Розділ: Політика
Nunes, Top Intelligence Panel Republican, Had Frequent Contact with Giuliani, Call Records Show
U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, often spoke to Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, as Giuliani peddled unproven allegations at the heart of the Trump impeachment inquiry, a congressional report said on Tuesday.Previously undisclosed telephone records appended to a House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., center, flanked by Daniel Goldman, director of investigations for the Democrats, left, and Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif, the ranking member.But, he said that it was “deeply concerning that at a time when the president of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity.”The phone records were obtained from AT&T, the report said. The company acknowledged it complied with a request.Biden is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to run against Republican Trump in the November 2020 election.Parnas’ lawyer Joseph Bondy said his client was prepared to testify to Congress about the substance of the phone calls.In an Oct. 5 interview with Reuters, Giuliani said he had been in contact with Nunes about Ukraine, but “not a lot” and that the lawmaker and his staff obtained information on their own.”We’ve talked about some of it, yes, Giuliani said. “But we haven’t investigated it together.”The call records showed that Giuliani maintained more frequent contacts with Washington officials than were disclosed in some two months of private and public testimony by current and former U.S. officials to House committees conducting the impeachment review.In the hearings, Nunes cited the same unproven allegations supported by Giuliani that Biden tried to curb an investigation into a Ukrainian energy firm on whose board his son was a member. He and other Republicans also referred to the debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.The call records showed that over the course of four days in April, Giuliani had calls with Nunes, John Solomon, a conservative columnist whose articles for the Hill newspaper promoted the allegations, and Parnas.On April 12, the records showed that Parnas called Nunes in the late afternoon. The call lasted for one minute. Less than an hour later, Nunes placed two calls to Parnas that appear to have gone unanswered. Parnas later called Nunes and the two spoke for more than eight minutes, according to the records.During that same period, Giuliani received three calls from someone at the White House budget office, which in July held up the security aid to Ukraine.On May 8, Giuliani spoke with Derek Harvey, a member of Nunes’ staff and a former White House official, and on May 10 with Kashyap Patel, a former Nunes staff member who is now a senior counterterrorism official at the White House’s National Security Council.
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By Polityk | 12/04/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Powerful Union to Host Biden, Warren, Sanders in Nevada
Nevada’s powerful casino workers’ Culinary Union will hold a series of town halls next week with Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, the group said Tuesday.The town halls in Las Vegas on Dec. 9-11 are designed to give the White House hopefuls a chance to pitch themselves to the bartenders, housekeepers and other workers in the city’s famed casinos.Their Culinary Workers Union Local 226 is considered one of the most influential endorsements in Nevada, the third state to weigh in on the Democratic presidential race.The union’s secretary-treasurer Geoconda Arguello-Kline said the group has not yet decided if it will endorse anyone in the primary but is listening to candidates and telling them what workers want.The union’s 60,000 members are mostly women and immigrants and cite health care, immigration reform and workers’ issues among their top priorities.Health careHealth care, a hot topic of debate in the Democratic primary, is expected to be a main focus of the town halls. Many of the union’s members and leaders have said they have concerns about Medicare for All plans backed by Sanders and Warren that eliminate private insurance.Culinary’s workers have fought and bargained hard over the years for comprehensive health plans that boast no monthly premiums and no deductibles, and members don’t want to give up that coverage.The union’s leaders have had private meetings with most of the presidential candidates, but their town hall forums with the members offer 2020 contenders a platform to speak to the group’s rank-and-file.The union says only top Democratic candidates have received an invite. Several other candidates were invited to participate but unable to make the scheduling work.Warren’s town hall is scheduled for the evening of Dec. 9, followed by Sanders the next morning and Biden midmorning on Dec. 11.
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By Polityk | 12/04/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Kamala Harris Ends White House Bid
Democratic Senator Kamala Harris on Tuesday announced she is suspending her 2020 presidential campaign.”In good faith, I can’t tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward [to the Democratic presidential nomination] if I don’t believe I do,” Harris said in a statement.Languishing at single digits in the polls for months, the California senator said she did not have the financial resources needed to continue her campaign.”I’m not a billionaire. I can’t fund my own campaign,” the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica said. “And as the campaign has gone on, it’s become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete.”To my supporters, it is with deep regret—but also with deep gratitude—that I am suspending my campaign today. But I want to be clear with you: I will keep fighting every day for what this campaign has been about. Justice for the People. All the people.https://t.co/92Hk7DHHbR— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) December 3, 2019Harris entered the race in January seen by many pundits as a likely top contender. She briefly surged in the polls after a strong Democratic presidential debate performance in June, but saw support erode in the weeks thereafter.On Monday, RealClearPolitics put her at 3.4% support for the nomination.Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, news reports surfaced of turmoil within her campaign. Last week, the New York Times quoted staffers as saying Harris was indecisive and failed in attempts to straddle rifts in the Democratic Party between progressives and moderates.Harris stressed the end of her White House bid will not be the end of her political activism.“Although I am no longer running for President, I will do everything in my power to defeat Donald Trump and fight for the future of our country and the best of who we are,” the senator said.Other candidates have dropped out citing insufficient funding, such as New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker almost dropped out due to financial issues in September, but was able to organize a fundraising goal of over $1 million to keep the campaign going.Harris had been the only person of color to qualify thus far for the next Democratic presidential debate December 19.
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By Polityk | 12/04/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Bloomberg’s Soft-on-China Trade Policy Unique in Democratic Presidential Field
In announcing his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination last week, former New York mayor and media tycoon Mike Bloomberg added a new wrinkle to the ongoing debate about President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, and perhaps further, to the entire relationship between Washington and Beijing.Bloomberg represents something unique in the Democratic primary field — an unreconstructed free-trader who also takes a far less critical view of China’s repressive internal policies than many of his opponents.Since well before declaring his candidacy, Bloomberg has been a loud critic of Trump on trade policy, saying the president’s sanctions-heavy approach to negotiation with China and other countries “set new benchmarks of incoherence and irresponsibility.”During the Obama administration, Bloomberg voiced support for multilateral trade agreements that are now criticized not just by Trump, but also by many of the current Democratic presidential candidates.Bloomberg, whose international media empire has long-established ties to China and regularly hosts high-profile conferences there, is also an outlier in terms of his thinking about the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.Defends Xi’s governmentIn an interview for the PBS television show “Firing Line” in September, Bloomberg drew sharp criticism after seeming to defend Xi’s government as responsive to its people and fundamentally democratic.“The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen to the public,” he said. “Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.”At the time, mass pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were facing a violent response from the Chinese government, and news reports about the brutal repression of the Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang Province were widespread.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate and billionaire Michael Bloomberg speaks to the media in Phoenix, Arizona, Nov. 26, 2019.When the host expressed her incredulity at his position, citing Xi’s repressive policies, Bloomberg dug in deeper.“No, he has a constituency to answer to,” he said. “No government survives without the will of the majority of its people, OK? The Chinese Communist Party looks at Russia, and they look for where the Communist Party is, and they don’t find it anymore. And they don’t want that to happen. So, they really are responsive.”Avoids China human rights issuesBloomberg seemed to base his belief in the Chinese government’s responsiveness to its citizens on its willingness to try to ameliorate the choking pollution that blankets many of its major cities. But he did not address the bedrock issues of political freedom and basic human rights.On trade and the issue of China’s treatment of its own citizens, Bloomberg stands apart from most of the front-runners in the Democratic field.Up to this point in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, candidates’ positions on relations with China have been complicated by the fact that some of the top contenders want to distance themselves from Trump in every respect, even when they seem to agree with his use of tariffs to force Beijing to reform its trade policies.Differs from Warren and SandersTop contenders like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are explicitly open to protectionist trade policies, though they are quick to claim they would implement them differently.Warren, in an outline of her trade policies, said that in her view “tariffs are an important tool.” But she criticized Trump’s “haphazard” implementation of them. Unlike Trump, she said, she believes tariffs “are not by themselves a long-term solution to our failed trade agenda and must be part of a broader strategy that this administration clearly lacks.”Sanders has vowed to undertake a “full review” of Trump’s trade policies to determine “which tariffs are working.” He added, “Tariffs may be part of the answer, but the Trump administration lacks a serious strategy for reducing our trade deficit or bringing back U.S. jobs that have been shipped to low-wage countries. Instead of conducting trade policy by tweet, we need a complete overhaul of our trade policies to increase American jobs, end the race to the bottom, raise wages and lift up living standards in this country and throughout the world.”Buttigieg far more critical of tariffsPete Buttigieg, the outgoing mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is more critical of tariffs in principle, but does not close the door on their use as a tool of trade policy. He has said he would use tariffs as “leverage” in trade talks. However, he told The Washington Post, “Because tariffs can be de facto domestic taxes, imposing real costs on American workers and farmers, they should be employed only with a clear strategy and endgame, and in coordination with our allies.”Democratic presidential candidate South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg reacts to applause after delivering a Veterans Day address during a campaign event in Rochester, N.H., Nov. 11, 2019.Former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads the Democratic field in national polls, has been inconsistent in his public statements about China. Shortly after announcing his candidacy last spring, he seemed to challenge the idea that the world’s most populous country was even a real economic competitor for the United States.Biden sanguine about China threat“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said at an appearance in Iowa. Arguing that Beijing is too busy with its internal problems to mount a serious economic threat to the U.S., he added, “They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”The statement earned Biden immediate blowback from all sides, and forced him to acknowledge that China is “a serious challenge to us, and in some areas a real threat.”Since then, Biden has maintained the position that the U.S. has to stand up to China on trade, but he has done so with vague statements such as, “My administration will bring our allies together to challenge China’s abusive behavior and rally more than half the world’s economy to hold China to account for their cheating. We also need to tighten up our economic defenses so that American companies don’t have to keep giving away technology to China, or having it stolen.”On the question of China’s treatment of its own people, most of the Democrats in the field are far more willing to criticize Beijing than Bloomberg appears to be. All four of the top candidates have loudly condemned the treatment of the Uighurs and the repression of Hong Kong’s pro-Democracy movement.Bloomberg’s reticenceBloomberg’s restraint when it comes to criticizing China is not a new thing. In 2013, Bloomberg LP, the company that controls his global media empire, was found to have killed news stories revealing corruption in the Chinese Communist Party, prompting the resignation of a number of editors and reporters.With U.S.-Chinese relations growing in importance, a Bloomberg candidacy will give Democratic primary voters a very different option than those currently on offer. What remains to be seen is if there will be many takers.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
2nd Circuit Upholds Legality of Congressional Tax Subpoenas
A federal appeals court in New York has upheld the legality of congressional subpoenas seeking President Donald Trump’s banking records but said sensitive personal information should be protected. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
The decision came after The House Financial Services and Intelligence committees asked Deutsche Bank and Capital One to turn over records related to Trump’s business ventures as they investigate “foreign influence in the U.S. political process.”
Trump and three of his children challenged the subpoenas.
A judge had ruled that the subpoenas were legitimate.
The 2nd Circuit agreed though it said the lower court should implement a procedure protecting sensitive personal information. It also gave litigants a limited chance to object to disclosure of certain documents.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
House Intelligence Committee Plans Tuesday Release of Impeachment Report
The U.S. House Intelligence Committee is expected to publicly release Tuesday a report on its findings and recommendations in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told MSNBC late Monday that the panel was “putting the finishing touches” on the report. He also said the committee would vote Tuesday night on formally submitting it to the Judiciary Committee, whose members will decide whether to draw up articles of impeachment against Trump.The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to start its own impeachment hearings Wednesday, and will do so without a Trump lawyer present.The president said he would not be sending representation “because the whole thing is a hoax.”Trump also criticized Democrats for holding the hearing at the time he will be attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s leaders’ summit in London.”Just landed in the United Kingdom, heading to London for NATO meetings tomorrow,” Trump tweeted late Monday. “Prior to landing I read the Republicans Report on the Impeachment Hoax. Great job! Radical Left has NO CASE. Read the transcripts. Shouldn’t even be allowed. Can we go to Supreme Court to stop?”President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One for a trip to London to attend the NATO summit, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Dec. 2, 2019.Wednesday’s hearing will focus on the constitutional grounds surrounding impeaching a president with four legal scholars appearing as witnesses. The Judiciary Committee announced Monday a witness list of law professors Noah Feldman of Harvard University, Pamela Karlan of Stanford University, Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina, and Jonathan Turley of George Washington University.Trump also pointed to fresh comments by Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskiy claiming that he never spoke with the U.S. president “from the position of a quid pro quo.”Zelenskiy also told reporters for four magazines (Time, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and Gazeta Wyborcza) that at a time Ukraine is at war with Russia, the United States, as Kyiv’s strategic partner, should not have been blocking military aid.”I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo,” said Zelenskiy.Trump seized on that comment as further vindication from Democrats’ allegations that Trump withheld support to Ukraine until the country helped dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, now a leading contender to challenge Trump in next year’s election.Zelenskiy “just came out a little while ago and he said, ‘President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong’ and that should end everything,” the U.S. president said Monday. White House counsel Pat Cipollone, in a letter to Nadler late Sunday, said the Trump administration “cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings.”Cipollone said he will reply by the end of the week on whether the White House would appear at future hearings.Nadler assured Trump and his counsel in his invitation letter last week that he “remains committed to ensuring a fair and informative process.”The Judiciary Committee chairman added the president has the “opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process.”Possible charges that could lead to Trump’s impeachment include bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors.Trump is accused of holding up nearly $400 million in badly-needed military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Zelenskiy’s public commitment to investigate Biden for alleged corruption.Biden’s son, Hunter, sat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Trump alleges that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to hold up U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine, unless the government fired a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.Trump also insists it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election on behalf of Democrats.No evidence against the Bidens has ever surfaced and the charge against Ukraine was based on a debunked conspiracy theory that originated in Russia.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Sees Fundraising Improvement After Rough Summer
Joe Biden took in more than $15 million for his White House run over the past two months, a sum that shows the former vice president’s fundraising operation has rebounded slightly after a lackluster summer in which he trailed his leading rivals.Biden’s campaign would not say exactly how much he has raised since the end of September. But with roughly one month left before the next reporting deadline, campaign manager Greg Schultz said in a memo provided to The Associated Press that Biden has already surpassed the $15.6 million he raised across July, August and September.The improvement comes at a costly juncture in the Democratic primary, as candidates sprint to get their message out and mobilize supporters ahead of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses in February.Schultz said online fundraising helped fuel the increase, which he attributed to discredited attacks that President Donald Trump has made against Biden and his son over their past dealings in Ukraine.Trump has sought to implicate Biden and his son Hunter in the kind of corruption that has long plagued Ukraine. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company at the same time his father was leading U.S. diplomatic dealings with Kyiv under President Barack Obama. Although the timing raised concerns among anti-corruption advocates, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son.”His campaign and special interest groups have spent millions of dollars airing ads to spread those same lies,” Schultz wrote. “This groundswell of support shows us — and Trump, and reporters, and anyone else watching — that his whole scheme is backfiring.”Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden arrives at a stop on his bus tour, Dec. 2, 2019, in Emmetsburg, Iowa.The fundraising uptick, however, doesn’t offer a complete picture. A more telling sum at this stage of the race would be how much cash Biden has on hand.The $9 million he reported in the bank at the end of September trailed Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg — all of whom reported having at least twice that amount.Yet for anxious Biden allies it shows renewed signs of vigor at a time when many have fretted about whether his campaign could hold on until Southern states, where Biden enjoys more support, hold their contests later in the year.Schultz said the revenue bump will give the campaign “the resources we need to knock more doors, make more calls, and build more support in the caucus rooms and in the ballot box.””The resources are important, but the timing really couldn’t be better,” he wrote.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Re-election Campaign to Deny Credentials to Bloomberg News Reporters
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign said on Monday it will no longer issue press credentials to reporters working for Bloomberg News, the agency owned by Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg.Bloomberg’s news agency said following his formal announcement of his presidential bid that it would no longer critically cover the Democratic presidential candidates — including Bloomberg and his rivals — but would go on covering Trump.A Bloomberg News representative could not immediately be reached for comment.Credentials enable reporters to more easily access rallies and other campaign events leading up to the November 2020 election. Members of the public must obtain tickets from the campaign and then wait in long lines to enter events.”Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events,” Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement.”We will determine whether to engage with individual reporters or answer inquiries from Bloomberg News on a case-by-case basis.”
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By Polityk | 12/03/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Bullock Becomes 3rd Governor to Drop US Presidential Campaign
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock ended his Democratic presidential campaign Monday, becoming the third Western governor boasting executive experience and a Washington-outsider appeal to flame out in the contest.The campaigns of Bullock, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper failed to gain momentum in a D.C.-centric race in which former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren dominated the polls for most of the past few months.Bullock, a 53-year-old two-term governor and former attorney general, had the textbook resume for primary success in past presidential elections. He’s a former labor lawyer and a gun owner whose governing record included expanding Medicaid in a red state. He touted across-the-aisle appeal, arguing he was the best bet to defeat President Donald Trump because he was the only Democratic candidate to win in a state that Trump won in 2016.But instead of following Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on the path from the governor’s mansion to the White House, Bullock sputtered. The crowded 2020 race has centered on national debates around Trump and impeachment, and the Democratic National Committee imposed tougher polling and fundraising thresholds to make the debate stage. Those thresholds favored those with national name recognition and established online networks, making it tough for Bullock and other newcomers to the national scene to get a toehold.Bullock was also hobbled by his late start, announcing his candidacy in May and joining nearly two dozen other Democratic candidates competing for attention and campaign donations.He struggled to raise money and register in the polls, managing to meet qualification thresholds for only one DNC debate, in July.Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Montana Governor Steve Bullock talks to the media after the first night of the second 2020 Democratic U.S. presidential debate in Detroit, Michigan, July 30, 2019.”While there were many obstacles we could not have anticipated when entering this race, it has become clear that in this moment, I won’t be able to break through to the top tier of this still-crowded field of candidates,” Bullock said in a statement Monday.The governor said that he ran to win back places Democrats have lost and end the influence of “dark money” in politics. Those concerns have not changed, he said, but he leaves the race “filled with gratitude and optimism, inspired and energized by the good people I’ve had the privilege of meeting over the course of the campaign.”Bullock flew to Iowa and notified his staff in person on Sunday that he was dropping out.Unlike Hickenlooper, who dropped out in August to instead run for Senate, or Inslee, who decided to instead seek reelection, Bullock did not announce plans for another campaign.Term limit laws prevent him from running for governor again in 2020, and he has repeatedly brushed off Democratic hopes that he’d instead run for Senate against first-term Republican Steve Daines. Bullock has said that he has no interest in the Senate seat and that there are already strong candidates running against Daines.Bullock’s spokeswoman, Galia Slayen, reiterated that Monday.”While he plans to work hard to elect Democrats in the state and across the country in 2020, it will be in his capacity as a governor and a senior voice in the Democratic Party — not as a candidate for U.S. Senate,” Slayen said in a statement.Bullock had been exploring a presidential run since 2017, but he said he couldn’t announce his candidacy until he had finished his work in Helena, where the state legislature was meeting.He staked his presidential campaign on Iowa, and he made repeated trips to the state to campaign alongside prominent state Attorney General Tom Miller, the first statewide elected official in Iowa to endorse a 2020 candidate.Bullock stuck strictly to his campaign message of needing to win back rural Trump voters, noting he won reelection the day that Trump carried his state by 20 percentage points. He also touted his history as a crusader to eliminate the influence of anonymous and foreign money in elections.But he remained at the bottom of the polls and unfamiliar to many voters. His biggest national exposure appeared to come when he didn’t make the cut for the first debate, resulting in a slate of news stories and an appearance on “The Late Night with Stephen Colbert.”Bullock was Montana’s attorney general for a term before he became governor in 2013. Before that, he worked as an assistant attorney general, as an attorney in private practice in Helena and for law firms in New York and Washington, D.C.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
She Can’t Vote, but 2020 Democrats Want Her Support Anyway
One of the most sought-after presidential endorsements in a key early-voting state is from a woman who cannot vote.As Democrats jockey for support in Nevada, a meeting with Astrid Silva, a 31-year-old immigrant rights activist who has become a public face of the Dreamers, is a can’t-miss early stop.Silva has had dinner with Kamala Harris, policy roundtables with Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, and vegan tamales with Cory Booker. Just this week, after Pete Buttigieg noticed she attended Supreme Court arguments on the program shielding her from deportation, the candidate called to make sure she knew he supported her cause.”Presidential wannabes, when they come here — I don’t know a single one that hasn’t met with her,” said Harry Reid, the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, who helped elevate Silva’s profile during his push for immigration reform. “There’s no question in my mind that candidates are well served to visit with her.”Power of Latino voters Silva’s busy calendar highlights the power of Latino voters in Nevada, the third state on Democrats’ primary calendar. The state has a large immigrant community, and Latinos account for roughly 19% of the electorate, according to the Pew Research Center. Many of those voters are Democrats, making Nevada’s contest a critical test of the candidates’ appeal among a group with rising political power in the party.While immigration has taken a back seat to health care and impeachment in the national primary debate, it remains on the forefront for Nevada Democrats, many of whom want candidates to have a plan to permanently protect Dreamers and offer a path to citizenship, among a host of other changes.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., left, speaks with Astrid Silva, right, at an immigration roundtable at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Las Vegas, June 14, 2019.Silva, one of about 13,000 young immigrants in the state who are temporarily shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, has become a visible figure in the push for immigration reform since meeting Reid in 2009. President Barack Obama cited her in a 2014 immigration speech, and she spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. In 2016, she declared Hillary Clinton’s immigration plan to be the most feasible and endorsed her, helping Clinton as she won the Nevada caucuses and later carried the purple state.Her endorsement “gives that candidate the ability to say that they have been vetted by someone who is fighting with the immigrant community for the immigrant community,” said Democratic state Sen. Yvanna Cancela, a close friend of Silva’s.Silva is wary of giving that stamp of approval easily.Vetting candidatesOver the last several months, she has spent hours in private meetings in Las Vegas with the candidates, usually bringing with her a team of activists, immigrants and volunteer attorneys.Over chips and salsa at family-run Mexican restaurants or, in Booker’s case, vegan tamales and prayer at an altar in a local home, Silva has tried to focus the candidates on personal stories. She and others often describe the fears immigrants face and the complexities of the U.S. immigration system. They talk about sexual assault victims who are scared to report to police because they don’t have legal status. They recount how family members were forced to leave and remain out of the country for up to 10 years before applying to legally rejoin their family.”It’s very different when you’re the one that’s afraid of the police, when you’re the one that’s afraid of ICE, when you’re the one that goes to bed at night thinking, ‘Will I come home tomorrow?'” Silva said.Silva sometimes tells them her story, about crossing the border from Mexico at age 4 with her parents without legal possession. Until she was 26 and Nevada began issuing driver privilege cards to immigrants, she relied on the bus to get around sprawling Las Vegas. She runs a nonprofit that connects immigrants with support and legal help but says she ensures her family or friends can access her bank account to pay her bills in case her legal status changes and she ends up detained.”Our literal everything is in somebody else’s hands,” she said. “I don’t have a say over my life.”While meeting with candidates, her fellow Latino immigrants often give the 2020 hopefuls small tokens to remember them, like an image of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, or an “escapulario,” a devotional necklace featuring Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, that’s seen as a protection from bad things.”They can’t vote. The one thing they can give is their time and literally their treasures, which is their religious artifacts,” Silva said.Dreamer plansBooker, Warren and Harris, who had several meetings with Silva, have released Dreamer plans that would use executive action to extend protections for those already covered and allow other immigrants, like Dreamers’ family members, to apply for protection from deportation.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker, right, speaks with Astrid Silva and others after a roundtable with Dreamers and immigrant activists, in Las Vegas, April 20, 2019.Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed extending protection to parents of legal residents, along with placing a moratorium on all deportations and allowing those without legal status to get health coverage under his Medicare for All plan. His campaign has been working to set up a meeting with Silva.Buttigieg and Silva spoke for about five minutes by phone on Sunday.Biden, who has not released a detailed immigration plan, has called for Congress to grant citizenship to Dreamers.ConcernsBut Silva remains concerned about the Democratic field. She’s seen few candidates truly reaching out and organizing families in the immigrant community, she said. She worries that candidates will change their tune in the general election, when the fight shifts to the Rust Belt, where immigration is an issue that could drive some white working-class voters away.”Right now, they could be talking really nice, but when they have to go moderate, or when they have to go to the right, our families are first to be sacrificed,” Silva said. “We are the first to be on the cutting board because we don’t vote. We can’t vote.”Others worry about campaigns thinking one activist — or one issue — alone will unlock the Latino vote.Like other voters, Latinos care about health care, education and climate change, among other issues, said Leo Murrieta, the director of the advocacy organization Make the Road Nevada.While Silva plays an important role, candidates need to do more than meet with her “just to check off a box,” Murrieta said.”One person can’t possibly be asked to represent an entire population,” he said.The Trump administrationMeanwhile, Silva acknowledges the White House race has been overshadowed by the day-to-day struggles she and other immigrants are facing, which have intensified under the Trump administration.The Supreme Court heard arguments last week about whether President Donald Trump can terminate the DACA program, and a decision is expected by the end of June. Opponents on the right argue DACA protections reward people who broke the law and encourage more people to immigrate without legal permission.Moderate Republicans have backed a path to citizenship for Dreamers, but past efforts have collapsed in Congress.”If my work permit is taken away,” Silva said, “does it matter, my endorsement? Does it matter that I’m advocating for a candidate when I can’t see my family?”
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrats Aim to Catch Up to Trump’s 2020 Cash Advantage
Democrats are narrowing President Donald Trump’s early spending advantage, with two billionaire White House hopefuls joining established party groups to target the president in key battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome of next year’s election.Priorities USA and American Bridge, two of the leading Democratic outside groups, are ramping up operations. The organization ACRONYM recently pledged to spend $75 million. And former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pledged to spend $100 million on ads targeting Trump, while California billionaire Tom Steyer promised $50 million.The billionaires have come under fire from some Democratic rivals for trying to buy the presidency. But the influx of cash is soothing anxiety in some corners of the party that Trump, who has repeatedly broken fundraising records, was off to an unprecedented early start in the 2020 advertising wars. Some had argued that the Democrats’ overwhelming focus on the sprawling presidential primary field allowed the president to burnish a reelection narrative unchallenged ahead of what is expected to be an exceptionally close election.“It’s safe to say the gap is closing,” said David Brock, who leads several Democratic groups, including American Bridge. “People can breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief that there is a major Democratic response now and that Trump’s spending will be met.”The money has put Democrats on firmer footing in states such as Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, which will be key to victory in 2020. But it’s unclear how long it will last.Trump has built a massive money-raising machine that has fused a traditional network of big-dollar Republican donors with a sophisticated digital operation that has raked in small contributions from rank-and-file supporters.FILE – President Donald Trump gestures to the audience during a Keep America Great Rally in Tupelo, Mississippi, Nov. 1, 2019.Sitting presidents have long used their office to draw a spotlight and rake in money while the party out of power fights its way through a primary. Trump, however, never really ceased campaigning and has been running for reelection essentially since taking office, giving him a far earlier head start.For months, his campaign has spent comparatively little on digital advertising in battlegrounds, while dumping money in population-dense states like New York, California and Texas, which are rich in potential donors but won’t decide the outcome of the election. Yet the money he is raising there will enable him to flood important states with advertising early next year.Over the summer, the lack of spending fueled worries — and some snipping — that not enough was being done counter Trump.“We welcome other efforts. But we also need to remember that Trump has yet to start spending money big in swing states,” said Patrick McHugh, the executive director of Priorities USA, which spent roughly $200 million during the 2016 election. “Matching dollar for dollar now would come at the detriment of matching his spending online and on television once he begins spending in earnest in states that matter.”While the economy overall has performed well during Trump’s presidency, Priorities is driving a message that aims to move beyond the toplines and connect peoples’ frustration with their own financial well-being directly to the president. The group has yet to say how much it will spend on the 2020 contest, but it has outspent Trump $6.5 million to $2.2 million since July on Facebook and Google in Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.American Bridge, which has traditionally focused on conducting opposition research, has launched a $50 million radio, TV and digital advertising campaign in the same states that is geared toward rural and exurban voters in about 80 counties that Barack Obama carried but later switched to Trump.“It’s a margins game that we’re playing, but we think that we can get enough people to defect,” Brock said.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate and investor Tom Steyer speaks during a Democratic primary debate in Atlanta, Georgia, Nov. 20, 2019.The group ACRONYM will spend $75 million between now and Election Day on online advertising highlighting the “broken promises” and perceived corruption of the Trump administration. Recent ads have attacked Trump for failing to deliver on his pledge to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. by highlighting the decision by General Motors to close its Lordstown, Ohio, plant.Organizations financed by Steyer, meanwhile, are working to register young people to vote. That includes a door-knocking campaign, as well as digital advertising by NextGen America, where he was president until stepping down over the summer to launch his campaign.An early salvo of ads run by Bloomberg accuses Trump of not caring about health care and questions his temperament and social media use. One recent Facebook ad captioned “What did he tweet today?” features an image of a man facepalming his forehead.“The president is out making his case. And we’ve got to make sure that he doesn’t make it unrebutted,” said Bloomberg chief adviser Howard Wolfson.Since Trump took office, many Democrats have celebrated an outpouring of small-dollar online contributions from an energized grassroots base. Some progressives have touted this success as a viable alternative to the party’s historic reliance on wealthy donors, whom they criticize for having outsized influence.But the reality is both streams of money will be needed against Trump. Particularly before the nominee is chosen, outside groups and the Democratic National Committee — they depend on major donors to finance their efforts — will be handling the lion’s share of general-election work.During a recent DNC fundraiser headlined by Obama, tech CEO and philanthropist Amy Rao fired up a well-heeled crowd of about 100 who gathered at the home of megadonor Karla Jurvetson, high in the hills overlooking Silicon Valley.Defeating Trump, she said, was so important that they should be digging in to their “retirement and what you thought you were going to leave to your children” to support the party regardless of who becomes the nominee. She encouraged the crowd to give “so much that it actually hurts.”“It’s only money. You’ll never miss it,” Rao said. “The biggest gift you can give to the generations that follow us is to make sure this president loses in 2020.”
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Rep. Cummings’ Daughters Back Aide in Race Against His Wife
Elijah Cummings’ daughters are supporting one of his longtime aides in the race for his seat, which is being sought by the late congressman’s widow.
News outlets report 37-year-old Jennifer Cummings issued a statement last week saying Harry Spikes embodies the same spirit as her father, whom he worked beside for 15 years.
Jennifer Cummings and her younger sister, Adia, appeared alongside Spikes as he formally announced his candidacy last month. He’s running for the 7th District congressional seat against at least eight Republicans and 24 Democrats, including Elijah Cummings’ second wife, 48-year-old Maya Rockeymoore Cummings.
Rockeymoore Cummings has said her husband wished for her to succeed him if he died. She resigned as Maryland’s Democratic Party chair to enter the race.
A special primary is set for February.
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
White House to Skip Wednesday’s Impeachment Hearing
The White House says it will not participate in Wednesday impeachment hearing by the House Judiciary Committee.Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler invited U.S. President Donald Trump and his counsel to attend the committee’s first hearing as the impeachment inquiry moves into its next phase.While no one expected Trump to attend – he plans to be at a NATO summit near London this week – White House counsel Pat Cipollone is also declining the invitation.”We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings,” Cipollone said in a letter to Nadler late Sunday.Cipollone said he will reply by the end of the week on whether the White House would appear at future hearings.Nadler assured Trump and his counsel in his invitation letter last week that he “remains committed to ensuring a fair and informative process.”He said Trump has the “opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process.”
Next Phase of Trump Impeachment Begins This Week video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkWatch related video by VOA’s Arash Arabasadi.Wednesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing will focus on the constitutional grounds surrounding impeaching a president. The yet-to-be-named witnesses will be legal experts.The Intelligence Committee, which held a series of public and closed-room hearings last month, will send its findings to the Judiciary Committee, whose members will decide whether to draw up articles of impeachment against Trump.Possible charges that could lead to his impeachment include bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors.Trump is accused of holding up nearly $400 million in badly-needed military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s public commitment to investigate Trump’s 2020 presidential rival Joe Biden for alleged corruption.Biden’s son, Hunter, sat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Trump alleges that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to hold up U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine unless the government fired a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.Trump also insists it was Ukraine, not Russia that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election on behalf of Democrats.No evidence against the Bidens has ever surfaced and the charge against Ukraine was based on a debunked conspiracy theory that originated in Russia.Trump has denied any wrongdoing and calls the impeachment inquiry a hoax.
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
GOP, Dems, Keep Wary Eye on Third-Party Presidential Contenders
In next year’s U.S. presidential election, most voters will have one or more additional choice beyond the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties. And there are indications that a relatively obscure third-party candidate has the potential to decide the election’s outcome.That happened in 2016 when a smattering of votes in key battleground states in the Midwest enabled Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, who won the overall popular vote, thus capturing the tabulation for the Electoral College.Like Clinton, then-Vice President Al Gore, also a Democrat, saw his Oval Office dreams shattered in 2000 when Green Party candidate and consumer activist Ralph Nader tipped the extremely close election of 2000 in favor of Republican George W. Bush.FILE – Then-Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader speaks during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Sept. 25, 2000.No coalitionsCompared to most other democracies, the presidential election system of the United States is unusual and not only because of the Electoral College, a system which in 48 of the 50 states the candidate who wins the majority of votes in a state secures all of that state’s electoral votes.“There are not a lot of strictly presidential systems. Most countries do have something that looks more like a parliamentary system where you are able to develop coalitions between parties,” says Samara Klar, an associate professor of government and public policy at the University of Arizona.“What we see in the United States, where partisanship sort of becomes wrapped up in your social identity, is very unusual,” Klar tells VOA.This polarization tends to limit political contests to the two big parties with others only able to nibble at the edges.Few big splashesIt is thus rare for independent or third-party candidates to make a big splash in modern U.S. presidential elections. The last time a third-party candidate outperformed one of the two major parties was in 1912 when former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, running on the Progressive ticket, finished second to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.Recent research by Klar, who studies independent voters, indicates Democratic-leaning independents are currently more satisfied with their party than Republican-leaning independents.“So I guess if somebody really wanted to make a go for it (in 2020) as a third-party candidate, the Republican-leaning independents seem to be the ones that might be least committed to their own party right now,” explains Klar.That would indicate a third-party candidate next year would potentially have more opportunity to peel off voters from Trump, a Republican, than his eventual Democratic challenger.FILE – Rep. Justin Amash listens during a House committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 12, 2019.GOP challenger?No such high-profile outside candidate has yet to emerge. But there will be contenders.Independent congressman Justin Amash from Michigan, who left the Republican Party, is seen as a potential Libertarian Party candidate to challenge Trump.The Libertarian nominee in 2016, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson captured more than 3% of the national vote.Also a fix: A former West Virginia coal executive, Don Blankenship, who portrays himself as “Trumpier than Trump” is a candidate for the nomination of the Constitution Party, which is expected to be on the ballot in about 15 states.There is also speculation Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, who is a U.S. House member from Hawaii, will pursue a third-party candidacy.Clinton has suggested the Russians are “grooming” Gabbard to make such a run.The House member from Hawaii says she will not be a third-party candidate and calls accusations she is a Russian agent, “completely despicable.”Clinton also accuses Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in 2012 and 2016, of being a “Russian asset.”“They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate,” Clinton said last month of the Russians.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard participates in a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by CNN/New York Times at Otterbein University, Oct. 15, 2019, in Westerville, Ohio.There is a connection between Moscow and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, who says he is interested in the nomination of the Green Party.Ventura, who became famous nationally as a professional wrestler, hosts a talk show on RT America, a TV channel funded by the Russian government.Green Party Communications Manager Michael O’Neil is frustrated with the chatter about links between his party and Moscow.“Anyone who’s presenting a left populist agenda that’s calling for real reform and for dismantling the corporate power structure that runs this country, they say, ‘Oh, they’re foreign agents, they’re a foreign asset, foreign infiltrators,’” O’Neill tells VOA.The spokesman for the Greens also says the party’s critics oscillate between terming it insignificant and having outsized influence.“They’re saying that the Green Party or third parties are fringe, they don’t matter, then the next day, they’re saying that we can single-handedly change the outcome of a presidential election. Both of those things cannot be true,” says O’Neill.What is true, according to the U.S. intelligence community, is the Russians did interfere in the 2016 election and are likely to try to do so again next year.“A third-party candidate causing electoral chaos would be very attractive from a Russian perspective, given the predilection for trying to sow confusion and mistrust in the democratic process and institutions,” says Steven Lloyd Wilson, assistant professor of Political Science at University of Nevada, Reno.“The bulk of the disinformation campaign in 2016 revolved around pushing and amplifying existing cleavages in American politics, using largely cut-and-pasted content from American sources, but retweeted by bot networks so as to try to increase the reach,” explains Wilson, who is also the project manager of the V-Dem Institute.Wilson tells VOA he sees a similar social media campaign as the main risk from Moscow next year supporting a third candidate to try to swing the president election “to reinforce existing narratives being pushed by American actors.”
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
White House Says It Will Skip Wednesday’s Impeachment Hearing
The White House says it will not participate in Wednesday impeachment hearing by the House Judiciary Committee.Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler invited U.S. President Donald Trump and his counsel to attend the committee’s first hearing as the impeachment inquiry moves into its next phase.While no one expected Trump to attend – he plans to be at a NATO summit near London this week – White House counsel Pat Cipollone is also declining the invitation.”We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings,” Cipollone said in a letter to Nadler late Sunday.Cipollone said he will reply by the end of the week on whether the White House would appear at future hearings.Nadler assured Trump and his counsel in his invitation letter last week that he “remains committed to ensuring a fair and informative process.”He said Trump has the “opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process.”
Next Phase of Trump Impeachment Begins This Week video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkWatch related video by VOA’s Arash Arabasadi.Wednesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing will focus on the constitutional grounds surrounding impeaching a president. The yet-to-be-named witnesses will be legal experts.The Intelligence Committee, which held a series of public and closed-room hearings last month, will send its findings to the Judiciary Committee, whose members will decide whether to draw up articles of impeachment against Trump.Possible charges that could lead to his impeachment include bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors.Trump is accused of holding up nearly $400 million in badly-needed military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s public commitment to investigate Trump’s 2020 presidential rival Joe Biden for alleged corruption.Biden’s son, Hunter, sat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Trump alleges that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to hold up U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine unless the government fired a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.Trump also insists it was Ukraine, not Russia that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election on behalf of Democrats.No evidence against the Bidens has ever surfaced and the charge against Ukraine was based on a debunked conspiracy theory that originated in Russia.Trump has denied any wrongdoing and calls the impeachment inquiry a hoax.
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Joe Sestak Drops Out of US Democratic Presidential Race
Former congressman and retired Navy admiral Joe Sestak is giving up his efforts to be the next president of the United States.The Democratic candidate told supporters on Twitter Sunday he is dropping out of the race.He thanked all those who backed his candidacy, calling it an honor to be able to run.Sestak blamed his failure to make an impact on the race in part because he said he lacked the “privilege of national press.”Sestak barely registered in the polls and failed to qualify for any of the Democratic debates.
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Next Phase of Trump Impeachment Begins This Week
This week at a summit in Britain, world leaders mark the 70th anniversary of NATO. President Donald Trump, who has bashed the military alliance and made comments about slashing U.S. backing for it, will attend. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports that, meanwhile, back in the United States, the impeachment inquiry into accusations of presidential misconduct moves to a new phase.
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By Polityk | 12/02/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
How Trump Gained the Upper Hand on Criminal Justice Issues in 2020 Campaign
As he prepared to announce his candidacy for president on Sunday, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a page from an old political playbook.Appearing in a black church in the city’s Brooklyn borough last week, the multibillionaire media mogul apologized for long pushing a now-defunct policing tactic that had disproportionately targeted African American and Hispanic residents.Known as “stop and frisk,” the controversial policy, imposed between 2003 and 2013, allowed New York City police to stop, temporarily detain, and search anyone suspected of carrying weapons and other contraband. “I was wrong,” Bloomberg declared to the congregation. To those who had been wronged by the policy, he said, “I apologize.” Criminal justice policy recordsBloomberg is the latest Democratic candidate forced to reckon with a criminal justice policy record that critics view as too punitive to minorities.Former Vice President Joe Biden has been criticized for backing a 1994 crime bill that helped trigger a federal prison population explosion, while South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has faced questions over policing tactics in his hometown.Others, including Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, have had to justify their law enforcement policies as a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and a California prosecutor, respectively. That Democrats are under scrutiny over criminal justice issues is unusual. Historically, Democratic presidential candidates ran on platforms of civil rights and criminal justice reform while Republicans campaigned as tough law-and-order candidates, according to criminal justice experts. But as the 2020 campaign enters the crucial primary phase, Democratic candidates are being forced to disavow criminal justice policies they once championed, while Republican President Donald Trump — who hardly discussed criminal justice in 2016 — is touting himself as a leading reform candidate.Trump says he can make that claim because he signed into law a sweeping piece of legislation known as the First Step Act last December. The legislation, which has released or reduced the prison sentences of thousands of inmates convicted of drug offenses, has earned Trump praise from many African Americans. “It’s sort of a switch in what people thought was the standard left-right divide,” said Noah Weinrich of Heritage Action for America, a conservative grassroots organization.So what happened?The short answer is the country has changed. The 1994 Crime Bill now under attack from liberals and African Americans was enacted during the Clinton administration, near the height of a violent crime epidemic in the country when heavy-handed policies enjoyed broad public support.But as crime has steadily declined over the past two decades to historically low levels, support for those measures has eroded and politicians on both sides of the aisle have increasingly embraced overhaul proposals.FILE – President Bill Clinton signs the $30 billion crime bill during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington.Behind the 1994 Crime BillBiden helped craft the legislation when he was a U.S. senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and now is taking heat for the legislation’s more onerous side effects. “Today, crime and murder rates are at historic lows and American communities are safer than they have been in generations,” said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, acting director of the Justice Program at New York University’s Brennan Center. “That’s significant because that allows the bipartisan conversations about how to best reduce the number of people who have been incarcerated.” To be sure, criminal justice reform is not among the most pressing concerns for voters who care more about issues such as health care, immigration and jobs, according to polling.But public support for measures, such as eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, has been on an upswing in recent years. That has prompted not only the large field of Democratic candidates but also the Republican president to campaign on criminal justice issues. Today, instead of incarceration, politicians increasingly talk about rehabilitation and redemption.”Now we’re at a point in the country where we’re looking at our criminal justice system and saying maybe sentencing is what we need to think about and how do we best get our nonviolent criminals back into being productive members of society,” veteran Republican strategist David Avella said.Last December, growing bipartisanship for criminal justice reform culminated in the enactment of the First Step Act.FILE – President Donald Trump speaks at the 2019 Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act Celebration in the East Room of the White House in Washington, April 1, 2019.Considered the most sweeping overhaul in a generation, the First Step Act allows for the early release of some nonviolent offenders, while providing inmates with in-prison job training to ease their reintegration into society and reduce recidivism rates. To date, more than 3,000 prisoners have been released and nearly 1,700 others have received sentence reductions under the program.”Last year we brought the whole country together to achieve a truly momentous milestone,” Trump said last month at the historically black Benedict College in South Carolina, where he received an award for signing into law the First Step Act. “They said it couldn’t be done.”Trump was an unlikely champion of the bill. When he first ran for president in 2016, he was seen as an obstacle to reform.While his platform was notably silent on the issue, he consistently pushed for tough-on-crime policies over the decades, advocating lengthy sentences for violent offenders and effusing about New York City’s stop-and-frisk policies. Then, after he was elected in 2016, Trump appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior White House adviser. Given a broad policy platform, Kushner zeroed in on an issue that he said was very close to his heart: prison reform.FILE – Charles Kushner, left, walks to the U.S. District Courthouse with his lawyers Benjamin Brafman, right, and Alfred C. DeCotiis, center, in Newark, N.J., Aug. 18, 2004.Kushner’s father imprisonedHis father, real estate developer Charles Kushner, spent 14 months in a federal prison in the 2000s for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Jared Kushner later called his father’s incarceration “obviously unjust.””When I had my personal experience, I wish that there was somebody who was in my office in the White House, who cared about this issue as much as I do, and if they’d been focused on it in making a difference, perhaps that would have made an impact on a lot of people who I came to meet and care about,” he told CNN’s Van Jones, a prominent African American advocate of the First Step Act, last year. Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy organization that lobbied for the legislation, said Kushner played an indispensable role in championing the bill and that Trump deserves credit for signing it into law.”No one would have thought four years ago or three years ago that President Trump would have signed a law like that,” Ring said. “Everyone would have been skeptical that he would have supported any reform. So because he did it, I see no reason not to celebrate that.”But Democratic candidates were in no mood to celebrate Trump’s action. They have denounced other Trump administration policy decisions that they say have set back years of progress on criminal justice. These include the Justice Department’s recent decision to resume federal executions.”I find it hypocritical of him to tout whatever advances have been made in the First Step Act given his history,” Democratic candidate Harris said at the Bipartisan Justice Center event after Trump received the award. Harris, who had initially opposed the First Step Act for not going far enough to address criminal justice reform before voting for it, has faced criticism for not embracing criminal justice reform when she was San Francisco’s top prosecutor and later California’s attorney general.
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By Polityk | 11/29/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
VOA Interview: US Southern Command Chief Admiral Craig Faller
The top U.S. commander in Latin America and the Caribbean says illicit narcotics money is now a “big part” of financing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government. “If you’re a cartel leader, you now see an easy pathway through Venezuela into commercial shipping and air to distribute your product, and Maduro and his illegitimate regime are getting a cut,” Admiral Craig Faller, the commander of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), told VOA in an exclusive interview.
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By Polityk | 11/29/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Judge Delays Sentencing of Former Trump Adviser Flynn
A U.S. judge on Wednesday delayed the planned Dec. 18 sentencing hearing of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, but did not set a new date.Judge Emmett Sullivan had been expected to put off sentencing after both Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents, and the United States filed a joint motion to request the delay, citing the expected December release of the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the origins of investigations into alleged Russian election interference. The inspector general said last week he expects to release the report on Dec. 9.“The parties expect that the report of this investigation will examine topics related to several matters raised by the defendant,” they wrote in the joint filing.Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to agents about his 2016 conversations with Sergey Kislyak, then-Russian ambassador to the United States. The retired Army lieutenant general is one of several Trump aides to plead guilty or be convicted at trial in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
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By Polityk | 11/28/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Military Aid Life or Death’ for Kyiv
The House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump is focused on whether the White House delayed promised U.S. military aid to Ukraine until its leader agreed to do the president a political favor. While lawmakers investigate the president’s role in the matter, VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine takes a closer look at that military aid at the center of the controversy and why it’s so critical for Ukraine
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By Polityk | 11/27/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Report: Trump Aware of Whistleblower Complaint Before Releasing Ukraine Aid
U.S. President Donald Trump learned about a whistleblower complaint regarding his relations with Ukraine before he decided to unfreeze nearly $400 million in military aid, according to a New York Times report published Tuesday.The Times cited two people familiar with the matter, saying White House lawyers told Trump about the complaint in late August as they worked to determine whether they were required to send it to Congress.That battle formed the early stages of what has become the focus of the impeachment inquiry now playing out in the House of Representatives. Lawmakers received the complaint in late September and made a version of it public. Since then, the Democrat-led House Intelligence committee has held both private and public sessions to hear testimony from current and former diplomats and other officials to examine allegations Trump withheld the aid to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to commit to an investigation of one of Trump’s potential opponents in the 2020 election, Democrat Joe Biden.The House Judiciary Committee, which will decide whether to send articles of impeachment to the full House for a vote, announced Tuesday it would hold its first hearing December 4 and invited Trump to attend.The hearing will look into what the committee calls the “Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.”The guidelines established by Democratic leaders say Trump and his lawyers would be given the chance to question the panel of still-to-be-named legal experts who will appear as witnesses.Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler sent a letter to the White House inviting Trump to attend, calling it “not a right, but a privilege or a courtesy.”FILE – Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler waits to speak during a media briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 31, 2019.”The president has a choice he can make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process,” Nadler said in a separate statement. “I hope that he chooses to participate in the inquiry, directly or through counsel as other presidents have done before him.”Nadler assured Trump that he “remains committed to ensuring a fair and informative process.”Nadler is giving the White House until Sunday night to respond.U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland testified last week that a number of senior Trump administration officials were “in the loop” about Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine.They include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.They have balked at testifying. A federal judge ruled Monday that Trump does not have the power to stop former White House counsel Don McGahn from complying with a subpoena to appear before the House committees.Trump, who insists he did nothing wrong, tweeted Tuesday that he “would love to have Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and many others to testify about the phony impeachment hoax,” calling it a “Democratic scam that is going nowhere.”Trump’s Republican defenders say no matter what the president did, it does not rise to the level of impeachment.Trump alleges that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to withhold loan guarantees to Ukraine unless Kyiv fired a prosecutor investigating the Burisma gas company, on whose board Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, sat.No evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens has ever surfaced. Charges of Ukrainian election interference are based on a debunked conspiracy theory that originated in Russia.
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By Polityk | 11/27/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Top US Diplomat Open to Investigation of Ukraine for Election Meddling
The top U.S. diplomat is refusing to rule out allegations it was Ukraine, not Russia, which was responsible for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.Despite repeated findings by U.S. intelligence agencies, which puts the blame on Russia, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday if there is any information “that so much suggests” a Ukrainian attempt to interfere, it deserves attention.”Anytime there is information that any country has messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down,” Pompeo told reporters during a State Department briefing.”To protect our elections, America should leave no stone unturned,” he added.U.S. intelligence officials contacted by VOA declined comment, pointing to previous reports concluding Russia was responsible.But allegations that Ukraine sought to interfere and sway the result in favor of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton have been gaining momentum among a handful of U.S. lawmakers and prominent supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., leaves Capitol Hill, Nov. 15, 2019, in Washington.During impeachment hearings last week, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Devin Nunes, raised the theory, saying Trump had reason to be suspicious of Ukraine because the country was “out to get him.””It’s an inconvenient truth that the Democrats don’t want to admit,” Nunes said. “It was their operatives that were dirtying up the Trump campaign using Ukrainian sources in 2016, and they do not want us to get to the bottom of it.”Only such thinking has been consistently rejected by U.S. intelligence agencies, which concluded with moderate to high confidence that Russia was behind what they described as an Former White House national security aide Fiona Hill, arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 21, 2019.The most recent pushback came last week, when Trump’s former top adviser on Russia warned lawmakers that Moscow’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election were “beyond dispute.””Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” Fiona Hill said last Thursday while testifying on Capitol Hill.”This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” she added.But Pompeo, who led the U.S. spy agency before becoming secretary of state, declined to put to rest Tuesday allegations of Ukraine’s possible involvement.”I served as the CIA director for the first year and a half of this administration,” he said. “I can assure you there were many countries that were actively engaged in trying to undermine American democracy.””Whatever nations it is that we have information that so much suggests that there might have been interference or an effort to interfere in our elections, we have an obligation to make sure that the American people get to go to the ballot box, cast their ballots in a way that is unimpacted by these malevolent actors,” he said.Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 11/27/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Billionaire Investor Joins Democratic Presidential Race
The crowded field of U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls added a new name this week, when former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially joined the race on Sunday. VOA’s Ardita Dunellari reports the 77-year old billionaire investor and philanthropist has name recognition and millions of dollars of his own fortune for campaign spending, but polls show the political moderate who once ran as a Republican faces skepticism among some Democrats.
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By Polityk | 11/27/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Impeachment Drama Gets Attention, Mixed Reviews Around World
As the impeachment process against U.S. President Donald Trump unfolds, it’s not only Americans glued to their television sets. People around the world are fascinated by the political warfare in Washington and many say it shows American democracy in action. Trump is accused of improperly pressuring Ukraine to investigate the family of his political rival Joe Biden, a charge he strongly denies. From London to Delhi, Moscow to Johannesburg, Henry Ridgwell looks at world reaction to the impeachment process.
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By Polityk | 11/26/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
Democrat Warren Accuses Rival Bloomberg of Trying to Buy US Presidential Election
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren blasted billionaire Michael Bloomberg on Monday for launching his nascent White House bid with a $37 million TV advertising blitz, accusing the former New York City mayor of trying to buy American democracy.Bloomberg, 77, a media mogul who will use his personal fortune to spend freely on his campaign and has said he will not take donations, officially jumped into the White House race as a moderate Democrat on Sunday.Warren, 70, a liberal U.S. senator from Massachusetts and one of the leading Democratic contenders according to polls, has proposed a wealth tax on billionaires and frequently rails against corporate America, something Bloomberg has criticized.At an event with voters in Ankeny, Iowa, Warren opened her remarks denouncing Bloomberg’s tactics.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks in Las Vegas, Oct. 2, 2019.”Michael Bloomberg is making a bet about democracy in 2020. He doesn’t need people, he only needs bags and bags of money. I think Michael Bloomberg is wrong,” Warren said.”That’s exactly what’s now in play in 2020 — which vision, which version of our democracy is going to win. If Michael Bloomberg’s version of democracy wins then democracy changes. It’s going to be which billionaire you can stomach,” she said.Bloomberg’s commentsBloomberg’s campaign would not comment on Warren’s remarks, but at Bloomberg’s first campaign event Monday in Norfolk, Virginia, he defended using his wealth to underwrite his candidacy.”For years I’ve been using my resources for the things that matter to me,” Bloomberg said, according to a video posted by PBS. “I am going to make my case and let the voters who are plenty smart make their choice.”Bloomberg’s late entry into the race, less than three months before the Democrats’ nominating contests begin, reflects his concern that none of the 17 other candidates vying to take on Republican president Donald Trump in next November’s election can beat him.Despite Warren’s status among contenders in polls, moderates like Bloomberg fear her planned costly expansion of government programs will alienate voters in battleground states.Biden, ButtigiegAt the same time, some Democrats have been unnerved by an uneven campaign performance from former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, while another leading candidate, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 37, is seen in some quarters as too young and inexperienced.At a campaign event in Creston, Iowa, Buttigieg declined to comment on Bloomberg’s candidacy and plan to skip early-voting states in favor of competing in larger nominating contests later in the calendar.But Lori Hays, 59, a Buttigieg supporter from Creston, said Bloomberg was making a mistake.”As an Iowan, it makes me feel like they don’t care about Iowa,” Hays said. “To me, Bloomberg thinks he can buy the White House with his billions of dollars and that we Iowans don’t matter.”
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By Polityk | 11/26/2019 | Повідомлення, Політика
