Biden Admin Archives - Page 4 of 4

Commentary: Envy as the Path to Political Power

August 31, 2021August 30, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Demagogues appeal to envy because they believe that promising to destroy the advantages enjoyed by others will win votes and inspire loyalty. Sometimes it does. As the envy-driven horrors of Rwanda and Nazi Germany demonstrate, pledging to disrupt the envied lives of a despised “other” can be a ticket to victory for a political candidate savvy enough to convince voters that he has their best interests at heart.

More than 25 years ago, Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, pronounced in his book The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology that we “live in an age of envy.” Pointing out that “people don’t so much want more money for themselves as they want to take it away from those with more,” Bandow suggested that although “greed is bad enough, eating away at a person’s soul, envy is far worse because it destroys not only individuals, but also communities, poisoning relations.” A Christian libertarian, Bandow wrote that

those who are greedy may ruin their own lives, but those who are envious contaminate the larger community by letting their covetousness interfere with their relations with others.

One can satisfy greed in innocuous, even positive ways—by being brighter, working harder, seeing new opportunities, or meeting the demands of others, for instance.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s New Eviction Moratorium

August 28, 2021August 27, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Supreme Court with a cherry blossom in the foreground

The Supreme Court ordered the Biden administration on Thursday to stop enforcing the federal eviction moratorium recently extended to October.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the high court ruled that the moratorium, which has prohibited landlords from evicting low-income tenants since its implementation in March 2020, would need congressional authorization to be continued. The decision potentially exposes about 12 million Americans, who reported having little to no confidence in being able to make their next rental payment, to imminent eviction.

“It would be one thing if Congress had specifically authorized the action that the CDC has taken,” the Supreme Court ruling said. “But that has not happened. Instead, the CDC has imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination.”

‘Require It’: Biden Tells Private Companies to Mandate COVID-19 Vaccinations

August 25, 2021August 24, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

President Joe Biden encouraged private sector companies Monday to “step up” vaccine requirements for employees following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

“If you’re a business leader, a non-profit leader, a state or local leader, who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that. Require it,” Biden said. “Do what I did last month. Require your employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements.”

Airbnb Offers Free Temporary Housing Across the World to 20,000 Afghan Refugees

August 25, 2021August 24, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Airbnb, a vacation home rental site, is offering free temporary housing to around 20,000 Afghan refugees across the world, the company announced Tuesday.

“As tens of thousands of Afghan refugees resettle around the world, where they stay will be the first chapter in their new lives,” Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said in a statement. “For these 20,000 refugees, my hope is that the Airbnb community will provide them with not only a safe place to rest and start over, but also a warm welcome home.”

Around 3.5 million people living in Afghanistan have been displaced, including around 270,000 due to Taliban advances since January, the U.N. reported on July 13. Around 10,400 people were evacuated by U.S. military flights from Afghanistan Sunday and another 6,660 were taken Monday, according to the Associated Press.

Biden Administration Won’t Push Pandemic Unemployment Bonus Extension

August 23, 2021August 22, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

The Biden administration signaled to Capitol Hill lawmakers Thursday that it will not support an extension of pandemic-related unemployment benefits.

President Joe Biden won’t advocate for an extension of the $300 unemployment bonus given to millions of out-of-work Americans on a weekly basis, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh wrote in a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal. The Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program, which was implemented in March 2020 and extended by Democrats’ recent American Rescue Plan, is set to expire in early September.

“As President Biden has said, the boost was always intended to be temporary and it is appropriate for that benefit boost to expire,” the secretaries wrote.

Court Rules Against Catch and Release for Migrants

August 21, 2021August 20, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal trial court in Texas ruled against the Biden administration’s directives to catch and release some migrants on Thursday.

A Texas federal judge blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from enforcing the Biden administration’s Jan. 20 and Feb. 18 memoranda prioritizing certain migrants for detention over others, granting Texas and Louisiana’s motion for a preliminary injunction, according to the court opinion.

“The States point out that the priority categories enumerated in these Memoranda omit certain others—namely, aliens convicted of serious drug offenses, aliens convicted of crimes of moral turpitude, and aliens subject to a final order of removal,” the opinion continues.

Biden Administration Continues to Tell Fleeing Americans to Pay Their Way out of Afghanistan, Hours After Telling the Press Otherwise

August 21, 2021August 20, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

The Biden administration continued to inform American citizens in Afghanistan as of Thursday evening they could have to pay more than $2,000 to board an evacuation flight out of the country, despite the State Department telling the press hours before that it had no intention of levying any such charges.

The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan has stated in multiple security advisories since Monday that any U.S. citizen seeking to evacuate the country must complete an online form in order to secure their repatriation flight. “This form is the only way to communicate interest in flight options,” the embassy said in a security advisory Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Ned Price told the Daily Caller News Foundation and other news outlets late Thursday afternoon that the Biden administration has “no intention of seeking any reimbursement from those fleeing Afghanistan.”

Biden Administration Plans to Cancel $5.8 Billion More in Student Loan Debt

August 21, 2021August 20, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

The Department of Education announced Thursday that it will cancel student loan debt for over 300,000 borrowers with severe disabilities.

The program, set to erase over $5.8 billion in total debt, will begin in September and apply to over 323,000 borrowers classified as having a “total and permanent disability” by the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Education Department announced. Borrowers will now receive automatic discharges of their debt, whereas previously needed to fill out applications.

“Today’s action removes a major barrier that prevented far too many borrowers with disabilities from receiving the total and permanent disability discharges they are entitled to under the law,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in the announcement.

Biden’s Average Approval Falls Below 50 Percent for the First Time as President

August 19, 2021August 18, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Joe Biden with black mask on, looking at papers in hand

President Joe Biden’s average approval rating has dipped below 50% for the first time since taking office.

His approval stands at 49.8% in FiveThirtyEight’s tracker and 49.4% in RealClearPolitics’ average. While Biden’s approval rating still is higher than the 44% and 46.8% who disapprove in each average, it has steadily declined since May 25.

Biden has been plagued with multiple challenges since late May, including the resurgence of coronavirus cases driven by the Delta variant and the sudden fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban. He has also been met with rising crime, growing concerns over inflation and a decades-high surge of migrants at the southern border.

Democrats May Hand GOP a 2022 Election Gift: Hearings on Biden’s ‘Flawed’ Afghan Exit

August 18, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

President Joe Biden is facing bipartisan backlash over the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan ahead of the 2022 midterm elections as lawmakers from both parties call for an investigation into his administration’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal.

Democrats vowed “tough questions” Tuesday as they used words like “flawed,” “failures” and “horrifying” to describe the administration’s exit strategy and the scenes unfolding in Kabul.

The president, for his part, is not changing course and vows to complete a full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan. But he now faces the specter of his own party investigating his team’s conduct and competence in the shadows of a 2022 election where control of Congress is up for grabs.

‘It’s Everywhere’: Migrants Say They’re Not Responsible for Spreading COVID-19

August 18, 2021August 17, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Acting Executive Officer of the RGV U.S. Border Patrol Sector Oscar Escamilla, left, fields questions from tour participants as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, right, leads a delegation of Congressional representatives on a tour of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Donna Processing Facility in Donna, Texas, May 7, 2021. Secretary Mayorkas updated the delegation on unaccompanied children arriving at our Southern Border as they viewed conditions at the facility. CBP Photo by Michael Battise

MCALLEN, Texas — Several illegal migrants told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they aren’t responsible for spreading COVID-19 in America.

Migrants who illegally crossed into the U.S. near the Hidalgo Point of Entry on Aug. 10 in a group of about 20 people said they weren’t worried about catching COVID-19 at any point in the journey to their final destinations in America.

“Everywhere people are getting infected,” a vaccinated man from Ecuador told the DCNF after illegally entering the U.S. near the same location on Aug. 7. “It’s honestly not that the migrants are bringing the virus. It’s everywhere.”

Biden ‘Inflation Tax’ Erases Gains in Workers’ Pay, as Democrats’ Own Economists Admit Fears

August 13, 2021August 15, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

One promise from the U.S. economy emerging from the pandemic was that American workers would benefit from a tight labor pool driving up salary and pay. And while that happened, the benefits have all been erased by the sudden surge of inflation on President Biden’s watch.

That means workers aren’t running in place, they are actually falling behind as rising prices force middle- and working-class families to make hard choices, like whether to fill the gas tank or the refrigerator.

Inflation topped out at 5.4% in July, the government reported Wednesday, the third straight month above 5%. When President Trump left office in January, inflation was in check at just 1.4%.

Commentary: Don’t Be Fooled by the Bipartisan, ‘Paid For’ Infrastructure Bill

August 10, 2021August 9, 2021 RealClearWire

Capitol building looking up, blue sky in background

Over the course of the pandemic, federal overspending has exploded even by Congress’s lofty standards. While trillion-dollar deficits were a cause for concern before 2020, spending over just the last two years is set to increase the national debt by over $6 trillion. It’s bizarre, then, that the only thing that members of opposing parties in Congress can seem to work together on is fooling the budgetary scorekeepers with phantom offsets for even more spending.

In total, the bipartisan infrastructure deal includes around $550 billion in new federal spending on infrastructure to take place over five years. Advocates of the legislation claim that it is paid for, but they are relying on gimmicks and quirks of the budget scoring process to make that claim.

Take the single biggest offset claimed — repurposing unused COVID relief funds, which the bill’s authors say would “raise” $210 billion (particularly considering that at least $160 billion have already been accounted for in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline). Only in the minds of Washington legislators does this represent funds ready to be used when the national debt stands at over $28 trillion.

Former Biden COVID Adviser Concedes Cloth Masks ‘Are Not Very Effective’

August 8, 2021August 7, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Akey SARS-Cov-2 expert acknowledged this week that a mainstay of the global coronavirus response — the use of cloth masks — does little to stop the spread of the virus.

Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and an adviser on President Joe Biden’s transitional COVID-19 advisory board, made the stunning claim on CNN this week amid escalating worldwide fears and concerns over the “Delta variant” of COVID-19.

“We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out,” Osterholm said during the interview.

Biden Admin, Echoing Trump, Warns That a Chinese Attack on the Philippines Will Draw Military Response

July 13, 2021July 12, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Large group of United States Military soldiers standing in straight line at a base

The Biden Administration continued the Trump-era rejection of almost all of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, warning the communist country that an attack on the Philippines would draw a significant U.S. response.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the U.S.’ message in a statement Sunday, which was also the fifth anniversary of an international tribunal ruling in favor of the Philippines and against China’s maritime claims. China has rejected the ruling since it was first made.

“Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea,” Blinken said, accusing China of attempting to “coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.”

Border Patrol’s Fentanyl Seizures Increase by 4,000 Percent Amid Crisis, Officials Say

July 6, 2021July 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Twitter post that states "Officers at #CBPLaredo remain at the forefront of border security operations to protect the public of lethal narcotics, as seen in this seizure of fentanyl worth $384K."

Border officials seized 4,000% more fentanyl in 2021 than in 2018 as the border crisis continues, NBC News reported Tuesday.

Cartels have taken advantage of increased federal resources allocated for migrant encounters to smuggle fentanyl into the U.S. between ports of entry, according to NBC News. Border officials have found 41 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2021, compared with nine pounds in 2020, two pounds in 2019 and one pound in 2018.

“For the first time, we’re starting to see these tactics where fentanyl is being smuggled between ports of entry,” Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez said, NBC News reported. “Cartels are very creative. They find ways to intimidate migrants and find ways to illegally have them transport that narcotic into the United States.”

Judge Orders Minneapolis to Hire More Police Officers

July 3, 2021July 2, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

A judge ordered the city of Minneapolis to hire more police officers Thursday after finding the city’s reduction of its police force violated its charter.

The order, issued by Hennepin County District Court Judge Jamie L. Anderson, commands the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey to “fund a police force of at least 0.0017 employees per resident,” or around 730 officers.

The order was issued in response to a lawsuit filed in August 2020 by the Upper Midwest Law Center on behalf of eight Minneapolis residents, arguing that city officials had failed to fulfill their duties by shrinking the police force. Petitioners successfully demonstrated a causal relationship between fewer police officers and the increase in Minneapolis’s crime rate, according to the order.

Trump Says Southern Border Is ‘More Dangerous Than It’s Ever Been’ Under Biden

July 2, 2021July 1, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday the southern border is “more dangerous than it’s ever been” after the Biden administration reversed most of Trump’s immigration policies, Fox News reported.

The Biden administration ended Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program on June 1 and is eyeing an end to public health order Title 42 that allows border officials to rapidly expel most migrants to Mexico at the end of July, Axios reported June 20. Biden also said he would stop construction on the border wall, prompting Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to announce plans for the state to begin construction on its own wall, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

“There has never been a border so secure as the southern border that we had, and now it’s opened up,” Trump said, according to Fox News. “Now we have an open, really dangerous, border. More dangerous than it’s ever been in the history of our country, and we better go back fast.”

Biden’s Sister Appears to Capitalize on His Position with Book Deal

June 29, 2021June 28, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

President Joe Biden’s sister will publish a book in April titled “Growing Up Biden: A Memoir,” according to an Amazon pre-order page.

Valerie Biden Owens, a close confidant of the president appears to be capitalizing on his position as president in the new book that appears to go against White House policy, Fox News reported.

“It’s the White House’s policy that the President’s name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities to suggest or in any way — in any way they could reasonably be understood to imply his endorsement or support,” Psaki said at a press briefing in January. “He’s issued the farthest-reaching executive order with respect to the ethical commitments required of his appointees ever and is very proud of it. And, you know, that’s something that he is committed to conveying to anyone it applies to.”

Another Judge Temporarily Blocks Biden’s Debt Relief Program Exclusively for Farmers of Color

June 27, 2021June 26, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Silhouette of man on a tractor during golden hour

A federal judge in Florida temporarily halted President Joe Biden’s $4 billion debt relief program exclusively for farmers of color, saying in a Wednesday order that the program was racially discriminatory.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard sided with Scott Wynn, a Florida-based white farmer who sued to block the program in May. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) program was originally passed in March as part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, with the intention of providing relief to “socially disadvantaged farmers.”

“Section 1005’s rigid, categorical, race-based qualification for relief is the antithesis of flexibility,” Howard wrote. “The debt relief provision applies strictly on racial grounds irrespective of any other factor.”

$6 Trillion Biden Budget Formally Refers to Mothers as ‘Birthing People’

June 13, 2021June 12, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Woman making a heart over her pregnant belly

Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the year 2022 was found to contain anti-scientific language that eliminates the concept of gender from the act of childbirth, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The budget plan, which costs a record-breaking total of $6 trillion, dedicates over $200 million in healthcare spending for the purpose of reducing the “high rate of maternal mortality and race-based disparities in outcomes among birthing people,” despite providing no evidence to back up this assertion. The phrase “birthing people” replaces the more widely-known and correct term, which is “mother.”

The push to replace mother with “birthing people” is part of a broader effort to eliminate so-called “gendered language,” with the Left claiming that gender is merely a “social construct” and that there are more than two genders, even though both claims are false. This was made evident on Mother’s Day a month ago, where several Democrats and far-left organizations – including Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and the pro-abortion group NARAL – included the terminology “birthing people” in their respective Mother’s Day statements.

Commentary: Biden’s Dishonest Domestic Terrorism Claims

June 7, 2021June 6, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

It was hardly surprising when President Biden used his speech on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre to exacerbate racial tensions by shamelessly revising the history of black progress during the past century. Such demagoguery has long been a standard Democratic tactic. It was, however, startling to hear him claim that “Terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today, not Isis, not Al-Qaeda — white supremacists.” If Biden truly believes this, he is unfit to be the commander in chief. Despite his insistence that this information was provided by the “intelligence community,” a joint report from the FBI and the DHS clearly refutes this claim.

Released on May 14, the “Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism” reveals that the threat from domestic violent extremists (DVEs) is far lower than Biden would have us believe. According to the report, for example, “The year 2019 represented the most lethal year for DVE attacks since 1995, with five separate DVE attacks resulting in 32 deaths.” Even one such fatality is too many. Yet, compared to other causes of death, this number is infinitesimal. It is, according to the CDC, about half the average annual death rate associated with bee, hornet, and wasp stings. Moreover, the perpetrators don’t include roving bands of KKK hooligans or Neo-Nazis:

The greatest terrorism threat to the Homeland we face today is posed by lone offenders, often radicalized online, who look to attack soft targets with easily accessible weapons. Many of these violent extremists are motivated and inspired by a mix of socio-political goals and personal grievances against their targets.

Biden Civil Rights Nominee Pressed Colleges to Adopt Policies Often Struck Down in Court

June 6, 2021June 5, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

The Biden administration reached back into Team Obama to fill an Education Department slot that oversees civil rights, including Title IX enforcement.

Catherine Lhamon’s nomination last month drew immediate concern from advocates of due process and fair procedures in college Title IX investigations because so many court decisions — 200 by one count — have since challenged the approach she and others in the Obama administration took in investigating campus sexual assaults.

Two more rulings arrived this week, from the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals and an Iowa district court under its jurisdiction.

Commentary: The Island of Dr. Fauci

June 5, 2021June 4, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

How long will the Biden gerontocracy, also known as Geezer’s Palace, continue to indulge Anthony Fauci’s mendacious reign of medical terror?

Gain-of-function research is a field in which an organism or pathogen is altered genetically in a way that increases its performance. To speak of “performance” in this context, of course, raises the question, “performance of what?” Performance is based on a goal, and in medical science, long cut free from the moorings of intelligible ideas about the good, that means viability.

When the organism in question is a pathogen, viability means new qualities of pathogenesis, transmissibility, or the types of hosts the pathogen can infect, leading to the greater propagation of the pathogen.

Advocacy Groups Ask Biden Admin to Stop Surveilling Approximately 100,000 Immigrants

June 2, 2021June 1, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

Immigration advocacy groups asked the Biden administration to end an Immigration and Customs Enforcement digital program surveilling approximately 100,000 immigrants, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

Latino social justice movement Mijente and immigrant rights group Just Futures Law released “Ice Digital Prisons,” a report explaining how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) monitors immigrants using ankle monitors, facial recognition and digital applications, according to The Guardian.

The report asserts that the strategies currently in use “do more harm and inhibit any true progress in providing the social and economic tools for immigrants to thrive in their communities,” The Guardian reported.

The technology used by ICE criminalizes immigrants and can negatively impact their quality of life, the report claims.

Commentary: Biden Admin Pushes Critical Race Theory in Public Schools

May 20, 2021May 19, 2021 Minnesota Sun Staff

When President Biden signed an executive order on Inauguration Day calling for “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda,” he signaled that his administration would embrace the education agenda of the race-obsessed world of radical “social justice” politics. We now see further evidence of the president’s intentions in the Department of Education’s proposal to funnel grants to schools that teach critical race theory. This pernicious theory analyzes every aspect of American society and history through the belief that racism has been, and remains, central to American life, all while peddling revolutionary Marxist philosophy.