President Biden is poised to select former California Labor Secretary Julie Su as the next US Secretary of Labor.

President Joe Biden is nominating Julie Su as his next labor secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, Su would be the first Asian American to serve as a secretary in Biden's Cabinet. https://t.co/Utx5PWXc84

— The Associated Press (@AP) February 28, 2023

“It is my honor to nominate Julie Su to be our country’s next Secretary of Labor. Julie has spent her life fighting to make sure that everyone has a fair shot, that no community is overlooked, and that no worker is left behind,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday. “Over several decades, Julie has led the largest state labor department in the nation, cracked down on wage theft, fought to protect trafficked workers, increased the minimum wage, created good-paying, high-quality jobs, and established and enforced workplace safety standards.”

This is a developing story.

February 28, 2023 at 01:06PM - The First
BREAKING: Joe Biden Picks Nominee for Next Secretary of Labor
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Squad-member Cori Bush reportedly paid her now-husband more than $60,000 for his “security services” despite the fact the man does not have the proper credentials.

NEW from @JoeSchoffstall

Cori Bush's campaign paid her husband for security services – but he doesn't have a private security licensehttps://t.co/AQtTdQHmin

— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) February 28, 2023

From Fox News:

Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush’s campaign doled out $60,000 in private security payments last year to Cortney Merritts, who she quietly married earlier this month. 

Merritts, however, pocketed the security payments despite not having a St. Louis private security license, which is needed to perform security functions in the area, Fox News Digital has discovered. Merritts also received the campaign’s cash as it simultaneously paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a St. Louis security firm and another individual for personal protection.

Fox News Digital filed a public records request with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department on Monday morning seeking information regarding Merritts’ private security license. In response, a Sunshine Law administrator said there are “no responsive records” relative to the request, and Merritts does not have a current license. 

The records search – which covered the city of St. Louis and its neighboring St. Louis County – encompasses Bush’s entire congressional district. According to the St. Louis Metropolitan PD website: “With the exception of St. Louis Police Officers, all persons performing a security function in the City of St. Louis must be licensed to do so through the Private Security Section.” Likewise, in St. Louis County, security officers must register with the same security section. 

February 28, 2023 at 12:23PM - The First
BUSTED! Squad Member Paid Her Husband $60,000 for ‘Security’ – He Doesn’t Have A Security License
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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke with CNN this week where he claimed he will likely be “remembered” for his fight against Global Warming.

PETE BUTTIGIEG: "Dealing with climate change is one of the biggest things that people like me…will be remembered for after we're gone" pic.twitter.com/KUxpzQ2KDG

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 28, 2023

“Dealing with climate change is one of the biggest things that people like me…will be remembered for after we’re gone,” explained Buttigieg.

Watch his comments above.

February 28, 2023 at 09:49AM - The First
SOME LEGACY! Secretary Pete Says He Will Be ‘Remembered’ for His Fight Against Global Warming
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President Biden hosted another Black History Month event at the White House Monday night where he -again- claimed to grow up in the ‘Black Church’.

“As my buddy from Delaware can tell ya, when you’re involved in the Civil Rights movement as a kid in High School, I used to go down to the Black Church. I went to 7:30 Mass, then I’d go to 10 o’clock. You think I’m joking, I’m not!”

Biden once again claims he grew up going to a Black Church. pic.twitter.com/52UpVHJBRv

— ALX (@alx) February 27, 2023

“I can’t sing worth a damn!” he added.

February 28, 2023 at 08:24AM - The First
WATCH: Biden -AGAIN- Claims He Grew Up in the ‘Black Church’, But Says He Can’t ‘Sing and Dance’
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President Biden once again drawing flack for racial comments made during a White House Black History Month event Monday, declaring ‘I might be a white boy, but I’m not stupid.”

Watch Biden’s comment below:

“It’s important to say from the White House for the entire country to hear: history matters,” Biden said at a reception celebrating black history month on Monday. “History matters and black history matters. I can’t just choose to learn what we want to know. We learn what we should know. We have to learn everything, the good, the bad, the truth, and who we are as a nation.”

“I may be a White boy, but I’m not stupid,” Biden added, drawing laughter from the audience.

This isn’t Biden’s first racial gaffes in recent weeks. During an event at a Union Hall in Maryland earlier this month, President Biden referred to the state’s newly elected Governor Wes Moore — who is Black — as “boy.” 

“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore, I tell ya,” Biden said during remarks on the economy. “He’s the real deal, and the boy looked like he could still play. He got some guns on him.”

February 28, 2023 at 08:14AM - The First
ANOTHER RACIAL GAFFE: President Biden Blasted for ‘White Boy’ Comment
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sat-down with Dana Loesch Monday to discuss his new book, conservative principles, and issues like gun control.

Watch the full 15-minute interview above.

February 27, 2023 at 03:12PM - The First
EXCLUSIVE: Ron DeSantis Talks with The First TV
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The Congressional Equality Office unveiled new legislation Monday that would celebrate “Black LGBTQIA+ Leaders” in the United States.

From The Hill:

The Congressional Equality Caucus has introduced a resolution to celebrate the contributions of Black LGBTQ+ leaders during Black History Month. 

The resolution acknowledges February as an “important time” to honor the “remarkable and unique” contributions of Black Americans like Bayard Rustin, James Baldwin, Marsha P. Johnson, and others. 

“For generations, we have seen the erasure of Black LGBTQI+ Americans from our history, despite all of the rich and impactful contributions these individuals have made to our culture, society, and the advancement of civil rights” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), vice chair and founding member of the caucus. “Even today, the work of Black LGBTQI+ leaders is regularly not given the credit or recognition it deserves.”

The resolution, orignially introduced in February 2021, has 32 cosponsors and lists the names of both historic and contemporary LGBTQ+ Black leaders and activists. 

February 27, 2023 at 02:56PM - The First
JUST IN: Congressional Equality Caucus Introduces Bill to Honor ‘Black LGBTQIA+ Leaders’
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The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The report is based on a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday:

The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.

The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.

On Monday, the Chinese government fired back at the energy department’s assertion, accusing the US government of politicizing the origin of the virus.

“The origin of the novel coronavirus is a scientific issue and should not be politicized,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press briefing Monday. The spokeswoman added that the World Health Organizations 2021 investigation, which concluded that Covid-19 was highly unlikely to have leaked from a lab, was “an authoritative scientific conclusion.”

Read the full story here.

February 27, 2023 at 09:13AM - The First
U.S. Government: Covid Pandemic Most Likely Arose From a Lab Leak
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Actor Woody Harrelson used this weekend’s Saturday Night Live monologue to blast the pharmaceutical industry, government, and media for COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

“The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes, and people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over,” Harrelson said about an alleged film script he read before the pandemic.

“I threw the script away,” Harrelson continued. “I mean, who is going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day long.”

Watch the video below:

February 27, 2023 at 08:24AM - The First
WATCH: Woody Harrelson Blasts Drug Companies Over COVID-19 Vaccines in SNL Monologue
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On February 22, 1909, President Teddy Roosevelt reviewed 16 battleships returning from his “Great White Fleet” two year world tour which began on December 16, 1907. The fleet’s return, 10 days before his term of office ended with the inauguration of William Howard Taft, expressed in real terms that the United States was a world power, capable of projecting that power anywhere on the planet.

Allow me a (very) brief (and simplified) trot down history lane, and I promise I’ll get to my point about today.

The “Great White Fleet” was fêted at each of its 20 ports of call, and even rendered assistance after an earthquake struck Sicily in December, 1908. It was an amazing achievement of American technological and military advances. It was also a show of American unity and resolve, given the time, when the American Civil War was a living memory for many military leaders.

The grand tour came fresh off the success of Roosevelt’s role in negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War with the Treaty of Portsmouth. That won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. Russia and Japan, both regional powers in their own right, clashed for two years, with one battle—the battle for Mukden—costing the sides a combined 100,000 soldiers. Russia sent its Baltic fleet around the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean, only for it to suffer fifty percent casualties at the hands of the Japanese. Both Russia and Japan fell to their knees and looked to America to broker an exit to the bloody war.

Really, the Treaty of Portsmouth left nobody satisfied (which means, it was likely the fairest deal possible). In the U.S., popular opinion held that Japan was considered in the right, while Russia was considered the aggressor. But in the end, Russia and Japan got along as America, under Taft, focused on its own hemisphere.

Taft’s presidency in some ways framed Ronald Reagan’s over 70 years later. His “dollar diplomacy” threw money at Central America, the Caribbean, and China, continuing TR’s use of force with his own—Taft sent nearly three thousand Marines to Nicaragua to quash a rebellion. Taft’s efforts didn’t work, and he became known as “Peaceful Bill” after backing down to congressional opposition.

Woodrow Wilson wanted to undo TR’s “big stick” diplomacy by promising to return an isolationist, free trade, less militarized society. He then promptly flip-flopped, pushing America headlong into the “Great War.” After pushing the Western Alliance across the finish line, destroying the Ottomans’ Turkish empire, crushing the Austro-Hungarians, and imposing punishing reparations on Germany, Wilson headed the effort to create the League of Nations, winning his own Nobel Peace Prize in the process.

Then of course, the world was shaken by the Great Depression, which largely kept anyone from war, while Germany quietly rebuilt under the Nazis growing control, and Russia careened into Stalinist rule. The quest for a “lasting” peace was always rewarded with a hot war.

The Cold War with the Soviet Union and China had its own share of hot proxy wars: Korea and Vietnam for us, and Afghanistan and Nicaragua for Russia. These were the bloody exceptions, that took the pressure off the nuclear-armed NATO nations and their primary opponents. The alternative to cold war is hot war directly involving the protagonists. We find ourselves today with the same conundrums as Teddy Roosevelt handed to William Howard Taft in 1909.

America is clearly the only superpower in the world. Our Navy alone has the second largest air force in the world, surpassed only by our Air Force. Our military technology and doctrine—even a small touch of it—is enough to enable a once-corrupt, centralized and ossified command structure like Ukraine to block and even push back the much larger and better-armed Russia. With just a touch more “involvement” in the Ukraine theater of war, say, sending F-16s, as military experts David Deptula and Evelyn Farkas suggested in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, and Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan dismissed as “a question for a later time,” America could enable Ukraine to “win” against Russia, sooner rather than later (or never).

Of course, the Biden White House fears “being drawn in” to war with Russia. I use the scare quotes here because it should be obvious that America can’t be drawn in without our own cooperation and agreement. Even if Russia committed a de jure casus belli against a NATO nation like Poland, to America that would be known as a casus foederis—an act against an ally. Even if Poland felt duty-bound to respond, it would be in America’s interest to restrain Poland to a balanced and proportional response, versus going straight to NATO Article 5. Certainly Article 5 requires all NATO nations to treat any attack on one as an attack against all; but that’s a deterrent measure. In practice, it doesn’t have to mean all out war, though Putin would love to threaten it.

Putin wants to create a binary situation where Ukraine is left on its own, or the world shoots toward nuclear armageddon. The world has been on the brink of nuclear armageddon for 70 years; I think that kind of Cold War is preferable to the hot war we might end up with if we let Ukraine fester.

The calculus is not actually that difficult. The longer Ukraine fights, the more damage the Ukrainian military—in manpower—takes, and the more damage Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and economy takes. Meanwhile, despite punishing sanctions and horrendous personnel losses, Russia, by comparison, is less damaged. Moscow still trades with China, India, and to some extent, Europe. It is free to exchange technology and cash with Iran, and to continue engaging in war crimes against Ukraine, and destabilization in other nations.

Giving Ukraine “just enough,” as has been the policy of the Biden administration, gives the American people time to tire of this foreign war, and for political allies of Putin to paint our involvement as a costly foreign venture with a fair-weather ally. We can see the resolve begin to waver, even with the pageantry of repeated visits by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the return visit (a brilliant exercise) of President Joe Biden to Kyiv.

We can also see the deference shown to Biden’s visit—a perfect opportunity to do some real damage and show strength while Biden was in a “war zone” without U.S. troops—by Putin and Moscow. They were given some number of hours of advance warning for “de-confliction” purposes, and Russia did not dare to even twitch at what the terrible response of America might be to the slightest provocation.

The key to having a “Great White Fleet” is to use it; to send it around the world to show that our power is not merely for trying to tame the Taliban or to “spread democracy” to historically oppressed people in Iraq. Woodrow Wilson, as awful a man as he was (racist and elitist), got us into World War I with one purpose: to win it.

Biden’s path to peace is to win the war in Ukraine, unequivocally, 100 percent, giving Ukraine everything it needs to take the Donbas, Mariupol, the Dniepro, and yes, Crimea. If this means hurrying M1A2 Abrams tanks to the front, supplying ATACMS-capable HIMARS launchers and missiles which can strike deep into Russian territory, and putting American-made F-16s into the sky over Ukraine, that’s the fastest path to peace.

Russia’s response to this might be an attempt to widen the war, but we don’t have to accept that challenge. Poland, Germany, Turkey, and even Moldova, can hold off Russia just fine by themselves (the Russians know this). The Balkans would quickly become a quagmire for Russia, and NATO still maintains some authority in KFOR (which still exists); and the Baltic states—subject to Article 5—would run down Putin’s resources much faster than Ukraine ever could. Russia, right now, is very much penned in, and is playing for time. America doesn’t need to give it that time to rearm and procure new weapons from China, and to build factories to produce Iranian drones.

Both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson won Nobel Peace Prizes by negotiating through strength. TR merely paraded it, and Wilson threw it at a blazing Europe. Biden has done the opposite, withdrawing, threatening, but not using our advantage to press to victory. Biden’s path to a Nobel—or at least to being the president America needs versus just making ceremonial gestures and empty promises, is not merely to “stand by” Ukraine, but to win the war.

But that might result in a new Cold War, you argue. But even if it does, a new Cold War is preferable to the hot one awaiting us if we don’t act. I am not the only one who feels this way: Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who once commanded U.S. Army Europe, and saw with his own eyes the transformation of the Ukrainian army through American doctrine, said Biden’s delay “in effect created sanctuary for the Russians.”

Equivocating, and playing too-clever-by-half games doesn’t prevent war when there’s already one burning. It only makes it more bloody in the end.

Follow Steve on Twitter @stevengberman.

The First TV contributor network is a place for vibrant thought and ideas. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The First or The First TV. We want to foster dialogue, create conversation, and debate ideas. See something you like or don’t like? Reach out to the author or to us at [email protected]. 

February 27, 2023 at 05:00AM - Steve Berman
PEACEFUL JOE: How Biden Wins the Nobel Peace Prize by Making War | Steve Berman
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