Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #14

April 12-19 2024

The Department of Commerce announced a deal with Samsung to help bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing and research and development to Texas. The deal will bring 45 billion dollars of investment to Texas to help build a research center in Taylor Texas and expand Samsung's Austin, Texas, semiconductor facility. The Biden Administration estimates this will create 21,000 new jobs. Since 1990 America has fallen from making nearly 40% of the world's semiconductor to just over 10% in 2020.

The Department of Energy announced it granted New York State $158 million to help support people making their homes more energy efficient. This is the first payment out of a $8.8 billion dollar program with 11 other states having already applied. The program will rebate Americans for improvements on their homes to lower energy usage. Americans could get as much as $8,000 off for installing a heat pump, as well as for improvements in insulation, wiring, and electrical panel. The program is expected to help save Americans $1 billion in electoral costs, and help create 50,000 new jobs.

The Department of Education began the formal process to make President Biden's new Student Loan Debt relief plan a reality. The Department published the first set of draft rules for the program. The rules will face 30 days of public comment before a second draft can be released. The Administration hopes the process can be finished by the Fall to bring debt relief to 30 million Americans, and totally eliminate the debt of 4 million former students. The Administration has already wiped out the debt of 4.3 million borrowers so far.

The Department of Agriculture announced a $1 billion dollar collaboration with USAID to buy American grown foods combat global hunger. Most of the money will go to traditional shelf stable goods distributed by USAID, like wheat, rice, sorghum, lentils, chickpeas, dry peas, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy beans, pinto beans and kidney beans, while $50 million will go to a pilot program to see if USAID can expand what it normally gives to new products. The food aid will help feed people in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen.

The Department of the Interior announced it's expanding four national wildlife refuges to protect 1.13 million wildlife habitat. The refuges are in New Mexico, North Carolina, and two in Texas. The Department also signed an order protecting parts of the Placitas area. The land is considered sacred by the Pueblos peoples of the area who have long lobbied for his protection. Security Deb Haaland the first Native American to serve as Interior Secretary and a Pueblo herself signed the order in her native New Mexico.

The Department of Labor announced new work place safety regulations about the safe amount of silica dust mine workers can be exposed to. The dust is known to cause scaring in the lungs often called black lung. It's estimated that the new regulations will save over 1,000 lives a year. The United Mine Workers have long fought for these changes and applauded the Biden Administration's actions.

The Biden Administration announced its progress in closing the racial wealth gap in America. Under President Biden the level of Black Unemployment is the lowest its ever been since it started being tracked in the 1970s, and the gap between white and black unemployment is the smallest its ever been as well. Black wealth is up 60% over where it was in 2019. The share of black owned businesses doubled between 2019 and 2022. New black businesses are being created at the fastest rate in 30 years. The Administration in 2021 Interagency Task Force to combat unfair house appraisals. Black homeowners regularly have their homes undervalued compared to whites who own comparable property. Since the Taskforce started the likelihood of such a gap has dropped by 40% and even disappeared in some states. 2023 represented a record breaking $76.2 billion in federal contracts going to small business owned by members of minority communities. This was 12% of federal contracts and the President aims to make it 15% for 2025.

The EPA announced (just now as I write this) that it plans to add PFAS, known as forever chemicals, to the Superfund law. This would require manufacturers to pay to clean up two PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. This move to force manufacturers to cover the costs of PFAS clean up comes after last week's new rule on drinking water which will remove PFAS from the nation's drinking water.

Bonus:

President Biden met a Senior named Bob in Pennsylvania who is personally benefiting from The President's capping the price of insulin for Seniors at $35, and Biden let Bob know about a cap on prosecution drug payments for seniors that will cut Bob's drug bills by more than half.

Not my work. Just work I admire. Seems to come from a Steam user named TTMXMP.

Ignorance and knowledge are not sort of the same thing.

I don't see how anyone can forget how bad it was during the pandemic. Dead bodies in refrigerated trucks, limited food on grocery shelves and the isolation that seemed to never end.

"... spree, and murder his chief after raping the chief’s wife and children, all while he was already under scrutiny for his inappropriate relationship with a teen girl, according to the internal investigation reports finally released this week."

The Republican Party personified, ladies and gentlemen. Vote blue.

Lots of good economic information, especially about the black community.

I'm sick of people saying "I'm pro-legal immigration." Trump cut legal immigration in half. If that doesn't bother you, you don't favor legal immigration. At best, there are token ways where your prejudice against immigrants overall makes exceptions for certain legal immigrants in certain circumstances. You don't favor anything.

Press Releases Relating to Trump Presidential Documents from the The National Archives (NARA)

archives.gov/press/press-releases/2022/nr22-001

They document such official positions as "The Presidential Records Act requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations." (January 31, 2022), "NARA officials did not visit or "raid" the Mar-a-Lago property." (February 8, 2022) and "The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA)." (August 12, 2022)

Don't just complain on social media about your government. Yeah, yeah, shouting into the void. Tell your representatives. You're allowed to do that. You can call, email or mail them a letter.

Tell them what you want them to do. Yes, they do need to be told. And told by you.

ICC Will Investigate Israel

South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, and reported that accusation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has agreed that an investigation is warranted, and the ICC has opened its investigation. The ICJ ordered Israel to "take all measures within its power to prevent ... Genocide." The ICC also says they don't have the money or staff to investigate while war in Gaza is ongoing, so the actual work of investigating will mostly wait for a ceasefire or some country to donate a load of cash.

The US State Department has disagreed with the description of the war in Gaza as a genocide and expressed disappointment that the ICC agreed to open an investigation. The State Department's legal advisors filed a position statement with the ICJ explaining why, in legal terms, the US doesn't believe the investigation is warranted. I haven't found that filing yet, so I don't know what the argument is specifically. This analysis says the USA is arguing that the ICJ didn't explicitly order a ceasefire, so Israel can keep fighting. The ICJ's does order Israel to "take all measures within its power to prevent" "killing members of the group," though, which sounds like a ceasefire.

If you find the USA's legal argument, drop a link in the comments.

Remember Ukraine's Reformers

We should do more to remember Davil Sakvarelidze and Vitaliy Kasko, the young optimists who tried to prosecute corruption in Ukraine back in 2014-6, but who were stymied by that corrupt ball of sick Viktor Shokin.

Source (read it; it's good!)

Many of us, especially Americans, get so caught up in refuting the Biden conspiracy theories about Shokin's outster that we forget to honor Ukrainians fighting the good fight against oligarchs' abuses, Russian influence, and other forms of corruption.

After the war, your fine example will be the backbone of Ukraine's bright future.

"Outgoing House Republican Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) added some further insights into his decision to retire and blasted many of his fellow Republicans for being willing to “lie” for Donald Trump."

"We’re at a time in American politics, that I am not going to lie on behalf of my presidential candidate, on behalf of my party. And I’m very sad that others in my party have taken the position that, as long as we get the White House, it doesn’t really matter what we say."

“We’ve gone from a time when the Tea Party stood for conservative principles, for constitutional principles, to a time where the [populists] have taken over the Republican Party and are really advocating things that I believe are very dangerous.”

The difference is night and day

Wonder Person