Розділ: Політика
Pelosi, Trump Battle Out 2020 Election Year
US House Democrats’ attempt to remove President Donald Trump from office for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress failed in the U.S. Senate this month, and some polls show the president is now more popular than ever before. But that hasn’t stopped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from criticizing Trump for what she says is a “manifesto of untruths.” VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on what happens next in the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill.
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By Polityk | 02/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Facebook to Allow Paid Political Messages That Aren’t Ads
Facebook decided Friday to allow a type of paid political message that had sidestepped many of the social network’s rules governing political ads. Its policy change came days after presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg exploited a loophole to run such humorous messages promoting his campaign on the accounts of popular Instagram personalities followed by millions of younger people. The change involves what Facebook calls branded content'' — sponsored items posted by ordinary users who are typically paid by companies or organizations. Advertisers pay the influential users directly to post about their brand. No money for FacebookFacebook makes no money from such posts and does not consider them advertising. As a result, branded content isn't governed by Facebook's advertising policies, which require candidates and campaigns to verify their identity with a U.S. ID or mailing address and disclose how much they spent running each ad. Until Friday, Facebook tried to deter the use of paid posts through influential users as political messages. Specifically, it barred political campaigns from using a tool designed to help advertisers run branded posts on Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. Friday's rule change will now allow campaigns in the U.S. to use this tool, provided they've been authorized by Facebook to run political ads and disclose who paid for the sponsored posts. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democratic presidential candidate, speaks during his campaign launch of "Mike for Black America," at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, Feb. 13, 2020, in Houston.The Bloomberg campaign took the unconventional step of paying social media influencers — individuals with huge followings — to post Bloomberg memes using their Instagram accounts. Different versions of the sponsored posts from the Bloomberg campaign ran on more than a dozen influential Instagram accounts, each of which has millions of followers. That effort skirted many of the rules that tech companies have imposed on political ads to safeguard U.S. elections from malicious foreign and domestic interference and misinformation. Online political ads have been controversial, especially after it was revealed Russia used them to try to influence the 2016 presidential election. In response, Facebook has rolled out rules to prevent a repeat of that, though it has declined to fact-check political ads and refuses to ban even blatantly false messages. The Bloomberg campaign's memes showed the 78-year-old candidate, in a tongue-in-cheek awkward fashion, chatting with popular social media influencers with names likeTank Sinatra,asking them to help him raise his profile among younger folk. Can you post a meme that lets everyone know I’m the cool candidate?” Bloomberg wrote in one of the exchanges posted by an account called F Jerry, which has nearly 15 million followers on Instagram. The candidate then sent a photo of him wearing baggy chino shorts, an orange polo and a zip-up vest. F Jerry’s account then replied, Ooof that will cost like a billion dollars.'' Bloomberg responded by asking where to send the money. Looking to broaden audienceWith the sponsored posts, Bloomberg's campaign said it was reaching those who might not be normally interested in the day-to-day developments of politics. You want to engage people at every platform and you want them to feel like they’re not just getting a canned generic statement,” campaign spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said of the campaign’s strategy. The campaign declined to say how much it paid for the sponsored posts, or if it had more of them in the works. The posts did not appear in Facebook’s ad transparency library, which catalogs the political ads that campaigns buy directly from Facebook or Instagram and tells users how much was spent on them. Bloomberg’s campaign told The Associated Press on Thursday that Instagram does not require the campaign to disclose that information on the sponsored posts it ran earlier this week.
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By Polityk | 02/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Wanted: Texas Republicans Need New Voters in 2020, and Fast
It’s normal to target new voters ahead of Super Tuesday. Think volunteers holding clipboards at street festivals, malls or outside grocery stores. Democrats in Texas have made it a perennial focus, hoping they can end decades of losses by rousing more voters to the polls.
Republicans here, meanwhile, never really needed to bother, but now that’s changing as worries deepen about their grip on the state in 2020.
With their base not expanding and their margins of victory getting thinner, Texas Republicans have begun spending big on finding more conservatives to vote. And they’ve taken a different approach to it ahead of the Texas primaries on March 3.
Hired canvassers to stand outside driver’s license offices, pushing a petition on gun rights by asking, “Do you have a moment to support the Second Amendment?” People who stop are nudged to identify themselves as liberal or conservative. Finally, things cut to the chase: they’re offered the chance to sign up to vote.
But if a reporter arrives, they scram, abruptly sweeping voter registration forms into boxes, taking down signs, and heading for their cars.
“We’re instructed to break down whenever press is here,” says a man with Engage Texas, the political super PAC coordinating the effort, declining to explain why or provide his name.
The effort is another sign of the intense partisan struggle underway in a state that’s been the GOP’s largest and most important asset but also is key to Democrats’ hopes for future electoral dominance.
Despite the canvassers’ nothing-to-see-here retreat, many conservatives acknowledge that the ground seems to be shifting after a generation of lopsided victories on Election Day. Party activists are looking beyond just motivating registered voters who sometimes don’t get to the polls. They’re spending big, putting up more than $12 million so far, searching for those who aren’t on the rolls at all.
The GOP’s electoral base, mostly aging and white, has delivered around 4.5 million votes in every presidential year since 2004, but that number has scarcely budged even as Texas’ population has boomed. In 2018, Democrats surpassed 4 million votes for the first time, and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz survived reelection by a mere 215,000 votes.
The sprawling metropolitan suburbs that have started turning purple have put Democrats in reach of flipping a handful of congressional districts and given them an outside chance at winning a majority in the Texas House. The GOP holds a 23-13 edge in the congressional delegation and are fighting to retain half a dozen districts it narrowly hung onto last cycle.
Sending out clipboard holders, equipped with a line of questions that screens for likely Republicans, shows a willingness to take up even the unglamorous grind of signing up new voters.
“We’re buying an insurance policy,” said Steve Munisteri, a former White House adviser under President Donald Trump who now leads a separate campaign to turn up new Republican voters in Texas. “I feel like we can go anywhere from losing by a smidgen to winning by a comfortable margin.”
Democrats, who accuse Republicans of waging a decade-long campaign of voter suppression ranging from ID laws to shutting down polling locations, say the irony isn’t lost on them.
“If I’m a Republican and my path ahead in Texas is in registering a lot of voters, I’ve run out of other options,” said Cliff Walker, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party.
Walker would not say how much Democrats are spending, but the party says it will have 1,000 people on the ground this cycle to sign up new voters.
Texas enters Super Tuesday having surpassed 16 million voters for the first time, and voter registration in recent years has outpaced population growth. A core belief among many Democrats is that higher turnout generally favors their side, but already in 2020, lower-than-expected attendance in the Iowa caucuses and a defeat in a Texas legislative special election are raising warning flags about enthusiasm.
Trump may have a cushion here in the presidential race after winning Texas by nine points in 2016, but there is still no other outfit in the country that compares to Engage Texas. It has raised nearly $12 million exclusively from major GOP donors and groups. Among them are Dallas-based Energy Transfer, whose CEO is billionaire Kelcy Warren, and Dallas oil tycoon Ray Hunt. Although it is not the first political action committee singularly dedicated to registering new voters, there appear to be few parallels on this scale.
Leaders of Engage Texas said unfair press coverage toward Republicans is why their employees packed up and left at two driver’s license offices after being approached by an Associated Press reporter.
“Republican-build efforts don’t always get a fair shake. They’re going to be a bit skeptical,” said Chris Young, the executive director of Engage Texas.
Young, who was the field director for the Republican National Committee in 2016, would not provide data on how many voters his group has registered or his targets. But he said “hundreds” of paid staff were working largely around Texas’ big cities and booming suburbs.
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By Polityk | 02/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
North Dakota, Tribes Reach Settlement Over Voter ID Lawsuit
North Dakota reached a proposed settlement agreement Thursday with American Indians who sued over the state’s voter ID laws, arguing they are a form of voter suppression.
The proposed federal consent decree announced jointly by tribal lawyers and the state follows U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland’s ruling Monday that the Spirit Lake Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux, as well as six individual Native American plaintiffs, may challenge the state’s requirement that voters have ID with a verified street address.
The Spirit Lake and Standing Rock tribal councils still must approve the settlement agreement, which would halt a federal trial scheduled for May on the issue.
North Dakota doesn’t have voter registration, but the state has required voters to provide ID since 2004. The state accepts a driver’s license as identification or ID cards issued by the state, long-term care facilities or North Dakota’s American Indian tribes. The law required that all must have a birth date and valid street address.
State officials argued that not requiring street addresses could lead to voter fraud and people voting in the wrong district. American Indians argue that such addresses are not always evident on reservations, that many tribal members don’t know their address, don’t have a provable one because they’re homeless or stay with friends or relatives, or can’t afford to get an updated ID with a street address.
The proposed deal puts the burden on the state to assign or verify street addresses for Native American voters, ensuring they will still be able to cast a ballot, said Tim Purdon, a lawyer for the tribes.
State and county officials, in coordination with tribal governments, will then use those maps to assign or verify the voter’s residential street address and will provide that address to the voter, Purdon said.
“These concessions by the state are vindication of the claims brought by the tribes,” Purdon said. “We are pleased this will make it easier for Native Americans to vote across the state.”
Secretary of State Al Jaeger, the state’s top election official, said he was “very pleased” with the development and that the state is “looking forward to the conclusion of this process.”
Purdon said the proposed consent decree announced Thursday came after days of negotiations with the state. It also follows an announcement last week by Jaeger, who said Gov. Doug Burgum had granted him emergency rulemaking authority to give tribes the ability to quickly verify “set-aside” ballots, which are not counted until the voter proves his or her eligibility.
The revised system would allow tribes to quickly verify voters, rather than the previous system in which voters had up to six days to return with proof of their identity, possibly discouraging some voters from following through.
The order also allows the state to incorporate information from tribal IDs into new electronic poll books.
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By Polityk | 02/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump to Transfer $3.8B From Military to Fund Border Wall
The Trump administration is transferring $3.8 billion in recently passed military funding to finance construction of the president’s long-sought U.S.-Mexico border wall, angering not just Democrats but also GOP defense hawks.Thursday’s move by the Pentagon would transfer money from National Guard units, aircraft procurement and shipbuilding to anti-drug accounts that can finance construction of new wall.The maneuver, announced in “reprogramming” documents provided to lawmakers, came in for harsh criticism by Rep. Mack Thornberry of Texas, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. Democrats slammed the transfers as well, but Trump faced no consequences when making similar transfers last year.”Congress has the constitutional authority to determine how defense dollars are spent,” Thornberry said in a statement. “The re-programming today is contrary to Congress’s constitutional authority.”Trump’s action comes less than two months after he signed a huge appropriations package into law. He alienated lawmakers on both sides last year when diverting funding intended for popular projects on military bases.This time, the Pentagon is targeting $1.3 billion for National Guard equipment and excess procurement of aircraft like the F-35 and V-22 Ospreys, favored by many lawmakers for the jobs they bring to their districts and states. He’s also eliminating funding for an amphibious assault ship built in Mississippi and an Expeditionary Fast Transport ship that’s built in Alabama, represented by Sen. Richard Shelby, the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee.Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget, released only Monday, contains a $2 billion request for the wall, less than Trump asked for last year, which reflected the fact that Trump has more money for the wall than can be spent immediately.”Today (Trump) stole from our National Guard to pay for his wasteful wall,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
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By Polityk | 02/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Billionaire Bloomberg Campaign Aims to Unify Splintered Democrats
Splintered results in early Democratic Party presidential nominating contests are providing an opening for former New York mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s unconventional media-driven campaign strategy.Matthew Dallek, a professor of politics at George Washington University, said Bloomberg made a “risky bet” that the Democratic field would be “so scrambled” and moderate candidates “sufficiently weak” that he could bypass the early nomination contests and still win.Bloomberg declared his candidacy for president relatively late in November and missed the filing deadline for state elections this month. But he has been blanketing America’s airwaves with slick political advertisements.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
People listen as Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg speaks at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Feb. 13, 2020. Unifying forceDespite not being on the ballot in Iowa or New Hampshire, Bloomberg rose to third place in two national polls this week, coming in behind only Sanders and Biden.A recent convert to the Democratic Party in 2018, Bloomberg first ran for mayor as a Republican, before changing to Independent. He is now billing himself as a unifying force who can appeal to disaffected Republicans and independents in key battleground states that swung to Trump in 2016 and which Democrats hope to recapture in November. “I’m running to bring our country back together and start putting the United back in the United States of America,” Bloomberg said during a recent campaign speech in Michigan.Bloomberg, who is the 12th richest man in the world, has strong pro-business credentials as head of the multi-billion dollar Bloomberg media company. And he has gained national recognition for his tenure as mayor of New York, the largest city in the country. Bloomberg has earned “credibility” with party leaders, said Dallek, by using his vast fortune to help Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. He also won recognition as a philanthropist and an issues advocate, funding organizations that fight climate change and gun violence.D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Breakfast in Washington, Jan. 21, 2019.Bloomberg’s activism has helped earned him endorsements from a cross section of party leaders that include Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.“I’m supporting Mike Bloomberg,” said Bowser. “He has spent many, many years and many millions of dollars standing up to the NRA (National Rifle Association) to make cities and towns across America safer.”Also endorsing Bloomberg this week was Florida congressman Ted Deutch, who represents the Parkland area where in 2018 a gunman killed 17 people, including many students, with a semi-automatic rifle at a local high school.Calandrian Simpson Kemp, an African American from Texas, who lost her son to gun violence, made an emotional appeal on Bloomberg’s behalf in a television ad that played during the Super Bowl, and she is now traveling with the campaign as a surrogate spokesperson.“He cares,” she told a crowd in Richmond, Virginia. “As a mother I would not throw my all and my everything behind somebody who is just talking.”Bloomberg’s first real test will come on Super Tuesday on March 3, when he will be on the ballot in 14 states with large, diverse electorates that include California, Texas and Virginia.People attend news conference against NYPD’s “stop-and-frisk” policies outside the Federal Court, New York, Nov. 1, 2013.Stop and FriskBut Bloomberg has been criticized for Stop and Frisk law enforcement policies while mayor that disproportionately targeted African American and Latino men with aggressive search and detainment tactics. In November of last year, Bloomberg tried to put the matter behind him by apologizing for the police policy.“I now see that we could and should have acted sooner and acted faster to cut the stops. I wish we had, I’m sorry that we didn’t,” he said.However, Bloomberg was forced to address the controversy again this week after a 2015 recording surfaced in which the then-mayor defended the practice of targeting young African American and Latino men, saying they fit the profile for “95% of your murders” in New York.Bloomberg said in a statement this week that he “inherited the police practice of stop-and-frisk” and that he cut it back by 95% during his time in office. He also reiterated his earlier apology and said, “I have taken responsibility for taking too long to understand the impact it had on black and Latino communities.”Buying electionBloomberg is also self-funding his extensive national campaign. He has spent over $200 million of his own money and is reportedly planning to double that amount on television advertising and expanding his national campaign staff in the coming weeks. His supporters commend Bloomberg for using his wealth to fund his campaign, arguing that the billionaire’s resources will be needed to compete against Trump. Republicans have collected over $200 million so far for the president’s reelection campaign.But Sanders, Warren and others have criticized Bloomberg, accusing him of attempting to buy the election.“How do we feel, about living in a so-called democracy when a billionaire, multi-billionaire, 55 billion, can spend unlimited sums of money?” asked Sanders.
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By Polityk | 02/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Attacks Former White House Chief of Staff Kelly
U.S. President Donald Trump assailed his former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, on Thursday after Kelly defended the National Security Council aide ousted by Trump after he testified against the president during the impeachment investigation.Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who served as Trump’s top White House aide for 17 months until early last year, voiced support for Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman at a university speech Wednesday night in New Jersey, while also raising objections to several Trump policies and actions.”When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head,” Trump contended in a Twitter comment.”Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him,” Trump claimed. “He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut, which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do. His incredible wife, Karen, who I have a lot of respect for, once pulled me aside & said strongly that ‘John respects you greatly. When we are no longer here, he will only speak well of you.’ Wrong!”….which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do. His incredible wife, Karen, who I have a lot of respect for, once pulled me aside & said strongly that “John respects you greatly. When we are no longer here, he will only speak well of you.” Wrong!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, left, walks with his twin brother, Yevgeny Vindman, after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 19, 2019.Vindman, along with his twin brother, Yevgeny (Eugene) Vindman, another Army lieutenant colonel working at the National Security Council, were both escorted from the White House last Friday and returned to their previous postings at the Defense Department. Critics have accused Trump of being vindictive in ousting Alexander Vindman, but the president called him “very insubordinate.” In the university speech, Kelly said he had had a number of disagreements with Trump.Kelly defended the national news media, a frequent target of Trump’s ire; questioned the worth of Trump’s two summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to get him to abandon his nuclear arsenal, and attacked Trump’s pardon of a naval commando who had been convicted of war crimes.Kelly, who before overseeing the White House staff was head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, also took issue with Trump’s frequent disparagement of migrants looking to move to the United States.
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By Polityk | 02/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US House Acts to Remove Deadline for Equal Rights Amendment
In a bid to revive the Equal Rights Amendment, the House has approved a measure removing a 1982 deadline for state ratification and reopening the process to amend the Constitution to prohibit discrimination based on sex.
“There is no expiration date on equality,” said Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California, the resolution’s sponsor.
Nearly 50 years after it was first approved by Congress and sent to the states, the Equal Rights Amendment “is just as salient as ever,” Speier said. “For survivors of sexual violence, pregnancy discrimination, unequal pay and more, the fight for equal justice under the law can’t wait any longer.”
The House approved the resolution, 232-183, on Thursday, sending it to the Senate.
Congress sent the amendment, which guarantees men and women equal rights under the law, to the states in 1972. It gave states seven years to ratify it, later extending the deadline to 1982. But the amendment wasn’t ratified by the required three-quarters of states before the deadline.
Last month, however, Virginia lawmakers voted to ratify the amendment, becoming the 38th and final state needed. The Justice Department has said it’s too late, and a lawsuit is now ongoing.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called passage of the resolution long overdue, noting that Congress will soon observe the 100th anniversary of women having the right to vote.
And yet “the ERA is still not enshrined in the Constitution,” the California Democrat said. “As a result, women still face inequality under the law from the wage gap to pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment and, again, resulting in women being underrepresented at the table.”
The House measure helps the country “take a giant step toward equality for women, progress for families and a stronger America, because we know when women succeed, America succeeds,” Pelosi said.
The House vote ran into political headwinds this week as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a feminist icon, said that fellow ERA supporters should start over in trying to get it passed, rather than counting on breathing life into the failed attempt from the 1970s.
“I would like to see a new beginning,” Ginsburg said Monday night at Georgetown University law school in Washington. “I’d like it to start over.”
In addition to Virginia, Nevada and Illinois also voted to ratify the amendment in the past three years. Five states have moved to rescind their earlier approvals.
“There’s too much controversy about latecomers,” Ginsburg said. “Plus, a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said we’ve changed our minds?”
Ginsburg has been a champion of the Equal Rights Amendment for decades. And her standard response to the question of how she would improve the Constitution is to point to the ERA.
Democrats did not address Ginsburg’s argument directly, but said at a Capitol event Wednesday and during floor debate Thursday that it’s absurd to suggest women are too late to win equality.
“There should not be a deadline on equality,” said Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., a former state lawmaker who hailed Virginia’s adoption of the amendment last month.
“Thanks to the tireless work of so many trailblazers and activists over the years, women, finally, are one step closer to being included in our nation’s founding document,” she said.
Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Democrats were trying to “rewrite history” by reviving the ERA after three-quarters of the states failed to ratify it by the 1982 deadline.
“Congress does not have constitutional authority to retroactively revive a failed constitutional amendment” he said.
“If you support the language of the 1972 ERA,” he added, “ you only have one constitutional option, and that’s to start the whole process over again and make your case to current voters nationwide.”
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By Polityk | 02/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Ex-Ukraine Ambassador: State Department Leaders Lack Vision
The career U.S. diplomat who was ousted from her post in Ukraine by President Donald Trump, then was criticized by him as she testified at his impeachment hearings, warned that the State Department is facing a crisis with senior leaders who lack “vision.”
Marie Yovanovitch, accepting an award at Georgetown University on Wednesday, portrayed the department as “in trouble” and under threat even as she sought to encourage her audience of mostly students not to give up on diplomacy as a career.
Yovanovitch urged students to follow in her footsteps because the U.S. “needs diplomats that are ready and capable.”
“This country needs a robust foreign policy,” Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, said as she accepted the Trainor Award for excellence in diplomacy from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
But she noted that the State Department is being “hollowed out” under Trump and that the art of diplomacy has become less of a priority under his administration.
“Right now, the State Department is in trouble,” Yovanovitch said in accepting the award. “Senior leaders lack policy vision, moral clarity and leadership.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been criticized by former diplomats and others for not coming to the defense of Yovanovitch, a charge he has denied.
Yovanovitch praised the “quiet work of diplomacy” as a way to ensure peace and prosperity in the world.
“It sounds so old-fashioned in our high-tech world, but diplomacy is about human interaction, and creating relationships of trust is more important than ever,” she said. “It’s not as exciting as sending in the Marines, but it’s cheaper and usually more effective in the long term.”
The award, named for Raymond “Jit” Trainor, a former official at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, is presented annually to “an outstanding practitioner” of diplomacy. Recipients have included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Thomas Pickering, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Yovanovitch showed courage not just at diplomatic posts in Russia and elsewhere but in her willingness to testify before Congress, when she was publicly denounced on Twitter by Trump.
“She has, in every sense of the word, acted in the highest tradition of those who serve our country,” said Pickering, himself a recipient of the Trainor Award.
Yovanovitch was making her first public appearance since her testimony to Congress about her efforts to press the government of Ukraine to address longstanding U.S. policy concerns about corruption. At that time a back-channel effort led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought to push the government of the eastern European nation to dig up political dirt to help Trump’s reelection.
Giuliani was part of a campaign that led the Republican president to order Yovanovitch’s removal from her post ahead of schedule last spring. Trump appeared to threaten her, saying she “would go through some things,” in a July phone call with the leader of Ukraine that was at the center of the impeachment case against Trump.
Yovanovitch made light of the call during the Georgetown ceremony in one of her few direct references to impeachment. “When you go through some things,” she said, drawing laughter, “to fall back on cliche you have to dig deep a little bit.”
She did not address the back-channel efforts explicitly but warned about the state of diplomacy more broadly at a time when authoritarianism seems to be on the rise.
“To be blunt, an amoral, keep ’em guessing foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear and confusion for trust cannot work over the long haul,” she said.
Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May 2019 with no public explanation, described to Congress a “concerted campaign” against her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Trump publicly criticized her as she testified, saying on Twitter that “everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad.” Yet, in a nearly 34-year career at the State Department, she received a series of promotions under both Republican and Democratic administrations, with positions that included ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.
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By Polityk | 02/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Hope Hicks Returning to White House
Hope Hicks, one of President Donald Trump’s most trusted and longest-serving aides, is returning to the White House as his reelection campaign moves into high gear.
Hicks will be serving as counselor to the president, working with presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made public. She will not be part of the White House communications department, but will be working closely with Kushner and White House political director Brian Jack, a White House official confirmed.
Hicks, who was one of Trump’s original 2016 campaign staffers and moved with him to Washington after he won, had served as White House communications director before she left in 2018. She moved to California, where she joined the Fox Corporation as executive vice president and chief communications officer.
“I have worked with Hope for almost six years and can say without hesitation she is one of the most talented and savvy individuals I have come across,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. “She has always impressed me with her quiet confidence, loyalty and expertise, and I am beyond thrilled to welcome Hope back to the White House.”
“There is no one more devoted to implementing President Trump’s agenda than Hope Hicks,” Kushner said in a statement. “We are excited to have her back on the team.”
Hicks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Known for her loyalty and low public profile, Hicks was part of the small inner circle that traversed the country with Trump aboard his private jet as he waged his unlikely campaign for the Republican nomination and then the presidency in 2015 and 2016. She was often described as someone who was especially deft at reading the president’s moods and helping others navigate his instincts.
The news comes after another longtime former aide, body man John McEntee, rejoined the White House after being dismissed in 2018.
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By Polityk | 02/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Stone Sentencing Controversy Raises Doubts About DOJ’s Independence From Political Influence
For decades, the U.S Justice Department has aspired to serve as a model law enforcement agency that largely operates independent of political influence. Federal prosecution decisions and sentencing recommendations have been made by career lawyers operating under strict rules of conduct, a rarity in countries with a weak rule of law. Now that image is being severely tested in the wake of the Justice Department’s controversial decision Tuesday to reverse its own prosecutors’ recommendation that Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of U.S. President Donald Trump, receive seven to nine years in prison for crimes unearthed during the Mueller investigation into Russian election meddling. A jury convicted Stone in November of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. The extraordinary move led all four federal prosecutors assigned to the Stone case to withdraw from it, including one who resigned in protest, raising questions over whether Trump exerted undue influence over his attorney general, William Barr, to intervene in the case. Barr to testifyAmid calls for an investigation into Barr’s decision, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler announced Wednesday that the attorney general would testify before his panel on March 31 “to address numerous concerns regarding his leadership of the Department of Justice and the president’s improper influence over the department and our criminal justice system.” FILE – House impeachment manager Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., speaks during the trial of President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 23, 2020.A letter signed by Nadler and 22 other Judiciary Committee Democrats asserts that Barr “engaged in a pattern of conduct in legal matters relating to the president that raises significant concerns for this committee.” Trump has denied speaking to Barr about the case, although he says he is glad the Justice Department interceded. Still, many administration critics suspect that undue political influence played a role. That perception will hurt U.S efforts to present itself “as a model country with a model rule of law,” said former Justice Department prosecutor David Axelrod, now with the Philadelphia law firm of Ballard Spahr. “It sends a message to countries that we’re not that much better than the countries that we’ve criticized for so many years,” Axelrod said. It is not clear exactly what prompted Barr’s decision to intervene in the case. Sentencing recommendations are normally made by career prosecutors, and it is almost unheard of for an attorney general to intervene in a sentencing recommendation, according to former Justice Department officials. ‘Excessive’ recommendationA Justice Department official said Tuesday that the recommended sentence was “extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone’s offenses” and that the decision to reverse it was made before Trump vented about it in a tweet late Monday. That may have been the case, but the circumstances surrounding the decision suggested that prosecutors felt they were overruled for political reasons. Just hours after the controversy heated up, Trump tweeted early Tuesday to congratulate Barr “for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought.” FILE – Attorney General William Barr speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Initiative Conference, Feb. 6, 2020, in Washington.The tweet, said Fordham Law School professor Bruce Green, reinforced a perception that Barr had acted improperly. “The appearance is that it was done either because the president asked to or because [Barr] thought it would be consistent with what the president wanted, not with traditional criminal justice values and traditions,” Green said. “If that’s the case, then the sentencing is a real black eye for the Department of Justice from the point of view of its independence.” The Justice Department is a uniquely American institution. Headed by the attorney general who reports to the president, it is part of the executive branch. Although some presidents have tried to use it to advance their political agendas, recent administrations of both political parties have largely kept the department at arm’s length, allowing it to conduct investigations and prosecutions independent of political pressure. That long-standing tradition has been put to the test under the Trump administration as the president, embracing a sweeping view of executive power, has sought to influence the outcome of investigations affecting him and his associates. Comey, SessionsJust four months into his administration, he fired FBI Director James Comey over the Russian election meddling investigation, which he called a “witch hunt” meant to oust him. He repeatedly attacked his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the investigation before firing him in late 2018. Last year, Trump caused a stir among law enforcement officials when he suggested that charges against a top Chinese telecom executive under indictment by the Justice Department could be dismissed as part of a trade deal with China. Barr, a conservative Republican lawyer now serving his second tenure at the helm of the Justice Department, has emerged as one of Trump’s biggest defenders in the administration. His views of executive power mirror those of Trump. Last year, Barr cleared Trump of obstruction of justice in connection with the Russia investigation after Mueller left the question undecided. That led to criticism that he was serving as the president’s personal attorney. FILE – A view of the Department of Justice building in Washington, Feb 1, 2018.Current and former Justice Department employees say that the Stone incident has had a debilitating impact on many at the department. “It’s safe to say my former colleagues are appalled by what’s going on in the Department of Justice,” said William Yeomans, a former longtime Justice Department official. “Every colleague I’ve talked to is deeply affected by it.” The four prosecutors’ withdrawal is likely to encourage other Justice Department employees to push back in the face of outside pressure and to report instances of undue political influence to the Justice Department’s inspector general. ‘Not what you signed up for’“Memo to all career DOJ employees,” former Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich tweeted on Tuesday. “This is not what you signed up for. The four prosecutors who bailed on the Stone case have shown the way. Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity.” But reporting abuse to the watchdog goes only so far, Axelrod said. “If you have a Department of Justice who’s now decided that it is going to be political and he is going to act at the behest of the president,” he said, “there is not much legally that can be done.”
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By Polityk | 02/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Billionaire Bloomberg Campaigns as Moderate Alternative to Splintered Democrats
Splintered results for Democratic presidential contenders from the first two state nominating contests have further muddled the race and divided the moderate wing of the party. With no clear front-runner, some see an opening for former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s media-driven campaign for the nomination. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on the billionaire businessman’s unconventional strategy.
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By Polityk | 02/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Presidential Candidate Bloomberg Endorsed by 3 Black Lawmakers
U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday won endorsements from three Congressional Black Caucus members, a positive sign for his campaign, which has drawn scrutiny lately over his past support for a controversial policing tactic.The three included Democratic U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks of New York City, where Bloomberg was mayor for 12 years.As a senior caucus member and chair of a caucus fundraising arm, his is one of the highest-profile endorsements yet for Bloomberg, who is seeking his party’s nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in November’s election.Meek’s endorsement, first reported by Reuters, signals that Bloomberg is building support among some top African-American politicians despite a 2015 audio recording that surfaced on Tuesday. In the recording, Bloomberg made a blunt defense of a policing strategy during his mayoralty, known as stop-and-frisk, that disproportionately ensnared blacks and Latinos.Meeks said he backed Bloomberg for his economic policies and ability to beat Trump.”The most vulnerable communities in America cannot weather another four years of a Donald Trump presidency,” Meeks said in a statement.Bloomberg has been rising in public opinion polls despite not competing in the first four state contests for the Democratic nomination: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg walks with supporters along the route of the Little Rock “marade,” marking the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Little Rock, Arkansas, Jan. 20, 2020.Instead, the billionaire former mayor is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to blanket the national airwaves with advertising.As a moderate Democrat, Bloomberg hopes to win votes beginning on March 3, known as Super Tuesday, when his name will be on the ballot in 14 state nominating contests.Those hopes have been buoyed this month as the early moderate front-runner, Joe Biden, has performed weakly in Iowa and New Hampshire.Also endorsing Bloomberg on Wednesday were U.S. Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia, who said she was backing Bloomberg in part because of his proposals to curb gun violence.Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a Congressional Black Caucus member who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a nonvoting member of Congress, also endorsed Bloomberg.Bloomberg has long struggled with the legacy of the stop-and-frisk tactic employed while he was mayor of the United States’ biggest city 2002 to 2013, in which police stopped and searched pedestrians.He apologized for the policy in November just before announcing his candidacy and has since taken great pains to court the black vote, including a proposal unveiled last month to narrow the wealth gap between black and white Americans.
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By Polityk | 02/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democratic Presidential Candidates Soon to Face More Diverse Electorates
Democratic presidential challengers turned their focus Wednesday to the next two party nominating contests — in the western state of Nevada and in the southeastern state of South Carolina — in the marathon chase to pick a party nominee to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November national election. In both states, Democratic candidates will face much more racially diverse electorates than in either of the first nominating contests this month in the predominantly white, rural states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Latino and African American voters make up a sizable segment of the electorate in Nevada, home to the country’s gambling mecca of Las Vegas, while blacks dominate Democratic voter rolls in South Carolina. Only a small percentage of the delegates to July’s Democratic national nominating convention have been picked so far. But Nevada, on February 22, and South Carolina a week later could further winnow the field of candidates and at the same time sharply influence voting on March 3, dubbed Super Tuesday, when 14 states cast ballots, with hundreds of delegates at stake. Sanders, Buttigieg, KlobucharVermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, won Tuesday’s New Hampshire party primary in the northeastern U.S., edging out a more moderate Democrat, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay Democratic U.S. presidential candidate. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar finished third after a strong debate performance last week and vaulted herself into contention as a more moderate alternative than either Sanders or Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, once a Harvard law professor, who finished fourth. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden greets supporters at a campaign event in Columbia, S.C., Feb. 11, 2020.A fifth candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, struggled for the second straight nominating contest, finishing fifth in New Hampshire after placing fourth in Iowa. For months, Biden has led national polls and cast himself as the Democrat with the best chance to defeat Trump. But Biden appeared to sense defeat in New Hampshire, leaving the state before polls closed to head to a rally in South Carolina, where he hopes to resuscitate his campaign in what is his third run for the presidency. Surveys in the state have shown Biden ahead, but all the polling was done before Biden finished well back in the pack in both Iowa and New Hampshire. “It ain’t over, man,” Biden told a crowd in Columbia, South Carolina. “We’re just getting started.” ‘Opening bell’He noted that only two states had voted so far and that few blacks and Latinos had had a say in the outcome in Iowa and New Hampshire. ”Where I come from, that’s the opening bell, not the closing bell,” Biden said. “And the fight to end Donald Trump’s presidency is just beginning.” Warren, another early favorite in polls who has faltered as actual voting has started, took a similar tack, saying, “Our campaign is built for the long haul.” The Warren campaign said she has hired more than 1,000 workers nationwide, spread across 31 states and Washington, D.C. FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders is accompanied by his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, and other relatives as he speaks at his New Hampshire primary night rally in Manchester, Feb. 11, 2020.Sanders, at his raucous victory party in New Hampshire, declared, “Let me say tonight that this victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump.” But he also had a conciliatory message for his Democratic rivals, saying, “No matter who wins [the party presidential nomination], and we certainly hope it’s going to be us, we’re going to unite together. We are going to unite together and defeat the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country.” Buttigieg, as the mayor of the fourth-largest city in the Midwest state of Indiana, was an unknown name in U.S. national politics a year ago. But after winning in Iowa and finishing second in New Hampshire, Buttigieg basked in the moment. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, center, his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, and his mother, Anne Montgomery, stand on stage as supporters cheer at a primary night rally at Nashua Community College in Nashua, N.H., Feb. 11, 2020.“Thanks to you, a campaign that some said shouldn’t be here at all has shown that we are here to stay,” Buttigieg told his New Hampshire supporters. “So many of you decided that a middle-class mayor, a veteran from the industrial Midwest, was the right choice to take on this president, not in spite of that experience, but because of it.” Once known at home in Indiana as “Mayor Pete,” his New Hampshire adherents cheered as they called him, “President Pete! President Pete!” Klobuchar told her crowd, “Hello, America, I’m Amy Klobuchar, and I will beat Donald Trump.” She said, “Because of you, we are taking this campaign to Nevada. We are going to South Carolina. And we are taking this message of unity to the country.” FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar greets supporters in Manchester, N.H., Feb. 11, 2020.Klobuchar contended, “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare is that the people in the middle, the people who have had enough of the name-calling and the mudslinging, have someone to vote for in November.” But Klobuchar could face headwinds in Nevada, South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states, where she trails her opponents in creating a political operation for the coming elections. But she announced a seven-figure TV ad buy in Nevada, her first in the state, and is scheduled to campaign there on Thursday. Her campaign said she raised more than $2.5 million in a couple of hours after the New Hampshire polls closed. Lurking on the sidelines of the Democratic presidential contests — but not for long — is former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a wealthy business entrepreneur. He has bypassed the February nominating contests but has already spent more than $300 million of his own money on television ads and hiring campaign workers in the Super Tuesday states, where he will be on the ballot for the first time. Debate appearanceBloomberg, who at various times has called himself a Republican and an independent and now a Democrat, could also qualify for next Wednesday’s debate with Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren and Biden, all of whom have already met fundraising or polling standards to be on the debate stage. Several of the Democrats have already accused Bloomberg of trying to buy the nomination with his vast wealth and are sure to confront him directly if he meets polling standards to join the debate.
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By Polityk | 02/13/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Inside Mike Bloomberg’s Big Play for Black Voters
A meeting with nearly 80 black pastors in Detroit. A speech before a black Democratic organization in Montgomery. A rally at a historically black university. A tour of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church. An early voting kickoff at an African American museum. All in the past two weeks.
While Mike Bloomberg’s rivals battled it out in majority-white Iowa and New Hampshire, the billionaire presidential candidate aggressively courted the black voters critical to any Democrat’s chance of winning of the nomination. The effort, backed by millions of dollars in ads, has taken him across Southern states that vote on March 3, from Montgomery, Alabama, and this week Raleigh, North Carolina, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, states where African American voters can decide a Democratic primary.
His pitch is one of electability and competence — hoping to capitalize on black Democrats’ hunger to oust President Donald Trump. But as he courts black voters he’ll also have to reconcile his own record as mayor of New York and past remarks on criminal justice.FILE – Democratic presidential rivals Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders link arms during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march, Jan. 20, 2020, in Columbia, South Carolina.Bloomberg’s outreach aims squarely at former Vice President Joe Biden, who is banking on loyal black voters to resuscitate his bid after poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“Who can beat Donald Trump? That’s what people care about,” said former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who is among the black leaders endorsing Bloomberg. Nutter says Bloomberg’s record of accomplishments outweighs the damage of flawed policing.
Bloomberg has no doubt been helped by his limitless financial resources and his strategy to focus on states conducting primaries on Super Tuesday. One of the world’s richest men thanks to a net worth of roughly $60 billion, Bloomberg has spent more than $300 million of his own money on advertising, including spots on black radio stations, a Super Bowl ad that featured an African American mother who lost her son to gun violence and a national ad touting his work with President Barack Obama on gun legislation and a teen jobs program.
He’s also racked up endorsements from African American mayors and held an events with key figures in the black community, including a meeting with black pastors in Detroit and a speech at an Alabama Democratic luncheon. Much of the outreach has been aimed at middle-age and older voters, who turn out more reliably, and appeals to a sense of pragmatism. Bloomberg may not be the candidate you know best, the campaign argues, but he’s the best poised to beat Trump. On Wednesday, Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath endorsed him, citing his record on gun violence prevention. McBath ran for Congress in 2018 after her teenage son was shot to death in a car over a dispute about loud music. She was the first Democrat elected to her seat since 1979.
A recent poll shows signs of success for Bloomberg. The Quinnipiac University poll conducted after the Iowa caucuses found Bloomberg with 15% support nationally, up from 8% in a late-January poll. That put him about even with Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and slightly ahead of Pete Buttigieg, who essentially tied with Sanders in last week’s Iowa caucuses. The poll showed Sanders leading, with 25% nationally.
During a recent rally at historically black Alabama State University, Bloomberg drew several hundred people, who chanted “I like Mike!” and prompted a dry response from the understated candidate.
“Better they do that than they don’t do that,” he said.
Louretta Wimberly, a retired educator from Selma, Alabama, watched the rally and reconsidered her support for Biden. She’s felt a longtime connection with the former vice president, but she likes what’s she’s hearing from Bloomberg.
“I’ve been following him because he is speaking to the things that we black women in Selma and in the Black Belt want — public education, health care and infrastructure,” Wimberly said.
Voters like Wimberly don’t often raise Bloomberg’s record in New York, but his critics do. For them, his criminal justice policies in New York — specifically his embrace of a practice known as “stop-and-frisk” that disproportionately affected people of color — remain a mark on his civil rights record that cannot be erased by his recent apologies. The issue flared up again this week when comments he made in a 2015 Aspen Institute speech resurfaced. In the audio, Bloomberg says the way to bring down murder rates is to “put a lot of cops” in minority neighborhoods because that’s where “all the crime is.”
Bloomberg apologized for supporting the practice just days before he launched his 2020 bid in November, and repeated that apology on Tuesday, saying the remarks “do not reflect my commitment to criminal justice reform and racial equity.” But the timing of his apologies strikes some as political expediency.
“He should have done it when it mattered. Now he just looks like someone who’s willing to say anything to get elected president,” said Hawk Newsome, president of Black Lives Matter New York, who said younger black voters in particular will not be willing to give Bloomberg a pass on his record on policing. “What he’s selling we already bought, paid for and returned.”FILE – This June 17, 2012, photo shows Rev. Al Sharpton, center, with demonstrators during a silent march to end the “stop-and-frisk” program in New York.The prominent activist Rev. Al Sharpton, who fought with the mayor over stop-and-frisk, said Tuesday he told Bloomberg in a phone call moments after his November apology that “it’s going to take more than one speech, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
Sharpton said Bloomberg had “an upside and a downside” as mayor but that his biggest strength as a presidential candidate is his argument that he’s the best one to take on Trump. That’s especially true if Biden — his pitch to black Americans has been that he’s most electable in November — continues to slip, leaving voters thinking Bloomberg “may have a better shot” in November, Sharpton said.
But Bloomberg also is viewed skeptically by some younger and progressive voters weary of putting another rich man in the White House. And it’s far from clear that his cool, business-like approach to campaigning will connect with voters.
A tour guide at King’s church asked the people gathered around them to join in song. While others followed her lead, singing and clapping to “This Little Light of Mine,” Bloomberg simply ignored the request and carried on with introducing himself to people and shaking their hands, until the singing stopped.
On the stump, Bloomberg appeals more to the pragmatism of voters who want to beat Trump and get things done.
James May, the former mayor of Uniontown, Alabama, said before a Bloomberg speech at a Democratic Party leader luncheon that Bloomberg’s accomplishments as mayor were enough to earn his support. “If he does that when he becomes president he’s my kind of guy,” May said. As for Biden? “He’s good, too, but not quite good enough.”
Bloomberg has so far been shut out of debates, allowing him to largely avoid tough public questioning of his record. That could change next week when Democrats hold their next debate. Bloomberg needs to meet a polling threshold in two more polls to make the stage for the first time.
Maurice Hawkins, an Air Force veteran from Virginia Beach, Virginia, plans to vote for Biden on Super Tuesday, but he said Bloomberg’s history with stop-and-frisk wouldn’t stop him from supporting the former mayor.
Hawkins said Democratic voters can be too rigid about a candidate’s history, particularly on issues where the country has evolved, such as criminal justice. Biden has had to answer for his own record, including helping craft the 1994 crime bill, which critics blame for the mass incarceration of minorities over two decades. Biden has proposed a plan that would reverse parts of that bill.
Hawkins, who is black, said he attended a Bloomberg speech in Norfolk, Virginia, last week because he’s considering backing Bloomberg if Biden isn’t in the race when Virginia votes.
“I wanted to hear what he has to say,” Hawkins said, “because I think because we’re in a really turbulent primary, we don’t know who’s gonna come out of it.”
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
After Iowa Caucus Problems, Concerns Grow Over Nevada’s Plan
Concerns have been growing that next week’s Nevada caucuses could offer a repeat of the chaos that ensnared the Iowa vote, with Nevada facing many of the same organizational and technical challenges that crippled Iowa’s process.Volunteers who will be leading the Feb. 22 caucuses said key information had yet to be shared. There has been no hands-on training with iPads being deployed to caucus sites on Election Day nor opportunities to try out a new “tool” that will be loaded onto the iPads and used during the caucus process.Adding to the mix is that Nevada also plans to offer early voting, a complicated step that Iowa did not attempt. That has prompted some confusion about how early voters would be included in the multi-stage caucus process.“This sounds just dangerous, like people are still improvising and making up the rules as they go,” said Doug Jones, a University of Iowa computer scientist and expert on voting technology. “How do they expect to get training done for all the people doing these caucuses?”Nevada, the third state to cast votes on the Democratic presidential field, is seen as the first test of a candidate’s strength before a diverse population and strong labor unions. Nevada Republicans are not holding caucuses this year.Molly Forgey, a spokeswoman for the Nevada State Democratic Party, declined to respond to questions about how the reporting process will work and the security measures in place.“We’ll train our volunteers as soon as the process is rolled out,” Forgey said Tuesday night. She added: “I think our confidence level is the same — still high.”Concerns over elections and voting in general come as the nation prepares for the first presidential election since Russia interfered in the 2016 vote. But Iowa’s problems demonstrated that it doesn’t take a foreign government to cause chaos in an election. Technical glitches and shaky election administration can also create confusion and delay results.As in Iowa, Nevada’s caucuses are run by the state party and not state and local election officials, who will administer the November election and statewide primaries, including Tuesday’s contest in New Hampshire.In training sessions in recent days, Nevada Democrats told precinct leaders they will be using an iPad they will receive the day of the caucuses. Seth Morrison, a site leader who will oversee multiple precincts at a caucus site in the metro Las Vegas area, said he was told he would be trained on the iPads when he picks them up a few days before the caucuses and would be responsible for showing precinct leaders how to use them.Nevada Democrats were initially working with the same app developer used in Iowa but scrapped those plans after the company’s app failed there. Instead, loaded on the iPads will be what’s been referred to in training materials as a “Caucus Tool” used to enter results. Party officials emphasized during the training sessions that it was not an app, but they have yet to explain how it’s different.Caucus organizers said they thought the tool would be used to ultimately submit results electronically to the state party, but some were not certain. It also appeared the tool would contain information on early voting selections, but it was not known whether there would also be a paper record of the early votes at each precinct in case the iPad or tool failed.Morrison said he was told by party officials the tool had been “professionally developed” but they would not tell him by whom, citing concerns the developer would be targeted by hackers. That was the same argument made by Iowa Democrats ahead of their caucuses, a deference to secrecy that experts say prevented scrutiny of the developer’s qualifications and security experience.“They’ve been saying basically, ‘Don’t worry. Trust us,’” said Morrison. “I’ve been hyperventilating for the last five days.”Two other caucus organizers expressed similar concerns over the lack of information and training but requested anonymity so they could discuss the issue candidly.Other organizers acknowledged they had limited information but said they were not concerned.“I have full trust and faith in our state party,” said Alex Goff, a DNC committee member who will be a site leader and precinct chair.Clark County Democratic Party Chair Donna West, who will oversee 10 precincts, said party leaders “understand what’s at stake and what they have to deliver.”The party is expected to hold more training for volunteers this week.In Iowa, the inability of some caucus organizers to download and use the app triggered a flood of calls to the party’s hotline and dramatically slowed the process of reporting unofficial results. And a “coding issue” within the mobile app muddied the data that was sent in, creating discrepancies that halted the reporting of initial results for nearly 24 hours.Iowa Democrats relied on paper records of each voter’s candidate preferences along with a worksheet completed by caucus organizers to verify results. It appears Nevada will be using a similar paper-based backup system and will also have a hotline available.“The party should be thinking about setting up expectations now that they may be getting the results out more slowly than what is typical,” said Lawrence Norden, an expert in voting systems with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s School of Law.On Tuesday, Nevada Democrats released a memo offering some details on early voting. The party, having abandoned plans to have early votes cast via an iPad app, is instead planning to have early voters fill out paper ballots that will be scanned electronically and tabulated.To check in early voters, volunteers will use a PDF of the voter roll loaded onto iPads and have voters then enter information onto an online check-in form on an iPad.“From the beginning, NV Dems’ priority has been to execute the most accessible, expansive, and transparent caucus yet,” executive director Alana Mounce said in the early voting memo, adding the party had “simplified the voting process and built in additional redundancies to streamline information and to ensure we minimize errors.”Staffers with three Democratic presidential campaigns in Nevada who were not authorized to speak publicly said the campaigns had received little information from the party, leaving them concerned about the rollout of a new process. The party has held phone calls with the campaigns but didn’t provide much information, keeping the communication limited and scripted, the staffers said.Another staffer, Terrence Clark, spokesman for the campaign of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Nevada, said: “We’re focusing on what we can control — turning out our supporters and reaching people where they are.”Democratic National Committee spokesman David Bergstein said the national party has already deployed staff to Nevada.“The DNC is working with the Nevada Democratic Party, and we are confident that they are doing everything they can to implement the lessons that have been learned from this process,” Bergstein said.
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Sanders Claims Victory in New Hampshire Primary
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders claimed victory in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, lifting him to front runner status for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Close behind in second place was former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg followed by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar who surprised many with a strong third place showing, re-energizing her campaign. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on the New Hampshire results from Washington.
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrat Andrew Yang is Suspending his 2020 Bid for President
Democrat Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur who created buzz for his presidential campaign by talking about his love of math and championing a universal basic income that would give every American adult $1,000 per month, suspended his 2020 bid on Tuesday.”I am the math guy, and it is clear to me from the numbers that we are not going to win this race,” Yang said in front of a crowd of supporters as votes in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary were being counted.”This is not an easy decision, or something I made lightly with the team. Endings are hard and I’ve always had the intention to stay in the race until the very end,” he added. ” But I have been persuaded that the message of this campaign will not be strengthened by my staying in the race any longer.”The 45-year-old was one of the breakout stars of the Democratic primary race, building a following that started largely online but expanded to give him enough donors and polling numbers to qualify for the first six debates. Yang announced his departure from the race shortly before Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet did Tuesday night, bringing the Democratic field to single digits.He outlasted senators and governors, and after initially self-funding his campaign, he raised more money than most of his rivals, bringing in over $16 million in the final quarter of last year. It was a bigger haul than all but the top four candidates: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.”We went from a mailing list that started with just my Gmail contact list to receiving donations from over 400,000 people around the country and millions more who supported this campaign,” Yang said before pledging to support whoever becomes the Democratic nominee.Democratic presidential candidate entrepreneur Andrew Yang speaks during the Higher Education Forum – College Costs & Debt in the 2020 Elections, Feb. 6, 2020, at the University of New Hampshire in Concord, N.H.Yang grew his outsider candidacy by campaigning as a non-politician, someone who mixed unconventional campaign events — from bowling to ax throwing — with serious talk about the millions of jobs lost to automation and artificial intelligence and the dark outlook for American jobs and communities.The graduate of Brown University and Columbia Law School gave campaign speeches full of statistics and studies that often resembled an economics seminar. His supporters, known as the Yang Gang, donned blue hats and pins with the word MATH — short for his slogan Make America Think Harder.Yang promoted his signature issue of universal basic income, which he dubbed the “freedom dividend,” by announcing during a debate that he would choose individuals to receive the monthly $1,000 checks. The statement prompted questions about whether he was trying to buy votes, but also generated a buzz online and helped the campaign build a list of possible supporters.His poll numbers were high enough, combined with his fundraising strength, to qualify for him for all of the 2019 debates, though he fell short of Democratic National Committee’s qualifications to participate in the January debate in Iowa. He was, however, one of seven candidates who participated in Friday’s debate in New Hampshire. His departure from the race almost guarantees that the Democrats, who once had the most diverse presidential field in history, will have no candidates of color on the debate stage again this cycle.Yang spent most of January in the leadoff caucus state, including a 17-day bus tour during which he told voters his finish in Iowa would “shock the world.”
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Sanders Narrowly Defeats Buttigieg in New Hampshire Democratic Primary
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire Democratic primary Tuesday, as the race to be the party’s candidate to take on President Donald Trump in November starts to come into focus after months of battling among a wide group of challengers.Sanders captured 26% of the vote, edging out former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg who finished with 24%.Sanders called his performance a “great victory” before a cheering crowd in Manchester, and predicted Democrats would eventually come together in a vital effort to unseat Trump.”Let me say tonight this victory here is the beginning of the end of Donald Trump,” he said. “No matter who wins [the nomination] – and we hope it is us – we are going to unite together and defeat the most dangerous president in the history of the country.”Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar turned in a surprising third-place performance with 20% of the vote, bouncing back from a poor showing in last week’s Iowa caucus. A University of New Hampshire poll on Monday had her with just 7% support, though only half of respondents said they had made up their mind at that point.Klobuchar celebrated with her supporters Tuesday night, saying her campaign has “beaten the odds every step of the way.”Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., speaks during a campaign event at Exeter Town Hall, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, in Exeter, N.H.”I can not wait to win the nomination. I can not wait to build a movement, and win with a movement of fired up Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans that see this election as we do,” she said.Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren placed fourth with 9% of the vote, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden at 8%.”Bernie Sanders winning a neighboring state, continuing to be really strong and having die hard, strong support, I think he’s a real victor,” Gibbs Knotts, a political science professor at the College of Charleston, told VOA. “I think obviously with both Buttigieg and Klobuchar doing better than expectations, all three of those come out of New Hampshire with a lot of momentum.”The win for Sanders, following a strong performance in Iowa, could solidify him as the front-runner in the race, but he has two popular centrists close behind. Many political analysts question whether a self-avowed democratic socialist like Sanders could unseat Trump, who has repeatedly lashed out at Sanders’ socialist policies, which include a Medicare-for-All universal health care program.Sanders and Buttigieg entered New Hampshire tied as the front-runners in the wake of last week’s muddled Iowa caucuses, in which Buttigieg narrowly won the most delegates while Sanders narrowly won the popular vote.Candidates will next focus on the western state of Nevada where they will hold a debate next week ahead of the February 22 caucuses there, and then on South Carolina and its February 29 primary.Biden, who finished a poor fourth in Iowa after being touted as the front-runner long before he declared his candidacy, left New Hampshire for South Carolina before the election results were in.Knotts said the South Carolina vote “cannot get here soon enough for Biden.””There’s some good news for Biden. Every poll he has been up in South Carolina,” Knotts told VOA. “He’s going to very friendly territory, he’s got the most endorsements, he’s got really strong support from the black community in South Carolina — that’s going to be over 60% of primary voters, likely. It’s such a contrast to these states that are much less diverse like Iowa and New Hampshire.”Biden expressed a sense of forward-looking confidence as he addressed his supporters at a rally Tuesday in Columbia, South Carolina, telling them, “We’re just getting started.””Tonight though, we just heard from the first two of 50 states, two of them,” he said. “Not all the nation. Not half the nation. Not a quarter of the nation, not 10 percent — two. Now where I come from, that’s the opening bell, not the closing bell. And the fight to end Donald Trump’s presidency is just beginning.”Warren also remained upbeat Tuesday despite another disappointing finish to start the nomination process.”This fight we’re in — the fight to save our democracy — is an uphill battle,” she said. “But our campaign is built for the long haul.”And highlighting an issue that many Democrats have said is among their biggest priorities when choosing a candidate, Warren said, “Our campaign is best positioned to beat Donald Trump in November, because we can unite our party.”The New Hampshire primary was much more competitive for the Democrats than in 2016 when Sanders won 60% of the vote. But that race was essentially between him and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while this time the field remains crowded.Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks to the media at a polling station at the McDonough School on Election Day in the New Hampshire presidential primary election in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., February 11, 2020.It is getting a bit thinner after entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who was at the bottom of the pack Tuesday with 3%, announced he would be dropping out. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet also ended his bid for the presidency Tuesday.More could leave after Super Tuesday on March 3 when 14 states vote.Knotts said Democrats may take a lesson from the Republican race in 2016, when a number of candidates opposed Trump, but in doing so split the vote among themselves and allowed Trump to claim the Republican nomination.”If there is an anti-Sanders vote, right now it’s Buttigieg and Klobuchar, at least in New Hampshire, getting a bulk of that,” he said. “But if they continue to split it up with Warren and Biden, then Sanders is able to win between 20 and 30 percent in all these states, but in a five- or six-person race that can be enough to march toward the nomination. I feel like Super Tuesday, given that it’s just three days after South Carolina, I think that’s going to be a day when it might turn down to a two- or three-person race.”A potential wild card in the Democratic race is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He was not on the ballot in New Hampshire, preferring instead to concentrate his campaign on other states in the coming month where he is using his vast wealth to fund a huge media effort. Bloomberg has become a recent target of Trump’s criticism — a sign that he is starting to draw attention in the crowded field.
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Warns Containment the Only Option for Some African Terror Groups
U.S. defense and intelligence officials are voicing renewed concerns about the spread of increasingly capable terror groups in Africa, warning some have become so powerful it is no longer possible to “degrade” them.The warnings, part of a newly released report by the Defense Department’s inspector general, echo earlier warnings by the U.S. military’s Africa Command about growing threats to the U.S. homeland.They also come as the Pentagon unveiled a proposed $740.5 billion budget for next year focused not on terrorism but on competition against China and Russia.”The terrorist threat in Africa remains persistent, and in many places, is growing,” according to Defense Department lead inspector Gen. Glenn Fine, pointing to the latest intelligence assessments of the various African affiliates of al-Qaida and Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS.FILE – An image distributed by al-Shabab after the attack on a military base in Kenya shows Somalia’s al-Shabab militant group’s flag, said to be at the Manda Bay Airfield in Manda, Lamu, Kenya, Jan. 5, 2020.“The threat posed by al-Shabab and ISIS-Somalia in East Africa remains ‘high,’ despite continued U.S. airstrikes and training of Somali security forces,” Fine wrote in the report, based on information from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).In West Africa, the report concludes the terrorism landscape is just as concerning.U.S. Africa Command “has shifted its strategy from ‘degrading’ these VEOs (violent extremist organizations) to ‘containing’ them,” the report states.The report also quotes U.S. Africa Command as saying the various terror groups in West Africa “have the potential to spread through the region and impact Western interests.”Tuesday’s report on U.S. counterterror operations in Africa is the first from the inspector general to be released to the public — previous versions were classified.But public concern about the escalating dangers presented by terror groups in Africa dates back to at least November, when the United States hosted a meeting of the global coalition to defeat IS.”We agreed at the working level that West Africa and the Sahel would be a preferred, initial area of focus for the coalition outside of the ISIS core space and with good reason,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the time on Twitter. “ISIS is outpacing the ability of regional governments and int’l partners to FILE – U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend watches during a tour north of Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 8, 2017.Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of U.S. forces in Africa, told lawmakers outright that, “some of those groups threaten the American homeland today.”Just this week, the State Department and the FBI announced the launch of a new joint terrorism task force with Kenya, the first located outside of the U.S., to push back specifically against al-Shabab.FILE – U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper speaks during a press briefing at Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, Dec. 20, 2019.Yet despite fears about the expanding reach of Africa’s terror groups, Pentagon officials have been focused on plans to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Africa by perhaps 10% over the next several years — efforts U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has described as a FILE – A member of Kenya’s security forces walks past a damaged police post after an attack by al-Shabab extremists from Somalia, in the settlement of Kamuthe in Garissa county, Kenya, Jan. 13, 2020.U.S. intelligence officials believe al-Shabab in Somalia is now raising $10 to $20 million a year through taxation, while boasting anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 fighters.Al-Shabab has also been pumping out more social media propaganda, though military officials question just how effective it has been.IS-Somalia, while much smaller with just 100 to 300 fighters, has been resilient, and like al-Shabab, seemingly unhindered by U.S. airstrikes that kill just one or two fighters at a time.The limited impact of direct U.S. military strikes is sparing bigger concerns about the Pentagon’s focus on shifting troops from Africa.”Many partner forces in Africa will likely require assistance and advising for a long period of time before they can fully address VEO threats on their own,” the report states. “This need for ongoing operations, coupled with the often slow development of partner forces, could require ongoing commitment of U.S. military resources.”
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Polls Closing in New Hampshire, the First 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary
The polls are starting to close in New Hampshire in the nation’s first Democratic presidential primary of 2020, where the results could solidify Senator Bernie Sanders as the front-runner or further damage former vice president Joe Biden’s fading campaign.But surprises have been a tradition in early primaries and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who had a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, led after several of the smaller New Hampshire towns and villages began reporting results.Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg emerged from Iowa tied for front-runner status.Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks to the media at a polling station at the McDonough School on Election Day in the New Hampshire presidential primary election in Manchester, New Hampshire, Feb. 11, 2020.But Sanders is the self-declared democratic socialist senator from neighboring Vermont and pre-election polls showed him leading Buttigieg in New Hampshire.Senator Elizabeth Warren also hails from a neighboring state, Massachusetts, and shares many of Sanders’ progressive ideas. Some analysts are also forecasting a number of write-in votes for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg was not on the ballot in New Hampshire, preferring to concentrate on other states that will be up for grabs in the coming month. But Bloomberg has become a recent target of President Donald Trump’s criticism — a sign that he is starting to draw attention in a crowded field.Biden has already departed New Hampshire to campaign in South Carolina and seek support from black voters.Biden finished a poor fourth in Iowa last week after being touted as the front-runner even before he declared his candidacy.This is Biden’s third try for the White House. Despite his long experience as a senator and vice president under President Barack Obama, he has failed to stand out in a field that includes women, a democratic-socialist, billionaire entrepreneurs, a young Asian American — Andrew Yang — and the first openly gay candidate of a major party, Buttigieg.All the Democrats are claiming they are best equipped to take on Trump.”Let me start by asking you to form in your mind an image that I always ask voters to picture, because I picture it every day,” Buttigieg told his supporters at a Monday rally. “And it’s the image of what it’s going to be like the first time that the sun comes up over the mountains and lakes of New Hampshire and Donald Trump is no longer the president of the United States.”Sanders made his pitch at an early Monday rally, saying, “We are the strongest campaign to defeat Trump because of the nature of our campaign,” funded from a large network of small-dollar donors, which he contended was a sharp contrast with his rivals who have accepted contributions from wealthy donors.”Unlike some of my opponents, I don’t have contributions from the CEOs of the pharmaceutical industry or Wall Street tycoons,” Sanders said in a clear attack on Buttigieg, who has accepted such donations and says he needs them to build a national political operation.Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) greets supporters outside a polling site for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary in Manchester, New Hampshire, Feb. 11, 2020.Warren retooled her campaign message after a third-place finish in Iowa and urged her supporters to not “look backwards.””Our democracy hangs in the balance. So it comes to you, New Hampshire, to decide,” she said. “When there’s this much fear, when there’s this much on the line, do we crouch down? Do we cower? Do we back up? Or do we fight back? Me — I’m fighting back.”Biden argued in a Monday speech that Trump inherited a robust economy from his former boss, President Obama.Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden leaves a polling station after a visit on the day of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary in Manchester, New Hampshire, Feb. 11, 2020.”Trump’s going to tell us over and over again the economy is on the ballot this year,” Biden said. “It sure is. And I’m going to make sure he understands it’s on the ballot because working class and middle class people are getting clobbered. But something else is on the ballot. Character is on the ballot. The character of this country is on the ballot.”In Iowa, state Democratic officials said Buttigieg took 14 of the 41 delegates up for grabs to the party’s July national nominating convention in Milwaukee, followed by Sanders with 12, Warren with eight, Biden six and Klobuchar one.
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
After Trump Protests, US Justice Department to Cut Sentencing Recommendation for His Political Confidant
The U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday it would cut the recommended seven-to-nine-year prison sentence for Roger Stone, a political confidant of President Donald Trump, in a corruption case linked to the 2016 election, acting just hours after the U.S. leader called the suggested term a “miscarriage of justice.”Top Justice Department officials stunningly rebuked their own team of prosecutors in the high-profile case.The officials said they were taken aback by the recommendation for the lengthy term for the political trickster, who was convicted of seven charges in November, including lying to Congress and threatening a witness in his case. Stone is set to be sentenced in Washington next week.A top Justice Department official told CNN that the country’s top law enforcement agency “was shocked to see the sentencing recommendation. The department believes the recommendation is extreme and excessive and is grossly disproportionate to Stone’s offenses.”Trump, in the wee hours of Tuesday, denounced the original sentencing recommendation for his longtime friend.This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2020Stone’s political skulduggery on behalf of Republican candidates dates to the 1960s. Among other offenses, he was convicted of lying to Congress about his attempts to find out about hacked Democratic emails during the election four years ago that were aimed at undermining the candidacy of Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent.Prosecutors said the seven-to-nine-year sentence recommended for the 67-year-old Stone was “consistent with the applicable” federal sentencing guidelines, and “would accurately reflect the seriousness of his crimes and promote respect for the law.”
Stone’s lawyers are calling for probation, pointing to Stone’s age and his lack of a criminal history.Prosecutors said the recommended sentence “will send the message that tampering with a witness, obstructing justice and lying in the context of a congressional investigation on matters of critical national importance are not crimes to be taken lightly.”They said that Stone “obstructed Congress’ investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, lied under oath and tampered with a witness. And when his crimes were revealed by the indictment in this case, he displayed contempt for this court and the rule of law.”Trump gave no indication whether he might pardon Stone, but did not rule it out in a December comment, when he described the prosecutors in the case as “dirty cops” and “evil people.”Stone is one of the more colorful figures in American politics. He proudly sports a tattoo on his back of former President Richard Nixon, the only U.S. leader to ever resign, leaving office in 1974 in the midst of the Watergate political scandal just ahead of his certain impeachment in the House of Representatives.
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By Polityk | 02/12/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Justice Dept. Won’t Oppose Probation for ex-Trump Aide Flynn
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it would not oppose probation for former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn — a more lenient stance than prosecutors took earlier this month, when they said he deserved prison time.The latest sentencing filing still seeks a sentence of up six months, but unlike before, prosecutors explicitly state that probation would be a “reasonable” punishment and that they would not oppose it.It was not clear why the Justice Department appeared to soften its position, though prosecutors did suggest Flynn deserves credit for his decades-long military service.“There is no dispute that the defendant has an unusually strong record of public service,” prosecutors wrote.As part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period. He cooperated extensively, leading prosecutors to initially support a sentence of probation.He was to have been sentenced the following year, but after he was sharply rebuked by the judge during the sentencing hearing, he abruptly asked that it be postponed so that he could continue cooperating with the government in hopes of getting additional credit for his behavior and avoiding any prison time.Since then, though, he has fired his lawyers and replaced them with new ones who have taken a sharply adversarial approach toward the prosecution. They have raised allegations of government misconduct that a judge has rejected. Earlier this month, they asked to withdraw his guilty plea — a request that is still pending.Prosecutors are expected to more fully respond to that request soon.The Justice Department says that though Flynn did provide assistance to their investigation and that a judge may consider that in fashioning a sentence, any claims of acceptance of responsibility are hard to reconcile with his request to withdraw his guilty plea.They also opted not to call him in the trial last year of a business associate after they said he had changed his account.He’s due to be sentenced Feb. 27.
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By Polityk | 02/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
New Hampshire Hopes to Clarify Unsettled Democratic Contest
Democrats are hoping that voters in New Hampshire will reset the party’s presidential nomination fight on Tuesday and bring clarity to a young primary season that has been marred by deep dysfunction and doubt.
Since the chaotic Iowa caucuses failed to perform their traditional function of winnowing the race, it now falls to New Hampshire to begin culling the Democratic field, which still features almost a dozen candidates.
For Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the vote is an opportunity to build on dominance of the party’s left flank. A repeat of his strong showing in Iowa could severely damage progressive rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who faces the prospect of an embarrassing defeat in a state that borders her home of Massachusetts.
While Sanders marches forward, moderates are struggling to unite behind a candidate. After essentially tying with Sanders for first place in Iowa, Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, begins his day as the centrist front-runner. But at least two other White House hopefuls, former Vice President Joe Biden and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, are competing for the same voters. And billionaire Michael Bloomberg is lying in wait in the states the begin voting in March, already spending millions of dollars to introduce himself to voters as a practical alternative to the candidates competing in the traditional early voting states.
More than a year after Democrats began announcing their presidential candidacies, the party is struggling to coalesce behind a message or a messenger in their desperate quest to defeat President Donald Trump. That’s raising the stakes of the New Hampshire primary as voters weigh whether candidates are too liberal, too moderate or too inexperienced, vulnerabilities that could play to Trump’s advantage in the fall.
During the final day of campaigning, many voters said they were still struggling to make a choice. Betty-Joy Roy, a 64-year-old director of activities at an assisted living facility in Manchester, said she only decided on Monday to vote for Sanders.
“I’m sick of politics as we know it, and I’m ready for someone who can do something,” she said.” “It was between him and Biden. I was having a hard time but I think we need a change.”
Democrats will be closely monitoring how many people show up to participate in Tuesday’s contest. New Hampshire’s secretary of state predicated record-high turnout, but if that fails to materialize, Democrats will confront the prospect of waning enthusiasm following a weak showing in Iowa last week and Trump’s rising poll numbers.
Trump, campaigning in New Hampshire on Monday night, sought to inject chaos in the process. The Republican president suggested that conservative-leaning voters could affect the state’s Democratic primary results, though only registered Democrats and voters not registered with either party can participate in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary.
“I hear a lot of Republicans tomorrow will vote for the weakest candidate possible of the Democrats,” Trump said Monday. “My only problem is I’m trying to figure out who is their weakest candidate. I think they’re all weak.”
Another complication that could affect turnout: weather. Forecasts call for a light wintry mix or rain and snow in some parts of the state, which could make travel treacherous.
Biden and the Democratic Party’s establishment wing may have the most to lose on Tuesday should the former two-term vice president underperform in a second consecutive primary election. Biden has earned the overwhelming share of endorsements from elected officials across the nation as party leaders seek a relatively “safe” nominee to run against Trump.
But the distance between Democratic voters and their party leaders appears to be growing.
After finishing in a distant fourth place in Iowa, Biden acknowledged he would likely “take a hit” in New Hampshire. The dark prediction during Friday’s debate disappointed New Hampshire loyalists like state House Speaker Steve Shurtleff, who endorsed Biden less than a month ago but spoke about him over the weekend as if he were already eliminated from contention.
“I hope the vice president does well, and I hope he can move forward, but it’s hard to say,” Shurtleff said in an interview. “The sad thing for me personally is that he’s such a terrific individual.”
He noted that no Democrat has ever become the party’s presidential nominee without finishing first or second in New Hampshire.
Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, sought to cast New Hampshire as one small step in the path to the presidential nomination, with contests coming up soon in more diverse states that award more delegates like Nevada and South Carolina, where Biden hopes to retain his advantage among minority voters.
“We plan to be competitive, but the reality is we always said this was going to be a fight. We have to let this full process play out,” Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders said. “Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, we plan to move forward.”
The stakes were dire for Warren as well in a contest set just next door to her Massachusetts home. She has positioned herself as a mainstream alternative to Bernie Sanders but is suddenly looking up at him and Buttigieg as Klobuchar fights to peel away female support.
Warren sought to project confidence on Monday, telling reporters she’s “been counted down and out for much of my life”
“You get knocked down,”she said. “You get back up.”
Buttigieg, young and with no governing experience beyond the mayor’s office, is trying to emerge as the leading Biden alternative for his party’s moderate wing. His team _- with 75 paid staffers, 15 campaign offices scattered across 10 counties and roughly 300 trained volunteers leaders heading the get-out-the-vote teams — has added volunteers since Iowa, aides said.
Buttigieg has aggressively courted moderate Democrats, independents and what he calls “future former Republican” as he tries to cobble together a winning coalition, just as he did in Iowa, where he finished in a near tie with Sanders for the lead.
Kim Holman was one of 1,800 people who crowded into, and spilled out of, Elm Street Junior High School’s gym in Nashua over the weekend. She calls herself “super torn.”
“I’m still kind of on the fence. I love Pete’s energy and his passion,” the 52-year-old personal trainer said. ‘It does make me a little nervous he’s so new to politics.”
In the days leading up to Tuesday’s primary, Buttigieg has come under increasing attack from Biden and Klobuchar, who seized on his lack of experience. And from the left, Sanders attacked Buttigieg’s reliance on big-dollar donors, which sparked jeers of “Wall Street Pete” from Sanders’ supporters.
Sanders has been one of the only candidates to explicitly predict victory in New Hampshire, where he defeated Hillary Clinton by more than 20 percentage points four years ago.
Like Buttigieg, his confidence is connected to the strength of his organization. He proclaimed repeatedly in recent days that his team knocked on 150,000 doors on Saturday alone, a significant number given that the state expects fewer than 300,000 people to vote Tuesday in the Democratic primary.
Sanders spent the eve of the primary courting his most passionate supporters, young voters, at two college campuses. At a Monday night rally at an arena on the University of New Hampshire campus, a band pumped up the crowd with a cover of The Who’s “My Generation,” before Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading figure among young progressives, took the stage. The band The Strokes closed out the night before the audience of thousands.
“Brothers and sisters, we are making history in this campaign,” Sanders declared at one event in Hudson.
After New Hampshire, the political spotlight shifts to Nevada, where Democrats will hold caucuses on Feb. 22. But several candidates, including Warren and Sanders, plan to visit states in the coming days that vote on Super Tuesday, signaling they are in the race for the long haul.
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By Polityk | 02/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Lawmakers Say Trump’s Proposed Cuts to Foreign Aid Headed to the Trash Can
President Donald Trump is proposing a steep 21% cut in aid the United States provides to foreign countries, and the State Department says it stands by the draft budget. But U.S. lawmakers, who control the budget process, say the proposed cuts in foreign assistance would weaken U.S. national security and global leadership. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
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By Polityk | 02/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democratic Presidential Challengers Seek Momentum in New Hampshire Primary
Voters in the northeastern U.S. state of New Hampshire are casting ballots Tuesday in the Democratic primary as candidates look to build early momentum in the race to oppose President Donald Trump in the November national election.Just after midnight, voters in Dixville Notch made the first selections in the state, with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg getting two votes in the Democratic primary, followed by one vote each for Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.In a curious twist, Bloomberg, who in his political career has been a Democrat, Republican and independent, also got a write-in vote as a Republican. Thus far, the billionaire has focused his campaigning on states later in the voting calendar and with a huge emphasis on television advertising.Polls in most areas open later in the morning, and results are likely Tuesday evening.The contest in New Hampshire has taken on added consequence in the aftermath of a split vote in last week’s Iowa caucuses that were remembered mostly for the agonizingly slow release of the final outcome that was linked to a wrongly coded app used in collecting vote totals from throughout the farm state.In the end, Buttigieg edged Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, in Iowa.Pre-election polls showed Sanders ahead of Buttigieg in New Hampshire. Three other contenders are also hoping for a good showing in Tuesday’s vote: former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, all of whom trailed the leaders in Iowa.Small, mostly white New Hampshire is hardly reflective of the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States as a whole, but its importance every four years at the start of the presidential election campaign is recognized by both Democrats and Republicans. The New Hampshire winner could gain an edge in the next two Democratic contests, in Nevada and South Carolina, which are scheduled for the last two Saturdays in February, ahead of 14 states voting on March 3.Meanwhile, Trump staged a Monday night rally for his supporters in the snow-covered state where he criticized the Democratic field.”They’re all fighting each other. They’re all going after each other,” Trump said. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”U.S. Democrats say their chief aim in the long slog of state contests to pick a nominee to oppose Trump is to find the most likely choice who can defeat him. All of the Democratic challengers defeat Trump in hypothetical national matchups, but the margins have edged closer in recent surveys, with Trump taking credit for a strong U.S. economy and winning acquittal last week in the Senate on impeachment charges brought against him by Democrats in the House of Representatives.All the Democrats are claiming they are best equipped to take on Trump.”Let me start by asking you to form in your mind an image that I always ask voters to picture, because I picture it every day,” Buttigieg told his supporters at a Monday rally. “And it’s the image of what it’s going to be like the first time that the sun comes up over the mountains and lakes of New Hampshire and Donald Trump is no longer the president of the United States.”Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, in Exeter, N.H.Sanders made his pitch at an early Monday rally, saying, “We are the strongest campaign to defeat Trump because of the nature of our campaign,” funded from a large network of small-dollar donors, which he contended was a sharp contrast with his rivals who have accepted contributions from wealthy donors.”Unlike some of my opponents, I don’t have contributions from the CEOs of the pharmaceutical industry or Wall Street tycoons,” Sanders said in a clear attack on Buttigieg, who has accepted such donations and says he needs them to build a national political operation.Warren retooled her campaign message after a third-place finish in Iowa and urged her supporters to not “look backwards.””Our democracy hangs in the balance. So it comes to you, New Hampshire, to decide,” she said. “When there’s this much fear, when there’s this much on the line, do we crouch down? Do we cower? Do we back up? Or do we fight back? Me — I’m fighting back.”At a speech Monday night, Biden, making his third run for the Democratic presidential nomination, argued that Trump inherited a robust economy from former President Barack Obama, when Biden was his vice president.”Trump’s going to tell us over and over again the economy is on the ballot this year,” Biden will say. “It sure is. And I’m going to make sure he understands it’s on the ballot because working class and middle class people are getting clobbered. But something else is on the ballot. Character is on the ballot. The character of this country is on the ballot.”Klobuchar, who finished fifth in Iowa and won praise for her performance at a Friday night candidates debate, said she is seeing a “surge of support” in New Hampshire. Two polls had her moving ahead of Biden and Warren into third behind Sanders and Buttigieg.”A lot of people did not think that I was going to make it through the summer or make it to that debate stage, but I more than made it to the debate stage. And since that debate, our campaign has been surging,” she said Monday.In Iowa, state Democratic officials said Buttigieg took 14 of the 41 delegates up for grabs to the party’s July national nominating convention in Milwaukee, followed by Sanders with 12, Warren with eight, Biden six and Klobuchar one.
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By Polityk | 02/11/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
