By Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The White House has delayed an annual process meant to decide how much ethanol and other biofuels U.S. oil refiners need to blend into their fuel each year, as it seeks a solution for an issue that pits refinery workers against corn farmers, two sources familiar with the matter said.
Lawmakers who represent constituents from both industries have been pushing the Biden administration on the issue for months. Refiners want low volumes of biofuels to keep costs down, while the farm industry wants high volumes to pump up sales of corn-based ethanol and other products.
The White House has largely stayed out of the discussions but is now hoping to take control of the matter, the sources said.
Ron Klain, President Joe Biden's chief of staff, is involved in the discussions, the sources said. Lawmakers representing corn-producing states, including Democratic Senators Tammy Duckworth from Illinois and Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, have made direct pleas to Klain.
A White House official declined to comment on whether the administration had delayed the process, but said it was "not involved in the specific rule-drafting process" at the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA, which administers the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, did not immediately provide comment.
The White House review comes as the Biden administration is hoping to keep Democrats unified on pushing through a multitrillion-dollar infrastructure package that funds most of the president's top priorities.
Democrats, who have slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, are likely going to have to move the bill along a party-line vote.
Under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, oil refiners must blend biofuels into their fuel mix, or buy tradable credits, known as RINs, from those that do.
The law has been a battleground between the oil and corn industries for years. It has created a 15 billion-gallon-per-year market for corn-based ethanol that has helped farmers.
But petroleum refiners say it adds costs because they either have to invest in biofuel blending businesses, which smaller refiners say is not a viable option, or buy credits from refiners that already blend.
Both the refining and corn industries have waited anxiously for the EPA to announce proposals for the amount of biofuels refiners must blend in both 2021 and 2022. The 2021 proposal is already more than half a year delayed because of the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, which upset energy markets.
The EPA has in the past introduced proposals for the following year during the summer, after a review from the Office of Management and Budget.
Many expected the EPA to send the proposals for both 2021 and 2022 to the OMB in June. That did not happen and a series of court rulings on issues related to the RFS and the biofuels market has amplified confusion around the program for both industries.
It was not immediately clear when the EPA would send proposals to the OMB to begin a formal review.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Peter Cooney)
By Phil Stewart and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's watchdog said on Tuesday it would evaluate the safety protocols surrounding the president's "nuclear football" - containing codes needed for a strike - after one such briefcase nearly came within range of rioters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In a brief notice, the Inspector General's office said it would evaluate the extent to which Pentagon officials could detect and respond if the Presidential Emergency Satchel were "lost, stolen or compromised."
"We may revise the objective as the evaluation proceeds," it said.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said concerns surrounding the Jan. 6 siege helped trigger the evaluation. On that date, Vice President Mike Pence was at the U.S. Capitol, accompanied by a military aide carrying a backup nuclear football when the building was stormed by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
The satchel holds the codes the president would use to authenticate an order to launch nuclear missiles should he or she not be at the White House.
Security footage made public during Trump's subsequent impeachment trial showed Pence and the military aide - who had the satchel - being ushered to safety as protesters got closer to their location.
"At no point was it ever compromised," said a source familiar with the situation.
Even if rioters had taken possession of the satchel, any nuclear strike order would still have needed to be confirmed and processed by the military.
But Jan. 6 was just one of several times during Trump's presidency that the security of the nuclear football came into question.
In November 2017, when Trump was in Beijing having lunch with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a Chinese security official got into a tussle in another room with the U.S. military aide carrying the briefcase.
Then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, a tall, imposing retired general, intervened and got into a physical altercation with the Chinese official to ensure the nuclear football did not get away from the military aide, a former senior Trump administration official said.
When a senior U.S. official spoke to Chinese officials about the incident at the scene, the Chinese wanted to extend an apology to Kelly over the episode. But Kelly refused to accept the apology, the official said.
"Tell them they can come apologize to me in Washington," Kelly said, according to the official.
On Jan. 20 of this year, Trump insisted on leaving Washington before the inauguration of Democrat Joe Biden, meaning a live football would have to go with him to be on hand until Biden was sworn in.
Trump was accompanied by a military aide carrying a nuclear football to Palm Beach, Florida, and kept it near him until Trump was no longer president, a source familiar with the situation said.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Washington (AFP) - President Joe Biden on Tuesday named a prominent Big Tech critic to head the Justice Department's antitrust division in another sign of aggressive moves to counter the dominance of major Silicon Valley firms.
Jonathan Kanter, a lawyer who has represented firms challenging tech platforms, would if confirmed head up the division to handle an array of cases expected against the largest tech firms for alleged monopoly abuses.
The Kanter nomination follows the appointment of Lina Khan, an advocate of breaking up the biggest tech firms, to head the Federal Trade Commission, which is also involved in antitrust enforcement.
A White House statement called Kanter "a leading advocate and expert in the effort to promote strong and meaningful antitrust enforcement and competition policy."
Kanter has represented firms such as Yelp and Spotify which have claimed tech giants such as Google and Apple have used unfair practices to thwart competition. He also represented the News Media Alliance in claims that large platforms have stymied media firms.
A former FTC lawyer, he recently started his own "boutique antitrust law firm that advocates in favor of federal and state antitrust law enforcement," according to the White House.
Early indications from the Biden administration suggest a ramped up effort at antitrust enforcement, amid calls by some to break up some of the biggest and most successful Big Tech firms.
Biden earlier this month unveiled a wide-ranging plan aimed at tilting the balance of power away from corporations and towards "the little guy."
Biden described the initiative as a shift from what he called Washington's 40-year "experiment of letting giant corporations accumulate more and more power" as he signed an executive order directing changes on everything from the sale of hearing aids to the disclosure of airline baggage fees.
"We have to get back to an economy that grows from the bottom up," he said.
The order, which drew strong praise from consumer advocates but a scathing response from some industry lobbying groups, outlines 72 initiatives across the federal government and announces the creation of the White House Competition Council to monitor progress.
Almost six months have passed since Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States, and in red states, the GOP is are showing little or no desire to meet him halfway. Journalist Ed Pilkington, in an article published by The Guardian this week, emphasizes that Republicans in state legislatures have been responding to Biden's presidency by moving even more to the right — from voter suppression bills to anti-gay and anti-abortion bills.
"Republican-dominated legislatures have invested in hot-button social issues, aggressively targeting minority communities and other groups for attack," Pilkington explains. "At least 15 states have between them enacted 90 measures to restrict access to abortions — a record number. Thirty-three states have pumped out 250 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, and five have allowed firearms to be carried without a license in a major loosening of gun laws."
Pilkington adds, "The backlash so far this year has also involved virulent right-wing efforts to suppress the vote of Democratic-leaning demographics, especially people of color. In the first six months of the year, about 17 states have enacted 28 new laws that will restrict access to the ballot box, according to the Brennan Center, and more are certain to follow. The welter of voter suppression measures is not only striking in its own right, it is indicative of one of the great driving forces of this year's seismic eruption of toxic right-wing legislation."
Biden, Pilkington notes, isn't the first Democratic president to face a "backlash" from the right. The red wave of 1994 gave us former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's Contract With America during Bill Clinton's presidency; the 2010 red wave during President Barack Obama's first term found the Tea Party gaining considerable ground in Congress. But Pilkington argues that "the accent in 2021 on tampering with and tamping down the vote is a sharp departure from past form, both in its ferocity and in its extremism."
"The new trend is evident not just in attempts by states like Texas to erect additional hurdles to voting that especially affect African American and Latino communities," Pilkington observes. "Most sinisterly, bills have been introduced that would grant state lawmakers the power to overturn the legitimate will of the people in a contested presidential election. They would empower themselves to supplant their own winner — the electoral equivalent of a coup."
Jacob Hacker, a political science professor at Yale University in Connecticut, argues that the anti-Biden backlash on the far right goes way beyond pushing traditional conservative ideas.
Hacker told The Guardian, "This is different. Republicans at state level have moved from pursuing conservative economic policies to pushing measures designed to cripple the opposition and undermine democracy. The Republican Party used to be anti-Democratic; now, it's anti-democratic."
In their upcoming book "Radical American Partisanship," Lilliana Mason (a political science expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore) and Nathan Kalmoe found that 30% of Republican voters in the U.S. believe that physical violence will be justified if Democrats perform well in the 2024 election.
"Just after Biden became president-elect," Pilkington notes, "Mason held another survey of voters and was chastened by what she learned. Republicans who subscribed to the calumny that the election was stolen were far more likely to endorse violence to advance their political goals. If that's the view of a significant chunk of the American people, Biden has a job on his hands."
Speaking to Ali Velshi on MSNBC Tuesday, reporters Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig recalled some of the conversations they had with President Donald Trump in the final year of his presidency.
"You know, his alternate reality, the one he's living in, the one he talked about at length with Phil and me when we interviewed him at Mar-a-Lago, has only gotten more hardened over time," said Leonnig. "Anything that doesn't help him has to be false. It's interesting too because it's particularly perverse to have someone not taking credit for the vaccine they pressured everyone to deliver."
Trump has never bragged about his vaccine, and it's unclear if it's because he knows that his supporters don't believe in it or because he sees Fox News trashing it every night on television. On a few occasions, President Joe Biden has attempted to give Trump credit for "Operation Warp Speed," but the ex-president hasn't followed with his own brag.
"It's also perverse to link the distrust of the election among his supporters, which he sowed and stoked for months, to encouraging people to distrust a vaccine which could save their lives. What we found about our report about Donald Trump's final catastrophic final year in our new book is that many people giving him expert advice at the time, insiders in the medical community, were literally pulling their hair out in fear, in near-panic about him resisting their good guidance. And they were shocked at the degree to which he put American lives in peril for his own political benefit. It sounds a little bit like by linking election and vaccination distrust, he's linking these things for his political benefit, again."
Another point that the writers made was the mask debate that Trump kept having with experts. It didn't matter what they told him, he refused to wear it.
"Is it as simple as he thought it made him look weak?" asked Velshi.
"You know, what's interesting about that moment Ali is the president when he said at the time, 'people tell me,' what he really often was meaning was 'I feel that I look weak,'" said Leonnig. "I will tell you that we learned in our reporting that the chief of staff, Mark Meadows at the time counseled the medical and political advisors and political advisers, no way, he can't wear a mask, he's already dug in on this, he can't do it, because his base will basically rebel. But Donald Trump himself believed that he looked weak and he told Phil and me that about the importance in his mind of looking strong, looking healthy, looking impenetrable, that was important to him."
She went on to explain that many begged Trump to wear the mask, noting that it would inspire people and it could help save lives, but he still didn't care.
"The other sad thing about this moment is that Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, it's one of his greatest regrets," said Leonnig. "According to our reporting, he repeatedly tried to get the president, and ultimately, when failing to convince him, he tried to get the president's physician, Sean Conley, to convince the president for his own safety, just that alone, wear the mask. but Redfield knew and told Conley and told aides if the president will wear the mask, we will literally save hundreds of thousands of lives."
It's unknown just how many people died because they refused to wear a mask, but never in history have Americans died due to a president's own fears of weakness.
See the full discussion below:
trump mask www.youtube.com
When Rep. Rodney Davis, was named to the Capitol riot commission Monday, what stood out most was the fact that he hadn't voted to overturn the election of President Joe Biden.
But recent media descriptions of Davis as a "moderate" are belied by his 88.8 percent pro-Trump voting record and the fact that he voted against both impeachments.
Just a week after the riot, Davis managed to heap public abuse on some of the Capitol Police officers who had risked their lives protecting him.
"This is bullsh*t!" Davis shouted at officers as he passed indignantly through the sort of metal detectors that most of the free world has come to accept as a fact of life.
Davis told Punchbowl News the measure requiring members of Congress to pass though metal detectors was "political correctness run amok."
"The threat is outside, not inside," he said. "Every resource used inside is one that can't be used outside."
It is true that Davis voted to certify Biden's election after the January 6 riot. And he declined to join the Texas lawsuit that futilely attempted to overturn the election, citing the precedent it would set that might allow blue states to challenge outcomes in red states in the future. He was the only McCarthy nominee to support the establishment of a January 6 commission.
Following the insurrection, Davis issued a statement mildly critical of Trump. But so did McCarthy, in even stronger terms, and the world knows how meaningless that was.
Plus, Davis' statement did include a subtle "whataboutism" reference to the 2018 Congressional Baseball game shooting (where he was taking batting practice at the time shots were fired):
"We are at a perilous moment in our Nation's history. President Trump, many of his allies in Congress, and media commentators on the right deserve blame for the circumstances that led up to one of the worst days this great country has ever seen.
Since November, many in my party perpetuated the lie that the election was "stolen" and gave false hope to millions that the president could somehow remain in office after January 20th. That was never going to happen. There must be accountability for leaders who deliberately misled the public, but I fear that without thoughtful and clear-eyed leadership from both sides of the aisle, we are in danger of further violence and political unrest.
While a convenient talking point, we must be honest that our country did not arrive at this moment in the last two months, or simply the last four years. Though many prefer not to admit it, political deception is a bipartisan disease that seems only to worsen and lead to violence.
Last Wednesday is the second time in my short Congressional career that I've needed to thank law enforcement for saving my life during an act of political violence. The former because a deranged gunman believed leaders and agitators on the left that I and my Republican colleagues were a danger to America.
We as a country have got to do better. There must be a full accounting of what happened leading up to and on the day of January 6th. Law enforcement must have all resources necessary to bring the perpetrators to justice. That investigation should be unimpeded and free from partisan influence. The investigation should be conducted in such a manner to sooth tensions and provide the public with confidence that law and order will prevail."
Those words sound reasonable enough. But so did the metal detectors inCongress one week after January 6.
On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," anchor Jim Acosta and reporter Ryan Nobles discussed NFL star Tom Brady's remark to President Joe Biden at the White House that "there are still people who don't believe we won ... you understand that, Mr. President" — a statement perceived as a jab at former President Donald Trump.
"Ryan, that's clearly a reference to the people who are trying to cast doubt on the election," said Acosta.
"Yeah, and Tom Brady, not known for his comedic timing, really pulls one off here," said Nobles. "This will hurt the president. Tom Brady, once pictured in front of a locker with a Make America Great Again hat, and he's really stayed out of the 2020 election. So he's poking fun at the Big Lie, laughing about it knowing it is not serious, despite the fact that Trump himself continues to carry on as if it is something that's going to change the outcome of the election, which we know is not going to happen."
"Yeah," said Acosta. "That has to sting up at Bedminster."
Watch below:
'That has to sting': Trump mocked after Tom Brady jokes about his election loss at White House visit www.youtube.com
Some allies of President Joe Biden are urging the White House to be more aggressive in combatting misinformation about vaccines being aired on Fox News -- including potentially sending administration officials onto Tucker Carlson's show.
Politico reports that Biden allies want the White House to be more proactive in getting accurate information about the vaccines out to Fox viewers, although they don't believe they'll be able to accomplish that by publicly shaming the network.
Instead, they want to put more public health and administration officials on as Fox News guests, particularly in primetime when hosts such as Carlson and Laura Ingraham have repeatedly peddled falsehoods about the vaccines.
But Matt Bennett, a top official at the centrist Democratic group Third Way and a regular Fox News guest, warned that the primetime hosts exert strict control over what gets aired and rarely allow their opponents to come off looking good.
"The problem with people like Hannity, and this is true for the whole primetime lineup, is they don't let you talk, they shout you down, they get the last word by offering a blizzard of bullsh*t," he explained.
And even public health officials who go on the more friendly daytime TV hours say that they inevitably have to deal with harassment from angry Fox News viewers afterward.
"People just were very angry with me," Dr. Dena Grayson, who used to regularly appear on Fox to talk about COVID-19, told Politico. "Anything and everything that the Biden administration can do to get Fox to, at a minimum, speak less lies and at least try to spread more accurate information — that is valuable."
Former Ohio House speaker Cliff Rosenberger said this Monday that he's leaving the Republican Party over its continued support for Donald Trump, Cleveland.com reports.
"I'm a conservative, and I'm going to be a conservative," Rosenberger said in a Monday interview. "But if the Republican Party is going to continue, which it seems that they are, going down the path of supporting a guy like Donald Trump, I'm not going to have anything to do with that. So at this juncture, I'm going to consider myself an independent."
Rosenberger went on to say that he may have considered voting for a Republican challenger to Trump if there was a good one, but instead ended up voting for Joe Biden.
"I decided I'm going to take out a Democrat primary ballot. I'm going to support the guy who I think is more aligned with me and who will put the country in a better position," Rosenberger said. "I have no qualms about it."
"I can't tell you how many people told me 'Cliff, I believe the same thing you do, but I have to support the party,'" he said. "But I don't flow that way."
Rosenberger resigned from office in 2018 in the midst of an FBI investigation into his travel and spending habits. The investigation so far has not led to any charges. Cleveland.com described him as being one of Ohio's "most powerful Republicans" during his tenure.
Read more over at Cleveland.com.
A county Republican Party in Minnesota is trying to cancel a local teenager, as well as the county fair and a local 4-H club, after the girl won a blue-ribbon award for a photo of a Trump-Pence campaign sign burning, according to a report from the Kansas City Star.
"If this is as offensive to you as it is to us, perhaps a phone call to the Fair board and/or the local 4H club is in order," the Pennington County Republicans wrote above an image of the photo on Facebook.
The party also referred to the photo as "hate-filled content" and even tagged the teen who submitted it, writing, "Did you acquire the sign legally or is it one of the dozens of signs stolen throughout the community this last fall?" before turning off comments on its post.
The local chapter of 4-H, the largest youth development organization in the country, defended the teen's work, saying she "was recognized for her technical and artistic photography skills."
"4-H has always been a place for young people to explore, learn and think for themselves," the Pennington County 4-H wrote. "4-H'ers may express their positions on a variety of topics, including social and political issues. We hope that all can agree that learning is at the core of 4-H. Beyond that, the matter is under consideration and it would not be in the best interests of 4-H to engage in a public discussion at this time."
The Pennington County Fair, meanwhile, appeared to try to distance itself from the photo.
"Due to the controversial content of a 4-H photography art exhibit at the 2021 Pennington County Fair, we understand that there has been controversy with the exhibit on social media. The Pennington County Fair Association does not support the exhibits content or appropriateness," the fair wrote on Facebook.
While most comments on the local GOP's post were negative toward the teen, some defended her.
"You guys..this is some one expressing themselves through their art. Leave this poor girl alone and get over it? You don't have to like it but it's not your choice in what people choose to represent through their artwork. Be adults and move on," one person wrote.
Pennington County voters favored president Donald Trump over President Joe Biden by a margin of 62-35, according to the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office.
A right-wing Oath Keeper militant will plead guilty to charges related to his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Caleb Berry is accused of plotting the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol in an effort to block the certification of President Joe Biden's election win, and prosecutors say he and other rioters stormed into the building using a military "stack" formation.
He's scheduled to plead guilty Tuesday afternoon in federal court, although it's not clear whether he has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department investigation of the conspiracy.
Prosecutors say Berry and other anti-government extremists underwent paramilitary training and recruited others as part of a conspiracy to overturn Donald Trump's re-election loss.
Berry was part of the group that assaulted Capitol police officers with chemical irritants and improvised weapons to gain entry to the Rotunda Doors after stashing firearms at a nearby hotel, which they retrieved the following day.
He's the fourth member of the Oath Keepers to plead guilty, and all three others became cooperating witnesses.
A pair of Washington Post reporters trekked to Mar-A-Lago for an interview with Donald Trump and found the ex-president living in a "distorted reality."
Reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, out Tuesday with the new book, "I Alone Can Fix It," sat for a lengthy interview with the twice-impeached one-term president, who regaled them with lies, boasts and denunciations before doddering off for his nightly dose of adulation from club members and guests.
"It's hard to get inside the head of Donald Trump, but he repeats the lies again and again so often that they might be true in his mind," Leonnig told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "When you're down there talking to him, there's a distorted reality he's presenting, not only to us, but the dozens of guests that come to Mar-A-Lago every night for dinner and give him a standing ovation at sunset, and then you leave Mar-A-Lago and you realize what's happening in the world the reality is so different from what he's trying to tell his supporters."
"So many Americans still continue to believe what Donald Trump is telling them," she added, "and in our book we interviewed more than 140 senior officials in the government, advisers to the former president, witnesses to these events and again and again they told us about how concerned and alarmed they were by what the president was doing and saying in office, especially in those final weeks after the election and before Joe Biden's inauguration."
07 20 2021 07 13 30 www.youtube.com
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" panelists bashed the five Republican picks to take part in the House investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) chose five GOP lawmakers -- Reps. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Jim Banks (R-IN), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Troy Nehls (R-TX) -- to serve on the investigative committee, and panelist listed a host of reasons they were unqualified to serve.
"Three of the picks [voted against certifying Joe Biden's electoral win], and they did so after the insurrection," said Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire. "The vote came after the rioters breached the Capitol, so it's a clear signal here from Republican leader Kevin McCarthy as to which direction he wants to take the hearings. Sure, two of the members there didn't do that -- they didn't vote to decertify, they did go along with the democratic process and acknowledge that Joe Biden was indeed elected president."
Jordan stands out as particularly unsuited to the task, Lemire said.
"Jim Jordan, as we know, is one of former President Trump's most vocal defenders and has been willing to say untruths in order to defend the president, and we know he still speaks to the former president frequently," Lemire said. "So there's no sense that the House speaker Nancy Pelosi will object to these picks, but we will learn more in the next day or so if that were to be the case. But I think there are real fears among Democrats this is going to be a sideshow. This is going to be more of the same from Republicans, that they will continue to latch onto the 'big lie,' that they will need to contest the election that there were voter irregularities, and continue to downplay what happened on Jan. 6, to try to whitewash the riot that day in order to move forward with their eyes on the midterms next fall."
Another committee nominee was previously fired as a small-town police officer for multiple violations, including destruction of evidence.
"If Speaker Pelosi is looking for one member she may want to think about not approving, it's Congressman Troy Nehls," said MSNBC contributor Kurt Bardella. "This was somebody fired from the Richmond police department in Texas for not handling evidence the right way. When he was fired, the person in charge of that, who made that decision, his commanding officer sent him a letter with more than 20 documented infractions of breaching and breaking with quality. If you are not qualified to be a police department member in Texas how are you qualified to serve on an investigative committee, where you could have access to sensitive and classified information about a domestic terrorist event in the United States of America?"
"This is somebody grossly unqualified, ethically questionable and demonstrated, when given the choice to make the right decision, moral decision or his own personal interest decision that's the side he goes for," Bardella added. "So for Kevin McCarthy to appoint somebody to this committee with this history, who has been fired from law enforcement before, is disturbing."
07 20 2021 06 18 10 www.youtube.com
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