News of the World

[kyonides]

Debt Standoff: House Passes GOP’s Spending Cuts Package,
Sending Bill to Democrat-Led Senate

The legislation, called the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, passed 217 to 215 with no Democrat support. Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Tim Burchett (R-KY), and Ken Buck (R-CO) defected.

The passage is a victory for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who touts the bill as a negotiating tool that forces President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) into talks with him on spending cuts in exchange for a debt limit increase.
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The bill comes in response to the U.S. approaching its debt ceiling as early as this summer. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned of “economic catastrophe” if Congress and Biden do not move to suspend or increase the nation’s borrowing limit.

Biden and Schumer have been angling for a “clean” debt ceiling hike, meaning they want to raise it without the spending reductions House Republicans are aiming for.

Biden Energy Secretary Wants U.S. Military
to Adopt an All-Electric Vehicle Fleet in 7 Years

Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm testified Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee that she supported requiring the United States military to move to an all-electric non-vehicle fleet by 2030.

When asked by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) if she supported doing that, Granholm responded, “I do, and I think we can get there as well.”

She added, “And I do think that reducing our reliance on the volatility of globally-traded fossil fuels where we know that global events, such as the war in Ukraine, can jack up prices for people back home – it does not contribute to energy security.”

“I think energy security is achieved when we have homegrown, clean energy that is abundant, like you see in Iowa. We think we can be a leader globally in how we have become energy-independent,” she said.

Ernst has been a staunch critic of the Biden administration’s push for electric vehicles, which she says require lithium and cobalt, which are often mined and processed with slave labor in China or child labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Last year, Ernst — a combat veteran and retired Iowa National Guard colonel — succeeded in including a provision in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting electric vehicle component sourcing from any entity that uses child or slave labor.

 That's just another demential way to say they wanna lose wars from now on.

Eric Schmitt Grills Jennifer Granholm for Giving Millions
to Company ‘Primarily’ Operating in China

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) grilled President Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, for allowing her department to award a $200 million grant to a lithium battery company that “primarily” operates in China.
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“I want to ask you about Microvast, which is a lithium battery company that operates primarily out of the People’s Republic of China. Your agency granted $200 million worth of a grant to this company. You’re aware of this, correct,” Schmitt asked the secretary.
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He was referring to the Republican Arkansas delegation’s letter to Granholm in February, which also asked why a federal grant aimed at making America less reliant on China was being awarded to Microvast.

Granholm answered by claiming that there is a vetting process for all companies before they are handed the taxpayer-funded cash to “ensure that there are not, there’s no money flowing to countries of concern.” She later added, “We [the administration] don’t want to see the dollars going to any countries of concern we want them to be.”

Schmitt followed up by asking if it was Granholm’s “commitment that no dollars will go to any company, any energy company taking advantage of either tax credits or grants that are owned by China [or] by a Chinese company.” She said, “No state-owned enterprise will get funding from the bipartisan [infrastructure bill].”
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“I think we’re using this CFIUS vetting program to be able to identify exactly where their control is of a particular technology and country. We want to make sure … we are the beneficiaries of those acts and not others,” she claimed.

Now it's clear that the left simply want China to take control of the US military lithim supply, thus rendering them useless once for all.  Unless they pretend to enslave more kids in Congo.

Whistleblower: Federal Government Facilitating
‘Multi-Billion-Dollar Child Trafficking Operation’ at U.S. Border

A whistleblower who worked at President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services (HHS) says the federal government is facilitating a “multi-billion-dollar child trafficking operation” at the United States-Mexico border that delivers migrant children to traffickers, abusers, and others looking to exploit them.

On Wednesday, House Judiciary Subcommittee Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Chair Tom McClintock (R-CA) held a hearing with experts and whistleblowers regarding the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) program, overseen by the Biden administration, that releases migrant children to sponsors throughout American communities.

Tara Lee Rodas, who worked at HHS in 2021 before blowing the whistle on the UAC program, testified that the federal government is merely a “middleman” in a migrant child trafficking operation that has proven lucrative for the Mexican drug cartels and the sponsors the children end up living with inside the U.S.

“Today, children will work overnight shifts at slaughterhouses, factories, and restaurants to pay their debts to smugglers and traffickers,” Rodas testified.
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“Whether intentional or not, it can be argued that the U.S. government has become the middleman in a large-scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children,” Rodas said.

And those kids are being sold like simple merchandise at the border as well.

Biden to Place U.S. Nuclear Submarines in South Korea
in Deal with Visiting President Yoon

President Joe Biden and visiting South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday signed an agreement that would increase U.S. support for South Korea’s security and give Seoul more input in responses to North Korean aggression.

In exchange, Yoon abandoned his proposal for South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons.

A major element of the “Washington Declaration,” as the deal has been dubbed, is an agreement for U.S. nuclear submarines to resume docking in South Korea — a practice that was discontinued in the early 1980s. Soon afterward, the United States withdrew all of the nuclear weapons it had stationed in South Korea.

U.S. and South Korean officials said the resumption of submarine docking would be a “very clear demonstration of strength” to deter North Korean aggression. The U.S. also agreed to “better integrate” South Korean military assets into “the alliance’s effort to strengthen deterrence and manage concerns about nuclear non-proliferation in the region.”

The declaration signed by Biden and Yoon created a “nuclear consultative group” (NCG) intended to give Seoul “additional insight in how we think about planning for major contingencies in many respects,” according to a U.S. official.

Asa Hutchinson Pledges Devotion to Ukraine
in 2024 Presidential Campaign Announcement

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson ® pledged his support to Ukraine during the formal launch of his presidential campaign on Wednesday, where he also touted his claims of fighting the establishment and consistency as a conservative throughout his political career.

Hutchinson, who said during an early April interview on ABC’s This Week that he would run for president, first highlighted the role the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, has had in shaping who he is and his career– from his first law office to building the city’s first FM radio station to serving as Bentonville’s City Attorney and starting a family with his wife, Susan.

He announced his bid for U.S. Senate 30 years ago on the same steps — a time when Arkansas was a blue state and “and the Republican Party was pretty much non-existent.”

“I stepped up to take on runaway federal spending; to fight for a strong national defense; to support the life of unborn children; and to unleash the private sector of our economy,” his remarks, as prepared for delivery, read.

Hutchinson highlighted his record as a “conservative Republican,” particularly clinging to that ideology even when it was not popular to do so.

Cuba Cancels Communist May Day Parade Due to Gasoline Shortage

The head of the only legal workers’ union in Cuba announced on Tuesday that the communist regime had canceled its most prestigious annual event, the May Day parade in Havana, due to “limitations with securing fuel.”

Communists around the world typically mark May Day, or International Workers’ Day, on May 1, with parades, riots, and other acts of violence. Communism is a totalitarian ideology that has resulted in at least 110 million killings — not counting the 400 million victims of China’s “One-Child Policy” — in the last century. Communists have ruled Cuba since the 1959 coup by late dictator Fidel Castro and typically force the population to partake in May Day celebrations across the country every year.

The cancellation of the Havana May Day parade comes as an embarrassing blow to the communist regime, which had issued a call to arms to the general population as recently as this first day of April to participate in May Day activities. The Communist Party had also launched a campaign to attract “solidarity tourism” by international communists and boasted on Monday that 300 “comrades” had traveled to the country to observe May 1.

An earthly paradise with no gas is no paradise at all, I guess.