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Wildfire rages near Yosemite as Newsom steps up climate action

A burgeoning blaze near Yosemite National Park forced the evacuation of thousands of residents over the weekend, prompting California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to declare a state of emergency just a day after announcing a set of ambitious new climate goals.

Newsom issued a state of emergency for Mariposa County on Saturday due to the impacts of the Oak Fire, which his office said had destroyed homes, threatened critical infrastructure and led to the evacuation of 3,000 residents.

At the time of the declaration, the blaze had burned more than 11,500 acres — a figure that grew to 16,791 acres by Monday morning, according to Cal Fire. The fire was 10 percent contained on Monday.

The fire erupted Friday, with officials on Saturday describing “explosive fire behavior,” according to The Associated Press.

Experts have said that climate change is intensifying droughts in areas like the southwest U.S. and making wildfires worse.

“What I can tell you is this is a direct result of what is climate change,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Jon Heggie said of the Oak Fire, according to CNN. “You can’t have a 10-year drought in California and expect things to be the same. And we are now paying the price for that 10-year drought and that climate change.”

Newsom’s emergency declaration came less than a day after he launched new statewide climate targets for renewable energy, clean buildings, carbon removal and clean fuels.

“California communities experience the devastating impacts of climate change every day,” he said in a statement. “We need to supercharge our efforts to significantly reduce harmful carbon pollution.”

As part of the new targets, the governor called for the state to ensure that its 2022 Climate Change Scoping Plan provides the tools necessary to achieve California’s 2030 climate goals as well as state carbon neutrality no later than 2045, in a letter sent to the chair of the California Air Resources Board.

In his state budget proposal in January, Newsom allocated $22.5 billion for combatting the climate crisis over the next five years. In May, he revised the figure to add another $9.5 billion.

On Friday evening, however, the governor announced that he would be accelerating the state’s clean energy targets while working with the legislature “to enshrine carbon neutrality into state law,” according to his office.

Among the new targets proposed in his letter to the California Air Resources Board was a planning goal of at least 20 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2045. This goal in particular — which would be the largest such target of any state — was met with the approval of green groups in the state.

Advocacy group Environment California said in a statement that 20 gigawatts of offshore wind is enough to power 14.5 million homes, or more than a third of California’s energy needs. That quantity would also fulfill a sizable chunk of President Biden’s goal of generating 110 gigawatts of wind by 2050 nationwide, the statement added.

American Clean Power-California — a trade association representing clean energy firms — said the move would “help California keep the lights on.”  

In addition to ramping up offshore wind, Newsom’s new targets also included a goal for 3 million climate-friendly homes by 2030 and 7 million by 2035, as well as 6 million heat pumps installed by 2030.

As part of the transition away from fossil fuels, the governor suggested establishing a 20 percent clean fuels target for the aviation sector. He also voiced support for the creation of a task force to identify methane leaks from oil infrastructure near communities.

Newsom also requested that the state raise its targets for carbon removal — the process by which carbon dioxide is taken out of the atmosphere by sequestering it underground or in products like concrete.

The governor proposed setting a goal of 20 million metric tons removed by 2030, an amount that Environment California described as “the annual carbon footprint of small European countries.” He suggested 100 million metric tons by 2045.

“At a time when climate action from the nation’s capital seems out of reach, this news from California is a powerful tonic,” Laura Deehan, Environment California state director, said in a statement.

“Governor Newsom just set the fifth-largest economy in the world on a fast track to tap into offshore wind at a scale that actually meets our needs,” Deehan added.

Source: TEST FEED1

Maloney highlights gender equity fight in first ad in primary against Nadler

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) chronicles her work fighting for gender equality and abortion rights in her first campaign ad ahead of her party’s primary, when she’ll face off against Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to keep her House seat.

“You cannot send a man to do a woman’s job,” Maloney says at the end of the ad, after walking through her career in public service alongside key Supreme Court decisions on the right to abortion.

Redistricting in New York’s 12th district shuffled the two House committee chairs into the same district earlier this year, forcing a clash between the longtime Democratic allies. 

Maloney didn’t directly mention Nadler, but underscored her record on women’s issues: like a 2013 law aimed at clearing the backlog of unprocessed rape kits and a 2019 law offering paid family leave to federal employees. The ad also referred to her work to protect marriage equality.

She also references the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

“Today, the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, but being at the forefront of women’s rights has taught me we can fight back and win if we just don’t quit,” says Maloney, the first female chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Nadler and Maloney are both members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but their upcoming head-to-head has forced New Yorkers and national Democrats to take sides.

After the New York Working families party endorsed him, Nadler referred to himself on Twitter as “the only true principled progressive and the best candidate in the race for the new NY-12.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also endorsed Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary committee, though she has also worked closely with Maloney. 

Just last month, Warren and Maloney introduced a bill to stave off anti-abortion disinformation at crisis pregnancy centers.

“When Manhattanites need a champion — someone to defend their reproductive rights, fight back against Republican bullies in Washington, and protect our kids from gun violence — they know that they can depend on Jerry,” Warren wrote in a Tweet announcing her endorsement.

Early May polls showed Maloney leading Nadler by double digits. The New York Democratic primary will be held on Aug. 23.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump removed lines from Jan. 7 speech saying rioters did not represent 'our movement'

Former President Trump cut lines from a Jan. 7 address condemning the rioters who entered the Capitol the day prior as not representing him or “our movement.”

A draft of the speech marked up by Trump, shared by Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), includes additional evidence not shown by the panel during its Thursday hearing, its final one expected this summer. 

The draft shows Trump used a sharpie to cross out a line saying, “I want to be very clear. You do not represent me. You do not represent our movement.”

A number of top White House aides say they were unsure why Trump made the changes he did, but they did oppose them.

“That needed to be stated forcefully,” Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel is shown saying.

Trump also cut other lines dealing with the consequences rioters should face.

The prepared draft said he would encourage the Justice Department to prosecute rioters “to the fullest extent of the law. We must send a clear message. Not with mercy but with justice. Legal consequences must be swift and firm.”

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, said the primary motivation for the address was to get out a stronger message than they had the day before condemning the riot. But there was also concern that the cabinet might seek to remove Trump from office.

“The secondary reason for that was think about what might happen in the final 15 days of your presidency if we don’t do this. There’s already talks about invoking the 25th Amendment. You need this as cover,” she said in a clip.

The committee on Thursday showed Trump struggled while filming the video address to say the election is over, cutting himself off while reading from a teleprompter.

“But this election is now over. Congress has certified the results — I don’t want to say the election’s over, I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election’s over, OK?” Trump said.

The committee showed two outtakes of Trump becoming frustrated after reading the line, “My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote.”

In one clip, he pointed his index finger down before starting over, and in the second, he slammed the podium.

Source: TEST FEED1

The federal transportation mask mandate may be dead, but masking is not

When the federal transportation mask mandate was abruptly halted in April 2020 after a federal judge ruling in Florida, many air travelers rejoiced. As such, you would expect to see few mask wearers on airplanes and in airports. 

Fast forward three months: Reported COVID-19 cases are surging and hospitalizations on the rise. With at-home testing now more prevalent, the actual number of new infections may be over 1 million each day. Are people noticing and are they concerned?

During a stopover at a Washington area airport, I decided to try to answer this question with a small experiment and see what the masking barometer looked like.

Although I could not completely control my data collection exercise, avoiding double counting people was a priority. Therefore, I settled myself on the airport’s secure side near the entrance of a concourse. I also wanted to focus only on passengers, hence did not include flight crews and airport staff in my tabulation. 

The first phase was to focus only on travelers entering the concourse, those connecting from another flight in another concourse or those beginning their journey at the airport. 

The ratio of male to female flyers was around 58-to-42. Among the men, 31 percent were wearing a mask, while 37 percent of women were doing so. Overall, 33 percent of all these travelers were masking up. This meant that women were slightly more likely to be wearing a mask than men.

I then counted people exiting the same concourse. These are also travelers either making a connection in another concourse or those arriving to their final destination and were departing the airport. One would expect that these ratios and percentages would be around the same as the entering passengers.

They mostly were. The ratio of male to female flyers was around 53-to-47. Among the men, 28 percent were wearing a mask, while 42 percent of women were doing so. This means that amongst these travelers, women were more likely to be wearing a mask than men. Overall, 35 percent of all these travelers were masking up.

When combining the entering and exiting passengers, 29 percent of men were wearing a mask, 40 percent of women were doing so and 34 percent of all travelers were masking up. Given the size of my sample (812 travelers in total), all these numbers are accurate to within 3 percent. 

So, what useful insights can be gleaned from this data collection exercise?

Women clearly are more mask adherent than men. This is consistent with results reported out of a Chicago airport. 

The majority of masks being worn were N95 and KN94, followed by surgical masks. There were a smattering of cloth masks, but these were more the exception than the rule.

One other observation is that those who were wearing masks were indeed wearing them correctly, covering both their mouth and nose. This is in contrast to many people during the mask mandate often wearing them around their chin rather than their mouth and nose, or leaving their nose completely exposed.

Lastly, hearing numerous people coughing at airports is now commonplace. During the mask mandate, this was less common. Although coughing does not indicate with certainty that a person is infected with COVID-19, it is a noticeable change from what was occurring during the mask mandate. 

The face mask mandate is dead. The Biden administration’s appeal to get it reinstated through the courts appears to be more show than substance. Travelers are voting with their masks when they choose to bear their face during air travel. With the midterm elections less than four months away, every vote matters in who will control the House and Senate. Policies viewed as antagonistic are not in either party’s best interests. 

At the same time, around one-third of travelers are sticking with masks. Some people embrace the benefits masks offer to reduce COVID-19 transmission, while others remain unconvinced of their utility. What is apparent is the type of mask worn and how a mask is worn, among those who choose to wear one.

Masks are a risk reduction — not a risk elimination — tool. But with all techniques that reduce risk, it is often how the techniques are applied that allow their benefits to be realized. 

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His specialty is data science, with applications in public policy and public health.

Source: TEST FEED1

CNN's Jim Acosta: Trump 'returning to the scene of the crime' in DC this week

CNN anchor Jim Acosta grilled Marc Lotter of the America First Policy Institute about the think tank’s decision to host former President Trump in Washington, D.C., this week, comparing it to Trump “returning to the scene of the crime.”

“Marc I have to ask you, why invite Trump back to Washington after he tried to pull off a coup on Jan. 6?” Acosta asked Lotter on his show over the weekend.

“Well he’s still the leader of the America First movement,” Lotter replied. “The biggest name. He’s the visionary behind many of the policies that got him elected to the White House. And when you look at America right now, so many people are clamoring for that kind of leadership.”

“It’s like he’s returning to the scene of the crime. He incited an insurrection. Why even bring him to Washington?” Acosta pressed Lotter.

“He left as the former president. He left office on Jan. 20, what is going to happen next is entirely up to the voters and the president and any others who might be getting into the race,” Lotter said.

Trump is scheduled to give a keynote address at the America First Agenda Summit on Tuesday, his first public appearance in Washington, D.C., since leaving office.

Over the last several weeks, the select House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot has laid out a case suggesting Trump incited the mob and failed to act to protect members of Congress from the violence that broke out that day. Some critics have said Trump should be charged with a crime in connection with the events of Jan. 6.

Acosta, who served as CNN’s top White House reporter during the Trump administration, has been sharply critical of the former president on his weekend show, which he started hosting after Trump left office.

Acosta briefly had his press credential pulled by the White House in 2018 after one particularly combative back and forth with Trump, and has since written a book about his experience covering Trump’s White House.

Source: TEST FEED1

Arizona GOP candidate dodges questions about election: Biden ‘wrong guy in the White House’

Republican gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson on Monday said the 2020 election was “not fair” and said President Biden is “the wrong guy in the White House” as she repeatedly dodged questions during an interview on CNN about whether she would have certified the election results.

Taylor Robson is seen as the establishment GOP primary candidate in the governor’s race and has earned the endorsement of former Vice President Mike Pence against former broadcast news star Kari Lake, who is backed by President Trump and has made the 2020 election a cornerstone of her candidacy.

But during the interview with CNN “New Day” co-host Brianna Keilar, Taylor Robson refused to say the election had been determined fairly.

Taylor Robson dodged questions on if she would have certified the 2020 election if she were governor at the time, saying she couldn’t do that “without having been presented all the evidence.”

“There has been investigation after investigation, and are there things that need to be fixed? Absolutely,” she said, citing issues with voter ID and ballot harvesting. “But I’m looking forward, I’m looking at 2022 and doing everything I can to keep Arizona’s governor’s office in Republican hands.”

Keilar pressed the candidate again on whether she would certify the election, to which Robson repeated she has not seen the evidence.

“There are investigations that are ongoing,” Taylor Robson said.

“Do you accept the outcome of the election of 2020?” Keilar asked again.

“We have the wrong guy in the White House,” Taylor Robson answered. “I believe the wrong president is in the White House. … The 2020 election, at a minimum, was not fair, and that’s my consistent answer.”

Taylor Robson’s answers show just how much the 2020 election is a campaign issue in the race between she and Lake. They also suggest that despite Pence’s endorsement, Taylor Robson doesn’t want to be seen as saying the election was fair.

No evidence has been found to suggest widespread fraud resulted in Biden’s win nationally or in Arizona.

The false claims that the election was stolen from Trump led to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, where members of a mob chanted to “hang Mike Pence” because he would not overturn the results of the election — a power he did not have in the first place.

Pence’s endorsement of Taylor Robson was seen as the start of a proxy battle between Pence and Trump, who are now on opposite sides of the GOP after the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Over the weekend Pence and outgoing Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) campaigned for Taylor Robson as Trump rallied for Lake.

On Monday, Taylor Robson said 78 percent of Republicans in Arizona believe something was wrong with the 2020 election. She blamed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the media “suppressing news” about Hunter Biden and “big tech silencing conservative voices” for creating an unfair election and spreading discontent among Republicans.

Taylor Robson added she was concerned about “what President Biden and Democrats are going to do in upcoming elections.”

“I’m focused on what they’re doing in the future,” she said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Transition obstruction and recent pressure to overturn Wisconsin results should be part of the record

There’s an aspect of Donald Trump’s post-election actions — thus far not mentioned publicly by the Jan. 6 Select Committee — that should not be overlooked as the country absorbs the wealth of evidence the committee has released thus far. That aspect of Trump’s post-election conduct suggests that his intent from the beginning was to overturn the results of the election. He and those working for him did much to obstruct President-Elect Biden’s transition team from Nov. 8, 2020, the day after the Associated Press called the election for Biden, to the day of Biden’s inauguration, Jan. 20, 2021.

This obstruction highlights one of the themes running through the evidence the Jan. 6 committee has compiled: Trump’s unrelenting narcissism, regardless the cost to the country and indeed, the Free World.

One example: For nearly a month, Trump refused to allow Biden to get the daily intelligence briefing. Even Republicans said at the time that it was wrong.

Michael Chertoff, former homeland security secretary under George W. Bush, explained in November 2020 that the risk was “our adversaries look at a transition period as a moment of potential weakness which they will exploit if possible.”

The obstruction began almost immediately after media outlets began to call the election for President Biden. Less than 36 hours later, Emily Murphy, Trump’s General Services Administration chief, refused to “ascertain” the election winner. That responsibility — as critical as it is obscure — would have triggered official access by the Biden transition team to government information, office space, and equipment.

As the Washington Post put it, the GSA director’s execution of the necessary paperwork “amounts to a formal declaration by the federal government, outside of the media, of the winner of the presidential race.”

Transition work “all but halted … inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies,” according to The New York Times. As Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, said at the time, “The transition process is fundamental to safely making sure the next team is ready to go on Day One.”

Two weeks after the election — on Nov. 17 — Politico reported a completely unprecedented absence of briefings being given “about coronavirus, troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq, or aggression by China and Iran.” Even during the prolonged 2000 Bush-Gore election contest, President Bill Clinton began immediately to give George W. Bush the same national security briefings to which then-Vice President Al Gore already had access.

The fact that Trump continued his disregard for our security — not to mention our 224-year history of peaceful transitions of power — is circumstantial evidence that should be considered cumulatively with the other evidence amassed by the select committee.

Trump continued his obstinacy all the way out the door. He “became the first president in recent history not to attend the swearing in of his successor.”

That refusal to put his physical presence behind the transfer of power was not merely poor manners; rather, it fits right in with the video outtakes of Trump’s Jan. 7 video that the select committee produced in its eighth hearing on July 21. In clips the country had not seen before, Trump refused to read the portion of the script his staff had prepared which said the election was over.

In fact, Trump apparently is still attempting to overturn the 2020 results. Wisconsin state assembly speaker Robin Vos reported that Trump called him two weeks ago and pressed him to have the legislature decertify Biden’s election.

“I explained it’s not allowed under the Constitution. He has a different opinion,” said Vos.

That call signals two things.

First, it’s a sign that Trump is getting more desperate to have the protection of the presidency from criminal charges, as he has reportedly admitted — and even before 2024. He has also taken a pummeling in the select committee hearings, and he knows it. What’s worse, the stars are rising for Republican politicians who hope to compete for the 2024 GOP nomination. 

Second, it reminds us that, as Dan Rather has written, the coup is continuing. Some 120 “election deniers” are currently running for state office in 2020. Others are likely to surface as Election Day approaches.

As they say, the sequel is always worse than the original. With more time to prepare the groundwork, battleground state legislatures controlled by Republicans are in position to declare the Republican nominee in their states the election winner regardless of the popular vote.

And dangerously, the Supreme Court has taken a case from North Carolina and may be poised to embrace a fringe-theory of constitutional law called the “independent state legislature doctrine.” Watch this space.

Citizens who seek to preserve their right to elect leaders of their choice will need to do whatever they can to elect state legislative candidates who vow to preserve democracy this November, as well as federal candidates. “It’s a republic,” Benjamin Franklin is said to have said, “if you can keep it.”

Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.

Eugene R. Fidell is an adjunct professor of law at New York University and a senior research scholar at Yale Law School. He is of counsel at the Washington, D.C., law firm Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell LLP.

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NFL unveils streaming service

The National Football League is breaking into the direct-to-consumer streaming business.

The league announced on Monday it would launch NFL+ , a paid video streaming subscription service for its games starting this season.

A basic subscription to NFL+ will be available in the NFL App for $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year. That package includes live local and primetime games on mobile and tablet devices. It also includes live game radio coverage for every game of the season.

NFL+ premium, which will run fans $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year, will include full and condensed game replays across devices as well as access to other NFL Media content.

“Today marks an important day in the history of the National Football League with the launch of NFL+,” league Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “The passionate and dedicated football fans are the lifeblood of the NFL, and being able to reach and interact with them across multiple platforms is incredibly important to us.”

The NFL’s deal with DirecTV to broadcast every game of the regular season expires in 2023, the Washington Post noted, and a number of other major tech companies that have invested heavily in streaming. Amazon, Apple and Google have all expressed interest in signing a deal with the league.

Source: TEST FEED1

Isolating China through decoupling would be a mistake

What should be the goal of America’s trade policy with China? The simple answer would be mutually beneficial exchange of goods, services and payments. However, the Chinese government’s recent actions in many areas have muddied the waters. Unfortunately, the American response has made a bad situation worse. A major rethink is required.

The charges laid at China are serious. There are instances of forced technology transfer, fraud and incentives seemingly aimed at destroying American manufacturing capacity, among other things. America’s response, now under two presidents of different parties, has been to attempt to restrict trade unilaterally through tariffs and other measures. President Biden has gone so far as to call the trade dispute “a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.” The goal seems now to be “decoupling” — reducing the mutual dependence on trade between the countries.

If Biden is right in his characterization, then we have to ask what would help democracy win and autocracy lose? A free and prosperous China should be an ally, not a threat. Decoupling from China will not accomplish this goal. As we have seen, tariffs and other barrier-style measures have not encouraged Beijing to make needed reforms. In fact, there is no silver bullet policy that Congress or the president can pursue, or that pundits can shout soundbites about on cable news. The current policy isn’t working and seems more likely to turn China into a vast, militarily powerful North Korea, rather than a friend.

What will ultimately change China is complicated. It is bottom-up, not top-down. It is a cultural change. This is a long-term, multifaceted process that will get few headlines but do much good. Moving China in a more liberal direction requires long-term diplomatic, economic and cultural engagement. Just as blue jeans and rock music were a major factor in winning the Cold War, so could today’s cultural exports move China in a freer direction.

Fortunately, momentum and demographics are on our side. The largest mass migration in human history happened within living memory — and is still going on. Over the past 30 years, hundreds of millions of people have left China’s farms for the cities. Leslie Chang’s book, “Factory Girls,” is an eye-opener about this mass movement. China’s new generation of city dwellers could not be more different from their rural parents. They want change and opportunity. They are more individualist, and eager to adopt new fashions and ways of thinking. Where the old generation is closed, they appear to be open. We Americans have generation gaps. In China, they have generational chasms.

This is to our advantage. The rising generation is our target audience for cultural shifts, not Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elders. He and the rest of his cadre are dug in. Ordinary people, not so much — and increasingly so over time. This means exporting more entertainment, getting Chinese students in American schools immersed into American culture and institutions, and making American friends. Rock and roll and the fax machine won the Cold War as much as Trident missiles or Pope John Paul II’s solidarity diplomacy. Xi knows this, and thus you and I witness a radical turn toward Maoism in the government, though not necessarily in the Chinese people.

That doesn’t mean ignoring Beijing’s elder statesman, who still wields great power. We are past due to fix a fundamental policy mistake from a generation ago. America backed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) but allowed China to retain its status as a developing nation indefinitely, which allows them to dodge rules and maintain high barriers. 

We shouldn’t throw the WTO overboard; we should start taking it seriously. We should strip China’s developing nation status so they play by the same rules as everyone else, and work with our European and other allies to make sure they do. The EU has had success in getting China to drop its problematic requirements for foreign firms to form joint ventures with Chinese companies in its bilateral negotiations with China.

Similarly, the U.S. needs to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), whose 11 members are continuing on without U.S. involvement. The logic of TPP is to establish a free-trade area along China’s periphery that is committed to the American model of trade, law and commerce. It presents a choice to emerging actors within China, nearly impossible to see from American shores. They can choose between isolation and the Chinese state-run model, or engagement according to the American model. 

WTO and TPP revival won’t happen without serious American engagement. It benefits us to do so, though in 2015 and 2016 both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump poisoned that well politically. Biden has been too feckless to make a turn from Trump’s worst impulses. It is up to us to make this politically possible, soon. It is not a perfect tool, but engagement and rules-based trade are the only effective ways to address China’s human rights abuses, national security threats, and unfair trade practices.

We also ought to set an example with our agenda of liberalization. The worst that would happen is that America would grow faster, innovate faster, and become stronger and more resilient against any threats. The real utility of democracy is in unleashing the capacity of all citizens for mutual benefit. We cannot defeat autocracy by constraining that capacity. Reducing barriers to creating businesses and hiring people is the answer to any disruption in middle America caused by trade or technological innovation. We should stop handicapping our own economy while encouraging China to do the same.

Decoupling from China is an unserious political slogan, not based in reality unless political leaders are willing to impose large and visible costs on Americans. Consider the multilateral web of supply chains. The manufacturing of an iPhone crosses an international boundary some 600 times. Components are manufactured in Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia, put together in China, further processed in Japan, packaged somewhere else, and so on. We could decouple from China only by decoupling from the world. What we have to do is impose real penalties when they cheat and create a sphere of influence that offers both information and incentives for China to move our way.

The China Question is the biggest foreign policy problem facing us. If we get the answer wrong, the results could be tragic not just for Chinese people but for Americans.

Kent Lassman is president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where Iain Murray is a senior fellow. CEI is a free-market public policy organization based in Washington.

Source: TEST FEED1

Manchin tests positive for COVID-19

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday that he tested positive for COVID-19. 

“This morning I tested positive for COVID-19,” Manchin wrote on Twitter. “I am fully vaccinated and boosted and am experiencing mild symptoms. I will isolate and follow CDC guidelines as I continue to work remotely to serve West Virginians.”

Manchin is the latest in a string of senators to test positive, as well as President Biden. 

If other Democrats test positive next week, it could pose an obstacle for passing the health care measure, known as the reconciliation bill, which would lower prescription drug prices and continue enhanced financial assistance under the Affordable Care Act. Manchin is a key vote on the measure in a 50-50 Senate split evenly between the parties.

Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) also tested positive last week.

In an additional potential complication on the vote count, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is recovering from a fractured hip and had an additional surgery last week. 

“Senator Leahy was back in his rehabilitation room by Tuesday evening and is once again working diligently with the physical therapists to return home as soon as possible,” his office said last week. 

The highly contagious BA.5 subvariant of omicron has fueled spread of the virus in recent weeks. 
Manchin could be out of isolation after five days, according to CDC guidelines, if his symptoms are improving. 

Source: TEST FEED1