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      ‘A bold leader’: White House defends Kamala Harris after reports say she’s struggling

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      ‘A bold leader’: White House defends Kamala Harris after reports say she’s strugglingJen Psaki fires back after several media outlets portray a vice-president struggling to make her mark John Nance Garner, vice-president to Franklin D Roosevelt from 1933 to 1941, famously said the office “wasn’t worth a bucket of warm piss”. Kamala Harris may now agree.Biden’s approval ratings continue to plunge amid crisis over inflationRead moreThe White House was moved to defend her on Sunday night, after leading US media outlets portrayed a VP struggling to make her mark.“For anyone who needs to hear it,” said the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, Harris “is not only a vital partner to [Joe Biden] but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country – from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband.”Psaki was firing back on multiple fronts.On Friday, as Harris wrapped up a visit to France, the New York Times said: “Ten months into her vice-presidency, Ms Harris’s track record on delivering on the administration’s global priorities has been mixed.”Célia Belin, of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, told the paper: “I think she’s been really hidden this whole time and out of the sight of most Europeans. I think she’s been quite under the radar.”Then, late on Sunday, CNN published a lengthy report headlined: “Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris’ frustrating start as vice-president.”The report contained supportive voices, including the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, who said Harris was “off to the fastest and strongest start of any vice-president I have seen”.CNN said Klain emphasised Harris’s work on Covid vaccine equity and foreign policy, and said: “Anyone who has the honor of working closely with the vice-president knows how her talents and determination have made a big difference.”But CNN also said Klain was “known as a Harris defender in the West Wing”. Like much in the piece, it was unattributed. CNN said it spoke to “nearly three dozen former and current Harris aides, administration officials, Democratic operatives, donors and outside advisers”.Its report began with a stark statement: “Worn out by what they see as entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus, key West Wing aides have largely thrown up their hands at [Harris] and her staff – deciding there simply isn’t time to deal with them right now, especially at a moment when Biden faces quickly multiplying legislative and political concerns.”Success on one of the biggest such concerns, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, will see the White House host a signing ceremony on Monday, a chance for the president to bask in public victory at a time when his poll ratings – and Harris’s – are sliding.Reports on Harris’s fortunes generally include discussion of her own political future.As the first Black and Asian woman to be vice-president, she is assured of her place in history. But Biden is nearly 79 and may not run for re-election. Speculation continues to mount over Harris’s chances in a contest for the next Democratic nomination, perhaps in opposition to Pete Buttigieg, who ran much more strongly in 2020 and who as transportation secretary has made a confident start to Washington life.Like Harris, Buttigieg has been attacked by the right – if not so bizarrely as in claims last week that Harris spoke with a French accent while in Paris. Buttigieg recently took paternity leave after he and his husband adopted twins. Criticised by Fox News hosts and others, he was defended by the White House.An unnamed “former Harris aide” told CNN it was “hard to miss the specific energy that the White House brings to defend a white man, knowing that Kamala Harris has spent almost a year taking a lot of the hits that the West Wing didn’t want to take themselves”.There is also a typically outlandish Washington rumour that Biden might remove Harris as VP by appointing her to the supreme court.Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in USRead moreSpeaking to the Times, the former Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, a close Biden friend, said: “I’m hoping the president runs for re-election, but for whatever reason that might not be the case, it’s hard to believe there would be a short list without Kamala’s name on it. She’s the vice-president of the United States.”CNN reported perceived missteps by Harris, struggles to form a relationship with Biden beyond “an exhausted stalemate” and problems with staff. But one of the most widely discussed quotes was attributed to “a top donor to Biden and other Democrats”.“Kamala Harris is a leader but is not being put in positions to lead,” the donor said. “That doesn’t make sense. We need to be thinking long term, and we need to be doing what’s best for the party.“You should be putting her in positions to succeed, as opposed to putting weights on her. If you did give her the ability to step up and help her lead, it would strengthen you and strengthen the party.”TopicsKamala HarrisJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Xi Jinping expected in talks to tell Joe Biden to ‘step back’ on Taiwan

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      Xi Jinping expected in talks to tell Joe Biden to ‘step back’ on TaiwanWar of words begins before leaders’ meeting, with US president warned Taiwan is China’s ‘ultimate red line’ China’s president, Xi Jinping, is expected to warn his US counterpart, Joe Biden, to “step back” on the Taiwan issue in their first virtual meeting on Monday evening Washington time, according to Chinese state media.State media outlets such as China Daily are briefed by authorities on important issues such as China-US relations and have been accurate in reflecting the priorities of Chinese leaders.“The Taiwan question is the ultimate red line of China,” said a Monday editorial in the Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist party’s People’s Daily.“In order to reduce the risk of a strategic collision between China and the US, the latter must take a step back from the Taiwan question and show its restraint,” it added.The two leaders have talked twice by phone since Biden took office in January, but this video conference will be their most substantial discussion so far.It comes days after the two countries surprised analysts by agreeing at Cop26 in Glasgow to boost climate cooperation. But it also comes at a time of increasing friction over Taiwan – the most dangerous potential flashpoint between the two countries.On Tuesday, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted the latest in a series of combat readiness exercises off the Taiwanese coast, while in a phone call on Saturday the nations’ top diplomats traded warnings about the island.Ahead of the meeting, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that any show of support for Taiwan’s independence would “boomerang” on the US. Blinken in turn raised concerns over China’s growing “military, diplomatic, and economic pressure” on the island.US allegations of repeated cyber-attacks from China, deep divisions over human rights in the Xinjiang region, Hong Kong and Tibet, as well as lingering trade disputes have also contributed towards the steady souring of relations.The US-China climate agreement is imperfect – but reason to hope | Sam GeallRead moreThe US is frustrated by Chinese obstruction of multilateral investigations of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has been angered by Chinese government pressure on US companies to lobby Congress to drop legislation Beijing does not like, as Reuters reported on Friday.The stakes have been raised by the rapid expansion of China’s military capabilities, including its nuclear arsenal. According to the US, Beijing has tested a new weapon, a nuclear-capable hypersonic glider launched from orbit, and China is reported to be building at least 250 new silos for long-range missiles.Expectations for the summit have been set low. There is not likely to be a joint statement, and the White House has indicated that Biden will not answer press questions after the talks are over.“Overall, in both Washington and Beijing, the expectation of convergence is pretty much dead. Instead, the relationship has become more transactional,” Scott Moore, the director of China programmes and strategic initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, said.“For Biden, he is facing political challenges at home with the midterm elections looming [next year]. Therefore, he will likely face political constraints in terms of taking any actions that could be perceived or characterised as making significant concessions to China.”“For Xi, his biggest vulnerability is on the economic front. That’s why Beijing has been signalling its interest in making progress on trade. Recent comments from Biden administration officials suggest there is interest in engaging on these issues, but again there are likely to be significant political constraints.”Both leaders will seek to limit the dangers of the rivalry spiralling out of control.In a message to the National Committee on US-China Relations, Xi said that the bilateral relationship was at a “critical historical juncture”.“Both countries will gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. Cooperation is the only right choice,” Xi said in his statement. In his message to the committee’s gala on 9 November, Biden also pointed to an “inflection point in history”.“From tackling the Covid-19 pandemic to addressing the existential threat of the climate crisis, the relationship between the United States and China has global significance.”The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said Biden would be “clear and candid” about US concerns, but would look for ways to “responsibly manage competition” between the world’s two largest economies and also seek “to work together where our interests align”.Wang has said Monday’s summit is a potentially pivotal event in efforts to improve the trajectory in bilateral relations.“The two sides should meet each other halfway … ensuring that the meeting will be smooth and successful, and push Sino-US relations back on the track of healthy and stable development,” Wang said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.Xi will be seeking to head off moves to boycott the Winter Olympics in China this year, and he is also expected to invite Biden to the games as a conciliatory gesture.But Taiwan remains on top of Xi’s talking points, particularly after a series of steps the Biden administration has taken to raise Taiwan’s status, which China sees as breaking with Washington’s long-held “one China policy”, recognising the People’s Republic as the sole sovereign Chinese government.“Beijing has noticed recent statements by senior Biden officials such as Jake Sullivan, saying that Washington no longer wants to change China’s system. It is a positive signal,” said Wang Huiyao, the president of the Centre for China and Globalisation, who also advises the Beijing government. “But if this is the case, the US should cease using Taiwan as a card to irritate China, and leave the Taiwan affairs to the peoples on both sides of the Taiwan strait.”Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said Beijing was concerned about whether the Biden administration was really sticking to its one China policy or whether there was “a lot of salami-slicing” going on. “They want to hear greater reassurance about what the US will and will not do with Taiwan,” she said.The US side will be pushing for more routine contacts between the defence and diplomatic establishments, but Xi is likely to resist any action that he sees as normalising the US role in China’s immediate neighbourhood.‘We need to be much clearer’: leading Democrat questions US strategy on defending TaiwanRead more“It’s something that the Chinese have so far been very resistant to because they don’t want to give the US military a licence to operate anywhere near their shores,” Glaser said.As for nuclear arms control, China has so far resisted any approaches on entering bilateral negotiations, and spurned Donald Trump’s attempts to start trilateral talks with Russia.“Sadly I don’t think it’s going to be a major topic at the meeting. The United States hasn’t proposed anything that China can talk about, and China doesn’t like to negotiate outside of the UN,” said Gregory Kulacki, the China project manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists.“They could make some sort of vague statement about wanting to check the nuclear arms race, but anything concrete coming out of it seems unlikely.”Reuters news agency contributed to this reportTopicsUS foreign policyXi JinpingJoe BidenChinaTaiwanAsia PacificUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden’s approval ratings continue to plunge amid crisis over inflation

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      Biden’s approval ratings continue to plunge amid crisis over inflation
      41% of voters approve of Biden in new poll despite victory lap
      Biden touts infrastructure win as midterms loom
      Aides to Joe Biden took to the political talk shows on Sunday in a bid to talk up the US economic recovery despite confidence in the president continuing to plunge amid a crisis over inflation and supply chain problems.Republican senator won’t condemn Trump for defending chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’Read moreIn alarming news for the White House, only 41% of voters approved of Biden in a Washington Post/ABC survey published on Sunday, continuing a steady downward trend in the president’s ratings.The new numbers, which come despite a victory lap over the passing of a $1.2tn infrastructure package and growing confidence over the prospects for a $1.75tn social spending bill, are a growing worry for Democrats with less than a year to the midterm elections.Only 39% approved of Biden’s handling of the economy, their confidence shaken by inflation surging to 30-year highs and the supply chain crisis threatening the availability of food and other essentials with the holiday season approaching.Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, and Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, tried to reassure voters that Biden’s policies had the US on the right track, amid warnings of inflation remaining high well into next year.“We will still have an economic recovery that will be strong and support ongoing growth,” Yellen told CBS’s Face the Nation when asked about the likely dropping of paid family leave – forced by moderate Democratic senators such as Joe Manchin – from Biden’s Build Back Better domestic spending package.“We’re supportive, President Biden and I, of paid leave, and it’s something that we will try to legislate in the future,” Yellen said. “But there’s money in this package that will make it easier for people to work and care for family members at the same time.”Yellen blamed Covid-19 for the worst of the inflation and supply chain issues, and predicted that prices would likely “return to normal” in the second half of next year “if we’re successful with the pandemic”.“The pandemic has been calling the shots for the economy and for inflation,” she said. “If we want to get inflation down, continuing to make progress against the pandemic is the most important thing we can do.“We passed the American Rescue Plan and unemployment has declined from almost 15% to under 5% now. Americans feel confident about the job market. They’re seeing wage increases. It really reflects the support that we gave to Americans to keep up their spending and make it through the pandemic.”Yellen’s upbeat position was mirrored by Deese. On NBC’s Meet the Press, he attempted to downplay attempts in the summer to paint rising inflation as a “temporary” blip.“Because of the actions the president has taken, we’re now seeing an economic recovery that most people didn’t think was possible,” Deese said.“If you look at the strong wage gains plus the direct support that we’ve provided to families, checks in pockets and the child tax credit, the disposable income for a typical family is up about 2% even after you take into account inflation.“That doesn’t reduce the frustration any more when somebody’s going to the gas station and they see prices go up. But it does mean that we are well positioned to try to address these challenges going forward.”On CNN’s State of the Union, Deese said: “We actually know what we need to do here. We need to make a fully paid-for investment that will unlock more opportunities to get more people working in the economy.”Whether rosy messaging about inflation sways voters remains to be seen. Republicans such as the Florida senator Marco Rubio continue to bash Biden over the issue. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, wrote in the Guardian this week that a lack of regulation has allowed corporate giants to continue raising prices while recording record profits.“They have so much market power they can raise prices with impunity,” Reich wrote. “The underlying problem isn’t inflation per se, it’s lack of competition. Corporations are using the excuse of inflation to raise prices and make fatter profits.“Price inflation is a symptom: the increasing consolidation of the economy in a relative handful of big corporations. This structural problem is amenable to only one thing: the aggressive use of antitrust law.”Deese, on CNN, said Biden was open to exploring the issue.“There’s a real concern of price gouging or market manipulation that could harm consumers,” he said. “So we’ve asked the Federal Trade Commission to take a very close look at that.”TopicsJoe BidenUS domestic policyUS politicsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans resist mandates to curb Covid but lawsuits likely to prove futile

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      Republicans resist mandates to curb Covid but lawsuits likely to prove futileThe Biden administration is on solid legal ground in imposing Covid-related public health measures, scholars argue Republican elected officials continue to challenge government mandates aimed at stopping the spread of Covid-19, but legal experts predict the lawsuits and bans on mandates will largely prove fruitless because the law allows for such public safety measures.But as those legal fights play out the US will probably still be riven by a dispute between mostly Democrats on one hand who argue they are trying to curb a deadly virus, and usually Republicans on the other who say the Biden administration is involved in government overreach, often using rhetoric that can veer into the conspiratorial.Republicans slam Biden vaccine rule for businesses as health groups defend itRead moreTen states filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to block the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers because it could “exacerbate an alarming shortage of health care workers, particularly in rural communities, that has already reached a boiling point”, the filing states. All the states but one have Republican attorneys general.That petition comes days after a federal appeals court temporarily blocked a federal vaccine requirement for large businesses in response to a lawsuit from Republican officials, businesses and religious groups challenging the rules.And judges in two states issued rulings on Wednesday offering potentially different outcomes for masking mandates in schools. In Texas, a federal judge ruled that Governor Greg Abbot’s ban on school mask mandates violated the rights of students with disabilities, which clears the way for districts to issue requirements for face coverings. The Texas attorney general tweeted that he was “considering all legal avenues to challenge this decision”.In Pennsylvania, a state court ruled that the state health secretary did not have the authority to issue a school mask mandate, but the Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, appealed, which means the requirement can for now remain in place.While the judicial rulings create hurdles for Democratic elected officials’ use of government authority to try to bring the pandemic to an end, legal experts say there is precedent for such health policy measures and that they will largely remain in place.“There is no fundamental right to wear or not wear a mask in the public square,” said Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law whose focus is education law and policy, and constitutional law. “Even where some fundamental right might be impinged,” such as the right not to be vaccinated, “it doesn’t mean that it can’t be overridden if there is some compelling state interest for doing so.”The latest wave of lawsuits comes after the Biden administration last week announced rules concerning vaccinations for companies with 100 or more employees, and healthcare workers.The rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha), which the federal court blocked, would take effect on 4 January and require large companies to ensure their employees have been vaccinated or regularly administer Covid-19 tests for those who decline the vaccine and require them to wear masks at work. It would affect an estimated 84 million workers.The rule concerning healthcare workers from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has the same deadline – with no option for weekly testing rather than vaccination. That would affect 76,000 providers and more than 17 million healthcare workers.The lawsuit concerning healthcare workers argues that the mandate is unreasonably broad in part because it includes staff who would probably not have contact with patients, such as construction crews.But Sidney Watson, director of the Center for Health Law Studies at Saint Louis University School of Law, argues that the administration is on solid legal ground in issuing the vaccine mandate because hospitals must comply with certain conditions in order to receive payment through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which they are not required to participate in but which almost all hospitals do.The vaccination requirement “only applies to providers who step forward and say, ‘I want to take this federal money,’” said Watson.But the Republicans are also challenging the mandate on the basis that it could hurt rural hospitals, which are already facing a labor shortage and could lose more employees who do not want to get vaccinated. Hospitals across the country are having a difficult time finding nurses, but the problem is particularly acute in rural areas, according to reports from Vox and PBS.“We think the goal of having all employees in rural hospitals vaccinated is a good one. The problem is, the mandate and its timing may be difficult, especially if it leaves some hospitals with severe staff shortages,” said Brock Slabach, chief operations officer of the National Rural Health Association (NRHA), which is considering requesting during a public comment period that the CMS instead allow hospitals to regularly test unvaccinated workers, the same as the Osha rule for large companies.But Watson, of Saint Louis University, said she sees concern about the mandate causing large numbers of employees to quit their jobs or be fired as speculation. She points to places like New York, where the police union warned that a vaccine mandate would cause 10,000 police officers to be “pulled from [the] streets”, but the number of officers who were placed on unpaid leave was ultimately only 34.Despite his concerns about the mandate, Slabach does not expect courts to strike it down and is recommending that rural hospitals prepare to come into compliance with it.In addition to facing a labor shortage, the rural healthcare organizations must contend with a population base that is vaccinated against Covid-19 at a much lower rate than in urban areas. For example, in Pulaski county in central Missouri, only 17% of its more than 50,000 residents are fully vaccinated.As such, it’s crucial that hospitals in such areas employ staff that is fully vaccinated because they could see a surge in Covid cases, said Slabach.“When you complicate that with the fact that rural communities have populations that are more vulnerable to the disease itself, meaning they have co-morbid or chronic diseases,” then vaccination is “critically important”, Slabach added.TopicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationBiden administrationRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Victory for spotted owl as Trump-era plan to reduce habitat is struck down

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      WildlifeVictory for spotted owl as Trump-era plan to reduce habitat is struck down Biden administration move halts plan to allow logging in forests where imperiled bird lives Gabrielle Canon and agencies@GabrielleCanonTue 9 Nov 2021 22.18 ESTFirst published on Tue 9 Nov 2021 18.19 ESTIn a victory for the northern spotted owl, the Biden administration has struck down a Trump-era plan that would have removed more than 3.4m acres of critical habitat for the imperiled bird and opened the old-growth forests where it lives to logging.The population of the small chocolate-brown owl, which lives in forested areas in Washington, Oregon, and northern California, has been in decline for decades and has already lost roughly 70% of its habitat. Its numbers have plummeted 77% in Washington state, 68% in Oregon, and close to half in California, according to studies by the US Geological Survey, and biologists fear that further habitat reduction would put them on the path to extinction.A controversial decision made by Trump’s interior secretary just five days before leaving office was widely viewed as a parting gift to the timber industry. The Fish and Wildlife Service has since found that there was “insufficient rationale and justification” to reduce the threatened owl’s habitat.‘Wondrous and amazing’: female California condors can reproduce without malesRead moreUnder the new plan, roughly 204,000 acres – approximately 2% of the 9.6m acres designated as habitat for the owls in 2012 – will be made available for development while more than 3m will be restored and protected. The agency claims the exclusion of those lands from habitat designation will enable federal land managers to meet obligations to the logging industry and help limit catastrophic wildfires that continue to threaten forests in the west.“The exclusions we are proposing now will allow fuels management and sustainable timber harvesting to continue while supporting northern spotted owl recovery,” said Martha Williams, principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, in a statement issued when the rule revision was proposed in July.Wildlife advocates, government agencies and the timber industry have sparred for decades over the northern spotted owl. Federal habitat protections imposed in 2012 were meant to avert the bird’s extinction. They’ve also been blamed for a logging slowdown that’s devastated some rural communities.The logging industry has pushed back against the revision, arguing that more thinning and management of protected forests is necessary to prevent wildfires, which devastated 560 square miles (1,450 square kilometers) of spotted owl habitat last fall. Most of that area is no longer considered viable for the birds.In the agency’s analysis of the rule-change, officials note that timber harvesting doesn’t lessen the risk of severe burns, writing that fuel reduction treatments – where smaller, less lucrative vegetation is strategically culled from the landscape – should instead be used to restore forest health. Federal land managers can still conduct these treatments in designated critical habitat, the agency concluded.Timber interests also say some of the land set aside under Tuesday’s announcement isn’t actually spotted owl habitat or is broken up into parcels too small to support the owl. As such, the smaller habitat designation issued under Trump was “legally and scientifically valid”, said Nick Smith, a spokesman for the American Forest Resource Council, a group that represents about 100 manufacturing and logging operations in five western US states.“The federal government cannot set aside critical habitat unless it is habitat for the species. That’s the critical concern,” he said.But the federal biologists found significant issues with the science used to push the previous rule through. David Bernhardt, Trump’s interior secretary, and Aurelia Skipwith, the former Fish and Wildlife service director, dismissed their concerns and underestimated the threat of extinction, according to documents reviewed by the Associated Press.Democratic lawmakers from Oregon, Washington and California in February called for an investigation into the removal of spotted owl protections, citing “potential scientific meddling” by Trump appointees.Bernhardt has defended his handling of the matter, telling AP that Congress gave the interior secretary authority to exclude areas from protection. Environmental advocates championed the move, but continue to have concerns that the agency would allow any amount of logging on the land.“We’re glad the Biden administration repealed the ridiculous and politically driven decision to strip 3m acres from the spotted owl’s critical habitat” said Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It needs all the habitat it can get if it’s going to make it.” But, he called the exclusions that remain, “disappointing”.“The Biden administration is condoning the cutting of old growth forests on BLM land,” he said. “It is definitely not what the owl needs and it’s not what our climate needs.”Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsWildlifeBiden administrationTrump administrationUS politicsAnimalsnewsReuse this content More

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      If Democrats return to centrism, they are doomed to lose against Trump | Samuel Moyn

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      OpinionJoe BidenIf Democrats return to centrism, they are doomed to lose against TrumpSamuel MoynBiden was once touted as the ‘New FDR’. That ambition is fast dying – as are Democrats hopes of remaining in power Mon 8 Nov 2021 08.56 ESTLast modified on Mon 8 Nov 2021 15.52 ESTCongress’s passage on Friday of Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill would ordinarily have been a cause for celebration. But there is a good chance it was the beginning of the end of his presidency. After all, the bill’s final days marked a new consensus around a centrist set of economic remedies, chosen out of fears of what will supposedly happen when progressives with a transformative agenda exercise too much influence on the Democratic party agenda.Only 10 months ago, Biden came into office with great expectations – but greater terrors. Even more apparent at the start than now, Biden’s presidency has been defined by fear rather than hope. With the assault on the Capitol earlier in the month, the culmination of a four-year deathwatch for American democracy, the emergency could hardly evaporate overnight. With Donald Trump temporarily ousted, his replacement also drew 1930s comparisons. The question “is he or isn’t he?” had been asked of Biden’s predecessor for four years. To redeem the country from the fascist, was Biden going to be Franklin Roosevelt?Like FDR, Biden led Democrats who have rightly stressed economic transformation for the sake of the poor and vulnerable but also for the angry and disaffected voters of the stagnating middle. But unlike Roosevelt, Biden’s coalition is fragile and fissures emerged to threaten his success almost from the start – fissures that broke it apart definitively last week even in the midst of Biden’s infrastructure victory.Other causes were forced to the margins along the way. Biden subordinated even critical fixes to American democracy, like reforms of courts and elections, to the economic agenda. As for his immigration policies, which mostly resembled the disgusting ones of prior presidents, they were treated with a partisan silence, provoking rage among the few principled enough to demand fewer cruelties and restrictions no matter who is imposing them. But Biden got a pass because enough agreed with the priority to address the economic reasons for Trump’s breakthrough, which are undeniable.Yet in comparison to Roosevelt’s first “100 days” – which saw 15 major bills and gave the early phase of every presidency its name – Biden’s first 100 days were bogged down. A Covid-19 relief and stimulus bill was passed, adding $1.9tn in emergency spending to the $2.2tn of the first such bill signed by Trump in March 2020. But the real hopes fell on the big-ticket measures for “infrastructure” and welfare that Biden resolved to pursue separately. After all, the American Rescue Plan was only meant to be a temporary stopgap for an American society beset with deeper ills even beyond those that the virus laid bare.The game was on. At first the debate seemed to be about how costly to make the bills and how to fund them. This was especially true for the American Families Plan, which was supposed to take steps towards an American welfare state – including by making relief measures for children in earlier bills permanent. Progressives in Congress, understanding the risks, were lauded for an early victory in August, refusing to back the first narrower infrastructure bill if Democrats abandoned the second more ambitious social spending bill. Centrists tried to tag progressives as the obstructionists. But the mainstream narrative remained that by holding infrastructure hostage, progressives were wisely keeping centrists from returning to form.Even as it became clearer and clearer that the Democratic centrist senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and like-minded Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives, were doing damage to the ambition of the bills, a breakthrough after generations of Democratic austerity and neoliberalism still seemed possible. Then came the critical event that allowed for the centrist breakthrough last week: the election for Virginia governor last Tuesday.In an electoral shock, Republican Glenn Youngkin won – and, more important, grizzled and uncharismatic Democratic party sage Terry McAuliffe, who had once held the governor’s office, lost. Even though McAuliffe’s reputation for decades has been one of a centrist on economics – he served as Bill Clinton’s campaign chair in the 1990s – centrists scored a narrative victory. Wasn’t it because of progressive excess that voters were turning on the party? “Wokeness derails the Democrats,” one headline ran. Lawmakers in Washington scurried to marginalize progressives by passing the infrastructure bill, with some progressives voting no, and others citing promises that Democrats will still continue on to the welfare measures.The rush to judgment was peculiar. It is not until 2022 that the Democrats will need to show something for themselves, and there was no reason to abandon the social spending plan. Suddenly, however, progressives holding tough – since some Republicans supported the infrastructure plan – were dispensable.The new narrative was that Youngkin won because of antiracist rhetoric many Democrats have adopted, along with elites branded as “out of touch” by other elite commentators. Centrists saw a golden opportunity to call for a return to their moderation, including in containing spending.In an extraordinary op-ed, the New York Times called for an “honest conversation” about abandoning progressive goals across the board – including the economy, where Americans demand “bipartisan solutions” that respect inflationary risks and refuse to spend very much. The truth was that Americans had gotten bipartisan neoliberalism for decades, but no matter. One Twitter commentator snarkily noted that it was hardly surprising that “the lessons from Tuesday’s election” matched the “ideological goals” neoliberal elites “had before the election and decades before that. What are the odds!”Democrats blew by the possibility that McAuliffe’s failures were mainly his fault, and due less to “critical race theory” that allegedly was already reshaping public education than to an abandonment of parents forced to endure school closures for years (itself an economic issue). Either way, the critical error is assuming that voters rejected progressive economic policies, which are popular across the board.Even before the events the other day, Democrats defined what was in Build Back Better – their slogan and the name of the welfare bill – downwards. Free college was stripped out early, family and medical leave – standard across industrialized democracies for decades – were killed late, and Biden kowtowed to centrists who demanded a more marketized version not just of environmental concern but of funding government across the board, as taxes hikes were reversed. With its fate no longer hostage to infrastructure, in spite of written promises from some centrists that progressives reportedly exacted at the last minute, there is no reason to be optimistic about the final bill’s fate.An infrastructure bill for a country in decay and decline was much needed and has itself eluded Democrats for decades. Though cut in half to win acceptance, its $1tn for a grab bag of spending – much focused on transport – is nothing to trivialize. But rarely in history has a greater looming defeat been snatched from the jaws of a political victory as the other day.In the first year of Biden’s presidency, Democrats agreed that the only alternative to barbarism is, if not socialism, some modicum of economic change. Many agreed that opening acts of Barack Obama’s administration had been fatefully insufficient. Now, despite the lessons of the Obama presidency, Republicans are set to recapture one house of Congress after two years – or both. By contrast, FDR gained seats in both houses after delivering substantive change, and won the presidency three more times.Of course, even if progressives were to secure a welfare package and retain influence in their party, Trump – or an even more popular Republican – could still win the presidency. But this outcome is a near certainty if the Democrats return to centrist form – as seems the likeliest outcome now.
      Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale and the author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World
      TopicsJoe BidenOpinionUS politicsBiden administrationDemocratscommentReuse this content More

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      Biden’s infrastructure success is historic – and sorely needed | Gary Gerstle

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      OpinionBiden administrationBiden’s infrastructure success is a historic – and sorely needed – win Gary GerstleInfrastructure bill’s passage opens a path to victory in 2022. Democrats should be encouraged by this breakthrough Mon 8 Nov 2021 06.19 ESTLast modified on Mon 8 Nov 2021 11.08 ESTThe infrastructure deal struck late on Friday evening gave Biden a desperately needed win. It represents an opportunity to regain control of the political narrative that the Afghanistan debacle in August had stripped from his grasp. Since that time, his presidency has taken a series of damaging hits, culminating in the party’s dispiriting losses in Tuesday’s elections. The deal reached between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic party had to happen for the party to have any chance of keeping its congressional majorities in 2022.The passage of the billion-dollar-plus infrastructure bill is the largest appropriation of its kind since the Eisenhower Congress gave America its interstate highway system in the 1950s. Infrastructural improvements in the country are urgently needed and, if handled well, will be greeted with enthusiasm by Democrats and Republicans alike. The size of this bill, in combination with Biden’s $1.9tn American Rescue Plan passed last spring, and the likelihood that some version of the social infrastructural bill will pass Congress before the end of the calendar year, puts Biden’s ambition in New Deal-second world war territory. It will quiet critics of the FDR-Biden comparisons, at least for a time.The bill’s passage coincides with encouraging news on the economic and Covid-19 fronts: Friday’s jobs report was better than expected, the virulence of the Delta variant may have peaked, and Pfizer’s report of an effective treatment for those ill with the disease may turn out to have as much significance as the announcement a year ago that vaccines were on their way. Imagine if the Pfizer medicines, by election season 2022, turn Covid infections into nothing worse than a bad cold or the flu. Credit will fall to the Democrats.Friday’s victory is also notable for delivering on Biden’s promise of bipartisanship. Thirteen Republican votes in the House of Representatives hardly constitute a wave but they represent 13 more than the total cast by Republicans for Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010. Those 13 yea votes, moreover, breached the rules governing Trump-style politics, which dictate giving opponents no quarter. Trump will not take kindly to hearing reports that “sleepy Joe” has succeeded on infrastructure where the Great Leader himself had failed. It may be that a movement out of the Trump era, if it is to happen, will occur through a series of modest steps rather than through one big bang.It will take days and weeks for full reports of Friday’s tense negotiations to emerge. But already there are two details worth highlighting. First, Black politicians, this time in the form of the Congressional Black Caucus, came to Biden’s rescue much as Jim Clyburn had in the crucial South Carolina primary in February 2020. Nancy Pelosi helped this maneuver along by sending out Joyce Beatty, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, to deliver a message to the progressives that, at this critical moment, they needed to check their legislative utopianism at the door and vote for the infrastructure bill. Biden must take appropriate notice of this Black Caucus intervention, and find ways to reward it.Second, Biden must also understand that the progressives compromised more than the moderates did. For months, the former had pledged to hold up the infrastructure bill until its fraternal twin, the social infrastructural bill known as the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), passed as well. The skillful Pramila Jayapal, head of the House’s Progressive Caucus, extracted the equivalent of sworn oaths from key party moderates to vote for BBBA when it comes up for a vote (as it will) sometime in November. But these moderates will have an escape hatch: If the Congressional Budget Office’s costing of BBBA turns out to be much higher than expected, they will claim that such a “worrisome” estimate relieves them of their solemn obligation to vote yea.Biden and Pelosi cannot allow the moderates to wriggle free in this way. Progressives will regard this as a betrayal, and their willingness to contribute their essential energy and support to the Democrats in 2022 will ebb. Collaboration between progressives and moderates in the Democratic party has rarely been easy. But, historically, the party has made its greatest advances when the alliance has held. To sustain that alliance in this moment, both groups must come out of the current legislative season with a win.Biden must now convert his Capitol Hill accomplishment into economic and technological achievements. He must use his bully pulpit to talk up the virtues of his infrastructure bill. He must demonstrate in concrete terms that work on multiple projects is under way via hiring commencing, diggers breaking ground, cranes sprouting across city skylines, and landscapes transforming. Biden should emulate the success of the New Dealers in using infrastructural initiatives to demonstrate to Americans of all kinds that the federal government was working on their behalf. He doesn’t have a lot of time. He’d help his cause by finding and unleashing his own Harry Hopkins, the irrepressible New Deal administrator who was brilliant at cutting through red tape and moving major infrastructural projects from blueprint to reality.There will be challenges galore: completing environmental impact studies in a timely manner, pushing projects through the country’s balky federal system, honoring principles of diversity in issuing contracts while also overcoming labor shortages stemming from the “great resignation”, to name only a few. But this is also Biden’s opportunity to show that he, not Trump, is the man who knows how to make American great again. The passage of the infrastructure bill opens a path to victory in 2022.
      Gary Gerstle is Mellon Professor of American history at Cambridge and is writing The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (2022). He is a Guardian US columnist.
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      Republicans slam Biden vaccine rule for businesses as health groups defend it

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      US newsRepublicans slam Biden vaccine rule for businesses as health groups defend itDivided reaction to mandate requiring that large companies either vaccinate staff or administer tests mirrors vaccine rollout in US Eric BergerMon 8 Nov 2021 05.00 ESTLast modified on Mon 8 Nov 2021 12.07 ESTBiden administration plans to get US companies with 100 or more workers to vaccinate their staff or bring in regular tests have been welcomed by public health groups but slammed by Republicans and trade groups, who claim government overreach with negative economic consequences.Federal court temporarily blocks Biden’s vaccine mandate for larger businessesRead moreSuch divided reaction to the rules announced last week mirrors much of America’s problematic vaccine rollout, where social and political headwinds have seen vaccination take-up slow down worryingly. US vaccination rates are some of the lowest in industrialized countries where the vaccine is readily available.Subject at least to a temporary stay issued by a circuit court in New Orleans on Saturday, the new rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) will take effect on 4 January.It requires that large companies either ensure employees have been vaccinated or regularly administer Covid-19 tests and require masks at work for those who refuse to get the shot.The rule will affect an estimated 84 million workers.The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services also issued a rule requiring healthcare workers to be vaccinated by the same deadline, with no option for weekly testing rather than vaccination. That will affect 76,000 providers and more than 17 million workers.The administration also extended a deadline for federal contractors to comply with the same sort of rule – vaccination without the testing option – from 8 December to 4 January.“Too many people remain unvaccinated for us to get out of this pandemic for good,” Joe Biden said in a statement.But the rules sparked new backlash from Republican lawmakers and conservative groups who described the measures as unconstitutional. Republican governors or attorneys general in 15 states plan to file lawsuits against the mandate, according to the Associated Press.“This rule is garbage,” South Carolina’s attorney general, Alan Wilson, a Republican, said, according to the AP. “It’s unconstitutional and we will fight it.”Celebrating the Saturday ruling in Louisiana, the state attorney general, Jeff Landry, said: “The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution.”While courts have largely declined to block state and local vaccine mandates, the federal government “has more constraints on it than state and local governments do when it comes to public health and vaccination”, said Lindsay Wiley, a public health law professor at American University.On whether the Osha rule could be overturned, Wiley said: “It’s difficult to predict, in part because the environment has become so politicized.”Plaintiffs could also seek to file lawsuits in circuits with conservative judges appointed by Donald Trump, Wiley said.Lawrence Gostin, a global health law expert at Georgetown Law, tweeted earlier this week that “Biden is on rock-solid legal ground. He’s acting to protect the US workforce and will get us all back to normal sooner.”But groups such as the National Retail Federation (NRF), the country’s largest retail trade group, condemned the Osha rule because they said it places an unreasonable burden on businesses during the holiday season, which for many ventures is the busiest time of the year.The NRF is requesting an extension of the deadlines, though Edwin Egee, a vice-president of the group, did not provide a preferred date.“NRF members have for months taken extraordinary efforts to distribute the vaccine, to incentivize the vaccine. We have been, and will continue to be, very much in favor of the vaccine and its efficacy,” Egee said.Republicans have also warned that the vaccine requirements could cause employees to quit. If faced with a mandate, 11% of the unvaccinated said they would be most likely to get the vaccine and 46% said they would opt for weekly testing, according to an October survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). More than a third of unvaccinated workers said they would quit if their employer required them to get a vaccine or get tested weekly. But that amounts to just 5% of all adults in the US.“When we are looking at the bigger picture amongst all adults … it’s a pretty small share of the population,” said Lunna Lopes, senior survey analyst for KFF.There is evidence that workers often opt to get vaccinated rather than lose their jobs. For example, Houston Methodist hospital required 25,000 workers to get a vaccine by 7 June, the Conversation, a non-profit news organization, reported. Before the mandate, about 15% of employees were unvaccinated. By mid-June, that had dropped to 3%.David Michaels, a former Osha chief now a professor of public health at George Washington University, argued the new rules would help businesses who wanted to institute requirements but were constrained by state and local rules or feared litigation.“This actually allows employers to do what they want to do and blame the federal government,” said Michaels, who has advised the Health Action Alliance, a coalition of corporations such as Starbucks and Amazon and non-profits such as the CDC Foundation and the Ad Council aimed at promoting Covid-19 vaccination and prevention.The rules will make the workplaces safer, Michaels said.“The retail industry should give a gift to the American people and start to be supportive of vaccination requirements,” Michaels said. “That’s the only way that we will save lives and return to normalcy. It’s outrageous to ask for an exception to a public health measure.”TopicsUS newsVaccines and immunisationCoronavirusBiden administrationUS politicsUS healthcareUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More