Розділ: Політика
Biden Celebrates Amtrak’s 50 Years on the Rails
President Joe Biden, once a regular Amtrak rider, helped the nation’s passenger rail system celebrate 50 years of service Friday.As a U.S. senator, Biden was a fixture on Amtrak trains between his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and Washington when the Senate was in session. He continued riding Amtrak as vice president. He has sometimes been referred to as “Amtrak Joe.”But with a presidential train trip challenging because of security concerns, Biden instead flew to Philadelphia for Amtrak’s celebration at its busy 30th Street Station. He was introduced by a conductor who worked the route when Biden was a regular passenger. The next generation of Amtrak’s high-speed Acela train, scheduled to enter service next year, was on display.”I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” said Biden, who recalled his years of racing to catch the 7:28 p.m. train to head home to Wilmington and, on a few occasions, falling asleep and missing his stop.”He knew just about everybody that worked in the station and the conductors and other people and Amtrak folks who were on the train for those many, many years that he rode the rail,” said Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn.Devoted riderFlynn described Biden as one of the rail service’s “most loyal customers.” Biden held annual Christmas parties for Amtrak employees and attended funeral services for some of the workers he came to know over the years.”He regularly engaged with them and knew quite a bit about them, and I think that’s why he was anxious or willing to be part of our 50th anniversary,” Flynn said of the president.Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia, his third visit to Pennsylvania while in office, came as he marked his first 100 days as president. It also followed his speech to Congress on Wednesday, when he outlined his $2.3 trillion jobs-and-infrastructure plan and previewed $1.8 trillion in proposed spending on education, child care and other family needs.The Amtrak party was Biden’s latest stop in a post-speech tour to sell the infrastructure, jobs and families plans. He campaigned in Atlanta on Thursday and plans a stop in Yorktown, Virginia, on Monday.President Joe Biden arrives to speak at an event to mark Amtrak’s 50th anniversary at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, April 30, 2021.The infrastructure proposal would devote $621 billion to improving roads, bridges, public transit and other fixed transportation installations. Of that, $80 billion would go toward tackling Amtrak’s repair backlog, improving service along the Northeast Corridor and expanding service across the U.S. Biden has said Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is a critical part of the U.S. economy.Amtrak said after Biden announced the plan that the corporation would upgrade and expand service, including by adding 30 new routes and adding trains on 20 existing routes across the U.S. by 2035. New service would begin in portions of northeast Pennsylvania including Scranton, where Biden was born, as well as Nashville, Tennessee; Columbus, Ohio; Phoenix; Las Vegas; Houston; Dallas; and Austin, Texas, if approved by Congress.Repair backlogBut while the $80 billion represents a significant investment, the money would not go far in terms of funding high-speed rail. Amtrak has estimated that it has a $31 billion repair backlog for its trains in the Northeast Corridor alone, and transportation analysts say adding new lines in that region could easily use up the funds that remain.Biden also noted that the U.S. badly trails China, which has 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers) of high-speed rail, in modernizing railways. Biden, in pitching his call for the massive infrastructure investment, has repeatedly said the plan is necessary, in part, to keep up with Beijing as an economic competitor.”We’re way behind the rest of the world now,” Biden said.A Senate Republican counteroffer to Biden’s plan, totaling $568 billion, would devote a much slimmer $20 billion to U.S. rail service.Amtrak President Stephen Gardner said earlier financial assistance from Biden’s pandemic relief plan has allowed the rail service to recall 1,200 employees who had been furloughed to compensate for revenue lost after travelers began avoiding public transportation.Ridership is returning to pre-COVID-19 levels, including reservations for summer travel, Flynn said. He attributed the rebound to the availability of vaccines and people’s desire to travel.Biden’s lifelong association with Amtrak began soon after rail service began in May 1971. Amtrak was formed after President Richard Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act in 1970.
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By Polityk | 05/01/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Travels to Georgia, a State that Secured His Legislative Ambitions
Marking his first 100 days in office, U.S. President Joe Biden traveled Thursday to Georgia, a state where Democratic victories in the Senate allowed him to pursue a far more ambitious legislative agenda. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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By Polityk | 04/30/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Florida Legislature Passes Bill Limiting Ballot Access
Florida’s Legislature on Thursday passed a bill that makes it harder to access drop boxes and mail-in ballots, the latest Republican-led state to push for what activists say is voter suppression.Republicans cite former President Donald Trump’s claims that President Joe Biden stole the November election as reasons for the sweeping measures. Judges discredited such claims, made without evidence, in more than 60 lawsuits that failed to overturn the election result.Democrats say the Republican measures are designed to lessen the impact of Black voters, whose heavy turnout helped propel Biden to victory and delivered Democrats two U.S. Senate victories in Georgia in January. Georgia passed major new voting restrictions in March.The bill in neighboring Florida, also a political battleground, includes stricter requirements about drop box staffing and requires voters to apply more frequently for mail-in ballots.The bill also stipulates a widening of the “no-solicitation” area around polling places and expands the definition of solicitations to include “the giving, or attempting to give, any item to a voter by certain persons.” Rights groups warn that will dissuade activists from handing out water and food to voters standing in long lines in the often-sweltering state.Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law.Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who is representing a coalition of civil rights groups suing Georgia over its voting restrictions, tweeted that the Florida business community should have stood up against the bill.”These voter suppression laws are targeted at Black, Brown and young voters,” Elias tweeted. “Bill now heads to Governor’s desk. Watch this space for more news once it is signed.”A record 158 million people voted in the November elections, in part thanks to new rules that made voting easier during COVID-19 pandemic. New York University’s nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found 29 states and the District of Columbia passed laws and changed procedures to expand voting access during the health crisis.
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By Polityk | 04/30/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Largest Aid Package in US History Caps First Weeks of Biden Presidency
U.S. President Joe Biden took office three months ago working with a Congress narrowly controlled by Democrats. While Biden faced twin economic and public health crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Capitol Hill was consumed by the second impeachment trial of his predecessor, Donald Trump. VOA congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson looks at the new president’s dealings with lawmakers during his first 100 days.Producer: Katherine Gypson.
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By Polityk | 04/30/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Takes Victory Lap at Drive-In Rally on 100th Day in Office
Marking his 100th day as president of the United States, Joe Biden said Thursday that he had never been more optimistic about the future of America, because the country “is on the move again. We’re choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness.”Biden spoke at a drive-in political rally near Atlanta, funded by the Democratic National Committee.”You’re proving democracy can deliver for the people,” the president said to the approval of the honking horns of the 315 vehicles in attendance on the grounds of the Infinite Energy Center in Duluth, northeast of Atlanta.The U.S. Senate runoffs in January in the state of Georgia, with victories by Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, gave Biden’s Democrats unified control of the federal government.The president last month used the 50 Democratic seats in the Senate to get approval for his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, although no Republicans voted for it. The legislation also won approval in the House, also controlled by the Democrats.Response to protestersEarly in the president’s remarks on Thursday, he paused when a few demonstrators voiced concerns about detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, shouting, “Our families are dying!””I agree with you. I’m working on it, man. Give me another five days,” responded Biden. “Folks, you all know what they’re talking about. There should be no private prisons, none, period. That’s what they’re talking about — private detention centers. They should not exist, and we are working to close all of them.”The president then returned to reminding the audience he had kept his promise to get coronavirus vaccines into American arms and to deliver relief to millions of citizens.Biden’s victory lap came less than 24 hours after he delivered his first speech to a joint session of Congress in which he promoted proposals to promote job growth, modernize infrastructure, and assist families with child care and education that would cost trillions of dollars.A U.S. president’s first 100 days has become a notable milestone since Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression.”American aspiration has defined these first 100 days,” Vice President Kamala Harris said earlier Thursday at a mass vaccination site inside a stadium in Baltimore.The vice president said that when she and Biden took office, “More than 10 million Americans were out of work. Schools were closed. Businesses were closed. And beyond the pandemic, our democracy was under assault. And our Capitol had just been attacked by insurgents.”Republican responseLittle of what the Biden-Harris team has achieved in its first 100 days has impressed the Republicans’ leader in the Senate.The Democrats’ agenda is “an attempt to continue dragging a divided country farther and faster to the left,” according to Senator Mitch McConnell.”Our president will not secure a lasting legacy through go-it-alone radicalism,” added McConnell in a statement to mark Biden’s 100th day in office. “He won’t get much done that way. It won’t be good for the country. And whatever the Democrats do get done through partisan brute force will be fragile.”
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By Polityk | 04/30/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
What is So Special About a US President’s First 100 Days?
More than three months after being sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, President Joe Biden will soon pass a milestone: his first 100 days in office.
On Friday, April 30, administration officials, reporters, the general public and Biden himself will mark the benchmark. But many Americans and people overseas may be wondering what is so special about a president’s first 100 days.
Despite the attention to the day, nothing in U.S. law or the U.S Constitution gives any significance to a president’s first 100 days.
In fact, there is nothing inherently more important about a president’s first 100 days in office than, say, the second 100 days or any other time differentiation of a president’s four-year term, which totals 1,461 days.
However, while the 100-day mark is mostly an arbitrary milestone, it has nevertheless become an important symbolic marker when news organizations, political analysts and academics consider how a new president’s administration is doing. The first 100 days often gives an indication of a president’s management style, priorities and speed in implementing campaign promises.
Why 100 days?
For more than 150 years of American presidential history, no one was particularity interested in a president’s first 100 days. That changed, however, during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was first elected in 1932, during the Great Depression.
Roosevelt set out to make significant and quick changes in economic and social policy, through both legislative and regulatory actions.
On taking office, he summoned the U.S. Congress to a three-month special session and, by the end of his first 100 days, had passed 76 new laws, mostly aimed at easing the effects of the Depression.
Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt also gave the first of many so-called “fireside chats” in which he spoke directly to the American public over the radio and explained in simple terms how he was trying to solve the country’s problems.
In one fireside chat, the president noted how busy and important his first 100 days had been. The term stuck.
A high bar
Since then, U.S. presidents have understood they will be measured by how ambitious and successful their first 100 days in office are.
While the 100-day milestone is mostly arbitrary, the early days of a presidency can be a choice time for new presidents to make big gains in their agenda. A new president is usually still popular with the public, and lawmakers often have incentive to cooperate with a new leader, creating an opportunity for a president to pass major legislation.FILE – President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives his annual message to Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 7, 1943.While many presidents have pushed through legislation at the beginning of their first term, historians have found that no modern president has done as much in the first 100 days as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt faced the unique circumstances of entering office during the Great Depression, the likes of which other presidents had not encountered.
As a result, many presidents try to lower expectations about what they can do in their first 100 days. As President John F. Kennedy said at his 1961 inauguration ceremony, “All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
One of President Barack Obama’s senior advisers, David Axelrod, called the 100-day benchmark the “journalistic equivalent of a Hallmark holiday” because it attracts a lot of fanfare but has no real significance.
Biden’s report card
Like Roosevelt, Biden also took office during a time of crisis — with the coronavirus pandemic gripping the world — and has sought to quickly act as president.
In his first 100 days, Biden has signed a host of executive orders relating to the pandemic and pushed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill through Congress.
Biden’s goal of administrating 200 million COVID-19 vaccinations in his first 100 days was met early, allowing the president to double his promised doses.
According to an Associated Press tracker, Biden has fulfilled or started to fulfill all his key campaign promises concerning fighting the coronavirus. Overall, the AP finds Biden has fulfilled 25 out of 61 promises and has started on 33 others.
In terms of the number of laws passed, Biden has signed 11 bills in his first 100 days, according to the website GovTrack, a relatively low number, with only George W. Bush signing fewer in modern history. The presidents who passed the most laws in their first 100 days after Roosevelt were Harry Truman, with 53, Kennedy, with 26, and Bill Clinton, with 22.
Biden has signed the most executive actions, which do not require passage through Congress, after Roosevelt, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The project says Biden has signed more than 100 executive orders, memoranda or proclamations since taking office. Before Biden, former President Trump held the No. 2 spot, with more than 85.
Remaining term
While a president’s first 100 days are an important indication of how a president is faring, they do not always indicate what actions a leader will take later in their term.
In fact, many observers point out that the major issues previous presidents faced often came much later in their terms. For example, George W. Bush had been president for more than 200 days when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. President Ronald Reagan was in his second term when he famously called on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
Roosevelt was also equally defined by events happening later in his presidential term: In 1941, he led the United States into World War II.
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden’s First 100 Days See Few Big Moves on Africa
U.S. President Joe Biden has focused most of his energy in his first 100 days in office on taming the coronavirus pandemic on home soil. But in this short, frantic period, he has made a few important gestures that have been welcomed in Africa. On his first day in office, he halted the U.S.’s plan to exit the World Health Organization. Biden’s reversal of his predecessor’s controversial decision to withdraw from the global body was greeted with near-universal approval, especially from African health experts, who said it could portend a more equitable world order. Biden also pledged an additional $2 billion to the COVAX facility, which aims to provide equitable vaccine access to poorer nations. And then, on April 20 — day 90 of his administration — he spoke words that echoed across the ocean. “We can’t leave this moment or look away thinking our work is done,” he said on the eve of the verdict in the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd in police custody. “We have to look at it, we have to, we have to look at it as we did for those nine minutes and 29 seconds. We have to listen. ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’ Those were George Floyd’s last words. We can’t let those words die with him. We have to keep hearing those words.” FILE – A demonstrator holds a placard during a Black Lives Matter protest, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, in front of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, June 9, 2020.Floyd, who was African American, was born in Houston and died in Minneapolis — but the African continent watched anxiously as a jury in April handed a guilty verdict to his killer, ex-policeman Derek Chauvin. Floyd’s slow suffocation the year before, pinned painfully under Chauvin’s knee as he cried for out for help and for his loved ones, sparked protests and calls for police reform in the U.S. African analysts, like Asanda Ngoasheng, a Cape Town-based diversity trainer and gender and race scholar, welcomed Biden’s admission that the U.S. has a racial justice problem. South Africa is also struggling to overcome its own racial justice issues after centuries of colonialism and the brutal, racist apartheid government.She also said Vice President Kamala Harris’ status as a powerful Black female leader lends weight to Biden’s desire to address racial justice — but said she wants to see more from the administration and from American institutions. “We praise Kamala and I think it’s great that we praise her, but people of color in institutionally racist institutions very rarely are able to make any change,” she said. “And so, unless and until we deal with the systems and the structures that keep prejudice in place, we are not going to see many changes in the United States and globally. And so, yay and great for America and Biden. But can you please talk about the institutional change that they are going to make?” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris looks on as U.S. President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, April 28, 2021.Johannesburg-based commentator Brooks Spector said that while Biden hasn’t made any big changes to Africa policy, the fact that he isn’t making radical, impulsive changes — as critics accused former president Donald Trump of doing — is a welcome change in itself. Spector recommends that Biden work to strengthen and maintain the African Growth and Opportunities Act, a U.S. trade program. “Much of what has to happen is going to be demonstrated by doing things on the ground in a slow, steady, consistent pattern, rather than these hectic policy changes of chopping and changing,” he said. “If you want to demonstrate your support for economic growth on the continent, then you carry out the policies that encourage economic growth.” Spector, who served as an American diplomat overseas for several decades, says time will tell in Biden’s impact on Africa. Presidential legacies, he said, are built over years, not days — even 100 of them.
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
AP Fact Check: Biden Skews Record on Migrants; GOP on Virus
Taking a swipe at his predecessor, President Joe Biden gave a distorted account of the historical forces driving migrants to the U.S. border, glossing over the multitudes who were desperate to escape poverty in their homelands when he was vice president.In his speech to Congress on Wednesday night, Biden also made his spending plans sound more broadly supported in Washington than they are.The Republican response to Biden’s speech departed from reality particularly on the subject of the pandemic. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina tried to give the Trump administration credit for turning the tide on the coronavirus in what was actually the deadliest phase.A look at some of the claims:The sun rises as asylum-seeking migrant families from Honduras and El Salvador walk towards the border wall after crossing the Rio Grande River into the United States from Mexico on a raft, in Penitas, Texas.IMMIGRATIONBIDEN: “If you believe in a pathway to citizenship, pass (immigration legislation) so over 11 million undocumented folks, the vast majority who are here overstaying visas, pass it.”THE FACTS: He’s making an unsubstantiated claim.There is no official count of how many people entered the country legally and overstayed visas. The government estimates that 11.4 million were living in the country illegally as of January 2018 but doesn’t distinguish between how many entered legally and stayed after their visas expired and how many arrived illegally.Robert Warren of the Center for Migration Studies of New York, a former director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s statistics division who has studied visa overstays for decades, has done the most recent work on the issue. He estimated that, as of 2018, 46% of people in the country illegally overstayed visas — not a majority, let alone a “vast majority.”BIDEN: “When I was vice president, the president asked me to focus on providing help needed to address the root causes of migration. And it helped keep people in their own countries instead of being forced to leave. The plan was working, but the last administration decided it was not worth it. I’m restoring the program and I asked Vice President Harris to lead our diplomatic effort to take care of this.”THE FACTS: That’s wrong.Biden led Obama’s efforts to address a spike in migration from Central America, but poverty and violence have been endemic for decades. Hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. aid have gone to Central America annually, even during Donald Trump’s presidency, but migration from Mexico and Central America has continued unabated with periodic spikes.In March, the number of unaccompanied children encountered by U.S. border authorities reached nearly 19,000, the highest number on record in the third major surge of families and children from Central America since 2014 under both Democratic and Republican administrations.Biden championed aid during what Obama called “a humanitarian crisis” of Central American children at the border in 2014. But while assistance fell under Trump, hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed in every year. Biden has proposed $861 million in Central American aid next year as a first installment on a $4 billion plan, compared with annual outlays of between $506 million and $750 million over the previous six years.A painter works on steel support beams underneath the Manhattan Bridge, part of New York’s aging infrastructure, April 6, 2021.SPENDINGBIDEN, on his economic proposals: “There’s a broad consensus of economists — left, right, center — and they agree that what I’m proposing will help create millions of jobs and generate historic economic growth.”THE FACTS: He’s glossing over the naysayers. Some economists, also bridging the ideological spectrum, say he’s spending too much or in the wrong way. Biden’s pandemic relief plan did enjoy some bipartisan support, even getting a general seal of approval from Kevin Hassett, who was Trump’s chief economist. But his policies have also drawn bipartisan criticism.For one, Larry Summers, who was Barack Obama’s top economist and Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, warned that Biden’s relief package risks rates of inflation not seen in a generation.Biden’s latest proposals on infrastructure and families would require substantial tax increases on corporations and wealthy investors — leading to criticism by many CEOs and more conservative economists that growth could be compromised. Biden’s economics team says the resulting programs and infrastructure would boost growth.The plan to increase capital gains taxes drew the scorn of Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and Republican adviser. He said the White House is wrong to focus on the sliver of people being taxed and what matters is how much of the economy would be taxed.“The wealth taxes are a draconian tax on the annual return to that capital,” he said. “What matters is the amount of economic activity that is taxed, not the number of people.”BIDEN: “We kept our commitment, Democrats and Republicans, sending $1,400 rescue checks to 85% of all American households.”THE FACTS: Republicans made no such commitment.Republicans in both the U.S. Senate and House opposed the bill containing the $1,400 stimulus checks, known as the American Rescue Plan, portraying it as too big and too bloated.All but one Democrat supported the legislation.While no Republicans voted for this year’s coronavirus bill, they supported sending checks to Americans in previous rounds of relief legislation. A relief law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in December, when Trump was still president, provided $600 checks to many Americans.Some Republicans have boasted to their constituents about programs created by the coronavirus bill despite voting against it.FILE – A prescription is filled at a pharmacy in Sacramento, Calif. On Friday, May 11 2018, Trump is scheduled to give his first speech on how his administration will seek to lower drug prices.DRUG PRICESBIDEN, arguing that Congress should authorize Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. “And by the way, that won’t just help people on Medicare — it will lower prescription drug costs for everyone.”THE FACTS: That may be a bit of wishful thinking.Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bill, private insurers that cover working-age Americans and their families would indeed be able to get the same discounts as Medicare. But while Pelosi should be able to drive her legislation through the House, the situation in the Senate is different.If just a few Democratic senators have qualms about her expansive approach, Biden may have to settle for less. So there’s no guarantee that a final bill would lower prescription drug costs for everyone.Sen. Tim Scott delivers the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress, April 28, 2021, in Washington.REPUBLICAN RESPONSESOUTH CAROLINA SEN. TIM SCOTT: “This administration inherited a tide that had already turned. The coronavirus is on the run! Thanks to Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration, our country is flooded with safe and effective vaccines.”THE FACTS: That’s a real stretch.Biden took over in the midst of the winter wave of COVID-19, the worst to hit the nation. It’s true that cases and deaths had begun to decline from their peak in the second week of January, but the tide had far from turned. Daily cases were averaging more than three times higher than they are now.And while the Trump administration shepherded the delivery of two highly effective vaccines, the supply of doses was short of meeting demand and several state governors were complaining about jumbled signals from Trump’s team.Trump was focused on his campaign to overturn the election results and did not devote much public attention to the pandemic as his term came to an end.SCOTT: “Just before COVID, we had the most inclusive economy in my lifetime. The lowest unemployment rates ever recorded for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians. And a 70-year low nearly for women. Wages were growing faster at the bottom than at the top — the bottom 25% saw their wages go up faster than the top 25%. That happened because Republicans focused on expanding opportunity for all Americans.”THE FACTS: His statistics are selectively misleading.Nothing is false on its face in terms of numbers. Yet the gains reflected the longest expansion in U.S. history — something that started during Obama’s administration and simply continued under Trump without much change in growth patterns.The labor force participation for women was below its 2001 peak, so the unemployment rate claims by Scott tell an incomplete story. The Black and Hispanic unemployment rates were lower because the total unemployment rate was lower. Yet both still lagged those of white workers by a large degree.Scott also neglects to credit the Federal Reserve, which kept interest rates near historic lows to support growth and keep the recovery from the Great Recession going.
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
With Massive Spending Plans, Biden Seeks to Remake Relationship Between Federal Government and Americans
In his first 100 days as president of the United States, Joe Biden has governed less like a chief executive whose party is clinging to the barest of majorities in the House and Senate, and more like a transformative figure with a broad public mandate for societal change. In an address to a pandemic-diminished joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, he took a further step in his effort to remake the relationship between the federal government and the American people with a $1.8 trillion proposal to expand Americans’ access to education, provide financial support to families with children, guarantee paid family and medical leave for workers, and reduce healthcare costs. Speaking to a socially distanced audience in the House chamber, where more seats were empty than were occupied, Biden described “a once-in-a-generation investment in our families – in our children” that would help the United States in the competition with the rest of the world to “win the 21st century.” Biden’s plans, while they poll well with the general public, are still remarkably ambitious in a country where political divisions often trump even voters’ professed policy preferences. President Joe Biden turns from the podium after speaking to a joint session of Congress, April 28, 2021, in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.American Families Plan The proposal Biden outlined on Wednesday, called the American Families Plan, is the latest move by his administration to substantially transform the relationship between the federal government and the American people. It would be paid for by increasing tax revenue through rate hikes and stepped-up enforcement targeting wealthy tax evaders. Tonight, I introduced the American Families Plan — an ambitious, once-in-a-generation investment to rebuild the middle class and invest in America’s future. Learn more: U.S. Senator Scott speaks with reporters as he transits the subway system beneath the U.S. Capitol in Washington‘Even More Taxing, Even More Spending’ Republicans in Congress immediately tied the new proposal to the administration’s previous efforts, noting their combined $6 trillion price tag and expansion of the federal government’s role in American life.“Tonight, we also heard about a so-called ‘Family Plan’ – even more taxing, even more spending, to put Washington even more in the middle of your life, from the cradle to college,” said Sen. Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who delivered his party’s official rebuttal to the president’s remarks. “The beauty of the American Dream is that families get to define it for themselves,” said Scott. “We should be expanding opportunities and options for all families, not throwing money at certain issues because Democrats think they know best.”Broad Changes Proposed The change in access to education is the most wide-ranging element in the American Families Plan, theoretically making two years of prekindergarten instruction and two years of community college available to all Americans free of charge. The plan would also extend some of the financial support to families put in place by the American Rescue Plan, a bill passed earlier this year in response to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Among other things, that bill provided families with refundable tax credits of between $3,000 and $3,600 per child paid out on a monthly basis.It would also guarantee that, for children up to the age of 5, American families pay no more than 7% of their annual income for child care, and would guarantee up to 12 weeks of paid medical and family leave for workers.FILE – The headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in Washington is seen in this file photo, Apr. 13, 2014.Paid for with Tax Revenue The proposal would cost $1.8 trillion in total, with approximately $1 trillion in direct spending, and an additional $800 billion in targeted tax relief. However, the Biden administration insists that the plan would be paid for by changes to the administration of tax laws, and would deliver large economic benefits to the nation as well. The administration projects that an investment of $80 billion in the Internal Revenue Service’s enforcement capabilities will generate some $700 billion in increased tax revenue in the coming decade. Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Institute in Washington, called the increased funding for the IRS, which has been critically underfunded over the past decade, “a good investment.” However, she said, “The question is whether it will get back as much money as the president has claimed it will. It’s hard to say at this point because we don’t have enough information.” Jesse Oni contributed to this report
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Scott Says Biden Has Failed to Unite Country
U.S. Senator Tim Scott said President Joe Biden has failed to unite the nation and that his proposals for infrastructure spending and the newly announced package for education and families are pulling the nation further apart. Delivering the Republican response to the Democratic president’s first joint address to Congress on Wednesday night, Scott said, “Our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes.” Biden spent a section of his address celebrating the progress in combatting the coronavirus pandemic, including far exceeding his administration’s goal for vaccinations at this point in his presidency. Scott said Biden “inherited a tide that had already turned,” crediting the Trump administration’s program to accelerate vaccine development, as well as several packages Congress passed last year to deliver trillions of dollars in aid to business, state governments and direct payments to individuals.Television lighting is set up near the U.S. Capitol as U.S. President Joe Biden delivers his first address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Washington, April 29, 2021.He described Democrats as unwilling to work with Republicans on more aid, as Democrats passed a new round of coronavirus aid after Biden took office. The parties clashed over the size of that measure, with Democrats arguing the government needed to take more action, while Republicans argued for more targeted spending. Scott also expressed objection to the pace of schools reopening amid the pandemic, arguing that other countries had already allowed their children to go back to their classrooms. “Science has shown for months that schools are safe,” he said. Responding to Biden’s new proposal to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay for expanded access to preschool, community college, child care and paid family leave, Scott described the plan as putting the federal government “more in the middle of your life, from the cradle to college.” He said families should be able to define the American dream for themselves and that there should be expanded opportunities for all. Scott, who is the only Black Republican senator, also said Democrats have brought race into unrelated policy disputes, saying, “Race is not a political weapon to settle every issue.” “Today, kids again are being taught that the color of their skin defines them,” Scott said. “If they look a certain way, they’re an oppressor. From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven’t made any progress. By doubling down on the divisions we’ve worked so hard to heal.” He added, “America is not a racist country.”
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
America ‘Ready for Takeoff,’ Biden Tells Congress
“After 100 days of rescue and renewal, America is ready for takeoff,” U.S. President Joe Biden told a joint session of Congress, using the occasion to push his proposed $4 trillion in government spending and tout his overall performance in coping with a series of historic crises since taking office in January. The president, in an address on Wednesday evening, said he had inherited a nation in crisis facing the worst pandemic in a century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” The address on the eve of his 100th day in office, was not deemed a ‘State of the Union’ presentation because it was delivered in the first year of a new president’s term. It was also shorn of some of the typical pomp of the annual presidential speech to both the House and Senate because of coronavirus restrictions. Typically, as many as 1,600 people packed the House chamber to attend a presidential speech. Only 200 people, mostly members of Congress joined by a small number of officials from other government branches plus select family members, attended. They were socially distanced in the House chamber and wore masks.U.S. President Joe Biden arrives to deliver his first address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, April 29, 2021.Biden spoke from the same dais that insurrectionists overtook on January 6 when supporters of his predecessor, Donald Trump, stormed past law enforcement officers into the U.S. Capitol to try to block the official certification of Biden as the winner of last November’s presidential election over the incumbent. The attack on the Capitol, which remains heavily guarded, left five people dead. More than 400 people have been arrested on various charges related to the siege. “The image of a violent mob assaulting this Capitol, desecrating our democracy, remains vivid in all our minds,” said Biden. “Lives were put at risk, many of your lives. Lives were lost. Extraordinary courage was summoned.” The president said the insurrection was “an existential crisis, a test of whether our democracy could survive — and it did.” Biden devoted the bulk of his 65-minute address to domestic policy issues, although he did mention matters beyond America’s borders. The president said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping that the United States will maintain a strong military presence in the Indo-Pacific “just as we do for NATO in Europe – not to start conflict – but to prevent one.” Biden said he had responded proportionally to Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and the cyber-attacks it launched on government and business. That does not however prevent, according to the president, potential cooperation between Washington and Moscow on nuclear arms reduction and combatting climate change. During the address, Biden proposed a $1.8 trillion expansion of national government assistance for American children and families.U.S. President Joe Biden delivers his first address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, April 29, 2021.The plan features two years of government-paid, pre-kindergarten education for the country’s youths and two years of free community college for young adults, all of it to be paid for with higher taxes on the country’s wealthiest people and corporations. Massive spending for infrastructure, jobs creation and education is justified because “China and other countries are closing in fast,” said the president. Such spending, if approved by Congress, would usher in a much bigger national government footprint in American life, way more than most Republican lawmakers would like but would not go as far as some progressive Democrats envision. In remarks directed to the audience of millions at home, Biden said his American Jobs Plan is “a blue-collar blueprint to build America” with millions of “good-paying jobs that can’t be outsourced.” Republicans contend his infrastructure and family spending plans are too costly and assail Biden’s plans to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest of Americans. Delivering the opposition party’s televised rebuttal, the only Black Republican in the Senate, Tim Scott of South Carolina, said Biden had inherited from Trump “a tide that already turned” due to the previous administration’s operation to launch vaccine production and economic policies that were the most inclusive in decades. “A president who promised to bring us together should not push agendas that tear us apart,” added Scott. In a statement, one of Scott’s Republican colleagues in the Senate, Ted Cruz of Texas was more critical of Biden’s address, saying it outlined “his socialist vision for our country,” and that “I can summarize his speech in three words for you: boring, but radical.” National surveys this week show Biden with an average approval rating of 53%, according to a polling aggregator, Real Clear Politics. In his speech, Biden also touted his administration’s early success in getting Americans vaccinated against the coronavirus, with more than 200 million shots already administered even as the death toll has risen to a world-leading total of more than 573,000. U.S. health officials eased mask-wearing suggestions this week, but millions of Americans are refusing, for various reasons, to get vaccinated, or skipping the second shot of a two-dose regimen. “Go and get the vaccination,” Biden implored in his Wednesday evening address. In addition to discussing his plans for domestic spending, Biden discussed his goal of engaging with other nations and taking a leadership role on the world stage, a contrast from Trump who often touted his “America First” stance and withdrew from international pacts that he viewed as poorly crafted or too costly for the United States. Mentioning the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, the president said: “We’re going to be working closely with our allies to address the threats posed by both of these countries, through diplomacy as well as stern deterrence.” He added that American leadership “means ending the forever war in Afghanistan.” It remains to be seen if Biden and congressional Democrats “are willing to engage in real negotiation that would result in changes to many of the proposals highlighted in his speech,” Bipartisan Policy Center President Jason Grumet said in a statement to VOA. “Key Administration proposals to modernize infrastructure, provide paid leave, and strengthen childcare have a history of strong bipartisan support, but it will not be possible to build upon this history if the administration pursues a legislative process that excludes Republicans.”
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Agents Raid New York Home, Office of Former Trump Lawyer
U.S. federal agents seized electronic devices in daybreak raids Wednesday at the New York home and office of Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor who became former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, as investigators probe Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine linked to Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.Robert Costello, Giuliani’s lawyer, confirmed that agents had executed a search warrant for the two Giuliani locations, but condemned the raids.“What they did today was legal thuggery,” Costello told The New York Times. “Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who was the associate attorney general, United States attorney, the mayor of New York City, and the personal lawyer to the 45th president of the United States?”FILE – Rudy Giuliani, as an attorney for President Donald Trump, addresses a gathering during a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Aug. 1, 2018.The long-running investigation conducted by U.S. prosecutors in New York centers on whether Giuliani, an outspoken Trump political supporter and adviser last year, acted illegally as an unregistered foreign agent and sought to influence U.S. policy toward Ukraine.Giuliani, ahead of the November election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, sought information in Ukraine that might have been damaging to then-candidate Biden, especially as it related to the lucrative payments made to his son, Hunter Biden, for his work on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company. At the same time, the elder Biden oversaw U.S. policy on Ukraine when he was vice president under former President Barack Obama.Investigators are also looking at the role Giuliani played in Trump’s eventual ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who testified about her experiences during the Trump administration at Trump’s first impeachment case in the House of Representatives.As part of the pressure campaign to investigate then-candidate Biden’s activities in Ukraine, Trump personally appealed to Ukraine’s president in a July 2019 phone call to provide damaging evidence about Biden and his son, leading to the first of Trump’s two impeachments.The Democratic-controlled House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but he was later acquitted in the then-Republican-controlled Senate.
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Harris, Pelosi Make History Seated Behind Biden at Speech
Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made history Wednesday as the first women to share the stage in Congress during a presidential address. In President Joe Biden’s first prime-time speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, he was flanked by Pelosi and Harris, two California Democrats. “It’s pretty exciting. And it’s wonderful to make history. It’s about time,” Pelosi said hours before the speech during an interview on MSNBC. Pelosi already knows what it feels like to sit on the rostrum in the House chamber and introduce a president for speeches. She has sat there for several addresses by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California waits before then-President Donald Trump arrives to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 4, 2020.Women’s advocates said seeing Harris and Pelosi seated together behind Biden would be a “beautiful moment.” But they noted that electing a woman to sit in the Oval Office remains to be achieved, along with the addition of an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. Biden helped usher the moment along by pledging to pick a woman for his running mate and selecting Harris, then a U.S. senator from California. “This is a great start, and we have to continue to move forward to give women their equal due,” said Christian Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women. Pelosi made history by becoming the first female House speaker during Bush’s presidency. He acknowledged the moment by noting during his address to Congress after Pelosi’s election that he had the privilege of being the first president to open with the words “Madam Speaker.” Pelosi, 81, reclaimed the powerful leadership post during Trump’s presidency and sat behind him during his final two speeches to Congress, famously ripping up her copy of Trump’s remarks in 2020 after he finished addressing lawmakers. Harris, 56, made history last year when she became the first woman and first Black and Indian American person elected vice president. In her role as president of the Senate, she joins Pelosi in presiding over the joint session of Congress. FILE – In this image from Senate TV, Vice President Kamala Harris sits in the chair on the Senate floor to cast the tie-breaking vote, her first, at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 5, 2021.Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said Wednesday night would show men, women, boys and girls that women can attain and hold high-level positions and that they are as entitled to them as men are. Walsh also noted Biden’s promise to put a woman on his ticket, and pointed, as well, to the diversity of his Cabinet. She said the setting behind Biden on Wednesday was likely to make him feel proud — not just personally, “but I also think proud for the country and proud for his party. And I think he will clearly see the historic implications of this and the role that he played in making that happen.” “For all of us who care about women’s public leadership, we still look forward to the day when the person standing at the podium, in front, is a woman,” Walsh added. “But for now, this is a particularly gratifying moment.” Harris’ office declined to comment Wednesday on her historic role in the president’s address, preferring to let the moment speak for itself. Apart from the speech Wednesday, Harris and Pelosi have notched another first in U.S. and women’s history. They are first and second, respectively, in the line of presidential succession.
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By Polityk | 04/29/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
100 Days: Is Biden Keeping His Promise of Multilateralism?
Upon taking office, President Joe Biden pledged to bring multilateralism back to U.S. foreign policy, a pivot from the America First doctrine under President Donald Trump. Here are some areas where Biden has kept his promise to reengage with the world, and some where he may be holding back. Climate change Last week the world witnessed a dramatic foreign policy shift between a president who withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord commitments to one who convened FILE – World leaders are shown on a screen as President Joe Biden speaks to the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, from the East Room of the White House, April 23, 2021.At the summit, Biden announced he will cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels and rallied leaders to declare their own ambitious targets in the run-up to the U.N. Conference on climate later this year in Glasgow. The U.S. is also doubling its annual public climate financing to help developing countries by 2024, renewing the so far unmet pledge by developed countries to increase climate financing to at least $100 billion per year by 2020. But the global effort on climate change will depend on its largest emitters. Citing the challenge of achieving carbon neutrality in such a short time frame while maintaining its rapid economic development, Chinese President Xi Jinping stuck with Beijing’s initial target of 2060. India, the world’s third largest emitter, and Russia, the fourth largest also made no new commitments on reducing emissions. Nuclear arms control Under Biden, the U.S. has revived arms control efforts, part of the president’s plan to downgrade nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy and to extend the New START treaty with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The administration has returned to indirect nuclear negotiations with Iran, an about-face from Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Signed by Iran and world powers, the JCPOA placed restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. FILE – Attendees wait for the start of a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission in Vienna, Austria, April 17, 2021. (EU Delegation in Vienna/Handout via Reuters)Negotiations have been difficult, partly because the Iranians are demanding all sanctions be removed — something the administration is unwilling to do. With many forces inside Iran’s political establishment, regional powers including Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as Republicans in Congress rejecting the deal’s revival, Biden’s slow, step by step process may be a liability, said Mohsen Milani, executive director of the Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies and professor of politics at the University of South Florida. “The longer these negotiations take, the more these forces have the chance to sabotage the process and derail it,” he said. On North Korea, Biden is strengthening alliances with Japan and South Korea to help restrain Pyongyang, rather than personally courting Kim Jong Un as Trump had done. Still, the central challenge is having a decades-old U.S. policy that demands the North Korean leader give up all his nuclear weapons in one fell swoop, despite no indication that he would, said Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. “Working well with allies won’t change the fact that our policy needs to be grounded in realism and in sound diagnosis of the problem,” O’Hanlon said. “It’s not clear we are headed there yet.” Pandemic recovery In July 2020, President Trump formally withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, accusing the U.N. body of being under China’s control in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. While Biden rejoined the WHO in the first hours of his presidency, some 100 days later he has yet to offer a comprehensive strategy to speed up global pandemic recovery efforts. On vaccine sharing, the Biden administration is operating on a strategy of “oversupplied and overprepared” to ensure that it is prepared to vaccinate children and deal with emerging variants. Only this week did the White House announce it will begin sharing up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, unused in the U.S. because it has not yet been granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. FILE – Nursing home residents receive a coronavirus vaccine at King David Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, a nursing home facility, in Brooklyn’s Bath Beach neighborhood in New York City, Jan. 6, 2021.But with some 230 million doses administered and 29 percent of Americans fully vaccinated, the Biden White House is under pressure to do more, including to support the temporary waiver of TRIPS — Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights — to be discussed at a formal meeting at the World Trade Organization on April 30. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said so far there has been no decision on a waiver, which would allow countries to make generic versions of the vaccines. Mathew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Politics Initiative at Georgetown University, said it “looks incredibly stingy” and “geopolitically dumb” for the administration not to get behind vaccine patent waivers, especially considering aggressive Chinese and Russian vaccine diplomacy.“The administration says it’s serious about multilateralism but is so far ignoring calls from WHO, the U.N., and African, Asian, and Latin American governments to share the vaccine science,” Kavanagh said. In March, Biden and other leaders of the Quad countries — Australia, India, and Japan — launched a financing plan to boost COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution for countries in the region, with a focus on Southeast Asia, where the Chinese have been aggressively pushing vaccine diplomacy efforts. The initiative is in addition to the $4 billion that was approved under the Trump administration to support COVAX, the U.N. mechanism to ensure vaccine access to middle-and lower-income countries. Meanwhile Biden is criticized by conservatives for not continuing Trump’s push for reforms at the WHO. The world deserves an accountable and effective World Health Organization, said Brett D. Schaefer, the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. “By failing to tie U.S. membership and funding to reform, Biden squandered key leverage and made this outcome less likely.” Trade agreements Americans of various political leanings, not just Republicans, have embraced Trump’s populist anti-globalization narrative. That means there now appears to be little political will to strike new international trade deals. In Congress for example, there is little appetite to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the 11-country free trade deal spanning Asia and the Pacific. In the meantime, Beijing last year finalized its 15-nation trade deal called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. RCEP members make up nearly a third of the world’s population and account for 29% of global gross domestic product. Analysts say China’s emergence as a major U.S. competitor means the Biden administration may need to include trade agreements as a larger part of its foreign policy approach. Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, said there is a need to reassure America’s trading partners that Washington will be a reliable partner if they face economic retaliation from China. Otherwise, he said, “they will continue to hedge against the prospect of America as not being sufficiently reliable as a partner,” and that could mean less cooperation on U.S. policy priorities.
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By Polityk | 04/28/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden to Address Joint Session of Congress
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to discuss his goal of engaging with other nations and taking a leadership role on the world stage as he gives an address Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said ahead of the speech that Biden’s comments on foreign policy would include “taking America’s seat back in the world, what our values are as a country.” She said the president would likely talk about a number of foreign policy priorities, “including our engagement with China.” The Biden administration’s push to work more with allies, which this month included coordinating with fellow NATO members on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, is a departure from four years of foreign policy under former President Donald Trump that focused on prioritizing U.S. interests. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited Biden to the House chamber to speak about “vision for addressing the challenges and opportunities of this historic moment,” in a speech that comes as the president marks 100 days since taking office. Psaki said the main policy initiative Biden will highlight is a domestic program for “investment in education and childcare.”President Joe Biden removes his face mask to speak about COVID-19, on the North Lawn of the White House, April 27, 2021, in Washington. The proposal involves $1.8 trillion in spending over 10 years that includes universal preschool, two years of free community college, subsidized childcare for qualifying families, monthly payments of at least $250 for parents and expanding availability of free and reduced-fee school lunches. Administration officials say Biden is proposing to largely pay for the initiatives with tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. Psaki said Biden will also discuss the administration’s efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic and unemployment, as well as immigration, police reform and gun safety. The administration is planning the speech as a launching point to seek support for Biden’s initiatives, with the president, Vice President Kamala Harris and members of Biden’s Cabinet planning to travel to different parts of the country for events on Thursday and Friday. Republicans will seek to counter Biden’s message with a rebuttal speech Wednesday by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. Typically, a presidential speech before a joint session of Congress would include an invited audience of the 535 members of the House and Senate, the vice president, Cabinet members, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Supreme Court justices, members of the diplomatic corps, and a number of special guests sitting with the first lady, some whom the president notes in the speech as a way of highlighting a certain policy. Wednesday’s audience will be more restricted. Chief Justice John Roberts is expected to be the only justice in attendance. Psaki also said there will not be the traditional box of seating with first lady Jill Biden and guests, and that Cabinet members will be watching the speech from home. Not having Cabinet members in the House chamber also eliminates another tradition linked to presidential addresses. In order to ensure continuity of government in case of a disaster, one Cabinet member is typically selected to stay away from the Capitol so that high-level officials are not all in the same place. Wednesday’s speech will be conducted under heavy security, with a ring of fencing still standing in the immediate area surrounding the Capitol following the January 6 storming of the site by Trump supporters. Security has eased somewhat in Washington since the attack, with a more extensive perimeter fence on Capitol Hill and another temporary fence extending beyond the White House complex now removed.
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By Polityk | 04/28/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Bidens to Visit Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter While in Georgia
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit the 39th president, Jimmy Carter, and his wife, Rosalynn, while in Georgia this week, the White House said Tuesday. The White House had previously announced that Biden would attend a drive-in rally in Atlanta on Thursday to mark his 100th day in office, which comes a day after his first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening. The Bidens will now add in a trip to Plains, Georgia, to visit the Carters.In this image from video, former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, seen in a photo as they speak on audio only, during the second night of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 18, 2020.The 96-year-old former president and the 93-year-old former first lady were unable to attend Biden’s inauguration because of the coronavirus pandemic. Both couples are now vaccinated, and the Carters have resumed worshipping in-person at their longtime church. Biden was a young Delaware senator and Carter ally during the Georgian’s term in the White House, from 1977 to 1981. Carter is now the longest-lived American president in history.
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By Polityk | 04/28/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Republican Senator Scott Wants ‘Honest Conversation’ After Biden Speech
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has been tapped to deliver the Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress on Wednesday.Scott, 55, is the only Black Republican in the Senate and is popular across the Republican Party.He said he is honored to be selected and he is looking forward to having “an honest conversation with the American people.””We face serious challenges on multiple fronts, but I am as confident as I have ever been in the promise and potential of America,” he said.One of Scott’s signature issues is the creation of “opportunity zones” to provide tax incentives for businesses to invest in low-income urban areas. The zones were passed into law with the 2017 tax bill.Another one of his signature issues is criminal justice reform. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, Scott proposed legislation to reform the police, but it stalled without Democratic support.“Now is the time for reform,” Scott said of the bill in a news release on June 17, 2020. “The murder of George Floyd and its aftermath made clear from sea to shining sea that action must be taken to rebuild lost trust between communities of color and law enforcement.”He is currently working with Senator Corey Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, on another criminal justice reform bill.Scott, a former congressman who entered the Senate in 2013, has been vocal about race issues, and last year he opened up to The Associated Press about his interactions with law enforcement.”I’m thinking to myself how blessed and lucky I am to have 18 different encounters and to have walked away from each encounter,” he said.Scott was raised in poverty by a single mother, and according to his official biography, he nearly flunked out of high school. He says his grandfather picked cotton as a child.Before entering politics, Scott ran an insurance agency, which he still owns.He sits on the Senate Finance Committee, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and three others.”Senator Tim Scott is not just one of the strongest leaders in our Senate Republican Conference. He is one of the most inspiring and unifying leaders in our nation,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement announcing the selection.”As Sen. Scott likes to say, he is living his mother’s American dream, and he has dedicated his career to creating more opportunity for our fellow citizens who need it most.”
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By Polityk | 04/28/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Shaken US Capitol on High Alert for Biden’s First Address to Congress
President Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday will take place in a U.S. Capitol on high alert, with memories fresh of the deadly January 6 attack on the building by supporters of his predecessor, Donald Trump. The crowd inside the Capitol will be a small fraction of the hundreds of members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, top government officials and guests who typically attend, to allow for more social distancing in a COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 572,000 Americans. But security will be higher than usual, even for what is officially designated a “National Special Security Event,” with the Secret Service in charge of security. “The Secret Service and all law enforcement and public safety partners have worked hard collectively in preparation to secure this significant event,” said a Secret Service representative, adding that “every security contingency is accounted for.” FILE – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol, Feb. 26, 2021.U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday said she is confident about security for Biden’s speech. “I actually had a very strong briefing on Monday. I said I wish I had had this briefing, you know, before January 6. But we insisted on knowing every detail of it,” she told reporters. The limitations on attendance, she said, mostly are being driven by COVID-19 precautions, but security also is playing a role. The white-domed building is still surrounded by a black steel mesh fence with some 2,250 armed National Guard troops from the District of Columbia and 18 states on duty in the city — the vestiges of a much larger force put in place after Trump supporters stormed the building as Congress was voting to certify Biden’s election victory. Five people, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, died from or following the violence, and dozens of police were injured in clashes with rioters. More than 400 people have been charged in connection with the attack, and authorities expect at least 100 more will be charged, federal prosecutors said in a court filing last week. District of Columbia authorities have asked the Pentagon to authorize the district’s National Guard contingent to help local police handle any anti-Biden protests coinciding with Wednesday’s address. “The D.C. National Guard is prepared to support D.C. law enforcement, pending approval” by Acting Army Secretary John Whitley, the D.C. National Guard said in a statement. It was not immediately known if Whitley would approve the request. The National Guard deployment already has cost more than $520 million, according to the U.S. National Guard Bureau.
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By Polityk | 04/28/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Set Out to Repair Europe Ties, and Some Say He Is Succeeding
European leaders and other American allies say President Joe Biden has done much in his first 100 days in the White House to start rebuilding confidence in U.S. leadership. But while agreeing with his key foreign policy goals, including confronting the global rise of authoritarianism, they are still taking the measure of the Biden administration — as are America’s foes, say analysts and diplomats.They say the 78-year-old Biden has already shown how a switch in the Oval Office can prompt significant political change with a promise of more to come, not only in the United States but across the globe. Observers in Europe and Asia praise the U.S. leader for his emphasis on multilateral cooperation and the need for a coordinated global effort to tackle climate change. The fresh emphasis on the importance of alliances is a sharp break with Biden’s immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, they note.By Weighing In on Long-running Serbia-Kosovo Dispute, Biden Signals Interest in EuropeUS president has weighed in on long-running dispute between Serbia and Kosovo with letters urging two countries’ leaders to normalize relations based on ‘mutual recognition’Biden has “reset the global agenda by strengthening international cooperation, shifting away from a unilateral approach to leverage the strength of allies and global institutions to see tangible outcomes,” says Siddharth Tiwari, chief representative for Asia at the Bank for International Settlements. He was speaking during an online discussion hosted by Britain’s Financial Times and the Japanese business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun. In Europe, too, high marks are being given to Biden with some commentators suggesting that despite his age, Biden may turn into a transformative leader. “Politics throws up two sorts of leader,” according to influential British newspaper columnist Philip Stephens. “There are those forever reaching for an umbrella and others, far fewer in number, who set out to change the weather.” He says, “The task of rediscovering the power of agency has fallen to the 78-year-old who has moved into the White House.” Stephens and others highlight the steps Biden is taking at home to reassert the power of government and to try to heal what Trump critics said was America’s “uncivil” political war with an economic expansion plan that has drawn comparisons with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s. A $1.9 trillion economic stimulus measure has already been passed by Congress and the White House is advocating for a massive infrastructure and education package that may help to calm the socioeconomic anxieties of white working-class voters who fled the Democratic Party and backed the populist Trump. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 12 MB480p | 17 MB540p | 22 MB720p | 45 MB1080p | 88 MBOriginal | 274 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioThe economyMany analysts say America’s economic performance will be crucial if the U.S. is to restore its global leadership. “Unless the U.S. economy recovers, then I think the U.S. diplomacy won’t be able to recover from the Trump era,” according to Richard McGregor of Australia’s Lowy Institute research institution. Economic recovery may help Biden to repair some of America’s divisions, according to Georg Löfflmann, an academic at Britain’s University of Warwick. But he notes: “President Joe Biden faces an immense task to bring together a deeply divided nation that remains at odds over key issues from immigration to combating climate change and the enduring legacy of slavery and racism in the United States.”Domestic success will beget greater foreign policy success, observers acknowledge. The two are linked. “In his first 100 days, U.S. President Joe Biden has taken laudable steps to address climate change including establishing a ‘whole of government’ approach, rejoining the Paris Agreement and embedding climate experts to take action across the administration,” according to academics Antony Froggatt and Rebecca Peters. Writing in a paper for Britain’s Chatham House policy institute, the pair caution, though, that the “real challenge looms.” They say, “In order for the U.S. to affirm its legitimacy on climate in a politically divided landscape at home, Biden needs to simultaneously prioritize domestic policy action, while rebuilding international alliances to show that his administration can deliver on its long-term commitments.”While policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic are determined to repair frayed relations and steady democracies roiled by unprecedented domestic political turmoil and challenged by authoritarian powers, there is a recognition that the road ahead will be tricky to navigate. There has been quick agreement on a range of issues with both Brussels and Washington eager for closer collaboration. European, Other World Leaders Welcome Joe BidenThere were words of welcome Wednesday from across the world for Joe Biden as he was sworn in as America’s 46th presidentSignificant differences remain. The Biden team is encountering some of the same headwinds that contributed to the straining of Euro-Atlantic ties, first during Barack Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office, and then to a much greater degree under Trump, who identified Europe as an economic adversary and complained about NATO’s purpose.All EU national governments have welcomed Biden’s aim of revitalizing U.S.-European ties and are relieved the adversarial language has gone. Washington, however, is now facing an EU that’s turning inward, with the bloc focused on protecting its post-pandemic market and protecting its industrial champions, analysts say, and determined to become more of a global player in its own right. All fo this is likely to aggravate some trade and geopolitical frictions.The post-Second World War transatlantic consensus is also being complicated by splits within the bloc over the best ways to handle the rising power of Communist China and how to manage a revanchist (retaliatory) Russia, they add. That is placing some populist European governments in an especially awkward position — including Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been accused of hedging his bets between the West and the autocracies of Russia and China.“In the transactional world of Trumpist foreign policy, it was perfectly okay for many European leaders such as Viktor Orban to do this limbo between Eastern autocracies and Western democracies. Right now, they have to choose sides,” Katalin Cseh, a liberal Hungarian politician, said during an online exchange between EU lawmakers discussing Biden’s first 100 days. The discussion was hosted by Visegrad Insight, a Warsaw-based debate platform.But Biden’s more confrontational strategy toward China poses problems also for Europe as a whole, according to the discussion’s participants. “Our challenge is to maintain trade with China while at the same time maintaining our alliance with the United States. It will not be easy,” said Radosław Sikorski, a European lawmaker and former Polish foreign minister. Overload is also seen as a risk ahead for the Biden administration with a daunting number of foreign policy challenges to overcome — not least curbing the spread of the coronavirus and rolling out vaccinations. So far, the Biden administration is given high marks for its blending of clear-eyed pragmatism with idealism in how it is handling Russia, China and Iran, offering both sticks and carrots. “Mr. Biden is attempting a two-track policy, trying at once to resist and relate to such regimes: to constrain their territorial ambitions and discourage their human-rights abuses and transnational meddling, while working with them where their interests might overlap with America’s,” appraised Britain’s Economist magazine.
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By Polityk | 04/28/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
As Day 100 Approaches, Biden’s Ability to Keep Promises Strained
Like all U.S. presidential candidates, Joe Biden spent most of last year’s election campaign making promises. As his 100th day in office approaches — a traditional, if arbitrary, milestone for assessing presidential performance — he has delivered on many of them, but fallen short on others. The president’s campaign promises can be sorted into three broad baskets, regardless of the policy areas in which they fall. There was the low-hanging fruit — things Biden really could accomplish “on Day One” with the stroke of a pen or the issuance of an order. As of April 15, Biden had signed 49 different executive orders and memoranda, far more than his recent predecessors: Donald Trump (36), Barack Obama (34) and George W. Bush (12). Slightly more difficult to achieve, though still within the sole purview of the executive branch, were other policy changes and initiatives that would take some time to implement but could be achieved with no input from members of Congress. Finally, there were the grand promises of a transformed relationship between the two major parties. Biden said he would work to bring Republicans and Democrats together to work in a bipartisan fashion on issues of importance to the country. Across a wide array of policy areas, Biden quickly accomplished most of the issues in that first basket, and some in the second, but efforts to achieve bipartisan successes in Congress have almost all come up empty.Biden Urges World Leaders to Keep Promises on Climate Following SummitUS president addresses world leaders on final day of virtual climate change summitClimate Biden was quick to take care of the easy wins on issues related to the climate and global warming. In his first eight days in office, he announced that the U.S. would rejoin the Paris climate accord, issued a slew of executive orders halting projects associated with high greenhouse gas emissions, like the Keystone XL pipeline, and announced that he would ask the Senate to ratify an international accord on reducing the production of hydrofluorocarbons. On Thursday, Biden kept his promise to convene an international climate summit, gathering world leaders for a virtual conference in advance of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November. He pledged to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030, using 2005 levels as a baseline. Biden’s vow to create new energy infrastructure in the U.S., ranging from electronic vehicle charging stations to a smart electrical grid, is part of a massive infrastructure package that is currently working its way through Congress. Other initiatives have been slower to take off. A promise to make 30% of the land and water in the United States subject to conservation requirements has not been fleshed out with an official proposal. The administration is also still working on ways to get the aviation and transport industries to commit to emissions reductions. Biden Moves to Curb US Gun ViolenceUS leader: Mass killings are ‘a blemish on our character as a nation’Guns Simply put, there isn’t much low-hanging fruit to be had in the debate over gun control in the United States. Earlier this month, the White House announced a pending proposal to slow the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns” that individuals can assemble from separately purchased parts without serial numbers for identification. The administration said that within 60 days it would publish model “red flag” legislation for states, which could block individuals deemed to pose a threat from purchasing firearms. Biden had promised to send Congress a gun control bill, but instead threw his support behind two measures in the House of Representatives strengthening background checks and regulating the transfer of firearms. Both bills passed in that chamber, but are stalled in the Senate. Biden’s promise to sign a bill renewing the Violence Against Women Act is contingent on the bill passing Congress and, while the House approved it in a bipartisan vote last month, the Senate has taken no action. Biden Accelerates Deadline for Opening Up COVID-19 Vaccinations President’s announcement comes amid increase in coronavirus cases among young adults COVID-19 On his first day in office January 20, Biden announced a mask mandate in federal buildings and sent a letter informing the World Health Organization that the U.S. would like to rejoin that organization after the Trump administration withdrew. Biden has also been able to keep, and often exceed, other pandemic-related promises. An initial vow to deliver 100 million vaccinations in 100 days has been greatly exceeded, with twice that number already completed, and the administration made good on promises to set up 100 mass vaccination sites and to create mobile vaccination clinics. A pledge to reopen most schools for in-person instruction has been less successful, in large part because decisions about local school policies are not within the purview of the White House. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did issue guidelines on how to safely reopen schools and other public facilities, but only a little more than half of public schools are open full time for in-person learning.Biden to Lift Refugee Cap Next Month, White House SaysPresident initially retained historically low 15,000-person limit set by Trump administrationImmigration/refugees Biden did away with former President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban and expanded deportation criteria on his first day in office, and at the same time he halted construction on the wall that the Trump administration was attempting to build on the U.S-Mexico border. He attempted to implement a 100-day “freeze” on deportations, but that effort was blocked by a court ruling. Within the first month of his term, Biden also sent Congress an immigration bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants and announced a program aimed at reuniting children who were separated from their families by the previous administration. As promised, Biden eliminated the “public charge rule” implemented by Trump to prevent recent immigrants from accessing public services. The administration appears to have stumbled badly in its efforts to restore the acceptance of refugees into the U.S. to pre-Trump levels. After promising to accept 62,500 in fiscal year 2022, the administration last week reduced that number to 15,000. The White House then said Biden would raise that number in May, but likely not to the promised level.Biden Lifts Ban on Transgender People in Military Trump had banned further recruitment of transgender people but allowed those already in the military to continue their serviceRacism/Inequity On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order calling for a comprehensive assessment of racial equity in the federal government and in the services it provides. Within his first few months in office, Biden had signed multiple executive actions meant to protect people from discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, including the lifting of a ban on transsexuals serving in the armed forces. However, his promise to sign the Equality Act, which would codify many of those protections, has stalled in the Senate after the legislation passed the House in February. The White House placed a hold on the creation of a police oversight commission, instead electing to work toward passage of a police accountability law in Congress. Biden Promises Sharply Increased US Engagement Around the WorldNew US president warns Russia and China, while announcing an increase in accepting refugees and an end to support for Saudi offensive against Yemen National security Biden pledged to restore America’s standing across the globe by reengaging with allies, and in the opening months of his term, he has begun the work of repairing U.S. relations with NATO countries and U.S. security partners in the Pacific region. Biden also promised to bring the U.S. back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. Talks to do that have begun, but success is far from assured.
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By Polityk | 04/26/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Set to Address Congress as He Marks His First 100 Days
With U.S. President Joe Biden set to give his first address to a joint session of Congress this week, a slight majority of Americans approves of his performance, according to a recent poll. There are many issues Democrats and Republican leaders expect him to address. Michelle Quinn reports.
Video editor: Mary Cieslak
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By Polityk | 04/26/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Polls: Americans Give Biden a Mostly Favorable Review at Three-Month Mark
A majority of Americans approve of U.S. President Joe Biden’s overall performance as he nears the end of his first 100 days in office, two major national polls show, with positive marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and negative reviews for controlling the surge of migrants at the border with Mexico. A Washington Post-ABC News survey shows 52% of adults give Biden a favorable review compared to 42% who disapprove. An NBC News poll gives Biden a 53%-39% favorable rating. Both polls show the country’s deep political divide has not changed from the contentious 2020 election in which Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump by narrowly winning several key political battleground states en route to a four-year term in the White House. The Post-ABC poll showed 90% of Democrats approved of Biden’s performance compared with 13% of Republicans, while the NBC survey said 90% of Democrats, 61% of independents and only 9% of Republicans approve of his performance. According to the polls, Biden wins some of his highest approval marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 226 million vaccinations having been administered and more than 93 million people fully vaccinated. The Post-ABC poll said 64% of adults — including a third of Republicans — approved of Biden’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. NBC said 69% approved. But Biden’s performance standing on other issues is weaker, according to the surveys. The Post-ABC poll said the country’s 46th president is winning a 52% approval rating for his handling of the economy, while 53% disapprove of the way he had dealt with the thousands of migrants from Central America and Mexico who have tried to cross into the United States. Biden, reversing a Trump policy, has allowed unaccompanied minors to stay in the U.S. rather than expelling them. The NBC poll showed Biden with his highest marks, aside from the pandemic, at 52% on both the economy and uniting the country and 49% on improving race relations. His lowest scores came on dealing with China (35%), restricting guns (34%) and dealing with border security and immigration (33%). Biden’s first major legislative initiative was a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, approved solely with the votes of Democratic lawmakers against unified Republican opposition. But the Post-ABC poll showed strong public support, with 65% of those surveyed saying they back the plan compared with 31% opposed. In the politically divided U.S., however, some Republican lawmakers are beginning to publicly take on Biden. One Trump supporter, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told the “Fox News Sunday” show, “I’m in the 43% [who disapprove of him] — he’s been a disaster on foreign policy. The border is in chaos, the Iranians are off the mat, he’s opening up negotiations with the Iranian regime and they haven’t done a damn thing to change. Afghanistan is going to fall apart. Russia and China are already pushing him around.” “So, I’m very worried,” Graham said. “I think he’s been a very destabilizing president. And economically, he’s throwing a wet blanket over the recovery, wanting to raise taxes in a large amount and regulate America basically out of business. So I’m not very impressed with the first 100 days. This is not what I thought I would get.” Biden’s overall favorability rating was essentially the reverse of Trump’s at the same point in their presidencies, with Trump having a 53%-42% disapproval rating three months into his presidency in 2017. But Biden’s approval standing was lower than that for President Barack Obama at the outset of his eight-year presidency in 2009. Biden is reviewing his first three months in office in a Wednesday night address to a joint session of Congress, although with the necessity of social distancing because of the pandemic, many lawmakers are not expected to attend, and few other officials will be there. In all, about 200 people are expected, compared to the normal 1,600 who have witnessed past presidential speeches in the House of Representatives’ chamber. In his next effort on a major legislative effort, Biden is attempting to win approval for a more than $2 trillion infrastructure deal. But many Republican lawmakers are balking at the inclusion of such items as funding for home health care that go beyond the normal infrastructure spending for road and bridge repairs and opposing paying for the program with higher taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals. Biden, a Democrat, has expressed a willingness for compromise with Republican lawmakers but the two sides remain far apart.
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By Polityk | 04/26/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Pentagon Internet Mystery Now Partially Solved
A very strange thing happened on the internet the day President Joe Biden was sworn in. A shadowy company residing at a shared workspace above a Florida bank announced to the world’s computer networks that it was now managing a colossal, previously idle chunk of the internet owned by the U.S. Department of Defense.That real estate has since more than quadrupled to 175 million addresses — about 1/25th the size of the current internet.”It is massive. That is the biggest thing in the history of the internet,” said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, a network operating company. It’s also more than twice the size of the internet space actually used by the Pentagon.After weeks of wonder by the networking community, the Pentagon has now provided a very terse explanation for what it’s doing. But it has not answered many basic questions, beginning with why it chose to entrust management of the address space to a company that seems not to have existed until September.The military hopes to “assess, evaluate and prevent unauthorized use of DoD IP address space,” said a statement issued Friday by Brett Goldstein, chief of the Pentagon’s Defense Digital Service, which is running the project. It also hopes to “identify potential vulnerabilities” as part of efforts to defend against cyber-intrusions by global adversaries, who are consistently infiltrating U.S. networks, sometimes operating from unused internet address blocks. The statement did not specify whether the “pilot project” would involve outside contractors.
The Pentagon periodically contends with unauthorized squatting on its space, in part because there has been a shortage of first-generation internet addresses since 2011; they now sell at auction for upwards of $25 each. Madory said advertising the address space will make it easier to chase off squatters and allow the U.S. military to “collect a massive amount of background internet traffic for threat intelligence.” Some cybersecurity experts have speculated that the Pentagon may be using the newly advertised space to create “honeypots,” machines set up with vulnerabilities to draw hackers. Or it could be looking to set up dedicated infrastructure — software and servers — to scour traffic for suspect activity.”This greatly increases the space they could monitor,” said Madory, who published a blog post on the matter Saturday.What a Pentagon spokesman could not explain Saturday is why the Defense Department chose Global Resource Systems LLC, a company with no record of government contracts, to manage the address space. “As to why the DoD would have done that I’m a little mystified, same as you,” said Paul Vixie, an internet pioneer credited with designing its naming system and the CEO of Farsight Security. The company did not return phone calls or emails from The Associated Press. It has no web presence, though it has the domain grscorp.com. Its name doesn’t appear on the directory of its Plantation, Florida, domicile, and a receptionist drew a blank when an AP reporter asked for a company representative at the office earlier this month. She found its name on a tenant list and suggested trying email. Records show the company has not obtained a business license in Plantation.Incorporated in Delaware and registered by a Beverly Hills lawyer, Global Resource Systems LLC now manages more internet space than China Telecom, AT&T or Comcast. The only name associated with it on the Florida business registry coincides with that of a man listed as recently as 2018 in Nevada corporate records as a managing member of a cybersecurity/internet surveillance equipment company called Packet Forensics. The company had nearly $40 million in publicly disclosed federal contracts over the past decade, with the FBI and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency among its customers. That man, Raymond Saulino, is also listed as a principal in a company called Tidewater Laskin Associates, which was incorporated in 2018 and obtained an FCC license in April 2020. It shares the same Virginia Beach, Virginia, address — a UPS store — in corporate records as Packet Forensics. The two have different mailbox numbers. Calls to the number listed on the Tidewater Laskin FCC filing are answered by an automated service that offers four different options but doesn’t connect callers with a single one, recycling all calls to the initial voice recording.Saulino did not return phone calls seeking comment, and a longtime colleague at Packet Forensics, Rodney Joffe, said he believed Saulino was retired. Joffe, a cybersecurity luminary, declined further comment. Joffe is chief technical officer at Neustar Inc., which provides internet intelligence and services for major industries, including telecommunications and defense.In 2011, Packet Forensics and Saulino, its spokesman, were featured in a Wired story because the company was selling an appliance to government agencies and law enforcement that let them spy on people’s web browsing using forged security certificates.The company continues to sell “lawful intercept” equipment, according to its website. One of its current contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is for “harnessing autonomy for countering cyber-adversary systems.” A contract description says it is investigating “technologies for conducting safe, nondisruptive, and effective active defense operations in cyberspace.” Contract language from 2019 says the program would “investigate the feasibility of creating safe and reliable autonomous software agencies that can effectively counter malicious botnet implants and similar large-scale malware.”Deepening the mystery is Global Resource Systems’ name. It is identical to that of a firm that independent internet fraud researcher Ron Guilmette says was sending out email spam using the very same internet routing identifier. It shut down more than a decade ago. All that differs is the type of company. This one’s a limited liability corporation. The other was a corporation. Both used the same street address in Plantation, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. “It’s deeply suspicious,” said Guilmette, who unsuccessfully sued the previous incarnation of Global Resources Systems in 2006 for unfair business practices. Guilmette considers such masquerading, known as slip-streaming, a ham-handed tactic in this situation. “If they wanted to be more serious about hiding this they could have not used Ray Saulino and this suspicious name.”Guilmette and Madory were alerted to the mystery when network operators began inquiring about it on an email list in mid-March. But almost everyone involved didn’t want to talk about it. Mike Leber, who owns Hurricane Electric, the internet backbone company handing the address blocks’ traffic, didn’t return emails or phone messages. Despite an internet address crunch, the Pentagon — which created the internet — has shown no interest in selling any of its address space, and a Defense Department spokesman, Russell Goemaere, told the AP on Saturday that none of the newly announced space has been sold.
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By Polityk | 04/25/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
US-Japan Statement Raises Issue of Taiwan Defense Against China
A joint statement by U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga from their recent meeting at the White House has left officials and analysts in Taiwan wondering how far Japan might be willing to go to help defend the island against an attack from China.The White House said April 16 on its website that Suga and Biden “underscore the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”Some analysts say the joint statement signals Tokyo’s willingness to help defend Taiwan against China if needed, but only in support of a U.S.-led campaign.Taiwan quickly welcomed the joint statement.“Our government is happy to see that the United States and Japan are concerned about the current situation of regional security,” the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Taipei said in a statement April 17.“We will build on existing solid foundations and work closely with the United States, Japan and other countries with similar ideas to defend the democratic system, shared values and a rule-based international order and work together to maintain peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” the ministry’s statement said.China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan, a leftover issue from the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, and it has threatened to take the island by force if needed.Regular Chinese military flights in a corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone over the past eight months have sparked worries about a possible attack by China, which maintains the world’s third strongest armed forces, after the United States and Russia. A 1979 congressional act allows the United States to help defend Taiwan militarily.Backup for U.S. forcesAs Suga faced questions at home after the Biden visit about his designs for Taiwan, officials in Tokyo reportedly clarified on Wednesday that Japan would not send troops but could offer logistical support to the United States in the event of a conflict.In response to a question Tuesday from a member of the Japanese Diet about Japan’s commitment to Taiwan, Suga said the joint statement with Biden “does not presuppose military involvement at all,” the Jiji Press news service reported.Japan and the United States still honor a 70-year-old treaty that commits both countries to act against common dangers. Both see Taiwan as a friendly Asia Pacific buffer against Chinese naval expansion.“Taiwanese leaders would be thankful for Japan Prime Minister Suga’s goodwill and friendliness,” said Chen Yi-fan, assistant diplomacy and international relations professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. “However, based on [the] U.S. Japan security treaty, Japan will only offer logistical support to the U.S. military forces.”Japan spars with China over sovereignty in parts of the sea between them and bicker about leftover World War II issues. However, Japanese officials hope to avoid irritating China now as they pursue post-pandemic economic recovery, Chen said. China is Japan’s largest trading partner.Japan might wait for the United States to request military aid, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center in Washington.“As for whether Japan will aid Taiwan in the event of a contingency, the United States has not provided such strategic clarity yet and it will be far off to speculate if Japan will,” Sun said. “To a large extent, Japan’s involvement in a Taiwan contingency depends on what the U.S. will do and also ask Japan to do.”Jeffrey Kingston, a history instructor at the Japan campus of Temple University, called the U.S.-Japan statement on Taiwan “much ado about nothing.”After Suga agreed to the Taiwan Strait statement in Washington last week, Kingston said, “I think Japan was like just laughing up its sleeve thinking, ‘Wow, the Americans, they’re satisfied with that?’”U.S. allies marshaling near ChinaThe Biden-Suga consensus is unlikely to stop at just the United States and Japan, or at Taiwan, some scholars say. They note that four U.S.-allied Western European countries have sent vessels or planned voyages this year to date to the South China Sea, a disputed waterway near Taiwan where China has alarmed much of Asia by building up tiny islets for military use.A U.S. aircraft carrier group joined an amphibious-ready group for drills in the sea earlier this month. Japan’s Maritime Self-defense Force held anti-submarine drills in the sea last year.Taiwan contests sovereignty over the sea, as do four Southeast Asian governments.“We’re going to see more of that occurring in the South China Sea,” said Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor from the University of New South Wales in Australia. “It’s the beginning of a full-court press.”
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By Polityk | 04/24/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
College Voters Overwhelmingly Approve of Biden’s Job in Office
U.S. President Joe Biden’s approval rating among college voters is 63%, according to a new Harvard Youth Poll, the highest for that demographic in the poll’s 21-year history.The poll said other high approval ratings by college voters came in 2003 for then-President George W. Bush, who received 61% approval, and in 2016 for then-President Barack Obama, with 57% approval.Overall, the Harvard Youth Poll, released Friday, found that 59% of young adults ages 18 to 29 approved of Biden’s job performance.His highest marks came from his handling of the coronavirus (65% approval), climate change (58% approval), education (58% approval) and race relations (57% approval).Biden’s popularity among young voters is a sharp contrast from this time last year, when only 34% of young adults viewed Biden favorably, according to the Spring 2020 Harvard Youth Poll.Friday’s poll also found that young Americans were more hopeful about the future of the country than they had been in the fall of 2017, during President Donald Trump’s first year in office. At that time, only 31% of young Americans were hopeful about country’s future, while now 56% have hope.The jump was most pronounced in young Blacks and Hispanics. Only 18% of young Blacks and 29% of young Hispanics had called themselves hopeful in 2017, while in the latest poll, 72% of Black youths and 69% of Hispanic youths said they were hopeful about America.The poll also found that politics could be personally divisive for youth, with nearly one-third (31%) of young Americans saying that politics had gotten in the way of a friendship.
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By Polityk | 04/24/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Sen. Tim Scott to Deliver Republicans’ Rebuttal to Biden Address
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina will deliver the Republicans’ rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress next week.Scott, who is the only Black Republican in the Senate, will serve as the face of the party after Biden addresses the nation Wednesday. Considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, Scott is a leading Republican voice on race and criminal justice reform and is popular with the pro-Donald Trump and moderate wings of the party.The selection underscores the party’s efforts to unite and expand its appeal after a bruising 2020 cycle that saw them lose the White House and both chambers of Congress.”Senator Tim Scott is not just one of the strongest leaders in our Senate Republican Conference, he is one of the most inspiring and unifying leaders in our nation,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement announcing the selection. “As Senator Scott likes to say, he is living his mother’s American dream, and he has dedicated his career to creating more opportunity for our fellow citizens who need it most.”Biden is set to address lawmakers just before he marks his 100th day in office. The speech — much like a State of the Union address, which presidents don’t deliver until their second year in office — will give Biden the opportunity to update the American public on his progress and make the case for the $2.3 trillion infrastructure package he unveiled earlier this month.In a statement, Scott said he was honored by the selection and looked forward to having “an honest conversation with the American people.””We face serious challenges on multiple fronts, but I am as confident as I have ever been in the promise and potential of America,” he said.Scott, a senator since 2013 and a former congressman whose grandfather picked cotton as a child, was initially reluctant to focus on race in his political career. But he has increasingly talked about his experiences living as a Black man in America amid a national reckoning over racial injustice and police tactics.In an interview with The Associated Press last year, he talked in emotional terms about how often he had been pulled over by law enforcement, including for failing to signal early enough for a lane change — or, as he called it, stopped for “driving while Black.””I’m thinking to myself how blessed and lucky I am to have 18 different encounters and to have walked away from each encounter,” he said.
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By Polityk | 04/23/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
