Biden Bits: “New”…

December 16, 2024 12:16 pm EST Tiff Biden Tweets (Open Thread) Comments Off on Biden Bits: “New”…
Biden Tweets Christmas Logo. Image by Lenny Ghoul.

It’s Monday…

President Biden’s public schedule for 12/16/2024:

Monday, December 16 2024
10:00 AM
The White House 
Closed Press
The President receives the President’s Daily Brief
11:40 AM
South Grounds In-Town Travel Pool
The President departs the White House en route to the Department of Labor
12:15 PM
Department of Labor Pre-Credentialed Media

The President joins Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su for an event at the Department of Labor to honor our nation’s labor history and the Biden-Harris Administration’s work to strengthen America’s workforce
1:15 PM
Department of Labor In-Town Travel Pool
The President departs the Department of Labor en route to the White House
1:20 PM
South Grounds In-Town Travel Pool
The President arrives at the White House
7:45 PM
East Room In-House Pool
The President and The First Lady host a Hanukkah Holiday Reception; The Second Gentleman attends

From the White House…

12/16/2024:

FACT SHEET: President Biden Designates Frances Perkins National Monument

Action Uplifts Women’s History by Honoring the First Woman Cabinet Secretary, Longest-Serving Secretary of Labor, and a Key Architect of the New Deal

Today President Biden will sign a proclamation establishing the Frances Perkins National Monument in Newcastle, Maine, to honor the historic contributions of America’s first woman Cabinet Secretary and the longest-serving Secretary of Labor.

Frances Perkins was the leading architect behind the New Deal and led many labor and economic reforms that continue to benefit Americans today. During her 12 years as Secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she envisioned and helped create Social Security; helped millions of Americans get back to work during the Great Depression; fought for the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively; and established the minimum wage, overtime pay, prohibitions on child labor, and unemployment insurance.

During a visit to the Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building, President Biden will showcase Frances Perkins’s foundational legacy, which civil rights and women’s rights leaders have built upon to further expand opportunities for all Americans. The President will also highlight how his Administration has continued to stand with labor and strengthen America’s workforce. President Biden is proud to be the most pro-union and pro-worker president in history, including creating the Made in America office; requiring Project Labor Agreements on nearly all major federal construction projects of over $35 million; signing the Butch Lewis Act to save more than one million pensions; and becoming the first president in history to walk a picket line.

The designation of this new national monument advances President Biden’s March 2024 Executive Order to strengthen the recognition of women’s history. In addition to establishing the Frances Perkins National Monument, today Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland will announce five new National Historic Landmarks that will increase the representation of women’s history in historic sites across America and additional new actions to advance President Biden’s Executive Order.

Frances Perkins National Monument

At a time when few women were in leadership positions and just 13 years after the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, President Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins to become his Secretary of Labor. Perkins told President Roosevelt that if she accepted the position, she intended to execute an ambitious plan to protect American workers. Over her 12 years as Secretary of Labor, Perkins accomplished nearly everything on her list and laid the groundwork for the labor policy and social safety net that we continue to build on today.

The new national monument boundary encompasses the 57 acres of the Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark site in Newcastle, Maine. The Perkins Homestead played a pivotal role in Frances Perkins’ life and was the place Perkins felt most at home. She spent her childhood summers there, and returned frequently for respite throughout her ground-breaking professional career.  

Owned by her family for over 270 years, the Homestead remains much as it looked during Perkins’ lifetime. The 2.3-acre core area of the Homestead has been donated to the National Park Service and is reserved as part of the new monument, including the Perkins’ family home known as the brick house, a barn and outbuilding, gardens, and part of the stone wall surrounding the property. The remaining Homestead landscape extends from the core area to the Damariscotta River to the east, and contains other buildings, structures, gardens, and the paths used by Perkins and her family throughout her life. These lands are currently owned by the Frances Perkins Center which has been managing and preserving them, and they will be reserved and protected as part of the national monument if they are ever donated to the Federal Government in the future.

Advancing Women’s History and Telling a More Complete American Story

The establishment of the Frances Perkins National Monument furthers the Administration’s commitment to recognizing women’s contributions to our country. TheBiden-Harris Administration has invested more than $40 million to restore and support sites that recognize and elevate the stories of women who have shaped American history. Today, the Department of the Interior (DOI) is announcing additional new actions that advance the President’s Executive Order on Honoring and Recognizing Women’s History, including:

FACT SHEET: President Biden Designates Frances Perkins National Monument. 12/16/2024.
  • Secretary Haaland is announcing five new National Historic Landmarks, DOI’s highest recognition of a property’s historical, architectural, or archeological significance. These include:
    • The Charleston Cigar Factory in Charleston, South Carolina. This new landmark, historically known as the American Cigar Company Building, will recognize the site where cigar factory workers – led by Black women – went on strike for better pay and working conditions, and against gender and racial discrimination on the job.
    • The Furies Collective House in Washington, D.C. This new landmark recognizes the former home of a group of young activists who created a social and political community credited with recognizing the existence and needs of lesbians in the women’s movement in the early 1970s, and who published a newspaper focused on questions of women’s identity, relationships, and roles in society.
    • The Lucy Diggs Slowe and Mary Burrill House in Washington, D.C. This new landmark includes the residence of Lucy Diggs Slowe, the first dean of women at Howard University, and her partner Mary Burrill. An advocate for educational parity between men and women students, Slowe helped modernize student affairs at Howard and other historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
    • Azurest South in Petersburg, Virginia. This new landmark is designed in the International Style, an architectural style developed in the United States and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s that dominated mid-20th century architecture, by Amaza Lee Meredith, a pioneering Black woman architect.
    • The Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth House and Studios in San Patricio, New Mexico. This new landmark recognizes the home and workspace of 20th century Realist painter Henriette Wyeth.    
  • The National Park Service is announcing a $500,000 grant from the Historic Preservation Fund to support the renovation of the Seneca Falls Knitting Mill, a part of the Seneca Falls Village Historic District. The Fund’s support will enable the National Women’s Hall of Fame to expand its programming on women’s history and restore the mill, which was one of the few places in Seneca Falls, New York to employ women during its 150 years of operation.
  • As directed by President Biden, DOI is releasing a new report on representation of women across sites of national importance, including National Historic Landmarks, national monuments, and national park sites. The report assesses which existing federal sites are significant to women’s history and offers opportunities to improve the recognition of women’s contributions to our country across the National Park Service, including through the National Historic Landmark program.

Background on Antiquities Act Designations

President Theodore Roosevelt first used the Antiquities Act in 1906 to designate Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. Since then, 18 presidents of both parties have used this authority to protect natural and historic features in America, including the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty, the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, the Pullman National Monument, and the César E. Chávez National Monument.

The Frances Perkins National Monument will be President Biden’s 13th use of the Antiquities Act and his fourth new national monument commemorating a site that helps tell a more complete American story. Other designations under President Biden include the creation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument, and the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument.

FACT SHEET: President Biden Designates Frances Perkins National Monument. 12/16/2024.

President Biden Delivers Remarks at the Frances Perkins National Monument Designation Event @12:15 PM D.C., time:

Three Tweets

From Friday…

The video clip is 48 seconds long.

From the White House…

12/10/2024:

Remarks by President Biden on His Middle-Out, Bottom-Up Economic Playbook; the YouTube is 41 minutes and 15 seconds long.

But all kidding aside, I came into office with a different vision for America that’s been consistent with my record — good, bad, or indifferent — since I’ve been a senator: grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up; invest in America and American products.  And when that happens, everybody does — the wealthy still do very well, and all of America, no matter where they lived, whether they went to college or not.

I was determined to restore U.S. leadership in industries of the future.

You know, four years later, we have proof that the playbook is, at least now, working. 

[snip]

We understood we needed long-term investments for the future.  Investing in America agenda, which includes my Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act — together, they mark the most significant investment in America since the New Deal.  And that’s a fact.  I mean, whether it’s good or bad, that’s the fact. 

Remarks by President Biden on His Middle-Out, Bottom-Up Economic Playbook; the YouTube is 41 minutes and 15 seconds long. 12/10/2024.

The video clip is 1 minute and 32 seconds long.

The YouTube is 20 minutes and 49 seconds long; the White House has still not published the transcript of his remarks. To be fair, they might have been just sent to the media and not finished posting for the public.

The video clip is 40 seconds long.

From the White House…

06/25/2021:

Remarks by President Biden Commemorating LGBTQ+ Pride Month; the YouTube is 31 minutes and 40 seconds long.

For this community and for our nation and for the world, Pride Month represents so much.  It stands for courage — the courage of all those in previous generations and today who proudly live their truth. 

[snip]

And above all, Pride Month stands for love — you know, being able to love yourself, love whomever you love, and love this country enough to make it more fair and more free and more just.

At the 20 second mark it flips to 11/29/2022 when H.R.8404 – Respect for Marriage Act passed the Senate (61 yea’s and 36 nay’s).

At the 22 second mark it flips to 12/08/2022 when the bill passed the House (258 yea’s 169 nay’s and 4 people did not vote).

Two Tweets

From Saturday…

Show more =’s Jill and I still grieve this unimaginable loss and continue to pray for the victims’ families and others traumatized by this senseless violence. I remain hopeful that we will continue to make progress in our fight against the scourge of gun violence. This hope is rooted in the history of what we have accomplished already and the strength of all of the survivors of gun violence that I have had the privilege of working with during my career.

From the White House…

12/14/2024:

Statement from President Joe Biden Marking Twelve Years Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

Twelve years ago today, the community of Newtown, Connecticut, and the entire nation were forever changed when twenty innocent children and six brave educators were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School by a single individual armed with a weapon of war. Jill and I still grieve this unimaginable loss and continue to pray for the victims’ families and others traumatized by this senseless violence. 
 
Many individuals impacted by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School have turned their pain into purpose. Some families established foundations to carry on their loved ones’ memories—others chose to use their voices to fight for commonsense gun safety reform, hold the gun industry accountable with groundbreaking litigation, and fight back against those who spread misinformation and further victimize those impacted by gun violence. The elementary school children who survived the shooting are now young adults and many of them have also joined the effort to reduce gun violence and save lives.
 
The legacy of this tragedy is one of great loss—but also hope. Twelve years ago, moms sitting at their kitchen counters went online, expressed their outrage, and organized for commonsense gun safety legislation. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords decided enough was enough and started her own effort to combat gun violence. Gun violence prevention organizations that had been invested in the cause for decades reemerged with renewed strength. Today’s gun violence prevention movement is stronger than ever before because of survivors and other Americans who saw the Sandy Hook shooting and said “enough.”
 
With the strength of this emboldened movement by our side, we have made historic progress to reduce gun violence over the past four years. I signed into law the most significant piece of gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. I announced dozens of executive actions to keep guns out of dangerous hands and get especially dangerous weapons off our streets. I established the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Harris, to accelerate this work. After four years under my administration, homicides are down, crime is falling, and we are seeing fewer mass shootings. This progress is no accident. 
 
Still, more must be done. Congress has an obligation to ‘do something’ in order to protect our children and communities from this scourge of gun violence. We are the only nation experiencing this epidemic and there are common sense policies that the majority of Americans agree with and that Congress can easily take action on. We need universal background checks, red flag laws, safe storage requirements, and a ban on assault weapons like the one used at Sandy Hook. I remain hopeful that we will continue to make progress on these priorities. This hope is rooted in the history of what we have accomplished already and the strength of all the survivors of gun violence that I have had the privilege of working with during my career.

Statement from President Joe Biden Marking Twelve Years Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting. 12/14/2024.

Three Tweets

From Sunday…

From the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

12/12/2024:

CFPB Closes Overdraft Loophole to Save Americans Billions in Fees

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took action to close an outdated overdraft loophole that exempted overdraft loans from lending laws. The agency’s final rule on overdraft fees applies to the banks and credit unions with more than $10 billion in assets that dominate the U.S. market. The reforms will allow large banks several options to manage their overdraft lending program: they can choose to charge $5; to offer overdraft as a courtesy by charging a fee that covers no more than costs or losses; or continue to extend profit-generating overdraft loans if they comply with longstanding lending laws, including disclosing any applicable interest rate. The final rule is expected to add up to $5 billion in annual overdraft fee savings to consumers, or $225 per household that pays overdraft fees.

“For far too long, the largest banks have exploited a legal loophole that has drained billions of dollars from Americans’ deposit accounts,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “The CFPB is cracking down on these excessive junk fees and requiring big banks to come clean about the interest rate they’re charging on overdraft loans.”

Today’s action closes the large bank regulatory loophole that exempted overdraft fees as a finance charge. When Congress passed the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) in 1968, many families used mail to send and receive checks, and were subject to various bank processing times in order for their deposits and withdrawals to clear. In 1969, the Federal Reserve Board exempted banks from TILA protections for infrequent cases where a bank was honoring a check that had not cleared and subjected the customer to overdraft fees. At the time, overdraft services were not considered profit drivers but courtesy services extended by the bank when, for instance, a paper check sent through the mail may have arrived late.

Over the past few decades, these highly profitable overdraft loans have increased consumer costs by billions of dollars. The loans have also led to tens of millions of consumers losing access to banking services, as well as facing negative credit reporting that has prevented them from opening another account in the future.

CFPB Closes Overdraft Loophole to Save Americans Billions in Fees. 12/12/2024.

The CFPB’s Final Overdraft Rule

The final rule makes several key updates to federal regulation governing overdraft fees for financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets.

These institutions would have to choose one of the following options when charging for overdrafts:

CFPB Closes Overdraft Loophole to Save Americans Billions in Fees. 12/12/2024.
  • Cap their overdraft fee at $5: Under this simple option, covered banks and credit unions could simply cap their fee at $5, which is the estimated level at which most banks could be able to cover their costs associated with administering a courtesy overdraft program.
  • Cap their fee at an amount that covers costs and losses: For banks that wish to offer overdraft as a convenient service rather than as a profit center, the final rule allows financial institutions to set their fee at an amount that covers their costs and losses.
  • Disclose the terms of their overdraft loan just like other loans: For financial institutions that wish to profit from overdraft lending, they may do so by complying with the standard requirements governing other loans, like credit cards. This would include giving consumers a choice on whether to open the line of overdraft credit, providing account-opening disclosures that would allow comparison shopping, sending periodic statements, and giving consumers a choice of whether to pay automatically or manually.

CFPB’s Junk Fee Efforts

The CFPB is one of many independent regulatory agencies and cabinet departments that are members of the White House Competition Council  , established by the Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. The CFPB has been leading the effort to tackle junk fees, consistent with a whole-of-government approach to addressing this important issue. Agencies like the Federal Trade Commission  and U.S. Department of Transportation  have also pursued important initiatives to tackle junk fees in other sectors of the economy.

Since the CFPB announced its initiative to curb junk fees, multiple banks have begun reducing or eliminating overdraft and non-sufficient fund fees, and consumers have saved $6 billion annually in these fees. However, even with these changes, consumers still paid more than $5.8 billion in 2023 in reported overdraft and NSF fees.

In addition to today’s action on overdraft fees, the CFPB has continued to order many large institutions to return illegal overdraft fees to consumers. The CFPB recently brought a $95 million enforcement action against Navy Federal Credit Union for illegal surprise overdraft fees. The CFPB also took action against Wells Fargo, Regions Bank, and Atlantic Union for illegal overdraft fees, which resulted in refunds to consumers totaling $205 million, $141 million, and $5 million in unlawful fees, respectively.

The overdraft final rule will take effect on October 1, 2025.

Read the regulatory text of the final overdraft lending rule. 

Read the CFPB’s final rule, Overdraft Lending: Very Large Financial Institutions.

Read more about the CFPB’s work on junk fees.

Consumers can submit complaints about financial products and services by visiting the CFPB’s website or by calling (855) 411-CFPB (2372).

Employees who believe their company has violated federal consumer financial protection laws are encouraged to send information about what they know to whistleblower@cfpb.gov. To learn more about reporting potential industry misconduct, visit the CFPB’s website.

CFPB Closes Overdraft Loophole to Save Americans Billions in Fees. 12/12/2024.

FYI: I googled info about the CEO and boat named “Overdraft”; I found a Washington Post article from 01/22/2017 in which they call the executive former bank CEO: Turns out overdraft fees are still big moneymakers for some banks. So much so that a former chief executive of a midsize bank named his boat after the fee.

From the White House…

12/11/2024:

Remarks by President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the First-Ever White House Conference on Women’s Health Research; the YouTube is 1 hour and 55 minutes long. The Biden’s remarks start at the 1 hour and 33 minute mark.

I often say, America can be summed up in one word. I was on the Tibetan Plateau with Xi Jinping, and he said, “Can you define America for me?” And I — this is all on the record. I said, “Yes, one word: possibilities.”

[snip]

That’s what the Women’s Realth — Health Research Initiative is all about: possibilities.  You know, and that’s what this conference is all about.  That’s what you’re all about.  Researchers, innovators, investors; businesses, advocates, elected officials; public, private, and non-profit leaders unleashing the drive and discovery and the talent and imagination that you have in this room — a spirit of innovation inherent in who you guys are. 

Remarks by President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the First-Ever White House Conference on Women’s Health Research; the YouTube is 1 hour and 55 minutes long. The Biden’s remarks start at the 1 hour and 33 minute mark. 12/11/2024.

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About Tiff 3049 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.