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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call for nationwide mask mandate – live

      by

      Biden: ‘Every governor should mandate mandatory masks’
      Yang and Bloomberg to speak at virtual Democratic convention
      Biden campaign gets $26m boost in donations after Harris pick
      Highest daily Covid-19 deaths recorded in US since mid-May
      US unemployment claims dip below 1m for first time in 20 weeks
      Postal service changes pose threat to voting, says ex-USPS deputy
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      Updated

      Play Video

      1:28

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call for nationwide mask mandate – video

      Key events

      Show

      5.17pm EDT17:17
      Today so far

      4.28pm EDT16:28
      Senate adjourns until 8 September without stimulus deal

      3.44pm EDT15:44
      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call for a nationwide mask mandate

      3.02pm EDT15:02
      Biden says Trump’s USPS comments are “pure Trump”

      1.05pm EDT13:05
      Kamala Harris to deliver DNC speech in Wilmington, Delaware

      11.25am EDT11:25
      Trump announces normalization of relations between Israel and UAE

      9.45am EDT09:45
      Kamala Harris brings in $26m to Biden campaign in first 24-hours as VP candidate

      Live feed

      Show

      5.44pm EDT17:44

      “Sleepy Joe rejects the scientific approach,” Trump said, in a peak case of projection.
      As we have reported before — Trump has devalued and undermined science throughout the pandemic.
      Here’s me, looking back at how Trump has contradicted science:

      Play Video

      5:28

      From miracle cures to slowing testing: how Trump has defied science on coronavirus – video explainer
      Here’s my colleague Oliver Milman, on how Trump’s habit of rejecting scientific fact has raised alarm among health experts:

      5.33pm EDT17:33

      Trump, who has lied, misled and misrepresented the reality of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, contradicting and ignoring his own public health experts, has begun but attacking Joe Biden: “At every turn, Biden has been wrong about the virus – ignoring the scientific evidence.”
      He said Biden’s immigration policies would allow “the pandemic to infiltrate every US community.” The pandemic is already widespread

      5.25pm EDT17:25

      Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, reporting from the West Coast.
      We’re expecting Trump to deliver his press conference in a few minutes — and will keep you updated with news and fact checks.

      5.17pm EDT17:17

      Today so far

      Here’s a quick summary of what’s been happening today:
      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are continuing to make the rounds as a president-vice-president duo. The pair announced they are calling for a nationwide mask mandate and said every governor should implement a mask mandate in their state.
      The Senate adjourned today with no coronavirus stimulus package in sight and will be out of session until after September 8. This means that millions of Americans will be left with low unemployment insurance for at least a few more weeks.
      Donald Trump announced a normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, with Israel agreeing to halt plans to annex parts of the West Bank. While Trump called it a “historic peace agreement”, Israel’s prime minister said on Thursday that the country will still annex parts of the West Bank but had agreed to a temporary halt.
      Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen released a teaser for his new book, Disloyal, which is slated to be released in September after attempts to stop publication from the Trump administration.

      Updated
      at 5.19pm EDT

      5.07pm EDT17:07

      Vice president Mike Pence is continuing to put out some jabs toward his new Democratic opponent, sentor Kamala Harris, this time criticizing remarks she made about Americans’ eating habits and the environment.
      Speaking at the “Farmers and Ranchers for Trump” launch event in Iowa, Pence told the crowd that Harris said during her primary campaign that she was concerned about the impact Americans’ diet was having on the diet. “She would change the change the dietary guidelines of this country to reduce the amount of red meat that Americans can eat,” Pence said, the crowd booing in response.
      “Well I’ve got some red meat for you: We’re not going to let Joe Biden & Kamala Harris cut America’s meat!”

      The Hill
      (@thehill)
      VP Mike Pence: “Sen. Kamala Harris said she would change the dietary guidelines of this country to reduce the amount of red meat that Americans can eat.”Crowd boos.VP: “Well I’ve got some red meat for you: We’re not going to let Joe Biden & Kamala Harris cut America’s meat!” pic.twitter.com/TPqcy92rdw

      August 13, 2020

      That supporters of the Green New Deal are out to ban hamburgers altogether has long been a talking point of conservatives. While Green New Deal advocates have indicated they want to work with farmers and ranchers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a complete ban on red meat has not been a part of the plan.

      4.46pm EDT16:46

      The teaser for Michael Cohen’s book is now out after the justice department issued a gag order, which has since been dropped, to stop the book’s publication.
      The book, titled Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J Trump, is slated to be released sometime in September, ahead of the presidential election in November.

      Michael Cohen
      (@MichaelCohen212)
      The day has finally arrived. I have waited a long time to share my truth. To read the foreword and pre-order my book DISLOYAL, visit https://t.co/Va4Rt0Zear

      August 13, 2020

      The book’s foreword is now available online and details Cohen’s feelings of bewilderment at seeing Trump for who he really is after being “Trump’s first call every morning and his last call every night”.
      “In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, writes.
      Cohen was serving a three-year prison on federal charges of tax evasion, making false statements, lying to Congress and facilitating illegal payments to silence women about their affairs with Trump. But Cohen was released in May after fears of Covid-19 spreading in federal prisons.
      After tweeting that he was nearly finished with his book in July, Cohen was sent back to prison. The ACLU ended up joining a suit on his behalf to get him out, which was ultimately successful. A gag order from the justice department to halt the book’s publication was also dropped.
      The Trump administration has made very obvious efforts to stop the publication of high-profile tell-alls, all which have been ultimately unsuccessful. Former national security adviser John Bolton book The Room Where It Happened was published was published in June and Mary L Trump’s, Trump’s niece, book Too Much and Never Enough was published in July.

      Updated
      at 5.13pm EDT

      4.28pm EDT16:28

      Senate adjourns until 8 September without stimulus deal

      The Senate has adjourned its session this afternoon without reaching an agreement with House Democrats on a new stimulus package. The Senate is slated to go back into regular session 8 September.

      Steven Dennis
      (@StevenTDennis)
      McConnell adjourns the Senate for August, save for pro forma sessions. Next regular session scheduled for *Sept. 8* — 26 days from today. pic.twitter.com/1gxFDmlvjq

      August 13, 2020

      The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told senators that they would be called back to Capitol Hill with a 24-hour notice if a deal is reached. McConnell said that he hopes that a bipartisan deal can be reached “in the coming weeks”.
      Earlier today the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said that Democrats will come back to the negotiating table when Senate Republicans agree on a larger stimulus package. “We’re not inching away from their meager piecemeal proposal,” she said.
      At the press conference, Pelosi had beside her a chart comparing the Democrats’ $3tn Heroes Act, which passed the House in June, to the $1tn Heals Act in the Senate. One line indicated that House Democrats want $100bn for rental assistance while Senate Republicans want nothing.
      Without a new stimulus package, millions of Americans are left with much lower unemployment insurance since the federal government stopped giving an additional $600 a week at the end of July. The steep drop in income is expected to lead to widespread evictions.

      Robert Reich
      (@RBReich)
      In which the Senate leaves town for 25 days as 30,000,000 are receiving $0 in extra unemployment benefits and 40,000,000 are on the brink of eviction. https://t.co/Ieh1JdZ58V

      August 13, 2020

      Updated
      at 5.05pm EDT

      4.09pm EDT16:09

      Two new speakers slated to make appearances at next week’s Democratic National Convention were announced today. Billionaire and former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and entrepreneur Andrew Yang both announced today that they will be speaking at the virtual convention.

      Andrew Yang🧢🇺🇸
      (@AndrewYang)
      And it’s official – we have been added to the DNC Convention speaker lineup! Thank you #YangGang and everyone else who made this happen! 😀👏🇺🇸#YangIsSpeaking

      August 13, 2020

      Mike Bloomberg
      (@MikeBloomberg)
      This November, America has the opportunity to turn the page on the last four years & invest in our future.That starts at the @DemConvention when we nominate @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris.I’m honored to be speaking at the DNC next week. I hope you’ll join us.

      August 13, 2020

      Yang and Bloomberg will be joining a list of former candidates including senators Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. Pete Buttigieg is also slated to speak at the virtual convention.
      After the Democratic National Committee, which runs the convention, announced the DNC’s speaker lineup, Yang tweeted that he was disappointed that he was not asked to speak. “I’ve got to be honest I kind of expected to speak,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
      Ted Lieu, a US representative from California, tweeted in response his disappointment that there was little Asian American representation at the convention. “Asian Americans are the fastest increasing group in America, including in multiple swing states,” Lieu tweeted. “The gross underrepresentation of Asian American speakers in the four days of the DNC Convention is tone deaf and a slap in the face.”

      3.44pm EDT15:44

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call for a nationwide mask mandate

      In other mask news, Joe Biden and senator Kamala Harris emerged from a briefing with a panel of public health experts announcing their call for a nationwide mask mandate.
      “Every single American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months, at a minimum. Every governor should mandate — every governor should mandate mandatory mask wearing,” Biden said.
      Biden, referring to Americans who refuse to wear a mask and say that it infringes on their individual rights, said “it’s not about your rights” but rather a person’s responsibility as an American.
      “Be a patriot. Protect your fellow citizens,” he implored. “Protect your fellow citizens. Step up. Do the right thing.”
      The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that people wear masks in public to prevent the spread of Covid-19. More

    • 88 Shares109 Views

      in World Politics

      Can China Duplicate the US Military-Industrial Complex?

      by

      With the 2020 US election approaching, the Republicans, led by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, appear to have decided that there are only two issues worth pursuing. The first,  which they hope the American public will swallow, would be the visibly diminished cognitive capacity of Democratic nominee Joe Biden that has, they claim, turned him into a Marxist and Bernie Sanders’ poodle.

      The second issue is more likely to stir up the jingoistic emotions of the electorate. It consists of portraying China as an evil empire and perpetrator of pandemics. Pompeo has been trotting the globe, raising the rhetorical tone to make sure everyone understands how deserving China is of any punishment Trump may decide to inflict on it in between now and the first week of November.

      China certainly merits everyone’s attention, simply because it’s there, it’s imposing, it’s growing in influence and it has already clearly shifted the global geopolitical balance in parallel with America’s ongoing hegemonic decline. It’s a theme that resonates with the working class. From a purely electoral point of view, countering the evident rise of China seems like the most obvious theme for Trump to push. After all, his stance of getting tough with China played a big role in the 2016 election.

      The Brain Malfunction Affecting the US and Its Respectable Media

      READ MORE

      Irrespective of elections, every pundit involved in evaluating geopolitical game plans has been homing in on the faceoff between the US and China. Anja Manuel and Kathleen Hicks, writing for Foreign Affairs, have produced a fascinating piece of tendentious ideological reasoning in an article with a provocative title, “Can China’s Military Win the Tech War?” It has the merit of focusing on what is truly the most crucial point of rivalry between the US and the Middle Kingdom: technological prowess in the coming decades.

      Alas, their article reads like an exercise in fuzzy neoliberal logic, adorned with an orgy of Silicon Valley venture capital jargon, imbued with romanticized entrepreneurial idealism. Its trendy vocabulary tells us more about a new culture shared between Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC, than it does about the geopolitical theme it purports to clarify. The authors assail the reader with these bold concepts: “innovative startups” “collaborative disruption,” “agile and innovative,” “critical innovation,” “emerging technologies,” a “sense of urgency” linked to “today’s competitive … environment,” and “incentives for innovators.”

      China’s rise as a supplier of technology poses a major problem because, in today’s world, technology and defense have become one and the same thing. We learn that “as China’s defense capabilities have grown, some Western policymakers have started to wonder whether the United States needs to adopt its own version of civil-military fusion, embracing a top-down approach to developing cutting-edge technologies with military applications.”

      And here is the crux of the problem: “Chinese President Xi Jinping formalized the concept of civil-military fusion as part of the extensive military reforms laid out in his 2016 five-year plan.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Civil-military fusion:

      The name given to the Chinese version of the seven-decades-old system developed in the US christened by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 as the military-industrial complex

      Contextual Note

      Manuel and Hicks start their discussion in this introductory sentence: “As the Chinese government has set out to harness the growing strength of the Chinese technology sector to bolster its military, policymakers in the United States have reacted with mounting alarm.” Thinkers in the West are now wondering whether the Chinese top-down, authoritarian model of decision-making might not be superior to the point of constituting a model the US needs to emulate. The authors set out to prove the contrary.

      The article highlights President Xi Jinping’s Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development whose “goal is to promote the development of dual-use technology and integrate existing civilian technologies into the arsenal of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).” Manuel and Hicks seem to have missed the most obvious point — that Xi has simply taken the American system and stood it on its head. Since World War II, the US has traditionally followed the pattern of developing military technology, which is then made available to private companies to exploit commercially as civilian technology.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The article also fails to notice how the Chinese have profited from the American system. The US uses its commercial marketplace to validate the types of civilian technology that prove successful. The Chinese can then either copy or reverse engineer the same technology for their civilian market before adapting it to military use. This means the Chinese are getting the best of both worlds. They let the marketplace in the West filter out the civilian applications that work, sparing themselves the research.

      Sensing a possible weakness, the authors, undaunted, turn to the catechism of their neoliberal ideology. It contains an article of faith based on the unfounded (and clearly mistaken) belief that private enterprises will always be paragons of efficiency as opposed to governments that will always function as fountains of inefficiency. “China’s bureaucratic and authoritarian approach to civil-military fusion is likely to waste considerable time and money. By trying to control innovation, Beijing is more likely to delay and even stifle it,” Manuel and Hicks write. We are safe. The liberal economy of the US owns a monopoly on innovation.

      The authors conclude that the US should not seek to emulate the Chinese model. They do, however, concede that “Washington does need a strategy to strengthen its national security technology and industrial base.” That sounds like encouragement of government inefficiency, but Silicon Valley jargon comes to the rescue. The US needs a strategy “centered on collaborative disruption that generates the right incentives for innovators, scientists, engineers, venture capitalists, and others,” they add. The following sentence offers more jargon in lieu of logic, but especially wishful thinking. The authors call for “forward-looking changes in the Defense Department and smart investments across government.”

      Curiously, Manuel and Hicks seem to recognize the obstacle. They see a “risk not because of China but because of a lack of agility and creativity among U.S. planners and policymakers.” This is the ultimate expression of neoliberal ideology. Entrepreneurs are agile and creative. Government planners and policymakers are useless bureaucrats, a fact they reaffirm with this remark: “The Defense Department’s long lead times and slow decision-making remain significant obstacles to innovation.”

      Perhaps even more astonishingly naive is their plea to push the already existing logic of revolving door corruption. As a solution to US inertia, they recommend “more opportunities to hire people directly from industry or research institutions into the senior civilian government or even the military ranks,” as well as wishing to expand “the number of temporary fellowships for private-sector experts to spend a year or two in government.” Those are permanent features of the military-industrial complex that have contributed massively to its corruption.

      Historical Note

      Insisting that if China wants to catch up, it should emulate the United States, Anja Manuel and Kathleen Hicks offer a potted history of the development of America’s military-industrial complex. They cite the founding of labs in the 1930s to develop supercomputing, the military’s post-war collaboration with Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor to develop microprocessors and the creation in 1958 of the “Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which helped develop GPS and the Internet.” They then proudly cite the Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit, founded in 2015, which “has helped innovative startups gain a foothold at the Pentagon.”

      The authors recommend little more than the logic that has prevailed for the past 70 years. They maintain that “partnering effectively with the private sector can save taxpayer dollars.” In reality, it means companies will continue to see their R&D funded by taxpayers, with no risk and, of course, the opportunity to reap profits from future business in civilian technology. That translates as no benefit to taxpayers but colossal rewards for shareholders.

      Manuel and Hicks insist on the necessity of “collaborative disruption,” which “will require upfront investments and streamlined approaches for getting the best commercial technology into the Department of Defense.” This language is designed to appeal to Silicon Valley venture capitalists. It may also appeal to the same political class that has profited personally and politically from the growth of the military-industrial-financial complex. In other words, it is more of the same, but with updated vocabulary. Whether, as the authors hope, the US can by these means “secure the advantage in defense capabilities on its own terms” over China remains to be seen.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘It sends a strong signal’: Black voters respond to Kamala Harris’ nomination

      by

      China Cochran met Kamala Harris at a campaign event in Detroit last year and was swept away by the California senator’s ambition, charisma and leadership.So when the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden named Harris as his running mate on Tuesday – making her the first Black woman on a major US party’s presidential ticket – Cochran wasn’t just struck by the history.It represented a full-circle moment for Black women, who the Democratic party often refer to as its backbone of support, yet who for generations have fought for their voices to be heard and political aspirations recognized.“It tells Black girls that they can be president,” Cochran, who recently ran for state representative in Michigan, told the Associated Press. “I think it’s important for us to look at that and see other young women of color realize that they can go after their dreams and really make change in our world.”Harris’ selection also marks the first time a person of Asian descent is on the presidential ticket. Born to a Jamaican father, Donald Harris, and Indian mother, she often speaks of her deep bond with her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, whom she has called her single biggest influence.“My mother understood very well she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya [Harris’s younger sister] and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident Black women,” Harris wrote in her 2018 autobiography, The Truths We Hold.It’s important for us to look at that and see other young women of color realize that they can go after their dreamsChina CochranAs they appeared together for the first time as running mates at a high school in Biden’s home town of Wilmington on Wednesday, Biden and Harris reflected on the significance of the moment.“This morning, all across the nation, little girls woke up – especially little Black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities. But today, today, just maybe, they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way,” Biden said.Paying tribute to the many women that paved the way for her, Harris said she was mindful of all of the “heroic and ambitious women before me, whose sacrifice, determination and resilience make my presence here today even possible”.Harris joins the ticket during a national reckoning on racism in the US. The coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected Black Americans and other people of color. Protests against systemic racism and police brutality are prominent in the minds of potential voters. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Herman Cain 'tweets' two weeks after his death to attack Democrats

      by

      Herman Cain, one-time Republican presidential candidate and enthusiastic Trump supporter, sprang an unsettling surprise on Wednesday when his Twitter account abruptly began publishing posts – two weeks after Cain died from coronavirus.The @THEHermanCain account had lain dormant since Cain contracted coronavirus in June, having posted details of Cain’s memorial service and links to tributes.When it abruptly came to life, one of the first posts was to attack Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who was unveiled as Biden’s running mate on Tuesday.“Just in case you thought Biden’s candidacy was going to be anything other than completely nuts, team Trump has released a new video,” the @THEHermanCain account tweeted just after 4pm.The post linked to a Trump campaign video which accused Biden of having “a racism problem”.At 5am on Thursday morning, Cain – seemingly – tweeted again, criticizing Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor who was also in the running to be Biden’s vice-presidential candidate.The posts unnerved many other Twitter users, but shortly before the account began tweeting pro-Trump messaging, it had also posted a little-seen pinned tweet which linked to a clarifying post on Cain’s website as to what was going on.In the website statement, Cain’s daughter Melanie Cain Gallo said: “We’ve decided here at Cain HQ that we will go on using this platform to share the information and ideas he believed in. He often talked about the site going on once he was ready to step away from it. We had hoped he could enjoy reading it in his retirement, but he made it clear he wanted it to go on.”Cain Gallo said posts from her father’s accounts “will now go under the name The Cain Gang”, a name Cain apparently chose himself. Though his Twitter handle has not yet changed its name.The social media accounts of other public figures, including David Bowie, have continued after their deaths, but have tended to adopt more of a third-person tone.The first-person messaging of Cain’s Twitter account makes it less clear whose views the tweets are expressing. Some also took issue with @THEHermanCain having only begun posting after Harris became the first black woman to run on a major party presidential ticket.Cain died on 30 July, having been ill with coronavirus for several weeks. The former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza had attended a Trump rally in Oklahoma on 20 June, where Cain was photographed not wearing a mask and not observing social distancing guidelines.A vocal supporter of the president, Cain was co-chair of Black Voices for Trump and was in Tulsa as a surrogate for Trump’s campaign.He ran for president in 2012, and briefly led the polls, but dropped out of the race after three women accused him of sexual misconduct and a fourth woman accused Cain of sexual assault. More