Tag: Pres. Biden

A Deal For Our Time

Over the weekend the drama of the negotiations for the deal to handle the debt came to an end…..Biden, Dems and GOP have cut a deal…

President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement in principle to increase the nation’s borrowing authority and avoid a default. Negotiators are now racing to finalize the bill’s text. McCarthy said the House will vote on the legislation on Wednesday, giving the Senate time to consider it ahead of the June 5 deadline to avoid a default. While many details are unknown, both sides will be able to point to some victories, per the AP. Some details, based on what’s known so far:

  • Two years: The agreement would keep non-defense spending roughly flat in the 2024 fiscal year and increase it by 1% the following year, as well as provide for a two-year debt-limit increase—past the next presidential election in 2024. That’s according to a source familiar with the deal who provided details on the condition of anonymity.
  • Veterans: The agreement will fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget blueprint, including for a fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards. Biden sought $20.3 billion for the toxic exposure fund in his budget.
  • Work requirements: The agreement would expand some work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. The agreement would raise the age for existing work requirements from 49 to 54, similar to the Republican proposal, but those changes would expire in 2030. And the White House said it would at the same time reduce the number of vulnerable people at all ages who are subject to the requirements.
  • Energy projects: The deal puts in place changes in the the National Environmental Policy Act that will designate “a single lead agency” to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.
  • Student debt: Republicans had sought to repeal Biden’s efforts to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all borrowers who took out student loans. But the provision was a nonstarter for Democrats. The budget agreement keeps Biden’s student loan relief in place, though the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on the matter.

No one will be happy with the plan….the markets ought to open higher come Tuesday…..so some will be happy….t least the VA got a small victory just in time for Memorial Day.

I had a problem with the role that the media played in the coverage of this issue…..there are a couple of ‘notions’….

“First, the notion that ‘modest cuts’ to spending are inconsequential.”

Second is the role of inflation,” Hauser continued, charging that the brewing potential deal between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “would be a catastrophe for government capacity, and coverage that ignores the role of inflation (hardly a low profile issue in 2023!) is wildly and indefensibly misguided.”

“Third, the notion that the president was trapped under the gun of McCarthy is ridiculous,” he added. “Because the debt ceiling is an unconstitutional, incoherent excuse for a law and because there is an active lawsuit from the National Association of Government Employees [NAGE], Biden’s status as a hostage merely reflects an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome.”

Given arguments that the president “has a wide number of ways out from the debt ceiling and no legal way to implement it,” Hauser asserted, “the media needs to quit deferring to the debt ceiling’s political theater and engage more with the essentially uncontroverted legal experts pointing out that it cannot be implemented in a constitutional manner.”

(commondreams.org)

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“lego ergo scribo”

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Biden And Diplomacy

About two years and counting until our next theater we call a general election……how has our dynamite president done?  (Diplomatically speaking)

To begin with Biden has a crappy diplomatic agenda….at best it is a yawn especially since one of his political promises was to put diplomacy at the forefront of his administration…..that was an idle promise like most of his campaign promises.

Here is a good look at Biden’s lack of diplomacy….

Stephen Walt is underwhelmed by the Biden administration’s diplomatic performance to date:

I raise this issue because the Biden administration took office vowing to put diplomacy at the center of U.S. foreign policy, yet it has relatively few diplomatic achievements to show for its first two-plus years. On the plus side, US allies are far more comfortable with Biden and Blinken than they were with former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and they’ve been willing to forgive some of the administration’s early blunders (such as the unnecessary snub of the French during the AUKUS submarine deal in 2021). But apart from improved optics, the administration’s diplomatic record is unimpressive.

The Biden administration wanted the public to see the “return” of diplomacy one of the major differences between them and the Trump administration, but in practice Walt is right that they haven’t delivered very much on that score. It’s true that the administration has done well in coordinating with European and other allies in providing assistance to Ukraine, but this has been a bit like pushing on an open door. The US has not had to do much arm-twisting or persuading to convince allied governments to get on board with supporting the war effort, since they have all been willing to do this at least to some degree. When it comes to getting fence-sitting countries on board, there has been much less success. Almost everywhere else, the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts have either foundered or haven’t even begun.

Walt mentions ineffective or non-existent diplomacy in the Middle East, and he also notes that diplomacy has been notably lacking in US dealings with China over the last two years. The reflexive decision to cancel Blinken’s visit to Beijing over the balloon incident looks even worse now than it did at the time. Instead of taking the incident in stride and pressing ahead with diplomatic contacts, as a confident administration would do, the administration overreacted and sabotaged its own effort to begin repairing relations. The fear of appearing weak in the eyes of domestic hawkish critics has been the administration’s real weakness, and it keeps tripping them up.

…

Other states can see that US diplomats always take a distant second place to the military, and it is mainly through the military that the US deals with much of the rest of the world. US diplomacy is like a plant that is so starved of sunlight because it is trying to grow up in the shadow of a giant tree. As long as the military wields such outsized influence in Congress and commands so many more resources, there is little chance that diplomacy can flourish.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

I was not a supporter of Biden in 2020 for I am old enough to know what a corporate democrat he truly is…..so my expectations were low for is diplomatic presidency….more people should pay more attention to what these criminals promise for they seldom care through on them.

Since the Clinton years the US has had one foreign policy–WAR….and it has only progressively gotten worse.

It is easier to destroy than search for solutions….plus it is a lot more profitable.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden Enables The Fraud

This is one of my FYI posts for I watch policies that could effect our seniors….the biggest thing that seniors need to be aware of is the ‘medicare advantage plans’….they are not all they are cracked up to be.

I have made my thoughts known about these so-called Medicare Advantage plans….I think it is taking advantage of seniors who are worried about their aging body.

But as usual the insurance industry has spent its cash well….all the facts point to these ‘advantage” plans are little more than a scam….the president has allowed this raping of seniors to continue.

Medicare Advantage providers whined for months that they simply couldn’t survive without being able to rip off the government, so the government said ‘you can rip us off for just a little longer,'” The American Prospect‘s David Dayen tweeted in response to the CMS announcement.

The changes involve tweaks to the Medicare Advantage risk-adjustment model, which determines how much the federal government pays insurers to cover patient care.

Medicare Advantage plans are notorious for piling on diagnoses to make patients appear sicker than they are to reap larger payments from the federal government. CMS estimates that overpayments to Medicare Advantage totaled $11.4 billion in fiscal year 2022, a sizeable drain on the Medicare trust fund.

“Nearly every large insurer in the program has settled or is facing a federal fraud lawsuit for such conduct,” The New York Timesnoted Friday. “Evidence of the overpayments has been documented by academic studies, government watchdog reports, and plan audits.”

…

Medicare Advantage insurers have been fighting the Biden administration’s proposed changes for months, running ads warning that the reforms would result in higher premiums and worse care for patients—claims that federal health officials adamantly rejected.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-medicare-advantage-reforms

The lobbyists for the insurance industry has buckets on money to throw at Congress we, the people, do not.

Plus Wall Street is happy with the Biden decision….

UnitedHealth Group, a dominant force in the lucrative Medicare Advantage market, has seen its stock jump over the past week as Wall Street analysts and investors embrace the Biden administration’s decision to delay reforms aimed at tackling abuse in the privately run, government-funded health program.

STATreported late last week that “Wall Street was overjoyed” by the announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which said it would phase in changes to the model that dictates how much government funding Medicare Advantage insurers receive to cover patient care.

Instead of implementing the changes all at once, the Biden administration will roll out the reforms over a three-year period, allowing Medicare Advantage insurers to continue overbilling the federal government in the meantime.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/wall-street-biden-medicare-advantage

Oh there is AARP to protect seniors….that is a lie for they endorse a ‘plan’ that is scamming their members.

Please if you are considering one of these ‘plans’ think twice and check out the evidence before wasting your cash.

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“lego ergo scribo”

State Of The Union–2023

It was that time again….the annual manure spreading exercise known as the State of the Union…

As promised a quick and painless review of last night’s speech..

President Biden is stressing unity and the economy in his 2023 State of the Union address. Some key early points on those fronts from his prime-time speech on Tuesday:

  • “You know, my Republican friends, we could work together the last Congress. There’s no reason we can’t work together and find consensus on important things in this Congress as well,” said Biden, per the Washington Post. “Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere.” In fact, before the president began his speech, he publicly congratulated the new House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy. “Speaker, I don’t want to run your reputation, but I look forward to working with you.”
  • “We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it,” the president said. “Today, COVID no longer controls our lives. And two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War. Today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken.”
  • The economy is a big theme, per the New York Times. “As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs—more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years,” says the president. (The boast is accurate, but CNN notes that the pandemic skewed things.) “My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. … This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives.”
  • Buying American: Biden announced that all construction material for federal projects must be made in America. “Lumber, glass, drywall, fiber optic cable. And on my watch, American roads, bridges, and American highways are going to be made with American products as well.”

During the speech the idiots acted out and did what they do….political theater….

Things got a little testy in the House as President Biden made his pitch for Congress to lift the debt ceiling to avoid default. Biden said Republicans lifted the ceiling three times for former President Trump “without preconditions or crisis,” per the New York Times. “Tonight, I’m asking this Congress to follow suit.” Jeers rang out from Republicans as Biden said of Trump: “No president added more to the national debt in any four years than my predecessor,” notes the Washington Post.

And boos and shouts of “liar” and bulls—” could be heard as Biden accused Republicans of going after Social Security and Medicare, per the Times. “Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security sunset.” As the boos rang out, Biden added that he “wasn’t saying it’s a majority” of Republicans. He ad-libbed: “Let me tell you, I enjoy conversation.” The Hill notes that GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled, “Liar!” and gave a thumbs-down to Biden’s comments.

Later, as Biden was asking Congress to pass his immigration plan, some Republicans, including Greene, chanted “Secure our border!” per the Washington Post. Biden paused briefly amid the chants, and the New York Times reports that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy “shushed” the GOP chanters.

Then there is the inevitable ‘rebuttal’ this time it was a Trumpian idiot, the governor of Arkansas Huckabee…..as of yet the GOP has never found an intelligent response to the SOTU….and this year was no different.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, and she did not hold back: The Arkansas governor declared Biden “unfit to serve as commander in chief” and said he’s putting both the US and the entire world at risk with his “weakness.” She also took a shot at his age: “At 40, I’m the youngest governor in the country, and at 80, he’s the oldest president in American history,” she said. A few more of her biggest jabs at Biden and the Democrats, as reported by CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and Politico:

  • “Normal” and “crazy” made a couple appearances: “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy,” she said. At another point, decrying what she called the “false idols” of Democrats, she said, “That’s not normal. It’s crazy, and it’s wrong.”
  • So did “woke”: Drawing another contrast between herself and Biden, Sanders said, “I’m the first woman to lead my state and he’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.” She also specifically called out Biden’s SOTU address as being tethered to “woke fantasies.”
  • Her former boss was also mentioned: Recalling her time as Donald Trump’s press secretary, she talked about a trip to Iraq on Christmas in 2018, saying that when the troops saw Trump, “the room erupted. Men and women from every race, religion, and region, every political party, every demographic you can imagine started chanting in perfect unison over and over and over again, ‘USA, USA, USA.’ It was an absolutely perfect picture of what makes our country great.”
  • In contrast to that, “Biden and the Democrats have failed you,” she said, pointing to inflation, crime, border policy, education, and US-China relations, among other things. She said she didn’t believe “much of anything” Biden said in his address, accusing him of “doubling down on crazy.”
  • And a line from Trump: In his own brief response to the SOTU, Trump said in regard to sexual orientation and gender identity issues that Biden is “trying to indoctrinate and mutilate our children.” As for Sanders, she said “most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight.”

All in all the speech was great political theater that proves just how petty the GOP has become.

All in all the speech was a yawn….but if you would like more opinions from others…..

One big theme in coverage of President Biden’s Tuesday night State of the Union address? The POTUS was scrappy and seemed to relish it. As Politico’s headline briefly put it, “Biden pokes the elephant.” Some quick takes and reactions:

  • CNN offers a few takeaways from the SOTU here. Kevin Liptak notes the president “powered through” despite the clear and open hostility aimed his way from the other side of the aisle. “The spectacle of Biden smiling and offering a pointed riposte through multiple rounds of heckling from some House Republicans was, in many ways, an apt illustration of his presidency and a useful preview of his likely 2024 candidacy,” Liptak writes. Another takeaway? Despite his age, he showed “vigor” and energy, per Liptak.
  • At Fox News, however, David N. Bossie illustrates how Republicans saw the speech: He says Biden “was in full spin mode from the get-go, behaving more like a desperate candidate on the campaign trail.” Bossie also says Biden’s speech failed to reflect on the “obvious takeaway,” which, according to Bossie, is that Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in the midterms “because the American people voted against the president’s left-wing agenda
  • At NBC News, Jonathan Allen delves into the moment Marjorie Taylor Greene called Biden a liar, when the president was accusing Republicans of going after Medicare and social security. He “went off-script” to accept Greene’s comment “as on-the-spot agreement from the GOP to keep the programs intact,” proving he was “nimble enough … to box them in on Social Security and Medicare.”
  • Vox runs down 5 winners and 2 losers from the SOTU here. Among the winners: “The ad-libbing old-school Joe Biden.”
  • If you’re looking for economic takeaways, CNBC has those here. Among the topics: billionaire tax, junk fees, and the insulin price cap.
  • If it’s fact-checking you’re interested in, outlets including CNN, the Hill, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and PolitiFact did that.
  • The Post also looks at 39 “key proposals, pledges, or priorities” from last year’s SOTU and runs down which ones flopped and which ones succeeded in the year since.

But for those that want to draw their own conclusion….Politico has a full transcript of Tuesday’s speech here.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Tonight Is The Night

The big news for today, Tuesday, is that Biden will strut into the joint session of Congress and give his speech, State of the Union….I will watch and write my review tomorrow but for those that have better things to do then here is what is expected tonight…..

President Biden delivers his second State of the Union address Tuesday night, but don’t expect a raft of specific new policy proposals given the near impossibility of making them reality in a divided Congress, reports the AP. Instead, expect a speech offering Americans general reassurances that the nation is on the right track, particularly with the economy in regard to inflation and unemployment. Presidential historian Luke Nichter of Chapman University sees Biden’s No. 1 goal as being a “calming presence” for the country. Another crucial task will be making the case that he should run for re-election, even as many Democratic voters are skeptical about that.

“I think this is an impossible speech to give because it’s a speech that requires him to speak both about the state of the union as it is and the direction he hopes to lead it, which is about playing the role of statesman,” political scientist William Howell of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy tells the Hill. “But it also is going to lay the groundwork for most likely his own run for office in 2024, which will call for him to be decidedly political and to cover all kinds of ground.” The war in Ukraine and China’s spy balloon are likely to surface as topics on the world front.

“(W)e’re told not to expect a red-meat, campaign-style speech,” per the Politico Playbook. “Instead, expect a traditional presidential call for unity—and a subtler pitch for steady leadership over partisan chaos as Washington heads into a high-stakes standoff over the debt limit and long-term fiscal planning.” The speech starts at 9pm Eastern, and notable guests include the mother of Tyre Nichols, the man who stopped a gunman at a California dance hall, and Bono.

This speech will probably be a yawn because there is very little Biden can say or promise that will be at all doable.

Stay tuned for the speech review tomorrow here on IST.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Government Will Be Up And Running

As the year comes to an end the Congress did what it was suppose to do….and the president signed the spending bill in a flourish….

President Biden on Thursday signed a $1.7 trillion spending bill that will keep the federal government operating through the end of the budget year in September 2023. Biden had a late Friday deadline to sign the bill to avert a partial government shutdown, the AP reports. The White House said the bill was sent to the president on a commercial flight to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, where Biden is vacationing, per CNN. The bill will “invest in medical research, safety, veteran health care, disaster recovery, (Violence Against Women Act) funding—and gets crucial assistance to Ukraine,” Biden tweeted, adding, “Looking forward to more in 2023.”

A $1.7 trillion spending bill financing federal agencies through September and providing more aid to a devastated Ukraine cleared the House on Friday as lawmakers race to finish their work for the year and avoid a partial government shutdown. The bill passed mostly along party lines, 225-201. It now goes to President Biden to be signed into law, per the AP. Passage of the bill represented a closing act for Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s second stint as House speaker, and for the Democratic majority she led back to power in the 2018 election. Republicans will take control of the House next year and Rep. Kevin McCarthy is campaigning to replace her.

He is appealing for support from staunch conservatives in his caucus who have largely trashed the size of the bill and many of the priorities it contains. He spoke with a raised voice for about 25 minutes, assailing the bill for spending too much and doing too little to curb illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl across the US-Mexico border. “This is a monstrosity that is one of the most shameful acts I’ve ever seen in this body,” McCarthy said of the legislation. The speech prompted a quick quip from Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who said “after listening to that, it’s clear he doesn’t have the votes yet,” a reference to McCarthy’s campaign to become speaker.

The bill runs for 4,155 pages, not including amendments the Senate added. It contains about a 6% percent increase in spending for domestic initiatives, to $772.5 billion. Spending on defense programs will increase by about 10% to $858 billion. The massive bill wraps together 12 appropriations bills, aid to Ukraine, and disaster relief for communities recovering from hurricanes, flooding, and wildfires. Lawmakers provided roughly $45 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies, more than even Biden requested, an acknowledgment that future rounds of funding are not guaranteed with a new GOP-led House.

It is such good news….we can have a government for another few months…..

Let me ask…..what part of massive cash for Ukraine will keep our government working?

I hear a lot of guff about how there is too much pork in these types of bills….and yet they say nothing about this bit of pork belly.  Why?

One last question that never gets asked and when it is there is never an answer.

Just what does the US expect in return for our ‘investment’ in Ukraine?

(Pause here for the sound of crickets)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden And Changes To Social Security

The day after and I will attempt to recover from all the festivities and this damn head cold…..

I agree that Social Security needs updating….and yes it may soon go broke but not the fault of the program more so because of the idiots that have been working to kill this social program from it’s inception.

Pres. Biden is offering up a few changes that he says will go a long way to stabilizing the program.

A list of the changes Biden foresees…..

1. Lift payroll taxation on high earners

The most notable change proposed by Biden involves collecting more payroll tax revenue from high-earning workers. In 2023, all earned income between $0.01 and $160,200 is subject to the 12.4% payroll tax.  However, wages and salary above $160,200 aren’t subjected to this tax. Well over $1 trillion in earned income “escapes” the payroll tax this way every year.

Biden’s plan would reinstate the payroll tax on earned income above $400,000, while creating a doughnut hole between the maximum taxable earnings cap (the $160,200 figure in 2023) and $400,000 where earned income would remain exempt. Since the maximum taxable earnings cap increases over time, this doughnut hole would eventually close and subject all earned income to the payroll tax.

2. Change Social Security’s measure of inflation from the CPI-W to the CPI-E

The other sweeping change Biden is offering is to shift the program’s inflationary tether from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E).

The issue with the CPI-W is that it tracks the spending habits of “urban wage earners and clerical workers,” which doesn’t make much sense when senior citizens make up the bulk of Social Security beneficiaries. Since the CPI-E specifically tracks the expenditures of seniors, it should result in more accurate cost-of-living adjustments being passed along to beneficiaries.

3. Increase the special minimum benefit

A third Social Security reform proposed by Biden involves increasing the special minimum benefit paid to lifetime low-earning workers.

This year, the maximum payout for a lifetime low-earner with 30 years of coverage is just $951 per month. That’s more than $180/month below the federal poverty level for a single filer. Under Biden’s plan, the special minimum benefit would rise to 125% of the federal poverty level. For a lifetime low-earner, it would mean a monthly payout boost of nearly $500.

4. Boost the primary insurance amount for aged beneficiaries

The fourth and final change would see the primary insurance amount (PIA) steadily increased over time for older beneficiaries. Specifically, the PIA would grow by 1% annually from ages 78 through 82 until a 5% cumulative increase was realized.

The purpose of boosting the PIA is to account for higher late-in-life expenditures. As we age, things like medical transportation costs and prescription drugs can become costlier. This would help offset some of those expenses.

The bigger problem for Joe Biden, and pretty much every president for the past four decades, is that getting the needed votes in the U.S. Senate to amend Social Security has been impossible. Whereas a simple majority of the vote suffices in the House, 60 votes are needed in the Senate to make changes to the Social Security program. Neither party has held 60 seats in the Senate since the late 1970s. This means any major overhaul to Social Security will require bipartisan support.

Basically a good idea but as usual will go nowhere at all.

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“lego ergo scribo”

That Hunter Biden Thing

With less than a month before the mid-terms and the perfect time to drop some dirt on candidates to provide a misdirection for the voter.

Walker in Georgia has his abortion thing and now the drop of news on the son of the president.

The team for Herschel Walker, the Georgia Republican and former NFL player running for a Senate seat, reportedly had quite some time to prepare for the news that broke Monday alleging Walker paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion. Sources tell Politico the team was made aware of the abortion issue, an allegation that is reportedly “well known” in Georgia, months ago, but that the team downplayed it in the hopes that it wouldn’t come out publicly prior to the November election. Top Georgia Republicans, however, reportedly warned Walker it could destroy his chances of being elected if it did.

One top GOP operative in the state who spoke to Politico says that Walker’s team downplayed, but, crucially, never actually denied the abortion story when discussing it and its potential ramifications. Walker, however, has publicly and vehemently denied the allegation since the story broke. Former President Trump, reaffirming his endorsement of Walker, said in a statement, “Herschel has properly denied the charges against him and I have no doubt he is correct.” On Tuesday, Sean Hannity made an odd comment on Fox News about Sen. Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democrat in the Georgia race. “There is a family conflict with Herschel Walker that has been very public, which I think is sad for any family,” he told Newt Gingrich. “But there is also the same thing for Raphael Warnock.” He did not elaborate, and the Daily Beast reports it’s not clear what he meant.

This news about Hunter Biden should give the Right media a wealth of stories to drive home the news….

The news drop on Hunter Biden…..

Four years into the investigation, federal agents say they have assembled enough evidence to justify charging Hunter Biden with crimes. The evidence concerns tax crimes and a statement connected to the purchase of a gun, the Washington Post reports. The decision on whether to prosecute President Biden’s son falls to David Weiss, the US Attorney in Delaware, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. Chris Clark, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, criticized investigators for leaking information, saying that it’s a crime and that the decision is up to prosecutors who are “thoroughly weighing not just evidence provided by agents, but also all the other witnesses in this case, including witnesses for the defense.”

Congressional Republicans have been pressuring the FBI in the case, saying political considerations are affecting its decisions, per CBS News. Investigations by the Justice Department often take years. Attorney General Merrick Garland has not pushed Weiss to hurry his decision, saying there will be no improper pressure brought. The federal investigation has been broad, with the tax portion of it centered on whether Hunter Biden did not declare income related to business operations.

Fascinating…..The Trump kids got scrutinized and now the Biden kid….

What a game they play.

Is that a smile I hear on the faces of GOPers?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

AI Bill Of Rights

The Biden group has issued what is being called a new Bill of Rights….they take on technology…….

The White House rolled out a proposal for an artificial intelligence Bill of Rights Tuesday, saying that while automated systems have “brought about extraordinary benefits,” progress “must not come at the price of civil rights or democratic values.” The blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy lists five principles that should be built into AI systems to protect the public from discrimination and violations of privacy, Axios reports. The White House warned that automated systems including those used for patient care “have proven unsafe, ineffective, or biased,” and algorithms used in hiring decisions have been found to “reflect and reproduce existing unwanted inequities or embed new harmful bias and discrimination.”

The principles state that Americans should know when automated decision-making is being used and they should be able to opt out. They state that algorithmic bias should be limited and users should be given control of their data. The White House said the document was released after a yearlong consultation with two dozen government departments, as well as tech companies and civil society groups, the AP reports. The proposals are nonbinding and government regulation of artificial intelligence remains “minimal or nonexistent,” Axios notes, though numerous other sets of AI guidelines exist, including EU guidelines released in 2019 and an “algor-ethical” proposal the Vatican released in 2020. Companies including IBM have released their own ethical guidelines.

“This is the White House saying that workers, students, consumers, communities, everyone in this country should expect and demand better from our technologies,” Alondra Nelson, OSTP deputy director for science and society, tells Wired. Nelson says the blueprint is “really just a down payment” on moves to limit harmful AI, though critics say the proposal should have included a framework to hold people and companies responsible for abusive AI practices. The US Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, warned that if some of the recommendations become law, it will “handcuff America’s ability to compete on the global stage,” reports Reuters.

I support the idea…..but corporations will see that their paid agents in Congress will make this just a fart in the political wind.

But for those interested in the bill and the actions….I have the link for you…..

https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/

Read it and decide for yourself….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden’s UN Speech

AS per usual the president of the United States has made his mandatory speech to the UN General Assembly….and as usual the speech is full of hypocrisy…..

Of course Ukraine had to be a prominent part of the speech…..

At the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, President Biden focused most of his speech on Ukraine and accused Russia of violating the UN Charter by launching the war.

“Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter — no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force,” he said.

Biden’s comments highlight US hypocrisy on the issue as Washington currently occupies a major portion of eastern Syria despite the Syrian government’s opposition. The US also supports Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza, and Saudi Arabia’s war and blockade on its neighbor Yemen.

Biden said that the US will continue to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia based on the principle that “you cannot seize a nation’s territory by force.”

The president also accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of making “reckless” nuclear threats. Earlier in the day, Putin ordered a partial mobilization and warned Russia could use nuclear weapons if its “territorial integrity” was “threatened.”

“President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the non-proliferation regime,” Biden said.

US support for Ukraine in its war against Russia has escalated tensions to a point where many experts and officials believe there is a greater risk of nuclear war today than there was during the Cold War. But the US shows no sign of backing down on its policy of supporting Ukraine, and Putin’s moves on Wednesday signaled a Russian escalation in Ukraine.

An interesting speech…..and as usual it was full of contradictory statements…..

The US condemns others for the same things they do…..take for instance the invasion and occupation of Iraq….or US is currently occupies a major portion of eastern Syria despite the government’s objection.

I understand the support for Ukraine but we should stop trying to claim the moral high ground….it is as if “Do as I say not as I do” sort of thing.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”