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oliviaodon

Trump's War Games - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Rand Paul was forthright and forceful, saying:“I think really there’s a sophomoric quality that is entertaining about Mr. Trump, but I am worried. I’m very concerned about him, having him in charge of the nuclear weapons, because I think his response, his visceral response to attack people on their appearance — short, tall, fat, ugly — my goodness, that happened in junior high. Are we not way above that? Would we not all be worried to have someone like that in charge of the nuclear arsenal?”
  • Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, as saying, “We do not trust him with our nuclear weapons arsenal” and “We do not want him to use nuclear weapons first in the North Korean standoff — not just there in Korea, but all across the planet.”The article also quotes Markey as saying of Trump, “As his comments become more erratic and inconsistent on the use of nuclear weapons, we think it’s imperative for the United States Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority to have the power to determine whether or not these nuclear weapons are used first against any country.”
  • As my colleague Nicholas Kristof, who recently visited North Korea, said of the possibility of a war between our country and theirs, “War is preventable, but I’m not sure it will be prevented.”
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  • Trump continues his war of words and measuring of egos with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. While I still find the threat of a nuclear strike remote, it grows less and less remote with every passing day and every insult. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Kim Jong-un is irrational and unhinged, but so is Trump.
  • Don’t say that we weren’t warned.
  • “Donald Trump is dangerous. But not in the way you think. Many people think he’s dangerous. They say, ‘Well, you wouldn’t want somebody like that with such a hot head with his fingers on the nuclear codes.’ And yeah, that’s certainly true. That’s not the real danger. The real danger is that ironically Donald Trump could destroy America’s chance to be great again.”
  • Something about all these warnings, while true, felt of another time, like they were happening during the Cold War, rather than tailored for an election about the culture wars. Still, a Fox News poll conducted a month before the election found that voters overwhelmingly trusted Clinton to do a better job making decisions about using nuclear weapons.But enough Americans looked past these warnings, just as they pushed past so many others, to hand Trump the election. After all, the nuclear question was theoretical and academic, right? No, it wasn’t.In fact, after the election, concern about Trump controlling our nuclear arsenal only congealed.
  • Plenty of people tried to warn us about this moment, but not enough Americans took heed. To them, this was sky-is-falling hyperbole. The use of nuclear weapons was a thing of history and Hollywood. Write A Comment But it is ever so clear that the threat is urgent and real and that the only thing standing between a nuclear strike and us is a set of short fingers that constantly type out Twitter insults.If all this makes you uneasy, good. It should. Also, welcome to the club.
krystalxu

'How the French Invented Love' puts history of romance on map - 0 views

  • the French have shaped our understandings and expectations of love and its discontents for nearly a millennium, from Abélard and Héloise - the star-crossed lovers whose legendary love made them sort of the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor of their day - to the existential yearnings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
  • it evolved into an articulated code of conduct, codified in the romances of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult.
  • . But at its root, love was still seen as a transcendent experience - just not necessarily with your spouse.
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  • Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, the French idea of love was caught between celebrating l'amour in all its manifestations and cursing its bittersweet legacy of suffering, heartbreak and loss.
  • But Yalom's affection for the simultaneous idealism and pragmatism of l'amour a la française is infectious,
katherineharron

Trump's post-presidency: On the attack with the help of the Fox and Newsmax propaganda ... - 0 views

  • Former President Donald Trump was audible, if not visible, all day long on Monday — and the effect is to keep him front and center in the Republican Party conversation.
  • His unwillingness, or inability, to lay low is exactly what many Trump observers expected
  • when broadcaster Rush Limbaugh died, Trump resumed his old habit of calling into TV networks, with two calls to Fox and one call each to Newsmax and One America News.
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  • Lately Trump has been doing what comes naturally to him — dictating tweet-like statements, calling into conservative talk shows, and generally stirring up trouble. "I like this better than Twitter," he claimed on Newsmax. "Actually they did us a favor. This is better."
  • Trump has shown no courtesy to President Joe Biden since leaving the White House.
  • On the phone with one of his biggest sycophants, Newsmax's Greg Kelly, on Monday evening, Kelly speculated about Biden's mental faculties, prompting Trump to say "there's something" going on with Biden. Trump then questioned "whether or not he understands what he's signing" when bills cross his desk.
  • Trump is the first US president to lose re-election in nearly thirty years.
  • Trump, of course, proudly stands as the GOP antithesis of Bush 41. President 45, as some of his allies now call him, lest they identify him as "former," was uncharacteristically quiet upon leaving the White House. But he set up an office in Florida within days and began issuing statements that were widely picked up by the media — a cheap replacement for his account on Twitter, which banned him in the wake of the Capitol riot.
  • "The code of the presidents club is to get out of the way and let the new commander in chief have a year or two," CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said.
  • Since then, he has gradually increased his visibility, with emails to members of the media from "45 Office" so far in March, twice as many as in February
  • "Trump's unique in that he wants to make a lot of racket and garner attention after leaving the White House,"
  • Trump said "people have seen some silence" from him, "but actually, if you take a look at what's happened over the last period of time, we're sending out releases. They're getting picked up much better than any tweet."
  • Trump also teased plans for "our own platform,"
  • Trump told Boothe that he now believes official statements to the public are "much more elegant than a tweet, and I think it gets picked up better. You're seeing that."
  • "Picked up" was the key phrase. The need for pickup — meaning attention from the American news media — is at the heart of Trump's post-presidential actions.
  • And he is continuing to push the incendiary claims that led up to the January 6 riot, about winning the 2020 election and Biden stealing it from him, despite pleas even from within his own party to stop lying.
  • Trump seemed self-aware about his media approach during a podcast taping with Lisa Boothe, which was released on Monday morning. Trump was Boothe's inaugural guest — which means the podcast does not yet have a high profile or a massive following. Trump said in a statement that she has been doing "an outstanding job" on Fox, so perhaps he wanted to give her new podcast a boost.
  • Brinkley likened Trump to "an active political hand grenade, ready to blow up the US political system any way he can.
  • Last week Trump called into Fox for a live interview with Maria Bartiromo. The next day his comments to Bartiromo were in heavy rotation on other right-wing networks and outlets.
  • To Kelly, he hedged about the possibility of a new social platform, saying that "something will happen with social media if I want it to happen."
ethanshilling

North Korea's Arsenal Has Grown Rapidly. Here's What's in It. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • North Korea test-launched what it called a newly developed tactical guided missile ​on Thursday, violating international sanctions.
  • It was the country’s first ballistic missile test in a year and its first provocation to the Biden administration, prompting the​ American president to warn that there will be “responses” if North Korea continues to escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
  • North Korea​ has rapidly expanded its nuclear program and modernized its missile fleet under Kim Jong-un, the country’s young leader. The expansion of the arsenal is a growing threat to the United States and allies​ in the region. ​Here’s what’s in it.
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  • As of January 2020, North Korea had 30 to 40 nuclear warheads and could produce enough fissile material for six or seven bombs a year, according to an estimate by the Arms Control Association.
  • North Korea has extracted plutonium, an atomic bomb fuel, from its Soviet-designed nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang.
  • North Korea’s ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads, and the country conducted six increasingly sophisticated underground nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017. The last four of them happened under Mr. Kim.
  • In 2017, North Korea made big strides in its weapons capabilities.That year, the country fired its intermediate-range ballistic missile, Hwasong-12, over Japan and threatened an “enveloping” strike around the American territory of Guam.
  • By the end of the year, Mr. Kim claimed that his country had the ability to launch a nuclear strike against the continental United States.
  • And at a party congress in January, Mr. Kim doubled down on his nuclear arms buildup, offering a laundry list of weapons he said he planned to develop. They included “multi-warhead” nuclear missiles, “hypersonic” missiles, land- and submarine-launched I.C.B.M.s that use solid fuel, and “ultramodern tactical nuclear weapons.”
  • When North Korea resumed missile tests in 2019 following the collapse of the Kim-Trump talks, the tests featured three new weapons, code-named KN-23, KN-24 and KN-25 by outside experts.
  • Unlike its older missiles that used liquid fuel, all three of the new missiles used solid fuel. The new solid-fuel weapons, mounted on mobile launchers, are easier to transport and hide and take less time to prepare.
  • Mr. Kim said in January that his country would also build a nuclear-powered submarine in order to acquire the means to deliver nuclear weapons to its adversaries more stealthily.
  • North Korea has one of the largest standing armies in the world, with more than one million soldiers. But much of its equipment is old and obsolete, and the military lacks fuel and spare parts.
  • North Korea has sought to make up for its shortcomings by building nuclear weapons.
  • At the January party congress, Mr. Kim said that his weapons program “never precludes diplomacy” but “guarantees its success.” He has also said he no longer holds any expectations for dialogue unless Washington makes an offer that satisfies his government.
  • It showed that “North Korea was pushing ahead with the plans” set down by Mr. Kim during the party meeting, said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
rerobinson03

Opinion | Will We Struggle to Reach Herd Immunity? - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Consider a slice of Florida’s seniors, ages 65 to 74, who have been eligible for vaccination for four months. Almost all seniors in the state’s wealthiest county, St. Johns, have been vaccinated. (The numbers may be inflated because of seasonal residents, or snowbirds, who aren’t necessarily counted as part of the county’s population but are still counted among people getting vaccinated there.) But the first county west of St. Johns is one of the state’s poorest: Putnam, where the median annual income is about $35,000. Only half of the county’s residents ages 65 to 74 have been vaccinated.
  • When eligibility is expanded in other states, vaccinations are expected to surge among the wealthiest Americans and lag among the poorest. At the rates that Florida’s poorer counties are vaccinating people ages 65 to 74, it will take months for the rest of the state’s seniors to catch up with higher-income Floridians.
  • Data published by Idaho reveals how the current vaccination efforts are reaching a plateau in poorer parts of the state. The poorest 25 percent of ZIP codes in the state are seeing vaccination rates stalling below 70 percent for people ages 65 to 74.
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  • Logistical hurdles and missteps could drive slower vaccination campaigns. But states may also be falling behind because of high levels of vaccine hesitancy. If that's the case, it will take more than just opening up eligibility to get the country to levels of vaccination that can reach herd immunity — when roughly 70 percent of people are vaccinated, making it too difficult for the virus to spread.
aidenborst

James Clyburn, senior Democratic leader, calls for Lindsey Graham to 'go to church' aft... - 0 views

  • House Majority Whip James Clyburn on Wednesday blasted Sen. Lindsey Graham over his comments that aid to Black farmers in the Covid-19 relief bill are "reparations" and called for his fellow South Carolinian to get back in touch with Christianity.
  • "Lindsey Graham is from South Carolina. He knows South Carolina's history. He knows what the state of South Carolina and this country has done to Black farmers in South Carolina. They didn't do it to White farmers. We're trying to rescue the lives and livelihoods of people. He ought to be ashamed of himself,"
  • "I think you ought to go back and maybe go to church. Get in touch with his Christianity."
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  • The $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, which is expected to pass the House on Wednesday, will provide direct payments of up to 120% of a "socially disadvantaged" farmer or rancher's outstanding debt as of Jan. 1, 2021. A socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher is anyone in a socially disadvantaged group, those who have been "subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities," according to a House code.
  • "Let me give an example of something that really bothers me. In this bill, if you are a farmer, your loan will be forgiven up to 120% of your loan, not 100%, but 120%, if you're socially disadvantaged, if you're African-American, some other minority. But if you're White person, if you are a White woman, no forgiveness. That's reparations. What does that got to do with Covid?," Graham said on "Sunday Morning Futures."
  • "Here you have a group of people who barely can defend themselves and instead of these senators voting to support historic measure like this where I have been trying to get debt relief for Black farmers and other farmers of color over 30 years," he told Keilar. "I never heard Senator Lindsey Graham speak out against discrimination, where I been spat on and called racial epithets and had my USDA applications torn up and thrown in the trash can. He knows about discrimination ... I never hear
rerobinson03

Biden Poised to Raise Taxes on Business and the Rich - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Now, under President Biden, they have a shot at ushering in the largest federal tax increase since 1942. It could help pay for a host of spending programs that liberal economists predict would bolster the economy’s performance and repair a tax code that Democrats say encourages wealthy people to hoard assets and big companies to ship jobs and book profits overseas.
  • he package, which follows on the heels of Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic aid bill, is central to the president’s long-term plan to revitalize American workers and industry by funding bridges and roads, universal pre-K, emerging industries like advanced batteries and efforts to invigorate the fight against climate change.Mr. Biden plans to finance that spending, at least in part, with tax increases that could raise upward of $2.5 trillion in revenue if his plan hews closely to what he proposed in the 2020 presidential campaign. Aides suggest his proposals might not be entirely paid for, with some one-time spending increases offset by increased federal borrowing.
  • iberal economists say this year could be different, thanks to the unique political and economic circumstances surrounding the recovery from the pandemic recession. With Mr. Biden’s signing of a $1.9 trillion economic relief bill, financed entirely by federal borrowing, forecasters now expect the economy to grow this year at its fastest annual clip since the 1980s. Republicans and some economists have begun to warn of overheating growth spurring runaway inflation, which could reduce the salience of warnings that tax increases would cause growth to stall.
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  • Mr. Biden has pledged not to raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000.
  • “The purpose of the tax system is to both raise enough revenue for what the government wants to do, and to make sure that as we’re doing that we are encouraging activities that are in the national interest and discouraging ones that are not,” said Heather Boushey, a member of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers.Key Democrats are trying to bring the party to consensus. The top tax writer in the Senate, Ron Wyden of Oregon, is drafting a series of bills to raise taxes, many of them overlapping with Mr. Biden’s campaign proposals.
  • A report from the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation this month showed that multinational companies paid an average U.S. tax rate of less than 8 percent on their income in 2018, down from 16 percent in 2017. The report also found that those companies did not slow their practice of booking profits in low-tax havens like Bermuda.
aleija

Opinion | For Democracy to Stay, the Filibuster Must Go - The New York Times - 0 views

  • It is hard to imagine a more fitting job for Congress than for members to join together to pass a broadly popular law that makes democracy safer, stronger and more accessible to all Americans.
  • The legislation has the support of at least 50 senators, plus the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. President Biden is on board and ready to sign it. So what’s the problem? Majority support in the Senate isn’t enough. In the upper chamber, a supermajority of 60 votes is required to pass even the most middling piece of legislation. That requirement is not found in the Constitution; it’s because of the filibuster, a centuries-old parliamentary tool that has been transformed into a weapon for strangling functional government.
  • The most compelling reason to keep the filibuster is its proponents’ argument that the rule prevents a tyranny of the majority in the Senate. That’s the rationale of the two Democrats currently standing in the way of ending it, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. They have been steadfast in defending the modern filibuster as part of what they assert is a longstanding Senate custom.
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  • If the political reforms in H.R. 1 are not undertaken at the federal level, Republican leaders will continue to entrench minority rule. That’s happening already in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina, where Republican-drawn maps give them large legislative majorities despite winning fewer votes statewide than Democrats. It’s happening in dozens of other states that have passed hundreds of voting restrictions and are pushing hundreds more, under the guise of protecting election security.
  • Last week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1. The bill, a similar version of which the House passed in 2019, is a comprehensive and desperately needed set of reforms that would strengthen voting rights and election security, ban partisan gerrymandering, reduce big money in politics and establish ethics codes for Supreme Court justices, the president and other executive branch officials
  • . If America is to be governed competently and fairly — if it is to be governed at all — the filibuster must go.
  • The filibuster doesn’t require interparty compromise; it requires 60 votes. It says nothing about the diversity of the coalition required to pass legislation. It just substitutes 60 percent of the Senate for 51 percent as the threshold to pass most legislation. If the Senate was designed to be a place where both parties come together to deliberate and pass laws in the interest of the American people, the filibuster has turned it into the place where good legislation goes to die.
  • The filibuster doesn’t only fail to ensure extended debate on a bill; today it curtails the opportunity for any debate at all. A single senator can signal he or she intends to filibuster by typing an email and hitting send. No need to stand on the Senate floor to make your impassioned case.
Javier E

How politics is shaping Biden's infrastructure proposal - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • e new administration’s governing style. Rather than seek the perfect policy answer — an approach touted by the Obama administration — they are focused on solutions that can muster a broad base of support.
  • The plan also includes funding electric vehicles without setting a timeline for when the nation will stop selling gas-powered cars and trucks, and funding highly subsidized inland waterways without spelling out how much industry will pay for new locks and dams.
  • “We have to pass policies that people actually want,” said Leah Stokes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “In an economics textbook, it’s efficiency all the time. That’s not the way it is in politics. The goal should be improving people’s lives.”
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  • Many influential interest groups and lawmakers are fighting to include different ideas.
  • Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) said he supported the infrastructure plan’s inclusion of the Pro Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize
  • The fraught politics of personal cars, SUVs and diesel trucks, meanwhile, meant some highly effective climate policies didn’t make it into Biden’s plan.
  • White House Deputy National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi said in a phone interview. “It’s about making sure that the investments are made in a way that stretches the geography of opportunity to every Zip code, that fully avails the environmental justice upside and totally leans into the supply- chain and domestic manufacturing opportunities that all this presents.”
  • “The focus across the board is to try to deliver the upside in small towns and big cities and all the places in between, with an emphasis on communities that are very often left behind and left out,
  • “In the climate space, if we cared only about optimizing economic efficiency we’d probably only consider a carbon price,” he added. “But as we’ve learned from over 15 years of carbon-pricing around the globe, that works out better on economists’ whiteboards than it does in reality.”
  • Josh Freed, who leads the climate and energy team at the center-left think tank Third Way, said in an email, “The 'best’ use of taxpayer funds isn’t always the one that maximizes economic efficiencies.”
  • Some of the biggest emissions savings in transportation would come from ending the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, followed soon after by heavy trucks. The plan avoids those politically dicey mandates.
  • The incentives and other policies mirror those championed by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has called for major rebates when drivers buy electric vehicles.
  • The president’s infrastructure ambitions depend on Schumer’s ability to shepherd a package through the evenly split Senate.
  • Even supporters of the infrastructure push say it has elements that bend to political forces. Some economists, for instance, believe the plan’s call for “Buy American” provisions to ensure infrastructure is made by American workers will drive up the cost of the measures for the federal government. But those provisions are fiercely supported by unions and other liberal groups because they boost the amount of federal spending that has to be directed to American workers.
ethanshilling

Biden Will Seek Tax Increase on Rich to Fund Child Care and Education - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The next phase of President Biden’s $4 trillion push to overhaul the American economy will seek to raise taxes on millionaire investors to fund education and other spending plans, but it will not take steps to expand health coverage or reduce prescription drug prices, according to people familiar with the proposal.
  • Administration officials had planned to include a health care expansion of up to $700 billion, offset by efforts to reduce government spending on prescription drugs.
  • The president is set to outline his so-called American Family Plan, which includes measures aimed at helping Americans gain skills throughout life and have more flexibility in the work force, before his first address to a joint session of Congress next week.
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  • But after weeks of work, administration officials have closed in on the final version of what will be the second half of Mr. Biden’s sweeping economic agenda, which also includes the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan the president described last month.
  • It also seeks to extend through 2025 an expanded tax credit for parents — which is essentially a monthly payment from the government for most families — that was created on a temporary basis by the $1.9 trillion economic aid package Mr. Biden signed into law last month.
  • Democrats on Capitol Hill have urged Mr. Biden to instead make permanent that credit, which analysts say will drastically cut child poverty this year.
  • “Expansion of the child tax credit is the most significant policy to come out of Washington in generations, and Congress has an historic opportunity to provide a lifeline to the middle class and to cut child poverty in half on a permanent basis,” the lawmakers said this week in a joint statement.
  • The president will also propose eliminating a provision of the tax code that reduces taxes for wealthy heirs who sell assets they inherit, like art or property, that have gained value over time.
  • All of the tax provisions would keep with Mr. Biden’s campaign promise not to raise taxes on individuals or households earning less than $400,000 a year.
  • Mr. Biden’s team was under pressure from Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont and the chairman of the Budget Committee, to instead focus his health care efforts on a plan to expand Medicare.
  • Mr. Sanders has pushed the administration to lower Medicare’s eligibility age and expand it to cover vision, dental and hearing services.
rerobinson03

Small Businesses Have Surged in Black Communities. Was It the Stimulus? - The New York ... - 0 views

  • There has been a surge in start-ups in America that experts have yet to fully explain. But a new study — using data that allows researchers to more precisely track new businesses across time and place — finds that the surge coincides with federal stimulus, and is strongest in Black communities.
  • The pandemic might mark the end of a slump in entrepreneurship that has lasted for several decades.
  • For aspiring business owners, registering a business with a state is a key step. In some states, it can cost a person a few hundred dollars to file. In return, the registration protects personal assets in the event of a bankruptcy; confers tax and banking benefits; and makes hiring workers easier.
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  • Although there might be other factors at work, the researchers say the stimulus checks and increased unemployment benefits shored up confidence in the economy enough that millions felt comfortable in starting a business despite being uncertain about when the pandemic would end.
  • When the researchers mapped the data, they found that the ZIP codes that experienced the greatest increase in business registrations were in Black areas, particularly higher median- income Black neighborhoods.
  • “It feels significant that we saw this big response in neighborhoods where it doesn’t typically happen,” she said. “When you remove those gateways that have worked in some ways to limit access for certain communities, then you really do unleash potential.”
mattrenz16

Lloyd Austin: Defense Secretary says US has 'offensive options' to respond to cyberatta... - 0 views

  • Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CNN the United States has "offensive options" to respond to cyberattacks following another major attack that is believed to have been carried out by the Russian group behind the SolarWinds hack.
  • Austin's comments come after the hackers behind one of the worst data breaches ever to hit the US government launched a new global cyberattack on more than 150 government agencies, think tanks and other organizations, according to Microsoft.
  • The group, which Microsoft calls "Nobelium," targeted 3,000 email accounts at various organizations this week — most of which were in the United States, the company said in a blog post Thursday.
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  • It believes the hackers are part of the same Russian group behind last year's devastating attack on SolarWinds -- a software vendor -- that targeted at least nine US federal agencies and 100 companies.
  • The White House's National Security Council and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are both aware of the incident, according to spokespeople. CISA is "working with the FBI and USAID to better understand the extent of the compromise and assist potential victims," a spokesperson said.
  • When asked about the United States' ability to get ahead of any further cyberattacks, Austin told Starr on Friday it is his responsibility to present President Joe Biden with offensive options.
  • Cybersecurity has been a major focus for the US government following the revelations that hackers had put malicious code into a tool published by SolarWinds. A ransomware attack that shut down one of America's most important pieces of energy infrastructure — the Colonial Pipeline — earlier this month has only heightened the sense of alarm. That attack was carried out by a criminal group originating in Russia, according to the FBI.
  • "I'm confident that we can continue to do what's necessary to not only compete, but stay ahead in this in this, in this domain."
hannahcarter11

President Biden has released his $6 trillion budget. Here's what's in it. - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • President Joe Biden on Friday proposed a $6 trillion budget for fiscal year 2022, laying out details of a proposed dramatic increase in federal spending that serves as the underpinning of an economic agenda that seeks to transform the American economy as the country emerges from dual public health and economic crises.
  • The budget proposal, which is an opening bid in negotiations with Congress and is expected to change before being signed into law, calls for the most sustained period of spending in more than half a century. The White House budget serves more as a marker of administration priorities than a policy blueprint destined to be signed into law. It would invest heavily in Biden's top priority areas including infrastructure, education, research, public health, paid family leave and childcare.
  • The proposal includes the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan, the $4 trillion infrastructure, jobs and economic proposal that the President had previously laid out and is negotiating with lawmakers. It also outlines additional funds to launch a new health research agency to focus on diseases like cancer, and funds to address gun violence, tackle the climate crisis, help end homelessness and curb the opioid epidemic.
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  • The scale of the spending, which Biden has made the center of his economic plans, is an intentional effort to transform an economy the President has repeatedly said leaves too many behind and, just as importantly, has made the US less competitive in the face of an ascendant China.
  • At its core, the budget underscores the fundamental divide in viewpoints between the two parties in the wake of the pandemic -- as well as the clear shift in the Democratic Party towards an embrace of ramping up spending and tax increases on corporations in the wealthy in order to expand the federal government's role in assisting those on the lower-end of the income scale.
  • Biden is asking Congress for $932 billion for discretionary, non-defense programs for fiscal year 2022 -- a significant increase from last year. The President has proposed $756 billion in defense funding, which is also an uptick from last year
  • Young argued the investments are "front-loaded" and would be "more than paid for" by the reforms to the tax code that would require the wealthiest of Americans and corporations to pay higher taxes. The President has repeatedly pledged that Americans making less than $400,000 would not have to pay increased taxes.
  • Biden has made racial equity a top focus of his administration, but there is no specific line item in the budget focused on addressing racial inequality. Young argued it wasn't necessary because Biden has directed the entire federal government to address racial inequality as it implements all of its programs.
  • In addition to the American Jobs Plan and the American Families plan, the budget proposal calls for:
  • The presidential budget did not include the Hyde amendment -- a four-decade-old ban on federal dollars being used for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the woman's life is in danger -- which Biden previously supported before reversing course and denouncing during the Democratic primary. Abortion rights supporters had long called for Biden to drop the measure.
  • In his budget overview, the President calls on Congress to enact several of his major health care initiatives, including lowering prescription drug costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices, creating a public health insurance option, giving those age 60 and older the option to enroll in Medicare and closing the Medicaid coverage gap.
  • Instead, the White House budget focuses on the health care measures contained in the American Families Plan, which would make permanent enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that were contained in the Democrats' $1.9 trillion rescue plan that Biden signed into law in March. That boost to the federal subsidies currently lasts only two years.
  • The budget also doesn't include increasing the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, which Biden had included in his $1.9 trillion relief proposal. But the measure was dropped from the Senate version after the parliamentarian ruled it did not meet a strict set of guidelines needed to move forward in the Senate's reconciliation process.
  • What is in the budget is setting the hourly minimum wage at $15 for federal contractors. This process is already underway, thanks to an executive order Biden signed in late April.
carolinehayter

Rising seas are turning Miami's high ground into hot property | CNN - 0 views

  • In a city where “sunny day floods” increased 400% in a decade, rising seas are changing the old real estate mantra of “location, location, location.” In Miami these days, it’s all about elevation, elevation, elevation.
  • While some scientific models predict enough polar ice melt to bring at least 10 feet of sea level rise to South Florida by 2100, just a modest 12 inches would make 15% of Miami uninhabitable, and much of that beachside property is among America’s most valuable.
  • The fickle undulations between city blocks could mean the difference between survival and retreat, and the rising cost of altitude is sparking a noticeable shift in community activism and municipal budgets.
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  • Miami Beach is spending millions elevating roads, upgrading pumps and changing building codes to allow residents to raise their mansions by five feet. But in working-class, immigrant neighborhoods like Little Haiti, year-to-year sea level rise gets lost in the day-to-day struggle, and most had no idea that they live a lofty three feet higher than the wealthy folks on Miami Beach.
  • They found out when developers started calling, from everywhere.
  • “We used to think that the allure of Little Haiti was the fact that it’s close to downtown, close to both airports and close to the beach. Unbeknownst to us, it’s because we are positioned at a higher altitude.”
  • After her community center and day school were priced out of three different buildings, she caught wind of plans to build the sprawling $1 billion Magic City development on the edge of Little Haiti, featuring a promenade, high-end retail stores, high rise apartments and imagined by a consortium of local investors, including the founder of Cirque du Soleil.
  • They promised to preserve the soul of Little Haiti and give $31 million to the community for affordable housing and other programs, but it wasn’t enough for Bastien. “This is a plan to actually erase Little Haiti,” she says. “Because this is the one place where immigration and climate gentrification collide.”
  • What’s happening in Little Haiti could be just one example of a “climate apartheid” that the United Nations warns is ahead, where there will be a gulf between the rich who can protect themselves from the impact of climate change and the poor who are left behind.
yehbru

Op-ed: Biden plan to close tax loopholes for corporations isn't anti-business - 0 views

  • Recent weeks have seen corporate leaders and investors mobilize publicly and privately to oppose President Biden’s proposed overhaul to the tax code
  • But this political calculus belies the truth of Biden’s plan: eliminating tax loopholes for major multinational corporations would actually put corporations that operate in the United States, and American workers, in a more competitive position compared to their international peers. 
  • The current US corporate tax rate is 21 percent, but, as recent headlines of dozens of Fortune 500 companies paying zero dollars in federal income taxes last year attest to, there are many ways for major corporations to avoid paying that much.
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  • Many of the most effective ways corporations avoid taxes involve shifting their profits and operations overseas and leaving companies that operate solely in the US at a massive competitive disadvantage. 
  • they automatically get a 50 percent discount on their taxes on all profits booked overseas. American profits are taxed at the full corporate rate of 21 percent, but profits of foreign subsidiaries are only taxed at 10.5 percent.  
  • These multinationals are then able to subtract the taxes they pay to foreign governments from what they owe the IRS. If that amount is more than the 10.5 percent they would typically have to pay, they owe the US government nothing.  
  • Basically, the more equipment and factories a company has overseas, the more tax-free profit it can earn
  • When you combine these loopholes with a cadre of other tax breaks, it allows many companies to completely avoid paying their federal dues. How are domestic companies and mom and pop operations supposed to compete?
  • Most of these advantages became law thanks to the 2017 Trump tax bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
aidenborst

US Army will not investigate Flynn's comments about a coup after he appeared to endorse... - 0 views

  • The US Army said Wednesday that it will not investigate former Gen. Michael Flynn for statements he recently made in which he appeared to endorse a Myanmar-style coup occurring in the US.
  • "We are aware of the statements LTG (R) Flynn made May 30 and June 1. The Army is not investigating these statements further at this time," an Army spokesperson said in a statement.
  • Flynn is facing bipartisan criticism after appearing to endorse a Myanmar-style coup in the US during an event in Dallas on Sunday in which an audience member raised the idea.
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  • "Let me be VERY CLEAR - There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort," the message said.
  • "No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right," Flynn responded.
  • "I want to know why what happened in Minamar (sic)can't happen here?" the audience member, who identified himself as a Marine, asked Flynn.
  • Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that "the department is not going to have an official comment one way on this."
  • "Flynn's remarks border on sedition. There's certainly conduct unbecoming an officer. Those are both things that can be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and I think that as a retiree of the military, it should certainly be a path that we consider to have consequences for these types of words," Luria, a retired Navy commander, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC360."
anonymous

A Teacher Is On Leave After Refusing to Use Transgender Students' Pronouns : NPR - 0 views

  • A Virginia elementary school teacher is suing the Loudoun County School Board after he was suspended following comments he made against a proposed new policy that would expand rights for transgender students.
  • "I'm a teacher, but I serve God first, and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa, because it's against my religion," said Cross, who says he is Christian. "It's lying to a child. It's abuse to a child. And it's sinning against our God."
  • Cross' lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Virginia Circuit Court for Loudon County, claims that the school district retaliated against him for his comments during the public meeting and that his suspension constituted a violation of his rights to freedom of speech and religion.
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  • Two days after the public meeting, Lucia Villa Sebastian, Loudoun County Public Schools interim assistant superintendent for human resources and talent development, informed Cross in a letter that he was being put on administrative leave with pay as the district investigated allegations of "conduct that has had a disruptive impact on the operations of Leesburg Elementary School."
  • At the public meeting, Cross rose in opposition to draft policy 8040, a proposal that would allow transgender and gender-expansive students to use names and pronouns outside their legal names and "regardless of the name and gender recorded in the student's permanent educational record."
  • The proposal would also amend an existing school district policy by allowing students to participate in activities such as sports "in a manner consistent with the student's gender identity."
  • Several states including Idaho, Florida and Tennessee have recently enacted laws restricting the ability of transgender athletes to participate in sports based on their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
  • Byard, the Loudoun County Public Schools public information officer, said the proposal would align district policy with the Code of Virginia and the Virginia Department of Education's guidelines for the treatment of transgender students.
anonymous

Normandy Commemorates D-Day With Small Crowds : NPR - 0 views

  • When the sun rises over Omaha Beach, revealing vast stretches of wet sand extending toward distant cliffs, one starts to grasp the immensity of the task faced by Allied soldiers on June 6, 1944, landing on the Nazi-occupied Normandy shore.
  • Several ceremonies were being held Sunday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the decisive assault that led to the liberation of France and western Europe from Nazi control, and honor those who fell.
  • On D-Day, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. This year on June 6, the beaches stood vast and nearly empty as the sun emerged, exactly 77 years since the dawn invasion.
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  • For the second year in a row, anniversary commemorations are marked by virus travel restrictions that prevented veterans or families of fallen soldiers from the U.S., Britain, Canada and other Allied countries from making the trip to France. Only a few officials were allowed exceptions.
  • On June 6, 1944, "In the heart of the mist that enveloped the Normandy Coast ... was a lightning bolt of freedom," French Defense Minister Florence Parly told the ceremony. "France does not forget. France is forever grateful."
  • Most public events have been canceled, and the official ceremonies are limited to a small number of selected guests and dignitaries.Denis van den Brink, a WWII expert working for the town of Carentan, site of a strategic battle near Utah Beach, acknowledged the "big loss, the big absence is all the veterans who couldn't travel."
  • Over the anniversary weekend, many local residents have come out to visit the monuments marking the key moments of the fight and show their gratitude to the soldiers. French World War II history enthusiasts, and a few travelers from neighboring European countries, could also be seen in jeeps and military vehicles on the small roads of Normandy.
  • Some reenactors came to Omaha Beach in the early hours of the day to pay tribute to those who fell that day, bringing flowers and American flags.
  • On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.
  • The cemetery contains 9,380 graves, most of them for servicemen who lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. Another 1,557 names are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing.
  • Normandy has more than 20 military cemeteries holding mostly Americans, Germans, French, British, Canadians and Polish troops who took part in the historic battle.
anonymous

Biden's Budget Removes A Longstanding Ban On Abortion Funding : NPR - 0 views

  • President Biden's budget proposal fulfills a campaign promise to remove a longstanding ban on federal funding for most abortions known as the Hyde Amendment.
  • Abortion rights advocates have praised the move; a statement from Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson called the Hyde Amendment "racist, sexist, deeply unjust" and thanked Biden for working to remove it.
  • Biden reversed his longtime position on Hyde, joining other Democratic hopefuls in saying he would work to overturn it. "If I believe heath care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's zip code," Biden said in June 2019.
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  • Biden said his position had changed in response to changing circumstances, including increasing efforts by Republican lawmakers to restrict abortion. "It was not under attack," Biden said. "As it is now."
  • At the same time, Republican state lawmakers have continued a nationwide push to limit abortion, introducing hundreds of restrictions this year alone. Anti-abortion rights groups hope one of those laws will invite the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.
  • The budget plan, released late last week, would drop the policy which has restricted funding for abortion through federal programs such as Medicaid. The rule, in effect since 1980, includes exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or to save a pregnant woman's life.
  • Biden, a lifelong Catholic, supported Hyde for decades — as did many other Democrats, often as a compromise position with Republicans. It often has been a sticking point in negotiations over healthcare policy, including the debate surrounding the Affordable Care Act and subsequent legislation.
  • Later that month, in a forum on abortion rights hosted by Planned Parenthood in South Carolina, Biden explained his reversal, saying he'd supported Hyde in an effort to expand federally-funded healthcare. But he suggested that for low-income women who rely on federal programs, Hyde had become an obstacle to full healthcare access.
  • Promising to reverse multiple Trump-era abortion restrictions, Biden ultimately marshaled the support of Planned Parenthood and other reproductive rights advocacy groups, who put the weight of their campaign operation behind him in his fight against Trump in 2020.
  • Since taking office, Biden has taken steps toward providing federal funding for abortions for low-income people. Like other Democratic Presidents before him, Biden announced plans soon after taking office to reverse the Mexico City Policy, or what critics describe as the "Global Gag Rule." It forbids international aid groups who receive U.S. funding from providing or referring patients for abortion.
  • Abortion rights groups are asking the administration to take additional steps, including reversing the Helms Amendment, which also restricts the use of U.S. dollars in paying for abortions abroad.
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