Politics
Senate Paves Way for Biden’s $1.9T Covid Package, Supports Targeted Checks to Americans
During the 15 hour overnight “vote-a-rama” in the senate, many amendments were both agreed upon and shot down.
During an over night session lasting well into Friday morning, the Senate passed a budget bill paving the way for President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion Covid relief package, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tie breaking vote on the measure.
The budget resolution passed with a 51-50 vote and could face a vote in the House as early as Friday, reports the Washington Post.
With the budget resolution nearly complete, Congress can turn in earnest to writing Biden’s expansive pandemic relief proposal into law — and push it through the Senate, without Republican votes if necessary, under the special rules unlocked by the budget legislation. That process will take weeks, with Democrats eyeing mid-March as the deadline for final passage of the relief legislation because that is when enhanced unemployment benefits will expire if Congress doesn’t act first. – WaPo
During the 15 hour overnight “vote-a-rama,” many amendments were both agreed upon and shot down.
A bi-partisan show of support in a 99-1 vote pushed through an amendment brought forward by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va), and Susan Collins, (R-ME), discounting “upper-income taxpayers” from eligibility for the direct cash payments.
“The question before us is quite simple. Do we want stimulus checks to go to households with family incomes of $300,000?” Collins asked during the session. “Or do we want to target the assistance to struggling families who need the help and provide a boost for the economy?”
“I don’t think a single person on this floor would disagree to target the relief to our neighbors who are struggling,” Manchin said. “There are other families who have not missed a single paycheck as a result of this pandemic. It does not make sense to send a check to those individuals.”
The amendment lays out no specifics levels to who is eligible for the checks but leaves the door open for lawmakers to bring the requirements down to levels that will only target low-income earners and households.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-VT) would agree with discounting those making over $300,000 in the targeted payments but urged his colleagues to keep the threshold in-line with previous relief measures.
“I do not oppose this amendment. I do not think anybody here wants to see people who make $300,000 get direct payments,” Sanders said. “Let’s make certain that people who are making $75,000 per year or less do get their payments and couples making $150,000 or less do get their payments.”
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was the only nay on the amendment.
Eight Democrats would join 50 Republicans in support of an amendment that would prohibit the government from sending stimulus checks to those in the country illegally.
During the final rounds of voting Vice President Kamala Harris casted 3 tie breaking votes that shot down three earlier efforts including using the corona virus relief package to back a Canada-to-United States oil pipeline and support hydraulic fracking for oil and gas.
As WaPo notes, while the budget bill creates the next steps for Democrats to ram through Biden’s nearly $2 trillion package, that vote may not come until early March when congress would be under pressure to act as extended unemployment payments to Americans are due to run out.
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Politics
Biden Wants To Give Separated Illegal Immigrants $450,000 Per Person
The average amount sought through the courts is roughly $3.4 million per family, according to the report.
The Biden administration is mulling a plan to offer immigrant families separated during the Trump administration $450,000 per person in compensation, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.
The payments – part of an inter-agency solution to several lawsuits filed on behalf of separated parents and children claiming lasting psychological trauma could amount to nearly $1 million per family, though ‘the final numbers could shift,’ according to the report.
According to sources, most of the families crossing into the US from Mexico included one parent and one child. Depending on circumstances, many families could get smaller payouts.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border over the course of the Trump administration, citing figures provided to it by the government. The number of families eligible under the potential settlement is expected to be smaller, the people said, as government officials aren’t sure how many will come forward. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the families, the people said. -WSJ
In total, the potential payout could reach $1 billion or more.
Throughout the Trump administration, thousands of children were separated from their parents (and coyotes paid to bring them into the country) after they had crossed illegally into the country from Mexico. The lawsuits allege some of the children suffered various ailments – including malnutrition, heat exhaustion, and were kept in freezing cold rooms with little medical attention. Some claim lasting mental health problems due to the trauma of being without their parents for several months.
The average amount sought through the courts is roughly $3.4 million per family, according to the report.
“President Biden has agreed that the family separation policy is a historic moral stain on our nation that must be fully remedied,” said ACLU deputy director, Lee Gelernt. “That remedy must include not only meaningful monetary compensation, but a pathway to remain in the country.”
Senate Republicans slammed the plan on Thursday afternoon following the WSJ‘s report.
“The Biden administration’s promises of citizenship and entitlement programs have already caused the worst border crisis in history—a huge cash reward will make it even worse,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
The discussions about the payouts have taken place over the past few months among a group of dozens of private lawyers representing the families and government lawyers. Some government lawyers have viewed the payouts as excessive for people who had violated the law by crossing the border, the people said. One government lawyer threatened to remove his name from the case out of disagreement with the potential settlement offer, the people said. -WSJ
“It is a complicated, complex piece of litigation” – trying to resolve hundreds of separate lawsuits at the same time, and “sometimes even more complex to try the cases” said Margo Schlanger, who ran the civil-rights office during the Obama administration at the Department of Homeland Security and now teaches at the University of Michigan law school.
What will the reparations crowd think of this?
Politics
White House To America: ‘We’re Coming Door To Door…With Shots!’
Will CDC soon recommend a nation-wide re-count of Covid deaths?
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said at the daily press conference yesterday that President Biden’s strategy to get everyone a Covid shot – whether they want it or not – is to start going “door-to-door” to those not yet jabbed. So…they have a list? Also today: bomb-maker Raytheon goes “woke.” Capitol Hill Cops set up shop in California. Will CDC soon recommend a nation-wide re-count of Covid deaths?
Politics
Half A Million Illegals Crossed Since Harris Named Border ‘Czar’
By the time June’s figures are reported in the coming days, the combined number is expected to be over half a million, more than the entire population of Miami, Florida or Cleveland, Ohio.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures, around 500,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border since Kamala Harris was named border ‘czar’.
The Washington Free Beacon reported the findings, noting that only three months has passed since Harris took on the responsibility, and that the half a million figure is just those that have been apprehended.
The CBP says around 180,000 immigrants are being caught per month. In April agents arrested 178,854 illegal immigrants, the highest monthly figure for 21 years. That figure was then surpassed in May as agents apprehended 180,034 illegals.
By the time June’s figures are reported in the coming days, the combined number is expected to be over half a million, more than the entire population of Miami, Florida or Cleveland, Ohio.
Harris only bothered to visit the border when President Trump announced he was making a trip. Even then Harris visited El Paso, some 1000 miles away from where the crisis is taking place.
Previous to this, Harris lied and claimed she had been to the border, telling NBC’s Lester Holt “This whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”
When Holt pushed back and said she had not, Harris snapped “I—and I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t—I don’t understand the point that you’re making,” then again laughed maniacally:
On Tuesday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson argued that Harris’ trip to El Paso was designed to distract the media and keep them away from the real crisis hit areas of the border.
“They took her to a point in the border where she wouldn’t see the crisis and so the press wouldn’t report on the crisis,” Johnson said.
The Senator added, “You just simply can’t understand what this administration is doing. We literally are apprehending now about 6,000 people per day. That’s I mean, that’s a large caravan every day being processed, some of them being returned, others are being dispersed. But this crisis is not going away. It’s just under everybody’s radar because the press isn’t covering it.”


