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Biden and Trump’s strange co-dependent political lives

President Biden and Donald Trump have something in common: collapsing polling numbers. Increasingly, voters seem to want both of them to ride off into the political sunset. Ironically, their dual falling popularity means they need each other: If one drops out of the 2024 presidential sweepstakes, the other will fall. 

The American political landscape is stranger than it has ever been. Solid majorities disapprove of everyone; Biden, Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, former VP Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are all in negative territory. Yet, the American people overall agree on one thing: Biden and Trump should go away. 

In the July Yahoo News poll, clear majorities do not want Biden (64 percent) nor Trump (59 percent) to run again. Independents reject both at 71 percent (Biden) and 58 percent (Trump). This is not an isolated result, as Morning Consult also found 64 percent against a Biden run and 61 percent against a Trump run. 

While their co-partisans are more supportive, the percentage of Democrats who back a Biden run and Republicans for Trump are far below their partisan approval rating. Importantly, neither is facing announced opposition. For the American public, it’s Biden and Trump vs. Nobody — and Nobody is way out in front. 

Biden and Trump do have two main advantages: incumbency and each other. 

For Biden, occupying the Oval Office freezes the Democratic field. Challenging a sitting president is rarely done and most often not effectively. Over the past 100 years, only twice has a sitting Democratic president faced an intraparty challenge, in 1968 and 1980. Only the 1968 challenge was successful. And even then, the president at that time, Lyndon Johnson, controlled enough of the nomination process that he could have secured the nomination. 

Johnson quit in 1968 because he believed he could not win a general election fight. In 1980, the challenge by then-Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, certainly weakened the latter. How much that had to do with Carter’s landslide loss to Ronald Reagan is debatable. But those challenges point to the issue facing Biden: Should he fight for a nomination just to lose in the general? 

And that leads to Trump. 

Even with falling approval ratings and a nation that does not want him to run, Biden still polls favorably against Trump. Pick your poll from the FiveThirtyEight list, and Biden leads some, Trump leads some — but they are all generally close. And this, with Biden’s approval average at just 38 percent. In addition, the “right track/wrong track” numbers on the direction of the country are remarkably awful, running an over 50-point tilt to “wrong track.” 

What’s propping Biden up is Trump. Trump’s approval is nearly as dismal as Biden’s, at an average of 41 percent favorable and 55 percent unfavorable. But Trump’s approval ratings are more trouble than Biden’s, in that Trump’s unpopularity is very much locked in; except for a brief inauguration bump, Trump has never been overwhelmingly popular. Biden, however, had a net positive approval rating up until late August 2021. It is conceivable that an improvement in economic prospects could push Biden ahead of Trump in favorability. 

It is the mutual unpopularity of Biden and Trump that keeps each competitive in a putative 2024 matchup. Biden can claim to Democrats that he is the candidate who beat Trump, making him a safer choice. Trump still claims he really was the winner in 2020, and 73 percent of Republicans agree in the most recent YouGov benchmark. Each also does marginally better against possible alternate candidates. In sum, Biden and Trump have a plausible argument to Democratic and Republican base voters that each is the safer bet in 2024. 

Biden and Trump perform a bit better against alternate opponents than against each other. For example, Redfield & Wilton Strategies has Trump beating Biden by 2 points and Kamala Harris by 4 points. Alternately, YouGov has Biden over Trump by 3 points and Gavin Newsom over Trump by 2 points.  

But the reality is that those numbers are a bit deceptive. Biden and Trump are at 100 percent name recognition; the rest of the potential field is well below that number. The voting public tends to hold back a bit on candidates they don’t know. That lesser-known candidates are so close to the two presidents is an indication of the latter’s weakness. 

Waiting in the wings 

All the energy is with the new rivals. Trump is far more determined to run, but he is in the weakest position, while DeSantis has all the momentum. Consider recent polling in Florida: In the state where Trump has no name-ID advantage over DeSantis, Trump is lagging by 22 points in the latest GOP primary poll — a 50-point reversal in the past 10 months. DeSantis has been gaining on Trump nonstop. 

In addition, Trump is facing gathering legal troubles from the Jan. 6 hearings and investigations in Georgia. Trump’s flirtation with an early announcement is incensing Republican candidates and cannot be helping with voters. 

If it looks like DeSantis will de-throne Trump, that leaves Biden in a bind. Biden is the non-candidate who ran a non-campaign predicated on letting Trump lose. With Democrats open to ditching Biden now, just imagine their attitude at the prospect of their slow, 81-year-old, gaffe-prone candidate facing an energetic 46-year-old DeSantis. Biden won’t be able to run a non-campaign against DeSantis. 

On the Democratic side, unless the party commits seppuku by nominating Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), dropping Biden is likely an improvement. While their potential field is far from stellar, they are likely to have an energetic contest as heir-apparent Harris is looking more nowhere-apparent. The slate of Democrats won’t have all the Biden baggage, and Harris’s non-profile might even let her escape some of the Biden administration’s unpopularity. 

Without Biden to kick around, what is Trump left with? He has no new program, no new issues. It’s all election complaints and self-pity. Trump will have to aim his fire at perhaps a dozen candidates, all the while trying to fend off a surging DeSantis. No Biden leaves Trump with nothing. 

Who drops first 

Each party has a different dilemma.  

Trump has been planning to run for more than a year; stopping him from entering the race is a fool’s errand. However, Republicans do have a clear option in DeSantis. In fact, I would put DeSantis as the favorite in a one-on-one primary battle. So, Republicans are going to be stuck with the albatross Trump for at least a while. But they have a clear and good option if they can push Trump off the cliff. 

For Democrats, Biden is likely easier to cast out on an ice floe. His age is a serious problem, and he is increasingly losing the chattering classes. He will likely wheeze along for some time, since announcing he is not running would instantly make him an ultra-lame duck. Unlike with the GOP, there is no clear next batter at this point. Party insiders, intellectuals and their handmaidens in the media may want Biden to delay a withdrawal in order to size up the field and try to get some consensus. 

For the next year, Biden and Trump likely will still be on stage with the boos and catcalls getting louder every day. But whichever one finally falls, the other will soon follow.

Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.

Source: TEST FEED1

No close contacts of Biden test positive for COVID-19 since president's infection

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said on Sunday that none of the 17 individuals  who were deemed close contacts of President Biden after he became infected with COVID-19 last week have tested positive for the virus.

Jha confirmed this to ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, adding that the close contacts are currently following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. 

“As of late yesterday, again, 17 is the number that we are tracking in the White House medical unit. None of them have tested positive as of late yesterday. Obviously all those people have been contacted. They are following CDC protocol. And we’ll continue to follow them,” Jha said.

An official told The Hill on Thursday that Vice President Harris had been considered one of Biden’s close contacts, but that nothing about her schedule would change.

When asked if the Biden administration would consider any changes to COVID-19 protocols following Biden’s positive test, Jha responded that the virus protocols around Biden have been “tight,” noting Biden’s characteristics of being outdoors when meeting with citizens. 

“You know look, the protocols around the president I think have been very tight but this is a president who likes to get out there and meet Americans, spend time with people,” Jha told Karl. 

The White House announced on Thursday that Biden had tested positive for the virus, days after he returned from a trip to the Middle East and a day after he made a stop in Massachusetts to give a speech on climate. The president is fully vaccinated and twice boosted and is experiencing mild symptoms, according to the White House.

Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, said on Saturday that the president had contracted the  BA.5 variant, which currently is the most dominant strain of the virus, making up 80 percent of cases in the country. 

Jha noted at the top of his appearance that Biden continues to be doing well.

Source: TEST FEED1

We’re entering a climate that humans did not evolve to withstand

A record-smashing heat wave and massive wildfires are scorching Europe.

On this side of the Atlantic, over 100 million Americans are under an excessive heat warning or heat advisory.

Oppressive heat is blanketing over 900 million people in China, while millions across large swaths of South Asia suffered through weeks of a stifling, and deadly, April.

While early estimates indicate that more than 2,000 people died from lethal heat within the span of a week in Portugal and Spain alone, we will not know the full toll on health for months.

Whether political leaders declare a climate emergency or not, widespread and unrelenting periods of extreme heat have catapulted us into the midst of a global public health crisis. This, however, is not the new normal. This is only a taste of what a hotter climate may look like just a few decades from now.

If we continue on our current path of deadly fossil fuel use, reports from an international team of climate scientists indicate these record-breaking temperatures will only get more intense, more frequent and longer lasting.

This means we can expect more health harms, more suffering and more death as we enter into a climate that humans did not evolve to withstand.

As it is, our bodies work hard to maintain an ideal temperature range. Heat kicks us into high gear. Our hearts have to pump harder to increase blood flow to the skin so heat can escape into the air. We also produce more sweat, a critical tool that helps us cool off.

Extreme and prolonged heat turns these tools against us, especially if we do not have time to recover, rehydrate and rest. Losing too much sweat can cause dehydration, which can result in kidney damage. Dehydration and the increased work of pumping blood to the skin can put a strain on our hearts. That is why people with long-term conditions like heart disease are at much higher risk for health problems and death when the temperature rises.

Eventually, our bodies just cannot keep up with the outside temperature, and our bodies overheat. This is when we start down the path to heat stroke — from early symptoms like heat cramps to heat exhaustion, with symptoms of nausea, weakness and fainting.  

For people who do not recognize the early signs or who cannot get out of the heat, heat stroke is the ultimate result — a life-threatening emergency where our core temperature rises quickly, cells breakdown and our nerve signaling system collapses. Without early medical attention up to 80 percent of heatstroke cases can be deadly, and survivors can have long term organ damage.

Even though high temperatures are risky for all of us, older people, very young children, those with chronic medical and mental health conditions are at the highest risk, along with anyone that has to spend long periods in high heat. This generally means that people from marginalized communities are also the most likely to suffer the biggest impacts from rising temperatures.

It is not just heat-related death that we should be concerned about. Higher temperatures are also linked to higher rates of mental health hospitalization, more suicides, more violence and lower test scores in children and lower productivity in workers. It is not just individual lives at risk, it’s entire societies.

Not only are we at risk from a hotter world, but also one that feels more and more like a dysfunctional toaster oven, with some slices burned to a crisp, while others are heated more than usual.

For humans, both scenarios can be dangerous. While most of us should take serious precautions when the heat index is above 90degrees Fahrenheit, people who live in areas that are not used to high temperatures can get into dangerous territory well below this threshold.

In one study, researchers found that hospitalizations for heat-related illnesses in the U.S. peaked at different temperatures depending on the region. In the Southeast, the heat index was about 96 degrees Fahrenheit, in the Texas area it was 105 degrees, but the Pacific Northwest hospitalizations peaked at just 81 degrees.

As Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician and climate health researcher recently described during an interview with me, “each city is its own unique crucible of heat risk.”

How well we are prepared to deal with rising temperatures has a lot to do with where we live. Areas that have widespread air-conditioning, accessible cooling centers, more tree canopy and lush greenery are more protective than areas without these amenities. Urban areas that have to contend with the heat island effect — areas where more concrete and fewer trees permeate more heat into the environment — can be up to 15 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than surrounding areas, and it can put people at even higher risk for heat illness. Due to decades of redlining by racist housing policies, people of color are disproportionately impacted by the heat island effect and at greater risk from the heat.

We already see higher death tolls in places like Europe where air-conditioning access is less commonplace. Based on this, many will say that the solution to a warming planet lies in individual solutions like air-conditioners for all. But this short-term solution becomes unsustainable and in and of itself unhealthy given that air-conditioning contributes to air pollution, higher local temperatures because of heat waste from the units and even more greenhouse gas emissions.

On top of this, higher risks of energy blackout and brownouts from widespread air-conditioning use could put people at even higher risk if that’s the only cooling tool we rely on.

The good news is that evidence-based, sustainable cooling solutions to protect health are available from the individual level, for example, battery-driven fans, to recommendations for green cities with robust heat action plans. Regions that put systems in place to protect those most vulnerable can significantly mitigate serious heat-related health risks.  

As extreme heat events across the globe have shown us, we can no longer think of heat waves as natural anomalies, but as a clearer window into our fossil-fueled future.

In order to increase our chances of survival, we must adapt. We must, however, adapt sustainably so that our survival strategies do not further fuel climate chaos.

Dr. Neha Pathak is a physician and medical writer, who reports on the health impacts of climate change. She is also a public voices fellow on the climate crisis with The OpEd Project and The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Follow her on Twitter: @nehapathakmd

Source: TEST FEED1

Schiff: DOJ should investigate Trump for Jan. 6

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, said on Sunday that he believes the Department of Justice (DOJ) should investigate former President Trump for his actions on that day. 

“If the department were now to take the position that you can’t investigate or indict a former president, then a president becomes above the law. That’s a very dangerous idea that the founders would have never subscribed to,” Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“Even more dangerous, I think in the case of Donald Trump. Donald Trump is someone who has shown when he’s not held accountable, he goes on to commit worse and worse abuses of power. So I agree … there was evidence that the former president engaged in multiple violations of the law, and that should be investigated.”

When moderator Margaret Brennan mentioned the notion of the political calculus surrounding the possible prosecution of a former president, Schiff said it would be worse to not hold Trump accountable at all.

“It’s certainly not a step to be taken lightly at all. At the same time, immunizing a former president who has engaged in wrongdoing, I would agree with our vice chair, I think is more dangerous than anything else, and the decision not to move forward to the investigation or not to move forward to the prosecution, because of someone’s political status or political influence or because they have a following – to me, that is a far more dangerous thing to our Constitution than following the evidence wherever it leads, including when it leads to a former president,” Schiff responded.

Schiff added that the latest committee hearings have shown Trump’s efforts to have the 2020 elections results overturned, noting how Trump didn’t make any efforts to stop the insurrection during that day. 

“He wouldn’t lift a finger as he watched on TV police officers being beaten and gouged and sprayed with chemicals in the most supreme dereliction of duty ever,” Schiff said. “But also, those multiple lines of effort, I think, invoke various criminal laws and his conduct ought to be the subject of investigation.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump’s enablers should not get a pass

The “crazies” who spun the “Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election have been exposed by the Jan. 6 committee. It’s time to hold accountable the so-called “normals” — the silent enablers.

Bill Stepien, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, told the committee that soon after it became clear Joe Biden had won the election, he and what he called the “Team Normal” acknowledged the fact — in contrast to Rudy Giuliani and the collection of klutzes and clowns that joined Trump in baseless allegations the election was fraudulent.

Except Stepien failed to tell the rest of us.

In those dark November-December days, Stepien, with Trump’s cowardly chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the president’s daughter and others, let the Big Lie take hold.

Today, a year and half later, polls show that 70 percent of Republicans believe the election was stolen.

Leading GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidates all over the country embrace what has — in scores of court cases, recounts and audits — been proven demonstrably false.

This has had dangerous consequences.

“When a nation loses faith in elections, democracy is dead,” says the distinguished Princeton historian, Sean Wilentz. “We’re on the verge of what Hamilton in ‘The Federalist’ called government by brute force.”

The Associated Press called the election for Biden on Nov. 7. His closest state win was by more than 10,000 votes, an amount that is never overturned. By Dec. 1, Attorney General William Barr publicly declared there was no evidence to change the election result.

Yet “Team Normal” and prominent Republicans who knew the truth about the election kept quiet as Trump incited his followers to “Stop the Steal,” which ultimately led to the Jan. 6 mob assault on the Capitol.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Louisville Courier Journal reported, “finally acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden won,” only after the electoral college, on Dec. 14, formally ratified the obvious result.

That was true of other supposedly responsible GOP Senators, including Ohio’s Rob Portman and Missouri’s Roy Blunt. In a television interview weeks after the AP call, Blunt refused to call Biden “president-elect,” saying there is no such title; that’s exactly what he called Trump the day after the 2016 election.

(Some Republican Senators, like Mitt Romney of Utah and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, were more forthright in earlier declaring Biden won.)

Vice President Pence is praised for doing his official duty and certifying the electoral count on Jan. 6 over the objections of Trump and the mob; however, the vice president was vocally part of the Trump ruse until then. On Dec. 10, in Augusta, Ga., in a riff on election integrity, Pence praised a frivolous lawsuit by the Texas attorney general seeking to overturn the results in four other states. It was quickly dismissed by the Supreme Court.

I’m not suggesting that if these men and women who knew the truth had not enabled the Trump lie for those weeks and months, it all would have gone away. Paranoia, conspiracies and duplicities have long been present in American politics. But if they had stood up earlier when it mattered, it might have tempered this anti-democratic storm.

But that train left the station.

This year, there are hundreds of GOP election deniers running for office, including prominent gubernatorial and Senate candidates, in states ranging from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, to Georgia, Alabama, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Some of the 147 Republicans who refused to certify the election results right after the mob attack, still contend that some voting procedures were illegal. They zero in on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, responding to mail snafus and COVID, extending the deadline for receiving mail ballots by a few days without the approval of the state legislature. But there were only 10,000 of these mail ballots that were segregated from the rest — Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000.

These silent enablers and propagators of the lie have paid no price.

Stepien, who boasted of his reputation for “being honest and professional,” is back on Trump’s political action committee payroll and trying to help an election denier in Wyoming defeat Rep. Liz Cheney, who actually is honest and professional.

No place is this disconnect more egregious than in Arizona, where Biden won the count and a recount, certified by election officials. The Republican legislature then hired an outside firm with conservative connections to do a new audit of Maricopa County. After months, it reported a change: Of the 2.1 million votes, Biden gained 99 votes, Trump lost 261.

Yet in the Aug. 2 primary, the leading two GOP gubernatorial candidates and the leading three U.S. Senate candidates all claim the election and Biden’s victory were fraudulent.

There is one Arizona Republican who has paid a price. Rusty Bowers, the conservative state house speaker who told the Jan. 6 committee about rebuffing Trump’s pressure to manipulate the vote, was censured last week by the Arizona Republican Party.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hosts Politics War Room with James Carville. Follow him on Twitter @AlHuntDC.

Source: TEST FEED1

Yellen says economy shows no signs of recession

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that growing consumer spending, industrial output, credit quality and other economic indicators don’t suggest the economy is in a recession, although she acknowledged that “way too high” inflation is straining the system.

“This is not an economy that is in recession,” Yellen told moderator Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 

Businesses and consumers are seeing the economy slow after a rapid growth spurt last year, which brought the labor market back to life after the COVID-19 pandemic, the secretary said. But this transitional slowdown is “necessary and appropriate” given the rapid changes.

“You don’t see any of the signs. Now, a recession is a broad-based contraction that affects many sectors of the economy. We just don’t have that,” Yellen said, but she acknowledged the impacts of uncommonly high inflation numbers. 

She said she expects federal government policies aimed at controlling inflation to be successful, putting downward pressure on record gas prices, rising food costs and other economic problem areas for everyday Americans, with help from the Biden administration. 

“We’ve cut the deficit by a record one and a half trillion dollars this year … We’ve seen gas prices just in recent weeks come down by about 50 cents and there should be more in the pipeline. And hopefully we will pass a bill that will lower prescription drug costs and maintain current levels of health care costs.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Kinzinger on Bannon conviction: 'You'll pay the price' for ignoring congressional subpoena

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said the conviction of Steve Bannon on Friday was reflective of a price people pay for ignoring a congressional subpoena after a jury found Bannon to be in contempt of Congress.

“It’s good. I mean, justice, right? Come in, you can plead the fifth if you want in front of our committee but you can’t ignore a congressional subpoena or you’ll pay the price,” Kinzinger told co-host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week”

“That’s to any future witnesses too,” he added.

A federal jury convicted Bannon of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The 68-year-old political strategist, who served as former President Trump’s campaign CEO and White House adviser, faces a minimum sentence of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail for each count.

Bannon already vowed to appeal his conviction, with his lawyers arguing the judge didn’t allow key arguments to be presented to the court.

“I think the law’s with us on a number of situations,” Bannon told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. “I think some of this is really going to be adjudicated maybe even higher than the appellate courts. I’m feeling very confident that we’re 100 percent right on the law, but I’m going to fight this all the way.” 

The committee has subpoenaed dozens of individuals since beginning their investigation into the Capitol riot. 

Source: TEST FEED1

The cruel return of two fishermen shows why we must stand up to North Korea

The fate of two North Korean fishermen who were forcibly returned to the North in November 2019 has exploded into a scandal that tears at the hearts and minds of anyone looking at images of their transfer at Panmunjom, the truce village 40 miles north of Seoul. Photographs released by Chosun Ilbo, the South’s biggest-selling newspaper, reveal the horror of their resistance as South Korean soldiers thrust them into the hands of North Koreans on the line between the two Koreas.

The significance of their surrender by the appeasement-minded government of former South Korean President Moon Jae-in lies in what it says about Moon’s willingness to bow before the North. The scene has awakened Koreans, and American activists, to the cruelty of a transaction that raises serious questions about the South’s willingness and ability to stand up against the North.

Among the more influential American critics, Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said he was “shocked and startled” after seeing photographs and video of the fishermen as they were “forced to return to communist North Korea against their will and without due process.” Smith had asked about the case in his capacity as co-chairman of the House’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Committee. “A thorough investigation,” he said, is needed to determine who in the Korean bureaucracy had ordered their return and for what possible justification.

No one seeing the pictures could doubt that the two were “forced to cross the Military Demarcation Line,” Smith noted, while resisting their handover to “a brutal regime.” The incident, he said, “underscores the barbarity of North Korea’s communist regime” together with “the callous complicity of the previous Moon administration.”

Now South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol is demanding full responses from the former top officials involved in this sordid affair. The Korean public, he believes, has the right to comprehend the enormity of what appears to be a betrayal of the process of dealing with North Koreans who make their way to the South by whatever means, for whatever reason.

The case has become a cause celebre for human rights groups in the U.S. and South Korea. The ability of the Yoon government to resolve it has international repercussions. The fishermen appear to have been sacrificed on the altar of appeasement with a dictatorship who has no intention of compromising on anything, notably his nuclear program. Voices in Washington, as in Seoul, are insisting on retribution against the perpetrators of the handover.

David Maxwell, a retired U.S. army colonel who served five tours with the special forces in South Korea, in an interview with Voice of America called the return of the fishermen “a function of the misguided policies of the last administration.” There’s no doubt in Maxwell’s mind that Moon and his aides were “seeking to curry favor with Kim Jong Un and pursue the policy of engagement.” The Moon government, said Suzanne Scholte of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, likely was “complicit in murder.” 

It’s up to Yoon to go after those who placed the desire to appeal to North Korea’s dictatorship above the lives of North Koreans who had arrived in the South, regardless of how or why they got there. At stake is the issue of human rights, as well as South Korean law, under which all defectors as Korean citizens are entitled to due process once they arrive in the South. There are many unanswered questions.

Who would believe the claim, based on North Korean radio traffic monitored in the South, that these two fishermen had killed 16 others on their boat, including the captain? What became of the bodies of all those whom the fishermen are said to have killed? Would not some of them on their small boat have fought the two fishermen after hearing  the cries of the first victim or two? Could every one of them, as alleged, have submitted without a fight? Ridiculous.

Regardless of the real story, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, has stated that returning the two to North Korea “was illegal under international law because of the likelihood they’ll be tortured under North Korea’s extremely brutal legal system.” Greg Scarlatoui, director of the Committee of Human Rights in North Korea, said the South Koreans, by handing them over three days after capturing their boat in South Korean waters, had “issued a death sentence.” The message, he said, was that South Korea “no longer provides a safe haven” for defectors. Daily NK, a website in Seoul with risky mobile phone contacts inside North Korea, has reported the two were beheaded two months after the handover.

The incident provokes the question of how much credibility and confidence Korea’s friends and allies should place in a government that would bow before North Korea in such a dreadful manner. How can Korea’s alliance partner, the United States, and other countries bound to Korea through the United Nations Command believe in the will and power of Korean authorities in their perpetual standoff with North Korea if they are willing to engage in such treachery?

Under Yoon, the investigation has extended to the former directors of the National Intelligence Service. These men were responsible for scaling down intelligence resources on North Korea while conforming to Moon Jae-in’s efforts at compromise and appeasement during his five years as president. To Moon’s people, the deaths of two North Korean fishermen for the sake of reconciliation apparently was a small price to pay.

Yoon, however, was elected president in March by a narrow margin — so narrow that his foes, who command a majority in the National Assembly, are planning their resurgence. If they succeed, some fear they will again try to compromise with the North, yielding in disputes involving the lives of Koreans and the rights of defectors. It is necessary for the Yoon government to fortify the South against such tactics.

The case of the two North Korean fishermen is about much more than their awful fate. It’s also about a regime that was willing to bow before North Korea, betraying not only those two men but all South Koreans in their struggle against the North Korean dictatorship.

Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He currently is a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea. He is the author of several books about Asian affairs. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Kinzinger: 'Trump is becoming irrelevant'

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) told ABC’s “This Week” that it will be hard to find anyone who admits to supporting former President Trump in five years time, adding that he thought the former president was becoming “irrelevant.”

Kinzinger, one of the only two Republicans on the Jan. 6 House committee investigating the Capitol riot, was asked how he saw the panel’s public hearings impacting Republican voters.

“This doesn’t appear to be having, you know, a ton of impact. Maybe people are shifting more towards a potential for, I don’t know, a Ron DeSantis. Trumpism isn’t dying, even though Trump is becoming irrelevant,” Kinzinger stated. “I am hearing a lot of anecdotal stuff, around the edges, of people who’ve been hard core with Trump who now just can’t stand him.” 

“I think, though, long term, Jonathan, in like five years, I still believe it’s going to be hard to find someone that will ever admit they were ever a Trump supporter and I think this is where this impact comes, in future history.”

In recent polls, Trump is still shown to have wide support among Republicans consistently leading in polls where voters says they would still support a 2024 GOP primary bid should he opt to officially run again.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is the only other Republican in the polls who gets much support besides Trump.

Trump has not officially announced his 2024 presidential campaign but he has repeatedly suggested he may do so.

The Jan. 6 House panel has held several hearings to show how Trump’s response during the Capitol riot was insufficient and how rioters were impacted by Trump’s messaging regarding the 2020 election.

Source: TEST FEED1

Cheney reiterates she hasn't decided on running for president in 2024

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, reiterated on Sunday that she hasn’t decided whether she will run for president in 2024. 

Cheney, who is in a tough re-election bid for her congressional seat in Wyoming, was answering a question by CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” having just come off the committee’s eighth high-profile public hearing she is helping lead.

“At this point, I haven’t made a decision on 2024 …. I’ll make a decision on 2024 down the road,” Cheney said, adding that she is focused on her work with the Jan. 6 committee.

“But I do think as we look towards the next presidential election, as I said, you know, I believe that our nation stands on the edge of an abyss and I do believe that we all have to really think very seriously about the dangers we face and the threats we face and we have to elect serious candidates,” Cheney said.

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney had the same message, telling guest host Brett Baier that right now she is focused “on doing what is right” for the country.

Cheney also took the opportunity to assess President Trump’s fitness for office.

“It has guided me at every moment since then, and it’s guided my work on this committee,” Cheney told Baier. “And.. look, it’s not just me saying that Donald Trump is unfit for office. It’s other entities owned by Rupert Murdoch. It’s the New York Post and their editorial on Friday, it’s the Wall Street Journal said the same thing after our hearing on Thursday night.” 

“So I’m gonna continue to be guided by making sure I do my duty and making sure that the American people understand through.” 

Cheney, one of two GOP lawmakers serving on the Jan. 6 committee, was also one of 10 House GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump following the attack on the Capitol, drawing the ire of the former president.

She is facing off against Trump-endorsed challenger Harriet Hageman (R) for her House seat in her state’s primary race next month. 

When asked about her primary challenger, Cheney told Tapper that she will continue to fight hard to make sure that Trump doesn’t run for office again regarding the result of her primary. 

“I’m going to choose the Constitution and the truth every single day,” Cheney said. “And so, you know, as I said, I’m fighting hard, no matter what happens on August 16, I’m going to wake up on August 17, and continue to fight hard to ensure Trump is never anywhere close to the Oval Office ever again.”

Source: TEST FEED1