Розділ: Політика
Congressional Rescue Talks Churn as Viral Crisis Expands
Top-level negotiations between Congress and the White House churned late into the night over a now nearly $2 trillion economic rescue package, as the coronavirus crisis deepened, the nation shut down and the first U.S. senator tested positive for the disease.
As President Donald Trump took to the podium in the White House briefing room and promised to help Americans who feel afraid and isolated as the pandemic spreads, the Senate voted Sunday against advancing the rescue package. But talks continued on Capitol Hill.
“I think you’ll get there. To me it’s not very complicated: We have to help the worker. We have to save the companies,” Trump said.
Later, the Republican president suggested the remedies may be more harmful than the outbreak, vowing to reassess after the 15-day mark of the shutdown. “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” he tweeted.
Inside the otherwise emptied out Capitol, the draft aid bill was declared insufficient by Democrats, who argued it was tilted toward corporations and did too little to help workers and health care providers. Republicans returned to the negotiating table.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, exiting the Capitol just before midnight, struck an optimistic note: “We’re very close,” he said, adding negotiators would work through the night.
“Our nation cannot afford a game of chicken,” warned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., his voice rising on the Senate floor Sunday night. His goal is to vote Monday. The Senate will re-convene at noon.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, sounded an optimistic note.
“This bill is going to affect this country and the lives of Americans, not just for the next few days, but in the next few months and years — so we have to make sure it is good, he said. ‘”There were some serious problems with the bill leader McConnell laid down. Huge amounts of corporate bailout funds without restrictions or without oversight — you wouldn’t even know who is getting the money. Not enough money for hospitals, nurses, PPE, masks, all the health care needs. No money for state and local government, many of whom would go broke. Many other things.”
But Schumer said they were making progress in dealing with those issues. “We’re getting closer and closer. And I’m very hopeful, is how I’d put it, that we can get a bill in the morning.”
With a population on edge and shell-shocked financial markets poised for the new work week, Washington labored under the size and scope of the rescue package that’s more ambitious than any in recent times — larger than the 2008 bank bailout and 2009 recovery act combined.
Democrats say the largely GOP-led effort did not go far enough to provide health care and worker aid and fails to put restraints on a proposed $500 billion “slush fund” for corporations. They voted to block its advance.
Democrats won a concession — to provide four months of expanded unemployment benefits, rather than just three as proposed, according to an official granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. The jobless pay also extends to self-employed and so-called gig workers.
While the congressional leaders worked into the night, alarms were being sounded from coast to coast about the wave of coronavirus cases about to crash onto the nation’s health system.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had dire, urgent news from the pandemic’s U.S. epicenter: “April and May are going to be a lot worse,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
De Blasio, a Democrat, all but begged Washington to help procure ventilators and other medical supplies. He accused the Republican president of “not lifting a finger” to help.
Trump urged Congress to get a deal done and, during the Sunday briefing, responded to criticism that his administration was sluggish to act. He cited his cooperation with the three states hardest hit — New York, Washington and California — and invoked a measure to give governors flexibility in calling up the national guard under their control, while the federal government covers the bill.
But even as Trump stressed federal-local partnerships, some governors, including Republican Greg Abbott of Texas, expressed unhappiness with Washington’s response. The president himself took a swipe hours earlier at Gov. J. B. Pritzker, D-Ill., saying that he and “a very small group of certain other Governors, together with Fake News” should not be “blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings.”
This came as Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky announced he tested positive for the coronavirus. Paul, who is a doctor and close ally of the president, said in a tweet he was not showing symptoms and was in quarantine.
Paul was seen at a GOP senators’ lunch on Friday and swimming in the Senate gym pool on Sunday morning, heightening concerns. His office said he left the Senate immediately after learning his diagnosis.
A growing list of lawmakers have cycled in and out of isolation after exposure, and two members of the House have said they tested positive. Five senators were in self-quarantine Sunday evening and could not vote.
In recent days, Trump invoked the Defense Protection Act, a rarely used, decades-old authority that can be used to compel the private sector to manufacture needed medical supplies like masks and ventilators. Officials said Sunday that it would be used voluntarily and businesses would not be compelled to act.
“We are a country not based on nationalizing our business,” said Trump, who has repeatedly railed against socialism overseas and among Democrats.
Two days after he lashed out at a reporter who asked about his message to frightened Americans, Trump said, “For those worried and afraid, please know as long as I am your president, you can feel confident that you have a leader who will always fight for you.”
But minutes later, when he learned that rival Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, was one of those in isolation, he declared, “Romney’s in isolation? Gee, that’s too bad.”
Trump said he was not being sarcastic.
The urgency to act is mounting, as jobless claims skyrocket and the financial markets are set to re-open Monday eager for signs that Washington can soften the blow of the healthcare crisis and what experts say is a looming recession. Stock futures declined sharply as Trump spoke Sunday evening.
Officials late Sunday put the price tag of the ballooning rescue package at nearly $2 trillion. That does not include additional measures being taken by the Federal Reserve to shore up the economy.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was leading a third day of nonstop talks on Capitol Hill, said the plan was meant to prop up the nation’s weakened economy for the next 10 to 12 weeks.
Central to the package is as much as $350 billion for small businesses to keep making payroll while workers are forced to stay home. There is also a one-time rebate check of about $1,200 per person, or $3,000 for a family of four, as well as the extended unemployment benefits.
Hospitals, Mnuchin said, will get approximately $110 billion for the expected influx of sick patients.
The treasury secretary said a significant part of the package will involve working with the Federal Reserve for up to $4 trillion of liquidity to support the economy with “broad-based lending programs.”
But Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have pushed for add-ons, including food security aid, small business loans and other measures for workers.
They warned the draft plan’s $500 billion for corporations does not put enough restraints on business, saying the ban on corporate stock buy-backs is weak and the limits on executive pay are only for two years.
“We’re not here to create a slush fund for Donald Trump and his family, or a slush fund for the Treasury Department to be able to hand out to their friends,” said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “We’re here to help workers, we’re here to help hospitals.”
The president, when pressed by a reporter, dodged a question as to whether his own business would seek federal funds.
With Sunday’s failed vote, McConnell angrily blamed Pelosi, who returned to Washington for a top-level meeting, saying she “poured cold water” over the draft plan. But any measure from the Senate also needs to pass the House.
The details are coming from drafts of both bills circulating among lobbyists but not yet released to the public. They were obtained by The Associated Press.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.
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By Polityk | 03/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
At a Glance: Nearly $2 Trillion Coronavirus Rescue Package
A snapshot of the emerging rescue package in Congress to provide healthcare and economic aid amid the coronavirus outbreak and national shutdown.The details are subject to change as congressional leaders and the White House continue negotiating the nearly $2 trillion package. The highlights so far:ONE-TIME CHECKS TO AMERICANS
The measure would provide a quick, one-time stipend of about $1,200 per individual, $2,400 for couples, and $3,000 for family of four. The money would cut off at higher income levels.PAYCHECK SUPPORT
An estimated $350 billion would be provided for small businesses to keep making payroll. Companies with 500 or fewer employees could tap up to $10 million each in forgivable small business loans to keep paychecks flowing.UNEMPLOYMENT EXPANSION
Workers who are eligible would receive up to 39 weeks of unemployment insurance through the end of 2020 if they are sidelined by the outbreak. The coverage would be retroactive to Jan. 27.EMERGENCY FUNDING, PUBLIC HEALTH
The bill includes an additional $242 billion in additional emergency funds to fight the virus and shore up for safety net programs. That includes money for food stamps, child nutrition, hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control and public health and transportation agencies.The measure includes $15.6 billion to augment the food stamp program, which helps feed around 40 million Low income people per year. It’s annual budget is around $70 billion.INDUSTRY AID
The initial GOP plan called for $208 billion in loans to airlines and other industries, which would have to be repaid. Leaders are still negotiating the final number and how the money would be provided by the administration.STATE AID
Negotiators are still hammering out whether there will be money give to the states, whose governors have requested billions to shore up their budgets.
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By Polityk | 03/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Americans See Trump’s Virus Response Through Partisan Lens
As restaurants across the country stacked chairs on tables and shut their doors to try to contain the deadly coronavirus, what would be the final visitors streamed into the Conservative Grounds coffee shop in Largo, Florida. Fox News played on the televisions. Patrons posed for photos in a replica of the Oval Office. An 80-year-old man, defying officials’ advice to stay home, beamed near a life-sized cutout of a grinning President Donald Trump. This Trump-themed coffee shop embodies the right edge of the country’s political divide. Outside its walls, state officials put in place an unprecedented shutdown of public life and Trump scrambled to fight a virus that he had accused political opponents and the media of pushing as a “new hoax.” Criticism of the president’s preparedness was rampant. Inside, customers gave Trump an A-plus on his response to the spreading pandemic. “He’s doing great things,” the owner said Wednesday. America has a history of unifying in trying times and rallying around the president. But after years of deep division, in the earliest, head-spinning days of the pandemic, a fractured electorate largely viewed Trump’s performance through the lens they chose long ago. But the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. The body count will rise; the economy will almost certainly crater. Trump’s political fate may be left up to the sliver of moderates in the middle, who will choose whether to blame him for the crisis spiraling on his watch. “This could be the coup de grace of his presidency. The way he handles this, history will judge, as well as the American people,” said Brandon Brice, host of a radio show called “Straight Talk” in Detroit, who supported Trump in 2016 and is looking to how he handles this crisis before deciding if he will again. “This is the president’s moment, right now.” Trump for weeks denied the seriousness of the outbreak when it first emerged in China. In January, he assured the nation that “we have it very well under control” and he compared the virus to the seasonal flu. His supporters followed his lead: Surveys from early and mid-March found distinct differences in how Democrats and Republicans reacted. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 36% of Democrats said they were very worried that they or family members would contract the virus, compared with 21% of Republicans. Views on Trump’s handling of the crisis are also shaded heavily by partisanship. A Gallup poll found 82% of Republicans expressed some confidence in Trump. Among Democrats, that number was just 12%. Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, noted throughout Trump’s presidency, his approval rating has hovered between 42% and 46%, with little change despite the endless cycle of controversy and chaos. Recent polling shows that has remained steady. “Attitudes about the president, both pro and con, are deeply ingrained and almost impervious to the effect of news,” he said. “Now, we’ve never had an event quite like this one.” For most people, the new virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority recover. Globally, there have been more than 11,000 deaths from over 275,000 confirmed cases, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 200 deaths have been recorded in the U.S. At another time, a president might have expected to see his popularity rise. Past presidents have seen their approval ratings jump in times of crisis, disaster or war. President Jimmy Carter’s approval rating skyrocketed in the weeks after Americans were taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. President George W. Bush was hailed for his unifying voice after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Trump this week abruptly turned to talking about the virus as a significant threat, and himself as a steady “wartime” leader. He shifted the blame to China and tried to rebrand COVID-19 as the “China virus.” But presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said the shift from skeptic to wartime president may be difficult for Trump. He compared the president’s response with that of Republican President Herbert Hoover, who oversaw the Great Depression and dismissed the collapse of the stock market as exaggerated. When it proved disastrous, shantytowns came to be known as Hoovervilles. He was trounced in the next election by the Democratic governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who then steered the nation through the depression and World War II. “He started off a Herbert Hoover and he done a 180 trying to be FDR,” Brinkley said. Voters in November will judge which one he is closer to being, he said, and some of that will be based on things now largely out of his control: how many die, how painful the economic fallout proves to be. If the virus lingers through the summer, “he’s going to be left holding the bad soundbites and being seen as the leader who failed us when the bell rang — he was missing in round one for a 10-round fight,” Brinkley said. “If it’s contained, people will say he was slow out of the gate, but once he got on the job, he understood the magnitude of what was happening and did the right things, and he might skate by on a better-late-than-never approach.” David Ropeik, a retired Harvard instructor on risk communication, is even more skeptical of Trump’s ability to reshape himself as a leader able to unify a profoundly polarized nation. “There are just a whole bunch of people who aren’t going to buy that,” Ropeik said. “He can’t change out of a MAGA hat into a general’s helmet.” Ropeik said the most important thing for a leader in crisis is to be viewed as trustworthy — and the trust gap may be a crucial divide come November. “This race is going to be determined by a bunch of swing voters in a handful of states. Those who are not the most devoted fans, who have any kind of slight ambivalence, this could well add to their mistrust,” he said. Donald Scoggins, a retired real estate broker in Virginia who describes himself as a moderate Republican, was leaning against voting for Trump before the virus hit. He said he’s seen nothing so far to change his mind. Trump was too slow to react, Scoggins said. “He’s just too divisive. We need a person at the helm that people can rally around, we need a sort of cheerleader who makes people feel confident, that can bring people together,” he said. Brian Johnson, a Democrat and semi-retired corporate executive in Boulder, Colorado, is much hotter. He’s watched Trump’s reaction since January, worrying about his dismissal of the disease. Now he’s infuriated with the president. “Trump’s never been double-digit approval rating for me, and now it’s like, can you go lower than zero?” he said. But across the country, in states critical to the outcome of the election, Trump’s ardent supporters defended his actions and followed his lead to blame China. In Luzerne County, a historically Democratic area in eastern Pennsylvania that flipped in 2016 to vote for Trump, Lynette Villano said she thinks the economy is resilient. It started from an extraordinarily high point, she said, and Trump deserves credit for giving the country the economic strength to be able to take the punch. Villano, a billing clerk who wears a rhinestone Trump pin, has chronic lung disease and survived cancer twice. She recognizes she’s among those at highest risk. She says she’s not worried, she deeply trusts the president to look out for her, and she doesn’t think it’s time for political posturing and finger-pointing. “If anything, this is going to show him as a strong leader who stepped forward and took every action possible to make things better,” she said from her home, where she’s waiting out the pandemic. In Florida, the owner of the Trump-themed cafe posted a message on its Facebook page: “Those on the LEFT have fought for our downfall since day 1 and now the Corona ‘CHINESE’ VIRUS is impacting our business.” Owner Cliff Gephart said he fully supports Trump’s handling of the crisis and trusts him to steer the country to calmer waters. “Every decision the president makes, whether it’s about coronavirus or about the economy or taxation. It seems like coronavirus is just another partisan, down party lines,” he said. One of his customers, 80-year-old George Latzo, said he wasn’t concerned enough about the virus to abide the public warnings to avoid gatherings. “I’ve lived a long healthy life and I don’t know if this is going to be worse than the flu,” said Latzo, who wore a Trump 2020 hat and a black t-shirt that said, “Donald Pump,” depicting a muscular President Trump doing a bicep curl. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
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By Polityk | 03/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump: 3 US Automakers to Manufacture Coronavirus Ventilators
President Donald Trump said Sunday that three U.S. automakers – General Motors, Ford Motor and Tesla — have been “given the go ahead” for fast-paced production of ventilators and other metal products needed to treat Americans infected by the deadly coronavirus. “Go for it auto execs, let’s see how good you are,” Trump said on Twitter. Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! President Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, March 20, 2020.Trump on Friday said, “Amazing things are happening. We are getting calls from automobile companies and other companies saying they have capacity and they want to make ventilators and other things. We are literally being besieged in a beautiful way by companies that want to do the work and help our country.” But some Democrats said the volunteer corporate effort is not adequate. FILE – Gov. J.B. Pritzker gives a news conference on April 30, 2019, in Springfield, Ill.Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, himself a corporate titan as part of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, told CNN that states like his are “competing against each other, we’re competing against other countries” for medical supplies. “And indeed we’re overpaying, I would say, for [personal protective equipment] because of that competition,” he said. Pritzker said he’s gotten only a fraction of the masks, gloves and gowns he has requested from the federal government. So Pritzker said he is using Illinois state workers to purchase supplies internationally on the open market. “I’ve got people on the phones, working the phones across the world, frankly, to get this stuff shipped to Illinois,” Pritzker said. Another Trump critic, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, urged him to invoke the war powers act, saying his reluctance to do so would “cost lives” in her state, one of the hardest hit in the U.S. by the coronavirus. “We’re thankful to anyone who’s pitching in on this effort,” she said, “but we are nowhere near the beds and the capacity that we need in this country.” “We’re hearing it every step of the way from this administration,” she said. “First we were hearing it was a hoax. Then we were hearing that everything was fine. Then we were hearing that the fundamentals of the economy [were] OK until the crash comes. And we cannot wait until people start really dying in large numbers to start production.“ Trump later responded on Twitter, saying that Pritzker and “a very small group of certain other Governors, together with Fake News CNN & Concast (MSDNC), shouldn’t be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!” .@JBPritzker, Governor of Illinois, and a very small group of certain other Governors, together with Fake News @CNN & Concast (MSDNC), shouldn’t be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2020There are more than 27,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. and at least 323 deaths, figures that are growing by the day. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. government’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the CBS show “Face the Nation,” that he does not think that the U.S. will become like Italy, which now has surpassed China as the country with the highest death toll. The reason for his optimism, he said, was because U.S. officials have emphasized the need for Americans to practice safe physical separation from other people to avoid becoming infected.
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By Polityk | 03/23/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Congress Moving Toward Massive Economic Aid
The U.S. Congress is moving toward passage of a massive $1.8 trillion economic aid package to send money to most Americans and many businesses that have been severely impacted by the deadly coronavirus. Aside from the obvious impact of the public health crisis, perhaps two million or more U.S. citizens have been laid off from work as thousands of schools, national businesses and such community enterprises as gyms, restaurants, bars and stores have shut their doors, either voluntarily or under state and local government orders. Governors in five states — New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in the East, Illinois in the U.S. heartland and California on the Pacific coast — have ordered millions of people to stay home, in effect quarantined to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. No national shutdown is planned. FILE – Traders at the New York Stock Exchange listen to President Donald Trump’s televised White House news conference, March 17, 2020.All stock market gains since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017 have been erased in a matter of a few weeks, while economists say the U.S., the world’s biggest economy with more than $21 trillion in goods and services produced last year, could soon slip into a recession, its first in more than a decade. FILE – A caregiver tests a patient for coronavirus at University Hospitals, March 16, 2020, in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.The toll from the coronavirus is mounting in the U.S., with more than 27,000 confirmed cases and at least 323 deaths, with both figures markedly increasing in recent days. The U.S. Senate, normally sharply politically divided between the 53-member Republican majority and the 47 opposition Democrats, is working on the aid package in tandem with the administration of the Republican Trump. The Senate is planning to approve it in a rare Sunday afternoon session, with final passage in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Monday. “We’re all negotiating and everybody’s working hard,” Trump said Saturday, while urging his countrymen, “Stay at home and save lives.” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s key negotiator with congressional leaders, told the “Fox News Sunday” show, “I do think it will get done. The president is very determined to help Americans.” “We think we can stabilize the economy,” Mnuchin said. FILE – Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 11, 2020, before a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the FY’21 budget.Mnuchin said the aid package would give thousands of small businesses, those with 500 or fewer employees, enough cash to keep their businesses afloat for two weeks provided they keep their employees working as soon as they can and not dismiss them. He said this part of the aid package would affect about 50% of the U.S. economy, about half of its workforce of 160 million people. Mnuchin said that in addition, most Americans would get direct aid, with a family of four getting about $3,000 in one-time assistance. Congressional leaders say this part of the aid package would extend to individuals earning up to $99,000 annually and married couples up to $198,000, which covers about 91% of U.S. households. “They can think of this as a bridge to get through this,” Mnuchin said. He said the cash to families would be a one-time payout, but that if the coronavirus impact lasts longer “we’ll come back for more.” The Treasury chief said a third plank of the package would sanction $4 trillion in lending rights for the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, to inject new liquidity into the American economy as it sees fit. “We need the money now,” Mnuchin said of the overall package. “The president has every intention this is going to look a lot better in eight to 10 weeks.” “The U.S. economy is strong,” he said. “The economy is going to bounce back significantly.”
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By Polityk | 03/22/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Sanders Vastly Outspent Biden in February
U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s campaign in February spent less than one-third the amount spent by rival Democrat Bernie Sanders, according to disclosures by the campaigns filed Friday.Despite being outspent, Biden’s campaign finished the month surging at the polls with a victory in the February 29 nomination contest in South Carolina.Since early March, the former vice president has led the Democratic contest to be the nominee to take on Republican President Donald Trump in the November presidential election.In February, Biden’s campaign spend $13.1 million, compared to $45.8 million spent by Sanders. His campaign manager said this week he was reassessing his bid.The presidential race has changed dramatically since February, however, as a deadly coronavirus outbreak has led campaigns to suspend rallies and fundraisers.The outbreak is also causing swaths of the U.S. economy to shut down as state and local officials order businesses closed and, increasingly, people to stay in their homes.The outbreak could lead campaigns to rely more on television and digital advertising.Biden spent only around $5 million on ads in February, compared to more than $26 million spent by Sanders.With Sanders’ future in question, a potential match-up of Biden versus Trump has come into view. At present, the Republican appears to have a substantial funding advantage.Biden finished the month with $12.1 million in the bank. Trump’s campaign, which has been burning through the money it raises much more slowly than Biden’s campaign, ended the month $94.4 million in cash.
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By Polityk | 03/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Senator Asks for Ethics Investigation of Stock Sales Amid Uproar
U.S. Senator Richard Burr has sought an ethics review of his sale of $1.7 million in stocks last month ahead of the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, as he and other lawmakers face condemnation over the sales. Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, denied Friday that his decision to sell was based on information contained in private congressional briefings, saying he relied solely on public news reports. In a statement Friday, he asked the Senate Ethics Committee to “open a complete review of the matter with full transparency.” Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, is one of several lawmakers who sold large amounts of stocks recently after attending congressional briefings on the pandemic, prompting widespread criticism. FILE – Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia, speaks during a re-election campaign rally in Marietta, Georgia, March 9, 2020.Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia, also sold more than $1 million in stocks in recent weeks. Loeffler said on CNBC Friday that her stocks were sold “at the decision of our investment managers” and said she and her husband didn’t learn about the sale until later. Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Craig Sprecher, is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Two other senators – Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma – also are reported to have had financial transactions in the stock market after congressional briefings on COVID-19. Feinstein sold $1.5 million to $6 million shares of stock in mid to late February, while Inhofe sold about $400,000 in equities in late January. Both senators denied that they attended closed Senate briefings on coronavirus that could have informed their stock decisions. It is illegal for members of Congress, congressional staff and federal officials to use inside information to their financial advantage. Common Cause, an advocacy group, said it is filing complaints with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission against all four senators. President Donald Trump was asked at a White House news conference Friday whether he is “concerned about members of Congress using information they learned from updates to sell stocks and profit off” that information. “I don’t know too much about what it’s about,” Trump replied. “But I find them to all be very honorable people. That’s all I know. And they said they did nothing wrong.”
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By Polityk | 03/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Indiana, Mississippi Are Latest US States to Postpone Primary Elections
Indiana and Mississippi are the latest U.S. states to postpone primary elections because of the coronavirus pandemic. Indiana’s Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, said Friday that voting in the state’s presidential primary, originally scheduled for May 5, would now take place June 2. “It stands to reason that rescheduling such an election should only be done in a time of emergency, and by definition we find ourselves in that situation,” Holcomb said in a statement. The governor said both the state’s Democratic and Republican party chairs supported the move. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves addresses reporters during a news conference, March 4, 2020, in Jackson, Miss.Mississippi’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, Friday postponed the state’s March 31 Republican primary congressional runoff to June 23. Mississippi has already held its presidential primaries.“Conducting an election during this outbreak would force poll workers and voters to place themselves in unnecessary risk,” Reeves said in a statement. Indiana and Mississippi join a handful of states that have already postponed elections because of the coronavirus — Connecticut, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, Louisiana and Georgia. Wyoming suspended the in-person portion of its caucuses, urging people to vote through a ballot pickup and drop-off system. Government officials in those states have cited concerns that holding elections during a pandemic would be a public health risk. The White House this week urged all Americans to avoid groups of more than 10 and advised older people to stay home altogether. Earlier this week, Arizona, Florida and Illinois continued with their plans to hold primary elections, with reports indicating that voter turnout was down in those states. Former Vice President Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential primary in all three states, giving him an almost insurmountable lead over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the race to take on President Donald Trump in the general election in November.
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By Polityk | 03/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Some Americans Refuse to Abandon Presidential Candidates No Longer Running
MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE/LAS VEGAS, NEVADA — Two thousand “Vote for Tulsi” door hangers will arrive soon at Eileen Tepper’s Bronx, New York apartment. But she’s not sure what to do with them. Her candidate, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, dropped out of the Democratic presidential race on March 19. Tepper made eleven road trips, driving 400 miles north from New York to New Hampshire during the campaign, in support of Gabbard. She stood for hours at a booth inside a New Hampshire sports arena, her hands resting on a stack of navy hoodies reading “Tulsi 2020.”
“I’ve never really done anything like this before in my life,” the energetic curly-haired blonde, told VOA in the midst of Gabbard’s campaign.Her candidate’s polling in the low single digits did not faze Tepper. During the campaign, Gabbard won just two delegates, both from American Samoa, of the nearly 4,000 available nationwide. ‘I dreamed a Tulsi dream’Tepper is a Broadway performer, who took a hiatus during America’s 2020 campaign season. Her YouTube contribution to the campaign #WhyTulsi was a Eileen Tepper (L) and other supporters greet a voter asking about issues supported by now former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard dropped out of the race March 19. (Carolyn Presutti/VOA)Effects of coronavirusOnce COVID-19 curtailed travel, Tepper moved to campaigning through social media. But with Gabbard’s run ending, she says she mourns the loss of her online campaign community, “especially at a time where online community is all so many of us have.”COVID-19 has disrupted America’s presidential primary process, and some former contenders are reaching out to their supporters – not just to channel their political activism but also to urge them to heed health warnings and help block the spread of the virus.“In any other kind of national disaster, we would rush to gather together,” former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Macaulay Kong holds up a campaign sign in support of then-Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, at a primary polling site. The “Yang Gang” continued to campaign for him even after he dropped out of the race. (Carolyn Presutti/VOA)Just one problem. Yang dropped out of the race Feb. 11 and became a CNN political commentator. He has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, who now has a commanding lead in the delegate race over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Yet some of Yang’s most fervent supporters continued to campaign for him and his idea of a $1,000 a month universal basic income handout. Kong had never voted before and chose Yang even after he suspended his candidacy. “I’m a registered Republican all my life…and I switched to Democrat to vote for Andrew Yang,” Kong says.
Protest vote“When a candidate has already dropped out, [residual support is] essentially a protest vote,” says political science professor Justin Buchler of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, adding that voters who cling to candidates no longer in the running usually are unhappy with the remaining candidates still in the race.
Even so, Buchler predicts passionate voters who spent weeks or months serving as grassroots organizers for their favored candidate will continue to work as activists for the Democratic party and will vote for the eventual nominee in November.
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By Polityk | 03/21/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Cuomo Emerges as Democratic Counter to Trump Virus Response
Before President Donald Trump stepped into the White House briefing room to provide an update on the coronavirus, an opening act was broadcast across cable news of another chief executive calmly reciting statistics and safety tips.
For the second straight day, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s matter-of-fact and slightly scolding demeanor from an epicenter of the pandemic was a stark contrast Thursday to the often haphazard and hyperbolic messages coming from Trump.
“I tell my daughters: Make decisions based on risk versus reward,” the Democrat said at his Thursday briefing. “For young people to go out in crowds on spring break is so unintelligent and reckless, I can’t even begin to express it. Stay home. Stop the spread. Save lives.”
Through daily briefings and scores of media appearances, Cuomo has emerged as one of the key faces responding to the pandemic. He is one of several governors thrust into the spotlight as cases surge, forcing a reordering of American life without schools, sporting events or large crowds. The decisions to cancel events and help overburdened hospitals have often fallen to governors, like Ohio’s Mike DeWine, a Republican, who postponed the state’s primary this week, and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, who drew Trump’s ire for criticizing the federal response.
But it has been Cuomo’s daily briefings that have become must-see TV. Twice this week, the White House’s own coronavirus briefing was delayed until Cuomo concluded his own update, providing vital information to a public largely shut in at home, televisions anxiously tuned to cable news.
His appearances drew praise from some unlikely sources.
“I continue to be impressed with the briefings given by @realDonaldTrump and his world-class experts,” tweeted Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney. “Similarly, my Governor, Andrew Cuomo who is keeping us well informed.”
Meanwhile, an unexpected online fan club has popped up, full of adoring Twitter posts during the governor’s briefings and one Jezebel article Thursday titled “Help, I Think I’m In Love With Andrew Cuomo???”
It’s a remarkable show of affection for a governor who has long been more respected than loved, one who is in his third term in an overwhelmingly Democratic state yet has never been embraced by the party’s liberal base, who at times have grown frustrated with his centrist approach. He has twice toyed with running for president but never launched a campaign.
Still, his very public tactics have positioned him as the Democratic counter to Trump even as the party begins to coalesce around Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. Biden, who has a nearly insurmountable delegate lead in the Democratic contest, has largely kept a low profile limited to short speeches, remarks and other events livestreamed to supporters who are being advised to stay home for the foreseeable future.
As Cuomo conducts briefings from the state capital in Albany, he has vacillated between being Trump’s foil and his unlikely ally. The two Queens natives have traded barbs on Twitter while also conferring in late-night phone calls placed from the White House residence.
“Just had a very good tele-conference with Nation’s Governors. Went very well. Cuomo of New York has to ‘do more,”’ Trump tweeted Monday.
A short time later, Cuomo responded: “I have to do more? No — YOU have to do something! You’re supposed to be the President.”
But the two men spoke several times the next few days and Cuomo made a point, in national television interviews, of expressing his appreciation for Trump’s responsiveness even as he urged the federal government to do more.
“The best news is, I think the federal government has now really gotten this and they’re engaged,” Cuomo said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I said to the president, you step up, you help my state, you help my people, you help this country, and I will put my hand out in partnership 100% because politics be darned right now, right?”
The president, hours later from the White House briefing room, noted the comment, saying, “Andrew Cuomo is being very, very generous, saying such nice things about us.”
Cuomo has steered his state through crisis before, including the devastation wrought by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. He has long been drawn to proposing sweeping government projects and taking a hands-on approach to emergency responses. He worked for his father, three-term Gov. Mario Cuomo, and oversaw the response to numerous disasters as secretary of housing and urban development for President Bill Clinton.
He long has feuded with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a fellow Democrat who once worked for Cuomo at HUD. Ruthless when wielding political power, Cuomo has at times appeared to quash de Blasio’s policy proposals out of sport, and the two men have continued their rivalry during the coronavirus crisis.
Cuomo upstaged and undermined de Blasio by ordering the city’s schools to close mere minutes before the mayor was set to make the announcement, and, this week, the governor took pains to rebut the mayor’s plan for the nation’s largest city to shelter in place during the worst of the outbreak.
Cuomo’s performance this week, to some, echoed how another polarizing New York politician commanded the national stage when the commander-in-chief was missing in action.
Giuliani, then mayor of New York City, was the face of American grief and resolve on Sept. 11, 2001, when President George W. Bush was being scrambled to safety on Air Force One in the hours after the terror attacks. Cuomo’s leadership this week has been reminiscent of Giuliani in that moment of American worry, according to George Arzt, a New York Democratic consultant who was Mayor Ed Koch’s press secretary and has worked with both Cuomo and Trump.
“People are yearning for leadership, and they are not getting it from the Oval Office,” said Arzt. “Andrew really does well in a crisis. And here he is, someone taking the lead and showing on the state level what needs to be done nationally.”
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By Polityk | 03/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
2020 Campaigns Go Digital Amid Fears of Coronavirus Spread
No more rallies. No more door-knocking. And no more in-person fundraisers, raking in dollars from dozens of millionaires at once.
The coronavirus has disrupted American life, and the 2020 presidential campaign is no exception. Amid calls for social distancing to stop the pandemic’s spread, President Donald Trump and Democrats Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have had little choice but to call off large-scale public events in favor of politicking online and over the airwaves.
Gone are the rope lines, selfies with supporters and entourages of traveling press. They’re being replaced — for now — with tools of the digital world: tele-town halls, virtual fundraisers and live streamed speeches from candidates’ homes, sometimes with awkward results.
The abrupt shift has infused the contest with an added degree of uncertainty.
With control of the White House at stake, candidates have been forced to ditch well-honed strategies in favor of untested tactics. There are doubts about whether they will be able to continue raising crucial cash as unemployment soars and the economy sputters. There are also concerns that a virtual campaign could foster the spread of misinformation and maybe even force the cancellation of the major party conventions this summer.
“Nobody’s had to put together a general election strategy in the circumstances we face today,” Anita Dunn, Biden’s senior adviser, told The Associated Press. “I like to say every election is different. This election is really, really, really different.”
Digital advertising and online outreach were always going to play a major role in the election. But no one could anticipate that tactile politics would be completely put on hold.
Since events halted earlier this month, Sanders has held a virtual rally featuring rocker Neil Young and appeared via live stream for a “fireside chat.” But any momentum he’s sought to build has been sapped, as Biden, the former vice president, has won a string of contests that put the nomination within his grasp.
Sanders’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The pause has provided Biden the opportunity to retool his campaign, which was running on fumes before his massive win in South Carolina last month reset the race. But he lacks the robust digital operation that Sanders and Trump have. And his early experiments in online campaigning have had mixed results.
Biden aimed to appear presidential during a live stream Tuesday night, when he won primaries in Florida, Illinois and Arizona. Standing before a podium with an austere backdrop from his home state of Delaware, he called on the nation to put politics aside to fight the coronavirus because it “doesn’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican.”
Yet an earlier event was marred by technical glitches. At one point, Biden wandered off-camera. The campaign later apologized for the difficulties, and Rob Flaherty, Biden’s digital director, acknowledged live stream technology is “one of the things that we’re struggling with.”
“He’s the best retail politician in the entire world, right? So how do we build systems where he can go out and meet people, still talk to people, get those one-on-one engagements, and also make people feel like they’re a part of something?” Flaherty said.
The campaign is also looking into adopting the use of Slack, a popular group communication platform, now that staffers are working from home.
Trump, too, is not immune from the effects. Though the Republican has the megaphone of the presidency, his dismissive early response to the virus and denials that a pandemic was spreading have been largely panned.
At the same time, he’s being denied the ability to hold the freewheeling rallies that are a staple of his presidency and that allow him to blow off steam, attack rivals and often shift the media narrative.
As campaign offices have emptied out and workers telecommute from home, trainings for his reelection effort are now being done virtually, as are all voter contacts.
Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for Trump’s reelection campaign, said the campaign is “best equipped” for the pivot to virtual campaigning. But no amount of technology can replicate the arena rallies that have served as mass organizing and communication events for his reelection.
Murtaugh said the campaign hopes to roll out “live and interactive” events with surrogates online in the coming days. Still, don’t expect to see Trump participating in them.
Murtaugh said that as Trump and Vice President Mike Pence hold televised briefings daily, the campaign’s role is to amplify their message.
“Americans want to see that their president and their government is on the case,” he said.
While Biden has called for the country to come together for a moment of bipartisanship to address the crisis, other Democrats are itching to use Trump’s handling of it as an election-year attack.
“Using Trump’s own words and actions to remind people of his failures while he tries to rewrite history is essential,” tweeted David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s former campaign manager.
So far, at least, a political committee affiliated with Trump’s reelection has opted against taking the same course. America First Action, a super PAC sanctioned by Trump, has postponed plans to spend millions attacking Biden in TV ads while the crisis in ongoing.
Another area of uncertainty is whether any of the contenders will still be able to rake in gobs of money, the lifeblood of any campaign.
With big-dollar events on hold, the candidates and the parties could struggle to bring in large checks. The financial uncertainty could also depress grassroots donations from those who give small amounts online.
“We have to be thoughtful about how we ask people for money,” Flaherty said. “We’re moving into a space where the economy is going to be tougher.”
Not everyone is concerned, though.
“Any Democratic Party official who’s agonizing over what type of fundraising we do or what type of convention we’re going to have should get out of group therapy, go to JoeBiden.com and make a donation,” said Robert Zimmerman, a prominent New York donor and Democratic National Committee member who said he would be fine casting his ballot for Biden during a virtual convention. “The pandemic that we’re facing and the threat it represents puts everything in the proper perspective.”
But it’s not just the presidential candidates who will have to grapple with this new reality. Down-ballot candidates could find the shift to an all-digital campaign particularly challenging because many of them are running on much thinner budgets and have less money to spend on ads and staff to make up for the loss of in-person interaction.
“If you have no money, and you’re dependent on meeting people out in organic environments, the challenges you now face are huge,” said Kelly Dietrich, CEO of the National Democratic Training Committee, a group that trains Democrats who want to run for office or work on a campaign.
Even well-funded players in the presidential race are feeling the pinch. And the holding pattern gripping the contest is delaying on-the-ground organizing efforts that will be key to winning battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida.
“Everyone is hitting pause and thinking about how we engage in field activities and organizing. Hopefully we’ll get to a place where that can happen,” said Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, the largest outside Democratic group. “But the reality is that until we see changes, we’re just going to have to put those things on hold.”
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By Polityk | 03/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Some Americans Refuse to Abandon Losing Presidential Candidates
The U.S. presidential race is laser focused on the last two viable Democrats competing for their party’s nomination to challenge President Donald Trump in November. But what about the candidates who dropped out? VOA’s Carolyn Presutti found some die-hard supporters who refuse to give up on – or stop campaigning for – losing candidates.
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By Polityk | 03/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Sanders Supporters Say Coronavirus Justifies and Undermines his Presidential Campaign
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders reportedly is reassessing his presidential campaign after former Vice President Joe Biden’s dominating primary election victories this week effectively closed off any realistic path for Sanders to win the Democratic nomination. However, as VOA’s Brian Padden reports, many of Sanders’ most ardent supporters are unwilling to abandon their candidate’s progressive agenda – especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
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By Polityk | 03/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Gabbard Ends Long-Shot 2020 Bid, Throws Support to Biden
Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has suspended her presidential campaign, ending a long-shot effort that saw her feuding with Hillary Clinton and raising fears among Democrats that she would mount a third-party 2020 bid.In an email and video posted to Twitter on Thursday, Gabbard offered her full support to former Vice President Joe Biden, saying “it’s clear that Democratic primary voters have chosen” him to take on President Donald Trump in November. Noting their political differences, Gabbard said she respected Biden and had confidence in the motivations of his campaign effort.”Although I may not agree with the vice president on every issue, I know that he has a good heart, and he’s motivated by his love for our country and the American people,” Gabbard said. “I’m confident that he will lead our country, guided by the spirit of aloha respect and compassion, and thus help heal the divisiveness that has been tearing our country apart.”As the coronavirus outbreak continues, Gabbard, a military veteran and a major in the Army National Guard, said she would focus on her continued service, including military experience, should it be needed.”I feel that the best way I can be of service at this time is to continue to work for the health and wellbeing of the people of Hawaii and our country in Congress, and to stand ready to serve in uniform should the Hawaii National Guard be activated,” said Gabbard, who served two tours of duty in the Middle East.During her candidacy, Gabbard appeared often on Fox News Channel and angered fellow Democrats by voting “present” on the articles of impeachment against Trump.Gabbard attracted a sizable following in New Hampshire, where she frequently campaigned ahead of the state’s February primary. Some past supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the state warmed to her campaign over time, and she espoused a similar outsider approach to Sanders’ 2016 run, which Gabbard supported.She was also part of what once was a historically diverse Democratic field. The 38-year-old American Samoan’s campaign website described her as “the first Hindu to run for president and first practicing Hindu in Congress.” And as one of the youngest candidates in the field, Gabbard outlasted senators and governors who came into the large Democratic primary race with higher profiles. Although she failed to qualify for any stage past the fifth debate, in November, Gabbard was awarded two delegates once voting began, according to The Associated Press’ count, both in the March 2 contest in her native American Samoa.Yet Gabbard’s 2020 campaign was also quick to attract questions from voters. The Hawaii congresswoman has faced backlash for her 2017 meeting in Syria with Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government has been accused of chemical weapons attacks against its own citizens. And with a primary challenge looming, she announced in October she would not run for reelection to her Hawaii congressional seat. Gabbard’s decision became public shortly after a public feud with Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. In a podcast interview, Clinton appeared to call her “the favorite of the Russians” and said she believed Republicans have “got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate.”Gabbard responded by calling Clinton the “personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.” In January, she filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton, saying Clinton’s comments were based on either her own imagination or “extremely dubious conspiracy theories” that any reasonable person would know to be “inherently and objectively unreliable.”Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said, “That’s ridiculous.”As most of her Democratic House colleagues voted to impeach Trump in December, Gabbard chose to vote present on the two articles of impeachment. Former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie called for Gabbard to resign over the vote and said she wasn’t doing her job representing Hawaii. “Look, I did not take the easy vote,” Gabbard said after returning to the campaign trail. “I took the vote that I felt was in the best interest of our country and standing in the center to be able to bring the country together, to be able to begin this reconciliation that I think is so necessary in this terribly divided moment in our country.” Questions over whether Gabbard would mount a third-party run in November’s general election continued following her feud with Clinton. Even as she was questioned for her present vote on the impeachment articles, Gabbard maintained that a third-party campaign was not something she was considering. “Absolutely not,” Gabbard said in December 2019. “It’s not going to change. My decision won’t change, no matter how many times people say it, no matter how many times I get asked the question, it’s not changing. I’m running to be the Democratic nominee.”
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By Polityk | 03/19/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Reporter’s Notebook: Voting in a US Primary Under the COVID-19 Emergency
After living in the United States for 15 years, and less than a year after becoming a U.S. citizen, my British-born wife, Joanne, was planning to cast her first ballot in a U.S. election — the March 17 Illinois primary. Usually, an exciting time for any family.
She had planned for this moment for several months by researching newspaper articles, websites, and assorted campaign literature outlining the positions of not just the presidential candidates, but the local candidates in our area.
We talked about including in our experience, our three sons, all of whom are still too young to vote. We wanted their first experience watching democracy in action in the U.S. to be the one where they could witness their mother going through the process for the first time.
But as COVID-19 descended upon us, the uncertainty of whether there would even be a primary election in Illinois increased with each passing hour.
While there are still no confirmed cases of this strain of the coronavirus in our LaSalle County area, confusion about its impact on the election process began last week when several nursing homes closed access for visitors to their facilities. This began a scramble for election officials to find alternative polling sites.
Our polling location — a Knights of Columbus meeting hall near the center of town — was not affected by these changes, but uncertainty grew as first our state, then federal officials, began enacting restrictions on the number of crowds that could gather, and social distancing between people became standard operating procedure.
By Sunday night, with the announcement that most schools, churches, bars, restaurants, casinos, movie theaters and other public venues would close altogether, it seemed unlikely the election here could still go on.
Late Monday night, we learned that Ohio was postponing its primary election. And while Illinois did not appear to be following suit, I thought that might change overnight.
Scrolling through my newswires and social media feeds early on Election Day, it was clear that voting was in fact still on in Illinois, along with Arizona and Florida.
One of the posts in my social media feed that immediately caught my attention was from retired science teacher Joe Jakupcak, who works as a hiking and nature guide at Starved Rock State Park in central Illinois. “I became eligible to vote on March 31, 1971,” he explained. “Since then, I have not missed a primary, general, runoff, or special election. Today the schools, churches, and libraries are closed. The restaurants and bars are closed. Banks offer no pens or transaction slips. The parks and my job are closed. THE POLLS ARE OPEN!!! I am a prime Boomer target for COVID-19 and a believer in the science I taught for so long. Today I am staying sheltered in place. God willing, I’ll be in line to vote next November.”Evanston residents line up to vote at a polling station at Trinity Lutheran Church, in Evanston, Illinois, March 17, 2020.While Joanne and I were still committed to voting in person, Jakupcak’s post gave me pause. As I scrolled on, I read pharmacist Elizabeth Thrush’s post.
“So, I just went to vote,” she told her Facebook friends. “The election judges have no sanitizer, gloves or any protections to be dealing with the public all day today. Please don’t go if you’re sick and if you have any extra protection supplies please donate them to the volunteers or bring your own to protect yourself!”
The more I read, the more concerned I became. Voting in person was not something we considered lightly, but after discussing it with my wife, we decided to not take the children with us, and would ensure we maintained distance from other voters.
When we arrived at the Knights of Columbus hall, the first noticeable sign was the absence of many cars in the parking lot.
We quickly made our way through the entrance to our precinct check-in desk, where an election judge, properly equipped with latex gloves and ample hand sanitizer nearby, took our information. I looked around for other activity, since this location serves about six different local voting precincts. Only one other voter was present during our time there, so maintaining social distance with others wasn’t an issue.We registered our names, received our ballots, and proceeded to the voting booth. After filling out our forms and making our selections, my wife and I proceeded to the ballot box to submit our votes. I looked at the number on the digital readout of the ballot box that shows how many people voted before us in the precinct. It appeared that we were 21st and 22nd. The election judge helped ensure our ballots were properly submitted, and we took our “I Voted” stickers and left.Our entire experience lasted fewer than 10 minutes. While we didn’t really encounter many people inside the location, the ominous concerns about COVID-19 were present throughout the process.
I read later that others in my area had great concerns about the perceived lack of cleaning of voting booths, or lack of availability of safety equipment such as gloves and hand sanitizer.
Later that day, as we watched election returns trickle in, it was clear that the coronavirus had profoundly affected voters all across the state, some of whom had to wait in long lines. There was also confusion with polling locations, and others dealing with precincts where election judges didn’t show up.
Early indications showed that in-person voter turnout was down in many locations throughout Illinois this year, but requests for mail-in ballots and early voting reached record highs.
While it wasn’t the way Joanne thought her first voting experience would unfold, the decision on how to vote, and when, is a personal one.
We hope to have the opportunity to share the experience with our children in the general election in November, at a time when — hopefully — concerns about COVID-19 have eased, and life and voting are back to normal.
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By Polityk | 03/19/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Sanders Reassessing His Campaign After 3 More Big Biden Wins
Bernie Sanders was trying to determine his next moves on Wednesday, after Joe Biden swept to victory in Florida, Illinois and Arizona and seized a commanding lead in a Democratic presidential race upended by the coronavirus.
The Vermont senator’s campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said Sanders “is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign.” But Shakir also suggested his candidate is no hurry to make any decisions about dropping out, noting that “the next primary contest is at least three weeks away.”
More immediately, Sanders “is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable,” Shakir said in a statement.
Even if Sanders ultimately decides to keep running, however, he has little hope of catching Biden — especially in a political world turned as upside down as much of the rest of society amid efforts to combat the spreading virus, which has killed at least 115 people in the United States.
Neither candidate is traveling or holding campaign rallies, and much of the electorate has been staying home. Indeed, Biden’s third big night in as many weeks on Tuesday came amid tremendous uncertainty about how an already severely disrupted Democratic primary will proceed.
Polls were shuttered in Ohio, and election workers and voters reported problems in the three states where primaries went forward, all of which Biden easily won. The former vice president now seems on a glide path to the nomination, his delegate lead over Sanders nearly insurmountable. Top Democratic leaders and donors have also increasingly lined up behind Biden as the best option to square off against President Donald Trump in November.
Using a livestream to address supporters from his home state of Delaware, Biden seemed ready to move past the primary. He paid tribute to the Vermont senator for advancing key issues including affordable health care and combating climate change.
“Sen. Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues. Together they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country,” Biden said. “So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Sen. Sanders, I hear you. I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do.”
With the exception of North Dakota and the Northern Mariana Islands, Sanders hasn’t scored a victory since Super Tuesday on March 3. He made no moves to contact Biden immediately after Tuesday’s results, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the candidates. During online remarks before most results were in, Sanders said little about the future of the race.
Also Tuesday, Trump formally clinched the Republican presidential nomination after facing minimal opposition. But much of the action was on the Democratic side, where higher vote totals in some key states suggested enthusiasm that even the coronavirus couldn’t contain. Turnout in Florida’s Democratic primary surpassed the 1.7 million who cast ballots four years ago.
Some Democrats are now calling on Sanders to drop out in the name of party unity, but Sanders’ advisers have suggested he won’t rush to do so, betting that the political landscape could look different as the virus continues to reshape life across the country. Four years ago, Sanders kept an insurgent primary bid against Hillary Clinton going for months, even as it became clear he had no chance of winning.
Biden, meanwhile, maintained strength in the latest three states to vote with African Americans and older voters, who have been the hallmark of his campaign. He also appeared to chip away at Sanders’ previous advantage with Hispanics that helped him win Nevada and California early in the race.
In Florida, Latinos made up roughly 20% of Democratic primary voters, and they largely sided with Biden. The former vice president received the support of 62% of Puerto Rican voters and 57% of Cubans, according to AP VoteCast, a broad survey of primary voters.
Still, going forward, the primary will be disrupted by the public health and economic havoc wreaked by the coronavirus.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez blasted Ohio for closing polls on such short notice, sparking confusion. But he also urged states with upcoming primaries to expand vote-by-mail and absentee balloting, as well as polling station hours — trying to ensure the primary continues, at least in some form.
“The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy, and we must do everything we can to protect and expand that right instead of bringing our democratic process to a halt,” Perez said in a statement.
Four states — Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky and Maryland — have joined Ohio in moving to push back their upcoming primaries, and others may yet do so. As Shakir noted, that has left the Democratic primary calendar empty until March 29, when Puerto Rico is scheduled to go to the polls. But island leaders are working to reschedule balloting there, too.
That means there is nowhere for Sanders to gain ground on Biden anytime soon, even if he could find a way to mount a sudden surge.
At least one of Sanders’ top advisers chided party officials for going forward with voting on Tuesday.
“The Democratic Party rightly berates the GOP for ignoring scientists’ warnings about climate change,” David Sirota tweeted. “The same Dem Party just ignored scientists’ warnings & pushed to continue in-person elections during a lethal pandemic, rather than delaying until there is vote by mail.”
There were problems across the country on Tuesday. In Illinois, for instance, there was a push to relocate about 50 Chicago-area polling places after locations canceled at the last minute.
Jim Allen, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said the board asked Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week to cancel in-person voting, but the governor refused. Pritzker countered that state law doesn’t give him the authority to make the sweeping changes that elections officials wanted.
“Let me tell you this: It is exactly in times like these when the constitutional boundaries of our democracy should be respected above all else,” the governor said. “And if people want to criticize me for that, well, go ahead.”
There weren’t problems, everywhere, though. Mel Dockens, a 49-year-old small-business owner, voted in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale and said it was a tough choice. But he went for Biden because he thought Sanders’ progressive views might turn off some Democratic voters.
“It’s all about electability,” Dockens said. “It’s not that I don’t trust Bernie Sanders, but I trust (Biden) a little more.”
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By Polityk | 03/19/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Takes Command of Race for US Democratic Presidential Nomination
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has taken a commanding lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination to oppose Republican President Donald Trump in November’s national election. Biden, in his third run for the U.S. presidency over three decades, easily defeated Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in party primary elections in Florida, Illinois and Arizona on Tuesday, giving him a nearly insurmountable lead in pledged delegates to the party’s national nominating convention in July. After losing 19 of the last 24 state primary votes to Biden, the Sanders campaign said Wednesday he would be “having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign,” but there was no immediate indication that the self-declared democratic socialist was dropping out. FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders walks away from the podium after speaking to reporters in Burlington, Vermont, March 11, 2020.Instead, Sanders said that in the immediate term he would focus on the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic to ensure “that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.” Biden won all three primaries on Tuesday by lopsided margins, taking the battleground state of Florida, Trump’s adopted home, by nearly 40 percentage points and Illinois and Arizona by smaller, but still decisive counts. With large public political rallies ended in the U.S. because of the threat posed by the coronavirus, Biden declared in a somber, video-streamed address from his home in the eastern state of Delaware, “We’ve moved closer to securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.” Biden, speaking before votes were counted in the western state of Arizona, said he had a broad base of support in Florida and Illinois from African Americans and Latinos, teachers, suburban women, veterans and firefighters. WATCH: Biden Scores Decisive Primary Wins in 3 StatesSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – Voter Fred Hoffman fills out his ballot during the primary election in Ottawa, Illinois, March 17, 2020. The polling station was relocated from a nursing home to a former supermarket due to concerns over the outbreak of coronavirus.Sanders lost the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who went on to lose to Trump. Sanders has vowed to lead a social and economic revolution, including a massive overhaul of the U.S. health care system with the use of private insurers to pay medical bills to turn it into one fully run by the national government. Biden, the former two-term vice president under President Barack Obama, has argued that voters are more concerned about restoring stability and decency to the White House and seeking practical solutions to problems than the dramatic, revolutionary programs Sanders and his progressive allies are espousing. Biden said late Tuesday that while he and Sanders may disagree on tactics, they share ground on wanting more affordable health care, reducing income inequality and combating climate change. “Senator Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues,” Biden said. “Together they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country.” Trump narrowly won the key battleground state of Florida in 2016 over his Democratic challenger, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the populous state is expected to be highly contested again this year. FILE – Jefferson County Elections officials arrive to pack up the polling place at Our Lady of Lourdes church in Wintersville, Ohio, March 17, 2020.Postponed primariesA fourth state, Ohio in the U.S. heartland, had also been set to hold its primary election Tuesday.But the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, postponed it hours before public voting was set to start in the face of the growing fears of large numbers of voters and poll workers mingling in close proximity with each other at a time when health officials are urging the exact opposite, to safeguard against contracting the deadly coronavirus. Ohio is now set to vote in June. It is one of five states, along with Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana and Kentucky, that have postponed a party presidential primary because of the coronavirus pandemic that is causing a historic economic crisis and a shutdown of businesses, schools and sporting events. So far, nearly 6,500 cases of infection and 109 deaths have been reported in the U.S., according to worldometers.info.
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By Polityk | 03/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Scores Decisive Wins in 3 States
Former U.S. vice president Joe Biden scored decisive wins Tuesday in Democratic presidential primaries in the states of Florida, Illinois and Arizona. Mike O’Sullivan reports, Ohio postponed its vote because of coronavirus worries.
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By Polityk | 03/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
3 More Biden Victories Increase Pressure on Sanders to Quit
Joe Biden swept to victory in Florida, Illinois and Arizona, increasingly pulling away with a Democratic presidential primary upended by the coronavirus and building pressure on Bernie Sanders to abandon his campaign.
The former vice president’s third big night in as many weeks came Tuesday amid tremendous uncertainty as the Democratic contest collides with efforts to slow the spread of the virus that has shut down large swaths of American life. Polls were shuttered in Ohio, and although balloting went ahead as scheduled in the three other states, election workers and voters reported problems.
Still, Biden’s quest for his party’s nomination now seems well within reach. His trio of wins doubled his delegate haul over Sanders, giving the former vice president a nearly insurmountable lead. Top Democratic leaders and donors have also increasingly lined up behind Biden as the best option to square off against President Donald Trump in November.
Using a livestream to address supporters from his home state of Delaware, Biden seemed ready to move past the primary. He paid tribute to the Vermont senator for advancing key issues like affordable health care and combating climate change.
“Sen. Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues. Together they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country,” Biden said. “So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Sen. Sanders, I hear you. I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do.”
With the exception of North Dakota and the Northern Mariana Islands, Sanders hasn’t scored a victory since Super Tuesday on March 3. He made no immediate move on Tuesday to contact Biden, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the candidates. During remarks early in the night, Sanders said little about the future of the race and instead focused on the coronavirus outbreak.
Trump, meanwhile, formally clinched the Republican presidential nomination after facing minimal opposition.
But much of the action was on the Democratic side, where higher vote totals in some key states suggested enthusiasm that even the coronavirus couldn’t contain. Turnout in Florida’s Democratic primary surpassed the 1.7 million who cast ballots four years ago.
Sanders’ path to the nomination is quickly narrowing, and some Democrats are now calling on him to drop out in the name of party unity. Top advisers have said he’s considering whether the political landscape could look different as the virus continues to reshape life across the country.
Still, the race increasingly favors Biden. He maintained strength on Tuesday with African Americans and older voters who have been the hallmark of his campaign. He also appeared to chip away at Sanders’ previous advantage with Hispanics that helped him win Nevada and California early in the race.
In Florida, Latinos made up roughly 20% of Democratic primary voters, and they largely sided with Biden. The former vice president received the support of 62% of Puerto Rican voters and 57% of Cubans, according to AP VoteCast, a broad survey of primary voters.
The public health and economic havoc wreaked by the coronavirus will nonetheless influence how the presidential contest unfolds. Rallies and other big events have been canceled. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez urged states with upcoming primaries to expand vote-by-mail and absentee balloting, as well as polling station hours — trying to ensure the primary isn’t further hampered going forward.
“The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy, and we must do everything we can to protect and expand that right instead of bringing our democratic process to a halt,” Perez said in a statement.
But the damage may have already happened.
Four states — Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky and Maryland — have joined Ohio in moving to push back their upcoming primaries, and others may yet do so. That has left the Democratic primary calendar empty until March 29, when Puerto Rico is scheduled to go to the polls. But island leaders are working to reschedule balloting there, too.
That means there is nowhere for Sanders to gain ground on Biden anytime soon, even if he could find a way to mount a sudden surge.
At least one of Sanders’ top advisers chided party officials for going forward with voting on Tuesday.
“The Democratic Party rightly berates the GOP for ignoring scientists’ warnings about climate change,” David Sirota tweeted. “The same Dem Party just ignored scientists’ warnings & pushed to continue in-person elections during a lethal pandemic, rather than delaying until there is vote by mail.”
There were problems across the country on Tuesday. In Illinois, for instance, there was a push to relocate about 50 Chicago-area polling places after locations canceled at the last minute.
Jim Allen, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said the board asked Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week to cancel in-person voting, but the governor refused. Pritzker countered that state law doesn’t give him the authority to make the sweeping changes that elections officials wanted.
“Let me tell you this: It is exactly in times like these when the constitutional boundaries of our democracy should be respected above all else. And if people want to criticize me for that, well, go ahead,” the governor said.
There weren’t problems, everywhere, though. Mel Dockens, a 49-year-old small-business owner, voted in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale and said it was a tough choice. But he went for Biden because he thought Sanders’ progressive views might turn off some Democratic voters.
“It’s all about electability,” Dockens said. “It’s not that I don’t trust Bernie Sanders, but I trust (Biden) a little more.”
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By Polityk | 03/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Sweeps to Florida, Illinois Wins in US Democratic Presidential Primary
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden swept to a convincing win in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primaries in Florida and Illinois over Sen. Bernie Sanders, with Biden also expected to win in Arizona.With nearly all of the vote counted in Florida, the southeastern state that is the adopted home of Republican President Donald Trump, Biden was beating Sanders of Vermont 62% to 23%.The margin was similar in Illinois, where with more than half of precincts reporting Biden held an edge of 59% to 36%. With the wins Tuesday, Biden, in his third run for the presidency over three decades, has won 18 of the last 23 state primaries over Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist who has vowed to lead a social and economic revolution, including a massive overhaul of the U.S. health care system.Workers counts ballots at the Broward County Supervisor Of Elections Office during the Florida Primary elections at the Broward County Supervisor Of Elections Office in Lauderhill, Fla., March 17, 2020.Biden, the former two-term vice president under President Barack Obama, has argued that voters are more concerned about restoring stability and decency to the White House and seeking practical solutions to problems than the dramatic, revolutionary programs Sanders and his progressive allies are espousing.Biden spoke from his home in Delaware late Tuesday saying that while he and Sanders may disagree on tactics, they share ground on wanting more affordable health care, reducing income inequality and combating climate change.“Senator Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues,” Biden said. “Together they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country. So let me say especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders, I hear you, I know what’s at stake, I know what we have to do.”Delegate numbersThe victories Tuesday add to Biden’s lead in pledged delegates for the Democratic national convention in July, where the party will pick its nominee to face Trump in November’s national election as the president seeks a second four-year term in the White House.Trump narrowly won the key battleground state of Florida in 2016 over his Democratic challenger, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the populous state is expected to be highly contested again this year.Before Tuesday’s voting, Biden held an 898-745 lead over Sanders in pledged delegates to the national convention. At least 1,991 delegates are needed to clinch the nomination to run against Trump.
The fivethirtyeight.com political forecasting site is projecting that Biden could add more than 300 delegates to his total in the Tuesday voting and push his lead over Sanders to about 320 delegates — a near insurmountable lead.Postponed primariesA fourth state, Ohio in the U.S. heartland, had also been set to hold its primary election Tuesday. But the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, postponed it hours before public voting was set to start in the face of the growing fears of large numbers of voters and poll workers mingling in close proximity with each other at a time when health officials are urging the exact opposite, to safeguard against contracting the deadly coronavirus. Patrick Lathem loads a truck containing packed polling place equipment after dismantling a polling place in Wintersville, Ohio, March 17, 2020. Ohio’s presidential primary was postponed amid coronavirus concerns.Ohio is now set to vote in June. It is one of five states, along with Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana and Kentucky, that have postponed a party presidential primary because of the coronavirus pandemic that is causing a historic economic crisis and a shutdown of businesses, schools, sporting events, and has led thus far to nearly 6,500 cases of infection and 109 deaths in the U.S., according to worldometers.info.Voters in the three states that did vote Tuesday often arrived at polling places to find a chaotic situation, sometimes without election officials or a lack of disinfecting supplies at a time when federal officials are urging Americans to regularly clean surfaces they touch.John Davis, a polling judge volunteer, sanitizes an electronic voting machine screen amid concerns about the COVID-19 coronavirus at a polling place in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, March 17, 2020.Some voters in Arizona were told to cast ballots at municipal buildings that otherwise were closed because of the public health crisis.Some voters in Ohio showed up to vote, unaware DeWine had stopped the voting, even though a judge had ruled that his close-the-polls effort was invalid.There was wide interest in the Democratic race in Florida, which Trump now calls his official home, even though he made his professional mark before winning the presidency as a real estate mogul in New York.Nearly 1.1 million Florida Democrats voted early or by mail ahead of the Tuesday primary, up from 890,000 four years ago. In all, 1.7 million Democrats voted in the 2016 primary.
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By Polityk | 03/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Once Ardent Trump Supporters, White Nationalists Splinter Ahead of Presidential Vote
Once a cohesive and menacing threat closely in tune with Trump administration policies, America’s white nationalists have grown deeply divided and marginalized in recent years – thanks largely to a massive public backlash and social media crackdown.
Broken and rudderless, they’re now bickering among themselves over the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign. While some white nationalists remain among President Donald Trump’s staunchest loyalists, others, disappointed with the president’s record on immigration and a host of other issues, are casting about for other candidates to support in the November election – going even so far as to praise some of the views of democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a fierce Trump critic.
“The extreme right is fractured right now in terms of their support for President Trump,” said Joshua Fisher Birch, a researcher at the Counter Extremism Project. “Many who originally supported him are disappointed with how the last few years have gone.” FILE – A U.S. Border Patrol agent drives near the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Sunland Park, New Mexico, Jan. 4, 2016.Trump’s vow to build a “big, beautiful” wall along the southern border with Mexico is a work in progress that may never be completed. His promise to impose a total ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and to deport millions of others has fallen well short of the president’s pledge.
“They’re upset that that continues at all,” Birch said, referring to non-white immigration.
Four years ago, American white nationalists were a more united federation. Inspired by Trump’s populist message – on immigration, trade and political correctness – they embraced his candidacy with a fervor not seen since Republican firebrand Pat Buchanan galvanized many on the right with his anti-immigration, nativist presidential run in 1988.
“Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” white nationalist leader Richard Spencer famously chanted as he led his followers in a toast and raised stiff-armed salute to the new chief after Trump’s election over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. FILE – A white supremacists carries the Confederate flag as he walks past counter demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017.Emboldened by Trump’s victory, dozens of white supremacist groups held their largest rally in decades when they converged on the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 ostensibly to protest the removal of a Civil War general’s statute from a public park. Things came to a head when a neo-Nazi drove his truck into a group of counter-protesters, killing a woman and injuring dozens of other people.
Trump denounced the violence but not before insisting there had been “very fine people on both sides,” a comment that drew wide condemnation for suggesting moral equivalence between violent white supremacists and counter-protesters. For the white nationalist movement, the fallout was immediate and ruinous. Many were kicked off major social media platforms and other sites. Lawsuits seeking damages escalated pressure on them pushing groups such as the white supremacist Traditionalist Workers Party and the National Policy Institute further to the fringes. The movement became increasingly splintered.
Their enthusiasm for Trump soon gave way to antipathy and even anger as Trump failed to deliver on key campaign promises: build a border wall paid for by Mexico, deport millions of illegal immigrants, ban Muslims from entering the country, end birthright citizenship. Trump’s pro-Israel policies have furthered angered the virulently anti-Semitic white nationalists.
“Pretty much across the board for white nationalists Trump isn’t turning out to be what they thought he was,” said Cassie Miller, a senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Trump supporters say this is evidence that Trump was never seeking to curry favor with white nationalists – as many Democrats contend – even if they bought into his rhetoric.
“We denounce white nationalism, bigotry, and racism in all forms,” said Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for Trump’s re-election campaign, when asked to comment on white nationalists’ disappointment with Trump’s record.
Not all white nationalists have soured on Trump, however. Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, white supremacist leader Patrick Casey and right-wing podcaster Nick Fuentes continue to back Trump.
“You will find people who will still say that the president is their best hope for what their positions are,” said Brian Levin, executive director of the center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University. U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, speaks during a news conference, Oct. 29, 2019, in New York.But others have long since turned their backs on Trump. Last year, Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii received the endorsement of several prominent white nationalists such as Spencer and former KKK leader David Duke. She disavowed the endorsement.
Now some white nationalists are taking a close look at Sanders’ candidacy.
“I could definitely see myself either supporting or even voting for a candidate who I thought was authentic to himself or herself,” Spencer said in an online video last week. “I could see myself voting for Tulsi. I could see myself voting for Bernie in the sense that he is what he is: he’s an authentic person.” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders walks away from the podium after speaking to reporters in Burlington, Vermont, March 11, 2020.At first glance, Sanders would appear as an improbable presidential choice for the far right. A self-described democratic socialist of Jewish faith, Sanders vowed last year that he would “go to war” against white nationalism if he is elected in November. Last week, Sanders expressed revulsion after a protester waved a Nazi flag at one of his campaign rallies.
But Sanders’ boosters among white nationalists have seized on his past tough-on-immigration statements to argue that the independent senator from Vermont deserves a close look. FILE – U.S. writer Jared Taylor speaks during the International Russian Conservative Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, March 22, 2015. In a recent online video, Jared Taylor, considered the “intellectual godfather” of white nationalism, argued that Sanders is not “the worst of the Democrats,” noting that Sanders had in the 1970s opposed allowing foreign guest workers into the country and as recently as 2016 called open borders “a Koch brothers proposal.”
“Donald Trump has been a disappointment in a lot of ways,” Taylor said in the video titled What Bernie Would Mean for Us. “But which man would be better?” Taylor said.
The commentary led white nationalist blogger Hunter Wallace to dismiss suggestions by others in the movement that Trump is the “lesser of two evils.”
“We took everything that Donald Trump said at face value,” Wallace wrote, recounting a litany of unfulfilled promises by Trump and claiming that “on most issues” Trump has continued the Obama Administration’s policies.
Wallace wrote that while Sanders is far from “pro-White,” some of his proposed socialist policies could potentially help white people.
“What is more likely to help young White people? Ending the burden of student loan debt OR four more years or Donald Trump’s inept immigration policies?” he wrote.
For white nationalists, Sanders’ criticism of Israeli policies is another draw.
“Bernie Sanders will be far less pro-Israel and pro-Wall Street than Donald Trump,” Wallace wrote. “He will be less willing to start a war with Iran.” On the white nationalist website Stormfront, a discussion thread titled “A reason to vote for Bernie Sanders” unleashed a deluge of anti-Semitic comments. One poster gushed at the “potential benefit” of prison reform pushed by Sanders leading to the release of incarcerated neo-Nazis.
Megan Squire, a computer scientist at Elon University who tracks online extremism, says far-right support for Sanders may be little more than “a thought experiment.”
“The question is, how much are they going to overlook?” Squire said. “And as they’re debating right now, what’s the lesser of two evils? So they’re going to be spending a bit of time going around that.”
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By Polityk | 03/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Gets Secret Service Protection After Protester Run-Ins
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who has been repeatedly accosted by protesters on the campaign trail, is receiving U.S. Secret Service protection beginning this week, the agency said. Biden made the request earlier this month after a handful of testy interactions with protesters at recent campaign events, including one in which two protesters rushed a stage in Los Angeles and came within a few meters of Biden during a Super Tuesday victory speech. Biden’s wife, Jill, and several staff members, including one trained security officer employed by the campaign, restrained the women and carried them from the stage. Neither the former vice president nor his wife was hurt. The leading candidates in the 2012 and 2016 presidential contests had Secret Service protection by this point in those races. Neither Biden nor Democratic primary rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had requested protection until now. Sanders still has not made a request. FILE – A protester at left, is held back by Jill Biden, center, and her husband Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, during a primary election night rally in Los Angeles, March 3, 2020.The Secret Service protects, by statute, the president and vice president and their families, as well as some other senior government officials. It is also authorized to provide protection to major party presidential candidates, an authority granted after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. The process for assigning a security detail to a candidate generally requires that campaigns initiate the request for protection. The Secret Service does a threat assessment and consults with Department of Homeland Security officials and a congressional commission made up of the majority and minority leaders of both chambers, plus another member. The ultimate decision on whether to provide protection is made by DHS. Earlier this month, Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., said the House Homeland Security Committee had asked the Secret Service to provide protection to all remaining major presidential candidates. Richmond, one of Biden’s campaign co-chairmen, said members of Congress were “very worried” about the March 3 episode, when the protesters rushed the stage at the Biden speech in California. At an event in New Hampshire, a man approached Biden from behind. When the man tried to interrupt Biden, Biden’s wife put her arms around the man, turned him around and helped push him away. Biden isn’t the only candidate to have been accosted at a campaign event. Topless demonstrators crashed a Sanders rally in Nevada in February.
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By Polityk | 03/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Coronavirus Pandemic Overshadows Tuesday’s Democratic Primaries
An Ohio judge has rejected an appeal by the state’s governor to postpone its Democratic primary until June because of the coronavirus pandemic– meaning Democrats will head to the polls as scheduled in four states Tuesday despite a growing number of shutdowns around the country because of the outbreak. Former vice president Joe Biden is favored over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in all four of Tuesday’s primaries in a campaign that has become increasingly overshadowed by public concern about coronavirus. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington
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By Polityk | 03/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Minorities, Youth & Poor Facing Longest Lines in Primary Elections
Abdul Smith, a 42-year-old African American resident of Santa Monica, California, made six attempts to vote in his state’s Democratic primary on March 3. Long lines at polling stations defeated him each time. “It was the first vote I’d missed since my 18th birthday,” Smith told VOA. “Every time I went to a new polling location, the line was even longer. I couldn’t find anywhere with less than a two-hour wait.” California now allows voters to cast ballots at any polling place in the county where they live. Smith works from home, and repeatedly attempted to vote between morning meetings. He tried again in the afternoon but had to leave to pick up his daughters from school. “By then, the lines were stretching down a stairwell, out a building and down one-and-a-half city blocks,” he said, adding that he intended to vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. FILE – A sign points potential voters to an official polling location during early voting in Dallas, Feb. 26, 2020.Others have persevered for as many as seven hours. Some of the longest lines in America’s primary season to date were reported in Houston, Texas, where Alex Palmer waited for nearly five hours earlier this month to cast a ballot for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “These elections are too important to miss,” said Palmer, a recent college graduate. “I wanted my voice to be counted, no matter how long it took.” Palmer’s polling place is located at Texas Southern University, a historically black institution of higher learning in a city with large African American and Hispanic populations. Unusually long lines have not been limited to California and Texas. Twenty-four states held nominating contests ahead of Tuesday’s primaries in Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona. Polling stations from Dallas, Texas, to East Lansing, Michigan, to San Francisco, California, all reported frustrating delays. In Fargo, North Dakota, hundreds of voters stood in minus-10-degree Celsius weather for more than two hours. FILE – In this Feb. 28, 2020 photo, voters wait in line at an early polling site in San Antonio.Widespread reports of voting delays come as Democrats turn out in record numbers in many states to choose a nominee to face President Donald Trump in November. They also come amid renewed allegations of voter suppression in the United States. Caren Short, senior staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, notes that voting problems tend to affect similar demographics in state after state. “If you look where the longest lines take place, it’s almost always in places with a disproportionate number of voters of color, poor voters, young voters and voters with less access to transportation,” Short said. A historic problem Voter suppression is nothing new to U.S. politics. Suffrage for non-landowners didn’t come until 1828, and it wasn’t until the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1870 that denying the right to vote based on race and color was prohibited. Even after the 15th Amendment, poll taxes and literacy tests disenfranchised poor and minority voters. Of the 330,000 black residents of Mississippi in 1946, only 30,000 could vote. FILE – Photograph of President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act as Martin Luther King, Jr., with other civil rights leaders in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington, DC, Aug. 6, 1965. (Creative Commons)This changed with the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. “A very important piece of that Act,” Short explained, “was a handful of states that had previously restricted the right to vote were now required to obtain federal approval before making any changes to their local election laws.” The law allowed the federal government to veto restrictive barriers to voting. Before 1965, only 23% of African Americans voted in America. That number jumped to 61% by 1969, giving black voters political clout they hadn’t had since the aftermath of the Civil War. This provision lasted for nearly 50 years, before the U.S. Supreme Court deemed in the 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision that this protection was no longer necessary. But Short believes data from the last seven years show otherwise. New rules The Brennan Center for Justice reports 25 states have enacted new voting restrictions in the last decade. Since Shelby v. Holder, these restrictions include new ID requirements, cuts to early voting, the purging of voters from state databases and a dramatic rise in polling place closures. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights notes that 1,688 polling locations have closed in 13 states in the last six years, and that those closures disproportionately take place in districts with growing populations of minority or young voters, leading to longer voting lines. Many Republican lawmakers see these restrictions as a necessary defense against fraudulent voting. In a 2017 op-ed in The Dallas Morning News, for example, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote, “Ensuring the integrity of the ballot box is one of the most fundamental functions of the government. We must do more to ensure that there is no illegal voting in Texas.” Civil rights organizations, however, insist there is no data to substantiate claims that voter fraud is a serious threat. “It is very, very rare,” Short said, adding that a lack of uniformity in how voting is conducted is a far bigger threat. “Rules are different from state to state, and even from county to county. It’s confusing to voters, but it also makes it difficult to communicate accurate information and to properly train poll workers.” Many states, many problems In Michigan, the long lines were partially being blamed on more than 10,000 voters taking advantage of a new law that allowed them to register on the same day as the primaries, slowing down voting as they completed lengthy paperwork. FILE – Voters work on their ballots in the kiosks in Jackson, Miss., March 10, 2020.Alabama and Mississippi residents reported the moving of polling places to new locations, causing confusion and delays. In Texas, long voting lines are the subject of partisan debate. Democrats blame Republican efforts to close more than 750 polling locations across the state. Republicans blame county Democrats for assigning the same number of voting machines for both parties, even though Democratic primary turnout was expected to be much higher than that of Republicans, as Trump has faced no serious challenge to his nomination for a second term. “It’s easy to get caught up in what the intention of certain laws were that caused long lines,” said Abraham Aiyash, statewide training and political director at Michigan United, “but the most important thing to focus on is that whether it was an honest mistake, overwhelmed volunteers or something more nefarious, people haven’t been able to cast their ballot. That, by definition, is voter suppression, and we need to stop it.” Upcoming elections In Arizona, which is holding its primary election this week, 20% of polling locations have been closed, mostly in urban centers. Florida controversially eliminated early voting locations on and near college campuses, making long lines more likely Tuesday. Georgia — which was scheduled to vote next week, but whose primary was delayed because of COVID-19 — has reorganized polling stations such that seven counties with large minority populations have only one location to cast their ballots.Aiyash says states and counties must learn from and fix voting problems before November’s general election, when voter turnout is expected to be even higher. “If you were overwhelmed in the primaries, imagine what that will look like in November,” he said. Short agrees. “Some people see long lines as an example of great turnout that should be celebrated,” she explained, “but it’s actually an example of voter suppression. It’s unfair, and it’s damaging to our democracy,” she said.
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By Polityk | 03/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Ohio Postpones Democratic Primaries as 3 States Go Ahead With Voting
Voters in three U.S. states are set to go to polling places Tuesday to cast ballots in primaries to pick the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, despite worries about the coronavirus outbreak that forced one state to postpone its voting. Going into Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden leads Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders 898 to 745 in pledged delegates. Former Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate at CNN Studios in Washington, March 15, 2020.Under ordinary circumstances Tuesday’s primaries would be a major focus of the campaign to win the spot to take on Republican President Donald Trump in November with three big states holding their votes on the same day. Florida, with 219 pledged delegates at stake is one state where officials gave assurances Monday that the voting will be safe as it goes ahead Tuesday. “There is no need to panic,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, adding that most people will only be inside the polling place for a few minutes. Florida health officials have reported 142 coronavirus cases. But in Ohio, where 136 delegates are at stake and 50 coronavirus cases have been confirmed, leaders there supported voters in seeking a court order to postpone the vote because of the coronavirus. FILE – Greg Froehlinch and his wife Deb of Steubenville, Pa., take advantage of early voting, Sunday, March 15, 2020, in Steubenville, Ohio.After a judge denied their request, Governor Mike DeWine and Health Department Director Amy Acton ordered the polls closed. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose then said the election would be postponed until June. “Logistically, under these extraordinary circumstances, it simply isn’t possible to hold an election tomorrow that will be considered legitimate by Ohioans,” DeWine and LaRose said in a joint statement. “They mustn’t be forced to choose between their health and exercising their constitutional rights.” Illinois has 155 delegates at stake and election officials said the voting will go on as scheduled with authorities “working hard to ensure the safety of voters and poll workers.” Arizona is the smallest prize Tuesday with 67 delegates at stake. Its leaders noted voter concerns, but described the scheduled election as the best opportunity for people to cast ballots. “This decision was not made lightly, and what it all comes down to is that we have no guarantee that there will be a safer time to hold this election in the near future,” said Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. “The longer we wait, the more difficult and dangerous this will become.”
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By Polityk | 03/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Are Long Waits Discouraging US Voters from Casting Ballots in Primary Elections?
Abdul Smith, a 42-year-old African American resident of Santa Monica, California, made six attempts to vote in his state’s Democratic primary on March 3. Long lines at polling stations defeated him each time. “It was the first vote I’d missed since my 18th birthday,” Smith told VOA. “Every time I went to a new polling location, the line was even longer. I couldn’t find anywhere with less than a two-hour wait.” California now allows voters to cast ballots at any polling place in the county where they live. Smith works from home, and repeatedly attempted to vote between morning meetings. He tried again in the afternoon but had to leave to pick up his daughters from school. “By then, the lines were stretching down a stairwell, out a building and down one-and-a-half city blocks,” he said, adding that he intended to vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. FILE – A sign points potential voters to an official polling location during early voting in Dallas, Feb. 26, 2020.Others have persevered for as many as seven hours. Some of the longest lines in America’s primary season to date were reported in Houston, Texas, where Alex Palmer waited for nearly five hours earlier this month to cast a ballot for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “These elections are too important to miss,” said Palmer, a recent college graduate. “I wanted my voice to be counted, no matter how long it took.” Palmer’s polling place is located at Texas Southern University, a historically black institution of higher learning in a city with large African American and Hispanic populations. Unusually long lines have not been limited to California and Texas. Twenty-four states held nominating contests ahead of Tuesday’s primaries in Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona. Polling stations from Dallas, Texas, to East Lansing, Michigan, to San Francisco, California, all reported frustrating delays. In Fargo, North Dakota, hundreds of voters stood in minus-10-degree Celsius weather for more than two hours. FILE – In this Feb. 28, 2020 photo, voters wait in line at an early polling site in San Antonio.Widespread reports of voting delays come as Democrats turn out in record numbers in many states to choose a nominee to face President Donald Trump in November. They also come amid renewed allegations of voter suppression in the United States. Caren Short, senior staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, notes that voting problems tend to affect similar demographics in state after state. “If you look where the longest lines take place, it’s almost always in places with a disproportionate number of voters of color, poor voters, young voters and voters with less access to transportation,” Short said. A historic problem Voter suppression is nothing new to U.S. politics. Suffrage for non-landowners didn’t come until 1828, and it wasn’t until the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1870 that denying the right to vote based on race and color was prohibited. Even after the 15th Amendment, poll taxes and literacy tests disenfranchised poor and minority voters. Of the 330,000 black residents of Mississippi in 1946, only 30,000 could vote. FILE – Photograph of President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act as Martin Luther King, Jr., with other civil rights leaders in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington, DC, Aug. 6, 1965. (Creative Commons)This changed with the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. “A very important piece of that Act,” Short explained, “was a handful of states that had previously restricted the right to vote were now required to obtain federal approval before making any changes to their local election laws.” The law allowed the federal government to veto restrictive barriers to voting. Before 1965, only 23% of African Americans voted in America. That number jumped to 61% by 1969, giving black voters political clout they hadn’t had since the aftermath of the Civil War. This provision lasted for nearly 50 years, before the U.S. Supreme Court deemed in the 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision that this protection was no longer necessary. But Short believes data from the last seven years show otherwise. New rules The Brennan Center for Justice reports 25 states have enacted new voting restrictions in the last decade. Since Shelby v. Holder, these restrictions include new ID requirements, cuts to early voting, the purging of voters from state databases and a dramatic rise in polling place closures. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights notes that 1,688 polling locations have closed in 13 states in the last six years, and that those closures disproportionately take place in districts with growing populations of minority or young voters, leading to longer voting lines. Many Republican lawmakers see these restrictions as a necessary defense against fraudulent voting. In a 2017 op-ed in The Dallas Morning News, for example, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote, “Ensuring the integrity of the ballot box is one of the most fundamental functions of the government. We must do more to ensure that there is no illegal voting in Texas.” Civil rights organizations, however, insist there is no data to substantiate claims that voter fraud is a serious threat. “It is very, very rare,” Short said, adding that a lack of uniformity in how voting is conducted is a far bigger threat. “Rules are different from state to state, and even from county to county. It’s confusing to voters, but it also makes it difficult to communicate accurate information and to properly train poll workers.” Many states, many problems In Michigan, the long lines were partially being blamed on more than 10,000 voters taking advantage of a new law that allowed them to register on the same day as the primaries, slowing down voting as they completed lengthy paperwork. FILE – Voters work on their ballots in the kiosks in Jackson, Miss., March 10, 2020.Alabama and Mississippi residents reported the moving of polling places to new locations, causing confusion and delays. In Texas, long voting lines are the subject of partisan debate. Democrats blame Republican efforts to close more than 750 polling locations across the state. Republicans blame county Democrats for assigning the same number of voting machines for both parties, even though Democratic primary turnout was expected to be much higher than that of Republicans, as Trump has faced no serious challenge to his nomination for a second term. “It’s easy to get caught up in what the intention of certain laws were that caused long lines,” said Abraham Aiyash, statewide training and political director at Michigan United, “but the most important thing to focus on is that whether it was an honest mistake, overwhelmed volunteers or something more nefarious, people haven’t been able to cast their ballot. That, by definition, is voter suppression, and we need to stop it.” Upcoming elections In Arizona, which is holding its primary election this week, 20% of polling locations have been closed, mostly in urban centers. Florida controversially eliminated early voting locations on and near college campuses, making long lines more likely Tuesday. Georgia — which was scheduled to vote next week, but whose primary was delayed because of COVID-19 — has reorganized polling stations such that seven counties with large minority populations have only one location to cast their ballots.Aiyash says states and counties must learn from and fix voting problems before November’s general election, when voter turnout is expected to be even higher. “If you were overwhelmed in the primaries, imagine what that will look like in November,” he said. Short agrees. “Some people see long lines as an example of great turnout that should be celebrated,” she explained, “but it’s actually an example of voter suppression. It’s unfair, and it’s damaging to our democracy,” she said.
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By Polityk | 03/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
