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by Paolo Cappelli
January 18, 2021
FT
Biden wants to overturn Trump's policies from day one as president
As Washington prepares for the less orthodox inauguration in modern U.S. history - with Trump facing a Senate impeachment process and pandemic forcing a full-scale event Reduced - Biden is planning swift action to address the pandemic and other crises soon after the oath.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia photographed shortly before arrest on his return to Moscow last night from Germany, where he was recovering from a bombing in Russia last year.
His plane redirected to another Moscow airport than his original destination, where his supporters were being confronted by riot police squads.
Navalny has decided to return to Russia despite the certainty of prison: at home he is accused of violating the terms of a suspended sentence imposed for fraud in 2014. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
Daily Telegraph
Putin's fiercest opponent flies into a blizzard
The United States, the European Union, several EU governments, Canada and a prominent aide to US President-elect Joe Biden immediately called for his release, with some in the EU calling for new sanctions against Moscow.
Human rights groups joined the appeals, with Amnesty International claiming Navalny had become a prisoner of conscience and accusing the Russian authorities of waging "a relentless campaign" to silence him.
Welt
Navalny returns and is arrested
Per Navalny, strange as it may seem, everything is still going according to plan.
The Kremlin's frenzied reactions to his return - the sudden diversion of the plane, the severe arrests in Vnukowo - impressively show that Navalny is causing his opponent Vladimir Putin a headache.
Navalny is not as irrelevant as the Russian president likes to say.
If Navalny stays behind bars for long, the Kremlin will make him a martyr to the opposition.
In the eyes of the West, Navalny is the most important political prisoner of recent decades, some in Russia are already comparing him to the legendary Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov or the South African apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela.
The Guardian It
all now depends on what the Kremlin thinks it can do without a public reaction
"The first major political decision will concern how long he is held in custody," wrote Tatyana Stanovaya, head of R-Politik, in a post by this week.
"The ideal solution is to keep Navalny in constant fear of being jailed for many years, but probably without condemning him too long at one time."
The FSB and other hawks would likely push for tougher measures, he said.
But the risk of other street protests by young people, among whom Navalny is popular, could also weigh.
For many reasons, the Kremlin may decide that the time to deal with Navalny is now.
Vedemosti
Navalny landed
Vnukovo airport also made some special preparations for the arrival of the diverted flight DP 936 from Berlin.
Thus, the journalists were denied official accreditation and filming in "Vnukovo", access to the terminal was denied to anyone who did not have a boarding pass: every person who entered the airport, including journalists, was check your boarding pass at the entrance.
Media operators had to buy or book tickets for flights to St. Petersburg, Voronezh and other Russian regions in order to enter the airport to cover Navalny's arrival.
Several hours before Navalny's departure, several Navalny comrades in arms were arrested and taken away in a police van without giving any reasons.
Activist Konstantin Kotov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Vlad Dokshin were also arrested.
NYT
The extraordinary courage of Aleksei Navalny
After a near-fatal poisoning, the main Russian dissident returns to the bear's den.
Mr. Navalny knew he would be arrested, because he had been arrested several times previously.
Repression is the only way Putin knows.
But he's also learning that, in the age of social media, every arrest on a made-up charge only broadens Mr. Navalny's following and amplifies his charge of bribing Russian rulers.
If Putin decides to imprison Mr. Navalny, he will have a famous political prisoner in his hands.
If he frees Mr. Navalny, he will appear weak to his people and under constant attack from the opposition led by Navalny.
El Pais
Biden will bury the Trump era with an avalanche of decrees
The new president will approve a package of initiatives to change direction in the fields of immigration, climate and the fight against the pandemic
NYT
Nicholas Kristof: When Biden Becomes a Rooseveltian
Immediately after the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, when the president laid out the New Deal, he was told, "Mr. President, if your program is successful, you will be the greatest president in history. American. But if it fails, it will be the worst. "
"If I fail," Roosevelt replied, "I'll be the last."
This is not the Great Depression today but we face the worst economic crisis since that time, more than 4,000 Americans die every day from the pandemic, plus an uprising fomented by the outgoing president, plus an undercurrent of national disappointment fueling division and violence.
This is the context of Biden's plan to revive the US economy and to do much more.
Like Roosevelt, Biden is taking a crisis to try and tackle long-neglected problems in our country.
This is the great politics.
We could call it a Rooseveltian plan.
Many focus on $ 1400 checks to people, on increasing unemployment benefits, on helping local governments, on vaccines for everyone.
But there's so much more: food assistance, policies to prevent families from becoming homeless, childcare, a $ 15 federal minimum wage, and an expansion of the earned income tax credit to fight poverty.
WSJ
Biden
Joe Biden's
first splash of spending
.
He wasn't kidding as he proposed a $ 1.9 trillion spending plan, on top of the $ 900 billion congressional budgeted last month and $ 2.9 trillion in the spring.
And this is just Mr. Biden's "first installment", as Senator Bernie Sanders said.
The first point to understand is that this Plan has nothing to do with the economic stimulus.
Almost all of the money goes to redistribution of income - some to really needy people, but most of it to promote long-term democratic social policies and to reward constituencies such as teacher unions and state politicians. of consumers in the short term, which is ready to explode once the pandemic subsides.
But it won't change growth incentives because people don't change their behavior unless they expect long-term earnings change, as John Cogan and John Taylor wrote on Friday.Most of the rest of the Biden plan is a repeat of the Obama plan of 2009, doubled.
State and local governments will receive $ 350 billion, although many have more revenue than before the pandemic thanks to the buoyant stock and real estate markets.
And above all, the economy is ready to take off in 2021.
Washington Post
Nearly every other senior official so far appointed for the roles of the Department of State and Defense is an Obama veteran.
Some steps are already clear: return to the Paris agreement on climate change new START agreement which limits the US and Russian strategic arsenals.
However, a piece of Obama's Iranian politics proved impractical and stems from one of his biggest mistakes, with Iran: illusions about the potential of their regimes to evolve positively through US persuasion should be abandoned.
Politico
The protagonists of impeachment.
The trial is a referendum on whether Trump could hold public office again
Poll: We've met the enemy and it's us
More than half of Americans polled say other Americans are the "greatest threat" to the nation.
In a poll released last night by CBSNews, 54% of respondents said that "other people in America and internal enemies" represented the "greatest threat" to American society right now, ahead of "economic forces" at 20%. , "factors of nature" for 17% and "foreign countries" for 8%
Melania Trump will leave the White House with the lowest favorable rate of her term as first lady, according to a new CNN poll.
At 47%, more people have an unfavorable view of the first lady now than at any time since CNN first asked for her views in February 2016. The poll, conducted by SSRS for CNN, votes in favor of Trump at 42%, with 12% of those asked to respond unsure of their feelings about the first lady.
Trump's most favorable vote was in May 2018 at 57% according to a CNN poll at the time, which came in the wake of the first state dinner and Trump's attendance at the Texas funeral of the late First Lady Barbara Bush.
Trump went to the funeral without President Donald Trump.
The first lady's current favor rate is significantly higher than that of the president (33%) and among Republicans, her aiding and abetting number (84%) is higher than that of the president (79%) or vice president (72%) )
SZ
After the vote and before the vote
Armin Laschet is the new president of the CDU
If the delegates had made economic expert Friedrich Merz president of the Union, it would have been a gift for the SPD.
Merz allegedly gave the election campaign what the Social Democrats urgently need: friction.
Or, as one of the leaders of the SPD describes it: "a clear image of the enemy".
Laschet's election gives the Social Democrats a real headache in terms of campaign strategy: if the line of the new CDU leader Angela Merkel continues, the competition at the center will be fierce, Laschet will certainly not leave this space to the SPD
Hamburg Abendblatt
Will the new CDU head also be the Federal Chancellor in the autumn?
RP
Laschet awaited by new tasks
The prime minister of North Rhine Westphalia is now also president of the CDU.
Is it possible to recapture both roles in times of pandemic or do national political responsibilities risk weakening the administration in your Land in the fight against the virus?
Tagesspiegel
Merz loses support in the CDU
After his defeat against the new CDU leader Armin Laschet, he had claimed the ministry led by CDU politician Peter Altmaier, as a price, so to speak, to support the winner Laschet and strengthen his leadership.
But this plan is rejected by its own supporters: "Anyone who puts their ego above the question is now harming the CDU and also the country."
FAZ
Soder: Now Laschet and I decide
Controversy over Merz's behavior after Laschet's victory in Congress.
The risk to the CDU is a powerful internal opposition.
Laschet's is a limited victory for Merkel.
The prime minister of Bavaria interviewed by FAZ replies on who will be the candidate for chancellor of the Union.