Thread: President Joe Biden

Prices would jump more than 30%, I'm sure. In Aotearoa New Zealand the center-right National Party led parliament raised the GST from 12.5% to 15%. Prices did not increase by 2.5%. They increased a lot more than that.

And now we've increased our debt by 50 billion under Cindy, and prices have increased in many areas by 20%+. To the pollies earning 120k+ it matters little.

Originally Posted by panama hat

we've increased our debt by 50 billion under Cindy

when you add up Oz's and Malays and Germanys its a wonder you can sleep at night with all that National worry

It would also make every business owner a tax collector.
What could go wrong with that?

Can you imagine the increase in state and local taxes as a result?

The 30% fed sales tax is an asinine proposal that will likely go nowhere.

I definitely agree with Patrick Lawrence here. The media double standards on display are appalling:-


Patrick Lawrence: Biden’s Secret Stash

January 26, 2023



If this president didn’t know he was in possession of classified documents, in some cases for more than a decade, he simply is not qualified to hold any public office allowing him such access.


There are two things I love about the mess our more or less senile president finds himself in as his hoard of classified documents comes to light in a rolling barrage of revelations.

One is the mainstream media’s quite unbelievable faith in the American public’s stupidity. Does anything more persuasively measure the stupidity of these media?

Joe “My Corvette’s in the Garage” Biden howls with indignity when Donald Trump gets caught with classified files at Mar–a–Lago, his Florida estate. Then our serving president is discovered with his own stashes of secret documents here, there and everywhere.

Oh, but it is very different, we read. Not at all the same, because Trump didn’t cooperate with the National Archives and the Justice Department, and Biden did.

As the man from Scranton now takes to saying, “I did nothing wrong. There’s no there there.” The New York Times, the other major dailies and the corporate broadcasters all report this with straight faces: The Trump case is one thing, Biden’s another.


So are we urged to think illegal possession of classified documents is not the issue. No need to consider this. It’s all about attitude.

If you exhibit the right attitude when you are caught red-handed in a criminal act, you can stand there and claim innocence, insist that the garage where classified documents were found is locked because your Corvette is parked in it, and the media will go all the way for you.

They can’t be so stupid as to think their readers and viewers are so stupid, I’ve said to myself since CBS News opened the door onto this farrago of nonsense a couple of weeks ago. How wrong I have been.

We have a 50–year record attesting to Joe Biden’s stupidity. We now know, if we didn’t already, that there is no limit to our mainstream media’s defense of his stupidity.

More Post-Trump Authoritarianism

In my read, this is another feature of the liberal authoritarianism that emerged after Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. It has been “blue no matter who” since then: Biden’s our guy no matter what — in this case, no matter how stupid.

The lead reporters covering Biden’s legal breach for the Times merit brief mention. Michael Shear, Katie Rogers and Charlie Savage are nothing more than salespeople. They would be better off — and we would, too — if they forgot about journalism and hawked used cars at some vast lot in a New Jersey suburb.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump, a sitting president and his immediate predecessor, are now subject to investigations run by separate special counsels assigned by the Justice Department.

There is a very large truth attaching to this startling reality. Whether or not Americans are aware of it, and my impression is few are, they are now face-to-face with the extent to which our government conducts its business in secret.

This is the second thing I love about these matching messes over classified documents. A paradox here: It is illegal for a government official to possess classified documents without authorization, and it is perfectly normal to do so given the extent to which classified material forms the basis of U.S. policy — notably, but not only, its foreign policy.

A Culture of Concealment

There is a moment to seize here, at least (and perhaps only) in theory. If Americans can begin now to come to terms with the culture of concealment that has grown over Washington for decades like kudzu on a South Carolina telephone pole, they can begin reasserting democratic control over institutions of government that now operate in secret, in perfect sequestration, and so with indifference to the public’s wishes and preferences.

Pat Moynihan, the late senator from New York, was among the first to assert that secrecy in Washington was on the way to becoming a crisis in American democracy.
In Secrecy, his 1998 survey of the phenomenon, Moynihan wrote of “secrecy centers” throughout the American government, of “the routinization of secrecy,” of “concealment as a modus vivendi.”

Something called the Information Security Oversight Office — a secret in itself to most of us — each year totes up the number of secrets government bodies created during the previous 12 months.

The ISOO was founded during the Carter administration, in 1978. It is interesting to note that its predecessor, the Interagency Classification Review Committee, dated to the Nixon administration and was comprised of officials from the Defense Department, the State Department, the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.

This list is usefully suggestive of which government institutions kept the secrets that mattered most: those managing foreign policy and the military-industrial complex, intel and covert operations, and domestic law-enforcement.

As Moynihan explained, in essence the ISOO counts the documents classified in a given year. To say these have grown exponentially from year to year without pause since Moynihan’s time is not an exaggeration.

At this point, it is commonly assumed among paying-attention people that a small proportion of what our government decides and does is visible to us. This has been my assumption, certainly, for years.

Democracy & Structures of Secrecy

To what extent is secrecy considered essential to the conduct of policy? No one knows the answer to this more acutely, at so high a cost, than Julian Assange.

The WikiLeaks founder was early to recognize that our political culture’s infinitely elaborated structures of secrecy are “where civilization is going,” as he once put it. And he understood that these structures must be penetrated if authentic forms of democracy are to survive and prosper.

It is for Assange’s dedication to this latter project that he is now behind bars.

Donald Trump took home classified documents. Joe Biden did, too — and for many years as a senator and then Barack Obama’s veep. Did the studious Obama do the same?
Did Bush I (previously a C.I.A. director, let us not forget) and Bush II?

Did Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the bureaucrats of rank in any given administration? In the cases of Bill and Hillary Clinton I’m not even going to ask.

The practice doesn’t much stir me, in truth. What stirs me is the extent to which secrecy is the norm and, more specifically, the extent to which secrecy makes possible the conduct of the imperialists who run our hegemonic foreign policies.

America, as an astute commentator remarked not along ago, now runs a global empire of which few of its own people are even aware.

Along with “we’re cooperating” — “we got caught,” in translation — “we’re being transparent” is the other phrase the Biden administration incessantly deploys and the media repeat with not a single reporter questioning the truth of it.

Withholding the facts until CBS News uncovered them does not pass as transparent. All the nonsense excuses — my favorite being “the garage is locked” — do not bespeak transparency. They bespeak a coverup.

The most consequential of these untruths, and they are prima facie such, is that Biden didn’t know there were classified files in his Wilmington, Delaware, home, or in his private Washington office, or in his garage, or in “a storage area adjacent to the garage,” whatever that may mean.

Here’s my reply to this: If this log-rolling liar didn’t know he was in possession of classified documents, in some cases for more than a decade, he simply cannot be counted qualified to be president or hold any public office allowing him such access.

Biden’s theme as he attacked Trump after the F.B.I. raided the Mar–a–Lago property was that the former president was “irresponsible.” Tell me about it, Joe. Tell us all about it, you whose secrets may well outnumber those of anyone now holding public office.

One final question: Who exposed the presence of classified material in Biden’s residence and private office?

Given the reported divisions among Democrats as to Biden’s plans to run for a second term next year, is this a subterfuge operation conducted by those who fear for his mental decline and want decisively to knock him out of the box?

Patrick Lawrence: Biden's Secret Stash - scheerpost.com

Originally Posted by sabang

I definitely agree with Patrick Lawrence here.

Of course you do, he's a seppo-hating, putin brown-noser.

Are you going to post every piece of his nonsense you can find?

PL was senior foreign correspondent for the International Herald tribune for many years, and spends his time between his Connecticut estate and Manhattan apartment. He is an old money patrician I believe, about as American as it gets.

The double standards on display from the Media establishment are appalling, as he points out. Unfortunately, it has become the norm.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

^You’re right. It’ll die. But hopefully it‘ll be a slow death.

a slow death

• GOP national sales tax talk backfires, as Dems see political gold

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has backed his fellow Republicans into a corner with one of the promises he made to his far-right flank to land his job: opening the door to considering fringe legislation that would replace the income tax with a federal sales tax and abolish the IRS.

Most GOP members appear determined to distance themselves as much as possible from the idea and McCarthy himself said this week he doesn’t support the legislation. But Democrats aren’t going to let the issue die quietly. They’ve been more than happy to use it as a cudgel to portray Republicans as dangerous radicals..

“You gotta be kidding me. What in God’s name is this all about?” President Joe Biden said Thursday about the plan, saying it would slap a 30 percent national sales tax on “every item from groceries, gasoline, clothing, supplies, [and] medicine.”

Various forms of the legislation, dubbed the “FairTax Act,” have been around for decades and attracted little serious attention from Republican leaders. But a spokesperson for Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, one of the 21 GOP holdouts who initially blocked McCarthy’s speakership bid and is a co-sponsor of the legislation, said McCarthy promised that the legislation would go through the committee process.

Forcing the discussion of the unpopular tax puts the GOP in a political bind that seems doomed to repeat itself for the House’s slim majority. McCarthy must walk a tightrope between appeasing the renegade factions of his caucus and disassociating the party from policy proposals that could hurt Republicans at the ballot box.

The newly anointed chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), said he’s committed to having a committee hearing on the legislation in which members can have an open and transparent debate.

Supporters of the legislation argue that it would create a fairer, more transparent tax system. It would eliminate federal income, payroll and estate taxes and replace them with a 23 percent — or depending on the way you calculate it, 30 percent — national sales tax.

But many Republican members of Ways and Means are so far treating the legislation like it’s radioactive.

“I have no opinion yet,” said Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) when asked about the bill.

“Let me withhold that for now,” said Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa, who is one of the 10 new GOP members to join the committee this Congress.

Others were more blunt.

“There’s never going to be a vote for it,” said Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), a policy wonk on the committee who proceeded to give his view of how FairTax is technically flawed. Schweikert said a more effective version of the idea would involve taxing goods at each point that value is added to them in the supply chain, rather than all at once at the point of sale.

Sensing the political peril of the legislation, longtime tax critics from The Wall Street Journal editorial board to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform have launched their own offensive against the legislation.

“The Fair Tax isn’t happening and won’t survive regular order, despite assertions from Democrats like Chuck Schumer and President Biden,” ATR said in an email blast. “In fact, House co-sponsorship of the Fair Tax Act is at a 20-year low. Support has been dwindling for the past decade, dropping by two-thirds since 2013.”

But the chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), issued his own broadside disputing what he called the “myths” surrounding the bill.

Taking on one of the biggest criticisms — that a national sales tax would hit lower-income folks as well as retirees particularly hard, while the rich would benefit disproportionately — Carter’s release said: “The FairTax is the only progressive tax reform bill currently pending before Congress.”

“Each household will receive a monthly prebate based on federal poverty levels and household size that will allow families to purchase necessary goods, such as food, shelter, and medicine, essentially tax-free. This is similar to our current individual exemption and refundable tax credit system.”

Democrats aren’t wasting time debating the fine points.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in a Wednesday press conference, depicted the legislation as part of an extreme Republican agenda that would also target Social Security and other entitlement benefits.

“I believe it would cause the next Great Depression if we would impose it. Thank God there are firewalls in Leader Jeffries and Democrats in the House.” Schumer said of the national sales tax, contending that data shows the tax would raise the cost of a household by $125,000, the cost of a car by $10,000 and the average grocery bill by $3,500 a year.

A hearing on the FairTax bill wouldn’t be unprecedented. The Ways and Means Committee held one in 2011 when former Republican Rep. Dave Camp chaired the panel. It mostly faded from sight after that.

Camp, who is now at PwC, cited some pressing questions he thinks the legislation raises.

“Will it fill the revenue? Is it regressive? And what happens to state income tax?” he said in an interview this week.

Originally Posted by sabang

PL was senior foreign correspondent for the International Herald tribune for many years, and spends his time between his Connecticut estate and Manhattan apartment. He is an old money patrician I believe, about as American as it gets.

The double standards on display from the Media establishment are appalling, as he points out. Unfortunately, it has become the norm.

And he's a seppo-hating, putin brown noser.

• Biden administration touts initial success of border program

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday said unauthorized border crossings plummeted following the rollout of a new program that allows migrants to apply from their home country to enter the U.S. — a program now being challenged by a coalition of conservative states.

The program — limited to migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — resulted in a 97 percent drop in irregular migration from the four countries, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

“These expanded border enforcement measures are working,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

Migrants from those four countries accounted for 91,264 of the 251,487 migrant encounters at the border in December.

Under the program, up to 30,000 migrants from those countries can enter the U.S. each month, and the United States can quickly expel to Mexico an equal number of migrants from those nations who show up at the border uninvited.

In its news release, the Department of Homeland Security touted the just 115 daily average crossings in the week leading up to Jan. 24, compared to 3,367 daily average crossings in the week leading up to Dec 11.

But administration officials also took shots at GOP-led states who are suing to stop the parole program, despite its apparent initial success.

“It is incomprehensible that some states who stand to benefit from these highly effective enforcement measures are seeking to block them and cause more irregular migration at our southern border,” said Mayorkas.

With blunders such as the 'Fair Tax' act and support for the overthrow of Roe vs Wade, it may well be the case that the Dems will not so much win the next elections as the GOP will lose it.

ANYTHING but Trump. I would even support Cruz or Graham over the Mango Menace.

• Biden touts fix to Baltimore rail tunnel that he’s traveled through ‘a thousand times’

Longtime Amtrak rider President Biden returned Monday to a spot he’s been in hundreds of times: the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel. This time, he arrived at the East Coast’s worst rail congestion point as a messenger of good news rather than a passenger.

“I’ve been through this tunnel a thousand times. When folks talk about how badly the Baltimore tunnel needs an upgrade, you don’t need me to tell you, I’ve been there,” said Biden, who recounted his frequent Amtrak trips between Washington, D.C., and his Delaware home while serving as a senator.

Biden stood beside the railroad tracks and a parked Amtrak train as he outlined how money from the bipartisan infrastructure law, which he signed in 2021, will be used to modernize the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel.

The tunnel is considered the largest bottleneck for the busy rail corridor between New York City and Washington, D.C., causing delays for thousands of passengers. The tunnel was built nearly 150 years ago.

The project is expected to create roughly 20,000 construction jobs, and the newly completed tunnel will be named after Maryland native and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The project is expected to take roughly a decade to complete, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) told attendees before Biden spoke.

The renovations are expected to cost roughly $6 billion, with money from the bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden signed in 2021 contributing up to $4.7 billion, the White House said.

The current tunnel is aging, with curved tracks that require trains passing through to slow to 30 mph to safely navigate the 1.4-mile stretch of tracks. The setup causes frequent delays for Amtrak trains as well as MARC trains carrying passengers between Baltimore and Washington.

The renovated tunnel will feature softer curves, new signaling systems and a new West Baltimore MARC station that is more accessible for people with disabilities.

When the project is complete, Biden said, trains will be able to pass through at speeds of up to 110 mph, cutting down on commuter times and curbing frequent delays.

“I know how important this tunnel is to commuter rail and MARC rail back and forth to Washington, and I know how much it matters to the entire Northeast corridor, from here to Boston,” Biden said. “It matters a great deal. For years, people talked about fixing this tunnel.”

Biden’s frequent Amtrak trips to and from the nation’s capital while he was a senator earned him the nickname “Amtrak Joe,” and on Monday he recalled his deep familiarity with the railway as he highlighted the planned improvements.

He spoke about becoming close friends with the engineers and staff on the trains he’d take home to Delaware, attending their weddings and, in more recent years, their funerals.

“Amtrak wasn’t just a way to get home to family. Conductors, engineers, they literally became my family,” Biden said.

The Baltimore trip serves as a kickoff for a string of presidential travel to highlight projects in the Northeast that are being funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law.

Biden will travel Tuesday to New York City to highlight funding to improve the Hudson Tunnel, through which hundreds of thousands of rail passengers pass each week. The president and vice president will then head Friday to Philadelphia to detail how the bipartisan infrastructure law will help remove lead pipes and ensure clean water in parts of the city.

The trips reflect the White House’s focus on educating the public about how the infrastructure law, a signature accomplishment of Biden’s first year in office, is helping improve roads, bridges and railways in local communities.

The legislation and the resulting projects are likely to form a key piece of Biden’s eventual reelection campaign, with the president’s team focusing on what he accomplished during his first two years with a Democratic-controlled Congress.

The law, which is one of several bipartisan bills Biden signed during his first two years in office, also is expected to contribute to his argument that he is able to bridge the divide between the two parties to get things done.

“When America sees these projects popping up across the country, it sends a really important message. When we work together, there’s not a damn thing we can’t do,” Biden said.

Originally Posted by Jools

ANYTHING but Trump. I would even support Cruz or Graham over the Mango Menace.

But trump and the dwindling MAGA clique would be fun to defeat again.

President Biden Hosts an Official Transition Event

Can't imagine that Old Dementia Joe The Warmonger could be a Democratic frontrunner in 2024.
Wonder what is handlers are thinking.

Originally Posted by HuangLao

Can't imagine that Old Dementia Joe The Warmonger could be a Democratic frontrunner in 2024.
Wonder what is handlers are thinking.

Warmonger?

Guess you didn't hear the news about Afghanistan Jeff.

Or you're just stupid.

Biden administration plans to end COVID public health emergency in May

The Biden administration on Monday announced that the COVID-19 public health emergency, which has been in place since January 2020, is set to end on May 11.

“The COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency (PHE) were declared by the Trump Administration in 2020. They are currently set to expire on March 1 and April 11, respectively. At present, the Administration’s plan is to extend the emergency declarations to May 11, and then end both emergencies on that date,” the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a statement.

Since it was first declared on Jan. 31, 2020, by former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, the national PHE has been renewed 12 times under two different administrations. The most recent renewal was declared on Jan. 11.

The Biden administration has repeatedly said it would provide a notice of at least 60 days if it decided to end the PHE so that health care providers and stakeholders could have time to prepare. Monday’s announcement provided 101 days until the emergency officially ends.

“To be clear, continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19,” the OMB said in its statement. “They do not impose mask mandates or vaccine mandates. They do not restrict school or business operations. They do not require the use of any medicines or tests in response to cases of COVID-19.”

As the OMB noted, an abrupt end to the PHE would cause “wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system.” Since the declaration, programs such as Medicaid have operated under special rules, allowing beneficiaries to retain their coverage during the pandemic.

Under the flexibilities that were enacted under the PHE, traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries were able to receive free at-home COVID-19 testing and treatments and pay no cost-sharing.

Private insurance providers were also required to cover coronavirus testing and services with no cost-sharing and without prior authorization.

Last year, Medicaid released guidance on a 12-month period of “unwinding” after the PHE ended in which operations would return to pre-pandemic norms. The guidance dictated that state Medicaid and CHIP agencies will be allowed to begin their “unwinding” period either one month before the PHE ends, the same month that it ends or the month after it ends.

The end of the PHE will also mean the end of Title 42 border policy, which allows border officials to expel foreign nationals and ignore asylum claims for the sake of public health protections.

“The number of migrants crossing the border has been cut in half, approximately, since the Administration put in place a plan in early January to deter irregular migration from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti. The Administration supports an orderly, predictable wind-down of Title 42, with sufficient time to put alternative policies in place,” the OMB stated.

GOP lawmakers have already unveiled legislation to end the PHE, including the “Pandemic is Over Act.” That bill, introduced by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) earlier this month, would end the PHE the same day it is enacted. With a Democratic majority in the Senate and a veto by President Biden almost certain to occur if it were to be passed by Congress, this bill appeared to mostly symbolic in nature, designed to put on the record Republican lawmakers’ discontent with the ongoing PHE.

The Biden administration criticized the methods by which the legislation aimed to end the emergency, saying it would impose “highly significant impacts” on the U.S. health care system and government operations as well as allow “thousands of migrants per day into the country immediately without the necessary policies in place.”

Senate Republicans said the move is overdue.

“It makes sense. Everybody’s either got immunity through taking the vaccine, had [COVID-19] or probably both. It’s time to move on,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said shortly after the White House’s announcement.

“That’ll have some impacts. … Most people would argue it’s long overdue. I think we’ve said goodbye — not entirely, but for all intents and purposes — to the pandemic a long time ago and I think it’s probably high time our policies reflect that,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said.

• Biden grants Hong Kongers in the U.S. a 2-year deportation reprieve

The Biden administration extended a program on Thursday that protects Hong Kong residents in the U.S. from deportation, less than two weeks before it was set to expire.

The two-year extension of the program — the Deferred Enforced Departure for Certain Hong Kong Citizens — means that Hong Kongers who would otherwise be deported for having overstayed the duration of their original visas can remain in the U.S. until Jan. 26, 2025.

The DED had been set to expire on Feb. 5, and the administration had been under pressure from a number of Democratic lawmakers in recent weeks to extend the program due to concerns about worsening repression in Hong Kong.

The White House has also expanded the number of people who may benefit from DED by allowing any Hong Kong residents present in the U.S. today, Jan. 26, to apply for the program.

“With this action, we are demonstrating again President Biden’s strong support for the people of Hong Kong in the face of increasing repression by the PRC,” the National Security Council said in a statement.

U.S.-based pro-democracy activists who have been lobbying the White House for months to extend DED welcomed the White House decision. Hong Kongers in the U.S. “can breathe a sigh of relief,” said Samuel Chu, president of the nonprofit The Campaign for Hong Kong. The expanded eligibility criteria means that “even more lives will be preserved and protected from persecution, rigged trials, long jail sentences, and loss of freedom,” Chu said.

The Chinese government has bristled at the deportation protection provided to Hong Kong residents in the U.S.

“The U.S. provided so-called ‘safe haven’ for anti-China insurgents fleeing overseas under the pretext of democracy and human rights, further exposing its sinister intention to jeopardize the peace of Hong Kong and to use the ‘Hong Kong card’ to contain China’s development,” Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement earlier this month.

The Biden administration first issued the deportation reprieve in August 2021, due to concerns about “the significant erosion” of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. It granted an estimated 3,860 Hong Kong citizens present in the U.S. on that date the right to live and work in the U.S. for 18 months.

But repression in the territory has worsened during that time as government authorities have launched a prolonged crackdown to silence democracy activists and muzzle media. Police enforcement of the National Security Law, which imposes severe penalties for ambiguously defined crimes including “subversion” and “collusion with foreign countries” has led to the arrests of more than 160 people since June 2020 for crimes including organizing informal public opinion polls. Lawyers who represent victims of human rights abuses are fleeing the territory in the face of threats and intimidation.

The NSC said in its statement that Beijing is using the National Security Law to “deny the people of Hong Kong their human rights and fundamental freedoms, undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, and chip away at Hong Kong’s remaining democratic processes and institutions.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) urged the White House earlier this month to “take immediate steps” to extend the program. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) called for a DED extension of “another 18 months at a minimum,” in a letter last week.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are seeking congressional support to grant Temporary Protected Status to Hong Kongers to eliminate the uncertainty of DED extensions.

Renewing DED is “the bare minimum,” said Anna Kwok, executive director of the nonprofit Hong Kong Democracy Council. It “resets a countdown clock for Hong Kongers in the U.S. until the next wave of uncertainty and anxiety inevitably hits.”

____________

In other news

• Hunter Biden attorneys call for criminal probes into figures involved in disseminating laptop contents

Lawyers for Hunter Biden are requesting that federal and state investigators look into those who accessed and spread his personal data from his stolen laptop, including Rudy Giuliani and a number of allies of former President Trump, in a series of letters sent Wednesday, according to multiple reports.

The letters to the attorney general of Delaware, the Department of Justice and the IRS allege that a number of right-wing figures trafficked the information that was stolen from Biden’s laptop and used it to weaponize attacks against him and his family.

Hunter Biden asks for criminal probe into Trump allies over laptop

• Bill Clinton joins Biden, Harris to mark 30th anniversary of Family and Medical Leave Act

The Biden administration on Thursday marked the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) by urging expansion of the provisions guaranteed by the law and inviting former President Clinton, who signed it in 1993, to speak at the White House.

President Biden was also joined by Vice President Harris to commemorate the signing of the FMLA in the White House’s East Room.

The law requires certain employers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave if employees are sick, have a new child in their household or are taking care of a sick family member, without the risk of the staffer losing their job.

Biden on Thursday issued a memorandum calling on the heads of federal agencies to “support access to leave without pay for Federal employees” so that they can bond with new children or take care of their own health or the health of their family members.

His memo urged federal agency leaders to consider allowing their employees to access leave within the first year of their employment. Federal employees currently only qualify for leave after one year.

“Get cancer after six months? Your wife, your husband [does?] … Look, I’m a great respecter of fate. And I know all too well you can’t schedule when your loved one might need your help badly,” Biden said in his speech on Thursday.

The president also issued a directive to the Office of Personnel Management to create recommendations helping federal employees to “find safety from domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking,” which the president referred to as “safe leave.”

According to Clinton, the FMLA is the action that people most often mention to him since he left office. The former president recalled a woman who told him shortly after he left the White House that it had enabled her and her sister to take care of their parents who were both dying around the same time.

“She said, ‘I know how your families, how your parents die is an important family value.’ It was breathtaking. I never get on a shuttle after 20 years that I don’t think about that woman,” Clinton said of the encounter.

Harris similarly related how she was able to take care of her mother when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I spent many hours with her at the hospital and driving her to and from chemotherapy appointments. Fortunately, however, I had the type of job then where I could take the time I needed to be with my mother, but far too many others cannot,” she said. “And let us be clear: In America, in the 21st century, every worker should be able to take time off to care for themselves or for the people they love.”

The Biden administration has recently taken action to expand leave for some federal employees.

Last month, the Department of Defense issued a memo expanding the Military Parental Leave Program so that a member of the military will be authorized to take up to 12 weeks of leave after giving birth, adopting child or starting a long-term foster care situation. This 12-week period could begin following a period of convalescence, to account for the time a new mother needs to recover after giving birth.