TYB
Biden rolls out Trump-like 'Made in America' executive order
by Naomi Lim, Political Reporter | | January 25, 2021 07:38 AM
President Biden spent the first week of his administration taking executive action reversing many of former President Donald Trump's signature policies, but on Monday, he will sign an order that has the hallmarks of Trumpism.
Biden will direct his federal government on Monday to update laws and regulations governing how it spends roughly $600 billion a year on contracts for goods and services. The order attempts to strengthen existing provisions giving workers and manufacturers in the United States preferential treatment, some of which haven't been changed since 1954.
Specifically, Biden is asking agencies to tighten the requirements that need to be met for a product to be considered made in the U.S. He's also requesting that they make it tougher for the government to justify buying foreign goods because of the price.
To oversee the reforms, he will appoint a "Made in America" director within the Office of Management and Budget, will centrally review any waivers granted, and will mandate biannual evaluations of the policy.
Biden's order aims to support newer small and medium-sized firms through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. It also reiterates the importance of the Jones Act, which means only U.S.-flag vessels can carry cargo between U.S. ports.
Biden released his take on Trump's "Make America Great" and "America First" campaign rhetoric last summer. His plan included making a $700 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing and innovation.
"I do not buy for one second that the vitality of American manufacturing is a thing of the past," the two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator said at the time. "American manufacturing was the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II and must be part of the engine of American prosperity now."
Biden's "Made in America" push comes as he and his aides lobby Congress regarding his $1.9 trillion "America Rescue Plan." It's the first of two proposals he has to reinvigorate the country's response to the coronavirus pandemic and resultant economic downturn.
Senate Republicans, and some centrist Democrats, have already balked at the framework's $1.9 trillion price tag. Hoping his first legislative victory will be a bipartisan one, Biden's chief economic adviser, Brian Deese, courted a bicameral group of lawmakers from both parties on the weekend.
Independent Maine Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats and was on the Sunday phone call, told CNN they were waiting for more data from the White House that backed up their costings.
If Biden doesn't succeed in winning over enough Senate Republicans, he can rely on a budget procedure called reconciliation. Through reconciliation, the measure can pass the chamber with a simple majority vote.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-rolls-out-trump-like-made-in-america-executive-order
Democrat Governors from California to New York Have Lost COVID Scapegoat Donald Trump
BY JAMES WALKER ON 1/25/21 AT 5:27 AM EST
As the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines continues to stall across America, Democratic governors and state officials can no longer use former President Donald Trump as a scapegoat if doses are delayed while cases and deaths continue to rise.
Now that President Joe Biden occupies the White House with a new COVID plan, Democratic governors could find themselves more politically exposed than at any point in the past year, as blaming the federal government or Trump for any further delays to vaccine deliveries may fail to wash with voters, or put them on a collision course with party leadership.
Previously, Democratic governors were quick to point the finger at the White House when questions were raised about the pace of COVID-19 vaccine rollouts in their states.
Before Biden was inaugurated on January 20, California Governor Gavin Newsom said states needed more clarity on when they would receive further vaccine doses from the Trump administration as he sought to accelerate the state's sluggish rollout.
The California Democrat had promised to have 1.5 million doses of the COVID vaccine administered by January 17 when he issued the call for clarity. The Los Angeles Times reported last week that it was unclear whether Newsom had met the target, due to data collection issues.
"It's simple—states need more vaccines and clarity of when we will be receiving them," Governor Newsom tweeted at the time. "[The Department of Health and Human Services] has achieved the opposite."
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took a similar stance earlier this month, calling for the federal government to provide states with more doses as he wrote to Pfizer, the pharmaceutical firm and vaccine developer, asking to buy doses directly from the vendor
MORE AT LINK - https://www.newsweek.com/democrat-governors-lost-covid-scapegoat-donald-trump-1564065
Agree with liberals, or you’re racist, xenophobic and dangerous
By Robert Knight - - Sunday, January 24, 2021
OK, with the “unity” and “healing” rhetoric behind us as we enter the Biden/Harris years, backed by 25,000 troops, we can get back to the business at hand.
That would be the left’s all-out war on free speech, American heritage, limited government, economic freedom, biological truth and Judeo-Christian morality.
MORE AT LINK - https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jan/24/agree-with-liberals-or-youre-racist-xenophobic-and/
'We Are the Storm': Texas GOP Condemned for Keeping 'QAnon Slogan' After Capitol Attack
BY EWAN PALMER ON 1/25/21 AT 8:06 AM EST
The Texas Republican Party has been criticized for using a slogan associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory in the wake of the deadly attack on the Capitol.
The Texas GOP tweeted an image urging people to follow the party on "free speech" social media app Gab on Saturday.
The Gab platform has almost no censorship rules and is known to be used by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists. It has attracted waves of new users since the Parler app was shut down for promoting the insurrection on January 6.
The Texas GOP was condemned for the post promoting Gab and for using its slogan "We are the storm" in the tweet.
The words are virtually identical to phrases used by followers of the radical QAnon conspiracy theory, which is listed as a domestic terrorist threat by the FBI.
In QAnon terminology, "the storm" refers to the moment that Donald Trump starts arresting and executing high-profile satanic pedophiles and those working for the "deep state."
The "storm" was meant to have taken place several times while Trump was in office, with many believing that it would happen during the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20.
Followers of QAnon also took part in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, which left five people dead, including a police officer.
The "We are the storm" slogan has been used by the Texas GOP since August, when it originally caused outrage. The New York Times called its use an "unusually visible example of the Republican Party's dalliance" with QAnon.
The Texas GOP has denied any connection to QAnon and says the slogan comes from a favorite poem of party chairman Allen West. The poem, whose author is not known, includes the line: "The devil whispered in my ear, 'You're not strong enough to withstand the storm.' Today I whispered in the devil's ear, 'I am the storm.'"
West has previously quoted the line in public and recited it on the campaign trial in July 2020.
A number of people have criticized the party for continuing to use the phrase despite its widespread association with the conspiracy theory.
Writer Grace Spelman tweeted: "Sorry just can't get over an official GOP account using a slogan directly lifted from a group the FBI labeled a domestic terrorist threat in 2019."
Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, wrote: "Texas GOP has incorporated QAnon "storm" b**t into its branding. We're watching the party devolve in real time as the lesson they apparently learned from their presidential election loss is 'be crazier.'"
Attorney Roger Tansey added: "You're the storm? As in, 'storm the Capitol' and kill a cop kind of storm?"
"The Texas Republican Party is now openly incorporating a QAnon slogan — 'we are the storm' into its official publicity materials," tweeted political reporter Blake Hounshell.
MORE AT LINK - https://www.newsweek.com/qanon-texas-gop-storm-slogan-1564127
Why the pro-Trump QAnon movement is finding followers in Japan
After emerging among conspiracy theorists in the US, the far-right QAnon movement is expanding to include a small but dedicated band of adherents in Japan. Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.
1 HOUR AGO
Undeterred by the mayhem at the Capitol in Washington and the near-universal condemnation of Donald Trump's failures in the dying days of his presidency, the small but committed Japanese chapter of the far-right QAnon movement is standing by its man.
It is also advancing some absurd, albeit uniquely Japanese theories: The imperial family was replaced by "fakes" during the mid-1800s; Emperor Hirohito was British, an agent for the CIA, and owned the patent for the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the closing days of World War II.
The group clearly has an ax to grind with its monarchy, as members are also convinced that the nearly 20,000 people who died in the tsunami triggered by an earthquake off northeast Japan in March 2011 were victims of the "artificial tsunami terrorism" overseen by Hirohito's son Emperor Akihito, who abdicated in April 2019.
A past tainted by cultish beliefs
A member of the group who goes by the name Eri claims there are at least 500 QAnon followers across Japan and a further 100 people are part of the QArmy Japan Flynn — an allied group that idolizes Michael Flynn. The former national security advisor to Trump had to step down after just 24 days for lying over his links to Russia before the 2016 presidential election.
As well as being convinced that Trump legitimately won the 2020 election and has been cheated out of a second term as president, QAnon Japan adherents believe that Japanese politics is "dominated by foreigners" who have sold off the nation's wealth to "global capitalists" through privatization. They also believe that ethnic Koreans are running the government.
Similarly, they believe that "deep state" is implementing a "global human population reduction plan" that has previously relied on war, illness and infertility to control population numbers.
Jun Okumura, an analyst at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, says there are some clear parallels with the emergence of QAnon and another cult that briefly shook Japan.
"I look at these people and while they are present and visible in every society, I see this group as being quite similar to the Aum Shinrikyo cult back in the early 1990s," he told DW, referring to the violent quasi-religious organization that released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995, killing 12 people.
"It appears that a small minority of people have their minds wired to accept these outlandish theories in spite of all the evidence and knowledge that is put directly in front of them," Okumura said. "There is even the argument that it is human nature to want to believe that a person is privy to secret information or knowledge that no-one else has."
Conspiracy theories – coronavirus, global warming, monarchs
QAnon Japan followers are convinced that global warming is a lie and that the planet's climate is being artificially manipulated, while the coronavirus pandemic that started in the Chinese city of Wuhan is linked to the introduction of 5G mobile networks "and may function as a controllable electromagnetic weapon," Eri told DW.
Stephen Nagy, an associate professor of international relations at Tokyo's International Christian University, points out that social media has made the message of conspiracy theorists far easier to disseminate.
"Anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, those that think the coronavirus was a biological weapon deliberately manufactured in a Chinese laboratory and brought into Japan by North Korean agents – where does it all come from and why do some people fall for these tales?" he asked.
"I remember similar stories in years gone by, but they never gained any real traction then. But now we live in an era where social media amplifies and expands every thought and idea," Nagy told DW.
"And with people now locked down because of the coronavirus, many are going online and falling down the rabbit hole offered by QAnon and others with similar agendas," he added.
In a country that broadly reveres its monarchy, QAnon's opinions on the imperial family are perhaps most surprising.
Eri insists that the members of the real imperial family were "replaced by fakes" during the Meiji era and "Emperor Hirohito had British nationality and is not a pure Japanese," adding that Emperor Hirohito, who was Japan's emperor from 1926 until his death in 1989, was a CIA agent.
MORE AT LINK - https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-pro-trump-qanon-movement-is-finding-followers-in-japan/a-56333553
All conspiracy theories are equal, but some are more equal than others
Maitreya Bhakal
Opinion 21:10, 25-Jan-2021
Conspiracy theories are as useful as they are delusional. They remain easy, low-cost techniques for governments to divert attention from domestic problems.
And one thing that stands out for the U.S. is blaming external factors for internal problems. When the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, America's considered strategy was the same as its instinctive response: Blaming China. This was only partially successful, since even the most sophisticated propaganda system can hardly distract from 400,000 COVID deaths - and counting.
Weaponizing conspiracy theories
On February 16, 2020, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton claimed that the virus was a Chinese bioweapon and accused China of a cover-up (with zero evidence of course). Coverage of evidence of this in the West, while not entirely absent, was deprioritized, with only the bare-minimum disclaimer coverage to provide the appearance of balance.
By next month, the U.S. pandemic of racist hate-mongering and Sinophobic conspiracy theorizing had transformed from a trickle to a deluge. This is a classic example of projection: the nation that has the history of biological warfare accusing another nation of the same thing. China's official stance, by contrast, is that only science should determine the origin of the virus.
America disagrees. It believes in the possibility that the virus originated in a Chinese lab - a bonkers idea repeatedly rebuffed by scientists. Mike Pompeo, America's reprehensible former Secretary of State, claimed he had "enormous evidence" – which he did not present – linking the virus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The State Department released a "Fact Sheet" (which was devoid of facts) demanding that China allow access to the lab and its records. Yet, when China in turn suggested that the U.S. allow access to Fort Detrick, America's largest biochemical weapons research facility, the U.S. administration and media got highly offended, accusing China of spreading "conspiracy theories."
Some people push back
The West is used to looking at China as a subservient nation - in accordance with the orientalist stereotype of Chinese as a subservient people. Thus, when the U.S. administration and media accused China of spreading a bioweapon, they expected China to take it lying down. But when China responded in kind and pointed out U.S. hypocrisy, they got surprised at the pushback. When they finally recovered from the initial shock, their response was to accuse China of what they had themselves started – spreading conspiracy theories.
Unlike the U.S., China did not claim to possess any evidence. It merely suggested that the U.S. should do what it asks from others, and allow an international investigation into its own biological weapons programs and labs. The Western media grants more legitimacy to America's claims, while dismissing China's mere suggestions as conspiracies.
Further differences between the two countries stand out. In China, such hypotheses keep being mentioned on corners of the internet by eccentrics (China has over 900 million internet users). A handful of articles keep appearing in some Chinese media outlets mentioning Fort Detrick. And recently, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, in response to a question regarding U.S. accusations about the Wuhan lab, merely suggested that the U.S. should perhaps be more transparent about its largest biolab and 200-plus biolabs overseas. That's about it.
In the U.S. however, conspiracy theories and racist dog-whistling were pushed officially and repeatedly from the highest levels of government, including the Deputy National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State, multiple U.S. lawmakers, etc.
An epidemic of Sinophobia
Hypocrisy is a core value in Western politics. Few things offend Western people more than doing to them a fraction of what they did to you. Yet, context matters. The U.S. media will cover the mountainous official U.S. conspiracy theories with minimal coverage, but will cover the rare molehill of remarks from Chinese media and spokespersons to death. Article after article, op-ed after op-ed, editorial after editorial on how China is spreading "conspiracy theories" to "distract from its missteps and cover-up of the pandemic."
This is despicable, but not surprising. The more Americans die from COVID-19, the more the U.S. establishment will try to distract attention by attempting to manufacture consent. The reign of the former Trump administration, which started with Russophobic hysteria, ends with Sinophobic hysteria.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-01-25/All-conspiracy-theories-are-equal-but-some-are-more-equal-than-others-XlmPRgcUj6/index.html
Kick that dead horse - Muh Failed Racism Narrative