Розділ: Політика
US House Passes Democratic Police Reform Bill as Impasse Deepens
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a sweeping Democratic police reform bill on Thursday, sending the measure to the Senate despite opposition from President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.The Democratic-controlled House voted 236-181 roughly along party lines to adopt the legislation, one month to the day after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody sparked weeks of worldwide protests over police brutality, especially against African Americans.An initial tally showed three Republicans breaking ranks to join Democrats in voting for the bill.But the bill, which mandates changes in law and policy to rein in police misconduct, is unlikely to be taken up in the Republican-led Senate, where Democrats blocked a Republican reform bill on Wednesday. It also faces a formal White House veto threat.The deadlockDemocrats and Republicans are deadlocked over how to address racial inequities in policing, despite strong public sentiment for effective reform after Floyd died in Minneapolis as a white policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.”People say, ‘Well, why can’t you compromise with the other side?’ Well, they don’t ban chokeholds. We ban chokeholds. So, are we supposed to come up with a number of chokeholds we are going to agree with? No,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said ahead of the vote.Aiming to seize the mantle of public opinion surrounding Floyd, Democrats named their legislation “The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act” and predict that public pressure will erode Republican resistance.”I don’t think the street will accept no action,” Pelosi told The Washington Post.Republicans and Democrats are also at odds over a Democratic provision to allow victims of misconduct to sue for damages in civil court.Ray of bipartisanshipThere was a ray of bipartisanship in the Senate, when the chamber unexpectedly passed a measure to establish a commission to study the status of Black men and boys in America, a provision of the Republican bill by Senator Tim Scott.Floyd was among a growing number of unarmed African Americans to die in police custody.Seven unarmed Black people have been shot and killed by police so far in 2020, compared with 14 in 2019, according to a database maintained by the Post. Those killings do not include people who died by other means, as Floyd did. And experts say there is a pervasive lack of data.Representative Karen Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which represents over 50 Black lawmakers, said the Democrats’ bill would help prevent killings by ushering in bold, transformative changes nearly half a century after Black legislators began pushing for police reforms in the early 1970s.’Pure race politics at its worst’But Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican and author of the chamber’s failed police reform bill, accused Democrats of rejecting Republican input on the House bill to deny Trump and his Republican allies a victory on an issue vital to Black America ahead of the November election.”This is pure race politics at its worst,” Scott said on Fox News, warning that congressional inaction will leave Black Americans vulnerable to further police violence.”There will be blood on the Democrats’ hands,” he said.Scott later told reporters that momentum toward compromise was “dissipating as we speak.”Democrats denounce Scott’s bill as too ineffective to protect Black Americans because of its reliance on financial incentives and data collection.The Democratic and Republican bills address similar topics: chokeholds, no-knock warrants, police body cameras, use of deadly force, and training to de-escalate confrontations with suspects and to encourage officer intervention against illegal conduct as it occurs.Republicans oppose the Democratic bill because of mandates they say could undermine law enforcement.
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By Polityk | 06/26/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Despite Pandemic, Trump Administration Urges End to ACA
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act.The administration’s latest high court filing came the same day the government reported that close to half a million people who lost their health insurance amid the economic shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus have gotten coverage through HealthCare.gov.The administration’s legal brief makes no mention of the virus.Some 20 million Americans could lose their health coverage and protections for people with preexisting health conditions also would be put at risk if the court agrees with the administration in a case that won’t be heard before the fall.In the case before the Supreme Court, Texas and other conservative-led states argue that the ACA was essentially rendered unconstitutional after Congress passed tax legislation in 2017 that eliminated the law’s unpopular fines for not having health insurance, but left in place its requirement that virtually all Americans have coverage.After failing to repeal “Obamacare” in 2017 when Republicans fully controlled Congress, President Donald Trump has put the weight of his administration behind the legal challenge.If the health insurance requirement is invalidated, “then it necessarily follows that the rest of the ACA must also fall,” Solicitor General Noel Francisco wrote Thursday.The Trump administration’s views on what parts of the ACA might be kept or replaced if the law is overturned have shifted over time. But in legal arguments, it has always supported getting rid of “Obamacare” provisions that prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against people on account of their medical history.Nonetheless, Trump has repeatedly assured Americans that people with preexisting conditions would still be protected. Neither the White House nor congressional Republicans have specified how.The new sign-ups for health coverage come from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The figures are partial because they don’t include sign-ups from states that run their own health insurance marketplaces. Major states like California and New York are not counted in the federal statistics.An estimated 27 million people may have lost job-based coverage due to layoffs, and it’s unclear what — if anything — they’re turning to as a fallback. People who lose employer health care are eligible for a special sign-up period for subsidized plans under the Obama-era law. Many may also qualify for Medicaid.The Trump administration has been criticized for not doing as much as states like California to publicize these readily available backups. In response, administration officials say they have updated the HealthCare.gov website to make it easier for consumers to find information on special sign-up periods.Thursday’s report from the government showed that about 487,000 people signed up with HealthCare.gov after losing their workplace coverage this year. That’s an increase of 46 percent from the same time period last year.
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By Polityk | 06/26/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Poll: Young Voters Favor Biden by Wide Margin
Young American voters appear to favor presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden over President Donald Trump, according to newly released national polling data.The survey released Wednesday by the New York Times and Siena College shows Biden leading Trump among registered voters aged 18-34 by 34 percentage points. By comparison, in 2016, Hillary Clinton on election day won 55% of the vote among young voters to Trump’s 37%—a lead of 18 points.In total, the poll shows Biden ahead of Trump by 14 points, with particularly strong leads among Black and Hispanic voters. Trump leads Biden by 19 points among White people without college degrees.Since the 2018 midterm elections, trends have shown both an uptick in youth voter participation and their tendency to vote for Democrats. Millennial voting nearly doubled between 2014 and 2018—from 22% to 42%—according to demographer Richard Fry at the Pew Research Center in Washington. Thirty percent of Gen Zers eligible to vote turned out in the first midterm elections of their lives. And for the first time in a midterm election, more than half of Gen Xers reported they had voted, Pew reported. In the 2018 midterm elections, two-thirds of all young voters aged 18-29 supported the Democratic candidate for Congress—the widest party gap in the past 25 years, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement based at Tufts University in Massachusetts.Kathleen Struck contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 06/26/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Mail-In Ballots Thrust Postal Service Into Presidential Race
The U.S. Postal Service’s famous motto — “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers” — is being tested like never before, by challenges that go well beyond the weather.
The coronavirus has devastated its finances. The Trump administration may attach big strings to bailouts.
The agency’s responsibilities, meanwhile, are mounting. A dramatic shift in many states to voting by mail is intended to protect voters from spreading the virus at polling places. But it’s also making more work for post offices and contributing to delays in determining election winners.Election results have been delayed this week in Kentucky and New York because both states were overwhelmed by huge increases in mail ballots.
“What we don’t need is more chaos in the chaos,” said Wendy Fields, executive director of the voting rights advocacy group The Democracy Initiative.
President Donald Trump opposes expanding voting by mail, asserting it will trigger fraud, even though there’s no evidence that will happen. Trump and many of his administration’s leading voices frequently vote absentee themselves.
The president has also called the Postal Service “a joke” and says package shipping rates should be at least four times higher for heavy users such as Amazon. But shipping packages is a main revenue generator, and critics say Trump is merely looking to punish Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in retaliation for unflattering coverage in The Washington Post, which the billionaire owns.
Trump has acknowledged larger political calculations are at work, tweeting that expanding vote by mail will “LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.” His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, has suggested that Trump’s opposition to absentee voting and criticism of the Postal Service may help the incumbent “steal” the election.
Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents 200,000-plus employees, said the administration is “shamefully trying to use the crisis to carry out an agenda” of privatization, which would ultimately “break up the Postal Service and sell it.”
Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat, said “our democracy depends on a reliable post office.”
“Midelection year is not the time to see changes in the dependability of the Postal Service, especially during a year when our country is experiencing a pandemic and health crisis, which will dramatically increase the necessity of voting by mail,” he said.
The Postal Service predates the United States. It was created by the Second Continental Congress in July 1775, and Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general.
Unlike its private competitors, the Postal Service cannot refuse to make costly deliveries to especially hard-to-reach addresses. Still, much of its budgetary concerns stem from a 2006 law requiring the agency to fully fund retiree health benefits for the next 75 years.
It normally operates without taxpayer funds. During the pandemic, however, it lost $4.5 billion in the 2020 budget year’s second quarter. Congress approved a $10 billion line of credit for the agency as part of an economic rescue package in March. Since then, though, the Postal Service and the Treasury Department have had discussions about requirements to extend those loans.
Neither side will say publicly what’s being negotiated, but Trump has made his feelings clear. A 2018 Treasury task force also recommended the Postal Service increase package rates and cut labor costs. A second coronavirus aid package passed in May by the Democratic-controlled House includes $25 billion in direct aid for the Postal Service, but the GOP-majority Senate hasn’t approved its own version.
More than 3,420 of the Postal Service’s 630,00-plus employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and some have died. While package deliveries have increased as Americans stay home, mail volumes plummeted — as much as 30%, according to the American Postal Workers Union.
In April, then-Postmaster General Megan Brennan said the agency could be out of money by Sept. 30. Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman and GOP fundraiser who’s donated to Trump, recently succeeded Brennan.
Postal Service spokesperson David Partenheimer said more recent trends “indicate that our 2020 financial performance will be better than our early scenarios predicted,” though he said much remains uncertain.
“Our current financial condition is not going to impact our ability to deliver election and political mail this year,” Partenheimer said.
But Condos, who was president of the National Association of Secretaries of State from July 2018 to July 2019, fears keeping such a promise could force the Postal Service to cut back on routine services, which may see voting materials prioritized over regular mail. The pressure is also on because absentee ballots for overseas military members are sent 45 days before Election Day — or Sept. 18, which is less than three months away.
“This whole idea that we have until November to decide, we really don’t,” Condos said.
The Postal Service consistently ranks as the nation’s favorite federal agency. Pew Research Center polling in March found that 91% of Americans said they had a favorable view of it. Congressional Democrats are clamoring to “save the post office,” and Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are among those proposing boosting Postal Service profits by having it expand into banking services, which it provided for decades until the 1960s.
Rural Republicans such as Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, have also called for defending the agency. Still, some conservatives say tying its funding to Election Day jitters is a partisan ploy.
“It’s just casting seeds of doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome,” said Republican Tom Ridge, a former Pennsylvania governor who heads VoteSafe, a bipartisan group working with state and local officials to expand and strengthen vote-by-mail options. “It’s very sad, it’s very disappointing, it’s very troubling.”
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By Polityk | 06/26/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump’s Planned Trip to Rushmore Draws Fire
President Donald Trump’s plans to kick off Independence Day with a showy display at Mount Rushmore are drawing sharp criticism from Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land violently stolen from them and used to pay homage to leaders hostile to native people.
Several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for Trump’s July 3 visit, part of Trump’s “comeback” campaign for a nation reeling from sickness, unemployment and, recently, social unrest. The event is slated to include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old stone monument in South Dakota’s Black Hills and the first fireworks display at the site since 2009.
But it comes amid a national reckoning over racism and a reconsideration of the symbolism of monuments around the globe. Many Native American activists say the Rushmore memorial is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation.
“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective. “It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”
While some activists, like Tilsen, want to see the monument removed altogether and the Black Hills returned to the Lakota, others have called for a share in the economic benefits from the region and the tourists it attracts.
Trump has long shown a fascination with Mount Rushmore. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said in 2018 that he had once told her straight-faced it was his dream to have his face carved into the monument. He later joked at a campaign rally about getting enshrined alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. And while it was Noem, a Republican, who pushed for a return of the fireworks on the eve of Independence Day, Trump joined the effort and committed to visiting South Dakota for the celebration.
The four faces, carved into the mountain with dynamite and drills, are known as the “shrine to democracy.” The presidents were chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum for their leadership during four phases of American development: Washington led the birth of the nation; Jefferson sparked its westward expansion; Lincoln preserved the union and emancipated slaves; Roosevelt championed industrial innovation.
And yet, for many Native American people, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Omaha, Arapaho, Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache, the monument is a desecration to the Black Hills, which they consider sacred. Lakota people know the area as Paha Sapa — “the heart of everything that is.”
As monuments to Confederate and colonial leaders have been removed across U.S. cities, conservatives have expressed concern that Mount Rushmore could be next. Commentator Ben Shapiro this week suggested that the “woke historical revisionist priesthood” wanted to blow up the monument. Noem responded by tweeting, “Not on my watch.”
Tim Giago, a journalist who is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, said he doesn’t see four great American leaders when he looks at the monument, but instead four white men who either made racist remarks or initiated actions that removed Native Americans from their land. Washington and Jefferson both held slaves. Lincoln, though he led the abolition of slavery, also approved the hanging of 38 Dakota men in Minnesota after a violent conflict with white settlers there.
Roosevelt is reported to have said, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are..”
The monument has long been a “Rorschach test,” said John Taliaferro, author of “Great White Fathers,” a history of the monument. “All sorts of people can go there and see it in different ways.”
The monument often starts conversations on the paradox of American democracy — that a republic that promoted the ideals of freedom, determination and innovation also enslaved people and drove others from their land, he said.
“If we’re having this discussion today about what American democracy is, Mount Rushmore is really serving its purpose because that conversation goes on there,” he said. “Is it fragile? Is it permanent? Is it cracking somewhat?”
The monument was conceived in the 1920s as a tourist draw for the new fad in vacationing called the road trip. South Dakota historian Doane Robinson recruited Borglum, one of the preeminent sculptors at the time, to abandon his work creating the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia, which was to feature Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson.
Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, according to Mount Rushmore historian and writer Tom Griffith. Borglum joined the Klan to raise money for the Confederate memorial, and Griffith argues his allegiance was more practical than ideological. He left that project and instead spent years in South Dakota completing Mount Rushmore.
Native American activists have long staged protests at the site to raise awareness among the history of the Black Hills, which were taken from them despite treaties with the United States protecting the land. Fifty years ago this summer a group of activists associated with an organization called United Native Americans climbed to the top of the monument and occupied it.
Quanah Brightman, who now runs United Native Americans, said the activism in the 1970s grew out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He hopes a similar movement for Native Americans comes from the Black Lives Matter movement.
“What people find here is the story of America — it’s multidimensional, it’s complex,” Griffith said. “It’s important to understand it was people just trying to do right as best they knew it then.”
The White House had no immediate comment on criticism of the president’s planned visit.
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By Polityk | 06/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Kamala Harris Says Democrats Need to Listen to Young Voters
Sen. Kamala Harris of California says that Democrats need to listen to young voters seeking change and that she won’t “be played” by Republicans when it comes to police reform legislation.She’s a top contender to be presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate. But she won’t directly address whether she thinks Biden should choose a Black woman as his vice president.Harris spoke Tuesday with The Associated Press about her efforts and the Democratic Party’s relationship with Black voters. The following Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.AP: Do you think that swift compromise is still possible (on police reform legislation)? And if you do have to compromise, what do you think are the pieces in your bill that have the most potential to save lives?HARRIS: The problem is that we have American lives that have ended at the hands of excessive force and police brutality. And we need to address it, and (Democrats’) bill, the Justice in Policing Act, is frankly quite narrowly tailored to specifically address the need for accountability and consequences when there is the situation where police officers have broken the rules and broken the law. You have the Republican leader, (Mitch) McConnell, essentially saying that he is not going to invite any kind of conversation or discourse before a vote (on the Republican bill) Wednesday. The two lead senators on the Justice in Policing Act, Sen. Cory Booker from New Jersey and myself, both serve on the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee was designed just for this type of issue. So if there was an intent to have a meaningful dialogue and discussion toward real solutions that have teeth, it should have gone there. And instead it’s “We’re in leadership, we hold all the cards, you take it. You take what we’re offering you even if it’s crumbs on the table.” Well, we’re not going to go for that. And frankly, I will speak for myself, I’m not going to be played that way.AP: Some of these things that are in the Justice in Policing Act are things that are either still allowed in California or were only recently reformed. Could you have pushed harder for some of these things to happen earlier in California?HARRIS: The point of your question actually speaks to the issue at hand, which is even in a state like California, which has been a leader on reforming the criminal justice system, we still aren’t where we need to be. And it speaks to the fact that I know well that there are a lot of folks and a lot that is invested in the status quo, it is deeply rooted. Within the system, there is a real hesitance, if not hostility, to reform and change.One of the greatest, I think, counterforces to that status quo … has been Black Lives Matter and the brilliance of that movement and its leaders. That has created this kind of counterforce, so that those who are within a system can have greater leverage to force or compel change. But there’s still so much more to do and that speaks to exactly our bill, the Justice in Policing Act, which is these are the things we need to institute at a national and at a federal level.AP: Vice President Biden has overwhelming support among older Black voters, but he’s struggled to gain more widespread support from young Black and Latino progressive voters. What do Democrats need to do to get those voters energized and come out in November?HARRIS: We need to listen. The strength and the beauty of this movement around policing is, I think, an extension of what I know from being on the campaign trail for a year, which is that there are a lot of issues that are impacting so-called younger voters that have gone unaddressed. One of the best ways to actually address those issues is to listen and let the people tell you their needs and tell you what they want. We have to listen to them, and we have to respond to their needs in a way that we provide them with their rightful role of leadership as opposed to expecting them to just follow. AP: Beyond policing, what do you think needs to be done to address inequalities that have been laid bare in the Black community as a result of the COVID-19 crisis that we’re in? Do you think that the Democrats need a more robust agenda when it comes to Black America?HARRIS: There’s a lot that needs to be addressed, and it relates to everything from public health and long-standing disparities based on race. It is about what we need to do around the economy, it is about what we need to do around education. It’s about environmental policy and environmental justice and a number of other issues. One of the things that we need to do is obviously fight to keep the Affordable Care Act. But we also need to address the long-standing disparities that exist when we know that African Americans are 20% more likely to have asthma, 40% more likely to have high blood pressure, that Black women are three times more likely to have lupus than white women, when we know that Black women are three to four times more likely to die in connection with childbirth than other women. So there’s a lot of work to do there, and it is about accessibility, it is about affordability, it is about bias in the health care delivery system — racial bias, institutional and systemic racism. I have proposed the Racial Disparities Act. It would track where these disparities exist as we continue to deal with the coronavirus pandemic because we still are at a place where hundreds of people are dying in our country a day.AP: A lot of voices in your party have begun to say Biden needs to have a Black woman on the ticket. Do you think that is what is necessary to kind of rise to the occasion of this moment? HARRIS: I will tell you and I say this with all sincerity and honesty and candor: I want Joe Biden to pick whoever is going to help him win. Period. He has to win. There is too much at stake in our country right now. Donald Trump has been a failure as a president on almost every level. He came into office trying to sow hate and division among us. He has been dishonest with the American people tens of thousands of times. He has failed to lead on the greatest public health crisis and therefore economic crisis we’ve seen in generations, where he was in abject denial and then basically tried to muzzle the health care experts and mislead the American people. We need a president of the United States who has in their DNA the ability and the desire to lift up the condition and the spirit of the American people. And I know Joe Biden can do that, and he needs to win.
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By Polityk | 06/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Sharp Words Show Deep Divisions Between US & China
A June 17 meeting between the top diplomats from the U.S. and China was so low key, no photos were released. Diplomatic sources say China asked for the meeting. It came at a time of heightened tension between the countries over many issues. VOA’s Steve Redisch has more.
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By Polityk | 06/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrats Accuse Attorney General Barr of Political Meddling in US Justice System
U.S. House Democrats blasted Attorney General William Barr at a hearing on Wednesday over accusations he had improperly meddled in criminal cases and antitrust probes for political gain, but they stopped short of pledging to take any steps to try and oust the nation’s top law enforcement official.
“Mr. Barr’s work at the Department of Justice has nothing to do with correcting injustice. He is the president’s fixer,” said Jerrold Nadler, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.
“He has shown us that there is one set of rules for the president’s friends, and another set of rules for the rest of us.”
FILE – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler walks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 21, 2020.Nadler had mulled subpoenaing Barr to appear before the panel for a future hearing, but a Justice Department spokeswoman on Wednesday tweeted that Barr would voluntarily appear to testify on July 28.
Wednesday’s contentious hearing featured testimony from two current Justice Department employees who took the unusual step of publicly blowing the whistle against their own employer.
The hearing came at a time when Barr has come under growing scrutiny after he intervened in two prosecutions involving Trump allies, fired a federal prosecutor whose office is investigating Trump’s personal attorney, and oversaw the use of force by federal law enforcement officers against peaceful protesters in historic Lafayette Square.
Federal prosecutor Aaron Zelinksy testified on Wednesday that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington was pressured from the “highest levels” of the Justice Department to scale back its sentencing recommendation for Trump’s longtime friend, Roger Stone.
“Roger Stone was being treated differently from every other defendant. He received breaks that are, in my experience, unheard of,” said Zelinsky, who withdrew from the case after senior department officials filed a new sentencing memo that backed away from the original recommendation of seven to nine years in prison.
Stone, 67, who was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering and lying to Congress during its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Republicans on the panel criticized Zelinsky, who admitted he had not directly spoken with Barr or the then-Acting U.S. Attorney Tim Shea about their reasons for scaling back the sentencing recommendation.
Zelinsky told lawmakers that Shea’s office declined his request for a meeting, and that J.P. Cooney, who supervises public corruption cases in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, had told him that political motivations were behind the abrupt shift.
The second employee to testify on Wednesday was antitrust attorney John Elias, who spoke about the about the politicization of antitrust probes into marijuana companies and the auto sector.
With less than five months before U.S. elections, the partisanship displayed during the House Judiciary hearing was on display throughout the Congress. During the hearing, legislation to stop excessive force by police departments fell victim to partisan infighting in the Senate.
Donald Ayer, the former Deputy Attorney General under George H.W. Bush who also testified before the committee Wednesday, said he feared Barr’s misbehavior was only accelerating as the election draws closer.
“The drum beat of his misbehavior is accelerating,” he said. “I don’t know what’s next, but I’m scared to think about what it might be,” he said.
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By Polityk | 06/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Nominee to Be CIA Watchdog Says He’ll Stand Up to Trump
President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the CIA’s chief watchdog is pledging independence, saying he will perform his role “in an unbiased and impartial manner, free of undue or inappropriate influences” by Trump or anyone else.Peter Thomson, a New Orleans attorney and former federal prosecutor, faced skepticism about his ability to ward off presidential interference at a nomination hearing Wednesday.Thomson’s nomination as CIA inspector general comes as Trump is attacking the inspector general and whistleblower system. Trump has fired or replaced inspectors general across the federal government in recent months, including the former watchdogs for the intelligence community and State Department.Trump’s moves, made with little or no explanation, have drawn bipartisan criticism and spurred fears that the Republican president is moving to dismantle a post-Watergate network of watchdogs meant to root out corruption, fraud and other problems inside federal agencies.”The job of an inspector general … and protecting whistleblowers has never been more important,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “But just doing that job can get you fired.”Thomson’s ability to ignore those threats “and aggressively pursue investigations wherever the facts may lead is at the heart of this confirmation process,” Wyden said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.Thomson assured Wyden and other senators that he will be independent, even if it means he eventually gets fired. “If I was fired for doing my job in a lawful way, in an appropriate way, then I would be fired,” Thomson said.In a testy exchange with independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, Thomson denied that Trump or anyone else had asked him to pledge loyalty to the president. The White House Counsel’s office interviewed him before his nomination, but he did not speak personally with Trump, Thomson said.”I never perceived any kind of loyalty test at all with regard to the president,” Thomson said.King said Thomson’s job is especially important now, following the removal of Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community IG, and Steve Linick, the State Department watchdog. Atkinson, who was fired in April, advanced a whistleblower complaint that resulted in Trump’s impeachment. Linick told Congress he was conducting investigations tied to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s use of government resources as well as Pompeo’s decision to approve a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia.”This president has made plain his desire to politicize the intelligence agencies — that he doesn’t like the intelligence agencies,” King said, citing a list of officials Trump has removed, including the acting and deputy directors of national intelligence.”All you can do is tell me that you will stand up to that, but I certainly hope that you will, because it’s important for the country,” King said.”If any such pressure was brought on the office to alter its product, or how it evaluates something, I would consider that very serious,” Thomson replied, adding that he would report such interference to the CIA director and the Intelligence panel.While he and King don’t really don’t know one another, “I think within a short period of time after working with me … you would be absolutely convinced that I’m not going to give in to any kind of under inappropriate pressure; that I will always, always stand firm to my convictions,” Thomson said.The CIA has been without a Senate-confirmed inspector general since 2015. Former Acting IG Christopher Sharpley, who was nominated by Trump for the permanent post in 2017, withdrew in 2018 after his nomination stalled in the Senate. Two former CIA employees complained that Sharpley and other managers retaliated against them after they alerted congressional committees and other authorities about alleged misconduct at the agency.Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., acting chairman of the intelligence panel, told Thomson that after listening to his testimony and reviewing his record, he’s confident that “you would never endanger your 37-year career in public service and private practice for any reason,” including pressure from the president.Thomson replied that he is “a straight shooter,” adding that his reputation “means everything to me, as well as the rule of law.”
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By Polityk | 06/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Senate Democrats Block Debate on Republican Police Reform Proposal
A key vote advancing major police reform legislation in the U.S. Senate failed Wednesday, after Congressional Democrats blocked debate on a Republican proposal they called “flawed.” U.S. lawmakers have been racing to craft legislation that would address demands heard in weeks of nationwide protests in response to the May 25 death in police custody of George Floyd. The Democratic-majority U.S. House is set to vote later this week on the Justice in Policing Act but efforts to pass the Republican proposal by the chamber’s only black Republican senator, Tim Scott, appears to be stalled.Democrats blocked the procedural move to advance the Republican bill to a process that would have allowed debate on the bill by a vote of 55-45.FILE – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) leaves after a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 19, 2020.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer argued on the Senate floor Wednesday shortly ahead of the vote that Democrats could not salvage the bill.”The harsh fact of the matter is the bill is so deeply, fundamentally and irrevocably flawed, it cannot serve as a useful starting point for meaningful reform,” he said. If they had voted to advance debate on the bill, Democrats would have had the option to offer amendments altering the measure.In a letter Tuesday to Senate Republicans, Schumer and Senate Democrats laid out five points of concern about the legislation.Democrats said they objected to the measure’s failures to put accountability and transparency measures in place in police departments, to sufficiently address collection of data on policing, and to create a national standard for use of force. In the letter, Democrats also wrote the justice act “does nothing to end harmful policing practices, like racial and religious profiling, no-knock warrants in drug cases and the use of chokeholds and carotid holds.”No-knock warrants were a factor in the death of 27-year-old Breonna Taylor earlier this year, while police use of chokeholds came under renewed scrutiny after a procedure utilized by officers who detained George Floyd.Call for amendmentsScott said Democrats’ concerns about the legislation could have been addressed by advancing the bill to the debate stage.FILE – U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 17, 2020.”My response was a simple one,” Scott said on the Senate floor just ahead of the vote. “Let’s have five amendments on those things. If we can get the votes on these two sides of the chamber, we should include that in the legislation. I met with other senators on the other side who said that there are more than five things that we need to have a conversation about. So I said let’s include an amendment for every single issue you have.”Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called Scott’s proposal “a straightforward plan based on facts, data, and lived experience. It focuses on improving accountability and restoring trust. It addresses key issues like chokeholds and no-knock warrants. It expands reporting, and transparency in hiring, and training for de-escalation.”House Democrats’ Justice in Policing Act leverages federal funding to encourage the de-militarization of police forces, while ending the legal doctrine shielding police officers from civil prosecution for their actions. An end to the so-called “qualified immunity” doctrine was already deemed a “non-starter” by the White House.Pelosi commentsHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi has previously signaled she was open to a reconciliation process for the Senate and House proposals but drew Republican condemnation for comments she made in a CBS Radio interview Tuesday.”For something to happen, they’re going to have to face the reality of police brutality, the reality of the need for justice in policing, and the recognition that there are many, many good people in law enforcement, but not all and that we have to address those concerns,” Pelosi said. “So far, they’re trying to get away with murder, actually. The murder of George Floyd.”FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, left, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky bump elbows in greeting, on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 12, 2020.McConnell called the rhetoric around the bill “political nonsense elevated to an art form.” Addressing Pelosi’s remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, he said, “Two weeks ago, it was implied the Senate would have blood on our hands if we didn’t take up police reform. Now, Democrats say Senator Scott and 48 other Senators have blood on our hands because we are trying to take up police reform.”Pelosi said Wednesday she would not apologize for her remarks.Senate Democrats had called for McConnell to bring police reform legislation to the Senate floor for a vote before the chamber departs town for a two-week Independence Day holiday recess. Lawmakers are running out of time to reach an agreement on any legislation. Both the Senate and the House are in session for only a handful of weeks in July before departing once again for their traditional summer recess through the first week of September.The chances of passing ambitious legislation on this controversial topic will be very small as lawmakers shift their attention in the fall to reelection races and the presidential election.
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By Polityk | 06/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
In US, Election Night Becomes Election Week, With Delayed Results
In the United States, Election Night is turning into Election Week, with results in high-profile contests delayed because of the extended time needed to count the hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots by voters who did not want to risk contracting the coronavirus at polling stations.
The election outcome was unknown Wednesday of the high-profile Democratic Senate primary in the southern state of Kentucky between former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath and state lawmaker Charles Booker.
Results will not be known until June 30 which candidate will challenge Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the November election.
McGrath held a 44% to 39.6% lead over Booker in the votes counted Tuesday night. But none of the results had been posted for the state’s biggest city, Louisville, considered to be a Booker stronghold.
Election officials said 161,238 people voted in-person on Tuesday. By Tuesday morning, 530,196 of the 867,842 ballots sent out before Election Day had already been returned.
The Democratic victor will face a tough contest against 78-year-old McConnell, a fixture in Kentucky and the Washington power structure. He has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s legislative proposals and his appointment of conservative judges. Trump is popular in Kentucky, which he won by about 30 percentage points in 2016.Voting stations are seen in the South Wing of the Kentucky Exposition Center for voters to cast their ballots in the Kentucky primary, in Louisville, Kentucky, June 23, 2020.In another key election, New York Congressman Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, appeared in trouble in his bid for a 17th two-year term in the House of Representatives, although a final vote count could be days away.
Former middle school principal Jamaal Bowman, who had never run for office, held a lead of 61% to 36% over Engel with in-person voting counted.
New York election officials cautioned that a large number of mail-in ballots will not be counted until next week, delaying the outcome.
Bowman expressed confidence about the eventual result to his supporters late Tuesday.
“I cannot wait to get to Congress and cause problems for the people in there who have been maintaining a status quo that is literally killing our children,” he said.
Engel said in a statement, “With so many absentee ballots outstanding and many still coming in, we know that the full results in the primary won’t be known for some time.”
Engel has represented New York’s 16th congressional district for 16 terms. Bowman is a more liberal candidate who drew the backing of prominent progressives, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who herself won an upset victory over a veteran congressman in 2018.Voters wait in line to cast their ballots in New York’s primary election at a polling station inside Yonkers Middle/High School, in Yonkers, New York, June 23, 2020.Mail-in ballots will also decide another New York district, with Democrat Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, in a race that is too close to call with lawyer and activist Suraj Patel. With all precincts reporting, but no mail-in ballots included yet, Maloney held a 41% to 40% lead.
Ocasio-Cortez was among the New York incumbents in contested races who easily won their primaries Tuesday. Others include congressmen Gregory Meeks and Joseph Morelle, and congresswomen Grace Meng and Nydia Velazquez.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and Congresswoman Yvette Clark had large leads, but their races have not yet been called with mail-in ballots outstanding.
Trump endorsed two New York Republicans, Claudia Tenney and Nicole Malliotakis, who each won their primaries Tuesday and will try to unseat incumbent Democrats in November.
Republican state Sen. Chris Jacobs defeated Democrat Nate McMurray as voters in New York’s 27th congressional district decided a special election to select a representative to fill out the remaining half year of the term of former Congressman Chris Collins, who resigned in September shortly before pleading guilty to insider stock trading charges.
Jacobs and McMurray will face off again in November in an election for a full two-year term.
In North Carolina, newcomer Madison Cawthorn notched an upset win in a Republican House primary over Lynda Bennett, the candidate Trump endorsed. If Cawthorn wins in November, he would become the youngest member of Congress at age 25.
In Virginia, retired Army lieutenant colonel Daniel Gade won a three-way race in the Republican Senate primary. He will face two-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in November.
Republican Scott Taylor won a three-way primary in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district and will go up against incumbent Congresswoman Elaine Luria. The two candidates faced each other in a 2018 congressional election, with Luria winning 51% to 49%.
Incumbent House Democrats Donald McEachin and Gerry Connolly easily won their contested primaries in Virginia on Tuesday.
There were also House primaries in Kentucky, where Republican incumbents Brett Guthrie, Thomas Massie, Harold Rogers and Andy Barr all easily won.
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By Polityk | 06/25/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Once Reluctant, GOP’s Only Black Senator Now Leads on Race
When he first ran for office in 1994, they scrawled the N-word on his lawn signs. By the time he came to Congress, he had to unplug the phone lines because callers brought the staff to tears. Even after he became a U.S. senator, the Capitol quickly became just another place where he would be stopped by the police.
Initially reluctant to focus on race, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is now a leading Republican voice, teaching his party what it’s like to be a Black man in America when the police lights are flashing in the rearview mirror.
He has been pulled over by law enforcement “more than 18 times,” Scott said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I’m thinking to myself how blessed and lucky I am to have 18 different encounters and to have walked away from each encounter.”
As the only Black Republican in the Senate, Scott’s role is heavy with a certain weight. He is leading a task force of GOP senators drafting the Justice Act, law enforcement changes set for a test vote this week. But it’s also a historic opportunity to speak to Republicans about race — as a conservative, a Christian and a Southerner from the state where the Civil War began.
He rejects the concept of systemic racism, which puts him at odds with many Black Democrats who demand a broader police overhaul than his proposed bill. Instead, he places his faith where he says he has seen the change, in people’s hearts. He shares his experience as a Black American in the 21st century, including this year when he was pulled over for failing to signal early enough for a lane change — or, as he called it, stopped for “driving while Black.”
“I just can’t imagine the pressure he must be under, though, as the only African American Republican,” Rep. Karen Bass, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in an interview.
“That he has to sit there with those senators and go through his experiences and hope that they have some measure of empathy,” said Bass, who is leading Democrats’ policing bill and working with Scott, whom she has known for years.
“It’s exhausting,” she said. “Racism is exhausting.”
As massive demonstrations over the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minnesota spilled into a worldwide reckoning over police tactics and racial injustice, Scott quietly approached Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the GOP senators’ weekly private luncheon.
Scott whispered in McConnell’s ear that he wanted a seat at the table drafting legislation.
“I’m the guy that actually has the experience,” he told McConnell. The leader agreed.
Broaching law enforcement changes is a new priority for the GOP, which proudly calls itself the party of Lincoln but has wrestled with race in the modern era, becoming more aligned with the “law and order” approach now embraced by President Donald Trump than a civil rights platform.
“He’s been working for this moment his whole life,” said House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.
Scott’s family — the grandfather who picked cotton as a child and grandmother who cleaned homes, and his own parents who separated when he was young, his father in the military, his mother working double shifts as a nursing assistant to provide for him and his brother — taught him to stay steady amid hardship. He acknowledges in his memoir that he almost flunked his freshman year of high school, before going on to become senior class president and attend college.
He is among a generation of Capitol Hill Republicans — along with McCarthy and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both of whom he counts as friends — who came of age during the Reagan years, carrying a conservative’s belief in the wellspring of opportunity awaiting hard work. Elected to the House on the 2010 Tea Party wave, Scott was tapped for a vacant Senate seat in 2012 and went on to win it outright in 2014.
“He found his political legs and political wings at a unique time in this country,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist in South Carolina. “He was able to tap into something that was not known, so he made the unknown known, a Black Republican.”
And yet, Scott can speak with authenticity about experiences of racism that transcend party. “I am going to be black for the rest of my life,” he writes in his biography.
With the 2014 Missouri death of Michael Brown, and the 2015 South Carolina killing of Walter Scott, no relation, he wrote, “It was becoming harder and harder not to speak out.”
What started as a series of Senate speeches about his experiences has led to this defining moment, drafting legislation at a time of history.
“He’s been able to diversify the conversation in America about the African American community … and how we fit into this larger pulse of what we call America,” said Stephen Gilchrist, the chairman and CEO of the South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce. “And yeah, that does draw criticism because, in many respects, it does not toe the line.”
If anything, Scott objects not to those in his party learning the toll of racism, but critics from the left who question his policy decisions as a Black man. He publicly spoke out against Trump’s 2017 comments of fine people on “both sides” of the neo-Nazi protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has since blocked some of the president’s judicial nominees over their views. He notes there are only two Black Democratic senators.
During an interview at his Washington office, Scott explained that he believes there’s value in having the person who has “gone through the pain and the misery” of bias writing the policing bills that could become law.
“Esther 4:14 says, ‘For such a time as this,'” he told the AP.
“I think it is important that, in the history of eternity, that I had the good fortune of being born in the place where the Civil War started, being elected in the seat that Strom Thurmond used to hold, to be in a position to have this serious conversation that confronts racial outcomes in this nation,” he said.
“I think it’s a blessing from God.”
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Appeals Court Orders Dismissal of Michael Flynn Prosecution
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered the dismissal of the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said in a 2-1 ruling that the Justice Department’s decision to abandon the case against Flynn settles the matter, even though Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had declined to immediately dismiss the case, seeking instead to evaluate on his own the department’s unusual dismissal request. He appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s position and to consider whether Flynn could be held in criminal contempt for perjury.Flynn was the only White House official charged in Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI days after the president’s January 2017 inauguration about conversations he had had during the presidential transition period with the Russian ambassador.The Justice Department moved to dismiss the case in May as part of a broader effort by Attorney General William Barr to scrutinize, and even undo, some of the decisions reached during the Russia investigation, which he has increasingly disparaged.In its motion, the department argued that Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador — in which they discussed sanctions the Obama administration imposed on Russia for election interference — were appropriate and not material to the underlying counterintelligence investigation. The department also noted that weeks before the interview, the FBI had prepared to close its investigation into Flynn after not finding evidence of a crime.But the retired judge appointed by Sullivan, John Gleeson, called the Justice Department’s request a “gross abuse” of prosecutorial power and accused the government of creating a pretext to benefit an ally of the president.Wednesday’s 2-1 opinion was authored by Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, and joined by Karen LeCraft Henderson, who had asked skeptical questions of lawyers for Flynn and the Justice Department during arguments earlier this month.
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Veteran Democrats Risk Losing Congressional Seats as US Awaits Primary Election Results
Several high-profile Democrats are facing the prospect of losing their seats in Congress after voters in four U.S. states cast ballots in primary elections Tuesday.Former middle school principal Jamaal Bowman, who had never run for office before, held a lead of 61% to 36% over Congressman Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, with in-person voting counted.New York election officials have cautioned that with a large number of mail-in ballots, which will not be counted until next week, final results from Tuesday’s voting will take some time.Bowman expressed confidence about the eventual result to his supporters late Tuesday, saying, “I cannot wait to get to Congress and cause problems for the people in there who have been maintaining a status quo that is literally killing our children.”Engel said in a statement, “With so many absentee ballots outstanding and many still coming in, we know that the full results in the primary won’t be known for some time.”Engel has represented New York’s 16th congressional district for 16 terms. Bowman is a more liberal candidate who drew the backing of prominent progressives, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who herself won an upset victory over a veteran congressman in 2018.Mail-in ballots will decide another New York district, with Democrat Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, in a race that is too close to call with lawyer and activist Suraj Patel. With all precincts reporting, but no mail-in ballots included yet, Maloney held a 41% to 40% lead.Ocasio-Cortez was among the New York incumbents in contested races who easily won their primaries Tuesday. Others include Congressmen Gregory Meeks and Joseph Morelle, and Congresswomen Grace Meng and Nydia Velazquez.House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler and Congresswoman Yvette Clark had large leads, but their races have not yet been called with mail-in ballots outstanding.Volunteers for and supporters of longtime U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., gather outside Clarke’s campaign headquarters, June 23, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, as they awaited the arrival of the congresswoman.Trump endorsed two New York Republicans, Claudia Tenney and Nicole Malliotakis, who each won their primaries Tuesday and will try to unseat incumbent Democrats in November.Republican Chris Jacobs defeated Democrat Nate McMurray as voters in New York’s 27th congressional district decided a special election to select a representative to fill out the remaining months of the term of former Congressman Chris Collins, who resigned in September shortly before pleading guilty to insider trading charges. Jacobs and McMurray will face off again in November in an election for a full term.North Carolina, Virginia
In North Carolina, newcomer Madison Cawthorn notched an upset win in the Republican primary over Lynda Bennett, the candidate who had earned Trump’s endorsement in the race. If Cawthorn wins the general election in November, he would become the youngest member of Congress at age 25.In Virginia, retired Army lieutenant colonel Daniel Gade won a three-way race in the Republican Senate primary. He will face incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner in November.Republican Scott Taylor won a three-person primary in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district and will go up against incumbent Congresswoman Elaine Luria. The two candidates faced each other in a 2018 congressional election, with Luria winning 51% to 49%.Incumbent Democrats Donald McEachin and Gerry Connolly easily won their contested primaries in Virginia on Tuesday.Kentucky
In Kentucky, with more than half of precincts reporting, former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath held a 45% to 36% lead over state lawmaker Charles Booker in the Democratic race to face Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the November election.The final result is not expected for days due to a high number of mail-in ballots. Election officials said they received requests for about 883,000 such ballots and that more than 452,000 were turned in by Monday afternoon.Whichever Democrat wins will face a tough contest against the 78-year-old McConnell, a fixture in Kentucky and the Washington power structure. McConnell has been a staunch supporter of Trump’s legislative proposals and his appointment of conservative judges. Trump is popular in Kentucky, which he won by about 30 percentage points in 2016.There were also House primaries in Kentucky where Republican incumbents Brett Guthrie, Thomas Massie, Harold Rogers and Andy Barr all easily won.
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Fear of Trump Led to Reversal on Stone Sentencing Memo, Prosecutor Says
The federal office that led the prosecution of President Donald Trump’s friend Roger Stone received “heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice” to ease its sentencing recommendation, career prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky plans to tell Congress, according to his prepared remarks.Zelinsky, who withdrew from the Roger Stone case in protest, will testify on Wednesday before the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives Judiciary Committee about political pressures that he said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia faced.He will add that Tim Shea, the acting U.S. attorney at the time who was appointed by Attorney General William Barr, ultimately caved into the pressure because he was “afraid of the President.”Zelinsky’s testimony never explicitly says who pressured Shea, but he said he was told that Shea “was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break.””I was explicitly told that the motivation for changing the sentencing memo was political, and because the U.S. Attorney was ‘afraid of the President,'” Zelinsky said.Republicans are expected to push back on his testimony, saying he is confusing politicization with policy disagreements.Zelinsky said career prosecutors never got to see the draft of the revised memo, which Shea filed after Trump blasted the office on Twitter for its original recommendation of a seven-to-nine-year term.The Republican president called the recommendation “horrible” and a “miscarriage of justice.” Stone’s friendshipwith Trump dates back decades.Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement that Zelinsky had not had any discussion about the sentencing with Barr or other members of the department’s political leadership and his allegations were based on his own interpretation and hearsay.Barr had not discussed Stone’s sentencing with Trump or anyone else at the White House, and had made the decision to revise the filing before Trump’s tweet, Kupec said.Stone, 67, who was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering and lying to Congress during its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, is due to report to prison later this month to begin serving his three years-and-four-month sentence. He is seeking an extension due to concerns about contracting COVID-19.
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Obama Raises $7.6M for Joe Biden’s Campaign
Former President Barack Obama helped raise a record-breaking $7.6 million from more than 175,000 individual donors ahead of his first fundraiser for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. “I’m here to say that help is on the way if we do the work,” Obama said during the virtual fundraiser. “Because there’s nobody that I trust more to be able to heal this country and get it back on track than my dear friend Joe Biden.” The small-dollar fundraiser Tuesday offered a fresh test of Obama’s ability to transfer his popularity to Biden, his former vice president who is now seeking the White House on his own. It was a kickoff of what Obama’s team says will likely be a busy schedule heading into the fall, as he looks to help elect not just Biden but Democrats running for House and Senate. Obama sometimes struggled to lift other Democratic candidates while he was in the White House, notably losing control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. But in the era of President Donald Trump, Democrats believe Obama’s appeal, especially among Black and younger voters, can help boost energy for Biden. “There’s two groups of voters that Biden needs to move,” said Dan Pfeiffer, former White House communications director. “You have the 4 million Obama 2012 voters that sat out in ’16, Obama obviously has cache with them. And you have to persuade some number of voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and either Trump or a third party candidate in 2016, and Obama obviously is very, very high-performing with those as well.” Obama endorsed Biden with a video message in April, but kept an otherwise low profile throughout the primary and largely avoided wading into national politics. In recent weeks, however, he’s reemerged publicly to speak out on policing and the civil unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Some Democrats say that, in the wake of Floyd’s killing, Obama’s voice as an advocate for Biden and a leader for the party is needed. “Biden doesn’t have the strongest record on criminal justice reform so having Obama there is helpful in reinforcing that issue,” said Ben Tulchin, who polled for progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. “Given what’s going on with criminal justice reform and Black Lives Matter, having the first African American president out there publicly backing Biden is extremely helpful.”In this June 17, 2020, photo, Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden speaks in Darby, Pa.But Obama’s reemergence is not without risks for Biden. For Trump’s campaign, it offers an opportunity to resurface some of their favorite political attacks — charges that the Obama administration’s policies undermined the American middle class and U.S. interests abroad. They believe the focus on Obama will help reinvigorate Trump’s base, and remind waffling Trump voters — those considering voting for Biden, or staying home — of their dissatisfaction with the prior administration. And they see a potential opportunity to drive a wedge between Biden and his base by resurfacing issues from the Obama administration — like the high rate of deportations — that riled progressives during the Democratic primary. Trump campaign deputy communications director Ali Pardo said that together, Obama and Biden “put ‘kids in cages’ and failed to stop China from ripping off Americans while overseeing the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression and stagnant wage growth for American workers.” Trump himself has pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about Obama, hoping to taint Biden by association. Still, Democrats say Obama is eager to take Trump on to defend his legacy in a debate over whose policies have better benefited Americans. “Trump’s election just devastated the country and Obama’s legacy,” Tulchin said. “Beating Trump is important for his legacy and important for the country.” Biden’s embrace of Obama during the Democratic primary created some headaches for the former vice president within his own party as well. Biden was criticized by some opponents as too focused on returning to the status quo of the Obama years at a time when the progressive base of the party was clamoring for significant structural change. But by the end of the primary contest, at least five candidates — including Sanders — aired ads featuring praise from the former president or photos of the candidate alongside him. And both Biden and Sanders have made overtures toward progressives, with Biden embracing some of Sanders’ policies and Obama praising him by name in his endorsement video for Biden. But Stephanie Cutter, who served as Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, said that if Obama’s reemergence into the campaign raises any further debates about the policies of his administration, he’ll be prepared to respond. “There’s nobody better to answer those questions than Obama,” she said.
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Amid Pandemic, Trump Lauds Border Wall
Before addressing a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump visited a section of border wall in the southwestern U.S. state. Trump tried to credit the new section of wall, which he and several other officials autographed, for stopping both illegal immigration and the coronavirus. Arizona, however, is among several hot spots in the country for the COVID-19 outbreak. Ahead of Trump’s visit, the Arizona Department of Health on Tuesday reported nearly 3,600 new coronavirus cases. Overall, the state has more than 54,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, and has recorded more than 1,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University research. “Our border has never been more secure,” Trump said. “This is the most powerful and comprehensive border wall structure anywhere in the world.” 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.”Using our emergency public health authorities, we prevented a coronavirus catastrophe on the southern border, shutting down human smuggling and swiftly returning the crossers,” Trump said. “Without these public health measures, the southern border would be a global epicenter of the viral transmission.” Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan joined Trump in Yuma on Tuesday to tour a new section of wall along the border with Mexico at San Luis in Yuma County. The U.S. government says 338 kilometers of construction has been done along the border since January 2017, but it appears that only 4.8 kilometers of it is in places where no barriers previously existed. “The new wall is in many places twice as tall as where it was before, and many miles were built where nothing but vehicle barriers existed before, which few people would describe as a fence,” David Bier, immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, told VOA. “Despite the improvements, the new fences are already being breached and climbed, and immigrants are still going around. In fact, in 2019, the government stated the number of people evading detection at the border actually increased.” Roundtable discussionIn Yuma, Trump hosted a roundtable discussion with elected officials and community leaders to discuss border security. Chad Wolf, acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, left, and Mark Morgan, Acting Commissioner of the United States Customs and Border Protection, listen as President Donald Trump speaks in Yuma, Ariz., June 23, 2020.The president was also asked about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program the U.S. Supreme Court prevented Trump from ending last week in a ruling. DACA protects nearly 700,000 people brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and allows them to work. “We’ll work it out with DACA,” Trump said. White House officials said the president plans to resubmit paperwork to end the program. “I think good things are happening with DACA. They resubmit, it will work it out. And the Democrats have been playing with DACA for years, and they haven’t done anything. I’ll get it done.” Trump was asked at the border what he would say to DACA recipients. “Keep your chin up,” he replied. Phoenix speechTrump later flew to Phoenix to deliver a campaign speech at a church to more than 3,000 people, most with the group “Students for Trump.” U.S. President Donald Trump delivers an “Address to Young Americans” at the Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, June 23, 2020.The Dream City Church posted a video saying it had installed new “ionization” technology that “kills 99.9 percent of COVID within 10 minutes,” and those attending the event with the president “will be safe and protected.” There is no scientific evidence that such an air-filtering device can prevent transmission between people in close quarters of respiratory particles containing the coronavirus. Both Yuma County and the city of Phoenix have mandated the wearing of masks in public. The event at Dream City Church “was not sanctioned or permitted by the city of Phoenix, as the city does not permit political events. Furthermore, it does not abide by current CDC guidelines during COVID-19,” said Young people applaud as they wait to hear U.S. President Donald Trump deliver an “Address to Young Americans” at the Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, June 23, 2020.Everyone attending the event, “particularly any elected official, should set an example to residents by wearing a mask. This includes the president,” said the mayor. Trump has faced criticism for hosting last Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the largest indoor event in the country in months amid the pandemic, especially in a state where the number of coronavirus cases has been surging. About 6,200 of the 19,199 seats in the Bank of Oklahoma Center were filled, according to the Tulsa Fire Department. The Trump reelection campaign claims attendance was about 12,000 people.
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Voters Head to Polls in 3 US States on Tuesday
Voters headed to the polls in three U.S. states Tuesday, deciding a too-close-to-call Senate Democratic primary contest in the southern state of Kentucky for a spot to face Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November, and a contentious Democratic primary challenge to longtime Congressman Eliot Engel in New York. In the Kentucky race, polls indicate a tight race between former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who narrowly lost a 2018 bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, and Charles Booker, a 35-year-old state lawmaker. To combat the fears about the spread of the coronavirus, the state’s biggest city, Louisville, with 600,000 residents, had only one polling place open — at the state fairgrounds. But dozens of voting stations were available at the site, and lines of voters seemed to be moving quickly at midday. Poll workers wearing face shields assist a voter as he checks in to cast his vote in the Kentucky primary at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky., June 23, 2020.In a bipartisan agreement between a Republican election official and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, all registered Kentucky voters had the option to vote by mail, and many did. More than 883,000 ballots were requested, and more than 452,000 were sent in by Monday afternoon. McGrath was the early favorite and raised $41 million in campaign funds, while earning the endorsement of Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But Booker, who raised less than $4 million, has closed the gap, receiving his own endorsements from key newspapers in the state, as well as national progressive figures, including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Booker, an African American, has struck a chord with voters angered at police treatment of Black Americans. While national attention has focused on the May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody, which has sparked continuing coast-to-coast protests, the focus in Kentucky has been on the March police shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American emergency medical technician. Taylor was killed by Louisville police executing a no-knock search warrant for drugs at her apartment. But police had the wrong address, and no drugs were found. On the campaign trail, Booker has worn a T-shirt saying, “No More No Knocks.” At one stop, he told voters, “I’m traveling Kentucky talking about structural racism, and I’m seeing folks, even 99% white, putting their fists in the air because they know that we can’t let this moment pass.” Tuesday’s winner faces a tough contest against 78-year-old McConnell, a fixture in Kentucky and the Washington power structure. McConnell has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s legislative proposals and his appointment of conservative judges. Moreover, the president is popular in Kentucky, which he won by about 30 percentage points in 2016. In New YorkIn Tuesday’s other key race, 73-year-old Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is also facing a late challenge from Jamaal Bowman, a 44-year-old middle school principal who has never run for office.Congressman Eliot Engel addresses media after casting votes in primary elections, in the Riverdale section of New York, June 23, 2020.Much like Booker, Bowman, an African American, is advancing more leftist policies, hoping to unseat Engel, who has been in Congress for 16 terms. Engel has the endorsements of key Washington figures, including Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump. But New York progressives have lined up behind Bowman, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who herself won an upset primary election victory against an entrenched New York congressman in 2018. Democratic congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman, right, bumps elbows with a voter outside a voting site in Ardsley, N.Y., June 23, 2020.In a normally solid Republican congressional district in western New York state, Democrat Nate McMurray and Republican Chris Jacobs are vying to finish the last of the two-year term vacated when Republican Chris Collins resigned after pleading guilty to federal insider stock trading charges. No matter who wins, McMurray and Jacobs are likely to face each other again in November for a full two-year House term. Other racesThere also are party primaries for six congressional seats in Kentucky and another 26 House primaries in New York besides the Engel-Bowman race. In the mid-Atlantic state of Virginia, there are seven party primaries for House seats, along with a Republican party primary for the Senate nomination to face two-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in the November election. The three Republicans vying to face Warner are civics teacher Alissa Baldwin, Army intelligence officer Thomas Speciale, and Daniel Gade, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who lost his right leg in a 2004 firefight in Iraq and is currently a professor at American University in Washington.
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Says He’ll Issue Executive Order to Protect Monuments
President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’ll issue an executive order to protect monuments that are coming under new scrutiny as America wrestles with racism during the unrest sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.Trump has been clear that he opposes the removal of monuments of leaders of the Confederacy or other distasteful aspects of American history.Commenting as he departed the White House for a trip to Arizona, Trump said, “I will have an executive order very shortly, and all it’s really going to do is reinforce what’s already there, but in a more uniform way.”Police Halt Attempt to Topple Andrew Jackson Statue Near White House Police carrying shields confronted protesters with batons, pepper spray and pepper bullets At a time of nationwide protests over racial injustice and inequality, Trump has aligned himself squarely on the side of those who argue that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of eliminating reminders of hated aspects of American history.Trump had tweeted late Monday that those who tried to topple a statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House faced 10 years in prison under the Veterans Memorial Preservation Act. “Beware,” he tweeted. Jackson is one of Trump’s favorite presidents.The federal statute Trump cites subjects anyone who willfully injures or destroys, or attempts to injure or destroy, any structure, plaque, statue or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States to fines, up to 10 years imprisonment or both.
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By Polityk | 06/24/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
1 City, 1 Voting Pace: Kentucky Braces for Lines in Primary
With only one polling place designated Tuesday for Louisville, a city of 600,000 people, voters who didn’t cast mail-in ballots or show up early could face long lines in Kentucky’s primary, the latest to unfold as the pandemic triggers unprecedented election disruptions across the country.
The outcome of a competitive Democratic U.S. Senate primary could hang in the balance if Election Day turnout is hampered in Louisville — the hometown of Charles Booker, who’s mounted a strong late challenge against presumed front-runner Amy McGrath.
“If Charles Booker barely loses, I think the integrity of that election is in question,” Republican state Rep. Jason Nemes said Monday.
The primary’s winner will go against Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who isn’t expected to see a serious GOP primary challenge, in November.
The state’s Republican secretary of state, Michael Adams, said he’s “cautiously optimistic” long lines won’t force people to wait hours before voting in Louisville, where the only in-person Election Day voting place is at the state fairgrounds.
Early voting opened statewide two weeks ago. That, along with strong demand for absentee ballots, could spare people from long waits, Adams said Monday.
Nemes sued to get more in-person voting locations in the state’s most populous counties. A federal judge denied the request days before the election.
The surge of absentee ballots could cause waits of another sort Tuesday, as some counties have said they won’t release vote totals before June 30.
Kentucky turned to widespread mail-in absentee voting in an agreement between the Democratic governor and Adams in response to the coronavirus outbreak. But many voters not requesting absentee ballots will head to the polls Tuesday.
Many states pushed their elections back to manage an onslaught of poll worker cancellations and consolidation of polling places. They also sought time to push more voters to cast absentee ballots.
New York also has a primary Tuesday and has consolidated some polling sites. Erie County — home to the state’s second-largest city, Buffalo — will see 40% fewer polling sites.
State board of elections spokesman John Conklin said he hopes the consolidation plan will have “minimal” impact on voter turnout and access.
State election workers were trying to get 1.8 million absentee ballots to New Yorkers. County boards of elections have scrambled to process 11 times as many ballot applications as they did for the 2016 primaries without extra state funding, Conklin said.
In Kentucky, despite waves of mail-in voting, some braced for long lines and frustration.
“There will be a number of people who want to vote tomorrow but will be discouraged from voting because it’s much too difficult,” Nemes said.
That’s of particular concern for Booker, who’s Black and counting on a high turnout in Louisville. He said his campaign would “keep a watchful eye” and stands ready to mount a legal challenge if needed.
“There should not have only been one location,” Booker said. “That will just naturally disenfranchise folks.”
McGrath tried to join the suit demanding more than one in-person voting location on Election Day in Louisville and other population centers, but a federal judge denied her campaign’s motion to intervene. McGrath also pushed to extend the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot.
For voters unable to get absentee ballots, “you are forced to now stand in line in the one polling location in the middle of a pandemic,” McGrath said. “If you’re 82 years old, are you going to do that?”
In Lexington, the state’s second-largest city with 323,000 people, the voting location is at the University of Kentucky’s football stadium.
Richard Beliles, Common Cause Kentucky board chairman, said offering “so few polling places for the primary is irresponsible and unacceptable, and sadly it was avoidable.”
Georgia delayed its primary twice to give election officials more time to prepare, sending absentee ballot applications to every active registered voter in the state. That wasn’t enough. When Georgia held its primary June 9, metro Atlanta voters waited up to 10 hours. As in Milwaukee and Philadelphia, many of the lines were concentrated in minority communities, sparking objections from voting rights advocates.
Even in Nevada, where absentee ballots were sent to every registered voter for the June 9 primary, large-scale consolidation caused problems. The last voter in Las Vegas to cast a ballot did so at 3 a.m., eight hours after polls were supposed to close.
In Kentucky, Adams said: “There are going to be lines — 30, 45 minutes, maybe an hour, maybe longer.” He added: “We don’t think anyone will be disenfranchised.”
At the fairgrounds in Louisville, after being directed into the large hall, voters will wait in line spaces about 6 feet (1.83 meters) apart by chalk markings on the floor, before heading to cast their votes. Hand sanitizing stations are available when exiting the voting area.
Jefferson County, which includes Louisville, sent out 218,404 absentee ballots to voters who requested them by the June 15 deadline, according to the county clerk’s office. As a comparison, about 125,000 people voted in the 2016 U.S. Senate primary in Jefferson County.
The county also allowed early in-person voting beginning June 15 at the state fairgrounds. Last week nearly 7,500 people walked in and voted early between Monday and Friday, county clerk spokesman Nore Ghibaudy said. Voters have also been allowed to vote early in-person at the county’s election center near downtown since June 8.
More than 883,000 absentee ballots were requested statewide, with slightly more than half filled out and sent in, Gov. Andy Beshear said. More than 88,000 Kentuckians voted in-person early, he said
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By Polityk | 06/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Kentucky, New York, Virginia Hold Primary Elections
Elections are set for three U.S. states Tuesday, including a Senate Democratic primary contest in the mid-south state of Kentucky for a spot to face Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November and a tough Democratic primary challenge longtime Congressman Eliot Engel is facing in New York.In the Kentucky race, polls indicate a tight race between former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who narrowly lost a 2018 bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, and Charles Booker, a 35-year-old state lawmaker.McGrath was the early favorite in the race and raised $41 million in campaign funds while earning the endorsements of key Democratic figures such as Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. But Booker, who raised less than $4 million, has closed the gap, getting his own endorsements from key newspapers in the state as well as national progressive figures including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill, in Washington, June 16, 2020.Tuesday’s winner faces a tough contest against the 78-year-old McConnell, a fixture in Kentucky and the Washington power structure. McConnell has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s legislative proposals and his appointment of conservative judges. Moreover, the president is popular in Kentucky, which he won by about 30 percentage points in 2016. New York In Tuesday’s other key race, the 73-year-old Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is also facing a late challenge from Jamaal Bowman, a 44-year-old middle school principal who had never run for office before. Much like Booker in Kentucky, Bowman is advancing more leftist policies than Engel, hoping to unseat the 16-term congressman. Engel has the endorsements of key Washington figures, including Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump. FILE – House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., walks through the Hall of Columns at the Capitol.But New York progressives have lined up behind Bowman, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who herself won an upset primary election victory against an entrenched New York congressman in 2018. In a normally solid Republican congressional district in western New York state, Democrat Nate McMurray and Republican Chris Jacobs are vying to finish the last half year of the two-year term vacated when Republican Chris Collins resigned as he pleaded guilty to federal insider stock trading charges. No matter who wins, McMurray and Jacobs are likely to face each other again in November for a full two-year House term. There also are party primaries for six congressional seats in Kentucky and another 26 House primaries in New York besides the Engel-Bowman race. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington.Virginia
In the mid-Atlantic state of Virginia, there are seven party primaries for House seats, along with a Republican party primary for the Senate nomination to face two-term incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner in the November election. The three Republicans vying to face Warner are civics teacher Alissa Baldwin, Army intelligence officer Thomas Speciale and Daniel Gade, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who lost his right leg in a 2004 firefight in Iraq and now is a professor at American University in Washington.President Donald Trump exits Air Force One as he arrives at Tulsa International Airport on his way to his first re-election campaign rally in several months in the midst of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 20, 2020Trump heads to Arizona
Trump is heading Tuesday to the southwestern state of Arizona where he is scheduled to inspect the under-construction border wall in Yuma, one of the nation’s hot spots for COVID-19. He is then scheduled to deliver a campaign speech to more than 3,000 people, most with the group “Students for Trump,” at a church in Phoenix.Arizona has seen its number of coronavirus cases double in the past two weeks. Both Yuma County and the city of Phoenix have mandated the wearing of face masks in public.Trump’s reelection campaign faced criticism for holding a rally Saturday in the state of Oklahoma, another where the number of coronavirus cases has been surging.The political rally attracted far fewer supporters than the campaign had anticipated, filling only 6,200 out of the 19,199 seats in the Bank of Oklahoma Center, according to the Tulsa Fire Department.The Trump campaign had claimed it had received more than a million requests for tickets.
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By Polityk | 06/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Federal Prosecutor Who Led Cohen Probe Now Atop NY Office
A federal prosecutor who held a key role in the case against President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney worked Monday to restore calm to the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, following the abrupt ouster of her predecessor.Audrey Strauss, the newly appointed acting U.S. attorney, sent an email to the staff Saturday night within hours of the announcement by U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman that he would leave his position and would be replaced by her. FILE – Audrey Strauss, a federal prosecutor who held a key role in the case against President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, is the newly appointed acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.The 72-year-old Strauss, a Democrat, will be only the second woman to lead one of the nation’s most premiere districts, home to famous mob trials, terrorism cases and now, probes involving the president’s allies. Her allies say she is a thoughtful, careful lawyer with decades of experience both as a prosecutor and defense attorney. The extraordinary departure of Berman, a Trump donor who won over critics with his investigations, started with Attorney General William Barr’s abrupt announcement Friday that Berman was stepping down as U.S. attorney after 2.5 years on the job. A defiant Berman announced he was staying in the post he’d been appointed to by judges, but then eventually said he’d leave, noting his confidence in Strauss.Several individuals who read Strauss’ email to staff said it was encouraging and reassuring and reflected her measured personality, insisting the work by prosecutors would remain free from outside influence. The office’s storied independence has stretched to the White House and the lawn outside it, where conversations at a congressional picnic touched off an insider trading prosecution of former Rep. Chris Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Trump. Strauss helped lead the charge against Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, showing that prosecutors believed the president encouraged the campaign finance fraud that resulted in payouts to silence two women about alleged affairs with Trump before he was president. Cohen eventually pleaded guilty. The latest probe to touch nerves in Washington resulted in the arrest of two associates of Rudolph Giuliani and an investigation of the former New York City mayor and his dealings on Trump’s behalf in the Ukraine.Trump has signaled plans to nominate the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the job, and Barr had announced another lawyer would take over in the interim, rankling Berman. In announcing he’d step down late Saturday, Berman noted he was influenced by Barr’s later decision to “respect the normal operation of law” and let Strauss take over instead.He then paid tribute to Strauss, whom he installed as his senior counsel from February 2018 to March 2019 and then as deputy U.S. attorney, the second highest position in the office. Berman and Strauss have known each other for decades, having worked together in the late 1980s on the independent counsel’s probe of the Iran-contra scandal.”I could leave the District in no better hands than Audrey’s. She is the smartest, most principled, and effective lawyer with whom I have ever had the privilege of working,” Berman wrote.Strauss is well regarded in legal circles for decades of work as a prosecutor and defense attorney. The Columbia Law School graduate spent about seven years in the prosecutor’s office in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, where she met Jed S. Rakoff, now a judge in Manhattan federal court.”In the now more than 45 years I have known Audrey, she has never once shaded the truth, made a hasty decision, or deviated from the facts,” Rakoff said Monday. “I don’t think this is because of any particular influence or pressure or handicap she has had to overcome. It lies very deep in her character and always has.”The only woman to lead the Manhattan prosecutor’s office before her was Mary Jo White, who was U.S. attorney from early 1993 until 2002. White said Strauss will be “a very strong leader” in part because she is highly respected within and outside the office.Former Manhattan federal prosecutor Danya Perry said Strauss “is viewed as a trailblazer and a pioneer.” She said Strauss joined the office when women were rarely hired. When Perry arrived in 2002, about a third of the newly hired prosecutors were women.It speaks volumes that Berman agreed to step down in part after receiving assurances that Strauss would take over in the interim, said Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor who directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at the Fordham University School of Law. “Everyone has known her for decades and she has a proven track record,” Green said. “While this was a black eye for the attorney general, it’s really a victory for the prosecutorial independence of the Southern District of New York.”
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By Polityk | 06/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Claims About Election Rigging Stump Some State Officials, Lawmakers
Claims by President Donald Trump that the use of mail-in ballots for November’s presidential election will result in “the most rigged election” in U.S. history is puzzling organizations representing state election officials, as well as key lawmakers. Trump made the claims in a series of tweets Monday, alleging the use of mail-in ballots in several states, some being printed in foreign countries, “WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!” RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., talks to reporters on Jan. 28, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington.“Not only has Senate intel seen no evidence of this, but the committee has recommended, on a bipartisan basis, the use of paper ballots because they are, in fact, less susceptible to interference by hostile foreign countries like Russia than traditional electronic voting systems,” Sen. Mark Warner, the committee’s vice chair, told VOA. A number of government agencies responsible for overseeing elements of U.S. election security — including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — referred questions about mail-in ballots and election rigging to the White House. VOA questions to the White House about the president’s claims have gone unanswered. But late Monday, Trump repeated the allegations in an interview with Scripps Television. VIDEO: I asked President Trump to cite specific evidence as to why mail-in ballots are fraudulent. I told him I covered politics for 5 years in Colorado (an all mail-in ballot state) and never heard @SenCoryGardner complain once. #copolitics@DenverChannel@KOAApic.twitter.com/AebXDaDf4f— Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) June 22, 2020″There are thousands of cases all over. Thousands. I don’t like the system,” Trump said when asked for examples. “With mail-in ballots, people can forge them. Foreign countries can print them,” he added. “We’re trying to stop it.” This is not the first time Trump has criticized the use of mail-in ballots. He first criticized voting by mail in a tweet in April, warning of voter fraud. The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history. People grab them from mailboxes, print thousands of forgeries and “force” people to sign. Also, forge names. Some absentee OK, when necessary. Trying to use Covid for this Scam!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2020And in a tweet on May 24, Trump called voting-by-mail a scam that would help rig the election. The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history. People grab them from mailboxes, print thousands of forgeries and “force” people to sign. Also, forge names. Some absentee OK, when necessary. Trying to use Covid for this Scam!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2020But his latest critique follows a new round of warnings from Attorney General William Barr, who told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that the use of mail-in ballots, “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.” “Right now, a foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots, and (it would) be very hard for us to detect which was the right and which was the wrong ballot,” Barr said. “It can upset and undercut the confidence in the integrity of our elections. If anything, we should tighten them up right now.” Most U.S. states already offer some form of mail-in voting, so-called “absentee” ballots, but due to concern about the coronavirus pandemic, a number of states have moved to expand the use of mail-in ballots for the November election. Officials with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is promising to help states using mail-in ballots in November with security, with one official calling a series of primaries held earlier this month that relied heavily on mail-in voting, “good practice.” “So, if states do elect to go the ‘go-by-mail’ route, we’re going to provide security services” per the senior @CISAgov official “I don’t have an option … I’ve got to be there to provide a security solution for them if they need it” 5/6— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 2, 2020Still, despite concerns raised by White House officials and the attorney general about foreign countries trying to manipulate mail-in ballots, most U.S. security and intelligence officials say the bigger concern is how countries such as Russia and China are using influence operations to sway voters. “Foreign actors continue to try to influence public sentiment and shape voter perceptions,” a statement from the departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security and Justice, with the FBI, the National Security Agency and other federal entities, warned ahead of primary elections this past March. “They spread false information and propaganda about political processes and candidates on social media in hopes to cause confusion and create doubt in our system.” Intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency remain on alert. “NSA continues to expand our insights about foreign adversaries in an attempt to determine their plans and intentions towards our elections,” the NSA said in a statement Monday. “This whole of government approach improves the security of our election infrastructure and disrupts foreign influence efforts against the American public.” White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 06/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Key US State Elections Set for Tuesday, Could Determine Fate of Veteran DC Lawmakers
Elections are set for three U.S. states on Tuesday, with the focus on a Senate Democratic primary contest in the mid-south state of Kentucky to take on Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November and a tough Democratic primary challenge 31-year congressman Eliot Engel is facing in New York. FILE – Democratic congressional candidate Amy McGrath speaks during a campaign event in Owingsville, Ky., Oct. 12, 2018.In Kentucky, former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath appeared to be on a glide path to a Senate election bid against McConnell, raising $41 million in campaign funds and winning endorsements from key national Democratic figures to try to unseat the six-term lawmaker who often thwarts their legislative agenda. But now the 45-year-old McGrath, who narrowly lost a 2018 bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, suddenly finds herself in a too-close-to-call Democratic party primary against Charles Booker, a 35-year-old state lawmaker who has captured the endorsement of key newspapers in the state and national progressive Democrats wary of the more centrist McGrath. FILE – Kentucky Democratic State Representative Charles Booker speaks on the floor of the House of Representatives, in the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, Feb. 19, 2020.Booker, an African American, has raised less than $4 million in campaign funds, but has struck a chord with voters angered at police treatment of blacks. While national attention has focused on the May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, spawning coast-to-coast protests over the last month, the focus in Kentucky has been on the March police shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American emergency medical technician. Taylor was killed by police in Kentucky’s biggest city, Louisville, executing a no-knock search warrant for drugs at her apartment. But police had the wrong address and no drugs were found. On the campaign trail, Booker has worn a T-shirt saying, “No More No Knocks.” At one stop, he told voters, “I’m traveling Kentucky talking about structural racism and I’m seeing folks, even 99% white, putting their fists in the air because they know that we can’t let this moment pass.” FILE – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill, May 19, 2020.Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer was an early supporter of McGrath, but more recently such progressive Democrats as Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have weighed in for Booker, leaving Tuesday’s outcome in doubt. Whoever wins, however, faces a tough contest against the 78-year-old McConnell, a fixture in Kentucky and the Washington power structure. McConnell has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s legislative proposals and his appointment of conservative judges. Moreover, the president is popular in Kentucky, which he won by about 30 percentage points in 2016. In New YorkFILE – U.S. Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 27, 2019.In Tuesday’s other key race, the 73-year-old Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is also facing a late challenge from another African American candidate, Jamaal Bowman, a 44-year-old middle school principal who had never run for office before. Much like Booker in Kentucky, Bowman is advancing more leftist policies than Engel, hoping to unseat the 16-term congressman. Engel has the endorsements of key Washington figures, including Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump. But New York progressives have lined up behind Bowman, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who herself won an upset primary election victory against an entrenched New York congressman in 2018. Further north in New York state, in a normally solid Republican congressional district, Democrat Nate McMurray and Republican Chris Jacobs are vying to finish the last half year of the two-year term vacated when Republican Chris Collins resigned as he pleaded guilty to federal insider stock trading charges. No matter who wins, McMurray and Jacobs are likely to face each other again in November for a full two-year House term. There also are party primaries for six congressional seats in Kentucky and another 26 House primaries in New York besides the Engel-Bowman race. In VirginiaIn the mid-Atlantic state of Virginia, there are seven party primaries for House seats, along with a Republican party primary for the Senate nomination to face two-term incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner in the November election. The three Republicans vying to face Warner are civics teacher Alissa Baldwin, Army intelligence officer Thomas Speciale and Daniel Gade, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who lost his right leg in a 2004 firefight in Iraq and now is a professor at American University in Washington.
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By Polityk | 06/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Black Candidates Tap Protest Energy to Challenge Democrats
Amy McGrath and Eliot Engel live hundreds of miles apart in states with dramatically different politics.
Yet they’re the preferred candidates of the Democratic Party’s Washington establishment as voters in Kentucky and New York decide their congressional primary elections on Tuesday. And both may be in trouble.
On the eve of their elections, Engel, a 16-term House incumbent who represents parts of the Bronx and New York City’s wealthy suburbs, and McGrath, a former military officer and fundraising juggernaut running in her first Kentucky Senate campaign, are facing strong challenges from lower-profile Black candidates. The challengers have tapped into the wounded progressive movement’s desire for transformational change suddenly animated by sweeping civil rights protests across America.
Engel’s challenger, 45-year-old former public school principal Jamaal Bowman, and McGrath’s opponent, 35-year-old state Rep. Charles Booker, speak openly about their personal experience with police brutality and racism as they promote progressive plans to transform the nation’s health care system and economy. And both accuse their white opponents of being absent from the front lines of the civil rights debate.
Bowman and Booker have also won the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, among a growing list of progressive leaders trying to influence the races from afar. The Vermont senator failed to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, but he continues to shape congressional primaries — even if it puts him at odds with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who’s backing Engel, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who helped recruit McGrath.
“There is no question the momentum is with us,” Sanders said in an interview.
But the story of Bowman and Booker’s rise extends well beyond the yearslong tug-of-war between the progressive and pragmatic wings of the Democratic Party. They didn’t gain traction until after George Floyd’s death last month triggered nationwide outrage about racial inequality.
Hours before polls open, however, it’s far from certain their bids will be successful.
In New York, the progressive pushback against Engel’s reelection was somewhat surprising given his status as one of the Democratic Party’s most liberal members. He has also drawn overwhelming support from African Americans in Congress and establishment leaders such as Hillary Clinton.
In an interview, he noted he was a founding member of the House Medicare for All Caucus, an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal and the endorsed candidate of the congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses.
“I’ve always believed that Black lives matter. I didn’t have to see a tragedy to know that,” said Engel, 73. “All I can do for people is say, ‘Here’s my record.’ I can’t control outside events.”
Engel admits regret over an unforced error of sorts earlier in the month when he was caught on a hot microphone telling a New York colleague at a news conference about the civil unrest: “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t be here.”
He says the comments were taken out of context, but he also understands why some people would be upset.
“Do I wish the whole event hadn’t happened? Sure. But it doesn’t change my record,” Engel said.
Bowman seized on the comment and the perception that Engel has lost touch with the entirety of his diverse district, which features Westchester County’s multimillion-dollar homes and the Bronx’s housing projects. In both communities, Bowman said, there’s a growing sense of unity around racial justice.
“We’re seeing protests and uprisings in communities that are white and wealthy and stereotypically don’t care about racial justice,” he said in an interview. “That’s inspiring and it’s helpful to us because everyone knows we were talking about police brutality. I was sharing my personal story, and we were going after institutional racism from the very beginning of our campaign.”
The winner of the New York House primary Tuesday is expected to win the general election easily given the district’s strong Democratic tilt. Kentucky’s Senate primary will determine which Democrat runs against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who’s unpopular but a proven political force in a deep-red state.
Washington Democrats helped recruit McGrath, thinking her military history and centrist approach would play well, even in a state that backed Trump by 30 percentage points four years ago. The former Marine fighter pilot reported an eye-popping $19 million in the bank at the beginning of the month. Booker reported just $285,000 then, although his campaign told The Associated Press he raised at least $2.4 million more this month.
Booker’s recent fundraising surge coincides with the protests, although it’s unclear whether the focus on racial inequality will resonate to the same degree in a state where just 8% of residents are Black and 3 out of 4 don’t have a bachelor’s degree, according to the Census Bureau.
“It is real,” Booker said of racism in his state. “I’ve had ancestors lynched in Kentucky.”
Just this month, he says he was tear-gassed by police in the Louisville district he represents while attending a peaceful rally.
“I’m there to make sure people are safe, make sure nothing goes wrong and that people’s voices are heard. And we look up and three canisters are thrown within 10 feet of me,” Booker told the AP. “Everyone starts running. And I just stood there in disbelief — that even though I have done all this work across Kentucky, even though I’m an elected official, they still saw me as a young Black man, and they still felt like it was justified to throw tear gas at me. It hurt.”
McGrath’s critics say she’s been a less visible presence at protests, though she has attended some. She’s also drawn criticism from her party’s far left wing for resisting policy proposals such as “Medicare for All.” And she’s not willing to call Trump a racist, even if she thinks his words and actions have been.
Still, McGrath has not shied away from questions about race. In an interview, she called on white people to do more to fight systemic racism.
“We need to stand up for what’s right and talk to other white people and call it out when we see it,” she said. “Whatever the solution is, we want to be part of it.”
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By Polityk | 06/22/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Police Reform Bills Face Votes This Week in House, Senate
The Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives and Republican-led Senate are set to take key votes this week on reforms to the nation’s police system, with the two chambers agreeing on several major proposals but still not entirely in agreement on what should change. The push for legislation came after the death in police custody of African American George Floyd, the impetus for nationwide and worldwide protests of racism and the use of force by law enforcement officers. A key divide between the Democratic and Republican proposals is on the issue of qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that makes it more difficult for people to file lawsuits against police officers when they feel their civil rights have been violated. Democrats want to end qualified immunity, but Republican leaders have opposed doing so and the White House has labeled the issue a “non-starter” for President Donald Trump.President Donald Trump holds up an executive order on police reform after signing it in the Rose Garden of the White House, in Washington, June 16, 2020.“The Democrat House wants to pass a Bill this week that will destroy our police,” Trump tweeted late Sunday. “Republican Congressmen & Congresswomen will hopefully fight hard to defeat it. We must protect and cherish our police, they keep us safe!” Congresswoman Karen Bass responded with her own tweet saying: “Our bill sets national standards for policing, provides additional training, and creates a registry so that fired officers aren’t rehired. Many departments are in favor of the bill but you clearly don’t understand it – try reading it this evening or have somebody read it to you.” The House Judiciary Committee approved the measure last week, setting up the vote in the full House this week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he plans to bring the Senate bill up for a procedural vote this week as well. Both measures support increasing the use of police body cameras, making lynching a federal crime, boosting training for officers, and increasing the amount of data that departments collect. Senator Tim Scott, who is leading the Republican effort in the Senate, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” show that the two sides agree on 70% of what is needed. He highlighted one provision in the Republican measure, increasing penalties for police officers who file false reports, which is not part of the Democratic proposals. “The false police report has an enhanced penalty on top of the SBI, serious bodily injury, or death that leads to prosecution,” Scott said. “So, it’s really important for us to bring more emphasis on character-driven law enforcement. If we miss that, we miss the entire boat.”
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By Polityk | 06/22/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
