Tag: joe biden

Biden gives intel agencies 90 days to pinpoint Covid origins – after report he torpedoed Trump-era probe of Wuhan lab leak theory

President Joe Biden ordered a new analysis of how Covid-19 originated and said he will press China for transparency – one day after CNN reported that he killed a Trump-era probe into whether the virus started in a Wuhan lab.

“I have now asked the intelligence community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion and to report back to me in 90 days,” Biden said on Wednesday in a statement. He added that other agencies, including US National Labs, will contribute to the study, which may include “specific questions for China.”

Biden addressed the issue of how the pandemic began after CNN reported late Tuesday that his “team” shut down a State Department investigation that was launched last fall by former President Donald Trump’s administration to prove that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab with links to the Chinese military. The article, which cited “sources familiar with the decision,” said there were concerns about the quality of evidence and possible “cherry-picking” of facts.

The Biden administration has faced increasing pressure over its efforts – or lack thereof – to investigate Covid-19’s origin after the Wuhan lab theory gained traction in recent days. Mainstream media outlets that had previously dismissed and mocked the Wuhan lab theory, such as the Washington Post, acknowledged in the past week that it had suddenly become “credible.”

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated that Washington is relying on the World Health Organization to oversee an international investigation into Covid-19’s origins. The WHO had previously echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s assertion that the virus spread naturally from animals to humans, and it dismissed the lab theory.

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Biden Claims George Floyd’s Daughter “Wanted to Sit on My Lap” in Strange Interview “My Wife Would Kill Me”

While speaking to reporters on Tuesday, President Joe Biden claimed George Floyd’s daughter wanted to sit on his lap during their visit to the White House. The comment from Biden is quite concerning considering Biden already has a bad public image when it comes to his behavior around children.

The comments from Biden come after the family belonging to Floyd visited the White House on Tuesday on the anniversary of Floyd’s death in May of 2020 when he was killed by fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

While speaking out about the visit, Biden claimed, “[Gianna] threw her arms around me, gave me a big hug and wanted to sit on my lap.”

The president was then asked about what Gianna ate at the White House.

“My wife would kill me,” Biden randomly muttered. “— we gave her some ice cream, she had some Cheetos, and I think she had some chocolate milk,” Biden said.

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Biden team shut down State Dept. inquiry probing possible lab link to COVID

The Biden administration ended an inquiry into a possible connection between the origins of the novel coronavirus and a lab in Wuhan, a CNN report published Tuesday claims.

The State Department launched the previously undisclosed inquiry last fall under President Donald Trump — but the effort was shut down this spring because of “concerns about the quality of its work,” CNN reported, citing three unnamed sources.

Allies of Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, were looking into the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic may have started in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and not in nature, CNN reported.

But after the changeover in administrations, concerns were raised early in 2021 about draft findings of the probe shared with Biden’s team, CNN said.

The State Department confirmed to CNN that the inquiry had stopped but said it is continuing to work with other agencies on “COVID origins issues.”

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Biden Stammers Incoherently For Nearly A Minute Straight At FEMA Meeting

President Joe Biden had some difficulty getting his thoughts across during a meeting about hurricanes at the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday, stumbling his way through pre-prepared remarks even after repeatedly consulting his notes.

“It’s not about red states and blue states, y’all know that, it’s about having people’s backs and the toughest moments that they face,” Biden said. “Ready with food, water, blankets, shelters, and more.” The monologue quickly deteriorated from there.

“But uh, there’s uh, you know there to be you know beginning uh, this effort uh for 2021 is uh, I think we’ve learned a few lessons from last year as well,” Biden stated. “There’s help as through the we there you know through being there to help clear roads, rebuild uh main streets, uh and so that the families can get back to their lives uh, that’s what FEMA does every single day. And as my mother would say, they’re doin’ God’s work.”

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ATF Is Key To Biden’s Gun Control Plans

It looks like a confirmation hearing for the former ATF agent turned gun control activists who Joe Biden nominated to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives will take place in just a few weeks, and the administration appears to be engaging in a bit of pre-hearing spin with the help of the New York Times. In a lengthy new piece, reporters Danny Hakim and Mike McIntire portray the agency that oversees our nation’s gun laws and firearms industry as the “whipping boy” for the NRA in years past, but the ATF is now at the heart of Biden’s gun control agenda.

Mr. Biden has ordered a ban on the homemade-firearm kits known as “ghost guns,” a prohibition the A.T.F. will have to enforce. To help set gun policy, he has charged the A.T.F. with undertaking the first comprehensive federal survey of weapons-trafficking patterns since 2000. And to lead the bureau into the future, Mr. Biden has nominated a fiery former A.T.F. agent and gun-control activist, David Chipman.

First, though, the bureau will have to overcome its past. In the 48 years since its mission shifted primarily to firearms enforcement, it has been weakened by relentless assaults from the N.R.A. that have, in the view of many, made the A.T.F. appear to be an agency engineered to fail.

At the N.R.A.’s instigation, Congress has limited the bureau’s budget. It has imposed crippling restrictions on the collection and use of gun-ownership data, including a ban on requiring basic inventories of weapons from gun dealers. It has limited unannounced inspections of gun dealers. Fifteen years ago, the N.R.A. successfully lobbied to make the director’s appointment subject to Senate confirmation — and has subsequently helped block all but one nominee from taking office.

The Times neglects to mention that one of the reasons why the ATF has had a difficult time getting a permanent director confirmed is because Democrats have offered up some candidates that simply couldn’t pass muster with a majority of the U.S. Senate. In 2010, for instance, Barack Obama nominated ATF agent Andrew Traver as permanent director, but his nomination never received a vote on the Senate floor because a number of senators had voiced their concerns over Traver’s anti-gun attitudes.

Obama’s second nominee, B. Todd Jones, was ultimately confirmed by the Senate but remained in the job for less than two years before retiring in 2015 and taking a job with the NFL.

Despite Traver’s anti-gun rhetoric scuttling his chances at the top job, the Biden administration has also nominated a former agent with deep ties to the gun control movement. David Chipman spent 25 years at the ATF, but has also spent nearly a decade working for gun control groups like Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Giffords. According to the Times, Chipman may not have the votes to be confirmed either, though the paper says he does have the backing of one of the most important members of the Senate these days.

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