depending on what you think the job should be, in terms of understanding policy and how to use it as a tool to help average Americans. She wants to be a strong adviser to a president who wants to be the most pro-worker president ever.“This is not about one person filling a position,” Nelson added. “It’s about all of us working together to lift standards for the American people. I know that she will be fighting the good fight from the inside, and I’ll be fighting the good fight from the outside.”Some worker advocates voiced concern that Su is not a White House insider the way Walsh was and the way former labor secretary Tom Perez was under Obama. That could make it harder for Su to get the White House’s and Office of Management and Budget’s blessing to finalize important regulations.But the AFL-CIO’s Shuler voiced confidence: “She’s very persuasive, relentless and persistent. It’s hard to ignore Julie Su.”TopicsBiden administrationUS politicsUS unionsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden denies reports that Alaska oil drilling project has been approved

      by

      Biden denies reports that Alaska oil drilling project has been approvedSigning off on the Willow plan would place the president’s political career in conflict with climate-minded DemocratsThe Biden administration has denied reports that it has authorized a key oil drilling project on Alaska’s north slope, a highly contentious project that environmentalists argue would damage a pristine wilderness and gut White House commitments to combat climate crisis.Late Friday, Bloomberg was first to report citing anonymous sources that senior Biden advisers had signed off on the project and formal approval would be made public by the Interior Department next week.The decision to authorize drilling on the north slope, if correct, would amount to one of the most symbolically important climate decisions of Biden’s political career and place his administration in conflict with the climate-alert left wing of the Democratic party.But that pressure is countered by unions and some Indigenous communities in Alaska who say approval of the project would provide economic security in the state beyond the borders of the 9.3m-hectare (23m acres) area of the north slope that is considered the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US.But after reports were published, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “no final decisions have been made” on the project and “anyone who says there has been a final decision is wrong”.Earlier on Friday, former vice-president Al Gore said it would be “recklessly irresponsible” to allow the project to proceed. “The pollution it would generate will not only put Alaska native and other local communities at risk, it is incompatible with the ambition we need to achieve a net zero future,” he said.Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski said on Friday that a decision was “imminent”. The Republican senator previously called the size of the project “minuscule” and that it has been “meticulously planned” to avoid harm to the environment.Biden has come under intense pressure from lawmakers and the courts, and high energy prices that have dogged his first term as president after he vowed “no more drilling on federal lands, period” during his campaign.But White House policy to oppose new oil leases and discourage domestic shale-oil drilling, has also forced its hand in other areas. Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia last year to urge increases in Saudi production came at a high political cost and was broadly fruitless.White House approval of “the Willow Master Development Plan”, a multi-billion ConocoPhillips project to drill oil inside the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska would serve as a substantial win for the oil-and-gas industries.ConocoPhillips has said the Willow plan could provide more than $17bn in revenue for federal, state and local governments and create over 2,800 jobs. It could suck an estimated 600m barrels of oil from beneath the permafrost and, at a projected 180,000 daily barrels of oil, would produce approximately 1.6% of current US production.Under those figures, the project would also contribute 280m tons of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere when the oil was processed and used across fossil-fuel dependent economy.Unlike other, small oil and gas leases approved by the White House it would also be one that Biden approves without the force of court or congressional orders.The oil giant, which reported profits of $18.7bn in 2022, double the previous year, originally requested permits to drill on five locations but later scaled back to three.ConocoPhillips has said it cannot comment on the decision until it has a formal record.The Interior Department has previously said it has “substantial concerns” about the Willow project’s impact upon the climate and the subsistence lifestyle of native Alaskan communities – but has completed an environmental review of the development that it said would improve it.A wave of opposition to the Willow project has included rallies in Washington DC and an online #StopWillow campaign that has garnered more than 3m signatures.Siqiniq Maupin with the Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic has warned that the project would threaten subsistence lifestyle of native communities that rely upon the migration of caribou.“President Biden continues to address climate change during high-profile speeches and events but his actions are contradictory,” Maupin said.TopicsBiden administrationAlaskaOilClimate crisisIndigenous peoplesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans are threatening to default on the US national debt. Don’t believe them | Robert Reich

      by

      Republicans are threatening to default on the US national debt. Don’t believe themRobert ReichHere’s a dirty secret: both Republicans’ debt hysteria and Biden’s proposed tax hikes are pure theater. Neither will happenPresident Biden is proposing to trim the federal budget deficit by close to $3tn over the next 10 years. He was an FDR-like spender in the first two years of his presidency. Has he now turned into a Calvin Coolidge skinflint?Neither. He’s a cunning political operator.The US central bank is poised to cause untold hardship to millions of Americans | Robert ReichRead moreBiden knows that he – along with his three immediate predecessors (Trump, Obama and George W Bush) – have spent gobs of money. In addition, Bush and Trump cut taxes on the rich and on corporations.Not surprisingly, the national debt has soared. It’s not so much an economic problem as a political one. The huge debt is giving Republicans a big, fat target.House Republicans are planning to stage theater-of-the-absurd pyrotechnics – refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Which means that at some point this summer, Biden’s treasury department will say that the nation is within days (or hours) of defaulting on its bills. A default would be catastrophic.To counter this, Biden is planning his own pyrotechnics.In the budget released this week, he’s proposing a “billionaire minimum tax” that would require wealthy American households worth more than $100m to pay at least 20% of their incomes in taxes (most middle-class Americans pay about 30%). Plus, they’d have to pay 20% a year on unrealized gains in the value of their liquid assets, such as stocks, which can accumulate value for years but are taxed only when they are sold (and not even then, if left to their heirs).Here’s the important thing: the tax would apply only to the top one-100th of 1% of American households. Over half of the revenue would come from those worth more than $1bn.Biden is proposing additional tax hikes on the wealthy: reversing the Trump tax cut by raising the top tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, increasing the corporate tax to 28% from 21%, and raising the tax on stock buybacks from 1% to 4%.All told, Biden’s new tax proposals would amount to an almost $3tn tax increase over a decade – on the richest of the rich. Oh, and did I say? Taxing the rich is enormously popular.Biden also wants to let Medicare officials negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices and cap the costs of drugs for seniors – a proposal that is also hugely popular.But here’s the dirty little secret. Neither of these two theatrical productions – neither the Republicans’ refusal to raise the debt ceiling nor Biden’s big tax hike on the super-rich – will ever happen. They’re both fantasies.A default on the nation’s obligations would bring on an economic calamity that Republicans don’t want to be responsible for. And a giant tax increase on the super-rich would be a miracle, given their political clout.These two productions are being staged for the public – two competing performances, each intended to score political points against the other.Biden’s performance is rational, and the Republicans’ is irrational and unserious, but that doesn’t really matter.They will both end in a dramatic flurry of last-minute negotiations, seemingly death-defying moves and countermoves, and breathtaking cliffhangers.Exciting? Of course. Important? Meh.The denouement? The debt ceiling will be raised. The national debt will be lowered a bit. Social Security and Medicare will be left alone. And Biden and the Democrats will have leeway to do one or two more things before the gravitational pull of the 2024 election pulls them in – perhaps expand childcare or pre-K or enable more students to attend community college.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      This article was amended on 9 March 2023 to correct an editor’s error in the standfirst. Biden has proposed tax hikes for wealthy Americans, not tax cuts.
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS CongressJoe BidenBiden administrationEconomic policyDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      White House backs bill that could give it power to ban TikTok nationwide

      by

      White House backs bill that could give it power to ban TikTok nationwideThe bill would allow commerce department to impose restrictions on technologies that pose a risk to national securityThe White House said it backed legislation introduced on Tuesday by a dozen senators to give the administration new powers to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok and other foreign-based technologies if they pose national security threats.The endorsement boosts efforts by a number of lawmakers to ban the popular ByteDance-owned app, which is used by more than 100 million Americans.‘Abusing state power’: China lashes out at US over TikTok bansRead moreThe bill gives the commerce department the authority to impose restrictions up to and including banning TikTok and other technologies that pose national security risks, said Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the intelligence committee.He said it would also apply to foreign technologies from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.TikTok said in a statement that any “US ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide”.The bill would require the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, to identify and address foreign threats to information and communications technology products and services. Raimondo’s office declined to comment.The group, led by Warner and Republican Senator John Thune, includes Democrats Tammy Baldwin, Joe Manchin, Michael Bennett, Kirsten Gillibrand and Martin Heinrich along with Republicans Deb Fischer, Jerry Moran, Dan Sullivan, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, Warner’s office said.Warner said it was important the government do more to make clear what it believes are the national security risks to the US from the use of TikTok.White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan praised the bipartisan bill saying it “would strengthen our ability to address discrete risks posed by individual transactions, and systemic risks posed by certain classes of transactions involving countries of concern in sensitive technology sectors”.“We look forward to continue working with both Democrats and Republicans on this bill, and urge Congress to act quickly to send it to the president’s desk,” he said in a statement.TikTok has come under increasing fire over fears user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests.TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew is due to appear before Congress on 23 March.The House foreign affairs committee last week voted along party lines on a bill sponsored by Representative Michael McCaul to give Biden the power to ban TikTok after then president Donald Trump was stymied by courts in 2020 in his efforts to ban the app along with the Chinese messaging app WeChat.Democrats opposed McCaul’s bill, saying it was rushed and required due diligence through debate and consultation with experts. Some major bills aimed at China like the Chips funding bill took 18 months to win approval. McCaul said he thinks the full US House of Representatives could vote on the bill this month.TopicsTikTokChinaAppsUS politicsInternetBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Deal reached with Republicans to repeal Iraq war authorizations, says Schumer – as it happened

      by

      The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a deal has been reached with the GOP to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, which provided the congressional authority for America’s strikes against Saddam Hussein’s government, and the invasion that ultimately toppled him from power.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the foreign affairs committee would begin considering the measure next week.“There’s support on both sides of the aisle for this proposal. Because both Democrats and Republicans have come to the same conclusion: we need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all. And doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that initiated the war to begin with,” the New York lawmaker said.Lawmakers from both parties have sought to repeal the authorizations for years, but never managed to do so. Punchbowl News reports that in the House, two of its most conservative Republican members are leading the charge to approve the repeals.The mystery of “Havana syndrome” continued, with US intelligence agencies concluding no foreign adversary was behind the debilitating attacks on its government officials overseas, but otherwise coming up with no answers for what so harmed their health. Meanwhile at the White House, Joe Biden introduced Julie Su, who he has nominated for a promotion to the labor department’s top post. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Asian American cabinet secretary to serve since he took office two years ago.Here’s what else happened today:
      The Senate will consider legislation to revoke the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, its Democratic leader said.
      FBI agents in Washington tried to slow down the investigation into Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
      Top Democrats want Fox News to stop promoting Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
      Attorney general Merrick Garland got into it with rightwing senator Ted Cruz over security for supreme court justices.
      The mute people in straitjackets wandering around the Capitol? Adam Kinzinger sent them.
      Elsewhere in the Capitol, things have gotten a bit weird:The House offices are filled with people silently walking the halls in straitjackets and light-up glasses.I asked if it’s a protest but they indicated they’re not allowed to speak. pic.twitter.com/Q6Lb7NQDh9— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) February 28, 2023
      That was from yesterday. Today, the white-clad performers were back, this time displaying a QR code that Axios used to figure out who was behind them: Adam Kinzinger. The retired House lawmaker was one of two Republicans to serve on the January 6 committee, but ultimately decided not to run for another term and left Congress at the end of last year.Now, he’s helming a campaign against political extremism, and told the website the performers’ uniforms and straitjackets were meant to send a message. “We call them ‘drones’ … They’re just kind of droning around, they really don’t have a purpose at the moment… because they just feel unrepresented. They feel like government is just kind of going along.” The whole point of their presence in the halls of the Capitol offices were to grab attention, he said, and satirize the “desperate need of every lawmaker and staffer there” to go viral on social media or appear on TV.Thus far, Kinzinger has spent $250,000 on the campaign’s launch, which also includes advertising on billboards and television. “I’m sure it’ll end up probably building to be even more,” Kinzinger told Axios.The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a deal has been reached with the GOP to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, which provided the congressional authority for America’s strikes against Saddam Hussein’s government, and the invasion that ultimately toppled him from power.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the foreign affairs committee would begin considering the measure next week.“There’s support on both sides of the aisle for this proposal. Because both Democrats and Republicans have come to the same conclusion: we need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all. And doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that initiated the war to begin with,” the New York lawmaker said.Lawmakers from both parties have sought to repeal the authorizations for years, but never managed to do so. Punchbowl News reports that in the House, two of its most conservative Republican members are leading the charge to approve the repeals.Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator whose hostility to aggressively fighting climate change and some social aid programs infuriated progressives, remains coy about whether he will stand for another term in 2024, Punchbowl News reports.Try and decode this:Asked if he’ll run for re-election, Manchin says “I will be involved.”— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 1, 2023
      Love him or hate him, the truth is that Manchin’s presence has allowed Democrats to control the Senate since January 2021 – and few in the party believe that voters in red-state West Virginia would replace him with another Democrat if he does not run again.As he testifies before the Senate judiciary committee, it’s become clear what Republicans are using as their attack line of the day against attorney general Merrick Garland.GOP senators at the hearing are accusing him of ignoring the security concerns of conservative supreme court justices, who were the target of protests outside their homes, particularly around the time of their decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Case in point, here’s Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas’s exchange with Garland:Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asks Attorney General Merrick Garland why the DoJ wouldn’t arrest protesters outside Supreme Court justices’ houses when the department devoted time to prosecuting January 6th insurrectionists.Garland: “Our priority is violence and threats of violence.” pic.twitter.com/Oqksj0TbaQ— The Recount (@therecount) March 1, 2023
      Last year, Congress agreed to pay for more security for supreme court justices and their families in a measure approved by bipartisan votes.Our world affairs editor, Julian Borger, considers the state of US-China relations, and views about US-China relations from both sides of the aisle in DC, a day after the first hearing of the House China committee…The Biden administration has settled on the ambiguous phrase “pacing challenge” to characterise Beijing’s place in its global outlook, but the newly formulated House China committee expressed impatience with such delicacy at its first hearing on Tuesday.“We may call this a ‘strategic competition’,” said Mike Gallagher, the committee’s Republican chairman. “But this is not a polite tennis match. This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century, and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake.”The ranking Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi, said both Republican and Democratic administrations had underestimated the threat posed by China and called for a policy built around deterrence.“We do not want a war with the PRC [People’s Republic of China], not a cold war, not a hot war, we don’t want a ‘clash of civilizations’. But, we seek a durable peace. And that is why we have to deter aggression,” Krishnamoorthi said.Here’s Lauren Gambino’s report on that first committee hearing:‘Time is not on our side’: Congress panel says tackling China defines next centuryRead moreSpeaking of Trump’s election subversion and the events of January 6, Politico is first to report a new move by Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican and member of GOP royalty who stood up to Trump, vice-chaired the House January 6 committee and lost her seat in Congress to a Trump loyalist as a result.Cheney is joining the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia as a professor of practice, Politico reports, a move due to be announced today. The daughter of the former congressman, defense secretary and vice-president Dick Cheney will “offer guest lectures in classes and public events as well as participate in research”.Liz Cheney said: “There are many threats facing our system of government and I hope my work with the Center for Politics and the broader community at the University of Virginia will contribute to finding lasting solutions that not only preserve but strengthen our democracy.”The other Republican who sat on the January 6 committee, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, retired from Congress rather than face losing his seat to a Trumper.Politico now reports that he is launching “a nationwide campaign urging voters to reject extreme candidates on both sides of the aisle ahead of the 2024 election”..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The centerpiece of the campaign is a nearly six-minute-long video titled Break Free, inspired by Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad about escaping the conformity of non-Apple computers. In the political ad’s twist, people are forced to wear blue- and red-tinted goggles showing them divisive images and broadcasts from a Big Brother-type character until they take them off and escape. A monologue from Kinzinger urges Americans to reject political extremes.”Here’s more about the 1984 Apple ad:The Apple Super Bowl ad that announced the future was hereRead moreAnd here’s an interesting nugget about Cheney: her defiance of Trump was in part informed and inspired by her reading of Lincoln on the Verge, a 2020 book by the historian and sometime Guardian contributor Ted Widmer which you should definitely read. Here’s some lunchtime reading on that:‘What it means to be an American’: Abraham Lincoln and a nation dividedRead moreDonald Trump has responded to news of Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary deposition in Dominion Voter Systems’ billion-dollar defamation suit against Fox News.The deposition concerns the repetition by Fox News hosts of the lie spread by Trump and his advisers and allies that Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was the result of voter fraud, specifically voter fraud supposedly carried out using Dominion machines in extraordinarily outlandish ways.The Trump response is, predictably, furious and filled with a characteristic disregard for the truth:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the Presidential Election of 2020, despite MASSIVE amounts of proof to the contrary, was not Rigged & Stolen, then he & his group of MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS should get out of the News Business as soon as possible, because they are aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA with FAKE NEWS. Certain BRAVE & PATRIOTIC Fox News Hosts, who he scorns and ridicules, got it right. He got it wrong. THEY SHOULD BE ADMIRED & PRAISED, NOT REBUKED & FORSAKEN!!!That was delivered, of course, via Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform which he set up after being booted off Twitter for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.For some further and rather more temperate reading, here’s Charles Kaiser’s look at why the Dominion suit is such a serious problem for Murdoch and Fox News:How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying’Read moreAnd here’s Ed Pilkington’s look at the Murdoch deposition … and why it is such a serious problem too:Stunning Rupert Murdoch deposition leaves Fox News in a world of troubleRead moreThe mystery of “Havana syndrome” continues, with US intelligence agencies concluding no foreign adversary was behind the debilitating attacks on its government officials overseas, but otherwise coming up with no answers for what so harmed their health. Meanwhile at the White House, Joe Biden introduced Julie Su, who he nominated for a promotion to lead the labor department. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Asian American cabinet secretary to serve since he took office two years ago.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      FBI agents in Washington tried to slow down the investigation into Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
      Top Democrats want Fox News to stop promoting Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
      Attorney general Merrick Garland got into it with rightwing senator Ted Cruz over security for supreme court justices.
      Joe Biden is cheering news that drugmaker Eli Lilly will drop the price of insulin:Huge news.Last year, we capped insulin prices for seniors on Medicare, but there was more work to do.I called on Congress – and manufacturers – to lower insulin prices for everyone else.Today, Eli Lilly is heeding my call. Others should follow. https://t.co/Kv57KFATe9— President Biden (@POTUS) March 1, 2023
      As is Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Thanks to the leadership of President Joe Biden, Americans across the country will no longer be forced to pay astronomical prices for the life-saving insulin they need. Make no mistake: Eli Lilly’s decision to cap its insulin prices at $35 a month is a direct result of President Biden calling on drug manufacturers to lower insulin prices for everyone else, after Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act to cap insulin costs for seniors on Medicare, which every single Republican in Congress voted against. While Democrats’ fight to bring down costs for American families, MAGA Republicans have threatened to try and repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and raise drug prices for millions of Americans.”Attorney general Merrick Garland usually presents a placid facade in public, but in today’s Senate judiciary committee oversight hearing, Republican Ted Cruz managed to get the top prosecutor’s back up.The Texas lawmaker hammered Garland about why US Marshals did not stop protesters outside the homes of supreme court justices who voted last year to overturn Roe v Wade. Republicans have used the arrest of California man who allegedly plotted to murder conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh to argue that the demonstrators presented a threat to justices, and that the Biden administration did little to stop it.Here’s the exchange:Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and AG Garland go back and forth over protesters outside SCOTUS justices’ homes.Cruz: “How did you choose not to enforce this statute?”Garland: “The marshals on scene …”Cruz: “Marshals don’t make that decision.”Garland: “They do make the decision!” pic.twitter.com/FlPLy8etU3— The Recount (@therecount) March 1, 2023 More