Tag: Joe Biden

Voters Overwhelmingly Support Biden Infrastructure Plan As GOP Plots Obstruction

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A day after Senate Republicans blocked debate on a bipartisan infrastructure deal, a new poll shows about two-thirds of American voters back the framework.

On Thursday, Navigator Research released a survey of 1,000 registered voters, finding 66 percent supported the plan — agreed upon in June by President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators — which would invest $579 billion in transportation, broadband, and water system infrastructure. That framework was backed by 86 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents, and a 46 percent plurality of Republicans.

Although 11 Republican senators agreed on the outlines of a deal in June, every single one of them — and the entire GOP caucus — voted on Wednesday to filibuster a motion to start debate on the bill. Because the motion required a three-fifths supermajority vote, the Democratic majority was stymied in its attempt to even take the plan up for consideration. Attempts to salvage an agreement are ongoing. Continue reading.

Republicans invoke ‘policy secession’ to ‘nullify’ Biden’s victory in GOP states: analysis

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Republican-controlled state legislatures are going hard to the far right, explained Ron Brownstein on Thursday.

Brownstein, a senior editor at The Atlantic and CNN political analyst, was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air.”

Gross said, “you describe this pattern of red state, very conservative legislation as remaking the country? So can you expand on that? How do you think it’s remaking the country or trying to?” Continue reading.

US, allies blame China-linked hackers for Microsoft Exchange breach

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The United States and several allied countries on Monday publicly blamed hackers affiliated with the Chinese government for the Microsoft Exchange Server hack that left tens of thousands of organizations vulnerable to compromise earlier this year.

The move to publicly identify the hackers as linked to China is part of a broader effort by the U.S. and its allies to publicly call out Beijing’s government for malicious behavior in cyberspace.

The U.S., European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and NATO on Monday criticized China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) for using criminal contract hackers to conduct cyber-enabled extortion, “crypto-jacking” and other schemes. Continue reading.

Plans for free pre-K and community college could provide a ‘ladder into the middle class.’

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WASHINGTON — What was once considered a progressive dream for the nation’s education system could be headed toward reality as Democrats push forward to broker a deal on a new spending plan containing President Biden’s most ambitious domestic policy goals.

Included in the list of programs Democrats agreed this week to include in their $3.5 trillion budget blueprint are Mr. Biden’s campaign proposals to offer prekindergarten enrollment for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country, and tuition-free community college to every young adult. So far, both proposals are drawing widespread support from the Democratic coalition and are expected to remain priorities as the party’s top leaders seek to deliver on bedrocks of Mr. Biden’s $4 trillion economic plan.

“Infrastructure’s about roads and bridges, but it’s about the other things we need to have a fully engaged and active work force,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusets. “That means child care for parents. It means early childhood education, giving our kids the right start. And that means post-high school education or training. That’s what it’s going to take in the 21st century.” Continue reading.

Crime victims bill logjam ends; may go to Biden’s desk next week

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Bill to boost cash for victims’ services is set to move forward

A Justice Department program that uses fines and penalties from criminal settlements to fund services for crime victims is on the verge of getting a long-sought cash infusion.

On the same day groups like the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence urged members to light up senators’ phone lines, email addresses and Twitter feeds with calls for action, Democratic and Republican leaders in that chamber reached agreement late Wednesday to take up House-passed legislation to give the Crime Victims Fund a financial boost. Sources familiar with the matter expect that vote to occur next week.

The measure would direct revenue from out-of-court settlements like deferred prosecution agreements, which have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, into the fund so it no longer has to rely solely on criminal cases. Continue reading.

Biden takes big break from habit of avoiding Trump talk

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President Biden has made a habit of not talking too much about his predecessor, former President Trump.  

That changed big time on Tuesday, when Biden gave a spirited voting rights speech in Philadelphia. Biden didn’t mention Trump by name but repeatedly criticized the man he unseated as president, slamming him for “the big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. 

“We continue to see an example of human nature at its worst. Something darker and more sinister,” Biden said in remarks from the Philadelphia speech directed toward Trump and his allies.  Continue reading.

Russia’s most aggressive ransomware group disappeared. It’s unclear who made that happen.

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Just days after President Biden demanded that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia shut down ransomware groups attacking American targets, the most aggressive of the groups suddenly went off-line early Tuesday.

The mystery is who made it happen.

The group, called REvil, short for “Ransomware evil,” has been identified by U.S. intelligence agencies as responsible for the attack on one of America’s largest beef producers, JBS. Two weeks after Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin met in Geneva last month, REvil took credit for a hack that affected thousands of businesses around the world over the July 4 holiday. Continue reading.

Senate Democrats, White House agree on $3.5 trillion budget package

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Biden headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for sales pitch; Warner says plan is ‘fully paid for’

Top Senate Democrats and White House officials reached agreement late Tuesday on an overall spending target of $3.5 trillion for a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package that Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said will fund “every major program” President Joe Biden proposed in his economic plans.

Biden will come to the Capitol Wednesday to help Schumer and Budget Committee members pitch the spending target to the broader Senate Democratic Caucus over lunch. In a key selling point for his fellow centrists Democrats, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner told reporters the plan will be “fully paid for.”

The $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, combined with $579 billion new spending in a bipartisan infrastructure bill that is still being drafted, will bring the total new spending on infrastructure, climate, child care, education and paid leave programs to $4.1 trillion. That figure “is very, very close to what President Biden asked us for,” Schumer said. “Every major program that President Biden has asked us for is funded in a robust way.” Continue reading.

Biden calls passing voting legislation ‘a national imperative’ and castigates voting restrictions based on ‘a big lie’

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PHILADELPHIA — President Biden on Tuesday delivered his most forceful condemnation yet of the wave of voting restrictions proposed in Republican-led states nationwide — efforts the president argued are the biggest threat to American democracy since the Civil War.

Biden’s speech was an attempt to inject new life into flagging efforts to pass federal legislation addressing the issue. But while he intensified his explanation of the stakes, his speech did not include a call for the Senate to change the filibuster, which is seen by advocates as the best, and perhaps only, way to usher in the kinds of changes Biden is seeking.

At the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, in a room filled with images of Benjamin Franklin and quotes from Daniel Webster and Theodore Roosevelt, Biden compared the new laws to voter suppression by the Ku Klux Klan and to the Jim Crow-era laws that disenfranchised nearly all voters who were not White and male. He railed against laws that restrict access — calling them “raw and sustained election subversion” — and said that the 2022 midterm elections could highlight the damaging effects of the new laws. Continue reading.

Biden rips Trump’s ‘big lie’ in voting rights address

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President Biden on Tuesday decried inflammatory and false claims from former President Trump and his allies about the 2020 election and broader efforts to restrict access to the ballot in a major speech on voting rights.

Biden blasted efforts from Trump and others to sow doubt about the election months after it concluded, which have spurred action from GOP-led state legislatures to push new elections laws that would limit absentee voting and make it more difficult for certain groups to vote.

“It’s clear, for those who challenge the results or question the integrity of the election, no other election has ever been held under such scrutiny or such high standards. ‘The big lie’ is just that, a big lie,” Biden said at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Continue reading.