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Gov. Kathy Hochul is delivering a big win to businesses that have been pressuring her to pay off their billions of dollars in unemployment-insurance debt — but she’s stealing the cash from state reserves to do it. Hochul said Monday that the state will cover the roughly $7 billion debt still lingering for employers from the pandemic. The businesses had hoped federal money that the state received during COVID-19 would at least partly be used to help cover the deluge of unemployment claims spurred by the pandemic, as most other states did.+ But the state used the money for other...

Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active DutyHOMEBRIEFING ROOMPRESIDENTIAL ACTIONSBy the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 121 and 12304 of title 10, United States Code, I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation Atlantic Resolve in and around the United States European Command’s area of responsibility. In furtherance of this operation, under the stated authority, I hereby authorize the...

Coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is mostly dominated by talk of weapons. Reporters and analysts focus on suicide drones, on shell deficits, on targeting algorithms. But for all the attention devoted to modern weapons and munitions, both conflicts are proving that modern war still comes down to people.... ... Before Covid, fewer than 3 in 10 Americans in the prime recruiting demographic — ages 17 to 24 — were eligible to serve in uniform. Those numbers have shrunk further since the pandemic began. Only 23 percent of young Americans are qualified to enlist without a waiver.... In...

The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it will sell off 1 million barrels of gasoline held in case of emergencies — with the Energy Department explicitly citing an interest in keeping gas prices low over the summer driving season ahead of the November election. The fuel will be released from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve, a component of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that was established in 2014 after Superstorm Sandy disrupted gasoline supplies in the New York City area. “The Biden-Harris Administration is laser focused on lowering prices at the pump for American families, especially as drivers hit the road...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from a Northeast reserve established after Superstorm Sandy in a bid to lower prices at the pump this summer. The sale, from storage sites in New Jersey and Maine, will be allocated in increments of 100,000 barrels at a time. The approach will create a competitive bidding process that ensures gasoline can flow into local retailers ahead of the July 4 holiday and sold at competitive prices, the Energy Department said. The move is intended to help “lower costs for American families and...

Naval Reserve Birthday is celebrated annually on March 3 to commemorate the establishment of the United States Navy Reserve. Did you know the Navy Reserve was established in 1915, making it more than a century younger than the U.S. Navy? Because Naval Reserve Birthday is not a federal holiday, people and businesses go about their daily lives on this day. However, the birthday is typically observed at various Navy Reserve units, the Reserve Headquarters, and the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Navy Reserve program allows citizens to serve in the Navy part-time with full training close to their homes...

It's hard to overstate the potential impact of a move underway that — thanks to Biden's catastrophic diplomacy — could result in China replacing the U.S. as a security guarantor with the petro-monarchies that control so much of the world's oil reserves. ... Seven months after President Xi Jinping participated in the first China-Gulf summit in Riyadh, economic exchanges between the world's second largest economy and nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been accelerating — moving well beyond crude purchases where Beijing has been dominant for years. One of the deals that could benefit from closer...

During the NATO summit this week, President Biden promised Ukraine President Zelenskyy that there would be no end to U.S. assistance to his country. Coincidentally, perhaps, this announcement has appeared on the White House's website:So, what's going on what that? Something's up.Nothing to see here. Just Biden calling up the reserves in preparation for World War 3 against Russia over a tinpot puppet kleptocrat in Eastern Europe. https://t.co/8Wwx7HWuvd— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 13, 2023🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨Biden Expands the War for American men and women.Reservists ordered to Active Duty after Zelensky asks Biden for more American money and troops. https://t.co/w7k92VIxZw— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell)...

President Joe Biden in December began working to replenish the 180 million barrels he sold last year from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Nearly six months later, he still has zero barrels to show for it. Biden's Energy Department on Monday announced its intention to purchase up to three million reserve barrels as a "continuation" of the president's "replenishment strategy." So far, however, that "strategy" has seen the Democrat fail to purchase a single barrel of reserve oil. The administration first tried to purchase three million reserve barrels in December, when Biden kicked off his "plan to replenish the SPR." One...

The Department of Energy will purchase 3 million barrels of oil to replace withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) amid high energy prices, it announced Friday. The Biden administration presented the purchase, which follows a bidding process that began in October, as an opportunity to buy the oil at a fixed price and repurchase it for less than the average of $96 per barrel it sold for. “Relative to conventional purchase contracts that expose producers to volatile crude prices, this new approach, when used at scale, can give producers the assurance to make investments today, knowing that the price...

President Joe Biden will order more oil released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as gas prices are on the rise and OPEC announced it was making its biggest cuts in production in more than two years. Biden will release another 10 million barrels this month and he will 'continue to direct SPR releases as appropriate to protect American consumers and promote energy security,' White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and economic adviser Brian Deese said in a joint statement. In the statement, the administration also called on oil companies to 'keep bringing pump prices down by closing the historically...

Prices could continue to rise, expert says.. The average price of gas in Oregon is up to $5 per gallon again after prices spiked by nearly 40 cents in the last week. After a summer of declining prices, AAA reports that statewide prices jumped from $4.64 per gallon to $5 per gallon in the last seven days. Prices are also up 20.3 cents per gallon in the Portland-Vancouver area this week, with an average price of $4.98 per gallon, GasBuddy.com petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan noted. ... gas prices shooting up in several regions amidst myriad refinery issues from the...

Biden has released millions of barrels of oil from the country’s strategic oil reserves. While the oil has been released to stabilize global energy markets and lower the prices of gas, of late the oil reserve release has been controversial. The U.S. sold some oil to China’s Sinopec, which has been connected to Hunter Biden in the past. ... 180 million barrels of oil are to be released, which makes it the biggest drawdown on the strategic oil reserves in history. The U.S sold oil to a subsidiary of Sinopec. ... Unipec America was also awarded 0.95 million barrels of...

The Biden administration has sold nearly 6 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to an entity tied to the Chinese Communist Party, records show. From September 2021 to July, the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded three crude oil contracts with a combined value of roughly $464 million to Unipec America, the U.S. trading arm of Chinese state-owned oil company Sinopec, according to a review by The Epoch Times of the DOE documents. A Chinese firm with ties to Hunter Biden had invested in the national oil giant. The sale would tap 5.9 million barrels in...

More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency oil reserves release aimed at lowering domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices touched record highs. The export of crude and fuel is blunting the impact of the moves by U.S. President Joe Biden designed to lower record pump prices. Biden on Saturday renewed a call for gasoline suppliers to cut their prices, drawing criticism from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The Biden administration plans to seek bids this fall to buy 60 million barrels of crude oil as the first step in a years-long process aimed at replenishing America's emergency oil reserve, an Energy Department official told CNN. This would mark the first time since the early 2000s that the Energy Department has acquired large quantities of oil for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the largest emergency supply of oil on the planet. The Energy Department plans to announce the launch of the long-term buyback plan on Thursday to show officials are serious about eventually refilling the SPR, which...

Biden’s executive orders ending the Keystone Pipeline, along with exploration and drilling on almost all federal land, when combined with the Democrats’ and RINOs’ uncontrolled spending (made possible by printing money), has created unprecedented inflation in America. To try to stave off the worst of it before the mid-terms, Biden recently announced he was releasing 1 million barrels of oil per day from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. However, it turns out that he’s sending at least some of that oil to Europe! When you have a government that destroys America’s energy independence, you’re going to have rising fuel prices. (As...

A "Special Military Operation" vs a "Peoples War" Russia is not fighting a war, but a Special Military Operation, as its government calls it. This has severe implications as to the actual force it can bring to bear. Add to that its conscription system is only a limited version of historical conscription systems. Ukraine however is fighting something much closer to a 19th-20th century total war, a whole-society resistance. It is not perfect in this, but given the public will, which seems to be present, they can and almost certainly have raised larger numbers than Russia has or can, unless...

As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, western governments scrambled to develop responses.That might be hard to believe since the military buildup had been underway for months. But European governments and the U.S. seemed unprepared to assist Ukraine when the war started.On the other hand, it seems like China has been preparing for this action for years.But it’s more likely that China has strategic plans for any contingency.Earlier this week, I wrote about how China was better prepared than Russia to withstand economic sanctions. The chart below shows that preparation extends to foodstuffs as well.China Is Well-StockedIn the first half of...

The White House hinted Tuesday that President Joe Biden is considering another release of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserves, as gas prices continue to rise. White House Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh said Biden would coordinate with major energy consumers to address higher energy prices, after the president announced a “first tranche” of sanctions against Russia after Vladimir Putin moved into Ukraine.