June 17 2024
Anti-vax campaign; election turnout; Mr Trump goes to Washington; CA housing; Ukraine
1 US military conducted online anti-vax campaign in China
2 ELECTION 2024 In reversal, high-turnout favors Republicans
3 ELECTION 2024 Mr Trump goes to Washington
4 Housing crisis in CA prompts approval of “Accessory Dwelling Units”
5 Ukraine public opinion strongly optimistic about war
6/17/1903 Ford Motor Company incorporated
see ad astra on x @greg_loving
1 US military conducted online anti-vax campaign in China
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus. The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.
Article Source: Reuters
2 ELECTION 2024 In reversal, high-turnout favors Republicans
In a reversal of one of the most familiar patterns in American politics, it appears that Donald J. Trump, not President Biden, would stand to gain if everyone in the country turned out and voted. In New York Times/Siena College polls over the last year, Mr. Biden holds a wide lead over Mr. Trump among regular primary and midterm voters, yet he trails among the rest of the electorate, giving Mr. Trump a lead among registered voters overall. The pattern is the latest example of how the Trump brand of conservative populism has transformed American politics. His candidacy galvanized liberals to defend democracy and abortion rights, giving Democrats the edge in low-turnout special and midterm elections. Yet at the same time, early polls suggest, many less engaged and infrequent voters have growndeeply dissatisfied with Mr. Biden. The disengaged voters do not necessarily like Mr. Trump, the polling shows. But they’re motivated by pocketbook issues, more desiring of fundamental changes to the political system, and far less concerned about democracy as an issue in the election. Many low-turnout voters — notably including many who consider themselves Democrats — now say they’ll back Mr. Trump. This unusual turnout dynamic is one of the central forces shaping the 2024 campaign. It helps explain whyrecent polls and election results seem so divergent, and why Mr. Trump has gained among young and nonwhite voters, who are less likely to vote than older white voters. It creates a challenge for the campaigns, who are finding that time-tested strategies for mobilizing irregular voters may not work quite the same way as they did in the past.
Article Source: NYT
3 ELECTION 2024 Mr Trump goes to Washington
The former president on Thursday exulted in praise from Republican lawmakers, met with top business leaders and bankers, batted around extreme policy ideas such as an all-tariff federal revenue system, and took shots at President Biden—his rival, who was some 4,700 miles away in Italy for a summit with Western allies.
Earlier in the day, Trump met with Republican House members, who sang “Happy Birthday,” and he also sat down with the influential Business Roundtable that represents chief executive officers of some of the country’s biggest employers. He told the group of CEOs that if he won a return to the White House, he would seek to push the corporate tax rate down to 20% from 21%, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
It was Trump’s first visit to Capitol Hill since his supporters mobbed the Capitol complex on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to halt certification of Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. On Thursday, as some protested Trump’s visit, one man held a “FAILED COUP” sign.
Trump floated the idea of an all-tariff federal revenue system, large enough to replace the income tax, during a morning session with the House GOP, according to a GOP lawmaker in attendance.
Ed note: No chance
Trump also brought up a proposal he recently aired in Nevada—to eliminate taxes on workers’ tips. That could create a gap in the income tax and encourage more requests for tips. Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.), who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said he liked the idea because tips could be considered more like gifts than income.
“I’d love everybody to believe that this was real expensive, intense research that we did,” Trump said, according to Cramer. Instead, the idea came from a conversation that Trump had with a waitress in Las Vegas, he said. “She said, ‘They’re coming after my tips even,’” Trump told the senators.
Article Source: WSJ
4 Housing crisis in CA prompts approval of “Accessory Dwelling Units”
Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are multiplying across California, boosted by permissive state laws that aim to increase the supply of affordable housing. Now, a handful of cities are moving to let homeowners sell their backyard cottages and converted garages separately from the houses they live in, potentially transforming ADUs into a new generation of starter homes that cost a fraction of a full-sized house on a full-sized lot. The first to act was the San José City Council, which approved an ordinance Tuesday authorizing the separate sale of ADUs as of mid-July. Housing advocates say that Sacramento and Berkeley are also working on measures to allow separate sales of ADUs, and San Diego County is exploring it. Local governments were given the authority to do so last year under Assembly Bill 1033, which also laid out the process homeowners must follow to sell their ADU without selling the land it’s sitting on.
Article Source: LA Times
5 Ukraine public opinion strongly optimistic about war
In recent months, Ukraine’s battlefield prospects have seemed some of the bleakestsince the early days of the invasion, despite the long-awaited approval of the U.S. aid package. One would expect that Ukrainian society would have pessimistic assessments of the war’s trajectory. But a Carnegie-sponsored opinion poll conducted in mid-March 2024—just weeks after Ukrainian troops were forced to retreat from Avdiivka and amid heavy Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s energy grid—found the opposite to be true.
Ukrainians overwhelmingly rejected the notion that Russia is winning the war (only 5 percent believe it is); the remaining majority was split almost evenly between those who thought Ukraine is winning and those who thought neither side is winning. When it comes to war outcomes, 73 percent of Ukrainians believed that Ukraine will eventually liberate all of its territories. A sizeable percentage also believed that Ukraine will regain some or all of its territories within the next year (56 percent) and that the war will end within two years (59 percent). While other polls have found less optimism about the current situation, the general belief in eventual victory is consistent across recent polls
Ed note: this dynamic is crucial to understanding the war’s continuance, despite long odds
Article Source: Carnegie Endowment
6/17/1903 Ford Motor Company incorporated
Sources
1. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/15/upshot/election-democrats-republicans-turnout-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
3. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-to-return-to-capitol-hill-for-first-time-since-jan-6-riot-f8b9b082?mod=politics_lead_pos2
4. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-14/san-jose-allows-homeowers-to-sell-adus-separately
5. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/06/ukraine-public-opinion-russia-war?lang=en
Thanks for reading!
