Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill to include $50 billion towards climate change efforts

• On November 15, President Joe Biden signed a $1 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure bill which includes funding to protect against climate change
• Many critics point out that the bill has little to do with curbing planet-warming emissions and still falls short of preparing the country for the impacts of climate change

Fauci says political divide is hampering COVID-19 pandemic response

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Chief White Hosue medical advisor has said that the political divide over science in the US has impeded the response to the pandemic
• Fauci noted that those who identify with the Republican Party generally have lower vaccination rates 

The post National News – 11-15-2021 appeared first on Easy Ad - Local Small Business Resources.

• The leaders of World Bank, WHO, IMF, WTO have all published a plea in newspapers across the globe that urges all wealthy nations to contribute to the $50 billion to fight COVID
• These agencies have planned to make $9 trillion in addition to the global output by 2025
• And have the goal of vaccinating 20% of the world population by 2021

• AMC has pivoted back to an offensive strategy on a bet that its retail investors will stick with the company long enough for it to recoup its pandemic losses
• Since the January stock surge, some retail investors have used social media to attack anyone who shares negative opinions of AMC

• President Biden has proposed a top marginal income ta rate of 39.6% which is 2.6% up from the 37% before to help fund the American Families Plan
• This rate affects those single Americans who have a taxable income of more than $452,700 and those married couples who file together with income over $509,300
• After 2025, this rate is expected to increase to this 39.6%  even if Congress does not approve Biden’s proposal

• This Chinese electric car company Nio has seen deliveries decrease in May due to the shortage of semiconductors and it has had a huge impact on their business
• Other Global automotive companies have also had to deal with this worldwide chip shortage but another Chinese car company named Xpeng reports that their deliveries have been 5,686 in May which is a 483% on-year increase and a 10% from the previous month

• All Domestic Cinemas (at least here in the US) have reported $100 million in ticket sales over the four-day Memorial Day weekend
• “A Quiet Place Part II” by Paramount has bragged a total revenue of $48.4 million over three days and is the highest film debut of the pandemic
• “Cruella” by Disney also saw a large amount of revenue of $27 million during the 4 day weekend

• The CEO of Cirque du Soleil Daniel Lamare reports that ticket sales have reached double digits higher than how it was pre-pandemic
• For highly vaccinated markets, International shows will be scheduled
• The company plans to rehire about 95% of its artist for their shows around the globe

• Krispy Kreme says that giving away 1.5 million doughnuts has deemed successful as an incentive for getting the vaccine
• In all markets around the U.S. in concerns to the Food industry, companies and community groups are experimenting with all sorts of incentives for others to get fully vaccinated 
• Among certain groups, studies have shown to be more effective than others

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• The government has issued a new batch of $1,400 stimulus checks, bringing the total number of payments to almost 167 million, or about $391 billion
• This tranche included more than 1.8 million payments worth more than $3.5 billion
• Most of the payments were prompted by tax returns recently processed by the IRS

• Best Buy reports that their sales have grown 36% in the first quarter of this year as shoppers’ stimulus-fueled spending spree included consumer electronics
• The retailer has raised its forecast for the year after seeing demand continue into the second quarter
• CEO Corie Barry said the strong housing market has inspired consumers to invest in technology and appliances

• Gap and Walmart will launch a new brand, Gap Home, with bedding, bath, and décor
• The initial collection will debut on Walmart’s website June 24 and eventually be available in the discounter’s stores
• With the multiyear deal, Walmart aims to drive more online sales and Gap wants to strengthen its brand among shoppers

• Ford CEO Jim Farley largely met Wall Street’s expectations during his first investor day leading the automaker
• But Ford didn’t deliver on everything investors were hoping to have answered during the event
• Shares of Ford have roughly doubled under Farley’s leadership, including an 8.5% increase on Wednesday

Biden Budget explained – Where will the $5T go over the next 10 years?

• President Joe Biden will propose $5 trillion in new federal spending over the next decade on Friday as part of his fiscal year 2022 budget request
• The new spending would fund Biden’s sweeping domestic agenda: Expanding the social safety net for working families and modernizing America’s infrastructure
• It would be paid for in part by $3.6 trillion in additional revenues over the same period and would result in a net deficit of $1.4 trillion
• Biden’s budget also projects that inflation will reach no more than 2.3% annually over the next 10 years

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• Congress is unlikely to pass a police reform bill before Tuesday, the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death and President Joe Biden’s deadline to approve legislation
• Talks on a bipartisan deal are expected to move forward this week
• Qualified immunity for officers continues to trip up efforts to strike a final agreement.
• Sen. Cory Booker, one of the police reform negotiators, said talks are “making good progress”

• The legislation, released by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, would increase funding by 34% to a baseline of about $300 billion over five years
• House Republicans last week introduced their take on a surface transportation funding program — a $400 billion bill
• The push on surface transportation comes as Washington struggles to strike a deal on a broader infrastructure package

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• Macy’s reported a surprise fiscal first-quarter profit, as shoppers returned to stores to refresh their wardrobes
• The retailer raised its full-year outlook, citing the momentum it’s seeing in its shops and online for the heightened optimism
• CEO Jeff Gennette said the retailer is seeing strength in items for the home, fine jewelry and watches, fragrance and luxury

• Walmart’s first-quarter earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations, as its sales got a lift from strong grocery and e-commerce sales
• The big-box retailer raised its guidance for the fiscal year
• The company said more shoppers have headed to its stores and website to get ready to socialize again as Covid cases decline and vaccination rates rise

Home Depot crushes estimates, its sales jump 32.7% as customers rang up bigger purchases

• Home Depot handily beat Wall Street’s estimates for its fiscal first-quarter earnings and revenue
• The retailer has gotten a boost to sales over the last year during the coronavirus pandemic
• Home Depot didn’t release an outlook for fiscal 2021

• Italian supercar maker Lamborghini has announced that it will launch a fully-electric car in the second half of the decade
• Lamborghini laid out “a roadmap to the decarbonization of future Lamborghini models and of the Sant’Agata Bolognese site,” its factory headquarters
• The next 10 years sees the company transition to hybrid models before it launches a fully-electric car

• President Joe Biden is scheduled to tour Ford’s new Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, where the electric F-150 Lightning pickup will be produced
• Biden is expected to tout his American EV agenda and $2 trillion infrastructure package that includes $174 billion to spur the development and adoption of electric vehicles
• The F-150 Lightning could be the poster child for such plans

• With more than 1.9 billion drinks served every day, Coca-Cola is one of the world’s largest beverage companies
• With U.S. soda consumption on the decline, the soft drink maker has been forced to pivot
• Coke recently launched Topo Chico Hard Seltzer, marking its first move into alcoholic beverages on its home turf after a four-decade long hiatus
• The company has also recently invested in the sports performance drink category with BodyArmor and it purchased U.K. coffee maker Costa in 2019

The post Business News – 5-18-2021 appeared first on Easy Ad - Local Small Business Resources.

• Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed medical marijuana legislation Monday as Republican opposition to the issue faded after decades of debate
• The program will allow people with a qualifying medical condition to purchase medical marijuana with the recommendation of a doctor
• More than a dozen conditions, including cancer, a terminal illness, depression, epilepsy, panic disorder and chronic pain would allow a person to qualify

• President Joe Biden said Monday that the U.S. will share an additional 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines with the world in the coming six weeks as domestic demand for shots drops and global disparities in distribution have grown more evident
• The doses will come from existing production of Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine stocks, marking the first time that U.S.-controlled doses of vaccines authorized for use in the country will be shared overseas

• Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called on state lawmakers Monday to convene for a special session this week to consider bills involving allocating federal coronavirus relief funds and a prohibition on mask requirements in schools
• Lawmakers will focus on allocating the more than $1.5 billion Utah is receiving from the American Rescue Plan, as well as updating or fixing errors made in bills that passed the general session this past spring
• They will also weigh a resolution condemning acts of anti-Asian hate and an extension of the state drought emergency

• A legislative session that began amid a surge in coronavirus cases ended Friday with Missouri lawmakers passing a legal shield against pandemic-related liability lawsuits as their final action
• The legislation would prohibit COVID-19 liability lawsuits against businesses and health care providers unless plaintiffs can prove they were exposed and sickened by the coronavirus and that the entity engaged in “reckless or willful misconduct”

• Sunday tailgaters could buy beers earlier in the morning and a pandemic allowance for carryout cocktails could become permanent under a bill passed by the Missouri Legislature
• The bill expanding the availability of alcohol won final approval Friday in the House while some lawmakers touted it as a benefit for small businesses and the tourism industry
• When restaurants had their indoor capacities limited during the coronavirus pandemic, the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control temporarily relaxed rules so they could sell mixed drinks to go

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• Senate Democrats aim to advance the For the People Act, a sweeping elections reform bill that will influence registration, voting, campaign finance and congressional redistricting
• The Senate Rules Committee held a hearing on the legislation, during which Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it necessary to combat restrictive voting laws and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cast it as a power grab
• If the panel advances the plan to the full Senate, it faces long odds of passage

• Covid-19 booster shots will be free to the public if they are needed to control the ongoing pandemic, David Kessler, chief science officer of the White House Covid-19 response team, told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday
• “We do have the funds to purchase the next round and to assure if there are boosters that they are free just as the last round,” Kessler said at a Senate hearing
• If booster shots are deemed necessary by federal health officials, seniors and people with underlying conditions would likely be the first to have access to them, as they did during the first round of vaccines

• Uber and Lyft will offer free rides to vaccination sites until July 4 as part of a new White House partnership, the Biden administration announced Tuesday
• The White House said the initiative would launch within the next two weeks
• The Biden administration said the program should help to reach the president’s goal of vaccinating 70% of U.S. adults with at least one shot by Independence Day

• President Joe Biden is holding high-profile meetings this week with a bipartisan group of senators whose input could shape the outlines of any final bill
• Right now, there are no visible areas of overlap between the Democratic and Republican infrastructure funding plans
• In the House, rank-and-file Democrats question whether their Republican colleagues really want a bipartisan compromise

• President Joe Biden said his administration will distribute more coronavirus relief funds as it aims to help companies hire more workers
• While he urged companies to boost wages and make workplaces safe to entice workers, Biden also said people who do not take an offer for a “suitable job” would lose unemployment benefits unless they have a specific coronavirus-related concern
• Job growth slowed in April, and Biden disputed the notion that a $300 per week enhanced unemployment benefit deterred Americans from taking jobs

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Donny Slade

Opinion

Tulsi Gabbard would have made a fantastic opponent to Donald Trump

Note: you can read this opinion piece, even if you don’t align with my political viewpoints. If you disagree with me on politics, it’s probably especially important that you read it.

—

An Important announcement from Tulsi Gabbard. That spells out a suspended campaign, surely.

Tulsi Gabbard bows out?

That’s the thought that went through my head when I saw it come up on my feed. Who is Tulsi Gabbard, you might ask?

Let’s give some background. I try to remain as unbiased as possible in my job – sales, with a side of writing.

I’m not a huge fan of Donald Trump, though, fiscally, I tend to align with his policies. His social policies on the other hand, I’m not always in love with. The problem with Trump isn’t that he’s confident. It’s that no one else can be right, even if they are right. I believe you shouldn’t be right unless you’re actually right. If you can demonstrably be proven to be wrong, even if it wasn’t your intent, or it is painful, you should make it right and admit you were wrong.

It bothers me that he cannot do that. Mostly because I think he could be a good leader. Not particularly based on what he ran on, but that he has the capability, if only he was flexible. Notice I didn’t say more flexible. He is stubborn like my brother’s teenage kids. They refuse to be wrong even with proof that they are wrong.

They want to be right for the sake of being right. It’s a teenager thing.

So of course, in my desire to retain my ability to say that I am truly unbiased, I like to follow both sides of the political spectrum. That, so I don’t get caught up in an echo chamber, despite my mostly leaning right on the political scale.

Here’s the problem. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders aren’t likeable. Elizabeth Warren isn’t likeable either. Hilary certainly wasn’t likeable. Andrew Yang had no chance. Pete Buttigieg wasn’t mainstream enough for most of America, despite being pretty likeable. There are others that could have made sense if they had put in more pre-work.

Kamala Harris is too tainted from her time in California in various public-facing offices – she’ll probably never be able to run for President and do well, though I do like the idea of a woman of color being a legitimate candidate on the final ticket – as long as she has the experience and composure that a President should have (A female Trump wouldn’t be a good final ticket candidate in my mind).

Cory Booker wasn’t believable and didn’t command the same speaking prowess as is necessary. Amy Klobuchar was very likeable, certainly very human, but had no chance, and a realistic lack of experience in all the areas I personally believe need to be high on the list for a potential president.

Michael Bloomberg is way off on guns, he’d have too much pressure as a result. He also has social skills on the level just barely above Mark Zuckerberg. Buying $600+ million dollars’ worth of ads to prove a point puts him out of the realm of being able to connect with normal folks. He would have also set the bar pretty high for future campaigns on a spending perspective. A few Billion dollars would have been a minimum spend and completely ludicrous.  

Tulsi Gabbard said everything right for a moderate candidate. She looks the part. She’s graceful and distinguished, and it’s not hard to get fringe conservatives to agree with most of her positions. She’s like a democrat Rand Paul. And that ultimately is the problem.  She’s too eager to actually work at fixing problems, so her political warfare standard is lower than that of her opponents who are strictly there to garner political favor.

She is also willing to get serious when asking people to be accountable. She isn’t afraid to call people out, but she’s more respectful than most politicians.

Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t want to just run to war the first time we see aggression from another country. She wants to listen to what people have to say. She is a legitimate patriot and still serves in the Hawaii National Guard.

She has real chops in foreign policy, despite taking a lot of flack for having met with some controversial international figures. Think Syria.

She is a real person, who, if you give her five minutes to talk, she will have you actually listening.

She’s also the anti-Trump. So, she is a much more interesting matchup to the current president. Who in my opinion, if it weren’t for his ego, might not have done a very bad job What are your thoughts? Am I way out in left field? Did I get this one wrong? Did I say something too sensitive? Let me know thus far. It just doesn’t help that the guy distances himself from people every day trying to always be the only person who is right in the world.

I actually don’t have a problem with his record, as long as I don’t have to listen to him talk about it.

That said, I lean right, and I actually like listening to what Tulsi Gabbard has to say.

I’d be a voter that potentially moved my vote from historically Conservative to Moderate Democrat if the other candidate was Tulsi Gabbard.

But alas, it wasn’t to be. She bowed out gracefully and threw her hat in the ring for Joe Biden, who is cringeworthy at best.

He picks fights with veterans and lies about being arrested trying to visit Nelson Mandela and has a problem with touching women awkwardly every single time he’s on camera it seems. He also says really ridiculous things. Like when he made a comment about working with the only Black female senator… when there was another one in the same room as him, and he didn’t even mention her name (Kamala Harris), on a national televised debate. Awkward.

He’s also a paper tiger. He doesn’t seem real. He seems miffed at the simplest things and always takes it too far for the sake of looking tough. It’s tiresome.

I’m not trying to tell you who to vote for or what politics to have, I’m just trying to say it would have been a legitimate fight if democrats could have coalesced behind a centrist type instead of a revolutionary hard progressive, or a socialist. Even better if they forgot to get behind the longest serving potential candidate just because he served as VP to Barack Obama.

Talk about milquetoast, with a side of cringe. That’s what I see when the chosen candidate is Joe Biden.

Tulsi Gabbard would have been female, strong willed, well spoken, proven in important matters and American as apple pie. She’s also not a weakling but answers and asks questions based on substance not talking points.

The fact that Biden has overtaken Sanders after a strong start for Bernie, makes me realize we aren’t ready as a nation for a self-proclaimed democratic socialist. That’s a sigh of relive for someone who believes the Constitution deserves to be conserved. We need a return to strong 4^th and 9^th and 10^th amendment stances. We need legitimate protection in certain areas against erosion of Second Amendment rights. You don’t have to agree with all my politics to agree with some of them. Remember that’s what elections and campaigning are supposed to be about.

I don’t like Tulsi Gabbard’s specific stance on the 2^nd amendment, but that doesn’t stop me from recognizing that she was easily the best candidate to take out Trump for those who oppose him.

Unfortunately for those who want Trump out, no one is jumping from Trump to Biden or Sanders (who may not even be the chosen candidate in the end). Furthermore, if both of them enter the final ticket as potential presidents, say, if Sanders went to an independent ticket or something like that, then it all but guarantees a landslide by Trump.

I want to be clear: I am a conservative in all fiscal policies. I am also trending right on most social issues, with some exceptions.

That said, I am not for or against Trump.

I would rather vote for Trump than for a Biden or a Sanders. But I could have been swayed by a Tulsi Gabbard. I hope she considers running in the future and evolving on her stances to meet the needs of important historical documents that amazingly still have the utmost of relevance, but also the constituents of the United States of America.  

For me it’s not about Conservative vs. Democrat, it’s about who can best take us forward. And even if I liked Trump, which is up in the air as a politician (I’m not in love with him as a “persona” and I don’t’ know him personally to say whether he is a good person or not) I’m not sure he’s the right guy. Sometimes you need to change your mindset to serve people the right way – he seems resistant to change.

We have to stop looking at this political thing as ME vs. THEM and look at it as: where can we go from here with the right person, and how can that person best serve the collective of people in the United States?

For all that, I’m a bit sad today, as, even though she was a longshot with no chance of the White House this election (BECAUSE OF THE PRIMARIES – NOT THE GENERAL ELECTION), she was probably the best candidate that the Democrats have fielded, if even in passing, since JFK. And I don’t take saying that statement lightly.

What are your thoughts? Am I way out in left field? Did I get this one wrong? Did I say something too sensitive? Let me know.

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