CNBC: House Democrats unveiled their plan to send up to $3,600 per child to families, a vast but temporary expansion of relief to households that experts have projected could lift millions from poverty.
The proposal would add more detail to President Joe Biden’s call for expanding the Child Tax Credit as part of his $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief legislation.
The plan provides for $3,600 over a year for children under 6 and $3,000 for children under 18, to be distributed in monthly installments by the IRS, starting in July.
The payments would phase out for individuals making more than $75,000 and couples making more than $150,000. Read More
Daily Wire: Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during an interview on Sunday that the Biden administration is in active conversations with the CDC about whether it will require American citizens to have a negative coronavirus test before they are allowed to fly to another U.S. state.
Buttigieg made the remark when asked during an Axios interview what he thought “of requiring a COVID test before someone flies even domestically?”
“Well, there’s an active conversation with the CDC right now, what I can tell you is this going to be guided by data, by science, by medicine, and by the input of the people are actually going to have to carry this out,” Buttigieg responded. “But here’s the thing, the safer we can make air travel in terms of perception as well as reality, the more people are going to be ready to get back in the air.”
Buttigieg defended President Joe Biden’s decision to kill the Keystone XL Pipeline during his Senate confirmation hearing last month. Read More
POPE BENEDICT is “terrified” of Francis and his plans to modernise the church, as the pontiff made a landmark move to appoint Nathalie Becquart to a senior role, previously only ever held by men.
Express UK: Francis was forced to cancel three events at short notice over the weekend, after his ongoing issues with sciatica struck the 84-year-old again. Matteo Bruni, a spokesman for the Vatican, confirmed that due to the return of his condition he would not deliver Mass on Sunday, as well as attend a meeting with diplomatic corps on Monday, which has now been rearranged. This is the latest in a string of cancelled appointments he has made due to the condition, which affects the back and legs, after he skipped New Year’s Day Mass.
Francis has been widely praised for installing a liberal agenda within the Vatican.
This was epitomised by his decision to give women greater powers within the Church this month.
Yet, should a Benedict-type enter the Vatican next, the work carried out by Francis could be ruined, Ms Telford suggests.
She said Benedict and his supporters would be “terrified” by some of Francis’ choices while Pope, adding: “They really would not like the idea at all [of women in the Church], but Francis is aware that things have to change otherwise the Church will go under.”
Benedict was described by Ms Telford, author of Women in the Vatican – Female Power in a Male World, as “an opponent of change” and since he stood down in 2013 he had been creating “difficulties” for Francis. Read More
Israel 365: In a move that was clearly timed to coincide with President Trump’s White House departure, the ICC released a “judgment” declaring their intent to try Israel for war crimes while at the same time establishing “Palestine” as a legitimate nation. A former member of the Sanhedrin emphasized that in doing so, the organization was serving idolatry and lies, thereby cancelling any legitimacy they may have had.
ICC: ISRAELI WAR CRIMES
After six years of deliberation, the International Criminal Court at The Hague announced their 2-1 decision on Friday that they have the jurisdictional authority to open an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes perpetrated against “Palestinians.”
The ICC, established in 1998, currently has 123 member states including the “State of Palestine” (a non-existent political entity) but, ironically, neither Israel nor the US is a member. The ICC tries individuals and not states with the case naming specific officials who could be subject to warrants upon traveling outside of Israel if the court rules against Israel.
ICC PROSECUTOR: SANCTIONED BY US
The investigation was carried out by ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, focusing on alleged Israeli war crimes perpetrated during the 2014 Protective Edge Israeli incursion into Gaza that came in response to Hamas and other terrorist organizations firing over 4,500 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilian centers. The criminal investigation will also focus on Israeli policy allowing Jews to live in Judea and Samaria under the international prohibition against “transferring civilian population into occupied territory.” and the IDF response to riots that challenged the security fence separating Israel from Gaza.
In her 2019 ruling, Bensouda also considered some of Hamas’ actions to be worthy of consideration by the ICC. Read More
TNA: British families, already struggling financially due to COVID-19 restrictions that have closed many businesses in the country, are in danger of having their government make things even worse for them, all in the name of fighting climate change. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak have ordered government departments to research the amount of greenhouse gases produced by different sectors of the economy.
“The chancellor and the prime minister want a sector-by-sector view on how we could implement some form of carbon pricing and an overall roadmap to deliver in the next decade,” the memo reportedly stated.
Number 10 Downing St. is looking to extend their “polluter pays” principle to all economic sectors. Currently, only airlines and power generators are subject to surcharges for their emissions. But new taxes could fall heavily on food producers and on companies that provide home heat.
While Number 10 hasn’t revealed any taxation numbers yet, a University of Oxford team has calculated amounts at which certain staples would need to be taxed in order to meet Johnson’s expectations for emissions reductions. According to Oxford, surcharges of 40 percent on beef, 25 percent on oils, 20 percent on milk, 15 percent on lamb, and 10 percent on chicken would be needed to effect consumption and emissions in a way that the prime minister expects. Read More
LifeSite: Calgary lawyers have threatened to sue the federal government over recent arrests and detainment of law-abiding Canadian citizens and their transport to federal isolation facilities. The lawyers argue that the latest anti-COVID measures are “flagrant violations” of Canadians’ constitutional rights and freedoms, and reflect a government that is increasingly “aggressive” and totalitarian.
Several Canadians have described how unidentified police and public health officials arrested citizens entering their country, including some who had negative COVID blood test results, and forced them into white vans to transport them to undisclosed quarantine facilities. They said officers refused to identify themselves or answer questions about where and how long they or their loved ones would be detained.
“You are hereby on notice that if you do not immediately rescind these provisions, and release the Canadians you are holding illegally under arrest in federally designated containment facilities, we will imminently commence legal proceedings,” said a letter from Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) president John Carpay to Federal Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra. Read More
Breitbart: Millions of Americans are projected to remain jobless for the next three to four years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), though President Joe Biden is looking to fill American jobs with foreign workers.
In a report released this month, CBO analysts said the number of jobless Americans — all of whom want full-time jobs — will not return to pre-coronavirus levels until around 2024.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1357805653260185601
At the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden has restarted the Catch and Release program, which frees border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the country while they await their asylum hearings. Previously, a series of cooperative agreements with Central America and the Remain in Mexico policy had effectively ended Catch and Release, drastically cutting asylum fraud.
Many of those border crossers and illegal aliens will hunt for mostly blue-collar American jobs that otherwise would go to Americans.
Similarly, Biden has suggested he will surge refugee resettlement to the U.S. by 2022, seek an amnesty for nearly all illegal aliens, and block reforms to various visa programs while seeking an increase in legal immigration levels. Read More
Breitbart: President Joe Biden is de-listing the Houthi rebels of Yemen as a terrorist organization, despite the fact that the group attacks civilians, considers the U.S. an enemy, and is armed and funded by Iran.
As Breitbart News has previously reported: “The Houthis are a jihadist organization whose slogan is ‘God Is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, a Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.’”
The Biden administration announced the move on Friday, ostensibly to allow humanitarian aid to reach Yemen. It follows an announcement by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that the U.S. was ending its support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen on behalf of the legitimate government.
The Houthis launched the war in 2014. Iran backs the rebels, partly because control of Yemen gives Iran a strategic position across the Bab el Mandeb Strait from U.S. forces that are stationed in Djibouti on the Red Sea. Both sides in the civil war have committed atrocities.
The move is Biden’s latest slap to U.S. allies in the region — and an apparent attempt to appease Iran, which the Biden administration hopes to entice back to the negotiating table.
Trump listed the Houthis as a terror group in his last weeks in office.Read More
Zero Hedge: The covid pandemic was front and center today in economic news, when its impact was felt throughout the January payrolls report (if not to the same extent as December payrolls), whose disappointing +49k reading could be easily explained by continued job losses in the Leisure & Hospitality sector due to COVID-19 outbreaks and associated lockdown measures and restrictions.
However, as BofA’s Hans Mikkelsen writes, “given that the US COVID-19 situation is improving rapidly – for example the number of people hospitalized is down one-third over the past month – and restrictions are lifted in many large states like California, it is straightforward to expect much stronger payrolls going forward.”
Indeed, the latest Covid data shows that absent any major shocks – such as a mutant strain that is fully immune to any existing vaccines – the pandemic should be a thing of the past relatively soon. Read More
