"Trump WHO cuts meet with furious blowback "CDC director distances himself from Trump’s WHO criticism, saying the agencies ‘continue to have’ strong relationship" [...] Congressional Democrats said they are exploring ways to push back on the move, but their options may be limited. P - Sen. Chris Murphy .. https://thehill.com/people/christopher-murphy .. (D-Conn.) told The Hill on Wednesday that he will push for language in the next coronavirus response bill to protect the WHO funds. P - “We can solve this legislatively, we will be back,” Murphy said, noting he is also exploring whether the move violates existing law. “I intend to pursue language in that package that would protect the WHO funds from rescission.”"
There is much which could be outed here, i've decided on a little.
How Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, a rising Democratic star, would run the world.
By Alex Ward @AlexWardVox alex.ward@vox.com Updated Apr 16, 2020, 1:25pm EDT
Photographs by Nate Palmer for Vox
Sen. Chris Murphy, a junior senator from Connecticut, is a leading voice for Democrats on foreign policy. Nate Palmer for Vox
[...]
His solution? Increase America’s spending on international affairs by $50 billion, cut part of the military budget, and put those new resources into three main buckets. First, major assistance initiatives that alleviate the conditions that make violent extremism more attractive. Second, a new American presence abroad that leads more with diplomats than with troops and supports anti-corruption measures. Third, efforts to “help prevent humanitarian disasters from becoming strategic disasters” by making the US an even greater donor for at-risk people around the world.
[... to the end ...]
What does Chris Murphy really want?
Chris Murphy doesn’t want to be president — at least for now. As early as 2017, he told reporters he wouldn’t run in 2020 despite efforts to get him into the race. He seems intent on building up his foreign policy credentials while in the Senate, which he’ll have time to do after easily winning a second term in office in 2018.
He’s now calling for dramatic increases to the State Department’s budget and staff, which he thinks will help the US better understand other nations while having the requisite resources to enact everything from anti-corruption policies to economic projects. America’s penchant for leading with troops, instead of with diplomats, is a major reason America is losing its influence to growing powers, he says.
Some to Murphy’s left on foreign policy say the problem with this vision is that it’s still rooted in the romantic notion of American primacy. The senator still wants the US to be No. 1, and all his proposals are in service of that goal.
Stephen Wertheim of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an anti-interventionist think tank, thinks that’s the wrong mindset. “A progressive foreign policy is about objectives as well as capabilities,” he told me. “It’s about rejecting the failed and immoral objective of military domination and finally committing the resources of the United States to the major challenges the American people face: crumbling communities, global warming, and ungoverned wealth.”
But Murphy’s worldview is popular enough that talk has ramped up about what’s next for the 46-year-old senator. Some top Democrats, including those involved in presidential campaigns, suggest he’s certainly on a shortlist of people to be the nation’s top diplomat, which has some Connecticut and party elders excited. “I think he’d be a good secretary of state,” Lieberman, the former senator, told me.
Others say there are more prominent figures in the wings who deserve it more, especially longtime diplomats who understand the intricacies of foreign policy more intimately.
Most people I spoke to say it would be best for Murphy to remain in the Senate. He’s proven effective in the body and could serve as an important asset to any Democratic president when trying to push a foreign policy initiative through Congress.
In fact, those close to him say he should aim to be — if it isn’t his goal already — the McCain of the left. Murphy’s voice on foreign policy is perhaps the strongest in his party. With his probable longevity in Congress, his influence is only likely to grow. “He could be a McCain for the Democrats in the Senate for the next 20 years,” Ben Rhodes told me.
Murphy doesn’t take kindly to pointed questions about his future. I asked different versions of the same question countless times, only to be rebuffed on each occasion.
But he did tell me that there’s still a lot he wants to accomplish. “I want to make sure that we’re still a factor for good in the world and I want to be able to lead,” he said in his office. “I’m hopeful to be able to paint a path forward by which Americans feel better about us continuing to be involved in the world.”
Whether he’ll do that from behind his Senate desk or some other seat in Washington is one issue with global implications Murphy won’t talk about.
Charity groups welcome Biden's new head of US Agency for International Development | The World
•Jan 22, 2021
ABC News (Australia)
Signalling a U-turn from the Trump days of "America First", Joe Biden has selected Samantha Power - the US ambassador to the United Nations under President Barack Obama - to run the US Agency for International Development. Speaking to The World, Former CEO of World Vision Australia Tim Costello says he welcomes the appointment.
Australian Tim Costello: "As Joe Biden said, She is a voice of conscience. She has moral clarity." Aid is not only the right thing to do but the smart thing to do. Aid is soft power. Dollars before bullets.
Biden says and understands: Foreign aid is fundamental to national security.
"Trump WHO cuts meet with furious blowback" [...] Samantha Power .. https://thehill.com/people/samantha-power , the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former President Obama, said the move would also cut off U.S. funding for other health programs such as polio eradication and fighting HIV. P - Peter Singer, special adviser to Tedros, tweeted Wednesday that the WHO has shipped protective equipment for health workers to 133 countries, and sent test kits to 126 countries, among other steps.
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