Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn have a nasty new bill meant to distract voters

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Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn have a nasty new bill meant to distract voters from Donald Trump’s failings

May 30, 2020

By Sophia Tesfaye, Salon - Commentary

From the beginning, President Trump, along with his Republican allies in Congress, have resorted to racist rhetoric to deflect responsibility for their massive incompetence and mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. Now that more than 104,000 Americans have died as a result of COVID-19 — with the end nowhere in sight — Trump and the congressional GOP are using blatant xenophobia to move the U.S. into an openly hostile stance against China.After spending months loudly blaming China for propagating the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., Trump is now turning up the thermostat. Following through on Wednesday’s announcement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the president announced Friday he will revoke Hong Kong’s favored-nation trading status, essentially treating the city as identical to mainland China and susceptible to U.S. sanctions, even as pro-democracy protests resume. A new bill introduced this week by a pair of Senate Republicans offers another confrontational approach — and amounts to little more than a modern-day version of the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act.

Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee introduced “The SECURE CAMPUS Act,” a bill that aims to bar Chinese nationals from receiving student or research visas to the United States for graduate or postgraduate studies in science, technology, engineering or mathematics fields. “The Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States,” Cotton said in a statement.” The SECURE CAMPUS Act will protect our national security and maintain the integrity of the American research enterprise.”

Blackburn appears even more eager to agitate for war with China. She recently released a video that claimed “China is not our friend. They are our enemy” and claimed that China “sent this virus to us.” She’s also floated the completely untenable idea waiving interest payments on U.S. debt to China.

“Beijing exploits student and research visas to steal science, technology, engineering and manufacturing secrets from U.S. academic and research institutions,” Blackburn said to introduce her new legislation.

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https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/tom-cotton-and-marsha-blackburn-have-a-nasty-new-bill-meant-to-distract-voters-from-donald-trumps-failings/

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1. Two scumbags and rump promoting their idea of blaming China for their incompetence in the

handling of the CV epidemic in the US. The rump administration failed miserably on all counts in containing and combating the CV. Now it's a blame game. Won't work.

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2. Depriving US science labs of Chinese grad students is brain dead stupid

Chinese grad students play a huge role in US science. Banning them will significantly harm the US economy. It will reduce scientific discoveries overall, and it will move science breakthroughs to Australia, Singapore, Canada, Europe.