Joe biden

Pay Dirt is a weekly foray into the pigpen of political funding. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Thursday. As conservatives re-up their criticism of Twitter for supposedly interfering in the 2020 election with its two-day ban on an unverified story about Hunter Biden’s laptop , it’s worth noting that Republican federal election officials already cleared the company of that specific charge. Last Friday night, Twitter CEO Elon Musk released “the Twitter Files,” a behind-the-scenes account of the social media giant’s controversial decision in the run-up to the 2020 election to temporarily restrict circulation of the New York Post ’s unconfirmed report about the contents of a laptop hard drive supposedly belonging to Hunter Biden. The platform reversed its decision in two days . But in that time, Twitter—citing company policy of restricting the spread of “hacked materials”—blocked all sharing of the story, and locked the New York Post out of its account. … [Read more...] about GOP Officials Said Twitter’s Hunter Biden Ban Wasn’t Corrupt

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese weighed in on ESG investment by stating that companies “should” make “business decisions based on what’s in the fiduciary interests of their stakeholders.” And the Biden administration, through the “energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act,” has put in place a policy framework “to encourage the production of lower-carbon energy going forward.” Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked, “Hey Brian, weigh in on this issue around ESG, you worked at BlackRock before you came into the White House. You probably saw the news this morning, there’s a firm out of the U.K. that effectively is asking your former boss, Larry Fink, to step down, arguing that he’s not doing enough when it comes to ESG. Of course, Blackrock’s gotten it on the other side for the last six months to a year from a number of red states that have been pulling their money out of the firm, arguing that they’re doing … [Read more...] about WH’s Deese on ESG: Companies Should Follow ‘Fiduciary Interests’ — We’re Incentivizing Investment in Green

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “The Close,” Biden energy coordinator Amos Hochstein responded to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposing to limit the profit margins of oil refiners by stating that he’ll let California speak for itself, but if companies are “going to have those kind of profits, the expectation I think of every American is that those profits would be invested back in America.” After Hochstein stated that, in “the short and medium term, which is long enough, we acknowledge that we’re going to need oil and gas in the American economy and in the global economy. So, it’s going to be with — fossil fuels [are] going to be with us for years to come, and enough, long enough that would justify increased production investment.” Co-host Romaine Bostick asked, [relevant exchange begins around 7:00] “And it’s not just, of course, what you’re doing at the federal level, at least coming out of the White House, a lot of states and municipalities are making their own … [Read more...] about WH on CA Refinery Profit Limits: We’ll Let Them Speak for Themselves, if Companies Make Large Profit, They Should Invest Back

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) called for a ban on TikTok and argued that one reason the app should be banned is that the application exposes minors to “stuff that they would never let Chinese teenagers see,” in addition to the privacy risks and the country’s ability to be used by the Chinese Communist Party to influence Americans. Cotton said TikTok “shouldn’t be present in the United States, Laura. There [are] a lot of things that you just pointed out there that are bad about TikTok, the way they expose minors to violent, depraved, degrading sexual material or young girls to videos about body image issues, stuff that they would never let Chinese teenagers see, or the risk to your data security and your privacy. But if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, why in the world would we allow a Chinese-owned company, which has to answer to the Chinese Communists, to be one of the largest media platforms in our … [Read more...] about Cotton: TikTok Exposes American Kids to ‘Stuff That They Would Never Let Chinese Teenagers See’

The town of McEwen was hit by intense flooding Saturday, along with the rest of Middle Tennessee, and shattered the state's rainfall record with 17.02 inches in 24 hours, the Associated Press reported. The state hadn't seen record-breaking rainfall since 1982, when 13.6 inches came down in 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service. McEwen, which is in Humphreys County, was issued a flash flood watch before the rain began, with weather forecasters expecting just four to six inches. Weather service meteorologist Krissy Hurley, in Nashville, said the worst storm the middle of the state had seen before Saturday produced nine inches of rain. "Forecasting almost a record is something we don't do very often," Hurley told AP. "Double the amount we've ever seen was almost unfathomable." The flooding in Tennessee has left at least 22 people dead as rescue crews searched Sunday for missing residents. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below. Rescue crews … [Read more...] about Tennessee Town Hit by Flooding Shatters Rainfall Record with 17 Inches

The summit was originally scheduled to be held at the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan District, central Seoul, which was also where a state dinner was held when President Joe Biden visited Korea in May. However, the dinner was ultimately held at the Yeongbin-gwan. As a series of confrontations between the ruling and opposition parties continue over the allocation of additional budgets to complete the relocation of the Presidential Office by the end of the year, it seems that the Yeongbin-gwan was chosen as it was the most suitable location to host a formal event. Deputy presidential spokesperson Lee Jae-myoung said in a briefing that the use of the Yeongbin-gwan is “meaningful in terms of historical and traditional inheritance and in reusing practical spaces.” The government’s plan to build a new guest house in accordance to the Presidential Office relocating to Yongsan is currently on hold. After criticism rose over the plan to spend 87.8 billion won ($66 million) to build a … [Read more...] about ‘What was the point of using all that money’

ATLANTA — As Republicans smarting from Herschel Walker’s defeat in Georgia continue the process of assigning blame , one man seems to be conspicuously above reproach: Gov. Brian P. Kemp. The state’s Republican governor — once derided as an unhinged far-right disrupter following a series of wildly provocative 2018 campaign ads — has emerged in the aftermath of Tuesday’s Senate runoff as one of his party’s savvier political operators. On Nov. 8, Mr. Kemp won re-election by a resounding eight-point margin — a remarkable transformation for a politician who went from being booed by conservatives at his own events in the May primary to defeating a national Democratic star, Stacey Abrams. His ability to deftly walk a fine line of providing just enough support to Mr. Walker without being damaged by his defeat was proof of Mr. Kemp’s formidable political instincts, Republicans inside and outside the state said. He has survived and even thrived in the face of Donald J. Trump’s … [Read more...] about The Georgia Republican Unscathed by Walker’s Defeat

A top House Democrat celebrated Tuesday after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia’s permitting reform bill was excluded from the annual military spending package. In August, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to help Manchin pass a bill that would accelerate federal permitting for energy and mining projects in exchange for his sponsoring of the Democrats’ climate spending bill.  However, after Congressional leaders chose to remove Manchin’s bill from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) due to a lack of votes, Democratic House Natural Resources Chair Raul Grijalva, who along with many more left-wing Democrats had opposed the bill, touted the defeat of Manchin’s legislation as a win for “environmental justice communities” across the nation, according to a Tuesday press release. (RELATED: Biden Admin Will Spend Over $13 Billion To Bring Down Soaring Energy Bills) “Thanks to the hard-fought persistence and vocal … [Read more...] about ‘Ugly Asterisk’: House Democrat Takes A Victory Lap After Helping Kill Manchin’s Energy Bill