Memo to President Biden: Life moves pretty fast, and now the world is on fire.

Israel is erupting, Americans are utterly confused when masks should be worn for COVID-19 protection and then there are the agita-inducing long lines for gasoline.

And that was just Tuesday.

A lot has changed in a matter of days.

Friday was supposed to be a glorious day for Biden. The latest employment numbers were set to be released, and economists were gushing that a million new jobs had likely been created in April by exuberant employers and their newly vaccinated workers.

His team no doubt was prepared to unleash Biden to perform a little victory dance at the White House celebrating the stupendous number. But the show had to be hastily revamped when the actual tally came in nearly three-quarters-of-a-million jobs lower than expected; just 266,000 jobs created and unemployment unexpectedly rising to 6.1%.

“You might think we should be disappointed,” Biden said, which was indeed something people might think. But the American Rescue Plan he signed into law in March “was designed to help us over the course of a year — not 60 days,” he said.

Far from being a disappointment, a jobs report that included 734,000 jobs fewer than expected was good news.

“Today, there is more evidence our economy is moving in the right direction,” Biden said. “This is progress. This is a testament to our new strategy,” he said. “We’ve got work to do, to state the obvious, we have work to do.”

You might think.

The jobs figures were just the first in a series of out-of-nowhere body blows hitting the president during a remarkable five days of bad developments that stretched from Israel to the Mexican border and up the East Coast via the Colonial Pipeline.

After delivering a few remarks Friday, taking in the “Weekly Economic Briefing” and meeting with his “Jobs Cabinet,” the president knocked off at 5:45 pm and headed for the peacefully wooded Catoctin Mountain Park, where the presidential refuge Camp David awaited in Maryland.

He was ready for a rest, but the world wasn’t ready to give him one.

By Saturday morning, the Colonial Pipeline, which transports nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel supplies up from Texas, had been turned off, the victim of a ransomware cyberattack by a group of nasty hackers who, by the way, might be working with the Russian government. Biden was “briefed” on the situation Saturday morning.

By late Monday, more than one in 20 gas stations in Virginia was out of fuel. Tuesday, governors throughout the Southeast were declaring states of emergency, and the Biden administration was begging drivers not to hoard gasoline.

BIDEN REACTS TO WEAK JOBS REPORT, SAYS US ‘STILL DIGGING OUT OF AN ECONOMIC COLLAPSE,’ BUT ON ‘RIGHT TRACK’

Meantime, Palestinians had begun violently clashing with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, an escalation of tensions that had been simmering and occasionally boiling over for weeks. Hamas began launching rocket attacks into Israel, which responded by bombing Gaza.

Back in Washington, Republicans began accusing Biden of tilting too far toward the Palestinians while failing to at least verbally sock it to Hamas. From the other side, leftists in his own party hit the White House for supposedly coddling Israel, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., accusing Biden of “enabling” Israel with foreign aid.

By Tuesday, an echo of the violence had spread to the streets of New York, where there were dustups between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian supporters in front of the Israeli consulate.

As new crises broke out all over the place, there were searing reminders that an old one was still festering.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed Tuesday that migrant encounters jumped yet again this past April: over 178,000 in all, nearly a tenfold increase from 2020 and still above levels seen in the 2019 surge at the Mexico border.

In a heartbreaking scene, five unaccompanied migrant girls were found abandoned by a Texas farmer on his land. And reports emerged that border agents in Texas had seized $4.6 million in methamphetamine and cocaine, while a member of the National Guard had found an abandoned bag of “AK-47-style pistols” in the border region.

TEXAS FARMER FINDS MIGRANT GIRLS ABANDONED NEAR BORDER WITHOUT FOOD, WATER: ‘IT’S JUST GETTING WORSE’

A new poll reminded the president that the border crisis was dragging him down, with only 43% of those surveyed approving of his immigration policy.

In a bit of beguiling partisan moves that has befuddled many Americans, Senate Democrats pressed ahead Tuesday with their plans to overhaul the nation’s election laws — after many states, such as GOP-guided governments in Florida and Georgia, enacted different changes for their own constituents. Divisive racial undercurrents have developed amid all this, all on the watch of the so-called unity president.

The ACLU quickly weighed in to tie new voting laws to race: “This terrible bill was drafted as a direct swipe at Georgians’ participating in the Black Lives Matter protests who are asserting for their constitutional rights,” Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, said in a statement posted on the group’s website.

On the COVID-19 front, the once-unimpeachable Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was taking shots on the chin for some dubious recommendations to a populace ready to get back to normal.

During a Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday, moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, lambasted CDC chief Rochelle Walensky on “conflicting” guidance related to school reopenings, wearing masks outside, and summer camps.

“I used to have the utmost respect for the guidance from the CDC. I always considered the CDC to be the gold standard. I don’t anymore,” Collins said, giving examples where she said she thinks “the conflicting, confusing guidance from your agency has undermined public confidence and contradicts the scientific guidance of many experts.”

“Unnecessary barriers to reopening schools, exaggerating the risk of outdoor transmission and unworkable restrictions on summer camps,” Collins continued. “Why does this matter?

“It matters because it undermines public confidence in your recommendations, in the recommendations that do make sense, in the recommendations that Americans should be following.”

To add insult to the various injuries, there was even criticism of how Biden looked — at least when he was wearing a mask.

White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients found himself under fire Sunday morning from CNN’s Jake Tapper for Biden’s apparent attachment to his mask.

“Is it really necessary for a fully vaccinated person to wear a mask at a limited indoor gathering if everyone there is vaccinated?” Tapper wanted to know. “Why does President Biden in a room full of vaccinated journalists, everybody in that room vaccinated, why does he need to wear a mask?”

Zients mumbled something about following CDC guidance and all Americans being eligible for shots.

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By Tuesday, Biden was hearing from Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox that fully vaccinated people should start acting like it so that Americans could see the benefits of the vaccine and go get their arms jabbed.

“One area where we could use some help from the White House and others is modeling what a fully vaccinated person can do,” Cox said.

The beleaguered Biden could muster little in the way of a defense.

“That’s a good point,” he said.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-israel-mexican-border-colonial-pipeline

The post Battered Biden under siege as crises confound the White House first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

• Republicans and Democrats drew sharply different conclusions about the April jobs report.
• Democrats used it to bolster a case for massive infrastructure spending on issues like childcare.
• The GOP wants to slam on the spending brakes, saying stimulus benefits are setting back job growth.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

In some ways, the April jobs report resembled an optical illusion, with people making differing observations from a dataset that didn’t form a clear image.

In this case, Democrats and Republicans came to opposite conclusions about the report and what it means for the way forward in healing an economy battered by the pandemic.

The report, released Friday, said the economy had recovered 266,000 jobs, defying expectations of a massive job surge on the back of government stimulus dollars, increased vaccinations, and easing restrictions. Economists had forecast at least 1 million regained jobs.

In response, the GOP demanded to end parts of President Joe Biden’s stimulus law and called for the government to slam the brakes on its spending. Democrats instead urged the passage of Biden’s $4 trillion infrastructure plans, viewing the lackluster report as another pillar in their argument that more spending, in part on childcare, would accelerate the recovery.

It sets the stage for a multitrillion-dollar fight on infrastructure, jobs, and families that will take up much of the White House’s time over the next few months.

The president on Friday urged patience with his economic agenda. He said that “more help is needed” and defended his $1.9 trillion stimulus law, which provided $1,400 direct payments and a $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit.

“When we passed the American Rescue Plan, I want to remind everybody, it was designed to help us over the course of a year – not 60 days, a year,” Biden said. “We never thought that after the first 50 or 60 days everything would be fine.”

He flatly rejected the argument from Republicans and business groups that federal jobless aid has been sidelining people from the workforce, saying that was “nothing measurable.”

“We’re still digging out of an economic collapse that cost us 22 million jobs,” Biden said, adding, “Let’s keep our eye on the ball.”

Rep. Kevin Brady, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Democrats double down, Republicans pounce

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Congress to move immediately on Biden’s plans and said women and working parents had been hit hardest in the pandemic. The number of women who held jobs fell in April, Insider’s Juliana Kaplan and Madison Hoff reported.

“The evidence is clear that the economy demands urgent action, and Congress will not be deterred or delayed from delivering transformational investments,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Republicans had already lined up against Biden’s plans, criticizing proposed tax hikes on large firms and wealthy Americans as a future anchor on the economy. They pounced on the report in a fresh sign of their hardening resistance.

The GOP swung at Biden’s handling of the economy, arguing that the jobless aid was disincentivizing people from searching for a new job.

“This is a stunning economic setback, and unequivocal proof that President Biden is sabotaging our jobs recovery with promises of higher taxes and regulation on local businesses that discourage hiring and drive jobs overseas,” Rep. Kevin Brady, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement.

He also contended that jobless aid was disincentivizing people from returning to work. The argument mirrored one made by the Chamber of Commerce, an influential business group that on Friday called for an end to the $300 federal unemployment benefit.

Many economists have long disputed the notion that federal jobless aid has kept people from returning to work; unemployment claims have steadily fallen over the past month. They tend to cite other factors like school closures and the lack of available childcare.

Those burdens have fallen more on women – 2 million women have left the workforce in the past year. Still, experts say the US will regain its economic footing eventually, though the nation faces a rocky path.

“We’re going to see pockets of strength, pockets of weakness, areas of overheating, areas where it is uncool – it’s going to be complicated and messy,” Jason Furman, a former top economist for President Barack Obama, told Insider in an interview. “But I think hopefully all moving in the right direction.”

Read the original article on Business Insider

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/aprils-dismal-jobs-report-setting-192713085.html

The post How April’s dismal jobs report is setting the stage for Biden’s $4 trillion economic fight with the GOP first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Biden spoke from the Rose Garden Thursday morning, announcing new gun control measures that target ghost guns, red flag laws, pistol-stabilizing braces, and other issues.

He said he wants Congress to do more than offer “thoughts and prayers” to the victims of gun violence.

“They’ve offered plenty of thoughts and prayers, members of Congress,” Biden said, “But they’ve passed not a single new federal law to reduce gun violence. Enough prayers, time for some action.”

Because substantial changes to gun laws have always met fierce Republican resistance in Congress, Biden said he asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to prioritize gun violence and help him with concrete actions the president could take without Congress.

President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the American Rescue Plan in the Rose Garden of the White House on March 12, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Biden first spoke of regulating ghost guns, which are homemade firearms that often lack serial numbers authorities would use to trace them. They’ve increasingly turned up at crime scenes, and federal agents have found them in undercover purchases from gang members and other criminals.

There’s no federal requirement for ghost gun buyers to undergo a background check, but Biden’s actions would change that.

Biden said he’ll also tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces. The president said the brace makes the pistol more lethal and “a hell of a lot more accurate.” He wants to designate pistols with the brace as short-barreled rifles, which would require owners to have a federal license.

The braces came under scrutiny last month after a gunman allegedly used a braced pistol to kill 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.

RELATED: Boulder King Soopers shooting: 21-year-old man to be charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder

That shooting, along with shootings at three Atlanta-area spas that left eight dead plunged the U.S. back into a gun debate that has dominated American politics for years.

Part of Biden’s action asks Congress to pass an appropriate national red flag law that would allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.

And he hopes Congress will incentivize states to pass similar laws. Biden praised the House for passing bills that would close loopholes in America’s gun legislation.

The gun show loophole allows buyers to purchase a gun from a gun show, where background checks aren’t required. The Charleston loophole allows guns to be purchased if the FBI hasn’t completed a background check within three business days. And the boyfriend loophole allows physically abusive ex-boyfriends and stalkers with previous convictions to maintain access to firearms.

Democrats control both chambers of Congress, but the slim Senate advantage likely wouldn’t be enough to pass the bills that would end the loopholes.

Republicans are expected to oppose many, if not all, of Biden’s measures. The party has positioned itself as defender of the Second Amendment and tried to paint the opposition as gun confiscators. Before he went into his plans, Biden dismissed the notion that his measures were a threat to the Second Amendment — calling it a “phony argument.”

While enhanced background checks are generally popular with the American public — even with some conservatives — Congress has so far not been able to find compromise on gun control as a whole, thus the president’s reliance on executive action.

“Universal background checks are supported by the vast majority of American people — and I might add the majority of responsible gun owners,” Biden said. “Let me be clear: This is not a partisan issue among the American people. This is a view by the American people as an American issue. And I’m willing to work with anyone to get these done.”

But of all the ideas Biden presented, the removal of gun manufacturers’ immunity to lawsuits sits closes to his heart, he said.

“If I get one thing on my list, the Lord came down and said ‘Joe, you get one of these,’ give me that one,” Biden said. “Because I tell you what: There would be a come to the Lord moment these folks would have real quickly.”

RELATED: House passes bill to expand background checks for gun sales

Thursday’s news conference also served as an introduction of David Chipman, Biden’s nominee to direct the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Chipman is a former federal agent and adviser to the gun-control group Giffords. He spent 25 years with ATF where he worked to stop a trafficking ring that sent illegal guns from Virginia to New York.

Gun-control advocates have long stressed how crucial the director of the ATF is in enforcing gun laws. John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, lauded Chipman as an “invaluable point person” in the fight against illegal gun trafficking.

Feinblatt also applauded Biden for his upcoming gun control measures.

“Each of these executive actions will start to address the epidemic of gun violence that has raged throughout the pandemic, and begin to make good on President Biden’s promise to be the strongest gun safety president in history,” Feinblatt said.

This story was reported from Atlanta. The Associated Press contributed.

Source: https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/enough-prayers-time-for-some-action-biden-introduces-executive-orders-on-gun-control

The post ‘Enough prayers, time for some action’: Biden introduces executive orders on gun control first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.