ITK Daily | February 7
Happy Tuesday.
Here’s today’s ITK Daily.
To be ITK, know this:
Insight | It's not a State of the Union address, but a prebuttal to a campaign launch
Posted to PR Week...
My expectations for the SOTU and how Biden will use this speech as the prebuttal to his expected 2024 campaign launch in the coming weeks, with three main themes.
I think Biden’s words will focus on three main points:
+ Accomplishments of his first two years in office
+ What needs to be accomplished in the next two years
+ Why America as a concept matters to us (and the world)
Read the commentary here.
Today: State of the Union address at 9:00 pm ET.
AP: Biden’s State of the Union to tout policy wins on economy
Bloomberg: Biden to test message with divided Congress as he eyes 2024
Joe Biden starts making his case for a second term: FT reports that many voters blame the president for inflation, but good news about job creation could invigorate a potential pitch for re-election
+ Speech to promote accomplishments ahead of reelection bid.
+ President now faces GOP House forcing a debt-limit showdown.
+ In a new WP/ABC poll, 62% of US adults say he’s accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing.”
AP: Biden, Cabinet visiting 20 states after State of the Union
What it takes to write a speech for the president BBC
+ A sentence here could inspire support for a lawmaker's pet project; a paragraph there could help take a government program off the chopping block.
+ "One of the great myths of speechwriting is that it's somehow speechwriters putting words into the president's mouth and it's just the opposite. It's speechwriters listening [to] and learning [from] the president every single day, and trying as best we can to provide a draft that captures their voice, vision, and values."
+ "What makes a great State of the Union is lifting it up out of a list of initiatives, programmes and policies, and trying to offer a coherent, compelling story and vision to the American people"
ChatGPT bot channels history to pen State of Union speech AP
Biden, the balloon, and the age of anti-China one-upmanship: The fascination with how to down the intelligence gathering balloon quickly gave way into the new geopolitical reality: There is no downside to being a China hawk. Politico
China’s balloon dispute aims attention at Xi’s leadership: The flap with the United States raises concerns about how China wields its power in a climate where one wrong move could set off an accidental conflict. NYT
+ [The spy balloon] is focusing the world’s attention on the prospect that the communications and control within Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government and his vaunted security apparatus may be less coherent — or even less functional — than the image he so confidently projects.
+ “I can only speculate about the intentions of the unit that launched the mission: They may have been unaware or unconcerned about any political fallout should it be discovered, or perhaps they were executing longstanding plans without any attention to the diplomatic calendar.”
+ “What the balloon incident totally reinforces is the complete lack of transparency into Chinese decision-making.”
+ “This is a feature, not a bug of their system. And it’s going to happen again. If events are fast-moving, the government doesn’t have nimble decision-making structures. They can’t communicate effectively during a rapidly evolving crisis, which really bodes ill for efforts right now with China.”
FNC: Trump, top national security officials refute claim that Chinese spy balloons transited US under his admin
+ Trump says, 'never happened with us ... and if it did, we would have shot it down immediately'
+ The balloons were spotted near Texas, Florida, and Hawaii, as well as the Pacific Ocean island of Guam, where the US has naval and air force bases.
China’s balloon recalls Cold War crises: In a developing struggle, episodes like this carry a risk of miscalculation and escalation. Gerard Baker
Biden and the Chinese spy balloon: Why did he wait so long to order the airspace intruder shot down? WSJ - Editorial
+ Waiting to shoot it down allowed for ‘a better understanding to study the capabilities of this balloon’, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says.
+ US says it does not plan to return spy balloon debris to China.
CP: Defence Minister says Canada supports US downing of Chinese balloon suspected of surveillance
What happens to Europe when the balloon goes up? The spy balloon crisis is fueling US tensions with China, putting Brussels in a bind. Politico
China finds itself with limited options after US shoots down balloon: Beijing registered “strong discontent and protest.” But there may be little it can do to retaliate. NYT
Farmland becomes flashpoint in US-China relations: Security concerns prompt North Dakota city to turn against plans for a Chinese-owned corn mill. WSJ
Ukraine warns Russia is planning major offensive: WSJ reports Kyiv says Russia is amassing troops and getting ready for a new push along the eastern front. This comes amid a signal that Ukraine may reshuffle its military leadership following a corruption scandal.
UN chief fears world is heading towards ‘wider war’ over Russia-Ukraine conflict: Guardian reports António Guterres warns in a speech to the general assembly that ‘chances of escalation and bloodshed are growing.’
Year two of the Ukraine war is going to get scary Thomas L. Friedman
+ Putin, it’s now clear, has decided to double down, mobilizing in recent months possibly as many as 500,000 fresh soldiers for a new push on the war’s first anniversary. Mass matters in war — even if that mass contains a large number of mercenaries, convicts and untrained conscripts.
+ Putin is basically saying to Biden: I can’t afford to lose this war and I will pay any price and bear any burden to ensure that I come away with a slice of Ukraine that can justify my losses. How about you, Joe?
+ “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist — McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15.” Somebody needs to keep the order and enforce the rules.
+ "In both world wars and throughout the Cold War, Americans acted not in immediate self-defense but to defend the liberal world against challenges from militaristic authoritarian governments, just as they are doing today in Ukraine.”
+ “That the United States is flawed and uses its power foolishly at times is not debatable. But if you cannot face squarely the question of what would happen in the world if the United States kept to itself, then you are not engaging these difficult questions seriously.”
The Ukraine war is fuelling and obscuring cyberattacks: The fighting is dominating the attention that might otherwise be given over to understanding the links between online threats and modern warfare. Damien McElroy
+ The war in Ukraine has seen a speeding up of the aggression against internet users there while also hogging the attention that might otherwise be devoted to these trends.
More sanctions on Russia: The US plans a 200% tariff on Russian aluminum as soon as this week.
Russia's Lavrov to visit Mali in sign of deepening ties: AFP reports Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrives in Mali late Monday for talks with its junta leaders seeking Moscow's help in battling an Islamist insurgency that remains entrenched despite years of fighting.
FT: Earthquakes rock Turkey and Syria leaving thousands dead
+ Turkey declares a state of emergency.
+ 'Time is of the essence' to find survivors as death toll passes 5,000 and WHO warns 23 million could be affected.
BBC: Rescuers work through night after Turkey quake kills thousands
+ Death toll now more than 3,800.
+ The World Health Organization warned that the death toll could eventually rise eight-fold.
WP: A dire situation in northwest Syria: Devastating quake amid civil war
TC: India to block over 230 betting and loan apps, many with China ties
Modi is hurting himself by brawling with the BBC: The Indian government’s decision to block a documentary critical of the BJP has badly backfired. Sadanand Dhume
+ It should go without saying that self-confident democracies don’t generally waste their time responding to a single media critique, but apparently India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t get the message.
+ As the country grows in prominence, combined with the large Indian diaspora in the UK and the US, has made India of more interest than ever to Western media.
+ If it wants to be taken seriously, India will need to improve its record or learn to shake off criticism.
The Times: Delusional Liz Truss could cost Tories next election
Liz Truss seems keen to make comeback, but is anyone else on board? The former PM not trying to keep a low profile, but former allies have their own ambitions, and few would risk a return. Jessica Elgot
+ But is anyone actually interested in a comeback for Liz Truss herself? Since leaving office, Truss has hired a well-connected adviser, Jonathan Isaby, who founded the website BrexitCental, but has done most of the legwork herself. It very much has the feel of a one-woman comeback.
+ For many in the party, there’s also the warning from the successful attacks that Democrats used against Goldwater – “In your heart, you know he might” – a reference to him potentially using nuclear weapons. There are very few who would risk the possibility of Truss blowing up the party again.
Macron quietly considers reform of political institutions: The French president has not given up on a reform that could include a return to seven-year presidential terms and a redrawing of territorial administration, despite tensions surrounding pensions and the weakening of his majority in the Assemblée Nationale. Le Monde
+ At a time when citizens are growing increasingly distrustful of the political world, shaking up the institutions may appear to be the cure for mass abstention.
+ But there is still one stumbling block: according to Frédéric Dabi, director general of the polling institute IFOP, the subject "does not interest the French."
Secrets of statecraft: How history shaped Dr. Condoleezza Rice: The past has had a powerful influence over the worldview of Condoleezza Rice. Hoover Institution
Friday: Biden will meet with Brazil Presiden Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the White House.
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One term Joe: A new AP-NORC poll shows just 37% of Democrats say they want President Biden to seek a second term, down from 52% in the weeks before last year’s midterm elections.
Biden or bust: Democratic insiders are all in for Biden 2024: NBC News reports despite lackluster approval ratings and the classified documents scandal, Democratic power brokers are chanting, "four more years!"
Kamala Harris is trying to define her vice presidency. Even her allies are tired of waiting. Harris is struggling to carve out a lane for herself in what may be one of the most consequential periods in the vice presidency. NYT
+ She has already made history as the first woman, the first African American and the first Asian American ever to serve as vice president, but she has still struggled to define her role much beyond that legacy.
Has Pete Buttigieg’s dream job turned into a nightmare? Ed Kilgore
+ Quick: Can you name any secretaries of Transportation prior to Pete Buttigieg?
+ Today, however, Buttigieg’s Transportation gig is looking less like a dream and more like a nightmare.
+ It has turned out to be a complicated job made even harder by the glare of publicity Buttigieg has attracted.
+ It seems the Transportation secretary won’t be just a quick and easy layover on the way to higher office for Mayor Pete.
+ It seems the Transportation secretary won’t be just a quick and easy layover on the way to higher office for Mayor Pete.
MI-SEN: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he will not run for the open US Senate seat in Michigan in 2024.
The blurred lines between Goldman CEO’s day job and his DJ gig: David Solomon brushes off DJing as a minor hobby that has little to do with his work at the bank, but his activities may pose potential conflicts of interest. NYT
+ Solomon has told senior Goldman executives that he donates any profits he makes as a DJ to charity.
+ In an emailed statement, a spokesman for Goldman, Tony Fratto, said that DJing is a hobby for Mr. Solomon and has nothing to do with the bank’s business.
+ Fratto said that Goldman has a “large existing music industry business that goes back decades,” and that there was no connection between Solomon’s hobby and the bank’s business interests.
The world’s richest person is trying to head off a succession battle: At 73, Bernard Arnault has a $196 billion fortune, five children, and a drive to avoid the infighting that plagues so many dynasties. Bloomberg
+ Arnault has laid the groundwork he hopes will prevent such an outcome for his own family empire. At the heart of the plan is a new holding company, control of which is split equally among his five children.
+ Left unspoken in the plan is whether one of the five children will replace Arnault in the operational role of chief executive officer of LVMH, the business he created in the 1980s by merging the companies that now make up the name.
+ Rapid growth, fueled by global demand across its 75-strong stable of brands ranging from Dom Perignon and Fendi to Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co., has made LVMH Europe’s most valuable company, worth more than €400 billion ($433 billion).
+ Families who have been able to sustain vast wealth over a very long period of time are relatively few and far between.
+ In the US they include the Mars clan behind the eponymous candy company and the agro-giant dynasty of the Cargill-MacMillans, in their fifth and seventh generations, respectively.
+ Sales at Louis Vuitton, the biggest LVMH label, crossed €20 billion last year.
+ “I don’t have a favorite brand. How can one say that one prefers one of his children?”
Dell to cut 5% of its workforce.
Google releases ChatGPT rival AI ‘Bard’ to early testers: Bloomberg reports Microsoft is expected to announce ChatGPT integration into the Bing search engine.
In the age of AI, major in being human David Brooks
+ That’s my hope for the age of AI — that it forces us to more clearly distinguish the knowledge that is useful information from the humanistic knowledge that leaves people wiser and transformed.
EV battery material suppliers brace for gluts as competition heats up: Lithium, nickel producers expand as US pushes for non-Chinese supplies. Nikkei
+ The competition to produce raw materials for electric vehicle batteries is taking a potentially dangerous turn as suppliers pursue expensive expansion efforts amid softening markets for critical commodities such as lithium and nickel.
+ The race to obtain battery raw materials has been intensified by efforts by western countries to secure supplies from non-Chinese sources, with the most notable example being the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
+ Albemarle, the world's largest lithium chemicals supplier, said it is planning to construct a commercial-scale lithium conversion facility in the US.
The future of marketing is people Rishad Tobaccowala
+ Instead of marketing to people we should consider marketing through people by arming them with assets, information, tools, and incentives.
+ The most powerful form of marketing has always been word of mouth.
+ Marketing is getting people to advocate for you to other people.
+ Marketing is defined as “understanding and meeting people’s requirements.”
Fortune: ‘Hush trips’ are the next big trend your worker won’t tell you about
America’s offices are now half-full. They may not get much fuller. Office occupancy hit a post-pandemic milestone of 50 percent last week, according to data tracked by Kastle Systems. Experts think this could be the new normal. WP
+ Getting workers back to the office just reached a key milestone: 50 percent are back at their desks on average, the most since the pandemic hit in March 2020.
+ “By centering around flexibility, we’re creating norms that meet the needs of our people”
+ “Really it’s about flexibility and accountability”
This risky playground is deceptively terrifying: Mike Hewson has perfected the art of making spaces for dangerous-looking fun. But the risks they promise are imaginary — and they can help children’s development. Bloomberg
+ Melbourne’s Southbank playground is built around massive bluestone boulders that are perched atop wheeled dollies.
+ The playground is the latest creation of Mike Hewson, an artist-engineer from New Zealand who has found a measure of renown as the designer of extremely perilous-looking play spaces for kids.
+ The dangers lurking in Hewson’s creations are mostly illusions.
+ : “We can’t put handrails around everything, and even if we could I don’t think it would really benefit us. Embracing risk is just part of embracing life.”
+ “When parents first walk into the park, they say, ‘What is this irresponsible place?!’”
+ “A risk is something the child is aware of, forcing them to identify, analyze and overcome the challenge; a hazard puts one in danger because a condition for injury exists the user cannot perceive.”
+ Playground mishaps send more than 200,000 kids to hospital emergency rooms every year in the US, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
+ Anita Bundy, professor of occupational therapy at Colorado State University and an expert on risky play, points out that far more children are seriously injured in or by motor vehicles than playgrounds.
+ “You don’t hear people saying that children shouldn’t go in cars, so why are we so worried about them on playgrounds?”
+ Bundy has lived and worked in Australia and the US and has conducted research in Europe, and notes that Americans are the most risk averse of the three.
+ Watch: Playing with risk: The dangers of thinking safe | Mike Hewson - TEDxSydney here.
The road to a Supreme Court clerkship starts at three Ivy League colleges: NYT reports the chances of obtaining a coveted clerkship, a new study found, increase sharply with undergraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale or Princeton.
Anatomy of a war film: All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger takes us behind the scenes of the German war epic. Thomas Schultze
+ All Quiet on the Western Front is still the most widely read piece of German literature worldwide, with up to 40 million copies sold since it first came out in 1929.
+ All Quiet on the Western Front is different from other World War I stories because it takes the perspective not of the winners, but of the losers.
+ Music strongly influences viewers’ perception and can control their emotional access.
+ The novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is definitely not a story of heroes.
+ For more on the making of All Quiet on the Western Front, watch the special behind-the-scenes video here.
Beyoncé has now won more Grammys than any other artist in history.
The origins of hip-hop fashion: "Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip-Hop Style" is a new exhibit at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. "Sunday Morning" contributor Kelefa Sanneh pays a visit, and talks with hip-hop legends Slick Rick and Dapper Dan about how New York street style mixed with European luxury brands may be in vogue, but its roots are in hip-hop. CBS Sunday Morning
Greece faces backlash over joint World Cup bid with Saudi Arabia, Egypt: Politico reports human rights groups hit out over mooted 2030 joint hosting effort by Athens and controversial Middle Eastern regimes.
The Athletic: Manchester City allegedly breach Premier League financial rules over nine-season period
Man City charged with breaking financial rules 115 times: The Times reports the club is facing the threat of relegation from Premier League.
If Manchester City are guilty they have betrayed football as a spectacle: Sport only works if it is on some level real, credible and straight – any club that breaks the rules must be harshly punished. Barney Ronay
+ Football is a narrative in so many lives. Feelings of triumph and gloom; difficult financial choices; the opportunity cost of a season ticket or an away trip, with treats and pleasures given up along the way: decisions affecting all of these things are influenced by the conviction that this thing is for real and that all clubs are playing by the same rules.
+ City are accused not just of breaking the rules but of betraying that spectacle.
+ This is a club that has won 14 major domestic trophies across that period.
Yes, Park City is still ‘America’s ski town’ Judd Bagley
+ “In addition to ‘The Greatest Snow on Earth,’ Utah has the greatest access on earth”
+ The Salt Lake Airport is closer to Snowbird than the Eagle-Vail airport is to Vail
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal
Caracal produces ITK Daily.
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