Important Takeaways:
- President Joe Biden has said he will not intervene to force striking ILA union workers back on the job at East and Gulf coast ports, a political calculation that balances the power of unions ahead of a tight election with concerns about the economy, the No. 1 issue for many voters.
- Biden and top administration officials including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su have focused more attention on the ocean carriers and “price gouging” since the strike began.
- If the union prevails in its battle for a large wage increase, there is the risk of a resumption of wage inflation that could upset the Fed’s so-far successful efforts to tame inflation, though recent Fed concern has focused more on a potential labor slowdown than boom conditions.
- President Biden said on Tuesday that his administration will be “monitoring for any price gouging activity” that benefits foreign ocean carriers, including those on the USMX board. He also said “foreign ocean carriers have made record profits since the pandemic, when Longshoremen put themselves at risk to keep ports open.”
- For months, logistics and business trade groups representing major industries from retail to manufacturing and agriculture have sent numerous letters to Biden and his administration urging intervention. Now, with the president sticking to his position that collective bargaining is the only means for a “fair deal” for the ILA, executives across the economy are beginning to weigh the potential pricing impacts for their business models.
- Steve Lamar, CEO of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, said “Allowing the status quo to persist increases the likelihood that this port crisis will hurt our industry and the overall U.S. economy through job losses, higher prices, and goods shortages”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a contempt resolution against the top Biden administration Cabinet secretary, setting it up for a House-wide vote after Congress returns from a six-week recess.
- A secretary of state has never in history been held in contempt.
- If the House votes to hold Blinken in contempt, he would be automatically referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal charges.
- House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul has accused Blinken of stonewalling his committee’s probe into President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
- It comes after McCaul’s committee released an explosive report detailing Biden administration shortfalls that led to the hasty military withdrawal from Kabul following a lightning-fast takeover of the country by the Taliban.
- The Republican-led paper opens by hearkening back to President Biden’s urgency to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. That, along with the Afghanistan withdrawal, demonstrates a “pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners,” according to the report.
- The report also disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and it revealed how state officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was as clear as he has ever been that he does not believe a ceasefire and hostage deal is likely in Gaza in a sharp rebuke to the Biden administration’s insistence it’s close at hand.
- On Sunday, President Joe Biden claimed that the parties were on the verge of a deal, and on Wednesday, a senior administration official claimed 90% of the agreement had been completed.
- “It’s exactly inaccurate. There’s a story, a narrative out there, that there’s a deal out there,” the Israeli Prime Minister said of the statement
- US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby doubled down on those assessments in comments to the press Thursday, saying, “90% – verge of a deal. You call that optimistic, I call that accurate.”
- “What Hamas has been demanding here, the Israelis have come forward to meet the terms as best they can,” the official said. “And Hamas, frankly, on this issue, we’ve had a pretty frustrating process.”
- The official said Hamas’s recent killing of six hostages had “colored” the ongoing negotiations and thrown into question Hamas’s willingness to reach a deal.
- Netanyahu has held two news conferences this week to argue that maintaining permanent control of the Philadelphi Corridor is vital to Israeli security.
- On Thursday, Netanyahu claimed Hamas “don’t agree to anything. Not to the Philadelphi Corridor, not to the keys of exchanging hostages for jailed terrorists, not to anything. So that’s just a false narrative.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden administration announces new partnership with 50 countries to stifle future pandemics
- President Joe Biden’s administration will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak that suddenly halted normal life around the globe in 2020.
- S. government officials will work with the countries to develop better testing, surveillance, communication and preparedness for such outbreaks in those countries, according to a senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters Monday about the program on the condition of anonymity. The official did not share a list of countries that will participate in the program.
- The U.S. program will rely on several government agencies — including the U.S. State Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health and Human Services and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID — to help countries refine their infectious disease response.
- Last year, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global emergency, with more than 91,000 cases spanning across 100 countries to date.
- The U.S. has devoting billions of dollars to the effort. Biden, a Democrat, is asking for $1.2 billion for global health safety efforts in his yearly budget proposal to Congress.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden Administration’s $10 Billion Prize to Iran: Just A Small Thank You for Engineering a War, Wounding 56 US Troops and Trying to Drive the US Out of The Middle East
- From the Iranian regime’s perspective, annihilating Israel and the Jews would presumably be a major breakthrough, giving them a dominance over the Muslim world, even greater than Saudi Arabia’s.
- The dedicated funds that this new $10 billion will release can now be used to put the finishing touches on the mullahs’ nuclear bomb – to threaten their Sunni neighbors in the Gulf, Europe, and above all, “The Great Satan, the United States. Iran’s plans for cutting “The Great Satan” (and others) down to size are already underway in Cuba and throughout South America. Earlier this month, Israel helped Brazil thwart an attack by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hizballah on Brazil’s Jews.
- Sadly, the $10 billion looks suspiciously like a “pretty please” bribe not to try to drive the US out of the region this year [before the 2024 US election]; instead, wait for next year.
- The solution is not to give Iran $10 billion as a prize for practicing extensive regional aggression and engineering mass-murder. Real solutions would include cutting the flow of funds by re-imposing — and enforcing — primary and secondary sanctions; incapacitating the port from which Iran sends oil to China; sending Ayatollah Khamenei and the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG) pictures of their homes; making the ruling mullahs seriously aware of military options, such as taking out the training bases and leadership of the IRGC, and employing significant military force when required — for instance now.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The Biden administration on Thursday said it would expand former President Donald Trump’s wall on the Mexican border and begin deporting thousands of Venezuelans in an effort to cut down on the migrant surge that shows no signs of abating.
- During his campaign for president, Mr. Biden denounced efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but on Thursday the administration said it was allowing for the construction of physical barriers along a portion of the border in South Texas, even as he maintains that such barriers are ineffective in curbing unlawful entry from Mexico.
- In announcing that the U.S. government would begin deporting Venezuelans who enter the United States unlawfully, the Biden administration was reversing a policy of not sending migrants back
- The announcement about deportations came only three weeks after the administration granted a temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants who had already entered the United States unlawfully.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The Biden administration plans to close most of the country’s national parks this weekend when government funding lapses, shuttering the sites that draw millions of tourists and are an economic boon for states and local communities.
- “At [National Park] sites across the country, gates will be locked, visitor centers will be closed, and thousands of park rangers will be furloughed,” the Interior Department said in a fact sheet.
- Interior said state governments could use their own funds or money from other sources to keep individual parks operating.
- The National Park Service includes attractions as expansive as the Grand Canyon and the Smokey Mountains and as small the 192-acre Gateway Arch in St. Louis. More than 312 million people visited National Parks in 2022, generating nearly $24 billion for local economies, according to the NPS website.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden’s White House will send letter to CNN, NY Times and other top outlets demanding them to probe ‘lies’ behind GOP’s plan to impeach president
- The Biden administration has been blasted over plans to send out a letter to major news organizations demanding they probe the ‘lies’ of the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry.
- House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an official impeachment inquiry on Tuesday over allegations of corruption and involvement in son Hunter’s business dealings, setting off fiery reactions from Democrats.
- Ian Sams, a special assistant to the president and senior advisor to the White House Counsel’s Office, penned a letter to both conservative and liberal-leaning outlets, slated to be distributed Wednesday in an apparent attempt to influence their coverage. Among outlets targeted are CNN, the New York Times, the Associated Press and Fox news.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- U.S. tells Israel mega-deal with Saudis must include concessions to Palestinians
- The Biden administration told the Israeli government last week that it would have to make significant concessions to the Palestinians as part of any possible mega-deal with Saudi Arabia that includes normalization between the kingdom and Israel, four U.S. officials and a source briefed on the issue told Axios.
- But the Biden administration faces an uphill battle. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strong reservations about taking any significant steps toward the Palestinians. Doing so would likely anger the extreme-right parties that are part of his coalition and risk bringing down his government.
- Blinken also said that Saudi Arabia will need to show the Arab and Muslim world that it got significant deliverables from Israel regarding the Palestinians in return for a normalization agreement, the officials said.
- What to watch: Three current and former U.S. officials said Netanyahu could be invited to the White House for a meeting with Biden the third week of September.
- A source briefed on the issue said that such a meeting would likely focus on stressing the need for Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians in any future normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.
Read the original article by clicking here.
The American Heritage Dictionary “plagues”
1. A highly infectious, usually fatal, epidemic disease; a pestilence.
2. A virulent, infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis (syn. Pasteurella pestis) and is transmitted primarily by the bite of fleas from an infected rodent, especially a rat. In humans it occurs in bubonic form, marked by lymph node enlargement, and in pneumonic form, marked by infection of the lungs, and can progress to septicemia.
3. A widespread affliction or calamity seen as divine retribution.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden Administration to Urge All Americans: Get a Coronavirus Booster Shot Now
- All Americans will be urged by the Biden administration to get a coronavirus booster shot this autumn ahead of what it claims is a new wave of infections, a White House official said Sunday.
- Reuters reports the official said while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an increase in infections and hospital admissions from the virus, overall levels remain low, however caution is urged.
- Moderna and other coronavirus vaccine makers Novavax, Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE have all reportedly created versions of their shots ready and aimed at the XBB.1.5 subvariant.
Read the original article by clicking here.
