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Biden administration

Vox’s Student Loan ‘Expert’ Is Paid By Debt Collectors

Vox (8/7/23) published a piece arguing that “the White House should admit that student debt forgiveness isn’t happening,” and instead make sure that borrowers are prepared for loan repayments to begin again in October. But it failed to disclose that the author is on the student loan industry’s payroll. The Debt Collective, the nation’s first debtor’s union, noted on Twitter (8/7/23) that the author, Kevin Carey, works for a corporate-backed think tank funded in part by the student loan industry, and has worked to undermine student debt cancellation for over a decade. As a result, Carey’s argument that cancellation is futile, and that the White House’s efforts should be focused on helping students restart payments and avoid delinquency, reeks of feigned sympathy.

Henry K In Beijing

Secretary of State Blinken traveled to Beijing in mid–June and got nothing done. Treasury Secretary Yellen followed within weeks and got nothing done. John Kerry, secretary of nothing who is supposed to be doing something about climate policy but one cannot make out what, finished up a round of talks in the Chinese capital last weekend. And got nothing done.  This has been going on since the Biden regime befouled relations with China shortly after the January 2021 inauguration. None of these people has been received in Beijing with more than minimal courtesy and not quite that if we are measuring respect. 

When The River Roars: 70 Years Of Confusion

This year is incredibly important to me and the Korean people. Next Wednesday, July 27th is the 70th anniversary of the armistice of Korean War, the longest war in American history. I turn 34 this year, almost half of that number. And my grandmother, who left a memoir that I finally found in 2015, was aged 70 years when she published these words, translated by me: I only understood what that war was, felt it against my flesh only after I came down from the mountains. Nobody was whole after the war. It spared no one. People either lost their lives, lost their families, lost their legs or arms, or were irrevocably scarred in their hearts. People who survived the war were like people who had already lost their lives once and came back from the dead.

‘Under No Circumstances’ Will US Pay Poor Nations For Climate Damages

John Kerry, U.S. President Joe Biden's climate envoy, made clear at a congressional hearing Thursday that Washington has no intention of compensating impoverished countries for destruction wrought by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency despite playing an outsized role in creating it and continuing to accelerate it. During the United Nations COP27 summit held last year in Egypt, delegates agreed to establish a "loss and damage" fund through which rich nations can provide poor ones with financial resources to help cover the escalating costs of extreme weather disasters, which are growing in frequency and intensity due to unmitigated greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution.

A Yellen In The China Shop

Janet Yellen did an excellent job during her just-completed four-day visit to Beijing, we are now able to read in the corporate press. The Treasury secretary managed not to break any more China in the China shop. This counts as a diplomatic success for Americans. Given where the Biden regime sets the bar for its trans–Pacific statecraft these days, you have to wonder whether they chant “Limbo lower now!” as they send off the next official on one of these pointless demarches. Yellen’s trans–Pacific overture was another in a long line of such journeys the Biden regime’s top officials have made since they made a mess of Sino–American relations as soon as they took office.

US Depleted Uranium To Make Ukraine War Dirtier

The Biden administration is expected to supply Ukraine with highly controversial depleted-uranium munitions which are to be fired from the Abrams battle tanks the U.S. is sending to Kyiv, the Wall St. Journal reported June 13. Any delivery of U.S. depleted uranium (DU) weapons to Ukraine would be in addition to the State Department’s Dec. 22, 2022 approval of the sale to Poland of as many as 112,000 heavy 120-millimeter DU shells, which was announced by the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The British Ministry of Defense announced last March 20 that it too would send depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine along with its Challenger battle tanks.

As Medicaid Purge Begins; ‘Staggering Numbers’ Of People Lose Coverage

More than 600,000 Americans have lost Medicaid coverage since pandemic protections ended on April 1. And a KFF Health News analysis of state data shows the vast majority were removed from state rolls for not completing paperwork. Under normal circumstances, states review their Medicaid enrollment lists regularly to ensure every recipient qualifies for coverage. But because of a nationwide pause in those reviews during the pandemic, the health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans kept people covered even if they no longer qualified. Now, in what’s known as the Medicaid unwinding, states are combing through rolls and deciding who stays and who goes.

Climate Activists Decry Pipeline ‘Deal With The Devil’

As progressives excoriated President Joe Biden's debt ceiling deal with Republican lawmakers over "polluter giveaways" including the Mountain Valley Pipeline, activists rallied outside Sen. Chuck Schumer's Brooklyn home on Tuesday evening with a message for the majority leader: "Stop the dirty pipeline deal, or we shut down your block." The protesters—led by Climate Defiance and backed by Food & Water Watch, Climate Defenders, Climate Families NYC, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), and others—chanted messages including "Schumer, stop the dirty deal" as they marched in the Park Slope neighborhood where he lives.

The Ukraine Refugee Question

Last Saturday the Washington Post published an exposé of classified American intelligence documents showing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, working behind the back of the Biden White House, pushed hard earlier this year for an expanded series of missile attacks inside Russia. The documents were part of a large cache of classified materials posted online by an Air Force enlisted man now in custody. A senior official of the Biden administration, asked by the Post for comment on the newly revealed intelligence, said that Zelensky has never violated his pledge never to use American weapons to strike inside Russia. In the view of the White House, Zelensky can do no wrong.

Biden Won’t Stop Climate Change

President Biden laced his 2020 presidential campaign with rhetoric and promises about addressing climate change, drawing some to wonder if he could be America’s first “climate president.” More than two years in, the reality of his term is a letdown for those who hung their hopes on this label. With the official announcement that he’ll run for office again in 2024, it’s time to examine why “lesser evil” Biden and his flimsy platform represent nothing more than a green dream. As an example, Biden’s administration has now signed off on more gas and oil drilling permits than Trump had at the same point in his term — surpassing Trump by a few hundred at the two-year mark.

Confessions Of A Political Flack

Last weekend the New York Times published a report that President Biden has been missing in action in recent months when it comes to serious question-and-answer sessions with the Washington press corps. The obvious reason for the lack of press conferences is “to protect” the president from unscripted exchanges that often result in missteps and confusion. Had I been writing the piece, I might have added that the president is intent on not blurting out an unwanted truth. And he is not alone in avoiding the press. The fact is that Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan have similarly disappeared in recent months when it comes to give-and-take sessions with the White House press corps.

Biden’s Disinvitation To Netanyahu Followed Accusation US Is Funding Demonstrations

Joe Biden took the “unbelievable” step of telling Benjamin Netanyahu he’s not welcome in Washington last week because Netanyahu had accused Biden of paying for the demonstrations that have rocked Israel, according to two Israeli analysts, in comments to pro-Israel organizations. “[The Americans] are thinking somebody has lost his mind out there,” one said. Briefings by pro-Israel groups in the last tumultuous week provided other insights from Israeli Jews: Israel is out of control to a degree that befits Hassan Nasrallah’s prediction that Israel will fall apart like a spider’s web.

15 Million In The US To Be Kicked Off Of Public Health Benefits

As US-based news is inundated with coverage surrounding the spectacle of former president Donald Trump’s arraignment, 15 million people are being quietly phased out of receiving Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) benefits, beginning April 1 and going through May and July. As the Joe Biden administration will end the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration on May 11, starting this past weekend states have already begun to kick people off of Medicaid and CHIP. These states are all Republican Party-controlled: Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, New Hampshire, and South Dakota.

The Biden Administration Is Preparing To Approve A Copper Mine On Oak Flat

San Carlos Apache Reservation— San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler today sharply criticized reports that the Biden Administration is preparing to approve the proposed Resolution Mine that would destroy sacred Indigenous land located at Oak Flat on the Tonto National Forest about 70 miles east of Phoenix. “Obliterating Oak Flat for a copper mine will be a grave human rights violation against Indigenous people and an environmental catastrophe,” Chairman Rambler said. “Only China and shareholders of the two largest foreign mining companies in the world will benefit.”  Resolution Copper Company wants to construct one of the largest copper mines in the world using a mining plan that will destroy Oak Flat, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property.  

US Invites Authoritarian Far-Right Regimes To ‘Summit For Democracy’

The US government organized a conference of its allies which it misleadingly called a “Summit for Democracy”, but which actually featured numerous anti-democratic, far-right regimes. The State Department invited 120 global leaders to participate in the summit on March 29 and 30. They did so virtually, via video calls. Several of the heads of state who spoke represent governments that even Western officials, corporate media outlets, and mainstream human rights organizations have admitted are authoritarian, including Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Andrzej Duda of Poland, and Narendra Modi of India.
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