Senate passes debt ceiling bill to avert US default

 The Senate voted to approve a bill that raises the debt ceiling for two more years, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk just days before the US potentially runs out of money to pay its bills.

The final count was 63-36. There were 17 Republicans opposed and four Democrats who voted against it. The House approved the legislation 314-117 Wednesday night.

The Congressional approval takes the full faith and credit of the US off the negotiating table through the next presidential election and gives the markets an extended breather on an issue that regularly threatens economic chaos.

The concessions needed to get the deal done proved to be unpopular with certain members on both sides of the aisle, complicating efforts to squeeze legislation through Congress before a default on US debt. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that default could happen as early as Monday.

The centerpiece of the pact negotiated by Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is a cap on federal spending. It holds spending flat for 2024 and imposes new limits for 2025 without touching Social Security, Medicare or the military. In exchange, the nation’s borrowing limit is boosted until January 2025.

The legislation also increases work requirements in order to qualify for food assistance, an incentive for people to find jobs. That measure proved unpopular with progressive Democrats.

Some House Republicans wanted the spending cuts to be deeper, as proposed in a separate piece of legislation passed by GOP lawmakers in April. Senate Republicans had a different concern: that the legislation didn’t adequately fund the military.

The bill does have a 3% increase in defense spending for fiscal year 2024 and a 1% increase in 2025, but Republican Sen. Susan Collins said the 1% rise actually amounted to a decrease when accounting for the pace of inflation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had to navigate around those concerns as well as votes on a series of 11 amendments, including one from Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine opposing a natural gas pipeline project from West Virginia through his home state.

If any of those amendments had passed, the bill would have gone back to the House.

White House staff also called senators individually on Thursday. Its legislative affairs team made contact with every single Senate Democratic office about the vote.

"We can’t send anything back to the House," Schumer told reporters Thursday. "That would risk default, plain and simple."

Later, once he was assured that the bill would receive enough votes, he said: "America can breathe a sigh of relief, because we are avoiding default."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/senate-passes-debt-ceiling-bill-to-avert-us-default-031513439.html

Biden plans to pick physician Mandy Cohen to lead CDC

 U.S. President Joe Biden plans to select former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing three people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Biden's formal announcement is expected later this month, according to the report.

If appointed, Cohen would replace Rochelle Walensky, who is stepping down on June 30 as head of the public health agency that critics have said was slow to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/Biden-plans-to-pick-physician-Mandy-Cohen-to-lead-CDC-WaPo--44018716/

Senate passes measure to halt Biden’s student debt forgiveness

 The Democratic-led Senate handed a stinging rebuke to President Biden on Thursday, passing a measure that overturns his student debt relief plan to give 40 million borrowers up to $20,000 in loan forgiveness — though a presidential veto is likely on the way.

The Senate passed the measure in a 52-46 vote just days after it cleared the GOP-majority House. Democratic Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) joined Republicans in voting to nix Biden’s proposal.

As a Congressional Review Act (CRA) measure, only 50 votes were required instead of the usual 60 to overcome a filibuster.

The White House has made it clear a veto is coming, and neither chamber can provide the two-thirds vote to override.

Biden’s proposal, however, is still at the mercy of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, which seemed highly skeptical of it during oral arguments earlier this year.

While student debt forgiveness has strong support among progressives, its bicameral rejection would not have been possible without help from moderate Democrats.

In a statement, Manchin said the nation “simply cannot afford to add another $400 billion to the national debt.”

“There are already more than 50 existing student loan repayment and forgiveness programs aimed at attracting individuals to vital service jobs, such as teachers, health care workers, and public servants. This Biden proposal undermines these programs and forces hard-working taxpayers who already paid off their loans or did not got to college to shoulder the cost,” he said.

The votes in the House and Senate happened quickly as the Republicans were able to fast-track them after the Government Accountability Office said Biden’s plan is subject to the CRA.

The debt relief is currently set to cost taxpayers an estimated $400 billion. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that reversing course on the relief would reduce the deficit by $320 billion over 10 years.

Liberals have said they not only disagree with efforts to overturn the measure but have concerns doing so would make it so borrowers owe backpay on the interest for payments not made over the pandemic. 

“I’ve seen different legal opinions about whether it is retroactive or exactly how it would affect borrowers, but I think it is clear that it would be very disruptive and very confusing and make it challenging for borrowers to return to repayment successfully,” Education Department Under Secretary James Kvaal said during a House hearing on the issue. 

Republicans have denied their bill has any retroactive concerns and have promoted the measure to end student debt relief as an act of fairness to American taxpayers.

“Our resolution prevents average Americans, 87 percent of whom currently have no student loans, from being stuck with a policy that the administration is doing not to be fair to all, but rather to favor the few,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. 

Despite this measure’s certain death at the White House, Republicans this week are claiming another victory against Biden’s student loan actions. 

The House on Wednesday passed the bipartisan debt ceiling agreement, which includes a hard cutoff of the pandemic-era student loan payment pause at the end of the summer, nixing any chance advocates had of convincing Biden to continue the moratorium on payments. 

Although the president already said payments would begin again 60 days after June 30, at the latest, he has gone back on his word before about restarting them.

“While I wish I could take his words at face value, his past actions have showed me otherwise. Passing the Fiscal Responsibility Act is the only sure-fire way to force a return to repayment and prevent the president from issuing another illegal extension,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

And Republicans are optimistic that their challenges to the debt forgiveness will prevail at the Supreme Court.

https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4030071-senate-passes-measure-to-halt-bidens-student-debt-forgiveness/

Extensive Hunter Biden laptop archive with nearly 10,000 photos published on new website

 An immense catalog of photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop were published Thursday on a new website, as the first son faces ongoing investigations into his overseas business affairs and potential tax and gun crimes.

Nearly 10,000 photos taken between 2008 and 2019 will be hosted at BidenLaptopMedia.com after a former Trump White House aide apparently spent months scanning the digital archive, redacting some images and publishing the rest.

“The number one thing we’re about … is truth and transparency,” Garrett Ziegler, who founded the nonprofit Marco Polo, told Fox News.

Among the redacted pictures are those that display private information, such as Social Security, banking and credit card numbers.

Explicit photos of Hunter’s sister-in-law-turned-lover Hallie Biden, the widow of the late Beau Biden, are also sealed from public view.

An extensive archive of photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop were published Thursday on a new website.

Nearly 10,000 photos taken between 2008 and 2019 will be hosted at BidenLaptopMedia.com.

The website was created by former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler.

Bidenlaptopmedia.com

The outlet also revealed two previously unseen photos, one of text messages between Hunter and Hallie and another of Hunter with then-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, who testified last year before the Delaware-based federal grand jury investigating the first son.

“If the American people want to know what their first family is like, they’re going to get it. And we’re not going to be taking out photos that paint the Bidens in a good light,” Ziegler told Fox News Digital.

“There’s a picture of a letter that Hunter’s daughter, Finnegan, wrote to, I assume, troops stationed overseas, like in Iraq and Afghanistan. … It’s an adorable letter. Finnegan’s around 9 years old at the time, and it definitely paints the Bidens in a good light.”

One of the many images published on BidenLaptopMedia.com.

bidenlaptopmedia.com

Federal prosecutors have yet to announce whether they will bring charges against the 53-year-old Hunter for alleged crimes including tax fraud and lying on a gun purchase form about his drug use.

Hunter faces a separate congressional inquiry into his business affairs abroad by the House Oversight Committee, which has combed through bank records to substantiate claims of influence-peddling in the first family.

Many images from the laptop show Hunter in various states of undress and surrounded by drug paraphernalia.

In his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” Hunter Biden recounted details about having struggled for years with an addiction to crack cocaine.

In his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” the younger Biden recounts struggling for years with an addiction to crack cocaine.

Ziegler’s Marco Polo organization also hosts the website BidenLaptopEmails.com, which gives web users access to more than 120,000 emails from the scandal-hit first son’s laptop.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/01/hunter-biden-laptop-photo-archive-published-on-new-website/

Paratek Pharmaceuticals shares jump amid report about takeover interest

 Paratek Pharmaceuticals (PRTK) soared 16% amid a report about one of the potential private equity buyers for the biopharma company.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3976806-paratek-pharamceuticals-jumps-amid-report-about-takeover-interest

Biden trips and falls during graduation ceremony, recovers

 President Joe Biden tripped and fell after handing out the last diploma at a graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy on Thursday.

The 80-year-old U.S. president quickly got up on one knee helped by three people and walked back to his seat unassisted.

As Biden was helped up, he pointed behind him, seeming to indicate what he tripped over.

White House communications director Ben LaBolt said on Twitter that Biden was fine. "There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands," he explained.

The fall came after Biden delivered a commencement address to a flag-waving audience where he warned graduates they will enter service in an increasingly unstable world, citing challenges from Russia and China.

Biden is running for re-election in 2024. Doctors declared him healthy and fit for duty after a physical examination in February.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/currency/US-DOLLAR-RUSSIAN-ROUBL-2370597/news/Biden-trips-and-falls-during-graduation-ceremony-recovers-quickly-44018602/

Xi Calls On China's Top National Security Officials To Prepare For "Worst Case Scenarios"

 By Alex Wu of The Epoch Times

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping on May 30 told his top national security officials to be ready for “worst case scenarios” and “stormy seas”.

Xi was addressing officials attending the first National Security Commission meeting since the CCP’s 20th National Congress last year, according to state-run Xinhua.

As commission chairman, Xi  said they must deeply understand “the complexity and difficulty of the national security issues we now face have increased significantly.”  Xi called on CCP officials to carry forward the “spirit of struggle” and “must adhere to bottom-line thinking and worst-case-scenario thinking, and get ready to undergo the major tests of high winds and rough waves, and even perilous, stormy seas.”

Xi’s use of “bottom-line thinking and worst-case-scenario thinking” has drawn the outside world’s attention.

Wang He, China affairs commentator and The Epoch Times columnist, wrote: “This may be the first time in a top political meeting of the CCP that the two terms are used together. The combination of these two terms shows that the tone of the National Security Commission meeting is really combative.

“When the CCP faces the most dangerous time for it, it acts most viciously. It also means the CCP is at its weakest point and using ferocious acts to cover up its inner weakness.”

‘Complex and Grave’

Xi also emphasized the regime must speed up the modernization of the military, making it more effective in “actual combat and practical use,” as the CCP faces a “complex and grave” situation in terms of national security.

Regarding Xi’s latest assessment of the situation in the meeting, China affairs observer Zhong Yuan told The Epoch Times that this is equivalent to admitting that after the CCP’s 20th Party Congress last year, the new top national security officials were active but did not improve the situation.

“National security issues for the CCP, on the contrary, have deteriorated significantly,” Zhong said.

“This assessment is unusual, as the situation should have improved after the new national security commission came to power. But now they finally admitted the true situation, which shows that the CCP top officials are indeed more worried,” he said.

Since last year, a series of measures taken by the United States, such as the containment of the CCP in the high-tech sector, the arrests of Chinese spies, the shutdown of China’s overseas secret police stations, and sanctions against Chinese officials, are all powerful countermeasures against the regime’s global expansion and infiltration. Other countries are also following suit.

“The top circle of the CCP should obviously feel that the pressure from the international community is increasing,” Zhong said.

“Now the CCP dares not openly advocate for war, but instead claims to ‘take the initiative to shape an external security environment that is beneficial to us’. They must be really afraid of any counterattacks and being defeated.”

In the meeting, Xi also required the construction of a national security risk monitoring and early warning system, enhanced national security education, and improved data and AI security management.

“The CCP is not only afraid of external pressure,” Zhong said. “But it is also afraid of internal problems, so Xi requires maintaining political security and improving the management of data and artificial intelligence security.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/xi-calls-chinas-top-national-security-officials-prepare-worst-case-scenarios