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      The Biden team will be 'diverse'. That doesn't mean it will help struggling people | Bhaskar Sunkara

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      Joe Biden is inheriting a mess of a country. The pandemic has killed 290,000 people and threatens many more; another 853,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last month; and stores are reporting spikes in shoplifting for food and baby formula.If Biden has any answers for us, Americans are keen to hear it.Instead, the Biden team and its media allies have talked up one rather specific aspect of the Biden administration: diversity. Over the past few weeks, Biden has announced the White House team he wants to help lead us out of crisis. Yet instead of touting the skills of those selected or what they’ll do concretely to improve working people’s lives, we’ve been hearing about their “lived experiences”.It started with an unlikely subject, Antony Blinken. Blinken is Biden’s nominee for secretary of state and, for what it’s worth, a white guy. A white guy who happened to support the Iraq war and played a key role lobbying his boss to do the same. A white guy who founded a “strategic advisory firm” that works with defense companies the world over. There’s not much to get excited about, right?Not so fast. As one article put it: “Antony Blinken has two toddlers. This is good for fathers everywhere.” Well, maybe not for fathers in the Middle East – but at least we’ll finally have “a dad-rocker in the state department”. Dads of the world, unite!Some of the other expected senior Biden positions are actually from historically oppressed groups. But these announcements seem to follow the same pattern: foreground identity to the expense of real policy.Progressives, for example, have long argued that the Department of Homeland Security should never have been created by the George W Bush administration to begin with. But why abolish a department that makes us less safe and violates our civil liberties when you can just put a person of color in charge of it?When the Biden team announced that Alejandro Mayorkas had been picked to do just that, they cut to the chase. Instead of explaining their plans to remedy some of the horrors of American immigration policy, the Biden team reminded us that “Mayorkas will be the first Latino and immigrant nominated to serve as DHS secretary”.Just one minute later came the breaking news that “Avril Haines will be nominated to serve as national intelligence director, which would make her the first woman to lead the intelligence community”. Haines was deputy CIA director and one of the primary architects of Obama’s drone program. When out of public service, she found time to defend torture and work for both Palantir and Blinken’s firm. All that and Haines is “a bookstore owner/community activist”.On 30 November, Politico reported that the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was putting pressure on the Biden administration. They weren’t pushing him to take stronger action on black unemployment, poverty, or the scourge of mass incarceration – they wanted a black secretary of defense. The campaign seemed to be working. “At the end of the day I would say that it’s going to be hard for Biden not to pick the first female secretary of defense, but Jeh Johnson would be the first Black secretary of defense and there are a lot of white faces,” a former senior defense official told Politico.It wasn’t Johnson, but on Tuesday Biden announced that Lloyd Austin was his pick. Lloyd Austin is African American and has served 41 years in the military. His appointment, and those of other former army brass, has alarmed those concerned about the decline of civil control of the military. Also alarming is the fact that last year alone Austin earned more than $350,000 for serving on the board of directors of the military contractor Raytheon.Democrats are continuing their rebrand from the party of FDR’s New Deal to the party of cultural posturingWhat the CBC thinks about all of this is not clear. Their sole interest seems to be about Austin’s racial identity.At the same time, others were celebrating Biden’s selection of an all-female senior communications staff and the appointment of Neera Tanden as budget director. Sure, Tanden is a woman and south Asian; she’s also someone who’s advocated cuts to social security and the looting of Libyan oil to pay for the US bombing of Libya.Some picks are better than others. Janet Yellen, for example, is a center-left economist who, as Ryan Grim notes, has a mixed record but seems to be a genuine step up from Obama-era appointments like Tim Geithner. When announcing Yellen, though, Biden didn’t mention her Keynesian background or any of her academic work about full employment. But he did joke that he “might have to ask Lin-Manuel Miranda to write another musical about the first woman secretary of the Treasury”.If it’s not clear, I’m not thrilled about these appointments, but beyond their substance, it’s very telling how they were rolled out. The Democrats are continuing their steady rebrand from the party of FDR’s New Deal and economic redistribution to the party of diversity and cultural posturing.Racial minorities, women and LGBT people better like what they see, because that’s all they’ll get. Would any of the establishment figures touting the incoming White House’s composition tell a recently laid-off white person not to worry, because a member of “their community” will be in the Biden administration? Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Yet the minority base of the Democratic party is expected to subsist off scraps of representation.It’s a PR trick no different than that one we’ve been recently seeing in corporate America, where your boss will ask you read White Fragility and contemplate your privilege before laying you off. Or where a listing like Nasdaq doesn’t care what unethical stuff you have to do to make money, as long as you’re doing it with a diverse board of directors.This vague touting of backgrounds isn’t just irrelevant to most of our lives, it distracts us from how simple the policy solutions to the crises facing poor and working-class Americans are. If people don’t have healthcare, we can give them comprehensive healthcare through Medicare for All. If they’re struggling financially to raise children, we can provide them with free childcare and universal pre-K. If they’re dealing with housing insecurity, we can expand section 8 vouchers and build affordable housing units. If they don’t have good-paying jobs, we can sturdy up the union movement and create guarantees of public employment.But instead of Democratic leaders actually nourishing the tired, poor and huddled masses with a robust welfare state, we’re told to eat diversity instead. More

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      Talk of Rahm Emanuel in Biden cabinet outrages his Chicago critics

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      Of all the names bouncing around as prospects yet to be tapped for the incoming Biden-Harris administration, there’s one triggering intense emotion, especially in his home town.News that Rahm Emanuel is being considered for transportation secretary or another position in Joe Biden’s cabinet or senior team has sparked outrage among Chicagoans who believe his controversial tenure as mayor of that city should disqualify him from a return to the highest echelons of Washington.Emanuel is a Chicago native with a track record as an Illinois congressman before serving as Barack Obama’s chief of staff then two terms as Chicago mayor.But he’s a divisive figure who long ago upset liberals, most prominently in Washington, by discouraging Obama from pursuing what became his signature legislative achievement – healthcare reform via the Affordable Care Act – and then in myriad ways as mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019.He’s been endorsed by key moderate figures such as the Illinois senator and Democratic whip Dick Durbin, ex-transportation secretary and former Illinois Republican congressman Ray LaHood, current congressman Mike Quigley and Chicago South Side alderman Michelle Harris, who described him as “the perfect candidate” for the transportation job.But prominent progressives in Chicago and elsewhere are livid that Biden would even give his name an airing, accusing Emanuel of exacerbating the city’s entrenched, acute inequalities and, most dramatically, botching the handling of Black teenager Laquan McDonald’s killing by a white police officer in 2014.Rahm Emanuel “covered up the murder of a young Black man in Chicago in order to advance his political career”, city alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said of his potential appointment.Dashcam footage of 17-year-old McDonald being gunned down by officer Jason Van Dyke, who was convicted in 2018 of the murder, was suppressed for more than a year before a judge ordered it released. Emanuel’s role in that delay ignited weeks of local and national protests and calls for his resignation. It left an indelible stain and he didn’t run for a third term.Eva Maria Lewis, a Chicago artist and organizer as well as the founder of the Free Root Operation, a non-profit fighting poverty-induced gun violence, said that a post for Emanuel in the Biden-Harris administration would mean “people don’t care” what Black Americans have to say.“You can’t argue against the information, the evidence is all there – 16 shots and a cover-up, everyone knows what that means. He was essentially ousted. People were not going to go for him being in office after the Laquan McDonald cover-up,” she said.In the aftermath of the scandal, Emanuel opposed a federal investigation into the Chicago police department and failed to cultivate a community oversight board for the police, as had been promised.Elsewhere, the New York congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and congressman-elect Jamaal Bowman spoke out along similar lines, as did Missouri congresswoman-elect Cori Bush.What is so hard to understand about this?Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership.This is not about the “visibility” of a post. It is shameful and concerning that he is even being considered. https://t.co/P28C0E4fYP— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 23, 2020
      Liberal critics in Chicago are opposed on additional grounds.Ramirez-Rosa pointed to the infamous closing of 50 Chicago public schools under Emanuel. He added: “He passed policies that balanced the city of Chicago on the backs of working people. I think he’s shown that he is not fit to serve in Biden’s cabinet and really do what needs to be done to undo the harm that was caused by President Trump.”And he accused Emanuel of focusing on wielding power “on behalf of the interests to billionaires”, including ultra-wealthy Republicans.Emanuel divested from Chicago’s public education after mandating millions in budget cuts as well as 1,400 layoffs, leading to a dire reduction of school nurses, librarians, social workers, and others. In 2012, Chicago teachers went on strike for the first time in almost 25 years.The school closures, the most at any one time, were concentrated in majority-black, poorer neighborhoods and disrupted many families’ lives.“Children had to cross gang territory to get an education. Schools were overcrowded. People were forced to attend dilapidated schools. The budget was not equitably distributed – closing the schools was avoidable,” said Lewis.Notoriously, Emanuel closed half of Chicago’s public mental health clinics with most of them concentrated on the South Side. The closings resulted in wide disparities in access to mental health treatment, with 0.17 licensed mental health clinicians for every 1,000 South Side residents versus 4.45 for every 1,000 residents on the city’s wealthier North Side. The closing led to a convoluted transition process, with hundreds of unaccounted for patients and overburdened neighboring community mental health providers.Then there is his style, typical descriptions ranging from tough and effective to abrasive and bullying and, obviously, his reputation on transportation, which is glaringly inconsistent.“If you didn’t agree on an issue, he was extremely confrontational. I often had one-way confrontations with him where I would ask him questions that should’ve been asked on different issues – such as the ‘Elon Musk tunnel’,” said Scott Waguespack, alderman of Chicago’s 32nd ward.He added: “Even asking questions about that was met with pushback from him. He didn’t like anyone questioning his projects like that. That’s what people have to expect.”Emanuel touted a project with Tesla’s Musk to built a high-speed underground transportation system to link downtown to Chicago O’Hare airport, which ultimately failed.“It was all imagery he put up, that in the long run really had no substance to it,” said Waguespack.The mayor also created the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, claiming to have secured $1bn worth of private investment and pledging to create 30,000 jobs over three years. The promises didn’t come to fruition and the current mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has since dissolved the trust.Overall, Emanuel has a mixed legacy on an ambitious transportation vision for Chicago, credited with expanding walking paths and biking lanes in some neighborhoods, making essential upgrades to Chicago’s public transportation and improvements at O’Hare – but a drive towards sustainability and greater equality in services was missing.The Guardian contacted Emanuel for comment but did not receive a response.And there is another constituency whose opposition to a great “Return of Rahm” should give Biden pause – trade unions, including in transportation, whose support was a crucial source of votes in Biden’s win last month.The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) called the prospect a betrayal and Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, called Emanuel a union buster.Again, no. DOT is effectively the labor department for aviation – 80% union. It plays a major role in transportation trade too. We do not need a union buster setting the rules for workers in aviation. That just doesn’t reflect @JoeBiden’s deep commitment to workers & our unions. https://t.co/IjEvqwxbKK— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) November 30, 2020
      Emanuel had a hostile relationship with representatives of teachers and other city employees.“We didn’t work our asses off to have Rahm Emanuel as the secretary of transportation … he’s anti-trade union, he’s anti-worker,” John Samuelsen, international president of TWU, told the Intercept.Chicago alderman Ramirez-Rosa concluded that any elevation of Emanuel would be a sign that a Biden administration meant “more of the same” political culture in Washington that has eroded public faith.He said it would signal that “if you have lobbyists, big donors, or billionaires backing you up, they will be able to put you in that cabinet so you can carry water for them”. More

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      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris named Time magazine's 2020 person of the year

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      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been named Time magazine’s person – or persons – of the year for 2020.The magazine said: “Together, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket. And America bought what they were selling: after the highest turnout in a century, they racked up 81 million votes and counting, the most in presidential history, topping Trump by some 7 million votes and flipping five battleground states.”The accolade for Biden sees him follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama (2012) and Donald Trump (2016). Last year’s winner was climate activist Greta Thunberg.Biden, 78, who served two terms as vice president to Barack Obama, will become the oldest person to assume the office of US president when he is sworn in on 20 January. Harris will become the first woman, the first Black and the first person of Asian descent to be inaugurated vice president.The Person of the Year is usually an individual, but multiple people have been named in the past. In recent years the magazine has also taken to recognizing groups or movements. In 2017, the magazine selected “The Silence Breakers” of the MeToo movement, and in 2018, chose to designate journalists who were imprisoned or killed for their work.Prior to naming this year’s winner on Thursday, the magazine announced four finalists, included Biden and Trump – as well as two broader categories: the movement for racial justice, and frontline healthcare workers and Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious diseases scientist. Trump has been on the shortlist every year since he won the 2016 election.Time has named a person of the year since 1927. The selection represents “an individual but sometimes multiple people who greatly impacted the country and world during the calendar year”, the magazine says. The designation is not necessarily an honor. Rather, it recognizes figures who have “influenced the news, for better or for worse,” according to the magazine.Along with its Person of the Year honor, Time magazine named the Korean pop group BTS as its Entertainer of the Year, and basketball star LeBron James was crowned Athlete of the Year. More

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      US records over 3,000 Covid deaths in a day for first time – live updates

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      Key events

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      4.43pm EST16:43
      Texas attorney general files 11th-hour election lawsuit against four states to the supreme court

      3.15pm EST15:15
      Biden says ‘Defund the Police’ gave momentum to GOP to ‘beat the living hell out of us’ in election

      1.09pm EST13:09
      Afternoon summary

      10.34am EST10:34
      Biden team announces Domestic Policy Council director and secretary of veteran affairs

      8.36am EST08:36
      853,000 Americans applied for jobless insurance last week

      7.52am EST07:52
      FDA chief on vaccine meeting: ‘An important day for all of America’

      7.41am EST07:41
      DoJ files lawsuit against Alabama over conditions in the state prisons

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      4.43pm EST16:43

      Texas attorney general files 11th-hour election lawsuit against four states to the supreme court

      The supreme court today is deliberating a lawsuit filed by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton against four battleground states – Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan – in an attempt to have million of votes tossed out on claims that the states did not seriously investigate voter fraud, though there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election.
      Donald Trump and 17 Republican-led states backed the lawsuit, which is a clear 11th-hour attempt at trying to overturn the election in Trump’s favor, though all 50 states have certified their election results. The Trump campaign and local Republican parties have been instigating lawsuits in attempts to change the election since the results were announced over a month ago, but the vast majority have died in court.
      Though Trump has suggested he hopes the three conservative judges he appointed to the court will side with him in an election dispute, the supreme court has so far shown no interest in intervening with the results of the election. The court quickly denied its first chance to give a win to the Trump campaign after it rejected a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to block the state’s certification of votes.
      The four states targeted by the lawsuit have already responded to the filing. The court may wait for Texas’ response to those or it could make a ruling before the state gets a chance to file such a response.
      While the GOP has already run out of time to fight the election, next week will be the last official step to Joe Biden becoming the next president as the electoral college is scheduled to meet 14 December to finalize the results of the election.

      Updated
      at 4.49pm EST

      4.21pm EST16:21

      Jessica Glenza

      Let’s go through some of the details of the vaccine being considered by the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine advisory committee.
      The FDA advisory panel is considering whether to recommend the vaccine for emergency use authorization, often called EUA. That would allow the vaccine to be distributed to the public, but is a lower bar than full approval and only valid during the public health emergency – in this case the Covid-19 pandemic.
      Supplies will be very limited at first. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already recommended the first people to receive the vaccine – health workers and long-term care residents.
      The vaccine appears highly effective. According to data published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, the vaccine appears to be 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 a trial of more than 43,000 people. The study looked at a two-shot regimen.
      The vaccine is a messenger RNA vaccine, which provokes immunity by introducing the immune system to the spike protein on the coronavirus.
      The trial was a randomized, placebo-controlled observer-blinded trial that split participants evenly between people who received two shots of a placebo, and two shots of the vaccine – currently called “BNT162b2”.
      The study looked specifically at people 16 years and older. In future studies, Pfizer intends to look at vaccine safety and efficacy in children as young as 12.
      Side effects included headache, fatigue and fever, which resolved within a couple days. The government intends to use several surveillance programs to collect information on side effects, called “adverse events”, for years after the vaccine is distributed. It will also begin a surveillance study on healthcare workers specifically.
      The FDA recommended continued surveillance for Bell’s palsy, or facial paralysis. There is no current evidence that the vaccine causes facial paralysis, but four cases among vaccine recipients in the trial.
      The FDA found only one possible serious adverse effect related to the vaccine, which was a shoulder injury. Other serious adverse events, such as a case of appendicitis, were found not to be unrelated to the vaccine.
      Trial participants were followed for a median of two months after they received either the vaccine or a placebo. Most adverse vaccine reactions take place within six weeks.
      Scientists are still studying how long immunity lasts, a concept known as “durability”, and the rate of asymptomatic disease in people who receive the vaccine.
      There is very little data on safety and efficacy in pregnant and lactating women, but there is also no evidence it is harmful to pregnant women or the fetus. For that reason, FDA officials suggest pregnant women should discuss the vaccine with their healthcare provider, when it becomes available to them.
      The panel is expected to recommend an emergency use authorization, and the FDA is expected to grant emergency use rights. The New England Journal of Medicine, which published Pfizer’s results today, called the new vaccine a “triumph” of science.

      Updated
      at 4.36pm EST

      4.00pm EST16:00

      Joan E Greve

      More than 100 female leaders in the Native American community and entertainment industry have signed on to a letter calling on Joe Biden to nominate congresswoman Deb Haaland as interior secretary.
      “As women who have worked to protect our democracy and advance the promise of this country, we are hopeful and relieved that you will be leading us into a bright future,” the letter says.
      “It is in this spirit that we, Native American women and Indigenous peoples’ allies, write to urge you to appoint Congresswoman Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Department of the Interior.”
      Among those who have signed on to the letter are singer Cher, actress Kerry Washington and feminist activist Gloria Steinam.
      If nominated and confirmed, Haaland, a progressive congresswoman from New Mexico, would be the first Native American to lead the interior department.
      “We believe it is critical at this time for the first Native American to serve in the President’s Cabinet, so we can begin to shift the focus back to caring for future generations and returning to a value system that honors Mother Earth,” the letter says. “We believe that person is Congresswoman Deb Haaland.”
      Progressive groups have pushed for Haaland’s nomination, but some Democratic leaders have expressed hesitation about pulling another House member into Biden’s cabinet, given the party’s very narrow margin in the chamber after last month’s elections.

      3.37pm EST15:37

      The New Hampshire House Speaker, Dick Hinch, who was sworn into his role just last week, died yesterday from Covid-19.
      News of Hinch’s death yesterday was unexpected. A statement announcing his death did not include a cause of death, but said that Hinch, who was 71, was “a loving husband, father, family man, and veteran who devoted his life to public service”. Hinch’s office said his death was an “unexpected tragedy”.
      A medical examiner today announced that Hinch had died from Covid-19.
      In response, the state’s acting Speaker Sherman Packard and Senate President Chuck Morse said they are “committed to protecting the health and safety of our fellow legislators and staff members who work at the statehouse in Concord”. Their statement said they will be working with the state’s health department to see if there are any additional Covid-19 protocols that can be put in place “to ensure the continued protection of our legislators and staff”. More

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      Fight to vote: is the US election finally in its endgame?

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      Hello Fight to Vote readers,It feels like this election has lasted about 20 years, but we’re finally in the last few days. Tuesday was the “Safe Harbor” deadline, when most election disputes must be resolved. And on Monday, the electoral college will finally cast its votes, all but securing the president-elect’s position.In these final days, it’s clear that Republican officials who support Trump’s “the election was rigged against me” claims are taking their final gasps of air.Let’s take a trip back to TexasAfter a tumultuous year, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has decided to sue the battleground states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. His claim? That all of their pandemic election changes violate federal law. Paxton claims that the attempts to increase access to the polls left open a window for “voter fraud” and weakened “ballot integrity”.Reminder: even Trump’s own attorney general found no evidence of widespread tampering or voter fraud in the election.So what happens now?Probably nothing. As with most of the Trump campaign’s lawsuits, legal experts are saying Paxton’s will have no real impact. However, these challenges serve to create an impression that our elections aren’t secure or fair – and that only further degrades trust in US democracy among the American people.How about the other last-ditch attempts?The supreme court decisively rejected a lawsuit by Pennsylvania’s Republican congressman Mike Kelly arguing that no-excuse absentee voting was illegal. The case was the first 2020 election legislation to reach the highest court in the US.
      Representative Alex Mooney, from West Virginia, introduced a resolution on Tuesday to condemn any lawmakers who call on Trump to concede “prematurely”, though the president lost the election by a significant margin. Many Republicans have distanced themselves from this kind of rhetoric, however, and the resolution isn’t likely to move forward in any meaningful way.
      Representative Kelly Loeffler, the Republican senator running for re-election in Georgia’s heated January runoff, refused to accept Trump’s defeat in a debate on Sunday. The current polls have Loeffler losing by a small margin.
      Here’s what to watch in the coming weeks:14 December: Electors will meet in their respective states and cast votes for US president. Each state gets two votes for its senators and one vote for each member of the House of Representatives. Some Republicans have said they will challenge the count.23 December: Electoral votes must arrive in Washington by this date.6 January: Electoral votes are counted. If there are objections, the House and Senate consider how they should move forward and count the votes. It’s unlikely that the objections will have an impact on the election since both the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate would have to sign off.20 January: Inauguration day. The new president takes the oath of office at noon.Meanwhile, if you missed it, Saturday Night Live had a brilliant sketch on Trump’s failed lawsuits last weekend. More

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      Hunter Biden says US attorney’s office is investigating his ‘tax affairs’

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      President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, said on Wednesday that the US attorney’s office in Delaware had opened an investigation into his “tax affairs”.Hunter Biden, who has long been a target of Donald Trump and his allies, said he had learned about the federal investigation on Tuesday from his lawyer, who was informed of the matter by the US attorney’s office earlier that day.“I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers,” Hunter Biden said in a statement released by the president-elect’s transition office.Trump and his allies have sought to tarnish his political opponent Joe Biden with unproven corruption charges involving his son. Trump’s early pursuit of these unsubstantiated allegations resulted in his impeachment, after he pressured the newly elected president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s work in the country while his father was vice-president.Nevertheless, the president remained fixated on Hunter Biden throughout the campaign season, aided by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his Republican supporters on Capitol Hill. A Senate investigation into the allegations led by Trump’s allies found no evidence of improper influence or wrongdoing by the former vice-president, concluding only that Hunter Biden had leveraged his family name to secure lucrative business deals.In the final weeks of the campaign, Giuliani claimed a laptop recovered from a repair shop in Delaware and belonged to Hunter Biden documented his foreign business dealings. With Giuliani as a conduit, the allegations were published by the New York Post to buttress the baseless claim that Biden shaped American foreign policy in Ukraine to benefit his son. The Biden campaign categorically denied the story and many of the key details were disputed.On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that, according to a person familiar with the matter, the tax investigation into Hunter Biden concerned some of his Chinese business dealings, among other financial transactions, and “does not have anything to do with the laptop”; the Guardian has not confirmed this.The disclosure about the investigation comes as Joe Biden is assembling his cabinet in advance of his inauguration, which will take place on 20 January despite Trump’s refusal to concede the election. Biden has yet to announce his pick for attorney general, a role that could have oversight of the investigation into his son’s taxes.The US attorney’s office in Delaware is led by David Weiss, who was appointed by Trump and sworn into the position in February 2018. A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Delaware declined to comment, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation.Though Hunter Biden’s businesses dealings and his years-long struggle with addiction provided ample political ammunition for Trump, Joe Biden continued to defend him publicly. Hunter Biden is the president-elect’s only living son, after the death of his eldest child, Beau Biden, of brain cancer in 2015.The Biden-Harris transition team said in a separate statement: “President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.” More

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      Joe Biden reportedly set to nominate Katherine Tai as top US trade envoy

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      [embedded content]
      Joe Biden is set to nominate Katherine Tai to be the top US trade envoy, according to two people familiar with his plans.
      Tai, who is the chief trade counsel for the House ways and means committee, will be tapped as the US trade representative, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
      The role is a cabinet position, and the Senate will vote on whether to confirm Tai for the position. Biden’s selection of Tai, who is Asian American, reflects his promise to choose a diverse cabinet that reflects the makeup of the country.
      Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Tai earlier oversaw China trade enforcement for the office of the US trade representative, setting US strategy in trade disputes with China. Biden’s trade representative will inherit a trade war with China, put on pause by an interim trade pact in January that left many of the hardest issues unresolved and US taxes remaining on $360bn in Chinese imports.
      As the top trade staffer at ways and means, Tai handled negotiations last year with the Trump administration over a revamped North American trade deal. Under pressure from congressional Democrats, Trump’s trade team agreed to strengthen the pact to make it easier for Mexican workers to form independent unions and demand better pay and benefits – decreasing the incentives for US firms to move south of the border to take advantage of cheap and compliant labor.
      The administration also dropped from the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) what Democrats considered a giveaway to pharmaceutical companies that could have kept drug prices high.
      Tai is considered a problem-solving pragmatist on trade policy, which often breaks down into an ideological divide between free traders and protectionists. In a letter to Biden on 24 November, the California Democratic representative Judy Chu, the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and nine other female House members praised Tai’s “experience and diplomatic abilities’’ and said she is “uniquely qualified’’ to deal with Canada and Mexico on the USMCA and with US-China trade tensions.
      Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member on the finance committee, called Tai “an inspired choice” for the position.
      “Ms Tai has the experience she needs to succeed as USTR, and her record of getting wins for American workers demonstrates she knows how to champion the values that matter to US families,” Wyden said. “She worked closely with me and my staff to craft the strongest ever protections for American workers in a trade agreement, and pass them into law with bipartisan support.”
      He urged Senate Republicans to quickly confirm her. More