Розділ: Політика
States Sue Trump Over Order to Exclude Undocumented Immigrants from U.S. House Seat Counts
A coalition of 35 U.S. states, cities and counties sued U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday over his directive not to count undocumented immigrants when apportioning seats for the House of Representatives, a move that critics have said is designed to help Republicans.Trump’s plan, announced on Tuesday, could exclude several million people when determining how to apportion the 435 House seats, starting with the 2022 midterm elections. It could cause a few House seats to shift from Democratic-leaning states with large immigrant populations to Republican-leaning states.The apportionment is also a basis for determining electoral votes for the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.Among the mostly Democratic-leaning plaintiffs are New York state, the most populous plaintiff, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco.The White House declined to comment.In the complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs called Trump’s plan unconstitutional because everyone in the country must be counted regardless of their legal status.They said this has been true since slavery was abolished in the 1860s, and that the Constitution requires a count based on the “whole number of persons” in each state, as counted in each decennial U.S. census.The census is also a basis for allocating federal funds, and the plaintiffs said Trump’s directive could hurt communities by deterring immigrants from responding to the census now under way.In announcing the directive, Trump said “person” had “never been understood to include … every individual physically present within a state’s boundaries.”Alleged efforts to conceal the number of undocumented immigrants, he said, were “part of a broader left-wing effort” to erode the rights of American citizens, “and I will not stand for it.”Trump has made curbing legal and illegal immigration a focus of his presidency. He is seeking reelection and has trailed Democrat Joe Biden in some recent polls.
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By Polityk | 07/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Intelligence Official Warns of Foreign Interference in US Elections
The director of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center has warned that Russia, China, Iran and other countries are meddling in U.S. political campaigns as the November 3 general election draws closer.“We see our adversaries seeking to compromise the private communications of U.S. political campaigns, candidates and other political targets,” William Evanina said Friday in a statement.Evanina said that while the United States “is primarily concerned with China, Russia and Iran,” other countries and “nonstate actors” could also try to “harm our electoral process.”US Cybersecurity Experts See Recent Spike in Chinese Digital Espionage The report said it was ‘one of the broadest campaigns by a Chinese cyber espionage actor we have observed in recent years” China is trying to influence the “policy environment” in the U.S. with the intent of affecting the presidential race between President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Evanina said.He said “internet trolls and other proxies” are among a variety of disinformation campaigns Russia is using to “undermine confidence in our democratic process.”Iran is also spreading disinformation online and via social media in an attempt to “undermine U.S. democratic institutions and divide the country in advance of the elections,” he added.Evanina said the U.S. intelligence community would continue to watch for “malicious cyber actors” and touted the robust security of state election systems in the U.S. that make it “extraordinarily difficult for foreign adversaries to broadly disrupt or change vote tallies without detection.”He called on the American people to help ensure an orderly election by consuming information with a “critical eye” and by practicing “good cyber hygiene and media literacy.” The NCSC director also urged citizens to report suspicious activity to authorities.VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 07/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump’s Ex-Lawyer Leaves Prison for Home Confinement
U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen left prison on Friday to finish his criminal sentence at home, a spokesman for Cohen’s attorney said, a day after a judge found he was imprisoned two weeks ago as retaliation for planning to publish a book about Trump. Cohen was picked up at a prison in Otisville, New York, about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of New York City, by his son, the spokesman said. He is expected to return to his Manhattan apartment. In May, Cohen was furloughed from the prison because of concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus.U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Thursday ordered Cohen to be released by 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) Friday. “We’re just waiting to get him home and then will be considering all next steps, including what the conditions of release will be, who will be supervising him and what, if any, additional legal actions he’ll take,” E. Danya Perry, who represents Cohen, said in an interview on Friday.
On July 9, Cohen and his lawyer, Jeffrey K. Levine, met with prison officials to convert his furlough to a home confinement for the final two years of his three-year sentence. After Cohen questioned a provision that barred him from publishing the book, engaging with news organizations and posting on social media, officials shackled him and returned him to prison.
Hellerstein said in Thursday’s court hearing that he had never seen such a gag provision in his 21 years on the bench. “It’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book,” Hellerstein said. Cohen may file a lawsuit seeking compensation for his unlawful imprisonment and violation of his First Amendment rights, his attorney said.”The lawsuit will get deeper into how this happened and who ultimately was responsible,” Levine said. The probation officer who drafted the agreement for Cohen with the no-media provision told the court that he had not been aware of the book. The Federal Bureau of Prisons also issued a statement after the judge’s ruling saying said the book played no role in the decision to return Cohen to prison. The bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Cohen’s departure from prison.Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, was sentenced in 2018 for directing hush payments to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said they had affairs with Trump. The president has denied having the encounters and has called Cohen a “rat.” In court papers, Cohen said the book will contain his experiences and observations from the decade he worked for Trump, including both before and after he became president. Cohen said it would provide “unflattering details” of Trump’s Behavior.Even as he turned on Cohen, Trump has voiced his support for people who remained loyal to him.A day after Cohen was sent back to prison, Trump commuted longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone’s prison sentence for lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
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By Polityk | 07/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
What Pandemic, Lockdown and Weather Are Doing to US Crime Rate
In sending federal law enforcement agents to several cities beset by a spate of shootings and violence, U.S. President Donald Trump is primarily laying the blame on politically left-leaning mayors and governors and efforts to “defund” police departments.“To look at it from any standpoint, the effort to shut down policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders, and heinous crimes of violence,” Trump said Wednesday as he announced dispatching federal law enforcement agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico. “This bloodshed must end. This bloodshed will end.”But experts say the picture is more complicated than the one the president paints. Although overall crime levels declined this year as people stayed home during the COVID-19 pandemic, a perfect storm of forces has led to spikes in homicides and shootings in many cities in recent weeks.Meanwhile, murder rates have declined in other cities.Criminologists say the exact drivers of the violence are hard to pinpoint. But they cite several contributing factors. Among them: warm summer weather, more people on the streets as states reopen their economies and a growing erosion of public trust in law enforcement amid the continued protests over the death of African American George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis in May.“There has certainly been an increase in homicides and shootings this summer, but it is not possible to tell whether this is due to the pandemic, other factors, or just typical variation,” said David Abrams, a University of Pennsylvania professor of law and economics who has been tracking crime during the pandemic.Here are some key factors in understanding the violence:Where are the killings and shootings happening?Most, though not all, major U.S. cities are seeing a spike in homicides and shootings. On average, homicides in 25 major American cities surged by double digits through early July.FILE – Police tape litters the ground at the scene of a shooting in Chicago, Ill..Chicago is the deadliest city in the U.S. The third largest city by population has seen 414 murders this year, an increase of 51%, and 1,653 shooting incidents, up 47%, according to Chicago police data.New York City, the largest U.S. city, recorded an increase of 23% in homicides this year, while Los Angles, the No. 2 city by population, has seen murders rise by 14%.Smaller cities have also seen a surge in homicides. In Kansas City, where the fatal shooting of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro in June prompted the Trump administration to dispatch agents there and to other cities, there have been 106 murders this year, up 34%.It has been a different story in other major cities. Dallas and San Jose, among the ten most populous U.S. cities, recorded decreases in homicides of 4% and 21%, respectively.What’s more, by historical standards, U.S. crime levels remain well below their peaks in the 1990s. In 1992, Chicago recorded 943 murders—or more than twice this year’s level.Violence is concentrated in ‘hot spots’Shootings and homicides, as is often the case, typically are concentrated in so-called hot spots of cities—small slices of poor neighborhoods, sometimes the size of a city bock, with chronically high crime rates. For example, 28% of murders in Chicago took place in three of the city’s 25 districts.Christopher Herrmann, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York Police Department data analyst, said the majority of shootings and homicides are gang- and drug-related.In the latest instance in Chicago, 15 people were injured in a gang-related drive-by shooting on Tuesday at the funeral of a victim of an earlier drive-by shooting.Police officers investigate at the scene of a shooting outside a funeral home in Chicago, Illinois, July 21, 2020.“There is a multiplication factor that happens when shootings like that happen,” Herrmann said. “The shooting that happened at the funeral is a classic kind of retribution style shooting.”What’s driving the violenceWhile there is no single driver of the violence, criminologists say several factors may be contributing to the surge.One is hot summertime weather. Typically, as the weather warms up and people spend more time outdoors, crime goes up. On average, shootings and homicides increase by about 30% in most cities, according to Herrmann.Another factor is what Herrmann calls a “backlog of crime” created as would-be criminals stayed home at the height the pandemic. In April and May, homicides in 64 major American cities fell by 21.5% and 10%, respectively, according to a recent report by Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy.“A lot of that violence that would have taken place in March, April and May, is now taking place in June, July, and August,” Herrmann said.A loss of faith in law enforcement, amplified by protests over police brutality and racism, may also contribute, according to some criminologists.”A lot of people feel like they need to take law into their own hands and become a vigilante and do their own thing as opposed to maybe wait on the police to try to solve the problem,” Herrmann said.After the fatal shooting of African American Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, sparked protests over police brutality, a fall-off in policing activity was blamed for driving up homicides in cities such as Chicago and Baltimore.Under-policing, according to some criminologists, could lead to a similar crime spree now.“We may be in for the same thing in the wake of the George Floyd protests,” Thomas Abt, one of the authors of the Arnold Ventures report, told the philanthropy’s website.
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By Polityk | 07/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
On House Floor, Democratic Women Call Out Abusive Treatment by Men
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrage over a Republican lawmaker’s verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment on the House floor Thursday as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of “accepting violence and violent language against women” whose adherents include President Donald Trump.
A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., for his language during this week’s Capitol steps confrontation, Ocasio-Cortez and more than a dozen colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behavior by men, including Trump and other Republicans.
“This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural,” said Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., calling it a culture “of accepting a violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that.”
The remarkable outpouring, with female lawmakers saying they’d routinely encountered such treatment, came in an election year in which polls show women leaning decisively against Trump, who has a history of mocking women.
“I personally have experienced a lifetime of insults, racism and sexism,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. “And believe me, this did not stop after being elected to public office.”
Trump was captured in a 2005 tape boasting about physically abusing women, and his disparagement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has included calling her “crazy.” In an apparent reference to that tape, which drew attention during the 2016 presidential campaign, Ocasio-Cortez said men accost women “with a sense of impunity” every day, including when “individuals who hold the highest office in this land admit, admit to hurting women.”
She also recalled that last year, Trump said she and three colleagues on the “squad” of progressive Democratic women of color should “go back” to their home countries — even though all but one were born in the U.S. and all are American citizens.
The lawmakers joining Ocasio-Cortez represented a wide range of the chamber’s Democrats, underscoring their unity over an issue that is at once core to the party and capable of energizing its voters.
On the establishment side was No. 2 House leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, a moderate 20-term veteran. His appearance, along with supportive words at a separate news conference by Pelosi, D-Calif., were a noteworthy contrast to occasional clashes Ocasio-Cortez has had with party leaders.
Ocasio-Cortez, 30, is a freshman who has made her mark as one of Congress’ most insistent and outspoken progressives. Those speaking up included the three other “squad” members — Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
No Republicans spoke on the House floor. A Yoho spokesman emailed a statement in which the lawmaker said “no one was accosted, bullied, or attacked” during what he called a brief policy discussion.
Yoho, one of Congress’ most conservative lawmakers, said Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t have the “right to inflate, talk about my family, or give an account that did not happen for political gain. The fact still remains, I am not going to apologize for something I didn’t say.”
In a separate appearance, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., defended Yoho, 65, who will retire in January.
“When someone apologizes they should be forgiven,” McCarthy said. He added later, “I just think in a new world, in a new age, we now determine whether we accept when someone says ‘I’m sorry’ if it’s a good enough apology.”
But Bread for the World, a nonpartisan Christian group that combats hunger, suggested it was reconsidering Yoho’s continued membership on its board. Asked about his status, the organization said his recent behavior “does not reflect the values of respect and compassion that Jesus calls on us to exhibit.” They said they have asked to speak to him “before we determine any further action.”
Pelosi herself weighed in a separate news conference.
“It’s a manifestation of attitude in our society really. I can tell you that firsthand, they’ve called me names for at least 20 years of leadership, 18 years of leadership,” Pelosi said of Republicans.
Pelosi, who has five children, recounted that during a debate years ago on women’s reproductive health, GOP lawmakers “said, on the floor of the House, Nancy Pelosi think she knows more about having babies than the Pope.”
In an encounter Monday witnessed by a reporter from The Hill, Yoho berated Ocasio-Cortez on the House steps for saying that some of the increased crime during the coronavirus pandemic could be traced to rising unemployment and poverty.
Ocasio-Cortez described it on the House floor Thursday. She said Yoho put his finger in her face and called her disgusting, crazy and dangerous.
She also told the House that in front of reporters, he called her, “and I quote, a fucking bitch.” That matched The Hill’s version of what Yoho had said. Ocasio-Cortez was not there for that remark.
Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho’s references to his wife and daughters as he explained his actions during brief remarks Wednesday actually underscored the problem.
“Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man,” she said. She added that a decent man apologizes “not to save face, not to win a vote. He apologizes, and genuinely, to repair and acknowledge the harm done, so that we can all move on.”
Her voice trembled slightly as she said that her father, “thankfully,” was no longer alive to see Yoho’s treatment of her. But she said her mother saw it, “And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter, and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.”
Other Democrats recalled their own experiences, taunted House Republicans’ overwhelmingly white male membership and warned that the numbers of women lawmakers will only grow. Eighty-eight House Democrats and 13 Republicans are women.
“We’re not going away,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “There is going to be more power in the hands of women across this country.”
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By Polityk | 07/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Cancels Republican Party Convention in Florida
Citing safety concerns, U.S. President Donald Trump has announced he is pulling the plug on next month’s Republican Party convention in Jacksonville, Florida—a coronavirus hot spot. Due to the flare-up in Florida “it is not the right time” to have a big convention, Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room on Thursday. “I have to protect the American people. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I always will do. That’s what I’m about.” About 330 delegates will still meet in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the formal nomination of Trump as the Republican candidate for president. Trump said it remains to be determined where he will make his acceptance speech — which had been scheduled for Jacksonville on August 27 — and that the other events will be replaced with “tele-rallies.” Asked by a reporter what compelled him to totally cancel the Florida event, the president replied: “I would just say safety. Just safety. I could see the media saying, ‘Oh, this is very unsafe.’” Trump said thousands of his supporters wanted to attend and were in the process of making travel arrangements. About 10,000 people had been expected, which would have been a small fraction of the attendance at such a major political event in a normal year. FILE – Health care workers take information from people in line at a walk-up COVID-19 testing site during the coronavirus pandemic, in Miami Beach, Fla., July 17, 2020.Planning for the event in Florida had been hampered by anemic fund-raising from prospective sponsors. Many potential attendees were worried about health risks, and local officials expressed concern to Trump’s campaign about the difficulty of providing enough resources and personnel to safely host the event. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and Sheriff Mike Williams posted a joint statement shortly after the president’s remarks. “We appreciate President Donald Trump considering our public health and safety concerns in making this incredibly difficult decision,” Curry and Williams said in a joint statement after the White House announcement. “As always, in Jacksonville, public safety is our number one priority. President Trump has once again reaffirmed his commitment to the safety of Jacksonville, Florida, and the people of the United States of America.” Florida on Thursday announced 173 additional COVID-19 fatalities, the most of any day throughout the coronavirus pandemic. More than 5,600 people have died in the state from COVID-19 and nearly 400,000 have been infected. Across the United States, 4 million people have tested positive for the coronavirus and 144,000 have died — the most reported by any country. Coronavirus briefingThe surprise announcement of the convention’s cancellation came at the start of the president’s coronavirus briefing, a gathering before the press he revived this week after a hiatus. As has been the case this week, Trump did not share the podium with any members of the White House coronavirus task force, although Dr. Deborah Birx was seated on the side of the briefing room. The president again blamed the outbreak of the virus on China, where the first cases were reported in late December of last year. “It’s a different world and it will be for a little while,” acknowledged Trump, who has been criticized for playing down for months the seriousness of the virus. Trump emphasized that despite the concerns of educators and parents across the country, it is important for students to return to classroom education as soon as feasible. “Schools have to open safely. They have to open,” said the president, who noted that children are significantly less prone to get sick or die from COVID-19 than adults. Most schools in the United States begin the academic year in late August or early September. Many are already delaying that timetable and choosing to hold some or all classes online amid the pandemic. School districts located in coronavirus hot spots “may need to delay reopening for a few weeks. That’s possible. That’ll be up to governors,” said the president.
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By Polityk | 07/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Promises US Return to World Cooperation
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has promised a return to U.S. cooperation in its international relations, while accusing President Donald Trump of leaving the country’s reputation and influence “in tatters” with his “America First” policy.Biden’s draft platform, released this week, said that under Trump, “America stands alone. Our country is less safe, our economy more fragile, and our democracy, values and unity endangered.”Biden, in the draft platform likely to be adopted next month by the Democratic National Convention as he is officially nominated as the party’s presidential nominee, accused Trump of having “retreated” from the world stage.Biden said Trump’s actions have allowed U.S. adversaries “to fill the void,” while the U.S. leader has “hollowed out American diplomacy, shredded international commitments, weakened our alliances and tarnished our credibility.”Democrats believe four more years of Donald Trump will damage our influence beyond repair,” Biden wrote.”But closing the chapter on ‘America First’ is just the beginning of the work ahead. We must meet the world as it is today, not as it was before President Trump’s destruction. That’s why we cannot simply aspire to restore American leadership. We must reinvent it for a new era.”FILE – President Donald Trump points to a reporter for a question during a news briefing at the White House in Washington, July 21, 2020.Trump: Biden ‘not competent’Trump has often disparaged Biden’s mental acuity to be president, telling Fox News last Sunday that Biden was “not competent to be president. To be president, you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things.”As the Democratic draft platform was released, Trump’s re-election campaign said, “Joe Biden’s failed track record of political appeasement has already proven to be catastrophic for American national security.”President Trump has kept his promise to rebuild the military, eliminate two most-wanted terrorists, destroy the ISIS caliphate, and implement robust political and economic pressure on foreign adversaries who wish harm to the homeland.”Biden said in the draft platform that “rather than defend democracy and human rights,” Trump has “fawned over autocrats, sent love letters to despots, sided with dictators over peaceful protesters and invited foreign interference in our elections.”The president has been widely criticized for his claims of friendship with leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, while at times attacking traditional allies in Europe.“Rather than end our forever wars, he’s brought us to the brink of new conflicts, and further militarized our foreign policy,” Biden said of Trump. “Rather than reduce nuclear dangers, he’s amplified them, and brought the world closer to catastrophe.”FILE – A U.S. military convoy drives near the town of Qamishli, Syria, Oct. 26. 2019. Two successful raids by the U.S.-led coalition in the oil-rich Deir el-Zour area were highlighted with the capture of a mid-level Islamic State leader.Difference on military spendingTrump has sharply increased military spending during his 3½ years in the White House. Biden says he plans to cut it, arguing, “We can maintain a strong defense and protect our safety and security for less.”The draft said Biden would re-engage with the world. He wants to extend nuclear arms control measures with Russia that Trump has sought to end; reinforce U.S. involvement in the West’s NATO military alliance that Trump has accused allies of not paying enough money to support; and seek to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal to restrain Tehran’s nuclear weapons development that Trump dropped out of.On the home front, the draft Democratic platform called for more robust health care insurance coverage for senior citizens to cover dental, vision and hearing aid needs. But the document stopped short of a call for Medicare for All coverage that centrist Biden’s more progressive Democratic presidential opponents called for during the race for the party’s presidential nomination.“We are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the Affordable Care Act [adopted when Biden was vice president under former President Barack Obama] and those who support a Medicare for All approach; all are critical to ensuring that health care is a human right,” the document said.
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By Polityk | 07/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
WHO Director-General Criticizes Pompeo Over Comments
Warning against the “politicization” of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Thursday rejected comments, by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, alleging Tedros had been “bought” by China.The Times of London reported Wednesday Pompeo met behind closed doors with members of British parliament during a visit to London earlier this week. The report said Pompeo told the lawmakers he had intelligence suggesting Tedros had been “bought” by China’s government and that his election as WHO chief in 2017 had led to the death of British nationals.Speaking at the WHO’s Thursday COVID briefing, Tedros said the comments were “untrue and unacceptable and without any foundation.” He said one of the greatest threats “we face is the politicization of the pandemic.” Tedros said the sole focus of the entire WHO organization was saving lives, and it will not be distracted by the comments. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead Maria Van Kerkhove also reacted to the comments, saying it was her honor and privilege to have worked with Tedros since the beginning of this pandemic. Van Kerkhove, an American, said she has worked for the WHO for more than 10 years and has never been prouder of the work it has done.Pompeo, who was in Denmark earlier Thursday, was not asked about the comments when he spoke with reporters.The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized the WHO for its alleged deference to Beijing during the early stage of the pandemic.President Donald Trump has ordered the United States to withdraw next year from the agency it has supported financially and politically for decades.
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By Polityk | 07/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
White House Drops Payroll Tax Cut After GOP Allies Object
The White House reluctantly dropped its bid to cut Social Security payroll taxes Thursday as Republicans unveil a $1 trillion COVID-19 rescue package, yielding to opposition to the idea among top Senate allies.”It won’t be in the base bill,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on CNBC about the payroll tax cut, killing the idea for now. The cut in the tax that finances Social Security and Medicare has been a major demand of President Donald Trump.”The president is very focused on getting money quickly to workers right now, and the payroll tax takes time,” Mnuchin said at the Capitol. Only Sunday, Trump said in a Fox News interview that “I would consider not signing it if we don’t have a payroll tax cut.”The long-delayed legislation comes amid alarming developments on the virus crisis. It was originally to be released Thursday morning by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but the Kentucky Republican instead hosted an unscheduled meeting with Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.Afterward, Mnuchin declared the administration had reached a “fundamental agreement” with Senate Republicans.Given the hold-up, however, Mnuchin and Meadows floated the idea of passing a bill next week that would be limited to maintaining jobless benefits that would otherwise expire and speeding aid to schools. It wasn’t clear whether the measure would still be introduced Thursday, they said.McConnell’s $1 trillion package is an opening GOP bid in talks with top Capitol Hill Democrats — who back a $3.5 trillion House bill that passed two months ago — in a negotiation that could be rockier than talks in March that produced a $2 trillion rescue package. GOP senators and Trump are at odds over priorities, and Democrats say the Republican plans are not nearly enough to stem the health crisis, reopen schools and extend aid to jobless Americans.”Our Republican colleagues have been so divided, so disorganized, and so unprepared that they have to struggle to draft even a partisan proposal within their own conference,” said Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The must-have centerpiece for McConnell is a liability shield to protect businesses, schools and others from coronavirus-related lawsuits. The package is not expected to provide any new money for cash-strapped states and cities, which are clamoring for funds, but Republicans propose giving $105 billion to help schools reopen and $15 billion for child care centers to create safe environments for youngsters during the pandemic.The GOP measure does forge an immediate agreement with Democrats on another round of $1,200 checks to most American adults.The $600 weekly unemployment benefit boost that is expiring Friday would be cut back, and Mnuchin said it would ultimately be redesigned to provide a typical worker 70% of his or her income. Republicans say continuing the $600 benefit as Democrats is a disincentive to work, but some Republicans are pressing for a temporary extension of the current benefit if the talks drag.”We cannot allow there to be a cliff in unemployment insurance given we’re still at about 11% unemployment,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. The bill is likely to be silent on the potential housing crisis as a federal eviction moratorium on millions of rental units expires in days.One key holdup in the talks was Trump’s push for a payroll tax cut, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. Hardly any GOP senators support the idea. Instead, McConnell and some other Republicans prefer the direct $1,200 cash payments to Americans.Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said there will be another boost for small business lending in the Paycheck Protection Program. “It’s going to be big,” he said.The bills will also include tax breaks for businesses to hire and retain workers and to help shops and workplaces retool with new safety protocols. A document circulating among lobbyists claims the package would increase the deduction for business meals to 100%, offering help to the restaurant industry.The breakthrough on testing money was key after days of debate between Republicans and the White House. Republicans wanted $25 billion, but the Trump administration said the $9 billion in unspent funds from a previous aid deal was sufficient. The two sides settled on adding $16 billion to the unspent funds to reach $25 billion, senators said. There will also be fresh funds for vaccines.Of the $105 billion for education, Republicans want $70 billion to help K-12 schools reopen, $30 billion for colleges and $5 billion for governors to allocate. The Trump administration wanted school money linked to reopenings, but in McConnell’s package the money for K-12 would likely be split between those that have in-person learning and those that don’t.Democrats, who already approved House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s more sweeping $3 trillion package two months ago, said the GOP infighting with Trump was delaying needed relief to Americans during the crisis.”We are just days away from a housing crisis that could be prevented,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. In their package, Democrats are calling for $430 billion to reopen schools, bigger unemployment benefits and direct aid checks and a sweeping $1 trillion for state and local governments. They also want a fresh round of mortgage and rental assistance and new federal health and safety requirements for workers.McConnell calls his proposal a “starting point” in negotiations with Democrats. Congress in March approved the massive $2.2 trillion CARES package, the biggest of its kind in U.S. history.The severity of the prolonged virus outbreak is upending American life. Schools are delaying fall openings, states are clamping down with new stay-home orders and the fallout is rippling through an economy teetering with high unemployment and business uncertainty. A new AP-NORC poll shows very few Americans want full school sessions without restrictions in the fall.Still, some Republicans said they are unlikely to approve any new aid.”I just don’t see the need for it,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters on Wednesday.
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By Polityk | 07/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Congress Passes Sprawling Plan to Boost Conservation, Parks
A bipartisan bill that would spend nearly $3 billion on conservation projects, outdoor recreation and maintenance of national parks and other public lands is on its way to the president’s desk after winning final legislative approval.Supporters say the measure, known as the Great American Outdoors Act, would be the most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century.The House approved the bill 310-107 Wednesday, weeks after it won overwhelming approval in the Senate. The bill now goes to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.Trump’s daughter Ivanka urged passage of the bill in a tweet. The younger Trump, a senior adviser to her father, is expected to celebrate the bill’s passage at events in Colorado this week with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Sen. Cory Gardner, one of the bill’s sponsors.The bill would spend about $900 million a year — double current spending — on the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund, and another $1.9 billion per year on improvements at national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and rangelands.Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, called the bill “one of the biggest wins for conservation in decades.”‘America’s crown jewels’”We have a generational opportunity to ensure America’s crown jewels are protected,” he said, adding that the bill would ensure all tools available are used to help the nation respond to the climate crisis and protect landscapes, clean water and clean air.At a time of intense partisan disagreements, “it is perhaps more necessary that ever to demonstrate we can still bridge the divide … and work together to find common ground,” said Grijalva, a Democrat. “This bill goes beyond politics. It’s about ensuring that we pass along a legacy of public lands.”Supporters say the bill will create at least 100,000 jobs, while restoring national parks and repairing trails and forest systems.”At a time when our country needs to create jobs and rebuild local economies while also protecting nature and places where everyone can recreate outdoors, the Great American Outdoors Act answers the call on all fronts,” said Jennifer Morris, CEO of The Nature Conservancy, an advocacy group.”There couldn’t be a more important time than now to improve parks, protect birds and wildlife, and create jobs in every state across the country,” added Sarah Greenberger, senior vice president for conservation policy of the National Audubon Society.‘HISTORIC for our beautiful public lands’While bipartisan, the bill was led in the Senate by Gardner and fellow GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana. Gardner and Daines are among the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents, and each represents a state where the outdoor economy and tourism at sites such as Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone national parks play an outsize role.Daines and Gardner persuaded the president to support the bill at a White House meeting this year, even though Trump has repeatedly tried to slash spending for the Land and Water Conservation Fund in his budget proposals. Trump soon tweeted his support for the bill, saying it “will be HISTORIC for our beautiful public lands.”Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said permanently and fully funding the conservation program “will be a monumental victory for conservation and the places where we all get outside.” He cited studies showing that each dollar spent by the fund creates an additional four dollars in economic value.Visitors cannot enjoy national parks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite “if the bathrooms don’t work, if the trails and campgrounds aren’t open, or if the roads are in disrepair,” Heinrich said. “These places that we all cherish deserve better.”‘Political games’The bill’s opponents, mostly Republicans, complained that it would not eliminate an estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on 640 million acres of federally owned lands. The bill authorizes $9.5 billion for maintenance over five years.”The Great American Outdoors Act is a perfect example of Washington playing political games,” said Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, the top Republican on the natural resources panel.He accused the bill’s supporters of taking “a bipartisan and popular idea to fix our parks and spur job creation” and combining it with “a divisive measure” on land and water conservation “that will increase our debt” and do little for economic recovery.”At a time when America is putting a record amount of debt on the backs of future generations to cope with COVID-19, now is not the time for reckless spending or new mandatory programs that have nothing to do with the pandemic or stimulating growth,” Bishop said.But Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said the bill would strengthen the recreation economy, a key driver of jobs across the country. It also will address environmental justice by creating green spaces near low-income communities and communities of color across the country, Beyer said.”It is a win for outdoor recreation, for the economy, for wildlife and for the country,” he said.
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By Polityk | 07/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump, Barr to Expand Anti-crime Surge to Several US Cities
President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr are expected to announce Wednesday that federal agents will surge into several American cities including Chicago to help combat rising crime, expanding the administration’s intervention in local enforcement as Trump runs for reelection under a “law-and-order” mantle.Hundreds of federal agents already have been sent to Kansas City, Missouri, to help quell a record rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy there. Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon. Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities that had seen spiking violence.Usually, the Justice Department sends agents under its own umbrella, like agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or the Drug Enforcement Agency. But this surge effort will include Department of Homeland Security Investigations officers, who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations.Trump and Barr are expected to be joined at the White House announcement Wednesday by Chicago-based U.S. Attorney John Lausch, according to his office, along with the U.S. attorney and the sheriff of New Mexico’s most populous county that includes Albuquerque.FILE – Federal agents disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, July 20, 2020.DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland, Oregon, and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statutes. Trump has linked the growing violence in the streets with protests over racial injustice, though criminal justice experts say the spike defies easy explanation, pointing to the unprecedented moment the country is living through — with a pandemic that has killed more than 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, stay-at-home orders, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather.Local authorities have also complained the surges in federal agents have only exacerbated tensions on the streets.Tense momentThe decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is trying to show he is a “law-and-order” president and painting Democratic-led cities as out of control. With less than four months to go before Election Day, Trump has been serving up dire warnings that the violence would worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November, as he tries to win over voters who could be swayed by that message.But civil unrest in Portland only escalated after federal agents there were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause.The spike in crime has hit hard in some cities with resources already stretched thin from the pandemic. But the move to send in federal forces was initially rejected by leaders in Chicago and New York, another city with a surge in violence. FILE – Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during a news conference in Hall A at the COVID-19 alternate site at McCormick Place in Chicago, April 10, 2020.Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot later said she and other local officials had spoken with federal authorities and come to an understanding. “I’ve been very clear that we welcome actual partnership,” the Democratic mayor said Tuesday after speaking with federal officials. “But we do not welcome dictatorship. We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents. That is something I will not tolerate.”‘Storm troopers’In New Mexico, meanwhile, Democratic elected officials were cautioning Trump against any possible plans to send federal agents to the state, with U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, who will be at the White House on Wednesday, to resign.”Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the sheriff is inviting the president’s storm troopers into Albuquerque,” the Democratic senator said in a statement.In Kansas City, the top federal prosecutor said any agents involved in an operation to reduce violent crime in the area would be clearly identifiable when making arrests, unlike what has been seen in Portland.”These agents won’t be patrolling the streets,” U.S. Attorney Timothy Garrison said. “They won’t replace or usurp the authority of local officers.”FILE – Protesters block a downtown Kansas City, Mo. intersection, July 17, 2020. Demonstrators were demanding police reforms and an end to Operation Legend, a federal initiative that will deploy 225 federal agents to fight crime in the city.Operation Legend — named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in a Kansas City apartment late last month — was announced on July 8.”When they are making arrests or executing warrants, these federal agents will be clearly identified by their agency’s visible badges or insignia,” Garrison said. “The only people federal agents will be removing from the street are those they arrest in the course of their investigations of violent crimes.”Garrison has said that the additional 225 federal agents from the FBI, DEA, ATF and the U.S. Marshals Service join 400 agents already working and living in the Kansas City area.The Trump administration is facing growing pushback in Portland. Multiple lawsuits have been filed questioning the federal government’s authority to use broad policing powers in cities. One suit filed Tuesday says federal agents are violating protesters’ 10th Amendment rights by engaging in police activities designated to local and state governments. Oregon lawsuitOregon’s attorney general sued last week, asking a judge to block federal agents’ actions. The state argued that masked agents had arrested people on the streets without probable cause and far from the U.S. courthouse that’s become a target of vandalism.Federal authorities, however, said state and local officials had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers and the U.S. courthouse.The use of federal agents against the will of local officials also has set up the potential for a constitutional crisis, legal experts say. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said federal agents were repressing the American right to protest and he would not welcome federal agents there. “I still believe in the rule of law in this country, and we would go to court immediately. I believe what the president is doing is unconstitutional,” the Democratic mayor said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show on Wednesday.
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By Polityk | 07/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
House Votes on Statues of Confederates, Racist Chief Justice
The House moved toward a vote Wednesday on removing from the U.S. Capitol statues of Confederate heroes, including Robert E. Lee, and a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn’t be citizens. Besides Taney, the bill would direct the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 10 statues honoring Confederate leaders, including Lee, Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens. Three statues honoring white supremacists — including former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina — would be immediately removed. FILE – A statue of Robert E. Lee is on display on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 24, 2015.”Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said at a Capitol news conference ahead of the House vote. Hoyer, D-Md., co-sponsored the bill and noted with irony that Taney was born in the southern Maryland district Hoyer represents. Hoyer said it was appropriate that the bill would replace Taney’s bust with another Maryland native, the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the high court’s first Black justice. The House vote comes as communities nationwide reexamine the people they’re memorializing with statues. Bills to remove the Taney bust and the statues of Confederate leaders have been introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects for passage are uncertain. Even if legislation passes both chambers, it would need the president’s signature, and President Donald Trump has opposed the removal of historic statues elsewhere. Trump has strongly condemned those who toppled statues during protests over racial injustice and police brutality following the May death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Chief Justice TaneyThe 2-foot-high marble bust of Taney is outside a room in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met for half a century, from 1810 to 1860. It was in that room that Taney, the nation’s fifth chief justice, announced the Dred Scott decision, sometimes called the worst decision in the court’s history. FILE – A marble bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney is displayed in the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, March 9, 2020.”What Dred Scott said was, Black lives did not matter,” Hoyer said. “So when we assert that yes they do matter, it is out conviction … that in America, the land of the free includes all of us.” There’s at least one potentially surprising voice for Taney to stay. Lynne M. Jackson, Scott’s great-great-granddaughter, says if it were up to her, she’d leave Taney’s bust where it is. But she said she’d add something too: a bust of Dred Scott. “I’m not really a fan of wiping things out,” Jackson said in a telephone interview this week from her home in Missouri. The president and founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, Jackson has seen other Taney sculptures removed in recent years, particularly in Maryland, where he was the state’s attorney general before becoming U.S. attorney general and then chief justice. ‘Attempts to rewrite history’Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said the statues honoring Lee and other Confederate leaders are “deliberate attempts to rewrite history and dehumanize African Americans.” The statues “are not symbols of Southern heritage, as some claim, but are symbols of white supremacy and defiance of federal authority,” Lee said. “It’s past time we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains.” Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825-1832, also was a U.S. senator, House member and secretary of state and war. He died a decade before the Civil War, but was known as a strong defender of slavery, segregation and white supremacy. His statue would be removed within 30 days of the bill’s passage, along with former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock and James Clarke, a former Arkansas governor and senator. Plea for contextIn the summer of 2017, shortly after white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Lee, Baltimore’s mayor removed statues of Lee, Taney and others. A statue of Taney was removed from the grounds of the State House in Annapolis around the same time. And a bust of Taney was removed that year from outside city hall in Frederick, Maryland. Another Taney bust sits alongside all other former chief justices in the Supreme Court’s Great Hall, a soaring, marble-columned corridor that leads to the courtroom. A portrait of Taney hangs in one of the court’s conference rooms. FILE – A statue of Alexander Stephens of Georgia is on display in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 11, 2020.Jackson said she believes that what memorials honoring figures like Taney need is context. At the Capitol, the Taney statue sits in the “place where the Dred Scott case was decided,” but the fact he is “there by himself is lopsided,” Jackson said in suggesting a bust of Scott be added. She had proposed a similar fix for the Taney statue in Annapolis. In Congress, Taney’s bust was controversial from the start. When Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull proposed its creation in 1865, shortly after Taney’s death, he got into a heated debate with Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, a fierce opponent of slavery. “Let me tell that senator that the name of Taney is to be hooted down the page of history. Judgment is beginning now,” Sumner said. “And an emancipated country will fasten upon him the stigma which he deserves.” Funding for a Taney bust wasn’t approved until almost a decade later. Today, near the Taney bust, inside the old Supreme Court chamber, there are also busts of the nation’s first four chief justices. The first, John Marshall, is the only person to serve as chief justice longer than Taney and a revered figure in the law. But John Marshall too was a deeply flawed man, as were other justices, said Paul Finkelman, the president of Gratz College in Pennsylvania and the author of “Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court.” Marshall bought slaves most of his life, a fact his biographers largely ignored, and was hostile to the idea of Blacks gaining their freedom, Finkelman said. Before the Civil War, probably the majority of justices owned slaves, he said. “It’s not pretty. It’s who they were,” Finkelman said.
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By Polityk | 07/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Heavily Armed US Agents on City Streets: Can Trump Do That?
The Trump administration has deployed agents with tactical gear to confront protesters in downtown Portland, Oregon. That has sparked debate over the use of federal power as local and state officials, and many in the community, condemn their tactics and demand they leave.
Far from backing down, the administration plans to send agents to Chicago to respond to gun violence. And President Donald Trump says federal agents could be deployed elsewhere as he makes law and order a central element in his struggling reelection campaign.
Here are some of the issues behind this unconventional, if not unprecedented, use of federal forces: What’s been going on in Portland?
Protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis have taken place in downtown Portland for more than 50 consecutive days, drawing at times more than 10,000 mostly peaceful demonstrators. A relatively small number of activists has vandalized downtown buildings, including the federal courthouse, and attacked police and federal agents.
Trump issued an executive order June 26 to protect monuments and federal property after protesters tried to remove or destroy statues of people considered racist, including a failed attempt to pull down one of Andrew Jackson near the White House. The Department of Homeland Security dispatched agents to Portland as well as Seattle and Washington, D.C., starting around the Fourth of July weekend.Why the Department of Homeland Security?
DHS, which was formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to improve the nation’s response to the threat of international terrorism, oversees some of the largest U.S. law enforcement agencies.
That includes the Border Patrol as well as Immigration Customs and Enforcement, which are seeing less of their usual activity because of COVID-19. DHS also oversees the Federal Protective Service, which guards federal buildings along with the U.S. Marshals Service. DHS sent members of the Border Patrol, along with Secret Service officers, Air Marshals and others, to Portland to protect the downtown courthouse complex.What Happened After Federal Forces Arrived?
Federal officers and protesters clashed in the streets outside the federal courthouse. Demonstrators broke windows and did other damage, hurled rocks at the officers and shined lasers in their eyes. Agents have fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators and arrested about 43 people since July 4, mostly for minor offenses. Tensions escalated after an officer with the Marshals Service fired a less-lethal round at a protester’s head on July 11, critically injuring him. They ratcheted up further when agents in unmarked vehicles with generic “police” patches on their camouflage uniforms arrested people at night without identifying themselves.
DHS officials defended the arrests Tuesday, saying they were carried out lawfully and intended to protect officers from violent crowds. They also noted it is routine to use unmarked vehicles. But it seemed to many like the U.S. had created a secret police force, and it drew lawsuits as well as more protesters into the streets.Is It Legal for Federal Forces To Be Used Like This?
Yes, to a certain extent. Federal authorities can enforce federal laws on federal property, like the courthouse in downtown Portland. But state and local officials say the federal agents have operated beyond their jurisdiction, and that has raised constitutional issues now being challenged in court. As Michael Dorf, a professional of constitutional law at Cornell University, told The Associated Press, “The idea that there’s a threat to a federal courthouse and the federal authorities are going to swoop in and do whatever they want to do without any cooperation and coordination with state and local authorities is extraordinary outside the context of a civil war.” Even If It’s Legal, Is It A Good Idea?
DHS has assisted with local enforcement before, but not without consent. It sent agents to Puerto Rico to help confront a spike in crime linked to drug trafficking in 2013 and dispatched the Border Patrol’s tactical team to track two escaped convicts in rural upstate New York in 2015. But as John Cohen, a former senior DHS official under Obama and President George W. Bush, noted, those were conducted in close cooperation with state and local authorities. Employing DHS on its own, in a mission that seems to be suspiciously aligned with the president’s reelection campaign, appears to be unprecedented. “If the public begins to perceive that they are being partisan in how they operate they lose credibility, and if they lose credibility, they lose public trust,” said Cohen, who now teaches at Georgetown University.What Can Be Expected To Happen Next?
The Oregon attorney general filed a lawsuit Friday arguing that the federal government had violated the rights of citizens of the state by detaining people without probable cause. The American Civil Liberties Union has also sued, seeking to stop the federal government’s use of rubber bullets, tear gas and acoustic weapons against journalists and other legal observers. These and other legal actions could force the federal agents to change tactics or perhaps downsize their mission in the city.
Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf at a news conference Tuesday urged state and local authorities in Portland to work with the federal government to stop the violence directed at federal personnel and property. He also sought to draw a sharp distinction between people demonstrating against police brutality and those attacking the courthouse. “If you’re looking to peacefully protest in Portland, the department respects your right to do so,” he said.
Trump has praised the DHS response and criticized local officials for letting a situation get “out of control.” An official told the AP that Homeland Security was planning to deploy about 150 agents to Chicago for at least two months in a mission expected to focus on gun crime, not the protection of federal property. Trump, who sees the use of federal officers as a way to embarrass Democratic local officials, wants them used in other cities. “We’re going to have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,” Trump said Monday.
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By Polityk | 07/22/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
In Fractious Washington, Leaders Debate New Coronavirus Relief Plan
Top congressional Democrats met with White House officials Tuesday, as lawmakers and President Donald Trump face down an end-of-month deadline to pass a new funding package combating the vast health and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Tuesday’s private talks brought together Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and acting Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Meadows attend meeting to discuss coronavirus aid legislation at the White House in Washington.The push for action comes with the country adding on average more than 66,000 new cases per day during the past week, and with federal payments of $600 per week to millions of unemployed workers set to expire at the end of July. Mnuchin and Meadows have set an unofficial deadline of July 31 to pass the new round of funding. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell downplayed that possibility when asked by reporters Tuesday, saying Senate Republicans’ proposal would be introduced by the end of this week. Months ago, the White House and Congress approved a package of bills totaling more than $3 trillion, with unusual bipartisan agreement. Now Trump, Republican lawmakers and Democrats are voicing an array of coronavirus priorities they need to tackle before Congress leaves Washington in three weeks for its annual August recess. Lawmakers will not return until September. McConnell said he will not bring a bill to the Senate floor unless it includes provisions curbing the legal liability of businesses and schools if their workers, customers or students contract the coronavirus. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) listens during a press conference on Capitol Hill on July 21, 2020 in Washington.Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said Tuesday there have been only a handful of lawsuits nationwide relating to the pandemic. “There is no tsunami, there is no flood, but Senator McConnell is trying to capitalize on this moment of uncertainty in America to close down the responsibility of businesses to make certain they do everything reasonably possible to protect their customers and their employees,” Durbin told reporters. Trump has also called for the measure to include a temporary end to the 7.65% payroll tax on workers’ salaries that would benefit those who are working, but not the more than 17 million unemployed U.S. workers who currently have no paychecks to tax. Lawmakers of both parties have shown little interest in the president’s payroll tax cut proposal. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks about legislation for additional coronavirus aid during a meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, July 20, 2020.McConnell said Tuesday his party would focus on passing $105 billion in funding to return U.S. schoolchildren to in-person instruction when the school year begins in the fall, as well as new rounds of funding to address historic levels of unemployment. “We’ll also be proposing a targeted second round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) with a special eye toward hard-hit businesses,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “And speaking of building on what worked in the CARES Act, we want another round of direct payments to help American families keep driving our national comeback.” Senate Democrats released a proposal Tuesday that would send $430 billion in funding to state and local school districts to help them teach grade-school students in person, online or in a hybrid model. McConnell said Tuesday that Republicans were proposing $105 billion in funding for schools. Trump has suggested withholding federal funding to school districts if they do not reopen fully when the school year resumes. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., speaks about the coronavirus during a media availability on Capitol Hill, March 3, 2020 in Washington.“Bullying schools with a one-size-fits-all demand is not the road to get back to in-person learning. It is the road to chaos, more infections and would put families and school staff at risk,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, author of the proposal, told reporters in a conference call Tuesday. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers want to extend the $600-a-week federal boost to less-generous state unemployment benefits through the end of 2020 and provide more aid for state and local governments to weather the coronavirus crisis. Some Republicans want to end the extra federal unemployment payments, saying they are a disincentive to push employees back to their jobs because some employees have made more money unemployed than when they were working. One possible compromise would extend the jobless benefits but cut them to between $200 and $400 a week or limit them to the workers who were paid the least before being laid off. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Md., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Feb. 4, 2020 in Washington.In a call with reporters Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said there was no magic number for the amount of unemployment benefits, suggesting, “It is not irrational to talk about making sure the neediest are taken care of, and neediest is in the eye of the beholder. “ McConnell has said a new coronavirus spending deal could total about $1 trillion, but Democrats want a much bigger plan, more in line with the $3 trillion measure the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved in mid-May. That package, however, has languished in the Republican-controlled Senate as Democrats have called for its passage.
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By Polityk | 07/22/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Claims Trump Has ‘Quit on This Country’
The presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, Joe Biden, told Americans Tuesday that President Donald Trump “has quit on you and he’s quit on this country.” In livestreamed remarks, Biden blamed Trump for failing to lead during the coronavirus pandemic, adding that as COVID-19 infections spread each day, “too many American workers are still out of work and losing hope.” The former vice president said that Trump’s own staff has acknowledged he fails the most important test of being an American president: “The duty to care for you, for all of us.” Biden added: “A president is supposed to care, to lead, to take responsibility, to never give up.” During Tuesday’s daily coronavirus briefing, however, Trump sought to portray his administration as effectively leading the response, saying potential vaccines are “coming a lot sooner than anybody thought possible” and discussed a new aid package for Americans affected by the virus. The White House began the daily briefings after stopping them in late April. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event in New Castle, Del., July 21, 2020.Biden’s remarks came during the latest low-key campaign event he has held in his home state of Delaware. The setting was an elementary school auditorium in New Castle, attended by fewer than 30 people, including a few invited guests, campaign staff, Biden’s Secret Service detail and a pool of reporters, due to social distancing.The event was primarily intended to roll out the third plank of Biden’s economic plan, known as “Build Back Better,” focusing on child care and home health care, with a pledge to provide 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. The situation with child care in the United States “is dire,” said Biden, who declared, we’re in a “child care emergency.” Biden promised his plan would give every 3- or 4-year-old child “access to free, high-quality preschool.” Home health care workers would get access to training to become an emergency medical technician, nurse or even a doctor, Biden said of his plan. He said it would put 3 million Americans to work in child care and home care, and would allow even more to go out into the labor force who can’t go out into workforce due to the “caregiving squeeze.” “This is both a moral and economic imperative for the nation in my view,” he said. His economic platform to increase access to child care and health care “is about dignity and respect for working people,” Biden said. “And that’s precisely what this election is all about: dignity and respect. Biden’s remarks Tuesday came 100 days before voters choose between either him or Trump. Recent polls indicate the former vice president leading the incumbent president, including a Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered voters conducted last week that put Biden 10 percentage points ahead. The Democratic candidate has detailed several other parts of his economic recovery plan while criticizing Trump’s coronavirus response and his handling of the economy. President Donald Trump holds a face mask as he speaks during a news conference at the White House, July 21, 2020.Trump has countered by positioning himself as the candidate best capable of boosting the economy, calling Biden, who will turn 78 in November, “totally ill-equipped” and questioning his opponent’s mental acuity, boasting in a recent interview of performing well on a cognitive test. Trump is 74. Earlier this month, Biden proposed a $700 billion manufacturing plan that he said would add 5 million new jobs to help cope with the spike in unemployment during the pandemic. Biden said his plan includes $300 billion for research and development projects in clean energy, telecommunications, artificial intelligence and other fields. It also includes $400 billion for the government purchase of U.S.-built goods, such as environmentally clean products and construction materials. Last week, Biden proposed spending $2 trillion to fight climate change and cut carbon emissions from power plants to zero by 2035. The Biden campaign has said another piece of the plan to be revealed in a future speech involves efforts to advance racial equity in the aftermath of national protests against police brutality. During his presidency, Trump has regularly touted massive renovation and expansion of America’s infrastructure. He has accomplished regulatory changes to ease development and construction through executive orders. His projects that would need spending approval from lawmakers have run into opposition from some in both parties due to their scope and size, and how they would be funded. In recent months, the pandemic and the resulting loss of jobs have forced the administration to shift focus from what has been a centerpiece of the president’s 2016 campaign pledge.
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By Polityk | 07/22/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Constitutional Crisis Looms Over Federal Agents in Portland
A potential constitutional crisis is looming over the actions of federal officers at protests in Oregon’s largest city that have been hailed by President Donald Trump but were done without local consent. The standoff could escalate there and elsewhere as Trump says he plans to send federal agents to other cities, too.
In Portland, demonstrators who have been on the streets for weeks have found renewed focus in clashes with camouflaged, unidentified agents outside the city’s U.S. courthouse. Protesters crowded in front of the courthouse and the Justice Center late Monday night, before authorities cleared them out as the loud sound and light of flash bang grenades filled the sky.
State and local authorities, who didn’t ask for federal help, are awaiting a ruling in a lawsuit filed late last week. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in court papers that masked federal officers have arrested people on the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security was planning to deploy about 150 of its agents to Chicago, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The agents are expected to stay for at least two months and could be sent to other locations at some point, the official said. Homeland Security said in a statement that the department does not comment on “allegedly leaked operations.”
“We’re going to have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,” Trump said Monday. “In Portland, they’ve done a fantastic job. They’ve been there three days, and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time.”
As Oregon officials have, Chicago’s mayor has pushed back against the deployment of federal agents. It’s not clear what exactly what they will do there, but Trump has pointed to rising gun violence in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, where more than 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend.
Homeland Security agents generally do lengthy investigations into human trafficking, drugs and weapons smuggling and child exploitation, but they have also been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border during the height of the crisis there to help.
The tussle comes about two weeks ago after the Trump administration sent more than 100 federal law enforcement officers to Kansas City to help quell a rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy there.
The ACLU of Oregon has sued in federal court over the agents’ presence in Portland, and the organization’s Chicago branch said it would similarly oppose a federal presence.
“This is a democracy, not a dictatorship,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said on Twitter. “We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles. I can’t believe I have to say that to the President of the United States.”
Constitutional law experts said federal officers’ actions in the progressive city are a “red flag” in what could become a test case of states’ rights as the Trump administration expands federal policing.
“The idea that there’s a threat to a federal courthouse and the federal authorities are going to swoop in and do whatever they want to do without any cooperation and coordination with state and local authorities is extraordinary outside the context of a civil war,” said Michael Dorf, a professor of constitutional law at Cornell University.
“It is a standard move of authoritarians to use the pretext of quelling violence to bring in force, thereby prompting a violent response and then bootstrapping the initial use of force in the first place,” Dorf said.
The Department of Homeland Security tweeted that federal agents were barricaded in Portland’s U.S. courthouse at one point and had lasers pointed at their eyes in an attempt to blind them.
“Portland is rife with violent anarchists assaulting federal officers and federal buildings,” the tweet said. “This isn’t a peaceful crowd. These are federal crimes.”
Top leaders in the U.S. House said Sunday that they were “alarmed” by the Trump administration’s tactics in Portland and other cities. They have called on federal inspectors general to investigate.
Trump, who’s called the protesters “anarchists and agitators,” said the DHS and Justice Department agents are on hand to restore order at the courthouse and help Portland.
Nightly protests, which began after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, have devolved into violence.
The Trump administration’s actions run counter to the usual philosophies of American conservatives, who typically treat state and local rights with great sanctity and have long been deeply wary of the federal government — particularly its armed agents — interceding in most situations.
But Trump has shown that his actions don’t always reflect traditional conservatism — particularly when politics, and in this case an impending election, are in play.
The protests have roiled Portland for more than seven weeks. Many rallies have attracted thousands and been largely peaceful. But smaller groups of up to several hundred people have focused on federal property and local law enforcement buildings, at times setting fires to police precincts, smashing windows and clashing violently with local police.
Portland police used tear gas on multiple occasions until a federal court order banned its officers from doing so without declaring a riot. Now, concern is growing that the tear gas is being used against demonstrators by federal officers instead.
Anger at the federal presence escalated on July 11, when a protester was hospitalized with critical injuries after a U.S. Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a less-lethal round. Video shows the man, identified as Donavan LaBella, standing across the street from the officers holding a speaker over his head when he was hit.
Court documents filed in cases against protesters show that federal officers have posted lookouts on the upper stories of the courthouse and have plainclothes officers circulating in the crowd. Court papers in a federal case against a man accused of shining a laser in the eyes of Federal Protective Service agents show that Portland police turned him over to U.S. authorities after federal officers identified him.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, who’s has been under fire for his handling of the protests, said on national TV talk shows Sunday that the demonstrations were dwindling before federal officers engaged.
“Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism,” Wheeler said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Indeed, crowds of demonstrators had begun to dwindle a week ago, and some in the liberal city — including Black community leaders — had begun to call for the nightly demonstrations to end.
But by the weekend, the presence of federal troops and Trump’s repeated references to Portland as a hotbed of “anarchists” seemed to give a new life to the protests and attract a broader base.
On Sunday night, a crowd estimated at more than 500 people gathered outside the courthouse, including dozens of self-described “moms” who linked arms in front of a chain-link fence outside the courthouse. The demonstration continued into Monday morning.
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By Polityk | 07/22/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
ACLU, Lawyers Sue to Free Ex-Trump Attorney Michael Cohen
President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer sued Attorney General William Barr and the Bureau of Prisons director Monday, saying he’s being unjustly held behind bars to stop him from finishing a book that criticizes Trump.The lawsuit on behalf of Michael Cohen was filed late Monday in Manhattan federal court, alleging his First Amendment rights were violated when he was returned to the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, on July 9.
A message for comment was left with the Justice Department.
Cohen, 53, had been furloughed in May as part of an attempt to slow the spread of the virus in federal prisons.
He had served only a year of his three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.
Cohen’s campaign finance charges related to his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from airing claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.
Monday’s lawsuit said Cohen made it clear recently that he planned to release a tell-all book just before the November election.
“In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, he intends to tell the American people about Mr. Trump’s personality and proclivities, his private and professional affairs, and his personal and business ethics,” according to the lawsuit brought on Cohen’s behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union and attorneys Danya Perry and Samidh Guha.
The lawsuit said Cohen’s crimes related to “lying to Congress on behalf of Mr. Trump and committing campaign finance violations on behalf of Mr. Trump.”
According to the lawsuit, federal authorities moved to re-incarcerate Cohen after he tweeted on June 26 “#WillSpeakSoon” and on July 2 that he was finishing his Trump book.
The lawsuit said U.S. Probation officers, working on behalf of the Bureau of Prisons and its director, Michael Carvajal, demanded of Cohen that he agree not to speak to or through any media, including by publishing a book.
It said the officers made the unconstitutional demand, and Cohen and his lawyers sought clarification on and limitation on the prohibition on speaking, only to see him locked up after the officers said they would run his requests “up the chain” to Bureau of Prisons executives.
Cohen has remained in solitary confinement since he was taken to Otisville, the lawsuit said.
It said his health has also suffered, with his blood pressure spiking to critical levels, “leading to severe headaches, shortness of breath and anxiety.”
And, it added, he has made no progress on his book. The lawsuit sought a court order to return him to home confinement.
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By Polityk | 07/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden to Detail Economic Recovery Plan for Working Families
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is set to unveil Tuesday a series of economic proposals focusing on working families as he campaigns with just more than 100 days remaining before voters decide between him and President Donald Trump. Biden’s campaign said he “will outline how his plan will build a robust 21st century caregiving and education workforce” as part of his “Build Back Better” plan for the U.S. economy. Recent polls indicate Biden leading Trump, including a Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered voters conducted last week that put Biden 10 percentage points ahead. The Democratic candidate has detailed several other parts of his economic recovery plan while criticizing Trump’s coronavirus response and his handling of the economy. Trump has countered by positioning himself as the candidate best capable of boosting the economy, calling Biden “totally ill-equipped.”President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, July 20, 2020, in Washington.Earlier this month, Biden proposed a $700 billion manufacturing plan that he said would add 5 million new jobs to help cope with the spike in unemployment during the pandemic. Biden said his plan includes $300 billion for research and development projects in clean energy, telecommunications, artificial intelligence and other fields. It also includes $400 billion for the government purchase of U.S-built goods, such as environmentally clean products and construction materials. Last week, Biden proposed spending $2 trillion to fight climate change and cut carbon emissions from power plants to zero by 2035. The Biden campaign has said another piece of the plan to be revealed in a future speech involves efforts to advance racial equity in the aftermath of national protests against police brutality.
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By Polityk | 07/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump to Resume White House Coronavirus Briefings
U.S. President Donald Trump says he will resume White House coronavirus briefings as cases spike nationwide. The president’s decision to again hold a daily briefing on the virus comes as his poll numbers have dropped and advisers have encouraged him to communicate more about his administration’s response to the pandemic. “I think it’s a great way to get information out to the public,” Trump told reporters Monday in the Oval Office. He said the briefings would likely begin Tuesday and that he hoped to talk about medical progress to fight the pandemic, including vaccines and therapeutics. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the briefings will “give reassurance to the American people that we are in a place, where we see these cases rising as we increase testing, notably – but we are in a place where we are treating people in a better fashion because of the therapeutics developed under this president.” It is not clear whether Trump will field questions at the briefings as he has in the past or if he will share the stage with others, including Vice President Mike Pence and health experts Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. Trump has recently criticized Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, saying in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday that Fauci is “a little bit of an alarmist.” However, he added, “I have a great relationship with him.” Trump’s once near-daily briefings largely ended in late April. In one of the last appearances he made, Trump speculated about whether injecting disinfectants could help stop the virus, a comment that sparked strong criticism from public health experts. Last week, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway publicly urged the president to again hold the briefings. “His approval rating on the pandemic was higher when he was at the podium,” Conway said Friday. Trump’s approval ratings went up in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States but began to fall in April. The decision to resume the White House briefings comes less than a week after Trump announced a campaign shakeup in which he replaced his campaign manager.
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By Polityk | 07/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
House Lawmakers Hold Moment of Silence for Civil Rights Icon John Lewis
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives held a moment of silence Monday in honor of Georgia congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who died last week at age 80.The veteran lawmaker and son of sharecroppers was heavily involved in the 1960s civil rights movement, from speaking at the monumental 1963 March on Washington, to marching in his native Alabama in 1965. During a Selma-to-Montgomery march that year, Lewis was beaten badly as he and other protesters attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to get to the state capital. Lewis suffered a fractured skull during the confrontation with state troopers. The violence came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”According to a bio about Mourners of the late Rep. John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives, hold a vigil in his memory in Atlanta, Georgia, July 19, 2020.Lewis served as the congressman for Georgia’s 5th District from his first election in 1987 until the day he died. Lewis passed away on Friday, about seven months after he was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer also gave a tribute to Lewis Monday.Hoyer said that Lewis was “a veteran legislator and person of wisdom and experience” who “still carried in his heart the same energy, optimism, and determined spirit that he bore in his youth. John never stopped being the young man who dreamed of change and knew it could be achieved.”Hoyer concluded by stating, “He was our inspiration, he was our guide, he was our friend, he was our colleague. As I said on Saturday morning, there is a hole in the heart of America.”House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walks towards the House Chamber at the Capitol, July 20, 2020, in Washington. Pelosi, who presided over a moment of silence for Georgia Rep. John Lewis, choked up recalling their last conversation the day before he died.Earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in an interview on the CBS television network, noted she served with Lewis for 33 years in Congress. Pelosi told CBS’s Gayle King that Lewis “challenged our conscience in so many ways in terms of equality and justice. And it was justice for all.” Pelosi also described Lewis as “a patriot.”Separately, photos posted on Twitter showed workers putting a dark-colored drape over the door to Lewis’ Capitol Hill office, where handwritten notes had been left.State law requires that the Georgia Democratic Party appoint a nominee to replace Lewis one business day after his death. The committee in charge of appointing a nominee has announced five finalists to replace him on the ballot in November.
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By Polityk | 07/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
In Fractious Washington, Debate Starts on New Coronavirus Relief Plan
U.S. Lawmakers returned to Washington on Monday, facing crucial negotiations with President Donald Trump over the scope of a new funding package to combat the vast health and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The number of newly confirmed infections has soared past 70,000 a day in the U.S. in the past week, and $600-a-week federal payments to millions of unemployed workers are expiring at the end of July. But Trump and his Republican cohorts in Congress and opposition Democrats have yet to reach a consensus on what new aid to approve and how much money to spend. Months ago, the White House and Congress approved a package of bills totaling more than $3 trillion, and there was unusual bipartisan agreement. But now, in what is likely to be the last coronavirus spending deal before the presidential and congressional elections on November 3, Trump, Republican lawmakers and Democrats are voicing an array of coronavirus priorities they need to tackle before Congress leaves Washington in three weeks for its annual August recess. It won’t return until September. White House meetingTrump met Monday with two top Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, before they begin what are expected to be contentious negotiations with Democratic leaders. U.S. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin, left, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows attend a meeting to discuss legislation for additional coronavirus aid in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, July 20, 2020.Mnuchin said the new spending plan would focus on “kids (returning to school) and jobs and vaccines. “We want to make sure that people who can go to work safely can do so,” Mnuchin told reporters at the White House. “We’ll have tax credits that incentivize businesses to bring people back to work.” McConnell, in an effort to boost the economic recovery, wants provisions that curb the legal liability for businesses and workers from claims that they have infected customers with the coronavirus. Trump has called for a temporary end to the 7.65% payroll tax on workers’ salaries, which would benefit those who are working but not the more than 17 million unemployed U.S. workers because they currently have no paychecks to tax. Unemployment benefitsMeanwhile, Democratic lawmakers want to extend the $600-a-week federal boost to less generous state unemployment benefits through the end of 2020 and provide more aid for state and local governments to weather the coronavirus crisis. Some Republicans want to end the extra federal unemployment payments, saying they are a disincentive to push employees back to their jobs because some employees have made more money while being unemployed than they did from their salaries while working. Some lawmakers have suggested a compromise, extending the jobless benefits but cutting them to between $200 and $400 a week or limiting them to the workers who were paid the least before being laid off. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks about legislation for additional coronavirus aid during a meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, July 20, 2020.McConnell has said a new coronavirus spending deal could total about $1 trillion, but Democrats want a much bigger plan, more in line with the $3 trillion measure the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved in mid-May. That package, however, has languished in the Republican-controlled Senate even as Democrats have called for its passage. In an interview on the “Fox News Sunday” show, Trump advocated for the liability protection for businesses. “Businesses are going to get sued just because somebody walked in,” Trump said. “You don’t know where this virus comes from. They’ll sit down at a restaurant. They’ll sue the restaurant, the guy’s out of business.” He also said police need immunity from coronavirus lawsuits.Trump also said he “would consider” not signing the measure if it does not include cutting the payroll tax. U.S. news outlets have reported that some White House officials want to cut new funding for more coronavirus testing, but Democrats and some Republicans want the opposite: more money for testing and tracing the contacts of those infected. Negotiations Even as Trump and Republican and Democratic lawmakers have laid out their coronavirus spending priorities, there have been no negotiations over a collective package. But with the unemployment aid ending and the number of new coronavirus cases surging, there is general agreement on the need to agree on a plan before Congress departs for its summer recess. Getting to that point in politically fractious Washington could be difficult, especially with the elections in just over three months. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said late last week he had yet to hear from McConnell or Mnuchin. “Senator McConnell is trying to draft a bill in his office,” Schumer said. “But he knows that a bill just drafted by Republicans won’t become law. … McConnell knows from the previous COVID bills that to pass a bill in the Senate he’s got to work across the aisle.”
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By Polityk | 07/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
AP Fact Check: Trump’s Alternate Reality on COVID-19 Threat
President Donald Trump appears to be living in an alternate reality when it comes to the COVID-19 threat. Over the weekend, he clung to the misguided notion that the virus will just “disappear” even as his top science experts and GOP allies bluntly say otherwise. Trump also continued to wrongly insist that anyone who wants a coronavirus test is getting one, made the head-scratching suggestion that the virus is under control when infections are surging to fresh daily highs and lodged false accusations against the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. The statements came in a week of distorted truth. Trump referred repeatedly to his “ban” on travel from China that wasn’t so and issued a scattered indictment of Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden. A look at his rhetoric and how they compare with the facts: Trump vs. Fauci TRUMP: “Dr. Fauci at the beginning said, ‘This will pass. Don’t worry about it. This will pass.’ He was wrong.” — interview aired on “Fox News Sunday.” THE FACTS: Trump is overstating it. While Fauci said in January and February that Americans need not panic about a virus threat at the time, he also said the situation was “evolving” and that public health officials were taking the threat seriously. FILE – Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 30, 2020.”Right now the risk is still low, but this could change, I’ve said that many times,” Fauci told NBC on Feb. 29. He allowed that if there are growing cases of community spread, it could become a “major outbreak.” “When you start to see community spread, this could change and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread,” Fauci said. Fauci never claimed the virus would just “pass” or disappear. TRUMP: “Dr. Fauci told me not to ban China, it would be a big mistake. I did it over and above his recommendation.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: That’s incorrect. While Fauci expressed some initial reservations about travel restrictions on China, he supported the decision by the time it was made. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who was coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force at the time and announced the travel restrictions, said Trump made the decision in late January after accepting the “uniform recommendation of the career public health officials here at HHS.” FILE – A health alert for people traveling to China is shown at a TSA security checkpoint at the Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado, March 2, 2020.While the World Health Organization did advise against the overuse of travel restrictions, Azar told reporters in February that his department’s career health officials had made a “considered recommendation, which I and the president adopted” in a bid to slow spread of the virus. TRUMP: “I will be right eventually. You know I said, ‘It’s going to disappear.’ I’ll say it again. It’s going to disappear, and I’ll be right.” — Fox interview. TRUMP: “We’ll put out the flames. … It’s going to be under control.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: “The virus is not going to disappear,” according to Fauci. The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. per day has risen over the past month, hitting over 70,000 this past week, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. That is higher even than what the country experienced from mid-April through early May, when deaths sharply rose. FILE – Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) arrive with a patient while a funeral car begins to depart at North Shore Medical Center where the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients are treated, in Miami, Florida, July 14, 2020.Fauci has warned that the increase across the South and West “puts the entire country at risk” and that new infections could reach 100,000 a day if people don’t start listening to guidance from public health authorities to wear a mask and practice social distancing. Arizona, California, Florida and Texas have recently been forced to shut down bars and businesses as virus cases surge. The U.S. currently has more than 3.7 million known cases and many more undetected. In February, Trump asserted coronavirus cases were going “very substantially down, not up,” and told Fox Business it will be fine because “in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, visiting a hospital Wednesday in Kentucky, acknowledged that some of those early predictions were too rosy. “The straight talk here that everyone needs to understand: This is not going away,” he said. Fauci says there “certainly” will be coronavirus infections in the fall and winter. PETER NAVARRO, White House trade adviser: “When Fauci was telling the White House Coronavirus Task Force that there was only anecdotal evidence in support of hydroxychloroquine to fight the virus, I confronted him with scientific studies providing evidence of safety and efficacy. A recent Detroit hospital study showed a 50% reduction in the mortality rate when the medicine is used in early treatment.” — op-ed published Wednesday in USA Today. THE FACTS: Navarro cherry-picks a study widely criticized as flawed and ignores multiple studies finding hydroxychloroquine doesn’t help. FILE – A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, May 20, 2020.Numerous rigorous tests of hydroxychloroquine, including a large one from Britain and one led by the National Institutes of Health, concluded that the anti-malaria drug was ineffective for treating hospitalized coronavirus patients. Fauci leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH. The Food and Drug Administration also has warned the drug should only be used for the coronavirus in hospitals and research settings because of the risk of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues. The Henry Ford Health System study that Navarro refers to was an observational look back at how various patients fared. It was not a rigorous test where similar patients are randomly assigned to get the drug or not and where each group is compared later on how they did. In the study, some people with heart or certain other conditions were not given the drugs, which can cause heart rhythm problems, so those patients were fundamentally different from the group they were compared with. Researchers said they adjusted statistically for some differences, but the many variables make it tough to reach firm conclusions. Some patients also received other treatments such as steroids and the antiviral drug remdesivir, further clouding any ability to tell whether hydroxychloroquine helped. The White House said Navarro was not authorized to challenge Fauci with the op-ed and should not have done it. But his points largely reflect ones Trump and others in the White House have made themselves. More on virus threat TRUMP, on what happened after he restricted travel from China: “Nancy Pelosi was dancing on the streets of Chinatown in San Francisco a month later, and even later than that, and others, too.” — Rose Garden remarks Tuesday. THE FACTS: No she wasn’t. This is Trump’s frequent and fanciful account of the House speaker’s visit to San Francisco’s Chinatown on Feb. 24. That day, she visited shops and strolled the streets to counter the hostility some people in the district were encountering over a virus that emanated from China. FILE – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., looks over items at The Wok Shop during a tour of Chinatown, Feb. 24, 2020, in San Francisco.On that day, Pelosi said the public should be vigilant about the virus but the city took precautions and “we should come to Chinatown.” Local TV news tracked her visit;. She wasn’t seen dancing and did not call for a “street fair,” as Trump at times has put it. Community spread of the coronavirus had not yet been reported. As FactCheck.org pointed out, the same day Pelosi went to Chinatown, Trump tweeted: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health (Organization) have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” The CDC is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two days later, Trump asserted that only 15 people in the U.S. were infected and that number would go down “close to zero.” Instead the numbers exploded. More than 3.6 million Americans have had COVID-19. Trump has accused Pelosi of being “responsible for many deaths” because of the Chinatown visit. He has denied responsibility for any of the deaths sweeping the country as he has persistently minimized the threat, pushed for reopening and refused to take mask-wearing seriously. Testing TRUMP: “We go out into parking lots and everything, everybody gets a test.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: He’s repeating the false notion that anybody who wants a COVID-19 test can get one. Americans are being confronted with long lines at testing sites. People often are disqualified if they are not showing symptoms and, if they are tested, they sometimes are forced to wait many days for results. FILE – People, in their cars, wait in line for coronavirus testing at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, July 14, 2020.Julie Khani, president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, which represents LabCorp, Quest Diagnostics and other labs, has made clear that “the anticipated demand for COVID-19 testing over the coming weeks will likely exceed members’ testing capacities.” This past week the group encouraged members to give priority to “those most in need, especially hospitalized and symptomatic patients.” Many governors and local officials say they cannot meet the demand. “Testing has been a challenge everywhere,” says Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert. Around Seattle, for instance, a new wave of patients is showing up at emergency departments, said nurse Mike Hastings. “What’s really frustrating from my side of it is when a patient comes into the emergency department, and is not really having symptoms of COVID, but they feel like they need that testing,” said Hastings, who is president of the Emergency Nurses Association. “Sometimes we’re not able to test them because we don’t have enough test supplies, so we’re only testing a certain set of patients.” TRUMP: “Cases are up, because we have the best testing in the world and we have the most testing.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: It’s not true that infections are high only because the U.S. diagnostic testing has increased. Trump’s own top public health officials have shot down this line of thinking. Infections are rising because people are infecting each other more than they were when most everyone was hunkered down. Health care workers work at a walk-up COVID-19 testing site during the coronavirus pandemic, July 17, 2020, in Miami Beach, Florida.Increased testing does contribute to the higher numbers, but there’s more to it. Testing in fact has uncovered a worrisome trend: The percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus is on the rise across nearly the entire country. That’s a clear demonstration that sickness is spreading and that the U.S. testing system is falling short. “A high rate of positive tests indicates a government is only testing the sickest patients who seek out medical attention and is not casting a wide enough net,” says the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, a primary source of updated information on the pandemic. TRUMP: “No country has ever done what we’ve done in terms of testing. We are the envy of the world. They call and they say the most incredible job anybody’s done is our job on testing, because we’re going to very shortly be up to 50 million tests. You look at other countries; they don’t even do tests. … They don’t go around have massive areas of testing, and we do.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: U.S. testing is not the envy of the world, nor is the U.S. the only country that does mass testing. U.S. testing on a per capita basis lags other countries that have done a far better job of controlling their outbreaks. State, local and federal officials are warning of the consequences of testing bottlenecks, including tests rendered useless because results come too late. China has used batch testing, mixing samples and testing them together, as part of a recent campaign to test all 11 million residents of Wuhan. It’s an approach that top U.S. health officials believe could be used to boost U.S. screening, though it’s not clear when pooled testing could become available for wide-scale screenings at U.S. schools and businesses. “We are nowhere near being able to rein in this virus with the amount of testing we have available at the moment,” said Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University who previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said test results in parts of the U.S. take as long as a week, which is “too long.” “You do the testing to find out who’s carrying the virus and then quickly get them isolated so they don’t spread it around,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And it’s very hard to make that work when there’s a long delay built in.” Death ratesTRUMP: “I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.” — Fox interview. CHRIS WALLACE, host of “Fox News Sunday”: “That’s not true, sir.” TRUMP: “Number one, low mortality rate.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: Trump’s claim is wholly unsupported. An accurate death rate is impossible to know. Every country tests and counts people differently, and some are unreliable in reporting cases. Without knowing the true number of people who become infected, it cannot be determined what portion of them die. FILE – Pat Marmo, owner of Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral Home, walks through his body holding facility that is struggling to handle overflow of clients stemming from COVID-19 deaths, April 2, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.Using a count kept by Johns Hopkins University, you can compare the number of recorded deaths with the number of reported cases. That count shows the U.S. experiencing more deaths as a percentage of cases than most other countries now being hit hard with the pandemic. The statistics look better for the U.S. when the list is expanded to include European countries that were slammed early on by the virus but now appear to have it under control. Even then, the U.S. is not shown to be among the best in avoiding death. Such calculations, though, do not provide a reliable measurement of actual death rates because of the variations in testing and reporting, and the Johns Hopkins tally is not meant to be such a measure. The only way to tell how many cases have gone uncounted, and therefore what percentage of infected people have died from the disease, is to do another kind of test comprehensively, of people’s blood, to find how many people bear immune system antibodies to the virus. Globally, that is only being done in select places. Travel restrictions TRUMP: “If you remember, I was the one that did the European Union very early.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: U.S. health officials actually believe Trump was late in restricting travel from parts of Europe. While Trump imposed travel restrictions on China in late January, he didn’t follow up with many European countries until mid-March. Those delayed travel alerts as well as limited testing contributed to the jump in U.S. cases starting in late February, according to Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We clearly didn’t recognize the full importations that were happening,” Schuchat told The Associated Press in May. TRUMP: “We would’ve had thousands of people additionally die if we let people come in from heavily infected China. But we stopped it. We did a travel ban in January. … By closing up, we saved millions, potentially millions of lives.” — Rose Garden remarks THE FACTS: He didn’t ban travel from China. He restricted it. Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the same time the U.S. did. The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from China’s Hong Kong and Macao territories over the past five months. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed. Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure. Few doubt that the heavy death toll from COVID-19 would be even heavier if world travel had not been constricted globally. But Trump has no scientific basis to claim that his action alone saved “millions” or even “hundreds of thousands” of lives, as he has put it. TRUMP, on Biden: “He opposed my very strict travel ban on Chinese nationals to stop the spread of the China virus. He was totally against it. ‘Xenophobic,’ he called me. ‘Xenophobic.’ A month later, he admitted I was right.” — Rose Garden. THE FACTS: No, Biden did not come out against the travel restrictions on China. He said little about them at the time. In April, his campaign said he supported travel restrictions if “guided by medical experts.” Biden did say Trump has a record of xenophobia, a comment made during an Iowa campaign event when the restrictions were announced. Biden said Trump was “fear-mongering” against foreigners and the Democrat took issue with Trump’s references to the “China virus” as an example. He did not address the travel steps. Trump has claimed that Biden realized he was right after all about restricting travel from China and wrote him a “letter of apology.” This didn’t happen, either. Police TRUMP: “Biden wants to defund the police.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: To be clear, Biden has not joined the call of protesters who demanded “defund the police” after George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. He’s proposed more money for police, conditioned to improvements in their practices. “I don’t support defunding the police,” Biden said last month in a CBS interview. But he said he would support tying federal aid to police based on whether “they meet certain basic standards of decency, honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community.” FILE – Protesters rally, June 3, 2020, in Phoenix, demanding that the Phoenix City Council defund the Phoenix Police Department.Biden’s criminal justice agenda, released long before he became the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, proposes more federal money for “training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths” and hiring more officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of the populations they serve. Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into existing federal community policing grant programs. That adds up to more money for police, not defunding law enforcement. Biden also wants the federal government to spend more on education, social services and struggling areas of cities and rural America, to address root causes of crime. Economy TRUMP: “I built the greatest economy ever built anywhere in the world; not only of this country, anywhere in the world, until we got hit with the China virus.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: Not true. The economy was healthy back then but not the best in U.S. history, much less world history. Economic gains largely followed along the lines of an expansion that started more than a decade ago under President Barack Obama. And while posting great job and stock market numbers, Trump never managed to achieve the rates of economic growth he promised in the 2016 campaign. The U.S. economy was not the world’s best in history when this started. Military TRUMP: “I got soldiers the biggest pay raises in the history of our military.” — Fox interview. THE FACTS: Trump often boasts about the size of the military pay raises under his administration, but there’s nothing extraordinary about them. Several raises in the past decade have been larger than service members are getting under Trump — 3.1% this year, 2.6% last year, 2.4% in 2018 and 2.1% in 2017. Raises in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for example, were all 3.4% or more. Pay increases shrank after that because of congressionally mandated budget caps. Trump and Congress did break a trend that began in 2011 of pay raises that hovered between 1% and 2%.
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By Polityk | 07/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
GOP Leaders Head to White House as Virus Crisis Deepens
Top Republicans in Congress are expected to meet Monday with President Donald Trump at the White House on the next COVID-19 aid package as the crisis many hoped would have improved has dramatically worsened, just as emergency relief is expiring.
New divisions between the Senate GOP majority and the White House posed fresh challenges. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was prepared to roll out the $1 trillion package in a matter of days. But the administration panned more virus testing money and interjected other priorities that could complicate quick passage.
“We have to end this virus,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday on MSNBC.
Pelosi said any attempt by the White House to block testing money “goes beyond ignorance.”
Lawmakers were returning to a Capitol still off-limits to tourists, another sign of the nation’s difficulty containing the coronavirus. Rather than easing, the pandemic’s devastating cycle was happening all over again, leaving Congress little choice but to engineer another costly rescue.
Businesses were shutting down again, schools could not fully reopen and jobs were disappearing, all while federal aid expired.
Without a successful federal strategy, lawmakers are trying to draft one.
Trump insisted again Sunday that the virus would “disappear,” but the president’s view did not at all match projections from the leading health professionals straining to halt the alarming U.S. caseload and death toll.”It’s not going to magically disappear,” said a somber McConnell, R-Ky., last week during a visit to a hospital in his home state to thank front-line workers.
McConnell and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy were set to meet with Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “to fine-tune” the legislation, acting chief of staff Mark Meadows said on Fox News.
The political stakes were high for all sides before the November election, but even more so for the nation, which now registered more coronavirus infections and a higher death count of 140,500 than any other country.
The House already approved Pelosi’s sweeping $3 trillion effort, giving Democrats momentum heading into negotiations.
The package from McConnell had been quietly crafted behind closed doors for weeks and was expected to include $75 billion to help schools reopen, reduced unemployment benefits alongside a fresh round of direct $1,200 cash payments to Americans, and a sweeping five-year liability shield against coronavirus lawsuits.
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But as the White House weighed in, it has put the administration at odds with GOP allies in Congress. The administration was panning some $25 billion in proposed new funds for testing and tracing, said one Republican familiar with the discussions. Trump was also reviving his push for a payroll tax break, which was being seriously considered, said another Republican. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer warned Monday his side will block any effort from McConnell that falls short.
“We will stand together again if we must,” Schumer said.
The New York Democrat is reviving his strategy from the last virus aid bill that forced Republicans to the negotiating table after McConnell’s original bill was opposed by Democrats.
Schumer said Trump’s effort to block testing funds in “unacceptable.”
Trump raised alarms on Capitol Hill when he suggested last month at a rally in Oklahoma that he wanted to slow virus testing. Some of Trump’s GOP allies wanted new money to help test and track the virus to contain its spread. Senate Democrats were investigating why the Trump administration had not yet spent some of $25 billion previously allocated for testing in an earlier aid bill.
The payroll tax Trump wanted also divided his party. Senate Republicans in particular opposed the payroll tax break as an insufficient response to millions of out-of-work Americans, especially as they tried to keep the total price tag of the aid package at no more than $1 trillion.
Trump said Sunday in the Fox News interview that he would consider not signing any bill unless it included the payroll tax break, which many GOP senators opposed.
“I want to see it,” he said.
As McConnell prepared to roll out his $1 trillion-plus proposal, he acknowledged it would not have full support. This would be the fifth virus aid package, after the $2.2 trillion bill passed in March, the largest U.S. intervention of its kind.
The first round of virus aid is running out.
A federal $600-a-week boost to regular unemployment benefits would expire at the end of the month. So, too, would the federal ban on evictions on millions of rental units.
With 17 straight weeks of unemployment claims topping 1 million — usually about 200,000 — many households were facing a cash crunch and losing employer-backed health insurance coverage.
Despite flickers of an economic upswing as states eased stay-at-home orders in May and June, the jobless rate remained at double digits, higher than it ever was in the last decade’s Great Recession.
Pelosi’s bill, approved in May, included $75 billion for testing and tracing to try to get a handle on the virus spread, funneled $100 billion to schools to safely reopen and called for $1 trillion to be sent to cash-strapped states to pay essential workers and prevent layoffs. The measure would give cash stipends to Americans, and bolster rental and mortgage and other safety net protections.
In the two months since Pelosi’s bill passed, the U.S. had 50,000 more deaths and 2 million more infections.
“If we don’t invest the money now, it will be much worse,” Pelosi said.
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By Polityk | 07/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Georgia Democratic Leaders to Pick Ballot Replacement for Late Congressman Lewis
Democratic Party leaders in the U.S. state of Georgia are gathering Monday to select a candidate to replace the late Congressman John Lewis in the November general election. A spokeswoman said 131 people applied by the Sunday evening deadline to be considered. A nominating committee will select between three and five finalists, and then a committee of 44 party figures will vote on the final candidate. The Democrat chosen will go up against Republican Angela Stanton-King in November. Lewis served 17 terms in Congress, and in 2016, the last time he faced a Republican challenger in his district, he won with 84% of the vote.FILE – This Jan. 3, 2019 file photo shows Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., during a swearing-in ceremony of Congressional Black Caucus members of the 116th Congress in Washington.Georgia’s governor has the power to call a special election to fill out the remaining months of Lewis’ current term. Lewis, a prominent champion of civil rights for African Americans, died Friday at the age of 80 after a yearlong battle with advanced stage pancreatic cancer. He rose to fame as a leader in the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. At age 23, he worked closely with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was the last surviving keynote speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington, where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
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By Polityk | 07/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump, Republican Leaders to Discuss Virus Aid as Crisis Deepens
Top Republicans in Congress were expecting to meet Monday with President Donald Trump on the next COVID-19 aid package as the administration panned more virus testing money and interjected other priorities that could complicate quick passage.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was prepared to roll out the $1 trillion package in a matter of days. But divisions between the Senate GOP majority and the White House posed fresh challenges. Congress was returning to session this week as the coronavirus crisis many had hoped would have improved by now only worsened — and just as earlier federal emergency relief was expiring.Trump insisted again Sunday that the virus would “disappear,” but the president’s view did not at all match projections from the leading health professionals straining to halt the U.S.’s alarming caseloads and death toll.McConnell and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy were set to meet with Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “to fine-tune” the legislation, acting chief of staff Mark Meadows said on Fox News.The package from McConnell had been quietly crafted behind closed doors for weeks and was expected to include $75 billion to help schools reopen, reduced unemployment benefits alongside a fresh round of direct $1,200 cash payments to Americans, and a sweeping five-year liability shield against coronavirus lawsuits.But as the White House weighed in, the administration was panning some $25 billion in proposed new funds for testing and tracing, said one Republican familiar with the discussions. The administration’s objections were first reported by The Washington Post.Trump was also reviving his push for a payroll tax break, which was being seriously considered, said another Republican. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks.The new push from the White House put the administration at odds with GOP allies in Congress, a disconnect that threatened to upend an already difficult legislative process. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi already passed Democrats’ vast $3 trillion proposal and virus cases and deaths had only increased since.FILE – Health care workers take information from people in line at a walk-up COVID-19 testing site during the coronavirus pandemic, in Miami Beach, Florida, July 17, 2020.Trump raised alarms on Capitol Hill when he suggested last month at a rally in Oklahoma that he wanted to slow virus testing. Some of Trump’s GOP allies wanted new money to help test and track the virus to contain its spread. Senate Democrats were investigating why the Trump administration had not yet spent some of $25 billion previously allocated for testing in an earlier aid bill.The payroll tax Trump wanted also divided his party. Senate Republicans in particular opposed the payroll tax break as an insufficient response to millions of out-of-work Americans, especially as they tried to keep the total price tag of the aid package at no more than $1 trillion.Trump said Sunday in the Fox News interview that he would consider not signing any bill unless it included the payroll tax break, which many GOP senators opposed.”I want to see it,” he said.Lawmakers were returning to a partially closed Capitol still off-limits to tourists to consider what will be a fifth COVID-19 aid package. After passing the $2.2 trillion relief bill in March, Republicans hoped the virus would ease and economy rebound so more aid would not be needed.But with COVID-19 cases hitting alarming new highs and the death roll rising, the pandemic’s devastating cycle was happening all over again, leaving Congress little choice but to engineer another costly rescue. Businesses were shutting down again, schools could not fully reopen and jobs were disappearing, all while federal emergency aid expired.”It’s not going to magically disappear,” said a somber McConnell, R-Ky., last week during a visit to a hospital in his home state to thank front-line workers.As McConnell prepared to roll out his $1 trillion-plus proposal, he acknowledged it would not have full support.The political stakes were high for all sides before the November election, but even more so for the nation, which now registered more coronavirus infections and a higher death count than any other country.Just as the pandemic’s ferocious cycle was starting again, the first round of aid was running out.A federal $600-a-week boost to regular unemployment benefits would expire at the end of the month. So, too, would the federal ban on evictions on millions of rental units.With 17 straight weeks of unemployment claims topping 1 million — usually about 200,000 — many households were facing a cash crunch and losing employer-backed health insurance coverage.Despite flickers of an economic upswing as states eased stay-at-home orders in May and June, the jobless rate remained at double digits, higher than it ever was in the last decade’s Great Recession.Pelosi’s bill, approved in May, included $75 billion for testing and tracing to try to get a handle on the virus spread, funneled $100 billion to schools to safely reopen and called for $1 trillion to be sent to cash-strapped states to pay essential workers and prevent layoffs. The measure would give cash stipends to Americans, and bolster rental and mortgage and other safety net protections.In the two months since Pelosi’s bill passed, the U.S. had 50,000 more deaths and 2 million more infections.”If we don’t invest the money now, it will be much worse,” Pelosi said.
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By Polityk | 07/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Congress Confronts New Virus Crisis Rescue as Pandemic Grows
It stands as the biggest economic rescue in U.S. history, the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill swiftly approved by Congress in the spring. And it’s painfully clear now, as the pandemic worsens, it was only the start. With COVID-19 cases hitting alarming new highs and the death roll rising, the pandemic’s devastating cycle is happening all over again, leaving Congress little choice but to engineer another costly rescue. Businesses are shutting down, schools cannot fully reopen and jobs are disappearing, all while federal emergency aid expires. Without a successful federal plan to control the outbreak, Congress heads back to work with no endgame to the crisis in sight. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill, in Washington, June 16, 2020.“It’s not going to magically disappear,” said a somber Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during a visit to a hospital in his home state to thank front-line workers. Lawmakers return Monday to Washington to try to pull the country back from the looming COVID-19 cliff. While the White House prefers to outsource much of the decision-making on virus testing and prevention to the states, the absence of a federal intervention has forced the House and Senate to try to draft another assistance package. It’s a massive undertaking, hardly politically popular, but the alternative is worse. Experts predict an even more dire public health outlook for winter. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease official, says the U.S. needs to “regroup.” As McConnell prepares to roll out his $1 trillion-plus proposal, he acknowledges it will not have full support. Already the White House is suggesting changes, Republicans are divided and broader disagreements with Democrats could derail the whole effort. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) addresses her weekly news conference with Capitol Hill reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, June 18, 2020.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., already pushed through a more sweeping $3 trillion relief bill to bolster virus testing, keep aid flowing and set new health and workplace standards for reopening schools, shops and workplaces. She said recently she finds herself yearning for an earlier era of Republicans in the White House, saying tha despite differences, even with President Richard Nixon, who resigned facing impeachment, “At least we had a shared commitment to the governance of our country.” The political stakes are high for all sides before the November election, but even more so for the nation, which now has more coronavirus infections and a higher death count than any other country. On Friday, two former Federal Reserve Board leaders urged Congress to do more. “Time is running out,” Pelosi said. There were just a few hundred coronavirus cases when Congress first started focusing on emergency spending in early March. By the end of that month, as Congress passed a $2.2 trillion bill, cases soared past 100,000 and deaths climbed past 2,000. Today, the death toll stands at more than 139,000 in the U.S., with 3.6 million-plus confirmed cases. Lines of cars wait at a drive-through coronavirus testing site, Sunday, July 5, 2020, outside Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.The virus that first tore into New York, California and America’s big cities is now plaguing places large and small, urban and rural, burning through the South, West and beyond without restraint. Freezer cases that stored bodies outside New York hospitals are now on order in Arizona. The mobilization of military medical units to help overworked health care providers has shifted now to Texas. Lawmakers hardly wore facial masks when they voted in March as the Capitol was shutting down and sending them to the ranks of work-from-home Americans. Trump and his allies still rarely wear them. But at least 25 governors from states as diverse as Alabama to Oregon now have mask requirements. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this past week that if everyone wore a mask, iit could help “drive this epidemic to the ground.” Just as the pandemic’s ferocious cycle is starting again, the first round of aid is running out. FILE – People line up outside a Kentucky Career Center hoping to find assistance with their unemployment claim in Frankfort, Kentucky, June 18, 2020.A federal $600-a-week boost to regular unemployment benefits expires at the end of the month. So, too, does the federal ban on evictions on millions of rental units. With 17 straight weeks of unemployment claims topping 1 million — usually its about 200,000 — many households are facing a cash crunch and losing employer-backed health insurance coverage. Despite flickers of an economic upswing as states eased stay-home orders in May and June, the jobless rate remains at double digits, higher than it ever was in the last decade’s Great Recession. Pelosi’s bill, approved in May, includes $75 billion for testing and tracing to try to get a handle on the virus spread, funnels $100 billion to schools to safely reopen and sends $1 trillion to cash-strapped states that are pleading for federal dollars to pay essential workers and prevent layoffs. The measure would give cash stipends to Americans, and bolster rental and mortgage and other safety net protections. McConnell hit “pause” after passage of the last aid package as Republicans hoped the economy would rebound and stem the need for more assistance. He now acknowledges additional intervention is needed. His bill centers on a five-year liability shield to prevent what he calls an “epidemic of lawsuits” against businesses, schools and health care providers. The bill is expected to provide up to $75 billion for schools, another round of $1,200 direct payments to Americans and grants to child care providers. There is likely to be tax credits to help companies shoulder the cost of safely reopening shops, offices and other businesses. Unlike the other virus aid pacakges that passed almost unanimously, McConnell says this one will be more difficult to approve. In the two months since Pelosi’s bill passed, the U.S. had 50,000 more deaths and 2 million more infections.
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By Polityk | 07/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
