Розділ: Політика
US House Expected to Pass Resolution Limiting Military Action Against Iran
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve a resolution Thursday directing President Donald Trump to not use the military to engage in hostilities with Iran.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the vote in a statement that criticized the Trump administration for conducting the airstrike last week that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani without consulting Congress.She called the airstrike a “provocative and disproportionate” action that endangered U.S. troops and diplomats.WATCH: Iran Tensions Easing as Democrats Plan Trump War Powers VoteSorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyThe resolution calls for the president to halt the use of U.S. forces against Iran unless Congress has declared war or given statutory approval, or unless such military action is necessary to defend against an imminent attack against the United States, its territories or armed forces.“The administration must work with the Congress to advance an immediate, effective de-escalatory strategy that prevents further violence,” Pelosi said. “America and the world cannot afford war.”With Democrats in control of the House, the measure is expected to easily pass. Its fate in the Republican-controlled Senate is less clear.Administration briefingTop administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and CIA Director Gina Haspel, went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to brief members of both the House and Senate about the decision to carry out the airstrike against Soleimani.Many Democrats criticized the session as lacking specific justifications for the strike. Republicans, with a few exceptions, emerged supportive of the administration’s actions.“I’m convinced that had decisive action not been taken, we could very well be standing here today talking about the death of dozens, if not hundreds of Americans at the hands of Shia militias working as proxies for the Iranian regime,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said.Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said that based on the officials’ presentation, “It does not meet what I consider to be an imminent threat.”Republican Senator Jim Risch said that after hearing the information available to Trump, “it would have been negligent, it would have been reckless and it would have been an intentional disregard for the safety of Americans for the president not to act and not to take out Soleimani.”Two Republicans back debateSenators Mike Lee and Rand Paul, both Republicans, said after the briefing they would support a resolution under the War Powers Act.“The debate is a 70-year-long debate that began in 1950 with Korea and Truman. This is a debate and many have written that Congress has abdicated their duty today,” Paul said. “This is Senator Lee and I stepping up and saying we are not abdicating our duty. Our duty under the Constitution is for us to debate when we go to war. And we, for one, are not going to abdicate that duty.”The House resolution text labels Iran a state sponsor of terrorism that engages in destabilizing activities across the Middle East, with Soleimani as the lead architect of many of those actions.It says the United States has an inherent right to self-defense against imminent attacks, but that in those cases the executive branch should tell Congress why military action is necessary, why it needs to happen within a certain period of time, and what the harm would be in missing that window. It also says the administration should explain why taking military action would likely prevent future attacks.
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By Polityk | 01/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Pelosi: House to Vote This Week to Limit Trump’s Military Actions on Iran
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that the House would vote on a resolution intended to limit President Donald Trump’s military actions regarding Iran, stating that concerns about the administration’s strategy and decisions were not addressed in a briefing with lawmakers.
Pelosi said Monday that the House would vote on a war powers resolution but did not provide many details on its timing then.
The resolution will likely sail through the House of Representatives, where the Democrats hold the majority, but its passage in the Senate, controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, is less assured.
“Today, to honor our duty to keep the American people safe, the House will move forward with a war powers resolution to limit the president’s military actions regarding Iran,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“This resolution, which will be led by Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, will go to the Rules Committee this evening and will be brought to the floor tomorrow,” she added. Remarks on military response
Trump said in remarks earlier Wednesday that the United States did not necessarily need to respond militarily to Iranian missile attacks on military bases in Iraq that host U.S. troops.
The comments stood in contrast to his fiery rhetoric in previous days. On Saturday, he threatened to destroy Iranian cultural sites, before backtracking and saying he would obey international law on the issue.
The overnight strikes in Iraq were in retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani last week.
“Members of Congress have serious, urgent concerns about the administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward,” Pelosi said.
“Our concerns were not addressed by the president’s insufficient war powers act notification and by the administration’s briefing today.”
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By Polityk | 01/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Newly-Empowered Virginia Democrats Promise Action
A historically diverse Virginia General Assembly convened Wednesday, led for the first time in more than two decades by Democrats who promised to enact a litany of changes.The House quickly elected Eileen Filler-Corn at the new speaker, the first woman to serve in that role. She is also the first Jewish speaker.“A new torch is being passed today, one that ushers in a modern era representing all Virginians,” Filler-Corn said on the House floor.Many Democratic lawmakers wore blue Wednesday, a nod to the November blue wave that helped them take full control of the General Assembly for the first time in a generation. Democrats have made strong gains in Virginia since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, significantly changing the makeup of the General Assembly. Women, people of color and millennials have all made gains.African American lawmakers are set to have most power at the legislature in Virginia’s 400-year history, including leading several powerful legislative committees.“It is our time,” Sen. Jennifer McClellan, vice chairwoman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said Wednesday morning. She said the black caucus was committed to eliminate the “last vestiges of racism and white supremacy in Virginia law.”Ghazala Hashmi, a first-time candidate who unseated a Republican incumbent to help Democrats flip the Virginia Senate, became that chamber’s first Muslim female member.In the weeks since Democrats won majorities in the state House and Senate, they have laid out an ambitious agenda. It includes high-profile issues Republicans thwarted for years, including gun control measures and criminal justice reforms. They also have pledged to ease restrictions on abortion access, raise the minimum wage, prohibit discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community and make Virginia the next state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.Lawmakers also will be tasked with passing a two-year state budget and deciding whether to legalize casinos.Gun issues figure to be the most high profile area of debate. Some of the new restrictions Gov. Ralph Northam and Democratic lawmakers want include universal background checks, banning assault weapons and passing a red flag law to allow the temporary removal of guns from someone who is deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.Republicans and gun-rights groups have pledged stiff resistance. Gun owners are descending on local government offices to demand that officials establish sanctuaries for gun rights. More than 100 counties, cities and towns have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and vowed to oppose any new “unconstitutional restrictions” on guns.Democrats indicated early Wednesday that they were not going to pass a set of rules organizing how the House will operate, as is traditional on its first day. The delay allows Democrats to put off a contentious floor debate on whether to ban guns from the Capitol, which likely would have overshadowed much of Wednesday’s events.The Equal Rights Amendment was expected to be another top issue. Democrats say their caucus unanimously supports ratifying the gender equality measure and have pledged to do so quickly.Hundreds of advocates for what could become the next amendment to the U.S. Constitution staged a lively rally outside an entrance to the Capitol, where they cheered as Democratic lawmakers walked in and chanted “E-R-A” as several Republicans followed.Opponents held a press conference Wednesday morning where they warned ratification would lead to the rollback of abortion restrictions as well as a host of negative consequences for women. Critics of the measure say the ERA is not lawfully before the states for ratification, in part because of a congressional deadline that passed decades ago.ERA advocates’ efforts in Virginia “will be nothing more than political commentary. The time to ratify the ERA expired more than 40 years ago,” said Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of the U.S. Legal Division and Communications for Alliance Defending Freedom.Later Wednesday night, Northam, who has largely rebounded from a blackface scandal that almost drove him from office a year ago, is set to address lawmakers.Wednesday also marks the return of Joe Morrissey, a former Virginia lawmaker who used to spend his days at the General Assembly and his nights in jail after being accused of having sex with his teenage secretary. Morrissey defeated a Democratic incumbent in a primary to win a Richmond-area senate seat.Republicans have cast Democrats’ agenda as extreme, saying it would bring Virginia in line with liberal California or New York. They’ve promised to look for ways to hold the majority accountable, keep Virginia business friendly and exercise fiscal restraint.“We think that very quickly, the voters of Virginia will begin to get buyer’s remorse about what they’ve done here,” incoming House Minority Leader Del. Todd Gilbert said.
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By Polityk | 01/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Full Text of Trump’s Speech on Iran
Remarks by President Donald Trump on Iran, released by the White House:As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
Good morning. I’m pleased to inform you: The American people should be extremely grateful and happy no Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases.
Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.
No American or Iraqi lives were lost because of the precautions taken, the dispersal of forces, and an early warning system that worked very well. I salute the incredible skill and courage of America’s men and women in uniform.
For far too long — all the way back to 1979, to be exact — nations have tolerated Iran’s destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond. Those days are over. Iran has been the leading sponsor of terrorism, and their pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens the civilized world. We will never let that happen.
Last week, we took decisive action to stop a ruthless terrorist from threatening American lives. At my direction, the United States military eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani. As the head of the Quds Force, Soleimani was personally responsible for some of the absolutely worst atrocities.
He trained terrorist armies, including Hezbollah, launching terrorist strikes against civilian targets. He fueled bloody civil wars all across the region. He viciously wounded and murdered thousands of U.S. troops, including the planting of roadside bombs that maim and dismember their victims.
Soleimani directed the recent attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq that badly wounded four service members and killed one American, and he orchestrated the violent assault on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. In recent days, he was planning new attacks on American targets, but we stopped him.
Soleimani’s hands were drenched in both American and Iranian blood. He should have been terminated long ago. By removing Soleimani, we have sent a powerful message to terrorists: If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our people.
As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior.
In recent months alone, Iran has seized ships in international waters, fired an unprovoked strike on Saudi Arabia, and shot down two U.S. drones.
Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013, and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash. Instead of saying “thank you” to the United States, they chanted “death to America.” In fact, they chanted “death to America” the day the agreement was signed.
Then, Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration. The regime also greatly tightened the reins on their own country, even recently killing 1,500 people at the many protests that are taking place all throughout Iran.
The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway, and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout. Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality.
They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal -– or JCPOA –- and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper, and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential. Iran can be a great country.
Peace and stability cannot prevail in the Middle East as long as Iran continues to foment violence, unrest, hatred, and war. The civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime: Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer. It will not be allowed to go forward.
Today, I am going to ask NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East process. Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accompliments [accomplishments] changed our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil.
The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration, at a cost of $2.5 trillion. U.S. Armed Forces are stronger than ever before. Our missiles are big, powerful, accurate, lethal, and fast. Under construction are many hypersonic missiles.
The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it. We do not want to use it. American strength, both military and economic, is the best deterrent.
Three months ago, after destroying 100 percent of ISIS and its territorial caliphate, we killed the savage leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, who was responsible for so much death, including the mass beheadings of Christians, Muslims, and all who stood in his way. He was a monster. Al-Baghdadi was trying again to rebuild the ISIS caliphate, and failed.
Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters have been killed or captured during my administration. ISIS is a natural enemy of Iran. The destruction of ISIS is good for Iran, and we should work together on this and other shared priorities.
Finally, to the people and leaders of Iran: We want you to have a future and a great future — one that you deserve, one of prosperity at home, and harmony with the nations of the world. The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.
I want to thank you, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
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By Polityk | 01/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Appeals Court Stays Out of Voter Purge Case in Wisconsin
A state appeals court will stay out of a closely watched Wisconsin case over the purging of up to 209,000 registered voters in the battleground state.
In a ruling Tuesday, the District 4 appeals court in Madison said it won’t take the case until the state Supreme Court decides whether it will handle it.
An Ozaukee County judge last month ordered the state Elections Commission to purge people who may have moved from the voter rolls. The lawsuit was filed by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty law firm.
Democrats are fighting to stop the purge, saying it will unfairly impact their voters. Republicans say they merely want to ensure that people who have moved can’t vote from their old address.
The state Elections Commission in October mailed about 232,500 voters to tell them records indicated they had moved and that they needed to verify the address where they were registered to vote was current. Of those, about 209,000 have not requested continuation at their current address or re-registered at another.
President Donald Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016.
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By Polityk | 01/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Key Events Leading up to US-Iran Confrontation
Iran’s missile attack on two American bases in Iraq in response the the U.S. strike that killed its top general is the culmination of nearly two years of steadily rising tensions since President Donald Trump withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.The two countries are now engaged in their most serious confrontation since the 1979 Islamic revolution and takeover of the U.S. Embassy. Both sides have signaled restraint following the missile attack, but the threat of an all-out war remains.A timeline of the main events leading up to this week’s hostilities:-May 8, 2018: Trump announces that the U.S. is withdrawing from the nuclear deal signed by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, which had provided sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and stepped-up U.N. monitoring. Over the next several months, the U.S. ratchets up sanctions, exacerbating an economic crisis in Iran.-Nov. 5, 2018: U.S. imposes tough sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, the lifeline of its economy, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces a list of 12 demands it must meet for sanctions relief. Iran rejects the wide-ranging demands, which include ending its support for armed groups in the region, withdrawing from the Syrian civil war and halting its ballistic missile program.-May 5, 2019: The U.S. announces the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a bomber task force in response to “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” without providing details. It threatens “unrelenting force” in response to any attack.-May 8, 2019: Iran vows to enrich its uranium stockpile closer to weapons-grade levels if world powers fail to negotiate new terms for its nuclear deal. The European Union urges Iran to respect the nuclear deal and says it plans to continue trading with the country. Trump says he would like Iran’s leaders to “call me.”-May 12, 2019: The United Arab Emirates says four commercial ships off its eastern coast “were subjected to sabotage operations.”. Trump warns that if Tehran does “anything” in the form of an attack, “they will suffer greatly.”-June 13, 2019: Two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz are hit in an alleged assault that leaves one ablaze and adrift as 44 sailors are evacuated from both vessels and the U.S. Navy rushes to assist. America later blames Iran for the attack, something Tehran denies.-June 20, 2019: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shoots down a U.S. military surveillance drone. Trump says he called off a planned retaliatory strike on Iran over concerns about casualties.-July 1, 2019: Iran follows through on a threat to exceed the limit set by the nuclear deal on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, which is used for civilian applications and not for nuclear weapons.-Sept. 14, 2019: A drone attack on Saudi oil facilities temporarily cuts off half the oil supplies of the world’s largest producer, causing a spike in prices. The U.S. says Iran carried out the attack directly, calling it an “act of war” against Saudi Arabia. Iran denies involvement, while the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claim responsibility.-October 2019: Massive anti-government protests erupt in Lebanon and Iraq. While the protests are primarily driven by economic grievances, they target governments that are closely allied to Iran. In Iraq, protesters openly decry Tehran’s influence and attack Iranian diplomatic facilities.-November 2019: Protests break out in some 100 cities and towns in Iran after authorities raise the price of gasoline. The scale of the protests and the resulting crackdown are hard to determine as authorities shut down the internet for several days. Amnesty International later estimates that more than 300 people were killed.-Dec. 27, 2019: A U.S. contractor is killed and several American and Iraqi troops are wounded in a rocket attack on a base in northern Iraq. The U.S. blames the attack on Kataeb Hezbollah, one of several Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq.-Dec. 29, 2019: U.S. airstrikes hit Kataeb Hezbollah positions in Iraq and Syria, killing at least 25 fighters and bringing vows of revenge. Iraq calls the strikes a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.-Dec. 31, 2019: Hundreds of Iran-backed militiamen and their supporters barge through an outer barrier of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and hold two days of violent protests in which they smash windows, set fires and hurl rocks over the inner walls. U.S. Marines guarding the facility respond with tear gas. There are no casualties on either side.-Jan. 3: A U.S. airstrike near Baghdad’s international airport kills Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the mastermind of its regional military interventions. A senior commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq is also killed in the strike. Iran vows “harsh retaliation.” Trump says he ordered the targeted killing to prevent a major attack. Congressional leaders and close U.S. allies say they were not consulted on the strike, which many fear could ignite a war.-Jan. 5: Iran announces it will no longer abide by the nuclear deal and Iraq’s parliament holds a non-binding vote calling for the expulsion of all U.S. forces. Some 5,200 American troops are based in Iraq to help prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group. Trump vows to impose sanctions on Iraq if it expels U.S. troops.-Jan. 8: Iran launches several ballistic missiles on two bases in Iraq housing American troops in what it says is retaliation for the killing of Soleimani. There are no immediate reports of U.S. or Iraqi casualties. Trump tweets that “All is well!” and says he will deliver a statement Wednesday. Iran’s supreme leader says “we slapped them on the face” but that “military action is not enough.”
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By Polityk | 01/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Campaign Seizes on Soleimani Killing
Donald Trump once warned Barack Obama not to “play the Iran card” to boost his political prospects by starting a war. Eight years later, Trump is showing no reluctance to capitalize politically on his order to kill a top Iranian general, drawing accusations that he is weaponizing foreign policy for his campaign’s own gain.
Trump’s campaign has used the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, as a cudgel against the president’s Democratic political rivals and to divert attention from his impending impeachment trial in the Senate.
“Americans want to see their President acting decisively and defending the nation’s interests and that’s exactly what President Trump did,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said.
“Republicans are good at killing terrorists and this is a reminder of that,” added Michael Ahrens, communications director of the Republican National Committee.
The president was expected to amplify those messages on Thursday in Toledo, Ohio, during his first campaign rally since the drone strike last week. Trump’s campaign purchased ads on Facebook highlighting the Soleimani killing.
The Pentagon said Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” But the Trump administration has refused to provide any specific information about the nature or timing of the alleged plots, leaving Trump open to suspicions that the attack was driven, at least in part, by a belief that it might help him in the polls.
Those around the president strongly dismiss any suggestion of political motive. But they have been happy to use the killing to contrast Trump with his Democratic rivals, painting him as a strong leader and accusing Democrats of appeasing Iran with a failed foreign policy approach.
Despite the short shelf life of most Trump news stories, Trump aides recognized immediately that the strike — approved by the president at his private club in Florida during his winter break — could play an outsize role in the upcoming campaign, particularly if Iran retaliated and the region descended into chaos.
That scenario began to play out Tuesday night when Iran fired a series of ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops and warned the United States and its allies in the region not to respond in kind.
The president himself told one confidant that he wanted to deliver a warning to Iran not to mess with American assets. And he was eager to project an image of strength and replicate the message he delivered late last year after approving the raid that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: The U.S. will hunt down its enemies anywhere in the world.
The al-Baghdadi killing has become a staple in Trump’s campaign ads and at his rallies, and Soleimani’s death was expected to receive similar treatment.
“ANOTHER dead terrorist,” declared the subject line of a Sunday campaign email blast, which described Soleimani as a “monster responsible for THOUSANDS of American deaths.”
The president campaigned on the dual promises of getting tough on Iranian aggression and withdrawing U.S. troops from overseas entanglements — priorities seemingly at odds with one another in the wake of the strike. Trump has increased the number of troops in the region since he took office, despite his promise to end the “endless wars” in the Middle East.
Trump’s foreign policy, dating back to his first campaign, has always had its internal inconsistencies: As much as Trump pushed the drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, he promised nightly to “bomb the hell out of ISIS” and has been eager to strike a posture of American military strength.
But Trump aides expressed confidence that the president’s supporters would not punish him for prioritizing one over the other, at least in the short term. Instead, they argued that targeting what they called terrorist leaders had little to do with prospects for a protracted ground war. And they argued that the killing could be used to create their own version of Obama’s unofficial 2012 slogan, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
At the same time, Trump’s campaign and White House have tried to use Democratic criticism of the president’s killing of Soleimani to paint party members as radical and out of touch.
Two of Trump’s rivals, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called Soleimani’s killing an assassination — a label that implies a political rather than national security motive.
Trump’s advisers, meanwhile, are out to make the case that the president continues to tend to the nation’s business — in this case, the elimination of a dangerous adversary — while Democrats obsess over impeachment. Aides also believe the raid can be used to highlight possible foreign policy vulnerabilities of possible opponents, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s support for the unpopular Iraq War and suggesting Warren and Sanders are unwilling to stand up to global bad guys.
“FACT: President Trump Is Cleaning Up Joe Biden’s Iran Mess,” the campaign wrote in a Monday email blast that slammed the “Obama-Biden” Iran nuclear deal as a disaster and accused them of a policy of appeasement that emboldened Iran.
In the Democratic nominating contest, foreign policy has yet to become a front-burner issue, even as Biden, the leader in most national polls, has tried intermittently to capitalize on his long tenure on the world stage. Biden on Tuesday scorched Trump for his “dangerously incompetent” handling of Iran, first by abandoning the multilateral nuclear deal, then charging into sanctions and ordering Soleimani’s killing without consulting Congress or U.S. allies.
“I said not long ago that as the walls close in on this president, I worried that he was going to get us in war with Iraq, as the ultimate wag the dog,” Biden said at a fundraiser, where he twice appeared to confuse Iraq with Iran.
Yet the debate over the wisdom of killing Soleimani has also divided some Republicans, including the two most popular personalities at Fox News Channel: Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. The two generally reach more than 3 million viewers apiece in the network’s prime-time lineup, often including the president himself.
Carlson has questioned the president’s move, saying it perplexes him Trump supporters who have taken a skeptical view of the intelligence community now unquestioningly accepts its assessment of future threats from Iran.
“It seems like just 20 minutes ago we were denouncing these same people as ‘the deep state’ and pledging never to trust them again without verification,” Carlson said on Monday night’s show.
Hannity, whose show directly follows Carlson’s on Fox, offered a typically full-throated defense of the president Monday and said “the mob, the media, the Democratic Party” are distraught over Trump’s huge success.
Trump, who has a long history of obfuscation and exaggeration, has insisted that his move prevented an imminent attack and was warranted given Soleimani’s past conduct.
“He was planning a very big attack and a very bad attack for us, and other people, and we stopped him. And I don’t think anybody can complain about it,” Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office.
Yet Trump himself has fueled speculation about leaders starting wars for their own benefit.
“In order to get elected, (at)BarackObama will start a war with Iran,” Trump tweeted in November 2011, warning a year later: “Don’t let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected–be careful Republicans!”
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By Polityk | 01/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Stacey Abrams Book on Voting Rights to be Published in June
Stacey Abrams has a new book coming out next summer that will focus on her signature cause, voting rights.
Henry Holt and Company announced Tuesday that “Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America” is scheduled for June 2020. Based on research and her run for Georgia governor in 2018, her book calls for reforms that make it easier for people to vote. Abrams, a Democrat, narrowly lost to Republican Brian Kemp last year in a campaign that raised numerous questions about everything from the purging of voter rolls to the limited access to voting booths in black precincts.
“The future of our democracy depends on correcting all that is wrong with our elections process, including the insidious practice of voter suppression,” Abrams said in a statement. “And we must remind voters of their power to be seen and to demand action not simply on election days but every day.”
Abrams, 46, is widely regarded as a rising star in the Democratic Party and has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate in the 2020 election. Now heading the voting rights organization Fair Fight, she is a former Georgia state legislator and author of “Lead From the Outside.” She was the first African American woman to be a major party nominee for governor.
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By Polityk | 01/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrats Focus on Wisconsin for 2020 Convention, Election
The head of the Democratic National Convention promised Tuesday that the event in Milwaukee this summer to choose the party’s presidential nominee will be focused more on substance than spectacle as part of a strategy to be more successful in key states such as Wisconsin.
Democrats failed in 2016 to communicate as effectively as they could have in key states, said Joe Solmonese, a longtime Democratic strategist and executive officer for the convention. He spoke to reporters at a media walk-through event Tuesday at the Fiserv Forum, six months before the July convention.
The event and more than 1,000-related events will bring an estimated 50,000 people to Milwaukee, bringing added emphasis to the importance of Wisconsin in the presidential race.
“We are the center of the political universe right now,” said Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Milwaukee native. He, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Treasurer Sarah Godlewski spoke with reporters at the event.
Evers said that in order to win, Democrats need a better turnout in Milwaukee and among young people than in 2016.
“The message is focusing on some really specific issues, making sure we do it in a pragmatic way,” Evers said.
Barnes said Democrats need to “show up everywhere” in Wisconsin, not just Milwaukee, and communicate better with their core supporters than they did during the last presidential campaign.
“That matters,” he said. “People need to know you care about them.”
Having the convention in Milwaukee is more than just a “great party,” it’s also an organizing opportunity to reach thousands of volunteers, said David Bergstein, battleground state communications director for the DNC.
“We can’t take anything for granted,” Bergstein said. “We have to reach out to every possible voter that we can.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Anna Kelly said holding the convention in Milwaukee will highlight Democratic policies and “only remind Wisconsin voters why they delivered their 10 electoral votes to President Trump in 2016 and why they will do so again in November.”
Wisconsin, along with Michigan and Pennsylvania, are part of the so-called “blue wall” traditional Democratic strength that Trump broke through to win in 2016.
Both parties are pouring millions of dollars into the states, anticipating they’ll be just as critical in the 2020 presidential contest.
Milwaukee’s hosting of the convention has symbolic significance for Democrats, as the party’s 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, never campaigned in the state after losing the primary. That was one of the factors cited as why she lost the state to Donald Trump by less than 23,000 votes. Holding the convention in Milwaukee sends a clear signal that Democrats don’t plan to overlook Wisconsin this time around.
Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state since 1984. Other than Barack Obama’s two wins, Wisconsin has been decided by less than one percentage point in three of the past five presidential elections.
Solmonese pledged that the convention will reflect what voters in key states like Wisconsin will want to see and hear.
“When we bring the convention to Milwaukee, we’re going to remind the American people of what Democrats stand for,” he said.
Organizers painted Milwaukee as a vibrant, up-and-coming urban center, while giving a nod to its blue-collar roots.
To show off the city, convention organizers provided tours of Milwaukee landmarks and neighborhoods to hundreds of members of the media from around the world who will be covering the event July 13-16.
It will be the first time in more than a century that Democrats will nominate their presidential candidate in a Midwestern city other than Chicago. Instead, the spotlight will shine for a week on a metro area of about 1.6 million people.
The presidential campaigns have been relatively quiet in Wisconsin in recent months, but that’s going to change quickly. Trump has scheduled a Jan. 14 rally in Milwaukee, the same night as a Democratic presidential candidate debate in neighboring Iowa. Presidential voting kicks off in Iowa with its caucuses on Feb. 3. The Wisconsin primary is April 7.
Democrats will nominate their presidential nominee in Milwaukee. Republicans are set to gather in Charlotte, the largest city in battleground North Carolina, on Aug. 24-27.
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Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbauerAP
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By Polityk | 01/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Stands by His Foreign Policy Resume as He Slams Trump
Rising tensions between Washington and Tehran are testing whether Joe Biden can capitalize on his decades of foreign policy experience as he seeks to challenge a president he derides as “dangerous” and “erratic.”Biden is expected to deliver lengthy remarks Tuesday in New York about President Donald Trump’s decision to approve an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The event, which would follow several days of campaigning in which Biden inconsistently highlighted his foreign policy credentials, would be among his most high-profile efforts to articulate his vision for world affairs. It would come less than a month before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses begin Democrats’ 2020 voting.But the moment presents challenges for a two-term vice president who was elected to six Senate terms. While his resume is longer than any Democratic presidential rival’s, it comes with complications.Progressives hoping to make American foreign policy less militaristic point to Biden’s 2002 vote authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, suggesting that muddies his recent warning that Trump could push the U.S. into another endless war. Alternately, Trump and Republicans cast Biden as indecisive or weak, seizing on his opposition to the 1991 U.S. mission that drove Iraq out of Kuwait and his reluctance about the raid that killed Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in 2011, when Biden was President Barack Obama’s No. 2.Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator who voted against President George W. Bush’s Iraq war powers request, calls it “baggage.” In a quote that Republicans recirculate frequently, former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in his memoir that Biden, though a “man of integrity,” has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”Biden himself has been inconsistent in his pitch to voters, seemingly confident that searing criticism of Trump and implicit contrasts with less-seasoned Democratic rivals are enough to earn another stint in the West Wing.“I’ve met every single world leader” a U.S. president must know, Biden tells voters at some stops. “On a first-name basis,” he’ll add on occasion. On Chinese President Xi Jinping: “I spent more time with him face to face than any other world leader.” On Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who helped persuade Trump to withdraw U.S. special forces from Syria over widespread opposition in Washington and elsewhere: “I know who he is.”The Biden campaign’s most viral moment was a video last month, titled “Laughed At,” showing world leaders mocking Trump at a Buckingham Palace reception held during a NATO summit in London. Biden says world leaders, including former British Prime Minister Theresa May, have called him to ask about Trump.He told reporters last month that foreign policy isn’t in his Democratic opponents’ “wheelhouse,” even if they are “smart as hell” and “can learn.” Demonstrating his knowledge, Biden veered into explaining the chemistry and physics of “SS-18 silos,” referring to old Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. “It’s just what I’ve done my whole life,” he said.He’s since touted endorsements from former Secretary of State John Kerry and members of Congress with experience in the military and intelligence community.Yet Biden doesn’t always connect the dots with an explicit appeal to voters.In Iowa last weekend, Biden called the Iran crisis “totally of Donald Trump’s making,” tracing Soleimani’s killing back to Trump withdrawing from a multilateral deal in which Iran had agreed to curtail its nuclear program. The pact “was working, serving America’s interests and the region’s interests,” Biden said, questioning whether Trump “has any plan for how to handle what comes next.”Biden told an audience that Americans need “a president who provides a steady leadership on Day One,” but during a 20-minute soliloquy, Biden never discussed his role in the Iran deal or Obama’s foreign policy generally. Days before, prior to the Soleimani strike, Biden didn’t mention the embassy attack at all as he campaigned in Anamosa, Iowa.The former vice president laments that lack of foreign policy emphasis in a Democratic primary contest that has revolved around the party’s internal ideological tussle over domestic issues including health care, a wealth tax and college tuition assistance. The international arena “isn’t discussed at all” on the debate stage, he told reporters last month, despite what he said is a deep concern among voters.“Foreign policy, commander in chief is a big deal to people,” he said, less because of a single issue and more because of Trump generally. “They just know something’s not right. It’s uncomfortable.”Biden in July offered perhaps his most sweeping foreign policy declaration to date, with a speech touting the U.S. as the preeminent world power but one that must lead international coalitions and focus on diplomacy. He pledged to end “forever wars” but did not rule out military force. He made clear he values small-scale operations of special forces while being more skeptical of larger, extended missions of ground forces.His advisers believe that reflects most Americans. “They don’t want the United States to retreat from the world … but they also don’t want us overextended without any rational strategy or exit plan,” said Tony Blinken, Biden’s top foreign policy adviser, who has worked with him since he was Democratic leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.As vice president, Biden was at Obama’s side for every major national security decision during their eight years in office. Biden led the administration’s efforts to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression. He also took the lead on Iraq as the Democratic administration moved to bring the war it inherited there to an end.But Biden wasn’t always in lockstep with Obama on major issues. He was among the advisers who argued against the attack on al-Qaida mastermind bin Laden. Biden’s explanation of those debates has changed over the years, varying from saying he recommended that Obama wait for clearer identification of bin Laden at the Pakistan compound where he was killed to later saying he privately told Obama to go ahead. Blinken said Biden was never against pursuing bin Laden, as some Republicans say. Recalling how Biden immediately relayed his final private conversation with Obama, Blinken said Biden told Obama to “trust your instincts.”Biden also lost an initial debate during lengthy deliberations on Afghanistan shortly after Obama took office. Biden was opposed to the idea of sending surge forces, pushing instead for a focus on counterterrorism that would have required a smaller military footprint on the ground. Obama ultimately ordered 30,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.That could be viewed as a lesson learned after Biden initially voted to support Bush’s 2002 request to use force in Iraq. Blinken said, though, that didn’t necessarily mean Biden ever changed philosophy. His 2002 vote, Blinken said, was based on the president arguing he needed war power only as leverage for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to accept international weapons inspectors. That worked, Blinken said, then Bush decided to “go to war anyway.”Ultimately, Biden and his team believe voters are more interested in candidates’ overall profiles than in litigating old debates. They point to the 2004 Democratic primary.Howard Dean held momentum for much of 2003. Weeks before Iowa caucused, the U.S. captured Saddam. Dean declared that the military victory had “not made America safer,” after having spent months blistering Kerry for backing the same Iraq resolution Biden supported. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who praised Saddam’s capture, went on to win Iowa and steamrolled to the nomination.
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By Polityk | 01/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
As First Votes Near, 2020 Democratic Race Looks Wide Open
With just weeks to go before Iowans kick off the Democratic presidential nominating contest on Feb. 3, the only certainty about the race seems to be its uncertainty.At least four contenders — former vice president Joe Biden, U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana — are seen as having a shot at winning the crucial early nominating state.All are betting on a win or strong finish in Iowa to propel them toward the nomination to take on Republican President Donald Trump in November 2020.With a new poll showing a virtual tie among front-runners and many voters still reluctant to commit to one candidate, all have reason to hope. After record fundraisings in the fourth quarter for several candidates, they have also money to spend.A CBS News/YouGov poll released on Sunday showed a three-way tie between Biden, Sanders and Buttigieg, at 23% with Warren and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar trailing behind.Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks during a town hall event in Davenport, Iowa, Jan. 5, 2020.Adding to the feeling of uncertainty in Iowa is the prospect that the U.S. senators in the race could be recalled to Washington soon for Trump’s impeachment trial, which could last weeks.The specter of greater conflict with Iran has also thrust national security into the forefront of the Democratic race, adding to the unsettled nature of the contest.With a fresh urgency, Biden, Sanders and Warren all campaigned along the Mississippi River towns in eastern Iowa during the weekend, while Klobuchar was not far away. Of the top-tier contenders, only Buttigieg was out of the state, stumping instead in New Hampshire, another early voting state.Democratic presidential candidate and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg campaigns on Jan. 4, 2020, in Nashua, N.H.“There are still a surprising amount of people who are undecided,” said Steven Drahozal, chairman of the Dubuque County Democratic Party.After a Sanders event in Muscatine, Mark Butterworth, 73, said that while he supported Sanders in 2016, he was this time also considering the more moderate Buttigieg because of his concerns over Sanders’ push for universal healthcare that would all but eliminate private health insurance.“I don see either one of them as a bad candidate at all,” said Butterworth, a small business owner.At a Biden event in Dubuque, Ron Vonnahne, 70, of Asbury, said he, too, had not decided. He praised Buttigieg, but concerns over whether the 37-year-old could beat Trump had him looking at Biden.Iowa is particularly critical to lesser-known candidates Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Warren, who need to make a splash and have banked on the state’s overwhelmingly white electorate to give their presidential bids an early jolt.Biden and Sanders, on the other hand, benefit from being better-known names with more solid and diverse bases of support in later primary states such as Nevada and South Carolina.Either could lose Iowa and stay viable.Biden has also seized on Trump’s recent actions toward Iran to draw attention to his foreign policy experience.After winning a high-profile endorsement of Iowa Rep. Abby Finkenauer, a first-term congresswoman who campaigned with him over the weekend, Biden’s campaign on Sunday also announced three endorsements from moderate House Democrats in swing states, who all served in the U.S. military.For the U.S. senators in the field, every day now matters before a possible impeachment trial later in January. Klobuchar, at one stop, urged attendees to commit to supporting her now.“This is it. We are like, what, 30 days away? And I know you guys always like to say, ‘You’re in my top three. You’re in my top three.’” she told the crowd. “Just go for it.”
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By Polityk | 01/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Top US Diplomat Pompeo Not Planning 2020 Senate Run, Media Reports
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday he does not plan to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas in 2020, according to media reports.Speculation has swirled for months over whether Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, would run for the seat in his home state.”He loves doing the job he’s doing right now and feels that things are too volatile with the various situations around the world, particularly with Iran and Iraq, and he wants to make sure he’s in the best spot to serve his country,” a person close to Pompeo told the Wall Street Journal. “He believes that is secretary of state.”Pompeo’s decision not to run was also reported by the New York Times.Pompeo and McConnell did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.McConnell had urged Pompeo to run for the seat to help keep the party’s majority after Republican Senator Pat Roberts announced last year he would retire.The Senate seat might also have been a good fit if Pompeo, who is believed to harbor presidential ambitions, chooses to run for the Republican nomination in 2024.The deadline for filing to run for the Senate seat is in June.
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By Polityk | 01/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Castro Endorses White House Hopeful Warren Days after Ending Own Campaign
U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren won endorsement on Monday from former rival Julian Castro, days after he gave up his own White House campaign.”Elizabeth and I share a vision of America where everyone counts. An America where people—not the wealthy or well-connected—are put first. I’m proud to join her in the fight for big, structural change,” Castro wrote on Twitter.Today I’m proud to endorse @ewarren for president.Elizabeth and I share a vision of America where everyone counts. An America where people—not the wealthy or well-connected—are put first. I’m proud to join her in the fight for big, structural change. pic.twitter.com/xDvMEKqpF3— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) January 6, 2020Castro will campaign with Warren at an event in Brooklyn on Tuesday.
When Castro, 45, ended his own presidential campaign last week, the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, and former Housing Department chief during the Obama administration said in a video message to supporters that he had “determined that it simply isn’t our time.”
Castro, who is Hispanic, is the most recent candidate of color to exit a 2020 race that, in its early months, had a historically diverse field of Democratic presidential contenders.FILE – Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren delivers a speech, on the one year anniversary of announcing her campaign, at Old South Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts, Dec. 31, 2019.Castro’s endorsement of Warren comes as the U.S. senator from Massachusetts is entering the final critical weeks before the nominating contests kick off on Feb. 3 in Iowa.
Though Warren, 70, remains in the top tier of contenders, she trails former Vice President Joe Biden and fellow U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in national opinion polls. Her fundraising also dipped in the final quarter of 2019, when she brought in millions less than Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
In a video Castro posted along with his endorsement announcement, he and Warren discuss the 2020 race over tea in her kitchen, with Warren’s dog Bailey. “You did so many things in this campaign, and it continues to matter,” Warren told him.
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By Polityk | 01/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Ex-National Security Adviser Bolton Willing to Testify at Trump Impeachment Trial
Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said Monday he would testify at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial if the Senate subpoenas him, potentially giving Democrats key behind-the-scenes testimony about Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to launch investigations to benefit himself politically.Bolton, a tough advocate for U.S. power across the globe, served for 17 months as Trump’s third top security aide until the president ousted him last September amid increasing rancorous disagreements over how the U.S. should handle its contentious relations with Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.In the run-up to the House of Representatives vote last month to impeach Trump, investigators decided to not subpoena Bolton, fearful of a long legal battle in U.S. courts over whether he would have to testify or could adhere to Trump’s directive banning testimony by key aides, some of whom honored the president’s edict while others did not.A tandem case with the same issues involving the potential testimony of a Bolton aide, Charles Kupperman, was left unresolved as Democratic lawmakers advanced their case against Trump, approving two articles of impeachment.But as Trump’s impeachment trial looms in the Senate, even though no date has been set in a congressional stalemate over the trial’s parameters, Bolton said in a statement he had to “resolve the serious competing issues as best I could, based on careful consideration and study.”He said, “I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify.”FILE – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks in Kyiv, Dec. 4, 2019.Bolton was at the center of significant White House foreign policy debates, including Trump’s efforts to press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open investigations of one of Trump’s top 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine attempted to undermine Trump’s 2016 election campaign.At one point during the House impeachment investigation, Bolton’s lawyer said that his client had “personal knowledge” of relevant Ukraine-related meetings and conversations “that have not yet been discussed in testimonies thus far.”Bolton is one of four Trump White House aides that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says should be called to testify at the impeachment trial. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is coordinating trial strategy with Trump’s White House lawyers, has balked at calling any witnesses in hope that after the Senate hears the House arguments against Trump and the president’s defense, it would then vote quickly to acquit him. U.S. lawmakers have returned to Washington after their holiday recess, but they are no closer to deciding when and how Trump’s impeachment trial would be staged.Key lawmakers remain stalemated over impeachment, now complicated by congressional debate over the merits of Trump’s approval of the drone attack that killed a key Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, last week outside the Baghdad airport.FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., smiles as she holds the gavel as the House votes on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump by the House of Representatives at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 18, 2019.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democrat-controlled House, is refusing to send two articles of impeachment to the Senate until she believes it would conduct a fair trial. One article accuses Trump of abusing the power of his presidency to pressure Ukraine to launch an investigation into the Bidens, while the other alleges he obstructed congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.As Trump and aides pressed Ukraine for the Biden investigations, Trump was temporarily withholding $391 million in military aid Ukraine wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Trump eventually released the military assistance to Ukraine last September without Zelenskiy opening the Biden investigations. Republicans say that is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks to reporters in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 3, 2020.McConnell says the Senate cannot hold an impeachment trial without receiving the impeachment allegations from the House, although some Republican senators looking to acquit Trump as quickly as possible now say the Senate should start the trial anyway.Schumer has sparred with McConnell to try to win assurances that key Trump White House aides will be allowed to testify at the impeachment trial, which would be only the third such impeachment proceeding in U.S. history.But McConnell, advocating Trump’s quick acquittal, has refused so far to guarantee that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Bolton and others would testify.Schumer said Sunday he remains “hopeful” that four Republican senators will vote against McConnell and join with the minority bloc of 47 Democrats to vote to hear testimony from the Trump aides.Meanwhile, Trump again ridiculed the impeachment effort on Monday, which was approved with near unanimous Democratic support in the House.”To be spending time on this political Hoax at this moment in our history, when I am so busy, is sad!” he said on Twitter. “The reason they are not sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is that they are so weak and so pathetic.” @LindseyGrahamSC@MariaBartiromo The great Scam continues. To be spending time on this political Hoax at this moment in our history, when I am so busy, is sad!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020He added, “The Impeachment Hoax, just a continuation of the Witch Hunt which started even before I won the Election, must end quickly. Read the Transcripts, see the Ukrainian President’s strong statement, NO PRESSURE – get this done. It is a con game by the Dems to help with the Election!”The Impeachment Hoax, just a continuation of the Witch Hunt which started even before I won the Election, must end quickly. Read the Transcripts, see the Ukrainian President’s strong statement, NO PRESSURE – get this done. It is a con game by the Dems to help with the Election!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020″Congress & the President should not be wasting their time and energy on a continuation of the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax when we have so many important matters pending. 196 to ZERO was the Republican House vote, & we got 3 Dems. This was not what the Founders had in mind!” Congress & the President should not be wasting their time and energy on a continuation of the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax when we have so many important matters pending. 196 to ZERO was the Republican House vote, & we got 3 Dems. This was not what the Founders had in mind!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020When a trial finally occurs, the Senate will almost certainly acquit Trump.A two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate would be required to convict Trump to remove him from office, meaning at least 20 Republicans would have to turn against the president if all 47 Democrats also vote to convict him.Some Republican lawmakers have voiced objections to Trump’s request to Zelenskiy for the investigation of former Vice President Biden, who leads national polls to oppose Trump in the November presidential election. But no Republican lawmakers have called for Trump’s conviction and removal from office.
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By Polityk | 01/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Lawmakers at Stalemate on Start of Trump Impeachment Trial
U.S. lawmakers have returned to Washington after their holiday recess, but they are no closer to deciding when and how President Donald Trump will be tried in the Senate on impeachment charges which were approved last month in the House of Representatives.Key lawmakers remain stalemated over impeachment, now complicated by congressional debate over the merits of Trump’s approval of the drone attack that killed a key Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, last week outside the Baghdad airport.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democrat-controlled House, is refusing to send two articles of impeachment to the Senate until she believes it would conduct a fair trial. One article accuses Trump of abusing the power of his presidency to pressure Ukraine to launch an investigation into a key 2020 Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. The other is regarding obstruction of congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican-majority Senate, says his chamber can’t hold an impeachment trial without receiving the impeachment allegations from the House, although some Republican senators looking to acquit Trump as quickly as possible now say the Senate should start the trial anyway.Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., departs the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 3, 2020.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has sparred with McConnell to try to win assurances that key Trump White House aides will be allowed to testify at the impeachment trial, which would be only the third in U.S. history.But McConnell, coordinating legal strategy with Trump’s White House lawyers, has balked at guaranteeing that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former national security adviser John Bolton and others would testify.Schumer said Sunday he remains “hopeful” that four Republican senators will vote against McConnell and join with the minority bloc of 47 Democrats to vote to hear testimony from the Trump aides.Meanwhile, Trump again ridiculed the impeachment effort on Monday, which was approved with near unanimous Democratic support in the House.”To be spending time on this political Hoax at this moment in our history, when I am so busy, is sad!” he said on Twitter. “The reason they are not sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is that they are so weak and so pathetic.” @LindseyGrahamSC@MariaBartiromo The great Scam continues. To be spending time on this political Hoax at this moment in our history, when I am so busy, is sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020He added, “The Impeachment Hoax, just a continuation of the Witch Hunt which started even before I won the Election, must end quickly. Read the Transcripts, see the Ukrainian President’s strong statement, NO PRESSURE – get this done. It is a con game by the Dems to help with the Election!””Congress & the President should not be wasting their time and energy on a continuation of the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax when we have so many important matters pending. 196 to ZERO was the Republican House vote, & we got 3 Dems. This was not what the Founders had in mind!” Congress & the President should not be wasting their time and energy on a continuation of the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax when we have so many important matters pending. 196 to ZERO was the Republican House vote, & we got 3 Dems. This was not what the Founders had in mind!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020When a trial finally occurs, the Senate will almost certainly acquit Trump.A two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate would be required to convict Trump to remove him from office, meaning at least 20 Republicans would have to turn against the president if all 47 Democrats also vote to convict him.Some Republican lawmakers have voiced objections to Trump’s request to Zelenskiy for the investigation of Biden, who leads national polls to oppose Trump in the November presidential election. But no Republican lawmakers have called for Trump’s conviction and removal from office.Trump eventually released the military assistance to Ukraine last September without Zelenskiy opening the Biden investigations. Republicans say that is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine.
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By Polityk | 01/06/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Election Year to Feature Bitter Fights, Deepening Divides
Four years after President Donald Trump drove the rules of politics over a cliff to win the Republican presidential nomination and ultimately the White House, Democrats will go through their own version of the same test.
In less than a month, Democratic voters will begin the formal process of sifting through a historically large field of candidates. The options include progressives who have inspired energy and strong opposition by rejecting traditional party politics and pushing for fundamental changes to America’s political, social and economic systems. Voters could pick the oldest nominee in the party’s history or the youngest.
Ironies abound at the outset of the Democratic primary.
The oldest candidate at 78, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has a loyal following among young voters but has yet to prove he can build a broader coalition. Older voters, meanwhile, have shown interest in Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, whose moderate vision has been greeted with skepticism by many fellow millennials.
And a party that prides itself on valuing diversity is contending with a top tier that is all white and mostly male.
The battle for the White House will unfold amid a great political realignment that is disrupting decades-long political alliances and further dividing America by education, gender and race. That means the election will likely serve as a referendum not only on the candidates, but also the country and its definition of the American presidency.
Some of Trump’s most influential allies say he is ready and willing to make 2020 the nastiest presidential contest in living memory.
Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser who has long fanned the flames of Trump’s scorched-earth politics, indicated that Trump would lean more aggressively into populism and nationalism over the coming year. And he offered a warning to Democrats who have engaged in a largely polite nomination fight so far: The “pillow fight” is almost over.
“This will be one for the ages. You’re going to get full Trump at max speed,” Bannon told The Associated Press.
Trump and his massive political machine are an ever-present force in the Democratic contest. The most important question each candidate must answer is why they are best positioned to defeat a president many in the party consider an existential threat to democracy.
Trump has already hurled personal and policy attacks at his Democratic opponents, even inviting assistance from foreign governments to defeat them. And with his surprise move last week to strike Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Trump showed how he can use the powers of the presidency to scramble American politics in an instant.
In a race that was already certain to be brutish, Trump’s decision to order the attack prompted some Democratic candidates to suggest he may have done so to divert attention from his impeachment trial.
The urgent question of which Democrat will ultimately challenge Trump will take months to resolve. The winnowing process formally begins with Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucus and ends at the party’s mid-July national convention after every state and U.S. territory holds its own primary contest.
The candidates represent the ideological diversity of an evolving Democratic Party that is teetering on the edge of its own civil war, united if only by overwhelming disdain for Trump.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Buttigieg represent the party’s moderate wing, favoring a more cautious shift leftward on core issues like health care, education and immigration. On the other side, Elizabeth Warren, a 70-year-old progressive Massachusetts senator, and Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, are fighting for transformational changes including a shift to a single-payer health care system.
At the same time, one of the richest men in the world, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is trying to use his fortune to rewrite the rules of primary politics. The $50 billion man, who registered as a Democrat little more than a year ago, will ignore the first four states on the primary calendar and focus instead on more than a dozen Super Tuesday states in early March.
Political operatives are skeptical, and many progressives are disgusted, yet the strategy promises to complicate and prolong the bitter primary season.
Each Democratic faction is convinced that the other will trigger the very thing they fear most: Trump’s reelection.
“If we nominate a candidate that I would describe as far left, extreme left, I think that unfortunately, a lot of union members will just not get there,” said Biden supporter Harold Schaitberger, the general president of the International Association of Firefighters, who specifically warned Democrats against nominating Sanders or Warren.
The case for a moderate Democrat lies with the belief that white, working-class men in a handful of states will largely decide Trump’s fate in November.
Non-college-educated white men shifted sharply away from the Democratic Party in 2016, fueling razor-thin victories for Trump in three states that previously made up the Democrats’ “blue wall”: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Trump can hold the same states again in 2020, he will return to the White House for another four years.
Schaitberger fears that some Democrats don’t appreciate the dire nature of the situation that continues in the Midwest, where many of his union members remain concerned by the leftward shift of the Democratic Party.
“It doesn’t matter if we get 10 million more votes in California or 4 million more votes in New York or Massachusetts, you gotta be able to come up in the battlegrounds with an electoral victory,” Schaitberger said, pointing to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida as the states that matter most.
Alexandra Rojas, executive director of the liberal group Justice Democrats, feels just as strongly that her party must nominate a “bold progressive” like Sanders or Warren to take back the presidency. She and thousands of like-minded activists are fighting Biden and Buttigieg’s candidacies, outraged by their reliance on wealthy donors and their refusal to embrace transformative domestic policies like Medicare for All, which would replace the U.S. private insurance system with free government-backed health coverage for all Americans.
“We’re fighting like we have nothing to lose,” Rojas declared.
She predicted that Democrats would ultimately come together after an explosive primary fight. Given several factors working in the Republican president’s favor, the Democrats’ feuding factions have no choice but to unite if they hope to take back the White House.
Rarely in modern political history has an incumbent president failed to win reelection in the midst of economic growth. And while there is debate about the strength of the U.S. economy, there is no debating the numbers: unemployment rates and the stock market are better today than when Trump took office.
Meanwhile, Trump amassed the largest political fortune in U.S. history heading into an election year, which he’s already using to construct a massive political machine. Backed by more than $100 million in his campaign account to begin the year, his team insists it can expand the traditional political battleground this fall to compete in Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, New Mexico and even Oregon.
While he is optimistic, evangelical leader and Trump confidant Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, said it’s too early to predict a Trump electoral landslide. But he’s calling on all Republicans to embrace the Trump playbook.
“He’s teaching Republicans a lesson that I hope they learn that nobody’s going to support them if they continue to be so diplomatic and so, what’s the word I’m looking for? I mean they act like royalty, like it’s beneath them to get down in the mud and fight,” Falwell said in an interview. “The people have been looking for somebody who will get down in the mud and fight and wade in up to their waist. Trump’s the first one who’s the done that.”
Indeed, Trump has eagerly attacked anyone and everyone who has criticized his personal style or governing decisions, even members of his own administration at times. He has already used ethnic slurs to go after Warren, raised questions about Sanders’ age, falsely called his rivals socialists, and openly encouraged foreign governments, namely Ukraine and China, to dig up dirt on Biden.
As his political base cheers, such tactics threaten to inflict lasting damage on Trump’s standing with some voters, especially women.
Democrats scored sweeping victories in the 2018 and 2019 as college-educated women, particularly in America’s suburbs, turned their backs on Trump’s GOP. At the same time, there is evidence that younger voters and minorities are both energized and repelled by Trump entering the new year.
Bannon insisted the GOP has become the “working-class party” under Trump, although he has some concern about Trump’s standing with working-class women. His more serious concern, however, lies with the narrow, but vocal slice of establishment-minded Republicans who are fighting his reelection.
He referenced the recent birth of an anti-Trump group dubbed the Lincoln Project, led by veteran Republican strategists who are planning a nationwide campaign to convince disaffected Republicans and independent voters to vote Democrat. The group’s leadership features conservative attorney George Conway, who is the husband of Trump’s chief White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
“We need the Republican establishment on board,” Bannon said, noting that Trump essentially won the presidency because of less than 80,000 combined votes across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin “an inside straight,” he called it.
“If these guys can peel off 3% or 4%, that’s going to be serious,” he said of Trump’s Republican rivals.
Yet for all the talk of shifting voting blocs, intra-party fights and what will almost certainly be the most expensive campaign in the history of the world, Bannon believes that Trump’s fate will ultimately be decided by one man.
“Only Trump can beat Trump,” he said.
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By Polityk | 01/06/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Courts Evangelicals to Secure Re-election
U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new coalition to secure evangelical voter support for his re-election, delivering a rally-style speech in front of thousands of cheering Christians in a Miami megachurch on Friday.
“We have God on our side,” Trump said at the King Jesus International Ministry, a predominantly Latino church that also goes by its Spanish name Ministerio Internacional El Rey Jesús.
The ministry is one of the largest Hispanic churches in the United States. Trump’s rally there acknowledged the power of evangelical and Latino voting blocs as his campaign tries to shore up support ahead of the November presidential election. Evangelical voters made up a substantial part of Trump’s base in 2016 and could pave the way toward securing the president’s re-election in 2020.
The president hit familiar campaign themes, boasting about policies that further the evangelical agenda, including restricting abortions, appointing conservative judges and his recent executive order to extend Title VI protections to Jews. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in institutions receiving federal funding, including colleges and universities.
Trump also announced that he will soon be taking action to “safeguard students and teachers’ First Amendment rights to pray in our schools.”Evangelicals for Trump
Politically, evangelicals are relatively homogeneous and unified as they consistently champion four causes: pro-life policies, confirmation of conservative judges to the federal judiciary, religious freedom mainly for Christians and pro-Israel policies, said Professor Quardricos Driskell, an adjunct professor of religion and politics at the George Washington University.
“These four single issues make this group the most active supporters of not only Trump but most conservative Republican voters,” Driskell added.
Yet, like any group, evangelicals are not monolithic. Driskell said that a distinction has to be made between evangelicals and white evangelicals – with a tendency for more “comprehensive group-think” among white evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016 vs. black or Latino evangelicals.
There are also evangelicals uneasy with both the president’s demeanor and policies. After online publication the Christian Post recently issued an editorial supporting Trump, editor Napp Nazworth resigned in protest.
“There is a large contingent of evangelicals who agree that our faith shouldn’t be associated with a president who separates immigrant children from their families, betrays our allies in Syria, inspires racists, and pays hush money to porn stars,” Nazworth said.
Into the fold
Trump has put effort into bringing evangelicals into the fold, including by appointing Paula White, a televangelist from Florida whom he calls a longtime friend and personal pastor, as head of the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative. White introduced Trump at the rally as “a man of God” and lead a prayer session for him.The “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition launch is yet another effort to solidify backing for the president, even when there are signs of erosion of support, including the explosive December 19 Christianity Today editorial that argued for Trump to be removed from office.
“By branding all evangelicals as Trump supporters, the campaign is trying to force those in that demographic who do not fully agree with the president’s policies to be pulled along because it is better to vote for President Trump than a Democrat,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien who teaches presidential politics at the University of Texas at Austin.
There was no shortage of Trump lines hitting on opposition Democrats, whom he accused of waging war on the faithful.
“Every Democratic candidate running for president is trying to punish religious believers and silence our churches,” Trump said to applause from the crowd, many of them sporting MAGA red caps and Trump campaign attire. “This election is about the survival of our nation,” he said.
Trump also singled out Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, describing them as anti-Semitic. “These people hate Israel. They hate Jewish people,” Trump said.
Critics accuse Trump of weaponizing religion. “Faith and belief are highly personal things that should never be utilized as a partisan tool for electoral advantage,” O’Brien said.
Ahead of the president’s remarks, Florida Democrats issued a letter signed by 12 Christian leaders from five Florida counties that appealed to the president: “We cannot stand idly by while you attempt to co-opt our religion for your political gain and claim support from our community.”
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By Polityk | 01/05/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrats, Republicans Divided on Soleimani Airstrike
The U.S. airstrike that killed the Iranian Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani, has divided U.S. lawmakers along party lines. The strike ordered by President Donald Trump drew praise from congressional Republicans, but Democrats said it could have serious consequences on stability in the Middle East. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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By Polityk | 01/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democratic States Push Supreme Court for Quick Obamacare Ruling
In a move that could put the Obama-era health law squarely in the middle of the 2020 election, Democratic-led states Friday asked the Supreme Court for a fast-track review of a recent court ruling that declared part of the statute unconstitutional and cast a cloud over the rest.A coalition of 20 states led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a petition seeking expedited review. They hope to get a Supreme Court hearing and decision by this summer, before the November elections. For the court to agree to such a timetable would be unusual, but not unprecedented.Defenders of the Affordable Care Act are arguing that the issues raised by the case are too important to let the litigation drag on for months or years in lower courts, and that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans erred when it struck down the health law’s now toothless requirement that Americans have health insurance.“The lower courts’ actions have created uncertainty about the future of the entire Affordable Care Act, and that uncertainty threatens adverse consequences for our nation’s health care system, including for patients, doctors, insurers, and state and local governments,” according to the states’ filing.There was no immediate reaction from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump had declared the appeals court ruling a victory.FILE – Robert Henneke, general counsel and director for the Center for the American Future, speaks outside the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, July 9, 2019. The court struck down the law’s rule that Americans have health insurance.Mandate unconstitutionalWhile finding the health law’s individual mandate to be unconstitutional, the 5th Circuit made no decision on such popular provisions as protections for people with preexisting conditions, Medicaid expansion, and coverage for young adults up to age 26 on their parents’ policies.The 2-1 appeals court decision left the health law in effect for now. Open enrollment season for 2020 has been able to proceed without disruption.The 5th Circuit sent the case back to a lower court judge who has already decided once to throw out the entire health care law. The appellate court asked Texas-based U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to determine whether other parts of the law can be separated from the insurance requirement, and thus remain in place.About 20 million people now have coverage through the ACA, including its subsidized private insurance and Medicaid expansion. But the 900-page law also made many changes to other programs, from Medicare, to community health centers, to fraud-fighting efforts. Sorting out what might stay and what might go with the insurance mandate would be a colossal effort.The 5th Circuit found that the requirement to carry insurance was rendered unconstitutional when Congress in 2017 eliminated the tax penalty for people going without coverage.Health care debate revivedA revival of the “Obamacare” debate could put Republicans running for reelection this year in an uncomfortable spot. Their party was unable to repeal and replace the ACA when it controlled Congress, because Republicans couldn’t agree among themselves on what a replacement would entail. Democrats rode the issue to win control of the House in the 2018 elections.It would take the approval of five justices for the Supreme Court to hear the appeal on an expedited schedule.If the justices did take the case, it would mark the third Supreme Court review of the health law. The five justices who upheld the law the previous two times are still on the court.The District of Columbia joined the 20 Democratic states seeking Supreme Court review.
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By Polityk | 01/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Portrays Himself as Defender of Faith for Evangelicals
Highlighting his record on religious liberty, President Donald Trump on Friday worked to energize a group of evangelical supporters who make up an influential piece of his political base that could prove vital in battleground states. Trump spoke to more than 5,000 Christians, including a large group of Latinos, at a Miami megachurch, just days after he was the subject of a scathing editorial in Christianity Today magazine that called for his removal from office. Thousands of the faithful lifted their hands and prayed over Trump as he began speaking and portrayed himself as a defender of faith. We're defending religion itself. A society without religion cannot prosper. A nation without faith can not endure, said Trump, who also tried to paint his Democratic rivals for the 2020 election as threats to religious liberty. We can't let one of our radical left friends come in here because everything we've done will be gone in short order.'' The day I was sworn in, the federal government war’s on religion came to an abrupt end,” Trump declared. He later added: We can smile because we're winning by so much.'' Points of emphasisAlthough some of his address resembled his standard campaign speech, Trump cited his support for Israel, installation of federal judges, prison reform and a push to put prayer in public school. Those are issues his Republican re-election campaign believes could further jolt evangelical turnout that could help them secure wins in states like Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. Friday's kickoff ofEvangelicals for Trump” will be followed in the weeks ahead by the launches of Catholics for Trump'' andJewish Voices for Trump.It also came days after Trump and his wife went to an evangelical Christmas Eve service in West Palm Beach rather than the liberal Episcopalian church in which they were married and often attend holiday services. Advisers believe that emphasizing religious issues may also provide inroads with Latino voters, who have largely steered clear of supporting the president over issues like immigration. Deep into his speech, Trump touched on the issue by praising his border wall. His aides believe even a slight uptick with faith-focused Latinos could help Trump carry Florida again and provide some needed breathing room in states like Texas. The president made no mention of the editorial, which ran in a magazine founded by the late Reverend Billy Graham. People pray together during the "Evangelicals for Trump" campaign event held at the King Jesus International Ministry as they await the arrival of President Donald Trump, Jan. 3, 2020 in Miami.'Remember who you are'Remember who you are and whom you serve,” the editorial states. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump's immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency.'' Campaign officials said the Miami event was in the works well before the op-ed, and they trotted out several high-profile evangelical pastors to defend the president. I think his record in the past three years is rock-solid in things that the faith community cares about him,said Jentezen Franklin, a pastor to a megachurch in Georgia.We used to see politicians once every four years, but this one is totally different in constantly reaching out to the faith community, and we even get a chance to tell him when we disagree. The event came on the heels of a new poll showing that white evangelical Protestants stand noticeably apart from other religious people on how the government should act on two of the most politically divisive issues at play in the 2020 presidential election. Asked about significant restrictions on abortion — making it illegal except in cases of rape, incest or to threats to a mother's life — 37% of all Americans responded in support, according to the poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Those abortion limits drew 39% support from white mainline Protestants, 33% support from nonwhite Protestants and 45% support from Catholics, but 67% support from white evangelical Protestants. LGBTQ protectionsA similar divide emerged over whether the government should bar discrimination against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in workplaces, housing or schools. About 6 in 10 Catholics, white mainline Protestants and nonwhite Protestants supported those protections, compared with about a third of white evangelical Protestants. White evangelicals were also more likely than members of other faiths to say religion should have at least some influence on policymaking. But Democrats have shown strong interest in connecting with voters of faith, even evangelicals whom Trump is often assumed to have locked down. And some religious leaders believe people of faith may be turned off by Trump's personal conduct or record. Friday’s rally is Trump’s desperate response to the realization that he is losing his primary voting bloc — faith voters. He knows he needs every last vote if he wants a shot at reelection, as losing just 5% of the faith voters ends his chances,” said the Reverend Doug Pagitt, the executive director of Vote Common Good. “In addition, he is trying to use this part of his base to give cover for his broken promises and immoral policies.”
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By Polityk | 01/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Judge: Indicted Giuliani Associate May Give Records to House
A federal judge on Friday allowed a Rudy Giuliani associate indicted on campaign finance charges to turn over documents to Congress as part of the impeachment proceeding against President Donald Trump.U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken granted Lev Parnas’ request to turn over to the House intelligence committee documents and data seized by federal investigators when Parnas was arrested in October.Parnas’ attorney said in a court filing he expected to receive the materials from the U.S. Justice Department this week.Parnas and another man, Igor Fruman, played key roles in efforts by Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, to launch a Ukrainian corruption investigation against Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Parnas and Fruman were indicted in October on federal campaign finance violations related to a $325,000 donation to a group supporting Trump’s reelection. They have pleaded not guilty.Parnas already has provided documents to the intelligence committee in response to a congressional subpoena. His attorney says he wants to provide more information that falls “within the scope” of the subpoena, including two batches of documents seized from his home and the contents of one of his iPhones, according to court filings.”Review of these materials is essential to the Committee’s ability to corroborate the strength of Mr. Parnas’s potential testimony,” Parnas’ attorney, Joseph Bondy wrote in a filing.Prosecutors did not object to Parnas turning over the information.
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By Polityk | 01/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democratic Presidential Contenders Condemn Strike Against Iranian Commander
Democratic presidential contenders on Friday condemned the airstrike that killed prominent Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, saying President Donald Trump’s decision was reckless and could lead the United States to another war in the Middle East.The candidates, vying for the right to challenge Trump in the November 2020 election, questioned whether the president had a broader strategy in dealing with Iran, and used the action to highlight their approach to dealing with foreign adversaries.FILE – U.S. Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles, California, Dec. 19, 2019.”President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox,” former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement.At a campaign event in Dubuque, Iowa, he added that no American would mourn Soleimani’s death but “the prospect of direct conflict with Iran is greater than it has ever been.”Liberal U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who has consistently opposed U.S. military intervention overseas, said the move “brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars.”The overnight attack against the general, regarded as the second most powerful figure in Iran, was a dramatic escalation of hostilities in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies, principally Israel and Saudi Arabia.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign stop in Hillsboro, N.H., Nov. 24, 2019.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the strike aimed to disrupt an “imminent attack” that would have endangered Americans in the Middle East. But it was a risky gamble for Trump, who has criticized longstanding U.S. entanglements in the region and promised to end “endless wars.”Republicans said the move was a sign Trump — who was impeached by the Democratic-led House of Representatives last month and faces a Senate trial on charges he abused his office and obstructed Congress — was restoring American strength and leadership.”At a time when the president is under impeachment by the Democrats, there’s nothing wrong with him showing strength and resolve in the face of a foreign threat,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, who is close to the White House.Democrats said it was another troubling indication of Trump’s erratic approach to foreign policy.FILE – Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren delivers a speech in Boston, Massachusetts, Dec. 31, 2019.”We’re on the brink of yet another war in the Middle East,” said liberal U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. “We’re not here by accident. We’re here because a reckless president, his allies and his administration have spent years pushing us here.”Many of the Democratic White House candidates, who will face voters for the first time in a month when Iowa kicks off the state-by-state nominating battle on Feb. 3, pounced on the strike to emphasize their own foreign policy philosophies and credentials.Biden, a former chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee who emphasizes his foreign policy experience, released a 30-second online ad on Friday calling Trump “an erratic, unstable president” and portraying himself as “someone tested and trusted around the world.”Sanders mentioned in his statement his 2002 vote against authorizing war in Iraq, which he frequently uses as a contrast to Biden, who backed the war.Biden, Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and other Democrats made clear in their statements that they viewed Soleimani as a threat, but Warren, Sanders and entrepreneur Andrew Yang did not mention the Iranian commander.
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By Polityk | 01/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
As 2020 begins, US Presidential Election Race Intensifies
With just a month to go until the Iowa Caucus — the first nominating contest in the U.S. presidential election — the race to choose a Democratic rival to U.S. President Donald Trump is intensifying. The only Latino candidate in the race, former mayor Julian Castro, withdrew Thursday while new fundraising numbers show Senator Bernie Sanders’ candidacy is stronger than expected. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the opening of election year 2020.
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By Polityk | 01/03/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Outpaces Individual Democrats in Fundraising
Donald Trump’s re-election team on Thursday said he was sitting atop a large campaign war chest, underlining the scale of the challenge facing the U.S. president’s Democratic rivals at the start of an election year.
With the departure of Julian Castro on Thursday, 14 candidates are still in the running to take on Trump and are competing for much-needed donations that keep a campaign’s ground game and advertising operations going.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, even as Trump was being investigated and ultimately impeached by the House of Representatives, he raised $46 million. It was his best fundraising period in a year that brought in $143 million for his re-election efforts, the campaign announced.
And while Democrats are now raising funds to compete against one another ahead of the general election in November, Trump has the luxury of stockpiling funds until his opponent is selected. ‘Unstoppable’
Trump’s campaign now has $102.7 million in cash on hand. “The president’s war chest and grassroots army make his re-election campaign an unstoppable juggernaut,” campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. The president faces an upcoming trial in the Senate, where members of his Republican Party hold a majority of seats. Trump himself argued that the impeachment drama, while embarrassing for his legacy, has led to a flood of donations. He retweeted a report that described his campaign raising $10 million in the two days following the House impeachment vote. FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont speaks during his Bernie’s Big New Year’s Bash, Dec. 31, 2019, in Des Moines, Iowa.Among Trump’s would-be challengers, Senator Bernie Sanders has so far raked in the most — $34.5 million in 2019’s final three months — of any Democratic contender. That pushed his total to date to $96 million.
The Sanders team also said it topped the threshold of 5 million individual donations, a figure not reached by his 2016 campaign until March of that year.
“Together, we’re proving you don’t need to beg the wealthy and the powerful for campaign contributions in order to win elections,” Sanders said.
Democratic rival Pete Buttigieg also posted strong numbers, raising $24.7 million in the fourth quarter. That pushed his 2019 total to more than $76 million.
Buttigieg — who until Wednesday served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana — has been a campaign surprise and leads in polling in Iowa, the state that votes first in the nomination race, on February 3. FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden takes a selfie during a campaign stop in Exeter, N.H., Dec. 30, 2019.Front-runner Joe Biden, the former vice president, raised $22.7 million in the last quarter of 2019, his best quarterly performance yet, his campaign said. Results for Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Amy Klobuchar were not yet available. One candidate showing unexpected resilience was Andrew Yang, an Asian American entrepreneur with no political experience who remains in contention against far more established party figures.
Yang raised $16.5 million in the fourth quarter, capping a dramatic uptrend from early 2019 when he was a virtual unknown.
But while Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar have qualified for the next Democratic debate, on January 14, Yang has not.
Neither have Senator Cory Booker, Representative Tulsi Gabbard or billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York who jumped into the race in November.
Castro, 45, also failed to meet the qualifications. His exit means the Democratic field becomes whiter and older, although two women and one gay candidate, Buttigieg, will be in January’s debate.
Other Democratic candidates saluted Castro.
“Your voice and campaign were invaluable in sticking up for underrepresented communities and pushing the field forward,” said Booker, the only remaining African American candidate in the top 10.
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By Polityk | 01/03/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Video Edited to Suggest Biden Made Racist Remark
A video of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that was selectively edited to falsely suggest he made racist remarks during a recent speech made the rounds Thursday on social media, raking in more than a million views on one tweet alone. Experts have been warning about the dangers of selectively edited videos being used as a misinformation tactic ahead of the 2020 presidential election. They are easier to make and do not require the sophisticated technology needed to produce what are known as deepfake videos, which are fabricated to look realistic. In the edited clip, which was less than 20 seconds long, Biden says, Our culture is not imported from some African nation or some Asian nation.'' Social media users paired the video with comments like, It’s almost like Joe Biden is a Racist.” Posts with the video surfaced across social media platforms on Wednesday. Comment on changing cultureThe clip was taken from ABC News coverage of Biden speaking for more than an hour in Derry, New Hampshire, on December 30, 2019. A review of the full video shows that Biden was commenting on changing the culture around violence against women. In discussing the difficulty victims face reporting sexual assault on college campuses, he said, Folks, this is about changing the culture, our culture, our culture, it's not imported from some African nation or some Asian nation. It is our English jurisprudential culture, our European culture that says it is all right.'' Earlier in the discussion, Biden, when asked about his work with women and sexual assault victims, talked about the need to change an entrenchedcultural problem” that dates back centuries, noting that in the 1300s many wives were being beaten to death by their husbands without repercussions. Biden’s campaign confirmed to The Associated Press that the presentation in the edited video was inaccurate. Earlier remarksIt’s not the first time Biden has spoken out about how violence against women dates back to English common law. On March 26, 2019, Biden spoke at a New York event where he honored young people working to fight against sexual assault on college campuses. It's an English jurisprudential culture, a white man's culture, he said at the March event. It's got to change.
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By Polityk | 01/03/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrat Julian Castro Drops Out of 2020 Presidential Race
Former Obama housing secretary Julian Castro on Thursday ended his run for president that pushed the 2020 field on immigration and swung hard at rivals on the debate stage but never found a foothold to climb from the back of the pack.”I’m so proud of the campaign we’ve run together. We’ve shaped the conversation on so many important issues in this race, stood up for the most vulnerable people, and given a voice to those who are often forgotten,” Castro said in an online video. “But with only a month until the Iowa caucuses, and given the circumstances of this campaign season, I have determined that it simply isn’t our time.”The video continues, “So today it’s with a heavy heart and with profound gratitude, that I will suspend my campaign for president. To all who have been inspired by our campaign, especially our young people, keep reaching for your dreams — and keep fighting for what you believe in.” It concludes, “¡Ganaremos un dia!” — which translates to “We will win one day!”It’s with profound gratitude to all of our supporters that I suspend my campaign for president today.I’m so proud of everything we’ve accomplished together. I’m going to keep fighting for an America where everyone counts—I hope you’ll join me in that fight. pic.twitter.com/jXQLJa3AdC— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) January 2, 2020Castro, who launched his campaign in January, dropped out after failing to garner enough support in the polls or donations to make recent Democratic debates. A former San Antonio mayor who was the only Latino in the race, Castro had stalled for most of his campaign around 1% in polls and entered October low on money.Castro, 45, was among the youngest in the running at a moment when the party’s ascendant left wing is demanding generational change. And as the grandson of a Mexican immigrant, Castro said he recognized the meaning of his candidacy in the face of President Donald Trump’s inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric and hardline policies on the U.S.-Mexico border.But he labored not to be pigeonholed as a single-issue candidate. Castro made the attention-getting choice of Puerto Rico as his first campaign stop, recited the names of black victims killed in high-profile police shootings and was the first in the field to call for Trump’s impeachment.But his sagging poll numbers never budged. He was often eclipsed by another Texan in the race who dropped out this fall, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and another young former mayor, Pete Buttigieg of South Bend. His campaign and supporters, meanwhile, grumbled that Castro didn’t get due credit for taking out-front positions. Trying to show he could go to-to-toe with Trump, Castro swung for big moments on debate stages, and flirted with a much-needed breakout in June after confronting O’Rourke over not supporting decriminalization of illegal border crossings.But turning his sights on Biden on a later stage brought swift backlash. During the September debate in Houston, Castro appeared to touch on concerns about the age of the then-76-year-old former vice president and added a parting shot at him.”I’m fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama, and you’re not,” Castro said.Castro — who was Obama’s housing secretary in his second term — denied taking a personal dig at Biden as others in the field condemned the exchange. Three days later, Castro lost one of his three backers in Congress, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, who switched his endorsement to Biden.Castro had warned supporters in a fundraising appeal that failing to make the November debate stage would spell the end of his campaign. He needed to hit at least 3 percent polling in four early state or national polls but didn’t get even one. What is next for Castro is unclear. Back home in Texas, Democrats had long viewed Castro as their biggest star in waiting and some have urged him to run for governor as the state trends more diverse and liberal.Castro was pegged as a rising Democratic star after being elected as mayor of the nation’s seventh-largest city at age 34, and he was on the short list for Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016.
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By Polityk | 01/02/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
