Розділ: Політика
US House Approves Defense Bill With Veto-Proof Margin
The Democratic-controlled House on Tuesday easily approved a wide-ranging defense policy bill, defying a veto threat from President Donald Trump and setting up a possible showdown with the Republican president in the waning days of his administration. The 335-78 vote in favor of the $731 billion defense measure came hours after Trump renewed his threat to veto the bill unless lawmakers clamp down on social media companies he claims were biased against him during the election. Trump tweeted Tuesday that he will veto “the very weak National Defense Authorization Act,” or NDAA, unless it repeals so-called Section 230, a part of the communications code that shields Twitter, Facebook and other tech giants from content liability. Trump also wants Congress to strip out a provision of the bill that allows renaming of military bases that now honor Confederate leaders. Congressional leaders vowed to move ahead on the hugely popular bill — which affirms automatic 3% pay raises for U.S. troops and authorizes other military programs — despite the veto threat. The final vote represented approval from more than 80% of the House — well above the two-thirds support required to override a potential veto. A total of 140 Republicans joined 195 Democrats to back the bill, which now goes to the Senate. FILE – Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 17, 2019.Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a member of the House Republican leadership, urged Trump not to follow through on his veto threat, but added that if he does veto it, “We should override.” If Trump vetoes the bill, “we will come back to vote to override,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. But with Trump pressuring Republicans to stand with him, it was unclear until the final tally whether the bill would receive the two-thirds support needed to override a veto. The House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of roughly three-dozen conservatives, backed Trump’s position Tuesday and opposed the bill. FILE – Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., speaks on Capitol Hill, Dec. 3, 2020.”We stand with the president,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., the group’s chairman. “This particular NDAA bill is filled with flaws and problems,” including limitations on troop withdrawals ordered by Trump in Afghanistan and Germany, Biggs said. Smith and other lawmakers noted that many defense programs can only go into effect if the bill is approved, including military construction. The measure guides Pentagon policy and cements decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, military personnel policy and other military goals. FILE – House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, April 12, 2018.Troops should not be “punished” because politicians failed to enact needed legislation to ensure their pay, said Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, the top Republican on the Armed Services panel. The $731 billion measure increases hazardous duty pay for overseas deployments and other dangerous job assignments, hikes recruiting and retention bonuses, and adjusts housing allowances. The dispute over social media content — a battle cry of conservatives who say the social media giants treat them unfairly — interjects an unrelated but complicated issue into a bill that Congress takes pride in having passed unfailingly for nearly 60 years. Measures approved by the House and Senate would require the Pentagon to rename bases such as Fort Benning and Fort Hood named for Confederate generals, but Trump opposes the idea and has threatened a veto over it. The fight erupted this summer amid widespread protests over police killings of unarmed Black men and women, and Trump used the debate to try to appeal to white Southern voters nostalgic about the Confederacy. FILE – Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 2, 2019.Smith and Thornberry said in a joint statement last week that lawmakers had “toiled through almost 2,200 provisions to reach compromise on important issues affecting our national security and our military.” For 59 straight years, they added, the NDAA has passed because lawmakers and presidents agreed to set aside their own preferences “and put the needs of our military personnel and America’s security first. The time has come to do that again.” The powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, said he had spoken to Trump and explained that the defense bill is not the place for the big tech fight. “I agree with his sentiments — we ought to do away with 230,” Inhofe told reporters. “But you can’t do it in this bill.” Trump’s veto threat in the final months of his administration is his latest attempt to bend the norms. From redirecting money intended for military bases to build the border wall with Mexico to installing acting nominees in administrative positions without Senate confirmation, Trump has chipped away at the legislative branch throughout his term. If he does veto the defense bill, Congress could cut short its Christmas recess to hold override votes, senior House members said. FILE – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Feb. 4, 2020.”I think we can override the veto, if in fact he vetoes,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Tuesday before the vote. “I hope he does not veto, I hope he reconsiders. And I think he will get substantial pressure, advice (from Republicans) that, you know, you don’t want to put the defense bill at risk.” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump’s attempt to pressure Congress on Section 230 was justified. “Twitter has become a publisher, choosing to fact-check content,” she said. “And when you’re a publisher, there are certain responsibilities with that and you should not be immune from liability.” Past presidents have certainly threatened to veto defense bills, which set annual policy with troop levels, equipment priorities, pay raises and other matters. The defense bill is typically a widely bipartisan measure, one of the few areas of common ground. Over the summer, the Senate approved its version, 86-14, while the House similarly passed its effort, with opposition coming mostly from the liberal and conservative flanks. FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 12, 2020.Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have railed against the social media companies, especially during the heated November election. McCarthy, R-Calif., voted for the bill Tuesday but said he would not support overriding the veto. Some Democrats, including Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, agree the Section 230 provision could be revisited, even as they disagree with Trump’s tactic of attaching it to the defense bill.
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By Polityk | 12/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Media: Biden Selects Fudge for Housing, Vilsack for Agriculture
President-elect Joe Biden has selected Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as his housing and urban development secretary and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reprise that role in his administration, according to four people familiar with the decisions. Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, was just elected to a seventh term representing a majority Black district that includes parts of Cleveland and Akron. Vilsack spent eight years as head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Obama administration and served two terms as Iowa governor. Their intended nominations were confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday by four people familiar with one or both of the decisions who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the president-elect’s announcement. Marcia FudgeBiden sees Fudge as a leading voice for working families and a longtime champion of affordable housing, infrastructure and other priorities, according to one of the people familiar with the president-elect’s decision. Vilsack was selected in part because of the heightened hunger crisis facing the nation and the need to ensure someone was ready to run the department on day one, the person said. FILE – Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, arrives for the Democratic Caucus leadership elections at the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 28, 2018.As news outlets started reporting Fudge’s selection as HUD secretary, she said on Capitol Hill that it would be “an honor and a privilege” to be asked to join Biden’s Cabinet, though she didn’t confirm she had been picked. “It is something in probably my wildest dreams I would have never thought about. So if I can help this president in any way possible, I am more than happy to do it,” she said Tuesday evening. A longtime member of the House Agriculture Committee and a fierce advocate for food stamps, Fudge was originally discussed to become agriculture secretary. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat who gave Biden a key nod of support in the primaries, had strongly backed her, saying, “It’s one thing to grow food, but another to dispense it, and nobody would be better at that than Marcia Fudge.” She also had the strong backing of progressive groups who touted her support for food aid and worker protections at meatpacking plants. But her name was later floated for HUD as Biden’s team focused on other candidates for USDA, including Vilsack and former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Tom Vilsack Biden’s relationship with Vilsack goes back decades. He was an early supporter of Biden’s first campaign for president in 1988 while Vilsack was the mayor of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He endorsed Biden a year before the 2020 election and campaigned tirelessly for him in Iowa, the nation’s first caucus state. Biden adopted aspects of Vilsack’s rural policy agenda as Democrats look to make up ground they’ve lost to Republicans in rural areas over the past decade. Having run the giant department for eight years under Obama and sat at the table with Biden, there’s little mystery to Vilsack’s expertise. Their 34-year friendship and longtime professional connection make the choice one offering little risk. FILE – Former United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack speaks at a campaign stop for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, in Burlington, Iowa, Jan. 31, 2020.Vilsack entered politics in large part because of tragedy, when the mayor of Mount Pleasant was gunned down at a city council meeting in 1986. Vilsack, then a young lawyer, had grown up in Pittsburgh and moved with his wife, Christie, to her Iowa hometown. He was recruited to seek the mayor’s office, then served two terms in the Iowa Senate before being the first Democrat to win the governorship in 30 years. After two terms, Vilsack ran a 10-week campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination before withdrawing and throwing his support to Hillary Clinton, even as Biden was among the field. Vilsack was a finalist for Clinton’s running mate that year. Biden has said he wants a diverse Cabinet, and some Black leaders have said he needs to do more to achieve that. Biden announced earlier Tuesday that he had selected retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin to be the nation’s first Black defense secretary. Clyburn aggressively pushed Fudge for USDA but seemed to suggest earlier Tuesday that she may be under consideration for another position. “Marcia Fudge is a tremendous candidate. I was pitching her for the Department of Agriculture,” Clyburn said on CNN. “I don’t know if that’s where she will end up, but I feel certain that Marcia Fudge is the kind of person that should be in this Cabinet and I will continue to advocate for her.” She earned her bachelor’s degree in business from The Ohio State University and a law degree from the Cleveland-Marshall School of Law at Cleveland State University. Politico first reported the news of Fudge’s selection, while Axios was first to report Vilsack as agriculture secretary.
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By Polityk | 12/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Congress Buys Itself More Time for COVID-19 Aid Compromise
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed Tuesday that lawmakers set aside two of the most contested elements of coronavirus government aid to break a month-long deadlock over a new round of congressional relief addressing the economic impact of the pandemic. “Why don’t we set aside the two obviously most contentious issues?” McConnell said to reporters, referring to liability protections and aid for state and local governments. “We know we’re going to be confronted with another request after the first of the year. We’ll live to fight those another day and pass the things that we agree on,” the Kentucky Republican said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks to the media after the Republican’s weekly Senate luncheon, at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 8, 2020.Republicans have insisted that any new legislation include liability protections. They argue that a one-time shield from lawsuits is necessary for businesses, schools and churches to reopen safely without fear of financial damage. Meanwhile, Democrats have argued for their $2.4 trillion relief plan that includes far more direct aid for state and local governments than provided in the Republican proposal. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said McConnell’s offer would jeopardize the well-being of emergency workers on the front line who are most exposed to the coronavirus threat by severely limiting funding for their salaries. “Every governor and mayor across the country has been fighting to keep these people working, and McConnell is pulling the rug out from under them,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday. “When a worker is laid off from the state or local government, it’s no different than when a worker is laid off from a small business.” FILE – Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 1, 2020.With just days left in session this year, U.S. lawmakers have bought themselves one more week to negotiate on a second round of coronavirus aid. Congress is expected to pass a short-term spending bill later this week, extending funding for the U.S. government for seven days past a December 11 deadline. Lawmakers will likely link any agreement on coronavirus assistance to a longer-term extension of government funding to wrap up work so they can leave Washington ahead of the holidays and begin a new Congress early next year. Democratic President-elect Joe Biden has said that any aid negotiated in December would be “a down payment” on more aid that could be passed in the new Congress when he takes office on January 20. Lawmakers have remained deadlocked over a new round of aid, as numbers of coronavirus infections have surged to more than 200,000 cases per day in recent weeks. Many cities and states are reinstating restrictions to control the so-called third wave of coronavirus infections, jeopardizing the economic gains made in part by bipartisan passage of the $3 trillion CARES Act earlier this year. FILE – President-elect Joe Biden speaks at The Queen theater, in Wilmington, Del., Dec. 4, 2020.Several key provisions of the last aid package are set to expire at the end of December, including enhanced unemployment insurance for 12 million people, student loan relief and rental eviction protections, keeping an estimated 40 million people in housing during the colder winter months. In a push for a second major package of relief measures, the Democrat-majority House of Representatives passed the $3.3 trillion HEROES Act in June. But McConnell and other congressional Republicans have criticized the Democrats’ aid proposal as overly expensive and instead argued for a slimmer, targeted package of aid. A bipartisan group of senators proposed a new $908 billion package of aid last week. Several congressional Republicans have also urged President Donald Trump to only sign legislation that includes a new round of stimulus checks for struggling Americans. Under the CARES Act, many Americans received checks of up to $1,200 to offset the impact of lost wages due to pandemic closures. Democrats have also expressed support for that proposal. “I think another round of relief checks would help make sure that our economy doesn’t dip even deeper into a recession in the months that come between now and when we have the vaccine,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware told cable news network MSNBC Tuesday.
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By Polityk | 12/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Signals Continued Fight to Upend Biden Victory
Campaign lawyers for U.S. President Donald Trump signaled Tuesday they intend to contest his loss to President-elect Joe Biden into January, even though all states but one certified their vote counts showing Biden won the national election last month. U.S. law calls for all 50 states to certify the outcomes in their individual states six days ahead of next Monday’s Electoral College vote, which determines the outcome of U.S. presidential elections. Only the Midwestern state of Wisconsin missed Tuesday’s “safe harbor day” deadline to certify its vote — which Biden carried — but could by the end of the week. Biden is expected to win the Electoral College vote by a 306-232 margin, the same total that Trump won the presidency by in 2016, then calling it a “landslide” victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Congress is set to review and certify the Electoral College outcome on January 6, two weeks ahead of Biden’s inauguration as the country’s 46th president. But Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani, hospitalized with COVID-19, and Jenna Ellis, who also has contracted the coronavirus, issued a joint statement on Tuesday describing the “Safe Harbor Deadline” as “a statutory timeline that generally denotes the last day for states to certify election results.” FILE – Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, November 19, 2020, in Washington.“However, it is not unprecedented for election contests to last well beyond December 8,” they added. The Trump lawyers quoted the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as saying during the disputed 2000 election that the congressional review and certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6 was of “ultimate significance.” Giuliani and Ellis said: “Despite the media trying to desperately proclaim that the fight [between Trump and Biden] is over, we will continue to champion election integrity until every legal vote is counted fairly and accurately.” Trump has refused to concede his loss to Biden or say whether he plans to attend Biden’s inauguration on the steps of the U.S. Capitol January 20. Trump has repeatedly claimed, with no evidence, that the election vote and vote-counting were rigged against him and fraudulent. But Trump’s lawyers have lost dozens of suits in political battleground states trying to upend Biden’s victory. Trump, to no avail so far, has also tried to convince lawmakers in some states to ignore the vote outcome and pick electors who support him. Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit in the U.S. Supreme Court late Monday claiming that the vote in favor of Biden in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin should be overturned because of irregularities. Trump applauded the lawsuit, saying it showed “courage and brilliance.” Attorneys general in the four states attacked by Paxton variously called his lawsuit a “publicity stunt,” “a circus” and “genuinely embarrassing.”
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By Polityk | 12/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Introduces Top Health Care Officials as US COVID Cases Soar
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is introducing his top health care officials on Tuesday, all of whom will quickly face the country’s grim world-leading coronavirus statistics: nearly 15 million infections and more than 283,000 deaths.Biden, FILE – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra speaks during a news conference in Sacramento, California, March 5, 2019.Outgoing President Donald Trump, defeated for re-election by Biden in last month’s national vote, is delivering remarks at Tuesday’s Operation Warp Speed summit on the government’s effort to produce several vaccines against the coronavirus.Although Biden has promised to get inoculated when a vaccine is approved as safe, polls show about four in 10 Americans are wary of getting the shots or will refuse to be vaccinated.In this file photo, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci speaks during an unscheduled briefing after a Coronavirus Task Force meeting at the White House on April 5, 2020, in Washington.Biden picked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, as his chief medical adviser on COVID-19, which is caused by the coronavirus. Fauci will also continue in his longtime role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Fauci, 79, has served as a medical adviser to six U.S. presidents and for months was the face of the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic. But in the months before the presidential election, Trump grew increasingly angered at Fauci’s grim assessments of the spread of the infection and sidelined him in favor of more upbeat commentary.Biden has also decided to nominate retired four-star Army General Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to numerous news accounts.Austin, 67, a career officer, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975 and served 41 years. He would need a congressional waiver to become defense secretary because he has not been out of uniform for at least seven years. If confirmed, he would be the Pentagon’s first Black leader.Throughout his campaign, Biden said he will pay close attention to scientific findings about the coronavirus from Fauci and other medical experts. Aside from reviewing the Pfizer vaccine, U.S. health regulators are to review another produced by the Moderna biotechnology firm next week. Millions of doses of the vaccines could be available later this month, with millions more in early 2021. In this image from video, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy speaks during the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 20, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)Biden named Dr. Vivek Murthy as surgeon general, a position he held from 2014 to 2017 during the administration of former President Barack Obama, when Biden was second-in-command.The president-elect picked Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a top expert on virus testing, prevention and treatment in the eastern state of Massachusetts, as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.Biden chose Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, an expert on health care disparities among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., as chair of his COVID-19 equity task force. She is an associate professor of medicine, public health and management at the Yale School of Medicine.The president-elect picked business executive Jeffrey Zients, a former director of the National Economic Council under Obama, as a coordinator of his COVID-19 response team and a counselor to him. Biden named former White House and Pentagon senior adviser Natalie Quillian as deputy coordinator of the government’s response to the pandemic.The Biden transition team said the health officials “will help fulfill the president-elect’s vision of making health care a right, not a privilege, for all Americans — building on the Affordable Care Act to lower health care costs and tackle prescription drug costs.”In a statement, Biden said, “This trusted and accomplished team of leaders will bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor, and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced — getting the pandemic under control so that the American people can get back to work, back to their lives, and back to their loved ones.”He said that after his inauguration next month, the government would “expand testing and masking, (and) oversee the safe, equitable and free distribution of treatments and vaccines.”Biden said his administration would “rally the country and restore the belief that there is nothing beyond America’s capacity if we do it together.”
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By Polityk | 12/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Texas Asks US Supreme Court to Help Trump Upend Election
The state of Texas, aiming to help President Donald Trump upend the results of the U.S. election, said on Tuesday it has filed suit against the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the Supreme Court, calling changes they made to election procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic unlawful.
The lawsuit, announced by the Republican attorney general of Texas Ken Paxton, was filed directly with the Supreme Court, as is permitted for certain litigation between states. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority including three justices appointed by Trump.
The lawsuit represents the latest legal effort intended to reverse the Republican president’s loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election.
Republican-governed Texas in the lawsuit accused election officials in the four states of failing to protect mail-in voting from fraud, thus diminishing “the weight of votes cast in states that lawfully abide by the election structure set forth in the Constitution.”
State election officials have said they have found no evidence of such fraud that would change the results. There was a surge in voting by mail in the election due to the pandemic, as many Americans stayed away from polling places to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
Texas is asking the Supreme Court to block the Electoral College votes in the four states – a total of 62 votes – from being counted. Biden has amassed 306 electoral votes – exceeding the necessary 270 – compared to 232 for Trump in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the election’s outcome, while also winning the national popular vote by more than 7 million votes.
Texas also is asking the Supreme Court to delay the Dec. 14 deadline for Electoral College votes to be cast.
Paul Smith, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school, said Texas did not have a legitimate basis to bring the suit.
“There is no possible way that the state of Texas has standing to complain about how other states counted the votes and how they are about to cast their electoral votes,” Smith said.
Trump’s campaign and his allies have pursued unsuccessful lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states, making unfounded claims of widespread election fraud. Trump lost those four states after winning them in 2016.
The Supreme Court is not obligated to hear the case and has said in previous decisions that its “original jurisdiction” that allows litigation between states to be filed directly with the nine justices should be invoked sparingly.
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By Polityk | 12/09/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
White House Announces New Tennis Pavilion
Nearly a year after announcing its construction, a new tennis pavilion has been completed on the White House grounds, the administration said in a statement Monday. The project, for which construction began in 2019, was to refurbish the existing tennis court on White House grounds and construct a new building alongside it, inspired by the classic architecture of the East and West Wings, the White House said in a statement Monday. “It is my hope that this private space will function as both a place of leisure and gathering for future first families,” first lady Melania Trump was quoted as saying in the statement. Today, @FLOTUS announced the completion of the Tennis Pavilion on the White House grounds! https://t.co/CQeyDLPTHN— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 7, 2020But the announcement was immediately met with backlash by some on social media, as many Americans questioned the cost and importance of the project as the U.S. recorded more than 283,000 deaths from COVID-19. “How many PPEs, tests, masks, contact tracers, and ICU beds could that have bought instead?” one epidemiologist wrote on Twitter. Good news—WH just announced today that they just completed the WH Tennis ? Pavilion. WH is so excited that they put out a press release. How many PPEs, tests, masks, contact tracers, and ICU beds could that have bought instead? #COVID19https://t.co/zGVpn7mkAGpic.twitter.com/uRLGpvvxcU— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 7, 2020The White House has not revealed how much money was spent on the project. The project drew criticism earlier in the year as well, when Melania Trump posted on Twitter a photo of herself wearing a hard hat and surveying construction. She responded to critics then in a tweet, calling on those who criticized her to “contribute something good and productive in their own communities.” I encourage everyone who chooses to be negative & question my work at the @WhiteHouse to take time and contribute something good & productive in their own communities. #BeBesthttps://t.co/03sx0rq2Nx— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) March 7, 2020
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By Polityk | 12/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Summit Aims to Boost Faith in Vaccine; Biden Excluded; Drugmakers Decline
The Trump administration is aiming to instill public confidence as well as claim major credit for the forthcoming coronavirus vaccines with a White House summit Tuesday featuring experts who will outline distribution plans in detail. Officials from President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team are not invited, even though they will oversee the continuation of the largest vaccination program in the nation’s history once he takes office January 20. President Donald Trump is trying to frame vaccine development as a key component of his legacy. The Operation Warp Speed summit will feature Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a host of government experts, state leaders and business executives, as the White House looks to explain that the vaccine is safe and lay out the administration’s plans to bring it to the American people. Senior administration officials provided details on the summit on Monday. An official with the Biden transition confirmed no invitation was extended.FILE – Vials with a sticker reading, “COVID-19 / Coronavirus vaccine / Injection only” and a medical syringe are seen in front of a displayed Pfizer logo, October 31, 2020.Officials from the pharmaceutical companies developing the vaccines also were not expected to attend, despite receiving invitations, according to people familiar with the matter. Some expressed concerns about the event contributing to the politicization of the vaccine development process and potentially further inhibiting public confidence in the drugs. Trump is set to kick off the event with remarks aiming to celebrate vaccine development, according to an official who previewed the event. Trump also will sign an executive order to prioritize Americans for coronavirus vaccines procured by the federal government. A second official said the order would restrict the U.S. government from donating doses to other nations until there is excess supply to meet domestic demand. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans for the summit. It was not immediately clear what, if any, impact the order would have on other nations’ abilities to access the vaccines. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday he expects his country to receive about 250,000 doses of a vaccine from Pfizer by the end of the year. The Food and Drug Administration is to meet Thursday to conduct a final review of the Pfizer drug, and it will meet later this month on a vaccine developed by Moderna. Both have been determined to be 95% effective against the virus that causes COVID-19. FILE – A man receives a trial COVID-19 vaccine at the Research Centers of America, in Hollywood, Florida, August 13, 2020.Plans call for distributing and then administering about 40 million doses of the two companies’ vaccines by the end of the year — with the first doses shipping within hours of FDA clearance. But Biden said Friday that “there’s no detailed plan that we’ve seen” for how to get the vaccines out of containers, into syringes and then into people’s arms. Trump administration officials insist that such plans have been developed, with the bulk of the work falling to states and municipal governments to ensure their most vulnerable populations are vaccinated first. The administration says it has leveraged partnerships with manufacturers, distributers and health care providers, so that outside of settings like veterans’ hospitals, “it is highly unlikely that a single federal employee will touch a dose of vaccine before it goes into your arm.” In all, about 50,000 vaccination sites are enrolled in the government’s distribution system, the officials said. Each of the forthcoming vaccines has unique logistical challenges related to distribution and administration. The Pfizer vaccine must be transported at super-cooled temperatures and comes in batches of 975 doses. Each vial contains five doses, requiring careful planning. The administration has prepared detailed videos for providers on how to safely prepare and administer doses, to be posted after the FDA issues its emergency use authorization. One such plan is to be announced Tuesday: Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens have stood up a “mobile vaccination service” ready to vaccinate people in every nursing home and long-term care facility in the country. The roughly 3 million residents of those facilities are among the most vulnerable for COVID-19 and have been placed at the front of the line to access the vaccine. So far, 80%-85% of the facilities have signed on to the service, the officials said.
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By Polityk | 12/08/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Names Top Health Care Officials
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden named his top health care officials on Monday, tapping former Congressman Xavier Becerra as his Health and Human Services chief to lead the country’s fight to curb the surging coronavirus pandemic and oversee millions of vaccinations against it in the coming months.
FILE – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra speaks during a news conference in Sacramento, California, March 5, 2019.Becerra currently is attorney general for the western state of California who led the defense last month in the U.S. Supreme Court against a conservative bid to overturn the country’s Affordable Care Act, in a case yet to be decided. During his 24 years as a congressman in the House of Representatives, Becerra worked to win approval for the national health care law that has provided insurance coverage to millions of Americans.
In addition, Biden picked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, as his chief medical adviser on COVID-19. Biden also asked Fauci to continue in his longtime role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci, 79, has served as a medical adviser to six U.S. presidents and for months has been the face of the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic.
In the months before the presidential election, President Donald Trump grew increasingly peeved at Fauci’s grim assessments of the spread of the virus and sidelined him in favor of more upbeat commentary.
FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases arrives to participate in a roundtable at the American Red Cross national headquarters in Washington.Biden has said he will pay close attention to scientific findings about the virus from Fauci and other medical experts and get vaccinated as soon as Fauci says the preventative is safe.
U.S. health regulators are about to review two proposed vaccines that have proved effective in clinical tests. Millions of doses of the vaccines could be available later this month, with millions more in early 2021.
Biden named Dr. Vivek Murthy as surgeon general, a position he held from 2014 to 2017 during the administration of former President Barack Obama, when Biden was second in command.
The president-elect picked Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a top expert on virus testing, prevention and treatment in the eastern state of Massachusetts, as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Biden chose Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, an expert on health care disparities among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., as chair of his COVID-19 equity task force. She is an associate professor of medicine, public health and management at the Yale School of Medicine.
The president-elect picked business executive Jeffrey Zients, a former director of the National Economic Council under Obama, as a coordinator of his COVID-19 response team and a counselor to him. Biden named former White House and Pentagon senior adviser Natalie Quillian as deputy coordinator of the government’s response to the pandemic.
The Biden transition team said the health officials “will help fulfill the president-elect’s vision of making health care a right, not a privilege, for all Americans — building on the Affordable Care Act to lower health care costs and tackle prescription drug costs.”
In a statement, Biden said, “This trusted and accomplished team of leaders will bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor, and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced — getting the pandemic under control so that the American people can get back to work, back to their lives, and back to their loved ones.”
He said that after his inauguration on January 20, the government would “expand testing and masking, (and) oversee the safe, equitable and free distribution of treatments and vaccines.”
He said his administration would “rally the country and restore the belief that there is nothing beyond America’s capacity if we do it together.”
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By Polityk | 12/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Georgia Republican Senator Loeffler Dodges Questions on Trump During Debate With Challenger Warnock
Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler danced around questions about whether President Donald Trump lost the November 3 election in a debate with her Democratic challenger on Sunday before two Georgia runoffs that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. Facing off with the Rev. Raphael Warnock on a debate stage in Atlanta, Loeffler repeatedly called the political newcomer a “radical liberal,” while Warnock criticized Loeffler’s stock trades after the wealthy businesswoman was appointed senator a year ago. Each criticized the other’s interpretation of the Christian faith. As the debate began, Loeffler sidestepped a question about whether she agreed with Trump’s baseless claims that last month’s election was rigged. Trump has not conceded to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, instead insisting without evidence that the result was because of widespread fraud, claims that state and federal officials have repeatedly rejected. “It’s vitally important that Georgians trust our election process and the president has every right to every legal recourse,” Loeffler said. Warnock countered by asking why Loeffler “continues to cast doubt on an American democratic election. It’s time to put this behind us.” Trump Campaigns in Georgia for Republican SenatorsThe president repeats vote fraud claims while backing GOP candidates in January runoff elections that could decide party control of SenateUphill fight for Democrats Georgia has not elected a Democratic U.S. senator in 20 years, but Biden’s narrow victory there over Trump has given Democrats hope. They face an uphill battle, however, and need to win both races to deny Republicans a Senate majority that could be used to block much of Biden’s legislative agenda. Republicans are training much of their fire on Warnock, the Black senior pastor of the Atlanta church where civil rights champion the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. “My opponent, radical liberal Raphael Warnock, is a socialist,” Loeffler said, an attack she voiced repeatedly throughout the debate. She went through a litany of attacks she has made in her campaign ads, which seek to portray Warnock as anti-police, anti-Israel, Marxist and tied to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and a sermon in which the Black Chicago pastor declared: “God damn America!” Warnock said Loeffler was trying to misrepresent him. “I believe in the free enterprise system,” he said. He accused Loeffler of improperly profiting by “dumping millions of dollars of stock” just after becoming senator and early in the coronavirus outbreak, before the stock market turned down. “I’m OK with the fact that she wants to make money, I just think you shouldn’t use the people’s seat to enrich yourself. You ought to use the people’s seat to represent the people,” Warnock said. The Justice Department closed a probe into stock trades made by Loeffler, along with Senators Dianne Feinstein and Jim Inhofe, earlier this year, shortly before market turmoil tied to the coronavirus, media have reported. All three have denied wrongdoing. Loeffler was appointed to her seat a year ago after its former occupant retired. She trailed Warnock in her complicated 20-candidate November 3 contest, when Warnock got 32.9% and Loeffler took 25.9%. Who’s in Georgia’s US Senate Election Runoffs?Two special elections in Georgia on Jan. 5 will determine which political party controls the US SenateRunoffs, recriminations Senator David Perdue, the other Georgia Republican fighting to hold his seat on January 5, opted out of debating Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff again, leaving his rival alone on stage on Sunday. Ossoff said Perdue may not want to talk about his frequent stock trades while a senator. Last summer, the Justice Department closed an inquiry into Perdue’s trades in shares of a financial firm without charges, the New York Times reported last month. “Senator Perdue, I suppose, doesn’t feel that he can handle himself in a debate, or perhaps is concerned that he may incriminate himself in a debate, both of which in my opinion are disqualifying for a U.S. senator seeking reelection,” Ossoff said. Perdue’s campaign has said he does not manage his stock portfolio day to day. The road to the runoffs poses challenges for both parties. Biden demonstrated that a Democrat could win in the historically conservative state by defeating Trump there by 49.5%-49.3% in last month’s election. That outcome has sparked recriminations among Republicans, with Trump blasting Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and Loeffler and Perdue calling for the resignation of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In a rally in Valdosta, Georgia, on Saturday night, Trump urged the crowd to vote Republican in the Senate runoffs despite his unsubstantiated claims of significant electoral fraud in the state. He also repeated his allegations of fraud in the national election that cost him the White House.
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By Polityk | 12/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Rallies Georgia Voters in US Senate Runoff While Alleging Widespread Fraud
Republicans and Democrats are working to get Georgia residents to vote in the January 5 runoff election that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. But Republicans are also divided about the results of the November 3 presidential race, with President Donald Trump still asserting widespread voter fraud. Michelle Quinn reports.Video editor: Mary Cieslak
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By Polityk | 12/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Congress Braces for Tough Week as COVID, Budget, Defense Dominate Agenda
Top U.S. lawmakers scrambled Sunday to reach difficult agreements as quickly as possible on a new aid package for the coronavirus-battered economy, a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown and the defense budget.And time was running out.The current federal budget law expires on December 11. If Congress fails to agree on a new one by that date, American public finances will suddenly dry up.In order to avoid a shutdown, Congress could decide to pass a temporary law for a few days, to give itself time between now and Christmas to reach a broad annual agreement on the 2021 budget.Republican and Democratic leaders have indicated that they would like the budget bill to include the next economic aid measures for the coronavirus, which have been the subject of bitter negotiations.”It’s really a superhuman effort on our part to help the American people as quickly as possible,” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin told ABC’s “This Week.”Lawmakers have negotiated for months on passing such a bill but haven’t come to terms on how much to spend and what to spend it on.Durbin has backed a bipartisan $908 billion aid package proposed this week.Democratic and Republican senators and their teams worked all weekend to draft the text of the detailed bill, which “will probably come out early this week,” said Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican, on “Fox News Sunday.”Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has agreed to make the proposal the basis for negotiations on a final text.But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, and President Donald Trump, who must sign the bill into law, have not made their positions clear.At the same time, Congress members hope to pass the Pentagon’s defense budget quickly. Democrats and Republicans have reached a consensus on a bill for $740 billion.But Trump is threatening to veto the measure if it does not include abolishing a law protecting the legal status of social media networks, which he says are biased against him.He also opposes plans to rename military bases named for Civil War confederate generals, pushing back on pressure to rid public places of reminders of the once pro-slavery South.Republicans believe they have the votes to override his veto, saying that the military cannot wait and that these issues could be addressed separately.House Majority Leader, Democratic representative Steny Hoyer, has scheduled a vote for as early as Tuesday.
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By Polityk | 12/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Taps California Attorney General to Be First Latino Health Secretary
President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response. If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.As California’s attorney general, Becerra has led the coalition of Democratic states defending Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act is often known, from the Trump administration’s latest effort to overturn it, a legal case awaiting a Supreme Court decision next year. A former senior House Democrat, Becerra played a role in steering the Obama health law through Congress in 2009 and 2010. At the time he would tell reporters that one of the primary motivations for him was having tens of thousands of uninsured people in his Southern California district.Overseeing the coronavirus response likely will be the most complicated task Becerra will have. By next year, the U.S. will be engaged in a mass vaccination campaign, the groundwork for which has been laid under the Trump administration. Although the vaccines appear very promising, and no effort has been spared to plan for their distribution, it’s impossible to tell yet how well things will go when it’s time to get shots in the arms of millions of Americans.The core components of HHS are the boots on the ground of the government’s coronavirus response. The Food and Drug Administration oversees vaccines and treatments, while much of the underlying scientific and medical research comes from the National Institutes of Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes the lead in detecting and containing the spread of diseases. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provides insurance coverage for more than 1 in 3 Americans, including vulnerable seniors, as well as many children and low-income people.Under President Donald Trump, the CDC was relegated to a lesser role after agency scientists issued a stark early warning that contradicted Trump’s assurances that the virus was under control, rattling financial markets. The FDA was the target of repeated attacks from the president who suspected its scientists were politically motivated and who also wanted them to rubber-stamp unproven treatments.As California’s attorney general, Becerra jokingly became known in Democratic legal circles as the man who sued Trump more than anyone else. Beyond health care, the lawsuits centered on issues from immigration to environmental policies.Before he became California’s attorney general, Becerra had served for more than a decade in Congress, representing parts of Los Angeles County. He had also served in the California state assembly after attending law school at Stanford.His mother was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and emigrated to the U.S. after marrying his father.
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By Polityk | 12/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Georgia Officials Reject Trump Vote Fraud Claims
Officials in Georgia on Sunday rebuffed Republican President Donald Trump’s contention that Democratic challenger Joe Biden fraudulently won the southern U.S. state, declaring that the president-elect’s claim to Georgia’s 16 electoral votes would stand.Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official, told ABC News’s “This Week” show that as a conservative Republican he was “disappointed” that Trump lost Georgia, but the people “have spoken” and “we don’t see anything that would overturn the will of the people.”Trump on Saturday asked the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, to call a special session of the state legislature to overturn the vote there and award Trump the state’s electors, which alone would not be enough to upend Biden’s unofficial 306-232 advantage in the Electoral College that determines the outcome of U.S. presidential elections. Kemp declined Trump’s request. Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Republican Geoff Duncan, told CNN on Sunday that he “absolutely” believes Kemp won’t accede to Trump’s demand that the governor persuade state lawmakers to nullify Biden’s victory in the state.FILE – Then-Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, left, walks with President Donald Trump as Trump arrives for a rally in Macon , Georgia, Nov. 4, 2018.“We’re certainly not going to move the goal posts at this point in the election,” Duncan said.Biden won the November 3 vote in Georgia by more than 12,000 votes. Two recounts, including a hand-by-hand tally of the more than 5 million ballots cast, upheld the result. It was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia since 1992, after Trump captured the state in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Biden is set to become the country’s 46th president after his inauguration on January 20.Trump staged a rally Saturday night in Georgia, briefly assailing Kemp for not helping him overturn Biden’s victory there.“Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing,” Trump said. “So far we haven’t been able to find the people in Georgia willing to do the right thing.”Trump voiced grievances and falsehoods about the election, even though there was no evidence, either in Georgia or other contested battleground states, of widespread fraud. William Barr, the Trump-appointed attorney general, told the Associated Press last week that “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” In his Sunday interview, Duncan said Trump’s claims of fraud were “concerning. The mountains of misinformation are not helping the process; they’re only hurting it.”FILE – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Nov. 30, 2020.In his ABC interview, Raffensperger, in defending the vote count in Georgia, said that he has received death threats and that his wife has received “sexualized texts and things like that.”“And now they’ve actually gone after people, been following … young poll workers and election workers in Gwinnett County and also our folks at one of our offices,” Raffensperger said. “And so, you’re seeing just irrational, angry behavior. It’s unpatriotic. People shouldn’t be doing that.”Trump fired Christopher Krebs, the government’s most senior cybersecurity official who called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.” In an interview Sunday on CBS News’s “Meet the Press” show, Krebs said he does not know why Trump is continuing his allegations of election fraud, even after he and his campaign have now lost or withdrawn three dozen or more lawsuits alleging vote and vote-counting irregularities.”I don’t know if it’s intentional or willful blindness,” Krebs said. “But this race is over; we’ve got to get ready for January 20th and the next administration.”
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By Polityk | 12/07/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Campaigns in Georgia for Republican Senators
U.S. President Donald Trump traveled to the key southeastern state of Georgia on Saturday to campaign for two Republican senators running against Democratic challengers in the January runoff election that will decide which party controls the Senate, but he mostly repeated his claims of widespread vote fraud.”You know we won Georgia, just so you understand,” Trump told the large crowd gathered for the first post-election rally for the president. Few in the crowd wore masks.Democrat Joe Biden, a former vice president, unofficially won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes out of about 5 million cast, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992.Hours before his trip to Georgia, the president called Governor Brian Kemp, urging the fellow Republican to call a special session of the state legislature to get lawmakers to override the vote results and appoint electors who would back him, according to The Washington Post.The governor refused, according to sources in Georgia and the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity, The Associated Press reported.The Republican Party needs one more seat to maintain its majority in the U.S. Senate. Republican Senator David Perdue must defeat Jon Ossoff in the January 5 runoff election in Georgia, while Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler must overcome a stiff challenge from Raphael Warnock. If the Republicans lose, resulting in a 50-50 Senate, Democratic Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would cast the tie-breaking vote.Trump, a Republican, repeatedly has said without evidence there was widespread fraud in the November election, a claim frequently rejected by federal and state officials.”They cheated and rigged our presidential election, but we’ll still win it. And they are going to try to rig this election, too,” Trump told the crowd Saturday night in Valdosta, Georgia.Hundreds arrive for a President Donald Trump rally in support of Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler on Dec. 5, 2020, in Valdosta, Georgia.Trump’s campaign said it filed a lawsuit Friday in Georgia to nullify the November 3 presidential election results in the state. The campaign and its supporters have filed dozens of similar lawsuits in various states, most of which have been rejected. As the campaign filed the lawsuit in Georgia, Trump’s legal battles were defeated in Michigan and Nevada.The suit in Georgia is the latest legal attempt to reverse Biden’s defeat of Trump. Trump’s campaign said the suit would include sworn statements from Georgia voters claiming fraud. But Georgia election officials, including the state’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, have said several times they have found no evidence of significant irregularities.Biden’s narrow win in Georgia, where a recount Trump’s campaign requested shows Biden winning by 11,769 votes, means any additional support Trump can garner in the state could increase Perdue’s and Loeffler’s chances of victory.Some Republicans are concerned Trump’s appearance in Georgia, however, could discourage voter turnout for the runoff.“Trump’s comments are damaging the Republican brand,” Republican donor Dan Eberhart told The Associated Press. He said Trump is “acting in bad sportsmanship and bad faith” instead of working to maintain Republican control of the Senate.Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said Trump’s attacks on the integrity of the state election dampen Perdue’s and Loeffler’s chances of winning the runoff.“The more Trump talks about the presidential election and gets into criticism of how the election was run here, the bigger a problem that is for the Senate candidates, and the greater likelihood that he could reduce enthusiasm among a segment of the electorate,” Abramowitz said in an interview with Reuters.But a top adviser to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Josh Holmes, told the AP that Republicans “haven’t seen any evidence of lack of enthusiasm in the Senate races.”Loeffler and Perdue are walking a fine line on the campaign trail: They warn voters of the dangers of a Democratic Senate majority but will not say Biden won the White House.They are not alone. The Washington Post contacted all 249 Republicans in the U.S. House and the Senate and reported that only 27 would say Biden won or have called him the president-elect. Two said they considered Trump the winner.Trump’s visit to Georgia comes one day after California certified Biden’s win in that state, giving him more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency.Presidential electors meet in each state on December 14 to cast their votes. On January 6, the newly elected Congress will officially count the electoral votes and formally name the president.
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By Polityk | 12/06/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Officially Secures Enough Electors to Become President
California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought Biden’s tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated Press. That’s just over the 270 threshold for victory.These steps in the election are often-ignored formalities. But the hidden mechanics of electing a U.S. president have drawn new scrutiny this year as President Donald Trump continues to deny Biden’s victory and pursues increasingly specious legal strategies aimed at overturning the results before they are finalized.Although it’s been apparent for weeks that Biden won the presidential election, his accrual of more than 270 electors is the first step toward the White House, said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.”It is a legal milestone and the first milestone that has that status,” Foley said. “Everything prior to that was premised on what we call projections.”The electors named Friday will meet Dec. 14, along with counterparts in each state, to formally vote for the next president. Most states have laws binding their electors to the winner of the popular vote in their state, measures that were upheld by a Supreme Court decision this year. There have been no suggestions that any of Biden’s pledged electors would contemplate not voting for him.Results of the Electoral College vote are due to be received, and typically approved, by Congress on Jan. 6. Although lawmakers can object to accepting the electors’ votes, it would be almost impossible for Biden to be blocked at that point.The Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate would both vote separately to resolve any disputes. One already has arisen from Pennsylvania, where 75 Republican lawmakers signed a statement on Friday urging Congress to block the state’s electoral votes from being cast for Biden. But the state’s Republican U.S. senator, Pat Toomey, said soon afterward that he would not be objecting to Pennsylvania’s slate of electors, underscoring the difficulty in trying to change the election results through Congress.”As a practical matter, we know that Joe Biden is going to be inaugurated on January 20,” Foley said.That was clear in the days after the election, when the count of mail ballots gradually made clear that Biden had won victories in enough states to win the Electoral College. It became even more apparent in late November, when every swing state won by Biden certified him as the winner of its elections and appointed his electors to the Electoral College. Trump has fruitlessly tried to stop those states from certifying Biden as the winner and appointing electors for the former vice president.Trump made no effort in deeply Democratic California, the most populous state in the nation and the trove of its largest number of electoral votes. Three more states won by Biden — Colorado, Hawaii and New Jersey — have not yet certified their results. When they do, Biden will have 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232.Trump and his allies have brought at least 50 legal cases trying to overturn results in the swing states Biden won — mainly Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. More than 30 have been rejected or dropped, according to an AP tally.Trump and his allies have also raised the far-fetched notion that Republican state legislatures in those states could appoint a rival set of electors pledged to Trump.But state Republican leaders have rejected that approach, and it would likely be futile in any case. According to federal law, both chambers of Congress would need to vote to accept a competing slate of electors. If they don’t, the electors appointed by the states’ governors — all pledged to Biden in these cases — must be used.The last remaining move to block the election would be the quixotic effort to vote down the electors in Congress.This tactic has been tried — a handful of congressional Democrats in 2000, 2004 and 2016 objected to officially making both George W. Bush and Trump president. But the numbers were not enough to block the two men from taking office.
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By Polityk | 12/05/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Campaign Files Another Election Lawsuit, Suffers More Legal Defeats
Donald Trump’s campaign said it filed a lawsuit in Georgia state court on Friday seeking to invalidate the presidential election results there, the latest in a series of legal challenges aimed at reversing his loss that have so far gone nowhere.The Trump campaign said in a statement its new lawsuit would include sworn statements from Georgia residents alleging fraud.Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, like Trump, and other state officials have said repeatedly they have found no evidence of widespread fraud in the Nov. 3 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.Trump’s team and various individuals backing him have suffered a string of legal defeats around the country, including in cases filed in Nevada and Wisconsin that sought court orders to reverse those states’ election results.President-elect Biden won the election with 306 Electoral College votes – against the 270 required – to Trump’s 232.A district judge in Nevada on Friday dismissed a case brought by would-be Republican presidential electors and said they must pay defendants’ legal costs after failing “to meet their burden to provide credible and relevant evidence to substantiate” any of the lawsuit’s claims.The Wisconsin Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision declined to act on a case that sought to have the court nullify the presidential election in the state and pave the way for the state legislature to choose Wisconsin’s 10 presidential electors.”Such a move would appear to be unprecedented in American history,” Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote in his concurring opinion of four justices issued on Friday.Trump’s campaign has spent nearly $9 million on its unsuccessful bid to overturn the results of the election, including nearly $2.3 million to lawyers and consultants.The campaign and the Republican National Committee have raised at least $207.5 million since Election Day, much of it from solicitations asking for donations to an “Official Election Defense Fund.”The fine print made clear most of the money would go to other priorities through Trump’s new political action committee, which could fuel his future political endeavors.
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By Polityk | 12/05/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Pence Visits Georgia as Calm Before Potential Trump Storm
Vice President Mike Pence is trying to help Republicans project a unified front in two high-stakes Senate runoffs as he campaigns in Georgia a day ahead of President Donald Trump’s potentially volatile visit to the state that will determine which party controls the Senate in January. The vice president is campaigning Friday with Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, with the GOP roiled by Trump’s continued denial of his own defeat and his baseless attacks that Republican officials in Georgia, including the governor and secretary of state, enabled widespread voter fraud on behalf of President-elect Joe Biden. Pence navigated Trump’s refusal to concede as he rallied Republicans two weeks ago alongside Perdue and Loeffler. At two north Georgia rallies, he promised to fight for “every legal vote” but spent more time emphasizing the stakes of Senate control. But this time, Pence arrives as Georgia completes another recount of presidential ballots and with some of the president’s supporters – including lawyers once considered allies of the president’s re-election campaign – urging a boycott of Perdue’s and Loeffler’s January 5 runoffs. FILE – Republican candidate for Senate Sen. David Perdue speaks during a campaign stop at Peachtree Dekalb Airport in Atlanta, Nov. 2, 2020.The vice president’s visit also comes on the same day that former President Barack Obama will appear in a virtual rally with the Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, in a show of the kind of party unity that Republicans have difficulty fashioning with the president calling Governor Brian Kemp “hapless” and dubbing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “an enemy of the people.” Perdue and Loeffler have attempted to steer clear of the intraparty divide, calling for Raffensperger’s resignation but generally focusing more on the consequences of Senate control rather than questioning the outcome of the first round. But Republicans in Washington and Georgia nonetheless voiced concerns that Trump on Saturday will continue those lines of attack rather than focus his efforts on GOP enthusiasm in the second round. “They are hyper aware of Trump’s latest comments and latest tweets and the negative impact it could be having,” said Republican donor Dan Eberhart of the senators’ advisers. “And those folks go to bed every night hoping there’s no Trump tweet while they sleep.” FILE – Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Sen. Kelly Loeffler gestures to supporters at a campaign rally in Marietta, Ga., Nov. 11, 2020.White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany dismissed any such concerns, though she embraced the idea that Trump can make or break the runoffs for Republicans. “The president’s presence in Georgia will push Senators Loeffler and Perdue over the finish line,” she said Friday, noting that Republicans enjoyed their own turnout boost this fall to narrow House Democrats’ majority and defend Senate Republicans who’d been seen as vulnerable. Republicans need one more seat to command a Senate majority that could counter a Biden presidency. Democrats need a sweep to force a 50-50 Senate and set up Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to tilt the chamber to Democrats as the tiebreaking vote. Trump has tweeted in support of Perdue and Loeffler but has spent more energy blasting Kemp and Raffensperger and suggesting, falsely, that the two officials have the legal authority to reverse Biden’s victory in Georgia. State law gives them no such option. Initial returns showed Biden with a lead of more than 14,000 votes out of about 5 million cast. An initial hand recount put Biden’s margin at about 12,500. As Pence arrived in the state, Georgia officials were in the final stages of a third count requested by Trump’s campaign. Perdue and Loeffler greeted Pence together late Friday morning at Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta before a scheduled event at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the vice president and the senators discussed the coronavirus pandemic and the development of vaccines. The trio will appear Friday afternoon at a rally in Savannah. Demonstrating Friday’s unity efforts, U.S. Representative Doug Collins, Loeffler’s erstwhile GOP opponent in the Senate race, flew to Georgia with Pence and participated in a roundtable at CDC headquarters along with the two senators. Before the CDC roundtable, Collins, Loeffler and Perdue huddled in front of a bank of television cameras and photographers. Kemp, a Trump supporter and at one time a staunch ally, was not part of Pence’s public itinerary. But separately, the governor noted that Friday marked one year since he named Loeffler as his choice to fill the Senate vacancy created by Republican Senator Johnny Isakson’s retirement. “I’m proud of what Kelly has accomplished, but there’s more work to be done,” Kemp said via his official Facebook page. “Let’s unite as Georgia conservatives and send Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue back to Washington.”
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By Polityk | 12/05/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Who’s in Georgia’s US Senate Election Runoffs?
Georgia will hold two special elections Jan. 5, with the results ultimately determining which party will control the U.S. Senate.In the southeastern state of Georgia, a political candidate in a primary or general election must earn more than 50% of the votes. If no one in the race meets that threshold, the top two vote-getters enter into a runoff election.One runoff race features incumbent Sen. David Perdue, a Republican who received 49.7% of the vote on Nov. 3, and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, who received 47.9%.The other runoff race is for a seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican who received 25.9% of the vote on Nov. 3, will face the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who received 32.9%.Republicans need to win just one of the elections to retain control of the U.S. Senate. Democrats need to win both seats to force a 50-50 Senate. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would then be needed to cast tie-breaking votes when needed.Here is a look at the candidates:REPUBLICANSKelly LoefflerLoeffler, 50, is the junior senator from Georgia and was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp after Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned due to poor health. She took office on Jan. 6, 2020. Before becoming a senator, Loeffler worked in the financial services sector. For the November election, she campaigned as a strong supporter of President Donald Trump. She was implicated in an insider trading scandal, allegedly selling stock in companies that would be harmed by the coronavirus pandemic. The Senate Ethics Committee cleared her of wrongdoing. She is the co-owner of the WNBA team the Atlanta Spirit.David PerduePerdue, 70, is the senior senator from Georgia, taking his seat in January 2015. Most of his career has been spent in the private sector, where he was a senior vice president of Reebok, the CEO of a North Carolina textile business and CEO of Dollar General. He generally supported the policies of President Donald Trump but opposed him on tariffs. He was implicated in an insider trading scandal, allegedly selling stock in companies that would be harmed by the coronavirus pandemic. The Senate Ethics Committee cleared him of wrongdoing.DEMOCRATSJon OssoffOssoff, 33, is running for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia against incumbent David Perdue. In 2017, Ossoff ran for Congress from Georgia’s 6th Congressional District but lost. Before running for office, he was an investigative journalist and a congressional staffer. A sharp critic of President Donald Trump, Ossoff is portrayed as a progressive on some issues such as health care and guns but moderate on the economy and national security. He supports statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.Raphael WarnockWarnock, 51, is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia against incumbent Kelly Loeffler. Warnock is an ordained minister and since 2005 has been the senior pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He has also been involved in politics, trying to expand Medicaid, a policy he continues to promote. From 2017 to 2020, he also worked to expand voter registration in Georgia. Warnock has come under criticism for some controversial comments made years ago during sermons, such as “nobody can serve God and the military.” He defended the comment, saying, “What I was expressing was … that as a person of faith my ultimate allegiance is to God.”
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By Polityk | 12/05/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Among First Acts, Biden to Call for 100 Days of Mask-Wearing
Joe Biden said Thursday that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, stopping just short of the nationwide mandate he’s pushed before to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The move marks a notable shift from President Donald Trump, whose own skepticism of mask-wearing has contributed to a politicization of the issue. That’s made many people reticent to embrace a practice that public health experts say is one of the easiest ways to manage the pandemic, which has killed more than 275,000 Americans.
The president-elect has frequently emphasized mask-wearing as a “patriotic duty” and during the campaign floated the idea of instituting a nationwide mask mandate, which he later acknowledged would be beyond the ability of the president to enforce.
Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Biden said he would make the request of Americans on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
“On the first day I’m inaugurated, I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask — not forever, just 100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction” in the virus, Biden said.
The president-elect reiterated his call for lawmakers on Capitol Hill to pass a coronavirus aid bill and expressed support for a $900 billion compromise bill that a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced this week.
“That would be a good start. It’s not enough,” he said, adding, “I’m going to need to ask for more help.”
Biden has said his transition team is working on its own coronavirus relief package, and his aides have signaled they plan for that to be their first legislative push.
The president-elect also said he asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to stay on in his administration, “in the exact same role he’s had for the past several presidents,” as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert.
He said he’s asked Fauci to be a “chief medical adviser” as well as part of his COVID-19 advisory team.FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, speaks during a Senate hearing on COVID-19, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Sept. 23, 2020.Regarding a coronavirus vaccine, Biden offered begrudging credit for the work Trump’s administration has done in expediting the development of a vaccine but said that planning the distribution properly will be “critically important.”
“It’s a really difficult but doable project, but it has to be well planned, ” he said.
Part of the challenge the Biden administration will face in distributing the vaccine will be instilling public confidence in it. Biden said he’d be “happy” to get inoculated in public to assuage any concerns about its efficacy and safety. Three former presidents — Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — have said they’d also get vaccinated publicly to show that it’s safe.
“People have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work,” Biden said, adding that “it matters what a president and the vice president do.”FILE – President Donald Trump participates in a Thanksgiving video teleconference with members of the military forces.In the same interview, Biden also weighed in on reports that Trump is considering pardons of himself and his allies.
“It concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice,” Biden said.
Biden committed that his Justice Department will “operate independently” and that whoever he chooses to lead the department will have the “independent capacity to decide who gets investigated.”
“You’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons, nor are you going to see in our administration the approach to making policy by tweets,” he said.
In addition to considering preemptive pardons, Trump has spent much of his time post-election trying to raise questions about an election he lost by millions of votes while his lawyers pursue baseless lawsuits alleging voter fraud in multiple states.
Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, have largely given the president cover, with many defending the lawsuits and few publicly congratulating Biden on his win.
But Biden said Thursday that he’s received private calls of congratulations from “more than several sitting Republican senators” and that he has confidence in his ability to cut bipartisan deals with Republicans despite the rancor that’s characterized the last four years on Capitol Hill.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
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Trump aides have expressed skepticism that the president, who continues to falsely claim victory and spread baseless claims of fraud, would attend Biden’s inauguration. Biden said Thursday night that he believes it’s “important” that Trump attend, largely to demonstrate the nation’s commitment to peaceful transfer of power between political rivals.
“It is totally his decision,” Biden said of Trump, adding, “It is of no personal consequence to me, but I think it is to the country.”
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By Polityk | 12/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Questions Abound As Trump Faces End of His Presidency
Less than seven weeks before his four-year term ends, questions are swirling around U.S. President Donald Trump.Will he concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden?So far, Trump has not yet offered a concession, nor is one required. A concession is simply a polite tradition of U.S. presidential elections in which the losing candidate admits the obvious and congratulates the winner.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
An undated portrait of Grover Cleveland, 22nd president of the United States.A question also remains about the inauguration: Will Trump attend?For more than a century, each outgoing president has adhered to custom and attended his successor’s swearing-in ceremony, even when the incumbent lost to the newly elected U.S. leader.Trump said he has made up his mind but has not announced where he plans to be on Inauguration Day. But he is contemplating another run for the White House in 2024.Only one U.S. president — Grover Cleveland in 1892 — successfully recaptured another term in the White House after losing a bid for reelection four years earlier.Trump is keeping his options open and hinting at his plans.He told Republicans at a White House holiday party this week, “It’s been an amazing four years. We’re trying to do another four years. Otherwise, I’ll see you in four years.”
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By Polityk | 12/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
VP-Elect Harris Picks Tina Flournoy to Be Her Chief of Staff
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has named Tina Flournoy, a veteran Democratic strategist and aide to the Clintons, as her chief of staff, the transition team announced Thursday.
Flournoy’s appointment as Harris’ top staffer adds to a team of advisers led by Black women. Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian heritage, is the nation’s first female vice president. Flournoy joins Ashley Etienne as Harris’ communications director and Symone Sanders as her chief spokeswoman.
Flournoy has served as chief of staff for former President Bill Clinton since 2013. That follows a career that took her to top posts at the Democratic National Committee, in the presidential campaigns of former Vice President Al Gore and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and with the American Federation of Teachers.
Bill Clinton called her appointment “great news for our country.”
“Tina Flournoy is incredibly smart, strong, and skillful, with deeply rooted values. She’s done a wonderful job as my chief of staff for nearly 8 years, and I will miss her—but I’m thrilled about VP-elect Harris’ choice,” he tweeted.
Harris also announced Rohini Kosoglu as her domestic policy adviser and Nancy McEldowney as her national security adviser. Kosoglu had served as Harris’ top adviser during the general election campaign. McEldowney is a former ambassador to Bulgaria and has 30 years of service in various diplomatic and foreign affairs jobs.
“Together with the rest of my team, today’s appointees will work to get this virus under control, open our economy responsibly and make sure it lifts up all Americans, and restore and advance our country’s leadership around the world,” Harris said in a statement.
Former colleagues describe Flournoy as a no-nonsense operative who has both policy and political chops. Matt McKenna, who was Bill Clinton’s spokesperson from 2007 to 2015, noted the historic nature of Harris’ candidacy and said Flournoy will skillfully manage competing demands for her time.
“(Harris) represents so many things to so many people, and they’re all going to want some of her time. She needs someone who can honor the historic nature of her candidacy and her victory and her place in the world,” he said.
Harris has regularly joined President-elect Joe Biden and offered remarks at briefings on the economy, the coronavirus and health care since the two won the November election. The transition team has yet to announce whether she’ll focus on any specific issues or initiatives.
Flournoy has never held a position with Harris. But Minyon Moore, another former Clinton aide and close friend of Flournoy’s, is assisting Harris with staffing during the transition. It’s unclear if any of Harris’ former Senate staff or longtime political advisers will join the vice president’s office.
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By Polityk | 12/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Fauci to Discuss Coronavirus Pandemic with Biden Transition Team
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, is meeting virtually Thursday with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team about the surging coronavirus pandemic in the country and the likely start soon of widespread vaccinations of millions of Americans.Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, was for months the face of the government’s response to the pandemic.But his dire warnings about the health risks of the virus eventually peeved President Donald Trump, who sidelined him in favor of more optimistic medical views ahead of last month’s national election in which Biden defeated Trump. Biden has promised to listen to the advice of medical experts like Fauci as tens of thousands of new infections in the United States are being recorded daily. More than 273,000 Americans have been killed by the virus, more than in any other country, according to Johns Hopkins University.The 79-year-old Fauci, a career government civil servant, told CBS News that his discussions with Biden’s “landing team” at his agency will center on the new administration’s priorities to quickly start inoculations after two proposed vaccines are likely approved by government drug regulators in the next two weeks.”Having served six (White House) administrations, I’ve been through five transitions, and I know that transitions are really important if you want to get a smooth handing over of the responsibility,” Fauci said.Fauci said he has not yet spoken with Biden but expects to do so soon.
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By Polityk | 12/04/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Ivanka Trump Questioned Under Oath in Inauguration Funds Lawsuit
Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, was questioned under oath this week as part of a civil lawsuit alleging misuse of nonprofit funds for Donald Trump’s inauguration four years ago.District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine’s office disclosed in a court filing on Tuesday that the deposition had taken place that day.In a January 2020 lawsuit, Racine claimed Donald Trump’s real estate business and other entities misused nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family.According to the suit, a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation called the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee coordinated with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel in Washington.Racine’s lawsuit alleged that in one case, the nonprofit paid more than $300,000 to hold a private reception at the Trump hotel for the president’s three oldest children – Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric – on the inauguration evening of Jan. 20, 2017.“District law requires nonprofits to use their funds for their stated public purpose, not to benefit private individuals or companies,” Racine said earlier this year.His lawsuit seeks to recover $1 million that was allegedly funneled directly to the Trump family business.A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The inaugural committee has said its finances were independently audited, and that all money was spent lawfully.Although campaign finance laws restrict the size of campaign contributions, inauguration committees can accept unlimited donations, including from corporations.The $107 million raised by Trump’s inaugural committee, chaired by real estate developer and investor Thomas Barrack, was the largest in history, according to Federal Election Commission filings.Former Trump campaign aide Richard Gates served as deputy chairman of the inaugural committee.Gates was one of several Trump associates convicted in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Republicans Balk as Trump Uses Defense Bill for Leverage on Big Tech
President Donald Trump’s threat to veto a defense bill if it does not repeal legal protections for social media companies faced stiff bipartisan opposition Wednesday, setting the stage for a confrontation with lawmakers scrambling to pass the massive bill by year’s end. Unusually, members of his Republican Party broke from Trump to join Democrats in objecting to his threat to veto the annual National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a $740 billion annual bill setting policy for the Pentagon, if it does not include a measure eliminating a federal law — known as Section 230 — protecting tech companies such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. FILE – Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. gives a victory speech at the Republican watch party in Oklahoma City, Nov. 4, 2014.”First of all, 230 has nothing to do with the military. And I agree with his sentiments. We ought to do away with 230, but you can’t do it in this bill. That’s not a part of the bill,” Senator Jim Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters. Lawmakers announced on Wednesday that congressional negotiators had completed the conference report on the fiscal 2021 NDAA, a compromise between separate versions of the bill passed earlier this year by the Republican-led Senate and Democratic-majority House of Representatives. Congressional aides said the final version of the NDAA does not include the Section 230 repeal demanded by Trump. The legislation also includes a provision that will strip the names of Confederate generals from military facilities, something that passed both the House and Senate with support from both parties earlier this year but is also opposed by Trump. The president had earlier threatened to veto the NDAA if it did not allow the Confederate names to remain in place. ‘Partisan preferences’ FILE – House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 2, 2019.”For 59 straight years, the NDAA has passed because members of Congress and presidents of both parties have set aside their own policy objectives and partisan preferences and put the needs of our military personnel and America’s security first. The time has come to do that again,” Representatives Adam Smith, the House Armed Services Committee’s Democratic chairman, and Mac Thornberry, the panel’s ranking Republican, said in a joint statement. FILE – House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, April 12, 2018.Since it is a conference report, and the result of months of negotiations between members of both parties from both the House and Senate, it cannot be amended. Lawmakers take great pride in passing the NDAA every year. It is a rare major bill seen as “must-pass” because it governs everything from pay raises for service members to how many aircraft, missiles and ships should be purchased to how best to compete with Russia and China. With Congress in session only until the end of the year, the House and Senate are running out of time to finalize the massive bill and avoid breaking the 59-year streak. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects tech companies from liability over content posted by users and has been under attack from Trump and Republican lawmakers, who accuse internet platforms of stifling conservative voices. White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was serious about his veto threat and wanted to use what leverage he had to repeal the tech protection law. “The president has made clear the importance of 230,” she told a news briefing. FILE – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland speaks during a news conference on health care, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 4, 2020.Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, called Trump’s threat “shameless and indefensible.” Trump and many of his supporters have been calling for the repeal of Section 230 since social media companies began removing or flagging material deemed to be inaccurate, frequently including tweets from Trump. Republican House member Adam Kinzinger summed up the frustration of many with Trump with his own tweet on Wednesday. “I will vote to override. Because it’s really not about you,” Kinzinger wrote.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Bill Forcing Chinese Firms to Meet US Accounting Standards Passes Congress
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday that could prevent Chinese companies from listing their shares on U.S. exchanges unless they adhere to U.S. auditing standards.The measure passed by unanimous voice vote, after passing the Senate earlier this year, sending it to the White House, which said President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law.”The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act” bars securities of foreign companies from being listed on any U.S. exchange if they have failed to comply with the U.S. Public Accounting Oversight Board’s audits for three years in a row.While it applies to companies from any country, the legislation targets Chinese companies such as Alibaba, tech firm Pinduoduo Inc. and oil giant PetroChina Co Ltd.Measures taking a harder line on Chinese business and trade practices generally pass Congress with large margins, as both Democrats and Trump’s fellow Republicans echo the president’s hard line against Beijing.Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who co-authored the bill with Republican Sen. John Kennedy, said in a statement that American investors “have been cheated out of their money after investing in seemingly-legitimate Chinese companies that are not held to the same standards as other publicly listed companies.”Kennedy said China was using U.S. exchanges to “exploit” Americans. “The House joined the Senate in rejecting a toxic status quo,” he said in a statement.The act would also require public companies to disclose whether they are owned or controlled by a foreign government.Greater scrutiny could also deter other Chinese firms from listing in the United States, say industry participants. Such listings reached a six-year high this year.International disagreementsChinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said before the vote that it was a discriminatory policy that politically oppresses Chinese firms.”Instead of setting up layers of barriers, we hope the U.S. can provide a fair and non-discriminatory environment for foreign firms to invest and operate in the U.S.,” Hua told a news conference.Chinese authorities have long been reluctant to let overseas regulators inspect local accounting firms, citing national security concerns.Officials at China’s securities regulator indicated earlier this year they were willing to allow inspections of audit documents in some circumstances, but past agreements aimed at solving the dispute have failed to work in practice.Shaun Wu, a Hong Kong-based partner at law firm Paul Hastings, said increased enforcement against Chinese companies was likely even though Democrat Joe Biden will become president in January.He said that if the bill becomes law, “all Chinese companies listed in the U.S. will face enhanced scrutiny by the U.S. authorities and inevitably consider all available options.”This could include listing in Hong Kong or elsewhere, he said. Several U.S.-listed Chinese firms, including Alibaba and KFC China operator Yum China, have recently carried out secondary listings in Hong Kong.
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By Polityk | 12/03/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
