Розділ: Політика
Seven Democratic Presidential Candidates Debating to Take on Trump
Seven U.S. Democratic presidential candidates are debating again Thursday, offering themselves to U.S. voters as an alternative in next year’s election to President Donald Trump, now newly impeached but undaunted in his quest for a second term in the White House.The one-time Democratic field of more than two dozen candidates has shrunk, as several candidates have dropped out of the chase for the party’s nomination.The seven appearing on the debate stage at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles are led by former Vice President Joe Biden, senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. They all met the party’s minimum requirements for enough voter support in polls and substantial fundraising to make the debate stage.Three others — Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, billionaire activist Tom Steyer, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang — join them. All of the previous debates had at least 10 candidates laying out their positions.More Democratic candidates who did not qualify for the sixth debate continue to campaign, still hoping to make a connection with voters six weeks before he party’s first nominating contests in the midwestern state of Iowa, and later in the northeastern state of New Hampshire.FILE – Democratic U.S. presidential contender Michael Bloomberg speaks to gun control advocates and victims of gun violence in Aurora, Colorado, Dec. 5, 2019.One wild-card candidate is a late entrant in the Democratic race — Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire publishing magnate and former New York mayor, who is spending his own money on an expensive television advertising campaign to increase his stature in vote-rich California, the largest U.S. state. Democrats will cast ballots there in an early March nominating election.While support for various candidates still in the field has waxed and waned in national polls, there has been one constant — 77-year-old Biden continues to lead the pack, despite frequent verbal gaffes.Biden, in his third bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, has touted his electoral chances against Trump. He frequently polls ahead of the president in a hypothetical matchup between the two.Two other septuagenarians, Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, and Warren, a former Harvard law professor, also often poll ahead of Trump, as does 37-year-old Buttigieg. But Biden usually fares better against Trump than the other three, while an occasional poll has Trump winning some of the matchups.The polls perhaps led Trump to assume Biden would be his 2020 opponent, thus singling out the former president in his monthslong quest to get Ukraine to investigate him and his son Hunter’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company.Trump has described the request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “perfect,” but it is at the center of the impeachment case against Trump brought by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, which is now heading to the Senate for a trial in January.Trump remains highly unlikely to be convicted in the Republican-majority Senate and removed from office, but he now is the third U.S. president to be impeached in the nearly two-and-a-half-century history of the United States. All of the Democratic contenders supported Trump’s impeachment.In previous debates, the Democratic candidates have sparred over the extent to which they would try to change U.S. health care policies if they defeat Trump. Biden has called for incremental changes to the 2010 law approved while he was vice president, which has helped millions of people buy health insurance coverage to pay their medical bills.Sanders and Warren are pushing for adoption of a government-run insurance program for all Americans, something Biden says would be prohibitively expensive.Aside from health care, the Democrats are likely to face questions from debate moderators about national security, trade with China and other nations, gun control in the wake of continuing mass shootings in the U.S., race relations, immigration, U.S. relations with long-standing European allies, and contentious dealings with Russia.Biden could face questions about his son’s lucrative employment at the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, and his own role in helping oust a Ukrainian prosecutor that the U.S. and European allies deemed weak against corruption.
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By Polityk | 12/19/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Third Impeached US President
The Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump Wednesday. Lawmakers passed charges he abused the power of the presidency to benefit himself politically by a 230-197 vote, with one present. Charges Trump obstructed Congress’ efforts to investigate him also passed by a 229-198 vote, with one present. The historic vote fell almost entirely along party lines, sending the case for removing Trump from office to the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill
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By Polityk | 12/19/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
After Vote, Pelosi Stokes Impeachment Trial Uncertainty
Minutes after the House impeached President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw uncertainty into the process by refusing to say, repeatedly, when or whether she would send two articles to the Senate for a trial.Her comments came as a surprise in a news conference late Wednesday that was intended to express Democrats’ somber closing message after voting to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. She started by praising her fellow Democrats for having “moral courage” and said it was “a great day for the Constitution of the United States of America.”But then she declined to say when she would send the articles to the Republican-led Senate. Until the articles are submitted, the Senate cannot hold the trial that is nearly certain to acquit the president.Pelosi said House Democrats could not name impeachment managers — House prosecutors who make the case for Trump’s conviction and removal from office — until they know more about how the Senate will conduct a trial.“’We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side,” Pelosi said. “And I would hope that that will be soon. … So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us. So hopefully it will be fair. And when we see what that is, we’ll send our managers.”Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rejected a proposal earlier this week from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to call several witnesses. McConnell also said that he is coordinating with the White House and declared that “I am not an impartial juror.”Pelosi said that McConnell “says it’s OK for the foreman of the jury to be in cahoots with the lawyers of the accused. That doesn’t sound right to us.”Schumer and Pelosi are set to meet Thursday morning, according to a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to discuss the private meeting.Asked again if she could guarantee that she would send the articles to the Senate, Pelosi said at the news conference: “That would have been our intention.” But they will see what the Senate decides, she said.“We are not having that discussion. We have done what we set out to do,” Pelosi said.An aide to McConnell said he did not have an immediate comment on Pelosi’s remarks. But he tweeted that McConnell would speak about “House Democrats’ precedent-breaking impeachment of the President of the United States” on Thursday morning.Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, a member of Pelosi’s leadership team, said after her remarks that Democrats want impeachment proceedings that are “judicious and responsible and deliberative.”He said that while Senate will decide its own procedures, “the speaker’s only point is before she sends it over she needs to understand what that is” because it will influence who the impeachment managers are.Asked about never sending the articles over, Cicilline said, “I would not speculate that anyone’s even contemplating that.”
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By Polityk | 12/19/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Impeachment Novelty Items Pop Up Online
The ubiquitous bright red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps are perhaps the most visible novelty items related to Donald Trump’s presidency.Often worn by die-hard supporters, the MAGA caps are a fixture at Trump rallies. His campaign team says sales of the hat have raised millions of dollars.The caps are part of a booming novelty and souvenirs market that’s driven by demand for modern and innovative items. “Make America Great Again” hats available for purchase outside an arena in Tupelo, Miss., Nov. 1, 2019, ahead of a Keep America Great rally.But there’s also a niche market of novelty items that the president would not love. Take the candles sold by entrepreneurs Kate and J.D. Dobson. While candles might not be a cutting-edge product, the ones produced by the St. Louis couple couldn’t be more topical. The scented candles have a political twist — a current bestseller is the Impeachment candle, which smells of peach and mint. “We are always looking for ways we can make a candle that is fun to make and that people will want to buy,” says J.D., “but also, with the political ones, that help us express something we believe in politically.J.D., who once worked for a Republican senator on Capitol Hill, considers himself a conservative, but does not support Trump. Other popular politically themed candles include the tropically scented Obama candle, a nod to the former president’s birthplace of Hawaii; the orange-flavored Joe Biden, an ode to the sports drink favored by the former vice president and current presidential candidate; and the Justin Trudeau, which blends the aroma of chai tea (“because he drinks tea”) with maple (“because of Canada.”)Kate Dobson, of JD and Kate Industries, making candles in St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo courtesy Kate Dobson)The only other modern-day Republican in the mix is the Ronald Reagan candle, which gives off the scent of jellybeans, a favorite treat of the late president. Kate says the gift messages on the Impeachment candle suggest most are being purchased for people who support impeachment. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a demand for pro-Trump candles. “We get asked all the time by people who want to give a Trump candle to their pro-Trump uncle,” J.D. says. “And so, they ask us if we can do a version that isn’t critical of Trump. And we don’t, because this is our job, but it is also a way for us to express our political views.”California-based apparel company Boredwalk sells an “Impeach 45” design, along with other clothing featuring anti-Trump messages. On its website, the company is described as specializing in on-trend original designs.Impeachment-themed apparel for sale on the Boredwalk website.Matt Snow, who co-founded Boredwalk with his wife, Meredith, says the intent is not to anger or alienate Trump’s supporters.“As individual citizens, we’re at least being honest with how we view the world that we live in and our current level of political discourse, but we’re not necessarily trying to antagonize people,” Matt says.Unsurprisingly, impeachment-themed products don’t sit well with some supporters of the president.“I really feel sorry for the people who are so angry and hateful that they have lost any real perspective,” Virginia resident Amel Smith told VOA via text. Smith, who describes himself as a technology consultant and retired marine, believes congressional Democrats are wasting taxpayer dollars by pursuing impeachment.“When I see these types of things, it just reminds me how desperate the Democrats really are,” Smith said. “They continue to show their anger and hatred of our duly elected president by wasting time and money on products like these.”Matt Snow of Boredwalk apparel works on a design. (Photo courtesy Matt Snow)In addition to the Trump-themed messages, Boredwalk sells a variety of progressive-minded designs. “It’s not an unusual situation for artists to make political statements,” Meredith says. “Matt and I are artists living in Los Angeles. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise to anybody that we lean left.”There is one politically themed novelty candle that Kate Dobson wishes she could create. “If we can come up with a candle that brings everyone together across the divide, I mean, we would definitely want to do that,” Kate says. “From a business perspective, and as a citizen of the country, I would like to do that.”
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By Polityk | 12/19/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Warmbier’s Parents Praise Bill Seeking Further North Korea Sanctions
The parents of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died after 17 months in a North Korean prison, hailed on Wednesday new congressional legislation passed in their son’s name that calls for further sanctions on Pyongyang. Flanked by four Democratic and Republican senators, Fred and Cindy Warmbier commended a provision of the broader National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, for applying pressure on North Korea to change its behavior. Fred Warmbier told reporters the bill was “very important to our efforts because it gives us more tools to force the North Koreans to engage on some level.” The event on Capitol Hill came at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Pyongyang as denuclearization talks begun with a summit last year between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have stalled. North Korea has conducted a series of weapons tests and resumed personal insults against Trump, with Pyongyang warning it could take an unspecified “new path” if Washington failed to soften its stance before the end of the year. ‘Still traumatized’Otto Warmbier, 22, died on June 19, 2017, shortly after he was flown home to Ohio in a coma after being held by North Korea for 17 months. “I am still traumatized by what North Korea did to our family and certainly what they did to our son,” Fred Warmbier said. The NDAA, a broad military spending bill passed Tuesday and awaiting Trump’s signature, urges a sweeping approach by the Trump administration to curb North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions and Enforcement Act calls for mandatory sanctions on North Korean imports and exports of textiles and coal and other minerals, as well as some petroleum products and crude oil, along with additional sanctions on banks that deal with North Korea. “My message is to North Korea, like it always is: People matter. Otto matters. We’re never going to let you forget our son,” said Cindy Warmbier. She urged Trump, however, not to “make a bad deal” with North Korea.
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By Polityk | 12/18/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
House Democrats Set to Make Trump Third Impeached US President
The Democratic-majority US House of Representatives is set to vote on two Articles of Impeachment Wednesday, charging US President Donald Trump with abusing the power of the presidency and obstructing lawmakers’ attempts to investigate him. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson looks ahead to the historic vote that will trigger a trial of Trump in the US Senate early next year.
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By Polityk | 12/18/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Anti-Trump Protesters Rally in New York, Other Cities
As the U.S. Congress moves closer to an historic vote on impeaching U.S. President Donald Trump, anti-Trump protesters rallied in New York and other U.S. cities. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles.
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By Polityk | 12/18/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
House Passes $1.4 Trillion Federal Spending Bill
The Democratic-controlled House voted Tuesday to pass a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package, handing President Donald Trump a victory on his U.S.-Mexico border fence while giving Democrats spending increases across a swath of domestic programs.The hard-fought legislation also funds a record Pentagon budget and is serving as a must-pass legislative locomotive to tow an unusually large haul of unrelated provisions into law, including an expensive repeal of Obama-era taxes on high-cost health plans, help for retired coal miners, and an increase from 18 to 21 in nationwide legal age to buy tobacco products.The two-bill package, some 2,371 pages long after additional tax provisions were folded in on Tuesday morning, was unveiled Monday afternoon and adopted less than 24 hours later as lawmakers prepared to wrap up reams of unfinished work against a backdrop of Wednesday’s vote on impeaching President Donald Trump.FILE – Prototypes for U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico are shown near completion behind the current border fence, in this picture taken from the Mexican side of the border, in Tijuana, Oct. 23, 2017.The House first passed a measure funding domestic programs on a 297-120 vote. But one-third of the Democrats defected on a 280-138 vote on the second bill, which funds the military and the Department of Homeland Security, mostly because it funds Trump’s border wall project.The spending legislation would forestall a government shutdown this weekend and give Trump steady funding for his U.S.-Mexico border fence, a move that frustrated Hispanic Democrats and party liberals. The year-end package is anchored by a $1.4 trillion spending measure that caps a difficult, months-long battle over spending priorities.The mammoth measure made public Monday takes a split-the-differences approach that’s a product of divided power in Washington, offering lawmakers of all stripes plenty to vote for — and against. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was a driving force, along with administration pragmatists such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who negotiated the summertime budget deal that it implements.White House counselor Kellyanne Conway talks with reporters at the White House, Dec. 17, 2019.The White House said Tuesday that Trump will sign the measure.”The president is poised to sign it and to keep the government open,” said top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.The bill also offers business-friendly provisions on export financing, flood insurance and immigrant workers.The roster of add-ons grew over the weekend to include permanent repeal of a tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance benefits and a hard-won provision to finance health care and pension benefits for about 100,000 retired union coal miners threatened by the insolvency of their pension fund. A tax on medical devices and health insurance plans would also be repealed permanently.Tuesday’s tax breaks increases deficit tab for the package grew as well with the addition of $428 billion in tax cuts over 10 years to repeal the three so-called “Obamacare” taxes and extend expiring tax breaks.The legislation is laced with provisions reflecting divided power in Washington. Republicans maintained the status quo on several abortion-related battles and on funding for Trump’s border wall. Democrats controlling the House succeeded in winning a 3.1 percent raise for federal civilian employees and the first installment of funding on gun violence research after more than two decades of gun lobby opposition.Late Monday, negotiators unveiled a scaled-back $39 billion package of additional business tax breaks, renewing tax breaks for craft brewers and distillers, among others. The so-called tax extenders are a creature of Washington, a heavily lobbied menu of arcane tax breaks that are typically tailored to narrow, often parochial interests like renewable energy, capital depreciation rules, and race horse ownership. But a bigger effort to trade refundable tax credits for the working poor for fixes to the 2017 GOP tax bill didn’t pan out.The sweeping legislation, introduced as two packages for political and tactical purposes, is part of a major final burst of legislation that’s passing Congress this week despite bitter partisan divisions and Wednesday’s likely impeachment of Trump. Thursday promises a vote on a major rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement, while the Senate is about to send Trump the annual defense policy bill for the 59th year in a row.The core of the spending bill is formed by the 12 annual agency appropriations bills passed by Congress each year. It fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the coming two years instead of automatic spending cuts that would have sharply slashed the Pentagon and domestic agencies.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., leaves the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 17, 2019.The increase in the tobacco purchasing age to 21 also applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices and gained momentum after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signed on. But anti-smoking activists said the provision didn’t go far enough because it failed to ban flavored vaping products popular with teenagers.”The evidence is clear that flavored e-cigarettes are driving the youth epidemic,” said Matthew Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “As long as flavored e-cigarettes remain available, kids will find ways to get them and this epidemic will continue.”Other add-ons include a variety of provisions sought by business and labor interests and their lobbyists in Washington.For business, there’s a seven-year extension of the charter of the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance transactions benefiting U.S. exporters, as well as a renewal of the government’s terrorism risk insurance program. The financially-troubled government flood insurance program would be extended through September, as would several visa programs for both skilled and seasonal workers.Labor won repeal of the so-called Cadillac tax, a 40% tax on high-cost employer health plans, which was originally intended to curb rapidly growing health care spending. But it disproportionately affected high-end plans won under union contracts, and Democratic labor allies had previously succeeded in temporary repeals.Democrats controlling the House won increased funding for early childhood education and a variety of other domestic programs. They also won higher Medicaid funding for the cash-poor government of Puerto Rico, which is struggling to recover from hurricane devastation and a resulting economic downturn.While Republicans touted defense hikes and Democrats reeled off numerous increases for domestic programs, most of the provisions of the spending bill enjoy bipartisan support, including increases for medical research, combating the opioid epidemic, Head Start, and childcare grants to states.FILE – House Appropriations Committee Chair Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., talks with reporters on Capitol Hill, June 27, 2019.Democrats also secured $425 million for states to upgrade their election systems, and they boosted the U.S. Census budget $1.4 billion above Trump’s request. They won smaller increases for the Environmental Protection Agency, renewable energy programs and affordable housing.”I am so proud that we are able to do so much good for children and families across the country and around the world,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.The outcome in the latest chapter in the longstanding battle over Trump’s border wall awards Trump with $1.4 billion for new barriers — equal to last year’s appropriation — while preserving Trump’s ability to use his budget powers to tap other accounts for several times that amount. That’s a blow for liberal opponents of the wall but an acceptable trade-off for pragmatic-minded Democrats who wanted to gain $27 billion in increases for domestic programs and avert the threat of simply funding the government on autopilot.FILE – House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, center, speaks at a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 20, 2017.”Many members of the CHC will vote against it,” said Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joaquin Castro, D-Texas. “It’s true that there are a lot of good things and Democratic victories in the spending agreement. I think everybody appreciates those. What members of the Hispanic Caucus are concerned with is the wall money, the high level of detention beds, and most of all with the ability of the president to transfer money both to wall and to detention beds in the future.”The bill also extends a longstanding freeze on lawmakers’ pay despite behind-the-scenes efforts this spring to revive a cost of living hike approved years ago but shelved during the Obama administration.Because dozens of Democrats oppose the border wall, Pelosi paired money for the Department of Homeland Security with the almost $700 billion Pentagon budget, which won more than enough GOP votes to offset Democratic defections.
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By Polityk | 12/18/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
California Assumes Heightened Role in Democratic Presidential Campaign
The sixth and final Democratic presidential debate of the year will be held Dec. 19, 2019, on the campus of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Only seven of 15 candidates seeking the nomination to challenge President Donald Trump will be on stage this time, as the first primary contests early next year draw closer. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has more on the significance of this debate and the issues young student voters want to hear from the candidates.
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By Polityk | 12/18/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
McConnell Rejects Schumer’s Bid for More Testimony at Trump Impeachment Trial
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday rejected Democratic leader Chuck Schumer’s bid to have key aides to President Donald Trump testify at a Trump impeachment trial in January.McConnell called the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives’ effort to impeach Trump, likely culminating in a Wednesday vote against the U.S. leader, “slapdash” and “sloppy.” McConnell said it was not the responsibility of the Senate to engage in further fact-finding to “search desperately for ways to get to guilty.”Schumer says the Senate should hear testimony from four Trump officials, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton, about their knowledge of Trump’s monthslong effort to get Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden. FILE – In this Oct. 22, 2019, photo, Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks to members of the media following a Senate policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington.Trump’s Ukraine bid came at a time he was temporarily blocking $391 million in military aid that Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.But McConnell, who has predicted there is “zero chance” Trump will be convicted in a Senate trial, said that Schumer’s request for more testimony “suggests that even Democrats who do not like this president are beginning to realize how dramatically insufficient the House’s rushed process has been.”McConnell said having live testimony at a Senate trial would create a “nightmarish precedent” for the Senate. He contended that it is not the role of the Senate to do more fact-finding and investigating, but rather to consider and vote on the two articles of impeachment House Democrats have advanced, accusing Trump of abuse of the power of the presidency related to Ukraine and obstructing Congress in its investigation of his actions.After McConnell spoke, Schumer told the Senate he does not know what Mulvaney, Bolton, Mulvaney aide Robert Blair and budget official Michael Duffey might say in Senate testimony, suggesting they could have evidence “exculpatory to the president.”Schumer asked, “What is President Trump afraid of? The truth? A fair trial is one that allows senators all the relevant facts.”McConnell and Schumer are planning to discuss the parameters of a Senate impeachment trial to try to reach an accord.But McConnell, with Republicans holding a 53-47 majority in the Senate, could unilaterally set the rules for a trial if at least 51 Republican lawmakers adhere to his apparent wishes for a quick trial with no new testimony, leaving the 100-member Senate to vote on whether to convict Trump and remove him from office after hearing House impeachment managers make their case against Trump and Trump’s White House lawyers defend him.Schumer, however, could prevail if at least four Republicans side with Democrats to demand more testimony.The House Rules Committee is meeting Tuesday to decide on rules for Wednesday’s House impeachment debate. But with Democrats firmly in control of the chamber, Trump’s impeachment appears not to be in doubt, only how many Democrats split from the party-line majority to oppose Trump’s impeachment, and whether any Republicans vote for impeachment.Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., left, and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., speak during a House Rules Committee hearing on the impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 17, 2019, on Capitol Hill.By Wednesday night, Trump, the 45th U.S. president, could be only the third to be impeached in the country’s 243-year history, even as his conviction at a Senate trial and removal from office remains highly unlikely.As the House debate nears, politically vulnerable centrist Democratic lawmakers are declaring they will vote to impeach Trump, joining their more liberal colleagues who had long expressed support for trying to remove him from office.Trump and his supporters had hoped that many of the 31 Democrats elected last year to the House of Representatives from congressional districts won by the president in 2016 would vote against the two articles of impeachment Trump is facing. Some of the lawmakers faced pressure from constituents and opposition TV ads in their districts calling for them to support Trump. The half-dozen or so Democratic representatives had been impeachment holdouts. One of the congressmen, Ben McAdams from the western state of Utah, said, “What the president did was wrong. His actions warrant accountability. I will vote yes, knowing full well the Senate will likely acquit the president in a display of partisan theater that Republicans and Democrats perform disturbingly well.”In the midwestern state of Michigan, Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, once an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, was greeted with both cheers and jeers at a town hall meeting of voters as she defended her decision to vote against Trump.”I knew it would be controversial either way,” she said. “And I feel very firmly that I’m doing what I think is right. It may be that voters decide in 2020 that they don’t want me as their representative. I hope that’s not the case. I really do.”One of the articles of impeachment accuses Trump of trying to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to launch investigations of Biden, now leading national polls of Democratic presidential candidates, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company, and a debunked theory that Ukraine tried to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign.Trump’s Ukraine overtures, including his direct plea to Zelenskiy in a late July call, came as he was temporarily withholding the military aid Kyiv wanted. Trump released the military assistance in September without Zelenskiy undertaking the Biden investigations, proof, Republicans say, that Trump had not engaged in a reciprocal quid pro quo with Ukraine — the military assistance in exchange for the politically tinged Biden investigations.The second impeachment article accuses Trump of obstructing Congress by refusing to turn over thousands of pages of Ukraine-related documents to House impeachment investigators and blocking key aides from testifying at the weekslong impeachment inquiry.National polls show a sharply divided electorate on the issue, with about half favoring Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, and half against. But the votes of at least 20 Republicans would be needed to turn against Trump to join a unified Democratic minority bloc to reach the 67-vote threshold for a conviction in the 100-member chamber.Trump contended in a Tuesday Twitter remark, “Impeachment Poll numbers are starting to drop like a rock now that people are understanding better what this whole Democrat Scam is all about!” Impeachment Poll numbers are starting to drop like a rock now that people are understanding better what this whole Democrat Scam is all about!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2019He added, “The Stock Market hit another Record High yesterday, number 133 in less than three years as your all time favorite President, and the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, want to impeach me. Don’t worry, I have done nothing wrong. Actually, they have!”The Stock Market hit another Record High yesterday, number 133 in less than three years as your all time favorite President, and the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, want to impeach me. Don’t worry, I have done nothing wrong. Actually, they have!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2019 As the process moved closer to the House vote, House Democrats advancing the case for Trump’s impeachment accused him of “multiple federal crimes,” including bribery and wire fraud, in the abuse of the power of the presidency.”Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal,” House Judiciary Committee Democrats contended. They described Trump’s behavior as “both constitutional and criminal in character,” including bribery and wire fraud. They argued that the president “betrayed the people of this nation” and should be removed from office.”He has abused his power in soliciting and pressuring a vulnerable foreign nation to corrupt the next United States presidential election by sabotaging a political opponent and endorsing a debunked conspiracy theory promoted by our adversary, Russia,” the report said. “President Trump has done all this for his own personal gain, rather than for any legitimate reason, and has compromised our national security and democratic system in the process. After he was caught, President Trump defiantly insisted his conduct was ‘perfect.'”
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By Polityk | 12/18/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Angrily Objects to Impeachment, Calls It ‘Perversion’
President Donald Trump is angrily objecting to the House of Representatives’ articles of impeachment, accusing Democrats of “perversion of justice and abuse of power” in their effort to remove him from office.In a fiery letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the eve of his expected impeachment, Trump maintained that he did nothing wrong in seeking foreign investigation of political rivals, and he attacked Democrats for focusing on impeachment rather than other issues.Trump also repeated his objections to the process of the House inquiry, claiming “more due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.”Trump says he doesn’t believe his letter will change anything, but that he is registering his objections “for the purpose of history.”Meanwhile at the Capitol, House Democrats and Republicans sparred over the rules of debate for Wednesday’s historic votes on impeaching Trump, dispatching the lofty rhetoric of constitutional duty for the rugged politics of the House action and Senate trial that is expected to follow.The Democratic-majority House Rules Committee met through the day Tuesday, with lawmakers arguing over the parameters for Wednesday’s debate, which is expected to culminate in votes to make Trump the third president to be impeached in American history.“It’s unfortunate that we have to be here today, but the actions of the president of the United States make that necessary,” said Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “The evidence is as clear as it is overwhelming.”He said the president “jeopardized our national security. and he undermined our democracy” and added that “every day we let President Trump act like the law doesn’t apply to him, we move a little closer” to rule by dictators.Republicans disagreed, firmly.The top committee Republican, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said the split view among Americans over impeachment should be reason enough not to proceed with the rare action. “When half of Americans are telling you what you are doing is wrong, you should listen,” he said.House Democrats are planning Wednesday to launch the debate and, likely, votes to impeach Trump, formally accusing him of abusing his power as president in dealing with Ukraine to help himself politically and then obstructing Congress by blocking the later investigation. Votes will follow.No Republicans are expected to vote to impeach Trump. But one by one Democrats are amassing a majority from their ranks as lawmakers, including many freshmen who could risk re-election in fall from districts where Trump is popular, announced they will join in voting for the two articles of impeachment.“We must impeach this president,” said a statement from Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, an Air Force veteran who is among a group of newly-elected former national security officials calling for impeachment. “I grieve for our nation. But I cannot let history mark the behavior of our President as anything other than an unacceptable violation of his oath of office.”FILE – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi meets with reporters at her weekly news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 5, 2019.Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who warned against pursuing a strictly partisan impeachment, is now all but certain to have the numbers as voting begins.
As impeachment appears set in the House, attention is shifting to the Senate which, under the constitution, is required to hold a trial on the charges. It is expected to begin in January.Hoping to dispatch with lengthy proceedings, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is rejecting the Democrats’ push for fresh impeachment testimony in a last-ditch plea for the House to “turn back from the cliff” of Wednesday’s expected vote.McConnell’s remarks Tuesday effectively slapped the door shut on negotiations for a deal proposed by the Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who wants to call top White House officials for the Senate trial, which is set to start next year if the House impeaches Trump this week.“If House Democrats’ case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it here in the Senate,” McConnell said. “The answer is that the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place.”Schumer’s proposal was the first overture in what were expected to be negotiations between the two leaders over the contours of a weeks-long trial. Trump wants a more showy proceeding to not only acquit but vindicate him of the impeachment charges from the House, though he has instructed officials not to appear in the House.McConnell and most GOP senators prefer a swift trial to move on from impeachment. Many centrist House Democrats have begun to signal that they, too, are ready to vote and move on. Senate Democrats want to hear from John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney and others as the proceedings push to the chamber for the trial.“Why is the leader, why is the president so afraid to have these witnesses come testify?” asked Schumer from the Senate floor. “They certainly ought to be heard.”Trump faces two articles of impeachment brought by Democrats. They say he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election and obstructed Congress by aggressively trying to block the House investigation from its oversight duties as part of the nation’s system of checks and balances.The president “betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections,” says the 650-page report from the House Judiciary Committee. He withheld military aid from the ally as leverage, the report says, and “Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”The report says the president then engaged in an unprecedented attempt to block the investigation and “cover up” his misconduct. The report also includes Republican rebuttals.Trump, tweeting from the sidelines after instructing the White House not to participate in the House inquiry, insisted anew he had done nothing wrong. He has promoted lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s investigation of Biden and a widely debunked theory that it was actually Ukraine not Russia that interfered in the 2016 election, a conspiracy-laden idea that other most other Republicans have actively avoided.Americans are not fooled, Trump tweeted on Tuesday, by the “Scams and Witch Hunts, as phony as they are.”As the House prepared for Wednesday’s vote, many Democrats announced they would be voting for impeachment. A handful or even fewer are expected to break ranks as Speaker Pelosi marches her majority toward a vote she hoped to avoid having Democrats take on their own.One freshman Democrat, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, saw several staff members resign Monday after he said he would vote against impeachment and indicated he was switching parties to become a Republican. Another Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson, a Minnesota centrist, had not decided how he will vote, his spokeswoman said,McConnell is facing criticism for saying he’s taking his “cues” from the White House for the expected trial. Republicans say Schumer acted much the same two decades ago when the Senate prepared to vote on convicted President Bill Clinton.
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Economy Looms Large in 2020 Election Battle for Wisconsin
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 30,000 votes. It’s expected to a battleground state in Trump’s 2020 re-election bid. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, two issues may affect the election outcome in the Midwestern state: the impeachment process and America’s continuing decade-long economic expansion.
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democratic Debate to Proceed After Labor Dispute Settled
Negotiators reached a tentative deal to end a labor dispute that had threatened this week’s Democratic presidential debate, allowing the event bringing together seven top White House candidates to proceed, a service workers union said on Tuesday.Unite Here Local 11, which represents food workers at debate host Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said it would drop plans to picket the debate after reaching a three-year agreement with Sodexo, the company that employs them.All seven of the Democratic participants had said they would not cross the picket line and had threatened to skip Thursday’s nationally televised debate between top candidates competing for the nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in 2020.Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez worked with the union and Sodexo, a global services company, to help resolve the dispute, the union said. The union membership will vote later on Tuesday on ratifying the contract.”I commend Sodexo and UNITE HERE for coming together in good faith to forge an agreement that is a win-win for everyone,” Perez said in a statement.The union said it represents 150 cooks, dishwashers, cashiers and servers at the university who work for Sodexo. The new contract includes increases in compensation and job security, and a 50% drop in healthcare costs, it said.
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
House Committee to Set Process for Impeachment Vote
The House Rules Committee is set to meet Tuesday to put forth the process the full House will follow when it considers articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.The procedural step will set the stage for what is widely expected to be a vote nearly down party lines Wednesday with the majority Democrats approving Trump’s impeachment over the objections of lawmakers in his Republican Party.As the process moved closer to the House vote, Trump sparred Monday with House Democrats who accused him of “multiple federal crimes” in the abuse of the presidency.”The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics!” Trump contended on Twitter. “The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!”READ THE TRANSCRIPTS! The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics! The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2019Trump, the 45th U.S. president, would be the third American leader to be impeached in the 243-year history of the country, although his conviction by the Republican-majority Senate at a trial next month and removal from office remains highly unlikely. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the U.S.-based cable network Fox News last week there was “zero chance” the president would be removed from office.Trump’s Twitter broadsides came as the House Judiciary Committee early Monday released a 658-page report detailing the allegations against him in two articles of impeachment. One accuses the president of abuse of power by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden. The other charges him with obstruction of Congress by refusing to turn over thousands of documents to impeachment investigators and blocking key aides from testifying.”Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal,” the panel’s Democrats contended. They described Trump’s behavior as “both constitutional and criminal in character,” including bribery and wire fraud. They argued that the president “betrayed the people of this nation” and should be removed from office”He has abused his power in soliciting and pressuring a vulnerable foreign nation to corrupt the next United States presidential election by sabotaging a political opponent and endorsing a debunked conspiracy theory promoted by our adversary, Russia,” the report said. “President Trump has done all this for his own personal gain, rather than for any legitimate reason, and has compromised our national security and democratic system in the process. After he was caught, President Trump defiantly insisted his conduct was ‘perfect.'”WATCH: Senate to vote on Impeachment
With House Set to Impeach, Administration Now Focuses on Senate video player.
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y. leaves after speaking at a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.The war of words between the White House and House Democrats came as the lead Senate Democrat, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, wrote to McConnell that Democrats want to hear testimony from four key Trump administration officials at Trump’s trial who did not testify in the House inquiry controlled by Democrats.Schumer says the Senate should subpoena acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, top Mulvaney aide Robert Blair, as well as former National Security Adviser John Bolton and budget official Michael Duffey.Schumer told reporters Monday, “We want to come up with a fair trial where the facts come out.” He said the White House and Republicans should support calling the four officials as witnesses “unless they have something to hide.” McConnell, however, has said he will coordinate Trump’s defense with the president’s lawyers and the parameters of a Senate trial have yet to be decided.McConnell has raised the prospect of a short trial with no witnesses called, ending with a Senate vote on Trump’s fate after House impeachment managers present their case against Trump and the president’s lawyers lay out his defense. Trump has said he is agreeable to a short trial with no witnesses, but at other times has said he wants to hear testimony from the unnamed government whistleblower who first raised concerns about his late July request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and from his son, Hunter Biden, about his work for a Ukrainian natural gas company. The whistleblower is reported to be a former White House aide who now works at the Central Intelligence Agency. Trump also asked Zelenskiy to investigate a debunked claim that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election Trump won to undermine his candidacy. But Schumer said the Senate trial should not be about “conspiracy theories.”
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
$1.4 Trillion Spending Package Crammed with Unrelated Provisions
House leaders on Monday unveiled a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package that’s carrying an unusually large load of unrelated provisions catching a ride on the last train out of Congress this year.A House vote is slated for Tuesday on the sprawling package, some 2,313 pages long, as lawmakers wrap up reams of unfinished work — and vote on impeaching President Donald Trump.The mammoth measure takes a split-the-differences approach that’s a product of divided power in Washington, offering lawmakers of all stripes plenty to vote for — and against. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was a driving force, along with administration pragmatists such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who negotiated the summertime budget deal that it implements.FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 10, 2019.Trump hasn’t said for sure that he’ll sign the measure. He invariably has second thoughts, but he’s not interested in another government shutdown and has always bowed to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., when they’ve teamed up on compromise spending packages.Retired coal miners and labor union opponents of Obama-era taxes on high-cost health plans came away with big wins in weekend negotiations by top congressional leaders and the Trump White House. The bill would also increase the age nationwide for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21, and offers business-friendly provisions on export financing, flood insurance and immigrant workers.The legislation would forestall a government shutdown this weekend and give Trump steady funding for his U.S.-Mexico border fence. The year-end package is anchored by a $1.4 trillion spending measure that caps a difficult, months-long battle over spending priorities.The roster of add-ons grew over the weekend to include permanent repeal of a tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance benefits and finance health care and pension benefits for about 100,000 retired union coal miners threatened by the insolvency of their pension fund. A tax on medical devices and health insurance plans would also be repealed permanently.The deficit tab for the package grew as well — almost $400 billion over 10 years to repeal the three so-called “Obamacare” taxes alone — with a companion package to extend several business-friendly tax breaks still under negotiation. The Obama-era taxes have previously been suspended on a piecemeal basis.The legislation is laced with provisions reflecting divided power in Washington. Republicans maintained the status quo on several abortion-related battles and on funding for Trump’s border wall. Democrats controlling the House succeeded in winning a 3.1 percent raise for federal civilian employees and the first installment of funding on gun violence research after more than two decades of gun lobby opposition.FILE – Workers break ground on new border wall construction about 20 miles west of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, Aug. 23, 2019.The sweeping legislation, introduced as two packages for political and tactical purposes, is part of a major final burst of legislation that’s passing Congress this week despite bitter partisan divisions and Wednesday’s likely impeachment of Trump.Thursday promises a vote on a major rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement, while the Senate is about to send Trump the annual defense policy bill for the 59th year in a row.The core of the spending bill is formed by the 12 annual agency appropriations bills passed by Congress each year. It fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the coming two years instead of automatic spending cuts that would have sharply slashed the Pentagon and domestic agencies.FILE – A man blows a puff of smoke as he vapes with an electronic cigarette, Oct. 18, 2019.The increase in the tobacco purchasing age to 21 also applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices and gained momentum after McConnell signed on.Other add-ons include a variety of provisions sought by business and labor interests and their lobbyists in Washington.For business, there’s a seven-year extension of the charter of the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance transactions benefiting U.S. exporters, as well as a renewal of the government’s terrorism risk insurance program. The financially troubled government flood insurance program would be extended through September, as would several visa programs for both skilled and seasonal workers.Labor won repeal of the so-called Cadillac tax, a 40% tax on high-cost employer health plans, which was originally intended to curb rapidly growing health care spending. But it disproportionately affected high-end plans won under union contracts, and Democratic labor allies had previously succeeded in temporary repeals.Democrats controlling the House won increased funding for early childhood education and a variety of other domestic programs. They also won higher Medicaid funding for the cash-poor government of Puerto Rico, which is struggling to recover from hurricane devastation and a resulting economic downturn.While Republicans touted defense hikes and Democrats reeled off numerous increases for domestic programs, most of the provisions of the spending bill enjoy bipartisan support, including increases for medical research, combating the opioid epidemic, and Head Start and childcare grants to states.FILE – Balloons decorate an event for the 2020 Census efforts in Boston, Massachusetts, April 1, 2019.Democrats also secured $425 million for states to upgrade their election systems, and they boosted the U.S. Census budget $1.4 billion above Trump’s request. They won smaller increases for the Environmental Protection Agency, renewable energy programs and affordable housing.”We are scaling up funding for priorities that will make our country safer and stronger and help hardworking families get ahead,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.The outcome in the latest chapter in the longstanding battle over Trump’s border wall awards Trump with $1.4 billion for new barriers — equal to last year’s appropriation — while preserving Trump’s ability to use his budget powers to tap other accounts for several times that amount. That’s a blow for liberal opponents of the wall but an acceptable trade-off for pragmatic-minded Democrats who wanted to gain $27 billion in increases for domestic programs and avert the threat of simply funding the government on autopilot.Because dozens of Democrats might vote against the border wall, Pelosi is pairing money for the Department of Homeland Security with the almost $700 billion Pentagon budget, which is guaranteed to win GOP votes to offset Democratic defections.The coal miners’ pension provision, opposed by House GOP conservatives like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had the backing of Trump and powerful Senate GOP Leader McConnell and Trump. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was a dogged force behind the scenes and said the other leaders rolled the House GOP leader, who also lost a behind-the-scenes battle with Pelosi on parochial California issues.”Something had to be done and we finally got Mitch McConnell to sign onto the bill,” Manchin said. “But we could not move McCarthy. Then finally we just had to move forward and they did it.”
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
With House Set to Impeach, Administration Now Focuses on Senate
With the U.S. House of Representatives expected to vote to impeach President Donald Trump this week, the White House is shifting focus to the Republican-led Senate, where the president will face trial as early as January. Patsy Widakuswara has this story on how Trump and his allies are planning to mount a fast and aggressive defense, with the goal of turning the tables on opposition Democrats.
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Spars With Democrats as Impeachment Vote Nears
U.S. President Donald Trump, facing impeachment this week, sparred Monday with House Democrats who accused him of “multiple federal crimes” in the abuse of the presidency.”The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics!” Trump contended on Twitter. “The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!”READ THE TRANSCRIPTS! The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics! The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2019With the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives likely to impeach him Wednesday, Trump retweeted comments from Republican supporters ridiculing the allegations against him. Trump, the 45th U.S. president, would be the third American leader to be impeached in the 243-year history of the country, although his conviction by the Republican-majority Senate at a trial next month and removal from office remains highly unlikely. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News last week there was “zero chance” the president would be removed from office.Trump’s Twitter broadsides came as the House Judiciary Committee early Monday released a 658-page report detailing the allegations against him in two articles of impeachment. One accuses the president of abuse of power by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden. The other charges him with obstruction of Congress by refusing to turn over thousands of documents to impeachment investigators and blocking key aides from testifying.“Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal,” the panel’s Democrats contended. They described Trump’s behavior as “both constitutional and criminal in character,” including bribery and wire fraud. They argued that the president “betrayed the people of this nation” and should be removed from office.
Full House to Vote on Trump Impeachment This Week video player.
McConnell, however, has said he will coordinate Trump’s defense with the president’s lawyers and the parameters of a Senate trial have yet to be decided.McConnell has raised the prospect of a short trial with no witnesses called, ending with a Senate vote on Trump’s fate after House impeachment managers present their case against Trump and the president’s lawyers lay out his defense. Trump has said he is agreeable to a short trial with no witnesses, but at other times has said he wants to hear testimony from the unnamed government whistleblower who first raised concerns about his late July request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and from his son, Hunter Biden, about his work for a Ukrainian natural gas company. The whistleblower is reported to be a former White House aide who now works at the Central Intelligence Agency. Trump also asked Zelenskiy to investigate a debunked claim that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election Trump won to undermine his candidacy. But Schumer said the Senate trial should not be about “conspiracy theories.”A McConnell spokesman said the Republican leader would be meeting with Schumer to work out how to conduct Trump’s impeachment trial.Schumer also proposed in the letter the amount of time House members and White House lawyers would have for opening arguments, how much time senators would have to question them, and the amount of time allotted for witness testimony, closing arguments and deliberations before the 100-member Senate delivers its verdict.”We believe this proposal…will allow for a trial in which all of the facts can be considered fully and fairly, and in which final votes can be taken within a reasonable period of time, without any unnecessary delay,” Schumer wrote.Trump spokeswoman Grisham called it “laughable” that Schumer, often a Trump antagonist, is calling for a fair trial.
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Says He’ll Debate 2020 Opponent
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he looks forward to debating his eventual Democratic opponent when he runs for re-election next year, but bashed the independent commission that for decades has arranged the logistics of the debates as politically aligned against him.”The problem is that the so-called Commission on Presidential Debates is stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers,” the Republican president said on Twitter. “3 years ago they were forced to publicly apologize for modulating my microphone in the first debate” against the Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ….The problem is that the so-called Commission on Presidential Debates is stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers. 3 years ago they were forced to publicly apologize for modulating my microphone in the first debate against Crooked Hillary. As President, the debates are up…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2019″As President, the debates are up to me,” Trump tweeted, “and there are many options, including doing them directly & avoiding the nasty politics of this very biased Commission. I will make a decision at an appropriate time but in the meantime, the Commission on Presidential Debates is NOT authorized to speak for me (or R’s)!” ….to me, and there are many options, including doing them directly & avoiding the nasty politics of this very biased Commission. I will make a decision at an appropriate time but in the meantime, the Commission on Presidential Debates is NOT authorized to speak for me (or R’s)!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2019Still, Trump said he looks “very much forward to debating whoever the lucky person is who stumbles across the finish line in the little watched Do Nothing Democrat Debates. My record is so good on the Economy and all else, including debating, that perhaps I would consider more than 3 debates.” I look very much forward to debating whoever the lucky person is who stumbles across the finish line in the little watched Do Nothing Democrat Debates. My record is so good on the Economy and all else, including debating, that perhaps I would consider more than 3 debates…..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2019The commission, created in 1987 by the Republican and Democratic parties to oversee the quadrennial presidential and vice presidential debates, is overseen by prominent Democrats and Republicans and other public figures. Its current three co-chairs are Frank Fahrenkopf, a former Republican national chairman; Dorothy Ridings, chief executive of the Council of Federations of charitable groups, and Kenneth Wollack, a former president of the National Democratic Institute, a non-governmental organization that promotes democracy worldwide.The commission has already announced plans for three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate next September and October in the weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 national election, with all of them on U.S. university campuses.The commission acknowledged that in the first 2016 Trump-Clinton debate, “there were issues regarding Donald Trump’s audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall,” but not on the nationally televised broadcast, which 80 million people watched, the most ever for a presidential debate. The commission did not, as Trump said, apologize for the audio problem in the debate hall.In response to Trump’s tweets Monday, the commission said, “The televised general election debates are an important part of our democratic process. Since 1988, the Commission on Presidential Debates has conducted 30 general election presidential and vice presidential debates. Our record is one of fairness, balance and non-partisanship.”
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By Polityk | 12/17/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Comey: ‘Real sloppiness’ in Russia Probe But No Misconduct
Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged Sunday that a Justice Department inspector general report identified “real sloppiness” in the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide and said he was wrong to have been “overconfident” about how the Russia investigation was handled.But Comey also insisted he was right to feel some measure of vindication because the report did not find evidence for the most sensational of President Donald Trump’s claims, including that he had been wiretapped and illegally spied on and that the FBI had committed treason in investigating ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign.
“Remember how we got here,” Comey said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “The FBI was accused of criminal misconduct. Remember, I was going to jail, and lots of other people were going to jail.”
The inspector general, he added, “did not find misconduct by FBI personnel, did not find political bias, did not find illegal conduct.” The significant mistakes the inspector general identified are “not something to sneeze at” but also not evidence of intentional misconduct, Comey said.
In a tweet Sunday, Trump called for an apology from Comey, now that he “got caught red handed.”
“So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong,” Trump wrote. “So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail? Where are the apologies to me and others, Jim?”
The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that the FBI opened the Russia investigation for a legitimate reason and was not motivated by partisan bias when it did so.
But Horowitz also found major errors and omissions in applications the FBI submitted to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Those problems include the omission of key information about the reliability of a source whose information had been relied on for the warrant, and the altering of an email by an FBI lawyer.
Comey said in retrospect that he was wrong when he said last year that the applications to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were handled in a “thoughtful, responsible way.”
“I was overconfident in the procedures that the FBI and Justice had built over 20 years. I thought they were robust enough. It’s incredibly hard to get a FISA. I was overconfident in those,” Comey said Sunday.
“Because he’s right,” Comey added, referring to Horowitz. “There was real sloppiness, 17 things that either should’ve been in the applications or at least discussed and characterized differently. It was not acceptable and so he’s right. I was wrong.”
Current FBI Director Christopher Wray told The Associated Press last week that the report identified problems that the report found problems that are “unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are as an institution.” The FBI is taking more than 40 steps to fix those problems, he said.FDepartment of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz arrives for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Inspector General’s report on alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Dec. 11, 2019.Horowitz told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that no one who was involved in the warrant application process should feel vindicated, rejecting claims of vindication that Comey had made earlier in the week. Comey said Sunday that he simply meant that the report had debunked some of the gravest allegations that Trump and his supporters had made.
“All of that was nonsense. I think it’s really important that the inspector general looked at that and that the American people, your viewers and all viewers, understand that’s true,” Comey said.
He also criticized Attorney General William Barr for saying in a separate interview last week that the many errors by the FBI left open the possibility that agents may have acted in bad faith.
“The facts just aren’t there, full stop,” Comey said, when asked whether Barr has a valid point. “That doesn’t make it any less consequential, any less important, but that’s an irresponsible statement.”
Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, also said Sunday that he did not know the particulars of the investigation.
“As a director sitting on top of an organization of 38,000 people, you can’t run an investigation that’s seven layers below you,” Comey said. “You have to leave it to the career professionals to do, to the special agents who do this for their lives.”
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By Polityk | 12/16/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Spars with Democrats as His Impeachment Nears
U.S. President Donald Trump, facing impeachment this week, sparred Monday with House Democrats who accused him of “multiple federal crimes” in the abuse of the presidency.”The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics!” Trump contended on Twitter. “The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!”READ THE TRANSCRIPTS! The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics! The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2019With the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives likely to impeach him Wednesday, Trump retweeted comments from Republican supporters ridiculing the allegations against him. Trump, the 45th U.S. president, would be the third American leader to be impeached in the 243-year history of the country, although his conviction by the Republican-majority Senate at a trial next month and removal from office remains highly unlikely. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News last week there was “zero chance” the president would be removed from office.Trump’s Twitter broadsides came as the House Judiciary Committee early Monday released a 658-page report detailing the allegations against him in two articles of impeachment. One accuses the president of abuse of power by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden. The other charges him with obstruction of Congress by refusing to turn over thousands of documents to impeachment investigators and blocking key aides from testifying.“Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal,” the panel’s Democrats contended. They described Trump’s behavior as “both constitutional and criminal in character,” including bribery and wire fraud. They argued that the president “betrayed the people of this nation” and should be removed from office.
Full House to Vote on Trump Impeachment This Week video player.
McConnell, however, has said he will coordinate Trump’s defense with the president’s lawyers and the parameters of a Senate trial have yet to be decided.McConnell has raised the prospect of a short trial with no witnesses called, ending with a Senate vote on Trump’s fate after House impeachment managers present their case against Trump and the president’s lawyers lay out his defense. Trump has said he is agreeable to a short trial with no witnesses, but at other times has said he wants to hear testimony from the unnamed government whistleblower who first raised concerns about his late July request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and from his son, Hunter Biden, about his work for a Ukrainian natural gas company. The whistleblower is reported to be a former White House aide who now works at the Central Intelligence Agency. A McConnell spokesman said the Republican leader would be meeting with Schumer to work out how to conduct Trump’s impeachment trial.Schumer also proposed in the letter the amount of time House members and White House lawyers would have for opening arguments, how much time senators would have to question them, and the amount of time allotted for witness testimony, closing arguments and deliberations before the 100-member Senate delivers its verdict.”We believe this proposal…will allow for a trial in which all of the facts can be considered fully and fairly, and in which final votes can be taken within a reasonable period of time, without any unnecessary delay,” Schumer wrote.Trump spokeswoman Grisham called it “laughable” that Schumer, often a Trump antagonist, is calling for a fair trial.
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By Polityk | 12/16/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Schumer Proposes Senate Subpoena 4 White House Officials for Impeachment Trial
With the U.S. House of Representatives expected to impeach President Donald Trump this week, the top Democrat in the Senate is calling for the chamber that will conduct the impeachment trial to hear from four key Trump administration witnesses.Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday that the Senate should subpoena acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and top Mulvaney aide Robert Blair, as well as former National Security Adviser John Bolton and budget official Michael Duffey.Schumer noted House committees conducting the impeachment investigation asked all four officials to appear for questioning, but none did.McConnell has raised the prospect of a short trial with no witnesses called, and said he would be coordinating with the White House as he plans the trial.A McConnell spokesman said he would be meeting with Schumer to work out how to conduct the proceedings.Schumer also proposed in the letter the amount of time House members and White House lawyers would have for opening arguments, how much time Senators would have to question them, and the amount of time allotted for witness testimony, closing arguments and deliberations before Senators deliver their verdict.”We believe this proposal…will allow for a trial in which all of the facts can be considered fully and fairly, and in which final votes can be taken within a reasonable period of time, without any unnecessary delay,” Schumer wrote.The House is expected to vote Wednesday to approve the two articles of impeachment the House Judiciary Committee passed last week. The trial in the Republican-majority Senate would take place in January with a conviction and Trump’s removal from office unlikely.The House Judiciary Committee, over unified Republican opposition, accused Trump of abusing the power of the presidency by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and then obstructing congressional review of his actions by refusing to turn over thousands of pages of documents to impeachment investigators and blocking key Trump aides from testifying.The rancor from the imminent impeachment of Trump played out on Sunday’s news talk shows in the U.S., with no political agreement on the merits of the case against him.”We will have done our duty in the House,” Congressman Jerrold Nadler told ABC’s “This Week” show, two days after the House Judiciary Committee he chairs approved two articles of impeachment against Trump.House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., center, announces the adjournment, as ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., right, looks on following a marathon debate.The president has ridiculed the impeachment effort, again Sunday describing his request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the politically tinged investigation as “a PERFECT phone call.”On Twitter, he recalled his conversation: “‘Can you do us (not me. Us is referring to our Country) a favor.’ Then go on to talk about ‘Country’ and ‘U.S. Attorney General.’ The Impeachment Hoax is just a continuation of the Witch Hunt which has been going on for 3 years. We will win!”A PERFECT phone call. “Can you do us (not me. Us is referring to our Country) a favor.” Then go on to talk about “Country” and “U.S. Attorney General.” The Impeachment Hoax is just a continuation of the Witch Hunt which has been going on for 3 years. We will win! #MAGAKAG #2020— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2019Nadler contended, “This president conspired, sought foreign interference in the 2016 election. He is openly seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election. We cannot permit that to continue.””This is a crime in progress against the Constitution and against the American democracy,” Nadler said.On the same show, Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that held weeks of hearings on Trump’s alleged wrong-doing, asked, “Why won’t Republicans do their duty” to hold Trump accountable? He said if Trump’s immediate predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, had made the same overtures to Zelenskiy for an investigation of a political opponent, “I would vote to impeach him.”Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a staunch Trump supporter who would be be one of 100 jurors to hear the case against Trump at a Senate trial, contended on the same ABC show that Nadler and Schiff were engaged in “partisan attacks” against Trump and said there is “zero evidence” of a crime committed by Trump.Cruz argued that “the House Democrats hate the president.” He said it was “perfectly within the duties of the president” to ask that Zelenskiy investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, and a debunked theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump win.On CNN, another Trump supporter, Sen. Rand Paul, called the president’s impending impeachment a “very partisan thing,” saying Democrats have “decided to criminalize politics.”Trump made his request for the Biden investigations to Zelenskiy at a time when he was temporarily blocking $391 million in military aid that Ukraine wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. He released the money in September without Zelenskiy opening any investigations of the Bidens.Cruz said Trump’s request to Zelenskiy for the Biden investigations was justified because the elder Biden, when he was vice president, was “publicly bragging” that he withheld aid that Ukraine wanted at the time until a prosecutor who had once investigated Burisma was fired.Democrats say the difference between the two cases is that Biden’s request for the ouster of the Ukrainian prosecutor, deemed weak on corruption by the West, was part of U.S. policy supported by the European Union, while Trump’s bid for the Biden probe was linked to U.S. elections, in particular related to a 2020 rival when Trump is seeking a second term in the White House.
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By Polityk | 12/16/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Full House to Vote on Trump Impeachment This Week
The full House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on two articles of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee. It is likely that Donald Trump will become the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, with a Senate trial expected next year. Democrats have accused him of abusing the power of the presidency by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers and of blocking Congress to investigate. Trump and his supporters insist he did nothing wrong. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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By Polityk | 12/16/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Rancor Fills the Airwaves Ahead of Trump Impeachment
The rancor from the imminent impeachment of President Donald Trump played out on Sunday’s news talk shows in the U.S., with no political agreement on the merits of the case against him.The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is set by mid-week to make the Republican president only the third American leader to be impeached in the country’s 243-year history, even though his conviction at a trial next month in the Republican-majority Senate and removal from office remains unlikely.House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., gavels a recess of a House Judiciary Committee markup of the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.”We will have done our duty in the House,” Congressman Jerrold Nadler told ABC’s “This Week” show, two days after the House Judiciary Committee he chairs approved two articles of impeachment against Trump, sending the allegations to the full House, with a Wednesday vote possible. The Democratic-majority panel, over unified Republican opposition, accused Trump of abusing the power of the presidency by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and then obstructing congressional review of his actions by refusing to turn over thousands of pages of documents to impeachment investigators and blocking key Trump aides from testifying.”This president conspired, sought foreign interference in the 2016 election,” Nadler said. “He is openly seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election. We cannot permit that to continue.””This is a crime in progress against the Constitution and against the American democracy,” Nadler said.On the same show, Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that held weeks of hearings on Trump’s alleged wrong-doing, asked, “Why won’t Republicans do their duty” to hold Trump accountable? He said if Trump’s immediate predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, had made the same overtures to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a politically tinged investigation, “I would vote to impeach him.”FILE – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asks a question of Boeing Company President and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg on Capitol Hill, Oct. 29, 2019, during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing.Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a staunch Trump supporter who would be be one of 100 jurors to hear the case against Trump at a Senate trial, contended on the same ABC show that Nadler and Schiff were engaged in “partisan attacks” against Trump and said there is “zero evidence” of a crime committed by Trump.Cruz argued that “the House Democrats hate the president.” He said it was “perfectly within the duties of the president” to ask that Zelenskiy investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, and a debunked theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump win.On CNN, another Trump supporter, Sen. Rand Paul, called the president’s impending impeachment a “very partisan thing,” saying Democrats have “decided to criminalize politics.”Trump made his request for the Biden investigations to Zelenskiy at a time when he was temporarily blocking $391 million in military aid to Ukraine that Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. He released the money in September without Zelenskiy opening any investigations of the Bidens.From left, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump.Cruz said Trump’s request to Zelenskiy for the Biden investigations was justified because the elder Biden, when he was vice president, was “publicly bragging” that he withheld aid that Ukraine wanted at the time until a prosecutor who had once investigated Burisma was fired.Democrats say the difference between the two cases is that Biden’s request for the ouster of the Ukrainian prosecutor, deemed weak on corruption by the West, was part of U.S. policy supported by the European Union, while Trump’s bid for the Biden probe was linked to U.S. elections, in particular related to a 2020 rival when Trump is seeking a second term in the White House.
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By Polityk | 12/16/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Democrats Squabble Over Lessons of UK Election
Hours before the official result was complete for Britain’s general election, U.S. Democrats on the other side of the Atlantic were taking to social-media sites to draw quick conclusions on what Labour’s catastrophic defeat might mean for them and the electoral challenge they face with the 2020 White House contest.Forewarned by an exit poll, which suggested Britain’s storied Labour Party was heading for its worst election rebuff since 1935, one of the first Democrats to hit the send button was Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama.He tweeted: “There are a lot of factors that went into this massive defeat, but progressives have to learn from them to do better on both sides of the Atlantic.”But that begs the crucial question: what lessons?Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is seen near his home in London, Britain, December 14, 2019. REUTERS/Toby MelvilleOn the British side of the Atlantic, Labour politicians can’t agree about what went wrong for them in what’s likely to be seen as the most consequential British election for a quarter-of-a-century, with some, including defeated party leader Jeremy Corbyn, insisting that the radical socialist policies he advocated, including the nationalization of a swathe of the British economy, were individually popular and that the blame should go on Brexit.A key Corbyn ally, Len McCluskey, the leader of the powerful Unite trade union, said the policies in the party’s manifesto were “very popular,” but “we very evidently didn’t win the argument over Brexit” and the party’s policy of holding a second referendum on European Union membership. McCluskey said the party’s “biggest mistake” was “perhaps underestimating the desire for people who had voted Leave to leave the European Union.”But many Labour moderates believe Brexit-favoring working-class voters who deserted the party in droves would have overlooked the issue of Europe, if Labour had had a more popular and centrist leader and a manifesto shorn of leftwing dogma. In a post-election opinion poll, only 17 percent of Labour defectors cited Brexit as the reason for their switch to the Conservatives.”Jeremy Corbyn was destined to lead the Labour Party to a catastrophic defeat,” according to Jason Cowley, the editor of the New Statesman magazine, Britain’s leading leftwing weekly. “If he believed that the British would vote for the most radical socialist manifesto in our history, he was sadly deluded. The party has learned nothing from past defeats: the more it moves to the left, the more people are alienated,” he added in a post-mortem assessment for Britain’s The Times newspaper.Cowley says Labour has lost touch with Britain’s working-class and the party’s defeat Thursday is a parable of what can go wrong when a party rejects pragmatism for “ideological purity.”Some Democrats in the U.S. worry that might be the case with their own party and say the British election should be seen as window on the 2020 presidential race.Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event in Nashua, N.H., Dec. 8, 2019.Former U.S. vice president Joe Biden, the current front-runner to win the Democratic nomination to take on Trump, has said that the British election should be taken as a warning against Democrats moving too far to the radical left ahead of the 2020 White House race.Speaking to supporters in San Francisco, Biden argued that the radicalism of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn ultimately contributed to Boris Johnson’s landslide victory last week.Others on the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, too, fear that Labour’s defeat may foreshadow trouble for their bid to vanquish Trump, especially if the Democrats pick a progressive nominee like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren as their champion in the 2020 presidential election.Political trends on one side of the Atlantic have often presaged trends on the other, although often with time lags because of misaligned elections. Both countries were moderately conservative in the 1950s and Republican and Conservative governments accepted the welfare systems established by their predecessors in office and ideological rivals, Franklin Roosevelt and Britain’s Clement Attlee.In the 1960s both countries trended left, although were divided over the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, free-market conservatives — Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan — reshaped their nations’ politics.FILE – Tony Blair and Bill Clinton hold hands during an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, April 10, 2018.And in the 1990s “Third Way” Democrats, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, marched almost in lockstep to refashion their parties as market-friendly, seeking to blend center-right economics with center-left social policies. The 2016 Brexit referendum was seen by many, including Donald Trump’s then strategist Steve Bannon and Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s chief of staff, as foreshadowing Trump’s upset a few months later of Hillary Clinton, who saw her candidacy rebuffed in the fading towns of the “rust belt” states much like Corbyn was rejected in the post-industrial north of England.Nationalist conservatives rule the roost now in Washington and London, prioritizing the nation state over multilateralism and favoring tough immigration restrictions. The skirmishing by Democrats over the British election result is enmeshing with the fight over who should get the party’s presidential nomination.Democrats favoring a progressive candidate maintain there are no real lessons to draw from Johnson’s election win, echoing Corbyn supporters on the other side of the Atlantic by arguing Labour lost the election because of Brexit. “This UK election was ultimately an election about Brexit, and Brexit won. There’s no clean analogue to that in the U.S,” says Kate Aronoff, a senior fellow at Data for Progress, a progressive U.S. think tank.”The UK election was undeniably bad for Labour, but it doesn’t at all vindicate centrists saying the U.S. should make one of them the Democratic nominee. Left policies are popular,” she tweeted.Aronoff, like other U.S. progressives maintain that the kind of centrist politics espoused by establishment Democrats also got rebuffed by British voters in an election that dashed the hopes of Britain’s centrist Liberal Democrats, who presented themselves as a respectable alternative between the Conservatives and Labour. Their leader Jo Swinson even failed to get reelected as a lawmaker.People stand behind a banner supporting the results of the general election, in London, Britain, Dec. 13, 2019.Some commentators who’ve chronicled the rise of populist nationalism say neither moderates nor progressives have the grasped the full scale of the realignment of Western politics that’s underway. The UK vote wasn’t just any election, says Matthew Goodwin, an academic at Britain’s Kent University and co-author of the book “National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy.” “The old left versus right economic divide continues to make way for a new cultural divide.”He says Brexit was just one factor prompting working-class voters to trade left for right, with other driving issues coming down to promises of immigration reform and prioritizing national independence. Conservative nationalists have hit on a winning formula by leaning left on economics, with promises of increased government spending, and right on culture when it comes to identity politics and pledges to get tough on crime.Goodwin believes it is easier for the right to move left on economics than it is for the left to move right on questions of national identity which are worrying socially conservative working-class voters.
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By Polityk | 12/16/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
House Democrats Set to Impeach Trump
U.S. House Democrats are one big step away from impeaching President Donald Trump. After 14 hours of contentious partisan debate, the House Judiciary Committee on Friday approved formal charges alleging Trump abused the power of his office and obstructed congressional efforts to investigate him. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson looks ahead to the final vote on impeachment on the House floor.
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By Polityk | 12/15/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Georgia Moving Forward With Mass Voter Purge Monday
Georgia election officials are set to begin a mass purge of inactive voters from the state’s voting rolls on Monday.Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in October released a list of over 313,000 voters whose registrations were at risk of being cancelled, about 4% of the state’s total registered voters. Those voters were mailed notices in November and had 30 days to respond in order to keep their registration intact.Walter Jones, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, said the purge would take place overnight Monday into Tuesday. He said the exact number and names of voters removed wouldn’t be known until then and that more information would be made available after.Voter purges in Georgia became a hot-button issue during last year’s race for governor between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, who won the race. Kemp served as secretary of state before being elected governor and oversaw some of the most aggressive voter purges in the country during his tenure. Over 1.4 million voter registrations were canceled in Georgia between 2012 and 2018.While some of the people removed from the rolls had either moved or died, others were removed for simply not voting in several election cycles.“The list of Inactive Voters is composed of people who did not respond to notices sent to them because they had either filed a change of address form with the U.S. Postal Service, had official election mail returned undeliverable or who have not had contact with the election system for three years,” the secretary of state’s office says in an online description of the removal process. “Although these people failed to respond to that initial notice, they still remained able to vote normally for two additional election cycles equal to four years, but their registration will be cancelled if they fail to respond to the notice mailed to them … or had other contact, such as voting, signing a petition or changing the address on their driver’s license.”Critics of the policy say government records on inactive voters can be incorrect, and they argue that a citizen shouldn’t be removed from the voting rolls just for deciding not to participate in elections.“Voters should not lose their right to vote simply because they have decided not to express that right in recent elections,” said Seth Bringman, a spokesman for Fair Fight Action, a voting rights advocacy group founded by Abrams. “While updating the voter rolls if Georgians move or pass away is reasonable, the state’s use-it-or-lose-it policy infringes on Georgians’ Constitutional rights.”Election officials counter that the list maintenance makes the administration of elections smoother and helps guard against voter fraud.“Accurate voter lists limit confusion and delays at polling places on Election Day, and make sure voters get the correct ballot,” Chris Harvey, elections director for the secretary of state’s office, has said previously. “Accurate registration lists also allow county election offices to plan for polling place equipment and staffing needs. Accurate voter lists reduce the opportunities for mistakes or fraud.”
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By Polityk | 12/14/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
