#Gina Raimondo

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Biden wants to ban ripoff “financial advisors”

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Once, American workers had "defined benefits pensions," where their employers promised to pay them a certain amount every year from their retirement to their death. Jimmy Carter swapped that out for 401(k)s, "market" pensions where you have to guess which stocks will be valuable or starve in your old age:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

The initial 401(k) rollout had all kinds of pot-sweeteners that made them seem like a good deal, like heavy employer matching that doubled or even tripled the value of every dollar you put into the market for your retirement. But over the years, as Reaganomics took hold and workers' power ebbed away, all these goodies were clawed back. In the end, the market-based pension makes you the sucker at the poker table, flushing your savings into a rigged casino that is firmly tilted in favor of finance barons and other eminently guillotineable plutocrats.

Neoliberalism is many things, but most of all it is a cult of individualism. The fact that three generations of workers are nows facing down retirement without pensions that will provide them with secure housing and food – let alone money to see the odd movie, buy birthday gifts for their grandkids, or enjoy a meal out now and then – is framed as millions of individual failures, not a systemic one.

In other words, if you are facing food insecurity and homelessness after a lifetime of hard work, it's because you saved wrong. Perhaps you didn't save enough (through a 40-year run of wage stagnation and skyrocketing housing, health and education costs). Or perhaps you saved wrong, making the wrong bets on the stock market. If you can't afford to run your air conditioner during a heat dome, that's on you: you should have been better at stocks.

Apologists for this system will say that you don't have to be good at stocks – you just have to pay an Independent Financial Advisor to pick the stocks for you and you'll be fine. But IFAs don't work for free! What if you can't afford one?

Enter "predatory inclusion" – the practice of offering scammy, overpriced and substandard products to poor people and declaring it to be a good deed, because otherwise, those poor people would have to do without. The crypto bubble relied heavily on this: think of Spike Lee and others shilling for pump-and-dump scams as a way of "building Black wealth":

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/media/cryptocurrency-seeks-the-spotlight-with-spike-lees-help.html

More recently, Intuit and other scammy tax-prep services have argued against the IRS's plan to offer free tax preparation as bad for Black and brown people, because it will deny them the chance to be deceived and ripped off with TurboTax:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

Back in 2018, Trump won the predatory inclusion Olympics, when his Department of Labor let the Fifth Circuit abolish the "Fiduciary Rule" for Independent Financial Advisors:

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/

What was the Fiduciary Rule? It said that your IFN had to put your interests ahead of their own. Like, if there were two different funds you could bet on, and one would pay your IFN a big commission, while the other would be a better bet for you, the IFN couldn't put your retirement savings into the fund that offered them a bribe.

When Trump killed the Fiduciary Rule, he proclaimed it a victory for poor people, especially Black and brown people. After all, if IFNs weren't allowed to accept bribes for giving you bad financial advice, then they would have to make up the difference by charging you for good advice. If you couldn't afford that advice, well, you'd have to make bad retirement investments on your own, without the benefit of their sleazy self-dealing.

The Biden Administration wants to change that. Biden's Acting Labor Secretary is Julie Su, and she's very good at her job. Last spring, she forced west coast dockworkers' bosses to cough up the contract they'd stalled on for a year, with 8-10% raises for every worker, owed retroactively:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

Su has proposed a way to reinstate the Fiduciary Rule, as part of the Biden Administration's war on junk fees, estimating that this will increase retirees' net savings by 20%:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-11-07-julie-su-labor-retirement-savers/

The new rule will force advisors who cheat their clients to pay restitution, and will require them to deliver all their advice in writing so that this cheating can be detected and punished.

The industry is furious, of course. They claim that "The Market (TM)" will solve this: if you get bad retirement savings advice and end up homeless and starving, then you will choose a different advisor in your next life, after you are reincarnated (I guess?).

And of course, they're also claiming that forcing IFNs to stop cheating their clients will deny poor people access to expert (bad) advice. As the Financial Services Institute's Dale Brown says, this will have a "negative impact on Main Street Americans’ access to financial advice":

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/legal-challenge-predicted-for-new-dol-fiduciary-proposal-75257.html

Here's that rule – read it for yourself, then submit a comment expressing your views on it. The government wants to hear from you, and administrative law requires them to act on the comments they receive:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/03/2023-23782/proposed-amendment-to-prohibited-transaction-exemptions-75-1-77-4-80-83-83-1-and-86-128

Su is part of a wave of progressive, technically skilled regulators in the Biden administration that resulted from a horse-trading exercise called the Unity Task Force, which divvied up access to top appointments among the progressive wing and the finance wing of the Democratic Party. The progressive appointments are nothing short of incredible – the most competent and principled agency leaders America has seen in half a century:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

But then there's the finance wing's appointments, like Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, who ruled against Lina Khan's attempt to block the rotten Microsoft/Activision merger (don't worry, Khan's appealing):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

Perhaps the worst, though, is Biden's Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, a private equity ghoul who did a stint for the notorious wreckers Bain Capital before founding her own firm. Raimondo has stuffed her department full of Goldman Sachs alums, and has sidelined labor and civil society groups as she sets out to administer everything from the CHIPS Act to regulating ChatGPT.

As Henry Burke writes for the Revolving Door Project and The American Prospect, Raimondo's history as a corporate raider, her deference to the finance sector, and she and her husband's conflicts of interest from their massive stakes in companies she's regulating all serve to undermine Biden's agenda:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-11-08-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-undercutting-bidenomics/

When the administration inevitably complains that its popular economic programs aren’t breaking through the media coverage, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

The Unity Task Force gave us generationally important policymakers, but ultimately, it's a classic "pizzaburger." If half your family wants pizza, and the other half wants burgers, and you serve them something halfway in between that makes none of them happy, you haven't made a wise compromise – you've just made an inedible mess:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/08/fiduciaries/#but-muh-freedumbs

[nodynasty4us]

From the December 13, 2022 column:

Trump is confronting the grimmest of eventualities — indictment. That could derail his candidacy, whether because of the charges themselves or merely because they tank his standing in the polls and he uses prosecution to claim persecution and saves face by bowing out to avoid defeat.

So his one-time allies are unwilling to edge onto the limb of his candidacy. That’s partly because they suspect he entered the race so soon to dare the authorities to prosecute an announced candidate and in part because they’d rather hold back to see if those charges come, how serious they are and whether he goes through with a campaign.

...

If stopping Trump’s comeback and preserving democracy is the raison d’etre of Biden’s reelection, what’s the current president’s rationale if, by the start of 2024, it’s clear the former president isn’t a viable contender?

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to Travel to Brazil to Co-Chair the 12th Plenary of U.S. Brazil CEO Forum, Strengthen Bilateral Relationship

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will travel to Brasilia, Brazil this week to strengthen the U.S.-Brazil bilateral relationship. During her visit, Raimondo will meet with government officials and business leaders to discuss trade and investment opportunities, areas of cooperation on climate action, and the importance of supply chain resilience. Secretary Raimondo will co-chair the 12th Plenary of the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum. The Secretary’s travel bolsters the Biden Administration’s efforts to advance U.S. commercial interests in Latin America and enhance the United States’ important partnership with Brazil.

Source.

[gud4knowledge]

US, Chinese Officials Cite Need for Stable Economic Relations news.gud4knowledge

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told her Chinese counterpart Monday during a meeting in Beijing that the Biden administration seeks healthy competition with China and that a “growing Chinese economy that plays by the rules is in both of our interests. Raimondo told Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao that it is important for the United States and China to have a “stable economic…

[rausule]

Amerikaanse minister van handel vlieg na China om handel te bevorder (en dit te beperk)

Gina Raimondo, Amerikaanse minister van handel, is vandag op pad na Beijing en Sjanghai met twee opponerende doelwitte: om Amerikaanse handelsbetrekkinge met Beijing te versterk en om van die strengste sanksies te kommunikeer wat ooit op Chinese handel ingestel is. Raimondo sien uit na "konstruktiewe besprekings oor kwessies wat verband hou met die VSA-China-handelsverhouding, die uitdagings wat Amerikaanse maatskappye in die gesig staar, en gebiede vir potensiële samewerking." Raymond se rol behels die kweek van uitgebreide bande tussen die twee lande se ekonomieë, maar verhoudings tussen Washington en Beijing het afgekoel namate China meer selfgeldend geword het oor die vertoon van sy ekonomiese en militêre mag. Die Asiatiese reus, die wêreld se tweede grootste ekonomie, bly 'n belangrike ekonomiese vennoot vir die Verenigde State, maar Amerikaanse amptenare sien die land toenemend as 'n bedreiging en het 'n rits nuwe beperkings ingestel om Beijing se toegang tot tegnologiese produkte wat hulle kan wees, lam te lê. gebruik om die weermag of veiligheidsdienste verder te versterk.

US Commerce Scriba volat Sinae ad mercaturam boost (ac restringere eam)

Gina Raimondo, US Secretarius Commercii, Beijing et Shanghai hodie cum duobus propositis oppositis contendit: ad commercia US cum Beijing confirmandas et nonnullas firmissimas sanctiones commercio Sinensi semper impositas communicet. Raimondus spectat ad "disceptationes construendas de quaestionibus ad relationem commercii US-Sinis pertinentibus, provocationes quae sunt societates Americanae, et areas cooperationis potentialis". Munus Raymundi magnas necessitudines inter oeconomias duarum nationum fovere implicat, at relationes inter Washington et Beijing refrigeraverunt sicut Sina magis assertiva facta est de ostensione sua potentia oeconomica et militari. Colossus Asiaticus, secunda-maxima oeconomia mundi, particeps momenti oeconomici in Civitatibus Foederatis manet, sed magistratus US patriam minas magis magisque vident et novas restrictiones imposuerunt ad impediendum accessum Beijing ad technicis qui possent esse ad confirma militum vel securitatis officia amplius.

Dr De Beer

[reportwire]

Biden rebuffs UK bid for closer cooperation on tech

Press play to listen to this article Voiced by artificial intelligence. LONDON — Britain was rebuffed by the Biden administration after multiple requests to develop an advanced trade and technology dialogue similar to structures the U.S. set up with the European Union. On visits to Washington as a Cabinet minister over the past two years, Liz Truss urged U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo…

[shanemadejshair]

Realizing that I voted back-to-back for women who would go and win their gubernatorial re-elections and that’s pretty cool 🥰

[eveningnetwork]

Gina Raimondo, a Rising Star in the Biden Administration, Faces a $100 Billion Test

Gina Raimondo, a Rising Star in the Biden Administration, Faces a $100 Billion Test

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimond spotted a familiar face while meeting students at Purdue University in September. Raimond smiled as she greeted her technology chief executive at Skywater, a chip company that announced plans to build a $1.8 billion manufacturing facility next to the Purdue campus. . “We are very excited about Indiana’s announcement,” she said. These days,…

[zvaigzdelasas]

You can’t buy the Seagull in the US. But I bet you wish you could.

A small hatchback around the size of a Mini Cooper, the Seagull is a fast-charging electric car and claims a range of up to 250 miles [...] BYD, its Chinese manufacturer, claims it can go from 30 percent to 80 percent charged in a half-hour using a DC plug. It’s hardly a luxury car but it’s well-equipped, with a power driver’s seat and cruise control. “If I were looking for an inexpensive commuter car … this would be perfect,” veteran car journalist John McElroy said after taking a drive.

The best part? Its base model costs about $10,700 in China.

That’s about a third of the cost of the cheapest EV you can buy in the US. In South America, it’s a little pricier, but still fairly affordable, at under $24,000 for a top-trim version. Even in Europe, you can get an entry-level BYD for under €30,000. These are absolutely screaming deals — exactly the kind of products that could turbocharge our transition away from gas and toward electric vehicles.[...]

The problem for Americans? The Biden administration is hell-bent on preventing you from buying BYD’s product, and if Donald Trump returns to office, he is likely to fight it as well.

That’s because the BYD cars are made in China, and both Biden and Trump are committed to an ultranationalist trade policy meant to keep BYD’s products out. [...] Shipments to Europe have increased astronomically; Chinese companies sold 0.5 percent of EVs in Europe in 2019 but they’re already over 9 percent as of last year. Companies like BYD make cheap, reasonably good-quality cars people are eager to buy.

In 2018, Trump imposed, and Biden has since continued, a special 25 percent tax on Chinese-made autos, on top of the ordinary 2.5 percent tax on foreign-made cars.

That has so far prevented BYD and its Chinese peers from trying to enter the US market. US customer tastes are different enough that Chinese manufacturers would probably prefer to make cars tailored to them — but US policy has been so hostile toward cheap Chinese EVs that so far, the companies haven’t wanted to bother.

So, the result is that we’re left out of the bounty of cheap EV options created by BYD and others. “If you’re a consumer right now, the best place to be right now is China, because you have the best choice of EVs,” Ilaria Mazzocco, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on Chinese EVs, says.[...]

Still, China’s price advantage is big enough that even the extreme Trump-Biden import tax might not be enough to deter companies like BYD from entering the US market. Even with the tariffs, Chinese cars might be cheaper than their rivals. “​​Subsidies most likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose [more] trade restrictions,” climate journalist Robinson Meyer predicted recently. The Biden administration is already making noise about imposing even more draconian taxes or trade restrictions against these vehicles. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has described Chinese-made cars as a national security threat, and recently announced an investigation into the vehicles’ data collection abilities and the possibility they could send movement data to Beijing.

On the one hand, Biden is offering Americans up to $7,500 per vehicle to buy EVs (provided they meet certain made-in-North America rules). On the other hand, he’s imposing massive taxes to keep Americans from buying EVs. It’s a bizarre policy that makes no sense from a climate perspective.[...]

[The Biden Administration] has proven shockingly willing to sabotage its own climate policy if it gets to stick it to the Chinese in the process.

“There’s almost an across-the-board apprehension about Chinese EVs, even though they would make an important contribution to [lower] CO2 emissions,” Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a veteran trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says.[...]

Realistically, Helveston argues, BYD might not sell something like the Seagull in the US because it’s smaller than most cars Americans buy. They’d probably build plants in the US instead, or its free-trade zone partners Canada and Mexico, to build vehicles tailored for Americans. “If you’re going to really enter a market, you have to make it locally,” Helveston explains. “US automakers like GM sell and make millions of cars in China to sell in China.” BYD would do the same. Indeed, it’s already reportedly scouting sites for factories in Mexico.

If they ever were to set up shop in North America, BYD and other Chinese car companies would still have a major price advantage versus American EVs. They have years more experience and a much more successful track record of building batteries and EVs at low cost.

“Part of why they’re so successful is they’ve been thinking outside the box on cost reduction for a long time,” Mazzocco says. They took the “opposite of the Tesla approach”: starting not with luxury vehicles but ultra-cheap cars fit for taxi fleets and not much else, and constantly improving their early inexpensive prototypes. The result is that Chinese firms have gotten extremely good at making inexpensive EVs, at a time when Ford, by contrast, lost $28,000 for every EV it sold in 2023.[...]

“If you have more affordable EVs in the United States, no matter where you come from,” Gopal says, “that’s better for the climate.”

Still, the Biden administration reportedly wants to restrict Chinese car companies’ access to the US even if they do set up shop in North America. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the Biden administration is formulating rules that would limit US sales of Chinese-made parts, even if they’re in vehicles ultimately assembled in the US or Mexico.[...]

But the Biden administration’s objections to Chinese EVs are also ideological. The Biden administration represents the victory of a protectionist, trade-skeptical wing of the Democratic party that was relegated to the sidelines during the Clinton and Obama years.[...]

[O]ver 90 percent of American households have a car, and surging car prices were a huge contributor to the 2021–2023 rise in inflation.

Barriers to importing cheap cars make inflation worse and reduce the real incomes of the middle class.

Not only are the administration and other left-leaning institutions opposed to Chinese EVs, but hardline conservatives at places like the Heritage Foundation are calling for outright bans on Chinese EVs as well. Their rationale is security, another theme the Biden administration evokes often. On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced it was beginning a process to “investigate the national security risks of … PRC-manufactured technology in [internet-connected] vehicles.”

6 Mar 24

[mariacallous]

When OpenAI’s ChatGPT took the world by storm last year, it caught many power brokers in both Silicon Valley and Washington, DC, by surprise. The US government should now get advance warning of future AI breakthroughs involving large language models, the technology behind ChatGPT.

The Biden administration is preparing to use the Defense Production Act to compel tech companies to inform the government when they train an AI model using a significant amount of computing power. The rule could take effect as soon as next week.

The new requirement will give the US government access to key information about some of the most sensitive projects inside OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and other tech companies competing in AI. Companies will also have to provide information on safety testing being done on their new AI creations.

OpenAI has been coy about how much work has been done on a successor to its current top offering, GPT-4. The US government may be the first to know when work or safety testing really begins on GPT-5. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We're using the Defense Production Act, which is authority that we have because of the president, to do a survey requiring companies to share with us every time they train a new large language model, and share with us the results—the safety data—so we can review it,” Gina Raimondo, US secretary of commerce, said Friday at an event held at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. She did not say when the requirement will take effect or what action the government might take on the information it received about AI projects. More details are expected to be announced next week.

The new rules are being implemented as part of a sweeping White House executive order issued last October. The executive order gave the Commerce Department a deadline of January 28 to come up with a scheme whereby companies would be required to inform US officials of details about powerful new AI models in development. The order said those details should include the amount of computing power being used, information on the ownership of data being fed to the model, and details of safety testing.

The October order calls for work to begin on defining when AI models should require reporting to the Commerce Department but sets an initial bar of 100 septillion (a million billion billion or 1026) floating-point operations per second, or flops, and a level 1,000 times lower for large language models working on DNA sequencing data. Neither OpenAI nor Google have disclosed how much computing power they used to train their most powerful models, GPT-4 and Gemini, respectively, but a congressional research service report on the executive order suggests that 1026 flops is slightly beyond what was used to train GPT-4.

Raimondo also confirmed that the Commerce Department will soon implement another requirement of the October executive order requiring cloud computing providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to inform the government when a foreign company uses their resources to train a large language model. Foreign projects must be reported when they cross the same initial threshold of 100 septillion flops.

Raimondo’s announcement comes on the same day that Google touted the release of new data highlighting the prowess of its latest artificial intelligence model, Gemini, showing it surpassing OpenAI’s GPT-4, which powers ChatGPT, on some industry benchmarks. The Commerce Department may get early warning of Gemini’s successor, if the project uses enough of Google’s ample cloud computing resources.

Rapid progress in the field of AI last year prompted some AI experts and executives to call for a temporary pause on the development of anything more powerful than GPT-4, the model currently used for ChatGPT.

Samuel Hammond, senior economist at the Foundation for American Innovation, a think tank, says a key challenge for the federal government is that a model does not necessarily need to surpass a compute threshold in training to be potentially dangerous.

Dan Hendrycks, director of the nonprofit Center for AI Safety, says the requirement is proportionate given recent developments in AI and concerns about its power. “Companies are spending many billions on AI training, and their CEOs are warning that AI could be superintelligent in the next couple of years,” he says. “It seems reasonable for the government to be aware of what AI companies are up to.”

Anthony Aguirre, executive director of the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring transformative technologies benefit humanity, agrees. “As of now, giant experiments are running with effectively zero outside oversight or regulation,” he says. “Reporting those AI training runs and related safety measures is an important step. But much more is needed. There is strong bipartisan agreement on the need for AI regulation and hopefully congress can act on this soon.”

Raimondo said at the Hoover Institution event Friday that the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) is working to define standards for testing the safety of AI models as part of the creation of a new US government AI Safety Institute. Determining how risky an AI model is typically involves probing a model to try and evoke problematic behavior or output, a process known as “red teaming.”

Raimondo said that her department is working on guidelines that will help companies better understand the risks that might lurk in the models they are hatching. These guidelines could include ways of ensuring AI cannot be used to commit human rights abuses, she suggested.

The October executive order on AI gives the NIST until July 26 to have those standards in place, but some working with the agency say that it lacks the funds or expertise required to get this done adequately.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Christopher Fry

Up until these imperialist sanctions, China had obtained its semiconductor and other tech designs from a complex global network. Facing this U.S. blockade, the Chinese government began a robust campaign to develop its own semiconductor design capabilities. With this new Huawei success, it appears that socialist China has made a massive breakthrough.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/11/06/the-u-s-steps-up-its-chip-war-against-socialist-china/

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Readout of Secretary Raimondo’s Meeting with Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Relations Mauro Vieira

Yesterday, Secretary Gina M. Raimondo met with Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations Mauro Vieira to discuss the importance of the U.S.-Brazil bilateral and commercial relationship during her first official visit to Brasilia, Brazil. U.S.-Brazil bilateral trade reached a record high over the past two years and continuing to strengthen the U.S.-Brazil trading relationship is a priority. Secretary Raimondo shared updates from and underscored the importance of the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum and the U.S.-Brazil Commercial Dialogue to fostering positive changes in the business environment that will continue to support mutual growth and prosperity. Secretary Raimondo reaffirmed our shared commitment to fight climate change and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. She also stated she is pleased that our collaboration through the Commercial Dialogue supports a shared goal to ensure the benefits of trade reach all populations. The Secretary affirmed the Department’s continued support and ongoing collaboration with the Ministry to commemorate 200 years of U.S.-Brazil diplomatic relations in 2024.

Source.

[association-of-freed-people]

Here’s the bipartisan list of slime you need to shit on this November if given the chance.

Davos 2022 includes the usual components of WEF’s “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” totalitarian eco statist agenda. Topics discussed and panels at the 2022 meeting will include:

Experience the future of cooperation: The Global Collaboration Village

Staying on Course for Nature Action

Future-proofing Health Systems

Accelerating the Reskilling Revolution (for the “green transition”)

The ‘Net’ in Net Zero

The Future of Globalization

Unlocking Carbon Markets

And of course, a Special Address by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine

The American contingent will include 25 politicians and Biden Administration officials. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will join Climate Czar John Kerry as the White House representatives there. They will be joined by 12 democrat and 10 republican politicians, including 7 senators and two state governors

Without further delay, I’ve provided the entire list of attendees who are showing up to Davos next week. I’ll list the Americans below and the rest are linked below that in an attached document.

Gina Raimondo Secretary of Commerce of USA USA

John F. Kerry Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States of America

Bill Keating Congressman from Massachusetts (D)

Daniel Meuser Congressman from Pennsylvania (R)

Madeleine Dean Congresswoman from Pennsylvania (D)

Ted Lieu Congressman from California (D)

Ann Wagner Congresswoman from Missouri (R)

Christopher A. Coons Senator from Delaware (D)

Darrell Issa Congressman from California (R)

Dean Phillips Congressman from Minnesota (D)

Debra Fischer Senator from Nebraska (R)

Eric Holcomb Governor of Indiana (R)

Gregory W. Meeks Congressman from New York (D)

John W. Hickenlooper Senator from Colorado (D)

Larry Hogan Governor of Maryland (R)

Michael McCaul Congressman from Texas (R)

Pat Toomey Senator from Pennsylvania (R)

Patrick J. Leahy Senator from Vermont (D)

Robert Menendez Senator from New Jersey (D)

Roger F. Wicker Senator from Mississippi (R)

Seth Moulton Congressman from Massachusetts (D)

Sheldon Whitehouse Senator from Rhode Island (D)

Ted Deutch Congressman from Florida (D)

Francis Suarez Mayor of Miami (R)

Al Gore Vice-President of the United States (1993-2001) (D)

[libertariantaoist]

News Roundup 12/6/2023 | The Libertarian Institute

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 12/6/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

US News

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has hit out at Americans who prefer a less interventionist foreign policy, smearing them as isolationists who want to see the US “retreat from responsibility.” AWC

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has scheduled a vote for Wednesday to advance President Biden’s massive $106 billion emergency spending request that includes military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as additional funding for the border, POLITICO reported. AWC

Adm. Christopher Grady: US Can Handle Middle East, Russia and China All at Once. YouTubeThe Institute

China

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called for tighter export controls on advanced technologies going to China and labeled Beijing “the biggest threat we’ve ever had.” AWC

Russia

White House Will Run Out of Funds to Arm Ukraine By the End of the Year. FTAWC

US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt explained that Washington was plotting a decade-long economic war targeting Moscow. The US has maintained sanctions on Russia since the 2014 Washington-backed coup in Ukraine sparked Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the economic war on the Russian economy was significantly intensified. The Institute

Bulgarian President Blocks Weapons Transfer to Ukraine. Newsweek

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is turning Ukraine into an authoritarian state as public criticism of Ukrainian leadership is becoming more common. AWC

Zelensky Cancels Address to US Senate. Forbes 

Israel

Biden Admin Says US Intel Had No Knowledge of Hamas Battle Plans for October 7. Axios

The UK announced on Saturday that it would begin surveillance flights in the skies above Gaza in search of captives held by Hamas. Over the past month, the US has conducted drone operations seeking hostages. Both Washington and London have engaged in a military buildup in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea in support of Tel Aviv. The Institute 

UN Warns Israel Against Exacerbating the Already Catastrophic Humanitarian Situation in Gaza. VOA

Israel Hayom reported last week that some members of Congress have reviewed a plan to condition US aid to Arab countries on their willingness to accept refugees from Gaza, which would facilitate the Israeli goal of cleansing the territory of Palestinians. AWC

Israel intensified airstrikes in southern Gaza on Monday and bombed areas where it told Palestinians to seek shelter, Reuters reported. AWC

Amnesty International: “US-made Weapons Facilitated the Mass Killings of Extended Families” in Gaza. Press ReleaseThe Institute

Polling continues to show that the majority of Americans favor a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, a position the Biden administration has rejected. AWC

The IDF Ignored Warnings Hours Before October 7 Hamas Attack. Haaretz 

The House on Tuesday passed a resolution that says “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” the chamber’s latest piece of legislation conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. AWC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed on Tuesday that he wants Israel’s military to maintain an open-ended occupation of the Gaza Strip after the current war. AWC

 Middle East

Officials Tell Politico that US Ships Under Threat in Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Politico 

The US Approves Arms Sales to UAE and Saudi Arabia. MEE

US officials are considering forming a Red Sea task force with other nations after a series of attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against commercial shipping that’s come in response to the Israeli onslaught in Gaza. AWC

Read More