February 4, 2024

Sunday, February 4, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

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Joe is always busy.

The President and First Lady visited the Delaware graveside of their son Beau Biden, who would have been 55 yesterday. He died on May 30, 2015.

South Carolina.

Not only did the President win 96.3% of the votes in South Carolina’s Democratic Primary, he did it with a 13% increase in Black voter turnout.

What was that media prediction about blacks sitting out the 2024 election! #4MoreYears #BidenHarris2024

The NBC News Decision Desk allocated all 55 Democratic delegates in South Carolina to Joe Biden. Marianne Williamson who won 2.% of the vote and Dean Phillips who received 1.6 % will not be awarded any delegates. Yes, Dean Phillips came in third, behind Marianne Williamson. Sad.

Dark Brandon spoke up in South Carolina last night, “Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser — again.”

No wonder they hate Joe.

30 Things Joe Biden Did as President You Might Have Missed - POLITICO

Drone armies, expanded overtime pay and over-the-counter birth control pills are just some of the new things Biden has ushered in as president that you might not have heard about.

Below are the first five of the thirty. Click on the blue link above to see all thirty.

LABOR

Expanded overtime guarantees for millions

President Barack Obama late in his second term oversaw a regulation that called for workers making up to $47,476 to be automatically entitled to time-and-a-half overtime pay. The move infuriated businesses and Republicans, who sought to block the rule in both Congress and the courts. Donald Trump’s election and a Texas judge’s ruling in 2016 led the Labor Department to revisit the matter and set a significantly lower threshold of $35,568.

The move: Biden’s Department of Labor reopened the issue and proposed a rule at the end of August that would push up that cutoff by nearly $20,000 — to $55,000. The draft regulation, which still needs to be finalized, would also include a mechanism to automatically adjust that level every three years by yoking it to the 35th percentile of annual income.

The impact: The proposed rule would pave the way for roughly 3.6 million additional workers to be eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay than were eligible under the 2019 policy, according to the Labor Department. It stands to be one of the most concrete policies to boost workers’ wages under Biden’s term, as other ambitious proposals like raising the minimum wage have been bottled up in Congress.

The upshot: The Biden administration is aiming to finalize the rule in April, but the agency will have to figure out a way to defend it against legal arguments similar to the ones that stymied the similar Obama rule. Additionally, any internal delays could expose the regulation to being later overturned by lawmakers using the Congressional Review Act, a tool that was successfully used in recent years to undo rules issued under both Obama and Trump.

— Nick Niedzwiadek

HEALTH CARE

First over-the-counter birth control pill to hit U.S. stores in 2024

The push to make an oral contraceptive available without a prescription predates Biden’s presidency. But the issue took on fresh urgency when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, particularly as conservatives openly questioned the legal precedent establishing the right to privacy for birth control access. Within weeks of the ruling, a contraceptive maker, which had spent more than six years studying consumers’ ability to use the product correctly without a doctor’s supervision, applied to the FDA for over-the-counter approval.

The move: Despite concerns from FDA scientists about consumers’ comprehension of the drug’s proper use and risks, in July 2023 the agency endorsed making the pill available over the counter.

The impact: CVS and Walgreens, two of the country’s biggest retail pharmacies, have pledged to carry the contraceptive, called Opill, once it’s available in early 2024. Reproductive rights advocates say an OTC oral contraceptive will help make birth control access more equitable by reaching people who can’t afford or easily visit a health care provider for a prescription.

The Upshot. Opill’s success will come down to its retail price and whether public and private insurers opt to cover it. The Affordable Care Act requires most private health plans to cover contraception at no cost to consumers, but insurers generally don’t cover OTC medications unless they’re prescribed. Advocates for greater contraception access say those policies create a barrier for the uninsured, teenagers and people of color. But mandating no cost-sharing could create challenges at the point of sale for pharmacists and insurance plans. The Biden administration is considering requiring no-cost coverage of OTC items like Opill without a prescription by most commercial plans.

— Lauren Gardner

SCHOOL SAFETY

Gun violence prevention and gun safety get a boost

After the 2022 massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the Biden administration called for stricter gun legislation. Uvalde spurred the first significant gun safety law in 30 years, which Biden signed in June of 2022, and the president took further action on his own.

The move: Biden established the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and in 2023 schools were awarded $286 million in federal dollars to support student wellness and school mental health professionals.

The impact: Biden proclaimed that kids’ safety from gun violence is “on the ballot” when he announced the creation of the new office — and that proclamation has seeped into official White House business and his reelection campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris has taken the lead on mobilizing young Americans concerned about gun violence, visiting schools around the nation and touting new money awarded from the gun safety bill.

The upshot: Schools will continue to receive millions of dollars over the next five years to address youth mental health and student wellness as the remaining cash from the legislation’s $1 billion in funding is distributed.

— Mackenzie Wilkes

CLIMATE

Renewable power is the No. 2 source of electricity in the U.S. — and climbing

Biden entered the White House putting climate change and job creation from the expansion of a clean energy economy at the top of his agenda — an about-face from energy policy during the Trump administration. At the time, renewable energy sources were already on the riseand the industry was optimistic about its future, especially buoyed by promises from the new president to invest trillions of dollars into clean energy development and research, and the global trend toward cleaner forms of power.

The move: Across the Biden administration, agencies and officials have made the transition to green energy a central tenet, reinvigorating programs left dormant under Trump and accelerating approval of renewable energy projects, like offshore wind. And Democratic lawmakers passed landmark legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act — to reduce greenhouse gases that are driving climate change and provide support for green power sources. That legislation included billions for new programs and lucrative tax incentives to boost technologies, like solar and wind, as well as next-generation sources like green hydrogen.

The impact: Renewable energy growth has ramped up across the United States. Electricity generation from renewable energy sources — including wind, solar and hydropower — surpassed coal-fired generation in the electric power sector for the first time in 2022, making it the second-biggest source behind natural gas generation. Renewables also passed nuclear power generation for the first time in 2021 and widened that gap the next year. The IRA also spurring a wave of private sector investment in U.S. clean energy manufacturing facilities for solar, wind and electric vehicle parts, the majority of which will be located in Republican congressional districts represented by lawmakers who voted against the bill.

The upshot: The Biden administration is continuing to roll out policies and programs focused on the energy transition, including detailing provisions under the Inflation Reduction Act that will help clarify the law so that new investments in the U.S. can move forward.

— Kelsey Tamborrino

HOUSING

Preventing discriminatory mortgage lending

In 1977, Congress passed a law to combat a practice known as redlining, where for decades the government had discouraged lenders from extending mortgage loans to borrowers in Black neighborhoods. The law requires banks to lend to creditworthy lower-income people in the same neighborhoods where they have branches that take deposits. But the growth of the internet and mobile banking have made those rules increasingly obsolete. Banks, in effect, had a major presence in many neighborhoods where they had no branches.

The move: The Federal Reserve and its fellow independent bank regulators drafted a new anti-redlining framework, which will go into effect starting in January 2026. It requires banks to lend to lower-income communities in areas where they have a concentration of mortgage and small-business loans, rather than just where they have physical branches.

The impact: While the update hasn’t taken effect yet, the hope is that it will quickly begin to direct more dollars into areas where banks haven’t previously faced obligations to lend more equitably.

The upshot: Financial agencies are still trying to figure out the best way to ensure access to credit within poorer communities nearly 50 years after the Community Reinvestment Act was passed. Indeed, the racial homeownership gap is actually wider now than it was in 1968, when redlining was still legal.

— Victoria Guida

I think I may post 5 of the Biden-Harris actions we may not know about each night until I exhaust the full list. Stay tuned.

In the meanwhile, here is the link to read the full article and see all 30.

The Economy

Even Fox News is impressed.

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Kamala is always busy.

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Trump update.

Trump caught at a dirty trick.

Yup, Trump paid $20k to non-union auto workers to stage a fake rally during the AUW strike.

To help you keep track of the Trump indictments and cases.

Federal judge postpones Trump's March 4 election interference trial : WASHINGTON — NPR

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington formally postponed Donald Trump's March trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election as a key legal appeal from the former president remains unresolved in the courts.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday vacated the March 4 trial date in the case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith but did not immediately set a new date.

The move opens the door for a separate prosecution in New York, charging Trump in connection with hush money payments to a porn actor, to proceed first. That case has long been seen as arguably the least legally perilous of the four indictments Trump faces, with the alleged misconduct less grave than accusations of mishandling classified documents or plotting to subvert a presidential election.

The postponement in Washington comes as a federal appeals court has yet to resolve a pending appeal from Trump arguing that he is immune from prosecution for actions he took in the White House. It is not clear when the three-judge panel might rule, but a ruling in favor of prosecutors that permits the case to move forward is expected to be appealed by the Trump team, likely resulting in additional delays.

For both sides, timing is of the essence. Trump, who faces four indictments and 91 felony counts, is looking to push his criminal cases back as he enjoys front-runner status in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Smith's team, meanwhile, is hoping to be able to prosecute Trump this year before the November election. If Trump is elected while the case is pending, he could presumably order the Justice Department to drop it and could potentially try to seek a pardon for himself.

The Washington case had been expected to take place first, but it has been delayed for weeks by Trump's appeal on grounds that he is shielded from prosecution — a claim that has been vigorously disputed by Smith's team. The appeals court heard arguments on Jan. 9 and appeared skeptical of a Trump lawyer's position. Though the court has said it intended to work quickly, it has not yet issued a ruling.

The New York case involves steps Trump allegedly took to hide payments that were made on the Republican's behalf to suppress damaging stories before his 2016 win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, namely logging them as legal expenses. While a guilty verdict would give Trump another historic moniker as the first former president convicted of a crime, potentially complicating his campaign to return to the White House, there's no guarantee of prison time.

Trump critics and rival campaign aides have long bemoaned that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's indictment was the first, believing that it helped blunt the political impact of more serious charges that followed because voters tuned out or grew confused by the myriad cases.

Bragg has eschewed his case's "hush money" label, opting in recent weeks to describe it as another Trump "election interference" case — albeit, this one involving behind-the-scenes maneuvering during Trump's first campaign for the White House in 2016.

Trump, meanwhile, faces dozens of felony charges in Florida accusing him of illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. That case is set for trial on May 20 but could still be postponed. Another case in Georgia, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, accuses him of plotting to overturn that state's 2020 election. No trial date has been set. (NPR).

Touch 👇to watch Trump in action. Admiring a dictator once again.

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An international achievement.

“There is nothing we can’t achieve when we act together.” 🥳🎉😇🙃

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Unless there is some breaking news, I will see you on Tuesday. Enjoy your Sunday!

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