Розділ: Політика
Biden’s VP Search Puts Spotlight on How Long He’ll Serve
Joe Biden has longed to win the White House for more than three decades. If he finally makes it there after November’s election, he’s already talking about leaving.In an effort to ease concerns about his age, the 77-year-old presumptive Democratic nominee has said he wouldn’t seek reelection if his mental or physical health declined. He has also referred to himself as a “transition candidate,” acting as a bridge to a younger generation of leadership.Biden is rarely known for sticking to a script, and the comments are evidence of his candid style. But they’re also contributing to intense speculation about who is best positioned to lead the party after him.”We do have a longer bench as Democrats, a younger bench in terms of elected leadership all across the country,” said Democratic strategist L. Joy Williams, chairwoman of Higher Heights PAC, which is dedicated to electing more women to national and statewide offices.Biden has not ruled out running for a second term, in part because such an explicit pledge would immediately render him a lame duck in Washington, where political capital will be needed to manage the coronavirus recovery.But the question of his long-term prospects looms over his candidacy, especially as he considers his options for vice president.Biden Pressed to Choose a Black Woman as Running Mate Black voters and leaders say Biden needs to pick a black woman; they argue that his uccess — and that of the Democratic Party as a whole — depends on black people turning out to vote in NovemberWhile someone like Elizabeth Warren could broaden Biden’s appeal among progressives, the 70-year-old Massachusetts senator wouldn’t be the face of a new generation many in the party are seeking. That might be an advantage for younger contenders, such as California Sen. Kamala Harris, 55, or Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 59.It’s an awkward dynamic for Biden, whose lead in the Democratic primary coincided with the onset of a pandemic, making it harder to establish himself as the party’s unquestioned leader. He can ill afford chatter about who might succeed him when he still faces a competitive race against President Donald Trump in the fall.There are few historic precedents for a president opting against reelection. None has passed up a chance at a second term after just four years in the White House since shortly after Reconstruction. President Lyndon B. Johnson declined to seek a second, full term in 1968, but was already in office five years by then because of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.There’s also no guarantee that Biden’s running mate will be the immediate president-in-waiting he envisions. Biden has pledged to pick a woman, but virtually no one under active consideration is likely to satisfy all Democrats. That raises the prospect of a primary battle in 2024 if he steps aside.Republican pollster Chris Wilson said Biden might elevate several younger Democrats to Cabinet positions to deliberately set up “almost a hand-picked primary pool rather than a single candidate he tries to hand things off to.”That, Wilson said, “would still be the kind of legacy-building move he seems to be interested in.”Biden might also change his mind and decide to run for reelection if he unseats Trump. That still might not insulate him from a progressive primary challenge, though.”Even if Biden wins and says he’s going to run in 2024, he’s absolutely going to be challenged from within the party,” said Eric Hauser, who was press secretary for Bill Bradley’s primary run in 2000 against Al Gore, who had been Bill Clinton’s vice president for eight years and was seen by many as his natural successor. “The left has felt like it got hoodwinked twice, in ’16 and now. They feel overlooked.”Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said Biden’s choice of running mate will have to fill twin roles. That person would need to continue to move the country away from the Trump era “if something were to happen while he’s still in office” or later “if Biden decides to retire and pass the baton.””I think the stakes are already really high, no matter how you look at it,” Hinojosa said.Republicans could also face similar tumult. If Trump secures a second term, Vice President Mike Pence would seem to be a natural successor. But there are plenty of other Republicans with presidential ambitions who could be more attractive if Trump becomes unpopular at the end of a second term, which often happens to presidents after eight years in office.George H.W. Bush is the only sitting vice president in modern history to be elected president. The only other examples are Martin Van Buren in 1836, and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams before that.”Mike Pence would be inheriting eight years of a tsunami,” Hauser said of Trump’s legacy.For all the speculation, if Biden is elected, he could decide to seek another term in 2024 in part because the lure of the White House is one of the greatest forces in politics — especially for someone ambitious enough to be on his third presidential bid since 1988.”Once you’re president, it’s very tempting to keep power,” said Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University who has written about single-term presidents. “It could very well be a genuine idea right now. But we just don’t see people relinquish power very easily.”
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By Polityk | 05/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US House Allows Proxy Vote for First Time Amid Pandemic
The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved an unprecedented change to its rules, allowing lawmakers to vote by proxy for the first time in history because of the coronavirus pandemic.The 217-189 vote fell mostly along party lines, with the chamber’s majority Democrats backing the measure.The new rule allowed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call for a proxy vote on a Democrat-backed $3 trillion emergency aid package, which followed an already-enacted $3 trillion aid package to stem the economic effects of the coronavirus.The proposed new legislation is opposed by Republicans and is expected to be blocked by the Republican-controlled Senate.Friday’s rule change in the House followed fierce debate between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats argued that it is not safe for House members to return to Washington during the pandemic and said members can use technology to work remotely. Republicans said the Democrats were trying to grab power during a crisis and said the new rules would change the chamber for the worse.“We should all get to Washington, do our jobs,” said Congressman Bradley Byrne, a Republican from the state of Alabama.Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, who is the chairman of the House Rules Committee, said, “This House must continue legislating. And we have to do so in a way that is safe for all those around us.”Under the new rules, lawmakers do not have to travel to Washington and can stay in their home districts. They are allowed to assign their vote to another lawmaker, who will vote for their choice by proxy. The rules allow for House members to cast their votes in the future by direct remote viewing, once the technology is approved.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, had previously proposed a hybrid plan that would allow House committees to work remotely but would still require members to vote in person on the House floor. McCarthy argued that if other Americans had to report to work, Congress members should as well.Democrats said the rule changes are only temporary and should only be used in times of crisis.
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By Polityk | 05/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Fires State Department Inspector General
U.S. President Donald Trump fired the State Department’s inspector general late Friday.The late-night firing of Steve Linick is the president’s latest dismissal of a government watchdog. Trump has now dismissed three since his February acquittal on impeachment charges by the U.S. Senate and has criticized others.The president said in a Friday night letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he “no longer” had the “fullest confidence” in Linick.“The President’s late-night, weekend firing of the State Department Inspector General has accelerated his dangerous pattern of retaliation against the patriotic public servants charged with conducting oversight on behalf of the American people,” Pelosi said in a statement Friday. “Inspector General Linick was punished for honorably performing his duty to protect the Constitution and our national security, as required by the law and by his oath.”Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat who’s chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement that his office had learned the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General had opened an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “Mr. Linick’s firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation,” Engel said in a statement.Linick was appointed to the inspector general post by President Barack Obama.Linick’s participation in the impeachment process was limited to briefing several congressional committees and providing the lawmakers with documents from Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer.
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By Polityk | 05/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Fate of DACA Still Uncertain
The fate of about 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children is in the hands of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices. The court is expected to decide in the coming weeks if the Trump administration has the right to end a program that allows these immigrants to work in the U.S. free from the threat of deportation. Amid the 2020 presidential campaign, the Supreme Court is hearing a lawsuit that began after the September 2017 decision by President Donald Trump to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Three injunctionsImmigrant groups filed several lawsuits against the administration’s decision and argued that ending DACA was unlawful, resulting in U.S. district courts in the District of Columbia, California and New York issuing three nationwide injunctions, allowing DACA recipients to renew their deferred action. Shelly Peskin, a legal assistant at CASA de Maryland and member of Avodah Jewish Service Corps, told VOA that while the Supreme Court’s decision has not been issued, they are pleading with clients to renew their DACA benefits. “I am taking clients whose expiration dates are through early 2021. … We are doing appointments over the phone because CASA has gone remote for the foreseeable future,” she said. Mercedes Kent, of New York City, left, marches in support of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs for immigrants, Jan. 17, 2018, in Miami.USCIS offices reopen on June 4The injunctions by the three district courts obligates U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency responsible for administering the nation’s legal immigration system, to continue accepting and adjudicating DACA renewal applications. “The typical protocol for when USCIS is open and functioning normally is between four and eight months. … But before all this [pandemic] happened, we were seeing really fast [turnover] times from USCIS. … I was sending out DACA [applications] one day and they were coming back about a month later with the approvals,” Peskin said. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS offices will remain closed until June 4, but the staff has continued to perform duties that do not involve face-to-face contact with the public. Though the fate of DACA remains uncertain, eligible DACA recipients are encouraged to submit renewal applications. If the justices agree with the government, the Trump administration could end the program. There is also a lawsuit in Texas claiming that DACA is illegal, and it could likely go forward in the U.S. court system. Texas and six other Republican-governed states sued the U.S. government hoping to end the program initiated by former President Barack Obama. Texas, joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, argued in the lawsuit that the Obama administration exceeded its authority by creating the program without congressional action.
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By Polityk | 05/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
House to Vote Friday on More Virus Aid, Despite GOP Skeptics
The Democratic-controlled House is pressing ahead Friday with votes on another massive rescue bill that would pump almost $1 trillion to state and local governments, renew $1,200 cash payments for individuals, and extend a $600 weekly supplemental federal unemployment benefit.
The first four coronavirus response bills were bipartisan measures that passed by sweeping votes, but Friday’s measure — with a $3 trillion-plus price tag that exceeds the prior bills combined — promises to pass largely along party lines.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has loaded the 1,815-page measure with a slew of Democratic priorities, including funding to cover rent payments and utility bills, “hazard pay” for essential workers, and grants to thousands of municipal governments grappling with sagging revenues.
But it’s earned a White House veto threat and a scathing assessment from top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who called it “a totally unserious effort.” Few Republicans are expected to vote for the bill tomorrow despite popular provisions like help for the Postal Service and local schools, $1,200 payments to most Americans, and $175 billion to help homeowners and renters stay in their homes.
The legislation comes as the country continues to struggle with the health and economic crisis caused by the highly contagious virus, which has claimed more than 85,000 lives in the U.S. and caused at least 36 million people to lose their jobs. Just Thursday, the government reported that almost 3 million people filed jobless claims last week.
The response has been an unprecedented wave of deficit-financed federal aid aimed at propping up businesses, supporting household balance sheets, and pay for a massive health system response. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell urged lawmakers to act further, warning that the economic shock is “significantly worse” than any downturn since the Great Depression.
The government’s budget was supposed to be $4.6 trillion even before the pandemic hit. The response so far has added almost $3 trillion to that, but hasn’t arrested the economy’s drop. That’s made GOP defense hawks uneasy about the prospect of more aid. And polls show Republican voters think the government is generally doing enough.
Republicans are now calling for a “pause” before considering more aid, reflecting disunity between conservatives who feel enough has been done and more pragmatic lawmakers who favor steps like rescuing the Postal Service from looming insolvency, while delivering cash to revenue-starved state and local governments.
Underscoring the stakes, it’s also becoming clear that the next coronavirus response bill will probably be the last.
“I think the bill we pass in June will likely be the last major bill,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “There may be some effort to pass a bill in September or October but it will get increasingly difficult.”
The House Democrat’s bill ignores Trump’s demand for a cut in the Social Security payroll tax, It also does not replenish the Payroll Protection Program that’s been a favorite of Republicans and their business allies.
The measure is likely to pass Friday along party lines, though Rep. Kendra Horn, D-Okla., announced her opposition on Thursday, while New York Republican Peter King says he will support it.
The earlier bills, debated as the magnitude of the crisis was becoming clear, featured sweeping votes and debates notable for their bipartisanship and sense of common purpose. Now, disagreements about re-opening the economy, which appear to cleave along party lines, have crept into the debate.
At a Capitol news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., lambasted Republicans who’ve said they want to hold off for now on more relief spending. “It’s amazing to me how much patience and how much tolerance someone can have for the pain of others,” she said.
Pelosi told reporters she believed both parties “and even down Pennsylvania Avenue” — a reference to the White House — understand “the hardships Americans are feeling.” She called the Democratic proposal “our offer” and said while she’s had no recent negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the administration’s chief bargainer, “I’m sure that they’ll come with something.”
White House officials quickly released a statement of their own. It said the legislation Pelosi unveiled Tuesday is “more concerned with delivering on longstanding partisan and ideological wishlists than with enhancing the ability of our Nation to deal with the public health and economic challenges we face.”
McConnell said later Thursday on Fox News that there was a “high likelihood” Congress would do another bill and said it would include GOP-sought language limiting legal liability for companies reopening for business. But he added, “it’s not going to be a $3 trillion left-wing wish.”
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By Polityk | 05/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
What is Obamagate?
U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-standing accusation of criminality against his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, has taken on a new name: Obamagate.In this new iteration being hotly promoted by Trump and his right-wing allies, Obama officials in the waning days of his administration conspired to entrap Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, as part of a larger plot to bring down the incoming president.The conspiracy theory took on new life after the Justice Department, in a dramatic about-face last week, moved to drop its criminal case against Flynn, saying the FBI was not justified in investigating him over his 2016 conversations with Russia’s former ambassador to Washington.FILE – Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn leaves the federal courthouse in Washington, following a status hearing, July 10, 2018.As part of its reassessment of the Flynn case, the Justice Department released a deluge of records that shed light on previously unknown Obama administration deliberations over Flynn. That led Trump to claim that Flynn had been illegally targeted and that the decision to investigate him went all the way up to the previous president.”The biggest political crime in American history, by far!” Trump said in one of a blizzard of tweets and retweets referencing Obamagate on Sunday.In short order, the hashtag “Obamagate” went viral, giving an old conspiracy theory a new twist.Asked on Monday to describe Obama’s alleged crime, Trump would only offer that “some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country.” He predicted further disclosures in the coming weeks.Obama is a favorite and frequent target of Trump’s attacks. Trump turned up the heat on his predecessor after Obama, in leaked comments to former officials in his administration, blasted the Justice Department’s decision to let Flynn off the hook, saying the “rule of law is at risk.”By advancing new allegations against the former president, Trump is also apparently seeking to implicate his likely opponent this fall, Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden.Here is a primer on the controversy.Obamagate originsAt its core, Obamagate is an old allegation given a new name.As early as March 2017, Trump alleged that Obama had illegally wiretapped the billionaire businessman at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential election campaign, comparing the alleged surveillance to the Nixon-era Watergate scandal. The following year, Trump claimed that the FBI had planted an informant inside his campaign, dubbing the alleged conspiracy “Spygate.”FILE – Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, speaks with reporters in Washington, Jan. 13, 2017.The main allegation in Obamagate is that the former president directed the Flynn investigation, even though the FBI had no legitimate reason to probe the retired three-star general. Flynn, a one-time Democrat, served as the Obama administration’s top military intelligence official before being forced out of the job and later aligning with Trump.Flynn was investigated twice in 2016 and 2017, first as part of the FBI’s probe into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, and later over a series of conversations he had with Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, in which he counseled the Russians to refrain from retaliation against Obama administration sanctions — hinting that Trump would soften them once in office.WATCH: On Path to Reelection, Trump Takes Aim at ObamaSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, June 28, 2016.As Yates recounted during a 2017 interview with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, Obama began by saying “he had learned of the information about Flynn” and his conversations with Kislyak regarding the sanctions on Russia.This was news to Yates, who as the Justice Department’s No. 2 official oversaw the FBI but had not been told about it.As Comey later told the House Intelligence Committee, he alerted CIA Director John Brennan as soon as he learned about the Flynn calls. Brennan in turn briefed Obama.Yates and Rice later recounted what Obama said at the meeting. According to Yates, while Obama said he did not want details of the investigation, he asked “whether the White House should be treating Flynn differently” during the remaining days of the administration.FILE – FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 27, 2016.Yates did not recall Comey’s response to the question. In an email to herself on Obama’s last day in office, Rice memorialized that Obama reiterated at the meeting that “our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.”Yates and other former officials have defended the Flynn investigation. Yet, the fact that the White House meeting came the day after the FBI was preparing to close the Flynn investigation, and Obama was aware of Flynn’s wiretapped calls to Kislyak, has led Trump, right-wing commentators and Flynn’s lawyers to claim that the subsequent Flynn investigation over his calls to Kislyak constituted an anti-Trump conspiracy that reached the highest levels of the Obama administration.”So, the whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, (former national intelligence director James) Clapper, Brennan and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama,” Sydney Powell, Flynn’s attorney, told Fox News on Sunday.Recently declassified FBI records of the Flynn case that were turned over to Flynn’s lawyers provided further fodder for conspiracy theory promoters.In one widely cited handwritten note, a top FBI official mused whether the goal of interviewing Flynn over his calls to the Russian ambassador was to “get him fired” or get him to lie.Unmasking of FlynnThe Obamagate conspiracy theory feeds off another allegation: the politically motivated unmasking of Flynn’s identity during the Trump transition period.U.S. intelligence analysts routinely “mask” the identity of U.S. persons whose communications are incidentally collected during intelligence-gathering on foreign officials. Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak were apparently overheard during a routine interception of Kislyak’s calls.Authorized national security officials seeking to understand the underlying intelligence can ask the National Security Agency to “unmask” an individual’s identity.This is a common practice. But Trump and his allies have long accused former Obama administration officials of illegally unmasking Flynn’s identity for political purposes.This week, Richard Grennell, a close Trump ally who serves as acting director of national intelligence, disclosed the names of more than a dozen Obama officials who requested the unmasking of Flynn’s identity during the final weeks of the administration.The list includes a string of Obama administration officials Trump has long viewed as his enemies — Brennan, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, and Comey.Prospects for an investigationSince starting Obamagate, Trump has been pressing congressional Republicans to investigate Obama. That prospect is highly unlikely.”If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama,” Trump tweeted on Thursday. “He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!” Trump tweeted on Thursday.FILE – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill, Feb. 25, 2020.But Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Trump confidant, says he is not interested in dragging Obama before Congress.”I don’t think now’s the time for me to do that,” Graham told Politico. “I don’t know if that’s even possible.”But Graham vowed to call in Trump administration officials as his committee investigates the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.For their part, Biden and other Democrats dismiss Obamagate as a blatant attempt by Trump to divert attention from growing criticism of his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
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By Polityk | 05/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
On Path to Re-election, Trump Takes Aim at Obama
U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies continue to push “Obamagate,” a conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was responsible for masterminding the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. As White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, the Obamagate conspiracy theory is being touted just months from the November presidential election.
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By Polityk | 05/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
On Path to Reelection, Trump Takes Aim at Obama
U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies continue to push “Obamagate,” a conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was responsible for masterminding the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. As White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, the Obamagate conspiracy theory is being touted just months from the November presidential election.
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By Polityk | 05/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Senator Burr Quits as Committee Chair Amid Stock Sale Probe
North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr has stepped down as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee while the FBI investigates allegations that he sold stocks using inside information about the coronavirus update. “The work the Intelligence Committee and its members do is too important to risk hindering in any way. I believe this step is necessary to allow the Committee to continue its essential work free of external distractions,” Burr said in a brief statement. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he agreed with Burr that stepping down is in the committee’s best interest. President Donald Trump told reporters he knows nothing about the case against Burr and said it is “too bad” the senator is stepping aside. Burr’s resignation from the committee takes effect on Friday. He decided to give up his important chairmanship after FBI agents seized his cellphone Wednesday from his Washington home. Burr is suspected of using inside information that the coronavirus pandemic was about to send stock prices plummeting. The day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high of 29,551 on Feb. 13, Burr sold off several of his holdings worth as much as $1.7 million. The Washington Post reported Burr had access to classified intelligence reports that warned of calamitous consequences from the pandemic. The investigative journalism website ProPublica reported last week that Burr’s brother-in-law Gerald Fauth — a member of the National Mediation Board — also sold his shares valued between $97,000 and $280,000. Burr denies using information he received as a senator to sell his stocks. His attorney, Alice Fisher, says her client “participated in the stock market based on public information, and he did not coordinate his decision to trade on Feb. 13 with Mr. Fauth.” Federal law prohibits anyone using inside information unavailable to the public and ordinary stockholders to profit in the stock market.A separate act signed by former President Barack Obama in 2012 specifically applies the ban on insider trading to politicians and public officials.Burr was one of three senators to vote against the act.
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By Polityk | 05/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Senate Votes to Renew Federal Surveillance Powers
The Senate has passed legislation that would extend a series of expired federal surveillance tools designed to help law enforcement officials track suspected terrorists, moving one step closer to reviving them. The legislation passed the Senate 80-16 Thursday. The bill is a bipartisan compromise that has the support of Attorney General William Barr, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Yet it’s unclear how quickly the legislation can become law. The House passed the bill in March but will have to pass it again because of a change in the Senate. The House has been holding votes on a limited basis during the coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump has said he will support the compromise, but GOP senators who are longtime skeptics of federal surveillance have tried to change his mind. They want him to veto it. The bill would renew the expired surveillance authorities and impose new restrictions to try to appease civil liberties advocates in both parties. The provisions at issue allow the FBI to get a court order for business records in national security investigations, to conduct surveillance without establishing that the subject is acting on behalf of an international terrorism organization, and to more easily continue eavesdropping on a subject who has switched cellphone providers to thwart detection. FILE – In this April 21, 2020, file photo Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks with reporters after the Senate approved a nearly $500 billion coronavirus aid bill on Capitol Hill in Washington.”The attorney general and members of Congress have worked together to craft a compromise solution that will implement needed reforms while preserving the core national security tools,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “These intense discussions have produced a strong bill that balances the need for accountability with our solemn obligation to protect our citizens and defend our homeland.” McConnell urged senators to vote against amendments altering the bill. He said the legislation was already a “delicate balance” and warned changing it could mean the underlying provisions won’t be renewed. “We cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good when key authorities are currently sitting expired and unusable,” McConnell said on the Senate floor before the vote. But senators adopted one amendment anyway, with more than three-fourths of the chamber supporting it. Another amendment came just one vote short of the 60 votes needed. The successful amendment, from Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, would boost third-party oversight to protect individuals in some surveillance cases. It was adopted 77-19. The proposal that fell just short of 60 votes would have prevented federal law enforcement from obtaining internet browsing information or search history without seeking a warrant. Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. questions CIA Director John Brennan on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 9, 2016.”Should law-abiding Americans have to worry about their government looking over their shoulders from the moment they wake up in the morning and turn on their computers to when they go to bed at night?” said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. “I believe the answer is no. But that’s exactly what the government has the power to do without our amendment.” Wyden co-sponsored the proposal with Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana. Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a think tank, said the near-adoption of the amendment “suggests a sea change in attitudes” about surveillance. A third amendment, by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a longtime skeptic of surveillance programs, was soundly defeated 11-85. It would have required the government to go to a traditional federal court, instead of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to get a warrant to eavesdrop on an American. The congressional debate coincides with internal efforts by the FBI and Justice Department to overhaul their surveillance procedures after a harshly critical inspector general report documented a series of problems in the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. The report identified significant errors and omissions in applications that were submitted in 2016 and 2017 to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Though the problems revealed by the Russia investigation relate more to the accuracy of surveillance applications than to the effectiveness of the expired tools at issue Thursday, they nonetheless drew additional scrutiny to the government’s spy powers as well as concerns from some in Congress that those authorities should be reined in. The FBI has announced steps designed to ensure that the application process is more accurate and thorough, and that information that cuts against the premise of the requested surveillance is disclosed to the court.
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By Polityk | 05/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Whistleblower Testifies on ‘Scientific Integrity’ in US Coronavirus Response
The United States lacks a comprehensive plan to respond to the coronavirus, a U.S. health official warned lawmakers Thursday.Dr. Rick Bright, an immunologist for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), issued the warning in testimony before a congressional committee. He alleged in a whistleblower complaint that he was removed from his position for prioritizing science in the government’s coronavirus response.Bright told a House panel that time was running out for the United States to mount a response to the pandemic, and he warned that a resurgence of the virus in the fall could result in 2020 becoming “the darkest winter in modern history.”As of Thursday afternoon EDT, the pandemic had killed more than 85,000 people in the United States, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.President Donald Trump criticized Bright ahead of his testimony, tweeting Thursday morning, “He is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!”Until last month, Bright was the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a U.S. agency responsible for vaccine development.’Politicizing the response’In a statement, HHS said Bright was continuing to draw a salary “while using his taxpayer-funded medical leave to work with partisan attorneys who are politicizing the response to COVID-19.”But House Democrats said Bright’s concerns provided a critical picture of the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic.Chairman Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., gives her opening statement during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing to discuss protecting scientific integrity in response to the coronavirus outbreak, May 14, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington.“Dr. Bright has filed one of the most specific and troubling whistleblower complaints I’ve ever seen. He was the right person, the right judgment at the right time. He was not only ignored, he was fired for being right,” said Representative Anna Eshoo, chair of the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, which heard his testimony Thursday.Bright said he began warning leaders at HHS in January about a “critical shortage” of protective equipment that health care workers in the United States would need in order to safely and effectively treat patients with COVID-19.“I pushed HHS to ramp up U.S. production of masks, respirators and other critical supplies, such as medicine, syringes and swabs. Again, my urgency was dismissed, and I was cut out of key high-level meetings to combat COVID-19,” Bright said in his statement.He said he was met with hostility by HHS leaders, and that officials repeatedly ignored outreach from at least one mask manufacturer that said it had idle mask production lines that could be reactivated with government help.Warnings of shortagesMichael Bowen, executive vice president of Prestige Ameritech, confirmed that he reached out to Bright about his company’s readiness to produce masks, and said in his own statement to the committee that he’d warned about mask shortages in the United States for 13 years.Michael Bowen of Prestige Ameritech testifies before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee to discuss protecting scientific integrity in response to the coronavirus outbreak, May 14, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington.Bowen said HHS, the Defense Department, Department of Veterans Affairs and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “could have worked together to secure America’s mask supply.”Bright suggested that the government take several steps now, including educating the public on basics, such as hand-washing, social distancing and proper use of masks. He also advocated boosting production of essential equipment and supplies, having a system to fairly share them across the country, and putting in place a national testing strategy.House Republicans questioned Bright’s cautious attitude toward hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that Trump claimed as a possible treatment for the coronavirus.Federal ‘leeway’“Doctors across the country will use drugs off label in a circumstance where they don’t have or see a viable alternative,” said Republican Representative Larry Bucshon, a former surgeon. “In this situation, I think a little bit of understanding and leeway from the federal government is in order.”Bright told lawmakers there were concerns that the drug could cause patients to develop an irregular heartbeat or even cause death, suggesting more studies in controlled conditions were needed before using the drug to treat COVID-19.
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By Polityk | 05/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
‘A Pressure Cooker’: Pa. Governor Aims to Contain GOP Revolt
By many accounts, Gov. Tom Wolf has helped mitigate Pennsylvania’s coronavirus outbreak and avoided the full-blown disasters seen elsewhere. His success in the next challenge — containing the growing resistance to his efforts — is to be determined.
The Democrat at the helm in one of the premier battlegrounds in November’s presidential election is struggling to fight a Republican revolt over his stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns. Egged on by state GOP lawmakers, counties have threatened to defy his orders while at least a few business owners have reopened despite his warnings.
The mild-mannered Wolf has had to decide how far to go in enforcing the orders, mindful of criticism that he’s nothing short of a tyrant.
The chief instigator behind the Republican strategy, President Donald Trump, is set to visit the state Thursday. Ahead of the trip, Trump stoked the conflict, tweeting that Pennsylvanians “want their freedom now.”
Behind the rhetoric is a political fight as much over people’s well-being and public health — federal health officials are aligned with Wolf’s cautious approach — as it is over who will be blamed for the state’s economic devastation if it is not repaired by Election Day.
Around 2 million Pennsylvania residents have lost their jobs since mid-March, with food and milk giveaways drawing mileslong lines. Meanwhile, some have gone two months without money because of the state’s problem-plagued online unemployment benefits portal.
Republicans in the state, like their counterparts in swing states Michigan and Wisconsin, say they are sticking up for desperate people. But they are also jockeying to ensure that Democratic governors, rather than Trump, take the blame.
“Tom Wolf is going to be as much on the ballot as much as the president, the Legislature and Congress for his handling of this, but he’s going to be judged not just by Republicans but by Democrats and independents,” said Lawrence Tabas, chairman of Pennsylvania’s Republican Party.
For Democrats who have stood by Wolf, that’s just fine right now. Polls show that the public has generally embraced how Wolf — who easily won reelection in 2018 — has managed the crisis.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released Tuesday found that more than 2 in 3 people surveyed from April 27 to May 4 approve of how Wolf has handled the outbreak. Trump’s approval nationally in the same poll was much lower, at 43%.
When Trump visits Thursday, he’ll head to the politically moderate Allentown area to tour a medical products distribution center. He did particularly well in the area in the 2016 election, when his narrow win in Pennsylvania helped vault him to the White House.
Since then, Republicans lost the area’s congressional seat for the first time in two decades, and Allentown, with highways connecting it to New Jersey and New York City, has become one of Pennsylvania’s coronavirus hot spots.
“Here in the Lehigh Valley, people know we’re in the middle of the pandemic, and they also aren’t taking Trump as seriously as they once did,” said Democratic state Rep. Peter Schweyer of Allentown.
The visit will be Trump’s 18th to the state as president, a marker of Pennsylvania’s importance to his reelection hopes.
While Trump’s advisers have started to doubt whether they can hold Michigan, another Rust Belt state Trump won, they believe Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remain in play if the economy rebounds.
That may mean pressuring the states’ Democratic governors to ease restrictions on business, travel and public spaces — even if it risks a resurgence of the virus.
Pennsylvania is 10th among states in overall infection rate — with some 59,000 confirmed cases, or roughly 450 per 100,000 residents, and nearly 4,000 deaths, according to federal statistics. It is bordered on three sides by states with higher infection rates.
New infections have been trending down, and Wolf has been easing restrictions in lightly affected counties — but not fast enough for some.
“I know my constitutional rights, and I’ve got to pay my bills,” Brad Shepler, a barber who resumed cutting hair — something that is prohibited everywhere in the state right now — told police in a video he posted online when they visited his home studio this week a few miles from Pennsylvania’s Capitol. “The governor’s not paying my bills, so I’ve got to pay my bills.”
Trump weighed in Monday on the intensifying political fight, tweeting: “The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now, and they are fully aware of what that entails.”
Hours later, Wolf threatened in an extraordinary news conference to punish a growing number of counties that vowed to let businesses reopen against his orders.
He pledged to withhold coronavirus aid from them and branded them “cowards,” saying they are “choosing to desert in the face of the enemy, in the middle of a war that we Pennsylvanians are winning and that we must win.”
Wolf — who hasn’t spoken one cross word about Trump or the White House’s handling of the outbreak — also warned that business owners could lose certificates and licenses to operate, and face insurance sanctions.
The Republican National Committee accused Wolf of being on a “power trip.”
Wolf, who said he is just trying to keep people safe, already had vetoed legislation Republicans passed in April to limit his powers during the disaster emergency.
Meanwhile, he has won legal challenges to his shutdown orders in both the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, let construction work restart and lifted the most severe restrictions in many areas.
Still, two-thirds of the state’s 12.8 million people are expected to remain under stay-at-home orders past this week.
After Wolf’s bare-knuckled message on Monday, some counties did not back down. In others, Wolf’s threat gave them pause.
Republican state Rep. Dan Moul from conservative Adams County said he didn’t want to be responsible for someone losing a valuable business license.
“We’re trying to get things moving in a safe and responsible manner,” Moul said. “Because this thing is turning into a pressure cooker. This thing is going to blow up if he doesn’t make a move soon.”
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By Polityk | 05/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Eyes China Crackdown as Coronavirus Retribution
U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he is eyeing ways to crack down on China as retribution for the way it handled the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.”There are many things we could do,” Trump told Fox News. “We could cut off the whole relationship.””Now, if you did, what would happen?,” Trump asked rhetorically. “You’d save $500 billion if you cut off the whole relationship,” although it was not clear how Trump arrived at such a figure.The Trump administration has been considering ways it could punish Beijing for what it believes was its withholding of information about the virus late last year and into early 2020 as it spread from the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China across the globe.The U.S. could give Americans to right to sue China for the damage COVID-19 has caused to the world-leading American economy and to human life. The U.S. already has recorded 84,000 deaths, by far the biggest national total, with 147,000 expected to die by August. An employee works in a research and development lab of Beijing Applied Biological Technologies, a firm which is developing COVID-19 molecular diagnostic test kits, during a government organized tour for journalists in Beijing,May 14, 2020.The U.S. could also impose sanctions and travel bans, while restricting U.S. businesses from making loans to Chinese companies.“I’m very disappointed in China,” Trump said.The U.S. could force Chinese companies to follow U.S. accounting standards before their securities are listed on U.S. exchanges, which they currently are not required to do. That has led to some investor losses.The president acknowledged that if the U.S. were to impose such an accounting requirement on Chinese companies many of them would leave for exchanges in Hong Kong or London.As of early 2019, 156 Chinese companies worth $1.2 trillion were listed on American stock exchanges.Earlier this week, the Trump administration ordered a retirement fund for U.S. government workers to divest $4 billion of equity stakes in Chinese companies, claiming China poses investment and national security risks.
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By Polityk | 05/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Republican Wins House Seat in Heavily Democratic California
Long-suffering California Republicans finally have something to celebrate. Former Navy fighter pilot Mike Garcia captured an open U.S. House seat north of Los Angeles on Wednesday, giving Republicans a rare victory in one of the nation’s most Democratic states. Garcia defeated Democrat Christy Smith in a special election to complete the remainder of the term of former Democratic Representative Katie Hill, who resigned last year. Garcia’s win marked the first time in more than two decades that a Republican captured a Democratic-held congressional district in California. “I’m ready to go to work,” Garcia said. Smith delivered her congratulations but said she expected the roles to be reversed in November, when the two meet in a rematch for the full, two-year House term that begins in January. “This is only one step in the process,” she said in a statement. Garcia, a political newcomer, had a 12-point edge over Smith in the special election for the swing 25th District, which cuts through suburbs and small ranches in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Coupled with another GOP special election victory Tuesday in a heavily Republican Wisconsin district, Garcia’s win would leave Democrats with a 233-198 House majority, plus an independent and three vacancies. Democrats are heavily favored to retain House control in November’s elections. FILE – Assemblywoman Christy Smith, D-Santa Clarita, speaks in a session of the California Assembly in Sacramento, California, June 17, 2019.Republicans said Garcia’s victory showed the GOP can win in suburban districts, where moderate voters deserted the party in droves in 2018. Republicans lost 40 seats that year, enough for Democrats to take hold of the chamber. Seven of those seats were in California, including the 25th District. But Democrats said there would be a different result when Garcia and Smith face off again in November, when President Donald Trump’s name on the ballot is expected to draw far more Democratic voters to the polls. The race in the 25th District was being watched nationally as a proxy vote on Trump’s leadership during the coronavirus crisis, as well as for hints about the political climate heading toward the November elections. Trump, who lost the district in 2016, urged voters to support Garcia, while former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other high-profile Democrats backed Smith. Garcia appeared to benefit from enthusiasm among conservatives who saw a rare opportunity to seize a Democratic-held seat in California, while the electorate that turned out in the unusual May special election skewed toward reliable, older Republican voters, even though the district has a Democratic registration edge. FILE – Voters drop off ballots in a special election for California’s 25th Congressional District during the coronavirus outbreak, May 12, 2020, in Simi Valley, California.His Hispanic surname was likely a benefit in a district with a significant Latino population, and his military service would play well in a district known as popular with veterans and Los Angeles police officers. Smith, meanwhile, tried to motivate Democrats to return to the polls just two months after the state’s presidential primary, when the campaigns of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and other candidates worked to turn out voters, said Paul Mitchell of nonpartisan research firm Political Data Inc. Smith “is not the sum of all those presidential candidates,” Mitchell said. “That’s a challenge.” Garcia and Smith each raised over $2 million, a rare instance in a year when Democrats in key races have usually far outgunned Republicans in contributions. Outside Democratic and GOP political organizations also poured more than $2 million apiece into the contest. Trump had been at the center of the race, summoning support for Garcia while attacking Smith and her Democratic supporters. Last weekend, the president took to Twitter to attack a decision to add an in-person polling place in Lancaster, a part of Los Angeles County with a significant black population. “Rigged Election!” Trump wrote. However, it turned out the decision was supported by Lancaster’s Republican mayor.
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By Polityk | 05/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrats: Virtual National Convention to Nominate Biden a Possibility Due to Coronavirus
The U.S. Democratic Party, fearful of the coronavirus pandemic, is moving closer to holding a virtual convention in August to nominate former Vice President Joe Biden as its presidential candidate in the November national election rather than stage a traditional jammed-to-the-rafters event.The Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee agreed on Tuesday to give convention organizers broad leeway in setting plans for the convention that has been scheduled to start Aug. 17 in a basketball arena in the midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Normally, the quadrennial presidential nominating conventions for both the Democratic and Republican parties draw about 50,000 people to the host cities, including 5,000 convention delegates and perhaps 20,000 members of the news media.With barbed speeches attacking the opposition candidates, the conventions for decades have been spectacles on the American political scene designed to promote their party’s candidate about 10 weeks ahead of the early November votes. The four-day events typically culminate with massive red, white and blue balloon drops from the rafters of the convention halls.The Democratic concern over the coronavirus pandemic could drastically change its party convention this year. President Donald Trump, however, is still planning to stage a traditional in-person Republican convention in the mid-Atlantic city of Charlotte, North Carolina, a week after the Democratic event.Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez speaks before the start of the Democratic presidential primary debate at the Gaillard Center, Feb. 25, 2020, in Charleston, South Carolina.Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez said the convention planning resolution approved by the rules committee in a conference call “will give the convention the tools necessary to ensure that every delegate is able to conduct their official business without putting their health at risk, whether by participating in person or by other means to allow for social distancing.”The measure now goes to the full Democratic National Committee for approval in a vote by mail in the coming weeks.The Democratic convention could be entirely a virtual event — with delegates, party officials, reporters and others scattered across the country and connected by Zoom-like video technology — or scaled back in some fashion.Perez said, “Our No. 1 proposal is for the health and safety of the American people,” but added that final decisions have not been made. Biden has regularly launched televised campaign attacks from his home in the eastern state of Delaware, but otherwise abandoned massive traditional public political rallies during the pandemic, as has the president.Biden said Wednesday he “can hardly wait to get onto the stage” with Trump at the traditional face-to-face campaign debates in the month before the Nov. 3 election.In the meantime, Biden said, “What I’m trying to do is play by the rules — the rules set by the governors and others that I not be out, that we be socially keeping ourselves back right now. But I’m looking forward to the time, as this begins to loosen up, to be able to go out and campaign and hold rallies and do the rest.”Biden said, “I hope I’m going to be able to go to Milwaukee. I hope we’re going to have it beyond virtual. But look, we have to follow the science.”FILE – Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel throws hats to the audience at a rally for President Donald Trump in Grand Rapids, Michigan, March 28, 2019.Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has left open the possibility of changes at the Republican convention, but Trump has often voiced his wish for a traditional event filled with cheering delegates and speeches attacking the Democrats.“The president wants to go full steam ahead,” McDaniel said. “We are full steam ahead for in-person, in Charlotte.”Democrats say they do not know what the coronavirus dangers may look like by August. Perez said Trump and McDaniel have downplayed the coronavirus threat even as they have asked the federal government for help in securing personal protective equipment, or PPE, for delegates attending the Republican convention.Perez said Democrats would not ignore the health threat of a massive, in-person convention, but also have not ruled out asking the government for personal protective equipment for convention-goers.“Unlike our Republican counterparts, we will not have our public health heads in the sand,” Perez said.Another top Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has suggested that the party’s convention be moved from Milwaukee but still be held in Wisconsin. She has in mind holding it outdoors at a huge football stadium with appropriate social distancing between convention delegates to limit the crowd size.Two such venues exist in Wisconsin: the University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium in the state capital of Madison, and the Green Bay Packers’ professional football Lambeau Field stadium.”My suggestion to Mr. Perez was get a gigantic stadium and put people six feet apart,” Pelosi said last week. “So maybe…instead of having 80,000 people there, you would have 16,000 people there and just do it all in one day.”Pelosi said she had confidence that Perez would “make the right decision based on health and science, but also with the opportunity to do something new.”
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By Polityk | 05/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden’s VP Pick Isn’t the Biggest Issue for Latino Activists
Joe Biden would have to do more than select a Latina running mate to win over Hispanics whose support could be crucial to winning the presidency, according to activists who are warning the presumptive Democratic nominee not to take their community for granted.
Biden is viewed with skepticism among some Latinos for his ties to deportation policies during the Obama administration. Hispanics also strongly sided with Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary.
That presents a challenging dynamic for Biden, who is trying to build a multiracial, multi-generational coalition to take on President Donald Trump. He’s promised to pick a female vice president, and many African Americans say he could lock in the black vote if he chooses a black running mate. But some Latino leaders say Biden will have to go further to win their backing.
“I’m more interested in knowing if Latinos are rooted in their campaign strategy,” said Stephanie Valencia, who runs EquisLabs, a polling and data operation analyzing Latino politics.
Biden has established a committee to lead the vetting of a potential running mate that includes Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, whose family has ancestral roots in Mexico. His short list of possible candidates is believed to feature two Latinas, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
Neither has the national profile of two black women thought to be among the finalists, California Sen. Kamala Harris and Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia. They’re also less well known nationally than Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who are white.
Mayra Macías, executive director of the political advocacy group Latino Victory, said Grisham and Cortez Masto, as well as other highly qualified Hispanics, have largely been overlooked in the speculation around Biden’s choice.
“For us, it was a glaring omission to not see Latinas included in the conversation from the onset,” said Macías, whose group endorsed the Democratic primary’s lone Hispanic candidate, former Obama administration housing chief Julián Castro, before eventually switching to Biden.
Macías said Hispanic candidates bring a cultural sensitivity and expertise that result in better mobilization of the community’s voters. And that means their perspective shouldn’t be ignored by Biden advisers, regardless of the running mate pick.
“It’s a matter of respect for our community,” Macías said.
Trump, who has recently escalated his hard-line immigration rhetoric, isn’t expected to win much Latino support in November. Still, Biden needs Hispanics to turn out for him, not stay home.
“If the calculus is which vice president helps us with which community, then you have to dig deeper and farther than an approach that may land as pandering,” said Lorella Praeli, the Latino outreach director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
In 2016, Clinton considered Castro as a running mate but ultimately opted for a more traditional choice in Sen. Tim Kaine, a white man from Virginia. Domingo Garcia, head of the civil rights activist group the League of United Latin American Citizens, said beyond the vice presidential pick, Biden “has to avoid the trap that Hillary Clinton fell into.”
“She just assumed everybody was against Trump and that would be enough,” Garcia said, adding that Clinton “did not address her policies to stir Latino turnout and did not invest enough.”
Hispanic activists say they have been speaking quietly to Biden’s campaign. But those efforts have been less public than the open lobbying of some of their African American counterparts, especially amid the vice presidential search.
Some cultural hurdles may be at work.
While no voting bloc is a monolith, Hispanic Americans’ wide array of backgrounds makes consensus more difficult. A Mexican American voter in Texas often has different political motivations than someone with Cuban roots in Florida or a person from Puerto Rico who now lives in Pennsylvania.
“All the issues that are important to all Americans are also important to Latinos,” said Veronica Escobar, a first-term congresswoman from El Paso, on the Texas-Mexico border. During a “Todos Con Biden” virtual outreach event, she ticked off health care, jobs and the environment, as well as immigration.
That’s true for African Americans, too. But House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s endorsement in South Carolina was widely credited with mobilizing Southern black voters, triggering Biden’s Democratic primary resurgence. Sanders used strong Latino support to win in places like Nevada and California — though Biden cutting into that lead with Latinos helped the former vice president in Florida and Arizona.
Still, no Hispanic leader helped secure Biden’s comeback as much as Clyburn.
Biden also doesn’t have the deep personal ties with the Hispanic community that he does with African Americans. His home state of Delaware is nearly a quarter black compared to about 10% Hispanic. His outrage at discrimination against African Americans in the city of Wilmington helped launch his public service career, and he frequently notes his tenure as the vice president to Barack Obama, the first black president.
More than 32 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote on Election Day — surpassing black voters as the nation’s largest nonwhite bloc. But while 90% of African Americans voted Democratic in 2018, only 66% of Hispanics supported the party, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of voters.
Latino voters could be critical in battleground states such as Florida and Arizona. Still, African Americans and whites tend to vote in greater numbers. And black voters may prove pivotal in a broader swath of states this year ranging from Georgia and North Carolina to Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Matt Barreto, co-founder of the Democratic-aligned polling firm Latino Decisions, noted that Sanders, who like Biden is a white man in his late 70s, was able to excite Latino voters not because of his race but because of his progressive positions. Vice presidential picks with a more populist approach could win similar support among Latinos, Barreto said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had someone like Abrams come out swinging on immigration, and Latinos might go ‘yeah, I like that,'” Barreto said.
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By Polityk | 05/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump’s Former Campaign Chief Manafort Released from Prison
Paul Manafort, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former 2016 campaign chairman who later was convicted of tax and bank fraud, was released from prison Wednesday to serve the remainder of his seven-and-a-half-year term in home confinement.The 71-year-old Manafort had served a little more than a year of his term and was not due to be released from a federal prison in the eastern state of Pennsylvania until November 2024.But his lawyers prevailed in their bid with federal prison officials to get him freed to home confinement because they said he was at high risk of contracting coronavirus because of his age and underlying medical conditions, including high blood pressure, liver disease and respiratory ailments.Manafort was convicted during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into wrongdoing during Trump’s successful 2016 run for the White House. But Manafort’s convictions stemmed from his lobbying and investments in Ukraine that predated his work for the Trump campaign.He joined Trump’s campaign as its convention manager in March 2016 and was its campaign chairman from May 2016 to August of that year before resigning as questions emerged in public accounts about his work in Ukraine between 2006 and 2015.There were no known coronavirus cases at the federal prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, where Manafort was being held. But the facility was an old monastery with an open physical configuration, which possibly could have made it susceptible to a wide spread of COVID-19.U.S. Attorney General William Barr has directed federal prison officials to consider home confinement for inmates deemed in “at risk” categories for coronavirus, such as medical conditions, and about 2,500 have been moved to their homes to complete their sentences.Manafort’s lawyers said he could move to an apartment in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington where his wife lives.
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By Polityk | 05/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Lawmakers Weigh Cost of Reopening Economy
US lawmakers weighed the costs of reopening the American economy Tuesday, asking the nation’s top health experts if the country has the resources to battle the coronavirus while lifting stay at home restrictions. More than two months into stay-at -home orders, lawmakers are considering yet another massive aid package to address the economic and public health crises and to get the country running again. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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By Polityk | 05/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Judge Puts Hold on Move to Drop Flynn Case
There is another stunning development in the case of President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The federal judge overseeing the case has put the Justice Department’s move to drop the criminal charges against Flynn on hold to give outside legal experts a chance to argue against the department’s decision. Judge Emmet Sullivan said late Tuesday that “friends of the court” will be able to file briefs and that he will set up a time to hear those arguments “at the appropriate time.” Sullivan could decide to call witnesses to testify and answer questions about the Justice Department’s extraordinary move last week to drop the charges against Flynn, and possibly reopen the entire case months before a presidential election. Flynn pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about his talks with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. about easing U.S. sanctions during the transition period between the Obama and Trump administrations – a crime that carries a maximum five-year prison sentence. The charges against Flynn were part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.Former special counsel Robert Mueller, checks pages in the report as he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on his report on Russian election interference, on Capitol Hill, July 24, 2019 in Washington.Sullivan told Flynn at his 2018 sentencing that lying to the FBI was a “very serious offense.” Flynn initially said he was guilty, that no one had talked him into admitting his crime and that he had no intention of taking back his plea. But as his sentencing day approached, Flynn appealed to the court for a postponement, claiming that prosecutors set him up. The Justice Department, led by Attorney General William Barr, shocked and angered the legal community last week when it said the case against Flynn should be dropped. Barr said the lies that Flynn told investigators were immaterial to Mueller’s overall probe. Others in the Justice Department contended that Flynn never should have been investigated in the first place. The decision opened the floodgates of criticism of Barr and the Justice Department that it is politically motivated and carrying out Trump’s wishes. Barr told CBS that politics had nothing to do with it, saying “A crime cannot be established here. They (the FBI) did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage.” There has been no reaction to Sullivan’s decision so far from Barr or the White House.
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By Polityk | 05/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US COVID Death Toll ‘Almost Certainly Higher’ Than Reported, Fauci Tells Senate
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Tuesday that the coronavirus death toll in the United States is “almost certainly higher” than the reported 80,000 figure and warned of serious consequences if cities and states reopen too quickly. He told a Senate panel investigating the U.S. response to the pandemic that unaccounted numbers of coronavirus victims, especially in the New York City, have died at home without being officially counted in the national death toll, but declined to speculate how many more.Fauci warned that it is “entirely possible” that the pandemic “could become worse” in the U.S. in the fall months from September to November, but hoped that by then the country “could deal with it” better than it has so far. President Donald Trump has been prodding businesses and state governors to reopen the world’s biggest economy and all but a few of the country’s 50 governors have issued orders in recent days to allow some stores, restaurants and offices to resume operations on a limited basis if precautions are taken.But Fauci, testifying remotely from his home outside Washington, said there “is a real risk you will trigger an outbreak that you will not be able to control” if government guidelines calling for a steady decline in the number of cases over a two-week period are ignored before there is a return to normal life in the U.S. “The consequences could be dire,” he said.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyVaccines undergoing trials
Fauci said eight coronavirus vaccines are being developed in the U.S. “If we are successful,” he said, “we hope to know that in late fall, early winter.”But he said it was “a bit of a bridge too far” for millions of students returning to colleges and schools across the country in August and September to be vaccinated ahead of attending classes again.Trump has said there has been widespread coronavirus testing in the U.S., more than in any other country, although some reports say that the U.S. is not among the top 20 countries in the number of tests administered on a per capita basis.“Our Testing is the BEST in the World, by FAR!” Trump said on Twitter hours before the hearing started. “Numbers (of coronavirus cases) are coming down in most parts of our Country, which wants to open and get going again. It is happening, safely!” Our Testing is the BEST in the World, by FAR! Numbers are coming down in most parts of our Country, which wants to open and get going again. It is happening, safely!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2020But a frequent critic of Trump, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney from Utah, said at the hearing, “I find our testing rate nothing to celebrate.” Sen. Lamar Alexander, who chaired the Senate panel while quarantining from his home in Tennessee, said, “We need widespread testing — millions more tests to give Americans enough confidence to go back to work and back to school.” Navy Adm. Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, told the lawmakers that 9 million tests for the COVID-19 disease have been administered in the U.S., with more than 1.3 million people testing positively. He said 240 testing sites are now open in the U.S. and that another 12.9 million people will be tested over the next four weeks. Giroir said there will be a marked increase in the number of tests administered in the coming months, possibly 40 million to 50 million per month by September. Trump tweeted, “Remember this, every Governor who has sky high approval on their handling of the Coronavirus, and I am happy for them all, could in no way have gotten those numbers, or had that success, without me and the Federal Governments help. From Ventilators to Testing, we made it happen!” Remember this, every Governor who has sky high approval on their handling of the Coronavirus, and I am happy for them all, could in no way have gotten those numbers, or had that success, without me and the Federal Governments help. From Ventilators to Testing, we made it happen!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2020Modified quarantine
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is in a “modified quarantine” after he came in contact last week with Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, who has tested positive for COVID-19.Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., shown on a monitor, right, speaks during virtual Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing, May 12, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington.Three other top U.S. health officials, Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Giroir all also testified via videoconferencing.Redfield said, “We need to stay vigilant. Social distancing (staying two meters apart from other people) remains imperative.”Democrats attack Trump response
The hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was billed as “COVID-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School.” But minority Democrats on the Republican-led panel used it as opportunity to attack the Trump administration’s failures to quickly and adequately deal with the spread of the disease as it advanced from China earlier this year. Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from the western state of Washington, said, “President Trump has been trying to ignore the facts and experts.”At one point early on this year, Trump assured Americans the disease would soon be gone. Now, more than 80,000 coronavirus deaths have officially been recorded in the U.S. and health experts at the University of Washington are predicting more than 137,000 Americans will die by August.
Fauci has often appeared at White House coronavirus briefings alongside Trump, where he has been in the awkward position of having to contradict the chief executive’s rosy projections that the pandemic was under control in the U.S. and that the country could safely resume normal life.
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By Polityk | 05/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Can Any American Vote by Mail?
Some American states are holding special elections and primaries during the pandemic. Worries about the possible health risks of standing in line to vote at polling places is making the vote by mail option more appealing to some voters. These are the requirements to vote by mail in the U.S.
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By Polityk | 05/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Gun Control Group Starts Faith-Driven Push Ahead of US Election
A leading gun control advocacy group has enlisted more than a dozen religious leaders to boost voter turnout this fall in support of candidates who support measures to prevent gun violence.Everytown for Gun Safety, which expects to spend $60 million on this year’s elections, is forging its interfaith effort amid ongoing concerns about shootings at houses of worship. The group’s partners include representatives from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh backgrounds, several of them well-known progressive activists. Among those joining Everytown’s initiative, details of which were shared with The Associated Press ahead of its official announcement, are evangelical Shane Claiborne, president of the group Red Letter Christians, and Rev. Traci Blackmon, a United Church of Christ executive minister and a central member of the Black Lives Matter movement. Another is Rev. Rob Schenck, a former evangelical anti-abortion activist who has since shifted to support the Roe v. Wade decision and sought to redefine a “pro-life” agenda as one that supports gun control.Schenck described gun violence as a “life or death issue, which makes it a supreme moral consideration.””Churches, especially white evangelical churches, have largely ignored this question — I think, much to their own detriment and to the detriment of the people they’re called to serve,” said Schenck, president of the Washington-based nonprofit Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute. In addition to reaching out to clergy on gun policy issues, Schenck said, the Everytown interfaith project would aim to educate rank-and-file faith voters about candidates’ stances on gun matters.”You never want to pray for something you’re unwilling to be the answer to,” he added. “So if we pray for a reduction in gun violence, we have to be ready to act on that prayer.”Everytown, co-founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, counts 6 million supporters and already has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Biden released a proposal last month to boost security at houses of worship.”The faith community has seen firsthand the devastating effects of gun violence in places of worship and feels more than ever that they have an urgent moral responsibility to stop the scourge of gun violence in America — and they’re doing so by mobilizing their networks around candidates who support broadly popular gun safety measures in 2020,” Angela Ferrell-Zabala, chief equity, outreach and partnerships officer at Everytown, said in a statement.President Donald Trump is campaigning for reelection as a proponent of gun rights after previously weighing, then walking back, calls for Congress to strengthen gun laws. Several members of Everytown’s interfaith initiative are known as religious critics of Trump’s record, including Schenck, Blackmon and Michael McBride, a California-based pastor who’s active in helping communities of color during the pandemic.Whether gun control advocates can make new inroads with voters of faith remains an open question. Michael Hammond, legislative counsel at the Gun Owners of America, recalled then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 comment that some disaffected working-class voters “cling to guns or religion” to help identify a nexus between faith-driven and gun-rights voters.Hammond said he sees “a social milieu, a series of values that surround the sorts of people who value the Second Amendment. Those values normally include a deep faith, a love of country — generally a conservative social issue outlook.”Asked about the resonance of gun control with religious voters following attacks at houses of worship, Hammond pointed to the role of an armed churchgoer in acting quickly to end last year’s shooting at a Texas church service. Congregations that “voluntarily disarm themselves have ended up suffering a catastrophe,” Hammond said.Collectively, partners in Everytown’s project are planning to host at least 50 events designed to engage Americans of faith on gun issues and promote voter registration ahead of November’s elections. The effort is particularly focused on a dozen-plus states that will prove battlegrounds in presidential and congressional contests, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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By Polityk | 05/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
2,000 Former Justice Officials Call for US Attorney General to Quit
A bipartisan group of about 2,000 former Justice Department officials have signed a letter calling for U.S. Attorney General William Barr to resign because of his intervention in the case of President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn.Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to drop charges against Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States. In their letter, the former DOJ employees say the action was taken “in a filing signed by a single political appointee (Barr) and no career prosecutors.”The letter calls the department’s decision “extraordinarily rare, if not unprecedented.” and said, “Barr’s repeated actions to use the Department as a tool to further President Trump’s personal and political interests” have “undermined any claim to the deference that courts usually apply to the Department’s decisions about whether or not to prosecute a case.”Recognizing it is highly unlikely Barr would resign, the signers of the letter call on the judge in the Flynn case to “closely examine the Department’s stated rationale for dismissing the charges…and to deny the motion and proceed with sentencing.”In an interview with U.S. broadcaster CBS last week, Barr denied he was acting in the president’s interest when he moved to drop the charges against Flynn. Barr said he based the decision on a recommendation from a U.S. attorney who had reviewed the matter.
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By Polityk | 05/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Supreme Court to Hear Cases Involving Trump’s Financial Records
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments Tuesday on appeals of three lower court decisions involving subpoenas of President Donald Trump’s tax and financial records. Trump filed legal challenges to subpoenas issued last year by several House of Representatives committees and a New York district attorney. The subpoenas seek financial information from the accounting firm Mazars as well as Deutsche Bank and Capital One. Trump has sought to keep his personal and corporate financial information private, including breaking with decades of tradition of presidential candidates releasing tax returns. Lower court decisions have so far gone against Trump, but the records have remained private pending the Supreme Court appeal. The records requests focus on two issues. One issue is the work of congressional committees to examine unlawful activity in the banking system such as money laundering, whether there is adequate regulation and if new legislation is needed. The other issue is the examination of Trump and his business in connection with payments made to Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to prevent two women from publicly discussing their claims of having extramarital affairs with Trump.President Donald Trump walks on the colonnade to speak about the coronavirus during a press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House, Monday, May 11, 2020, in Washington.Supreme Court justices are specifically examining whether the House committees had the constitutional and statutory authority to issue subpoenas to third parties demanding the personal records of the president. Trump’s legal team has argued lawmakers should have to identify a legitimate legislative purpose for seeking the president’s financial information. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in December that the committees have sufficiently identified their purposes. “The Committees’ interests in pursuing their constitutional legislative function is a far more significant public interest than whatever public interest inheres in avoiding the risk of a Chief Executive’s distraction arising from disclosure of documents reflecting his private financial transactions,” Judge Jon O. Newman said in writing for the majority. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the nine Supreme Court justices are hearing the cases by telephone. They are likely to issue their rulings next month.
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By Polityk | 05/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Campaign Fundraising Slows for 2nd Straight Month
President Donald Trump’s fundraising pace slowed slightly for the second straight month as the nation reeled from the coronavirus outbreak. The Republican National Committee and Trump’s reelection campaign announced Monday that they raised more than $61.7 million in April. It brings Trump’s total haul for the election cycle to over $742 million. That’s $288 million more than the Obama reelection effort had at this same point, the campaign and the RNC announced in a joint statement. The campaign raised $63 million in March, down from the $86 million raised in February. Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement that the April haul underscores that the president’s “consistent record of unprecedented action is met with overwhelming enthusiasm and support.” Despite the drop, Trump’s fundraising remains far ahead of likely Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Biden’s presidential campaign said Monday that it and the Democratic National Committee jointly raised $60 million in April. It’s a solid sum that may ease some Democratic worries that Biden is stumbling in the money race. Biden’s campaign was almost broke before he vaulted to the top of the crowded Democratic presidential field on Super Tuesday in early March. He became the party’s presumptive nominee when his sole remaining rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, suspended his campaign in early April. The campaign said in a statement that its average April donation was $32.63, “showing continued grassroots strength even in this time of crisis.” It has recently announced a number of hires, a sign of a newly secure financial position.
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By Polityk | 05/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Amid Pandemic, Voters in Nebraska, Wisconsin Go to Polls Tuesday
Despite the pandemic, voters in the midwestern U.S. states of Nebraska and Wisconsin will be voting in elections on Tuesday.For the mostly rural Wisconsin 7th Congressional District, it is the second time they will leave their homes in five weeks to cast ballots in the middle of a stay-at-home order issued to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Citizens there will be voting to fill the final few months of Republican Congressman Sean Duffy’s term, who stepped down last fall.Last month’s Wisconsin Democratic primary and state supreme court election was controversial after the governor sought to postpone the election because of the pandemic. But state Republicans insisted it go on. It took a U.S. Supreme court ruling to ensure the election was held as scheduled.But election officials in the district, which covers a the northwestern third of the state, say they feel confident moving forward. The district has been largely unaffected by the coronavirus and they are taking precautions.Nebraska is holding a statewide election, with the primary on the ticket. The primary will decide a Democratic contest to pick a nominee to face Republican Congressman Don Bacon in the Omaha area’s 2nd Congressional District, traditionally the only U.S. House seat in Nebraska where Democrats are competitive. Voters will also pick candidates in dozens of ostensibly nonpartisan legislative races, which could help determine whether Republicans gain a super-majority in the Legislature.Republicans, who hold all statewide offices and control the Legislature, have encouraged people to cast early absentee ballots. However, they argue state law requires polling sites to be open and that it is important for voters to have a choice for how they vote, even amid health concerns.Like Wisconsin’s April election, absentee voting in Tuesday’s special election has been high. Nearly 105,000 people requested absentee ballots as of Wednesday, and nearly 59,000 had been returned.
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By Polityk | 05/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
