White House News in Chinese - About (weebly.com)
Apr. 7 - As Joe Biden approaches the 100-day mark, his presidency has been full of surprises. A $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan replete with life-changing provisions, including a monthly child tax credit, renovations to long-neglected school buildings, help for small businesses and extended unemployment insurance, is on the law books.
And Biden is just getting started. A $2.5 trillion, eight-year American Jobs Plan to repair roads, bridges, rail and water lines; enhance solar and wind development; create highway electrical charging stations; provide high-speed broadband; help manufacturing; promote elderly home care; and develop agricultural plans to capture carbon from the atmosphere is up next. These plans have broad public support. According to a March poll, 75 percent of voters approve of the American Rescue Plan, including 59 percent of Republicans. And 54 percent support infrastructure improvements, even if it means tax increases on those earning more than $400,000 per year. This gives Biden significant political capital, something George W. Bush claimed to have after his 2004 reelection but could never manage to deposit.
In 2020, Biden promised to restore “the soul of America,” a slogan that drew upon Franklin D. Roosevelt’s description of the presidency as a place of “moral leadership.” Biden’s call for restoring traditional values and norms appealed to an exhausted nation, much in the same way that Warren G. Harding won support from a weary nation following World War I. Campaigning in 1920, Harding declared: “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise.” continue to read
And Biden is just getting started. A $2.5 trillion, eight-year American Jobs Plan to repair roads, bridges, rail and water lines; enhance solar and wind development; create highway electrical charging stations; provide high-speed broadband; help manufacturing; promote elderly home care; and develop agricultural plans to capture carbon from the atmosphere is up next. These plans have broad public support. According to a March poll, 75 percent of voters approve of the American Rescue Plan, including 59 percent of Republicans. And 54 percent support infrastructure improvements, even if it means tax increases on those earning more than $400,000 per year. This gives Biden significant political capital, something George W. Bush claimed to have after his 2004 reelection but could never manage to deposit.
In 2020, Biden promised to restore “the soul of America,” a slogan that drew upon Franklin D. Roosevelt’s description of the presidency as a place of “moral leadership.” Biden’s call for restoring traditional values and norms appealed to an exhausted nation, much in the same way that Warren G. Harding won support from a weary nation following World War I. Campaigning in 1920, Harding declared: “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise.” continue to read
APRIL 6, 2021
White House Daily Briefing
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki held a briefing on the Biden administration’s agenda. The press secretary made clear the federal government would not impose vaccine passports and said it was a private sector issue. She also said the president believes there is a bipartisan path forward on passing his proposed infrastructure plan but did not rule out reconciliation. The Senate parliamentarian had recently ruled that Democrats could use reconciliation to pass an infrastructure package, allowing them to bypass the filibuster.
White House Daily Briefing
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki held a briefing on the Biden administration’s agenda. The press secretary made clear the federal government would not impose vaccine passports and said it was a private sector issue. She also said the president believes there is a bipartisan path forward on passing his proposed infrastructure plan but did not rule out reconciliation. The Senate parliamentarian had recently ruled that Democrats could use reconciliation to pass an infrastructure package, allowing them to bypass the filibuster.
..."Is the White House concerned that Major League Baseball is moving their All-Star Game to Colorado where voting regulations are very similar to Georgia?” Doocy asked, a question predicated on bullshit. To which Psaki responded, rhetorically stuffing the Fox News correspondent in a locker: “Well, let me just refute the first point you made. First let me say on Colorado, Colorado allows you to you register on Election Day. Colorado has voting by mail where they send to 100% of people in the state who are eligible, applications to vote by mail; 94% of people in Colorado voted by mail in the 2020 election. They also allow for a range of materials to provide, even if they vote on Election Day, for the limited number of people who vote on Election Day. I think it’s important to remember the context here: The Georgia legislation is built on a lie. There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Georgia’s top Republican election officials have acknowledged that repeatedly in interviews. What there was, however, was record-setting turnout, especially by voters of color. Instead what we’re seeing here for politicians who didn’t like the outcome is they’re not changing their policies to win more votes, they’re changing the rules to exclude more voters, and we certainly see the circumstances as different. Ultimately, though, it’s up to Major League Baseball to determine where they’re holding their All-Star Game.”
Doocy, of course, isn’t the only Republican trying desperately to change the story from “Georgia wants to disenfranchise Black and brown voters and even corporate America is disgusted” to “corporate America should mind its own damn business.” On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that corporations should shut their traps or will suffer “consequences” for speaking out. Meanwhile, Senator Tim Scott has also adopted the (false) talking point that Colorado is just as bad as Georgia when it comes to voter laws... quoted from
Doocy, of course, isn’t the only Republican trying desperately to change the story from “Georgia wants to disenfranchise Black and brown voters and even corporate America is disgusted” to “corporate America should mind its own damn business.” On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that corporations should shut their traps or will suffer “consequences” for speaking out. Meanwhile, Senator Tim Scott has also adopted the (false) talking point that Colorado is just as bad as Georgia when it comes to voter laws... quoted from
ANALYSIS - US-China rivalry: Is a new cold war really emerging?
Apr. 7, ISTANBUL - US President Joe Biden’s biggest promise on foreign policy during the campaign trail was to revive the liberal international order. Biden has so far taken a few steps in this direction. He has brought the US back into the Paris Agreement. He has restored his country’s membership in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Human Rights Council. On the other hand, he has made some important moves toward establishing closer relations with Asian and European allies. This resurgence of institutionalism, however, is not limited to the fulfillment of US commitments to Asian and European allies that were broken during Trump’s presidency, nor to the country’s reconnection with international institutions. It also includes integrating powers capable of competing with the US, and especially China, into the liberal institutional order. This would obviously be a strategic move and would not mark the end of the US-China rivalry. The US needs to cut China in on the rewards of the liberal international order, and China, in exchange, must accept US leadership and obey the norms and rules that constitute this order. The US, understandably, wants to wage its (now inevitable) hegemonic struggle with China on its own terms. The US reckons that it could thus fend off China’s rise before it becomes an open challenge or without triggering a cold/hot conflict, or at the very least that it could avoid a sharp and rapid downfall by protracting its relative decline against China. And, most fundamentally, the US is expected to maintain its leadership status in international politics for a little while longer. more
Apr. 7, ISTANBUL - US President Joe Biden’s biggest promise on foreign policy during the campaign trail was to revive the liberal international order. Biden has so far taken a few steps in this direction. He has brought the US back into the Paris Agreement. He has restored his country’s membership in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Human Rights Council. On the other hand, he has made some important moves toward establishing closer relations with Asian and European allies. This resurgence of institutionalism, however, is not limited to the fulfillment of US commitments to Asian and European allies that were broken during Trump’s presidency, nor to the country’s reconnection with international institutions. It also includes integrating powers capable of competing with the US, and especially China, into the liberal institutional order. This would obviously be a strategic move and would not mark the end of the US-China rivalry. The US needs to cut China in on the rewards of the liberal international order, and China, in exchange, must accept US leadership and obey the norms and rules that constitute this order. The US, understandably, wants to wage its (now inevitable) hegemonic struggle with China on its own terms. The US reckons that it could thus fend off China’s rise before it becomes an open challenge or without triggering a cold/hot conflict, or at the very least that it could avoid a sharp and rapid downfall by protracting its relative decline against China. And, most fundamentally, the US is expected to maintain its leadership status in international politics for a little while longer. more
