Розділ: Політика
US Judge Wants Clarity on Roger Stone Prison Commutation
A U.S. judge in Washington on Monday ordered the government to explain the scope of President Donald Trump’s commutation of the 40-month prison sentence she had imposed on his friend Roger Stone for political corruption.Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the parties in the case to produce Trump’s executive order by Tuesday which he signed late last week to keep the 67-year-old Stone from being required to report to prison on Tuesday.Berman said she wants to see whether the commutation also covered a provision requiring Stone to report for two years of supervised probation after what would have been his term in prison.White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters she did not “have the exact details” of Trump’s commutation of Stone’s sentence.But she called it “a very important moment for justice in this country” and served to correct what she called the “wrongdoing” of law enforcement officials who pursued prosecution of Stone.President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with Hispanic leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House, July 9, 2020, in Washington.The commutation Trump granted Stone, a longtime political adviser, freed him from the prison term but did not wipe out his underlying convictions on seven charges, including witness tampering and lying to federal authorities linked to the lengthy investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election won by Trump. Trump, who long has dismissed allegations that Russia helped him win as “fake news,” said he commuted Stone’s sentence because Stone had been “treated very unfairly.” The president blamed the jury forewoman and Jackson, saying Stone “should have had another trial.” Prominent U.S. political figures have condemned Trump’s commutation of Stone’s prison sentence, saying it was a perversion of American justice. House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who oversaw impeachment proceedings against Trump late last year, said Trump’s decision “is basically saying through this commutation, ‘If you lie for me, if you cover up for me, if you have my back, then I will make sure that you get a get-out-of-jail-free card.’” “Other Americans? Different standard,” Schiff said. “Friends of the president, accomplices of the president, they get off scot-free.” FILE – Republican Senator Mitt Romney speaks with members of the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 16, 2020.Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who lost the 2012 presidential election to former President Barack Obama, called Trump’s commutation of Stone’s sentence “unprecedented, historic corruption. An American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president.” The clemency for Stone was only the 36th Trump has granted, with 180 denied. Many of those granted by Trump have been to his political supporters or suggested by people he knows, rather than being processed through normal pardon procedures overseen by the U.S. Justice Department. At the same points in their presidencies, 3½ years after taking office, Trump’s six predecessors acted on hundreds or thousands of petitions for clemency.
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By Polityk | 07/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Court Refuses to Order Houston to Host Texas GOP Gathering
The Texas Supreme Court on Monday upheld Houston’s refusal to allow the state Republican convention to hold in-person events in the city due to the coronavirus pandemic. The court dismissed an appeal of a state district judge’s denial of a temporary restraining order sought by the state Republican Party. Shortly after the ruling, GOP leaders said they would call a meeting of the party’s executive committee to “finalize our path forward.” A separate court hearing was ongoing Monday in Harris County, where Houston is located, in which a different judge was hearing the party’s arguments to allow the convention to go forward. The state GOP convention had been scheduled to begin Thursday at Houston’s downtown convention center and was expected to draw thousands of participants. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, said last week that he had directed city lawyers to terminate the contract because he believed the event could not be held safely. He denied that the convention was cancelled due to political differences and cited the potential risk to service workers and first responders if the virus spread through the convention. The state party sued a day later, alleging the city illegally breached the contract and accusing Turner of shedding “crocodile tears.” “The Party argues it has constitutional rights to hold a convention and engage in electoral activities, and that is unquestionably true,” the Supreme Court wrote in its opinion. “But those rights do not allow it to simply commandeer use of the Center.” State District Judge Larry Weiman last week sided with Turner, citing Houston statistics that show major hospitals exceeding their base intensive-care capacity due to an influx of COVID-19 patients. Texas has set daily records in recent days for the number of COVID-19 deaths and confirmed cases. Top officials in Houston have called for the city to lock back down as area hospitals strain to accommodate an onslaught of patients. The Texas Medical Association withdrew its sponsorship of the state GOP convention and asked organizers to cancel in-person gatherings. As the virus has surged throughout the state in June and July, Gov. Greg Abbott, the state’s top Republican, has reversed some business reopenings and broadly required the use of face masks. State GOP chair James Dickey had insisted that organizers can hold the event safely. Prior to Turner’s move to cancel the convention, Dickey said the party had planned to institute daily temperature scans, provide masks, and install hand sanitizer stations.
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By Polityk | 07/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
It’s Trump’s Call on What the GOP Convention Will Look Like
After months of insisting that the Republican National Convention go off as scheduled despite the pandemic, President Donald Trump is slowly coming to accept that the late August event will not be the four-night infomercial for his reelection that he had anticipated. After a venue change, spiking coronavirus cases and a sharp recession, Trump aides and allies are increasingly questioning whether it’s worth the trouble, and some are advocating that the convention be scrapped altogether. Conventions are meant to lay out a candidate’s vision for the coming four years, not spark months of intrigue over the health and safety of attendees, they have argued. Ultimately, the decision on whether to move forward will be Trump’s alone. Already the 2020 event has seen a venue change to more Trump-friendly territory in Jacksonville, Florida, from Charlotte, North Carolina — and it has been drastically reduced in scope.FILE – Jacksonville skyline behind Acosta Bridge on The St. Johns River, Florida.For technical reasons, the convention will be unable to formally adopt a new party platform. And what is normally a highlight of the convention — the roll call of the states to renominate the president — is set to be conducted through proxy votes in the original host city. Still, Trump and his aides had pinned their hopes on creating the pageantry of a formal acceptance speech in Jacksonville, envisioning an arena of packed with supporters, without face masks. Outwardly, the White House and the RNC have said they’re full-steam ahead with the revised plan. “We’re still moving forward with Jacksonville,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said last week. “It’ll be a safe event. It will be a good event.” But privately, concerns are mounting, and plans are being drawn up to further scale back the event or even shift it to entirely virtual. Officials who weeks ago had looked for the convention to be a celebration of the nation’s vanquishing of the virus now see it as a potent symbol of the pandemic’s persistence. “There’s a lot of people that want to do it. They want to be enthusiastic. But we can do that and we can do it safely,” Donald Trump Jr. said. He told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that “it’s going to be an awesome event.” Jacksonville, whose mayor is a former Florida Republican Party chairman, issued a public mask order two weeks ago as virus cases in the area surged. That mandate is unlikely to be lifted before the convention. Also, Florida has limited facilities statewide to operating at 50% of capacity. Organizers now plan to provide COVID-19 testing to all attendees daily, conduct frequent temperature checks and offer face coverings. Even so, Trump aides and allies fear that the entire spectacle will be overshadowed by attendee concerns and already heightened media scrutiny on the potential for the convention to be a “super-spreading” event. Key decisions about the event, including precisely where or if Trump will appear, need to be made in the coming days to allow sufficient time for the build-out of the space. Increasingly, aides are pushing Trump to move his acceptance speech outdoors to minimize the risk of virus transmission. But Trump has expressed reservations about an outdoor venue, believing it would lack the same atmosphere as a charged arena. FILE – Balloons fall after Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, addresses the delegates during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 21, 2016.Despite the economic downturn, GOP officials insist they will have the financial resources needed to hold the convention. Vice President Mike Pence flew to Florida on Saturday to hold a fundraiser for the event. “The convention is still a month and a half away, so there is time to adjust and make the most appropriate decisions regarding venue options and an array of health precautions that will allow us to have a safe and exciting event for all,” RNC spokesman Mike Reed said. “We will continue to coordinate with local leadership in Jacksonville and in Florida in the weeks ahead.” The Trump team’s worries were compounded after the president’s embarrassing return to campaign rallies after a three-month hiatus caused by the virus.FILE – Empty seats are pictured during a Trump campaign rally at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020, in Tulsa, Okla.The empty seats at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, brought about a shakeup to Trump’s campaign and renewed fears that the president would not be able to return to his signature campaign events in their traditional form before Election Day in November. A Saturday rally in New Hampshire that was meant to be the president’s second attempt at a return to campaign travel was called off on Friday, ostensibly because of weather concerns from then-Tropical Storm Fay. But aides acknowledged they also were worried about attracting enough of a crowd to fill the Portsmouth aircraft hangar. The challenge in Jacksonville may be more daunting. The administration’s top health officials have demurred when pressed on whether the convention could be held safely. Many among the party’s leadership and the donors who attend conventions are older, putting them in a higher-risk category for the coronavirus. Already a half-dozen Republican senators have indicated they won’t attend the convention. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has expressed reservations. “I’m not going to go, and I’m not going to go because of the virus situation,” 86-year-old Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said on a conference call with Iowa reporters last week. Asked whether he’d want to limit the gathering if the state’s coronavirus cases continue to rise, Trump replied that the decision “really depends on the timing.” “We’re always looking at different things,” Trump said during an interview on Gray Television’s “Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren.” “When we signed a few weeks ago, it looked good,” the president continued. “And now, all of a sudden, it’s spiking up a little bit. And that’s going to go down. It really depends on the timing. Look, we’re very flexible.”
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By Polityk | 07/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Election Costs Soar as US Prepares to Vote Amid Pandemic
The demand for mail-in ballots is surging. Election workers need training. And polling booths might have to be outfitted with protective shields during the COVID-19 pandemic.As officials prepare for the Nov. 3 election, one certainty is clear: It’s coming with a big price tag.”Election officials don’t have nearly the resources to make the preparations and changes they need to make to run an election in a pandemic,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the Brennan Center for Justice’s democracy program. “We are seeing this all over the place.”The pandemic has sent state and local officials scrambling to prepare for an election like few others, an extraordinary endeavor during a presidential contest, as virus cases rise across much of the U.S.COVID-related worries are bringing demands for steps to make sure elections just four months away are safe. But long-promised federal aid to help cash-starved states cope is stalled on Capitol Hill.The money would help pay for transforming the age-old voting process into a pandemic-ready system. Central to that is the costs for printing mail-in ballots and postage. There are also costs to ensure in-person voting is safe with personal protective equipment, or PPE, for poll workers, who tend to be older and more at risk of getting sick from the virus, and training for new workers. Pricey machines are needed to quickly count the vote.Complicating matters is President Donald Trump’s aversion to mail-in balloting. With worrisome regularity, he derides the process as rigged, even though there’s no evidence of fraud and his own reelection team is adapting to the new reality of widespread mail-in voting. “As cases of coronavirus in this country rise, it’s vital that all voters be able to cast their ballots from home, to cast their ballots by mail,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.A COVID response bill passed by the House in May contains $3.6 billion to help states with their elections, but the Senate won’t turn to the measure until late July. Republicans fought a $400 million installment of election aid this March before agreeing to it.But key Senate Republicans seem likely to support more election funding, despite Trump’s opposition, and are even offering to lower a requirement that states put up matching funds to qualify for the federal cash.”I’m prepared not only to look at more money for the states to use as they see fit for elections this year but also to even consider whatever kind of matching requirement we have,” said Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the Senate panel with responsibility for the issue. “We can continue to work toward an election that produces a result that people have confidence in and done in a way that everybody that wants to vote, gets to vote.”The pandemic erupted this spring in the middle of state primaries, forcing many officials to delay elections by days, weeks and even months. They dealt with poll worker cancellations, polling place changes and an explosion of absentee ballots.Voting rights groups are particularly concerned with the consolidations of polling places that contributed to long lines in Milwaukee, Atlanta and Las Vegas. They fear a repeat in November.As negotiations on the next COVID-19 relief bill begin on Capitol Hill, the final figure for elections is sure to end up much less than the $3.6 billion envisioned by the House. That figure followed Brennan Center recommendations to prepare for an influx of absentee ballots while providing more early voting options and protecting neighborhood polling places.Even before the pandemic, election offices typically work under tight budgets. Iowa Secretary of State Paul D. Pate, who’s president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the group has been calling on the federal government to provide a steady source of funds, particularly to help address ongoing costs of protecting the nation’s election systems from cyberthreats. For Georgia’s primary last month, election officials spent $8.1 million of the roughly $10.9 million the state has received in federal funds. The money was used to send absentee ballot applications to 6.9 million active registered voters and print absentee ballots for county election offices. Some of it also was used to purchase PPE and secure drop-off boxes for counties.Meanwhile, the state elections division has seen a $90,000 reduction for the current budget year as Georgia — like the rest of the nation — deals with a decline in revenues due to the pandemic.The state’s remaining federal funds will be used to help cover the costs of developing an online system for voters to request absentee ballots, less expensive than sending ballot applications to every voter, and exploring whether installing plexiglass dividers around voting machines could allow more voters in a polling place at one time.In Colorado, a universal vote-by-mail state, the Denver election office has had to reduce its budget by 7.5%, nearly $980,000. Jocelyn Bucaro, Denver’s elections director, said the federal funds sent this year helped with purchasing PPE and other pandemic-related supplies. Iowa similarly spent its federal dollars on mail-in ballots and pandemic supplies, Pate said.Vote-by-mail veterans and vendors of the equipment, software, ballots and envelopes that will be needed in November say the window to buy them is quickly closing.”Right now, what I’m seeing in most places is just this kind of indecision. What are we supposed to be planning? Vote by mail or in-person or combination?” said Jeff Ellington, president of Runbeck Election Services, which prints ballots and the special envelopes used to mail them and supplies high-volume envelope sorters. “Decisions just need to be made so people can start to put a plan into place,” he said.BlueCrest, a Pitney Bowes spinoff, sells high-volume sorting machines that handle up to 50,000 ballot envelopes per hour. That’s the kind of crunch big counties can expect to face Nov. 3 in states including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Rick Becerra, a vice president at the company, said he’s been talking to officials. The machines average $475,000 each.”I tell them the time is now,” he said.
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By Polityk | 07/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Loyalists Dig In Heels in Louisiana Parish
ST. BERNARD PARISH, LOUISIANA – While national polls show Donald Trump’s support slipping during the prolonged pandemic and amid racial unrest, the president’s most ardent supporters in bedrock Republican-backing states like Louisiana remain doggedly in his corner. “I have no doubt I’m voting to reelect Donald Trump this year,” says Robert Caretto, a retired firefighter who moved to Louisiana to help rebuild homes after Hurricane Katrina.
Robert Caretto, a retired firefighter moved to Louisiana to help rebuild homes after Hurricane Katrina. (Photo courtesy Robert Caretto)Caretto lives in St. Bernard Parish, a collection of small communities sandwiched between swamps, the Mississippi River and lakes that lead to the Gulf of Mexico. Its towns are quieter, less diverse and significantly more conservative than the nearby city of New Orleans.
Nearly 60% of New Orleans’ residents are Black, compared to about 20% in St. Bernard Parish. And while 15% of New Orleans voters cast their ballot for Donald Trump in 2016, a whopping 65% in St. Bernard Parish voted for him.
“You don’t have to be the most likeable to be a great president,” says local Trump supporter Melody Riley. “It’s not a personality contest. He has shown great strength and leadership at every rally, debate and press conference. He has called out the fake news and has revealed their deceptions to the American people.”
“There’s no changing people’s minds about him here,” laughs Bridget Bitely, an independent voter in St. Bernard parish who says she did not vote for the president in 2016 and will not be voting for him in 2020, “This is definitely Trump country.”
Cracks in the base According to Gallup polling, the percentage of Americans who approve of the job Trump has done as President dropped from 49% on April 28 to 38% on June 30. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading Trump in six states Trump won in 2016: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Most troubling for the President is that support appears to be waning from key constituencies that propelled him to victory four years ago, including evangelical Christians, Catholics and white voters lacking a college degree.
These pro-Trump demographic groups weigh heavily in Louisiana’s electorate, but Robert Collins, professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy at Dillard University in New Orleans, says local factors keep Louisiana Republicans loyal to Trump, even as his base erodes elsewhere.
“Even though they might be unhappy with aspects of his COVID response, or with his handling of the economy in recent months,” Collins says, “they’re not going to jump ship because they’re scared to death of electing a Democrat. Biden is pro-gun [control] and he’s pro-choice. In a state of hunters and Roman Catholics, those issues are deal breakers.”
President Donald Trump greets supporters on arriving at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, in Kenner, La.Two-tiered support Louisiana State University political scientist James Garand sees two main categories of Trump supporters.
“You have his most ardent supporters who will support the President under almost all circumstances, and then you have his lukewarm supporters,” Garand says. Those lukewarm supporters, he explains, might have voted for Trump in 2016 because they despised Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton or out of concern over a specific issue, like control of the Supreme Court.
“But Louisiana is more conservative than many other places in the country,” he adds. “My sense is that we have a higher percentage of those ardent supporters here than elsewhere.”
Additionally, voters who have soured on Trump may be hesitant to speak out. “Peer pressure from the ardent Trump supporters in their communities might push them back toward supporting the President, or at least force them to keep their support of another candidate private,” Garand says. Megan Chriss says she voted for the billionaire New York real estate businessman in 2016 but will not vote for him in 2020. (Photo courtesy Megan Chriss)Not so for Megan Chriss. She says she voted for the billionaire New York real estate businessman in 2016 because she didn’t see Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, as authentic. She adds that her family and many in her community work in the oil industry, and that Trump’s policies were more oil-friendly.
After watching him for nearly four years in office, however, the St. Bernard parish resident says she won’t be voting for him again.
“But I don’t know of a single person other than myself who has changed their mind on him,” she says. “After his lack of leadership with the COVID pandemic, and the way he throws fuel on the fire with the police brutality protests and riots, I guess I’m surprised I don’t know of at least a few more people who switched away from him.”
Caretto acknowledges Trump has made mistakes but believes the president is being held to an unfair standard by his detractors.
“Do I think he’s perfect?” asks Caretto. “Of course, I don’t. But what President doesn’t make mistakes? Who could stop a global pandemic? And now Democrats are blaming him for that somehow.” Supporters hold up signs as President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Bossier City, La., Nov. 14, 2019.Trump Country Caretto’s argument is often heard among Trump supporters. While they may take issue with Trump’s brashness, they also feel the results he gets benefit them and the country.
“I think he’s full of himself and I wish he’d tweet less,” says commercial fisherman George Barisich, “but America needed someone like this. We were pushovers after the Obama years, and maybe we needed a tough guy like Trump to stand up for us.” Commercial fisherman George Barisich says America needs someone like President Trump. (Photo courtesy George Barisich)Melody Riley says she admires Trump’s tenacity and believes he is mistreated by Democrats and the news media.
“I feel he handled COVID-19 as good as any president could have,” she says. “There’s nothing he could do that isn’t criticized. He could cure cancer and he’d still be ripped apart for it.”
At 70-years-old, Caretto is not quite as glowing with his evaluation of Trump’s COVID response. He says he’s been forced to stay inside for most of the last four months and wishes the President had pushed harder for people to wear masks.
But such criticism isn’t likely to cost Trump a substantial number of votes in Louisiana, according political observers in the state, where for many people pulling the lever for a Democrat is unthinkable.
Riley and other like-minded Louisiana Republicans are adamant that there’s no viable alternative to Trump.
“The American people aren’t stupid,” she says, “You’d have to be crazy to vote for a Democrat.”
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By Polityk | 07/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Dozens of US Universities Support Challenge to Trump’s Order on Foreign Students
About 60 U.S. universities on Sunday filed a brief supporting a lawsuit by two others, seeking to block a Trump administration rule barring foreign students from remaining in the country if educational institutions don’t hold in-person classes this fall.The lawsuit was filed by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Wednesday in a federal court in Boston.The so-called amicus brief — a supporting document submitted by interested parties — was filed by 59 U.S. universities on Sunday, including seven other Ivy League schools.The universities said they relied on federal guidance, which was to remain “in effect for the duration of the emergency,” allowing international students to attend all-online courses during the pandemic, according to the amicus brief.”The emergency persists, yet the government’s policy has suddenly and drastically changed, throwing amici’s preparations into disarray and causing significant harm and turmoil,” they added.About 1.1 million foreign students attended U.S. higher education institutions in the 2018-19 school year, according to a report by the State Department and the Institute of International Education (IIE), and they made up 5.5 percent of the entire U.S. higher education enrollment.The Trump administration announcement blindsided academic institutions grappling with the challenges of safely resuming classes as the coronavirus pandemic continues unabated around the world and surges in the United States.The U.S government has been trying to get schools and universities to reopen by autumn. Harvard has already announced it would hold all classes online that term.
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By Polityk | 07/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Education Chief Presses for Reopening of Schools
U.S. education chief Betsy DeVos on Sunday pressed local communities throughout the country to reopen schools with five-day-a-week, in-person instruction in the coming weeks, saying it was entirely safe even as the number of coronavirus cases surges to new highs. DeVos, in appearances on talk shows on Fox News and CNN, disputed advice from health experts and state and local government officials against full resumption of in-school classes that have mostly been shut down since March as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the country. The U.S. is now recording 60,000 or more cases a day, often new daily highs over the last week. “Getting back to learning is really imperative,” DeVos told the “Fox News Sunday” show. “Nothing in the data suggests that’s it’s in any way dangerous,” noting that scientists do not believe children transmit the virus anywhere near as often as adults do. “Kids don’t get this virus the same way,” she said. DeVos told CNN, “The go-to needs to be kids in schools. Schools need to get open.” She allowed, however, that in communities where there are virus flareups, virtual online learning could be employed “for a few days.” She told Fox News, “Where there are hot spots, we’ll have to deal with that.” FILE – A classroom sits empty ahead of the statewide school closures in Ohio in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, inside Milton-Union Exempted Village School District in West Milton, Ohio, March 13, 2020.The Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research group, is warning, however, that reopening classroom instruction could be dangerous for teachers. It said that about 1.5 million teachers, about a quarter of all teachers in the U.S., are “at greater risk of serious illness if infected with coronavirus” because of their age or personal health conditions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has posted recommended guidelines for reopening schools that call for students to wear face masks and socially distance themselves from others by at least two meters, a virtual impossibility in most U.S. school classrooms. President Donald Trump listens during a “National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America’s Schools” event in the East Room of the White House, July 7, 2020.President Donald Trump, in calling for five-day-a-week instruction rather than virtual learning, last week said the CDC suggestions too tough, too expensive and impractical. The CDC says this week that it will provide further explanation this week on how schools could possibly reopen, but its director, Dr. Robert Redfield, said the agency would not back off the basic guidelines. White House coronavirus testing czar Admiral Brett Giroir told ABC News’s “This Week” show, “I think the CDC guidelines are really right on target. It’s really important to get kids physically back in schools but you do have to do that safely.” “And the first thing we need to do is get the virus under control,” Giroir said. “When we get the virus more under control, then we can really think about how we put children back in the classroom, but it’s got to be done carefully.” Most schooling decisions in the U.S. are set by local officials, not the federal government. Numerous school officials across the country are already balking at Trump’s and DeVos’s call for five-day-a-week, in-school instruction. Many, like the biggest school system in the country in New York City, have unveiled plans for a mix of in-school and virtual learning, not the full in-school instruction Trump and DeVos want. “It’s all going to be guided by science,” whether to fully reopen schools, said Mayor Carlos Gimenez in Miami-Dade County, Florida, in the southeastern part of the country, where the number of coronavirus cases is soaring. “It all depends on the state of the virus” when the school year is scheduled to start in six weeks. School superintendent Scott Brabrand in Fairfax County, Virginia, a large suburban jurisdiction outside Washington, has offered parents a choice: five days a week of virtual classroom instruction for their children or three days online and two inside schools. He told CNN that the size of Fairfax schools simply is not big enough to hold in-class instruction and have students socially distance themselves. He said that for Fairfax to do that would require construction of the equivalent of five more Pentagons, the massive U.S. Defense Department just outside Washington.
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By Polityk | 07/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Top Democrats Blast Trump’s Commutation of Roger Stone Sentence
Two leading U.S. Democrats on Sunday condemned President Donald Trump’s clemency for his long-time friend Roger Stone, wiping out his 40-month prison sentence for political wrongdoing, saying it was a perversion of American legal standards.“It’s staggering corruption,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of Trump’s commutation of Stone’s sentence during an interview on CNN.“People should know this isn’t just about lying to Congress, that means lying to the American people, and witness tampering and the rest,” Pelosi said of the seven convictions a jury handed down against the 67-year-old Stone. “It’s about our national security.”U.S. presidential power for overseeing pardons and commutations is virtually unlimited, but Pelosi said legislation will be introduced that would in the future limit a president from commuting, pardoning or offering clemency to anyone who is convicted of a crime that affects the president’s behavior and culpability.FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff speak during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Oct. 2, 2019.House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who oversaw impeachment proceedings against Trump last year, was a guest Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week” show.“Anyone who cares about the rule of law in this country is nauseated by the fact that the president has commuted the sentence of someone who willfully lied to Congress, covered up for the president, intimidated witnesses, obstructed the investigation,” he said. “It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, this should be offensive to you if you care about the rule of law and you care about justice.” Schiff, a longtime Trump critic, said Stone “lied to cover up and protect the president.”Schiff said that Trump, with his Friday night action to keep Stone from heading to prison, “is basically saying through this commutation, ‘If you lie for me, if you cover up for me, if you have my back, then I will make sure that you get a get-out-of-jail-free card.’ “Other Americans? Different standard,” Schiff said. “Friends of the president, accomplices of the president, they get off scot-free.”FILE – Republican Senator Mitt Romney speaks with members of the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 16, 2020.Some Republicans join freyTwo Republican senators, Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey, on Saturday also attacked Trump’s action.Romney, who lost the 2012 presidential election to former President Barack Obama, called Trump’s commutation of Stone’s sentence “unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president.”Toomey, from the eastern state of Pennsylvania, said Trump “clearly has the legal and constitutional authority to grant clemency for federal crimes,” but called his action a “mistake.” Toomey said Stone “was duly convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction of a congressional investigation conducted by a Republican-led committee.”Trump, in a tweet Saturday night, called Romney and Toomey “RINO’S,” an acronym that stands for “Republicans in Name Only.”“Stone was treated very unfairly,” Trump said Saturday night about his commutation of Stone’s prison sentence. The president blamed the jury forewoman and the judge and said Stone “should have had another trial.”FILE – Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is surrounded by reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 25, 2020.One Republican lawmaker, Senator Lindsey Graham, said in advance of Trump’s action, “In my view it would be justified. Mr. Stone is in his 70s (Stone is 67 – ed.) and this was a nonviolent, first-time offense.” A jury convicted Stone of seven offenses, including witness tampering and lying to federal authorities, and a judge sentenced him to 40 months in prison. He was to report to prison this week before Trump commuted the sentence, but did not pardon him, which left his convictions in place.The clemency for Stone was only the 36th Trump has granted, with 180 denied. Many of those granted by Trump have been to political supporters of his or suggested by people he knows, rather than being processed through normal pardon procedures overseen by the U.S. Justice Department. At the same points in their presidencies, 3½ years after taking office, Trump’s six predecessors had acted on hundreds or thousands of petitions for clemency.One juror in Stone’s trial, Seth Cousins, told the Washington Post, that it was a “shocking act of corruption for the president to commute the sentence of a person convicted of lying to protect him. The fact remains that Roger Stone is a convicted felon, that he was found guilty of seven counts of lying to Congress and intimidating a witness and of impeding an investigation. Nothing that Trump or anyone has done or can do changes that fact.”Special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into whether Russia colluded with the Trump campaign in 2016 to help him win, wrote in a Post opinion article that the probe was of “paramount importance” and asserted Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”After a lengthy probe, Mueller’s investigation did not find clear evidence that Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election and did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. In any event, long-standing Justice Department policy says sitting U.S. presidents cannot be charged with criminal offenses.Late Friday, Trump spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said that Trump granted Stone clemency “in light of the egregious facts and circumstances surrounding his unfair prosecution, arrest and trial.“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump presidency,” she said. “There was never any collusion between the Trump campaign, or the Trump administration, with Russia. Such collusion was never anything other than a fantasy of partisans unable to accept the result of the 2016 election.“The collusion delusion spawned endless and farcical investigations, conducted at great taxpayer expense, looking for evidence that did not exist,” McEnany concluded.
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By Polityk | 07/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
3 Key Takeaways from US Supreme Court Rulings on Trump’s Tax Returns
In the wake of a pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings on President Donald Trump’s refusal to release his financial records, a debate is raging about whether the landmark decisions represent a win or a loss for Trump.The rulings on Thursday all but ensure that Trump’s tax returns and other closely guarded records won’t be released — and potentially used by his political rivals — before the contentious November 3 presidential election.But the high court’s decisions also amount to a repudiation of Trump’s long-standing claim of immunity from subpoenas for his personal information and his expansive views of presidential authority.Here are three things you need to know about the court’s 7-2 decisions:No one is above the lawIn the first case, known as Trump v. Vance, the Supreme Court essentially reaffirmed a long-standing principle that no one — the president included — is immune from the criminal process.The case concerned a subpoena issued by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance for eight years of financial records of Trump, a multibillionaire former New York real estate developer. Vance is supervising a grand jury investigation of Trump’s business dealings and whether the Trump Organization falsified business records to conceal the payment of hush money to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump years ago — assertions the president has denied.Vance’s subpoena marked the first time a local prosecutor has issued a request for a sitting president’s personal papers.Trump’s lawyers went to court to block the subpoena. Claiming that Trump enjoyed “absolute immunity” from criminal investigations by a local prosecutor, they argued that enforcing the subpoena would harass and distract him from his duties and tarnish his reputation.But Chief Justice John Roberts, citing more than 200 years of precedent, rejected the assertion.“In our judicial system, the public has a right to every man’s evidence,” Roberts wrote on behalf of the court, citing an old maxim.Roberts also rejected the claim that a higher standard is needed when a president is subpoenaed. But he said that the president, like every other citizen, has the right to challenge the subpoena in court.Paul J. Larkin, a former Justice Department official who is now a senior legal research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the ruling amounts to a “reaffirmation of presidential accountability.”“What they said was this has always been the rule with respect to federal cases, and we don’t see a reason for a different rule to apply just because it’s a state case,” Larkin said.Congressional subpoena power is not unboundedIn the second case, known as Trump v. Mazars, the court struck a middle ground, ruling that while Congress has the power to subpoena the president, that authority is not “limitless.”At issue in this case were four subpoenas issued last year by three House of Representatives committees for Trump’s financial records. The committees claimed the information was needed as part of their investigations of Trump and efforts to craft new legislation.The high court has long recognized Congress’ constitutional authority to issue subpoenas. However, it had never before waded into a dispute between Congress and the executive branch over a subpoena for the president’s personal tax returns and records.Here the justices threaded a needle between Congress’ need to investigate and the executive branch’s interests. While reaffirming Congress’ investigative power, they held that the four House subpoenas placed “separation of powers principles at stake, including both the significant legislative interests of Congress and the ‘unique position’ of the President.”To resolve these issues, the high court asked that lower courts consider at least four factors in weighing the validity of a subpoena, including ensuring that a request for documents is “no broader than reasonably necessary” and that it does not impose undue “burdens” on the president.“The way I think about it is, Congress just can’t say, ‘We’re passing legislation’ or ‘We’re thinking of legislation.’ They’ve got to say more,” said Sai Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia.Where do we go from here?The disputes head back to the lower courts in New York and Washington, D.C. The outcome is uncertain, and a final verdict could come down either way. Trump may prevail in both cases if his lawyers mount a successful challenge to the Vance subpoena and ward off House efforts in the congressional case. On the other hand, lawyers for House Democrats may get one or more of their subpoenas approved after recrafting them to meet the criteria laid out by the high court.Alternatively, the two parties could engage in negotiations to reach a compromise. That would be the court’s preference, given the justices’ aversion to getting drawn into political disputes between Congress and the president.
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By Polityk | 07/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Forges Brand of Liberal Populism to Use Against Trump
Joe Biden stood in a Pennsylvania metal works shop, just miles from his boyhood home, and pledged to define his presidency by a sweeping economic agenda beyond anything Americans have seen since the Great Depression and the industrial mobilization for World War II.The prospective Democratic presidential nominee promised the effort would not just answer a pandemic-induced recession, but address centuries of racism and systemic inequalities with “a new American economy” that “finally and fully (lives) up to the words and the values enshrined in the founding documents of this nation — that we’re all created equal.” It was a striking call coming from Biden, a 77-year-old establishment figure known more as a back-slapping deal-maker than visionary reformer. But it made plain his intention to test the reach of liberal populism as he tries to create a coalition that can defeat President Donald Trump in November. Presidential Polls Give Biden Wide Lead on Trump Even with the US presidential election still four months away, polls can tell us a lot about the direction of a campaign and what it needs to do to win more votesTrump and his Republican allies argue that Biden’s positioning, especially his ongoing work with progressives, proves he’s captive to a “radical” left wing. Conversely, activists who backed Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary were encouraged, yet cautious, about Biden’s ability to follow through while conceding that his plans on issues including climate action and criminal justice still fall short of their ideals. Biden’s inner circle insists his approach in 2020 is the same it’s been since he was elected to the Senate in 1972: Meet the moment.”He’s always evolved,” said Ted Kaufman, Biden’s longest-serving adviser. “The thing that’s been consistent for his entire career, almost 50 years, is he never promises things that he doesn’t think he can do.”Kaufman, who succeeded Biden in the Senate when he ascended to the vice presidency, said Biden’s core identity hasn’t changed: “progressive Democrat,” friendly to labor and business, consistent supporter of civil rights, believer in government and the private sector. What’s different in 2020, he said, are the country’s circumstances — a public health crisis, near-Depression level unemployment, a national reckoning on racism — and the office Biden now seeks. “If you want to get something done, encourage it,” Kaufman said. “What he learned over history watching campaigns is that you put forth a program, and then you come into office, and everybody involved knows that’s the program you’re offering.”Biden’s evolution has been on display from the start of his campaign as he’s tacked left both in substance and style while trying to preserve his pragmatist brand. At the start of the Democratic primary, Biden was positioned as offering a moderate alternative to Sanders’ call for a “political revolution” and Warren’s push for “big structural change.” The former vice president countered their proposed universal government-funded health insurance with a government insurance plan that would compete alongside private insurance. Progressives wanted tuition-free public higher education; Biden offered tuition subsidies for two-year schools. Biden called the climate crisis an “existential threat” and offered a clean energy plan with a trillion-dollar price tag, but resisted the full version of progressives’ Green New Deal. He promised hefty tax hikes for corporations and the investor class but opposed a “wealth tax” on individuals’ net worth. Biden noted that his health care platform put him to the left of 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, who had jettisoned a “public option” from his 2010 health care law, angering liberal Democrats. And on race, even before the recent national uprising against police violence, Biden spoke often of the nation’s systemic failure “to live up to” the Declaration of Independence. “Thomas Jefferson didn’t,” he said often in early speeches, alluding to the fact that the Declaration’s author and the third U.S. president owned slaves. Still, Biden isn’t immune from the kind of internal party tensions that cost Clinton progressive support in 2016, and he’s spent the last three months shoring up his left flank. Biden and Sanders created policy groups to write recommendations for Democrats’ 2020 platform. Those committees unveiled 110 pages of policy plans Wednesday, ahead of Biden’s speech in Pennsylvania. They left Biden short of endorsing single-payer health insurance and the most aggressive timelines to achieve a carbon-neutral economy, but ratified his claims of a more progressive slate than his predecessors’.Further, Biden already had moved toward Sanders’ tuition position, endorsing four years of full subsidies for most middle-class households. He adopted Warren’s proposed bankruptcy law overhaul and her ideas for a government procurement campaign to benefit U.S. companies. Progressives promise continued pressure. “I think our job is really to sometimes push him,” Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal said. Jayapal, who helped lead the Biden-Sanders health care task force, said that means being “alongside him, of course, and then sometimes be out in front.”Likewise, Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement, a leading environmental advocacy group, said her group won’t abandon the Green New Deal. But she credited Biden for embracing a level of public investment that would remake the energy economy during the pandemic recession. Biden has managed party unity that wasn’t present four years ago.”I don’t consider Biden’s proposals a political hat tip to progressives as much as rising to the moment we’re living in,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and a Warren ally. The former vice president also has amassed an impressive slate of endorsements and built a stable of regular campaign surrogates, including all his major primary rivals. Many of them held events in the hours and days following his speech Thursday in a show of force that Trump, even with his intense online presence and fervent base, would be hard-pressed to match.For his part, Trump accused Biden of “plagiarizing” his economic populism but also tarred Biden as a leftist who can’t win.”It’s a plan that is very radical left, but he said the right things because he’s copying what I’ve done,” Trump said Friday before departing the White House for Florida. Kaufman said Biden will continue campaigning as a nominee unconcerned about such labels. “What’s allowed him to survive all these years,” Kaufman said, “is that he’s not into any of those characterizations.”
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By Polityk | 07/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
In Florida Visit, Trump Melds Venezuela Policy, Campaign Strategy
Amid a surge in coronavirus cases, President Donald Trump flew to Florida on Friday on a visit that melded his administration’s policy toward Venezuela and Cuba and his reelection bid in one of the nation’s biggest swing states.Trump hosted a round-table discussion in Doral, in Miami-Dade County, home to one of the largest Venezuelan communities in the United States. Flanked by Venezuelan and Cuban dissidents, Trump reiterated his administration’s support for the people of Venezuela and Cuba.“We are standing with the righteous leader of Venezuela, Juan Guaido,” Trump said, adding that he had ended the “Obama-Biden sellout to the Castro regime.”Trump laid out a similar message at an earlier event Friday as he met with leaders of the U.S. Southern Command to review the counternarcotics operation in the Caribbean, an effort his administration has described partly as an attempt to intercept funds going to the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.“We’re going to fight for Venezuela and we’re going to be fighting for our friends from Cuba,” Trump said.FILE – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido talks to a journalist during an interview with The Associated Press in Brussels, Jan. 22, 2020.Last year, Guaido, who was then Venezuelan National Assembly president, took over the role of interim president, replacing Maduro. Washington’s early support for Guaido helped him gain diplomatic recognition from about 60 countries. But a series of sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba and a proposal for a peaceful transition presented by the U.S. State Department have failed to persuade Maduro to leave office.In June, Trump was criticized for saying he was open to meeting with Maduro. Trump later clarified he would do so only to discuss the Venezuelan president’s exit.Shifting Venezuela policyPresumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden reminded voters of what he described as Trump’s shifting Venezuela foreign policy in a statement Friday.“Just like his response to this pandemic, the president has been unreliable and self-centered in his approach to the issues closest to the Venezuelan people,” Biden said.He renewed his pledge to grant Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans to allow them to live and work in the United States and said he would lead a coordinated international effort to help Venezuela’s failing economy. He called Trump’s Florida visit a “photo-op and a distraction from his failures.”FILE – Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro speaks during an event with the youth of Venezuela’s United Socialist Party in Caracas, Venezuela, June 22, 2020.At the round-table event in Florida, Trump hit back at his Democratic opponent. As attendees shared their experiences of fleeing from socialist countries, Trump described Biden as a puppet of progressive Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “the militant left.”Despite sanctions and diplomatic pressure by the Trump administration, the issue of Venezuela remains unresolved.“The power struggle between Juan Guaido and Nicolas Maduro endures with no end in sight,” wrote FILE – A health care worker takes a swab sample from a driver at a drive-through COVID-19 testing site outside Hard Rock Stadium, July 8, 2020, in Miami Gardens, Fla. Florida is one of the nation’s hot spots for coronavirus.Overshadowed by pandemicFlorida reported nearly 11,500 more cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the total number of cases to nearly 245,000 across the state. The state’s health department reported nearly 440 more hospitalizations Friday, the largest single-day increase the state has seen thus far.Trump allies Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez are both facing criticism for their handling of the pandemic. DeSantis downplayed the outbreak early on but has since been forced to pause the state’s reopening amid a resurgence of the virus.Despite the surge of cases, Republicans still plan to hold their national convention next month in Jacksonville, Florida.The Trump campaign has been criticized for holding rallies and other large gatherings amid the pandemic. On Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was postponing a rally in New Hampshire set for Saturday, citing a tropical storm forecast to hit in the area.Trump ended his Florida trip with a private fundraiser at Hillsboro Beach before returning to the White House.Maritime counternarcoticsSince the Trump administration increased its maritime counternarcotics focus April 1, the U.S. has added 75% more surveillance aircraft and 65% more ships to support drug interdictions, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday during the U.S. Southern Command meeting with Trump.President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing on counternarcotics operations at U.S. Southern Command, July 10, 2020, in Doral, Fla.The enhanced operations have allowed the U.S. and its allies to ramp up targeting of known maritime smugglers by 60%, Esper added, disrupting more than 122 metric tons of drugs and denying $2 billion in drug profits since late March.That means that in the last three months alone, the U.S. and allies interdicted nearly half the amount of drugs that they interdicted in all of last year. According to SOUTHCOM data provided to VOA, the U.S. and its allies interdicted 273 metric tons of drugs in 2018 and 280 metric tons of drugs in 2019.Still, these counternarcotics operations are making just a small dent in the illegal-drug profits of transnational criminal organizations, estimated at $90 billion a year according to SOUTHCOM.In written testimony before the asset increase took effect, SOUTHCOM commander Admiral Craig Faller said the U.S. “only enabled the successful interdiction of about 9 percent of known drug movement” recently in Latin America and the Caribbean.VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 07/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Says He Will Grant Road to Citizenship for Young Migrants
U.S. President Donald Trump says he will soon sign an executive order on immigration that includes a path to citizenship for young immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally when they were children. In an interview with Spanish-language television network Telemundo, Trump said “DACA is going to be just fine,” referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under which young migrants have been allowed to stay in the United States temporarily. “We’re going to have a road to citizenship,” he said. However, this “does not include amnesty,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement after Trump’s television interview. The White House statement said the executive order would establish a merit-based immigration system and reiterated that Trump would work with Congress on a legislative solution that “could include citizenship, along with strong border security and permanent merit-based reforms,” but no amnesty. The Trump administration has previously tried to end DACA, an Obama-era program that protects more than 700,000 immigrants. Ivania Castillo from Prince William County, Va., holds a banner to show her support for dreamer Miriam from California, June 18, 2020, in Washington.Trump did not give details about the larger immigration order he says he plans to sign, only saying that it “will include DACA, and I think people are going to be very happy.” When asked if the measure will be an executive order, as opposed to a congressional bill, Trump said the Supreme Court gave him “tremendous powers” to pass an executive order when they ruled on DACA last month. The court’s ruling said that the administration had not given adequate justification to rescind DACA. The court’s ruling did not say whether DACA recipients have a permanent right to live in the United States and did not prevent Trump from trying again to end the program. Deere said Trump is “working on an executive order to establish a merit-based immigration system to further protect U.S. workers.” Trump said he plans to sign it in the next four weeks. “The president has long said he is willing to work with Congress on a negotiated legislative solution to DACA, one that could include citizenship, along with strong border security and permanent merit-based reforms,” Deere said in a statement. Republican Senator Ted Cruz criticized Trump’s plans, saying in a tweet, “There is ZERO constitutional authority for a President to create a ‘road to citizenship’ by executive fiat.” Congressional lawmakers have tried on several occasions in recent years to pass comprehensive immigration reform but failed over deep divisions between Republican and Democratic proposals.
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By Polityk | 07/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Rally in New Hampshire Postponed, White House Cites Tropical Storm
A campaign rally for President Donald Trump set for Saturday in New Hampshire has been postponed by a “week or two” because of a tropical storm off the East Coast, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters on Friday.The rally had been set for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Saturday.Tropical Storm Fay was expected to sweep across the heavily populated northeastern United States on Friday, bringing moderate to heavy rains and the potential for some flooding, the National Weather Service said.The storm is expected to bring rain and gusty winds to southern New Hampshire early on Saturday, but will have moved out of the area by the afternoon, National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Peterson said.A forecast posted on Weather.com predicted an 8% to 15% chance of rain in Portsmouth on Saturday between 7 and 10 p.m. ET; Sunday was slated to be mostly sunny. “The rally scheduled for Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire has been postponed for safety reasons because of Tropical Storm Fay. It will be rescheduled and a new date will be announced soon,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director.
Republican Trump has held a series of events recently with large crowds despite warnings from public health professionals about the dangers of big gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a fellow Republican, said earlier this week he planned to greet Trump at the airport but would not attend the rally because of the number of people expected. “I’m not going to put myself in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people … as the governor, I try to be extra cautious for myself and my family,” he said.
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By Polityk | 07/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Looks for Political Edge in Latest High Court Rulings
President Donald Trump won the White House on the promise of bringing a conservative shift to the Supreme Court. But this year and last, even with two justices Trump hand-picked, the court has shown it is no rubber stamp for him or his administration’s policies. That’s drawn the president’s ire and teed up a renewed battle over the court as Trump seeks political advantage ahead of November’s election.In the last few weeks, as the court has handed down its biggest decisions of the term, Trump found himself with mounting losses and just a few wins. Trump’s high-profile defeats began in mid-June. First, the court ruled that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment. Then, it said the Trump administration hadn’t acted properly in ending the 8-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects some 650,000 young immigrants from deportation. Finally, on Thursday, in two cases about access to Trump’s financial records, the justices rejected broad arguments by Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department that the president is absolutely immune from investigation while he holds office or that a prosecutor must show a greater need than normal to obtain the records. Despite White House’s claims of victory in the Thursday cases, Trump was livid -– lashing out on Twitter about the high court and painting its ruling as part of a pattern of “political prosecution” against him.The rejection of Trump’s assertions of executive power was tempered by the practical impact of the Supreme Court’s decision to remand the cases to lower courts -– all but assuring that the potentially embarrassing disclosures won’t be required before his political fate is decided on Nov. 3. Trump did notch two wins in important religious liberty cases on Wednesday, but he wasn’t in a celebratory mood after Thursday’s decisions.”Courts in the past have given ‘broad deference’. BUT NOT ME!” he tweeted. And: “Now the Supreme Court gives a delay ruling that they would never have given…for another President.”Last month, after the administration lost the DACA case, Trump tweeted: “Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?” He followed with an appeal to his base supporters, perhaps hinting at a future campaign theme: “These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!” The attacks on the court marked a return for Trump to a key issue in his 2016 campaign. Four years ago, it was clear the incoming president would fill a Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia and the Republican-held Senate’s refusal to hold hearings on President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. To reassure wary conservatives, Trump took the unprecedented step of releasing lists of judges he said he’d likely select from if elected president.”If you really like Donald Trump, that’s great, but if you don’t, you have to vote for me anyway. You know why? Supreme Court judges,” he said at a July 2016 rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.Once elected, Trump delivered.He selected conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seats of Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, who retired in 2018. Their selection, however, hasn’t meant automatic wins for Trump at the court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority. The DACA ruling was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s liberals. In the LGBT ruling, Gorsuch joined with Roberts and the court’s liberals in ruling 6-3 against the administration.On Thursday, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joined the majority in both cases along with Roberts and the four liberal justices. Roberts wrote both opinions.”The justices did not rule against him, in fact it was a unanimous opinion saying that this needs to go back to the district court, and they even recognized that the president has an ample arsenal of arguments that he can make,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed. Still, she acknowledged, Trump “takes issue with the point that the majority made on absolute immunity.”Trump has seen mixed results in past terms too. In 2018, the court’s conservatives upheld the president’s travel ban. Last year, Roberts’ vote with the court’s liberals kept the administration from putting a controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census.Those losses were at least in part due to legal strategies that lawyers for Trump and his administration embraced in pursuing rapid changes and using what experts called weak legal arguments. But Trump, in an effort to draw a contrast with presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and stoke enthusiasm among social conservatives who played a pivotal role in elected the president four years ago, is using his defeats to argue that work in reshaping the court is only just getting started.After the stinging losses in the DACA and LGBT cases, Trump last month promised to release a new list of “conservative” judges he would choose from should a new vacancy arise. Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, said that presidential candidates of both parties should make judicial nominations and the courts part of their campaigns, particularly because while a presidency lasts four or eight years, judges sit for decades. And she noted judicial nominations took on singular importance in Trump’s 2016 campaign because Republican voters were uncomfortable with some other aspects of his candidacy.”Republican voters have focused on the courts probably more than Democratic voters have. I think that might be starting to change,” she said, adding that she believes “progressives have been a little late to the game” in focusing on judicial nominations.”With abortion rights so clearly in the balance I think progressives are really waking up to the crucial importance of the courts,” she said. Biden months ago made something of a promise related to the Supreme Court, saying he’d be “honored to appoint the first African American woman” to the court.
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By Polityk | 07/10/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Ousted NY Prosecutor Tells Panel Barr ‘Urged’ Him to Resign
The ousted U.S. attorney who was leading investigations into President Donald Trump’s allies told the House Judiciary panel on Thursday that Attorney General William Barr “repeatedly urged” him to resign during a hastily arranged meeting that sheds light on the extraordinary standoff surrounding his departure.Geoffrey Berman, the former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, provided the committee with a detailed account behind closed doors of three days in June as he was pushed out, according to his opening statement, which was obtained by The Associated Press.Top Manhattan Prosecutor Leaves Job After Standoff With BarrUS Attorney Geoffrey Berman says he was assured that investigations by the prosecutor’s office into the president’s allies would not be disturbedBerman said Barr, over a 45-minute session at the Pierre Hotel in New York, “pressed” him to step aside and take on a new job heading up the Justice Department’s Civil Division so the administration could install Jay Clayton, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the top prosecutor post in Manhattan.”I told the attorney general that I was not interested,” Berman told the panel.Berman explained, “There were important investigations in the office that I wanted to see through to completion.” He told Barr that, while he liked Clayton, he viewed the SEC commissioner as “an unqualified choice” for the job.”He had had no criminal experience,” Berman said.When Barr warned that if he didn’t go, he would be fired, “I told him that while I did not want to get fired, I would not resign,” Berman said.The Judiciary Committee interview, which is being transcribed for public release later, comes as the panel deepens its probe of politicization at the Justice Department.Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has called Berman’s dismissal “part of a clear and dangerous pattern” of behavior by Barr. The panel’s Democratic majority is pursuing its investigation of the attorney general, who they say operates more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the nation’s top law enforcement official. Barr is set to testify before the committee later this month.The Southern District, known for its high-profile prosecutions, is where Berman oversaw several ongoing investigations of Trump associates, including some who figured prominently in the House impeachment inquiry of the president.Berman’s office is looking into the business dealings of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and a former New York mayor. It has also prosecuted Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who went to prison for lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes.The closed-door interview with Berman spanned three hours. He was not expected to disclose information about the investigations into Trump’s circle, but rather to discuss only his removal, according to a person familiar with the proceeding who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it. He arrived without a lawyer.The session comes as the Capitol remains partially shut down during the COVID-19 crisis. A handful of lawmakers, but not all those on the panel, attended.Berman, a Republican lawyer and donor to Trump, was tapped by the administration in 2018 as the U.S. attorney for SDNY. He ultimately agreed to step down from his post, but only after being assured his office’s probes of Trump’s circle would continue.As he sat alone before the committee, Berman told the panel of the series of events that started with a Thursday email from Barr’s office requesting the meeting. He said he was not told what it was about.When he arrived at Barr’s hotel suite the next day, there “were sandwiches on the table, but nobody ate.” Barr told him he wanted to make changes at the office. Berman resisted, saying he “loved” his job and asked if Barr was “dissatisfied” with his performance.Barr assured him the move was solely because Clayton wanted to relocate to New York and the administration wanted to “keep him on the team.” Back and forth it went, with Barr saying the move would be good for Berman’s resume and eventual return to the private sector, Berman said. Berman would “only have to sit there” for five months until the presidential election determined next steps, Barr said. He told Berman it would be an opportunity to accumulate a “book of business” — clients — to bring to a private firm.As Berman remain unmoved, Barr told him “he was trying to think of other jobs in the administration” that might be of interest. “I said that there was no job offer that would entice me to resign from my position,” Berman recalled. Late that Friday the Justice Department issued a statement saying Berman was stepping down, launching the standoff. Berman issued his own statement saying he had “no intention of resigning.” He showed up for work Saturday.On Saturday night, Barr publicly released a letter saying Berman had been fired by the president. At the time, Trump told reporters it was “all up to the attorney general,” adding, “I wasn’t involved.”Berman told the panel the letter also contained a “critical concession” from Barr. In it, Barr stated that Berman’s hand-picked deputy would take over as acting U.S. attorney until the permanent successor was in place. Berman said that with “full confidence” the work of the office would continue, “I decided to step down and not litigate my removal.”It’s not the first ouster of a U.S. attorney from the SDNY. Preet Bharara, a former federal prosecutor appointed by President Barack Obama, announced that he was fired in March 2017, shortly after Trump took office.Berman had worked from 1987 to 1990 for the independent counsel who investigated the administration of President Ronald Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair. He previously served in the SDNY office as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1990 to 1994 before joining private practice, including time at the same firm as Giuliani. He reportedly met with Trump before being assigned the top federal prosecutor job in Manhattan.SDNY has probed Trump’s inaugural fundraising and overseen the prosecution of two Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were associates of Giuliani and tied to the Ukraine impeachment investigation. The men were charged in October with federal campaign finance violations.
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By Polityk | 07/10/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Attacks Trump as Caring Only About Stock Market as US Economy Founders
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden attacked President Donald Trump on Thursday as caring only about the stock market as the world’s biggest economy founders in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden accused the U.S. leader, his Republican opponent in the November 3 national election, of being “focused solely” on how the stock market is faring, even as nearly 50 million workers have been laid off in the past four months. Trump frequently tweets favorable comments on days when the market has soared and says the country is headed to better economic times in the second half of 2020 and into 2021. Biden told workers at a metal products factory in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, that Trump does not care about them, “not you, your families.” He said if he wins the election and assumes office next January, “I’ll be laser-focused on working families, not the wealthy investor class.” He said Trump had made “big promises” to add manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and repair the country’s deteriorating infrastructure. “What happened to all that?” Biden asked. With his supporters using social distancing, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden outlines his economic plan while speaking at McGregor Industries in Dunmore, Pa., July 9, 2020.Biden’s scathing assessment of Trump’s performance on the economy came as he unveiled a $700 billion manufacturing plan that he said would add 5 million new jobs to help blunt the country’s economic turmoil wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. Biden toured the metalworks facility and then outlined his “Build Back Better” proposal that places a premium on national government procurement of American-made products. Biden, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee in the election for a four-year term in the White House, leads Trump in national polls and in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania. But the surveys also narrowly show voters think Trump, a real estate and golf resort entrepreneur before winning the 2016 presidential election, is best suited to handle economic issues. 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. Supporters of President Donald Trump jeer the motorcade of Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden as it passes by, July 9, 2020, in Dunmore, Pa.Before the speech, one of his aides said, “This is no time to just build back to the way things were before, with the economy’s same old structural weaknesses and inequality still in place.” The aide said Biden believes it is “a moment to imagine and build a new American economy for our families and next generation.” Biden’s campaign said it hopes the plan will “power new demand for American products, materials and services and ensure that they are shipped on U.S.-flagged cargo carriers” if they are exported to foreign countries. Any companies receiving government aid under the plan would be required to commit to a $15 minimum wage for its workers, paid leave and the guaranteed option to join a union. Biden’s campaign said the promise of U.S. government purchases would encourage businesses to boost hiring at a time the U.S. has fallen into a coronavirus-caused recession. Millions of workers have been laid off from jobs as the number of new coronavirus infections has been increasing by the day to a total of more than 62,000 on Wednesday, a new one-day peak. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden kneels to talk with a child during a visit to Biden’s childhood home in Scranton, Pa., July 9, 2020. In addition to the new jobs spending, Biden hopes to tighten rules on what products can be designated “made in America” and therefore qualify for government procurement. Biden plans in future speeches to spell out plans for developing clean energy and sustainable infrastructure, building up a workforce of caregivers and educators, and advancing racial equity in the aftermath of coast-to-coast protests against police abuse of minorities.
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By Polityk | 07/10/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
President Trump Seeks 2nd Term, After Overcoming Impeachment
Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States and only the third president to have been impeached but then acquitted, is seeking election to a second term in November. Trump officially launched his re-election campaign in June 2019 in Orlando, Florida, unveiling the slogan, “Keep America Great,” a variation of his 2016 slogan “Make America Great Again.” He told supporters, “We did it once and now we will do it again and this time we’re going to finish the job.” FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign kick off rally at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, June 18, 2019.Previous accomplishments: Before becoming president, Trump was a prominent and controversial New York real estate developer and television personality. Soon after graduating from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, he took over his family’s real estate business, expanding it and building hotels, casinos and golf courses around the world. In the early 1990s, Trump was forced to file several bankruptcies involving properties in Atlantic City and New York. However, he later rebuilt his businesses and, in 2016, Forbes estimated his net worth at $3.7 billion.FILE – In this March 27, 2004 file photo, passersby look at a sign advertising the reality television show, “The Apprentice,” displayed at the entrance to the Trump Tower building in New York.In 2004, Trump became a widely known media figure for producing and starring in the reality television show “The Apprentice,” which became a hit for NBC. He left the show in 2015 as he prepared to run for president. Trump’s presidency: During his 3 1/2 years in office, President Trump has passed a major tax reform bill, drawn down troop levels in Syria, and won Senate confirmation for two Supreme Court appointments, conservative jurists Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, to fill vacancies on the nine-member court. He also won approval for nearly 200 other judges to lower federal courts.FILE – Judge Brett Kavanaugh smiles next to U.S. President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, July 9, 2018Kavanaugh’s nomination proved particularly contentious, with public hearings focusing on his youthful beer-drinking days and allegations of sexual misconduct. In the end, the Senate narrowly approved Kavanaugh’s appointment to the country’s highest court. Trump has pushed forward policies to crack down on illegal immigration, including winning approval of nearly $1.4 billion from Congress for a border wall (though far less than the amount he requested) and declared a state of emergency to free up $3.6 billion more funding for the wall.FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump points at the wall as he talks with U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott while touring a section of recently constructed U.S.-Mexico border wall in San Luis, Arizona, June 23, 2020.The president has followed through on campaign promises to roll back government regulations and to repeal a large part of former President Barack Obama’s health care law, popularly known as Obamacare. Even as millions of Americans lost their jobs and health insurance when the worldwide coronavirus pandemic engulfed the United States this year, Trump appealed to the Supreme Court to invalidate Obamacare in its entirety. Trump has often expressed his dislike of the policies of Obama, his Democratic predecessor and the country’s only African American chief executive. FILE – Stock traders wear New Year’s 2020 party glasses at New York Stock Exchange, Dec. 31, 2019.For three years, Trump presided over an economic boom that included an unemployment rate that fell to just 3.5%, the lowest for the world’s largest economy in five decades, and the country’s major stock indexes soared. But that success ended without warning as the coronavirus pandemic spread from China across the globe in early 2020, with Trump voicing constant skepticism of its lethality and its effect on the United States. In late February, in a television clip often replayed on news shows, Trump predicted, “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” FILE – An empty parking lot leading to a closed AMC movie theatre and restaurants sits idly Wednesday, March 18, 2020, in Phoenix.Instead, the virus spread to all 50 states, causing massive disruptions. Soon the nation was engulfed in an economic disaster as well. More than 48 million workers lost their jobs — more than a quarter of the U.S. labor force — as state governors ordered businesses to close in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus. Schools and universities shut down classroom instruction in favor of online learning from home. Professional and collegiate sports leagues stopped playing games, while hospitals postponed elective surgeries and restaurants resorted to curbside food pickups while inhouse dining was prohibited in much of the U.S. Reporters are seen complying with social distancing norms as President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, April 13, 2020, in Washington.Trump staged daily news briefings about the coronavirus for weeks, but often downplayed the severity of the coronavirus, seemingly fearful that any acknowledgment of its effects would hurt his re-election chances in the November 3 contest. He constantly promised that a vaccine for the virus would be found in the coming months even as health experts said that at best mass-inoculation would not happen until early 2021. For a while, Trump touted the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure-all for the coronavirus and said he himself had taken it. But health studies in several countries said it was worthless to treat the virus and Trump mostly stopped talking about it. At another point, he startled Americans by suggesting that the virus could be cured by consuming poisonous bleach. While health experts urged Americans to wear face masks to limit the spread of the virus, Trump resisted, saying he did not think it was for him, and belittled some who did wear them. FILE – Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) wheel a man out of the Cobble Hill Health Center nursing home during an ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Brooklyn borough of New York, April 17, 2020.Gradually, over weeks and weeks, the death toll climbed to more than 131,000 in the U.S. by mid-year and the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose to more than 3 million, bigger figures than in any other country in the world. Health experts are predicting tens of thousands more Americans will die in the coming months. As the number of cases ebbed in the northern U.S. states, there were new outbreaks in a southern tier of states where governors were among the first to reopen their economies and then had to order bars and some businesses to again shut down. The U.S. jobless rate peaked at 14.7% in April, then dropped to 11.1% in June as the economy added nearly 5 million jobs. Trump, acting as his own cheerleader, said much better days were ahead for the American economy in the second half of 2020 and into 2021. While the coronavirus swept silently across the U.S., Trump was forced to deal with boisterous, sometimes violent protests across the country following the May 25 death of an African American man, George Floyd, who was pinned face down on a street in Minneapolis, Minnesota by a white police officer who pressed his knee on his neck even as Floyd gasped that he could not breathe.FILE – Protesters demonstrate Saturday, June 13, 2020, near the White House in Washington, over the death of George Floyd, who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers.Trump sent mixed messages about the unrest that followed, expressing support for peaceful demonstrations but also saying that street chants of “Black Lives Matter” were a “symbol of hate.” He voiced his approval of a video of one of his political supporters who shouted, “White power!” But he removed the clip from his Twitter account after critics vocally admonished him, while Trump aides said he had not heard the racist exclamation. As the U.S. celebrated the 244th anniversary of its independence on the July 4 weekend, Trump ramped up his rhetoric, decrying racial justice protesters as “evil” representatives of a “new far-left fascism” whose ultimate goal is “the end of America.” With the turn of events in the first half of 2020, Trump’s political fate was uncertain at best, with numerous national polls showing him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by about 9 percentage points four months ahead of the quadrennial presidential election. But only two U.S. presidents have lost bids for re-election in the last four decades and Trump supporters noted that he also trailed in polling ahead of the 2016 election, when he unexpectedly defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Foreign policy: Trump’s foreign policy has been defined by his “America First” agenda in which he has put what he regards as America’s interests above all else. He withdrew from several international agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal; the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. On trade, Trump fulfilled a campaign pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, while launching a trade war with China.NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, President Donald Trump, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan and other NATO Alliance leaders at the annual NATO heads of government, in Watford, Britain Dec. 4, 2019.He has repeatedly questioned the amount of money the United States spends to defend other countries and has publicly criticized NATO, the Western military alliance crafted after World War II. The president has had a volatile relationship with many foreign leaders, including traditional allies such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, but embraced such historical foes such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump called Kim “little rocket man” but later met with him on three occasions and declared, “We’ve developed a very good relationship.” Presidential challenges: Trump, aside from the coronavirus and economic crises of 2020, has faced major challenges as president, including an impeachment inquiry Democrats launched over allegations that Trump sought Ukraine’s help to dig up incriminating information about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, that could hurt Biden’s prospects of trying to challenge Trump in the 2020 U.S. election.In this image from video, senators vote on the first article of impeachment during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached him in late 2019, but the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him in early 2020, with only one Republican senator voting to convict and remove him from office. Trump also faced a nearly two-year investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.Mueller’s final report found that the Trump campaign did not conspire with Russia to affect the outcome of the race. However, it reached no conclusion on whether Trump should be charged with obstruction of justice for instances in which he may have tried to sidetrack Mueller’s probe. In any event, there is a long-held tradition in the U.S. that sitting presidents cannot be charged with criminal offenses while in office.
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By Polityk | 07/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Former Vice President Joe Biden Making 3rd Bid for US Presidency
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat set to run against President Donald Trump in the November 3 national election, is making his third run for the White House — but for the first time stands as his party’s presumptive nominee.If he wins, and is inaugurated next January, Biden would become the country’s 46th chief executive. By then, he would be 78, the oldest U.S. president ever, surpassing the 74-year-old Trump.Biden has said throughout months of campaigning that he is seeking to put an end to Trump’s “aberrant” administration.“We’re in a battle for the soul of America,” Biden says on his campaign web site. “It’s time to remember who we are. We’re Americans: tough, resilient, but always full of hope. It’s time to treat each other with dignity. Build a middle class that works for everybody. Fight back against the incredible abuses of power we’re seeing. It’s time to dig deep and remember that our best days still lie ahead.”Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden departs after a roundtable on economic reopening with community members, June 11, 2020, in Philadelphia.Biden has characterized Trump as an unfit leader of the Free World, saying, “It’s time for respected leadership on the world stage—and dignified leadership at home.”But amid an historic coronavirus pandemic, Biden’s campaign through the early days of July has been unlike any modern U.S. run for the presidency. He has largely waged his campaign from his home in the eastern state of Delaware with occasional forays to Wilmington, the state’s biggest city, and to nearby Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for speeches and policy discussions with small groups of people. The former U.S. senator has held only one news conference over a three-month period and shunned large political rallies for fear of catching or helping to spread the coronavirus if large crowds gathered to hear him speak.Accomplishments and personal life: After graduating from the University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School, Biden, at age 29, became in 1972 one of the youngest lawmakers ever elected to the U.S. Senate. But weeks after the election, personal tragedy struck. Biden’s wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping. Biden entertained thoughts of resigning his newly won Senate seat to care for the couple’s two other children, both sons, but instead began daily back-and-forth 90-minute train commutes between Washington and his Delaware home, a practice he followed through six terms –36 years — in the Senate.A car passes a yard displaying a campaign sign for Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, June 23, 2020 in North Hampton, New Hampshire.Several years after his first wife’s death, Biden met and later married Jill Jacobs Tracy, an aspiring schoolteacher, with whom he has a daughter born in 1981. Biden ran for president in 1987 and 2007 but failed to gain much support from voters either time. After Biden dropped out of the presidential race in 2007, then-candidate Barack Obama later asked him to be his running mate. The two went on to win the 2008 election and re-election in 2012. Biden served as Obama’s vice president for eight years.Foreign policy: While in the Senate, Biden was a longtime member of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee and served twice as the panel’s chairman. He opposed the Persian Gulf War in 1991 but voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He advocated for U.S. and NATO intervention in Bosnia in 1994. While serving as vice president under Obama, Biden helped to formulate U.S. policy toward Iraq, including the withdrawal of troops in 2011. He also supported the NATO-led military intervention in Libya in 2011.Biden played other key roles during his years in the Senate, especially in crafting anti-crime bills, including a federal assault weapons ban that stood for 10 years until 2004 but has not been renewed. He backed tough sentencing for convicted criminals, a stance he has modified in his 2020 run for the presidency. Now he says that “too many people are incarcerated in the United States – and too many of them are black and brown.”Biden has said that he considers the Violence Against Women Act “the single most important legislation” he helped shepherd through Congress during his Senate tenure.But it was his oversight of testimony at the 1991 Supreme Court nomination hearing of Clarence Thomas, a conservative African American put forward by then-President George H.W. Bush, that has rankled some of Biden’s Democratic intra-party foes for years.Anita Hill, a lawyer and Thomas co-worker, accused Thomas of sexual harassment and testified against him, allegations that Thomas denied. But Biden, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not permit further witnesses to buttress Hill’s testimony. Women’s groups and liberal legal activists sharply criticized Biden’s handling of the hearings. Eventually the Senate narrowly confirmed Thomas’s nomination and he sits on the Supreme Court to this day. In April 2019, Biden called Hill to voice regret over the manner in which he conducted the Thomas hearings, but she said later she remained deeply dissatisfied.Platform: A prospective Biden presidency might mirror the eight years of Obama’s White House tenure, with policies that advance progressive causes for racial equality and women’s rights in the United States and international accords abroad. While Trump has pulled the United States from multinational trade, nuclear and climate deals that he did not consider to be in Washington’s best interests, Biden almost assuredly could be expected to attempt to restore U.S. standing and engagement abroad.Biden Proposes $700 Billion-Plus ‘Buy American’ Campaign Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is proposing sweeping new uses of the federal government’s regulatory and spending power to bolster U.S. manufacturing and technology firmsAt home, Biden over the years has had a reputation of reaching across the political aisle to work with Republican lawmakers, But during the lengthy fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden pushed back against criticism that he is not liberal enough for today’s Democratic Party, saying at an event in March, “I have the most progressive record of anybody running.” Biden emphasized the record of the Obama administration, including expanding health care, supporting efforts to legalize gay marriage, and pushing for the government bailout of the U.S. auto industry.Biden contends that Trump has abandoned the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, adding he would “stop the political theater and willful misinformation that has heightened confusion and discrimination.” Biden says he would “ensure that public health decisions are made by public health professionals and not politicians.”While tantrums and taunts on Twitter have been one of Trump’s signature White House calling cards, Biden’s verbal gaffes have given Trump an opportunity to claim the Democratic nominee is mentally diminished as he ages. In recent weeks, Biden has said he is running for the Senate instead of the presidency and said at another time that 120 million Americans had died from the coronavirus, instead of 120,000.“If I ever said something so mortifyingly stupid, the Fake News Media would come down on me with a vengeance. This is beyond a normal mistake,” Trump tweeted.But Biden, asked whether his mental capacity has waned, retorted, “Look, all you’ve got to do is watch me and I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running against.”The two candidates are planning to face off in three debates in September and October.Megan Duzor contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 07/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Supreme Court Set to Rule on Trump Financial Records Cases
The U.S. Supreme Court is issuing the final opinions of its current term today, with attention focused on three high-profile cases involving requests for President Donald Trump’s tax records and other financial documents by congressional committees and a New York prosecutor.Trump, who went against the practice of modern presidential candidates by refusing to make his tax documents public while campaigning in 2016, has sought to block the release of those records and others related to his financial dealings.In two combined cases, several House of Representatives committees issued subpoenas seeking the records from two banks, Capital One and Deutsche Bank, as well as the accounting firm Mazars USA.The key issue justices are weighing in those cases is the separation of powers among the branches of the federal government and congressional power to investigate a president.Trump lawyer Patrick Strawbridge said during oral arguments in May that the subpoenas served no substantial legislative purpose and that lawmakers should not be allowed to probe a president’s affairs with unlimited authority.In ruling against Trump in December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District in New York said the committees had sufficiently identified their purposes.”The Committees’ interests in pursuing their constitutional legislative function is a far more significant public interest than whatever public interest inheres in avoiding the risk of a Chief Executive’s distraction arising from disclosure of documents reflecting his private financial transactions,” Judge Jon O. Newman said in writing for the appeals court majority.A lower court also ruled against Trump in the third case involving Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s request for financial records from Mazars as part of a grand jury investigation of alleged hush money payments to two women during the 2016 election.Jay Sekulow, another Trump lawyer, argued before the Supreme Court in May that the president enjoys “temporary constitutional immunity” from prosecution while in office and that the New York district attorney has no authority to subpoena Trump.Carey Dunne, the general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney, countered that presidents, while immune from criminal prosecution, are not excused from responding to a subpoena. In addition, Dunne said, the information his office is seeking predates Trump’s presidential term and is not protected by executive privilege.There “is a risk that American presidents and third parties unwittingly could end up above the law,” Dunne said.The Supreme Court has dealt with the question of whether a sitting president is required to comply with a legal request for documents in the past.The court ruled unanimously against President Richard Nixon in 1973 in a case involving turning over White House audio tapes to a special prosecutor. Justices also issued a unanimous ruling against President Bill Clinton in 1997 allowing a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton to go forward.The nine justices gave little indication during oral arguments which way they will decide the current cases, reflecting the need to balance competing interests among the branches of government.In addition to ruling in favor of one side or the other, the justices could also decide to send either case back to the lower court for reconsideration.While the lower court rulings against Trump came amid his impeachment by the House of Representatives on charges of obstruction of justice and abuse of power of which the Senate later acquitted him, the Supreme Court ruling comes with the nation months away from deciding whether to elect Trump to a second four-year term, or to put his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the White House.
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By Polityk | 07/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Proposes $700 Billion-Plus ‘Buy American’ Campaign
Launching an economic pitch expected to anchor his fall presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Joe Biden is proposing sweeping new uses of the federal government’s regulatory and spending power to bolster U.S. manufacturing and technology firms.
Biden calls for a $400 billion, four-year increase in government purchasing of U.S.-based goods and services plus $300 billion in new research and development in U.S. technology concerns.
Among other policies expected to be announced Thursday, he proposes tightening current “Buy American” laws that are intended to benefit U.S. firms but can be easily circumvented by government agencies.
An outline released by Biden’s campaign also touts his long-standing promises to strengthen workers’ collective bargaining rights and repeal Republican-backed tax breaks for U.S. corporations that move jobs overseas.
“This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and (research and development) since World War II,” senior adviser Jake Sullivan told The Associated Press, with the campaign promising additionally that Biden would require that effort in domestic markets before negotiating any new international trade deals.
The former vice president will discuss the proposals Thursday at a metal works concern in Dunmore, Pennsylvania. It’s the first of a series of addresses Biden plans as he shifts his line of attack against President Donald Trump to the economy. It’s political turf the Republican incumbent once considered a clear advantage before the coronavirus pandemic curbed consumer activity and drove unemployment to near-Depression levels.
An opening emphasis on manufacturing and labor policy is no coincidence: Biden wants to capitalize on his union ties and deliver on oft-made claims he can win back working-class voters who fueled Trump’s upset win four years ago.
Biden will continue in coming weeks with an energy plan to combat the climate crisis and a third package on what the campaign has dubbed the “caring economy,” with a focus on making child care and elder care more affordable and less of an impediment to working-age Americans.
Campaign aides told reporters that all of Biden’s policies would target immediate recovery from the pandemic recession and address systemic inequalities Biden says are “laid bare” by the nation’s ongoing reckoning with racism.
“What’s going on here, we need to build back, not just to where we were but build back better than we’ve ever been,” Biden told the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on Wednesday. “We’re going to take a monumental step forward for the prosperity, power, safety and dignity of all American workers.”
The Democrat’s agenda carries at least some rhetorical echoes of Trump’s “America First” philosophy, but the former vice president’s aides describe his approach as more coherent. They cast Trump’s imposition of tariffs and uneven trade negotiations with other nations as a slapdash isolationism compromised further by tax policies that enrich multinational corporations. The Biden campaign also pointed to an uptick in foreign procurement and continued outsourcing of jobs by U.S.-based corporations during Trump’s presidency.
Republicans nonetheless have made clear they will attack Biden on trade and the economy, framing the Democratic establishment figure as a tool of the far left on taxes and a willing participant in decades of trade policy that gutted American workers. Trump also has lampooned Biden as “weak on China.”
On trade, at least, it’s a similar line of attack Biden withstood from the Democratic primary runner-up, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and one that Trump used effectively against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Biden voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement in the Senate in 1994, an anchor of Trump’s criticism and Sanders’ attacks before that. One of Trump’s signature achievements is an overhaul of NAFTA, which he accomplished with backing from many Democrats on Capitol Hill. Since the 1990s, including during two presidential campaigns, Biden has advocated tighter controls in future trade deals, and he’s promised to have organized labor and the environmental movement at the table.
The campaign’s outline ahead of Thursday emphasizes that Biden wants a resurgence in U.S. markets before engaging in new trade deals abroad. That includes joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Biden advocated when he served as President Barack Obama’s vice president. Trump opposed TPP as a 2016 candidate. China is not a TPP member.
Trump and Biden have called out China for unfair trade practices, but Biden accuses Trump of instigating a trade war with a commensurate economic power that the president “has no plan” to win.
Biden’s team insisted his approach falls within World Trade Organization rules, but aides also acknowledged that a Biden administration would try to modify an existing WTO deal, the Government Procurement Agreement, which effectively creates a shared open international market for participating governments to secure goods and services.
For now, Biden has not identified how he’d pay for the proposed new spending. Aides said he has identified revenue sources for all ongoing spending proposals but not for the one-time or short-term investments like the $700 billion in procurement and research. That raises the possibility that Biden could declare that spending to be deliberate deficit spending to stimulate the struggling economy.
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By Polityk | 07/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden-Sanders Task Forces Unveil Joint Goals for Party Unity
Political task forces Joe Biden formed with onetime rival Bernie Sanders to solidify support among the Democratic Party’s progressive wing recommended Wednesday that the former vice president embrace major proposals to combat climate change and institutional racism while expanding health care coverage and rebuilding a coronavirus-ravaged economy. But they stopped short of urging Biden’s full endorsement of policies that could prove too divisive for some swing voters in November, like universal health coverage under “Medicare for All” or the sweeping Green New Deal environmental plan. The groups, formed in May to tackle health care, immigration, education, criminal justice reform, climate change and the economy, sought to hammer out a policy road map to best defeat President Donald Trump. Their 110 pages of recommendations should help shape the policy platform Democrats will adopt during their national convention next month — even though the entire party platform adopted in 2016 ran only about 50 pages. Skeptical progressivesThe task forces sought to help Biden, a center-left establishment candidate, engage skeptical progressives who’d backed other 2020 candidates, especially Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is under consideration for Biden’s running mate. Biden hoped the groups would promote party unity and help him avoid a repeat of 2016, when many Sanders supporters remained disillusioned enough that they stayed home rather than support Hillary Clinton against Trump. They recommend that Biden commit to moving the U.S. to being fully powered by renewable energy, and meeting other key environmental benchmarks, by 2035. That’s far more ambitious than the 2050 deadline he embraced during the primary. They also call for a 100-day moratorium on deportations and a series of steps to overhaul the economy in an effort to reduce economic and racial inequality. “While Joe Biden and I, and our supporters, have strong disagreements about some of the most important issues facing our country, we also understand that we must come together in order to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history,” Sanders, a Vermont senator, said in a statement. Biden thanked Sanders for “working together to unite our party, and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come.” Hydraulic fracturingStill, the recommendations don’t include a ban on hydraulic fracturing that could hurt Biden in the energy-producing swing state of Pennsylvania. There’s also no endorsement for Medicare for All, which dominated debate during the Democratic presidential primary but could alienate voters afraid of losing their current, employer-based private health coverage. Instead, the recommendations list ways to expand health insurance coverage by building on the Obama administration’s signature law. “We still believe that Medicare for All is the right way to go and we’re still going to continue to fight for that,” said Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who co-led the health care task force. “But this was a situation where Joe Biden had already put a stake in the sand on the Affordable Care Act and it was part of his legacy with President Obama.” Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, served on the environmental advisory group and said she was encouraged by the finished product. She noted that it does not include specific recommendations on how many new jobs Biden hopes to create in the sector or spell out how much money he would commit to making his promises a reality. Also omitted is the Green New Deal, the comprehensive anti-climate change plan that Prakash’s group champions. Still, Prakash said Biden making the recommendations a centerpiece of his campaign can help bolster his support among young people, Latinos and working class voters. “If Joe Biden takes this plan that he has signed off on and campaigns really, really hard on it, if he understands the economic opportunity that exists in tackling the climate crisis, if he can speak to the level of urgency and the level of swift, scalable action that we need to be taking, he will appeal to so many of the voters that he needs to unite,” Prakash said. National reckoningTheir conclusions come as Biden and Democratic Party officials enter the main phase of writing the platform. The campaign’s and the party’s entire policy apparatus acquired added weight after the pandemic, resulting economic collapse and national reckoning on systemic racism spurred Biden to start talking in bolder tones about the need to “rewrite the economy.” Biden plans to travel Thursday to Pennsylvania, where he will begin detailing an economic package that his aides pitch as a direct preview of the policies he would pursue should he win. Progressives who have been in contact with Biden’s campaign noted that he’s consulted with Sanders and Warren while devising it. Biden is expected to emphasize American manufacturing and labor policies, including how government can aim its buying power to bolster U.S. manufacturing. That will likely include an emphasis on ratcheting up government purchases of medical supplies that would address the pandemic. “This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and R&D (research and development) since World War II, and that’s just a part of the plan,” said senior adviser Jake Sullivan.
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By Polityk | 07/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Poll: Most Americans Disagree with Trump’s Approach to Police Reform
A public opinion poll shows that most Americans disagree with U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to police reform, a view that has gained momentum since May 25, when George Floyd, an African American man, died after being held down by a white police officer. Trump said when signing an executive order on policing last month he “strongly oppose(s) the radical and dangerous efforts to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police departments, especially now when we’ve achieved the lowest recorded crime rates in recent history.” He added: “Americans know the truth. Without police, there is chaos. Without law, there is anarchy. And without safety, there is catastrophe.” Milley Says He Was Wrong to Accompany Trump on Church WalkArmy Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says his presence ‘created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics’ A new poll conducted by Monmouth University found that more than three-quarters of American adults, 77%, want to “change the way police operate,” and 18% want to “get rid of police.” The Republican president’s reelection campaign is unveiling new ads attacking the defund-the-police movement and has tried to use it against presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Biden, however, is opposed to wholesale cuts to police department budgets. Biden said last month he favored linking federal money to essential changes within police agencies, including an adherence to a nationwide standard on police use of force and the disclosure of police misconduct information. Nearly two-thirds of Americans, 62%, believe Trump’s management of the recent protests on police reform has made the “current situation worse.” Twenty percent said he made the situation better. Monmouth University, based in the northeastern state of New Jersey, surveyed 867 adults in the U.S. over a four-day period ending June 30. The poll’s margin of error is about 3 percentage points in either direction.
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By Polityk | 07/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Kanye West Breaks Ranks with Trump, Vows to Win Presidential Race
Rapper Kanye West signaled he no longer supported U.S. President Donald Trump and said he would enter the presidential race to win it, according to an interview published on Wednesday.West, previously a vocal supporter of Trump, announced on Saturday that he would run for president in 2020. West and his reality TV star wife Kim Kardashian West have visited Trump in the White House.”I am taking the red hat off, with this interview,” West told Forbes magazine, referring to Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. “Like anything I’ve ever done in my life, I’m doing (this) to win.”Kanye West? The Girl Scouts? Hedge funds? All Got PPP LoansThe government’s small business lending program has benefited millions of companies, with the goal of minimizing the number of layoffs Americans have suffered in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet the recipients include many you probably wouldn’t have expectedHe said he would run under a new banner – the Birthday Party.There was no record of West filing any official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. The deadline to add independent candidates to the ballot has not yet passed in many states.West denied that his aim was to split the Black vote and hurt the chances of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. It was “a form of racism and white supremacy” to suggest all Black people should support the Democrats, he said.Trump, who hosted Kanye West in a widely publicized visit to the Oval Office in 2018, said the rapper’s candidacy “would be a great trial run” and that he had a “real voice,” according to an interview Tuesday with Real Clear Politics news website.Kanye West Wants the Oval OfficeEntertainer says he’s running for presidentWhite House spokesman Hogan Gidley on Wednesday called Kanye’s announcement “a scathing indictment of the Democrat Party, not just their policies on abortion, the Planned Parenthood, but also the policies that disproportionately affected African Americans in a negative way.”West told Forbes he believed “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.” The group provides reproductive health care and education, with most of that being preventive care.The rapper also said he had been ill in February with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and would be suspicious of any vaccines developed to prevent the infection. Reiterating false theories that link vaccines with child developmental disorders, he said: “So when they say the way we’re going to fix COVID is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious.”
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By Polityk | 07/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Supreme Court Backs Trump Administration Exemptions from Contraceptive Mandate
In a major victory for U.S. President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the administration’s plan to exempt employers with a religious or moral objection from a mandate requiring them to provide free birth control coverage to their employees. The ruling weakens a key contraceptive coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act which has otherwise largely survived repeated legal and political challenges since its enactment 10 years ago. The health insurance plan created by the law is commonly known as Obamacare. According to government estimates, between 70,000 and 126,000 women could lose free employer-provided contraceptive coverage as a result of the ruling. FILE – In this March 25, 2015, photo, protesters demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court, as the court heard arguments in the challenges to a US health care law requiring businesses to provide employees with insurance that includes contraceptives.In 2013, the Obama administration exempted churches and other houses of worship from the mandate and it gave religious non-profits the ability to opt out of the program. In 2017, the Trump administration expanded the exemptions, issuing interim rules that allowed private entities with “religious and moral objections” to the mandate to opt out of the program. The administration finalized the rules in 2018. The states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey then sued to block the rules. They argued that the rules violated both the Affordable Care Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the law that governs federal administrative agencies. A federal district court and appeals court sided with the states. The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic religious institute for women, and the Trump administration then appealed to the Supreme Court. This is the second time the Supreme Court has weighed in on the contraceptive mandate under the Affordable Care Act. In 2014, the high court held that requiring family-owned companies to provide free contraceptive coverage violated a religious freedom law.
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By Polityk | 07/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US ‘Dangerously Dependent’ on Foreign Suppliers to Fight COVID-19, Biden Says
The United States is too dependent on foreign sources for critical supplies needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign said, promising to bring back production “to U.S. soil.” “Under President Trump, our supply chains have actually gotten less secure,” a senior Biden campaign official told reporters Tuesday. The official said Biden believes the U.S. relies too much on foreign manufacturers for energy technology, electronics, telecommunications and computer equipment, along with medical equipment. The campaign said if Biden is elected president in November, his plan would begin an immediate 100-day review of the U.S. supply chain, use the Defense Production Act to boost manufacturing of critical products, and create stockpiles of supplies “so that the United States never again faces the kind of vulnerability it did in this crisis,” the official said. The Biden campaign said it is already working on plans to mass-produce and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, if one is ready, if he becomes president in January. President Donald Trump has said policies by former President Barack Obama, for whom Biden was vice president, made U.S. supply chains weaker. But the Biden campaign said Trump policies were to blame for making the U.S. “dangerously dependent on foreign suppliers” such as China and Russia.
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By Polityk | 07/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Finally Wins Home State Presidential Primary
In his third run for the White House, Joe Biden has finally won a presidential primary in his home state.Biden, the last man standing from a Democratic field that once numbered more than 24 candidates, won Delaware’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, beating Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.Sanders and Warren both suspended their campaigns months ago, but their names remained on Tuesday’s ballot because they did not officially withdraw as candidates in Delaware by the March 6 deadline. Warren suspended her campaign just one day before the deadline, while Sanders didn’t stop campaigning until April.Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer also had filed for Delaware’s primary but withdrew their names in early March.Biden also won New Jersey’s mostly mail-in Democratic presidential primary.Biden faced Sanders on the ballot Tuesday, even though Biden has accumulated enough delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee.New Jersey’s already-late primary got pushed a month later because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy mandated that the election take place mostly by mail-in ballots.New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes have gone to Democrats in every presidential election since 1988.Tuesday’s victories give Biden another notch in his Democratic delegate belt, although the former vice president became his party’s presumptive nominee months ago after Sanders dropped out of the race.Biden first ran for president in 1987 but dropped out before the first contests of the 1988 primary campaign amid reports of plagiarism in political speeches and while he was in law school at Syracuse University. Jesse Jackson went on to win Delaware’s Democratic caucus.Biden also sought the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination but dropped out of the race after finishing fifth in the Iowa caucus with only 1 percent of the vote. He nevertheless remained on the Democratic primary ballot in Delaware and garnered almost 3 percent of the vote, well behind future boss Barack Obama and runner-up Hillary Clinton.Meanwhile Tuesday, President Donald Trump won Delaware’s GOP presidential primary over Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente, a California businessman and perennial gadfly candidate.The primary elections were open only to registered Democrats and Republicans.Tuesday’s election was the first in Delaware to feature universal absentee voting, with absentee ballots having been sent to every registered Democrat and Republican in the state. Under Democratic Gov. John Carney’s emergency coronavirus declarations, any voter could choose “sick or temporarily or permanently physically disabled” and be eligible to vote absentee.Because of the coronavirus, Delaware election officials also limited the number of polling places for Tuesday’s primary. Kent County, with more than 94,000 eligible voters, had only 12 locations where people could cast ballots in person. Sussex County, with more than 133,000 registered Democrats and Republicans, had 24. New Castle County had 46 polling locations available for more than 315,000 voters. In the 2016 presidential primary, Delaware voters cast ballots at 313 precincts.
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By Polityk | 07/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
