#Biden is lead

[captainjonnitkessler]

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #39

October 18-25 2024.

President Biden issued the first presidential apology on behalf of the federal government to America's Native American population for the Indian boarding school policy. For 150 years the federal government operated a system of schools which aimed to destroy Native culture through the forced assimilation of native children. At these schools students faced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and close to 1,000 died. The Biden-Harris Administration has been historic for Native and Tribal rights. From the appointment of the first ever Native American cabinet member, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, to the investment of $46 billion dollars on tribal land, to 200 new co-stewardship agreements. The last 4 years have seen a historic investment in and expansion of tribal rights.

The Biden-Harris Administration proposed a new rule which would make contraceptive medication (the pill) free over the counter with most Insurance. The new rule would ban cost sharing for contraception products, including the pill, condoms, and emergency contraception. On top of over the counter medications, the new rule will also strength protections for prescribed contraception without cost sharing as well.

The EPA announced its finalized rule strengthening standards for lead paint dust in pre-1978 housing and child care facilities. There is no safe level of exposure to lead particularly for children who can suffer long term developmental consequences from lead exposure. The new standards set the lowest level of lead particle that can be identified by a lab as the standard for lead abatement. It's estimated 31 million homes built before the ban on lead paint in 1978 have lead paint and 3.8 million of those have one or more children under the age of 6. The new rule will mean 1.2 million fewer people, including over 300,000 children will not be exposed to lead particles every year. This comes after the Biden-Harris Administration announced its goal to remove and replace all lead pipes in America by the end of the decade.

The Department of Transportation announced a $50 million dollar fine against American Airlines for its treatment of disabled passengers and their wheelchairs. The fine stems from a number of incidences of humiliating and unfair treatment of passages between 2019 and 2023, as well as video documented evidence of mishandling wheelchairs and damaging them. Half the fine will go to replacing such damaged wheelchairs. The Biden administration has leveled a historic number of fines against the airlines ($225 million) for their failures. It also published a Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights, passed a new rule accessible lavatories on aircraft, and is working on a rule to require airlines to replace lost or damaged wheelchairs with equal equipment at once.

The Department of Energy announced $430 million dollars to help boost domestic clean energy manufacturing in former coal communities. This invests in projects in 15 different communities, in places like Texas, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan. The plan will bring about 1,900 new jobs in communities struggling with the loss of coal. Projects include making insulation out of recycled cardboard, low carbon cement production, and industrial fiber hemp processing.

The Department of Transportation announced $4.2 billion in new infrastructure investment. The money will go to 44 projects across the country. For example the MBTA will get $400 million to replace the 92 year old Draw 1 bridge and renovate North Station.

The Department of Transportation announced nearly $200 million to replace aging natural gas pipes. Leaking gas lines represent a serious public health risk and also cost costumers. Planned replacements in Georgia and North Carolina for example will save the average costumer there over $900 on their gas bill a year. Replacing leaking lines will also remove 1,000 metric tons of methane pollution, annually.

The Department of the Interior announced $244 million to address legacy pollution in Pennsylvania coal country. This comes on top of $400 million invested earlier this year. This investment will help close dangerous mine shafts, reclaim unstable slopes, improve water quality by treating acid mine drainage, and restore water supplies damaged by mining.

Data shows that President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (passed with Vice-President Harris' tie breaking vote) has saved seniors $1 billion dollars on out-of-pocket drug costs. Seniors with certain high priced drugs saw their yearly out of pocket costs capped at $3,500 for 2024. In 2024 all seniors using Medicare Part D will see their out of pocket costs capped at $2,000 for the year. It's estimated if the $2,000 cap had been in effect this year 4.6 million seniors would have hit it by June and not have had to pay any more for medication for the rest of the year.

The Department of Education announced a new proposed rule to bring student debt relief for 8 million struggling borrowers. The Biden-Harris Administration has managed despite road blocks from Republicans in Congress, the courts and law suits from Republican states to bring student loan forgiveness to 5 million Americans so far through different programs. This latest rule would take into account many financial hardships faced by people to determine if they qualify to have their student loans forgiven. The final rule cannot be finalized before 2025 meaning its fate will be decided at the election.

The Department of Agriculture announced $1.5 billion in 92 partner-driven conservation projects. These projects aim at making farming more susceptible and environmental friendly, 16 projects are about water conservation in the West, 6 support use of innovative technologies to reduce enteric methane emissions in livestock. $100 million has been earmarked for Tribal-led projects.

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall-Free

"The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday [October 8, 2024] requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year.

The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction.

Research has shown that lead, a toxic contaminant that seeps from pipes into the drinking water supply, can cause irreversible developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems among children. In adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead exposure can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function and cancer.

But replacing the lead pipes that deliver water to millions of U.S. homes will cost tens of billions of dollars, and the push to eradicate them only gathered momentum after a water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago exposed the extent to which children remain vulnerable to lead poisoning through tap water...

The groundbreaking regulation, called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, will establish a national inventory of lead service lines and require that utilities take more aggressive action to remove lead pipes on homeowners’ private property. It also lowers the level of lead contamination that will trigger government enforcement from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.

The rule also establishes the first-ever national requirement to test for lead in schools that rely on water from public utilities. It mandates thatwater systems screen all elementary and child-care facilities, where those who are the most vulnerable to lead’s effects — young children — are enrolled, and that they offer testing to middle and high schools.

The White House estimates that more than 9 million homes across the country are still supplied by lead pipelines, which are the leading source of lead contamination through drinking water. The EPA has projected that replacing all of them could cost at least $45 billion.

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable, but the heavy metal can wear down and corrode over time. President Joe Biden has made replacing them one of his top environmental priorities, securing $15 billion to give states over five years through the bipartisan infrastructure law and vowing to rid the country of lead pipes by 2031. The administration has spent $9 billion so far — enough to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the administration said.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was providing an additional $2.6 billion in funding for pipe replacement. Over 367,000 lead pipes have been replaced nationwide since Biden took office, according to White House officials, affecting nearly 1 million people...

Environmental advocates said that former president Donald Trump, who issued much more modest revisions to the lead and copper rule just days before Biden took office, would have a hard time reversing the new standards.

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the Safe Drinking Water Act has provisions prohibiting weakening the health protections of existing standards...

Olson added that the rule “represents a major victory for public health” and will protect millions of people “whose health is threatened every time they fill a glass from the kitchen sink contaminated by lead.”

“While the rule is imperfect and we still have more to do, this is by far the biggest step towards eliminating lead in tap water in over three decades,” he said."

-via The Washington Post, October 8, 2024

[nando161mando]

"Who else could lead the world but the US?" said the genocider-in-chief at the stage to a cheering crowd of mindless drones

[carsonjonesfiance]

I think Biden stopped taking the online anti-voting Left seriously (if he was ever aware of them) when the people that spent 4 years saying Obama’s drone usage made him worse than Trump in order to make their Both Sides arguments made nary a peep when Biden stopped nearly all US drone operations.

[thingstrumperssay]

This guy is complaining that Biden wants to take our lead water drinking rights away.

My god, Biden really could just say "breathing is good for you" and republicans would hold their breath out of spite.

[batattack409]

Kamala Harris will not save us

We are descending into a fascist police state, regardless of who wins, it is simply a matter of speed. Pushing the idea that we should “vote blue no matter who” (which, come on, clearly ignores valid issues people have with democratic candidates, like blind allegiance is never good) is dangerous. Voting is simply damage control, which is important, but will not stop what is going to happen. I don’t mean this in a doomerist way, because things will get better, but first they need to get worse.

Harris is still a genocidal white supremacist and just like Biden. After this election, if she wins, we won’t “go back to normal” because we can no longer go back, we can only go forward (besides, back wasn’t really as good as people think it is, just ask the global south). And that is fine. But holding onto the idea that democrats are good and will save us is foolish and dangerous.

The (majority) people who won’t vote for Harris aren’t gonna do it because they think politics doesn’t effect them or they are neutral, they won’t vote for her because she, while being the lesser evil between the two, is still evil, and will still uphold the systems that are driving us into the ground with the rest of the world. So please think a bit more critically and understand that while voting for her may slow down our spiral (or at least not fasten it like trump) we still heading for the same place, and need to prepare as such

Stay safe, build community, fight fascism.

[durn3h]

If anything wakes up the democrats, I would really think it would be the voter turnout numbers. Trump lost tons of votes between last election and this election, his fans might be more rabid than ever, but broad support for him has actually fallen significantly. The problem is just that the dems shit the bed so hard with Biden's presidency and then Harris' campaign that they lost all support

[tomorrowusa]

Women flee the GOP.

What do Republicans expect when they put a sexual predator at the top of their ticket for three cycles? Though Republicans probably have a lock on the incel vote.

Biden opens up lead on Trump amid growing gender gap: Quinnipiac poll

President Biden has opened up a 6 point lead in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up with former President Trump, new polling shows, amid signs of a growing gender gap in support for the two party front-runners.  A new Quinnipiac University national poll found Biden with 50 percent support among registered voters, ahead of Trump’s 44 percent.  That’s a shift in the incumbent’s favor from December, when Quinnipiac found the same Biden-Trump hypothetical “too close to call,” with Biden at 47 percent support and Trump at 46 percent.  Biden also scored majority support among independents in the latest findings, with 52 percent support to Trump’s 40 percent. The poll additionally found a growing gender gap when it comes to support for the current and former presidents as they each run for a second White House term. Fifty-eight percent of women say they support Biden, up from 53 percent in December.  At the same time, 53 percent of men say they support Trump, “largely unchanged” from 51 percent in December. 

One woman in particular has the entire Trump-o-Sphere in a raging tizzy.

Republicans are fearful of 21st century women. The MAGA GOP conception of America is like a pastiche 1950s with women staying in the kitchen, gays in the closet, and minorities completely out of sight. And when a highly successful and independent woman like Taylor Swift puts some distance between herself and the MAGA crowd, their heads start exploding in unison.

[originalleftist]

Nearly every major media outlet is churning out articles clamouring for Biden to drop out.

But not just that. I've seen multiple articles outright declaring him mentally unfit, and making spurious diagnoses of various disorders.

Attempts to reassure voters or refute such claims are immediately dismissed as "arrogance", denial".

Democrats defending their democratically-chosen nominee after one weak debate are equated to MAGA standing by a serial r*pist, convicted felony, and treasonous fascist.

Despite Biden's insistence that he is staying in, his withdrawal is effectively treated as a foregone conclusion.

The Washington Post even published a fake Biden withdrawal announcement.

Some even suggesting using the 25th Amendment to forcibly remove Biden from office.

Pardon me for sounding conspiratorial, but there is no way that ALL these outlets and commentators ALL reached this conclusion so rapidly, so decisively, with such certainty that at least some are willing to abandon all journalistic integrity, naturally. This is not a natural reaction to one night's poor performance. This is, to be blunt, the most terrifying, massive, sudden, overwhelming, and well-coordinated psy-op that I have ever seen.

Maybe time has dulled the memory, but I don't think Trump/Russia psy-ops in 2016 came close. A key difference is that past psy-ops were mostly social media-driven. But this has near-unanimous buy-in from so-called "mainstream" media. Call this what it is: a coup attempt by the mainstream press, and their billionaire friends/owners. And I guaranfuckingtee that when all is said and done, a good deal of it will trace right back to the Trump campaign, and to the Kremlin.

Here we were, all bracing for the coup attempt in November or December or January. And they hit us in June.

[gothicprep]

trump is 77 years old, running for president, embroiled in multiple legal battles, and a card-carrying mcdonald's shill. my gut is telling me he's on the verge of a cardiac episode tbh. whether it be fatal or not, apollo didn't relay that one to me.

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #37

Oct 4-11 2024

President Biden announced a new EPA rule that will require all lead pipes in America's drinking water systems to be replace with-in 10 years. This builds on the $15 billion the Biden-Harris Administration has already invested in replacing lead pipes nation wide. The administration's focus on this issue has allowed local governments to greatly execrate their lead pipe replacement plans, before Biden took office the city of Milwaukee's timeline for replacing its lead pipes was 60 years, they're now on track to do it in 10. The EPA says there's no safe level of lead in the human body.

Vice President Harris announced she plans to expand Medicare to cover home health care. Currently those who need long term care, are covered by Medicaid, the health program for the poor so have to spend all their savings before they can qualify. This change would allow more seniors to stay in their homes and offer support to caregiving family members. Medicare also covers the disabled thus proving a game changer for the disabled Americans and their families. The Vice President also endorsed expanding Medicare to cover the costs of hearing and vision care.

Medicare released a preliminary list of 101 generic drugs which it would cover that would cost no more than $2 for a month for enrollees. People have long lobbied to allow Medicare to pay for generic drugs which has been resisted by drug companies. Thanks to President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, and in line with a Biden Executive Order Medicare is now working on bring low cost generic drugs to seniors. The list targets some of the most common prescriptions thus will bring savings to the most people.

Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden announced that the Biden-Harris Administration had blown past its goal of hiring 250,000 student support staff for 2024. The joint effort by the Department of Education, AmeriCorps and Everyone Graduates Center managed to hire 320,000 tutors, mentors, student success coaches, postsecondary transition coaches, and student support coordinators nationwide, its goal for the end of 2025.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $420 million to help get rid of lead paint and other lead hazards from homes. HUD estimates that over 3 million households that have children under the age of 6 live with lead hazards. HUDs grants will go to all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico with particular focus on low income housing.

[eurekq]

"I don't want to be complicit" is the like. Most misguided anti-voting stance that I see on here from other Americans. You earn and spend money in the US economy, most likely benefit from some type of government aid, and I know no one on here is brave enough to dodge their taxes. You are directly funding the government. You can't avoid complicity

[follow-up-news]

A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis raised alarms about the continuing dangers of lead in tap water, President Joe Biden is setting a 10-year deadline for cities across the nation to replace their lead pipes, finalizing an aggressive approach aimed at ensuring that drinking water is safe for all Americans. Biden is expected to announce the final Environmental Protection Agency rule Tuesday in the swing state of Wisconsin during the final month of a tight presidential campaign. The announcement highlights an issue — safe drinking water — that Kamala Harris has prioritized as vice president and during her presidential campaign. The new rule supplants a looser standard set by former President Donald Trump’s administration that did not include a universal requirement to replace lead pipes. Biden and Harris believe it’s “a moral imperative” to ensure that everyone has access to clean drinking water, EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters Monday. “We know that over 9 million legacy lead pipes continue to deliver water to homes across our country. But the science has been clear for decades: There is no safe level of lead in our drinking water.’' The rule is the strongest overhaul of lead-in-water standards in roughly three decades. Lead, a heavy metal used in pipes, paints, ammunition and many other products, is a neurotoxin that can cause a range of disorders from behavioral problems to brain damage. Lead lowers IQ scores in children, stunts their development and increases blood pressure in adults.

[breadbird-reanimated]

its not joever til its joever <- litany against defeatism