Tag: Biden

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Indian American nominated as DOL solicitor

Seema Nanda

Nanda, who has specialised in labour and employment law, is now a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labour and Worklife Program…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden has nominated Seema Nanda, a former CEO of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to be the Department of Labour solicitor, the White House announced on Friday.

Her nomination to the senior administration position will have to be approved by the Senate.

She is returning to the Labour Department having served as its chief of staff and deputy solicitor in President Barack Obama’s administration.

At the DNC, she was the CEO for about two years and stepped down last year to facilitate coordinating fundraising with arm of Biden’s campaign.

Nanda, who has specialised in labour and employment law, is now a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labour and Worklife Program.

In prior stints in government, she has also led what is now the Justice Department’s Office of Immigrant and Employee Rights Section and was a supervisor attorney in the National Labour Relations Board.

US President Joe Biden

Nanda has also been the COO and vice president of Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. She was appointed to the position by Vanita Gupta, who was the organisation’s president and is now Biden’s nominee for associate attorney general.

Confirmation of Gupta’s nomination is still pending with the Senate.

Only one Indian American to a senior administration position, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has cleared the Senate.

Also read:Biden invites 40 world leaders to climate summit

On Thursday the White House formally withdrew the nomination of Neera Tanden for the cabinet-level position of the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

She ran into opposition from Senators of Democratic and Republican parties because of her intemperate tweets.

The Office of the Solicitor “helps our clients make America a magnet for jobs, equip workers with the skills they need to succeed in those jobs, protect them from injuries or illnesses caused by their work and assure workers that they receive promised benefits and statutorily-mandated compensation for their efforts,” according to the department.

The Labour Department’s solicitor oversees a staff of 700, including 400 lawyers, according to the department.

Also read:Biden condemns Myanmar for outrageous violence

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Biden, Harris set eyes on 2024 election

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris
President blames Trump for dysfunction at the border, denies perception of him as welcoming was driving the surge of migrants, reports Asian Lite News.

US President Joe Biden is planning to run for re-election with Kamala Harris as his running mate.

“I would fully expect that to be the case. She’s doing a great job. She’s a great partner, she’s a great partner,” he said when asked about his vice-presidential candidate in the 2024 election at his news conference on Thursday.

A reporter pointed out that former President Donald Trump had set up his re-election campaign soon after taking office but Biden hasn’t yet.

“My predecessor need do to,” he said and joked, “My predecessor, oh God, I miss him.”

He said, “My plan is to run for reelection. That’s my expectation. I don’t even think about (it),” he said about the prospects of facing his nemesis Trump again. “I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party. Do you?”

Turning philosophical, he said: “The way I view things, I’ve become a great respecter of fate in my life.”

He said that his goal is to “change the paradigm. We start to reward work, not just wealth.”

He will be 81 years old in 2024.

Having already exceeded the goal of giving out 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine before the target day of 100 days in office, he raised the target to 200 million shots.

This was Biden’s first news conference and the 64-day lag since taking office was longest of recent presidents.

The hour-long formal encounter with reporters was a marked contrast to the confrontational style of Trump and the reporters. When he entered the East Room of the White House, the reporters respectfully stood up to greet him.

Since he is gaffe-prone when he speaks spontaneously, the encounter was carefully orchestrated with Biden calling up reporters from an apparently screened list on the podium of only reporters from media considered sympathetic to him.

Unlike Trump, who spontaneously called on reporters hostile to him and had it out, Biden did not take questions from anyone from media like Fox News that White House considers unfriendly.

Biden often looked at notes when answering questions.

(Xinhua/IANS)

The few times he raised his voice were when he condemned the Republicans for their opposition to voting rights legislation proposed by his party to expand access to polling.

He said that it is “sick”, “despicable” and “un-American”.

The selected reporters mostly obliged him with softball the questions.

The only forceful questions that put him on the defensive were about the migration crisis at the Mexico border, where thousands of people are trying to enter the country and children are being held under appalling conditions.

He blamed Trump for the dysfunction at the border and denied that the perception of him as welcoming was driving the surge of migrants.

He quipped, “I guess I should be flattered if people are coming because I’m the nice guy.”

But he distanced himself from the assertion that his attitude towards immigrants was bringing in more of them and said the surge “happens every single, solitary year… in winter when it’s cooler.

Biden said that Trump “dismantled all the elements that exist to deal with what had been a problem and — and has been — continued to be a problem for a long time”.

Biden said that most of those coming in were being sent back to Mexico but he was welcoming of children coming by themselves.

“The only people we’re not going to let sitting there on the other side of the Rio Grande (border) by themselves with no help are children,” he said.

He has been crticised for keeping children in the border patrol custody for longer than the 72 hours mandated by courts.

He acknowledged that some are held in “circumstances that are not acceptable” and said it could be resolved by sending the children to their relatives sooner and by creating more facilities to hold them.

Also Read-Tough to meet May 1 Afghan troop exit deadline: Biden

Read More-Biden promises 200mn jabs in 100 days

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Tough to meet May 1 Afghan troop exit deadline: Biden

US President Joe Biden

“It’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline. Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out.”said Biden…reports Asian Lite News

President Joe Biden has indicated that the US is unlikely to meet the May 1 deadline set by his predecessor Donald Trump to get American troops out of Afghanistan.

Addressing a news conference in Washington on Thursday, Biden said: “It’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline. Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out.”

He said that the US was consulting its NATO allies who also have troops there “and if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way”.

Afghan security force members take part in a military operation in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan

Replying to a question, the President said that he could not see the troops still being in Afghanistan next year.

“It is not my intention to stay there for a long time. But the question is how and in what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave under a deal that looks like it’s not being able to be worked out to begin with? How is that done?”

Also read:N.Korean missile launch not provocation: Biden

He appeared to question the legitimacy of the democratically elected Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani by disparaging referring to him as “the ‘leader’, quote, in Afghanistan and Kabul”.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin “just met with Ghani and I’m waiting for the briefing on that. He is the the ‘leader’, quote, in Afghanistan and Kabul”, he said.

US troops in Afghanistan.

More than 20 years after the US and NATO troops were sent to Afghanistan to root out the Al Qaeda terror organisation and the Taliban that provided it bases, about 2,500 American troops remaining there, although down from about 100,000 at the height of the deployment in 2010.

Trump started negotiations with the Taliban for a peace settlement in Afghanistan and had set the May 1, 2021, deadline for the troops to return home.

Biden has kept on Zalmay Khalilzad, who was appointed by Trump as the special envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation, and is still trying to seal a peace deal.

Also read:US Defence Secy visits Ghani

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Harris picked as point person for migration response

Biden described Harris as someone compared to whom nobody “is better qualified to do this…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden announced that he picked Vice President Kamala Harris as the point person in the country’s diplomatic efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries in Central America to stem migration at the southern border.

Biden made the announcement at the White House on Wednesday, describing Harris as someone compared to whom nobody “is better qualified to do this,” citing the vice president’s experience as California’s former attorney general.

Faced with bipartisan pressure to tackle the surge of immigrants, especially unaccompanied children seeking reunion with their parents in the United States, at the US-Mexico border, Biden acknowledged there was a “serious spike” in people heading to the southern border even during the previous administration.

US President Joe Biden

“This new surge we are dealing with now started in the past administration but it is our responsibility” to resolve the problem, he said.

Also read:‘Biden admin mulls corporate tax hike’

Senior administration officials briefing reporters on the decision said Wednesday that Harris will work along two tracks: in the near term, “stemming the flow of irregular migrants” to the United States; and in the longer term, establishing a “strategic partnership” with Mexico and countries in the Northern Triangle — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — that is “based on respect and shared values, to enhance prosperity, combat current corruption, and strengthen the rule of law.”

The new role of Harris resembles that of Biden when he was vice president and asked by then President Barack Obama in 2014 and 2015 to lead diplomatic efforts in the Northern Triangle after a surge of unaccompanied minors from those countries began arriving in the United States.

Harris said Wednesday that there is “no question this is a challenging situation,” stressing the need to enforce laws and address the root causes in the meantime. She said she looked forward to engaging in diplomacy with the relevant countries, as well as reaching out to the private sector.

Administration officials including Roberta Jacobson, special assistant to the president and coordinator for the southwest border, and Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, travelled to Mexico and Guatemala this week to discuss with officials there plans to stop migrants from fleeing the countries.

Also read:N.Korean missile launch not provocation: Biden


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‘Biden admin mulls corporate tax hike’

The treasury secretary noted that the 1.9-trillion-dollar Covid-19 relief package recently rolled out has been deficit-funded…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden is considering an increase in the corporate income tax rate, as one of the tax proposals to offset the cost of the upcoming long-term investment plans, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

“I think a package that consists of investment in people, investments in infrastructure, will help to create the jobs in the American economy and changes to the tax structure will help to pay for those programs,” Yellen said at a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The treasury secretary noted that the 1.9-trillion-dollar Covid-19 relief package recently rolled out has been deficit-funded. “The stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan was not funded with any increase in taxes,” she said, adding that a longer-term plan probably would be accompanied with some revenue increases.

The current crisis is due to the pandemic, Yellen said. “But, once the economy is strong again, we are beyond the pandemic, President Biden is likely to propose that we engage in long-term plans to address long-standing investment shortfalls in our economy.”

She noted that investments in infrastructure, climate change, people, research and development, as well as manufacturing will make US economy more productive.

Also read:Putin invites Biden to virtual talks

“This will be spending over a 10-year horizon and would require some additional funding,” she told lawmakers.

One of the tax proposals Biden would consider is to increase corporate income tax rate back to 28 per cent, Yellen said, noting that the current US corporate income tax is among the lowest in developed countries.

US President Joe Biden

An increase in corporate income tax, if enacted, would mark a reversal of policy from the Donald Trump administration. In late 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a President Trump-advocated tax reform bill, which slashed the corporate income tax from 35 per cent to 21 per cent.

At the congressional hearing, some Republican lawmakers, including Representative Ann Wagner from Missouri, cautioned against raising taxes.

“We know that raising the corporate tax rates results in higher costs for small businesses, schools and American households,” Wagner said.

“Why is this country beginning to reopen and recover economically with the Biden administration preparing tax policy which would in the end hurt the American family and millions of struggling small businesses?” she continued.

Yellen, however, told lawmakers that the impact of the changes in corporate taxes have been studied for a long time, and the impact on prices and on consumers are “very unclear” from existing studies.

Also read:US Defence Secy visits Ghani

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Russia’s US envoy returns to Moscow

Anatoly Antonov during an interview with Xinhua in Moscow, Russia

Russia recalled its top US envoy after President Joe Biden said in an interview that Russia will “pay a price” for its alleged interference in the 2020 American election….reports Asian Lite News

The Russian Embassy in Washington confirmed that the country’s Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov has returned to Moscow for consultations after he was recalled late last week.

“Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov is on his way to Moscow to participate in consultations on rectifying Russia-US relations,” Xinhua news agency quoted the Embassy as saying in a Facebook post on Saturday.

The Embassy also posted two pictures along with the post, one showing Antonov, in a black jacket, at an airport and the other, an airplane, which appeared to be the one the Ambassador would fly in, with a Russian flag on the outside surface of the cockpit.

Antonov flew from New York, as there is no direct flight between Washington and Moscow amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

He will arrive in Moscow on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russia recalled its top envoy in the US after President Joe Biden said in an ABC News interview on March 17 that Russia will “pay a price” for its alleged interference in the 2020 American election.

A US intelligence report released the previous day directly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering a wide-ranging influence operation to interfere in the election, intending to hurt Biden’s campaign.

In the ABC News interview, Biden also agreed with the interviewer’s claim that Putin was “a killer”.

Responding directly to Biden’s remarks, Putin said on March 18: “I would say to him: I wish you good health. I say that without irony or joking.

Also read:KIM TO BIDEN: WE WILL MATCH YOUR ACTIONS, FRIENDLY OR HOSTILE

“I would like to offer President Biden (the opportunity) to continue our discussion, but on condition that we’ll do so what is called live, online. Without anything pre-recorded, in an open and direct discussion.

“It seems to me, it would be interesting both for the Russian people and for the US people, as well as for many other countries.”

Joe Biden

Asked by reporters whether Biden regretted the “killer” statement, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a press briefing on March 18: “Nope. The President gave a direct answer to a direct question.”

She added Washington still wishes to develop its relationship with Moscow.

But, Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry said: “The current US administration never ceases to surprise us with its absurd public statements.

“It’s not just about the unseemly attacks against Russia’s top officials, but also the absurd accusations of Russia’s interference in last year’s presidential election in the US.”

Also read:Putin invites Biden to virtual talks

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Nord Stream 2 faces US sanction threat

Blinken has slammed the Nord Stream as a Russian project intended to divide Europe.

Nord Stream 2 is a “bad deal for Germany, for Ukraine, and for our Central and Eastern European allies and partners”, said Blinken…reports Asian Lite News

The US government has threatened new sanctions against companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, urging them to pull out of the German-Russian project.

The US State Department “reiterates its warning that any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks US sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline”, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement on Thursday.

He added that the Department is tracking efforts to complete the pipeline and “evaluating information regarding entities that appear to be involved” in the project.

Nord Stream 2 is a “bad deal for Germany, for Ukraine, and for our Central and Eastern European allies and partners”, Blinken said.

“As multiple US administrations have made clear, this pipeline is a Russian geopolitical project intended to divide Europe.”

Also read:Kabul to attend Turkey, Russia summits

The Secretary of State pointed to sanctions legislation passed by Congress against the project and said President Joe Biden would comply with it.

So far, the US has only imposed sanctions on the Russian company KVT-RUS, which operates the pipe-laying vessel Fortuna.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Russian President Vladimir Putin

The measures were announced by former President Donald Trump’s administration shortly before the end of its term in January.

US officials argue the pipeline, which is supposed to transport 55 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Russia to Germany once a year trhough the Baltic Sea, will make Europe too dependent on Russian energy supplies.

Supporters of the gas pipeline, on the other hand, have long accused the US of undermining the project in order to increase sales of their liquid gas in Europe.

Also read:No talks possible with US for now: N.Korea

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William Burns confirmed as CIA Director

William Burns, who is President-elect Joe Biden nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency

The Senate on Thursday cleared Burns’ nomination by a voice vote on the floor….reports Asian Lite News

The US Senate has unanimously confirmed William Burns as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), installing an experienced career diplomat to head the spy agency.

The Senate on Thursday cleared Burns’ nomination by a voice vote on the floor.

With his confirmation, President Joe Biden now has his full team of top national security officials in place.

Retiring from the post of Deputy Secretary of State in 2014 after a three-decade career in the foreign service, Burns won bipartisan support after Biden tapped him to lead the CIA, reports Xinhua news agency.

US President Joe Biden

He sailed through the Senate confirmation hearing in February.

Burns’ confirmation came as Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz lifted his hold after the State Department released what Cruz considered to be a welcoming announcement saying the Biden administration would comply with Congress’ legislation sanctioning entities involved in the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project between Russia and Germany.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Burns stressed that intelligence must not become political.

“That is exactly what President Biden expects of CIA. It was the first thing he told me when he asked me to take on this role,” he added.

“He said he wants the agency to give it to him straight — and I pledged to do just that, and to defend those who do the same.”

Also read:No talks possible with US for now: N.Korea