In do-or-die mode, Biden does neither

In do-or-die mode, Biden does neither

Joe Biden’s foreign allies left town on Thursday. His allies at home, meanwhile, closed in for the political kill. 

Swarmed by a domestic political crisis, the embattled U.S. president held a rare, unscripted and free-wheeling news conference to close out this week’s NATO summit.

The event was carried live across TV networks as a do-or-die moment for Biden’s campaign, as numerous Democrats weigh whether to join the dozen-plus lawmakers publicly pressing him to drop out of the presidential campaign, amid doubts about his age and abilities.

In this do-or-die moment, what did Biden deliver? Something in between, a not-too-hot, not-too-cold performance, like his recent ABC interview, that leaves his allies floundering forward in a state of prolonged purgatory.

“I think it’s important to allay fears by letting them see me out there,” Biden said, when asked about those doubts.

Here’s what they saw: an aging president dropping cringe-inducing clunkers. He referred to Donald Trump as his vice-president, after earlier in the day drawing gasps at the summit by introducing Ukraine’s president as “President Putin,” before correcting himself.

But they also saw the president deliver lengthy, substantive answers to policy questions, even if none will enter the anthologies of hallowed American oratory.

He celebrated news of softening inflation and a successful NATO conference, while excoriating Trump as a threat to democracy, the democratic alliance, and to people’s pocketbooks with his promise of a 10 per cent global tariff.

But perhaps the most intriguing parts of the news conference came in fragments of answers that could be interpreted as indicating Biden not permanently, completely, ruling out resigning.

More than once, he referred flatteringly to his Vice-President Kamala Harris as eminently qualified to be president, touting her success as a prosecutor, senator and running mate.

Unfortunately for him, his first reference to Harris began with: “I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president if I think she’s not qualified to be president.”

The other intriguing reply came toward the end when Biden was asked whether there’s anything his advisers could say to make him drop out.

After ruling it out, he added a caveat.

“No. Unless they came back and said, ‘There’s no way you can win,'” Biden replied, less emphatic than last week when he said only God could force him from the race.

But he added: “No one’s saying that. No poll says that.”

Spoiler alert: Lots of people are saying that. In fact, many of the elected members of Congress from his own party are saying it in private, and some are saying it in public.

Within minutes of his press conference ending, a couple more Democrats, one a senior party member with a role in national security oversight, joined those calling on him to quit.

Even some of Biden’s senior staffers or supporters are urging him to drop out, according to NBC News, CNN and The New York Times.

A grassroots ally and auto-union leader is reportedly eager to replace him. His big fundraiser and Hollywood ally George Clooney is too, saying so in a recent op-ed. Clooney reportedly discussed that op-ed with the most popular Democrat in America before running it: Barack Obama. 

Perhaps worse yet for Biden, Obama has not denied reports that he has neither encouraged nor discouraged the move to oust his old partner.

Some members of Congress have said he can’t win. One even went a step further: She said Biden should not just quit the campaign, but immediately resign his office. 

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, a rare rural Democrat, an auto mechanic who shocked the political world by winning her seat and two years later now faces a hard re-election fight, told a regional TV station she doubts Biden’s ability to perform his role.

But the rebellion is broader than the dozen publicly calling on him to quit. Numerous others hint strongly they want him gone. Several more are promoting Harris as the eventual nominee.

Biden’s team is said to be testing polls of how Harris would fare against Trump. 

The Republican Party has already begun its pivot. Confronting the possibility it might have a different opponent, it’s moved beyond attacking Biden, and constantly refers to, and attacks, Harris now, those attacks ranging from policy differences to conspiracy-mongering.

Others, like party fundraiser and former ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman, said he would favour a mini-primary instead a Harris coronation.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those dropping hints publicly for Biden to leave, and it was her remarks this week on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Biden’s favourite morning TV show, that opened the floodgates to more criticism. In private, she has reportedly been more emphatic.

One prominent staffer who worked for both Obama and Biden says Pelosi knows what she’s doing, citing her subtle suggestions that Biden has yet to make the correct decision.

Jen Psaki says Pelosi faces competing pressures: wanting Biden to reconsider, versus not wanting to destroy him completely if he remains the party nominee.

“We don’t want to weaken him publicly,” Psaki, the former White House press secretary, told the podcast Pod Save America.

Also, she said, she’s witnessed the deep affection Pelosi feels for him.

“She loves him personally,” Psaki said.

The problem for Biden’s detractors is that time is running out. There’s a month to go to the party’s nominating convention in Chicago.

If Biden keeps borrowing time until then, he might assume that the closer to the convention, the less possible it is to sustain a rebellion.

At some point, it becomes an act of collective self-harm, no longer a takeout attempt against the leader but a circular firing squad that leaves the whole party electorally dead. 

If Biden remains the party nominee, every one of these public utterances amounts to little more than a contribution in-kind to the attack ad-makers from the Trump campaign.

Biden has bought two weeks after his catastrophic debate performance. He’s now trying to buy a third, flagging his interview with NBC in a few days, during the Republican convention.

At one point during his news conference, Biden took an opportunity to tout his own enduring political smarts — during a lengthy response to a question that started out about his cognitive abilities, which he started to answer before fishtailing to his policy achievements in Asia.

“Age creates a little bit of wisdom — if you pay attention,” Biden said.

Published at Tue, 25 Jun 2024 19:54:14 +0000

NASA releases new ‘Penguin and Egg’ image from James Webb Space Telescope

NASA has released a stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) marking the two-year anniversary of the release of its first images. And the space agency is calling it the “Penguin and Egg.”

What exactly are we looking at? Well, it’s two interacting galaxies known jointly as Arp 142 that lie 326 million light-years from Earth.

They are 100,000 light-years apart, which may sound far, but in astronomical terms, that’s very close. In contrast, our Milky Way and the closest major galaxy to us — the Andromeda galaxy — are separated by 2.5 million light years.

The Penguin and Egg galaxies made their first pass some time between 25 and 75 million years ago, NASA said in a release. This, in turned, triggered a new star formation in the Penguin.

Galactic mergers can cause galaxies to form thousands of new stars a year over millions of years. In the case of the Penguin, NASA said, research suggests that about 100 to 200 new stars have formed each year. This is many times more than what is happening in our own galaxy, where only roughly six to seven new stars form each year.

Before the galactic interaction, the Penguin was a spiral galaxy. Now, the centre forms the “eye” of the Penguin. The Egg, on the other hand, is an elliptical galaxy, which contains much older stars. 

At the top right of the image is the PGC 1237172 galaxy, which is 100 million light-years closer to Earth, according to a release by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.

And, of course, in the background lie thousands more galaxies.

The gift that keeps on giving

JWST is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Unlike Hubble’s one mirror, JWST has 18 individual mirrors that make up for one giant one. That makes it a light-catching machine, allowing it see some of the faintest objects and to peer far back into the earliest times of the universe. 

That’s why astronomers were so excited when this game-changing telescope was launched on Dec. 25, 2021. It was a Christmas gift headed to orbit around the moon, just waiting to be unwrapped.

The first image released blew astronomers away.

It was the telescope’s first wide-field image, which provided the sharpest and deepest infrared image of thousands of galaxies.

And JWST is the gift that keeps on giving, particularly to astronomers looking to better understand our universe and how we got here.

The telescope, with its massive light-collecting capability, is changing the way astronomers look at our universe. Its observations have challenged the idea of how stars form and even how fast the universe is expanding.

“[I’m] incredibly, incredibly grateful because the pictures that we are able to see now … it was not something that we thought we will be able to see,” said Lamiya Mowla an assistant professor at Wellesley University in Wellesley, Mass.

She is one of several scientists who are part of the Canadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS).

“[Previously,] we were talking about that we will be able to resolve things down to … hundreds of light years or so, down to that level in a very, very early universe. Now, we can see that we can almost get down to tens of light years.”

Data on exoplanets a ‘game changer’

And while we don’t get the jaw-dropping images from Webb when it comes to the study of exoplanets — planets orbiting other stars — its data is proving to be incredibly helpful in understanding planetary atmospheres, especially larger planets that are more similar to our outer planets, such as Jupiter and Neptune.

“If you look at other planets like hot Jupiters, or even colder, like Neptune, or Neptune-sized planets that are a bit colder … James Webb is really a game changer,” said Olivia Lim, a PhD student at the Université de Montréal and member of the Trottier Institute for Research of Exoplanets, who’s main area of focus is the seven-exoplanet system known as TRAPPIST-1. 

“People are able to measure things that we weren’t able to measure before or they’re they’re able to do it with so much more precision.”

And, of course, the telescope has also provided images of phenomena closer to home, such as a jaw-dropping image of Uranus and its rings.

Mowla said that she’s incredibly grateful for JWST and what it can tell us about our own origins.

“The things that we are seeing over here is what it has taken the universe to get us to the point that we are at today, the world that we take for granted. It has spent 13.7 billion years to build this perfect Earth,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure there are habitable planets in every galaxy. We just haven’t found them yet.”

Published at Fri, 12 Jul 2024 16:32:09 +0000