Розділ: Політика
Joe Manchin: The West Virginia Senator Blocking Joe Biden’s Agenda
A long-simmering battle within the Democratic Party came to a head this week when Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced he will not support a sweeping package of voting rights reforms because no Republicans are willing to vote for it. At the same time, he repeated his vow to vote to protect a Senate rule, called the filibuster, that allows a minority of the body to prevent pieces of legislation from receiving an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. FILE – Gov. Joe Manchin, left, is sworn into office for a second term at the Capitol in Charleston, West Virginia, Jan. 19, 2009.Manchin worked his way up through state politics beginning in 1982, serving in the state’s House of Delegates and the State Senate, before being elected West Virginia’s secretary of state in 2001, and then governor in 2005. In 2010, he won a special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat that opened with the death of Democratic Senator Robert Byrd. Political leanings While the West Virginia he grew up in was heavily Democratic, Manchin is now the sole member of his party in any statewide office, and is its only member in the state congressional delegation. In his most recent election, Manchin prevailed in 2018 with only 49.6% of the vote. By contrast, Donald Trump won West Virginia with 68% of the vote in 2016 and 69% in 2020. That may be, in part, why Manchin is farther toward the political right than other members of his party. But political expediency may not explain everything. A political mentor to Manchin, Byrd was the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, representing West Virginia for 51 years. He was also a dedicated Senate institutionalist who wrote two books about the body, a supporter of the filibuster, and a strong believer in the ability of senators to put party aside and work together for the good of the country. But Byrd’s legacy — and the legacy of the filibuster — is complicated. The founder of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter in West Virginia in the 1940s, Byrd later renounced his connection to the racist organization. However, he also filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and voted against the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court. Byrd’s influence Some of Byrd’s beliefs about the way the Senate can and should operate seem to live on in Manchin, despite dwindling evidence that meaningful cross-party cooperation is possible. “I think he’s a guy who has certain commitments that maybe are a little out of step with the way American politics has emerged over the last decade,” said Richard Brisbin, an emeritus professor in the political science department at West Virginia University. FILE – Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., presides over a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 26, 2007.”I really think, deep in his heart, he thinks people can come together and get along and solve problems,” Brisbin said. “And I just think that’s very difficult in the kind of political climate we have in the United States at present. And I don’t think that there are many politicians, highly visible politicians in national politics, who are in his camp, particularly among the Republicans, but also to some degree among at least half the members of his own party.” ‘No’ vote on ending filibuster In a Senate with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, Democrats’ advantage derives from the ability of Vice President Kamala Harris to break ties in a party-line vote. However, the filibuster requires 60 votes to end debate on a bill. This means that with a few exceptions, Democrats need to persuade 10 Republicans to side with them in order to get any legislation passed. Republican leaders in the Senate have essentially promised to use the filibuster to block everything Democrats and Biden want to do. “One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week. Continued Republican obstruction has led to increasingly loud calls from Democrats to eliminate the filibuster, which they could do with a majority vote amending the body’s rules that would be immune to the filibuster. Manchin has consistently poured cold water on his fellow party members’ hopes that he will side with them on a rule change. By pairing a renewed commitment to saving the filibuster with the announcement that he would not vote for the Democrats’ package of voting rights legislation, Manchin sparked an especially sharp reaction from many on the left. “Joe Manchin is doing everything in his power to stop democracy and to stop our work for the people, the work that the people sent us here to do,” Congressman Jamaal Bowman said in a CNN interview on Monday. Early support for bill The voting rights legislation that Manchin will not support is particularly important to Democrats in light of the multiple state-level laws being passed by Republican-dominated legislatures that will make it more difficult to vote, and in some cases, give legislators the authority to overrule local elections officials and potentially overturn the results of an election. FILE – Voters line up outside a polling place in Charleston, W.Va., Oct. 21, 2020, the first day of early in-person voting in the state for the November 3 election.What is particularly galling to Manchin’s Democratic colleagues is that his objections to the voting rights bill have nothing to do with its contents. In fact, he co-sponsored substantially identical legislation in 2019. His objection is that the bill will not receive any Republican support in Congress, and that passing it along party lines, as he wrote, “will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy.” Detractors point out that in 2019 when Manchin supported the bill, it also had no Republican co-sponsors and would likely have received no Republican votes on the Senate floor. A unique position While critics of Manchin on the Democratic side claim he is standing in the way of Congress making progress in the current session, not everyone agrees. Some expect that bipartisan cooperation isn’t only possible but likely — just not on the issues the Democratic left is most passionate about. “Senator Manchin is a Democrat, who represents West Virginia, which is a state trending more Republican,” said Michael Thorning, associate director of governance at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “Perhaps he is uniquely representative of the situation that we see in Congress, where you have an evenly divided Senate, and a House that is very, very tight.” He added, “The last election did not produce a result that suggested one party had a very strong mandate. So, you take a senator like Joe Manchin, someone who has fairly moderate policy positions that match up with the voters of his state — he’s going to want to steer the federal policy debates toward that.” Thorning said that far from dooming the Senate to a session with no progress, Manchin’s stance on the filibuster may allow senators the political space they need to compromise on other issues, including an infrastructure bill and criminal justice reform. “Those would be big accomplishments, ones that could not be achieved in recent years,” Thorning said.
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By Polityk | 06/10/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Attorney General Warns Ransomware ‘Getting Worse and Worse’
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland warned Wednesday that ransom-motivated cyberattacks are “getting worse and worse,” echoing other top Biden administration officials who have sounded the alarm about the problem in recent weeks.
“We have to do everything we possibly can here,” Garland told lawmakers. “This is a very, very serious threat.” The attorney general’s warning during a Senate hearing on the Justice Department’s fiscal 2022 budget request followed a pair of high-profile ransomware attacks over the past month that have rattled the U.S. national security and law enforcement establishment and sparked calls for beefed-up cyber defenses. In a ransomware attack, hackers lock a company’s or organization’s data, offering keys to unlock the files in exchange for a large sum of money. FILE – Tanker trucks are parked near the entrance of Colonial Pipeline Company, in Charlotte, N.C., May 12, 2021.Last month, cybercriminals believed to be based in Russia hacked the computer networks of Colonial Pipeline, America’s largest fuel pipeline operator, disrupting supplies along the East Coast and touching off panic-buying. Colonial later said it paid $4.4 million to retrieve access to its network. On Monday, the Justice Department revealed it had seized most of the ransom. Last week, ransomware criminals struck JBS USA, the U.S. arm of the world’s largest processor of fresh beef and pork based in Brazil. JBS refused to pay a ransom and was forced to shut down its processing facilities in the United States. FILE – A JBS meatpacking plant is seen in Plainwell, Michigan, June 2, 2021.The White House has said the criminal gangs behind both attacks — known as DarkSide and REvil — are likely based in Russia, but officials have not alleged any ties to the Russian government. The Justice Department identified DarkSide as the hacking group that was targeted by law enforcement officials for retaliation and ransom recovery. The ransomware attacks are likely to hang over the June 16 meeting between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers on Monday that Biden will make clear to Putin that “states cannot be in the business of harboring those who are engaged in these kinds of attacks.” Once seen as a financial crime, ransomware has emerged as a growing national security threat in just the last couple of years, as cybercriminals have turned to attacking local governments, schools, hospitals and other critical service providers, and demanding millions of dollars in ransom. According to a May 12 report by Check Point Research, ransomware attacks more than doubled this year compared with the beginning of 2020, with health care and utilities the most commonly targeted sectors. “You can imagine what could happen if we had multiple attacks at the same time on even more fundamental infrastructure. So, I’m very worried about it, and so is the administration,” Garland said. “And that’s why we’ve asked for such a large increase in our cyber budget.” The Justice Department’s nearly $36 billion budget includes about $1.1 billion for cybersecurity. If approved by Congress, that would constitute the largest increase in cybersecurity resources for the department in more than a decade, according to Garland. In April, before the attack on Colonial, the Justice Department set up an internal task force dedicated to developing strategies to combat ransomware. Its first major operation was recapturing most of the millions of dollars paid in ransom by Colonial to DarkSide hackers, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced. Garland called the recovery a “significant success,” but he said it is not enough. “This has to be a constant, just a constant focus,” he said, adding that he has discussed the issue with his counterparts from major U.S. allies.
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By Polityk | 06/10/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Senate Passes Bill to Boost US Tech Industry, Counter Rivals
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday that aims to boost U.S. semiconductor production and the development of artificial intelligence and other technology in the face of growing international competition, most notably from China. The 68-32 vote for the bill demonstrates how confronting China economically is an issue that unites both parties in Congress. That’s a rarity in an era of division as pressure grows on Democrats to change Senate rules to push past Republican opposition and gridlock. The centerpiece of the bill is a $50 billion emergency allotment to the Commerce Department to stand up semiconductor development and manufacturing through research and incentive programs previously authorized by Congress. The bill’s overall cost would increase spending by about $250 billion with most of the spending occurring in the first five years. Supporters described it as the biggest investment in scientific research that the country has seen in decades. It comes as the nation’s share of semiconductor manufacturing globally has steadily eroded from 37% in 1990 to about 12% now, and as a chip shortage has exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at the Capitol in Washington, March 6, 2021.”The premise is simple — if we want American workers and American companies to keep leading the world, the federal government must invest in science, basic research and innovation, just as we did decades after the Second World War,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.”Whoever wins the race to the technologies of the future is going to be the global economic leader, with profound consequences for foreign policy and national security, as well,” he added. FILE – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 25, 2021.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill was incomplete because it did not incorporate more Republican-sponsored amendments. He nonetheless supported it. “Needless to say, final passage of this legislation cannot be the Senate’s final word on our competition with China,” he said. “It certainly won’t be mine.” President Joe Biden applauded the bill’s passage in a statement Tuesday evening, saying, “As other countries continue to invest in their own research and development, we cannot risk falling behind. America must maintain its position as the most innovative and productive nation on Earth.” Senators slogged through days of debates and amendments leading up to Tuesday’s final vote. Schumer’s office said 18 Republican amendments will have received votes as part of passage of the bill. It also said the Senate this year has already held as many roll-call votes on amendments than it did in the last Congress when the Senate was under Republican control. While the bill enjoys bipartisan support, a core group of Republican senators has reservations about its costs. One of the bill’s provisions would create a new directorate focused on artificial intelligence and quantum science with the National Science Foundation. The bill would authorize up to $29 billion over five years for the new branch within the foundation, with an additional $52 billion for its programs. Senator Rand Paul said Congress should be cutting the foundation’s budget, not increasing it. He called the agency “the king of wasteful spending.” The agency finances about a quarter of all federally supported research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. “The bill is nothing more than a big government response that will make our country weaker, not stronger,” Paul said. FILE – Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.But Senator Maria Cantwell noted that a greater federal investment in the physical sciences had been called for during the administration of President George W. Bush to ensure U.S. economic competitiveness. “At the time, I’m pretty sure we thought we were in a track meet where our competitor was, oh, I don’t know, maybe half a lap behind us. I’m pretty sure now as the decade has moved on, we’re looking over our shoulder and realizing that the competition is gaining,” said Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The lead Republican on the committee also weighed in to support the bill. “This is an opportunity for the United States to strike a blow on behalf of answering the unfair competition that we are seeing from communist China,” Senator Roger Wicker said. Senators have tried to strike a balance when calling attention to China’s growing influence. They want to avoid fanning divisive anti-Asian rhetoric when hate crimes against Asian Americans have spiked during the coronavirus pandemic. Other measures spell out national security concerns and target money-laundering schemes or cyberattacks by entities on behalf of the Chinese government. There are also “Buy America” provisions for infrastructure projects in the U.S. Senators added provisions that reflect shifting attitudes toward China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. One would prevent federal money for the Wuhan Institute of Virology as fresh investigations proceed into the origins of the virus and possible connections to the lab’s research. The city registered some of the first coronavirus cases. It’s unclear whether the measure will find support in the Democratic-led House, where the Science Committee is expected to soon consider that chamber’s version. Congressman Ro Khanna, who has been working with Schumer for two years on legislation that’s included in the bill, called it the biggest investment in science and technology since the Apollo space flight program a half century ago. “I’m quite certain we will get a really good product on the president’s desk,” Schumer said. Biden said he looked forward to working with the House on the legislation, “and I look forward to signing it into law as soon as possible.”
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By Polityk | 06/09/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Key Democratic Senator Voices Opposition to Voting Law Reforms
A key U.S. centrist Democratic lawmaker, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, adamantly voiced his opposition Sunday to sweeping nationalization of voting laws favored by President Joe Biden and other Democrats.Manchin, perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the 100-member U.S. Senate, said in an opinion article in a home-state newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and in a “Fox News Sunday” television interview that he will continue to oppose the voting reforms because they are too partisan and have not drawn any Republican congressional support.In the television interview, Manchin described the measure as “the wrong piece of legislation. It will continue to divide us.”The national voting rights measure would overturn voting restrictions approved by at least 14 Republican-controlled state legislatures that would curb some expanded voting access that was deployed in the 2020 presidential election, such as extended voting hours, drive-through voting at central locations and the widespread use of mail-in balloting.In his Charleston newspaper essay, Manchin argued that “congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials.”“The truth, I would argue, is that voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen,” he said.The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has already approved the legislation. Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly support it, with Republicans equally opposed.FILE – Voting rights activists gather during a protest against Texas legislators who are advancing a slew of new voting restrictions, in Austin, Texas, May 8, 2021.Democrats have said the federal legislation is necessary, especially to ensure the voting rights of minorities, while accusing Republicans of trying to limit such voting because Blacks overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Republicans say the new laws are needed to protect election security although there was no evidence of any substantial irregularities in the November 2020 election. Manchin’s opposition imperils its passage in the politically divided Senate. Democrats, voting as a 50-member bloc, have been able to push through some legislation on 51-50 votes, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pledged to bring the voting rights legislation to a Senate floor vote in two weeks, but Republicans are likely to filibuster against it, forcing a 60-vote supermajority for passage. That would require Democrats to gain at least 11 Republican votes to support the legislation if Manchin maintains his opposition.Some progressive Democrats have called for ending Senate filibusters to ease passage of legislation by simple majority votes, but Manchin, and some other Democrats, are opposed, saying the legislative tactic has benefited them when Republicans have controlled the Senate.State passage of new voting restrictions has its roots in the November election, with some Republican state lawmakers voicing support for former President Donald Trump’s continuing baseless claims that the election was rigged and that he was cheated out of another four-year term in the White House.The federal legislation Manchin opposes would set minimum standards for early voting that was widespread before the official Election Day on November 3 and mail-in voting that could override some of the state Republican voting laws.Manchin has voiced support for these proposals but has not clarified where he stands on other provisions, such as requiring that congressional geographic redistricting every 10 years be done by nonpartisan commissions and establishing public financing for congressional campaigns.Manchin said he favors limited voting rights reform, requiring the federal government to sign off on state election law changes, but his stance so far has only drawn support from one Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
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By Polityk | 06/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Key US Senator Voices His Opposition to Voting Law Reforms
A key U.S. centrist Democratic lawmaker, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, adamantly voiced his opposition Sunday to sweeping nationalization of voting laws favored by President Joe Biden and other Democrats.Manchin, perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the 100-member U.S. Senate, said in an opinion article in a home-state newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and in a “Fox News Sunday” television interview that he will continue to oppose the voting reforms because they are too partisan and have not drawn any Republican congressional support.In the television interview, Manchin described the measure as “the wrong piece of legislation. It will continue to divide us.”The national voting rights measure would overturn voting restrictions approved by at least 14 Republican-controlled state legislatures that would curb some expanded voting access that was deployed in the 2020 presidential election, such as extended voting hours, drive-through voting at central locations and the widespread use of mail-in balloting.In his Charleston newspaper essay, Manchin argued that “congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials.”“The truth, I would argue, is that voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen,” he said.The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has already approved the Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly support it, with Republicans equally opposed.FILE – Voting rights activists gather during a protest against Texas legislators who are advancing a slew of new voting restrictions, in Austin, Texas, May 8, 2021.Democrats have said the federal legislation is necessary, especially to ensure the voting rights of minorities, while accusing Republicans of trying to limit such voting because Blacks overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Republicans say the new laws are needed to protect election security although there was no evidence of any substantial irregularities in the November 2020 election. Manchin’s opposition imperils its passage in the politically divided Senate. Democrats, voting as a 50-member bloc, have been able to push through some legislation on 51-50 votes, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pledged to bring the voting rights legislation to a Senate floor vote in two weeks, but Republicans are likely to filibuster against it, forcing a 60-vote supermajority for passage. That would require Democrats to gain at least 11 Republican votes to support the legislation if Manchin maintains his opposition.Some progressive Democrats have called for ending Senate filibusters to ease passage of legislation by simple majority votes, but Manchin, and some other Democrats, are opposed, saying the legislative tactic has benefited them when Republicans have controlled the Senate.State passage of new voting restrictions has its roots in the November election, with some Republican state lawmakers voicing support for former President Donald Trump’s continuing baseless claims that the election was rigged and that he was cheated out of another four-year term in the White House.The federal legislation Manchin opposes would set minimum standards for early voting that was widespread before the official Election Day on November 3 and mail-in voting that could override some of the state Republican voting laws.Manchin has voiced support for these proposals but has not clarified where he stands on other provisions, such as requiring that congressional geographic redistricting every 10 years be done by nonpartisan commissions and establishing public financing for congressional campaigns.Manchin said he favors limited voting rights reform, requiring the federal government to sign off on state election law changes, but his stance so far has only drawn support from one Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
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By Polityk | 06/07/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump to GOP: Support Candidates Who ‘Stand for Our Values’
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday urged Republicans to support those candidates who share his values in next year’s midterm elections as he launched a new phase of his post-presidency.Trump teased the prospect of presidential bid of his own in 2024 but vowed first to be an active presence on the campaign trail for his allies in next year’s fight for control of Congress.”The survival of America depends on our ability to elect Republicans at every level starting with the midterms next year,” Trump said.Trump delivered his latest comments in a speech to hundreds of Republican officials and activists gathered for the North Carolina GOP convention, the opening appearance in what is expected to be a new phase of rallies and public events.Democratic National Committee spokesman Ammar Moussa took a shot at Trump in a statement released ahead of his speech.”More than 400,000 dead Americans, millions of jobs lost and recklessly dangerous rhetoric is apparently not enough for Republicans to break with a loser president who cost them the White House, Senate and House,” Moussa said.Other appearances consideredThe former Republican president, who has been out of office for more than four months and banned from his preferred social media accounts, hopes to use events like the North Carolina gathering to elevate his voice ahead of another potential presidential run.His advisers are considering appearances in Ohio, Florida, Alabama and Georgia to help bolster midterm candidates and energize voters.In contrast to the mega rallies that filled sports arenas when Trump was president, he spoke to several hundred North Carolina Republicans seated at dinner tables inside the Greenville convention center Saturday night. Tens of thousands more followed along on internet streams.Invited to the stage briefly during his remarks, Trump daughter-in-law and North Carolina native Lara Trump announced she would not run for the Senate, citing family obligations.”I am saying no for now, not no forever,” she said.Minutes later, Trump announced his endorsement of loyalist Representative Ted Budd in the crowded Republican primary in the state’s 13th District, adding a slap at former Governor Pat McCrory, who has been critical of Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election.”You can’t pick people who have already lost two races and do not stand for our values,” Trump said.Trump devoted much of his remarks to railing against President Joe Biden, who he said was leading “the most radical left-wing administration in history.”While Trump has had to work harder to make his voice heard since leaving office, he remains a commanding force in the Republican Party.A recent Quinnipiac University national poll found that 66% of Republicans would like to see him run for reelection, though the same number of Americans overall said they would prefer he didn’t.
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By Polityk | 06/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Infrastructure Bill Would Upgrade Aging US Waterways System
It’s a routine sight on the Illinois River: towboats slowly pushing barges carrying everything from salt and petroleum to corn and soybeans.”This is the backbone of our economy,” said Tom Heinold, chief of the operations division for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District. “Here in the upper Midwest, we feed the world from right here.”Heinold oversees Corps of Engineers facilities along the Illinois River, including the Starved Rock Lock and Dam near Utica. The National Waterways Foundation says the statewide system moves more than 83 million tons of freight annually, worth more than $13 billion to the U.S. economy.Using barges to transport goods on rivers is not only efficient but also environmentally friendly, reducing the need to use petroleum-guzzling trucks, Heinold said.”We can take 1,000 tractor-trailer trucks’ worth of commodities and put them on a single 15-ton barge tow,” he told VOA. “If it’s big, bulk, it’s more efficient to go on the rivers. So we see the benefits of that, that cost savings over roads and rails.”Showing their ageBut the locks, which rise and fall to allow barges to navigate a consistent depth of the river, were built nearly a century ago and are showing their age.”It is literally, in places, crumbling,” Heinold said while peering from a balcony overlooking the lock and dam. “You can see the concrete right in front of you, deteriorating. On the vertical walls, you can see the corner armor rusting. Some of it is bent.””They were built with a 50-year design life,” explained Rodney Weinzierl, a farmer in central Illinois, where the waterways are key to getting crops to foreign buyers. Weinzierl serves as executive director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, which advocates for improving the country’s inland waterway system.”Exports are very important to Illinois and the U.S., and infrastructure is what keeps us competitive with foreign competition,” Weinzierl said. But since most taxpayers rarely engage with this part of the country’s infrastructure, he said, the waterways often get overlooked.”The public just never really sees it,” he told VOA. “It’s much lower on the list of awareness of infrastructure that’s really helped make our nation what it is today.”FILE – These are the Emsworth Locks and Dam on the Ohio River at Emsworth, Pa., April 9, 2021. They are 70 years old and in need of repair.Weinzierl says it’s crucial to improve the locks and dams so they don’t become unusable, which would impact the flow of grains and other goods — as well as the prices of those goods.But for Heinold to be able to keep things running, the system “needs some help to be reliable and safe,” he told VOA.’Long-term investments’Both President Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion infrastructure plan and a Republican counterproposal would invest in the country’s inland waterways and ports.Previous funding allowed Heinold to oversee upgrades to the Starved Rock Lock and Dam in 2020, which closed the river to all traffic for several months. Heinold says more work is needed throughout the system, and Weinzierl understands it isn’t cheap.”Each one of these projects are several hundred million dollars,” Weinzierl explained, and he hopes enough money is allocated to perform upgrades to at least two locks along the Illinois River in the greatest need of repair.”These are long-term investments,” Weinzierl said. “The [U.S.] House [of Representatives] last year actually passed out of committee a bill to put more money in the river system, which is the first that happened in several decades. So we felt good that if there was going to be an infrastructure package that rivers were going to be a part, and we’re pleased to see that it was a part.”Heinold says he already has a list of what he would do with an infusion of funding.”It’s not that we have it spent before it gets here, but we know exactly what our capabilities are and where the funding needs to go,” he said.Biden’s infrastructure plan would dedicate $17 billion to improve waterways, ports and airports. A Senate Republican counteroffer also proposes spending billions to upgrade waterways. Efforts to advance legislation both parties can support continues in Washington.
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By Polityk | 06/06/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
JPMorgan Freezes Donations to Republicans who Contested 2020 Election
JPMorgan Chase & Co will resume making political donations to U.S. lawmakers but will not give to Republican members of Congress who voted to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory, according to an internal memo Friday seen by Reuters.The country’s largest lender was among many corporations that paused political giving following the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot when supporters of former president Donald Trump tried to stop Congress from certifying the election.Just hours later, 147 Republicans, the vast majority of them in the House of Representatives, voted to overturn the Electoral College results which Trump falsely claimed were tainted by fraud.Following a review, JPMorgan will this month resume giving through its Political Action Committee (PAC) but will continue its freeze on donations to a “handful” of the 147 lawmakers whom it had previously supported, the bank said.The pause will last through the 2021-22 election cycle, which includes November’s midterm elections, after which JPMorgan will review whether to resume contributions to the lawmakers concerned on an individual basis, it said.”This was a unique and historic moment when we believe the country needed our elected officials to put aside strongly held differences and demonstrate unity,” the bank wrote of the Jan. 6 vote to certify Biden’s win.Also on Friday, Citigroup said it was resuming PAC contributions but did not specify how it would treat the lawmakers who tried to block Biden taking office.Citigroup said it would evaluate whether to give to all lawmakers case-by-case based on a new set of criteria which includes “character and integrity” and “a commitment to bipartisanship and democratic institutions.”JPMorgan noted that its PAC is an important tool for engaging in the political process in the United States. PACs are political committees organized for the purpose of raising cash to support or in some cases oppose election candidates.”Democracy, by its nature, requires active participation, compromise, and engaging with people with opposing views. That is why government and business must work together,” JPMorgan wrote.As part of its revamped spending strategy, the bank will also expand donations beyond lawmakers who oversee financial matters to those active on issues the bank considers “moral and economic imperatives for our country,” such as addressing the racial wealth gap, education and criminal justice reform.Spending slowly resumesSince the initial January backlash, corporations have been grappling with how to resume PAC spending, seen by lobbyists as important for gaining access to policymakers, without alienating other stakeholders, including their employees who fund the PACs.Other big financial companies that paused donations have slowly resumed spending.Morgan Stanley’s PAC resumed donations to some lawmakers in February, while the American Bankers Association PAC, one of the biggest in the country, started giving again in March, federal records show.While JPMorgan did not name lawmakers in its memo, the bank’s new policy risks alienating Republicans with sway over banking policy, some of whom are already angered by its active stance on issues like climate change and racial equity.Of the 147 lawmakers, JPMorgan gave $10,000 each to House finance committee members Blaine Luetkemeyer and Lee Zeldin, and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, among others, during the 2019-20 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). Representatives for the lawmakers did not respond to requests for comment.All told, JPMorgan’s PAC gave nearly $1 million to federal candidates and committees backing candidates during the 2019-20 election cycle, according to CRP.Of the $600,300 it gave to federal candidates, nearly 60% went to Republicans and the rest to Democrats, according to the CRP data, a mix that is likely to swing further to the left as the bank supports a broader range of social and economic issues.Commercial banks overall have ramped up political spending in recent years, dishing out $14.6 million to federal candidates in the 2020 cycle, the second highest amount since 1990, the data shows.Following the 2008 financial crisis, that mix favored Republicans but in recent years banks have increased spending on Democrats as they look to rebuild bipartisan support in Congress.
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By Polityk | 06/05/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Ex-Counsel Tells Congress of Trump Efforts to Undercut Russia Probe, Democrats Say
A former White House counsel “shed new light” on the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. elections and the pressure he was under to stymie the federal probe, congressional Democrats said Friday. Don McGahn, who served as Donald Trump’s presidential lawyer for nearly two years before resigning in October 2018, testified in a daylong, closed-door session before the House Judiciary Committee.McGahn appeared under a subpoena issued about two years ago to testify as the committee was looking into allegations of wrongdoing by Trump. Late in 2019, the House voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate, then under Republican control, acquitted him.A transcript of McGahn’s testimony is due to be made public in coming days. Under an agreement with the Department of Justice, Judiciary Committee members declined to provide specifics of what he said before then.”Mr. McGahn was clearly distressed by President Trump’s refusal to follow his legal advice, again and again, and he shed new light on several troubling events today,” committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement.Republican Representative Matt Gaetz told reporters that McGahn’s testimony provided no new information, however.”The expectation was that Don McGahn would be some sort of essential witness bringing new information worthy of years of litigation and countless taxpayer dollars spent,” Gaetz said of Democrats.Democratic Representative Madeleine Dean, a senior Judiciary Committee member, told reporters McGahn “brought to life the pressure he was under, the pressure that other aides were under by the president to direct Rod Rosenstein to oust special counsel [Robert] Mueller.”At the time, Rosenstein was serving as deputy attorney general, and Mueller was probing Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign.After a lengthy investigation, Mueller found “numerous links” between the campaign and the Russians and concluded the campaign “expected it would benefit” from Moscow’s effort to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor. But Mueller said such interactions either did not amount to criminal behavior or would be difficult to prove in court.
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By Polityk | 06/05/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
After 2-year Battle, House Panel to Interview Trump Counsel
The House Judiciary Committee is poised to question former White House counsel Don McGahn behind closed doors on Friday, two years after House Democrats originally sought his testimony as part of investigations into former President Donald Trump.
The long-awaited interview is the result of an agreement reached last month in federal court. House Democrats — then investigating whether Trump tried to obstruct the Justice Department’s probes into his presidential campaign’s ties to Russia — originally sued after McGahn defied an April 2019 subpoena on Trump’s orders.
That same month, the Justice Department released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the matter. In the report, Mueller pointedly did not exonerate President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice but also did not recommend prosecuting him, citing Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president.
Mueller’s report quoted extensively from interviews with McGahn, who described the president’s efforts to stifle the investigation.
While the Judiciary panel eventually won its fight for McGahn’s testimony, the court agreement almost guarantees they won’t learn anything new. The two sides agreed that McGahn will only be questioned about information attributed to him in publicly available portions of Mueller’s report.
Still, House Democrats kept the case going, even past Trump’s presidency, and are moving forward with the interview to make an example of the former White House counsel. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the agreement for McGahn’s testimony is a good-faith compromise that “satisfies our subpoena, protects the Committee’s constitutional duty to conduct oversight in the future, and safeguards sensitive executive branch prerogatives.”
It is unclear what House Democrats will do with the testimony, which they sought before twice impeaching Trump. The Senate acquitted Trump of impeachment charges both times.
As White House counsel, McGahn had an insider’s view of many of the episodes Mueller and his team examined for potential obstruction of justice during the Russia investigation. McGahn proved a pivotal — and damning — witness against Trump, with his name mentioned hundreds of times in the text of the Mueller report and its footnotes.
He described to investigators the president’s repeated efforts to choke off the probe and directives he said he received from the president that unnerved him.
He recounted how Trump had demanded that he contact then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to order him to unrecuse himself from the Russia investigation. McGahn also said Trump had implored him to tell the deputy attorney general at the time, Rod Rosenstein, to remove Mueller from his position because of perceived conflicts of interest — and, after that episode was reported in the media, to publicly and falsely deny that demand had ever been made.
McGahn also described the circumstances leading up to Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI director, including the president’s insistence on including in the termination letter the fact that Comey had reassured Trump that he was not personally under investigation.
And he was present for a critical conversation early in the Trump administration, when Sally Yates, just before she was fired as acting attorney general as a holdover Obama appointee, relayed concerns to McGahn about new national security adviser Michael Flynn. She raised the possibility that Flynn’s conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — and his subsequent interview by the FBI — left him vulnerable to blackmail.
Trump’s Justice Department fought efforts to have McGahn testify, but U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2019 rejected Trump’s arguments that his close advisers were immune from congressional subpoena. President Joe Biden has nominated Jackson to the appeals court in Washington.
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By Polityk | 06/04/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden’s Pledge on Media Freedom May Be Easier Said Than Done
One of the Biden Justice Department’s first big moves has been to alert reporters at three major news organizations that their phone records were seized as part of leak investigations under the Trump administration, with President Joe Biden saying he would abandon the practice of spying on journalists.
But while Biden’s stated commitment that his Justice Department won’t seize reporters’ phone records has won support from press freedom groups, it remains unclear if that promise can be kept, especially because Democratic and Republican administrations alike have relied on the tactic in an effort to track down leaks of classified information. His comment last month about what law enforcement should or should not do was all the more striking given Biden’s pledge to uphold the tradition of an independent Justice Department.
“In this case, it seems bad policy to institute an absolute ban on logical investigative actions geared to finding out who violated the law, particularly in instances where the journalists themselves whose records may be at issue are not the subject or target of criminal investigation,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who led the section that oversaw investigations into leaks.
The Justice Department in recent weeks disclosed that federal investigators had secretly obtained call records of journalists at The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN in an effort to identify sources who had provided national security information published in the early months of the Trump administration.
Past administrations also have struggled to balance the media’s First Amendment newsgathering rights against government interests in safeguarding national security secrets. Inside the Justice Department, officials have on several occasions over the years revised internal guidelines to afford media organizations better protection without ever removing from their arsenal the prerogative to subpoena reporters’ records.
Biden appears to be looking to change that.
He told a reporter last month that seizing journalists’ records was “simply, simply wrong” and that the practice would be halted under his watch. After the most recent revelation — that the Justice Department in the Trump administration had secretly seized the phone records of four New York Times reporters — White House press secretary Jen Psaki reaffirmed the commitment to freedom of the press.
But she also said discussions with the Justice Department were still underway and that no new policy was ready to be announced.
Michael Weinstein, a former Justice Department prosecutor and criminal defense lawyer in New Jersey, said he understood Biden’s comments as making clear his disdain for the practice without necessarily precluding the possibility that it could ever be used under any circumstances.
“I don’t see that he’s directing any specific case or that he’s directing that an investigation take one path or another,” Weinstein said. “He’s simply putting forth priorities and procedures, which then the Justice Department has to modify its protocols as a result.
“I don’t think he’s saying you can never do it,” he added. “I think he’s saying the standards have to be higher.”
The Justice Department says it has now concluded notifying the media organizations whose phone records were accessed. The latest revelation came Wednesday when The Times said it had learned that investigators last year secretly obtained records for four reporters during a nearly four-month period in 2017.
The gap in time likely reflects that the Justice Department regards the seizure of phone records as a last resort when other avenues in a leak investigation have been exhausted. The department said the reporters are neither subjects nor targets of the investigation but did not reveal which leak was under investigation.
The four reporters shared a byline on an April 2017 story that detailed the FBI’s decision-making in the final stages of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The story included classified information about a document obtained by Russian hackers that helped persuade then-FBI Director James Comey that he, not Attorney General Loretta Lynch, should be the one to announce the investigation had concluded without criminal charges. His unusual July 2016 news conference, held at the FBI and without Lynch or other leaders, marked an extraordinary departure from protocol.
The Trump administration announced a crackdown on leaks in 2017 as part of an aggressive stance. In addition to the phone records seizures disclosed over the past month regarding the reporters, the department won guilty pleas from a former government contractor who mailed a classified report to a news organization and a former Senate committee aide who admitted lying to the FBI about his contacts with a reporter.
Psaki said Thursday that Trump administration officials had “abused their power” and that Biden was looking to turn the page. But the same intrusive tactics of the last four years were also employed during the Obama administration, which secretly seized phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors during a leak investigation in 2013 and also labeled a Fox News reporter a co-conspirator in a separate leak probe.
Amid blowback, former Attorney General Eric Holder announced guidelines for leak investigations that among other things required sign-off by the highest levels of the department for subpoenas of journalists’ records.
But the department’s ability to obtain those records under certain circumstances remained intact.
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By Polityk | 06/04/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
‘I’ll Likely Never See Eye to Eye with Trump on Jan. 6’, Pence Says
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that he wasn’t sure that he and former President Donald Trump would ever see “eye to eye” over what happened on Jan. 6 but that he would “always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years.”Pence, speaking at a Republican dinner in the early-voting state of New Hampshire, gave his most extensive comments to date on the events of Jan. 6, when angry Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” after the vice president said he did not have the power to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.“As I said that day, Jan. 6 was a dark day in history of the United States Capitol. But thanks to the swift action of the Capitol Police and federal law enforcement, violence was quelled. The Capitol was secured,” Pence said.“And that same day, we reconvened the Congress and did our duty under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” Pence continued. “You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day.”It was a rare departure for Pence, who spent four years standing loyally beside his boss amid controversy, investigation and impeachment. It comes as Pence considers his own potential 2024 White House run and as Republicans, some of whom were angry at Trump in the days after the Jan. 6 insurrection, have largely coalesced back around the former president.Pence praised Trump several times during his nearly 35-minute speech at the Hillsborough County Republican Committee’s annual Lincoln-Reagan Awards Dinner in Manchester. He tried to turn the events of Jan. 6 back around on Democrats, saying they wanted to keep the insurrection in the news to divert attention from Biden’s liberal agenda.“I will not allow Democrats or their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans. Or allow Democrats or their allies in the media to distract our attention from a new administration intent on dividing our country to advance their radical agenda,” Pence said. “My fellow Republicans, for our country, for our future, for our children and our grandchildren, we must move forward, united.”He accused Biden of campaigning as a moderate but becoming the most liberal president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. He said the administration forced through Congress “a COVID bill to fund massive expansion of the welfare state” and was pushing a “so-called infrastructure bill” that was really a “thinly disguised climate change bill” funded with cuts in the military and historic tax increases.FILE – President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence stand on stage during the first day of the 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte, NC, Aug. 24, 2020.“I just say enough is enough,” he said, adding that “we’re going to stand strong for freedom.”Pence also hit upon several favorite themes of conservative Republicans, emphasizing the need for states to shore up voter integrity around the country. He praised law enforcement as heroes, saying: “Black lives are not endangered by police. Black lives are saved by police every day.”He also pushed back against “critical race theory,” which seeks to reframe the narrative of American history.Its proponents argue that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race and that the country was founded on the theft of land and labor. But Republicans have said concepts suggesting that people are inherently racist or that America was founded on racial oppression are divisive and have no place in the classroom.“America is not a racist country,” he said, prompting one of several standing ovations and cheers during his speech.“It is past time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism,” Pence said. “I commend state legislators and governors across the country for banning critical race theory from our schools.”His choice of states, including an April appearance in South Carolina, is aimed at increasing his visibility as he considers whether to run for the White House in 2024.Trump is increasingly acting and talking like he plans to make a run as he sets out on a more public phase of his post-presidency, beginning with a speech on Saturday in North Carolina.Since leaving office in January, Pence has been doing work with the Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation. His team said he plans more trips, including stops in Texas, California and Michigan.Along with his visits to South Carolina and New Hampshire, Pence has been hitting the fundraising circuit. He is set to speak next week at another fundraiser hosted by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, will travel to North Carolina for a Heritage Foundation donor event, and will then head to California, where he will take part in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s speakers’ series, a Republican National Committee donor retreat and a Young America’s Foundation event, according to aides.Among other prominent Republicans, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said in April that she would stand down if Trump decided to run in 2024. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has undertaken an aggressive schedule, visiting states that will play a pivotal role in the 2024 primaries and signing a contract with Fox News Channel.
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By Polityk | 06/04/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Pence: I’ll Likely Never See Eye to Eye with Trump on Jan. 6
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that he wasn’t sure that he and former President Donald Trump would ever see “eye to eye” over what happened on Jan. 6 but that he would “always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years.”Pence, speaking at a Republican dinner in the early-voting state of New Hampshire, gave his most extensive comments to date on the events of Jan. 6, when angry Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” after the vice president said he did not have the power to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.“As I said that day, Jan. 6 was a dark day in history of the United States Capitol. But thanks to the swift action of the Capitol Police and federal law enforcement, violence was quelled. The Capitol was secured,” Pence said.“And that same day, we reconvened the Congress and did our duty under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” Pence continued. “You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day.”It was a rare departure for Pence, who spent four years standing loyally beside his boss amid controversy, investigation and impeachment. It comes as Pence considers his own potential 2024 White House run and as Republicans, some of whom were angry at Trump in the days after the Jan. 6 insurrection, have largely coalesced back around the former president.Pence praised Trump several times during his nearly 35-minute speech at the Hillsborough County Republican Committee’s annual Lincoln-Reagan Awards Dinner in Manchester. He tried to turn the events of Jan. 6 back around on Democrats, saying they wanted to keep the insurrection in the news to divert attention from Biden’s liberal agenda.“I will not allow Democrats or their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans. Or allow Democrats or their allies in the media to distract our attention from a new administration intent on dividing our country to advance their radical agenda,” Pence said. “My fellow Republicans, for our country, for our future, for our children and our grandchildren, we must move forward, united.”He accused Biden of campaigning as a moderate but becoming the most liberal president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. He said the administration forced through Congress “a COVID bill to fund massive expansion of the welfare state” and was pushing a “so-called infrastructure bill” that was really a “thinly disguised climate change bill” funded with cuts in the military and historic tax increases.FILE – President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence stand on stage during the first day of the 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte, NC, Aug. 24, 2020.“I just say enough is enough,” he said, adding that “we’re going to stand strong for freedom.”Pence also hit upon several favorite themes of conservative Republicans, emphasizing the need for states to shore up voter integrity around the country. He praised law enforcement as heroes, saying: “Black lives are not endangered by police. Black lives are saved by police every day.”He also pushed back against “critical race theory,” which seeks to reframe the narrative of American history.Its proponents argue that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race and that the country was founded on the theft of land and labor. But Republicans have said concepts suggesting that people are inherently racist or that America was founded on racial oppression are divisive and have no place in the classroom.“America is not a racist country,” he said, prompting one of several standing ovations and cheers during his speech.“It is past time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism,” Pence said. “I commend state legislators and governors across the country for banning critical race theory from our schools.”His choice of states, including an April appearance in South Carolina, is aimed at increasing his visibility as he considers whether to run for the White House in 2024.Trump is increasingly acting and talking like he plans to make a run as he sets out on a more public phase of his post-presidency, beginning with a speech on Saturday in North Carolina.Since leaving office in January, Pence has been doing work with the Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation. His team said he plans more trips, including stops in Texas, California and Michigan.Along with his visits to South Carolina and New Hampshire, Pence has been hitting the fundraising circuit. He is set to speak next week at another fundraiser hosted by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, will travel to North Carolina for a Heritage Foundation donor event, and will then head to California, where he will take part in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s speakers’ series, a Republican National Committee donor retreat and a Young America’s Foundation event, according to aides.Among other prominent Republicans, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said in April that she would stand down if Trump decided to run in 2024. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has undertaken an aggressive schedule, visiting states that will play a pivotal role in the 2024 primaries and signing a contract with Fox News Channel.
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By Polityk | 06/04/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Says Stands with ‘Brave’ Chinese Activists on Tiananmen Anniversary
The United States said Thursday it stands “with the people of China” in their fight for human rights on the eve of the anniversary of Beijing’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown, amid heightened tensions between the two economic giants.Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his country will “honor the sacrifices of those killed 32 years ago, and the brave activists who carry on their efforts today in the face of ongoing government repression.””The United States will continue to stand with the people of China as they demand that their government respect universal human rights,” Blinken said, while also calling for “transparency” over Tiananmen Square.This, he said, included “a full accounting of all those killed, detained, or missing.”While discussion of the tanks and troops that quelled peaceful democracy protesters in Beijing on June 4, 1989, are all but forbidden in mainland China, huge candlelight vigils have been held the last three decades in the semi-autonomous Hong Kong.The city’s traditional day of pro-democracy people power, however, has been squashed this year, with thousands of police slated to enforce a ban on protests, and officials warning that a sweeping new national security law could be wielded against those disobeying.Last year’s vigil was also banned on the grounds of the coronavirus, but tens of thousands defied the ban and rallied anyway.”The Tiananmen demonstrations are echoed in the struggle for democracy and freedom in Hong Kong, where a planned vigil to commemorate the massacre in Tiananmen Square was banned by local authorities,” Blinken said.The statement came hours after U.S. President Joe Biden expanded a blacklist of Chinese firms that are off-limits to American investors over their links to Beijing’s “military-industrial complex.”Washington is reviewing its diplomatic position with China on issues spanning trade, technological supremacy and rights, while it steps up efforts to hook Western democracies into a united diplomatic front against perceived Chinese aggression.
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By Polityk | 06/04/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Justice Department Looking Into Postmaster General Over Fundraising
The Justice Department is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over political fundraising activity at his former business, a DeJoy spokesman said Thursday.Federal authorities in recent weeks have subpoenaed DeJoy and interviewed current and former employees of DeJoy’s and his business, The Washington Post reported. Mark Corallo, a DeJoy spokesman, confirmed an investigation in a statement to The Associated Press.”Mr. DeJoy has learned that the Department of Justice is investigating campaign contributions made by employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector. He has always been scrupulous in his adherence to the campaign contribution laws and has never knowingly violated them,” Corallo said.The agency declined to comment on news of the investigation.DeJoy, a wealthy former logistics executive, has been mired in controversy since taking over the Postal Service last summer and putting in place policy changes that delayed mail before the 2020 election, when there was a crush of mail-in ballots.Urged to write checksLast year, DeJoy faced additional scrutiny after the newspaper reported that five people who worked for his former company, New Breed Logistics, said they were urged by DeJoy’s aides or DeJoy himself to write checks and attend political fundraisers at his North Carolina mansion. Two former employees told the newspaper that DeJoy would later give bigger bonuses to reimburse for the contributions.It’s not illegal to encourage employees to contribute to candidates. It is illegal to reimburse them as a way of avoiding federal campaign contribution limits.DeJoy, who has not been charged with a crime, denied he had repaid executives for contributing to former President Donald Trump’s campaign, amid questioning before a congressional committee last year.Campaign finance disclosures show that between 2000 and 2014, when New Breed was sold, more than 100 employees donated a total of about $610,000 to Republican candidates supported by DeJoy and his family. He and his family have contributed more than $1 million to Republican politicians.A district attorney in Wake County, North Carolina, earlier this year decided not to pursue a criminal investigation into the allegations, saying the matter was out of her office’s jurisdiction.DeJoy to cooperateCorallo said DeJoy would cooperate with the investigation.”Mr. DeJoy fully cooperated with and answered the questions posed by Congress regarding these matters. The same is true of the Postal Service Inspector General’s inquiry, which after a thorough investigation gave Mr. DeJoy a clean bill of health on his disclosure and divestment issues. He expects nothing less in this latest matter, and he intends to work with DOJ toward swiftly resolving it,” Corallo said.
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By Polityk | 06/04/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Aims to Restore Alliances During Visit to Europe
U.S. President Joe Biden visits Europe later this month on what will be his first trip abroad since taking office, the White House announced Thursday. Biden, who became president on January 20, will meet with world leaders in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland during his visit June 10-16. “This trip will highlight America’s commitment to restoring our alliances, revitalizing the transatlantic relationship, and working in close cooperation with our allies and multilateral partners to address global challenges and better secure America’s interests,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement. The U.S. president will meet in the United Kingdom with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on June 10 and attend the June 11-13 G-7 summit in the county of Cornwall in southwest England. FILE – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II delivers a speech in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, at the Palace of Westminster in London, May 11, 2021.Biden will meet with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle on June 13 before traveling to Brussels, Belgium, for the NATO summit on June 14, when he will “affirm the United States’ commitment to NATO, transatlantic security and collective defense,” Psaki said. While in Brussels, Biden will also meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues” and participate in the U.S.-EU Summit on June 15, when leaders will discuss international health security, global economic recovery, climate change and other matters. Biden will also meet with Belgium’s King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. His European trip will also take him to Geneva, Switzerland, “where he will hold a bilateral summit with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin on June 16,” according to Psaki. Biden will also meet with Swiss President Guy Parmelin and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis.
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By Polityk | 06/03/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Fighting Corruption is Core National Security Interest, Biden Says
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is formally establishing the fight against corruption as a core national security interest. Biden on Thursday issued his first national security memorandum, outlining his anti-corruption agenda. “Corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts, and democracy itself,” the president said in his directive. “But by effectively preventing and countering corruption and demonstrating the advantages of transparent and accountable governance, we can secure a critical advantage for the United States and other democracies.” Biden’s memorandum is important because it serves as a formal notification from the president “that he expects all relevant federal departments and agencies to up their anti-corruption game in very specific ways,” a senior administration official told reporters on a briefing call Thursday. In part, the memo calls for combatting all forms of illicit finance in the country and with the international financial systems. It calls for American companies to report their beneficial owners to the Treasury Department and reduce offshore financial secrecy.Treasury’s beneficial ownership registry is intended to effectively bar illicit assets from being hidden behind anonymous shell companies. “It’s a massive undertaking,” acknowledged the senior administration official, who spoke to reporters on condition of not being named. “We have seen several instances over past years in which the proceeds of corruption have been funneled through shell companies and wound up in major metropolitan areas in the United States to offshore those ill-gotten gains. And so we’re going to be taking additional steps to make sure that that doesn’t happen in the future.” In the action, the president calls for “corrupt individuals, transnational criminal organizations, and their facilitators” to be held accountable, including by taking criminal enforcement action against them. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agency will also be involved in the anti-corruption effort, which will use “all the tools at our disposal to make sure that we identify corruption where it’s happening and take appropriate policy responses,” said a senior U.S. official. Biden’s memo requests an interagency review to be completed within 200 days with a report and recommendations to be submitted to him for further direction and action.“The United States will lead by example and in partnership with allies, civil society, and the private sector to fight the scourge of corruption,” said the president in a statement. “But this is a mission for the entire the world. And we must all stand in support of courageous citizens around the globe who are demanding honest, transparent governance.”
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By Polityk | 06/03/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Blinken Urges Central America to Confront Root of Irregular Migration
The United States is calling on Central American countries to confront corruption and poverty as Washington examines root causes and strategies to manage the flood of migrants at its southern border.Wednesday in Costa Rica, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard discussed “a variety of issues to promote the prosperity and security” in the region.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stands by as President Joe Biden delivers remarks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, June 2, 2021.The top U.S. diplomat’s trip comes ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ upcoming visit to Guatemala and Mexico.Harris has been tapped by U.S. President Joe Biden to lead diplomatic efforts in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to address the underlying causes of migration in hopes of halting the flow of Central American migrants to the U.S.Some experts see Blinken’s visit to Costa Rica as laying the foundation for a successful visit by Harris.“The U.S. is also looking for cooperation on immigration, and we’re more likely to get that cooperation when governments see the carrot of a broad-based economic integration program,” said Professor Richard Feinberg, who teaches international political economy at the University of California, San Diego.Feinberg suggested including Caribbean Basin countries in the U.S. “transportation networks” and “economic integration,” as Biden is eyeing large expenditures on infrastructure, roads, ports and airports in the U.S.COVID vaccinesBlinken’s trip to the region also comes as China actively positions itself as the dominating provider of COVID-19 vaccinations in Latin America. FILE – Refrigerated containers with supplies to produce China’s Sinovac vaccines against the coronavirus disease arrive at Sao Paulo International Airport in Guarulhos, Brazil, April 19, 2021.As countries in Latin America continue to get doses, three Chinese vaccines — CanSino, Sinopharm, and Sinovac — are reaching wider distribution in the region. The U.S. has announced its goal to ship 80 million vaccine doses abroad by the end of June. Blinken said Biden will detail this global distribution plan, possibly as early as Thursday.
“In a few short days — in fact, possibly as early as tomorrow — the president is going to announce in more detail the plan that he has put together to push out 80 million vaccines around the world that we have at our disposal,” Blinken said Wednesday during his remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
A day before, the top U.S. diplomat pledged no political strings would be attached when providing U.S. vaccines to other countries.“Among other things, we will focus on equity — on the equitable distribution of vaccines. We’ll focus on science. We’ll work in coordination with COVAX. And we will distribute vaccines without political requirements of those receiving them,” Blinken said during a joint press conference with Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado on Tuesday.
Asked if he was worried that getting Chinese vaccines would come with certain conditions, Alvarado said there should be “no strings attached.”“Our condition is that those vaccines that we buy or receive as donations should be qualified by a strict agency,” he said.In May, the United States said it would share an additional 20 million coronavirus vaccine doses with other countries, in addition to the 60 million it has already committed. Officials said the U.S. will distribute according to need and not to curry favor.US to Distribute 80 Million Vaccine Doses Globally, on Basis of Need Sharing is caring: US distribution of vaccines is, president says, a case of ‘the fundamental decency of American people’ Blinken also attended a regional meeting of the Central American foreign ministers held Tuesday under the auspices of the Central American Integration System, where collaborating on migration challenges, combating the COVID-19 pandemic, improving economic growth, as well as reinforcing democratic institutions, were said to be high on the agenda.VOA’s Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 06/03/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Shuts Down Blog, Nearly Erasing Online Presence
With his online presence all but obliterated since leaving office in January, former U.S. President Donald Trump has permanently shut down the webpage blog that he started less than a month ago. His blog, From the Desk of Donald J. Trump, has been scrapped from the webpage of the former U.S. leader, senior aide Jason Miller told CNBC on Wednesday. Miller said the blog, on which Trump commented on U.S. political and social issues and foreign affairs, “will not be returning.” “It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on,” Miller said, but he offered no timeline for any new Trump online site. Trump once drew tens of millions of social media followers, with multiple pronouncements almost daily when he was president. He was a prolific poster on social media platforms, pillorying the Democratic political opposition, endorsing Republican candidates he liked and trashing those he didn’t, and offering his commentary on the events of the day. FILE – President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed is photographed on an Apple iPad in New York, June 27, 2019.But both Facebook and Twitter banned him from posting on their sites. Their decisions came after he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to confront lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 as they were certifying the Electoral College outcome. Trump had lost the November election to Democrat Joe Biden, who was inaugurated as president two weeks later. Trump and his political allies have long accused social media companies of being hostile to conservative viewpoints. Trump assailed Facebook as “a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our country” when an internal review panel recently upheld the ban against him, pending further review. FILE – Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, speaks to media at Trump Tower in New York, Nov. 16, 2016.Trump’s blog at first was billed as a new “communications platform.” Trump aide Miller called the Desk page “a great resource” to find the former president’s statements. But Miller also acknowledged it was “not a new social media platform.” Now it is apparent that Trump’s efforts to reengage online with followers have fallen flat, with The Washington Post reporting that social engagement around Trump — online comments and reactions about him — has plunged 95% since January, to its lowest level since 2016, when he won the presidency. Trump has never called Biden to formally concede the election and has continued to claim that voting irregularities cost him another four-year term in the White House. He says he is considering running for another term in the 2024 election but won’t decide until after the 2022 congressional elections. Since leaving office, he has lived at his coastal mansion in Florida and made just a handful of political appearances, although he is planning more in the coming weeks. He has granted interviews to some conservative-leaning media outlets, and several Republican lawmakers have traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to visit with him and talk politics. Meanwhile, reports surfaced this week that Trump has been telling some supporters that he expects to be reinstated as president by the end of August, as he encourages rogue reviews of the vote counts in key states where election authorities have long since ruled that Biden legitimately won. There is no legal mechanism in the U.S. by which Trump could reclaim the presidency while Biden is in office. Biden’s term ends in January 2025. FILE – Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.But Trump maintains wide influence in Republican political circles, even if his online presence has all but disappeared. In line with his wishes, a big majority of Republican lawmakers recently voted against creation of an independent congressional commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol in which hundreds of Trump supporters rampaged into the building, smashed windows, occupied both chambers of Congress and scuffled with police. Five people were left dead, and more than 400 protesters were arrested and are awaiting adjudication on an array of criminal offenses. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved creation of the commission, but Democrats failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster against the legislation in the Senate.
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By Polityk | 06/03/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden’s $6 Trillion Budget Sidesteps Some Campaign Pledges
When Democrat Joe Biden ran for vice president in 2008, he delivered a speech in which he repeated a saying he attributed to his father: “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”At the time, it was delivered as a criticism of the policies of Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president who was running against Biden’s ticket-mate, Barack Obama. Last week, though, when Biden unveiled the first budget request of his own presidency, some of his supporters in the more liberal corners of the Democratic Party may have found themselves wondering about Biden’s values.While the $6 trillion budget request for fiscal year 2022 proposes significant spending on many of the party’s priorities, including education, support for families, clean energy and more, there are zero dollars allocated for a number of things Biden campaigned on heavily during his presidential run, including student loan forgiveness, a public option for health insurance and reform of the unemployment insurance system.FILE – Rep. Pramila Jayapal, (D-WA), speaks during a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law on Capitol Hill, in Washington on July 29, 2020.Democratic criticism mutedReaction from Democrats on the party’s left flank to the Biden budget was muted, but members plainly noticed the absence of key proposals.Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal, two prominent progressives among House Democrats, published an essay in Newsweek the day after the budget release that pointedly called for some of the items missing from the Biden proposal.“Alongside expanded social welfare programs and unemployment insurance, we’re calling for a national, universal single-payer health care program that puts people before profits,” they wrote.FILE – In this Oct. 24, 2019, file photo students walks in front of Fraser Hall on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, Kan.Student loan debtOn the campaign trail, Biden came around to a call from activists to institute debt forgiveness for people struggling under the burden of student debts. But he has never been willing to go as far as some in the party who have demanded blanket cancellation of student loans.Still, he has called for forgiveness of up to $10,000 in loans for individuals earning less than $125,000 per year.In an interview with The New York Times published on May 20, Biden said he didn’t support such an expansive program, saying that students who elect to go to pricey private universities ought not be subsidized by the public.“The idea that you go to Penn, and you’re paying a total of 70,000 bucks a year, and the public should pay for that? I don’t agree,” he told columnist David Brooks.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a primary election night rally, March 3, 2020, at Eastern Market in Detroit.Second disappointmentThe Biden administration’s decision not to include student debt relief in the budget was the second major disappointment for activists seeking debt relief. The administration had originally signaled it wanted to include $10,000 in student debt relief in its COVID-19 relief package, but no such provision was in the final bill.Activists have been muted in their criticism, because many do not want Biden to go through Congress at all, preferring that he simply sign an executive order eliminating student debt. It’s a position that some in the party, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, loudly embrace.”Student loan cancellation could occur today,” Warren told the publication Insider last week. “The president just needs to sign a piece of paper canceling that debt. It doesn’t take any act of Congress or any amendment to the budget.”This image shows the main page of the HealthCare.gov website on Feb. 15, 2021.Public option for health insuranceBiden also campaigned on a promise to expand access to health care by adding a “public option” to the health insurance policies sold on the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act signed into law by Obama. Biden repeatedly described such a move as “building on” the existing foundation of the ACA, and rejected calls to create a nationwide government-funded health insurance program — “Medicare for All” — advocated by others in the Democratic Party.Last week’s budget request restated his commitment to “providing Americans with additional, lower-cost coverage choices by: creating a public option that would be available through the ACA marketplaces; and giving people age 60 and older the option to enroll in the Medicare program with the same premiums and benefits as current beneficiaries, but with financing separate from the Medicare Trust Fund.”But the administration set aside no additional funding for such a program.“Health care is a right, not a privilege,” according to the budget document. “Families need the financial security and peace of mind that comes with quality, affordable health coverage. In collaboration with the Congress, the president’s health care agenda would achieve this promise.”A hiring sign shows outside of restaurant in Prospect Heights, Illinois, March 21, 2021.Unemployment insurance reformCampaigning during a pandemic that cost millions of Americans their jobs, Biden also pledged to create a more responsive unemployment insurance program that would be less variable from state to state, would automatically expand during economic downturns to prevent relief being blocked by partisan fighting in Washington, and would be more resistant to fraud.However, as with debt relief and the public option, the administration set aside no funds for that, either. Instead, the administration argued that the pandemic relief efforts already passed have amounted to “setting the stage for broad changes to modernize the program.”This and other omissions from the budget frustrated more than just the Democratic left. Budget hawks concerned about the deficit found the addition of items to the Biden agenda without identified spending to pay for them troubling.Other spending“The budget doesn’t include all parts of the agenda,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Leaving the cost of other administration priorities out of the equation presents a distorted version of what the administration plans to spend, he said.“We know there’s interest in health care, there’s interest in student debt changes. So, this is a lot of money, and a lot of borrowing.”While he said he is pleased that Biden is offering measures to pay for some of his biggest proposals, Goldwein pointed out that there are no “pay-fors” associated with these additional agenda items, such as unemployment insurance, public option for health care and student loan forgiveness.
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By Polityk | 06/02/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Pelosi Rules Out Having Biden Create Jan. 6 Commission
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ruling out a presidential commission to study the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, telling House Democrats that having President Joe Biden appoint a panel is unworkable even after the Senate blocked an independent probe last week.
Pelosi on Tuesday laid out possible next steps after last week’s Senate vote, in which Senate Republicans blocked legislation to create an independent, bipartisan panel to investigate the siege by former President Donald Trump’s supporters. She proposed four options for an investigation of the attack, according to a person on the private Democratic caucus call who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
The first option, Pelosi said, is to give the Senate another chance to vote on the commission. Six Republicans voted with Democrats to move forward with the bill, and a seventh missed the vote but said he would have backed it. That means Democrats would only need support from three additional Republicans to reach the 60 votes needed for passage. The commission would be modeled after a highly respected panel that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The other options involve the House investigating the attack, meaning the probes would be inherently partisan. Pelosi suggested that she could appoint a new select committee to investigate the siege or give the responsibility to a single committee, like the House Homeland Security panel, which wrote the original bipartisan bill to create the commission. Alternately, Pelosi said committees could simply push ahead with their own investigations that are already underway.
But the speaker said she believed a commission appointed by Biden — an idea pitched by some in her caucus after Friday’s Senate vote — was “not a workable idea in this circumstance” because Congress would still need to approve money and subpoena authority for the panel.
Pelosi’s comments come as members of both parties have pushed for a deep dive into the insurrection, which was designed to interrupt the presidential electoral count and was the worst attack on Congress in two centuries. Four rioters died in the attack, including a woman who was shot by police as she tried to break into the House chamber while lawmakers were still inside. The rioters brutally beat police and broke in through windows and doors as they hunted for lawmakers and called for Trump’s defeat to be overturned.
The White House has not yet said whether Biden would try to appoint a commission without Congress. On Friday, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that “the president has been clear that the shameful events of Jan. 6 need to be independently and fully investigated” and that he remains committed to that.
“We will continue to work with Congress to find a path forward to ensure that happens,” she said.
After the Senate vote, some Democrats urged Biden to move on his own.
“In light of the GOP’s cowardly filibuster of a bipartisan January 6th commission, I urge President Biden to form and appoint a Presidential Commission to fully investigate the insurrection at the United States Capitol, to identify the individuals and organizations who plotted or were involved in those violent acts, and to make recommendations to prevent such an attack from ever recurring,” said Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly in a statement over the weekend.
It’s uncertain whether the Senate would hold another vote on the commission and whether any additional Republicans would support it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left open the possibility of a second attempt, saying after the vote that “the events of Jan. 6 will be investigated.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposes the commission, saying he believes the panel would be partisan even though it would be divided evenly between the two parties.
McConnell’s criticism came after Trump opposed it and called the legislation a “Democrat trap.”
Still, six in McConnell’s caucus defied him, arguing that an independent look was needed, and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey would have brought the total to seven but for a family commitment, his office said. The Republicans who voted to move forward on the bill were Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Rob Portman of Ohio and Mitt Romney of Utah.
The House passed the bill in May, with 35 Republicans voting with Democrats to pass it.
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By Polityk | 06/02/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
At Tulsa Centennial, Biden Unveils Steps to Narrow Racial Wealth Gap
On Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting American president to commemorate the anniversary of the destruction of a prosperous Black community by a white mob that left up to 300 people dead and 10,000 homeless. “Just because history is silent, it doesn’t mean that it did not take place,” Biden said in remarks to survivors of the massacre and their families at the Greenwood Cultural Center. “Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they can’t be buried, no matter how hard people try.” A hundred years ago on May 31 and June 1, Greenwood, a neighborhood including what was then known as Black Wall Street, was looted and burned to the ground by Tulsa’s white residents with support from the virtually all-white Tulsa Police Department. The massacre was triggered by accusations that a 19-year-old Black man had assaulted a 17-year-old white girl in an elevator. Michelle Brown-Burdex, program coordinator of the Greenwood Cultural Center, speaks as she leads President Joe Biden on a tour of the center to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, June 1, 2021, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.For decades after the massacre, the violent attack was covered up and not well known nationally. But as the national conversation increasingly focused on the issue of systemic racism and police violence, the incident has received more attention in the media and pop culture. Biden met with three surviving members of the massacre — Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle — who are all now over 100 years old. Survivors and siblings Viola Fletcher and Hughes Van Ellis listen as U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the centennial anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre during a visit to the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 1, 2021.”My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre,” Biden said, after leading a moment of silence for the victims. The president announced steps to narrow the racial wealth gap. His administration plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in disadvantaged communities, expand federal contracting with minority-owned businesses, and repeal two Trump-era rules that restrict fair housing practices. The Tulsa massacre’s centennial came just over a year since the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer — an event that triggered the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. and around the world. For months, Republicans and Democrats have struggled to reach consensus on police reform legislation activists have pushed since Floyd’s death. Activists said Biden’s visit serves to communicate the history and reality of the oppression of African Americans. “And, really, the erasure of black wealth and an all-out racial domestic terrorist attack within this country,” said Steve Phillips, founder of the political media organization Democracy in Color and author of the book Brown Is the New White. “People need to know that that is part of what this country’s history has been.” But Phillips said the steps the Biden administration is taking to address the racial wealth gap is not nearly enough to address a problem. In the century since the massacre in Tulsa, Black Americans continue to be discriminated in housing, banking, education and employment. FILE – Crowds of people watch fires during the Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla., on June 1, 1921. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)The legislation, first introduced in 1989, would establish a commission to examine slavery and discrimination in the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies. “What is owed to African Americans who did the labor to pick the cotton that got sold that made America wealthy?” Phillips said. “And that we’ve been locked out of for most of the country’s history from participating in the economic largesse?” The Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act was introduced again by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, in January 2021. Lee said the descendants of slaves continue to suffer from the legacy of that brutal system. Voting rights Biden’s visit comes as many conservative states, including Texas, are pushing for voting legislation that supporters say would reduce fraud. Critics, however, see it as undermining Black and other minority voters. The president criticized those state laws in his remarks. “This sacred right is under assault with incredible intensity like I’ve never seen,” he said. Biden said he will “fight like heck” for the Senate to pass the For the People Act, a federal voting-rights bill passed by the House of Representatives in March that would counteract many of the voting restrictions passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Republicans have called the bill a “power grab.” Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the administration’s efforts on voting rights, Biden said.
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By Polityk | 06/02/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
How Biden’s $6 Trillion Budget Sidesteps Campaign Pledges
When Democrat Joe Biden ran for vice president in 2008, he delivered a speech in which he repeated a saying he attributed to his father: “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”At the time, it was delivered as a criticism of the policies of Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president who was running against Biden’s ticket-mate, Barack Obama. Last week, though, when Biden unveiled the first budget request of his own presidency, some of his supporters in the more liberal corners of the Democratic Party may have found themselves wondering about Biden’s values.While the $6 trillion budget request for fiscal year 2022 proposes significant spending on many of the party’s priorities, including education, support for families, clean energy and more, there are zero dollars allocated for a number of things Biden campaigned on heavily during his presidential run, including student loan forgiveness, a public option for health insurance and reform of the unemployment insurance system.FILE – Rep. Pramila Jayapal, (D-WA), speaks during a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law on Capitol Hill, in Washington on July 29, 2020.Democratic criticism mutedReaction from Democrats on the party’s left flank to the Biden budget was muted, but members plainly noticed the absence of key proposals.Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal, two prominent progressives among House Democrats, published an essay in Newsweek the day after the budget release that pointedly called for some of the items missing from the Biden proposal.“Alongside expanded social welfare programs and unemployment insurance, we’re calling for a national, universal single-payer health care program that puts people before profits,” they wrote.FILE – In this Oct. 24, 2019, file photo students walks in front of Fraser Hall on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, Kan.Student loan debtOn the campaign trail, Biden came around to a call from activists to institute debt forgiveness for people struggling under the burden of student debts. But he has never been willing to go as far as some in the party who have demanded blanket cancellation of student loans.Still, he has called for forgiveness of up to $10,000 in loans for individuals earning less than $125,000 per year.In an interview with The New York Times published on May 20, Biden said he didn’t support such an expansive program, saying that students who elect to go to pricey private universities ought not be subsidized by the public.“The idea that you go to Penn, and you’re paying a total of 70,000 bucks a year, and the public should pay for that? I don’t agree,” he told columnist David Brooks.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a primary election night rally, March 3, 2020, at Eastern Market in Detroit.Second disappointmentThe Biden administration’s decision not to include student debt relief in the budget was the second major disappointment for activists seeking debt relief. The administration had originally signaled it wanted to include $10,000 in student debt relief in its COVID-19 relief package, but no such provision was in the final bill.Activists have been muted in their criticism, because many do not want Biden to go through Congress at all, preferring that he simply sign an executive order eliminating student debt. It’s a position that some in the party, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, loudly embrace.”Student loan cancellation could occur today,” Warren told the publication Insider last week. “The president just needs to sign a piece of paper canceling that debt. It doesn’t take any act of Congress or any amendment to the budget.”This image shows the main page of the HealthCare.gov website on Feb. 15, 2021.Public option for health insuranceBiden also campaigned on a promise to expand access to health care by adding a “public option” to the health insurance policies sold on the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act signed into law by Obama. Biden repeatedly described such a move as “building on” the existing foundation of the ACA, and rejected calls to create a nationwide government-funded health insurance program — “Medicare for All” — advocated by others in the Democratic Party.Last week’s budget request restated his commitment to “providing Americans with additional, lower-cost coverage choices by: creating a public option that would be available through the ACA marketplaces; and giving people age 60 and older the option to enroll in the Medicare program with the same premiums and benefits as current beneficiaries, but with financing separate from the Medicare Trust Fund.”But the administration set aside no additional funding for such a program.“Health care is a right, not a privilege,” according to the budget document. “Families need the financial security and peace of mind that comes with quality, affordable health coverage. In collaboration with the Congress, the president’s health care agenda would achieve this promise.”A hiring sign shows outside of restaurant in Prospect Heights, Illinois, March 21, 2021.Unemployment insurance reformCampaigning during a pandemic that cost millions of Americans their jobs, Biden also pledged to create a more responsive unemployment insurance program that would be less variable from state to state, would automatically expand during economic downturns to prevent relief being blocked by partisan fighting in Washington, and would be more resistant to fraud.However, as with debt relief and the public option, the administration set aside no funds for that, either. Instead, the administration argued that the pandemic relief efforts already passed have amounted to “setting the stage for broad changes to modernize the program.”This and other omissions from the budget frustrated more than just the Democratic left. Budget hawks concerned about the deficit found the addition of items to the Biden agenda without identified spending to pay for them troubling.Other spending“The budget doesn’t include all parts of the agenda,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Leaving the cost of other administration priorities out of the equation presents a distorted version of what the administration plans to spend, he said.“We know there’s interest in health care, there’s interest in student debt changes. So, this is a lot of money, and a lot of borrowing.”While he said he is pleased that Biden is offering measures to pay for some of his biggest proposals, Goldwein pointed out that there are no “pay-fors” associated with these additional agenda items, such as unemployment insurance, public option for health care and student loan forgiveness.
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By Polityk | 06/02/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Americans Divided Over Whether to Continue Investigating Jan. 6 Riot or Turn the Page
Harvey Wasserman is a resident of Florida and a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He voted for Republican Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections but watched in horror as hundreds of supporters of the former president stormed the Capitol Building January 6. “My stomach was in knots,” he told VOA. “The sheer ignorance of those so-called Trump supporters was doing nothing more than showing the world the dark side of the Republican Party. It made me feel a little embarrassed to have voted for him.” More than 800 people are believed to have entered the building, temporarily halting Congress’ attempt to certify the Electoral College votes and formalize Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 3 elections. Five people died as a result of the events of that day and many law enforcement officers were injured. But nearly five months later, Wasserman has a different interpretation of that violent day’s events. “As I look back and try to understand what happened, I believe a good portion of the more aggressive agitators were plants from radical groups,” he explained, echoing the disproven claims that leftist groups like antifa were responsible for the attacks. “Patriots’ honor and respect for our nation’s symbols and place of government is sacred,” Wasserman continued. “Trump supporters would never use the American flag and pole to break into the Capitol Building.” But the facts have shown a different story. As of earlier May, federal prosecutors have arrested more than 440 people sympathetic to Trump’s assertion that the election was rigged against him and expect to charge at least 100 more. A congressional witch-hunt Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would create a 10-person bipartisan commission to investigate the riots. Last week, Republicans in the Senate killed that effort by rejecting a similar bill. American voters are split on how to proceed, many by political affiliation. In a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll conducted May 19-20, nearly 70% of Democratic voters say the storming of the Capitol Building warrants a congressional investigation.Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, departs the Senate chamber after final votes before the Memorial Day recess, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, May 28, 2021.
However, 62% of Republican voters believe that ongoing investigations conducted by the FBI and Department of Justice are sufficient. Independent voters were split evenly on the issue. “Like so many things that happened in America, we may never know the truth,” Wasserman said of who caused the January 6 riots, “but we don’t need to waste more money on another congressional witch hunt.” One week after the deadly riot, the House impeached Trump on grounds of “incitement of insurrection.” Biden was sworn in as the nation’s 46th president one week later, on January 20. Trump did not attend the inauguration. Jillian Dani is also a Trump voter from central Florida. Like Wasserman, she doesn’t believe an additional commission is needed. But any further investigation, she said, should include questioning about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and riots for racial justice that predominantly took place last summer. “In both the D.C. riots and the BLM riots, there were mostly peaceful protesters in attendance, but a smaller group of people ruined that for everyone,” she said. “All rioting is wrong, and more people died at the BLM protests. I don’t think there are some reasons for rioting and killing that are better than others.”A demonstrator holds a “Black Lives Matter” flag during a protest at the state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Jan. 20, 2021.Further investigation needed Many of the Democratic voters who spoke to VOA for this article don’t see the two protests as equal. They note that the January 6 protests and riots were held with the goal of disrupting the certification of Biden’s victory, a victory proven several times to be the result of a free and fair election. Black Lives Matter protests and riots, some argue, were in response to police brutality against African Americans. While critics of BLM say there was a higher death toll at those protests, the movement’s supporters note that the violence was rare and spread over a far larger number of events. According to an analysis by the U.S. Crisis Monitor, a joint effort by Princeton University and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, out of more than 10,000 demonstrations in 2020, in more than 2,700 locations across the country, 94% of the events happened with no violence. At least 25 deaths have been linked to the protests.Abby Rae Lacombe lives in Pennsylvania and says she doesn’t belong to either political party, although she voted for Democratic candidates over Trump in the last two presidential election cycles. Lacombe says she believes that if Americans want the protests and rioting from last summer investigated, they should reach out to their representatives to do just that. “But just because you want the BLM protests and riots investigated doesn’t mean we shouldn’t investigate the events from January 6,” she said. “What we do with one doesn’t disqualify the other.” And for Lacombe and others, further investigating those events is essential. “I worry if we don’t punish those responsible, those involved, those who consorted and those who planned this,” she said, “then this country is going to devolve into waste in the best-case scenario, or war in the worst case.”
Another Pennsylvania voter who supported Democrats, Jordan Smith, believes that the coronavirus pandemic made it difficult for Americans to summon the kind of response the Washington riots require. “People are exhausted after more than a year of a global pandemic,” he said, adding “but we need to figure out how to look into and care about what January 6 says about us, that Americans are our own worst enemy right now.” FILE – Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump protest in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.What January 6 says about America Smith acknowledged any deeper investigation should be done in a way that doesn’t alienate half the country’s voters. “We’ve got to do it in a thoughtful way that doesn’t blame 73 million voters, including those who showed up to Washington, D.C., to protest peacefully,” he said. “But we have to continue to investigate and discuss the events of that day without fear. We can’t sweep it under the rug merely to placate those who identify politically with those who stormed the Capitol.” Kyle Kondik, director of communications at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Republican politicians in Congress opposed a commission for political reasons. “I would think that getting to the bottom of what happened that day is important to the future of the United States,” he said, “but most Republicans don’t seem to share that view. Likely because they feel it could hurt them from a political standpoint — their politicians fanned the flames, and their voters led the attack.” Many Republican voters like Dani agree with Democrats that those involved in the storming of the Capitol Building should be punished. “People who broke the law should be prosecuted and charged as applicable as is being done now,” she said, “but I don’t think politicians like Trump should be charged with inciting that violence. If we do that, then there are plenty of examples of Democratic politicians using their words to incite violence, as well.” She’s worried this is all part of a never-ending cycle of riots and doubt in the nation’s electoral system. “I think there was a lot of sketchy stuff that went into this election,” she said, despite multiple recounts and the repeated debunking of rumors calling the 2020 presidential election into question. “And I think election results are always going to be fought over at this point — largely because of big wig politicians in Washington.” Kondik fears the impact those persistent doubts on our election system will have on the future of the United States. “It was basically a group of weekend warriors that broke into the United States Capitol and disrupted our election because of a lie pushed by conservative politicians. How weak does that make us look?” he said. “And if the story of this country in the 21st century turns out to be that internal rot caused our decline, it’s going to be hard to look at January 6, 2021, and not see an important moment in that story. We need to continue to investigate that day.” But Kondik doesn’t believe a congressional commission is the only way to do that, citing the courts, the U.S. Justice Department as well as hearings led by Democrats in Congress as other potential options. “But I think it’s important we project an internal cohesiveness and strength to the world right now,” he added, “and a bipartisan congressional commission would have been an important way to do that.”
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By Polityk | 05/31/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Vote on Texas Bill to Make Voting Tougher Blocked by No Quorum
Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives boycotted a legislative session late Sunday, blocking a vote on an election reform bill critics say would make it harder for Blacks and Hispanics to vote. With just over an hour before a midnight deadline to pass the measure, Republican members of the House said that Democrats had walked out to deny the House a quorum for a vote. The Texas House went into recess until 10 a.m. local time on Monday – beyond the midnight Sunday deadline to pass legislation in this session. A vote on the measure is certain to pass the Republican-dominated house. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who strongly supports the bill, said in a late Sunday emailed statement that the bill would be added to a special legislative session planned for this fall. Supporters of the legislation said it is needed to bolster election security. The country’s second-most-populous state already has some of the most restrictive electoral laws in the United States, even without the pending bill. The proposed bill states that the changes “are not intended to impair the right of free suffrage” but are necessary to “prevent fraud in the electoral process.” Republican U.S. Representative Michael McCaul of Texas told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the intent is to “give the American people more trust in our elections.” Democrats and civil rights groups argue that such legislation disproportionately burdens or discourages voters of color, as well as the elderly and disabled. There were no substantial allegations of fraud in Texas in last year’s election and Republicans maintained their three-decade grip on all statewide offices. Republican state lawmakers across the country have pursued more stringent voting restrictions following former President Donald Trump’s false claim that he lost the 2020 election because of widespread election fraud. So far, 14 other U.S. states have enacted 22 laws this year that make it more difficult for Americans to vote, according to a report released on Friday by the Brennan Center for Justice. Scrapping innovationsThe Texas bill would strike down innovations used during last November’s election because of the coronavirus pandemic. Drive-through voting, credited with helping spark record voter turnout in Houston, will no longer be allowed. The bill also limits early hours to vote, makes it more difficult to cast absentee ballots and does away with drop boxes. The bill would forbid voting on Sundays before 1 p.m. Critics called that a blatant strike on the “Souls to the Polls” effort at Black churches, when worshippers have traditionally traveled in caravans to polling sites to cast votes after morning services. The legislation would also scrap 24-hour polling sites and ban mobile units or temporary structures from being used as polling places. The bill would also make it easier for courts to overturn elections where fraud is alleged. Instead of requiring evidence that fraudulent votes directly resulted in a candidate’s win, a court could overturn an election if the number of fraudulent votes is equal to the margin of victory, regardless of who those fraudulent votes were cast for. New requirements would take effect as well for Texans who want to vote through the mail and election officials would be barred from sending unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to voters. The legislation would also make the removal of disruptive, partisan poll watchers more difficult. Democratic President Joe Biden said in a statement on Saturday that the legislation in Texas “attacks the sacred right to vote.” Earlier this month, dozens of companies – including American Airlines Group Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co and Microsoft Corp – urged legislators to reject any law restricting access to ballots. ‘In their place’Members of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and the state’s NAACP civil rights organization said the bill hearkened back to the Jim Crow-era, when laws were enacted to block Blacks from voting and to maintain racial segregation in the U.S. South from the late 19th century into the 1960s. “This is a clear case of taking power and putting minorities in their place so they can never share power in Texas,” Gary Bledsoe, president of the state’s NAACP chapter, said ahead of the vote. Julian Castro, secretary of housing and urban development under former President Barack Obama and a former mayor of San Antonio, told a Democratic Party news conference that the rapidly shifting demographics of Texas had Republicans “running scared because they know that this state is changing and they’re afraid of the consequences.” Hispanics are forecast by the official Texas state demographer to surpass non-Hispanic whites as the largest group later this year. Former Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke, speaking during the same news conference, urged the U.S. Congress to pass expanded voting rights to stymie the vote-restriction efforts in Republican-controlled states, so that the United States would not revert to “Jim Crow 2.0.”
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By Polityk | 05/31/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
Texas Legislature Advances Voting Restrictions
Majority Republicans in the Texas Senate on Sunday approved one of the most restrictive new voting laws in the U.S. after rushing the bill to the floor in the middle of the night.The sweeping measure, known as Senate Bill 7, passed along party lines around 6 a.m. after eight hours of questioning by Democrats, who have virtually no path to stop it from becoming law. But the bill must still clear a final vote in the Texas House in order to reach Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it.“I have grave concerns about a bill that was crafted in the shadows and passed late at night,” said Democratic state Sen. Beverly Powell.Under revisions during closed-door negotiations, Republicans added language that could make it easier for a judge to overturn an election and pushed back the start of Sunday voting, when many Black churchgoers head to the polls. The 67-page measure would also eliminate drive-thru voting and 24-hour polling centers, both of which Harris County, the state’s largest Democratic stronghold, introduced last year.Texas is a key battleground in the GOP’s nationwide efforts to tighten voting laws, driven by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Georgia and Florida have also passed new voting restrictions. President Joe Biden on Saturday condemned the measures as “an assault on democracy.”The vote in the Texas Senate came after a final version of the bill had been made public Saturday. Around midnight, Republicans wielded their majority to suspend rules that would normally prohibit taking a vote on a bill that had not been posted for 24 hours, which Democrats protested as a breach of protocol that denied them and the public time to review the language first. The bill would newly empower partisan poll watchers by allowing them more access inside polling places and threatening criminal penalties against election officials who restrict their movement. Republicans originally proposed giving poll watchers the right to take photos, but that language was removed from the final bill that lawmakers were set to vote on this weekend. Another provision could also make it easier to overturn an election in Texas, allowing for a judge to void an outcome if the number of fraudulent votes cast could have changed the result, regardless of whether it was actually proven that fraud affected the outcome.Election officials would also face new criminal penalties, including felony charges for sending mail voting applications to people who did not request one. The Texas District and County Attorneys Association tweeted that it had counted in the bill at least 16 new, expanded or enhanced crimes related to elections.GOP legislators are also moving to prohibit Sunday voting before 1 p.m., which critics called an attack on what is commonly known as “souls to the polls” — a get-out-the-vote campaign used by Black church congregations nationwide. The idea traces back to the civil rights movement. Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier, chairwoman of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, said the change is “going to disengage, disenfranchise those who use the souls to the polls opportunity.”Pressed on the Senate floor over why Sunday voting couldn’t begin sooner, Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes said, “Election workers want to go to church, too.”Collier was one of three Democrats picked to negotiate the final version, none of whom signed their name to it. She said she saw a draft of the bill around 11 p.m. Friday — which was different than one she had received earlier that day — and was asked for her signature the next morning.Major corporations, including Texas-based American Airlines and Dell, have warned that the measures could harm democracy and the economic climate. But Republicans shrugged off their objections, and in some cases, ripped business leaders for speaking out.Texas already has some of the country’s tightest voting restrictions and is regularly cited by nonpartisan groups as a state where it is especially hard to vote. It was one of the few states that did not make it easier to vote by mail during the pandemic.The top Republican negotiators, Hughes and state Rep. Briscoe Cain, called the bill “one of the most comprehensive and sensible election reform bills” in Texas’ history.“Even as the national media minimizes the importance of election integrity, the Texas Legislature has not bent to headlines or corporate virtue signaling,” they said in a joint statement.Since Trump’s defeat, at least 14 states have enacted more restrictive voting laws, according to the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice. It has also counted nearly 400 bills filed this year nationwide that would restrict voting.Republican lawmakers in Texas have insisted that the changes are not a response to Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud but are needed to restore confidence in the voting process. But doubts about the election’s outcome have been fanned by some of the state’s top GOP leaders, including Attorney General Ken Paxton, who led a failed lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court to try to overturn the election.Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who chaired Trump’s presidential campaign in Texas, offered a $1 million reward to anyone who could produce evidence of voter fraud. Nonpartisan investigations of previous elections have found that voter fraud is exceedingly rare. State officials from both parties, including in Texas, as well as international observers have also said the 2020 election went well.
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By Polityk | 05/30/2021 | Повідомлення, Політика
