#anders hagstrom

[dukeofmercury]

Ashbury Heights - One Trick Pony (2021)

I know we never reached the sky But I was loving every try I sacrificed my own reflection Cause I believed that we could fly

I'm looking for something I keep denying Being who I am is terrifying

[gettothedancing]

Wait A Second, Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Calls For Tearing Down Highways?

President Biden sells his American Jobs Plan as a bill that would revitalize Americans roads and bridges, but the plan also funds tearing highways down.

At least 11 cities across the country, including Austin, Texas, Baltimore, Maryland and Detroit, Michigan, are seeking federal funding from the bill to remove highways, however. Democrats argue the highways in question “had a damaging effect on urban minority communities,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

Many of the highways were built under former President Dwight Eisenhower. Activists claim that they cut through African-American communities, and caused divisions still present today. Biden’s plan seeks to allocate $20 billion for a fund to “reconnect” these communities by removing the downtown highways.

If Detroit takes out its highways, it will become even more worthless than it already is, so go ahead Duggan!

[gettothedancing]

China Carries Out Yet Another Attack On Press In Hong Kong

Chinese authorities arrested five top executives at the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, the latest show of force against pro-democracy groups in the city.

“This is a blatant attack on the editorial side of Apple Daily. They are arresting editors,” Mark Simon, an adviser to Lai who is outside Hong Kong, told Reuters. “They’re arresting the top editorial folks.”

Lai himself has been repeatedly arrested and was sentenced to 14 months in prison in April for supporting pro-democracy protests in the city.

[gettothedancing]

Biden Raises Refugee Cap To 62,500 After Uproar From Democrats

The White House had previously said it would keep Trump’s cap in place for the time being, however, with the ultimate goal of setting a 125,000 refugee cap in 2022.

Biden warned that while he was raising the cap, he still does not expect that the U.S. will admit a number near 62,500, arguing that the policies of the Trump administration prevented such an increase so soon.

“The sad truth is that we will not achieve 62,500 admissions this year. We are working quickly to undo the damage of the last four years. It will take some time, but that work is already underway,” Biden said. “We have reopened the program to new refugees. And by changing the regional allocations last month, we have already increased the number of refugees ready for departure to the United States.”

[gettothedancing]

Loophole In Trump’s Tariffs Helped Delta Save Hundreds Of Millions In One Year

Trump released import tariffs in 2019 jacking up the price for U.S. airlines to import Airbus planes that are manufactured overseas. Delta, however, honed in on the phrasing of Trump’s tariff order to avoid paying the tariff on Airbus planes that were for all intents and purposes new. The scheme is estimated to have saved Delta roughly $270 million throughout the last year, during which the air travel giant has been devastated by COVID-19.

The Trump administration tariff stipulates that a “new” Airbus is any such plane with “no time in service or hours in flight other than for production testing or for delivery to the US.” The highly narrow definition allowed Delta to send planes that were manufactured in Europe on “tours” to places like Amsterdam, Tokyo and El Salvador. Then, once the plane has hours in flight for a purpose other than “testing or for delivery to the US,” it could be brought to America without paying the tariff, Bloomberg reported.

Delta has used this scheme on seven new Airbus planes over the past year. The move comes as coronavirus has ravaged not only Delta but the entire airline industry with low demand. Despite its savings on the Trump tariffs, Delta reported $5.4 billion in losses in the third quarter of 2020 alone, bringing its total losses during the pandemic to $11 billion.

[gettothedancing]

World Trade Organization Says Trump’s Tariff’s Against China Are Illegal

The Trump administration has justified the tariffs based on China’s ongoing theft of American intellectual property, which reportedly costs the U.S. economy up to $600 billion each year. The WTO sided with China against the U.S., arguing it was illegal for the Trump administration to only target products from China, and saying Trump hasn’t sufficiently proven the tariffed products benefit from China’s theft, the Associated Press reported.

The Trump administration has consistently ramped up tariffs against China since 2018, currently imposing 25 percent tariffs on roughly $234 billion of Chinese goods. The WTO ruling would allow China to impose retaliatory tariffs. While the U.S. can appeal Tuesday’s ruling, the WTO body responsible for handling appeals is currently out of commission as the U.S. has refused to approve any new members, according to the AP.

[gettothedancing]

Trump To Prioritize Ending ‘Slave’ Labor In China During Second Term, Campaign Says

The assertion comes as the Trump campaign continues to make the case that former Vice President Joe Biden would be soft on the Chinese Communist Party if elected. The campaign touted Trump’s Phase 1 trade deal with China made earlier this year, saying his second term would focus on finalizing a Phase 2 agreement and curbing the ongoing human rights abuses in China.

“To this day Joe Biden doesn’t view China as an economic threat,” Republican Michigan Rep. Jack Bergman told reporters on the call. “He has consistently bowed down to the Chinese communist regime.”

Cortez argued Biden is a “committed globalist corporatist” who wouldn’t take the necessary actions to protect American intellectual property and jobs from China.

The comments came just hours after Biden announced plans to enact a tax bonus for American companies who return from overseas, including from China.

The plan would impose an increased corporate tax rate for companies based overseas, would reward tax credits on American-made products, as well as eliminate offshore tax loopholes.

[gettothedancing]

Are Biden’s Speeches Getting Shorter To Avoid Gaffes?

While his speeches earlier on in the campaign could last as long as an hour, his speeches over the weekend in the middle of the country lasted less than 15 minutes each, according to the Washington Post. In St. Louis, Missouri, he spoke for just seven minutes; in Kansas City, 12 minutes; and 14 minutes in Jackson, Mississippi.