Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“A Jan. 6 defendant wanted on misdemeanor charges opened fire at sheriff’s deputies..as they checked on him ahead of his expected arrest, leading to a lengthy standoff”https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/20/jan-6-defendant-fired-on-deputies-00093158
“Under current procedures, regulators typically assess pollution from new facilities or projects on a plant-by-plant basis rather than in conjunction with existing emissions from other sources. This method underestimates the health risks, community advocates say.
By instructing agencies to research and incorporate new data on those cumulative impacts and involving communities early in the process, Biden marries two of the “four historic crises” he identified on the campaign trail in 2020: climate change and racial inequality. Most people who face outsized health and climate vulnerabilities from concentrated pollution sources are people of color and low-income households.”
“Republicans, Biden asserted Wednesday, “say they’re going to default unless I agree to all these wacko notions they have. Default. It would be worse than totally irresponsible.”
He reminded McCarthy of the GOP’s hypocrisy — they had no problem raising the debt ceiling three times during the Trump presidency — and of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump’s own comments decrying debt limit brinkmanship as reckless. Biden also urged the speaker to “take default off the table, and let’s have a real, serious, detailed conversation about how to grow the economy, lower costs and reduce the deficit.”
According to two people familiar with the administration’s strategy, it’s not clear to anyone inside the White House if McCarthy has the votes from his own caucus to pass his bill, and it may not yet be clear to the speaker himself, who has what one person familiar with the White House’s thinking termed a “principal-agent problem.”
The bill would be dead on arrival in a Democrat-controlled Senate. But the White House is signaling clearly to GOP moderates in the House: Vote to cut popular programs, including Social Security and Medicare, at your own risk.
“If they pass this, we are going to hang it around their moderates’ necks,” said one person familiar with the administration’s thinking.”
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“Biden, his aides say, learned from the Obama administration’s 2011 standoff with Republicans that it’s imperative not to allow the debt ceiling to become part of negotiations. But with McCarthy’s tenuous speakership constantly hanging by a thread, and dependent in large part on his ability to placate his most extreme members, the White House knows that talking him off the ledge on risking default — giving up what he sees as his main point of leverage — won’t be easy.
And as much as White House officials like the politics of the negotiations’ current phase, they know they, too, will face pressure to negotiate the closer they get to D-Day.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ethereal-whirlpool-light-grows-giant-100008643.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russias-t-14-armata-battle-052205882.html
“in principle, a Trump interview was a good idea because it’s never a mistake for the press to confront newsmakers, even if the newsmaker lies about the integrity of the 2020 election, which Trump did. Even if he mocks the justice system because it has held against him, which Trump did. Even if he uses the rhetorical devises of ad hominem, ad populum, ad baculum to savage his foes, as Trump did. Even if he insults the interviewer, which Trump did (“You’re a nasty person,” he said to Collins). Even if he refuses to answer simple questions about his stand on abortion, which Trump repeatedly did. And even if he offers his self-serving hallucinations about the events of January 6 as the truth, which Trump did.”
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“Trump, after all, leads the Republican presidential polls by a wide margin. A genuine news outlet can’t avert its eyes during a campaign just because a candidate is malevolent, duplicitous, cruel and deceitful.”
““China right now describes us in their open speeches, etc., as a declining power,” Milley said. “Defaulting on the debt would only reinforce that thought and embolden China and increase risk to the United States.”
Austin added that a default would mean a “substantial risk to our reputation” that China could exploit.”
“Former President Donald Trump is appealing a jury’s verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, two days after the nine-person jury ordered
“Hundreds of active-duty U.S. troops are descending on the Mexican border this week, but they’re not authorized to make arrests, use their weapons or do much more than administrative work.
That’s making the military deployment — timed for the end of pandemic-era immigration restrictions — a classic no-win political situation for the Biden administration, which is getting hit from at least one prominent Democrat for perpetuating Trump-era militarization of the border, and from Republicans who say the mission will be utterly ineffectual.”
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“Biden is responding to the expected end of Title 42, which has allowed the U.S. to deny asylum and migration claims for public health reasons. Officials say the expiration of Title 42 on Thursday will prompt an influx of Central Americans into the U.S.”
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“Officials say they would have preferred to rely on law enforcement agents for the mission, but the Department of Homeland Security is short on people and money. So the administration is turning to what they have now, which is 1,500 active-duty troops. And officials say they will be there for only 90 days, until law enforcement can find contractors to do the work.”
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“The 1,500 troops Biden is sending will be armed for self-defense only and are not authorized to use force, make arrests or otherwise act in a law enforcement role. This is in keeping with the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the active-duty military from enforcing the law inside the United States.
“Military personnel will not be permitted to support migrant processing and escort duties or other activities that involve direct participation in civilian law enforcement activities, be responsible for property seized from migrants, or require direct contact with migrants,” according to a statement from U.S. Northern Command.
Instead, they will be performing administrative tasks such as data entry, warehousing, and additional detection and monitoring support to free up Border Patrol agents to deal with the migrants.
They are joining 2,500 National Guard troops on active-duty status — also subject to Posse Comitatus — already doing similar work at the border since July 2022.
By contrast, Trump granted active-duty troops the authority to protect law enforcement agents if they engaged in violence in November 2018, a controversial move that put the military in direct contact with migrants.”
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“Part of the reason Trump sent troops to the border in 2018 was to help build his long-promised wall along the Mexican border. The Pentagon was directed to send members of the Army Corps of Engineers to help lay miles of concertina wire and erect other barriers and fencing.”
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“Trump also shifted billions meant for military infrastructure projects to finance the border wall. The move drew bipartisan opposition, but Congress wasn’t able to muster the support to stop Trump.
Biden canceled the project when he took office, but kept the National Guard presence on the border for other support missions.”