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Post by Admin on Nov 9, 2020 1:14:58 GMT
This is one of the most joyful celebrations we've seen in the wake of the Biden/Harris victory ... and it went down at, of all places, a gas station. A group of revelers danced their asses off as they sang to Kelly Clarkson's, "Since U Been Gone." When they sang certain verses, like "I can breathe for the first time," and "You had your chance and blew it," you could feel the energy and glee. But, they weren't done. When night fell at the 76 Station in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, the crowd broke into Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You." In other words, Christmas came early in the form of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
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Post by Admin on Nov 9, 2020 2:00:29 GMT
President-elect Joe Biden has already selected the heads of his coronavirus taskforce, including the surgeon general who was fired soon after President Trump took office. Vivek Murthy, who was the nation’s top doctor when Biden was vice president under President Barack Obama, will be named as one of the co-chairs along with former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. CNN on Saturday reported that they would be joined by Yale University’s Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, citing sources. The rest of the taskforce — which Biden referred to in his victory speech on Saturday — will be formally confirmed Monday. “The work starts right away,” Bedingfield said. “People want the country to move forward,” she continued, adding that the election result proved that “people are for change.” “He’s going to begin transition work in earnest this week. He’ll be making calls, he’ll be making announcements to the American people, on how he’s going to make good on these campaign promises,” she said. Murthy — who was born in the UK to Indian immigrants — had been named for a four-year term as surgeon general in 2014 by then-President Obama, before Trump forced him to resign in April 2016. Kessler was appointed as FDA commissioner by President George H.W. Bush and served in the position through President Bill Clinton’s first term in the White House.
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Post by Admin on Nov 9, 2020 21:13:08 GMT
The mayor of a small Japanese town has become an online star after internet users discovered that he has a name similar to that of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.
Japanese internet users are going wild over the fact that the characters for Mayor Yutaka Umeda can be read as "Jo Baiden." The 73-year-old head of the small town of Yamato has received huge amounts of attention in recent days.
Mayor Yutaka Umeda, whose town only has 15,000 residents, had no idea he was trending on social media until his family told him the news on Friday.
Spelt in Kanji, the logographic Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system, Umeda is pronounced "ume" and "da" but can also be read as "bai" and "den". And his other name, Yutaka, is read as "jo."
"I feel a sense of fate, but I'm a bit perplexed as this came suddenly," Umeda said, reported Japan Times.
"I feel very close to [President-elect Biden]" continued Umeda. "It feels as though I've also won the election after hearing about [his] projected win," he joked.
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Post by Admin on Nov 10, 2020 19:27:09 GMT
President-elect Joe Biden has begun planning his transition, naming a team of experts Monday to work on the coronavirus pandemic. But one thing Biden cannot do at this point is move into any government office space or receive government funding for the transition. A key, if little-known Trump administration official has yet to determine formally that Biden won the election, holding up some crucial resources traditionally available to the president-elect. Under the 1963 Presidential Transition Act, it's up to the General Services Administration, or GSA, to determine or "ascertain" the winner of the presidential election, at least as far as starting the process of turning over the keys to the new administration goes. Robert MacKichan, who was general counsel to the GSA during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, told NPR the law is kind of vague about what this actually means. "There's no legal standard contained within this act as to what constitutes the ascertainment," he said. In a statement, the GSA said its administrator "ascertains the apparent successful candidate once a winner is clear based on the process laid out in the Constitution." The agency cited the contested 2000 election in which George W. Bush was eventually declared the winner over Al Gore as "prior precedent." But that decision came only after a December Supreme Court ruling. The Associated Press and other news organizations reported that Biden gained the electoral votes needed to win the election on Saturday, but President Trump has so far refused to concede and has falsely claimed widespread voter fraud. His team has launched a wave of lawsuits challenging various aspects of the election.
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Post by Admin on Nov 15, 2020 8:26:56 GMT
China calls US-Japan arrangement a 'product of the Cold War'
TOKYO -- U.S. President-elect Joe Biden sought to shore up ties with key Asian allies on Thursday morning, by making his first calls with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and Australia.
In Biden's 15-minute conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, the two leaders agreed to cooperate on fighting the coronavirus and climate change. Suga said the Japan-U.S. alliance, while needing strengthening, is the cornerstone of his country's diplomacy and security, stressing that it is essential for the peace and prosperity of an increasingly unstable region.
Biden confirmed that Article 5 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty will be applied to the defense of Okinawa Prefecture and the Senkaku Islands. Article 5 stipulates that the U.S. is obliged to defend Japan should its territories come under attack. Former President Barack Obama was the first U.S. leader to declare that the pact applies to the Senkakus.
Chinese vessels have been sighted near the islands, claimed by Beijing and known as Diaoyu in China, on more than 280 days this year -- moves that have ratcheted up pressure on Japan and drawn protests from Tokyo.
Japanese government officials welcomed the focus on the alliance, the Senkakus and the Indo-Pacific in this first post-election call as a signal to the rest of the world that the Biden administration will not ease up on China.
The significance of this point was made clear by Beijing's response. The islands "are China's inherent territory," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters Thursday, adding that the U.S.-Japan security treaty, "as a product of the Cold War, should not undermine the interests of any third party, still less jeopardize regional peace and stability."
This represented the first comment by the ministry on remarks from Biden since the election -- and a rare example of a critical initial response to a newly elected leader.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, left, and U.S. President-elect Joe Biden © AP Suga said he looked forward to "meeting [Biden] as soon as possible," in reference to a planned February 2021 visit to the U.S. after the presidential inauguration ceremony.
The Japanese prime minister called for cooperation toward realizing a "free and open Indo-Pacific" led by Japan and the U.S., an idea for which Biden expressed support. He also requested cooperation on the issue of North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens.
After the call, Suga told reporters "it was very important to work with Biden to strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance."
The early assurance is a departure from President Donald Trump, who was seeking a review of the alliance during the presidential campaign four years ago. He reaffirmed that the treaty covers the Senkakus to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe only after the election, at their first summit in February 2017.
While Trump has been known to make sudden about-faces on policy, Biden, a more traditional politician, is seen as unlikely to go back on a clearly stated security policy position.
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