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Yes. And there will always be newer methods of spying, driven by the latest technology.
Those Chinese balloons spying on about 40 countries cannot be ignored.
AND a little more about your hero...LYING TRUMP
"...All I hear is trump this and trump that ..."
In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims
The Fact Checker’s database of the false or misleading claims made by President Trump while in office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/
What we know so far about the suspected Chinese spy balloon and FBI probe
February 9, 20233:35 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
JOHN RUWITCH, RYAN LUCAS,RYAN LUCAS
As U.S. Navy crews continue to fish parts of the alleged Chinese spy balloon out of the Atlantic, a senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave reporters an update on Thursday on some of what has been learned so far.
Here's what the official had to say:
* China has sent surveillance balloons over more than 40 countries across five continents, and the Biden administration is in touch with other countries about the scope of the program.
* High-resolution imagery from U-2 flybys showed that the balloon was "capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations," and that its equipment was "inconsistent" with that of weather balloons.
* The balloons are part of what the official called a fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance, and flights are often undertaken at the direction of the Chinese military.
* The U.S. has identified what it believes to be the manufacturer of the balloons, and says it's an "approved vendor" of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).
* The U.S. will look into taking action against "entities linked to the PLA" that supported the balloon's incursion into U.S. airspace.
The FBI is involved
The FBI is also involved in the recovery effort. Bureau personnel have begun processing and analyzing an "extremely limited" amount of evidence recovered from the Chinese balloon, two senior FBI officials said Thursday.
The officials, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. has only collected materials that were on the ocean's surface so far, including the balloon canopy, some wiring and a "very small amount of electronics."
The main electronics payload, however, has not been recovered yet, one of the FBI officials said, adding that it was "very early" to assess what the intent was and how the device was operating.
The first bits of evidence recovered from the scene were transported to FBI facilities at Quantico late Monday evening, the officials said
China insisted it's an "unmanned civilian airship"
On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, repeated Beijing's assertion that the balloon was an "unmanned Chinese civilian airship," that it strayed into U.S. airspace by accident and that shooting it out of the sky was an overreaction on the part of the United States.
"That narrative is probably part of the information and public opinion warfare the U.S. has waged on China," Mao added. "As to who is the world's number one country of spying, eavesdropping and surveillance, that is plainly visible to the international community."
She declined to comment on the equipment on board the balloon and the entities that own the balloon. Chinese statements have implied that the balloon was not operated by a government entity, but instead was linked to one or more companies. It has not named them.
What do we know about China's balloon capabilities?
Open-source information from China suggests its military-linked balloon program is robust.
State media reports .. https://archive.ph/WCvU8 .. reviewed by NPR show some of China's balloons are part of the country's hypersonic weapons program, and are used to measure wind and other meteorological conditions for the missiles.
Others may be used for ground surveillance; academic papers describe how to attach radar systems onto balloons to map targets on Earth.
And the government is investing in improvements, too. In 2018, for example, China launched a project to research materials that can be used to make balloons that can float higher without losing buoyancy.
Emily Feng contributed reporting.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155786971/chinese-spy-balloon-fbi
US says China balloon could collect intelligence signals
By MATTHEW LEE and ERIC TUCKER
18 minutes ago
In this image provided by the FBI, FBI special agents assigned to the evidence response team process material recovered from the high altitude balloon recovered off the coast of South Carolina, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023, at the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., (FBI via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The China balloon shot down by the U.S. was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries, the Biden administration declared Thursday, citing imagery from American U-2 spy planes.
A fleet of balloons operates under the direction of the People’s Liberation Army and is used specifically for spying, outfitted with high-tech equipment designed to gather sensitive information from targets across the globe, the U.S. said.
Similar balloons have sailed over five continents, according to the administration.
A statement from a senior State Department official offered the most detail to date linking China’s military to the balloon that was shot down by the U.S. last weekend over the Atlantic Ocean. The public details outlining the program’s scope and capabilities were meant to refute China’s persistent denials that the balloon was used for spying, including a claim Thursday that U.S. accusations about the balloon amount to “information warfare.”
President Joe Biden defended the U.S. action.
And, asked in an interview with Spanish language Telemundo Noticias whether the balloon episode represented a major security breach, he said no.
“Look, the total amount of intelligence gathering that’s going on by every country around the world is overwhelming,” he said. “Anyway, it’s not a major breach. I mean, look ... it’s a violation of international law. It’s our airspace. And once it comes into our space, we can do what we want with it.”
On Capitol Hill, the House voted unanimously to condemn China for a “brazen violation” of U.S. sovereignty and efforts to “deceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns.” Republicans have criticized Biden for not acting sooner to down the balloon, but both parties’ lawmakers came together on the vote, 419-0.
In Beijing, before the U.S. offered its new information, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning repeated her nation’s insistence that the large unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course and that the U.S. had “overreacted” by shooting it down.
“It is irresponsible,” Mao said. The latest accusations, she said, “may be part of the U.S. side’s information warfare against China.”
Underscoring the tensions, China’s defense minister refused to take a phone call from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the balloon issue on Saturday, the Pentagon said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned weekend trip to Beijing.
The U.S. flatly contradicted China’s version of events, saying that imagery of the balloon collected by American U-2 spy planes as it crossed the country showed that it was “capable of conducting signals intelligence collection” with multiple antennas and other equipment designed to upload sensitive information and solar panels to power them.
Jedidiah Royal, the U.S. assistant defense secretary for the Indo-Pacific, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the military has “some very good guesses” about what intelligence China was seeking. More information was expected to be provided in a classified setting.
Senior FBI officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the bureau said just a few pieces of the balloon had arrived at the FBI’s Quantico, Virginia, lab for investigation. So far, investigators have parts of the balloon canopy, wiring, and what one official called “a very small amount of electronics.” The official said it was “very early for us to assess what the intent was and how the device was operating.”
According to two U.S. officials, the balloon recovery efforts were temporarily suspended on Thursday due to high seas. They said some balloon debris was intact on the ocean floor and divers had recovered potentially high-value equipment over the past day and a half. Another official said that some of the recovered equipment components had English writing or markings on them but it wasn’t clear if they were American parts or from another English speaking country. The official said the more highly technical parts recovered did not have any overt markings.
Much of the debris is concentrated in two separate sections of an area 15 football fields long and 15 fields across, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the collection process.
The State Department official, providing details to reporters by email, also on condition of anonymity, said an analysis of the balloon debris was “inconsistent” with China’s explanation that it was a weather balloon that went off course. The U.S. is reaching out to countries that have also been targeted, the official said.
The U.S. has confidence that the manufacturer of the balloon shot down on Saturday has “a direct relationship with China’s military and is an approved vendor of the” army, the official said, citing an official PLA procurement portal as evidence.
State Department spokesman Ned Price would not identify the other countries the U.S. says have also been targeted. Nor would he reveal how the U.S. knows there have been Chinese incursions over those countries’ territory, saying to do so could compromise intelligence sources and methods.
The release of new information appeared part of a coordinated administration response, with multiple officials appearing before congressional committees to face questions about the balloon.
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said officials had taken “all necessary steps to protect sensitive information” and had been able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment.
“We will continue to answer the dangers posed by the PRC with determination and resolve,” Sherman said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “We will make clear to the PRC that violations of our sovereignty and the sovereignty of other countries are unacceptable.”
At a separate Senate subcommittee hearing, lawmakers repeatedly pressed administration officials, including Pentagon military leaders, about why the balloon was not shot down over sparsely populated areas of Alaska. And they questioned whether allowing the balloon to transit such a large area set a precedent for future spying efforts by China and others.
“It defies belief that there was not a single opportunity to safely shoot this spy balloon prior to the coast of South Carolina,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “By the administration’s logic we would allow the Chinese to fly surveillance balloons over the Pentagon or other sensitive sites and populated areas.”
Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary of Homeland Defense, and Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. wanted to avoid any injuries or deaths from the debris field if the balloon was shot down over Alaska.
And they added that shooting it down over the frigid, icy waters in that region would have made it more difficult and dangerous to recover the pieces for more analysis.
“We thought before we shot,” said Sims.This is not the first time the U.S. government has publicly called out alleged activities of the People’s Liberation Army.
In a first-of-its-kind prosecution in 2014, the Obama administration Justice Department indicted five accused PLA hackers of breaking into the computer networks of major American corporations in an effort to steal trade secrets.
_____
Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/article/chinese-balloon-military-involvement-e45c759cb00294e83989fa35970935bc?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
U.S. briefed 40 nations on China spy balloon incident, diplomats and official say
REUTERS
By Humeyra Pamuk, Yew Lun Tian and Michael Martina
February 8, 2023 1:19 PM CST Last Updated 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON/BEIJING, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The United States held briefings in Washington and Beijing with foreign diplomats from 40 nations about the Chinese spy balloon that Washington shot down on Saturday for spying over U.S. territory, a senior administration official and diplomats said on Tuesday.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Monday briefed nearly 150 foreign diplomats across 40 embassies, the official said, while in Beijing the U.S. embassy gathered foreign diplomats on Monday and Tuesday to present U.S. findings about the balloon.
"We want to make sure that we are sharing as much as we can with countries around the world who may also be susceptible to these types of operations," the senior administration official said.
Sherman's briefing was first reported by the Washington Post.
The appearance of the Chinese balloon over the United States last week caused political outrage in Washington and prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing that both countries had hoped would patch their frayed relations. Blinken would have arrived in Beijing on Sunday.
U.S. sites of interest visited by past Chinese balloons, Pentagon say
Zelenskiy urges France, Germany to be 'game changers' by sending modern planes
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-sites-interest-visited-by-past-chinese-balloons-pentagon-says-2023-02-08/
A U.S. Air Force fighter jet shot down the balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, a week after it first entered U.S. airspace. China's foreign ministry has said it was a weather balloon that had blown off course and accused the United States of overreacting
Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon that was downed by the United States over the weekend over U.S. territorial waters off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S., February 5, 2023. U.S. Fleet Forces/U.S. Navy photo/Handout via REUTERS
The State Department also sent U.S. missions around the world information about the balloon incident to share with allies and partners, the official added
In the briefings in Beijing, the United States presented information to demonstrate that the balloon, which entered U.S. airspace in the last days of January and flew over U.S. military sites, was not a weather research balloon as Beijing said but an airship that was used for espionage, said diplomats in Beijing who attended the discussions.
Washington said the balloon was controlled by the Chinese military, the People's Liberation Army.
The diplomats at the Beijing briefing said they were told that the solar panels on the balloon meant that it needed more power than a weather balloon, and that its flight path did not conform with natural wind patterns. U.S. officials have said the balloon was equipped with rudders and propellers.
"Based on the U.S. briefing, our own understanding about such balloons and the fact that China has so far refused to name the company or entity that owns this balloon, we find it hard to believe it is a civilian weather balloon," said a Beijing-based Asian defence diplomat.
The information was similar to what Pentagon has shared with reporters since the weekend, saying the balloons were part of a Chinese aerial fleet that has also violated the sovereignty of other countries.
The Washington Post reported that although analysts still don’t know the size of the balloon fleet, one U.S. official said there have been "dozens" of missions since 2018 and that the balloons use technology provided by a private Chinese company.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-briefed-40-nations-china-spy-balloon-incident-diplomats-official-say-2023-02-08/
Pentagon: China’s conducted spy balloon program for years
By TARA COPP and LOLITA C. BALDOR
an hour ago
This image provided by the U.S. Navy shows sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2
recovering a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, S.C., Feb. 5, 2023. (U.S. Navy via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Chinese balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon said Wednesday.
When similar balloons passed over U.S. territory on four occasions during the Trump and Biden administrations, the U.S. did not immediately identify them as Chinese surveillance balloons, said Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary. But he said “subsequent intelligence analysis” allowed the U.S. to confirm they were part of a Chinese spying effort and learn “a lot more” about the program.
He refused to provide any new details about those previous balloons. When pressed, Ryder would only say that the balloons flew over “sites that would be of interest to the Chinese.”
One of the possible incidents was last February.
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, the adjutant general in Hawaii, tweeted about a balloon over Kauai a year ago. He said U.S. Indo-Pacific Command “detected a high-altitude object floating in air in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands” and sent up aircraft to intercept it. He said they visually confirmed it was an unmanned balloon with no identification markings.
Ryder declined to say whether this was one of the four previous incidents that the U.S. had discussed. Pacific Air Forces, the Air Force command in the Indo-Pacific, said that balloon was not shot down.
The recent balloon was shot down by a U.S. military fighter jet on Saturday. The Navy and Coast Guard are still working to recover pieces of the downed balloon so they can be analyzed.
China claims it was a civilian balloon used for meteorological research and sharply criticized the U.S. for shooting it down.
In response to questions about China’s explanation, Ryder said Wednesday that, “I can assure you this was not for civilian purposes ... we are 100% clear about that.”
Ryder said North American Aerospace Defense Command began tracking the balloon as it approached U.S. airspace. It passed north of the Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28 and moved largely over land across Alaska and then into Canadian airspace before crossing back into the U.S. over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, U.S. officials have said.
Top administration officials were briefing members of Congress on the Chinese balloon surveillance program in classified sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. Avril Haines, director of national intelligence; Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman; Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command; and Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, were among those expected to brief lawmakers.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has briefed dozens of countries on the program, which officials said has been active over five continents.
“The United States was not the only target,” he said at a news conference with visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. Blinken said he and Stoltenberg had spoken about the “systemic and tactical challenges” that China poses to the alliance and the importance of combatting them.
The foreign countries would include nations the U.S. believes have been surveilled in the past as well as NATO allies.
Stoltenberg agreed on the nature of the Chinese threat, saying the balloon incident “confirms a pattern of Chinese behavior” and noting that Beijing had “invested heavily in new military capabilities, including different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms.”
“We have also seen increased Chinese intelligence activities in Europe,” he said. “We just have to be vigilant. We need to be aware of the constant risk of Chinese intelligence and step up what we do to protect ourselves.”
Those briefings were continuing Wednesday, and the State Department has sent a cable to all U.S. embassies and consulates outlining the administration’s case against China and instructing American diplomats to discuss these points with their host governments. However, the cable is less specific than what has been briefed to allies and partners.
Off the South Carolina coast, meanwhile, Navy divers began pulling pieces of the downed Chinese spy balloon from the depths of the ocean floor on Tuesday, using sophisticated reconnaissance drones dubbed the Kingfish and the Swordfish to locate the debris.
Ryder said agents from the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are cataloguing the debris and transporting it for further processing.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-south-carolina-china-dfa08f4f47a58a638d4ef1d3a34b2a8b
Trump Rages Over Being Left Out of Conservative Event
MSN
Story by Katherine Fung • Yesterday 1:29 PM
Former President Donald Trump blasted the Club for Growth on Tuesday after his name was left off the guest list for the conservative anti-tax organization's annual donor retreat.
"The Club For NO Growth, an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers, fought me incessantly and rather viciously during my presidential run in 2016," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "They said I couldn't win, I did, and won even bigger in 2020, with millions of more votes than '16, but the Election was Rigged & Stollen."
Trump's remarks come a day after Club for Growth President David McIntosh said nominating Trump to be the GOP candidate in 2024 would diminish the Republican Party's chances of winning the presidency.
"The party should be open to another candidate," McIntosh told reporters on Tuesday.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-rages-over-being-left-out-of-conservative-event/ar-AA17dEZ7?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f771a769dea841de99a8afdc50f27c65
Highlights from Biden's State of the Union, annotated
By KRYSTAL CAMPOS
02/08/2023 02:09 AM EST
04:08
Watch: Biden's 2023 State of the Union address
https://www.politico.com/video/2023/02/08/biden-state-of-the-union-address-highlights-annotated-831865
State of the Union live updates: latest on Biden's speech
State of the Union live updates: Latest on Biden's speech
By The Associated Press
today
https://apnews.com/article/state-of-the-union-live-updates-82463593419d2d27ed5b8e299280579b
WASHINGTON (AP) — Follow along for real-time updates on President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address from The Associated Press. Live updates are brought to you by AP journalists at the White House, on Capitol Hill and beyond.
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SAVORING THE MOMENT
President Joe Biden arrives to deliver the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden talks with the crowd at the State of the Union address. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden spoke for 73 minutes during his State of the Union address in the House chamber.
But he’s also a creature of the Senate, where he served for decades, and Capitol Hill.
And so the president lingered for 20 minutes more after he had finished speaking in prime time to a national audience. He took selfies, shook hands and basked in the moment on the House floor.
Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York yelled “Mr. President! That was awesome.”
Biden grinned.
The House chamber started to clear out, but not Biden — not yet, at least.
“I’m going to get in trouble,” Biden said.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gaveled the House to adjourn the moment the president walked out of the chamber.
___
REPUBLICAN RESPONSE
Giving the Republican response to the State of the Union, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she didn’t believe “much of anything” she heard from President Joe Biden and suggested he was unfit for the office he holds.
A onetime press secretary for President Donald Trump, Sanders was elected in November to the job that her father, Mike Huckabee, once held.
Sanders told her audience that Biden and the Democratic Party, “failed you. You know it, and they know it.”
“Democrats want to rule us with more government control,” Sanders said. She also noted that, at age 40, she was half Biden’s age.
___
SHOUTING BACK
Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., center, listens and reacts as President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., center, listens and reacts as President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who made waves for shouting during President Joe Biden’s State to the Union last year, was back at again.
The Georgia Republican jumped to her feet, pointed a finger and shouted down Biden on Tuesday night when the president said Republicans wanted to cut Medicare and Social Security as part of budget talks. Those are programs for mostly older Americans.
And she yelled “China is spying on us,” as Biden said the United States was willing to take action in the aftermath of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had drifted through American airspace.
___
IN BIDEN’S WORDS
“Two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War. Today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken”
---President Joe Biden, alluding to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and the midterm losses last November by some candidates who spread election lies.
___
WAS THAT A BALLOON?
President Joe Biden made a blink-and-you-might-miss-it reference to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that U.S. fighter jets shot down last week.
He was talking in the State of the Union address about working with China in an effort to advance American interests.
But make no mistake, he said, “as we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”
___
A DIFFICULT SHOT
AP Photographer Jacquelyn Martin covering the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
AP Photographer Jacquelyn Martin covering the State of the Union address. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
It’s not easy to capture the president entering the House chamber for the big speech.
The photojournalist doing it must walk backward as the president walks forward, shaking hands and waving, to his place on the rostrum in the House.
For this year’s State of the Union, that journalist is AP’s Jacquelyn Martin. The Senate Press Photographers Association rotates which organization gets the honors. It’s the first time AP has done it in seven year
___
IN BIDEN’S WORDS
“American roads, American bridges, and American highways will be made with American products,”
-- President Joe Biden, announcing new federal standards requiring that all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects be made in the United States He said buying American products has been the law since 1933, but past administrations have found ways to circumvent it.
The standards could have a big impact. As part of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year, Congress allocated $550 billion for roads, bridges, water infrastructure, broadband internet and other projects.
___
‘THE TALK’
President Joe Biden says he’s never had to have “the talk” with his kids — the discussion about how to behave when pulled over by police.
It’s a talk that many Black parents must have in order to protect their children from harm.
Biden, in his State of the Union address, asked people in his audience to imagine how some parents feel, worrying their children may not come home. As he spoke, the president acknowledged the parents of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old man who was beaten to death by police officers in Memphis, Tennessee.
Nichols’ parents sat with first lady Jill Biden during the speech in the House chamber.
The president said he knows that most police officers are good, “decent people” who risk their lives when they go to work. But he urged better training for them and more resources to reduce crime.
“What happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often. We have to do better,” Biden said.
___
OIL STILL NEEDED
President Joe Biden drew derisive laughter from Republicans when he said the United States will need oil “for at least another decade.?
Biden made the comment in his State of the Union address as he promoted a landmark law to slow climate change. That law authorizes hundreds of billions to boost renewable energy such as wind and solar power and help consumers buy electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances.
Republicans have criticized Biden for seeking greater oil production from OPEC and other countries even as he had sought to boost renewable energy. Biden appeared to be trying to reassure critics that he recognizes the need for continued oil production, although the 10-year time frame seems far short of what experts expect — that oil will be needed for decades to come.
___
GETTING ROWDY
Republicans got riled up when President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech touched on Medicare and Social Security.
Biden suggested Republicans had fallen in line behind a proposal to put the continued existence of those two program to a vote every five years. In response, Republicans in the House chamber hollered, booed and shouted “liar!”
Some Republicans even jumped to their feet to object.
The proposal comes from Florida Sen. Rick Scott, but it hasn’t been endorsed by the majority of the Republican Party.
In response, Biden said: “Anybody who doubts it, contact my office.”
And he told his audience, “So we all agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the table.” That drew a standing ovation from members of both parties.
___
TRUMP WEIGHS IN
Donald Trump has been heard from.
He released a brief online video minutes before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union. The former president ticked through a familiar list of grievances, blaming Biden and Democrats for things such as the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border and inflation.
Trump also went after the Justice Department. It’s been investigating the unlawful retention of top secret records at Trump’s Florida home after Trump left the White House.
Trump is the only major Republican so far who’s announced a 2024 presidential campaign.
___
‘NOT ANYMORE’
Members of Congress rose to their feet and briefly chanted “not anymore” as President Joe Biden cited Democratic-led efforts to cap the cost of insulin to $35 per month for older Americans who use Medicare.
In his State of the Union address, the president urged Congress to extend that price limit to millions of people on private insurance. That idea was scratched in Congress last year and is unlikely to gain traction now.
Roughly 8.4 million Americans use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association. About 1 million of those people, who have type 1 diabetes, can die without access to insulin.
___
IN BIDEN’S WORDS
“I’ll see you at the groundbreaking”
-- President Joe Biden, promising that money from his big infrastructure package will go to projects in Republican parts of the country as well as Democratic ones. Biden used much of his State of the Union speech to call for bipartisanship. This quip was a nice way to reach out Republicans. Democrats have criticized some Republicans who opposed the infrastructure plan but still want the dollars in it to cover projects in their districts.
___
WARM WELCOME
President Joe Biden arrives and shakes hands with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., before he delivers his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Joe Biden arrives and shakes hands with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Joe Biden began the speech with friendly remarks to Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The president turned to briefly shake hands with McCarthy.
“I don’t want to ruin your reputation, but I look forward to working with you,” Biden told McCarthy with a chuckle.
Biden is urging both parties to to find bipartisan unity during his speech.
Before Biden began speaking, McCarthy said he wouldn’t tear up his copy of Biden’s speech. That was a reference to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doing just that with her copy of President Donald Trump’s speech in 2020 just after he finished giving it.
___
THINK PINK
Pink — and its shades — appears to be the color of the evening — at the State of the Union.
There’s first lady Jill Biden’s purplely pink and Vice President Kamala Harris’ magenta pantsuit. And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has a reddish-pink tie.
Aides insist it’s all just a coincidence — just the color of preference this evening.
Remember that cherry blossom season in Washington is on the horizon, so perhaps it’s just a nod to the time of year.
___
DESIGNATED SURVIVOR
FILE - Labor Secretary Marty Walsh speaks during a briefing at the White House in Washington, May 16, 2022. Walsh is expected to leave the Biden administration to run the National Hockey League Players’ Association, according to two people familiar with his plans. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh speaks during a briefing at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
For this year’s State of the Union, it’s Labor Secretary Marty Walsh who’s the “designated survivor.”
The Cabinet member isn’t at President Joe Biden’s address in the House chamber. Walsh instead is at an undisclosed location.
The idea is to preserve the government’s succession in case of an attack or other incident at the Capitol where the president, vice president, speaker of the House and the rest of Biden’s Cabinet are gathered.
Walsh is an interesting choice. He’s set to leave the Biden administration to run the National Hockey League Players’ Association. Six NHL games were being played Tuesday night and overlapping with Biden’s speech.
Last year, when Biden gave his first State of the Union, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was chosen for the role.
___
COURT’S IN SESSION
A majority of the nine-member Supreme Court is attending the speech.
Among the justices in the House chamber is Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the high court. She was nominated by President Joe Biden.
Also in attendance are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.
For the first time since 1997, retired justices are at the address.
Stephen Breyer, who retired last year, giving Biden the opportunity to nominate Jackson, and Anthony Kennedy, who retired in 2018, are even wearing robes.
Four members of the Supreme Court are absent: Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.
___
PLAYING NICE
Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., talk before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., talk before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Vice President Kamala Harris and new Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California are playing nice —for now.
The two shook hands as they took their seats behind where President Joe Biden soon will deliver his State of the Union speech in the House chamber. Harris and McCarthy were smiling and chatting as they waited for the speech to begin.
Last year, Harris sat next to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi at what was the first State of the Union address with two women in those seats of power.
___
SANTOS’ SEAT
Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., laughs b before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., laughs b before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
George Santos’ lies about his resume and family background have cost him his place on House committees and intensified bipartisan calls for his resignation.
But that didn’t stop the newly elected Republican congressman from New York from snagging one of the prime seats for Biden’s speech.
Santos grabbed a mid-aisle seat in the House chamber. That means he could be seen on national television during wide camera shots and he’ll get a chance to catch a close glimpse of Biden when the president arrives for the address.
Members of Congress generally sit together by party. But the seats in the House chamber aren’t assigned during the State of the Union. So Santos only had to get there early to stake out a prime location.
___
BIDEN BINGO
Given Biden’s penchant for frequently repeating his favorite phrases, supporters and detractors are assembling bingo cards of what reliable words and phrases he’s most likely to use during the speech.
From the League of Women Voters to the National Constitution Center and the Washington media outlet Punchbowl News, groups have produced their versions of the cards. When “Bidenisms” come up, especially attentive viewers can cross them off.
Some card list common one such as “folks,” “not a joke” and “inflection point.” Others are more policy focused. Think ”Ukraine,” “gas,” “inflation” and “tax cuts.”
Many versions of the cards make the center square a free space. But even that can come with a dose of ideology. The conservative Americans for Tax Reform’s bingo card referred to it as “tax-payer funded ‘free’ space.”
___
REPUBLICAN RESPONSE
The last time many in Washington saw Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she was sparring with reporters in White House briefings as President Donald Trump’s press secretary. Now she’s the newly elected Republican governor of Arkansas, and on Tuesday night, she’s her party’s pick to give the response to Biden’s speech.
In excerpts of those remarks, Sanders is denouncing what she calls the “radical left” agenda and Biden’s policies. She’s using her national platform to carry on conservatives’ fights on social issues, including how race is taught in public schools.
The Sanders-Biden contrast is more than just ideological. Sanders is 40 years old and she’s the youngest governor in the country right now. Biden is twice her age.
___
‘FINISH THE JOB’
Biden will ask the country he leads to give him more time to accomplish his biggest goals.
“That’s always been my vision for the country: to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America — the middle class — to unite the country.” That’s what the president plans to say in his State of the Union address, according to excerpts released by the White House before the prime-time speech.
And also this: “We’ve been sent here to finish the job.”
In the coming weeks, Biden is expected to formally announce his 2024 reelection campaign. A majority of Democrats now think one term is plenty for him, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
___
FLURRY OF PREPARATIONS
Preparations are underway at the Capitol with the president’s State of the Union address only a few hours away. And that means a flurry of behind-the-scenes operations to transform the stately building for the prime-time event.
The House chamber is cleared out now that lawmakers have completed most of their business for the day. Crews are beginning their work.
The gilded Statuary Hall is filling up with lights, cameras and broadcast teams for the many interviews that will air before before and after the speech.
It’s the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that the Capitol has been fully reopened for the event. Security is tight. People have begun filling the Capitol halls
___
THE BALLOON
Biden has taken lots of heat from Republicans over his handling of the suspected Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the United States before being shot down on Saturday over the Atlantic Ocean. GOP lawmakers had talked about introducing a resolution, just as the president was set to give his prime-time speech, that would have condemned the administration over the matter.
Those plans have been scrapped, and instead a bipartisan proposal condemning China is being considered.
“It’s too important of an issue. And we want to stand strong together against China instead of having our own internal fights,” Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Associated Press. The Texas Republican is sponsoring the bipartisan resolution.
Not everyone is on board, it seems. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, showed up at the Capitol on Tuesday with a big white balloon.
___
MIC DROP
FILE - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., tears her copy of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address after he delivered it to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 4, 2020. House Speaker Kevin McCarthytold reporters he “won't tear up the speech” as Pelosi dramatically did after President Donald Trump delivered his final State of the Union address in 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., tears her copy of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, Feb. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
“We’re not going to do childish games tearing up a speech”
— Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. That was a reference to his predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who made a point of publicly ripping her copy of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address just after he finished speaking in 2020.
___
INVITED GUESTS
Keep an eye out for guests invited to the speech by the White House and members of Congress.
Among those sitting with first lady Jill Biden will be the family of Tyre Nichols and the parents of a 3-year-old girl who has a rare form of cancer. There’ll be U2 frontman Bono, who has worked to combat HIV/AIDS, and Brandon Tsay, who disarmed the accused gunman in a mass shooting last month in California.
Some Democratic lawmakers are bringing relatives of Black men and boys who have died at the hands of police.
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has invited former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who changed name from Enes Kanter after becoming a U.S. citizen in 2021. He grew up in Turkey and has been critical of Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, and says a bounty has been issued against him in that country.
—-
HERE WE GO
It’s State of the Union time, that day when the president delivers a speech to Congress that tries to accomplish a lot.
Biden will want to talk about his accomplishments, toss out some goals for this year, tick off things that need fixing and do some cheerleading for the nation. And, of course, characterize the state of the union.
Doing all of that can take a while. Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address ran just over 62 minutes. Bill Clinton gave the longest one ever, clocking in at one hour, 28 minutes in 2000. The award for the shortest speech goes to Republican George W. Bush, who spoke for 47 minutes in 2002.
https://apnews.com/article/state-of-the-union-live-updates-82463593419d2d27ed5b8e299280579b
Transcript: Biden’s second State of the Union address
The Associated Press
today
Transcript of President Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address, as prepared for delivery and as provided by the White House:
https://apnews.com/article/state-of-the-union-biden-speech-transcript-02e7d6fe81b11dbbb5088fdec8e15932?utm_source=apnews&utm_medium=featuredcard&utm_campaign=leadsubstory_03
US downs Chinese balloon, a flashpoint in US-China tensions
By ZEKE MILLER, MICHAEL BALSAMO, COLLEEN LONG, AAMER MADHANI and LOLITA C. BALDOR
38 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Saturday downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast on orders from President Joe Biden after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America, becoming the latest flashpoint in tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Biden said he wanted the balloon downed on Wednesday, but was advised that the best time for the operation would be when it was over water.
Military officials determined that the bringing it down over land from an altitude of 60,000 feet would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.
The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the Atlantic coast. At about 2:40 p.m. EST, an F-22 fighter jet fired a missile at the balloon, puncturing it while it was about 6 nautical miles off the coast near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Pentagon officials said.
Officials said the debris landed in 47 feet of water, shallowed than they had expected. It was not immediately clear how long the recovery would take. The Navy is taking the lead, supported by the Coast Guard.
. . .
“They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” Biden said after getting off Air Force One en route to Camp David
https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-china-antony-blinken-51e49202f2a0a50541cde059934c4cfb?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
US considering plan to down Chinese balloon over Atlantic
By ZEKE MILLER, MICHAEL BALSAMO, COLLEEN LONG and AAMER MADHANI
13 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is considering a plan to shoot down a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on U.S. military, by bringing it down once it is above the Atlantic Ocean where the remnants could potentially be recovered, according to four U.S. officials.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation, said it was unclear whether a final decision had yet been made by President Joe Biden. In a brief remark Saturday in response to a reporter’s question about the balloon, Biden said: “We’re going to take care of it.”
The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over North Carolina as it neared the Atlantic coast.
Biden had been inclined to down the balloon over land when he was first briefed on it on Tuesday, but Pentagon officials advised against it, warning that the potential risk to people on the ground outweighed the assessment of potential Chinese intelligence gains.
. . .
https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-china-antony-blinken-51e49202f2a0a50541cde059934c4cfb?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
When a weather balloon went rogue almost 25 years ago, fighter jets fired 1,000 rounds at it and couldn't bring it down
Story by cpanella@insider.com (Chris Panella) • Yesterday 10:13 A
* About 25 years ago, a rogue weather balloon wouldn't come down after over 1,000 rounds were fired at it.
* The balloon entered Icelandic air space and drifted north towards Norway.
* Balloons, like the suspected Chinese "spy balloon" over the US, don't always pop or explode when shot.
Almost 25 years ago, a large runaway weather balloon proved to be quite challenge a for a pair of fighter jets trying to shoot it down, staying in the air even after more than 1,000 rounds were fired at it.
The research balloon was measuring ozone levels above Canada, the Associated Press reported at the time. It went rogue in August 1998, passing across Canada, over the Atlantic Ocean, and through British airspace before entering Iceland's airspace and then drifting northward.
A Canadian military spokesperson, a lieutenant named Steve Wills, told BBC that it was difficult to target the balloon, even though it was about the size of a 25-story building, and that the failure to take it out wasn't embarrassing.
"With something like this, which is stationary in the air when the CF-18s are flying very, very fast, it is difficult to shoot it," Wills said.
The CF-18s were reportedly equipped with air-to-air missiles, but Canadian Major Roland Lavoie told AP the pilots refrained from using them.
"Citizens would not have appreciated having a missile blowing over their heads,? he said. "Also, it might be overkill spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars on a missile to shoot down a balloon that's drifting away."
The balloon, BBC reported, also survived encounters with British and American aircraft.
According to BBC reports from the time of the incident, the 300-ft helium balloon prompted air traffic controllers to divert and delay transatlantic flights. If deflated, the balloon would cover an area of about five football fields, The Irish Times reported.
The US currently has a Chinese balloon, which Pentagon officials say is an intelligence-gathering spy balloon but China argues is a research asset, in its airspace, and there have been questions about shooting it down.
Brigadier Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Thursday that the balloon is operating at a higher altitude than commercial air traffic and "does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground." Nonetheless, the US scrambled F-22 Raptors and other aircraft in response.
Ryder said there were no current plans to shoot down the balloon. Even with protective measures, "it was the judgment of our military commanders that we didn't drive the risk down low enough, so we didn't take the shot," he said.
Ryder also said there were multiple recommendations from senior Department of Defense officials "not to take kinetic action due to the risk to safety and security of people on the ground from the possible debris field."
"We wanted to, you know, take care that somebody didn't get hurt or property wasn't destroyed," he said, detailing that the balloon is large enough to cause damage from a debris field.
Experts have also said that actually shooting it down may be more complicated than it seems.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/when-a-weather-balloon-went-rogue-almost-25-years-ago-fighter-jets-fired-1-000-rounds-at-it-and-couldn-t-bring-it-down/ar-AA1753aW?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=482b23f4d2724804a0d19e67c9a4f85b
How Groundhog Day came to the U.S. — and why we still celebrate it 137 years later
Updated February 2, 2023 7:32 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Rachel Treisman
Rory Szwed, left, and Kent Rowan watch the festivities while waiting for Punxsutawney Phil to make his prediction
at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., early Thursday morning. Barry Reeger/AP
On Thursday morning, thousands of early risers either tuned in or bundled up to watch Punxsutawney Phil emerge from a tree stump and predict the weather.
The groundhog — arguably the most famous member of his species and the most recognizable of all the country's animal prognosticators — did what he has done for the last 137 years: search for a sign of spring in front of a group of top hat-wearing handlers and adoring fans at Gobbler's Knob in Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately, on this blustery winter morning, he didn't find it.
"I see a shadow on my stage, and so no matter how you measure, it's six more weeks of winter weather," a handler read off the scroll he said Phil had chosen.
Tradition says that North America will get six more weeks of winter if Phil sees his shadow and an early spring if he does not. Statistics say not so much: Phil's accuracy rate is about 40% over the last decade.
Plus, human meteorologists have far more advanced methods for predicting the weather now than they did when Phil first got the gig in 1887.
Why, then, do we continue looking to creatures for answers on Feb. 2, year after year after year? (One could say it's almost like the 1993 comedy "Groundhog Day" ... or even exactly like that.)
There's still a lot we can learn from Groundhog Day, both about our climate and our culture, several experts told NPR.
Daniel Blumstein is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA who studies marmots, the group of 15 species of large ground squirrels that includes groundhogs. His department always has a Groundhog Day party, even in perennially-sunny Los Angeles — but he says you don't have to be a "marmot enthusiast" (as he describes himself) to get something out of the day.
"I hope that people have some greater appreciation of marmots and nature, and I hope that people have a chuckle over the idea that it's the middle of the winter and we're hoping that a rodent will tell us what the future is," says Blumstein.
Groundhog handler AJ Derume stands in front of a crowd holding Punxsutawney Phil, who saw his shadow on Thursday to predict a late spring.
Michael Swensen/Getty Images
Groundhog Day has its roots in ancient midwinter ceremonies
How did the U.S. end up celebrating Groundhog Day in the first place?
It dates back to ancient traditions — first pagan, then Christian — marking the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox, says Troy Harman, a history professor at Penn State University who also works as a ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park.
The Celtic tradition of Imbolc, which involves lighting candles at the start of February, goes as far back as the 10th century A.D.
The Christian church later expanded this idea into the festival of Candlemas, which commemorates the moment when the Virgin Mary went to the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after Jesus' birth to be purified and present him to God as her firstborn.
On that feast day, clergy would bless and distribute all the candles needed for winter — and over time the focus of the day became increasingly about predicting how long winter would last. As one English folk song put it: "If Candlemas be fair and bright / Come, Winter, have another flight; If Candlemas brings clouds and rain / Go Winter, and come not again."
Germany went a step further by making animals — specifically hedgehogs — part of the proceedings. If a hedgehog saw its shadow, there would be a "second winter" or six more weeks of bad weather, according to German lore.
That was one of several traditions that German settlers in Pennsylvania brought to the U.S., Harman says, along with Christmas trees and the Easter bunny. And because hedgehogs aren't native to the U.S., they turned to groundhogs (which were plentiful in Pennsylvania) instead.
"And the first celebration that we know of was in the 1880s," Harman says. "But the idea of watching animals and whether they see their shadow out of hibernation had been going on before that, it just hadn't turned into a public festival until later in the 19th century."
"And the first celebration that we know of was in the 1880s," Harman says. "But the idea of watching animals and whether they see their shadow out of hibernation had been going on before that, it just hadn't turned into a public festival until later in the 19th century."
The "Punxsutawney Groundhog Club" was founded in 1886 by a group of groundhog hunters, one of whom was the editor of the town's newspaper and quickly published a proclamation about its local weather prognosticating groundhog (though Phil didn't get his name until 1961). The first Gobbler's Knob ceremony took place the next year, and the rest is history.
The club says Groundhog Day is the same today as when it first started — if the old-timey garb and scrolls are any sign — just with far more participants. That's thanks in large part to the popularity of the eponymous movie and the ability to live-stream the festivities
And there are more furry forecasters out there too. Many parts of the U.S. and Canada now have their own beloved animal prognosticators, with some of Phil's better-known contemporaries including New York's "Staten Island Chuck" (aka Charles G. Hogg) and Ontario's "Wiarton Willie."
"Any place that has a groundhog these days is trying to get some [cred] by it," Blumstein says.
It's not only groundhogs that are getting in on the fun. Take, for example: Pisgah Pete, a white squirrel in North Carolina, Connecticut's Scramble the Duck and a beaver at the Oregon Zoo named "Stumpton Fil."
There are things animals can teach us about the climate
There is some scientific basis for the Candlemas lore, according to Blumstein.
He says the thinking was that if there was a high-pressure system in early February, things likely weren't changing and it would probably continue to be cold, while a low-pressure system suggests the potential for better weather ahead. Plus, if it is sunny out, marmots are theoretically big enough to cast a shadow by standing up.
[...]
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/02/1153728064/groundhog-day-2023-history-science-explained
RE-POST: MASS ATTACKS IN PUBLIC SPACES: 2016 - 2020
PUBLISHED JULY 2020
United States Secret Service
NATIONAL THREAT ASSESSMENT CENTER
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171041448
70 page PDF
https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-01/usss-ntac-maps-2016-2020.pdf
Republicans’ 2024 Magical Thinking
Lots of Republicans want Donald Trump to disappear from politics. Their main strategy is hope.
Ricky Carioti / The Washington Post / Gettys
January 30, 2023, 6 AM ET
Press them hard enough, and most Republican officials—even the ones with MAGA hats in their closets and Mar-a-Lago selfies in their Twitter avatar—will privately admit that Donald Trump has become a problem.
He’s presided over three abysmal election cycles since he took office, he is more unstable than ever, and yet he returned to the campaign trail this past weekend, declaring that he is “angry” and determined to win the GOP presidential nomination again in 2024. Aside from his most blinkered loyalists, virtually everyone in the party agrees: It’s time to move on from Trump.
But ask them how they plan to do that, and the discussion quickly veers into the realm of hopeful hypotheticals. Maybe he’ll get indicted and his legal problems will overwhelm him. Maybe he’ll flame out early in the primaries, or just get bored with politics and wander away. Maybe the situation will resolve itself naturally: He’s old, after all—how many years can he have left?
This magical thinking pervaded my recent conversations with more than a dozen current and former elected GOP officials and party strategists. Faced with the prospect of another election cycle dominated by Trump and uncertain that he can actually be beaten in the primaries, many Republicans are quietly rooting for something to happen that will make him go away. And they would strongly prefer not to make it happen themselves.
“There is a desire for deus ex machina,” said one GOP consultant, who, like others I interviewed, requested anonymity to characterize private conversations taking place inside the party. “It’s like 2016 all over again, only more fatalistic.”
The scenarios Republicans find themselves fantasizing about range from the far-fetched to the morbid. In his recent book Thank You for Your Servitude, my colleague Mark Leibovich quoted a former Republican representative who bluntly summarized his party’s plan for dealing with Trump: “We’re just waiting for him to die.” As it turns out, this is not an uncommon sentiment. In my conversations with Republicans, I heard repeatedly that the least disruptive path to getting rid of Trump, grim as it sounds, might be to wait for his expiration.
Mark Leibovich: The most pathetic men in America
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/kevin-mccarthy-lindsey-graham-trump-devotion-2024-election/661508
Their rationale was straightforward: The former president is 76 years old, overweight, appears to maintain the diet of a college freshman, and believes, contrary to all known science, that exercise is bad for you. Why risk alienating his supporters when nature will take its course sooner or later? Peter Meijer, a former Republican representative who left office this month, termed this strategy actuarial arbitrage.
“You have a lot of folks who are just wishing for [Trump’s] mortal demise,” Meijer told me. “I want to be clear: I’m not in that camp. But I’ve heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat, and then give me a call the next day and say, ‘I can’t wait until this guy dies.’
And it’s like, Good Lord.” (Trump’s mother died at 88 and his father at 93, so this strategy isn’t exactly foolproof.)
Some Republicans are clinging to the hope that Trump might finally be undone by his legal troubles. He is currently the subject of multiple criminal investigations, and his detractors dream of an indictment that would derail his campaign. But most of the people I talked with seemed resigned to the likelihood that an indictment would only boost him with the party’s base. Michael Cohen, who served for years as Trump’s personal attorney and now hosts a podcast atoning for that sin titled Mea Culpa, grudgingly told me that his former boss would easily weaponize any criminal charges brought against him. The deep-state Democrats are at it again—the campaign emails write themselves. “Donald will use the indictment to continue his fundraising grift,” Cohen told me.
David A. Graham: A guide to the possible forthcoming indictments of Donald Trump
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/indictment-donald-trump-fulton-georgia-mar-a-lago-documents-january-6/672800
Others imagine a coordinated donor revolt that sidelines Trump for good. The GOP consultant told me about a private dinner in New York City that he attended in the fall of 2021, when he saw a Republican billionaire give an impassioned speech about the need to keep Trump from returning to the Oval Office. The man said he would devote large sums of money to defeating the former president and urged his peers to join the cause. The others in the room—including several prominent donors and a handful of Republican senators—reacted enthusiastically that night. But when the consultant saw some of the same people a year later, their commitment had waned. The indignant donors, he said, had retreated to a cautious “wait and see” stance.
This plague of self-deception among party elites contains obvious echoes of Trump’s early rise to power. In the run-up to the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, a fractured field of feckless candidates spent time and money attacking one another, convinced that the front-runner would eventually collapse. It was widely believed within the political class that such a ridiculous figure could simply never win a major party nomination, much less the presidency. Of course, by the time Trump’s many doubters realized they were wrong, it was too late.
Terry Sullivan, who ran Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, told me that Trump’s rivals failed to beat him that year in large part because they were “always convinced that his self-inflicted demise was imminent.”
“There is an old quote that has been attributed to Lee Atwater: ‘When your enemy is in the process of drowning, throw him a brick,’” Sullivan told me. “None of Donald Trump’s opponents ever have the balls to throw him the damn brick. They just hope someone else will. Hope isn’t a winning strategy.”
For conservatives who want to prevent a similar fiasco in 2024, the emerging field of GOP presidential prospects might seem like cause to celebrate. After all, the healthiest way to rid their party of Trump would be to simply beat him. But a sprawling cast of challengers could just as easily end up splitting the anti-Trump electorate, as it did in 2016, and allow Trump to win primaries with a plurality of voters. It would also make coalescing around an alternative harder for party leaders.
One current Republican representative told me that although most of his colleagues might quietly hope for a new nominee, few would be willing to endorse a non-Trump candidate early enough in the primary calendar to make a difference. They would instead “keep their powder dry” and “see what those first states do.” For all of Trump’s supposedly diminished political clout, he remains a strong favorite in primary polls, where he leads his nearest rival by about 15 points. And few of the other top figures in the party—Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley—have demonstrated an ability to take on Trump directly and look stronger for it.
Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump after January 6 and went on to lose his 2022 primary to a far-right Trump loyalist, attributes Republican leaders’ current skittishness about confronting Trump to the party’s “ideological rootlessness.” The GOP’s defenestration of long-held conservative ideals in favor of an ad hoc personality cult left Republicans without a clear post-Trump identity. Combine that with what Meijer calls “the generalized cowardice of political figures writ large,” and you have a party in paralysis: “There’s no capacity [to say], ‘All right, let’s clean the slate and figure out what we stand for and build from there.’”
Read: What the GOP does to its own dissenters
Even if another Republican manages to capture the nomination, there’s no guarantee that Trump—who is not known for his grace in defeat—will go away. Last month, Trump caused a minor panic in GOP circles when he shared an article on Truth Social suggesting that he might run an independent spoiler campaign if his party refuses to back him in 2024. The Republicans I talked with said such a schism would be politically catastrophic for their party. No one had any ideas about how to prevent it.
Meanwhile, the most enduring of GOP delusions—that Trump will transform into an entirely different person—somehow persists.
When I asked Rob Portman about his party’s Trump problem, the recently retired Ohio senator confidently predicted that it would all sort itself out soon. The former president, he believed, would study the polling data, realize that other Republicans had a better shot at winning, and graciously bow out of 2024 contention.
“I think at the end of the day,” Portman told me, “he’s unlikely to want to put himself in that position when he could be more of a Republican senior statesman who talks about the policies that were enacted in his administration.”
I let out an involuntary laugh.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/01/2024-republican-primary-donald-trump-deus-ex-machina/672888/
Manhattan DA presenting evidence in Trump-Stormy Daniels investigation to grand jury
January 30, 2023 4:04 PM ET
Andrea Bernstein
"--In fact, the verdict came as Bragg was also reportedly gearing up to revive a long-stalled criminal investigation into Trump’s secret hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. The money was designed to buy Daniels’s silence during the 2016 presidential campaign about her erstwhile affair with Trump--".
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is investigating whether former President Donald Trump broke the law with payments
allegedly made to cover up an extramarital affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels, pictured in 2018.
Markus Schreiber/AP
The Manhattan District Attorney is presenting evidence to a grand jury that former President Donald Trump may have committed crimes in connection with hush money payments made to an adult film actress in 2016, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The move lays the groundwork for possible criminal charges against Trump.
The investigation stems from a series of payments Trump made in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, allegedly to try to cover up an extramarital affair with Stormy Daniels.
Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in federal court in 2018 to making the payments "at the direction" of Trump. Although Cohen served prison time, Trump was never charged, and neither federal nor local prosecutors pursued the case.
Now, though, after securing a conviction of Trump's company on fraud charges, the Manhattan DA's Office has summoned witnesses to testify before a new grand jury, according to the source.
Trump, who has said he has done nothing wrong, could face a charge of falsifying business records, the lowest-level felony in New York.
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/30/1152610050/manhattan-da-presenting-evidence-in-trump-stormy-daniels-investigation-to-grand-
'Low energy Donald': Trump buried for 'monotonous' kick-off speeches in New Hampshire and South Carolina
Story by Tom Boggioni • 12h ago
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Donald Trump's first two speeches touting his 2024 Republican Party presidential bid before smaller crowds in New Hampshire and South Carolina ended up being a rehash of old complaints and with a few lines that garnered applause but his demeanor was lacking the usual fire once seen at his raucous rallies
On the morning after the speeches, MSNBC host Katie Phang shared clips of the president speaking and noted the lack of enthusiam from the former president when one considers how important the first foray into public in 2023 was to his third presidential bid with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and a bevy of GOP lawmakers nipping at his heels.
As the MSNBC host pointed out, the president's uncharacteristically short speeches were nothing less than monotonous.
"Do you guys remember low-energy Jeb?" Phang began, referencing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, "That was the moniker Donald Trump branded on the former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush while they compete with others for the Republican nomination in 2016."
"Well, now it seems like we have a low-energy Donald," she continued. "Here was Donald Trump yesterday when he tried to kick his third white house run into high gear."
Related video: Former President Donald Trump kicks off presidential campaign in New Hampshire (WMUR Manchester)
RELATED:'
All washed up': Republican insider says Trump needs to 'move on' because 'he's bleeding support'
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-gop-support/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/low-energy-donald-trump-buried-for-monotonous-kick-off-speeches-in-new-hampshire-and-south-carolina/ar-AA16S2OS?ocid=msedgdhp&cvid=648c42a0c55846d8b0210507591b367b
'Loser, loser, loser, loser': Chris Christie knocks Trump's list of failed election deniers
David Edwards
January 29, 2023
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) blasted former President Donald Trump's failed record of picking candidates who deny the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
During a Sunday panel discussion on ABC, host Martha Raddatz asked Christie if Trump would ever be president again.
"Well, I've said over and over again that he can't win a general election," Christie shrugged. "And that's not speculation. That's based upon the polling that I was privy to pre-the 2020 election. And what we saw actually happen in the 2020 election. And it's only gotten worse since then."
RELATED: 'All washed up': Republican insider says Trump needs to 'move on' because 'he's bleeding support'
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-gop-support/
"Then add to it what you saw happened in 2022," he continued.
"The election deniers losing across the country. .. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/republican-election-deniers-trump-defeat-00066040
Bad candidates like [Doug Mastriano] in Pennsylvania dragging the entire Pennsylvania ticket down in a historic way. Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Tim Michels, [Tudor Dixon]. We could go through the entire list."
The former governor added: "Loser, loser, loser, loser. And I think Republicans are recognizing that."
Watch the video below from ABC or at the link.
Protests erupt across the U.S. after Memphis releases video of former cops beating Tyre Nichols
Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams
January 28, 2023
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE - Demonstrators protest the death of Tyre Nichols on January 27, 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Listen to this article now
The Memphis-based Commercial Appeal reported that protesters advocating for police reform shut down the Interstate 55 bridge that connects Tennessee and Arkansas:
As of 8:30 pm, more than 100 people remained on the Harahan Bridge with protest leaders saying they wanted to talk with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Memphis Police Department Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis before disbanding. MPD officers closed off roads leading to the bridge?and several others downtown?but had not directly confronted protesters. Protesters started moving off of the bridge around 9:00 pm. As they marched eastbound on E.H. Crump Boulevard towards police, they locked arms and chanted "we ready, we ready, we ready for y'all." Protestors then turned north, toward central downtown. As they passed by residences, some people came out on their balconies to cheer.
Surrounded by protestors on I-55, NBC News' Priscilla Thompson said that "they are chanting, they are calling the name of Tyre Nichols. They are calling for change."
Demonstrators and the Nichols family have called for disbanding the MPD Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods (SCORPION) team that launched in 2021 and was involved in the traffic stop.
The Memphis mayor said Friday afternoon that the unit has been inactive since Nichols' January 10 death.
The family of #TyreNichols calls for the end of the SCORPION task force. pic.twitter.com/nyWaqaOkZE
— Decarcerate Memphis (@DecarcerateMem) January 27, 2023
MASS ATTACKS IN PUBLIC SPACES: 2016 - 2020
PUBLISHED JULY 2020
United States Secret Service
NATIONAL THREAT ASSESSMENT CENTER
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
For 25 years, the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) has enhanced the agency’s protective and investigative operations and supported our no-fail mission to safeguard this nation’s highest elected officials. NTAC’s pioneering research and expertise continue to inform the development of prevention and protection strategies employed by the Secret Service and have further assisted our public safety partners in their efforts to prevent targeted violence impacting communities across the United States.
This important work continues with the release of NTAC’s most recent publication, Mass Attacks in Public Spaces: 2016 – 2020.
This five-year study analyzes 173 targeted attacks that occurred from 2016 to 2020 in public or semi-public locations in the United States, including businesses, schools, houses of worship, open spaces, and other locations where we live our daily lives. This is the latest entry in a series of reports that examine attacks during which three or more individuals were injured or killed. By applying NTAC’s unique behavioral analysis to incidents of targeted violence occurring over a five-year period, Mass Attacks in Public Spaces: 2016 - 2020. represents NTAC’s most comprehensive examination to date of mass violence and its perpetrators.
[...]
United States Secret Service
NATIONAL THREAT ASSESSMENT CENTER
Page 5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................................ii
INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................2
OVERVIEW OF THE ATTACKS ..........................................................................................4
TIMING ................................................................................................................................. 4
LOCATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 6
TARGETING & HARM CAUSED...................................................................................... 7
RESOLUTION....................................................................................................................... 9
MOTIVES ............................................................................................................................ 10
PLANNING ......................................................................................................................... 12
WEAPONS .......................................................................................................................... 15
ADDITIONAL ITEMS BROUGHT FOR THE ATTACK .............................................. 18
THE ATTACKERS ................................................................................................................19
DEMOGRAPHICS ............................................................................................................. 19
EMPLOYMENT .................................................................................................................. 20
CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR .................................................................................................... 21
SUBSTANCE USE AND ABUSE ...................................................................................... 24
MENTAL HEALTH ............................................................................................................ 24
BELIEF SYSTEMS .............................................................................................................. 27
FIXATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 30
INTEREST IN VIOLENCE OR WEAPONS.................................................................... 31
SOCIAL ISOLATION ......................................................................................................... 32
BULLYING AND HARASSING OTHERS....................................................................... 32
STRESSORS WITHIN FIVE YEARS ............................................................................... 33
BEHAVIORAL CHANGES ................................................................................................ 36
CONCERNING BEHAVIORS ........................................................................................... 38
CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................50
SUMMARY AND TABLES...................................................................................................52
ENDNOTES ...........................................................................................................................59
[...]
https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-01/usss-ntac-maps-2016-2020.pdf
Gun violence deaths: How the U.S. compares with the rest of the world
Updated January 24, 2023 3:49 PM ET
NURITH AIZENAN
Editor's note: This is the latest update of a story that NPR has run on several occasions after mass shooting events in the United States.
It was last republished on May 24, 2022.
The quick succession of horrific shootings this month in California has once again shone a spotlight on how frequent this type of violence is in the United States compared with other wealthy countries.
The U.S. has the 32nd-highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world: 3.96 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019. That was more than eight times as high as the rate in Canada, which had 0.47 deaths per 100,000 people — and nearly 100 times higher than in the United Kingdom, which had 0.04 deaths per 100,000.
On a state-by-state calculation, the rates can be even higher. In the District of Columbia, the rate is 18.5 per 100,000 — the highest in the United States. The second-highest is in Louisiana: 9.34 per 100,000. In Georgia and Colorado — the scenes of the two most recent mass shootings — the rates are a bit closer to the national average: 5.62 per 100,000 in Georgia and 2.27 in Colorado.
The numbers come from a massive database maintained by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which tracks lives lost in every country, in every year, by every possible cause of death.
The 2019 figures paint a fairly rosy picture for much of the world, with deaths due to gun violence rare even in many low-income countries — such as Tajikistan and Gambia, which saw 0.18 deaths and 0.22 deaths, respectively, per 100,000 people.
Prosperous Asian countries such as Singapore (0.01), Japan (0.02) and South Korea (0.02) boast the absolute lowest rates — along with China, also at 0.02.
"It is a little surprising that a country like ours should have this level of gun violence," Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health and epidemiology at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told NPR. "If you compare us to other well-off countries, we really stand out."
How The U.S. Compares With The Lowest Rates Of Violent Gun Deaths Worldwide
https://apps.npr.org/dailygraphics/graphics/gun-deaths-lowest-20210324/?initialWidth=600&childId=responsive-embed-gun-deaths-lowest-20210324&
CONTINUE READING --- WITH GRAPHICS
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/24/980838151/gun-violence-deaths-how-the-u-s-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-world
Mitt Romney could face a 'divisive' re-election campaign in 2024 after backing both Trump impeachments and breaking with conservatives
Story by bmetzger@insider.com (Bryan Metzger)
'For context, President Barack Obama’s campaign spent about 1½ times what Republican Mitt Romney’s did in the 2012 election, totaling about $11 per vote versus Romney’s $8. (If you include spending .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2012/12/07/both-romney-and-obama-ran-1-billion-campaigns/ .. by PACs and national committees, the numbers are closer — and higher.)'
Sen. Mitt Romney has frequently broken with conservatives in the last four years and says he hasn’t decided whether he’ll seek re-election. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
* Mitt Romney is perhaps the most anti-Trump Republican senator and has often broken with the GOP.
* Now, he has to decide whether to seek re-election — and how he'll explain himself to party faithful.
* The chairman of the Utah GOP told Insider that Romney "may have an uphill battle on his hands."
When Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah was elected to the US Senate in 2018, he had the explicit backing of then-President Donald Trump.
Four years later, it wouldn't be a mistake to call him the most anti-Trump Republican in the chamber. And he still hasn't said whether he'll seek re-election in his deep-red state next year.
"Anybody that thinks this isn't gonna be a divided race, and a divisive one, is either lying to you or they don't know," said Utah Republican Party Chair Carson Jorgensen in a phone interview with Insider.
Romney voted to convict the former president during both of his impeachments, first on abuse of power charges in 2020 and then incitement of an insurrection in 2021. And it's not hard for reporters on Capitol Hill to seek out Romney for a quip about the former president. After the 2022 midterm elections, the senator was quoted calling Trump an "albatross" on the party's electoral prospects and a "gargoyle" hanging over the Republican Party.
Continue...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitt-romney-could-face-a-divisive-re-election-campaign-in-2024-after-backing-both-trump-impeachments-and-breaking-with-conservatives/ar-AA16AKhE?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=192e8000e8554caf82716f2d2f7ad10e
This is priceless! From the Court's decision in TRUMP v. HILLARY CLINTON
It came out yesterday, 19 January 2023
US District Court, So. District of Florida
DONALD J. TRUMP Plaintiff, v. HILLARY R. CLINTON, et al., Defendants.
After waiting six years, in a suit filed in March of 2022, Trump alleged that Hillary Clinton and others had orchestrated “a malicious conspiracy” to spread false information that his campaign had colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential race. The one he claimed he "won" that was actually given to him by legal default.
So how'd that turn out...?
U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, in a searing 46-page judgment wrote Trump is a “prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries.”
That's our boy!
Let's start with Page ONE of the Court's decision:
"This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim. Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative. A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm. - Case 2:22-cv-14102-DMM, Page 1.
Whoa!!! And that's just the opening paragraph! It can only get worse and it does - here:
"...we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose. Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well the impact of his actions. As such, I find that sanctions should be imposed upon Mr. Trump and his lead counsel, Ms. Habba." - Case 2:22-cv-14102-DMM, Page 6.
BOOM! Trump and his parking lot real estate lawyer, Alina Habba, have been fined almost $1 million by the judge!
More deliciousness from the dish-best-served-cold; the Judge:
"The deliberate use of a shotgun pleading is an abusive litigation tactic which amounts to obstruction of justice. This case involved three categories of shotgun pleadings condemned by the Eleventh Circuit. ...I find that the pleadings here were abusive litigation tactics. The Complaint and Amended Complaint were drafted to advance a political narrative; not to address legal harm caused by any Defendant.
The 819 paragraphs of the 186-page Amended Complaint are filled with immaterial, conclusory facts not connected to any particular cause of action." - Case 2:22-cv-14102-DMM, pages 6-7.
In their Amended Complaint, Trump and Habba cited a letter from the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliff, to Senator Lindsey Graham as evidence of a false collusion:
"Ratcliff’s letter stated that Clinton and her campaign conceived the false Russia collision [sic] story to protect Clinton’s presidential bid, which was at the time, in trouble because of revelations about her illegally using a private email server to handle classified information. Ratcliff confirmed in the letter that Obama, Comey and Strzok knew about it. - Case 2:22-cv-14102-DMM, page 8.
And the Coup de Grace! You read the Judge's personal footnote on that:
"This provocative allegation stirred my curiosity, so I looked up the Ratcliff letter. The allegation in the Amended Complaint fails to mention that the information came from a Russian intelligence analysis and that Mr. Ratcliffe commented:
The (intelligence community) does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.” - Letter from John Ratcliff, to Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sept. 29, 2020, almost four years after the election."
NB: In 2016 when this 'conspiracy' allegedly took place, Ratcliff was not Director of National Intelligence, he was a not-so-great member of Congress and Reich-wing toady.
"Mr. Trump’s lawyers saw no professional impediment or irony in relying upon Russian intelligence as the good faith basis for their allegation.
Trump used RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE to back his claim and attack U.S. citizens. That's balls of solid brass. No wonder the Judge was pissed.
Read it all here:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157.302.0.pdf
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217576921
Point: Biden Gets a Solid ‘A’ at His Midterm
Posted to Politics January 18, 2023 by Dean Baker
For an alternate viewpoint, see “Counterpoint: On Foreign Policy, Biden Gets a ‘D.’”
As we approach the midpoint of President Biden’s first term, there is little doubt that he deserves a solid “A,” has turned the economy around, gotten the pandemic under control, gotten inflation under control, and laid the basis for a rapid transition to clean energy.
No president since Lyndon Johnson has as much to show for their first two years in office. Unlike Johnson, Biden managed to push through key legislation with a tiny majority in the House and the thinnest possible margin in the Senate.
Biden’s first significant accomplishment was the passage of the American Rescue Plan (ARP), which was designed to protect people from the effect of the pandemic and quickly get the economy back to full employment. At $1.7 trillion, it was a very bold measure. Many economists thought it was too large, including some prominent Democratic economists.
The ARP succeeded in producing rapid growth and getting unemployment down to half-century lows. It also put a lot of money in people’s bank accounts, with most households seeing their savings increase during the pandemic.
It also provided the funding needed for a quick rollout of the COVID vaccines and provided state and local governments with the money needed for measures like improving school ventilation. It also had a huge effect on reducing child poverty by including an expanded child tax credit. Unfortunately, Congress allowed this credit to lapse after one year.
Next, Biden managed to get through a bipartisan infrastructure modernization bill. This made good on a Donald Trump campaign promise, providing more than $1 trillion over the next decade to finance improvements in the country’s infrastructure. In addition to the usual roads and bridges, the bill also included funds to ensure everyone has clean drinking water and access to high-speed internet. It also had money to build a national network of electric car charging stations so that people buying electric cars don’t have to worry about being stranded far from home.
Biden scored another bipartisan victory last summer when he got Congress to pass the CHIPS Act. This provided funding for the research and development of cutting-edge semiconductors and incentives for manufacturing them in the United States.
His final, and perhaps most important, legislative victory was the Inflation Reduction Act. This was a far-reaching bill that lowered prescription drug prices, increased funding for the Internal Revenue Service, and gave substantial subsidies for buying electric cars and converting to clean energy.
It also included a modest increase in corporate taxes by taxing share buybacks for the first time. This is a big deal not only for the revenue it raises but it could presage a larger shift toward basing the corporate income tax on returns to shareholders, which we see, as opposed to profits, which are calculated by corporate accountants.
These bills not only have a direct effect but also set the stage for further actions. In the case of prescription drugs, we are moving away from the world where we give drug companies patent monopolies and let them charge whatever they want. Like the rest of the world, we are restrictioning their monopolies.
We also are seeing a great response from the industry to these measures. Many leading chip manufacturers have announced plans to build plants in the United States. And, most important, all the big auto manufacturers have committed themselves to a rollout of electric vehicles over the next few years. There will be no turning back.
Of course, things can always be better. It would have been good to see provisions that government funding for developing advanced chips or promoting clean energy had requirements about the technology remaining open-source, without patent monopolies or other protections. That way, it would be cheaper and spread more quickly, and we would not be worsening inequality by making the beneficiaries very rich, as happened with the COVID vaccines. But we can fight this battle later.
There remains the question of why people think the economy is doing so poorly if all the economic data (jobs, wages, income) look so positive. The endless negativism in the media is likely the biggest part of the story.
An old saying is that economists look at what people do, not what they say. If we look at what they do, we see people buying houses, cars, appliances and other big-ticket items at very rapid rates. They also go to restaurants far more than before the pandemic.
Regardless of what they tell pollsters, people are telling us with their actions that they feel pretty good about the economy. And Joe Biden deserves much of the credit.
https://dcjournal.com/point-biden-gets-a-solid-a-at-his-midterm/
A judge fines Trump and his lawyer for a 'frivolous' suit against his political foes
January 20, 2023 12:58 PM ET
The Associated Press
A Florida judge sanctioned former President Donald Trump and one of his attorneys, ordering them to pay nearly $1 million for filing what he said was a bogus lawsuit against Trump's 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others.
In a blistering filing on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks accused Trump of a "pattern of abuse of the courts" for filing frivolous lawsuits for political purposes, which he said "undermines the rule of law" and "amounts to obstruction of justice."
"Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose," he wrote.
Citing Trump's recent legal action against the Pulitzer Prize board, New York's attorney general, big tech companies and CNN, he described Trump as "a prolific and sophisticated litigant" who uses the courts "to seek revenge on political adversaries."
"He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process," he wrote.
The ruling required Trump and his attorney, Alina Habba, to pay nearly $938,000 to the defendants in the case.
A spokesman for Trump and Habba did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday.
Middlebrooks in September dismissed the suit Trump had filed against Clinton, former top FBI officials and the Democratic Party, rejecting the former president's claims that they and others conspired to sink his winning presidential campaign by alleging ties to Russia.
The lawsuit had named as defendants Clinton and some of her top advisers, as well as former FBI Director James Comey and other FBI officials involved in the investigation into whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of the election.
He said then the suit contained "glaring structural deficiencies" and that many of the "characterizations of events are implausible."
In the wake of the sanctions, Trump on Friday withdrew his lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James. The case, in federal court in Florida, had also been before Middlebrooks.
Trump sued James in November in response to her lawsuit alleging he and his company mislead banks and others about the value of assets in a practice she dubbed "The art of the steal."
Trump, a Republican, also sought to prevent James, a Democrat, from having any oversight over the family trust that controls his company. His 35-page complaint rehashed some claims from his previously dismissed lawsuit against James in federal court in New York, irritating Middlebrooks, who wrote in a December order: "This litigation has all the telltale signs of being both vexatious and frivolous."
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The Trump Organization has been ordered to pay $1.61 million for tax fraud
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/13/1148379013/the-trump-organization-has-been-ordered-to-pay-1-61-million-for-tax-fraud
Writer E. Jean Carroll's rape claim against Donald Trump can proceed, a judge rules
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/13/1149124488/e-jean-carroll-rape-claim-donald-trump
New York's attorney general sues Trump and 3 of his children for alleged fraud
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/21/1124242985/new-yorks-attorney-general-sues-trump-and-his-children-for-alleged-fraud
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1150298957/donald-trump-frivolous-lawsuit-fine-alina-habba-clinton-comey-middlebrooks
Donald Trump Just Proved How Vile He Actually Is
Story by Brent M. Eastwood • 1h ago
453 Comments
Former President Donald Trump, never one to take an allegation lying down, has lashed out at another accuser.
04:22
Photography: AP Photos World News Photography | AP News
2023
https://apnews.com/hub/photography?utm_source=apnewsnav&utm_medium=navigation
MANY SUBJECTS.....
Thousands of Presidential Fact Checkers Laid Off in Biden’s First Hundred Days
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=163889282&txt2find=group%2Bpicture
In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims
The Fact Checker’s database of the false or misleading claims made by President Trump while in office.
Updated Jan. 20, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_11
Lying Trump's L I E S are in the news daily.
You must be soooo proud of that idiot.