Www.justsecurity. Left completely to his own devices, President Trump apparently sees no problem with deploying U.S. military forces to American streets even when there’s no need for such intervention.
The president reportedly wanted to deploy 10,000 troops just last week in the face of nationwide protests over racial injustice even though no state requested such assistance. But that’s not the only scenario worrying many close observers. Other potential situations include the president’s invoking emergency powers to put boots on the ground to suppress voting in the November election or to quell mass protests if he disputes the outcome. Indeed, many of the former senior officials who have recently spoken out against “misuse of the military for political purposes” are keenly aware of these looming threats to the country. Some of them accordingly directed their criticisms toward Defense Secretary Mark Esper as well. Executive Branch Authorities More recent U.S.
How to Change the Standing Legal Authorities. Www.washingtonpost. Lots of countries try to spread influence abroad through soft power, government media or propaganda, lobbying and even intelligence operations.
And yes, the U.S. government does engage in such activities, as do other rivals, including Russia. But the CCP’s United Front effort is unique because it is more organized, more expansive and more insidious than our government or nation has realized. On Wednesday, the Republican Study Committee, a group of about 150 conservative lawmakers, will release a report spelling out its national security strategy and calling for sanctions on all top officials in the CCP’s United Front Work Department, the bureaucratic office that coordinates Beijing’s influence operations at home and abroad. The RSC will also call for sanctions on officials responsible for repression of Chinese citizens in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. “We’re proposing in this report the toughest sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party ever proposed by Congress.
Thediplomat. Countries around the world continue to suffer in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
At the same time, the issue of China’s role in this global pandemic – and how to hold the Chinese regime accountable — is getting more attention. Countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia, and more are joining the discussion regarding the origin of the new coronavirus strand that causes COVID-19. More importantly, countries are beginning to ponder the post-COVID international order as the world economy goes into recession as a result of this global pandemic.
The United States continues to pressure China over its actions in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thediplomat. Newsweek recently published a report about Chinese propaganda activities in the United States.
The report discusses fake social media accounts run from China that have been posting about the 2020 election – not to support a particular candidate but seemingly to “denigrate the standing of the U.S.” by sowing discord and painting American democracy in a negative light. Concerns about foreign actors attempting to influence U.S. elections are not new. Neither is Chinese propaganda exaggerating apparent failures in the United States in order to bolster the Chinese Communist Party’s own legitimacy.
Www.state. Addressing China’s Coercive Tactics The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) takes advantage of the freedoms of the United States and other democracies to advance its own ideologically-driven narratives and manipulate world press coverage.
The CCP accomplishes this by using government-owned or operated media outlets, as well as CCP-controlled “educational” and “cultural institutes” strategically located in the United States and overseas. Key representatives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) actively use Western social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, all banned inside China, to spread lies and false narratives approved by the CCP core leadership. Www.washingtonpost. Redirect Notice. - The Washington Post. Once a Slogan of Unity, ‘Je Suis Charlie’ Now Divides France. PARIS — In the hours after the 2015 Islamist terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a slogan emerged to mourn the dead and defend free speech, spreading like magic across France and the globe through its unifying force.
“Je suis Charlie.” Pictures of the slogan, “I am Charlie” — in white and light gray letters on a black background — inspired millions who marched in France and were joined by world leaders from Western and Muslim nations alike. Baltimore Sun.
Fireball Soaring Across Northeast Sky Spotted By People Across Philadelphia Area. These 5 benefits will flame out if no new stimulus money is agreed to by the end of 2020. The federal government's remaining coronavirus relief programs will run out in just over seven weeks.
These are the last threads of the four executive actions President Donald Trump signed in August, after talks on another economic rescue package failed to progress. US Election 2020: Results and exit poll in maps and charts. 3 Keys to Earning $3,895 in Social Security Benefits Every Month in 2021. If you file for Social Security in 2021, the maximum monthly benefit you could receive is $3,895.
This is well above the average benefit most retirees will get, and it's $105 more than the $3,790 maximum monthly benefit retirees could score in 2020. Of course, only a very small number of seniors will get such a large Social Security benefit. In order to be one of them, there are three steps you need to take. Image source: Getty Images. Older adults: Will you get a second stimulus check, and what to do if you missed the first. Age plays a big factor when it comes to stimulus check qualifications.
For adults over age 65 and retired people, your tax filings, your adjusted gross income, your pension, whether you receive Social Security benefits and if you count as someone else's adult dependent to the IRS were all considerations that determined if you were eligible for a first stimulus check. And these same elements will likely help decide who would receive a second payment, if a new bill passes in Congress. Negotiations around another coronavirus relief package and the potential second direct payment of up to $1,200 that comes with it are stalled until after Tuesday's election (here's the latest on when they might resume).
We won't know all the details until both chambers of Congress pass a final bill. Russia and the Soviet Union: Solzhenitsyn Knew the Difference.
Covid-19: Nearly 100,000 catching virus every day - study. Actress Nicki Clyne reveals 10-year relationship with Nxivm leader. “Battlestar Galactica” actress Nicki Clyne is standing by her man.
The Canadian starlet revealed in newly unsealed court documents that she was Nxivm leader Keith Raniere’s “partner” for 10 years. In a letter to a Brooklyn federal judge ahead of Raniere’s sentencing for running a master-slave group within the upstate organization, Clyne argued that it was “absurd” to say it “was created for Keith to have sex partners” — and she should know. “I find this idea completely absurd and even offensive — as a woman and a partner of Keith’s for over a decade,” Clyne wrote in a letter of support for Raniere unsealed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.
“I have never known Keith to want intimacy with someone who doesn’t want it, and it’s a ridiculous notion to think he would have gone to all that trouble for sex.” Enlarge Image. Purdue Pharma pleads guilty to federal criminal charges related to opioid crisis. The money will go to opioid treatment and abatement programs. The privately held company has agreed to pay a $3.5 billion fine as well as forfeit an additional $2 billion in past profits, in addition to the $2.8 billion it agreed to pay in civil liability.
"Purdue Pharma actively thwarted the United States' efforts to ensure compliance and prevent diversion," said Drug Enforcement Administration Assistant Administrator Tim McDermott. "The devastating ripple effect of Purdue's actions left lives lost and others addicted. " Texas residents warned of tap water tainted with brain-eating microbe. Texas officials have warned residents of some communities near Houston to stop using tap water because it might be tainted with a deadly brain-eating microbe. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality warned the Brazosport Water Authority late on Friday of the potential contamination of its water supply by Naegleria fowleri.
The commission issued an advisory warning people not to use tap water for any reason except to flush toilets in Lake Jackson, Freeport, Angleton, Brazoria, Richwood, Oyster Creek, Clute and Rosenberg.
Www.bbc. Image copyright Getty Images Facebook has seen usage across its platforms surge in countries that have brought in virus lockdowns. ‘Meteor’ reports in L.A., San Diego flood social media. A mysterious fireball streaking across the night sky over Los Angeles and San Diego on Wednesday night flooded social media with videos of what many called a meteor. But experts at the American Meteor Society say it may actually have a less otherworldly origin, Newsweek reported. “From the video and also the report we can tell this was most likely NOT a natural fireball meteor,” said Mike Hankey, according to the publication. 7,000 people held on cruise ship after passenger develops suspected coronavirus symptoms. About 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew aboard Costa Cruises’ Costa Smeralda ship were being held in an Italian port after a passenger from Macau, China, came down with flu-like symptoms on Wednesday night amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. A Costa Cruises spokesperson confirmed to Fox News on Thursday that sanitary protocol has been activated after a 54-year-old woman fell ill aboard the Smeralda ship, which had sailed from Mallorca, Spain, to Civitavecchia on a weeklong Mediterranean cruise.
The Costa Smeralda cruise ship is docked in the Civitavecchia port near Rome, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) The spokesperson said that the sick passenger was placed in isolation in the ship’s hospital last night along with her travel companion, amid concerns that she may be infected with the deadly coronavirus during the global outbreak. The woman’s companion has no symptoms, The Associated Press reports. Markets.businessinsider.
Www.justice. The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China. Chinese-students-arrested-florida-allegedly-photographing-us-military-facility. Two Chinese students who attend the University of Michigan were arrested over the weekend for allegedly taking photos of defense installations in Key West, Fla., the fourth such arrests involving Chinese nationals trespassing on military facilities in the city in recent years. Www.washingtonexaminer. South Florida has become a common destination for Chinese nationals to be arrested while taking photographs. Time. What's in your water? Researchers identify new toxic byproducts of disinfecting drinking water. Mixing drinking water with chlorine, the United States' most common method of disinfecting drinking water, creates previously unidentified toxic byproducts, says Carsten Prasse from Johns Hopkins University and his collaborators from the University of California, Berkeley and Switzerland.
The researchers' findings were published this past week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. "There's no doubt that chlorine is beneficial; chlorination has saved millions of lives worldwide from diseases such as typhoid and cholera since its arrival in the early 20th century," says Prasse, an assistant professor of Environmental Health and Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and the paper's lead author.
Countenancing Segregation Based on Imaginary Science (guest post) America, the Idea, Is Lost. Vietnam War formally ends: This Day in History. On this day in history, in 1973, the United States, South Vietnam, the Viet Cong and North Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords, which formally brought an end to the Vietnam War. The Paris Peace Accords, or “An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,” brought an end to direct U.S. involvement in the war. Representatives from the four factions of the Vietnam War meet in Paris to sign a peace agreement. Kelly And Pompeo: How A Journalist Masterfully Combated Gaslighting. Brexit: US 'wants to reach trade deal with UK this year' Image copyright Steve Mnuchin. Www.washingtonexaminer. LAX passenger quarantined after showing potential coronavirus symptoms. 3 American firefighters killed in Australia crash – all US military veterans.
In a first, Brazil produces more than one billion barrels of oil in 2019. Student at Texas A&M University being treated for suspected case of novel coronavirus. Exclusive: Intel Report Warns US Troops in Germany Face 'Possible Imminent' Threat of Attack. New Chinese virus 'will have infected hundreds' Pacific Ocean’s Warm “Blob” Killed a Million Seabirds in One Year. Video surfaces of Putin, Assad laughing about Trump at Damascus summit. Choice page. Army Plans to Expand Asian Cyber Efforts to Counter China.