Tag: joe biden

Biden Names As “Climate Czar” Former EPA Chief Blamed For Flint Water Crisis

At the time of the Flint water crisis, where lead from aging pipes leached into the city’s water system after it changed its water source, Chaffetz was the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which held hearings on the issue.

Chaffetz wasn’t the only one to object. “The people of Michigan won’t soon forget Gina McCarthy’s mishandling of and failure to adequately respond to the Flint water crisis as EPA administrator,” U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Tipton Republican and a former member of the committee who took part in the Flint hearings,  told the Free Press Wednesday morning. “That ineptness alone is reason enough to disqualify her from a senior role, but her push for higher energy taxes and heavy-handed government regulations is also concerning for consumers.”

Democrats also chimed in: Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Flint Township who is a supporter of Biden’s, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, noting deep doubts about the choice. While thanking Biden for taking climate change so seriously, Kildee – who was a sharp critic of both the state’s and federal government’s roles in causing the Flint water crisis –  said he’d heard from several Flint residents who “expressed their concerns to me about this appointment and I have relayed their concerns to (Biden’s transition team).”

“While the position of White House climate coordinator does not require confirmation by Congress, we must never forget the failures of the Flint water crisis,” said Kildee, who led efforts to require faster public notifications of high levels of lead in water systems and to approve funding to replace lead water pipes in the wake of the crisis. “All levels of government, including the state of Michigan and the Environmental Protection Agency, failed Flint families.”

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Joe Biden Declares Gun Violence a ‘National Health Crisis’ in Sandy Hook Remembrance

Joe Biden released a statement Monday remembering the December 14, 2012, attack on Sandy Hook Elementary and declared gun violence a “national health crisis.”

He wrote, “To the grandparents, parents, siblings, children, spouses, and fellow broken and healing hearts of Sandy Hook, I know. No matter how long it’s been, every time you talk about it, you relive it as though you just heard the news. Eight years later, I know the pain never fully heals.”

Biden described December 14, 2012, as “the saddest day we had in the White House,” and praised Sandy Hook parents for “working to change our laws and our culture around gun violence and how we protect and nurture our children.”

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6 First Gun Control Measures To Expect From A Biden Administration

If we have a Joe Biden administration in the White House on Jan. 20, we will have the most overtly anti-gun president in American history.

Biden’s plan lists effectively every gun control measure ever proposed: banning “assault weapons,” banning “high-capacity” magazines, limiting the number of guns an American can purchase, holding manufacturers liable for the criminal misuse of their products, and many, many more.

Out of the myriad options a Biden administration will have to infringe on our constitutional protections, which will they choose first? Based on my experience with clients and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT) as a firearms attorney, some recent news events, and a bit of firearm-industry intuition, I think the first things a Biden administration will do regarding guns if given the chance are:

  • Banning pistol braces
  • Banning homemade firearms/80 percent receivers
  • Banning online firearm and ammunition sales

Shortly after the first bans, and if he has the help of the Senate, the next gun control measures will likely be:

  • Banning “assault weapons”
  • Banning “high capacity” magazines
  • Requiring universal background checks

Let’s examine each of these in turn.

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Goldman Sachs vets quietly added to Biden transition

Two are Goldman Sach veterans. Others have worked for consulting firms like McKinsey & Co. and Boston Consulting Group along with one Google and three Facebook employees. One is the daughter of a pair of longtime Biden advisers.

They’re all among the dozens of people Biden has quietly added to his transition’s agency review teams in recent weeks, according to a review of the transition’s website. The team members — which must be disclosed by the transition — offer the most comprehensive picture of who’s building the Biden administration.

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LOOPHOLE ALLOWS BIDEN NOMINEES TO AVOID DISCLOSURES. WILL THEY USE IT?

“DONALD TRUMP HAS presided over the most corrupt administration in modern history,” Joe Biden’s website declared as he ran for president. By contrast, the site said, a Biden administration would “make sure that the principles of equality, transparency, and public — not private — interest drive all government decisions.”

It would be difficult for any incoming administration to match Trump for opacity and self-dealing. But an obscure exemption for executive branch officials from disclosing previous clients may generate an interesting test case for Biden’s commitment to full transparency.

The question is partly whether any Biden nominees will use this exemption themselves to conceal their recent sources of income. Perhaps more important is the question of whether the Biden administration will take steps to eliminate the exemption, thereby foreclosing its abuse by future presidents, Trumpian or otherwise.

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Biden’s Reported Domestic Policy Pick Called For ‘Permanent And Comprehensive Assault Weapons Ban’

Former national security adviser Susan Rice, President-elect Joe Biden’s reported pick to lead the White House Domestic Policy Council, called for a “permanent” ban on so-called assault weapons in a June appearance with two anti-gun groups.

Rice, who served in former president Barack Obama’s administration, appeared in a video with Moms Demand Action and Everytown For Gun Safety and concurred with Biden’s firearm plan that seeks to ban certain semi-automatic rifles, prohibit “high-capacity magazines,” and do away with liability protections for weapons manufacturers and sellers. Rice has reportedly been chosen for the domestic policy role, Politico reported Thursday.

“[Biden has] taken on the NRA twice and won,” Rice said in the interview with Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts. “When he served with President Obama in the Obama-Biden administration, we implemented over two dozen reforms that put curbs on access to guns, but we need legislation, we need leadership in Joe Biden that understands and is passionate about these issues.”

Rice advocated for laws including “universal background checks, the enactment of a new violence against women act, with a permanent and comprehensive ‘assault weapons’ ban, and a ban on ‘high capacity magazines’ that will work to buy back those assault weapons that are out there and ensure that those that remain are fully registered,” she said.

The former security adviser also went on to say it’s “unthinkable” and “outrageous” that such reforms have not been passed to date.

“It’s unthinkable to me that even though the vast majority of Americans favor common sense gun restrictions, universal background checks, bans on ‘assault weapons’, and we have a very powerful lobby that has effectively prevented so much of that from being enacted,” she said. “It’s absolutely outrageous. It makes me as angry as anything.”

Biden’s gun plan includes a full-scale prohibition on “assault weapons” in addition to re-classifying the guns and “high-capacity magazines” under the National Firearms Act, which would impose registration and a $200 tax for those already in circulation. The total cost to U.S. firearm owners nationwide was estimated to be roughly $34 billion if the law went into effect, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Rice said it’s “vital” to enact the sweeping gun control.

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The defense-industry swamp is eager to engulf the Biden administration

Just days after the presidential election, a new investment firm called Pine Island Acquisition Corporation quietly began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, with the prospect of becoming a notable player in the $2 trillion defense and aerospace industry. The company’s greatest asset was not its relatively modest bankroll goal of $200 million, but its connections — deep ties to policy establishment figures shaping the incoming Biden administration.

In describing itself to potential investors, Pine Island’s prospectus boasted a leadership team with “extensive access, insight, expertise and management skill” in the defense sector.

In the dawning Biden era, that might be an understatement.

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Biden’s HHS Pick Once Said Religious Institutions Don’t Merit The Same Freedoms As Individuals

President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for health secretary said in 2017 that institutions do not merit the same religious freedom protections under the Constitution as individuals, video footage shows.

During his 2017 confirmation hearings to become attorney general of California, Xavier Becerra was questioned on religious freedom protections by Assemblyman James Gallagher, according to video footage posted by the California Family Council.

Gallagher pushed Becerra to explain his stances on legislation such as SB 1146 requiring private religious universities to modify their faith-based codes or face penalizations.

“On religious protections, the protection for religion is for the individual,” Becerra told Gallagher.

“I think it is important to distinguish between protections that you are affording to the individual to exercise his or her religion freely,” Becerra said, “versus protections you are giving to some institution or entity who is essentially bootstrapping the first amendment protections on behalf of somebody else.”

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