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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Philadelphia Inquirer’s top editor is resigning after an uproar over a headline lamenting damage to businesses amid turbulent protests denouncing police brutality against people of color, the paper announced Saturday.The newspaper said Stan Wischnowski, 58, was stepping down as senior vice president and executive editor.The Inquirer had apologized for a “horribly wrong” decision to use the headline, “Buildings Matter, Too,” on a column Tuesday about looting and vandalism on the margins of protests of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer.The backlash came as The New York Times was widely criticized for publishing an opinion piece by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton advocating the use of federal troops to quell the protests.About 30 members of the Inquirer’s 210-member editorial staff called in sick earlier this week, and black staff members angrily condemned the headline. It appeared over an article by architecture critic Inga Saffron, who worried that buildings damaged in violence over the past week could “leave a gaping hole in the heart of Philadelphia.”The Inquirer drew fresh scorn after it replaced that headline online with one that read, “Black Lives Matter. Do Buildings?” Eventually, the newspaper settled on “Damaging buildings disproportionately hurt the people protesters are trying to uplift.”The Inquirer published an apology from senior editors. Publisher and CEO Lisa Hughes said in a memo to staff that the headline was “offensive and inappropriate” and said the newspaper needed a more diverse workforce.Wischnowski had worked at the Inquirer for 20 years and was editor when the paper won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for an in-depth investigation into violence within Philadelphia schools.He will formally leave the newspaper June 12. Hughes did not immediately name a successor. | 1 |
The release of President Obama's proposed fiscal 2014 federal budget on Wednesday morning may seem a little anticlimactic. After all, we learned last week about its big news, the president's controversial idea of reducing Social Security payments to help reduce the deficit. But even a budget that's going nowhere gives a president the chance to state priorities and place dollar amounts next to them. "Don't forget, every president's budget is part political statement, part accounting document. This one is more of a political statement than most others," said federal budget expert Stan Collender in an interview. A president's budget also gives analysts a chance to see the economic assumptions a president's economic team is working with. Just how fast or slowly do they expect the economy to grow? Collender, who was a top congressional aide for decades and now works for Qorvis Communications, is particularly keen on seeing what the president's economic team is predicting on that score. "Understand," Collender said, "that with any president's budget, not just this one, you have to take the economic forecast with a grain of salt, if not a shaker of salt. Because no president ever forecasts things are going to get worse. The question is how much better is it going to get, and how much quicker." The president's budget will underline Obama's insistence that deficit reduction be done in a "balanced" way. So it's likely to include some of the investments he mentioned in his State of the Union address in February, like added spending on regional manufacturing "hubs." The idea is that the Defense and Energy departments, working with the private sector, can bring new advanced manufacturing jobs to parts of the U.S. suffering from globalization-related job losses. And the proposal is likely to include Obama's plan for a federal and state effort to expand preschool to all the nation's 4-year olds. New federal spending would obviously be needed to underwrite such a program. Expect to see a plan for new revenue that would be derived by changes to the tax code that now benefit the nation's wealthiest and its big corporations. In the past, the president has called for raising the tax rates currently used by hedge fund managers and other investment professionals that allow them to pay taxes on millions in income at far lower rates than less wealthy Americans. While many of the proposals are unlikely to fly with Congress, Obama will use it to send a message, says Collender. "He's going to try to make himself look a little more bipartisan, a little bit more centrist, a little bit more willing to compromise. And to do that he's going to submit a budget that Republicans and Democrats are going to hate equally," Collender said. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has assembled a made-for-TV legal team for his Senate trial that includes household names like Ken Starr, the prosecutor whose investigation two decades ago resulted in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said he will deliver constitutional arguments meant to shield Trump from allegations that he abused his power.The additions Friday bring experience in the politics of impeachment as well as constitutional law to the team, which faced a busy weekend of deadlines for legal briefs before opening arguments begin Tuesday even as more evidence rolled in.The two new Trump attorneys are already nationally known both for their involvement in some of the more consequential legal dramas of recent American history and for their regular appearances on Fox News, the president’s preferred television network.Dershowitz is a constitutional expert whose expansive views of presidential powers echo those of Trump. Starr is a veteran of partisan battles in Washington, having led the investigation into Clinton’s affair with a White House intern that brought about the president’s impeachment by the House. Clinton was acquitted at his Senate trial, the same outcome Trump is expecting from the Republican-led chamber.Still, the lead roles for Trump’s defense will be played by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, who also represented Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Democrats released more documents late Friday from Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, with photos, text and audio, as they make their case against the president over his actions toward Ukraine.There are some signs of tension involving the president’s outside legal team and lawyers within the White House. Some White House officials bristled that the announcement was not coordinated with them. The White House waited until late Friday night to confirm the full roster of the president’s lawyers.Hours after Dershowitz announced his involvement with the team in a series of tweets Friday, he played down his role by saying he would be present for only an hour or so to make constitutional arguments.“I’m not a full-fledged member of the defense team,” he told “The Dan Abrams Show” on SiriusXM. He has long been a critic of “the overuse of impeachment,” he said, and would have made the same case for a President Hillary Clinton.A legal brief laying out the contours of the Trump defense, due at noon Monday, was still being drafted, with White House attorneys and the outside legal team grappling over how political the document should be. Those inside the administration have echoed warnings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that the pleadings must be sensitive to the Senate’s more staid traditions and leave the sharper rhetoric to Twitter and cable news.White House lawyers were successful in keeping Trump from adding House Republicans to the team, but they also advised him against tapping Dershowitz, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions. They’re concerned because of the professor’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire who killed himself in jail last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.A Fox News host said on the air that Starr would be parting ways with the network as a result of his role on the legal team.Other members of Trump’s legal defense include Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general; Jane Raskin, who was part of the president’s legal team during Mueller’s investigation; Robert Ray, who was part of the Whitewater investigation of the Clintons; and Eric D. Herschmann of the Kasowitz Benson Torres legal firm, which has represented Trump in numerous cases over the last 15 years.Giuliani told The Associated Press that the president has assembled a “top-notch” defense team and he was not disappointed not to be included. Giuliani, who many in the White House blame for leading Trump down the path to impeachment by fueling Ukraine conspiracies, had previously expressed interest in being on the legal team. But he said Friday his focus would be on being a potential witness, though there is no certainty that he would be called. “I will be getting ready to testify,” he said. Trump was impeached by the House last month on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress, stemming from his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democratic rivals as he was withholding security aid, and his efforts to block the ensuing congressional probe.Senators were sworn in as jurors Thursday by Chief Justice John Roberts.The president insists he did nothing wrong, and he complains about his treatment daily, sometimes distracting from unrelated events. On Friday, as Trump welcomed the championship Louisiana State University football team to the Oval Office for photos, he said the space had seen “a lot of presidents, some good, some not so good. But you got a good one now, even though they’re trying to impeach the son of a bitch. Can you believe that?”While the president speaks dismissively of the case, new revelations are mounting about his actions toward Ukraine.The Government Accountability Office said Thursday that the White House violated federal law in withholding the security assistance to Ukraine, which shares a border with hostile Russia.Democrats deep into their own preparations released more information from the trove Parnas has turned over to prosecutors linking the president to the shadow foreign policy being run by Giuliani. Friday’s release included multiple photos of the Soviet-born Florida businessman, including several with Giuliani and some with Trump and Trump’s son, Don Jr. It also included messages between Parnas and a staff member for Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., a Trump ally. The GAO report and Parnas documents have applied fresh pressure to senators to call more witnesses for the trial, a main source of contention that is still to be resolved. The White House has instructed officials not to comply with subpoenas from Congress requesting witnesses or other information.Views on it all are decidedly mixed in the Senate, reflective of the nation at the start of this election year.“I’ll be honest, a lot of us do see it as a political exercise,” Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa told reporters on a conference call. “The whole process has really been odd or unusual or bizarre.”Others spoke of the seriousness of the moment.“Totally somber,” tweeted Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut. He sits next to Elizabeth Warren, one of four senators running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump in the fall, and said they agreed their “overwhelming emotion was sadness.”All said they will be listening closely to all arguments.As she filed for re-election Friday in West Virginia, GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito told reporters, “I think it’s been a very politicized process to this point and the president hasn’t had a chance to present his side.”Starr, besides his 1990s role as independent counsel, is a former U.S. solicitor general and federal circuit court judge.More recently, he was removed as president of Baylor University and then resigned as chancellor of the school in the wake of a review critical of the university’s handling of sexual assault allegations against football players. Starr said his resignation was the result of the university’s board of regents seeking to place the school under new leadership following the scandal, not because he was accused of hiding or failing to act on information.Dershowitz’s reputation has been damaged in recent years by his association with Epstein. One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has accused Dershowitz of participating in her abuse. Dershowitz has denied it and has been battling in court for years with Giuffre and her lawyers. He recently wrote a book, “Guilt by Accusation,” rejecting her allegations. Giuffre and Dershowitz are also suing each other for defamation, each saying the other is lying. _____Associated Press writers David Caruso in New York, David Pitt in Iowa, Anthony Izaguirre in West Virginia, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report. | 1 |
FILE PHOTO: Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew Yang speaks during a campaign event in Milford, New Hampshire, U.S., February 5, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo(Reuters) - Former Democratic presidential contender Andrew Yang is joining CNN as a political commentator, the cable network said on Wednesday.Yang, an entrepreneur who mounted a surprisingly robust White House bid despite having no political experience, ended his campaign last week on the night of the New Hampshire primary election after finishing a disappointing eighth.Yang will appear on the network on Wednesday to offer analysis of that evening’s Democratic debate, a spokeswoman for CNN confirmed. Six of the eight remaining Democratic candidates have qualified for the debate, which will take place in Las Vegas and air on NBC and MSNBC.Yang’s long-shot outsider campaign was powered by unexpectedly strong grassroots enthusiasm among his supporters, who became known as the “Yang Gang.”His signature policy proposal was the Freedom Dividend, a universal basic income that would provide every American $1,000 per month.Yang argued the basic income would alleviate poverty, lessen inequality, address student debt and counteract the effects of automation, which he said threatened the jobs of millions of working-class Americans.He also often cut a lighthearted figure on the campaign trail, dancing, crowd-surfing and cracking jokes.“The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math,” he was fond of saying.Reporting by Joseph Ax in Princeton, N.J.; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Matthew Lewisfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to hold up federal funds for two election battleground states that are trying to make it easier and safer to vote during the coronavirus pandemic. He backed away from that threat but stuck with his unsupported claim that widespread voting by mail promotes “a lot of illegality.”The president targeted Michigan with an inaccurate tweet on its voting plans and also went after Nevada in the latest — and the most confused — episode in his campaign against mail-in voting. As states have shifted to remote voting, following health officials recommendations on safety, Trump has denigrated the practice and sought to limit access. He has said repeatedly, without evidence, that mailed ballots allow widespread fraud and has worried publicly that wide availability could lead so many people to vote that Republicans would lose in November. His GOP allies, meanwhile, have fought changes to voting in court and opposed funding to expand mail-in voting in Congress.Wednesday marked the first time Trump has tried to use federal aid money to beat it back.Trump began by going after Michigan, misstating Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s announcement that she would send applications for absentee ballots to every voter in the state. Though Republican secretaries of state have taken this step elsewhere, Trump pounced on the move in a state key to his reelection hopes.“Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. That brought strong criticism from Democrats in Michigan and elsewhere, pointing out that the state was sending applications, not actual ballots, an error the president corrected in a subsequent tweet six hours later. He stuck with the rest of his tweet: “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!”Trump later tweeted a similar threat to pull back funds from Nevada, which has sent ballots to voters for its June 9 state primary. A federal judge recently cleared Nevada’s decision to mail ballots, which were sent by the Republican secretary of state. It was not clear exactly what funds Trump was referencing, but the states are paying for the voting changes with federal aid intended to support elections during the pandemic. By Wednesday evening, Trump told reporters he had spoken with Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and did not think funding would have to be cut.“I don’t think it’s going to be necessary,” he said, adding that he stood by his opposition to mail voting. “Voting is an honor. It shouldn’t be something where they send you a pile of stuff and you send it back.”Trump himself has requested an absentee ballot to vote in Florida. Trump’s tweets and statements came the day before he is slated to visit Michigan to tour Ford’s ventilator assembly plant in Ypsilanti. The state is one of three Rust Belt states that helped deliver his 2016 victory. In recent months, it has become a national hot spot for the coronavirus and watched its economy collapse, both factors contributing to what T rump’s advisers see as a shift toward Democrats.The president’s comments appeared to reflect growing GOP concerns that Democrats’ swift embrace of mail-in voting will give them an edge in November. Some key Democratic areas have moved to make it easier for voters to request ballots, while Republican areas have not. And even though Trump’s campaign encourages absentee voting, along with several state Republican Party officials, GOP voters, like Trump, have expressed growing skepticism. Democrats noted Trump seems more concerned about mail-in voting in battleground states and has not threatened Republican-dominated states that are doing the same thing as Michigan. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, an ally of the president, noted Wednesday he’s concerned about Trump’s threats even though his administration approved mailing absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in the state.“I can’t imagine that the president is going to withhold funding in any way to West Virginia; that’s not going to happen,” Justice told reporters.On Monday, before Trump’s Twitter threat, the Republican National Committee sought to clarify its position on vote by mail, arguing that the party opposes mailing ballots to every voter, as Nevada has done, but does not oppose mailing applications, as Michigan did. “I don’t really have an issue with absentee requests forms being sent to voters,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said.On Wednesday, Trump’s threats scrambled that distinction. Full Coverage: Election 2020Republicans’ claims that mailing ballots to all voters creates widespread fraud is not backed up by evidence from the five states that use this method. None has had significant voter fraud cases. The White House referred questions about the president’s tweets to Trump’s reelection campaign. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh asserted “there is no statutory authority for the secretary of state in Michigan to send absentee ballot applications to all voters” — an argument some Michigan Republicans have also made. Murtaugh did not address whether Republican secretaries of state elsewhere were similarly constrained.The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate has so far stopped Democrats from mandating expanded mail and early voting as part of coronavirus relief bills, arguing that states should make decisions on their own election systems. The battle has largely moved to the courts, with Democrats filing at least 17 lawsuits to force states to expand their programs.Hours after Trump tweeted Wednesday, he sent another message to Michigan. The state is grappling with severe flooding in one county after two dams failed, forcing thousands to evacuate.Three hours after threatening to hold up federal funding to the state, Trump tweeted: “My team is closely monitoring the flooding in Central Michigan – Stay SAFE and listen to local officials. Our brave First Responders are once again stepping up to serve their fellow citizens, THANK YOU!”___Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers David Eggert in Lansing, Mich., and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report. | 1 |
National Guard troops were ordered to withdraw from Ferguson, Mo., on Thursday. Reuters FERGUSON, Mo.—Missouri's governor on Thursday ordered the withdrawal of the National Guard troops that were sent to this city early this week after protesters grew increasingly violent. The National Guard is withdrawing from Ferguson as tensions appear to be easing following days of protests. WSJ's Ben Kesling reports from Ferguson on the News Hub with Sara Murray. Photo: AP. Gov. Jay Nixon directed the Missouri National Guard to leave four days after he deployed them to help police the city during protest marches that had turned into violent clashes with police, including the use of police tear gas and rubber bullets amid vandalism and looting. Few guard troops actually were seen on Ferguson's streets as they were largely confined to a nearby mall that houses a security command center.
Related "I greatly appreciate the men and women of the Missouri National Guard for successfully carrying out the specific, limited mission of protecting the Unified Command Center so that law enforcement officers could focus on the important work of increasing communication within the community, restoring trust, and protecting the people and property of Ferguson," Gov. Nixon said in a statement. After more than a week of clashes between protesters and police, Wednesday night was more relaxed and mostly quiet, officials said. Protests have been spurred by the Aug. 9 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer. Attorney General Eric Holder's visit and the beginning of a local grand jury investigation, both Wednesday, have appeared to help calm residents who flocked to this city's West Florissant Avenue for protests, which were often followed by late-night clashes with police. —Devlin Barrett contributed to this article. Write to Matthew Dolan at matthew.dolan@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Syria's decision was reported at the Bonn climate conferenceThe US is set to become isolated in its stance on the Paris climate agreement, after Syria said it was preparing to join the deal.The Paris deal unites the world's nations in tackling climate change.Syria and Nicaragua were the only nations outside the deal when it was agreed in 2015. Nicaragua signed in October.In June the US said it would withdraw, but the rules of the agreement state that this cannot be done until 2020.Meanwhile, French officials said US President Donald Trump had not been invited to December's climate summit in Paris.More than 100 countries have been invited to the summit, which is aimed at "building coalitions" with finance and business to further the accord, an aide to French President Emmanuel Macron said."I would like to affirm the Syrian Arab Republic's commitment to the Paris climate change accord," Syrian Deputy Environment Minister Wadah Katmawi told delegates of the 196 nations participating in the current climate talks in Bonn, Germany.He said the accord would be signed "as soon as possible", adding that Syria would seek foreign aid to help it meet its commitments under the deal.UN spokesman Nick Nuttall, quoted by AFP news agency, confirmed the move, saying that Syria would first have to submit ratification documents at the UN headquarters in New York.Correspondents say Syria was effectively an international pariah when the accord was first signed, and sanctions would have made it difficult for officials to attend the discussions in Paris.Also, the meetings coincided with some of the fiercest fighting in Syria's civil war, meaning the country was in no position to sign.Media caption, Matt McGrath explains why we should care about climate changeAnnouncing the US decision in June, Mr Trump said it was part of his "solemn duty to protect America" and he would seek a new deal that would not disadvantage US businesses.He claimed that the accord would cost the US 6.5 million jobs and $3tn (£2.2tn) in lost GDP - while rival economies like China and India were treated more favourably.A US statement issued in October when Nicaragua signed the agreement said the US would withdraw "unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favourable for our country". White House spokeswoman Kelly Love said there had been no change in Washington's position since then.Responding to the Syrian move, environmental NGO the Sierra Club issued a statement attacking the US position: "As if it wasn't already crystal clear, every single other country in the world is moving forward together to tackle the climate crisis, while Donald Trump has isolated the United States on the world stage in an embarrassing and dangerous position."Scientists point out that work to implement the Paris accord must be stepped up if it is to have any chance of success.Historically, the US, Europe and China account for almost half of the world's carbon emissions.What was agreed in Paris?Keep global temperature rises "well below" the level of 2C (3.6F) and "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5CLimit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally, beginning at some point between 2050 and 2100Review each country's contribution to cutting emissions every five years so they scale up to the challengeEnable rich countries to help poorer nations by providing "climate finance" to adapt to climate change and switch to renewable energyMore on this story | 1 |
Published17 September 2021Media caption, Watch: Australia’s ‘risky bet’ to side with US over ChinaChina has criticised a historic security pact between the US, UK and Australia, describing it as "extremely irresponsible" and "narrow-minded".The deal will see the US and UK give Australia the technology to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.It is being widely viewed as an effort to counter China's influence in the contested South China Sea.The region has been a flashpoint for years and tensions there remain high.Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the alliance risked "severely damaging regional peace... and intensifying the arms race".He criticised what he called "the obsolete Cold War... mentality" and warned the three countries were "hurting their own interests".Chinese state media carried similar editorials denouncing the pact, and one in the Global Times newspaper said Australia had now "turned itself into an adversary of China".The US is sharing its submarine technology for the first time in 60 years, having previously only shared it with the UK.It means Australia will be able to build nuclear-powered submarines that are faster and harder to detect than conventionally powered fleets. They can stay submerged for months and shoot missiles longer distances - although Australia says it has no intention of putting nuclear weapons on them.The new partnership, under the name Aukus, was announced in a joint virtual press conference between US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.And while China was not mentioned directly, the three leaders referred repeatedly to regional security concerns which they said had "grown significantly"."This is an historic opportunity for the three nations, with like-minded allies and partners, to protect shared values and promote security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region," a joint statement read.The Aukus alliance is probably the most significant security arrangement between the three nations since World War Two, analysts say.It means Australia will become just the seventh nation in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines.While they are the big-ticket item in the deal, cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence and other undersea technologies will also be shared.Australia will also acquire long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, and allow more US troops to be stationed in the country's north."This really shows that all three nations are drawing a line in the sand to start and counter [China's] aggressive moves," said Guy Boekenstein from the Asia Society Australia.Boris Johnson later said the pact would "preserve security and stability around the world" and generate "hundreds of high-skilled jobs".UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC that China was "embarking on one of the biggest military spends in history... Our partners in those regions want to be able to stand their own ground."Media caption, Why is everyone fighting over the South China Sea?In recent years, Beijing has been accused of raising tensions in disputed territories such as the South China Sea.It has been increasingly assertive over what it says are centuries-old rights to the contested region, and has been rapidly building up its military presence to back up those claims.The US has bolstered its military presence too, and has been investing heavily in other partnerships in the region such as with Japan and South Korea.Having the submarines stationed in Australia is critical to US influence in the region, analysts say.The Western powers have also been wary of China's infrastructure investment on Pacific islands, although it remains below US and Australian spending there.Tensions between China and AustraliaChina is Australia's biggest trading partner, and in the past, the two have maintained good relations. But in recent years that has broken down. Australia has accused Beijing of interfering in its domestic politics, blocked Chinese investment, and banned Chinese telecom giant Huawei from building Australian tech infrastructure.Canberra also echoed a call by the US last year for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.Beijing's response was to deliver a series of trade punishments - sanctioning over a dozen Australian goods. It has slapped Australian wine with taxes of up to 200%.Australia hopes the new alliance will also help cushion the economic blowback.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday: "Beijing has seen over the past months that Australia will not back down and the threats of economic retaliation and pressure simply will not work."'A stab in the back'But France has also reacted angrily to the new pact, because it means Australia will now abandon a $50bn (€31bn; £27bn) deal with it to build 12 submarines."It's really a stab in the back," France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Info radio. "We had established a relationship of trust with Australia, this trust has been betrayed."The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell said he understood why France was disappointed by the deal, adding that the EU was not consulted about the new alliance."This forces us once again... to reflect on the need to make the issue of European strategic autonomy a priority. This shows that we must survive on our own," he said on Thursday.Secretary Blinken said the US cooperated "incredibly closely" with France and would continue to do so, adding that "we place fundamental value on that relationship, on that partnership". More on this story | 1 |
Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy administers the Judicial Oath to Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the Justices' Conference Room of the Supreme Court Building. Ashley Kavanaugh holds the Bible. At left are their daughters, Margaret, background, and Liza. Fred Schilling/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via AP hide caption toggle caption Fred Schilling/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via AP Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy administers the Judicial Oath to Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the Justices' Conference Room of the Supreme Court Building. Ashley Kavanaugh holds the Bible. At left are their daughters, Margaret, background, and Liza. Fred Schilling/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via AP Updated at 11:31 p.m. ET A sharply divided Senate — reflecting a deeply divided nation — voted almost entirely along party lines Saturday afternoon to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. A little more than two hours later, Kavanaugh was sworn in during a private ceremony as protesters stood on the court's steps. Kavanaugh becomes the nation's 114th Supreme Court justice and President Trump's second appointment to the court, creating a conservative majority on the nation's highest court for years to come. The Senate vote was 50-48. Only one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joined Republicans in backing Kavanaugh. One Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted "present" although she said she opposed the nomination. One GOP senator was absent during the vote because of his daughter's wedding thousands of miles from Washington, D.C. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he flew to Kansas for a political rally, Trump said he was "very, very, very happy" about the vote and said Kavanaugh will be "a brilliant Supreme Court justice for many years." After the vote, the president called Kavanaugh to congratulate him, the White House said in a statement. Trump also spoke with Vice President Pence, Sen. Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Kavanaugh was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy Saturday evening. Roberts administered the constitutional oath and Kennedy the judicial oath. "Both oaths will be administered so that [Kavanaugh] can begin to participate in the work of the Court immediately," the court said in a statement prior to the swearing in. A formal investiture ceremony will take place at a later date, the Supreme Court also said. And Trump told Kansas rallygoers that he will hold a ceremonial swearing-in for Kavanaugh at the White House Monday evening. Protesters at the Supreme Court Saturday after the Senate narrowly voted to confirm Kavanaugh. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Alex Wong/Getty Images Protesters at the Supreme Court Saturday after the Senate narrowly voted to confirm Kavanaugh. Alex Wong/Getty Images Senators sat at their desks during Saturday's roll call, rising when it was their turn to vote. The session was presided over by Pence. In the debate preceding the vote, senators sounded as though they were describing two different men. McConnell called Kavanaugh "among the very best our nation has to offer." Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the 53-year-old Kavanaugh a victim of "an ugly left-wing smear campaign" and charged Democrats with character assassination. Kavanaugh had been accused by three women of sexual misconduct while he was in high school and college more than 30 years ago — charges he angrily denied. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Kavanaugh's confirmation "a low moment for the Senate, the court, and the country" and said of Kavanaugh, "He doesn't belong on the nation's highest bench." Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who was first elected in the "Year of the Woman" in 1992 after the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas, said that in confirming Kavanaugh the Senate would be telling young girls and women that "your voices just don't matter." On Air Force One, Trump told reporters his speech in Mississippi last week, in which he was widely seen to be mocking Christine Blasey Ford, "had such a great impact. I think it was a very important thing." Ford had accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when they both were in high school. Trump also said women, far from being outraged at Kavanaugh, "were outraged at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, outraged." Asked about the #MeToo movement and her husband's recent comments about its potential impact on men, first lady Melania Trump weighed in on Kavanaugh's controversial nomination before Saturday's vote. "I would say if we're talking about the Supreme Court and Judge Kavanaugh, I think he's highly qualified for the Supreme Court," Mrs. Trump said while speaking to reporters in Egypt during a solo international trip to Africa. "I'm glad that Dr. Ford was heard; I'm glad that Judge Kavanaugh was heard. FBI investigation was done, is completed and Senate voted." But when asked whether she believed Ford, the first lady would not answer directly. "I will move on that and I think that all the victims, they need — we need to help all the victims no matter what kind of abuse they had, but I am against any kind of abuse or violence," the first lady said. In the hours before the vote, police arrested demonstrators who had broken through barriers around the Capitol and tried to climb the building's steps. Protesters were also heard shouting from the Senate gallery during the roll call. A total of 164 people were arrested according to U.S. Capitol Police. Protesters occupy the Contemplation of Justice statue in front of the Supreme Court Saturday after Kavanaugh was confirmed. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Alex Wong/Getty Images Protesters occupy the Contemplation of Justice statue in front of the Supreme Court Saturday after Kavanaugh was confirmed. Alex Wong/Getty Images Speaking after the vote, McConnell said the protests against Kavanaugh over the past several weeks have "turned our base on fire." Citing the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and "the virtual mob that assaulted us in the course of this process," McConnell said "they've managed to deliver the only thing that we had not been able to figure out how to do, which was to get our folks fired up." A recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed in fact that the Republicans have narrowed the enthusiasm gap with Democrats in the past few weeks. In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said Murkowski will face political consequences for opposing Kavanaugh. "I think she will never recover from this," Trump said. "I think the people from Alaska will never forgive her for what she did." Murkowski lost a primary battle in 2010 but was re-elected as a write-in candidate. She next faces voters in 2022. On Friday, after the nomination cleared a key procedural hurdle with a 51-49 vote, two previously undecided senators, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced they would support Kavanaugh. That support all but assured Republicans of the votes they needed to push the nomination across the finish line. In a much anticipated speech on the Senate floor Friday afternoon, Collins said that she believed that Ford was a survivor of sexual assault. Still, Collins said, the allegations "fail to meet the 'more likely than not' standard," and "I do not believe that these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court." And in a statement issued soon after Collins spoke, Manchin explained he was supporting Kavanaugh notwithstanding the "serious accusations" leveled against the judge and lingering questions about Kavanaugh's temperament. "I have reservations about this vote given the serious accusations against Judge Kavanaugh and the temperament he displayed in the hearing," Manchin said. "And my heart goes out to anyone who has experienced any type of sexual assault in their life. However, based on all of the information I have available to me, including the recently completed FBI report, I have found Judge Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist who will follow the Constitution and determine cases based on the legal findings before him. I do hope that Judge Kavanaugh will not allow the partisan nature this process took to follow him onto the court." Speaking to NPR on Friday, a lawyer for Ford said the California professor's goal was never to derail the nomination. "Dr. Ford's goal here was never to impact the process to derail a nomination," attorney Lisa Banks said on All Things Considered. "What she was trying to do was what she thought was the right thing to do as a citizen, which is to provide the information to the U.S. Senate so they could make the most informed decision possible. Her goal wasn't to derail this nomination; it was to inform the nomination and she's done that." | 1 |
The Biden administration could certainly have better planned the extraction of civilians from Afghanistan. Yet media and politicians portray the fall of Afghanistan as a broader strategic debacle for U.S. foreign policy and President Joe BidenJoe BidenUS could spend M monthly on testing unvaccinated federal workers: official GOP senator opposes Biden court pick, likely blocking nominee Overnight Energy & Environment — Biden says Russia attack could spike oil prices MORE. They say America’s abandonment of the elected government in Kabul undermines U.S. efforts to support democracy elsewhere; harms U.S. alliance commitments; will be a boon for terrorists, and is likely to result in massive human rights violations. These criticisms exaggerate the fallout. Responsibility for the current mess does not lie primarily with those who decided to face the reality of an unwinnable war and call it quits. Instead, it rests mainly with those who expanded what had begun as a limited mission to hunt down suspected terrorists linked to al Qaeda into “nation-building” in Afghanistan — President George W. Bush and his administration.U.S. democracy promotion does not require military intervention. Indeed, forcible democracy promotion in deeply divided societies won’t succeed — at least at a cost Americans are willing to pay. There are compelling reasons to believe that the withdrawal will not harm U.S. alliances. As to counterterrorism, there are better ways of fighting terrorists than costly occupations with lots of boots on the ground. And though the prospect for human rights in Afghanistan is a cause for concern, the situation does not warrant a continuing U.S. deployment on humanitarian grounds.Promoting democracy: The great theorist of democracy, John Stuart Mill, emphasized nearly two centuries ago that democracy needs to grow domestically; freedom delivered by foreign hands, he cautioned, “will have nothing real, nothing permanent.” Democratic leaders empowered through foreign intervention would lack local legitimacy and remain exceedingly weak, especially in divided societies. The interveners would thus continually have to send in foreign support, lest the country collapse into civil war.Over the last three decades, U.S. policymakers have had to repeatedly relearn these hard lessons — in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia during the 1990s; and most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the future, except in truly genocidal situations, the United States should privilege nonmilitary measures to defend human rights and promote democracy abroad. It should work with allies and partners to nurture civil society organizations, advance universal literacy, and help establish accountable institutions. Such humble measures may be less emotionally satisfying than using military force to topple heinous tyrants; however, they offer better prospects of success over time, in addition to being more cost-effective.U.S. alliances: Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan will not harm the credibility of U.S. alliances. The United States and Afghanistan had signed a “partnership agreement,” but Afghanistan was never a formal U.S. ally — so there has been no breach of alliance commitments. Furthermore, U.S. alliances are intended to benefit the United States by increasing its leverage and preserving a favorable balance of power internationally. In that sense, Biden’s highly publicized decision to shore up traditional U.S. alliances with major industrialized countries — primarily through NATO — has achieved more to signal U.S. strength vis-à-vis Russia and China than a protracted commitment to a weak Afghan government could ever have done. Rational U.S. leaders will continue supporting these traditional alliances, regardless of U.S. policy toward weak partners such as Afghanistan — something that hostile powers can be expected to understand. Terrorism: U.S. intelligence and defense leaders are well aware that the threat of jihadi terrorism has shifted in recent years from Afghanistan and the Middle East toward Africa — especially the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert. Hence a continued focus on Afghanistan was probably unwarranted on counterterrorism grounds. More generally, combating terrorism does not require costly military occupations; indeed, these may be counterproductive as they tend to radicalize local populations that often view foreign militaries as agents of imperialism. Nimbler in-and-out operations involving special forces and drone strikes where necessary are arguably better suited to the task. It is also worth emphasizing that terrorists in the developing world threaten primarily their fellow countryfolk, and the threat to U.S. national security has often been exaggerated. Compared to existential threats such as climate change, global pandemics, and nuclear weapons proliferation, the threat from terrorists overseas — who would have to overcome major logistical and technical challenges to successfully employ weapons of mass destruction against Western societies — is eminently manageable.Human rights: Finally, on human rights, the Taliban may yet show moderation, to prevent their regime from again becoming an international pariah and access badly needed international aid. The Taliban’s recent, swift and relatively bloodless takeover of the country may paradoxically be preferable from a humanitarian perspective, compared to the scenario of a protracted civil war in which the Afghan army had valiantly resisted at the cost of thousands of civilian casualties, without ultimately being able to prevent a Taliban victory. Contrary to what is claimed by some critics of Biden’s decision to complete the withdrawal, an indefinite commitment of 3,000-odd U.S. troops could hardly have stopped a determined Taliban from taking over most of the country. In recent months, the Taliban leadership had simply decided to wait out the United States. But had Biden reversed Trump’s decision to withdraw, the Taliban might well have resumed their attacks on U.S. troops — generating political pressure to again expand the U.S. commitment. There is no denying the Afghan people face a bleak future. The best way for the Biden administration to honor its professed commitment to human rights will be to offer substantial humanitarian aid to Afghans in need, and at the same time take in a sizeable number of Afghan refugees — at least 50,000 — privileging those who exposed themselves by collaborating with coalition forces. To facilitate evacuation efforts beyond Aug. 31, the U.S. and its partners should work to establish humanitarian corridors on the ground, in coordination with the Red Cross-Red Crescent Society. Yet facilitating the evacuation of vulnerable Afghans to third-party states won’t be enough; many of them should be offered refugee status in the United States. After the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, the United States generously admitted hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians. Today, Washington and its allies owe it to the Afghan people to be similarly welcoming. Stefano Recchia holds the John G. Tower distinguished chair in international politics and national security at Southern Methodist University. He has published several books and numerous research articles on the politics and ethics of military intervention. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Thursday declared a halt to U.S. support for a Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, demanding that the more than six-year war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, “has to end.”FILE PHOTO: People injured in an attack on Aden airport rest at a hospital in Aden, Yemen December 31, 2020. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File PhotoBiden also named veteran U.S. diplomat Timothy Lenderking as the U.S. special envoy for Yemen in a bid to step up American diplomacy “to end the war in Yemen, a war which has created humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of its people in need and millions on the verge of a large-scale famine.“This war has to end,” the Democratic president said during a visit to the U.S. State Department in Washington. “And to underscore our commitment, we’re ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.”The move is a reversal of a policy of both the Democratic Obama and Republican Trump administrations. Biden was vice president in the Obama administration.“At the same time,” he said on Thursday, “Saudi Arabia faces missile attacks, UAV (drone) strikes and other threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries. We’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people.”Saudi Arabia welcomed Biden’s remarks, particularly his commitment to the country’s defense and addressing threats against it, according to the country’s state news agency.The Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015, backing government forces fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis. U.N. officials are trying to revive peace talks to end the war as the country’s suffering is also worsened by an economic crisis, currency collapse, and the COVID-19 pandemic.‘HOPE FOR YEMEN’Under the Trump administration, policy on Yemen was secondary to a so-called “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Iran in a bid to force Tehran back into talks over its nuclear and missile programs and activities in the Middle East.Former President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a top aide, were also focused on maintaining their close ties with Saudi Arabia’s effective ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which included U.S. arms sales.This was despite demands by Republican and Democratic lawmakers for an end to U.S. support for Riyadh as the civilian death toll in Yemen mounted and the humanitarian crisis worsened.Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier on Thursday that the end of U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s operations in Yemen does not extend to efforts to combat the regional affiliate of the al Qaeda militant group.Sullivan said the Biden administration already had halted two sales of precision-guided munitions and kept regional allies in the region informed of actions to avoid surprises.“Any move that reduces the number of weapons, military activity, is to be welcomed and will give more space and more hope not only to the talks, but importantly more hope to the people of Yemen,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday.The State Department is also reviewing a Trump administration designation last month of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization.The United Nations and aid groups have called for the designation to be reversed, warning it would push Yemen into a large-scale famine. The Biden administration last week approved all transactions involving Yemen’s Houthi movement for the next month as it carries out the review.Additional reporting and writing by Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell, Paul Simao and Jonathan Oatisfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A federal appeals court panel appeared sympathetic on Tuesday to Republican efforts to overturn Obamacare, expressing skepticism to Democratic calls to overturn the ruling of a Texas judge who found the landmark U.S. healthcare reform law unconstitutional.Two Republican-appointed members of the three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sharply questioned lawyers for a group of Democratic state attorneys general and the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives defending the Affordable Care Act.Republicans including President Donald Trump have repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to repeal the ACA since it was passed in 2010. The Justice Department would normally defend a federal law, but Trump’s administration has declined to do so in a challenge by 18 Republican-led states.The court made no decision on Tuesday. Whichever way it rules, the decision could prompt an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially setting up a major legal battle over healthcare for tens of millions of Americans in the midst of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.The judges focused on whether Obamacare lost its legal justification after Trump in 2017 signed a law that eliminated a tax penalty used to enforce the law’s mandate that all Americans buy health insurance.“If you no longer have the tax, why isn’t it unconstitutional?” Judge Jennifer Elrod, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, asked during Tuesday’s hearing on a sweltering day in New Orleans.Judge Kurt Engelhardt, a Trump appointee, asked why if Congress thought the law had so many “excellent ideas” unrelated to its “linchpin” mandate, it would not have taken steps to ensure the rest of the law would not be struck down as well.“There’s a political solution here that you, various parties are asking this court to roll up its sleeves and get involved in,” Engelhardt said.A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general led by California’s Xavier Becerra stepped up to defend the signature achievement of Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. The House of Representatives intervened after Democrats won control in the November midterm elections, during which many focused their campaigns on defending Obamacare.Republican opponents call the law an unwarranted intervention by government in health insurance markets, while supporters say striking it down would threaten the healthcare of 20 million people who have gained insurance since its enactment.In 2012, a divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld most of its provisions, including the individual mandate, which requires people to obtain insurance or pay a penalty.The mandate compelled healthy people to buy insurance to offset sicker patients’ costs after Obamacare barred insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions.The Supreme Court’s conservative majority found Congress could not constitutionally order people to buy insurance. But Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal members to hold the mandate was a valid exercise of Congress’ tax power.After Trump signed a tax bill passed by a Republican-led Congress that reduced the tax penalty to zero dollars, a coalition of Republican-led states headed by Texas sued, alleging the tax penalty’s elimination rendered Obamacare unconstitutional.“IT’S COMPLICATED”In December 2018, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, agreed. O’Connor, who was also nominated by George W. Bush, said that because Obamacare called the mandate “essential,” the entire law must be struck down.Kyle Hawkins, Texas’ solicitor general, said “essential” language was all the 5th Circuit needed to look at to see the entire law should be struck down. “The best evidence is the text itself,” he said.Douglas Letter, the House of Representatives’ general counsel, argued that since Congress had not repealed the rest of Obamacare, it never intended to invalidate the entire law.“Courts are required to give a statute a constitutional interpretation if you can and save everything unless Congress prefers no statute,” he argued.The Justice Department initially argued the mandate was unconstitutional but most of Obamacare could be severed from it. But it argued on appeal that rest of the law cannot be severed.Pressed by Elrod on the administration’s plans if Obamacare is struck down, August Flentje, a Justice Department lawyer, said, “A lot of this stuff would need to get sorted out, and it’s complicated.”Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Berkrot, Richard Chang and Leslie Adlerfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
By Nick ThorpeBBC News, HungaryImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Tucker Carlson is the latest high-profile ally of Hungary's embattled prime ministerUS guest of honour and Fox News host Tucker Carlson was granted a lightning visit by military helicopter to Hungary's 175km (109-mile) high-tech, high-cost razor-wire border fence with Serbia this week. He liked what he saw. After praising the fence for being so "clean and orderly", in contrast to the "chaos" on the US-Mexican border, he told his viewers: "It doesn't require a GDP the size of the US, it doesn't require high-tech walls, guns, or surveillance equipment. All it requires is the will to do it."And he praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for not allowing "this nation of 10 million people to be changed forever by people we didn't invite in and who are coming here illegally". To make sure his US viewers understood his message, he contrasted Mr Orban's policies with those of US President Joe Biden. "Because the lessons are so obvious, and such a clear refutation to the policies we currently have, and the people who instituted those policies, Hungary and its government have been ruthlessly attacked and unfairly attacked: 'It's authoritarian, they're fascists…' There are many lies being told right now, that may be the greatest of all."Carlson is attending a three-day festival organised by the Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Esztergom, the former Hungarian capital and home of the Roman Catholic Church.MCC is an extremely well-funded school for top students, whom Mr Orban's Fidesz government are carefully grooming to become the country's new right-wing elite. Both Carlson and Mr Orban are due to address the crowds from the main stage. Carlson's visit comes at a useful time for Mr Orban. Image source, ReutersImage caption, Viktor Orban faces a fierce battle for re-election in eight months timeAfter 11 years in almost unchallenged power, he faces a fierce battle for re-election in eight months time, against an unusually united opposition, from left to right, which accuses him of hijacking Hungarian democracy and financially favouring his own coterie of oligarchs and loyalists. Mr Orban also stands accused of using Pegasus spyware purchased from the Israeli company NSO to tap the phones and mine the personal data of up to 300 independent journalists, lawyers and businessmen not aligned with his Fidesz party. The European Commission has suspended the disbursement of post-Covid EU recovery funds, citing insufficient safeguards against corruption. Nordic governments have also suspended payment of funds to NGOs, after failing to reach agreement with the government over who should disburse them.Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Carlson praised Hungary's border fence with Serbia (pictured here in 2019)But the embattled Hungarian prime minister loves a fight, and Carlson is his latest high-profile ally. The pro-government Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA), comprising 457 TV and radio stations, online news portals, daily and regional newspapers, have been lavishing praise on Carlson, described as "the most influential conservative thinker in the United States", star-status previously allotted only to ex-Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon or Donald Trump himself. "The American political elite has become too mediocre and stupid to face the truth," Carlson said in an interview with the Hungarian Mandiner weekly. "The elite has turned against its own people, and that's not healthy. Simply put, the leadership of the country hates the American people." In contrast, he praised Mr Orban. "He is defending democracy against the unaccountable billionaires, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and certain western governments. He is fighting for democracy against those forces which would like to bury it."Media caption, A patrol boat joins Hungarian border forces intercepting migrantsIn his Fox News report, Carlson described the "polite" way in which Hungarian police first detained then pushed two Syrian asylum seekers through a gate in the fence, back into Serbia. "This practice causes horrible suffering to those trying to seek protection," Andras Lederer of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights NGO, told the BBC. "It is unlawful, poses serious security risks, and plays into the hands of organised crime."Last month, the European Court of Human Rights found the Hungarian pushbacks unlawful, in a case brought by the Helsinki Committee. According to government figures, building and patrolling the fence has cost more than $1.5bn (£1.1bn) so far.For conservative populists in the US, Hungary is more than just a small country in central Europe. It's an example of right-wing politics done right.Viktor Orban's restrictions on press freedoms, his opposition to immigration and unfettered trade, his outspoken advocacy for "traditional" family values and his ethno-nationalist politics that push back against academia and internationalists all fit snugly alongside US Republican Party rhetoric in the Trump era.That explains Tucker Carlson's decision to broadcast his popular Fox News talk show from Budapest and his words of praise for Mr Orban, not just for his policies but for defending Western civilisation and being "hated by the right people". It's a nod to the provocative brand of politics Mr Trump embraced during his four years in office.The Trump presidency heralded an unprecedented level of modern political success for right-wing populists in the US. It also ended in tumult, in the middle of a deadly pandemic and the US Capitol attacked by the president's angry supporters.Despite all the recent attempts to burnish Mr Trump's legacy, the ex-president's popularity has significantly eroded among the general US public, leaving his ideological compatriots looking for hope in the unlikeliest of places.More on this story | 1 |
DONNA, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration for the first time Tuesday allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children, revealing a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 people, including children and families, were crammed into a space intended for 250 and the youngest were kept in a large play pen with mats on the floor for sleeping.With thousands of children and families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent weeks and packing facilities, President Joe Biden has been under pressure to bring more transparency to the process. U.S. Customs and Border Protection allowed two journalists from The Associated Press and a crew from CBS to tour the facility in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, the nation’s busiest corridor for illegal crossings.More than 4,100 people were being housed on the property Tuesday. Most were unaccompanied children processed in tents before being taken to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services and then placed with a family member, relative or sponsor.The children were being housed by the hundreds in eight “pods” formed by plastic dividers, each about 3,200 square feet (297 square meters) in size. Many of the pods had more than 500 children in them.Oscar Escamilla, acting executive officer of the U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, said 250 to 300 kids enter daily and far fewer leave. The youngest children — among them, 3-year-old girl being cared for by her 11-year-old brother and a newborn with a 17-year-old mother — are kept out of the pods and sleep in a playpen area. On Tuesday, journalists watched children being processed. They went into a small room for lice inspection and a health check. Their hair was hosed down and towels were tossed in a black bin marked “Lice.” The kids — many of whom have made long journeys to get to the border, including stretches on foot — were also checked for scabies, fever and other ailments. No COVID-19 test was administered unless a child showed symptoms. Nurse practitioners also gave psychological tests, asking children if they had suicidal thoughts. All shoelaces were removed to avoid harm to anyone.The children were then led down a green turf hall to a large intake room. Those 14 and older are fingerprinted and have their photo taken; younger children did not. They went to a second intake room where they got notices to appear for immigration court. Border Patrol agents asked them if they had a contact in the U.S. and allowed the child to call that person. Children were given bracelets with a barcode that shows a history of when they showered and medical conditions. Outside the facility, the roar of construction equipment could be heard along with air conditioning units.The Biden administration has continued expelling adults who try to cross the border under a coronavirus-related public health declaration enacted by former President Donald Trump. Biden also has tried to expel most families traveling together, but changes in Mexican law have forced agents to release many parents and children into the U.S. Biden has declined to resume the Trump-era practice of expelling unaccompanied immigrant children. Several hundred kids and teenagers are crossing the border daily, most fleeing violence, poverty or the effects of natural disasters in Central America. In some cases, parents refused entry into the U.S. have sent their children across the border alone, hoping they will be placed with relatives eventually.The Border Patrol is apprehending far more children daily than Health and Human Services is placing with U.S. sponsors, leading to a severe backlog in the system. The Border Patrol generally is not supposed to detain children for more than three days, but Health and Human Services lacks space. More than 2,000 kids have been at the Donna facility for more than 72 hours, including 39 for more than 15 days. HHS is housing children at convention centers in Dallas and San Diego and is opening large-scale sites in San Antonio, El Paso and elsewhere.Biden has been sharply criticized by Republicans seeking to defend Trump’s immigration record, which includes the separation of thousands of immigrant families under a “zero tolerance” policy. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Record imports in October drove the U.S. trade deficit to the highest level in a decade.The Commerce Department said Thursday that the gap between the United States sells and what it buys from foreign countries hit $55.5 billion in October, the fifth straight increase and highest since October 2008.The politically sensitive deficit in the trade of goods with China rose 7.1% to a record $43.1 billion. The goods gap with the European Union widened 65.5% to a record $17.6 billion.Led by shipments of medicine and cars, overall imports rose 0.2% to a record $266.5 billion. Exports fell 0.1% to $211 billion.President Donald Trump campaigned on a pledge to slash America’s longstanding trade deficit with the rest of the world. Despite his import taxes on steel, aluminum and Chinese goods, the deficit so far this year is running 11.4% above January-October 2017.U.S. exports of soybeans, targeted for retaliatory tariffs by China, dropped 46.8% in October.Trump sees the lopsided trade numbers as a sign of U.S. economic weakness and as the result of bad trade deals and abusive practices by U.S. trading partners, especially China.He has slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports in a dispute over the tactics Beijing is using to challenge American technological supremacy. These include the theft of trade secrets and forcing U.S. companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market, the U.S. charges.In a meeting over the weekend, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a ceasefire in the trade dispute. Details are unclear, but the White House says it agreed to delay a planned tariff increase on $200 billion in Chinese goods for 90 days to buy time for more substantive negotiations.Mainstream economists view trade deficits as the result of an economic reality unlikely to yield to changes in trade policy: Americans buy more than they produce, and imports fill the gap. The strong U.S. economy also encourages Americans to buy more foreign products.U.S. exports are also hurt by the American dollar’s role as the world’s currency. The dollar is usually in high demand because it is used in so many global transactions. That means the dollar is persistently strong, raising prices of U.S. products and putting American companies at a disadvantage in foreign markets.In October, the U.S. ran a $22.6 billion surplus in the trade of services such as banking and tourism. But that was offset by a record $78.1 billion deficit in the trade of goods such as cellphones and machinery. | 1 |
Hillary Clinton swept to four primary victories over rival Sen. Bernie Sanders Tuesday night in a showing that makes her the all-but-certain Democratic presidential nominee.Mrs. Clinton’s chief task now shifts from winning more states to unifying a fractured party and persuading supporters of Mr. Sanders to coalesce behind her. Her first step appeared to be turning down the rhetorical temperature, giving Mr. Sanders’s supporters space to move in her direction. Mrs. Clinton took Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut, the three largest prizes of the evening, as well as Delaware, while Mr. Sanders pulled off a win in Rhode Island. Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Bernie Sanders came up short in their primaries Tuesday, but both are arguing they would perform better in November's general election than the current front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Photos: Getty Ahead of Tuesday’s contests, Mrs. Clinton had already amassed a nearly insurmountable delegate lead. But so far, the Sanders campaign is showing little sign it is ready to step aside and make it easier for her to capture the nomination. The race has exposed deep fissures between Sanders and Clinton backers rooted in age, race and ideology, as Mr. Sanders built a passionate following among young, white, liberal voters. A new poll shows Mr. Sanders is the most popular person in the race in either party among young voters. The Harvard Institute of Politics survey showed that among 18-to-29-year-olds, 54% viewed him positively, 31% negatively. Mrs. Clinton, in contrast, was the favorite of African-Americans, centrists and older Democrats. In the Harvard poll, only 37% of young voters viewed Mrs. Clinton in a positive light.
Related “We have to be respectful, dignified and begin the process of bringing everyone together,” said Tom Nides, a top deputy to Mrs. Clinton during her years as secretary of state and now a senior executive at Morgan Stanley. Any effort to push out Mr. Sanders, he said, “will trigger the opposite.” One question facing Clinton allies is when they can become more direct in calling for Mr. Sanders to focus on party unity and concede he can’t win the nomination. Speaking to cheering supporters in Philadelphia, Mrs. Clinton stressed the goal of bringing the party together. “We will unify our party to win this election and build an America where we can all rise together,” she said. Mrs. Clinton offered her most direct outreach to date to Mr. Sanders’s backers, saying she shares his priorities like fighting inequality. “Whether you support Sen. Sanders or support me, there’s much more that unites us than divides us,” Mrs. Clinton said. Mr. Sanders said late Tuesday he was staying in the race, but suggested that he recognized his biggest impact might be in pushing the party’s message to the left. “This campaign is going to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia with as many delegates as possible to fight for a progressive party platform,” he said in a statement. Tuesday's primaries in five northeastern states further propelled front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton toward their parties' nominations. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib discusses the key takeaways. Photo: AP Sen. Bernie Sanders, facing some tough races in Tuesday's primaries, told supporters that he's still a better bet than Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump, despite long odds in the Democratic delegate count. Polling suggests the party is becoming less unified, not more. In March, 78% of Democratic primary voters said they would be satisfied if Mrs. Clinton were the nominee. In April, that fell to 73%, according to Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling. Asked if they could see themselves supporting Mrs. Clinton for president, just 58% of Sanders primary voters said yes, with 40% saying no, according to the April poll. This has led to some uneasiness among party leaders, who fear that scars from the hard-fought campaign could make it hard to unify the party for the general election. As the race reaches the endgame, bitterness is evident from some rank-and-file Sanders voters. At a polling place in Providence, R.I., Christine Kolasa, a retired mortgage-banking manager in her 60s, said she had voted for Mr. Sanders and would never vote for Mrs. Clinton in a general election. “There isn’t enough money in the world to make me vote for Hillary,” said Ms. Kolasa. “She says whatever it takes to get elected.” Cesar Barreto, 51, a Sanders supporter who voted at a Rockville, Md., polling place, said the Vermont senator should “fight to the very bitter end.” But he said that if it came to a Trump-Clinton match-up, “given the two evils, I’d probably vote for Hillary.” The candidates came into Tuesday’s contest with Mrs. Clinton leading in pledged delegates 1,428 to 1,153. With superdelegates—party leaders who can support any candidate they choose—added to the mix, her lead stood at a more formidable 1,946 to 1,192. A total of 2,383 delegates is needed to clinch the nomination. The five states that voted Tuesday have 384 delegates. Mrs. Clinton entered the evening with an advantage of 275 pledged delegates. Preliminary results from the Associated Press showed she would push that lead to more than 350. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders greets voters on primary election day in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Photo: Dominick Reuter/Reuters At a televised MSNBC town hall event on the eve of the vote, both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders said in separate appearances that it was the other one’s job to unite the party behind Mrs. Clinton if she becomes the nominee. The best way for her to mobilize his supporters, Mr. Sanders said, was for her to adopt pillars of his liberal agenda, including a single-payer health-care system, a carbon tax and free tuition at public colleges. Mrs. Clinton has supported none of these ideas. Were she to pivot now and embrace Mr. Sanders’s positions, some of her supporters point out, she would be vulnerable to charges of flip-flopping. Such a switch would also make it tougher to win over moderates and independents in a general-election showdown with Republicans. For her part, Mrs. Clinton bristled at the suggestion that to win over Mr. Sanders and his backers, she needs to adopt his agenda. Recalling her fight with then-Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race, she said, “We got to the end in June, and I did not put down conditions. I didn’t say, ‘You know what, if Sen. Obama does X, Y and Z, maybe I’ll support him.’ ” She added, “I concluded after it was over in June that Sen. Obama was going to be the nominee and I didn’t want to hurt him.” Bickering between the Sanders and Clinton camps unfolded throughout the day on Tuesday. In a CNN interview, Mr. Sanders’s wife, Jane Sanders, raised the issue of Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to release transcripts of paid speeches she has given to Wall Street firms, while parrying calls for Mr. Sanders to release more of his tax returns. Mrs. Clinton has released tax returns dating back to the 1970s, and during a debate on April 14, Mr. Sanders said he would release past years’ returns, citing the campaign’s busy schedule as the cause for any delays. But the day after that debate, Mr. Sanders released his full 2014 return, and he hasn’t released any since. Mrs. Sanders on Tuesday placed a new condition on the release of tax records covering earlier years. “What’s interesting is we released the 2014, Secretary Clinton hasn’t released the transcript yet,” Mrs. Sanders said. “Why don’t we wait to see what happens?” Asked by CNN if she was linking the release of tax records to Mrs. Clinton’s release of speech transcripts, Mrs. Sanders said, “Yep.” At the same time, a fundraising solicitation from the Sanders campaign used harsh language in describing Clinton campaign tactics. The letter says the Clinton campaign is trying to get Mr. Sanders to tone down his rhetoric and accusing him of aiding Republican front-runner Donald Trump. The email, from Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver, said the Clinton campaign, in describing Sanders campaign methods, has “used language reserved for traitors to our country, saying we are ‘giving aid and comfort’ to Trump.” While Mr. Sanders’s path to winning the nomination is growing increasingly narrow by his own admission, staying in the race and continuing to attract money and support could strengthen his hand as he tries to push the Democratic message in a more progressive direction. Democratic operatives said that whatever the current tensions, the party will unify in the face of a Republican opponent, especially one as polarizing as either of the two leading GOP candidates, Mr. Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The Democrats’ divisions, they added, are nothing compared with the splits in the GOP, with the top candidates calling each other names and threats of a chaotic Republican convention in Cleveland. Should Mrs. Clinton win the nomination, Mr. Sanders will support her over the Republican nominee, his advisers say. The question is how ardent will he be in backing her. Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a loyal Clinton supporter, recalled getting a phone call from her at the end of the 2008 race telling him she was dropping out and asking him to endorse Mr. Obama. That was a message Mr. Nutter said he heeded. “I asked her, ‘What do you want me to do?’ ” Mr. Nutter said. “She said, ‘I want you to give him the same support you gave me.’ And from that moment on, I was all Sen. Obama all the time.” —Richard Rubin, Jennifer Levitz and Byron Tau contributed to this article. Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters marched in cities across the United States on Saturday to demand the Trump administration reverse an immigration crackdown that has separated children from parents at the U.S-Mexico border and led to plans for military-run detention camps.Outside the White House, protesters waved “Families Belong Together” signs and chanted “Shame!” as religious leaders and activists urged the administration to be more welcoming of foreigners and to reunite families.“The way they treat families, the way they treat immigrants, that’s not America,” said protester Aneice Germain of President Donald Trump’s tough stance on immigration, a cornerstone of his 2016 election campaign and his presidency. Trump was out of town at a golf club he owns in Bedminster, New Jersey.Trump says illegal immigration fosters crime and he implemented a “zero tolerance” policy in May to prosecute all immigrants apprehended for entering illegally. That led to the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents, causing an outcry this month, even from some allies of the Republican president.In a rare retreat on an issue that fires up his conservative base, Trump on June 20 ordered officials to detain families together.Thousands of protesters in New York marched across the Brooklyn Bridge bearing signs with slogans like “Make America Humane Again” and “Immigrants Are Welcome Here.” On the U.S.-Mexico border, demonstrators partially blocked a bridge connecting El Paso, Texas with Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.In Chicago, thousands gathered to march toward the offices of federal immigration authorities. “I’m here because families belong together,” said Cindy Curry of Westchester, Illinois.A federal judge has ordered families be reunited and the administration asked the military to house immigrant families, leading the Pentagon to mull the construction of soft-sided camp facilities.Organizers estimated 30,000 people had gathered in central Washington. The peaceful protest appeared to be the largest pro-immigration demonstration in the U.S. capital since at least 2010, when activists rallied to pressure then-President Barack Obama and Congress to overhaul the U.S. immigration system.A splinter group of several dozen protesters in Washington went to protest at what they said was the residence of Stephen Miller, a White House adviser known for his hardline views on immigration. It was the latest in a string of public protests against Trump administration officials.They held up a sign saying “Stephen Miller, We Know Where You Sleep.”Since taking office in 2017, Trump has overseen an increase in arrests of people suspected of being in the country illegally. His administration is also approving fewer family visas.Immigration has been on the rise in America and across much of the developed world for decades, roiling politics in recent years in Germany, Britain and the United States.Immigrants made up about one in 20 U.S. residents in 1970. By 2016, their share rose to about one in seven, according the U.S. Census Bureau.On Twitter on Saturday, Trump criticized the handful of Democratic politicians who have called for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency known as ICE to be eliminated.“You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements,” he wrote in part of the post addressed to ICE employees.Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Jason Lange; additional reporting by Bob Chiarito in Chicago, Miesha Miller in New York, and Sue Horton, Kevin Fogarty and Greg Savoy in Washington; Editing by Susan Thomas and Grant McCoolfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed a $484 billion bill Friday to aid employers and hospitals under stress from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 50,000 Americans and devastated broad swaths of the economy.The bill is the latest effort by the federal government to help keep afloat businesses that have had to close or dramatically alter their operations as states try to slow the spread of the virus. Over the past five weeks, roughly 26 million people have filed for jobless aid, or about 1 in 6 U.S. workers. Trump thanked Congress for “answering my call” to provide the critical assistance and said it was “a tremendous victory.” But easy passage of this aid installment belies a potentially bumpier path ahead for future legislation to address the crisis.Trump said most of the funding in the bill would flow to small business through the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides money to small businesses to keep workers on their payroll. “Great for small businesses, great for the workers,” Trump said.The measure passed Congress almost unanimously Thursday as lawmakers gathered in Washington as a group for the first time since March 27. They followed stricter social distancing rules while seeking to prove they can do their work despite the COVID-19 crisis.Lawmakers’ face masks and bandannas added a somber tone to their effort to aid a nation staggered by the health crisis and devastating economic costs of the pandemic.“Millions of people out of work,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “This is really a very, very, very sad day. We come to the floor with nearly 50,000 deaths, a huge number of people impacted, and the uncertainty of it all.”Anchoring the bill is the Trump administration’s $250 billion request to replenish a fund to help small- and medium-size businesses with payroll, rent and other expenses. This program provides forgivable loans so businesses can continue paying workers while forced to stay closed for social distancing and stay-at-home orders.The legislation contains $100 billion demanded by Democrats for hospitals and a nationwide testing program, along with $60 billion for small banks and an alternative network of community development banks that focus on development in urban neighborhoods and rural areas ignored by many lenders. There’s also $60 billion for small-business loans and grants delivered through the Small Business Administration’s existing disaster aid program.Passage of more coronavirus relief is likely in the weeks ahead. Supporters are already warning that the business-backed Paycheck Protection Program will exhaust the new $250 billion almost immediately. Launched just weeks ago, the program quickly reached its lending limit after approving nearly 1.7 million loans. That left thousands of small businesses in limbo as they sought help.Pelosi and allies said the next measure will distribute more relief to individuals, extend more generous jobless benefits into the fall, provide another round of direct payments to most people and help those who are laid off afford health insurance through COBRA.Democrats tried to win another round of funding for state and local governments in Thursday’s bill but were rebuffed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who says he’s going to try pump the brakes on runaway deficit spending. McConnell says he doesn’t want to bail out Democratic-governed states for fiscal problems that predated the pandemic, but there’s plenty of demand for state fiscal relief among Republicans, too.After the Senate passed the bill Tuesday, McConnell said Republicans would entertain no more coronavirus rescue legislation until the Senate returns to Washington in May. He promised rank-and-file Republicans greater say in the future legislation, rather than leaving it in the hands of bipartisan leaders.Pelosi attacked McConnell for at first opposing adding any money to his original $250 billion package and saying cash-strapped states should be allowed to declare bankruptcy, a move that they currently cannot do and that would threaten a broad range of state services. McConnell’s comments provoked an outcry — including from GOP governors — and he later tempered his remarks.The four coronavirus relief bills approved so far by Congress would deliver at least $2.4 trillion for business relief, testing and treatment, and direct payments to individuals and the unemployed, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The deficit is virtually certain to breach $3 trillion this year.___Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Laurie Kellman contributed to this report. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic push to force Republicans to accept witnesses at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate appeared to be flagging on Wednesday, raising the possibility he could be acquitted as early as Friday.As senators questioned both the Trump legal team and the Democratic managers of the trial, Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz offered an expansive defense of presidential power that provoked astonishment among Democrats.“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in an impeachment,” Dershowitz said, referring to the charge that Trump abused his power by using congressionally approved security aid as leverage to get a foreign power to smear his political rival, Joe Biden.Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono told reporters: “That was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever heard as a response.”Senator John Barrasso, the third-most senior Republican, said it was possible the trial could end on Friday without witnesses being called, as Democrats want.“The momentum is clearly in the direction of moving to final judgment on Friday. That vote will be Friday. We still have a couple of members who said they want to listen to the answers to questions, but that’s where the momentum is,” Barrasso said.Asked when the vote might take place to settle the debate over witnesses and move to either acquit or convict Trump, Barrasso said probably Friday afternoon or late that day.Other Republican senators were predicting a similar outcome in conversations with reporters during breaks in Wednesday’s proceedings.The Democratic-led House of Representatives approved the two articles of impeachment being heard in the Republican-controlled Senate in December. Democrats have sought to persuade at least four Republican senators to vote with them in favor of witnesses to assure a majority vote in the 100-seat chamber.Democratic Senator Chris Coons was asked during a break if the Democrats’ fight for witnesses was lost.“I don’t know that for sure one way or the other,” he said, but called the tone and questions of senators “not encouraging.”Democrats were not conceding defeat, however.“My gut tells me we’re making progress, progress, progress,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.Late on Thursday, White House deputy counsel Patrick Philbin was asked if Trump agreed that foreign interference in U.S. elections is illegal. “Mere information is not something that would violate the campaign finance laws,” Philbin replied.Democrats said they were aghast that a lawyer for Trump would suggest it is OK to solicit foreign interference.“I’m pretty stunned,” said Senator Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.While the Senate is expected to acquit Trump and leave him in office no matter what happens, allowing witnesses could inflict political damage on the president as he seeks re-election on Nov. 3.One such witness is former national security adviser John Bolton, who left the White House in September after several sharp disagreements with Trump over the direction of foreign policy.The New York Times has reported that Bolton wrote in an as-yet unpublished book that the president told him he wanted to freeze $391 million in security aid - passed by U.S. Congress to help Ukraine battle Russia-backed separatists - until Kiev pursued investigations into Democrats, including Biden and the former vice president’s son, Hunter.CLASSIFIEDOn Wednesday, the White House objected to the book’s publication. A letter from the White House National Security Council to Bolton’s attorney said that based on a preliminary review, the manuscript appeared to contain “significant amounts of classified information.”Some material was deemed top secret and could “cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security,” according to the letter, which was dated Jan. 23. It said the manuscript could not be published without deleting the classified information.The manuscript was submitted to the White House for pre-publication review, a process that civil libertarians have said gives the government too much power to censor speech.Democrats believe Bolton, a Republican foreign policy hawk, could help them solidify their case against the president and want to call him and a small number of other officials to testify. Trump’s fellow Republicans in the Senate have resisted the idea.Bolton lawyer Charles Cooper said on Wednesday that neither he nor his client believe that any information in a chapter on Ukraine “could reasonably be considered classified.” He asked for a quick determination in case Bolton was called to testify.WORLD WAR SIXTrump lashed out at Bolton on Twitter on Wednesday, saying Bolton “couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, ‘begged’ me for a non Senate approved job” and added that “if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now.”Trump added that Bolton “goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?”Responding to a question by top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, lead House prosecutor Adam Schiff said there would be no way to have a fair trial without witnesses.“And when you have a witness as plainly relevant as John Bolton who goes to the heart of the most serious and most egregious of the president’s misconduct, who has volunteered to come and testify - to turn him away, to look the other way, I think is deeply at odds with being an impartial juror,” Schiff said.Trump’s legal team has argued that the evidence supporting the charges against him is based on hearsay. It also asserts Trump did not commit an impeachable offense even if the allegation is true.Removing Trump from office would take a two-thirds majority. None of the 53 Republican senators has publicly advocated removal.Reporting by Richard Cowan, Mark Hosenball, David Morgan, Doina Chiacu, Patricia Zengerle, Susan Heavey, Susan Cornwell, Makini Brice, Karen Freifeld, Lisa Lambert and Katanga Johnson; Writing by Will Dunham and Steve Holland; Editing by Howard Goller, Alistair Bell and Sonya Hepinstallfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
WASHINGTON—Deficit hawks Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles on Tuesday proposed a detailed plan for rewriting the tax code and implementing deep new spending cuts, hoping to offer a path to compromise for Democrats and Republicans.Messrs. Simpson and Bowles served as co-chairmen of the White House's 2010 deficit-reduction panel, which put together a bipartisan package of tax and spending changes that fell flat after the administration and congressional leaders took a look. They tried once again on Tuesday, at a time when Washington budget talks have entered a particularly frosty period. Republicans and Democrats say they want to reduce the federal budget deficit but are far apart on how and by how much. Many lawmakers left Washington late last week for a recess this week, having made little progress in talks to avert roughly $85 billion in federal spending cuts scheduled to begin March 1. These cuts will run through September unless Congress intervenes, something many analysts believe is becoming less likely each day. Mr. Simpson, a Republican, and Mr. Bowles, a Democrat, say their new proposal would reduce the federal budget deficit by $2.4 trillion over 10 years, more than the $1.5 trillion package that White House officials have said is their goal. Obama administration officials say any deficit-reduction package must include new tax revenue as well as spending cuts. House GOP leaders haven't yet detailed the size of the deficit-reduction package they will propose, but they have said it would balance the budget within 10 years, which would put it in the $4 trillion range. They have said, though, that it won't include any tax increases. The new $2.4 trillion Simpson-Bowles proposal would identify $600 billion in spending reductions through changes to health-care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. That is roughly $200 billion more than the White House has said it is willing to accept. The health-care component is perhaps the most detailed of any part of the package, calling for "improving provider and beneficiary incentives throughout the health care system, reducing provider payments, reforming cost-sharing, increasing premiums for higher earners, adjusting benefits to account for population aging, reducing drug costs, and getting better value for our health care dollars." Another $600 billion in deficit-reduction would come from curbing or ending a number of tax breaks. This is about in line with the level of increased revenue White House officials have said they are seeking, but most Republicans have said they won't accept any tax increases as part of a deficit-reduction package. The final $1.2 trillion in the proposal would come from lower caps on discretionary spending—the type Congress approves annually—changing the way cost-of-living increases are calculated for Social Security checks and other government benefits, cuts to farm subsidies, and changes to military and civilian retirement programs, among other things. "Our plan is not perfect, but it can serve we believe as a mark for a bipartisan deal," Mr. Bowles told reporters Tuesday morning. The package marks at least the fourth effort by Messrs. Simpson and Bowles in the past three years to galvanize public and political backing for a deficit-reduction deal. It follows their late-2012 attempt to broker a large-scale agreement between the White House and congressional leaders during the talks over avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff. Messrs. Bowles and Simpson helped assemble a large group of chief executives to prod Washington to act, but that effort gained little traction as political leaders dug in and many CEOs threw up their hands. In the past, their pitches have proven more popular with rank-and-file members looking to support a bipartisan plan than with congressional leaders who were locked in negotiations. The Simpson-Bowles proposal says political leaders should strive to push the ratio of federal debt as a percentage of gross domestic product to less than 70% over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office earlier this month said this ratio is likely to be 77% by 2023 if no further actions are taken. This is historically high and could lead to high interest payments for the U.S. government, among other things, particularly when rates rise. The spending cuts set to begin March 1 resulted from the 2011 agreement that raised the federal borrowing limit. They would reduce spending in areas including defense, housing, education and transportation. They represent a small slice of the government's annual budget, which exceeds $3.5 trillion, but big-ticket programs like Social Security and Medicare benefits are immune from the cuts. Write to Damian Paletta at damian.paletta@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
G-7 nations pledged millions to help Amazon countries fight wildfires, but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday that he's not interested unless he gets an apology from French President Emmanuel Macron. Eraldo Peres/AP hide caption toggle caption Eraldo Peres/AP G-7 nations pledged millions to help Amazon countries fight wildfires, but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday that he's not interested unless he gets an apology from French President Emmanuel Macron. Eraldo Peres/AP Brazil says it will reject an offer of at least $22 million from the rich countries in the Group of Seven to help fight fires sweeping through the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he doesn't want the money — unless it comes with an apology from French President Emmanuel Macron. Bolsonaro and Macron have engaged in a days-long spat after the French leader used the G-7 summit this week to call for action to protect the Amazon and said the fires are a world environmental crisis that Bolsonaro has allowed to worsen. He also said that Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic, had lied about his effort to combat deforestation. Bolsonaro responded angrily, saying Macron had insulted him and was trying to undermine Brazil's sovereignty by intervening in the Amazon. "This squabble is infuriating Bolsonaro's critics," NPR's Philip Reeves reports from Rio de Janeiro. "They say he should fight the fires — not the French." On Monday, Bolsonaro said in a tweet that he won't accept what he called Macron's "attacks." He also accused Macron of treating Brazil "as if we were a colony or no man's land." In an interview on French TV, Macron later referred to the Amazon as "the lungs of the planet" and pledged that the G-7 countries would help Brazil balance its economic development with environmental concerns. In an aside addressed to Bolsonaro, he added, "But we cannot allow you to destroy everything." On Tuesday morning, Bolsonaro said Macron would have to take back all the things he said about him before he would even consider the offer of monetary aid from members of the G-7: the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Bolsonaro made those remarks to reporters in Brasilia shortly after the website G1 reported that the president's chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, had rejected the offer outright. "Thanks, but perhaps these resources are more relevant to reforesting Europe," Lorenzoni was quoted as saying. Referring to the recent Notre Dame blaze in Paris, he went on to suggest that if Macron cannot "avoid a predictable fire in a church," he might not have much to teach to Brazil. YouTube President Trump came to Bolsonaro's defense on Tuesday, saying via Twitter, "He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil — Not easy." In reply, Bolsonaro thanked Trump and wrote, "The fake news campaign built against our sovereignty will not work." - Thank you, President @realDonaldTrump. We're fighting the wildfires with great success. Brazil is and will always be an international reference in sustainable development. The fake news campaign built against our sovereignty will not work. The US can always count on Brazil. 👍 https://t.co/ZicUKsYGcx— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) August 27, 2019 Macron made the devastating fires in the Amazon a key point for the G-7 summit even before meetings began in Biarritz, France. "The ocean and the forest that burns in the Amazon call us. We have to answer them," he said, adding, "The time is no longer for words, but for deeds." The offer of money from the G-7 nations also has drawn attention over its modest size — because it is coming from some of the world's largest economies and because of the task it is meant to accomplish. "It's really only symbolic," Nigel Sizer, the chief program officer at the nonprofit Rainforest Alliance, told NPR. "It's less than Americans spend on popcorn in a typical day." In that light, Sizer said, it's not surprising that Brazil has rejected the offer. And he added that the problem is partly political, as well. "The fact is that Brazil has the resources and the expertise to address this challenge," Sizer said. "Since the Bolsonaro government came into power at the beginning of this year, they have systematically defunded their environmental protection agencies." The shocking losses in the Amazon rainforest have prompted intense reactions globally. In addition to the formal G-7 offer, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered to send the affected nations 10 million pounds (around $12.2 million), and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered to send CA$15 million (around $11.2 million) and water bomber planes to fight the fires. As awareness has spread on social media and elsewhere, donations have poured in from all over, Sizer said. "The people of the world actually are pledging more resources than the G-7 has been committing," he said. "We've seen millions and millions of dollars coming in." Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio has also stepped in, with his Earth Alliance group creating a $5 million emergency Amazon fund to help indigenous communities and others who are working to protect the Amazon's prodigious biodiversity from being destroyed. | 1 |
WASHINGTON—The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to cancel coming oral arguments on two pillars of former President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, construction of a wall along the southern U.S. border and the “Remain in Mexico” program that barred U.S. entry to many asylum applicants while their cases were considered.The filings are among the first of many the Justice Department is expected to make as the Biden administration changes direction on immigration, LGBT protections, voting rights, the Affordable Care Act and other policies. In both cases, acting Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who represents the federal government at the Supreme Court, cited first-day actions of the Biden administration. On Jan. 20, President Biden terminated the emergency Mr. Trump declared along the southern border, an action the previous administration argued allowed it to pull money Congress had allocated to other projects for construction of the wall, which lawmakers had refused to fund. Lower courts found the Trump administration exceeded its authority, but the Supreme Court’s conservative majority allowed the reallocations to continue and construction to proceed while appeals were pending. In the asylum case, Ms. Prelogar cited a Jan. 20 directive from the acting secretary of homeland security, David Pekoske, suspending new enrollment in the asylum program, which formally is called the Migrant Protection Protocols. Arguments in the wall case are scheduled for Feb. 22, while the justices on March 1 are set to review the Trump administration policy that required asylum seekers at the border to wait in Mexico while their requests are considered. Lower courts ruled that the asylum policy and some of the border wall’s funding were unlawful, prompting appeals from the Trump administration. If the Biden administration ultimately drops the appeals, as expected, the lower court decisions will remain in force. President Biden has proposed a comprehensive immigration-reform plan. But as WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains, he faces an uphill climb that could be even tougher than what previous administrations faced. Photo illustration: Laura Kammermann It is typical for a new administration to shift positions on some cases, but the break between the Biden and Trump eras is likely to be significant—in part because the Trump administration itself changed so many legal positions after taking power in 2017. Relative continuity has been a tradition at the Justice Department, and courts sometimes frown upon dramatic swings in posture by the nation’s leading law enforcer from one administration to the next. Legal observers say the Trump-led department at times strained that tradition. It changed its stance in at least 10 notable cases involving voting rights, immigration, health care and labor law during Mr. Trump’s first year in office. For instance, the Justice Department typically defends acts of Congress, regardless of whether the current president would have signed the legislation in the first place. The Trump administration, however, dropped its defense of the Affordable Care Act, choosing to embrace a novel legal theory that the health-care overhaul became unconstitutional when Congress reduced to zero the penalty for failing to maintain insurance. At oral arguments in November, justices across the ideological spectrum appeared skeptical of that claim. While the Biden administration can’t pull the case—it was filed by the state of Texas, with Trump administration backing—it can inform the justices it no longer stands by the arguments made by the former administration’s lawyer, former acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall. “You don’t want to change positions from the past administration if you can, but if you’ve got some outlier position, you’re almost really compelled to,” Neal Katyal, a veteran of the Obama-era solicitor general’s office, said during a Georgetown University Law Center event last week. Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, said the Biden Justice Department team will want to be careful about which positions to disavow. “If you’re thinking about the ideal sort of target, it would be one where everybody can see that the position you’re re-embracing or embracing is in the long-term interests of the government—and where you end up winning,” Mr. Clement said at the Georgetown event. “In that respect, it seems like the ACA case is a pretty good target.” In addition to immigration, forthcoming Biden administration policy changes in other areas could make more pending cases irrelevant, including a Trump administration appeal seeking high-court approval for its rules barring federal family-planning grants to health clinics that offer on-site abortions or abortion referrals. In a major voting case from Arizona, set for Supreme Court argument on March 2, the Trump Justice Department filed a brief supporting state rules prohibiting third parties from collecting absentee ballots, as well as out-of-precinct voting, in the name of election integrity. A lower court ruled against Arizona after finding that both measures disproportionately harmed minorities. Voting-rights law has been an area of considerable difference between Democrats and Republicans, and the Arizona case is important because it gives the Supreme Court the chance to set clear rules under the Voting Rights Act about how to evaluate the potentially discriminatory effects of state voting laws. The new department leadership also will face tough decisions on still-moving cases involving congressional investigations of Mr. Trump. One pending case at the Supreme Court examines whether Congress can have grand-jury materials from the Mueller probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The department under Trump argued it couldn’t. On Feb. 23, the full federal appeals court in Washington will consider whether the Democratic-led House of Representatives can enforce a subpoena for testimony from former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn, a case that raises broad questions about whether Congress can compel testimony from a president’s close advisers. The department has argued that the House committee seeking Mr. McGhan’s testimony doesn’t have the constitutional authority to demand it. Several cases that are still in the lower courts could also present dilemmas for the department, including a lawsuit the previous administration filed against former Trump national security adviser John Bolton alleging his bestselling memoir, published last year and highly critical of the former president, was unlawfully released before it received national security clearance. Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@wsj.com and Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
WASHINGTON—Federal prosecutors unsealed charges on Wednesday against five Chinese citizens that officials say appear linked to Chinese intelligence, accusing them of hacking more than 100 companies in the U.S. and overseas, including social-media firms, universities and telecommunications providers.Two Malaysian businessmen were arrested Monday in Malaysia and accused of conspiring with some of the Chinese hackers to profit from intrusions into the videogame industry, Justice Department officials said. The charges, laid out in three separate indictments, build on several other cases brought against accused Chinese hackers during the Trump administration, which has characterized Beijing’s cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property as a grave national and economic security threat. U.S. law-enforcement agencies rarely succeed in arresting foreign hackers, and officials called the arrests in Malaysia a victory for international cooperation. “The Department of Justice has used every tool available to disrupt the illegal computer intrusions and cyberattacks by these Chinese citizens,” Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said. “Regrettably, the Chinese Communist Party has chosen a different path of making China safe for cybercriminals so long as they attack computers outside China and steal intellectual property helpful to China.” The tech battle between the U.S. and China has battered TikTok and Huawei and startled American companies that produce and sell in China. WSJ explains how Beijing is pouring money into high-tech chips as it wants to become self-sufficient. Video/Illustration: George Downs/The Wall Street Journal The indictments don’t state that the alleged hackers worked directly for China’s intelligence service. But Justice Department officials said the nature of some of the attacks, including the targeting of pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong, and other circumstantial evidence bore the hallmarks of state espionage. One of the Chinese nationals allegedly boasted of having connections to the Ministry of State Security, according to one of the indictments. The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. China has previously denied U.S. accusations of malicious cyber activity. The alleged hacking campaign was described by Justice Department officials as the handiwork of Advanced Persistent Threat 41, or APT 41, a Chinese cyber squad that U.S.-based cyber firm FireEye has identified and linked to a range of malicious cyber activity against targets in sectors including finance, health care, real estate and the U.S. defense industrial base. FireEye on Wednesday said that APT 41 was currently the most prolific Chinese hacking group it tracked. Microsoft Corp. , Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Verizon Communications Inc., among other technology companies, assisted in the investigation and helped neutralize some of the computer infrastructure used by China, which aided in the protection of some victims, Justice Department officials said. Officials declined to state whether the companies were among those targeted.
China and Hacking A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company “developed and implemented technical measures to block this threat actor from accessing victims’ computer systems.” The company declined to say if it had been targeted. Representatives from the other companies didn’t immediately comment. The indictments were handed down last month and in August 2019. One of the two indictments brought last month charged Chinese nationals Jiang Lizhi, Qian Chuan and Fu Qiang with a computer-intrusion racketeering conspiracy affecting over 100 companies, organizations and people in the U.S. and around the world, including in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The defendants, while working at the Chinese firm Chengdu 404 Network Technology, also compromised government computer networks in India and Vietnam, and targeted but didn’t successfully breach U.K. government networks, according to the indictment. Chengdu 404 and its indicted employees couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Between about May 2014 and August 2020, the Chengdu 404 defendants targeted hospitality, videogame, technology and telecommunications companies, research universities and nongovernmental organizations in pursuit of their own financial gain, the indictment alleges. They used sophisticated techniques to conduct operations such as supply-chain attacks, in which they compromised software providers and modified their code to hack their customers, it says. Chengdu 404’s website touted the firm’s “patriotic spirit” and said its customers include public security, military, and military enterprises, according to prosecutors. One of the defendants, Mr. Jiang, and an unidentified associate at one point discussed how the defendant’s working relationship with a Chinese intelligence organization—the Ministry of State Security—provided him protection, the indictment said, citing alleged communications between the two. The accused Chengdu 404 employees also developed a product, SonarX, to serve as a searchable repository for social-media data they collected. In November 2018, one of the defendants, Mr. Qian, saved records of a SonarX query for people linked to Hong Kong democracy movements including current and former members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, a founding member of the Hong Kong Civic Party and a pro-democracy activist currently wanted by the Hong Kong police under a new national-security law, the indictment alleges, without identifying the individuals. Leaders in the U.S. and other countries have said the law in Hong Kong, a Chinese territory that Beijing had promised special freedoms, is repressive, which Beijing denies. In December 2018, Mr. Qian saved records from a SonarX query for a U.S. phone number linked to a U.S. government-funded nonprofit broadcasting corporation that has documented news about the predominantly Muslim Uighur minority living in China’s Xinjiang region, according to the indictment. Human-rights groups have accused Beijing of committing widespread abuses in the area, which Chinese officials deny. The two arrested Malaysian citizens, Wong Ong Hua and Ling Yang Ching, who operated a website that sold videogame currencies and other products used in the games, were charged in another August 2020 indictment in Washington with racketeering and computer crimes. The pair worked from 2014 through 2018 with two of the other alleged hackers from China to breach the networks of nine videogame companies based in the U.S., South Korea and elsewhere, through malware, spear phishing emails and other methods, the indictment said. They would create their own videogame accounts and illegally access the credentials of administrators to fraudulently increase the in-game currency and other digital goods in their own accounts, the indictment said. The pair would then sell those products themselves and pocket the proceeds, it said. In 2014, for example, one of the videogame company victims received an email that appeared to be from a former employee of the company with a résumé attached, but which really contained malware, the indictment said. That malware gave the Malaysians access to the network of that company, according to the indictment, which didn’t identify the company by name. In February 2018, Mr. Wong discussed with an unnamed computer hacker the possibility of traveling internationally to obtain a private bank account for their proceeds. The hacker responded that American authorities “have stuff on us,” the indictment alleged. Messrs. Wong and Ling couldn’t be reached for comment. The men were arrested on U.S. charges and will face extradition proceedings that could last months, Justice Department officials said. Sumon Dantiki, a former senior FBI and Justice Department official who worked on cyber investigations, said that the hacking campaign revealed Wednesday was almost without precedent in terms of its overall size. “The sheer breadth of this action and the scope of victims is just stunning,” he said, likening its vastness to China’s so-called Cloudhopper attacks on managed-service providers, which a Wall Street Journal investigation in December found was far bigger than previously known. Mr. Dantiki, now a partner at the King & Spalding law firm, said the case would accelerate a trend in the government and private sector to focus on supply-chain software security, given the success hackers have found exploiting that ecosystem. “The larger digital infrastructure of the United States and the global economy is really under siege,” he said. Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com, Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com and Kate O’Keeffe at kathryn.okeeffe@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may urge Americans to cover their faces in public to protect themselves and others amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Washington Post is reporting.The recommendation, if approved, would call for Americans to use cloth coverings instead of surgical and N95 masks, which have been in short supply at hospitals and medical facilities across the country, the Post noted, adding that the coverings could potentially lower the risk of an infected person transmitting the virus.Talks are still ongoing, an anonymous federal official confirmed to the newspaper.A second official said that the recommendation could help “flatten the curve” of the virus's spread. The CDC does not currently recommend that healthy people wear masks or coverings over their face, instead recommending that everyone engage in social distancing and stand at least six feet apart.President TrumpDonald TrumpBlack voters are fleeing Biden in droves. Here's why Biden's Super Bowl prediction: 'Loves' Bengals' quarterback, but Rams 'hard to beat' GOP Senate candidate to run 'Let's go Brandon' ad during Super Bowl MORE, asked Monday at the daily White House briefing if everyone should wear nonmedical masks, told reporters that the option is "certainly something we could discuss” and that “it could be something like that for a limited period of time.”Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb recommended the change as the lead author of a pandemic response plan published Sunday by the American Enterprise Institute. The report says that “everyone, including people without symptoms, should be encouraged to wear nonmedical fabric face masks while in public.”During an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, he said people should consider wearing a cotton mask, adding: “We should be putting out guidelines from the CDC on how you can develop a mask on your own.”However, some worry that a mask could become contaminated and not be properly cleaned or disposed of, leading to transmission of the coronavirus, the Post reported.Ilhem Messaoudi, a University of California at Irvine epidemiologist, told the newspaper that the virus is spread through heavy respiratory droplets.“Given the shortage of PPE available to our healthcare workforce, it is irresponsible for anyone to suggest that we should all don masks, reducing the supply for nurses and physicians who do not have the luxury of treating symptomatic, very sick patients from 6 feet away,” Messaoudi said.“Homemade masks theoretically could offer some protection if the materials and fit were optimized, but this is uncertain,” Jeffrey Duchin, a top health official in Seattle and King County, Wash., told the Post. “It’s also possible that mask-wearing might increase the risk for infection if other recommendations (like hand washing and distancing) are less likely to be followed or if the mask is contaminated and touched.”“Well-designed homemade or commercially manufactured masks for the public that did not draw on the supply needed by healthcare workers could potentially provide some protection,” he added. | 1 |
The Trump administration on Tuesday said it is going ahead with actions to crack down on Chinese trade practices by June 30.In a press release, the White House says President TrumpDonald TrumpHillicon Valley — Cyberattack hits Ukrainian defense On The Money — GOP senators block Biden's Fed picks Florida county clerk's typo directed ticketed drivers to site selling Trump merchandise MORE is planning further export controls against China to counter Chinese intellectual property theft, including tariffs on Chinese tech exports believed to contain stolen American intellectual property."To protect our national security, the United States will implement specific investment restrictions and enhanced export controls for Chinese persons and entities related to the acquisition of industrially significant technology," the statement reads.A 25 percent tariff will be levied on $50 billion of tech goods imported from China, and the U.S. pledges in the statement to continue litigating the issue in front of the World Trade Organization. The list of affected goods will be released by June 15, the statement says.“The United States will continue efforts to protect domestic technology and intellectual property, stop noneconomic transfers of industrially significant technology and intellectual property to China, and enhance access to the Chinese market,” the statement continues.“Discussions with China will continue on these topics, and the United States looks forward to resolving long-standing structural issues and expanding our exports by eliminating China’s severe import restrictions.”The move comes just days after Trump's trade representatives presented Chinese officials with a list of trade demands including a document asking China's government to slash its trade deficit with the U.S. by $200 billion by the end of 2020.Just more than a week ago, Treasury Secretary Steven MnuchinSteven MnuchinGOP senators to block vote on Biden Fed picks Lawmakers say spending deal up to leaders Trump failed fossil fuel-reliant communities — Build Back Better invests in them MORE said that the trade war with China was “on hold,” with Chinese state media also reporting that Washington and Beijing had agreed to back off on tariffs.The move to announce the tariffs comes ahead of Commerce Secretary Wilbur RossWilbur Louis RossMomentum builds to prohibit lawmakers from trading stocks Census memo notes 'unprecedented' Trump administration meddling: report Holding defiant Trump witnesses to account, Jan. 6 committee carries out Congress's constitutional role MORE's visit China this weekend for trade negotiations. | 1 |
FacebookThe Epoch Times on Facebook.Facebook has banned The Epoch Times, a pro-Donald Trump, pro-Conservative publication, from advertising on its platform.The decision comes after NBC reported that the publication was sneaking pro-Trump ads past Facebook's review system.The Epoch Times spent more than $1.5 million on the ads over the past six months, making it the second-largest source of pro-Trump Facebook ads after Trump himself.The Epoch Times is a non-profit publication that's tied to a Chinese religious group named Falun Gong. According to NBC, Falun Gong sees Trump as a force to undermine China.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Facebook has banned The Epoch Times, a pro-Donald Trump, pro-Conservative publication, from advertising on its platform after it tried to sneak ads past its review system, NBC News reported on Thursday.The news comes after reports surfaced that The Epoch Times had spent more than $1.5 million on pro-Trump Facebook advertising in the past six months, making it the second-largest source of pro-Trump Facebook ads on the platform after the Trump campaign.Its ads were described by NBC as featuring "unidentified spokespeople" who "thumb through a newspaper to praise Trump, peddle conspiracy theories about the 'Deep State,' and criticize 'fake news' media."Read more: Aside from the Trump campaign itself, the biggest spender on pro-Trump Facebook ads is reportedly a secretive New York-based newspaperUp until mid-July, these ads were run through accounts that clearly showed their affiliation to The Epoch Times via a Facebook page called "Coverage of the Trump presidency by The Epoch Times."But after journalists started looking at whether these ads violated Facebook's policies, NBC discovered that the Epoch Times shifted funding to other accounts with names such as Honest Paper, Patriots of America, Pure American Journalism, and Best News in attempt to hide its connection to the pro-Trump ads it was publishing.Now, Facebook is taking action."Over the past year, we removed accounts associated with the Epoch Times for violating our ad policies, including trying to get around our review systems. We acted on additional accounts today and they are no longer able to advertise with us," a spokeswoman for Facebook wrote in a statement emailed to Business Insider.The spokesperson shared a link to the specific rule that the publication violated, which is listed in its advertising policies: "Ads must not use tactics that are intended to circumvent our ad review process or other enforcement systems. This includes techniques that attempt to disguise the ad's content or destination page."'The Epoch Times is a nonpartisan media that is dedicated to truthful and accurate reporting'Business Insider reached out to Epoch Times Editor-in-Chief Jasper Fakker for comment but did not immediately hear back.The Epoch Times is a non-profit publication that's tied to a Chinese religious group named Falun Gong. According to NBC, Falun Gong seeks to undermine the Chinese government and sees Trump as a force for that goal.In a previous statement to Business Insider, Fakker acknowledged the publication's connections to Falun Gong but said that it isn't owned by the religious group. He also denied that its pro-Trump ads on Facebook were meant to be political."NBC News' statement is incorrect," Fakker said in an email exchange with Business Insider. "The Epoch Times advertisements are subscription advertisements for the print version of The Epoch Times. In the advertisements we discuss The Epoch Times editorial and feature content and encourage people to subscribe to us."Facebook has specific rules for advertising that require anyone - including a publisher like ourselves - to label content if it touches on social issues or politics, something some news content naturally does. The Epoch Times is a nonpartisan media that is dedicated to truthful and accurate reporting."Additional reporting by Rob Price. | 1 |
Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, listens as President Trump delivers remarks about coronavirus vaccine development in the Rose Garden on May 15. Slaoui says Americans could start seeing a vaccine by the middle of December. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Drew Angerer/Getty Images Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, listens as President Trump delivers remarks about coronavirus vaccine development in the Rose Garden on May 15. Slaoui says Americans could start seeing a vaccine by the middle of December. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, says that some Americans could start receiving a COVID-19 vaccine by the second week of December. Slaoui's comments follow the announcement on Friday that Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, have asked the Food and Drug Administration to grant an emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine — which has been found to be 95% effective. A second vaccine from the biotech company Moderna is expected to be submitted for emergency authorization soon as well. "Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours from the approval, so I would expect maybe on day two after approval on the 11th or the 12th of December," Slaoui told CNN on Sunday. While millions of people in the U.S. could be vaccinated in the weeks and months following an emergency use authorization, Slaoui said it will be well into 2021 before the nation would be able to achieve herd immunity. "Normally, with the level of efficacy we have, 95%, 70% or so of the population being immunized would allow for true herd immunity to take place," he said. "That is likely to happen somewhere in the month of May, or something like that, based on our plans." In an interview with NPR last week, Slaoui said there would be enough doses to immunize "about 20 million people by the month of December" and "40 million doses between the two vaccines." "But then what's important to keep in mind," he said, "is we have four more vaccines in the pipeline — in our portfolio — two of which are in the middle of their phase three trials with already about 10,000 subjects recruited in each one of their trials." Slaoui's comments on Sunday echo what Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, told NPR's Morning Edition this past Tuesday. Fauci said that Americans with the "highest priority" — such as health care workers and those most at risk of the virus — will likely receive a vaccine towards the end of December. Cases of the coronavirus continue to rise at an alarming rate in nearly every state in the U.S. There have been more than 12 million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 255,000 people have died in total across the nation. On Saturday alone, there were an additional 177,552 new confirmed cases and 1,448 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. | 1 |
Senate and House leaders are on the cusp of a coronavirus relief deal that will include direct $600 to $700 direct stimulus payments and $300-per-week supplemental unemployment assistance, according to sources familiar with the talks.The $900 billion package is the result of months of stop-and-start negotiations that received a boost in early December when a bipartisan group of senators and House members unveiled their own $908 billion package after talks between Democratic leaders and the White House stalled.The emerging deal, however, will not include $160 billion in new state and local aid or liability protection for businesses and other organizations — two of the most contentious issues of the talk.The new round of stimulus checks cost approximately the same as the $160 billion in state and local aid that negotiators have set aside in hopes of reaching a deal by week’s end.Senate and House leaders want to attach the new coronavirus relief package to a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending package that needs to pass by Dec. 18 to keep the government funded.The emerging deal is based largely on a revised $748 billion relief bill that the bipartisan group of Senate and House moderates unveiled Monday, which left aside state and local funding and the liability protection provisions. The senator said there could be language in the deal aimed at addressing concerns that people who receive both enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus checks would be getting a "double benefit." Tax experts said that it would be difficult for the IRS to administer a provision that prevents unemployment recipients from getting direct payments.Thune said the plan for the House to act on the combined COVID relief-omnibus spending package first and send it to the Senate to pass before the Friday night deadline.In a win for Republicans, the cost of the COVID-relief portion of the package is below $1 trillion, an upper boundary set by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Republicans earlier this year.While the package does not include the $160 billion tranche for state and local government, a person familiar with the negotiations says it includes “other avenues to deliver aid to states, localities, territories and tribes” and emphasized the McConnell did not get the liability provisions he said earlier this year would be part of any deal.It would provide between $320 billion and $330 billion for the second round of Paycheck Protection Program small-business loans, according to sources familiar with the talks, as well as money for broadband Internet services, food assistance and rental insurance.“We made major headway toward hammering out a targeted pandemic relief package that would be able to pass both chambers with bipartisan majorities,” McConnell announced on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.“We committed to continuing these urgent discussions until we have an agreement and we agreed we will not leave town until we’ve made law,” the GOP leader added. “The American people need more help, it’s that simple. Further targeted relief is now months overdue.”A GOP aide said Republicans offered to provide state and local governments with an extra $90 billion to be distributed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).Thune said, “I think they’re trying to help the states out in other ways” but said “it’s hard to say” whether GOP lawmakers will agree to the extra support for state and local government, which has been a controversial issue among Republicans.“If it’s simply a way of disguising money for state and local governments we’ll have a lot of opposition,” he warned. “The way they were talking about doing it is distributing it through other programs.“I’m sure it’s a way of trying to convince our guys that this isn’t what it looks like but in the end our members have a lot of opposition to the state and local component of the conversation,” he added.Thune confirmed the package includes close to $330 billion in new PPP funding, which would be more than the $300 billion allocated to the Small Business Administration in the bipartisan proposal introduced by Senate and House moderates Monday.Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Wednesday that “we are close to an agreement.”He cautioned that “it’s not a done deal yet, but we are very close.”“For Democrats this has always been about getting the American people the relief they need at a time of an acute national crisis, of an emergency to so many Americans,” he said. “This has been about delivering a lifeline to Americans who were laid off through no fault of their own.”Schumer acknowledged that “we Democrats would have liked to go considerably further,” alluding to the lack of another substantial tranche of federal aid to state and local governments, but he pledged “this won’t be the last time Congress speaks on COVID relief.”“Make no mistake, we will work in the future to provide additional relief as the country requires but we need to provide a platform to build on, we need to address this emergency right now,” he said.The addition of a second round of direct payments is a win for progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as well as GOP Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), who had pushed for checks to be part of the package.Sanders and Hawley, however, called for $1,200 direct payments to individuals. Both senators on Wednesday praised the inclusion of direct payments but said they want them to be larger than the $600 to $700 range identified by leaders.“I’m proud of the progress that we’ve made,” Sanders said. “I’m going to continue to fight for more because people are in trouble right now and they need help but it’s a good start.”Asked if he would now drop his objection to waiving procedural hurdles to allow the year-end package to pass quickly, Sanders replied: “Right now we’re going to do our best to get the $1,200 but this is a good start.”Hawley said “it’s progress” but cautioned “it’s not the level I think it should be.”A new round of stimulus payments is also expected to help secure President TrumpDonald TrumpBlack voters are fleeing Biden in droves. Here's why Biden's Super Bowl prediction: 'Loves' Bengals' quarterback, but Rams 'hard to beat' GOP Senate candidate to run 'Let's go Brandon' ad during Super Bowl MORE’s support for the deal.The White House last week had proposed direct payments of $600 per adult and per child, which analysts estimate would cost about $170 billion.Juliegrace Brufke and Naomi Jagoda contributed to this report, which was updated at 2:18 p.m. | 1 |
President-elect Joe Biden received the first shot of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine during a televised event Monday. Photo: Leah Millis/Reuters Updated Dec. 21, 2020 4:40 pm ET President-elect Joe Biden received the Covid-19 vaccine Monday in a televised appearance from a Delaware hospital in which he encouraged the public to get vaccinated. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. After pushing up the long-sleeve shirt on his left arm, Mr. Biden received the first of two doses after top public health officials recommended that he be fully vaccinated before his Jan. 20 inauguration. He was joined by his wife, Jill Biden, who received the first course of the vaccine earlier in the day, his transition team said. “We owe these folks an awful lot,” Mr. Biden said of the medical professionals at ChristianaCare Hospital in Newark, Del. Mr. Biden, wearing a black face mask, sat for the first course of the Pfizer -BioNTech vaccine near a sign that encouraged mask-wearing with the words: “Wearing is Caring.” The president-elect’s inoculation came a week after the start of the first U.S. Covid-19 vaccinations, the most significant mass-immunization campaign since the 1950s. Mr. Biden said he was “doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when it’s available to take the vaccine. There’s nothing to worry about.” Mr. Biden said President Trump’s administration “deserves some credit, getting this off the ground with Operation Warp Speed.” He said he hoped Americans would listen to medical experts and “wear masks during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Wear masks, social distance. And if you don’t have to travel, don’t travel.” Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is scheduled to be vaccinated next week in preparation for the new administration. Covid-19 Vaccines Mr. Biden became the latest American leader to get the vaccination, following Vice President Mike Pence last week along with congressional leaders and other lawmakers. It remains unclear if Mr. Trump and first lady Melania Trump, both of whom contracted Covid-19 in the fall, will receive the vaccine in the coming weeks. One of Mr. Biden’s incoming White House advisers tested positive for the virus last week. Mr. Biden’s transition team said Rep. Cedric Richmond (D., La.), who will serve as senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement, “was not in close contact” with Mr. Biden during a campaign trip to Georgia last week on behalf of two Democrats competing in the Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections.
Related Articles During his campaign, Mr. Biden said he would follow the guidance of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on whether to receive the vaccine. Dr. Fauci said last week that Mr. Biden should be vaccinated as soon as possible. The federal government approved use of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and its German partner BioNTech SE earlier this month. U.S. health regulators cleared the use of Moderna Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine Friday, a move that should increase the availability of supplies this week. About 40 million doses are expected to be available this month and the initial doses are slated to go to the nation’s front-line health-care workers and elderly residents of long-term-care facilities. Much of the public won’t receive the shots until the spring or summer 2021. Dr. Fauci was scheduled to get vaccinated Tuesday along with other Trump administration public health officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a tweet. Write to Ken Thomas at ken.thomas@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Appeared in the December 22, 2020, print edition as 'Biden Inoculated Against Covid-19.' | 1 |
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted a video to Twitter of the clash between CNN's Jim Acosta and President Donald Trump that appears to be a doctored version shared previously by an editor for conspiracy website InfoWars.Acosta had his White House pass revoked after an incident in which he sparred verbally with the president and refused to hand over the microphone to a staffer. Acosta is CNN's Chief White House Correspondent.The edited footage is speeded up so it looks like Acosta forced the woman's arm down as she went to grab the mic. Moreover, the audio of Acosta saying "pardon me, ma'am," is also removed.Paul Joseph Watson, a far-right conspiracy theorist and editor-at-large of InfoWars, wrote for the Alex Jones-run website that "Acosta clearly uses his left arm to physically resist/restrain the woman."On Twitter, Watson accused Acosta of using his arm "to overpower her" and shared the doctored footage, which zooms in on the reporter's arm. He also denied editing the footage himself.The original clip shows the staffer grabbing the mic and attempting to pull it away as Acosta holds on. Her arm meets with Acosta's hand, which drops with his arm as she tries to pull the mic and turn to hand it to another reporter."We stand by our decision to revoke this individual's hard pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video," Sanders tweeted along with the misleading InfoWars version of the footage.The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.Read more: Will Trump fire Sarah Huckabee Sanders for sharing doctored Acosta video? Jimmy Kimmel thinks he shouldAfter a testy back and forth between Acosta and Trump, in which the journalist asked the president about the midterms, the migrant caravan, and the Russia investigation, Acosta held on to the mic."Honestly, I think you should let me run the country and let you run CNN," Trump said, and Acosta attempted to ask further questions as the president said "that's enough.""CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN," Trump said."You're a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible. And the way you treat other people [is] horrible. You shouldn't treat people that way."Acosta then held on to the mic as the White House aide attempted to take it away.Trump is a longtime critic of CNN, which he calls "fake news," and he often targets them at his rallies.A statement from CNN after the latest incident read: "This president's ongoing attacks on the press have gone too far. They are not only dangerous, they are disturbingly un-American. While President Trump has made it clear he does not respect a free press, he has a sworn obligation to protect it. A free press is vital to democracy, and we stand behind Jim Acosta and his fellow journalists everywhere."
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders speaks to the media in front of the West Wing of the White House on November 6, 2018 in Washington, DC. Sanders used her official Twitter account to post a doctored video pushed by a conspiracy website called InfoWars.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
This article was updated to include more information. | 1 |
A group of Republican senators is asking Amazon.com Inc. AMZN 2.84% to explain why it recently removed a book about transgender issues that had been on sale on the platform for about three years.In a letter to Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos dated Wednesday, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Mike Braun of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri said a book by conservative scholar Ryan T. Anderson, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” was no longer available on Amazon nor on its Kindle and Audible platforms. Amazon, they wrote, has been “unable to provide a sufficient explanation” as to how the book “supposedly violated a vague, undefined ‘offensive content’ standard.” An Amazon spokeswoman didn’t have a comment regarding the letter. The company declined to provide specifics regarding its decision, saying in a statement earlier Wednesday that it reserved the right not to sell certain content based on its content guidelines for books. “All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer and we do not take selection decisions lightly,” the statement said. In their letter, the senators wrote that Amazon’s move “openly signaled to conservative Americans that their views are not welcome on its platforms.” They requested the company provide documentation explaining its decision, including whether the book violated an Amazon policy. Amazon is the country’s dominant book retailer, accounting for 53% of all books sold in the U.S. and 80% of all ebooks, according to recent 30-day sales data from Codex Group LLC, a book audience research firm. Amazon’s dominance means any decision to remove a title can have an outsize effect on the book’s sales. In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Anderson said that because of his professional status—he is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.—he has been able to draw attention to Amazon’s treatment of his book. Other authors, he said, may not be as fortunate. “I can make lemonade,” he said. “But how many others have had their book delisted that we never heard of?” A spokesman for Encounter Books, a nonprofit based in New York City which publishes “When Harry Became Sally,” said Wednesday that it had been informed by its distributor that the book was removed for violating Amazon’s content guidelines. Under the category “Offensive Content,” Amazon’s content guidelines include a sentence that reads: “We don’t sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia, advocates terrorism, or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive.” Mr. Anderson said he first learned that his book was no longer for sale on Sunday afternoon after a would-be book purchaser called him to say they couldn’t find the book on Amazon. Mr. Anderson then looked and also couldn’t find it. “It’s hard to understand,” said Mr. Anderson. “As far as I know I haven’t done anything. The book has been saying the same thing for three years.” The book, which focuses on a variety of issues including gender identity, was originally published in February 2018. In a tweet Wednesday, Mr. Anderson thanked the group of Republican senators for their support. Leading tech platforms have been under criticism for implementing bans or suspensions of conservative figures. Twitter Inc. TWTR 1.37% earlier this year permanently banned former President Trump’s personal account from its service, while Facebook Inc. FB -0.50% moved to disable Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely. Apple Inc., AAPL 0.21% Amazon and Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 1.45% Google also recently took steps to boot Parler, a social-media app and website that has grown in popularity among conservatives. The actions against Mr. Trump and Parler starkly illustrate the companies’ influence over conversation online—and the political nature of their decisions. While lauded by many, ejecting the president and some of his supporters also infuriated others who said it amounts to censorship. Amazon has gotten pushback before over which books it allows on its platforms. In June, journalist and author Alex Berenson said a booklet he had written about the coronavirus pandemic had been rejected by Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon’s self-publishing arm. In the booklet, Mr. Berenson argued that estimates about the deadliness of the disease had been overstated and that lockdowns have been counterproductive. Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk criticized Amazon’s decision on Twitter at the time, and Amazon later said in a statement that “the book was removed in error.” A day later, the self-published booklet was No. 2 on Amazon’s Kindle Store bestseller list. A longstanding truism in the book business is that the only bad publicity is no publicity, and that appears to be true for Mr. Anderson as well. The print edition is now sold out at BarnesandNoble.com, but on late Wednesday afternoon the ebook ranked No. 3 on the bookseller’s Top 100 list for digital books. A spokesman for Encounter Books on Wednesday said the publisher has reordered 5,000 paperback copies. Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
As the House moves on its article of impeachment on President Donald Trump as the solution to all that ails our nation, there remains a tremendously consequential outstanding question still begging for clarification, one that can bring the importance and utility of this action into focus.Why should we be doing this?Is it because now must be the moment when we rise above naked politics? Can we, in the shadows of the Capitol riots, come together in response to Trump's incitement, introducing costs to ensure nothing like it ever happens again? Or do we, as a country, feel a need to engage in one more political exercise? Are we really lacking, at this point in time, the sort of bored partisan posturing which has come to characterize our politics for as long as any of us can remember?It should not be that difficult to get everyone to agree on the basic underlying principles here. Storming the Capitol is bad. Inciting people to do it and refusing to call them off is bad. Pressuring the vice president to hand you reelection out of thin air is bad. Doubling down on the idea that you did nothing wrong is bad.Most Americans should be able to agree on these statements. There is no legitimate reason that our opinions on them need to be determined by politics' prism.Unless we make it that way.Impeachment is an inherently political act, and it will always remain that way. But still, if we cannot all get together behind the idea of defending our democratic process as a fundamental area of shared understanding, it would seem to signal that the problems we have are infinitely larger than Donald Trump and the people who thought they would get him a second term by force.Maybe they are. As we watch this process play itself out, more and more evidence mounts suggesting that our political leaders either do not care about healing our divisions or—perhaps more charitably—they think we've already crossed the Rubicon.While it is certainly easy to point fingers at Republicans who hem and haw over President Trump's culpability, there is no way to pin refusal to accept the gravity of the moment entirely on them. How the Left is approaching this moment is incredibly revealing as well.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (C) heads to the House Chamber for the last vote of the day at the U.S. Capitol on January 12, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today the House of Representatives plans to vote on Rep. Jamie Raskin's (D-MD) resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, removing President Trump from office. On Wednesday, House Democrats plan on voting on articles of impeachment.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty
What does it tell you about how seriously the Left is taking this moment that it cannot advance impeachment without injecting poison-pill politics into the process? Every step of the way, Democratic leadership insists on widening the divide, determined to make it harder and harder for Republicans to come on board.From the determined and dishonest efforts to tie every Republican senator who has ever inveighed against the current state of election security to the rioters; to the meaningless act of "asking" Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment (and voting on a resolution to do so despite his public response that he does not have the constitutional authority); to not attempting to bring any House Republicans on board as impeachment managers, every step has exposed what Democrats believe the impeachment process is really about.Perhaps nothing highlights this partisanship more than the fact that, of the 222 Democrats in the House, Pelosi chose a lead manager who himself objected to the certification of the 2016 electoral result by lodging the very same objection which Democrats now say is basis for expulsion from the Senate.There is no more charitable read of Pelosi's decision. This impeachment is not about making sure that the sort of thing which happened last Wednesday never happens again. It is about exploiting the riots for maximum political benefit.In a perverse—but not unexpected—way, the Democrats are behaving exactly like Trump. They, too, are exploiting the anger of the rioters for political gain. The only difference is that they are using the veneer of respectability to do it.The absolute symmetry of our politics reveals itself once again. On the one hand, you have Trump and the far right, who have demonstrated the profound inability to take a loss. On the other, you find the Democrats and the far left, showing that they cannot take a win.Even if you believe, as I do, that Congress ought to remove Trump over his actions last week, can you fault Republicans for not wanting to be a part of this specific process?It has been said that one of the defining aspects of our politics is that we no longer know how to disagree civilly. But the real problem is the idea that we no longer have the capability to agree about anything. Our political elites seem incapable of thinking and acting outside the manufactured divisions of partisan politics, ignoring their actions' real-world consequences.And that is a much bigger problem than the one impeachment seeks to solve.Eli Steinberg lives in New Jersey with his wife and five children. They are not responsible for his opinions, which he has been putting into words over the last decade, and which have been published across Jewish and general media. You can tweet the hottest of your takes at him @HaMeturgeman.The views expressed in this article are the writer's own. | 1 |
At the same time, the agency painted a portrait of widespread racial bias in the Ferguson police department, releasing a lengthy report cataloging allegedly unconstitutional police treatment of blacks in the St. Louis suburb. That treatment was driven by a bottom-line desire to increase ticket-writing and court fines to boost revenue for Ferguson’s municipal budget, “rather than by public safety needs,’’ the report said. The Justice Department’s twin findings cap a widely watched investigation into the events of last August, when Darren Wilson shot 18-year-old Michael Brown in a confrontation that sparked protests and a national debate about policing. A Justice Department probe launched in the wake of the killing of unarmed teenager last year finds that Ferguson, Mo., routinely violated the civil rights of black residents. WSJ's Andrew Grossman reports. Photo: Getty A local grand jury previously decided not to indict Mr. Wilson over the incident, and Mr. Wilson resigned from the police force following that decision. In a speech to employees on Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that while some of the accusations against the officer were inaccurate, they quickly took hold in a community that distrusted its police department. The issues raised by the shooting, he said, “are not confined to any one city, state or geographic region.’’ Mr. Brown’s parents said that while they were saddened by the decision not to file charges, they were encouraged that the Justice Department “will hold the Ferguson police department accountable for the pattern of racial bias and profiling.” Neil Bruntrager, Mr. Wilson’s attorney, said he was disappointed with the explanation given by the Justice Department during the release of its findings. “I want them to use the same vigor in explaining it as they put into saying they were going to do it,” he said, adding he thought Mr. Holder should have stressed more that the federal authorities’ conclusions substantively matched with the St. Louis County grand jury’s conclusions. Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said Wednesday that the city has fired one employee for sending racist emails and is investigating two others, part of a reform effort. The police department is hiring three new officers and has already hired one African-American female corrections officer and two African-American court clerks, he said. Justice Department FindingsTwo-thirds of Ferguson residents are African-American, but from 2012 to 2014: 85% of the vehicles stopped by police had African-American passengers 90% of people who received citation from police were African-American 93% of those arrested were African-American Police were twice as likely to search cars driven by African-Americans than by whites. But they found contraband 26% less often in cars driven by African-Americans The August confrontation began when Mr. Wilson, riding in a police SUV, saw Mr. Brown and a friend walking in a street and told them to move onto the sidewalk. The two began to argue, and Mr. Wilson said Mr. Brown reached into his vehicle, striking him and trying to grab his weapon. Mr. Wilson fired at Mr. Brown, witnesses said, then got out of the car and fired at him again and killed him. Federal investigators concluded the claims by some witnesses that Mr. Brown was running away, or had his hands up to surrender, weren’t reliable. In reviewing the Ferguson police and court system, Justice is urging changes including better tracking of when and why officers write tickets and arrest suspects, increased training and supervision for officers, and an end to using arrest warrants to collect fines. Federal investigators also said they found more than a half-dozen racist emails sent by current Ferguson police or city employees, including one message that they said depicted President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee, and another that made a derogatory joke about a man trying to obtain welfare for his dogs. The Justice Department found the Ferguson police department displayed sweeping patterns of racial bias and routinely violated the constitutional rights of blacks in the St. Louis suburb. Photo: Robert Cohen/Zuma Press —Ben Kesling contributed to this article. Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on usatoday.com under the headline, "Biden said he wanted to unite Americans. Then he moved further to the political left."
In our world where agreement, especially among the politically fractured media, is rare, there seems to be a general consensus on one thing: President Joe Biden is governing further left than expected. From The New York Times on the left to the National Review on the right, the press is in general agreement.
But is Biden uniting or dividing the country while he moves left? Biden’s inaugural address sounded notes of unity, but historically that has been a standard feature for new presidents, with the noted exception of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
When Biden said we just needed “enough of us” to come together, that encouraged many of us devoted to bridging divides because it had the sound of realism. Maybe these weren’t shallow words.
Many welcome an end to presidential tweet storms and the nonstop media reactions to them. With a president who is less combative with the press and shares a similar political philosophy with the majority of journalists, the public is enjoying a relative calm after the storm.
But division comes in many forms.
Within Washington, D.C., observers watch how legislation is formed. Disagreement is expected (and often a good thing), but how an administration engages with the other side for the common good matters.
Does the this administration actively reach out to and collaborate with the other side? That doesn’t appear to be the case, at least not yet, based on the content of major legislation and the lack of meetings at the White House with Republican leadership.
Critics charge that meetings with Republicans are just for show as Biden aides attempt to redefine bipartisanship by pointing to GOP voters’ support of his bill, even if it didn’t get a single vote from Republican lawmakers. Conversely, many Biden supporters say Republicans aren’t willing to work with them.
The parties disagree, and then it often devolves to the “she hit me first — no, you did” banter of a grade school playground. In other words, politics as usual.
The most worrisome danger sign, however, is Biden’s rhetoric around the new Georgia election legislation. Biden explicitly described the election law as racist by comparing it to Jim Crow laws once used in the South to enforce racial segregation. This got lots of news coverage across the spectrum, dominating headlines and effectively defining the Georgia laws for many people.
Then some pushback started to get attention. The Washington Post noted that Biden falsely claimed that the law “ends voting hours early” (its fact-checker gave it Four Pinocchios — a “whopper”).
More attention was given to research that shows voter ID laws don’t significantly reduce voter fraud or turnout, the two main arguments from opposite sides of the debate.
Commentators, especially on the right, challenged the comparison, calling it “a big lie."
Another way to look at it is as politics as usual, especially around voter laws.
Dan Schnur, a centrist professor at University of California, Berkeley, and a former national director of communications for Sen. John McCain, says that “neither side can back up their claims.” Both sides use this kind of fearmongering to “whip their most devoted supporters into a frenzy.”
Partisans will remain divided on the specifics of the law. Inflaming those divisions drives passions and motivates voters. It is often good election politics and can lead to one party or the other gaining more power and changing election laws, often to their own advantage. That is why it is essential for the rest of us to work together, talk with each other across divides, and insist our politicians collaborate at least a little.
Other potential signs of division can be seen in the COVID-19 relief package and the infrastructure bill. Biden’s $1.9-trillion relief package passed without any Republican support, and his sweeping infrastructure plan could follow the same path.
Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who was part of a bipartisan group hosted by Biden in January, recently told PBS: “I always thought, when you negotiate, you come from two different positions, and both people move. That didn't happen. We moved as a group of Republicans. The president never moved and basically left us in the dust.” While these tactics might lead to short-term political successes, we the people suffer with decreasing confidence in our system and one-sided legislation that often favors some groups over others.
That’s divisive, and that’s politics. Both parties do it. Not all effective politics is divisive, but division works.
Are Biden’s actions dangerously divisive, simply necessary in this partisan political world, or positive steps for the overall good? Your answer probably depends on your own political leaning, but make no mistake, both parties often rely on dividing us to support their own agenda.
That is why it is essential for the rest of us to work together, talk with each other across divides, and insist our politicians collaborate at least a little.
Left to their own devices, politicians will do whatever works best to get them elected, and that usually means dividing us against each other.
John Gable (Lean Right bias) is CEO of AllSides.com, which provides balanced news and conversations across divides. Micaela Ricaforte (Center bias) is AllSides.com's news editor. | 1 |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The video of George Floyd gasping for breath was essentially Exhibit A as the former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee on the Black man’s neck went on trial Monday on charges of murder and manslaughter.Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell showed the jurors the footage at the earliest opportunity, during opening statements, after telling them that the number to remember was 9 minutes, 29 seconds — the amount of time officer Derek Chauvin had Floyd pinned to the pavement last May.The white officer “didn’t let up” even after a handcuffed Floyd said 27 times that he couldn’t breathe and went limp, Blackwell said in the case that triggered worldwide protests, scattered violence and national soul-searching over racial justice.“He put his knees upon his neck and his back, grinding and crushing him, until the very breath — no, ladies and gentlemen — until the very life was squeezed out of him,” the prosecutor said.Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson countered by arguing: “Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over his 19-year career.”Floyd was fighting efforts to put him in a squad car as the crowd of onlookers around Chauvin and his fellow officers grew and became increasingly hostile, Nelson said.The defense attorney also disputed that Chauvin was to blame for Floyd’s death.Floyd, 46, had none of the telltale signs of asphyxiation and he had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, Nelson said. He said Floyd’s drug use, combined with his heart disease, high blood pressure and the adrenaline flowing through his body, caused a heart rhythm disturbance that killed him.“There is no political or social cause in this courtroom,” Nelson said. “But the evidence is far greater than 9 minutes and 29 seconds.”Blackwell, however, rejected the argument that Floyd’s drug use or any underlying health conditions were to blame, saying it was the officer’s knee that killed him.Chauvin, 45, is charged with unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. The most serious charge, the second-degree murder count, carries up to 40 years in prison. This is the first trial ever televised in Minnesota.Bystander Donald Williams, who said he was trained in mixed martial arts, including chokeholds, testified that Chauvin appeared to increase the pressure on Floyd’s neck several times with a shimmying motion. He said he yelled to the officer that he was cutting off Floyd’s blood supply.Williams recalled that Floyd’s voice grew thicker as his breathing became more labored, and he eventually stopped moving. He said he saw Floyd’s eyes roll back in his head, likening the sight to fish he had caught earlier that day.Williams said he saw Floyd “slowly fade away ... like a fish in a bag.”Earlier, Minneapolis police dispatcher Jena Scurry testified that she saw part of Floyd’s arrest unfolding via a city surveillance camera and was so disturbed that she called a duty sergeant. Scurry said she grew concerned because the officers hadn’t moved after several minutes.“You can call me a snitch if you want to,” Scurry said in her call to the sergeant, which was played in court. She said she wouldn’t normally call the sergeant about the use of force because it was beyond the scope of her duties, but “my instincts were telling me that something is wrong.”The video played during opening statements was posted to Facebook by a bystander who witnessed Floyd being arrested after he was accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store. The footage caused revulsion across the U.S. and beyond and prompted calls for the country to confront racism and police brutality. Jurors watched intently as the video played on multiple screens, with one drawing a sharp breath as Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin sat calmly during opening statements and took notes, looking up at the video periodically.“My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts,” Floyd says in the video, and: “I can’t breathe, officer.” Onlookers repeatedly shout at the officer to get off Floyd, saying he is not moving, breathing or resisting. One woman, identifying herself as a city Fire Department employee, shouts at Chauvin to check Floyd’s pulse.The prosecutor said the case was “not about split-second decision-making” by a police officer but excessive force against someone who was handcuffed and not resisting.Blackwell said the Fire Department employee wanted to help but was warned off by Chauvin, who pointed Mace at her.“She wanted to check on his pulse, check on Mr. Floyd’s well-being,” the prosecutor said. “She did her best to intervene. ... She couldn’t help.”The timeline differs from the initial account submitted last May by prosecutors, who said Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes, 46 seconds. The time 8:46 soon became a rallying cry in the case. But it was revised during the investigation.Fourteen jurors or alternates are hearing the case — eight of them white, six of them Black or multiracial, according to the court. Only 12 will deliberate; the judge has not said which two will be alternates.Before the trial began, Floyd family attorney Ben Crump blasted the idea that the trial would be a tough test for jurors. “We know that if George Floyd was a white American citizen, and he suffered this painful, tortuous death with a police officer’s knee on his neck, nobody, nobody, would be saying this is a hard case,” he said.After the day’s proceedings, a few hundred protesters gathered outside the courthouse. Speakers called for justice for Floyd and others whose lives were lost in encounters with police. One speaker, Jaylani Hussein, screamed: “Police officers are not above the law!”The downtown Minneapolis courthouse has been fortified with concrete barriers, fences and barbed and razor wire. City and state leaders are determined to prevent a repeat of the riots that followed Floyd’s death, with National Guard troops already mobilized.Chauvin’s trial is being livestreamed over the objections of the prosecution. Judge Peter Cahill ordered that cameras be allowed largely because of the pandemic and the required social distancing, which left almost no room for spectators in the courtroom.Three other former officers go on trial in August because Cahill ruled there wasn’t enough space to try all four at once.___ Find AP’s full coverage of the death of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd | 1 |
Members of President TrumpDonald TrumpBlack voters are fleeing Biden in droves. Here's why Biden's Super Bowl prediction: 'Loves' Bengals' quarterback, but Rams 'hard to beat' GOP Senate candidate to run 'Let's go Brandon' ad during Super Bowl MORE’s 1776 Commission are calling for “patriotic education that teaches the truth of America” and identifying “progressivism” and “racism and identity politics” among the challenges to America’s principles. The commission, officially established by Trump in November, argues in a report released on the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday that Americans must “stand up to the petty tyrants in every sphere who demand that we speak only of America’s sins while denying her greatness” while not “ignoring the faults in our past.”The report also condemns claims that the Founding Fathers were “hypocrites” for advancing rights and freedoms for “all men” while defending the practice of slavery.“This charge is untrue, and has done enormous damage, especially in recent years, with a devastating effect on our civic unity and social fabric,” the commission writes. “Many Americans labor under the illusion that slavery was somehow a uniquely American evil,” the authors continue.“It is essential to insist at the outset that the institution be seen in a much broader perspective,” they wrote, adding that “the unfortunate fact is that the institution of slavery has been more the rule than the exception throughout human history.”The report goes on to say that “historical revisionism that tramples honest scholarship and historical truth, shames Americans by highlighting only the sins of their ancestors, and teaches claims of systemic racism that can only be eliminated by more discrimination, is an ideology intended to manipulate opinions more than educate minds.” The commission then rebukes “identity politics,” which it argues “teaches that America itself is to blame for oppression.” “First, the creed of identity politics defines and divides Americans in terms of collective social identities. According to this new creed, our racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as individuals equally endowed with fundamental rights,” the commission members argue, adding that identity politics “divides Americans into two groups: oppressors and victims.” “Identity politics divide Americans by placing them perpetually in conflict with each other,” the authors write. “All Americans, and especially all educators, should understand identity politics for what it is: rejection of the principle of equality proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence.” The commission, chaired by longtime Trump ally Larry Arnn and former Vanderbilt University law professor and conservative television analyst Carol Swain, also includes other high-profile conservatives including activist Charlie Kirk, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) and Brooke Rollins, Trump’s domestic policy adviser.The 1776 Commission was formed as a response to The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, which focuses on the country’s history of slavery and racism. Trump has claimed the 1619 Project teaches students to “hate their own country,” though supporters have said it urges the country to address its complicated past. The commission’s goal as stated in Trump’s November executive order is “to better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776, and, through this, form a more perfect Union.” While Trump’s appointments on the commission are for two years, it is unclear if the group will meet again once President-elect Joe BidenJoe BidenCory Booker and Rosario Dawson have reportedly split US ups estimate of Russian forces on Ukraine border to 130,000 Harris heads to Munich at pivotal moment MORE takes office. | 1 |
BURLINGTON, Iowa—Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke joined the 2020 presidential race Thursday, aiming to parlay his turn as one of the Democratic stars of the 2018 midterm elections into a run at his party’s nomination.Mr. O’Rourke is the 15th Democrat to enter the contest. He joins the race as an instant first-tier candidate, commanding an online donor network second in size only to the one Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders carried over from his 2016 presidential effort. “I’m running to serve you as president of the United States of America,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a video his campaign released Thursday morning. Mr. O’Rourke made his first campaign stops Thursday in southeast Iowa, in towns along the Mississippi River that backed Democratic President Obama in 2012 and flipped to then-Republican candidate Donald Trump in 2016. Much as he did in his 2018 run against Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, Mr. O’Rourke presented himself as a Democrat looking to work with Republicans and to seek solutions he said would transcend partisan appeal. “Let us not allow our differences to define us at this moment,” Mr. O’Rourke told a crowd of about 150 people at the Beancounter coffee shop in Burlington. “History calls for us to come together, to show ourselves, our fellow Americans, the generations that follow, what we are made of and what we can do. And the only way to get that done is to get it done together.” The 2020 presidential field is dominated by Democrats who have won statewide office as a senator or governor. He enters the race more than two months after Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren became the first candidate to kick off a campaign Dec. 31. Since then, Sens. Sanders, Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota have announced their candidacies, along with former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, among others. Former Vice President Joe Biden is widely expected to formalize his campaign in the coming weeks. While Mr. O’Rourke visited Iowa on Thursday, Mr. Biden and Stacey Abrams, both of whom are weighing presidential bids, met privately in Washington, D.C. Ms. Abrams, who was narrowly defeated in her race for Georgia governor last year, also met for breakfast Thursday with Ms. Gillibrand. A person familiar with her schedule said Ms. Abrams had previously met privately with Sens. Warren, Booker, Harris and Klobuchar. Mr. O’Rourke, who represented El Paso for three terms in the House, became a national figure during his 2018 Senate race against Mr. Cruz. Mr. O’Rourke lost by less than 3 percentage points while raising $80 million, smashing Senate fundraising records. Along the way Mr. O’Rourke, 46 years old, transformed himself from a relatively anonymous congressman with few legislative accomplishments under his belt into a Democratic folk hero. In the final days of the Senate campaign, celebrities such as basketball star LeBron James and singer Beyoncé sported hats bearing Mr. O’Rourke’s black-and-white campaign logo. Many Democrats say Mr. O’Rourke’s appeal lies in his authenticity, pointing to his live-streaming broadcasts of mundane elements of his campaign, such as filling the campaign van with gasoline and driving across vast reaches of Texas, during his stops at all 254 of the state’s counties. The Senate campaign didn’t employ a pollster, though it relied on other data about Texas voters.
The Democrats’ 2020 Quest Mr. O’Rourke, who drew thousands of people to his events in Texas last year, aimed to meet with small audiences during his initial Iowa circuit, an aide said. His three-day itinerary includes events in private homes, at labor halls and the taping of a popular local podcast. The son of a Texas county judge, Mr. O’Rourke toured the country in a punk rock band following his graduation from Columbia University. Upon moving home to El Paso, he launched a website development company with help from his father’s political network. He won a seat on the El Paso City Council in 2005, and in 2012 he ousted incumbent Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes in a Democratic primary. When he launched his Senate campaign against Mr. Cruz, few in Washington or Texas gave Mr. O’Rourke much chance to make the race close. By the campaign’s end, Mr. O’Rourke’s aides were turning away requests from big-name Democrats, including several 2020 presidential candidates, to come to Texas to join him on the stump. In a Democratic presidential contest that features candidates such as Mr. Sanders, who have spent decades defining their political stances, Mr. O’Rourke enters the race without much of a defined ideology, a potential handicap given the party’s shift to the left. Presidential hopefuls are stepping out of the shadows, but their 2020 announcements are far from spontaneous. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday explains. In his prior competitive races, for El Paso’s city council, for Congress and against Mr. Cruz in 2018, Mr. O’Rourke exceeded expectations by defining his opponent as out of touch with his constituents—a luxury he won’t have in the crowded Democratic primary. In the four months since he lost to Mr. Cruz, Mr. O’Rourke has conducted his deliberations about running for president in public. He spent a week driving alone through the Southwest, chatted with Oprah Winfrey about his future prospects and interviewed fellow El Pasoans about life along the Mexican border, all without offering a definitive declaration about his future plans. Mr. O’Rourke’s most defined policy priorities come on immigration—he not only opposes President Trump’s border wall but also said he would tear down existing fencing that separates El Paso from Mexico. He also has sharply criticized corporate influence on American politics and refused to accept political-action committee contributions in his Senate race. Newsletter Sign-up Capital Journal Scoops, analysis and insights driving Washington from the WSJ's D.C. bureau. “The more direct our democracy can be, the more each of us feels and expresses that responsibility by running for office, or voting, or helping others who’ve been barred or prevented or suppressed from voting, the stronger we’re going to be as a country,” Mr. O’Rourke said during a February interview with Ms. Winfrey. On economic policy, Mr. O’Rourke sits in the center of the Democratic coalition. He is a free trader, unlike Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, and has said he could support an array of health-care proposals, ranging from a single-payer system to strengthening the Affordable Care Act. Mr. O’Rourke became a national political phenomenon last year in part because of his ability to produce viral campaign moments that crossed over into popular culture. A four-minute video of him defending professional football players’ decision to kneel during the national anthem during a campaign stop drew more than 44 million views online and became a flashpoint in his Senate race. While his Senate campaign brought him closer to victory than any Texas Democrat running for statewide office in a generation, his many stops in the state’s rural counties didn’t result in electoral success there—his strongest support came from the state’s most populous regions. A staple of Mr. O’Rourke’s stump speech was his visit to tiny King County, which in his telling hadn’t hosted a statewide political candidate since Lyndon Johnson was on the stump. On Election Day, King County went for Mr. Cruz by a margin of 124 to 6. The Democratic field continues to grow. Wayne Messam, the mayor of Miramar, Fla., announced he was launching a presidential exploratory committee Wednesday. In 2015, Mr. Messam became the first black mayor of the city of about 140,000 people northwest of Miami. He recently won re-election to another term. —Ken Thomas contributed to this article. Write to Reid J. Epstein at reid.epstein@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzThe allure of 'strong and wrong' GOP faces hurdles in blocking a Biden Iran deal White House uses GOP's own rhetoric to rebut Supreme Court criticisms MORE (R-Texas) took aim at legislation recently introduced in Alabama by a state representative that would, if passed, make it mandatory for certain men to get vasectomies — a bill that comes in response to legislation passed last year that seeks to ban abortion in the state.“Yikes,” Cruz wrote in response to the bill on Twitter on Sunday morning. “A government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything...literally!”Yikes. A government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything...literally! Alabama Democrat proposes bill mandating all men have vasectomy at age 50 or after third child. https://t.co/PeaNUg1Joc— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 16, 2020Cruz was referring to legislation introduced by Alabama state Rep. Rolanda Hollis (D) last week that would, if passed, require men to get vasectomies if they are over the age of 50 or have had at least three biological children. Cruz’s tweet, which has racked up over 14,000 likes in hours, received even more comments from critics who felt his response proved Hollis’s point behind the measure.Yes, the government shouldn’t be involved in private reproductive health choices, yes, that’s a great point you made, yes.— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) February 16, 2020Yes. Governments have no business controlling the reproductive systems of citizens. Glad you've finally come around on choice, Senator.Also, congrats on an epic self-own.— Melissa Ryan (@MelissaRyan) February 16, 2020Oh you don’t like big government trying to regulate your body????— Irishrygirl (@irishrygirl) February 16, 2020Thought you wanted to stop unwanted pregnancies.— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) February 16, 2020“Under existing law, there are no restrictions on the reproductive rights of men,” a synopsis for Hollis's bill states. "This bill would require a man to undergo a vasectomy within one month of his 50th birthday or the birth of his third biological child, whichever comes first."In an interview with AL.com last week, Hollis said that the legislation comes in response to a law passed in the state last year that seeks to make abortion illegal in almost all case, including in instances of rape or incest. The bill has not yet taken effect after being blocked in court.“The vasectomy bill is to help with the reproductive system, and yes, it is to neutralize the abortion ban bill ... it always takes two to tango," she told the outlet.“We can’t put all the responsibility on women. Men need to be responsible also,” she also said. | 1 |
Facebook expanded a ban on QAnon-related content on its various social platforms Tuesday, deepening a previous prohibition on QAnon-related groups that had “discussed potential violence,” according to the company.
Today’s move by Facebook to not only ban violent QAnon content but “any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon” is an escalation by the social giant to clean its platform ahead of an increasingly contentious election.
QAnon is a sprawling set of interwoven pro-Trump conspiracy theories that has taken root inside swaths of the American electorate. Its more extreme adherents have been charged with terrorism after acting out in violent and dangerous ways, spurred on by their adherence to the unusual and often incoherent belief system. BuzzFeed News recently decided to call QAnon a “collective delusion,” another apt title for the theory’s inane, fatuous and dangerous beliefs.
Facebook’s effort to rein in QAnon is helpful, but likely too late. Over the course of the last year, QAnon swelled from a fringe conspiracy theory into a shockingly mainstream political belief system — one that even has its own Congressional candidates. That growth was powered by social networks inherently designed to connect like-minded people to one another, a feature that has been found time and time again to spread misinformation and usher users toward increasingly radical beliefs.
In July, Twitter took action of its own against QAnon, citing concerns about “offline harm.” The company downranked QAnon content, removing it from trending pages and algorithmic suggestions. Twitter’s policy change, like Facebook’s previous one, stopped short of banning the content outright but did move to contain its spread.
Other companies, like Alphabet’s YouTube product, have come under similar censure by external observers. (YouTube says it reworked its algorithm to better filter out the darker shores of its content mix, but the results of that experiment are far from conclusive.)
Social platforms like Facebook and Twitter have also made changes to their rules after being confronted with a willfully mendacious administration ahead of an election, about which the same administration has propagated lies and disinformation about voting security and the virus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans. The pairs’ work to limit those two particularly risky strains of misinformation is worthy, but by taking a reactive posture instead of a proactive one most of those policy choices have also come too late to control the viral spread of dangerous content.
Facebook’s new rule comes into force today, with the company saying in a release that it is now “removing content accordingly,” but that the effort to purge QAnon “will take time.”
What drove the change at Facebook? According to the company, after it yanked violent QAnon material, it saw “other QAnon content tied to different forms of real world harm, including recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups.” In Oregon, where forest fires recently raged, misinformation on the Facebook platform led to misinformed state residents who believed that antifa — a term applied to those opposed to fascism as an unironic pejorative — were torching the state. Seeing the unfounded rumors, misinformed residents set up illegal roadblocks and interrogated people passing through their areas.
How effective Facebook will be at clearing QAnon-related content from its various platforms is not clear today, but will be something that we’ll track. | 1 |
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The same military jurors who acquitted a decorated Navy SEAL of murder in the killing of a wounded Islamic State captive under his care in Iraq in 2017 will return to court Wednesday to decide whether he should serve any jail time for the single charge he was convicted of: posing with the 17-year-old militant’s corpse.The final step comes after the verdict Tuesday was met with an outpouring of emotion as the jury also cleared Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of attempted murder in the shootings of two civilians and all other charges.The outcome dealt a major blow to one of the Navy’s most high-profile war crimes cases and exposed a generational conflict within the ranks of the elite special operations forces.Gallagher could face up to four months imprisonment for the single conviction along with a reduction in rank, forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay and a reprimand.Having already served seven months in confinement ahead of the trail, the Bronze Star recipient is expected to go home a free man, his defense lawyers said. In the military justice system, the jury decides the sentence.After the verdict was read, the defense attorneys jumped up from their seats as Gallagher turned and embraced his wife over the bar of the gallery.Gallagher, dressed in his Navy whites sporting a chest full of medals, told reporters outside court that he was happy and thankful.“I thank God, and my legal team and my wife,” he said.He declined to address questions about his SEAL team. His lawyers said he might talk after the jury decides his sentence.His wife, Andrea Gallagher, who was by his side throughout the court-martial, said she was elated.“I was feeling like we’re finally vindicated after being terrorized by the government that my husband fought for for 20 years,” Andrea Gallagher said before the couple drove away from Naval Base San Diego in a white convertible Mustang to start celebrating.She vowed to continue to take action over what she has described as prosecutorial misconduct and a shoddy investigation that led to her husband going to trial. She said she wants Naval Special Warfare Group 1 Commodore Capt. Matthew D. Rosenbloom to resign, among other things.Defense lawyers said Gallagher was framed by junior disgruntled platoon members who fabricated the allegations to oust their chief and the lead investigator built the probe around their stories instead of seeking the truth. They said there was no physical evidence to support the allegations because no corpse was ever recovered and examined by a pathologist.The prosecution said Gallagher was incriminated by his own text messages and photos, including one of him holding the dead militant up by the hair and clutching a knife in his other hand.“Got him with my hunting knife,” Gallagher wrote in a text with the photo.The defense said it was just gallows humor and pointed out that almost all platoon members who testified against him also posed with the corpse.Gallagher’s family championed a “Free Eddie” campaign that won the support of dozens of congressional Republicans who brought the case to the attention of President Donald Trump.Trump had Gallagher moved from the brig to more favorable confinement at a Navy hospital this spring and was reportedly considering a pardon for him.The panel of five Marines and two sailors, including a SEAL, were mostly seasoned combat veterans who served in Iraq and several had lost friends in war.Most of the witnesses were granted immunity to protect them from being prosecuted for acts they described on the stand.Lt. Jacob Portier, the officer in charge of the platoon, has been charged separately for overseeing Gallagher’s re-enlistment ceremony next to the corpse and not reporting the alleged stabbing.The Navy is still pursuing the case against Portier, defense lawyer Jeremiah J. Sullivan III said. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by the Senate leader’s approach to working with White House counsel on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, saying there should be distance between the two.FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) speaks with reporters off the Senate floor in Washington, U.S., May 23, 2019. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan/File PhotoThe comments by the Alaska lawmaker come after Mitch McConnell, majority leader of the Republican-led Senate, said during a Fox News interview earlier this month that he was working in “total coordination” with the White House on the upcoming trial.“To me it means that we have to take that step back from being hand-in-glove with the defense,” Murkowski said in comments aired late on Tuesday during an interview with Alaska-based NBC news affiliate KTUU-TV. “I heard what leader McConnell had said. I happened to think that has further confused the process.”Murkowski, who says she remains undecided in how she will vote in the upcoming impeachment proceedings, cited the need for distance between the White House and the Senate on how the trial should be conducted.Trump was impeached last week by the Democratic-led House of Representatives on two charges over his pressuring Ukraine to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Biden’s son. He has been charged with abuse of power and obstructing Congress’ investigation.Trump has said he did nothing wrong.Republicans have a 53-seat majority in the Senate, where 51 votes are needed to pass a set of rules for the Trump trial. The actual impeachment trial in the Senate would need a two-thirds majority vote for a conviction.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not yet transmitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate, a bid to pressure Senate Republicans to reach an accord with the Democrats in the chamber on trial rules. McConnell said the Senate could not take any action until it receives the articles.Whether or not to call witnesses has been one of the main sticking points between the Democrats and the Republicans in drafting rules for the impeachment proceedings. McConnell on Monday said that Republicans had not ruled out hearing witnesses in the impeachment trial the Republican president.However, McConnell made clear he would not accede to a Democratic request for the Senate to agree ahead of time to take testimony during the trial.There is little chance Trump will be convicted and removed from office through a trial in the Republican-led Senate, but the impeachment proceedings could resonate at the ballot box in November.Reporting by Katanga Johnson; Editing by Leslie Adlerfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
Senior U.S. officials knowingly lied to the public about their progress throughout the 18-year war in Afghanistan, consistently painting a rosier picture of the state of the war than they knew to be true, according to a cache of documents obtained by the Washington Post.In private interviews conducted by a watchdog that span the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations – which the Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request -- U.S. officials frequently acknowledged a lack of understanding, strategy and progress in a war they regularly described publicly as being on the cusp of success.“After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan,” retired Navy SEAL Jeffrey Eggers, a White House staffer in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in a private interview.Interviewees also describe a deliberate disinformation campaign meant to spin discouraging statistics as evidence the U.S. was prevailing in the war.“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, an Army colonel and senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, said in an interview.“Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone,” he added.In 2015, Ret. Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as a top advisor on the war during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers, “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” according to the Post.Lute went on to lament the deaths of U.S. military personnel that he blamed on bureaucratic entanglements between the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress.John Sopko, head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which conducted the interviews, told the newspaper the documents demonstrate “the American people have constantly been lied to” on Afghanistan.SIGAR conducted more than 600 interviews for a 2014 initiative called “Lessons Learned,” meant to avoid the mistakes of the Afghanistan war for future U.S. military campaigns. These interviews included Americans, NATO allies and Afghanistan officials.SIGAR has published seven Lessons Learned reports based on the interviews and other research, but those omitted the most blunt language and grim judgments found in the raw interviews published by the Post, boiling them down into more bureaucratic assessments.For example, one 2018 report said the U.S. strategy was “not properly tailored to the Afghan context, and successes in stabilizing Afghan districts rarely lasted longer than the physical presence of coalition troops and civilians.”The newspaper obtained more than 2,000 pages of unpublished notes and more than 400 interview transcripts after suing SIGAR for them twice. Numerous names are redacted, and the Post has sued for the names to be revealed. While a decision is still pending, the newspaper wrote that it chose to publish them now amid U.S.-Taliban negotiations.“We didn’t sit on it,” Sopko, whose office has issued some of the harshest official assessments of the war, told the Post. “We’re firm believers in openness and transparency, but we’ve got to follow the law... I think of any inspector general, I’ve probably been the most forthcoming on information.”The Hill has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.The United States has about 13,000 troops fighting in America’s longest war. Most are focused on training Afghan forces to fight the Taliban, while a smaller number of special forces conduct counterterrorism operations against groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS.Earlier this year, the Trump administration was close to a deal with the Taliban that would have seen U.S. troops withdraw in exchange for assurances from the insurgents that they would not allow Afghanistan to be a safe haven for terrorists to plan attacks on the United States.The deal crumbled after Trump invited Taliban leaders to Camp David and then disinvited them after criticism. But this past weekend, U.S.-Taliban talks resumed for the first time since the scuttled Camp David meeting, with Trump’s envoy for the talks meeting with Taliban officials in Qatar.Trump has expressed a strong desire to withdraw from Afghanistan with or without a deal with the Taliban. But U.S. military officials have consistently warned against a “premature” withdrawal from the country, assuring that progress was being made.“At least American participation in the war in Afghanistan comes to an end when our interests are met, and I think that'll be met through a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, and I think we're seeing some progress,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said this year at this confirmation hearing for the job. “I think pulling out prematurely would be a strategic mistake.”In the interviews published by the Post, U.S. military trainers revealed little confidence in the Afghans’ ability to ever defend themselves. One unidentified U.S. soldier called Afghan police being trained by U.S. Special Forces “awful — the bottom of the barrel in the country that is already at the bottom of the barrel,” while a U.S. military officer said about one-third of police recruits were “drug addicts or Taliban.”“Thinking we could build the military that fast and that well was insane,” an unnamed senior U.S. Agency for International Development official told government interviewers, according to the Post.Meanwhile, interviewees also revealed fundamental disagreements about what the strategy in Afghanistan should be as the war evolved from a quick mission of retaliation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to a drawn-out conflict.“With the [Afghanistan-Pakistan] strategy there was a present under the Christmas tree for everyone,” an unidentified U.S. official told government interviewers in 2015, according to the Post. “By the time you were finished you had so many priorities and aspirations it was like no strategy at all.”One unidentified former State Department official called the U.S. goal to build a democracy in Kabul “idiotic.”“Our policy was to create a strong central government which was idiotic because Afghanistan does not have a history of a strong central government,” the official said in 2015, according to the Post. “The timeframe for creating a strong central government is 100 years, which we didn’t have.”U.S. officials flooded Afghanistan with development dollars in an effort to improve security, but officials said in the private interviews that Afghanistan could not absorb the aid money and that the U.S. funds led to a historic rise in corruption.“Our biggest single project, sadly and inadvertently, of course, may have been the development of mass corruption,” former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker told the interviewers, according to the Post. “Once it gets to the level I saw, when I was out there, it’s somewhere between unbelievably hard and outright impossible to fix it.”Updated at 10:45 a.m. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told Republican lawmakers on Tuesday he would back either of the immigration bills making their way through the House of Representatives, as the outcry grew over his administration’s separation of immigrant parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border.Representative Mark Meadows said Trump told Republican members of the House at a meeting on Capitol Hill that they needed to get something done on immigration “right away.”In the meeting, Trump said separating families was “certainly not an attractive thing and does look bad,” added Representative Tom Cole.Congressional Republicans have been scrambling to craft legislation as videos of youngsters in cages and an audiotape of wailing children have sparked anger at home from groups ranging from clergy to influential business leaders, as well as condemnation abroad.A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll released on Tuesday showed fewer than one in three American adults supporting the policy. The June 16-19 poll found that 28 percent of people polled supported the policy, while 57 percent opposed it and the remaining 15 percent said they did not know.Trump, who has made a tough stance on immigration a centerpiece of his presidency, has staunchly defended his administration’s actions. He has cast blame for the family separations on Democrats, although his fellow Republicans control both chambers in Congress and his own administration implemented the current policy of strict adherence to immigration laws.The president has sought to link an end to the family separations to passage of a wider bill on immigration, which would include funding for his long-sought border wall with Mexico, prompting Democrats to accuse him of using children as hostages.“In his remarks, he endorsed both House immigration bills that build the wall, close legal loopholes, cancel the visa lottery, curb chain migration, and solve the border crisis and family separation issue by allowing for family detention and removal,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said of Trump.An unidentified person yelled an obscenity at the president before he entered the meeting.Earlier on Tuesday, the president tried again to blame Democrats for what he called “loopholes” in the law that require families detained for entering the country illegally either to be separated or released.“These are crippling loopholes that cause family separation, which we don’t want,” he said in remarks to the National Federation of Independent Business, adding he wanted Congress to give him the legal authority to detain and deport families together.BILL WOULD PREVENT SOME SEPARATIONSHouse Republicans were working on a revised draft of one version of an immigration overhaul that would prevent family separations in some cases for those attempting an illegal border crossing for the first time, according to a House Republican aide.The draft bill was seen just days ago as unlikely to pass, but has gained support in the House, and it was unclear whether the new language about preventing family separations would improve its chances for passage.Both Republican bills under discussion, which have been blasted by Democrats and immigration advocacy groups, would fund the border wall and reduce legal migration, in part by denying visas for some relatives of U.S. residents and citizens who are living abroad, sometimes referred to as “chain migration.”The more conservative bill from Representative Bob Goodlatte would also deny “Dreamers,” immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, the chance of future citizenship.Several hundred protesters marched in New York City, chanting “Keep families together!”Anne Heaney, 74, a retired teacher, held a sign that read, “Children do not belong in cages. Maybe Trump and Pence do.”In Washington, activists stood next to a table occupied by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjien Nielsen in a Mexican restaurant, voicing criticism of the administration’s policy, according to video obtained by Reuters.Two top U.S. business groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, decried the separation policy on Tuesday and called for its immediate cessation.“My heart goes out to the impacted families,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, who chairs the Business Roundtable, in a memo to the bank’s employees. “Fixing these issues will clearly boost the economy,” he added.Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook described the separation of children from parents at the U.S.-Mexico border as “inhumane” and promised to be a “constructive voice” in seeking to end the issue, the Irish Times newspaper reported.Microsoft Corp CEO Satya Nadella called the policy cruel and abusive in an email to employees that was posted on Linkedin.com. He also said the company is not working on any projects with the U.S. government related to separating children from their families at the border.U.S. Customs and Border Protection said on Tuesday that 2,342 children had been separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border between May 5 and June 9.The separations began after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in April that all immigrants apprehended while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally should be criminally prosecuted.Parents who are referred by border agents for prosecution are held in federal jails, while their children are moved into border shelter facilities under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a Department of Health and Human Services agency.LEGISLATIVE POSSIBILITIESA number of Republican senators called on Trump on Tuesday to allow families to stay together if they had crossed the border illegally, and Senate leaders said their chamber could have legislation to address the family separations matter in a matter of days.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “We hope to reach out to the Democrats and see if we can get a result, which means making a law and not just get into some kind of sparring back and forth that leads to no conclusion,” he said.Top Democrats contended that Trump could change the policy with the stroke of a pen.“The president is trying set this trap in the public mind that somehow there is a law requiring him to do this and Congress can undo it,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, who visited a detention center in Brownsville, Texas, over the weekend. “We know this is a problem that was manufactured six weeks ago, and we’re seeing the awful results today.”Decrying “internment camps,” Democrats and their supporters disrupted a U.S. congressional hearing on Tuesday about an FBI probe.With the sound of a young child crying in the background, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler, broke from traditional protocol and started reading from a statement, saying: “These children are not animals.” His Republican colleagues tried to shout over him: “Out of order!”Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Susan Cornwell; Additional reporting by David Morgan, Amanda Becker, Tim Ahmann, Makini Brice, Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lambert in Washington, Alice Popovici in New York, Richard Lough in Paris and Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Dan Burns; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Cooneyfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Saturday rejected a last-ditch bid from Republicans including Rep. Mike KellyGeorge (Mike) Joseph KellyMomentum builds to prohibit lawmakers from trading stocks Pelosi faces pushback over stock trade defense Nunes resignation sets off GOP scramble on Ways and Means MORE (Pa.) to halt the certification of the 2020 election results in the Keystone State. The court's decision delivered the latest blow for Republicans, President TrumpDonald TrumpBlack voters are fleeing Biden in droves. Here's why Biden's Super Bowl prediction: 'Loves' Bengals' quarterback, but Rams 'hard to beat' GOP Senate candidate to run 'Let's go Brandon' ad during Super Bowl MORE and his campaign to overturn election results in a battleground state that President-elect Joe BidenJoe BidenCory Booker and Rosario Dawson have reportedly split US ups estimate of Russian forces on Ukraine border to 130,000 Harris heads to Munich at pivotal moment MORE won by more than 1 percentage point. In an order released Saturday night, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated a preliminary order by the Commonwealth Court and dismissed the case."Upon consideration of the parties' filings in Commonwealth Court, we hereby dismiss the petition for review with prejudice based upon Petitioners' failure to file their facial constitutional challenge in a timely manner," the order read. The ruling comes after Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough on Wednesday ordered state officials to halt further steps to certify the state's election results one day after Gov. Tom WolfTom WolfNew Jersey governor ending school mask mandate: report Punxsutawney Phil predicts six more weeks of winter Biden visits site of collapsed bridge in Pittsburgh MORE (D) certified the Keystone State's results for Biden. Following McCullough's order, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and Wolf appealed the order to the state's high court.The latest order by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reverses McCullough's decision. Originally, an emergency petition was filed in state court last weekend by the GOP ahead of Monday's deadline to certify the election results, a process that would solidify a defeat for Trump. Plaintiffs including Kelly asked the court to invalidate a universal mail-in voting policy that was signed by Wolf and passed by a Republican-held legislature last year. They argued that provisions that allowed expanded mail-in voting in the state were unconstitutional, according to the order."As a remedy, Petitioners sought to invalidate the ballots of the millions of Pennsylvania voters who utilized the mail-in voting procedures established by Act 77 and count only those ballots that Petitioners deem to be 'legal votes,'" the order continued. The rejected bid is part of a multistate effort by Republicans and Trump allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election in favor of Trump. However, election law experts have noted that lawsuits pressed by the Trump campaign and its allies are not going to succeed in their intended result.Trump has still refused to concede the election to Biden. However, the president said this week that he would leave the White House if Biden is declared the winner of the Electoral College. "Certainly I will. And you know that," Trump said when asked if he would leave the White House if the Electoral College voted for Biden."If they do, they made a mistake," he added. Updated 7:37 p.m. | 1 |
Job creation for August was a huge disappointment, with the economy adding just 235,000 positions, the Labor Department reported Friday.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 720,000 new hires.The unemployment rate dropped to 5.2% from 5.4%, in line with estimates.August's total — the worst since January — comes with heightened fears of the pandemic and the impact that rising Covid cases could have on what has been a mostly robust recovery. The weak report could cloud policy for the Federal Reserve, which is weighing whether to pull back on some of the massive stimulus it has been adding since the outbreak in early 2020."The labor market recovery hit the brakes this month with a dramatic showdown in all industries," said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at jobs site Glassdoor. "Ultimately, the Delta variant wave is a harsh reminder that the pandemic is still in the driver's seat, and it controls our economic future."Leisure and hospitality jobs, which had been the primary driver of overall gains at 350,000 per month for the past six months, stalled in August as the unemployment rate in the industry ticked higher to 9.1%.Instead, professional and business services led with 74,000 new positions. Other gainers included transportation and warehousing (53,000), private education (40,000) and manufacturing and other services, which each posted gains of 37,000.Retail lost 29,000, with the bulk coming from food and beverage stores, which saw a decrease of 23,000."The weaker employment activity is likely both a demand and supply story — companies paused hiring in the face of weaker demand and uncertainty about the future while workers withdrew due to health concerns," Bank of America economist Joseph Song said in a note to clients.The report comes with the U.S. seeing about 150,000 new Covid cases a day, spurring worries that the recovery could stall heading into the final part of the year."Delta is the story in this report," said Marvin Loh, global macro strategist for State Street. "It's going to be a bumpy recovery in the jobs market and one that pushes back against a more optimistic narrative."The month saw an increase of about 400,000 in those who said they couldn't work for pandemic-related reasons, pushing the total up to 5.6 million."Today's jobs report reflects a major pullback in employment growth likely due to the rising impact of the Delta variant of COVID-19 on the U.S. economy, though August is also a notoriously difficult month to survey accurately due to vacations," said Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens.Still, the news wasn't all bad for jobs.The previous two months saw substantial upward revisions, with July's total now at 1.053 million, up from the original estimate of 943,000, while June was bumped up to 962,000 from 938,000. For the two months, revisions added 134,000 to the initial counts.Also, wages continued to accelerate, rising 4.3% on a year-over-year basis and 0.6% on a monthly basis. Estimates had been for 4% and 0.3% respectively.An alterative measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons fell sharply, dropping to 8.9% in August from 9.6% in July.The labor force participation rate was unchanged at 61.7%, still well below the 63.3% in February 2020, the month before the pandemic declaration.Employment also remained well below pre-Covid levels, with 5.6 million fewer workers holding jobs and the total workforce still smaller by 2.9 million.Another key Fed metric, the employment-to-population gauge, stood at 58.5%, up one-tenth of a percentage point from July but still well below the 61.1% pre-pandemic level. The measure looks at total jobholders against the working-age population.August's numbers have been volatile in past years and often see substantial revisions. They come amid other positive signs for employment.Weekly jobless filings have fallen to their lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic in March 2020, but a large employment gap remains.It's not that there aren't enough jobs out there: Placement firm Indeed estimates that there are about 10.5 million openings now, easily a record for the U.S. labor market. ZipRecruiter on Friday noted sharp gains in job postings for travel, arts and entertainment and education, generally signaling that those sectors should see strong gains ahead.Fed officials are watching the jobs numbers closely for clues as to whether they can start easing back some of the policy help they've been providing since the pandemic started.In recent weeks, central bank leaders have expressed optimism about the employment picture but said they would need to see continued strength before changing course. At stake for now is the Fed's massive monthly bond-buying program, which could start getting scaled back before the end of the year.However, if the jobs data gets softer, that could prompt Fed officials to wait until 2022 before tapering its purchases. Fed officials have been clear that interest rate hikes will come well after tapering starts."I still expect them to taper by year end," said State Street's Loh. "Maybe some of the more aggressive conversations about something happening in September are off the table. I think November is still a possibility."The Fed meets next on Sept. 21-22.Become a smarter investor with CNBC Pro.Get stock picks, analyst calls, exclusive interviews and access to CNBC TV.Sign up to start a free trial today. | 1 |
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s cancellation of an Obama-era program that provided legal protections and work permits to unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.The court, in a 5-4 opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, said the administration acted arbitrarily when it moved to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, failing to offer adequate reasons for doing so. The ruling hands President Trump one of the biggest legal defeats of his presidency in the middle of an election year in which immigration is again a top political topic. The decision effectively provides relief to more than 600,000 DACA recipients, often referred to as Dreamers, who have been in limbo since Mr. Trump in 2017 decided to wind down the program. The court’s decision also highlighted the biggest legal stumbling block Mr. Trump has faced throughout his first term: While a new administration has wide latitude to change regulatory policies, federal law requires agencies to explain their decision-making to the public and offer sound reasons for adopting a new approach. What Trump Has Done to Curb Immigration Photo: paul ratje/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images President Trump has made restricting immigration a top priority. Here are some of his biggest actions. The court said the Trump administration didn’t do that. “The dispute before the Court is not whether [the Department of Homeland Security] may rescind DACA. All parties agree that it may. The dispute is instead primarily about the procedure the agency followed in doing so,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, joined in full or part by liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. He added that the decision didn’t address “whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies,” which wasn’t the court’s concern. But the government failed its duty under the Administrative Procedure Act to “provide a reasoned explanation for its action,” including “what if anything to do about the hardship to DACA recipients.” Last year, the court voided the administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census for similar reasons. The decision served as the latest marker that Chief Justice Roberts controls the court’s direction following the retirement of maverick conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018. The chief’s alignment with the court’s liberal wing in 5-4 cases hasn’t happened often, but that coalition was likewise responsible for last year’s census ruling, as well as the court’s blockbuster 2012 decision that saved most of the Affordable Care Act. Four conservatives dissented. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, wrote that DACA was illegal from the get-go because the Obama administration itself hadn’t followed ordinary rule-making procedures before establishing the program. “Today’s decision must be recognized for what it is: an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision,” Justice Thomas wrote. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate dissent, arguing that the administration had cured any defects in the original decision to kill the program by subsequently offering additional reasons. He aimed his greatest critique, however, at Congress. Lawmakers’ inability to address the status of young immigrants “has forced successive administrations to improvise, thereby triggering many rounds of relentless litigation with the prospect of more litigation to come,” he wrote.
More Coverage The president responded to the outcome in personal terms. “Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?” he tweeted. “These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives,” he said in another tweet. DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said DACA recipients deserved closure on their status, which the high court didn’t provide. “This ruling usurps the clear authority of the Executive Branch to end unlawful programs,” he said. Administration officials gave no immediate indication of whether they would try again to cancel the program. If they do, they will have to offer new supporting reasons. Democrats praised the decision and pledged to support efforts to give Dreamers permanent status. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would send such a bill to Congress “on day one of my administration.” “For over eight years, DACA has given hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who came to this country as children the chance to contribute to the country they know as home,” Mr. Biden said. Martin Batalla Vidal, 29, the named plaintiff in one of the cases that reached the Supreme Court, said he had all but resigned himself to defeat. “In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Am I ready to go to a country I don’t even know?’” Mr. Vidal said, referring to Mexico, where he lived with his family until he was seven. “I was just crying tears of relief,” he said of his reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision. The high court’s ruling against the Trump administration stuck to narrow reasoning and rejected more sweeping legal claims that its policy had been motivated by hostility to Hispanics, who comprise the majority of DACA recipients. Justice Sotomayor, in a solo opinion, objected to that portion of the ruling and cited Mr. Trump’s statements disparaging immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as enough evidence for courts to investigate that argument further. Fighting “unlawful migration from Mexico” was “a keystone of President Trump’s campaign and a policy priority of his administration,” she wrote, and the president’s words could suggest the motivation for rescinding DACA was unconstitutional discrimination against an ethnic group. Mr. Obama initiated the program in 2012. DACA provided protection from deportation and work permits for people who arrived in the U.S. before they turned 16 and satisfied other conditions, including being a student or graduate and having no significant criminal record. DACA recipients could seek renewals of their status every two years. “Eight years ago this week, we protected young people who were raised as part of our American family from deportation,” Mr. Obama said on Twitter. “We may look different and come from everywhere, but what makes us American are our shared ideals.” The Supreme Court has allowed Mr. Trump to implement several tough-on-immigration initiatives, at least temporarily, including restrictions on asylum seekers and rules that make it easier for the government to turn away limited-income immigrants because they might use public-assistance programs. The president and other administration officials argued they had little choice but to cancel DACA because Congress hasn’t authorized any such policy. A separate Obama-initiated program called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, would have protected millions of additional illegal immigrants from deportation, but the Supreme Court split 4-4 on that program in 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The deadlock effectively killed that Obama initiative. Chief Justice Roberts said that even if the administration believed it was unlawful to provide benefits to DACA recipients, it still needed to grapple with the prior administration’s conclusion that forbearance for Dreamers was especially justified, given they came to the U.S. as children and know no other country. After the cancellation ran into initial trouble in the courts, then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen offered additional explanations, saying it was important to deter potential immigrants by demonstrating that neither they nor their children could expect leniency should they make it to U.S. soil. The chief justice said that after-the-fact explanation wasn’t properly before the court. An array of plaintiffs sued the Trump administration to challenge the DACA cancellation, including several states and municipalities, the University of California system, Princeton University, Microsoft Corp. , civil-rights groups and individual DACA recipients. The White House and Congress have been unable to reach agreement on how to tackle the issue, or immigration policy more broadly. The cancellation of the program was scheduled to begin in March 2018, but lower courts issued rulings that blocked the administration from ending DACA. Since then, the government has been accepting DACA renewal applications, but hasn’t taken new applications for the program. The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, estimates that about 66,000 young unauthorized immigrants would have become newly eligible for the program had the administration continued accepting new applications. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the government agency that administers the program, didn’t answer questions on Thursday about whether it would reopen the program to new applicants. Immigration hard-liners immediately called on the administration to try once again to end the program, with a more thorough approach that meets legal requirements the Supreme Court spelled out. “They fought this all the way through. I don’t see, politically, how they could not re-rescind DACA,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that favors lower levels of immigration. Thursday’s decision lifts immediate pressure off Congress, where discussions had begun on a possible immigration package to grant permanent legal status to the young unauthorized immigrants in exchange for a range of immigration enforcement measures. Similar deals have failed to pass both houses of Congress several times throughout the Trump administration, and most political observers viewed the latest talks, particularly so close to the coming election, with skepticism.
A Brief History of DACADeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is a program launched by the Obama administration to give some legal protection to unauthorized immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. It provides recipients a work permit and a two-year, renewable guarantee against deportation. To apply, among other criteria, immigrants had to be younger than 31 on June 15, 2012, the date the program was announced, and have come to the U.S. before they turned 16 and before June 2007. June 2012: President Obama announces the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in a Rose Garden ceremony. August 2012: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services begins accepting DACA applications. The Pew Research Center estimated that up to 1.7 million immigrants were eligible. November 2014: President Obama announces his intention to extend DACA-like protections to unauthorized parents of children who are U.S. citizens; the program is called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA. December 2014: Texas and 25 other states sue the Obama administration to block the expanded protections from taking effect. February 2015: A federal district court in Texas blocks DAPA; the Supreme Court eventually deadlocks in the case, allowing this decision to stand. September 2017: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the Trump administration is ending DACA, calling the program illegal, but delays the end date for six months to allow Congress time to find a legislative solution. Multiple states and DACA recipients immediately sued to block the program’s repeal. January 2018: A federal district court in California orders the Trump administration to continue accepting DACA renewal applications while litigation over the program’s repeal moves forward. At the time, approximately 700,000 young immigrants are enrolled in the program. An appeals court upholds this decision in November. June 2019: The Supreme Court agrees to hear the DACA case in its next term. November 2019: The Supreme court hears arguments in the DACA case. June 2020: The Supreme Court blocks cancellation of DACA, saying the Trump administration didn’t give an adequate explanation for doing so. Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@wsj.com, Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com and Michelle Hackman at Michelle.Hackman@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
GENEVA—President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to ease tensions during a high-profile summit, even as the Russian leader denied involvement in cyberattacks and Mr. Biden warned of significant consequences for future cyber-aggression or harm to jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. The summit, which took place in an 18th century villa overlooking Lake Geneva, came as both presidents have acknowledged that relations between the U.S. and Russia have reached a post-Cold War low in recent years. While the leaders expressed disagreements, they also offered measured assessments of each other, avoiding the heated rhetoric that has at times strained the bilateral relationship. The summit yielded little tangible policy progress, but both leaders said they hoped it would set the stage for more cooperation over time. Mr. Biden said, however, he wasn’t confident Mr. Putin would change his behavior without pressure from the world’s democracies. “This is not a kumbaya moment,” Mr. Biden said he told Mr. Putin. “But it’s clearly not in anybody’s interest, your country’s or mine, for us to be in a situation where we’re in another Cold War.” President Biden said he presented Russian President Vladimir Putin with a list of critical infrastructure that he said should be off limits to cyberattacks. Photo: Mikhail Metzel/TASS/Zuma Press Messrs. Biden and Putin met for roughly three hours total, with a break between the two sessions. They spoke at separate news conferences after the summit ended. Mr. Biden said he was forceful with Mr. Putin about cybersecurity and human rights. The president said he presented Mr. Putin with a list of critical infrastructure that he said should be off limits to cyberattacks. The White House said it included the 16 industries that the U.S. government has for years designated as critical—such as energy and food and agriculture—that U.S. officials have said are vulnerable to potentially disruptive attacks like ransomware. Mr. Biden also said he reminded Mr. Putin that the U.S. has significant cyber-capabilities, signaling that the U.S. is prepared to respond if Russia launches attacks. Asked what would happen if Mr. Navalny—who was arrested and jailed earlier this year after returning to Moscow from Berlin, where he was receiving treatment for what Western officials called a poisoning attack—dies in Russian custody, Mr. Biden said, “I made it clear to him that the consequences of that will be devastating for Russia.”
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTSHow do you think President Biden should approach foreign policy with Russia? Join the conversation below. Mr. Putin played down Mr. Biden’s concerns. Although he said he agreed to start consultations with Mr. Biden on cybersecurity, he denied that Moscow was involved in any cyber-sabotage. In response to a question about the cyberattack on the Colonial pipeline, which interrupted energy supplies on the U.S. East Coast and which intelligence officials say originated in Russia, Mr. Putin said: “Why Russia? We have to get rid of insinuations.” And the Russian leader said Mr. Navalny knew he would be detained when he returned to Moscow, had broken the law and had to answer for his actions. When pressed further on Moscow’s suppression of Russia’s opposition, Mr. Putin drew attention to racial tensions and political divisions in the U.S., seeking to paint the U.S. as unstable. Mr. Biden laughed when told about Mr. Putin raising the pro-Trump Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. “That’s a ridiculous comparison,” he said. Mr. Biden also raised the case of a pair of Americans who are imprisoned in Russia. The U.S. president said he was hopeful they would be released, but offered no other details on when or whether that might happen. Mr. Putin said that he and Mr. Biden only briefly touched on the issue of Ukraine potentially joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Moscow, which recently alarmed NATO with a large buildup of troops on Ukraine’s border, has long said its western neighbor joining the alliance is a red line that shouldn’t be crossed. Mr. Putin said the two leaders agreed that the basis for a settlement of the seven-year conflict between the government in Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists must be the Minsk agreement. The deal calls for the withdrawal of foreign-armed troops, returning the border with Russia to Ukrainian control and local elections in Ukraine’s breakaway Donbas region, which the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky opposes out of concern it would give Moscow a stronger foothold there. A senior Biden administration official gave a different account of the conversation, saying Ukraine was among the areas where Messrs. Biden and Putin had clear differences. The official said there was discussion of “whether there might be grounds to actually try to unstick the Minsk process.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, President Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met at a villa in Geneva on Wednesday. Photo: Mikhail Metzel/tass/Zuma Press Despite the disputes, Mr. Putin said he and Mr. Biden had agreed to return their respective ambassadors to their posts in an attempt to reduce tensions. Russia recalled its ambassador to the U.S. about three months ago, after Mr. Biden described Mr. Putin as a killer. Russia subsequently advised the U.S. ambassador in Moscow to return to Washington for consultations. In a joint statement, the leaders said the two countries are planning what they called a strategic stability dialogue to lay the groundwork for arms control measures. Mr. Putin also was complimentary of Mr. Biden, calling him an experienced statesman and a sensible partner for dialogue. “I can say that he is a very constructive, balanced person, as I expected,” Mr. Putin said. “It seems to me that we generally spoke the same language. This doesn’t mean at all that we must necessarily look into the soul, into the eyes and swear in eternal love and friendship. Not at all, we are protecting the interests of our countries and peoples. These relations are primarily pragmatic.” Mr. Biden gave Mr. Putin a crystal sculpture of an American bison and a pair of custom aviators, the U.S. president’s preferred eyewear. Before the meeting started, the White House scrambled to respond to confusion over whether Mr. Biden suggested he trusted Mr. Putin. As reporters were brought into the room where Messrs. Biden and Putin were meeting, a U.S. journalist asked whether the two men trusted each other. Mr. Biden looked at the reporter and nodded affirmatively. But the White House said Mr. Biden didn’t intend to indicate he trusted Mr. Putin. “I’m not confident he’ll change his behavior,” Mr. Biden said after the summit. “What will change their behavior is if the rest of the world reacts to them and it diminishes their standing in the world. I’m not confident of anything.” Messrs. Biden and Putin, accompanied by aides, agreed to begin consultations on cybersecurity. Photo: Mikhail Metzel/TASS/Zuma Press The first session of the meeting included the two presidents and their top diplomats, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. They then moved into an expanded bilateral meeting that included senior officials from both sides. Throughout his first visit overseas as president, meeting Group of Seven and European leaders and the U.S.’s partners at NATO, Mr. Biden has signaled that he wants to show that the U.S. and its allies won’t tolerate what it regards as provocative actions by the Kremlin and will counter the growing influence of autocratic powers. Mr. Putin has expressed his interest in pursuing a dialogue with Mr. Biden, describing the American president as a more predictable leader than his predecessor, but has made clear that he won’t be cowed. Mr. Biden has faced criticism from some Senate Republicans for giving Mr. Putin what they say is an undeserved audience during his first trip as U.S. president, pointing to a spate of cyberattacks from Russia-based hackers, the Kremlin’s treatment of its political opponents and a military buildup on the borders of Ukraine. Ahead of a meeting in Geneva with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Biden made it clear that standing up to Russia remains a priority. But Russian state media is casting Putin as the stronger political heavyweight, giving a view of what the Kremlin hopes to gain. Image: VGTRK/Rossiya 24 Senior Biden administration officials worked to carefully orchestrate the event to ensure that it doesn’t further elevate Mr. Putin on the world stage, and the U.S. president prepared for the meeting for days, U.S. officials said. Mr. Biden’s aides studied how Mr. Putin interacted with past presidents and they consulted U.S. experts on Russia who have served under presidents of both main political parties. At a 2018 summit in Helsinki, then-President Donald Trump, standing next to Mr. Putin, cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community’s finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He later told reporters he meant to say: “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia” that had intruded in the U.S. election, not what he actually said: “I don’t see any reason why it would be Russia.” During his long career in Washington, Mr. Biden, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has traveled extensively to Russia and other countries in the region, and met with Mr. Putin in 2011 while serving as vice president. Mr. Biden was cautious about inflaming tensions with the Russian leader in the run-up to the meeting. He has previously described Mr. Putin as a killer who has no soul, but this week called him “a worthy adversary.”
Biden in EuropeMore WSJ coverage on the president’s trip, selected by the editors. —Thomas Grove, Catherine Lucey and Alex Leary contributed to this article. Write to Andrew Restuccia at andrew.restuccia@wsj.com and Ann M. Simmons at ann.simmons@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his findings regarding the FBI investigation into President TrumpDonald TrumpBlack voters are fleeing Biden in droves. Here's why Biden's Super Bowl prediction: 'Loves' Bengals' quarterback, but Rams 'hard to beat' GOP Senate candidate to run 'Let's go Brandon' ad during Super Bowl MORE's 2016 campaign.Horowitz's report, released Monday, found that the probe was flawed but that agents were not motivated by political bias.Read his opening remarks below.Read Horowitz opening remarks on Scribd | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a decision that may curb the rise of financial penalties and property seizures in the U.S. criminal justice system, the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the first time ruled that the U.S. Constitution’s ban on “excess fines” applies to states as well as the federal government.The nine justices ruled unanimously in favor of an Indiana man named Tyson Timbs who argued that police violated his rights by seizing his $42,000 Land Rover vehicle after he was convicted as a heroin dealer.Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, back on the bench for a second straight day after undergoing lung cancer surgery in December, wrote the court’s opinion, which clarified the applicability of the “excessive fines” prohibition contained in the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.“For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history. Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties,” Ginsburg said in court as she announced the ruling.The vehicle was taken in a process called civil asset forfeiture that permits police to seize and keep property involved in a crime.“The Supreme Court recognized rightly that the excessive fines clause is a vital check on the government’s power to punish people and strip them of their property,” said Sam Gedge, a lawyer at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian legal group that represents Timbs.Civil liberties activists have criticized an increase in the use of fines and other penalties in the federal and state criminal justice systems in the past three decades. Organizations from across the ideological spectrum backed Timbs, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business group.‘SEE PEOPLE AS DOLLAR SIGNS’“The excessive fines clause is now clearly held to be a safeguard when state and local courts and police see people as dollar signs,” ACLU lawyer Nusrat Choudhury said.FILE PHOTO: People gather on the plaza in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File PhotoU.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter, “Like our broken cash bail system, excessive fines and confiscation of property lead to the criminalization of poverty.”The case will now return to Indiana courts to determine whether the seizure was excessive.“Although we argued for a different outcome, we respect the court’s decision,” Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, a Republican, said in a statement.Timbs pleaded guilty in 2015 to one count of dealing in controlled substances and one count of conspiracy to commit theft after selling four grams of heroin to undercover police officers for $385 in Marion, Indiana in two separate transactions two years earlier, according to legal filings.He was sentenced to one year of home detention and five years of probation, and authorities seized his 2012 Land Rover LR2 SUV, which he had used to purchase, transport and sell the drugs. The decision means that Timbs now has a chance to get his Land Rover back.The Eighth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution’s first 10 amendments that were ratified in 1791 as guarantees of individual rights and curbs on governmental power.The Supreme Court has held that various parts of the Bill of Rights apply to the states, not just the federal government, including the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In a 2010 gun rights decision, it ruled that the Second Amendment right “to keep and bear arms” applies to the states.Timbs, who has admitted he was a drug addict, purchased the Land Rover in 2013 with money he obtained from a life insurance policy following the death of his father.Timbs argued that his vehicle’s seizure constituted an excessive fine because he had dealt drugs only twice, was convicted of only one drug-dealing offense and the maximum fine for the offense was $10,000, much less than the vehicle’s value.Timbs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Indiana Supreme Court in 2017 reversed an Indiana state judge’s 2015 ruling in his favor.Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunhamfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
The Supreme Court, for the second time in two days, rejected a GOP request to shorten the deadline mail-in ballots must be received by North Carolina officials to be counted.The state of play: The state's deadline had been extended from 3 days to 9 days post-Election Day.The big picture: These are the latest in a series of decisions over ballot deadlines in states across the U.S. amid the coronavirus pandemic.The rulings come shortly after the court rejected an effort by Wisconsin Democrats and civil rights groups to extend that state’s deadline for counting absentee ballots to six days post-Election Day.Conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented in each of the decisions in a 5-3 vote.As in the ruling to deny a bid from Pennsylvania Republicans to expedite their request to shorten the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots, newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in either decisions.This was "because of the need for a prompt resolution and because she has not had time to fully review the parties’ filings," the court said.Background: A federal appeals court ruled last Wednesday that North Carolina could accept absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 3, Election Day, until Nov. 12 because of the pandemic.What to watch: A similar case regarding Minnesota’s extended mail-in ballot deadline is making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has been siding with lower state courts’ decisions thus far, which would keep the extended deadline in place in Minnesota as well.Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout. | 1 |
The Trump administration is working on regulations that will require health care providers and insurers to tell patients how much a service will cost before they get it.President TrumpDonald TrumpHillicon Valley — Cyberattack hits Ukrainian defense On The Money — GOP senators block Biden's Fed picks Florida county clerk's typo directed ticketed drivers to site selling Trump merchandise MORE, in an executive order issued Monday, directed the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies to put out rules requiring hospitals disclose prices that reflect what patients and insurers “actually pay” for services.The rules aim to bring more transparency to a health care system where patients usually don’t find out how much a procedure costs until they get the bill in the mail.This will “go down as one of the most significant steps in the long history of American health care reform," said Alex Azar, the secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services.The rules will also require health care providers and insurers to tell patients about the out-of-pocket costs they’ll face before they receive health care services.Azar said the rules would drive down prices because it would empower patients to shop around for the best costs.The administration says that is difficult to do in the current health care system because hospitals and providers often do not provide quotes for services.“Everyday American patients are being taken advantage of by a system that hides critical information from them that they need to make decisions for them and their families,” Azar said.The agencies will also look at regulation to address “surprise billing,” which is when patients end up with a bill their insurance company won’t pay.Trump has sought to make health care costs a key part of his 2020 reelection campaign. But most of his policies have been limited in scope and are being challenged in court. "We're taking power away from bureaucrats, we're taking it away from insurance companies and away from special interests," Trump said Monday at an executive order signing. "We're giving that power back to patients, and we're giving Americans the right to know."The administration is also working on proposals that they say will help lower prescription drug costs.Updated at 4:57 pm. | 1 |
WASHINGTON—U.S. workers have filed nearly 33.5 million applications for unemployment benefits in the seven weeks since closures were put in place to combat the coronavirus pandemic, showing a wave of layoffs that likely pushed April job losses to record levels.U.S. workers filed 3.2 million jobless claims last week, the Labor Department said. It was the fewest since the week ended March 14, before the pandemic caused claims to spike, but still fifteen-times early March readings. Recent layoffs are expected to cause nonfarm payrolls to fall by 21.5 million and the unemployment rate to climb to 16% in the April jobs report, which will be released on Friday, according to economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Both numbers would be highs on records back to the late 1930s and late ’40s. The previous peak unemployment rate was 10.8% in 1982. The largest monthly jobs loss, 1.96 million, occurred at the end of World War II. As coronavirus closures continue to put businesses on life support, a record number of people are filing jobless claims to overwhelmed state labor departments. WSJ explains why some states are struggling under the historic load. Photo Illustration: Carlos Waters/WSJ The decline in payrolls is expected to show U.S. employers in one month cut all the jobs they added in the past decade. Combined with the rise in unemployment and the loss of jobs in March, Friday’s figures are expected to show the labor market’s sharp reversal since February, when joblessness was at a half-century low of 3.5% and the country notched a record 113 straight months of job creation. “April will be the worst single month of this episode, and probably the worst single-month on record for a long time,” said Constance Hunter, chief economist at KPMG LLP. “The speed of this is so phenomenal,” she added. “The economy fell off a cliff.”
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTSAre jobless claims starting to taper off where you live? Join the conversation below. Numerous companies have announced expected layoffs or possible cuts in recent days, including United Airlines Holdings Inc., MGM Resorts and General Electric Co. Technology companies are cutting as well, with home rental website Airbnb Inc. announcing it would lay off 1,900 people, and ride-sharing company Uber Technologies Inc. saying it was laying off 3,700. The April job loss figure will likely be less than the unemployment claims total because payroll numbers only capture jobs lost from mid-March to mid-April and don’t count those who were previously unemployed or weren’t on payrolls, including self-employed workers such as Uber drivers. The decline also will be partially offset by job increases at online retailers, delivery services and other firms that hired last month. Thursday’s unemployment benefits data raise the possibility that the worst of virus-related layoffs are in the past, and that job losses will ease in May. Benefits applications filed for the week ended May 2 were less than half the peak of 6.9 million touched in late March. Before March, fewer than 700,000 claims were filed weekly in records back to 1967. “The steady decline in jobless claims over the past five weeks signals that the initial shock to the jobs market is over,” said John Silvia, economist at Dynamic Economic Strategy. “As states open up, the jobs market will improve.” He added the historically low unemployment rates that existed before the coronavirus-induced shock won’t return in the near term as many firms restructure or go out of business. Economists say it could still be many months before the labor market returns to a point when U.S. employers consistently add more jobs than they subtract. And it probably will take years for the economy to fully replace the millions of jobs lost in March and April. Some companies have increased hiring and others are placing workers back on payrolls to qualify for loan forgiveness from the government. Other businesses are bringing employees back as they see some increase in demand. Businesses are being allowed to reopen in South Carolina, Georgia, Texas and elsewhere, though often with restrictions. Those actions should put downward pressure on new claims and the number of workers on unemployment rolls in the coming weeks. Pushing against that, enhanced unemployment benefits mean many low-wage workers earn more in jobless aid than they did at their prior jobs. And some Americans face barriers to re-entering the workforce, including lack of child care and underlying health conditions. Jobless claims are applications by laid-off workers for unemployment-insurance payments—not all of which are approved. Each claim is made by an individual person and that person can’t file another claim until their previous request was either rejected or their benefits expire. Famous Dave’s of America Inc., a restaurant chain that operates in 31 states, furloughed 2,700 workers in March—about 85% of the staff, Chief Executive Jeff Crivello said. Doing so allowed workers to tap unemployment benefits, including an additional $600 in weekly federal relief included in the stimulus package, he said. The restaurant chain has recalled some of those workers in recent weeks, first to assist with delivery and takeout services and now to reopen restaurants in Tennessee and Oklahoma. Mr. Crivello said he expects most workers to return, even those whose unemployment benefits exceed their forgone wages. “People are interested and willing to come back,” he said. However, there is also a risk that the increase in unemployment will have follow-on effects in the form of lower consumer spending. That could cause an acceleration in job losses again later this year, or turn temporary furloughs into permanent layoffs. Retailers J.Crew Group Inc. and Neiman Marcus recently filed for bankruptcy, weeks after temporarily closing stores due to the virus. Other retailers reorganizing in bankruptcy close stores as part of turnaround plans. While millions of workers filed for benefits in March and April, many waited weeks to receive payments and some say they still aren’t receiving the benefits they expected. Wisconsin, the last state to payout the extra $600 in unemployment benefits authorized as part of the stimulus package, only began making such payments last week. Olivia Ebertz, 29, a freelance camera operator in Brooklyn, N.Y., applied for unemployment benefits in late March. She said she was able to initially navigate the unemployment system without trouble, but thinks the $743 in weekly benefits she’s receiving is less than she is entitled to, and only about a half of her typical pay. Ms. Ebertz said she was unable to reach authorities to contest her amount until Wednesday. State officials said that they are looking into her appeal. Her partner is also newly unemployed, causing the couple to dip into savings to cover their housing costs. “Right now I feel kind of afloat but if the monetary determination isn’t adjusted…the insecurity I currently feel will turn into a very real problem,” she said. Write to Eric Morath at eric.morath@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
As Edward Snowden entered his second week of limbo in Moscow's airport on Sunday, his decision to go to Russia is looking riskier than it first appeared, and may have left him in a worse situation than if he had stayed in Hong Kong. Even with his next move uncertain, the former National Security Agency contractor caused fresh uproar over the weekend. On Sunday, German weekly Der Spiegel, citing information from Mr. Snowden, reported that the U.S. had placed listening devices in a European Union office in Washington, infiltrated its computers and carried out cyberattacks against EU bodies. The report prompted strong criticism from several European governments.
Related Articles Mr. Snowden had hoped for asylum in Ecuador, but that seems less likely now. President Rafael Correa on Sunday retreated further from his country's early support of Mr. Snowden, telling the Associated Press it was up to Russian authorities to decide whether Mr. Snowden could travel to the Ecuadorean embassy in Moscow to seek asylum. Mr. Snowden's limbo is the product of a series of rapid decisions made during his final 24 hours in Hong Kong, when he was struggling over whether to remain there or seek asylum elsewhere. According to people familiar with his case, Mr. Snowden at first wanted to stay in Hong Kong, and sought to build public support there by giving a local newspaper information about U.S. hacking activities in the city. His Hong Kong legal team, which included local opposition legislator Albert Ho, was preparing for a long fight. At least part of his legal team believed Hong Kong represented the best option to protect their client's safety and interests, one of the people familiar with his case said. Mr. Snowden, though, was getting a different message from WikiLeaks. On June 12, Mr. Snowden through an intermediary asked the antisecrecy organization to help him seek asylum in Iceland, WikiLeaks said on June 19. In the days after his approach, WikiLeaks asked other governments about asylum possibilities on Mr. Snowden's behalf. "He obviously chose to go to Moscow, though I don't know why. I wouldn't have," said Patricia Ho of Hong Kong law firm Daly & Associates, who isn't involved in the case. She said Mr. Snowden had had a range of options still open to him before he left Hong Kong, including filing for asylum or contesting the U.S.'s request in the city's robust judicial system. But Mr. Snowden's escape plan stalled when he got stuck in the transit area of the Moscow airport. He touched down in Moscow a week ago on his way to Ecuador "via Russia and other states," according to WikiLeaks. Some two days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied a U.S. request to expel Mr. Snowden and urged the fugitive to get on his way. He has since been stuck in Sheremetyevo Airport's transit zone without a valid U.S. passport or a Russian visa, facing an increasingly uncertain path. The Obama administration sought to systematically cut off Mr. Snowden's asylum options once he left Hong Kong, said senior U.S. officials working on the strategy. One focus, these officials said, has been to repeatedly stress to Moscow that hopes for better cooperation on issues ranging from counterterrorism to Syria could be jeopardized without cooperation on Mr. Snowden. On Ecuador, senior U.S. officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have told Quito that its economic engagement with the U.S. could diminish if Mr. Snowden is granted asylum. The Latin American country has a dollar-based economy and is reliant on the U.S. for 40% of its exports. Oil accounts for about 80% of Ecuador's exports to the U.S., but the country also exports significant amounts of fish and seafood, bananas and flowers. The Obama administration has used the outrage in Congress over Mr. Snowden to pressure Mr. Correa, said U.S. officials. White House officials declined to discuss in detail Mr. Biden's phone conversation with Mr. Correa. But U.S. officials said this threat of congressional action against Quito continues to be used by the administration to try to gain Mr. Correa's cooperation. They said they still believed the Ecuadorean leader was worried about the economic costs to his country. The U.S. point man on dealing with Russia on Mr. Snowden has been the State Department's No. 2 diplomat, Undersecretary William Burns, said senior U.S. officials. Mr. Burns is a former American ambassador to Moscow who has regularly worked with Russia on issues from Middle East peace initiatives to Islamic militancy in the Caucasus. Mr. Burns also coordinated extensively with Russia when he served as the U.S. point man on Iran's nuclear program. Mr. Burns and Secretary of State John Kerry have coordinated a message to Moscow that Russia can't expect the same level of support on counterterrorism and law-enforcement issues without cooperation on Mr. Snowden, U.S. officials said. Mr. Kerry particularly noted in talks with Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that over the past two years, the U.S. has extradited seven people who were wanted for crimes to Moscow. One factor driving Mr. Snowden from Hong Kong, according to the people familiar with his case, was the likelihood that he would be held in jail while his extradition case was fought. In jail, he would have lost his Internet access. "I don't think he'd mind being in prison, so long as he could have the Internet," one of the people said. It isn't known whether Mr. Snowden has Internet access at the Moscow airport, but others in the transit zone have access to the Web and other communications. Mr. Snowden's chances of avoiding surrender to the U.S. by Hong Kong authorities were slim, some lawyers in Hong Kong said. "If he'd stayed in Hong Kong, authorities would only have been able to stall for so long, and then they would've had to comply under their obligations," said Kevin Egan, a Hong Kong lawyer who has handled surrender cases but who wasn't involved in the Snowden case. Since 1998, the city has handed back people to the U.S. in 65 cases under its surrender agreement. In at least one other case—involving someone charged by the U.S. with smuggling—Hong Kong didn't send the person back. Other Hong Kong lawyers said one of Mr. Snowden's best options, and one that remains open to him if he returned to Hong Kong, is to file an asylum claim either with the Hong Kong government or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, something he could have done while in Hong Kong. Another avenue for Mr. Snowden would have been for China to block the surrender by exercising its right to intervene in issues involving national security and foreign relations, though it is believed that Beijing signed off on his departure, according to diplomats and Hong Kong legislators. China's Foreign Ministry didn't respond to questions last week about what role Beijing had played in negotiations over Mr. Snowden. "The central government obviously respects the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government's handling of affairs in accordance with law," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing. Mr. Snowden could return to Hong Kong, Ms. Ho of Daly & Associates said, attempting to apply for asylum after he arrived from the Hong Kong government or the UNHCR. The Hong Kong government has asked airlines to bar him from flying there, but he could get around that restriction because Russia would be "returning" him to Hong Kong, which would be different than "allowing" him to fly to Hong Kong like a normal passenger, she said. Mr. Snowden's time in Hong Kong was cloaked in secrecy, beginning with his initial approach to his lawyers. On June 10, the day after he exposed his identity in the Guardian newspaper, a Hong Kong-based intermediary called a local lawyer known for his work on human-rights issues to seek assistance, according to a person familiar with the case. The lawyer, who didn't know the caller, was told to meet him on a street in Hong Kong and they would ride together in a taxi to meet Mr. Snowden, the person said. Soon after, reporters found Mr. Snowden in the Mira Hong Kong Hotel in the densely packed Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood and he fled from there with the lawyer, the person said. Mr. Snowden moved locations only under cover of darkness and wore a cap and sunglasses on the rare occasions he went out, the people familiar with his case said. In the days before Mr. Snowden's exit from Hong Kong, Mr. Ho, the opposition legislator, unsuccessfully sought clarification from the city's government on Mr. Snowden's case, the people familiar with the case said. He was growing increasingly worried that stepped-up pressure by the U.S. would push Hong Kong's government to detain him, these people said. Around June 21, the same time the U.S. unsealed charges against him, according to one of the people familiar with his case, Mr. Snowden received an encrypted message that claimed to represent a government authority who urged him to leave Hong Kong, and assured him he would be able to clear immigration if he tried to do so. Mr. Ho tried to contact Hong Kong's government to determine whether the message's assurances were genuine, but didn't receive an immediate reply. Mr. Snowden woke on Saturday, June 22, to news that the U.S. had unsealed the charges accusing him of crimes under the U.S. Espionage Act and theft of government property. He began looking for flights out of Hong Kong, a person familiar with his case said. Moscow wasn't his only pick, this person said: His goal was to get somewhere he believed would protect him from the U.S. government's reach. He knew he needed to avoid U.S. airlines but didn't have a final destination in mind, people familiar with his case said. Throughout the day, he vacillated between staying and going, and about where he would go if he left, the person said. Around midnight on Saturday, Mr. Snowden told his legal team that he wanted to leave town, the person said, and he was urged to get a good night's sleep and to think about it some more. The next day, June 23, Mr. Snowden made up his mind and headed for the airport in a private car, the person said. In part because they weren't using mobile phones to communicate, one of his lawyers had gone ahead to the airport not knowing if Mr. Snowden would appear. At the airport, the lawyer bought a plane ticket to Shanghai—the cheapest one he could find—to ensure that he could accompany Mr. Snowden past immigration checks. He arrived at the airport just in time to make his Aeroflot flight to Moscow. He had no luggage to check. He cleared immigration and security and quietly boarded the flight. —Jay Solomon, Chester Yung, José de Córdoba, Jeremy Page and Paul Sonne contributed to this article. Write to Te-Ping Chen at te-ping.chen@wsj.com and Ken Brown at ken.brown@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
President TrumpDonald TrumpHillicon Valley — Cyberattack hits Ukrainian defense On The Money — GOP senators block Biden's Fed picks Florida county clerk's typo directed ticketed drivers to site selling Trump merchandise MORE early Monday pressed Mexico to stop immigrant “caravans” trying to reach the United States.“Mexico has the absolute power not to let these large ‘Caravans’ of people enter their country,” Trump wrote on Twitter.“They must stop them at their Northern Border, which they can do because their border laws work, not allow them to pass through into our country, which has no effective border laws.”Mexico has the absolute power not to let these large “Caravans” of people enter their country. They must stop them at their Northern Border, which they can do because their border laws work, not allow them to pass through into our country, which has no effective border laws.....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2018Trump referenced “caravans” of people entering the United States in a tweet on Sunday following a segment on “Fox & Friends” that discussed an "army of migrants" marching from Honduras.Trump on Monday also again urged Congress to protect the U.S. border by using the so-called nuclear option, which would alter Senate rules to allow a simple majority to pass legislation, if necessary.“Congress must immediately pass Border Legislation, use Nuclear Option if necessary, to stop the massive inflow of Drugs and People,” Trump said.“Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!”...Congress must immediately pass Border Legislation, use Nuclear Option if necessary, to stop the massive inflow of Drugs and People. Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2018Trump has repeatedly called for a wall on the southern border, which was a signature promise of his 2016 campaign. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 faxThe contents of this site are © 1998 - 2022 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. | 1 |
KEY POINTSBritain and the European Union have finally reached a trade agreement to avoid a "no-deal" BrexitThe deal leaves plenty of contentious points to be negotiated laterIt must now be taken back to each E.U. member state and Britain to be approved individuallyLawmakers in Britain and the European Union have finally found common ground for a post-Brexit trade deal. While that clears a major hurdle, the proposed deal still has a long way to go before it’s fully approved by all parties.With only days to go before Britain leaves the E.U., politicians on both sides will have to rush the bill through their various institutional hoops. The late agreement technically can’t be ratified by the European parliament before the Dec. 31 deadline, which is when the transition period ends. Provisional approval will have to do until it can be properly approved in 2021.For that to happen, the agreement will have to be translated into the native language of all 27 member states and taken back home for review. If each state approves it, it can return to Brussels for provisional enactment. Johnson scored a thumping majority in a December general election on a simple pledge to "get Brexit done"Â Photo: POOL / Paul ELLIS Meanwhile, British MPs will have to reconvene parliament on the other side of the channel, which can take as long as two days, CNN notes. British trade deals don’t technically require the go-ahead from parliament, but it’s unlikely that representatives would pass up the chance to review and debate such important economic legislation.The heavily divided parliament already appears to be jockeying for position in future trade fights, with pro-E.U. lawmakers looking to bring Britain closer to the rest of Europe and their more insular colleagues hoping to lock in British isolationism.
There’s still much that is unknown after years of negotiations, as the New York Times reports, and swathes of contentious issues are left by the agreement for later negotiations. Even with a deal, some trade disruptions are inevitable, but British citizens now have some hope the massive lines of trucks held up at the border this past week might be a thing of the past.© Copyright IBTimes 2022. All rights reserved. | 1 |
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced on Thursday by a U.S. judge to less than four years in prison - far shy of federal sentencing guidelines - for financial crimes uncovered during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis imposed the surprisingly lenient 47-month sentence on Manafort, 69, during a hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, in which the veteran Republican political consultant asked for mercy but expressed no remorse for his actions.Manafort was convicted by a jury last August of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.Ellis disregarded federal sentencing guidelines cited by prosecutors that called for 19-1/2 to 24 years in prison. The judge ordered Manafort to pay a fine of $50,000 and restitution of just over $24 million.Manafort, brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair because of a condition called gout, listened during the hearing as Ellis extolled his “otherwise blameless” life in which he “earned the admiration of a number of people” and engaged in “a lot of good things.”“Clearly the guidelines were way out of whack on this,” Ellis said.Manafort was convicted after prosecutors accused him of hiding from the U.S. government millions of dollars he earned as a consultant for Ukraine’s former pro-Russia government. After pro-Kremlin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, prosecutors said, Manafort lied to banks to secure loans and maintain an opulent lifestyle with luxurious homes, designer suits and even a $15,000 ostrich-skin jacket.The judge also said Manafort “is not before the court for any allegations that he, or anyone at his direction, colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.”The sentence was even less than the sentence recommended by Manafort’s lawyers of 4-1/4 to 5-1/4 years in prison.“These are serious crimes, we understand that,” said Thomas Zehnle, one of Manafort’s lawyers. “Tax evasion is by no means jaywalking. But it’s not narcotics trafficking.”Legal experts expressed surprise over the sentence. “This is a tremendous defeat for the special counsel’s office,” former federal prosecutor David Weinstein said.Manafort’s sentence was less than half of what people who plead guilty and cooperate with the government typically get in similar cases, according to Mark Allenbaugh, a former attorney with the U.S. Sentencing Commission. “Very shocking,” he said.Ellis, appointed to the bench by Republican former President Ronald Reagan, called the sentence “sufficiently punitive,” and noted that Manafort’s time already served would be subtracted from the 47 months. Manafort has been jailed since June 2018.Manafort’s legal troubles are not over. He faces sentencing next Wednesday in Washington in a separate case for two conspiracy charges involving lobbying and money laundering to which he pleaded guilty last September.Legal experts said the light sentence from Ellis could prompt U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to impose a sentence closer to the maximum of 10 years in the Washington case, and order that the sentence run after the current one is completed rather than concurrently. Jackson was appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama.‘IN SHAMBLES’Before the sentencing, Manafort expressed no remorse but talked about how the case had been difficult for him and his family. Manafort, who opted not to testify during his trial, told Ellis that “to say I have been humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement.” He described his life as “professionally and financially in shambles.”The judge told Manafort: “I was surprised I did not hear you express regret for engaging in wrongful conduct.”Manafort, with noticeably grayer hair than just months ago, came into the courtroom in a wheelchair holding a cane, wearing a green prison jumpsuit emblazoned with the words “Alexandria Inmate” on the back. It was a far cry from Manafort’s usual dapper appearance and stylish garb.During a break shortly before the sentence was handed down, Manafort turned around and blew his wife, Kathleen, a kiss.The case capped a stunning downfall for Manafort, a prominent figure in Republican Party circles for decades who also worked as a consultant to such international figures as former Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and Yanukovych.Ellis had faced criticism by some in the legal community for comments he made during the trial that were widely interpreted as biased against the prosecution. Ellis repeatedly interrupted prosecutors, told them to stop using the word “oligarch” to describe people associated with Manafort because it made him seem “despicable,” and objected to pictures of Manafort’s luxury items they planned to show jurors.“It isn’t a crime to have a lot of money and be profligate in your spending,” Ellis told prosecutors during the trial.Prosecutor Greg Andres urged Ellis to impose a steep sentence. “This case must stand as a beacon to others that this conduct cannot be accepted,” Andres told the hearing on Thursday.Jackson ruled on Feb. 13 that Manafort had breached his agreement to cooperate with Mueller’s office by lying to prosecutors about three matters pertinent to the Russia probe including his interactions with a business partner they have said has ties to Russian intelligence.Manafort is the only one of the 34 people and three companies charged by Mueller to have gone to trial. Several others including former campaign aides Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen have pleaded guilty, while longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone has pleaded not guilty.Trump, a Republican who has called Mueller’s investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt,” has not ruled out givingManafort a presidential pardon, saying in November: “I wouldn’t take it off the table.”“There’s absolutely no evidence that Paul Manafort was involved with any collusion with any government official from Russia,” Kevin Downing, another Manafort lawyer, said outside the courthouse.The Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, quickly accused Downing of making “a deliberate appeal for a pardon” from Trump.Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said after the sentencing: “I believe Manafort has been disproportionately harassed and hopefully soon there will be an investigation of the overzealous prosecutorial intimidation so it doesn’t happen again.”Mueller is preparing to submit to U.S. Attorney General William Barr a report on his investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia and whether Trump has unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe. Trump has denied collusion and obstruction and Russia has denied U.S. intelligence findings that it interfered in the 2016 election in an effort to boost Trump.Manafort worked for Trump’s campaign for five pivotal months in 2016 that included the Republican National Convention where Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, three of them as campaign chairman.Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Andy Sullivan and Jan Wolfe; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne, Eric Beech and Makini Brice; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Peter Cooneyfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan is withdrawing his nomination to lead the Pentagon.The abrupt announcement came in a tweet from the president, who said Shanahan had done “a wonderful job” but would step aside to “devote more time to his family.”The president added that the Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, will be the new acting secretary.“I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a fantastic job!” Trump said in a second tweet on the subject.The post atop the Pentagon has not been filled permanently since Gen. James Mattis retired in January following policy differences with Trump.Trump announced in May that he would nominate Shanahan but the formal nomination process in the Senate had been inexplicably delayedShanahan, a former Boeing executive, has been leading the Pentagon as acting secretary since Jan. 1, a highly unusual arrangement for arguably the most sensitive Cabinet position.In his tenure at the department he’s had to deal with a wide array of international hotspots, ranging from missile launches by North Korea to the sudden shift of military ships and aircraft to the Middle East to deal with potential threats from Iran.Shanahan, 56, had extensive of experience in the defense industry but little in government. In more than four months as the acting secretary, he focused on implementing the national defense strategy that was developed during Mattis’ tenure and emphasizes a shift from the resources and tactics required to fight small wars against extremist groups to what Shanahan calls “great power” competition with China and Russia. | 1 |
At least four members of Congress benefited from loans under the PPP program first rolled out in April. There is no mandate compelling the small group of Republicans and Democrats to disclose their identities, raising concerns about possible conflicts of interest as debate kicks off on a future economic stimulus package. It is not illegal for lawmakers to apply for or try to obtain PPP money. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is facing pressure to reveal more details about where the small business aid funds are going.
At least four members of Congress benefited from loans under the $670 billion Paycheck Protection Program — and there are no rules requiring them to reveal that they did so.
Politico first reported that a small group of Republicans and Democrats have close connections to businesses known to have taken loans under PPP, the small business aid program. Companies that benefited from the loans are either managed by the lawmakers' families or employ spouses in senior and sometimes executive roles.
Those on the GOP side include Texas Rep. Roger Williams, a businessman who owns auto dealerships and car washes, as well as Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler. Her family owns farms and equipment suppliers throughout the Midwestern region.
Democrats who accepted PPP loans are Nevada Rep. Susie Lee, whose husband is chief executive of a casino developer, and Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Florida, another lawmaker whose husband is a senior executive at a restaurant that returned the PPP loan.
It's not illegal for lawmakers to either apply for or receive the federal rescue money. But it raises concerns about possible conflicts of interest as Congress begins to wrestle with the contours of another economic stimulus package.
Spokespersons for the four lawmakers told Politico the aid was obtained through established channels. Officials for William and Hartzler declined to tell the outlet the amounts of the loans. Both GOP lawmakers voted against a bill that would have required the Small Business Administration to identify companies granted loans over $2 million.
Politico reported that Full House Resorts — the company run by Lee's husband — received $5.6 million in PPP aid. And Fiesta Restaurant Group, the business where Mucarsel-Powell's husband served as a senior executive, was granted $15 million before opting to return it.
Democrats are stepping up their calls for greater transparency from the Trump administration after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers there were no plans to reveal the identities of companies that accepted PPP loans.
Read more: Famed investor Jim Rogers earned a 4,200% return with George Soros. He explains why the US response to COVID-19 is 'embarrassing' — and breaks down 4 purchases he's made amid the fallout.
Mnuchin, however, said on Monday he would meet with lawmakers seeking clarity on the program, which was first rolled out in April. Some companies are concerned that disclosing a loan — which could amount to $10 million maximum — could reveal sensitive information about their business.
Through the end of May, the program has distributed 4.5 million loans totaling $510 billion, per the SBA.
Early on, critics blasted PPP as reports emerged that large and powerful businesses had benefited from loans while scores of small businesses faced delays getting federal help. Both Democrats and Republicans are pledging oversight for the taxpayer-funded program.
"Among other steps, the Administration should release the names of all PPP borrowers," top House Democrats wrote in a letter to Mnuchin on Monday. | 1 |
The family of Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) said he will end medical treatment for brain cancer. Photo: Cliff Owen/Associated Press Updated Aug. 24, 2018 12:53 pm ET WASHINGTON—Sen. John McCain will discontinue treatment for brain cancer, his family said in a statement on Friday, adding the progress of the disease and his advancing age will “render their verdict.” Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican and 2008 GOP presidential candidate, has undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatments in his home state since he announced in the summer of 2017 that he had been diagnosed with glioblastoma. “With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment,” his family said in an unsigned statement released through his Senate office. “John has surpassed expectations for his survival.” Glioblastomas are the most common form of primary brain cancers and advance extremely quickly, according to neurologists. Standard treatment includes surgery and a combination of radiation and chemotherapy. Surgery alone isn’t enough because of the way glioblastomas spread. “Our family is immensely grateful for the support and kindness of all his caregivers over the last year, and for the continuing outpouring of concern and affection from John’s many friends and associates, and the many thousands of people who are keeping him in their prayers. God bless and thank you all,” the statement added. The treatments have left him weakened and unable to be in Washington for Senate business. In what was seen as a farewell speech on the Senate floor in July 2017, Mr. McCain told his colleagues: “It’s a privilege to serve with all of you. I mean it.... I’ve had so many people say such nice things about me recently that I think some of you must have me confused with someone else. I appreciate it though, every word, even if much of it isn’t deserved.“ He cast his last vote in the Senate on Dec. 7, leaving Republicans with only the thinnest of majorities over the Democrats—50 to 49—in the chamber. Sen. Lindsey Graham said he spoke with Sen. John McCain after the Arizona senator was diagnosed with a type of brain cancer known as a glioblastoma. Photo: Reuters (Originally Published July 20, 2017) In recent years, he has emerged as one of the few Republicans willing to vocally challenge Donald Trump. The two men have had a difficult political relationship. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump famously criticized Mr. McCain, who served five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. “I like people who weren’t captured,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Mr. McCain was no war hero. In July 2017, Mr. McCain cast a dramatic late-night vote against a Senate measure to pare back selected pieces of the 2010 Obama health-care law, joining two other Republicans to sink the bill. Mr. Trump has repeatedly referenced Mr. McCain’s “no” vote as the reason the measure failed. Mr. McCain recently criticized Mr. Trump for his appearance alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling their meeting and joint press conference last month “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” Write to Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Appeared in the August 25, 2018, print edition as 'McCain to Stop Brain-Cancer Treatment.' | 1 |
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump pledged Monday to protect a popular retirement-savings program, promising to leave it untouched in the forthcoming GOP plan to overhaul taxes.Mr. Trump, in a tweet, shot down an idea that had been circulating in Washington policy circles and worrying the retirement-savings industry: limiting pretax contributions to retirement accounts. “There will be NO change to your 401(k),” the president wrote on Twitter. “This has always been a great and popular middle class tax break that works, and it stays!” Mr. Trump’s comments point to a challenge he and fellow Republicans face as they race to write and pass a tax plan: They have ambitious targets for rate cuts and a self-imposed $1.5 trillion limit on the size of the tax cut over the decade. The sacred cows of the tax code—including breaks for home mortgage interest and state and local taxes—are being challenged. WSJ's Richard Rubin explains.... with real cows. Photo/Illustration: Heather Seidel/The Wall Street Journal Those guidelines have propelled them to look for large tax breaks they can limit or repeal and to seek budgetary maneuvers that shift the timing of tax revenue into the period measured by congressional scorekeepers. Newsletter Sign-up Capital Journal Scoops, analysis and insights driving Washington from the WSJ's D.C. bureau. The proposal to cap 401(k) contributions at as little as $2,400 a year and push additional savings into so-called Roth-style accounts where posttax dollars go in and money comes out tax-free in retirement was a combination of both. Much of the revenue it generated would have come from accelerating tax collections from the future into the near term. But even a few days of chatter showed the concept’s unpopularity, especially at the $2,400 level. By foreclosing changes to 401(k) plans, Mr. Trump again positioned himself in favor of a broadly enjoyed tax break. Mr. Trump’s decision to weigh in on a still-forming proposal showed how he can alter the legislative process, but it is Congress, not the president, that is putting the details together. “Presidents have a right to make determinations and we ought to pay attention to it, but there are some things he shouldn’t be shooting down,” said Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), who said he didn’t like the potential 401(k) limits. “He can make his moves, but we’re going to do things up here that might be a little bit different and that might be one where we have to say we disagree, but we’ll see.” Other parts of the tax plan that the president and congressional Republicans support would deliver significant benefits to households at the top of the income scale. Exact calculations of the plan’s impact won’t be possible until Republicans release a more specific proposal. “I plan to hold President Trump to his word that he and congressional Republicans will not put forward any plan that taxes the retirement savings of American families,” Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Monday. “We should be using tax reform as an opportunity to ensure that every American worker has the chance at a secure retirement, rather than using the retirement savings of middle-class families to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.” Lobbyists and others in the retirement and financial-services industries who had spoken to congressional staff and committee members said last week that lawmakers are looking at proposals that would allow 401(k) participants to contribute significantly less before taxes than what is currently allowed in a traditional tax-deferred 401(k). Those changes could have discouraged people from saving as much money, potentially limiting retirement savings and the fees that financial-services companies collect. Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and author of the coming tax bill, said the president’s tweet didn’t change his panel’s plans. He declined to elaborate on what retirement-policy changes were under consideration, if any. “I don’t want to get ahead of the committee,” he said. Once the House passes a budget, Mr. Brady is expected to announce the date when he plans to release the text of the tax bill and the date when the committee is scheduled to consider amendments and voting. The Save Our Savings Coalition—a group that includes AARP, American International Group Inc. and Northern Trust Corp. —said it was “thrilled” by the president’s statement. “We will continue to fight to ensure lawmakers do right by the middle class by preserving and expanding our retirement system as tax reform moves through Congress,” the group said. A version of the idea appeared in a draft tax plan Republicans released in 2014. Separately, former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, proposed barring people from making additional tax-advantaged contributions once their account balance hit $3.4 million. He also would have limited the tax benefits top earners could get from deferring taxes. Not one of those proposals was adopted. Currently, employees under age 50 can save up to $18,000 a year in a 401(k) before taxes, while those 50 or older can set aside up to $24,000. In an IRA, the annual contribution limits are capped at $5,500 and $6,500 for the same age groupings. The 401(k) limits are scheduled to rise to $18,500 and $24,500 in 2018. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee are widely expected to release a version of the tax bill by mid-November, with the Senate Finance Committee to follow soon afterward. They are working off a framework jointly written by the administration and House and Senate Republicans. That plan said Republicans would preserve tax benefits for retirement savings, but also left room for some changes. “The committees are encouraged to simplify these benefits to improve their efficiency and effectiveness,” the framework said. “Tax reform will aim to maintain or raise retirement plan participation of workers and the resources available for retirement.” It was unclear on Monday what possible changes would satisfy both the policy framework and the president’s tweet. —Peter Nicholas and Anne Tergesen contributed to this article. Write to Richard Rubin at richard.rubin@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
President Donald Trump, in the wake of deadly weekend violence at a white-supremacy rally in Virginia, is facing pressure to break decisively with such nationalist groups that largely backed his campaign and presidency, or risk a fraying of his fragile governing coalition.The rally erupted in violence in Charlottesville on Saturday, and a woman was killed when a driver allegedly mowed down a group that had gathered to counter messages from the white nationalists, some of whom were self-described Nazi sympathizers. Dozens were injured in the car attack; later, two state troopers monitoring the demonstrations were killed when their helicopter crashed. The president initially said the altercations came from “many sides” of the event, which leaders from both parties said seemed to improperly spread blame equally between the white nationalists and the counterprotesters. Then on Sunday the White House issued a statement saying Mr. Trump “condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.” Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, said in a tweet Sunday: “There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazis.” White nationalists flocked to Mr. Trump early in his candidacy and even before then, when he became a central figure in falsely questioning whether former President Barack Obama was born in the U.S. During his presidency, such fringe groups have become increasingly vocal. For example, Mr. Trump’s Saturday comments were cited on the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer as evidence of “no condemnation at all” of such groups by the president. That dynamic is causing friction between Mr. Trump and many leaders of the Republican Party whom Mr. Trump now needs to advance his agenda in Congress. “I would urge the president to dissuade these groups that he’s their friend,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) told “Fox News Sunday.” Pointed condemnations of such groups also came Saturday from GOP leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan as well as Senate conservatives such as Ted Cruz of Texas and Orrin Hatch of Utah. “We should call evil by its name,” Mr. Hatch said on Twitter. “My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.” Other Republicans sought a middle ground between denouncing their party leader and seeming unwilling to single out racists and neo-Nazis. “I stand with President Trump and leaders from both parties condemning these actions and encourage Americans to stand together in opposition to those who encourage hate or promote violence,” said Sen. Luther Strange of Alabama. The Virginia clash has also re-focused attention on the White House role of Steve Bannon, who helped steer Mr. Trump’s election victory. Mr. Bannon joined the campaign from Breitbart News, which he once described as a “platform for the alt-right.” The alt-right is shorthand for the “alternative right,” a loose agglomeration of groups with far-right ideologies, some of which embrace the tenets of white supremacy, while others consider themselves rebels against mainstream Republicans. Over the past seven months, Mr. Bannon has fallen in and out of favor with the president, advisers to Mr. Trump have said, and in the wake of the Charlottesville episode, some of Mr. Trump’s supporters want to see his influence curtailed. Anthony Scaramucci, who did a brief stint as White House communications director, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday and decried what he called the “Bannon-bart influence” in the White House, a mashup of Mr. Bannon’s name and the news site he used to run. “I think the president knows what he’s going to do with Steve Bannon,” said Mr. Scaramucci. Mr. Bannon declined to comment. Throughout history, race has proved the most combustible domestic issue presidents have confronted. In the modern era, John F. Kennedy faced down Southern insistence on segregated schools, while his successor, Lyndon Johnson, ushered in landmark civil-rights legislation. Mr. Obama, as the first black president, entered office with hopes of bridging the gap between the races only to find divisions hardening over his two terms. Many white nationalists made themselves known at Mr. Trump’s rallies last year, although some took pains to conceal their affiliation for fear that it would embarrass his campaign. At a convocation of white nationalists in Tennessee last year, various attendees identified themselves as Trump campaign volunteers but said they kept secret their affiliation even from some fellow supporters. “White nationalists were suspicious of candidate Trump in the early part of his campaign, but they were won over by a steady stream of signaling from the campaign, and later from the administration,” said J.M. Berger, who studies extremist ideologies and is a fellow with the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism—The Hague. Since providing this statement at a veterans’ event on Saturday, President Donald Trump has faced criticism, in particular over his decision to blame “many sides” for the Charlottesville violence and not to condemn the white nationalists whose rally sparked the incident. Photo: Getty Now, though, white nationalist groups are closely watching Mr. Trump’s response to the crisis. They say they weren’t the ones to start the fighting. Jared Taylor, editor of the white nationalist website American Renaissance, said that virtually all the violence between such groups were caused by counterprotesters. “Whenever these confrontations take place, it’s where pro-white groups try to have a rally,” said Mr. Taylor, who said he wasn’t at the Charlottesville demonstration. “You will notice that pro-white groups never make a fuss or demonstrate when other groups have meetings that stand for things they abhor.” David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, in response to a Trump tweet Saturday calling for unity and condemning “hate,” tweeted in reply: “I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.” As a candidate, Mr. Trump’s campaign said it didn’t rely on white nationalists to win. “The President has never considered this fringe to be part of his coalition,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign aide. But some critics said that, as a candidate, he didn’t denounce such supporters in unequivocal terms. They also said messages from the campaign seemed aimed at a white nationalist audience. In a CNN interview in early 2016, Mr. Trump was asked about Mr. Duke’s expressions of support. “I don’t know anything about David Duke,” he said. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.” In subsequent interviews and media appearances, he renounced the support of white supremacists and Mr. Duke in particular. “David Duke is a bad person who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years,” Mr. Trump said on MSNBC in March 2016. Democrats, for their part, saw the Virginia episode as evidence of the Trump-era Republican Party as beholden to extremists. “The President’s talk of violence ‘on many sides’ ignores the shameful reality of white supremacism in our country today, and continues a disturbing pattern of complacency around such acts of hate,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said in a statement. With images from Charlottesville dominating cable TV coverage, Mr. Trump is at a crossroads, Mr. Berger said. “So the next few days will be crucial,” he said. “President Trump is facing substantial political pressure to make a stronger statement about white nationalist violence.” —Dave Michaels, Janet Hook, Bob Davis and Alan Cullison contributed to this article. Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Attorney General decided that President Donald Trump did not obstruct a probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia, but some legal experts said prosecutors laid out a wealth of evidence to the contrary and that they intended to leave that determination to Congress.U.S. President Donald Trump gestures alongside First Lady Melania Trump before departing the White House on Marine One, after the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in Washington, U.S., April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas JacksonSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed new details about Trump’s attempts to impede his investigation on Thursday. They included how the president tried to fire Mueller and limit his investigation, kept details of a June 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and a Russian under wraps, and possibly dangled a pardon to a former adviser.Democrats said on Thursday the report contained disturbing evidence of wrongdoing by Trump that could fuel congressional investigations.Some legal experts echoed that view. They said the evidence should have given prosecutors a strong basis for bringing an obstruction case against Trump, but Mueller demurred because a longstanding Department of Justice policy against indicting a sitting president.Jens Ohlin, a law professor at Cornell University, said the evidence laid out by the Mueller report was “really exhaustive in terms of the number of incidents and how severe they are.”In his report, Mueller focused on a series of actions, including Trump’s conduct toward law enforcement officials and witnesses. At one point, Mueller says the Congress has powers to check a president. At least half a dozen legal experts said the special counsel intended Congress to take up the matter.“There is a wink, and a nod, and another wink to Congress that I have a lot of evidence and now the ball is in your court,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.House Democrats took that view as well. In a joint statement, the House chairs said “the Special Counsel undoubtedly anticipated” the Congress must assess the evidence.But Republican Congressman Doug Collins disputed that Mueller intended for Congress to decide on the view.“The report doesn’t say Congress should investigate obstruction now. It says Congress can make laws about obstruction,” Collins tweeted.A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.Trump’s legal team called the report “a total victory” for the president.“If they thought they had an obstruction case they would have made it. They did not,” said Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump, in an interview.It is unclear whether the Democrats will push on Congressional censure. And even if the House votes to impeach, it is highly unlikely the Republican controlled Senate would convict Trump.Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, defended the president in a press conference Thursday by saying there was insufficient evidence to bring an obstruction case against Trump.In an earlier letter to lawmakers, Barr said the case was also undermined by Mueller’s finding that the Trump campaign did not conspire with Russians to interfere in the election.WATERGATE-ERA OPINIONUnder U.S. law, it is a crime to attempt “to influence, obstruct or impede the due administration of justice.”To prove obstruction, prosecutors must show an individual acted with a “corrupt” or improper motive - a specific intent to impede an investigation.Obstruction of justice is often coupled with some underlying wrongful act that is being covered up, legal experts said.With a sitting president, the issue takes on additional complications. A Justice department policy dating back to the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s advises against indicting a sitting president.The U.S. Constitution is silent on the question.In his report, Mueller said he “accepted” the department’s legal opinion and was unable to come to a conclusion about whether there was enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction.QUESTION OF MOTIVEThe president’s actions and intent “presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred,” Mueller wrote.But Mueller added that his report “also does not exonerate” Trump of the crime.In reaching his decision not to charge Trump, Barr said the president had been “frustrated and angered” by a belief that the probe was undermining his presidency.Despite this, Trump did not deprive Mueller of documents and witnesses needed to complete the investigation, Barr said.“Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of non-corrupt motives weights heavily against any allegation that the president had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation,” he said.Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Richard Cowan and Karen Freifeld; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Edward Tobinfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi presides over the Electoral College vote certification for President-elect Joe Biden, during a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. Kevin Dietsch/Pool via REUTERSWASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that lawmakers would resume the count of electoral votes to confirm the November election result once the U.S. Capitol is cleared after pro-Trump rioters breached the building.She said that decision was made after consultations with fellow congressional leaders and calls to the Pentagon, Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence.“We always knew this responsibility would take us into the night. The night may still be long but we are hopeful for a shorter agenda, but our purpose will be accomplished,” she said in a statement.Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chris Reesefor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
Media caption, Roman Protasevich's father tells the BBC's Sarah Rainsford he is fearful his son may be torturedWestern countries have condemned Belarus for diverting a plane flying over its territory to arrest an opposition journalist.EU leaders are due to discuss their response to what the union's executive called a "hijacking" and the US state department said was "a shocking act".Belarus scrambled a fighter jet to force the plane - bound for Lithuania - to land, claiming a bomb threat.Police took Roman Protasevich away when passengers disembarked. The 26-year-old was aboard the Ryanair plane, which was flying from the Greek capital, Athens. The aircraft was due to land in Vilnius, but was still in Belarusian airspace when it was told to divert to Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Witnesses said the activist was "super-scared" and told fellow passengers he would face the death penalty - Belarus is the only European country that still executes prisoners.State media in Belarus said President Alexander Lukashenko had personally given the order for the move. The plane landed in Vilnius more than six hours after its scheduled arrival.Since winning a disputed election last August, Mr Lukashenko, 66, who has ruled the country since 1994, has cracked down on dissenting voices. Many opposition figures have been arrested, while others fled into exile.The incident drew sharp condemnation from across the European Union, with countries urging the immediate release of Mr Protasevich and a full investigation. The EU later summoned the Belarusian ambassador and informed him of the bloc's "firm condemnation".Dozens of Belarusian officials, including President Lukashenko, are already under EU sanctions including travel bans and asset freezes, imposed in response to the repression on opponents.Several countries, including the UK and Lithuania, have told flights to avoid Belarusian airspace. UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he issued the instructions "in order to keep passengers safe".How was the flight diverted?Flight FR4978 turned east to Minsk shortly before it reached the Lithuanian border. Lithuanian officials, citing Ryanair, said 126 passengers boarded the plane in Greece.In a statement, Irish carrier Ryanair said the crew had been "notified by Belarus (Air Traffic Control) of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk".But Tadeusz Giczan - the editor of Nexta, the media outlet Mr Protasevich used to work for - tweeted that agents from Belarusian security service the KGB had boarded the plane and were the source of the bomb alert.Franak Viacorka, a friend and associate of Mr Protasevich, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the journalist "already felt something bad" in Athens airport because he had seen that someone was following him.Some passengers described seeing Mr Protasevich looking nervous as the incident unfolded. "He just turned to people and said he was facing the death penalty," Monika Simkiene told AFP news agency.Another passenger told Reuters news agency that Mr Protasevich had opened an overhead locker after they were told of the diversion, pulled out a laptop and a phone and gave them to a female companion. Mr Viacorka said the woman, who was Mr Protasevich's girlfriend and was arrested with him, was "not involved at all in anything, but they will be pursuing her because she's a close person to him". She has been named as Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen."This was a case of state-sponsored hijacking... state-sponsored piracy," Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary told Irish Newstalk radio on Monday."It appears the intent of the authorities was to remove a journalist and his travelling companion... we believe there were some KGB agents offloaded at the airport as well," Mr O'Leary said.Later on Monday, Lithuanian officials said five passengers who boarded the flight in Athens did not reach Vilnius. "The latest... is that 126 passengers left Athens and 121 landed in Vilnius. This does not include the crew of six," a spokeswoman for the Lithuanian prime minister told Reuters.How will the West respond?EU leaders are expected to discuss the incident at a summit in Brussels later on Monday. Nato ambassadors are due to meet on Tuesday.A package of measures being worked on includes a ban on overflights of Belarus, a ban on entry to European airports by national carrier Belavia and a suspension of ground transport links, French officials say.Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, said "the outrageous and illegal behaviour... will have consequences". Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda urged the EU to impose fresh economic sanctions. He told the BBC this "could make a larger impact on the behaviour of the Belarusian regime".The country has advised its citizens against travel to Belarus, and urged those already in the country to leave.Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said actions, not words, and sanctions with "a real edge" were needed."We cannot allow this incident to pass on the basis of warnings or strong press releases," he told state broadcaster RTE.UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Mr Protasevich had been arrested "on the basis of a ruse" and called for his immediate release.Why would Mr Protasevich have been targeted?Mr Protasevich is a former editor of Nexta, a media operation with a Telegram channel. He left Belarus in 2019 to live in exile in Lithuania. From there he covered the events of the 2020 presidential election, after which he was charged with terrorism and inciting riots.Nexta played a key role for the opposition during the vote, which was won by Mr Lukashenko and is widely regarded as rigged. It has continued to do so in its aftermath, particularly with the government imposing news blackouts. But he first attracted the attention of the authorities as a teenager, when he was expelled from school after taking part in a protest in 2011.Mr Protasevich now works for a different Telegram channel, Belamova. He stepped in to write for it after blogger Igor Losik was arrested by the Belarusian authorities in June last year.He was in Athens to attend an economic conference along with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the opposition leader who claimed victory in the election. She too now lives in exile in Lithuania.Belarus: The basicsWhere is Belarus? It has its ally Russia to the east and Ukraine to the south. To the north and west lie EU and Nato members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.Why does it matter? Like Ukraine, this nation of 9.5 million is caught in rivalry between the West and Russia. President Lukashenko has been nicknamed "Europe's last dictator" - he has been in power for 27 years.What's going on there? There is a huge opposition movement demanding new, democratic leadership and economic reform. The opposition movement and Western governments say Mr Lukashenko rigged the 9 August election. Officially he won by a landslide. A huge police crackdown has curbed street protests and sent opposition leaders to prison or into exile.Were you on the flight? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission. More on this story | 1 |
LAS VEGAS — A political operative from Virginia with a history of confronting Republican political figures faces a misdemeanor battery charge in Nevada after witnesses say he pushed into a GOP campaign event and grabbed the manager of state Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s gubernatorial campaign.Wilfred Michael Stark, 50, of Falls Church, Virginia, was freed Wednesday from Las Vegas city jail on $1,140 bail following his Tuesday evening arrest, said Jace Radke, a city spokesman. Radke said he didn’t immediately know Stark’s court date. It was not clear if he had a lawyer.
Stark told the officer who took him into custody at a Las Vegas community center that he was attacked “because he was a Democrat in a room full of Republicans,” according to the arrest report.Witnesses provided statements saying Stark declared several times, “I do this for a living.”Laxalt campaign spokesman Parker Briden linked Stark with American Bridge 21st Century, a group that supports Democratic candidates and says it is committed to holding Republicans accountable.An American Bridge official did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages.The organization spoke on behalf of Stark in March, following his arrest in Washington, D.C., on a simple assault charge for allegedly using his body to push a top aide to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke outside a congressional hearing. American Bridge said Stark “adamantly” denied the allegations.
Stark also was arrested a year ago in suburban Virginia and charged with creating a disturbance while videotaping a parade appearance by GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie for ShareBlue Media, an American Bridge affiliate. He was convicted of disorderly conduct, according to a report in the Fairfax County Times.In Las Vegas, Laxalt campaign chief Kristin Davison made a citizen’s arrest after she and witnesses said Stark pushed into a room and grabbed her arm hard enough to leave red marks.
“Mike Stark aggressively interrupted our conversation, both by loudly yelling and physically shoving a camera and his body at the attorney general and me,” Davison’s signed police complaint said. “I asked him to back away and he did not.”Davison told The Associated Press she suffered bruises and pain.Democratic candidate Steve Sisolak’s campaign and state Democratic party officials denied any connection to Stark.“No one should ever feel unsafe at a political event,” Sisolak spokeswoman Christina Amestoy said in a statement. “We strongly condemn this violence.”
Copyright © 2022 The Washington Times, LLC. | 1 |
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Police and protesters clashed at Hong Kong’s international airport on Tuesday after flights were disrupted for a second day as the political crisis in the former British colony deepened.In Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump said the Chinese government was moving troops to the border with Hong Kong and he urged calm.Trump said the situation in Hong Kong was tricky but he hoped it would work out for everybody, including China, and “for liberty” without anyone getting hurt or killed.Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam warned that Hong Kong risked being “smashed to pieces”.Demonstrators who have been protesting for the past nine weeks against Beijing’s growing influence in the special administrative region targeted the international airport for a second day on Tuesday.Thousands of black-clad protesters jammed the terminal chanting, singing and waving banners.Scuffles broke out in the evening after an injured man was held by a group of protesters. Some claimed he was an undercover mainland Chinese agent and initially refused to let him leave.Medics, however, bundled him onto a stretcher and forced their way through jeering throngs to an ambulance.Several police vehicles were blocked by protesters and riot police moved in amid chaotic scenes, using pepper spray to keep people back. A policeman pulled out a gun at one point.Protesters also barricaded some passageways in the airport with luggage trolleys, metal barriers and other objects. Others clambered onto check-in counters as the protesters appeared to control part of the airport for a short while. At least two protesters were taken away by police.Another mainland Chinese man was held and tied down by protesters at the airport after they thought he was posing as a reporter. The editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times newspaper, Hu Xijin, tweeted that the man was a journalist with the paper. He was later taken away by ambulance.The situation calmed down after a few hours without the violence worsening, and the crowds thinned out. Hong Kong media reported that an injunction had been issued by a court to clear the airport of protesters.The action followed an unprecedented shutdown of the airport on Monday. Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said operations had been “seriously disrupted” on Tuesday and departing passengers had been unable to reach immigration counters.The weeks of protests began as opposition to a now-suspended bill that would have allowed suspects to be extradited to mainland China and have swelled into wider calls for democracy.Demonstrators say they are fighting the erosion of the “one country, two systems” arrangement that enshrined some autonomy for Hong Kong since China took it back from Britain in 1997.The increasingly violent clashes between police and protesters have roiled the Asian financial hub. Hong Kong’s stock market fell to a seven-month low on Tuesday.PUSHED INTO THE ABYSSA senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “Freedoms of expression and assembly are core values that we share with the people of Hong Kong and these freedoms should be protected.”The United Nations human rights commissioner, Michele Bachelet, urged Hong Kong authorities to exercise restraint and investigate evidence of their forces firing tear gas at protesters in ways banned under international law.China responded by saying her comments sent the wrong signal to “violent criminal offenders”.Chief Executive Lam made an appeal for calm and restraint.“Take a minute to look at our city, our home,” she said, her voice cracking, at a news conference in the newly-fortified government headquarters complex.“Can we bear to push it into the abyss and see it smashed to pieces?” she said.Demonstrators want Lam to resign. She says she will stay.The events present Chinese President Xi Jinping with one of his biggest challenges since he came to power in 2012.Hong Kong legal experts say Beijing might be paving the way to use anti-terrorism laws to try to quell the demonstrations. On Monday,Britain, a guarantor of the agreement that transferred Hong Kong to China in 1997, on Tuesday condemned the violence and urged dialogue.“Concerning to see what’s happening in Hong Kong and the worrying pictures of clashes between police & protesters at the airport,” foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Twitter.China has denied a request for two U.S. Navy ships to visit Hong Kong in the coming weeks, U.S. officials said.ANGRY PASSENGERS“I think paralyzing the airport will be effective in forcing Carrie Lam to respond to us ... it can further pressure Hong Kong’s economy,” said Dorothy Cheng, a 17-year-old protester.Despite the trouble, some flights were still scheduled to take off early on Wednesday morning with some tourists still waiting in the departure hall and dining areas, according to Reuters journalists in the airport.Some passengers challenged protesters over the delays as tempers began to fray.Flag carrier Cathay Pacific said flights might still be canceled at short notice. The airline, whose British heritage makes it a symbol of Hong Kong’s colonial past, is also in a political bind.China’s civil aviation regulator demanded that the airline suspend staff who joined or backed the protests from flights in its airspace, pushing the carrier’s shares past Monday’s 10-year low.Other Chinese airlines have offered passengers wanting to avoid Hong Kong a free switch to nearby destinations, such as Guangzhou, Macau, Shenzhen or Zhuhai, with the disruption sending shares in Shenzhen Airport Co Ltd 000089.SZ surging.Additional reporting by Felix Tam, Noah Sin, Donny Kwok, Greg Torode and James Pomfret in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore, Stella Qiu in Beijing and Jeff Mason in Morristown, New Jersey; Writing by James Pomfret; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Angus MacSwan and Grant McCoolfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden plans to withdraw the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, 20 years to the day after the al Qaeda attacks that triggered America’s longest war, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.The disclosure of the plan came on the same day that the U.S. intelligence community released a gloomy outlook for Afghanistan, forecasting "low" chances of a peace deal this year and warning that its government would struggle to hold the Taliban insurgency at bay if the U.S.-led coalition withdraws support.Biden's decision would miss a May 1 deadline for withdrawal agreed to with the Taliban by his predecessor Donald Trump. The insurgents had threatened to resume hostilities against foreign troops if that deadline was missed. But Biden would still be setting a near-term withdrawal date, potentially allaying Taliban concerns.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe Democratic president will publicly announce his decision on Wednesday, the White House said. A senior Biden administration official said the pullout would begin before May 1 and could be complete well before the Sept. 11 deadline. Significantly, it will not would be subject to further conditions, including security or human rights."The president has judged that a conditions-based approach, which has been the approach of the past two decades, is a recipe in staying in Afghanistan forever," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a briefing with reporters.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are expected to discuss the decision with NATO allies in Brussels on Wednesday, sources said.Biden's decision suggests he has concluded that the U.S. military presence will no longer be decisive in achieving a lasting peace in Afghanistan, a core Pentagon assumption that has long underpinned American troop deployments there."There is no military solution to the problems plaguing Afghanistan, and we will focus our efforts on supporting the ongoing peace process," the senior administration official said.The U.S. intelligence report, which was sent to Congress, stated: "Kabul continues to face setbacks on the battlefield, and the Taliban is confident it can achieve military victory."It remains unclear how Biden’s move would impact a planned 10-day summit starting April 24 about Afghanistan in Istanbul that is due to include the United Nations and Qatar. The Taliban said they would not take part in any summits that would make decisions about Afghanistan until all foreign forces had left the country.Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, speaks with U.S. troops while visiting Forward Operating Base Fenty in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, September 9, 2019. REUTERS/Phil StewartThe May 1 deadline had already started to appear less and less likely in recent weeks, given the lack of preparations on the ground to ensure it could be done safely and responsibly. U.S. officials have also blamed the Taliban for failing to live up to commitments to reduce violence and some have warned about persistent Taliban links to al Qaeda.It was those ties that triggered U.S. military intervention in 2001 following al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks, when hijackers slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington, killing almost 3,000 people. The Biden administration has said al Qaeda does not pose a threat to the U.S. homeland now.'ABANDON THE FIGHT'Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell accused Biden of planning to "turn tail and abandon the fight in Afghanistan." It was Trump, a Republican, who had agreed to the May 1 withdrawal."Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake," McConnell said, adding that effective counter-terrorism operations require presence and partners on the ground.There currently are about 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of more than 100,000 in 2011. About 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed in the course of the Afghan conflict and many thousands more wounded.Officials in Afghanistan are bracing for the withdrawal."We will have to survive the impact of it and it should not be considered as Taliban's victory or takeover," said a senior Afghan government source, speaking on condition of anonymity.Although successive U.S. presidents sought to extricate themselves from Afghanistan, those hopes were confounded by concerns about Afghan security forces, endemic corruption in Afghanistan and the resiliency of a Taliban insurgency that enjoyed safe haven across the border in Pakistan.Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States could cut off financial assistance to Afghanistan "if there is backsliding on civil society, the rights that women have achieved." Under previous Taliban rule, the rights of women and girls were curtailed.Democratic Senator Jack Reed, chairman of Senate Armed Services, called it a very difficult decision for Biden."There is no easy answer," Reed said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Steve Holland; Editing by Will DunhamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | 1 |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County will again require masks be worn indoors in the nation’s largest county, even by those vaccinated against the coronavirus, while the University of California system also said Thursday that students, faculty and staff must be inoculated against the disease to return to campuses. The announcements come amid a sharp increase in virus cases, many of them the highly transmissible delta variant that has proliferated since California fully reopened its economy on June 15 and did away with capacity limits and social distancing. The vast majority of new cases are among unvaccinated people. The rapid and sustained increase in cases in Los Angeles County requires restoring an indoor mask mandate, said Dr. Muntu Davis, public health officer for the county’s 10 million people. The public health order will go into effect just before midnight Saturday. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Davis said during a virtual news conference.He didn’t fully detail what would be some exceptions to the mask rule but said, for example, people could still take off their masks while eating and drinking at restaurants.Davis said officials will focus on education rather than enforcement. Handing out citations to people who don’t comply is “not something we really want to have to do,” he said.Los Angeles County has been recording more than 1,000 new cases each day for a week, and there is now “substantial community transmission,” Davis said. On Thursday, there were 1,537 new cases, and hospitalizations have now topped 400. “The next level is high transmission, and that’s not a place where we want to be,” he said.It comes after a winter where Los Angeles County experienced a massive surge in infections and deaths, with hospitals overloaded with COVID-19 patients and ambulances idling outside, waiting for beds to open.Now, hospitalizations in California are above 1,700, the highest level since April. More than 3,600 cases were reported Thursday, the most since late February, but a far cry from the winter peak that saw an average of more than 40,000 per day.Other counties, including Sacramento and Yolo, are strongly urging people to wear masks indoors but not requiring it. “The drastic increase in cases is concerning — as is the number of people choosing not to get vaccinated,” Sacramento County Public Health Officer Olivia Kasirye said. The Los Angeles County decision came within hours of the University of California’s announcement that students, faculty and staff must be vaccinated for the upcoming semester. UC President Michael V. Drake said in a letter to the system’s 10 chancellors that unvaccinated students without approved exemptions will be barred from in-person classes, events and campus facilities, including housing. “Vaccination is by far the most effective way to prevent severe disease and death after exposure to the virus and to reduce spread of the disease to those who are not able, or not yet eligible, to receive the vaccine,” Drake wrote. He said the decision came after consulting UC infectious disease experts and reviewing evidence from studies on the dangers of COVID-19 and emerging variants like the delta strain. In San Francisco, cases are rising among the unvaccinated. Black and Latino people are getting shots at a lower rate than others, and Mayor London Breed urged them to get the vaccine. She said Thursday that every person hospitalized with COVID-19 at San Francisco General Hospital is unvaccinated and most are African American.San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton said the highest number of cases are in the Bayview district, a largely Black neighborhood, “because we are not doing everything we can to protect each other. This is a cry to my community. ... We need you to get vaccinated.”San Francisco has one of the highest overall vaccination rates in the nation’s most populated state. At least 83% of residents 12 and older have received at least one dose.Meanwhile, north of San Francisco, at least 59 residents at a homeless shelter have tested positive for the virus. Of those infected at the Santa Rosa shelter, 28 were fully vaccinated, Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s health officer, said Wednesday. Officials were reviewing an additional 26 possible positive cases. Of those with confirmed infections at Samuel L. Jones Hall, nine were hospitalized, including six who were fully vaccinated and had “multiple, significant” underlying health conditions, including diabetes and pulmonary disease, health officials said.Fewer than half of the shelter’s 153 residents had received at least a partial vaccination, officials said, and they don’t know if the outbreak started with a vaccinated or unvaccinated resident. “We know congregate settings are at much higher risk,” Mase said. “We also know there is a very high proportion of unvaccinated individuals that were in this setting.”Most of the 69 vaccinated residents had received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson dose, but Mase said it was hard to determine whether that was a factor in the outbreak. Vaccines decrease the severity of the illness, reduce hospitalizations and decrease the risk of death. Clinical trials showed that a single dose of the J&J vaccine was 72% effective against moderate to severe COVID-19 in the United States, compared with 95% for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. A Food and Drug Administration analysis cautioned that it’s not clear how well the vaccines work against each variant. So-called breakthrough cases among the fully vaccinated are unusual. Between Jan. 1 and June 30, California identified 8,699 such cases out of the more than 20 million who have received the vaccine.___Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodriguez and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco contributed to this report. | 1 |
Matthew Carnes prepares to change diapers for his newborn daughter, Evelina Carnes, as his wife, Breanna Llamas, keeps watch in the postpartum unit at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, Calif., in March. The U.S. has reported another record low in its birthrate. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Mario Tama/Getty Images Matthew Carnes prepares to change diapers for his newborn daughter, Evelina Carnes, as his wife, Breanna Llamas, keeps watch in the postpartum unit at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, Calif., in March. The U.S. has reported another record low in its birthrate. Mario Tama/Getty Images The number of babies born in the U.S. dropped by 4% in 2020 compared with the previous year, according to a new federal report released Wednesday. The general fertility rate was 55.8 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, reaching yet another record low, according to the provisional data. "This is the sixth consecutive year that the number of births has declined after an increase in 2014, down an average of 2% per year, and the lowest number of births since 1979," the National Center for Health Statistics said. The U.S. total fertility rate, which estimates how many babies a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have during their life based on data from a given year, remains far "below replacement" – meaning there wouldn't be enough babies born for a generation to exactly replace itself. "The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and has consistently been below replacement since 2007," according to the agency, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The statistical replacement rate is 2,100 births per 1,000 women. But in 2020, the U.S. total fertility rate fell to 1,637.5 births per 1,000 women. One year earlier, it was just over 1,700 births. Just over 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, according to the agency. Demographically, the number of births fell across all ethnicities and origins, according to the report, which relied on U.S. Census Bureau population estimates that were derived in July. The provisional number of births declined 4% for both white and Black women, 3% for Hispanic women, 6% for American Indian and Alaska Native women, and 8% for Asian American women. The birthrate didn't go up in any age group and fell in most of them. One of the largest declines was in teenagers, where the birthrate fell by 8%, to 15.3 births per 1,000 females. The birthrate for women between 20 and 24 years old fell by 6%. The highest birthrate came from women who are 30 to 34 years old, with 94.8 births per 1,000 women. The number of women in their late 20s who gave birth fell by 5% from 2019, as their birthrate decreased to 90 births per 1,000 women. Those two age groups each gave birth to more than 1 million babies in 2020. The number of preterm births (babies born after less than 37 weeks of gestation) declined to 10.09% — the first drop since 2014, the center said. The cesarean section delivery rate rose slightly, to 31.8% of all births. News of the continued fall in birthrates comes as the U.S. is coping with losing nearly 580,000 people to the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Center for Health Statistics' report on births did not focus separately on the coronavirus, but it previously found a drop in the number of mothers who accessed high-quality prenatal care in 2020 compared with 2019. Even before the pandemic, the annual population growth rate in the U.S. was seen falling to its lowest levels in the past 100 years – and the nation's falling birthrate is just one part of that equation. The number of U.S. deaths had been rising as America's large baby boomer generation ages. And immigration, the tool that the U.S. and other countries use to compensate for an aging workforce and population declines, has fallen from the heights reached in 2016, when more than 1 million people moved to the United States. That dynamic has shown signs of a sharp reversal in recent months as a growing number of migrants have been arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border since President Biden took office. | 1 |
Researchers around the world are toiling to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. But the creation of a working vaccine that can be safely distributed to a broad population requires a tremendous amount of rigor and caution, so the process is likely to take at least a year. WIRED staff writer Megan Molteni has covered the novel coronavirus outbreak since the virus was first identified in early January. This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with Megan about where our efforts to make a vaccine currently stand. We also discuss why it’s been so difficult to get Americans tested for the coronavirus.Show NotesRead more about the search for a coronavirus vaccine here. Read more about testing here. Also read Maryn McKenna on the potential dangers of rushing out a vaccine. Follow all of WIRED’s coronavirus coverage here.RecommendationsMegan recommends Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen Talks video series. Lauren recommends Medea Giordano’s story about nonprofits, charities, and companies helping people in need during the pandemic. Mike recommends an episode of the Under the Scales podcast with writer Jesse Jarnow.Megan Molteni can be found on Twitter @MeganMolteni. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our executive producer is Alex Kapelman (@alexkapelman). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.How to ListenYou can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how:If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed.TranscriptMichael Calore: My cat is right here. I don't know if you can see her, but she's watching me.[Intro theme music]MC: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Michael Calore, a senior editor here at WIRED. I am joined as always by my cohost, WIRED senior writer Lauren Goode.Lauren Goode: Hello. This week you did not say that I'm there with you, or I'm joined here, because I think at this point our audience can officially assume that we are all recording this remotely, and at this point we'll notify you when that change,s if we somehow end up in person in studio again, but thanks Mike. It's great to be here again.MC: And thank you for being here Lauren.LG: Absolutely.MC: We're also joined this week by staff writer Megan Molteni, who covers public health on the science desk here at WIRED. Megan, welcome back to the show.Megan Molteni: Thanks for having me. Wish it were under better circumstances, but happy to be here wherever that is.LG: Likewise.MC: And thank you for joining us from your cloffice, your closet-office at home. We're lucky to have Megan with us this week because she has been covering the spread of the coronavirus ever since it was first identified in China back in January. Later on in the show, we're going to talk about the state of coronavirus testing in the US, but first we're going to focus on the ongoing search for a vaccine. We're going to look at what it takes to make a vaccine, who's working to create one, and why the process takes so long. Megan, let's start with the latest. We're recording this on Thursday, April 9th. Where do things currently stand with vaccines in this country?MM: Yeah, so currently there are no approved vaccines against the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, but there are a handful that are already being tested in humans, and there are dozens more that are in earlier stages of development. So, vaccines all work on the same basic principles. Scientists try to make something that closely resembles a pathogen and then expose a person's immune system to it through a small dose administered usually as an injection, and ideally the immune system then develops a strong memory of that pathogen. So, the next time the person is exposed, their body will mount an attack before the infection can take hold. And the trick to doing this is to do that without making the person seriously ill from the vaccine itself. There are a few different methods for making vaccines, but they all have to strike this delicate balance of providing protection without actually making a person sick.LG: So Megan, how did these efforts that we see right now to make some type of vaccine that can address Covid-19, how does it compare to prior efforts both in the US and globally to develop vaccines for some type of novel or relatively new disease?MM: Yeah, this is the fastest that vaccines have ever gotten off the ground and then injected into humans, after the identification of the virus. So, this virus was sequenced in January, and it was already being tested in humans on March 15th. So, actually about two months, and that's actually pretty astonishing. And the reason for that is twofold. One of them has to do with just the fact that China was able to quickly identify the virus itself to sequence it. And that has to do with improvements in sequencing technologies, but it also has to do with the technology of the vaccine itself. Historically vaccines have consisted of either killed or weakened versions of a disease-causing a virus. Scientists have also started using just bits and pieces of a virus which they can produce inside genetically engineered bacteria and yeast. So, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston used that technique to make a vaccine against SARS, which is a related virus.And they now have an experimental vaccine that uses this technique, but they're waiting on permission from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin testing in people. The vaccines that are already in testing actually skip that step. So, what they do instead is they inject a little bit of the virus' genetic material, which codes for the protein that the virus uses to infect human cells. And the idea is that anyone who gets this vaccine, their body then absorbs this little bit of code, and some of their cells will then produce that single viral protein. And what should then happen is it should trigger their immune system to make antibodies that recognize it. And if all of this goes well, then those antibodies should theoretically protect those people from the real virus if they ever get exposed. And so, in the US, there's a Boston-based company called Moderna, and they started dosing patients with this vaccine March 15th, as I said earlier. And then there's another one developed by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, and they began injecting their first volunteers on Monday. Neither company has ever had a vaccine like this approved before. So it's really promising, and it can move really fast, but it's as of yet still untested technology.MC: So even though things are moving quickly, as you say, we've heard time and again from our political leaders, from the reporting that you and your colleagues have been doing, and from the scientific community that a vaccine is going to take somewhere around a year to 18 months to be produced and be sent out to the general population. So how do these tests that you're talking about that are happening right now fit into that timeline?MM: There's three phases typically of these human trials. The ones that have just started are what we call safety trials, they're phase one. All they're designed to do is just figure out if when you inject this into a person, does nothing bad happen? Subsequent phases are going to involve more people, and those will give scientists more statistical power to build a measure if the vaccine is actually working to prevent future infections. But then once you've done that ... So, that can take six months apiece, they're usually done one after the other, but then you've actually got to make the vaccine, distribute it, and that can take a lot of time to ramp up production. You have to build out these manufacturing facilities. Typically, the FDA also has to review all of the data that you've generated in these clinical trials.That review process can sometimes take a year, but like we said, these are really atypical times. So, the FDA has been committed to speeding up that review process to move things along sooner. Just this week, Bill Gates announced that he's committing billions of dollars to building out manufacturing facilities for up to seven of the leading vaccine candidates. And what's important to remember is that it's likely they're not all going to work. The way these things work is that often you have to try a bunch of different things to find one that works, but what that means is that any of the ones that do actually seem to show good efficacy can then be cranked out right away and distributed. So those are the kinds of levers that can be pulled right now to try to speed this up.LG: Megan, talk about this movement that has gotten a little bit of attention, there's certainly been some reporting on it, to have young people just be volunteers as part of this process. What are the ethics behind that? Are young people really showing to be any more protected than older people? Talk about that a little bit.MM: This notion that you've brought up of doing these challenge trials, that's where you round up healthy young adults who are willing to volunteer to get the vaccine and then to be exposed to the virus in a controlled setting. It raises some ethical concerns specifically with this virus, because it's so new that there's a lot that we still don't understand about what puts some people at higher risk than others. There's a wide range of symptoms that people experience with this disease that range from mild to deadly. And we know that older age and underlying health conditions can make people's outcomes more grim or more deadly. But in the US, at least 750 people younger than 50 have already died from Covid-19, so there's a lot that we still don't really know. And so, asking people who might seem young and healthy now to volunteer for that, making sure that they're properly informed of the true risks, brings up some questions about whether we can really ask them to do that. Especially when you consider that they may see themselves as holding the weight of the world on their shoulders, almost literally.MM: They may feel like this is something they have to do, and that may make it more difficult to weigh the risks in a responsible way. But there's a particular need to do trials that either go on long enough that people get exposed to the virus in the wild or that they get exposed in the lab. And that's because this coronavirus in particular belongs to a family of viruses for which we have to be concerned about something called antibody-dependent enhancement. Sometimes also called vaccine-induced immune enhancement. It's basically a phenomenon where the vaccine could actually make immunized people more susceptible to severe forms of the disease. This actually happened with SARS vaccines back in the mid 2000s, where animals that the SARS vaccine was tested on experienced worst symptoms if they had had the vaccine than if they hadn't. And like SARS, the worst symptoms of Covid-19 are thought to be caused not by the virus itself, but by an exaggerated immune response. So, researchers like Peter Hotez at Baylor College of Medicine has said that any trials really need to follow patients long enough to observe what happens when they get exposed to the virus to make sure that none of these vaccines have those negative effects.LG: Do we have any sense right now if a vaccine is developed and proven to be effective, how long it will be effective for?MM: That's a really good question that we don't know the answer to, and the reason we don't is because we don't really understand how long immunity lasts for a natural exposure to this disease. Some of the best data that we have comes from researchers who studied how long antibodies to SARS stuck around, and at least the preliminary data on those studies suggests that it could be up to three years. But we do know that for other families of coronaviruses that are endemic in the human population, we don't carry a lifelong immunity to them. We're probably looking at something that's in the years range, but probably not forever. So, people who are thinking about making vaccines are definitely considering the possibility that people will have to get booster shots periodically going forward.MC: Let's talk about herd immunity, a term that many of us have heard, but maybe fewer of us actually understand. How does herd immunity come into play in the fight against this coronavirus?MM: Herd immunity is when enough people have immunity to the virus that they're able to form a protective wall around people who remain vulnerable. So there's two ways to do that, either with natural exposure out in the environment or a vaccination campaign. And what we're really looking to do to be able to restart society, if we don't have a widely available vaccine, it's going to start little by little with people who've been exposed naturally. Once we have a vaccine that works and we can roll it out on a larger scale, then we're looking at trying to reach something like 80 percent, 85 percent of the population either receiving a vaccine or being able to demonstrate that they have antibodies against the coronavirus. That will give us enough protection that if a new case is imported from somewhere else, from some other hot spot, that there will be enough who are not able to get infected, that the virus doesn't spread through the community at the exponential rate that we're seeing right now.LG: Megan, I think we're going to take a quick break shortly and then come back to you for the second half of the show. But I did want to ask you quickly about antibodies, because we're hearing a lot about this at the same time that we're hearing about vaccine development. And I imagine that there's some confusion for people who just are generally thinking about this as a cure for coronavirus. And of course, we know there is no cure currently, but what are the basics that people need to understand about the difference between blood plasma donations and how antibodies might help us counter the effects of coronavirus and what a vaccine would do?MM: Yeah, that's a really good question and an important distinction to make. So, the antibodies that people would be receiving through a plasma donation would be from someone who has already been exposed to the virus. Those antibodies can prime that person's immune system and help them fight off the virus. So we should be thinking about it as a treatment. Those antibodies aren't going to last forever, they're going to eventually get broken down by that person's body. In order to have longer-lasting immunity, that person needs to have what are called B cells or memory cells that are actually producing their own antibodies. And that's a different process. That would basically involve either having a vaccine or being exposed to the virus directly to jump-start that pathway. So when we're talking about antibodies received through a plasma donation, think of it like a treatment that's on the order of—I believe we're talking about days to weeksLG: Got it. Thank you for explaining that.MC: All right, let's take a quick break and then when we come back, we're going to talk about testing.[Break]MC: Welcome back. While developing a vaccine for the coronavirus may be a drawn out, complicated effort, developing a test for the virus is much easier—or at least it should be. But there's been a shortage of tests here in the United States and issues with the reliability of tests on top of that. Megan, can you tell us why are we having such a difficult time with testing?MM: Man, I wish I had an easy answer, but every week it's really something new. At first the bottleneck in testing was that the FDA had only approved a single testing protocol in the US, which was a test developed by the CDC in Atlanta. And what happened was, that test relies on a technology called RT-PCR, which has to happen in a lab. You have to have a PCR machine, you have to have people who know how to use it. And at first the CDC was the only lab that was doing that testing. After the FDA approved the CDC protocol under this emergency-use authorization, then the test from the CDC went out to all the public health labs in the US. Then there turned out to be a problem with those test kits; one of the reagents had an issue. It was not coming up with the right results, so that slowed things down a bit as well. Once the CDC issued new test kits, those went back out to the public health labs around the states, and they started trying to ramp up their production.But by then there was a growing need for more testing capacity and growing pressure on the FDA to loosen its regulations. So then what the FDA did was say basically, anyone who has a certified lab in the US, if you're running one of these protocols, you can go out and do that with the FDA's blessing. Just make sure to send them your validation data within 15 days. That allowed these big testing labs like Quest and LabCorp to get into the game, and it made people optimistic that we were going to be able to test a lot of people. But what happened somewhat predictably is that there was a huge crush of demand from all of the hospitals all over the US that were already starting to see a large number of cases. And so a huge backlog developed at these big corporate labs.The backlog we believe is because of reagent shortages, and there not being enough swabs. I think there weren't enough test tubes to hold the swabs. It's like every time you get one reagent, something else goes out. In the same way that we've seen states bidding against each other to get PPE, a lot of these labs are competing against each other on the market for all of the materials that you need to run these tests. A number of academic labs have also jumped into this testing race. We profiled a group at UC Berkeley a week or so ago that was ramping up to about 4,000 tests per day. They're being hampered by a completely other set of bureaucratic red tape, which is that the software that hospitals use to order tests and report back patient results aren't compatible with these academic centers, and it would take too long to get the right software vendor and basically make them interoperable. So now we have a number of academic centers that are able to contribute thousands of tests a day, and they're not being used because of that. So I think, all in all, people would say that a lot of these issues come down to a lack of coordination from the federal level to make all of these things run smoothly and be able to get tests out to people who need them.MC: So, what about at-home tests? There's been a lot of talk about this, and I've actually seen some video and some photos of the tests being done. It looks like it involves a very long needle swab that goes uncomfortably far up into your nasal cavity. Will people really be able to get good samples if that is the test you need to do? Because it looks pretty unpleasant.MM: There are definitely some concerns that these tests will not meet the kinds of standards that we need for getting samples that will be able to produce the right kinds of results. It's crucial not only to test people at the right time in the course of the infection, but also to get the sample from exactly the right place back in your nasal passages. That being said, at-home testing appears to be up in the air at this point. During the week of March 16th we heard from a number of companies that they were ready to distribute at-home tests. Those companies believed that they were operating under the FDA's emergency-use guidelines. But then a couple of days later, the FDA issued a warning letter against those companies, basically saying that those tests couldn't be authorized under that same guideline. And so now the FDA is working with those companies to develop a test that can be done at home. My understanding is that right now there are no home tests that are currently available by the FDA, and any that you might buy would be treated as fraudulent, since they are technically unauthorized under this emergency-use guideline.LG: Megan, the recurring theme I'm hearing here is that there is an incredible lack of coordination happening at the federal level, and so a lot of the coordination we're seeing around Covid-19 is happening at the state level or in the private sector or in this case in specific labs. And I'm wondering what this means ultimately for the data we may or may not get around how many people in our country have this novel coronavirus. If testing efforts are happening on a state-by-state level or even a county-by-county level, what idoess that knowledge or lack of knowledge mean for the future about how we can actually address this pandemic?MM: Yeah, I think it's a worthwhile question, and it's one that I posed to the head of the Association for Public Health Labs a few weeks ago, when a number of these tests were starting to come online from private labs and now these academic labs. About the ability to compare results across these different kinds of tests, and they all have different levels of specificity as well as sensitivity. So, how much virus they can pick up and how sure they are that what they're picking up is the right virus. At the time, what I was told was that it was more important to have tests out there, however they worked, than being worried about different levels of specificity or sensitivity from test to test. And I think we're still in that place where we're testing so few that we really don't understand where we are in the course of this epidemic specifically.In the US, you have to think about testing is like looking back in time. It takes time for symptoms to develop, it takes time for test results to come back. So, when we see these numbers of new cases coming in every day, you can think about it as the number of people who got sick a week or 10 days ago. But we still don't have a good picture of who's gotten sick in the meantime. And there are reports, especially in New York where we're seeing that there are not enough tests available to test people who've died in the hospitals or people who've died in their homes. And so, there's a lot of ways in which the tests are just missing people across the board. And I think that's a much bigger concern than whether we're seeing a higher number of false negatives in some tests than others.Obviously, that can be a problem if you have a false negative and then you go out and you infect a bunch of other people. But since most of us are in shelter at home situations right now, it's less of an issue. And I think the bigger issue is that the lack of testing overall, it certainly doesn't allow us to do contact tracing and it doesn't allow us to know how much of the population has really been exposed to this at this point. And that's the information we need to understand both to be able to allocate resources on this rolling basis as these outbreaks continue to develop new hotspots, and also to think about how we start to get people back to work.LG: Right, and quite obviously this also will feed misinformation narratives as well because over the past few days we've seen how some pundits have suggested that the number of deaths is being over reported and that everything is leveling off. And it's this example of how partisanship is actually colliding with real science. Because as you mentioned, without the tests, we don't know exactly how many people who are dying in their homes right now or who are even dying in hospitals that are completely overwhelmed, how many people are being killed by coronavirus. And in reality, the numbers may be under reported at this point, but we're not going to know that without tests.MM: Yeah, some epidemiologists I follow on Twitter talk about how as testing capacity in the US has ramped up more slowly relative to the number of cases that we're seeing, we're actually hitting or near to hitting a point where the number of cases are actually completely exceeding our ability to test. And so, when you see these leveling off, it may not truly represent that cases are actually falling off and that we're actually flattening the curve. But in some places at least, it may just represent that we have run out of the ability to test in that area and that there are actually many more cases that are not showing up in the data, right? So yeah, I think we're still in the moment of test, test, test, and I would say we'll still take whatever tests we can get.MC: Are there any tests that exist for determining whether you had Covid in the past?MM: Yeah, so these are what we call serological tests or antibody tests. And so, unlike the RTPCR tests, these tests don't measure active virus replication going on, but they measure the level of antibodies you have to the virus. These kinds of tests have just started to arrive, the FDA authorized its first one last week. My understanding is that the company that was authorized, Cellx, is in the process of getting 100,000 test kits shipped from China to New York City. There are at least 100 other companies that are asking the FDA to approve their antibody tests for emergency use. So, we may see more of those entering the market soon. I know that as of last week, 70 commercial labs had also notified the FDA that they have antibody tests available. As of yet, these tests are still tests that need to be ordered from your doctor.If you had something in February and now you want to get that test, it's unlikely that you'll be able to at least at present time until more of these tests start actually hitting the market. But there are researchers at a number of academic centers that have already started experimenting with the serological testing. So, Stanford for example is collaborating with the Santa Clara County Department of Health to administer these tests to healthcare workers, so people can know if they have been exposed and have antibodies and can go back to work. So, I think this is a real area that people are trying to push forward and companies are trying to push forward right now, but I would say it's not something that's going to be available to the average person probably on the order of weeks to months.MC: Well, Megan, thank you for joining the show this week and giving us all of this great information that people can hopefully use to help them navigate the medical frontier that they may be encountering soon. Although we hope that everybody is staying home and staying safe. We're going to take a quick break and then when we come back, we will do our recommendations and you're going to join us for that, right?MM: Yeah.MC: All right. We'll be right back.[Break]MC: All right, everybody, welcome back. Megan, guest gets to go first. Please tell us what is your recommendation for our listeners this week?MM: Yeah, my recommendation, probably like a lot of people I've been cooking more at home, so I've been crushing Bon Appétit's YouTube channel. Specifically their series "Test Kitchen Talks." That's all your Bon Appétit folks making one thing. My favorite episode is when they all make their favorite egg preparations. There's this restaurant I love in Minneapolis called Grand Cafe, where they make this silky French omelet that literally brings me to tears and I'm so sad that I have not been able to eat it. And so, I've been trying to make it at home and it has been just a miserable failure after miserable failure. But I finally watched the episode where Sohla makes it and I think things clicked. I think I'm ready to try again. And the cocktail episode is pretty banging too, so I would highly recommend that for all your quarantine cooking.MC: Nice. I like the solid shout out for our homeys over at Bon Appétit, the fellow Condé Nast brand.LG: Yeah. Also, quarantine staples, right? Eggs and cocktails. What else do you really need?MM: Literally nothing. Toilet paper.LG: And toilet paper, yes. Maybe yeast.MC: Lauren, what is your recommendation?LG: My recommendation is our colleague, Medea Giordano, wrote a round up of all the nonprofits and companies that are helping people, either healthcare workers in the frontline or senior citizens who can't necessarily go out and do grocery shopping themselves. And it's a really comprehensive list, she includes of course mentions of organizations that we're all familiar with like Oxfam and the World Health Organization and The Red Cross, but also the World Central Kitchen, specific disaster relief funds. She goes through all of the grocery stores like Trader Joe's, Stop and Shop, Costco that have specific senior hours, so that people can go shop early and when things are less crowded. She also covers a bunch of different companies in the private sector that are pivoting, if you will, to helping make masks or are donating masks.She wrote this ... Let's see, now it's been a week, feels like eight years of course, every week now feels so long. So, some of this has changed or evolved already, but it's just a really good comprehensive list if you were looking to help out people in some way or if you just need a break perhaps from some of the more dire news and just want to see how people are trying to do some good in the world right now. So, I recommend checking that out. The article is called "The Nonprofits and Companies Helping to Fight the Pandemic" by Medea Giordano and we'll include this in the show notes as well. Mike, what's yours?MC: I am going to recommend a podcast episode of the show Under the Scales. It's on the Osiris network, which is a jammy music network of podcasts and Under the Scales is co-hosted by the lyricist for the band Phish. His name is Tom Marshall, so a content warning, I will be talking about the band Phish for the next 30 seconds. He has a show where he interviews prominent people in that scene and last week's episode featured Jesse Jarnow the writer, you may know him from WIRED, you may know him if you're in the Phish world or if you're just in the music world. Jesse talks a lot about his experience as a music writer, as a journalist, how he got into writing about music, why he writes about music, specifically why he writes about the topics that he writes about, which is Yola Tango, The Grateful Dead, Phish, the whole underground scene that revolves around that world. Jesse is a sweetheart. I'm his editor at WIRED, so I'm a little bit biased, but he's an excellent writer and it's just really refreshing to hear somebody talk about their profession passionately. So, I recommend that. Under the Scales, the episode that interviews Jesse Jarnow. Whether or not you like jam band music, it's still a good interview, I promise.LG: Mike, that is both very on-brand and also, you're breaking away from the trend because Megan and I both recommended Condé Nast content, but that's okay. We forgive.MC: Well, it's kind of Condé Nast because Jesse writes for WIRED quite often.LG: That's true. He's a great writer.MC: All right. That is our show for this week and I want to note that this is a milestone episode. It's number 450 which is just bananas if you think about it. Thank you Megan for joining us for this very big number.MM: Thanks Mike and Lauren for having me.MC: Of course, and we hope to have you back soon under better circumstances. Thank you all for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of this on Twitter. Just check the show notes. This show was produced by Boone Ashworth and our executive producer is Alex Kapelman. Thank you and we'll be back next week.[End theme music]More From WIRED on Covid-19Why are some people getting so sick? Ask their DNANew Yorkers, once again at ground zero, in their own wordsUn-miracle drugs could help tame the pandemicWIRED Q&A: We are in the midst of the outbreak. Now what?What to do if you (or a loved one) might have Covid-19Read all of our coronavirus coverage here | 1 |
There is a growing bipartisan feeling that something has gone wrong in America. We may have been heading toward it for a long time before the 2016 race and paid no attention. But now America is in crisis. It can be seen in the headlines of opinion writers this week in The Washington Post. From the right, Robert Kagan says, "There is something very wrong with Donald TrumpDonald TrumpHillicon Valley — Cyberattack hits Ukrainian defense On The Money — GOP senators block Biden's Fed picks Florida county clerk's typo directed ticketed drivers to site selling Trump merchandise MORE." On the left, Eugene Robinson asks, "Is Donald Trump just plain crazy?"That GOP nominee Donald Trump can be president of the U.S. this time next year is a very real possibility and it is the cause for this concern. A Trump presidency would not only change America forever, but would shake the world. Already Britain and the European Union are feeling the effects. But it may not be too late. The moving testimony of Ghazala Khan, whose son was killed in combat in Iraq, has turned the heart of every mother in America, especially those who have lost a son or daughter in combat. Fathers, too, and everyone. Trump could spiral out of control starting today as America responds to Ghazala Khan's moving testimony.It may have opened a window by bringing home to us the tragic realities of warfare, and it might have presented an opportunity to change course. It is not too late. But it is almost too late. Only a radical shift in procedures can change the fate that now looms over America.Things could change of their own accord if the Clinton couple is determined to have traded influence for cash when Democratic nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonRight wing criticizes media for lack of coverage on Durham probe Liberal activists need to level with their base Document dump turns toxic for Trump MORE was secretary of State. If she was forced then to step away, the Democrats would bring forth their second, Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenUS could spend M monthly on testing unvaccinated federal workers: official GOP senator opposes Biden court pick, likely blocking nominee Overnight Energy & Environment — Biden says Russia attack could spike oil prices MORE, a more appropriate "closer" for the successful Obama administration.Khan's testimony could open the compassionate heart of America and send Trump back to the shadows in disgrace. But it would still be hard to get him off the ticket, even if he plummeted in the polling.But in the circumstances of a suddenly vulnerable Trump, there is the possibility that Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in 2012, might work out something with the Libertarians, running with his old pal William Weld — like Romney, also a former Republican governor of Massachusetts — who is the Libertarian choice for vice president.Together, Romney and Weld could advance a version of Libertarianism to fit a wider audience. They could make the case that, unlike ObamaCare, RomneyCare was a regional model more suited to the libertarian regionalist view, and only became a national model when it was hijacked by the Democrats. But for that to happen, Gary JohnsonGary Earl JohnsonBiden broadened Democratic base, cut into Trump coalition: study New Mexico lawmakers send recreational marijuana bills to governor Judge throws out murder convictions, releases men jailed for 24 years MORE, the current Libertarian nominee, would have to step aside and let Weld/Romney run the show. Libertarianism then in the hands of Weld/Romney would in effect then be a well-needed "reform" approach to the old Republican party. It has been suggested. But it is not likely to happen.There is another approach more appropriate to crisis and it has precedent in recent history. A gathering of the most highly respected elders on the Republican Party — those without interest in awards or elected office — might form a committee and stage an intervention.A similar "intervention" occurred in 2006, when the Iraq Study Group, chaired by former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and former Secretary of State James A. Baker, chaired a committee of 10, which included another former secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger; Vernon Jordan Jr., an adviser to President Bill ClintonWilliam (Bill) Jefferson ClintonAdvice to Supreme Court hopefuls waiting by the phone The allure of 'strong and wrong' Americans think Biden's presidency is a failure — Democrats can fix that MORE; former Attorney General Edwin Meese III; retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; Leon Panetta, former congressman and chief of staff of President Clinton who later became CIA director and secretary of Defense under President Obama; former Secretary of Defense William Perry; and former Sens. Charles Robb (D-Va.) and Alan Simpson (Wyo.), to change the course of the war in Iraq after it had spiraled out of control. The Iraq Study Group was facilitated by the United States Institute of Peace, which released the committee's final report on Dec. 6, 2006.The case might be made that the crisis we face today is even greater than that which we faced in 2006. Some might be called on again to form a similar ad hoc "council of elders" to change the pending fate that beckons here in 2016. Such an esteemed committee might bring together an ad hoc intramural party movement to operate within the existing Republican Party sphere — potentially to save the Republican Party from oblivion in the hands of a renegade — much as one changed the course of history in the Iraq Study Group.The committee might propose its own "alternative" candidates to face off against Trump on a one-time basis, stating clearly its governing principles. My choice for such independent "alt" candidates — although the Trump party is really the "alternative" party now — for president and vice president would be Romney and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, for Romney has the best chance of winning and has spoken clearly about Trump, and Sandoval represents the best of America in a younger generation as the center of political gravity in America heads West.Going alone as an independent, Romney or another candidate would probably have little chance. But if he had the backing of a group of highly respected elders brought together specific to challenge a Republican party suddenly turned renegade, he might find success just as the Iraq Study Group did in 2006.Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill. | 1 |
Media caption, What we learned from Donald Trump's Davos speechPresident Donald Trump has told global finance leaders he will always put the US first when it comes to trade, but "that does not mean America alone"."The US is open for business," he said in his inaugural address to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Friday. But he continued to attack "predatory" trade practices, warning partners that the US would not tolerate unfair trade.Mr Trump's election campaign centred on America First, aiming to protect local manufacturers from foreign competition.This policy appeared to contradict the Davos conference's goal of promoting globalisation and co-operation.Mr Trump lauded the economic achievements of his first year in office, including cutting corporation tax and lowering the unemployment rate, and said the US was more attractive than ever to foreign investment."I'm here to deliver a simple message - there has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States. America is open for business and we are competitive once again," he said.Taking credit for the strong economy in the US, he urged foreign investors to "bring your money, your jobs, your businesses to America".A more nuanced approachBy Kamal Ahmed, BBC economics editor"America First, not America alone." It was the key line of the speech, and a message echoed by other leading members of the White House power pack here.This is all about trade and the US approach.The fear was that America under Mr Trump would throw up a series of trade barriers, increasing protectionism at a time when most government leaders at Davos - Narendra Modi of India, Justin Trudeau of Canada and Emmanuel Macron of France - were preaching the gospel of globalisation.But today we heard a more nuanced manifesto. America, Mr Trump said, did not want a trade war, it wanted fair trade.Which may come as a surprise to countries like South Korea, smarting this week following the imposition of tariffs on US imports of solar panels and washing machines.The US president demanded a reformed international trade system that was "fair and reciprocal" and accused unidentified countries of unfair practices, including "massive intellectual property theft" and providing state aid to industry.Mr Trump also said he preferred bilateral fair trade agreements with other countries, including those signed up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from which he has withdrawn. He said he would consider negotiating with TPP states collectively, if it was in America's interest.He later tweeted that his speech had been well received. Heading back from a very exciting two days in Davos, Switzerland. Speech on America’s economic revival was well received. Many of the people I met will be investing in the U.S.A.! #MAGA— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2018
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterBut some attendees booed when he attacked the media and repeated accusations of them reporting "fake news" in a question and answer session after his address."As a businessman I was always treated really well by the press… and it wasn't until I became a politician that I realised how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be," he said.The BBC's Katie Hope, who attended the speech, says anticipation was high but the audience's response was rather muted with some expecting a more conciliatory tone.Image source, EPAImage caption, Donald Trump's speech was eagerly anticipatedDespite this, Mr Trump has had an overwhelmingly positive reception, with cheers on his arrival on Thursday in the main Congress Centre. In a meeting with UK Prime Minister Theresa May the same day, he said he expected "a tremendous increase" in trade between the US and Britain in the coming years.In an interview Mr Trump told ITV's Piers Morgan: "If you are telling me they're horrible people, horrible, racist people, I would certainly apologise if you'd like me to do that."President Trump's speech comes days after the US announced new tariffs of up to 50% on imported washing machines and solar panels, prompting an outcry from China and South Korea - the primary targets of the measure.Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, also in Davos, has warned of "more to come" on trade tariffs. More on this story | 1 |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin (Bibi) NetanyahuMORE has been indicted in three corruption cases, marking the first time a sitting head of state in Israel will face criminal charges.Netanyahu was charged Thursday with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The indictment follows a four-day hearing last month with the prime minister’s defense team.The first case, which is considered to be the most serious, accuses Netanyahu of bribery for allegedly engaging in a quid pro quo deal with businessman and media mogul Shaul Elovich in which Netnayahu, during his tenure as communication minister, spearheaded regulations that helped Elovich gain roughly $500 million, Haaretz reported. In return, Netanyahu and his wife allegedly repeatedly requested alterations to Walla News, which Elovich ran, to serve their political interests and undercut their opponents.The Netanyahus have argued the deal does not constitute a bribe and that they only sought balanced coverage.The second case accuses Netanyahu and Arnon Mozes, the publisher of the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, of trying to limit the circulation of a rival paper in return for favorable media coverage. The case, known as Case 2000, accuses Netanyahu of fraud and breach of trust.The final case accuses Netanyahu of fraud and breach of trust for allegedly using his public role to receive gifts from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and billionaire James Packer.Netanyahu could face up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted of bribery and a maximum of three years for fraud and breach of trust.Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, is not required to step down as a result of the charges. He can ask the parliament for immunity, though that request would have to be considered by a special committee that has not been established due to ongoing gridlock.The indictment casts further uncertainty over Netanyahu’s political future. Israel appears to be headed toward an unprecedented third election in less than a year after Netanyahu’s chief rival announced Wednesday he would miss a deadline to form a ruling coalition.The parliament now starts a 21-day period in which it can try to nominate any one of its 120 lawmakers to try and establish a coalition. Should that effort fail, an election would be triggered within 90 days.If Netanyahu were to win a new election, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin would be forced to decide if he can give Netanyahu the mandate to form the next government given the criminal charges against him. | 1 |
A poll worker helps K. Maki (left) fill out a provisional ballot at Park Tavern polling station on Tuesday in Atlanta, Ga. After a record-breaking early voting turnout, Americans head to the polls on the last day to cast their vote. Jessica McGowan/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jessica McGowan/Getty Images Updated at 12:40 p.m. ET You're probably anxious about the results, but patience may truly be a virtue on election night. Followers of NPR's elections coverage should have read or heard this at least a few times by now: We may not know who wins the presidential election (or any number of other down-ballot races) on Tuesday night or early Wednesday, and that's OK. State results are not final on election night; instead, organizations like The Associated Press — which NPR relies on for race calls — determine most winners well before local officials tabulate all votes. But this year we're expecting slower counts, and the reason is straightforward: In response to the coronavirus pandemic, many states modified their voting rules, broadening access to mail-in voting and accelerating what had already been a rising mail-in voting trend. And mailed-in ballots — with envelopes to open and signatures to check — simply take longer to tabulate than in-person votes. A Maricopa County Elections Department staff member counts ballots Saturday in Phoenix in the key swing state of Arizona. Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images A Maricopa County Elections Department staff member counts ballots Saturday in Phoenix in the key swing state of Arizona. Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images Some individual state rules play key roles too. Take two swing-state examples: Florida allows counties to process ballots well ahead of Election Day, while officials in Pennsylvania have to wait until the morning of Election Day to begin that work. And with far more voters opting for mail-in or drop-off ballots this year, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has conceded: "We probably won't know results on election night." Similar restrictive rules on ballot processing are in place in Wisconsin and Michigan as well. And, of course, these states may play a crucial role in deciding who wins the presidency. In fact, likely slow-counting Pennsylvania is considered by forecasters the most likely state to put Democratic nominee Joe Biden or President Trump over the election-capturing 270-electoral-vote threshold. Now add in another element: Poll after poll has shown that Democratic voters said they were far more likely than Republicans this election to use mail-in ballots. GOP voters' preference for in-person voting is likely due at least in part to Trump's unfounded claims of widespread fraud associated with mail-in ballots. And remember those different state rules about counting mail ballots. A clear partisan divide over voting method means that states that release their mail-in votes first will likely appear favorable — at least initially — for the Democrat Biden, and states that count in-person ballots first will likely appear better for Trump. This may not be a small shift, either. An analysis by FiveThirtyEight estimates that Pennsylvania could see a 21-point shift in the overall margin, from 3 a.m. ET Wednesday to the final result. Understanding these potentially misleading shifts may give you a better grasp on election night, as it unfolds. With that out of the way, let's look hour by hour: Final Polls That Close At 7 p.m. ET Georgia (16 electoral votes) Indiana (11) Kentucky (8) South Carolina (9) Vermont (3) Virginia (13) Top states/races to watch: Georgia highlights the first batch of states. It's a presidential toss-up, and it has not one but two contested U.S. Senate races. Georgia has already begun processing its mail-in ballots, which should expedite results and give us an early glimpse about the course of the evening. But — now talk about patience — both Senate contests could go to January runoffs if no candidate gets a majority of a race's vote. The Senate balance of power could indeed be decided in 2021. Also keep an eye on South Carolina, where Republican incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham is in a tight contest with Democrat and record-fundraiser Jaime Harrison. Toss-up House seats: Open Indiana 5th District Open Virginia 5th District Final Polls That Close At 7:30 p.m. ET North Carolina (15) Ohio (18) West Virginia (5) Top states/races to watch: Hello, North Carolina. The state will likely have tight races for president, U.S. Senate and governor. Democrats hold narrow leads in the polling averages for all three contests, giving the party one of its prime opportunities to flip a Senate seat — in addition to potentially giving Biden a big boost. The state is also likely to count relatively quickly with most results — advance votes — expected shortly after polls close on election night. Ohio is a presidential toss-up state as well, but it's thought to be a safer bet than some others to stay in Trump's column. Toss-up House seat: Ohio 1st District, with Republican incumbent Steve Chabot Final Polls That Close At 8 p.m. ET Alabama (9) Connecticut (7) District of Columbia (3) Delaware (3) Florida (29) Illinois (20) Massachusetts (11) Maryland (10) Maine (4) Missouri (10) Mississippi (6) New Hampshire (4) New Jersey (14) Oklahoma (7) Pennsylvania (20) Rhode Island (4) Tennessee (11) Top states/races to watch: Now we're really into the heart of the night. Pennsylvania, as we detailed above, is key for the presidential race but likely slow to count. So Florida will be the most important state here. Most of the state's polls actually close at 7 p.m. ET, and all early votes and mail ballots tabulated in advance are supposed to be released starting around 7:30 p.m. But remember, those advance votes might not be where the race ultimately ends up. Maine is also notable for two reasons. One, it doles out two of its four electoral votes by congressional district, and the northern 2nd district is competitive. And two, the state has a toss-up Senate race, as Republican Sen. Susan Collins faces a tough reelection challenge. Ranked-choice voting could determine the winner. Alabama's Senate seat is also one to watch, as Republicans are expected to oust Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in the conservative state. Toss-up House seats: Illinois 13th District, with Republican incumbent Rodney Davis Missouri 2nd District, with Republican incumbent Ann Wagner New Jersey 2nd District, with Republican incumbent Jeff Van Drew Oklahoma 5th District, with Democratic incumbent Kendra Horn Pennsylvania 10th District, with Republican incumbent Scott Perry Final Polls That Close At 8:30 p.m. ET Arkansas (6) Toss-up House seat: 2nd District, with Republican incumbent French Hill Final Polls That Close At 9 p.m. ET Arizona (11) Colorado (9) Kansas (6) Louisiana (8) Michigan (16) Minnesota (10) North Dakota (3) Nebraska (5) New Mexico (5) New York (29) South Dakota (3) Texas (38) Wisconsin (10) Wyoming (3) Top states/races to watch: Fourteen states — accounting for the majority of electoral votes — have final polls that close at 9 p.m. ET. Five of those states are considered competitive in the presidential race, along with Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Texas, which saw record early voting, is the big presidential prize. The longtime Republican stronghold has been trending more purple, but a Biden win there would be a massive development. The state is expected to count relatively quickly too. Other presidential states to watch are Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Of note: In Arizona, mail votes can be processed and counted well ahead of time, so that should expedite many results; but in Michigan, lots of places could only begin processing absentee ballots the day before Election Day, while Wisconsin can't begin its processing work until Election Day itself. Another note on key Texas and Michigan: They're two of the states that stretch across two time zones, so while final polls close at 9 p.m. ET, most close at 8 p.m. ET. These 9 p.m. states also include several key Senate races, including an open seat in Kansas and competitive races in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Texas. Arizona and Colorado are considered two of Democrats' best pickup opportunities. Toss-up House seats: Arizona 6th District, with Republican incumbent David Schweikert Open Michigan 3rd District Minnesota 1st District, with Republican incumbent Jim Hagedorn Minnesota 7th District, with Democratic incumbent Collin Peterson Nebraska 2nd District, with Republican incumbent Don Bacon New Mexico 2nd District, with Democratic incumbent Xochitl Torres Small Open New York 2nd District New York 11th, with Democratic incumbent Max Rose New York 22nd District, with Democratic incumbent Anthony Brindisi New York 24th District, with Republican incumbent John Katko Texas 10th District, with Republican incumbent Michael McCaul Texas 21st District; with Republican incumbent Chip Roy Open Texas 22nd District Final Polls That Close At 10 p.m. ET Iowa (6) Montana (3) Nevada (6) Utah (6) Top states/races to watch: Iowa is the main event here with toss-up races for president, U.S. Senate and two for the U.S. House. Trump won Iowa by nearly 10 percentage points in 2016, so a loss or even slim win there for him this year could portend a tough go across the northern swing states. Nevada is also a closely contested presidential state, while the marquee matchup in Montana is for U.S. Senate, as Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock tries to knock off GOP Sen. Steve Daines in the conservative state. The race to replace Bullock for governor is also considered a toss-up. Toss-up House seats: Iowa 1st District, with Democratic incumbent Abby Finkenauer Open Iowa 2nd District Utah 4th District, with Democratic incumbent Ben McAdams Final Polls That Close At 11 p.m. / 12 a.m. / 1 a.m. ET 11 p.m. ET California (55) Idaho (4) Oregon (7) Washington (12) 12 a.m. ET Wednesday Hawaii (4) 1 a.m. ET Alaska (3) Toss-up House seats: California 21st District, with Democratic incumbent T.J. Cox California 25th District, with Republican incumbent Mike Garcia All House ratings are from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. With research and reporting help by NPR's Arnie Seipel and Elena Moore. | 1 |
Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli on Monday defended a controversial Trump administration rule that would link an immigrant's ability to secure green cards to their use of certain public programs.Cuccinelli told reporters at the White House that the "public charge" change promotes “the ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility.”"We certainly expect people of any income to be able to stand on their own two feet. If people are not able to be self-sufficient, then this negative factor is going to bear very heavily against them in a decision about whether they’ll be able to become a legal permanent resident," he said.“A poor person can be prepared to be self-sufficient. Many have been through the history of this country. Let’s not look at that as the be all and end all, it’s not the deciding factor. Which is why we continue to use the totality of circumstances test.”Under the rule set to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, receiving benefits like food stamps, Medicaid or housing subsidies will count negatively against a noncitizen's chance of getting a green card or visa. The "public charge" designation previously only singled out noncitizens receiving cash subsidies. Immigration advocacy groups have expressed concerns that expanding the designation could discourage immigrants from seeking necessary assistance.Cuccinelli's mention of a "totality of circumstances test" refers to the holistic evaluation immigration officials will make over public charge designation, which also includes age and health.One reporter asked whether the rule change signals a shift from the promise on the Statue of Liberty to welcome "your tired, your poor.""I’m certainly not prepared to take anything down off the Statue of Liberty. We have a long history of being one of the most welcoming nations in the world on a lot of bases," Cuccinelli responded. "Whether you be an asylee, whether you be coming here to joining your family, or immigrating yourself."Cuccinelli was also pressed on criticism that the rule change targets Hispanic communities in particular."First of all, this is 140-year-old legal structure," he said. "We’re dealing with the most recent iteration of it, but this is not new. This was the same question might have been asked when my Italian immigrant ancestors were coming in, and all through that 140 years."When asked again about the majority of those likely to be affected being Hispanic, Cuccinelli said that "if we had been having this conversation 100 years ago it would’ve applied to more Italians.”Brett Samuels contributed to this report | 1 |
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden defended his decision to end America's war in Afghanistan in his debut address to the United Nations on Tuesday, saying the move will allow the U.S. to pivot to other global challenges such as the Covid pandemic, climate change and an ambitious China.Biden's address to the 193-member body, his first since he took office in January, comes as he strives to rebuild alliances that crumbled under the reign of his predecessor and reclaim a global leadership position. He addressed a gathering of the 76th United Nations General Assembly that was scaled down because of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the majority of leaders delivering prerecorded remarks."As the United States turns our focus to the priorities and the regions like the Indo-Pacific that are most consequential today and tomorrow we'll do so with our allies and partners through the cooperation of multilateral institutions like the United Nations to amplify our collective strength and speed," Biden said from the green speaker's rostrum.U.S. President Joe Biden in a virtual press conference with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (R) and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sep. 15, 2021. The three leaders announced a new security partnership to strengthen stability in Indo-Pacific.Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images"Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past, we are fixing our eyes and devoting our resources to challenges that hold the keys to our collective future," the president said.That collective future is strained by a continuing pandemic, uncertainties of climate change, as well as rising tensions not only with China, but within the NATO alliance itself. Last week's decision by the U.K. and the U.S. to strike a military deal with Australia left France on the sidelines, creating a diplomatic row.Still, Biden tried to strike a positive tone. "As we close this period of relentless war, we're opening a new era of relentless diplomacy," Biden said.Biden explained that U.S. military power "must be our tool of last resort, not our first. It should not be used as an answer to every problem we see around the world."Under Biden's eye, the withdrawal of approximately 3,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan at the end of the U.S.' longest war ended in disaster as the Taliban carried out a succession of shocking battlefield gains. Despite being vastly outnumbered by the Afghan military, which has long been assisted by U.S. and NATO coalition forces, the Taliban seized the presidential palace in Kabul on Aug. 15.Biden ordered the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops to Kabul to help evacuate U.S. Embassy staff and secure the perimeter of the airport. Meanwhile, thousands of Afghans swarmed the tarmac at the airport desperate to flee Taliban rule.U.S. Airmen and U.S. Marines guide qualified evacuees aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), Afghanistan, August 21, 2021.US Air Force | ReutersThe Biden administration has since placed blame for America's rushed exit from the country on the Trump administration and rapid collapse of the Afghan national government.Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers: "We inherited a deadline; we did not inherit a plan," referencing Trump's 2020 deal with the Taliban to leave the country. "There had not been a single interview in the Special Immigrant Visa program in Kabul for nine months, going back to March of 2020. The program was basically in a stall.""We made the right decision in ending America's longest war. We made the right decision in not sending a third generation of Americans to fight and die in Afghanistan," Blinken said.In another blunder, the Pentagon admitted last week that a U.S. drone strike in Kabul amid evacuation efforts killed as many as 10 civilians including up to seven children.The strike came on the heels of a suicide bomb attack by the terrorist group ISIS-K that resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghans near Hamid Karzai International Airport.The Pentagon originally said the strike, which was launched Aug. 29, killed two ISIS-K fighters believed to be involved in planning attacks against U.S. forces in Kabul. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, describing the civilian deaths as a "horrible mistake," ordered a review to determine whether "accountability measures" need to be taken and procedures changed.Biden tried to turn attention to security measures of the future as he addressed the assembly, stating that the U.S. would focus on defeating terror with strategic precision while avoiding major combat initiatives."I stand here today for the first time in 20 years that the United States is not at war. We've turned the page," Biden said."All the unmatched strength, energy, commitment, will and resources of our nation is now squarely focused on what's ahead of us. Not what was behind."'We stand, in my view, at an inflection point in history'Biden called on global leaders to address the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 4.5 million people."We've lost so much to this devastating pandemic," Biden said. "Our shared grief is a poignant reminder that our collective future will hinge on our ability to recognize our common humanity and to act together," he said, urging leaders to rally their citizens to get the coronavirus vaccine."Will we work together to save lives, defeat Covid-19 everywhere and take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic?" Biden asked. "Or will we fail to harness the tools at our disposal as the more virulent, dangerous variants take hold?""Bombs and bullets cannot defend against Covid-19 or its future variants. To fight this pandemic, we need a collective act of science and political will," Biden said. "We need to act now to get shots in arms as fast as possible and expand access to oxygen, tests and treatments to save lives around the world," he added.The president reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to ending the pandemic, saying his administration has invested more than $15 billion toward the global Covid-19 response."We've shipped more than 160 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to other countries. This includes 130 million doses from our own supply," he said.Reported U.S. deaths from the coronavirus crossed 675,000 on Monday, and are rising at an average of more than 1,900 fatalities per day, due in part, to the delta variant, according to Johns Hopkins University data show.The coronavirus pandemic has surpassed the 1918 influenza outbreak as the most deadly health crisis in recent American history.Allies are 'essential and central' to America's prosperityBiden has previously vowed to repair alliances through diplomacy and restore Washington's leadership position on the global stage following years of "America First" policies pursued by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump."Over the last eight months, I prioritized rebuilding our alliances, revitalizing our partnerships and recognizing they're essential and central to America's enduring security and prosperity," Biden told the gathering Tuesday."We will lead not just for the example of our power but, God willing, with the power of our example," he added.His remarks come less than a week after his administration infuriated France, America's oldest ally.Biden on Wednesday announced a new security partnership between the U.S., U.K. and Australia aimed at countering China's ambitious military buildup and Beijing's efforts to ignore the international rules and norms that govern trade, security, defense, labor and human rights.The AUKUS agreement ushered in a new arms pact that effectively scrapped one of the largest French military contracts.The move reopened old wounds between Washington and Paris and resulted in French President Emmanuel Macron recalling his ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia.French officials slammed Biden's decision, calling it a "betrayal" and a "stab in the back."French President Emmanuel Macron gestures during a meeting as part of the "Great National Debate" on March 7, 2019, in Greoux-les-Bains, southeastern France.Christophe Simon | AFP | Getty ImagesA White House official said Monday that Biden has asked to speak with Macron, but the French president has yet to agree to such a call."President Biden has asked to be able to speak with President Macron to talk about the way forward, to talk about his deep commitment to the U.S. alliance with France, an alliance that has fostered security, stability and prosperity around the world for decades," the official said."We understand the French position. We don't share their view in terms of how this all developed, but we understand their position. And we will continue to be engaged in the coming days on this," the official added."The president feels very good about the path forward and about how American foreign policy can play a vital role in rallying the world, and especially rallying like-minded democracies, to solve the great challenges of our time," the White House official added. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday blocked the release of a classified memo written by congressional Democrats to rebut a Republican document that he allowed to be made public last week that claimed FBI and Justice Department bias against him in the federal probe of Russia and the 2016 U.S. election.The Republican president’s decision -- the latest controversy relating to an investigation that has hung over his year in office -- infuriated Democrats. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said, “Millions of Americans are asking one simple question: what is he hiding?”White House Counsel Don McGahn said the Justice Department had identified portions of the 10-page memo written by Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee that “would create especially significant concerns for the national security and law enforcement interests” of the country.The White House also released a letter from the FBI director and the department’s No. 2 official voicing concern about its release in relation to protecting U.S. intelligence sources and methods.A week earlier, Trump had overruled similar objections from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department about releasing the memo written by the same committee’s Republican members that took aim at senior law enforcement officials.“The president’s double standard when it comes to transparency is appalling, Schumer said.Trump on Feb. 2 allowed the release of the memo written by the committee’s Republicans with no redactions. Democrats said the Republican memo mischaracterized highly sensitive classified information and was intended to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of potential collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.Mueller is also investigating whether Trump has committed obstruction of justice in trying to impede the Russia probe.McGahn said the president would be willing to reconsider the release of the memo if the committee decides to revise it “to mitigate the risks” identified by the Justice Department.U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstFBI SURVEILLANCEThe committee’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff, said the memo Trump blocked puts forth facts that the public needs to know, including that the FBI acted properly in seeking permission from a special court for surveillance of Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser with ties to Russia.Schiff said the committee’s Democrats “take seriously” the Justice Department and FBI concerns and will review their recommended redactions. He said he hopes the matter can be resolved quickly so the committee can return to the Russia investigation.The Intelligence Committee voted unanimously on Monday to release the document drafted by the panel’s Democrats, contingent on the Republican president agreeing to reclassify it.“Although the President is inclined to declassify the Feb. 5 Memorandum, because the memorandum contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time,” McGahn said in a letter to Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House panel.The White House also released a letter sent to McGahn by FBI Director Christopher Wray and to Rod Rosenstein, the No. 2 Justice Department official, expressing concerns about the memo’s release “in light of longstanding principles regarding the protection of intelligence sources and methods, ongoing investigations, and other similar sensitive information.”Democratic Representative Ted Lieu wrote on Twitter that Trump’s action was outrageous, adding that he read the memo and is convinced that Trump “is now intentionally hiding relevant information from the American people in order to mislead the public. An innocent person would not block the memo.”The Republican memo portrayed the Russia investigation as a product of political bias at the FBI and Justice Department against Trump. The president said the document “totally vindicates” him in the Russia investigation, a claim disputed by Democrats and some Republicans.Democrats last week warned Trump against using the Republican memo as a pretext to fire Rosenstein, who hired Mueller and oversees the investigation, or to remove Mueller himself. The Republican memo singled out Rosenstein and several other officials by name, including former FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired in May 2017, as the agency investigated the Russia matter.Mueller took over the investigation from the FBI.U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign using hacking and propaganda, an effort that eventually included attempting to tilt the race in Trump’s favor. Russia denies interfering in the election. Trump denies collusion with Moscow.The Republican document asserted that a dossier of alleged Trump-Russia contacts compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, and funded in part by U.S. Democrats, formed an “essential part” of requests to a special court to be allowed to conduct electronic surveillance on Page, an oil industry consultant with numerous contacts in Russia, that began in October 2016.Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Eric Walsh; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Paul Simao and Daniel Wallisfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a bid by Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to reinstate a congressional district map struck down by that state’s top court as unlawfully biased in favor of Republicans.A new state electoral map, devised by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after it invalidated the Republican-drawn districts in January, is seen as giving Democrats a better shot at gaining seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 congressional elections in which President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans are seeking to retain control of Congress.The case involves a practice called partisan gerrymandering in which electoral maps are drafted in a manner that helps one party tighten its grip on power by undermining the clout of voters that tend to favor the other party. The high court in June failed to determine whether partisan gerrymandering violates the U.S. Constitution after hearing high-profile cases from Wisconsin and Maryland.The justices, with no noted dissents, on Monday rejected the Republican appeal of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling throwing out the previous Republican-drawn map because it violated the state constitution’s requirement that elections be “free and equal” by marginalizing Democratic voters.The high court previously rejected two Republican requests to block the new district boundaries that the state high court issued to replace the old map, which had been in effect since 2011. Republicans have held 13 of the state’s 18 U.S. House seats since 2011 despite Pennsylvania being a closely divided bellwether state.Jason Torchinsky, a lawyer for the Republican legislators, expressed disappointment with the justices’ decision.“I remain confident that the court will have to address the scope of the role of the state courts in congressional redistricting sooner rather than later,” Torchinsky said.A group of 18 Democratic voters sued in Pennsylvania last year to challenge the Republican-drawn maps. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the 2011 map and later adopted the new map in time for use during the party nominating contests in May.The state’s Republican legislative leaders urged the justices to intervene and overturn the ruling by the state court, which they accused of usurping the legislature’s authority over redistricting.State and federal legislative district boundaries are reconfigured after the U.S. government conducts a census every decade. Partisan gerrymandering has been used for two centuries but has become more extreme with the use of computer programs to maximize its effects in a way that critics have said warps democracy.Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunhamfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
WASHINGTON—Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify Tuesday before the same Senate committee that heard from former FBI Director James Comey last week, keeping national attention on a Russia investigation that White House officials have been trying to push to the background. Mr. Sessions earlier this year was forced to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigation of Russian efforts to tilt the 2016 election after he belatedly disclosed two meetings with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Mr. Comey, during his testimony last week, raised the possibility of other concerns about Mr. Sessions’s dealings with Russia during the campaign, saying Federal Bureau of Investigation leadership before the recusal was “aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.” In a weekend letter, Mr. Sessions canceled previously planned public testimony before House and Senate appropriations panels. He said that the testimony by Mr. Comey, whom Mr. Trump fired in early May, made it “important that I have an opportunity to address these matters in the appropriate forum,” which he said was the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is unclear whether the intelligence committee hearing will be held in public. Newsletter Sign-up Capital Journal Scoops, analysis and insights driving Washington from the WSJ's D.C. bureau. The Comey appearance dominated a week in which the administration said it had hoped to highlight its stated goal to improve the nation’s infrastructure. This week, President Donald Trump will make expansion of apprenticeship programs the center of his labor policy, aimed at filling a record level of open jobs and drawing back Americans who have left the workforce. The president’s schedule includes a visit to Wisconsin on Tuesday, where he will stop by a technical college—the same day Mr. Sessions is on Capitol Hill. But Mr. Trump is helping to keep the Russia probe front and center. Last Friday, he blasted Mr. Comey in a joint news conference with the Romanian president. In a tweet Sunday morning, Mr. Trump called Mr. Comey “cowardly” for asking a friend to tell reporters about conversations he had with the president. During those conversations, Mr. Comey said Mr. Trump had talked about the investigation of former national security adviser Mike Flynn’s ties to Russia and had said, “I hope you can let this go.” The president denies having done that. “I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible,” Mr. Trump said Sunday morning. “Totally illegal? Very ‘cowardly!’ ” Many legal experts say there was nothing illegal about Mr. Comey’s actions, given that the material wasn’t classified and that he was no longer a government employee. Mr. Comey testified last week that he asked his friend to share the content of the conversations so it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel, which it did, when former FBI Director Robert Mueller was named to the post. Mr. Trump’s tweets are drawing rebukes even from people in his own party. “I think the worst problem this president has in this instance is the president himself,” former Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) said Sunday on CNN. “If he would stop talking about the small-ball individual tweets, attacking Director Comey personally, I think we could get beyond this.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), speaking on CBS, said Mr. Trump was obstructing his own agenda. Addressing Mr. Trump directly, Mr. Graham said: “You may be the first president in history to go down because you can’t stop inappropriately talking about an investigation that if you just were quiet, would clear you.” But part of the Trump legal strategy is to call into question Mr. Comey’s credibility. Jay Sekulow, a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team, pointed to statements regarding the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state. “James Comey’s credibility has been brought into question on multiple occasions during the Clinton investigation, and here ultimately the special counsel has to weigh that as he does his investigation,” Mr. Sekulow said Sunday on ABC. Mr. Comey has defended his handling of the Clinton email probe. Beyond his contacts with Russian officials, Mr. Sessions also may face questions about why he didn’t do more to shield Mr. Comey, who worked for him, from Mr. Trump’s private outreach. Mr. Comey told the Senate panel that the president had Mr. Sessions and others leave the room so he could talk to Mr. Comey alone, and that is when Mr. Trump allegedly pressured him on the Flynn investigation. Mr. Comey also said he later appealed to Mr. Sessions to ensure that he would not again be left alone with Mr. Trump, but that Mr. Sessions didn’t respond. A Justice Department spokesman rejected that characterization and said Mr. Sessions told Mr. Comey the agency needed to be careful about “following appropriate policies” regarding such contacts. Mr. Sessions was a vocal advocate for Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign, and his staffers and former aides have taken jobs in the White House and across the administration. Still, Mr. Trump was upset after Mr. Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe, one White House official said. The president, who has denied any involvement with Russia election hacking, viewed Mr. Sessions’s decision as a sign of weakness, the official said. Mr. Sessions is also expected to face Senate questioning about why he was involved in firing Mr. Comey given that he had recused himself from questions related to Russia. As FBI director, Mr. Comey was overseeing that investigation. In an interview with NBC News last month, Mr. Trump said he was thinking about “this Russia thing” when he decided to fire Mr. Comey, but the White House initially cited a recommendation for termination by Mr. Sessions and a deputy attorney general based on Mr. Comey’s broader job performance. Responding to questions at a news conference on Friday, President Trump said he’d be willing to testify under oath that he didn’t ask former FBI director James Comey to ease off the investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn. Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Sunday that this is one of several questions Mr. Sessions should be asked to answer and said it should be done in a public session. “The president said Comey was fired because of Russia. How does that fit in with his recusal? It doesn’t seem to stand up well to me,” Mr. Schumer said on CBS. The attorney general also drew some criticism from Democrats for the en masse firings of U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara in Manhattan, earlier this year. Mr. Bharara said Sunday on ABC that Mr. Trump called him three times following his election and fired him less than a day after he refused to return the third call from the newly elected president. “It appeared to be that he was trying to cultivate some kind of relationship,” Mr. Bharara said in the TV interview. The White House didn’t comment on Mr. Bharara’s account. —Michael C. Bender and Aruna Viswanatha contributed to this article. Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com and Jeffrey Sparshott at jeffrey.sparshott@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
A U.S. military helicopter is pictured flying above the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Sunday. The Taliban swept into Kabul, facing little resistance. Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images A U.S. military helicopter is pictured flying above the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Sunday. The Taliban swept into Kabul, facing little resistance. Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images Twenty years after being removed from power in a U.S.-led invasion, Taliban militiamen swept to into Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, on Sunday, facing little resistance from Afghan government forces. Within hours, Afghanistan's Washington-backed president had left the country and the flag at the U.S. Embassy had been lowered amid a hasty evacuation of diplomatic personnel. Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's president, said on Facebook that his was "a hard choice," but that he decided to leave to prevent bloodshed. He signed off his post with "Long Live Afghanistan." The Taliban released a statement saying they had entered the capital of 6 million people and were working to restore law and order. On Saturday, the militia's fighters took the last remaining government stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif, followed quickly on Sunday by the city of Jalalabad, which lies just east of Kabul on a major road artery. By Sunday, Kabul was a scene eerily reminiscent of the fall of Saigon in 1975 in the wake of the Vietnam War, as helicopters circled the U.S. embassy as its diplomatic personnel were under evacuation orders. The comparison to Vietnam was one that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was keen to dismiss: "This is not Saigon. We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission, and that mission was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11 and we succeeded in that mission," he told CNN's State of the Union. In an alert on Sunday, the U.S. embassy cautioned of reports that Kabul's airport was "taking fire" and that "we are instructing U.S. citizens to shelter in place." A U.S. military official told NPR the airport was closed to commercial aircraft as military evacuations continue. Earlier, the White House had ordered about 5,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan to provide security and assist in evacuations of U.S. personnel. The Pentagon confirmed on Sunday another 1,000 would head there as well. An ignoble end to America's longest war The day's events were a dramatic coda to America's longest war, prompted by the Taliban's refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Within weeks of the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., U.S.-led forces invaded the country, toppling the Taliban by year's end. But that involvement stretched from months into years. Since then, more than 2,400 U.S. service members, some 3,800 American contractors, more than 1,100 other allied service members, and an estimated 66,000 Afghan national military and police have lost their lives due to the conflict, along with more than 47,000 civilians, according to Brown University's Costs of War Project. Ultimately, the U.S. price tag for two decades in Afghanistan runs as high as $2.26 trillion, including the cost of rebuilding the Afghan government and training its military. Blinken on Sunday sounded a note of bitterness over the rapid collapse of the 300,000-strong U.S.-trained Afghan security forces, which "proved incapable of defending the country" — an eventuality that "did happen more rapidly than we anticipated," he acknowledged. That sentiment was echoed by the former NATO supreme allied commander, Ret. Adm. James Stavridis: "You can buy all the equipment in the world, but you can't purchase leadership or political will or in particular, battlefield will," Stavridis told NPR's Weekend Edition. "And therefore, we see this ghosting of the Afghan army. It's quite heartbreaking." Meanwhile, on the ground in Kabul, chaos and fear were the order of the day as the Taliban — with their well-deserved reputation for repression and brutality, particularly toward women and ethnic and religious minorities — began taking charge. People line up outside Azizi Bank to take out cash as the Taliban close in on the capital Kabul on Sunday. Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images People line up outside Azizi Bank to take out cash as the Taliban close in on the capital Kabul on Sunday. Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images "Thieves, robbers, all the looters are out" Many Afghans waited in long lines at banks to withdraw money, concerned about what might happen to their savings under a new regime. One resident, who NPR is not identifying to protect from possible reprisals, described chaos in the capital. "Right now, the thieves, robbers, all the looters are out and trying to loot cars — whichever are traveling right now," the woman said. "[There are] gunshots everywhere." She added: "In [our neighborhood] we have this guard with a gun and he also just shot at someone because people are trying to loot houses and whomever is passing by the road." Still others in the capital appeared to welcome their new rulers. Matthieu Aikins, a freelance journalist in Kabul, tweeted late Sunday that he'd just returned from the western part of the capital, "where this evening there were extraordinary scenes of Taliban fighters leaving the capital in captured Humvees and police trucks, brandishing M16s, cheered on by crowds of bystanders, chased by packs of children." In a series of tweets, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he, along with Abdullah Abdullah, who represented the Afghan government in earlier negotiations with the Taliban, and head of the Hezb-i-Islami party and former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, were forming a "coordinating council" to "prevent chaos and reduce the suffering of the people and to better manage the affairs related to peace." But with the Taliban holding virtually all the cards, it wasn't clear what, if anything, such a council or an interim government could do. The White House and a former Trump official point fingers As the final offensive against the capital seemed all but certain on Saturday, President Biden issued a statement that sought to distance his administration from the unfolding outcome, emphasizing that the peace agreement that promised the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan had been hammered out under former President Donald Trump. "I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor," Biden said. It left the Taliban "in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces." "Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500," Biden said. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was instrumental in negotiating the Trump administration's peace deal with the Taliban, blamed the Biden White House for the debacle. "It looks like the Biden administration has just failed in its execution of its own plan," Pompeo said. As recently as Friday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told NPR that the White House was still counting on Afghan security forces to stand up and fight against the Taliban. "What we know, what we're confident in is that the Afghan National Security Forces do have a sizeable force. What we need to see now is that put to use in an effective way," he said. The Taliban victory and the evacuation of the U.S. embassy cut short a special immigrant visa program for Afghan interpreters and others who had assisted the American effort in the country and might now face reprisals from the Taliban. Price said on Friday that the U.S. had been "dramatically scaling up that operation." "We have been able to bring to their new lives here in the United States 1,200 Afghans to date," he told NPR. Even so, he said: "We realize that is insufficient given the scale of the number of Afghans who have put themselves, potentially put their families, at risk to help us." | 1 |
Before the Kansas City Chiefs began their Super Bowl defense Thursday night against the Houston Texans in the first game of the 2020 NFL season, there was a question for both teams: How would they protest against racism in America?The answer was complicated. The Texans left the field entirely before both the national anthem and the playing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song sometimes referred to as the Black national anthem. Their demonstration echoed a tense weekend in 2017, when several teams stayed in the locker room after President Trump used a speech to criticize players who kneel during the anthem. The Chiefs stayed on the field, where one player took a knee and raised a fist during the anthem. When the Texans returned to the field, both teams lined up and linked arms before the coin toss. That demonstration kicked off a new era in the NFL, which is now embracing the right of player protest after a contentious period of years in which the league discouraged it, once tried to ban it and more broadly tried to root politics off the playing field. But there are already signs that the players are rejecting aspects of the league’s efforts, as demonstrated by the Texans’ departure during the playing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” And in a video released just before the season opener that called for “no more fluff and empty gestures,” Miami Dolphins players and coach Brian Flores said they would stay inside for both songs when they play Sunday. The actions kicked off an NFL season that again has the potential for political tumult. When sports returned during the pandemic, they were accompanied by strong public displays of support for the same cause that underpinned protests across the country throughout the spring and summer. After the killings of unarmed Black men and women such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, star athletes stepped up the pressure on their leagues to take action on issues such as police brutality, and used their platforms to bring heightened awareness. This issue has been an especially thorny one in recent years for the NFL, which has reckoned with the controversy stemming from player protests during the national anthem ever since Colin Kaepernick launched the movement in 2016. When Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, took a knee to protest police brutality and racial injustices, he kickstarted a yearslong maelstrom for the country’s most popular sport. The NFL became the center of a national political debate because of Kaepernick and the players who joined him. Some, including Mr. Trump, harshly criticized protesters who didn’t stand for the anthem. Others hailed the peaceful protest. During one weekend in 2017, with the controversy at a fever pitch, NFL players kneeled en masse in response to Trump’s rhetoric—with three teams opting not to take the field for the anthem. This year’s nationwide protests over the issue that Kaepernick and others championed have led athletes—and their respective leagues—to use their popularity even more vigorously. At the NBA’s bubble in Orlando, players kneeled during the anthem and played on a court emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter,” while their uniforms were embroidered with messages of change. Later, the NBA experienced an unprecedented playoff work stoppage after the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. Ahead of the season, the NFL shifted its messaging on these topics. Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league was wrong not to listen to its players earlier and came out in support of peaceful protest. “End Racism” and “It Takes All of Us” were painted into the end zones of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., for the opening game. Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., before the NFL season opener. Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images That just left the question of if and how the players would protest. Throughout the off-season, scores of players pledged to protest during the anthem. Coaches spoke about supporting their players no matter what they did. Owners who previously condemned the gesture have swung to now supporting kneeling. The game’s matchup was particularly interesting because it featured two of the game’s best young quarterbacks. Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and Houston’s Deshaun Watson are both Black and participated in a video over the summer that called out the league to admit it was wrong and more forcefully condemn racism. This game could be a preview of the entire opening weekend—and season—when continued player protests are anticipated. It will also likely lead to the type of political blowback the NFL has become familiar with over the past several years, with those pressures surfacing during the heart of a presidential election campaign. Throughout the summer, Trump has continued to assail the player protests during the anthem on the field of play. “Looking forward to live sports, but any time I witness a player kneeling during the National Anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our Country and our Flag, the game is over for me!” he tweeted July 21. Write to Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
By Brett Samuels - 10/21/18 08:16 AM EDT The Trump administration is weighing a change that would require individuals to identify as male or female based on their genitalia at birth, tightening gender definitions that had offered more leeway to transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, The New York Times reported Sunday.The Department of Health and Human Services proposed in a memo obtained by the news outlet that government agencies adopt a definition of gender that is determined "on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable."The change would would base sex on the genitals a person is born with. "The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence," the memo states, according to the Times.The change in policy would roll back protections for members of the trans community, affecting roughly 1.4 million Americans, the Times reported.LGBTQ advocacy groups are expected to oppose any formal proposal.The change in how the government defines gender marks the latest effort from the administration to undo Obama-era rules that granted more freedoms to people who are transgender.The administration announced a similar policy in May that required the Bureau of Prisons to use "biological sex" as the basis for assigning facilities and bathrooms.The White House and Department of Defense announced earlier this year that those individuals would no longer be allowed to serve in the military, a policy that was rejected by multiple judges. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 faxThe contents of this site are © 1998 - 2022 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. | 1 |
Two important battleground states certified election results Monday, with Wisconsin and Arizona handing narrow victories to President-elect Joe Biden and further cementing his win over President Trump. With Arizona and Wisconsin’s vote counts finalized, the six most hotly contested battleground states have all certified their results for Mr. Biden. The others are Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Mr. Trump hasn’t conceded the race and has contested the outcome in those states. In Arizona, Monday’s certified election results showed that Mr. Biden won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes with a popular-vote margin of just over 10,000. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, signed the official canvas documents alongside two Republican state officials, Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich, and the chief judge of Arizona’s Supreme Court, Robert Brutinel, a Republican appointee. Arizona voters last backed a Democrat for president in 1996. Wisconsin also certified election results Monday when the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission signed the latest vote tally after recounts in the state’s two most populous counties, Milwaukee and Dane, which includes Madison. The Trump campaign paid about $3 million for a recount in only two of the state’s 72 counties. In the end, Mr. Biden’s lead in the state ended up at around 20,000 votes after his lead grew by 84 votes. The Trump campaign and its supporters have said they are considering further legal action. Mr. Trump tweeted over the weekend that more challenges would be coming after Wisconsin’s recount. Judges have so far rejected their lawsuits.
More on the Transition Both Wisconsin and Arizona allow legal challenges post-certification. Senior Trump legal adviser Jenna Ellis criticized the Arizona certification Monday on Twitter, calling it misconduct that has disenfranchised the state’s voters. ”The legislature MUST ACT to stop this blatant corruption!” she said, calling on state lawmakers to appoint pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College, which meets on Dec. 14 to officially cast its votes. Also on Monday, President Trump’s lawyers asked Arizona’s Republican lawmakers to override the certification at an event they billed as an election-integrity hearing. At the hearing, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani spoke about voter fraud, voting irregularities and foreign-owned voting systems, airing similar conspiracy theories to those voiced by attorney Sidney Powell at a recent news conference with Trump advisers in Washington. The campaign later distanced itself from Ms. Powell, saying she wasn’t a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team. No evidence of widespread fraud has emerged. Federal officials have said the election was carried out freely and without interference or rigging. Ms. Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state, said voter turnout was nearly 80%, with 3.4 million ballots cast. “This election was conducted with transparency, accuracy and fairness, in accordance with Arizona’s laws and election procedures, despite numerous unfounded claims for the contrary,” Ms. Hobbs said Monday. Joe Biden, on his third run for the presidency, defeated President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reports. WSJ’s Jason Bellini reports on his path to victory. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images (Originally published Nov. 7, 2020) Corrections & Amplifications Mark Brnovich is the attorney general of Arizona. An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled his last name as Brnovitch. (Corrected on Nov. 30.) Write to Deanna Paul at deanna.paul@wsj.com and Ben Kesling at benjamin.kesling@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Appeared in the December 1, 2020, print edition as 'Battleground States Certify Biden Wins.' | 1 |
President Donald Trump called into “Fox & Friends” a day after the impeachment hearings ended and repeated false statements that have been debunked by fact-checkers and, in some cases, members of his own administration.
Trump repeated the baseless theory that the Democratic National Committee gave its computer server to a “Ukrainian company.” In fact, the DNC hired U.S.-based company CrowdStrike to investigate the cyberattack on its network during the 2016 elections, and CrowdStrike said it has “never taken physical possession of any DNC servers.”
Trump continued to push the false narrative that European countries aren’t sharing the financial burden in terms of aid to Ukraine, saying that’s the main reason he withheld U.S. security aid. In fact, according to several sources, the European Union’s aid to Ukraine far surpasses that from the United States.
The president falsely said that Rep. Adam Schiff waited three days after giving a dramatic rendition of Trump’s July 25 phone call to claim the rendition was in “parody” after Schiff “got caught.” Schiff said it was partly in parody about an hour after his embellished version, which was clearly perceived as dramatized by some at the time.
The White House-released memo on Trump’s July 25 phone call to Ukraine’s president corroborates the whistleblower’s main points about that call, despite Trump’s repeated false claim that the whistleblower complaint “bore no relationship to my call.”
Bogus CrowdStrike Claims
The day before Trump’s call to the cable morning show, Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council aide, testified at a public hearing and debunked the theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, conducted a campaign to interfere in the 2016 elections.
“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” she said in her opening statement.
That message also has been relayed recently to senators by U.S. intelligence officials, according to the New York Times. After Trump’s “Fox & Friends” interview, the Times reported: “American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election, according to three American officials.”
But Trump is still repeating the unsupported theory that Ukraine has a DNC server that was hacked during the 2016 election cycle.
“They gave the server to CrowdStrike,” Trump said in the Fox News interview, before falsely claiming that the company is “owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian.”
Trump, Nov. 22: A lot of it had to do they say with Ukraine. You know, it’s very interesting, it is very interesting. They have the server, right? From the DNC, Democratic National Committee.
Brian Kilmeade: Who has the server?
Trump: The FBI went in and they told them, “Get out of here. You’re not getting — we’re not giving it to you.” They gave the server to CrowdStrike or whatever it’s called, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian. And I still want to see that server. You know the FBI’s never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukranian company?
Steve Doocey: Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to the Ukraine?
Trump: Well, that is what the word is. And that’s what I asked, actually, in my phone call, if you know. I mean, I asked it very point-blank, because we’re looking for corruption.
We’ve written about these claims before, but we’ll go over them again.
CrowdStrike is a U.S. cybersecurity firm based in California. It is not owned by a Ukranian. The firm was founded in 2011 by George Kurtz and Dmitri Alperovitch, who are both Americans. Alperovitch, the firm’s chief technology officer, was born in Russia but came to the U.S. with his family in the 1990s.
In May 2016, the DNC hired CrowdStrike to investigate whether its computer networks had been hacked during that election cycle. The firm concluded that DNC servers were breached in 2015 and 2016 by two separate Russian espionage groups that stole DNC emails and other documents.
It’s true the FBI was not given access to any physical DNC servers or hardware when the agency later conducted its own investigation into the cyberattack. Instead, CrowdStrike made a copy of what was on the DNC’s computer systems and provided that information to the FBI to use during its investigation.
“We never got direct access to the machines themselves,” former FBI Director James Comey confirmed in congressional testimony in March 2017. “We got the forensics from the pros that they hired which — again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this, my folks tell me, was an appropriate substitute.”
But CrowdStrike said it wasn’t given the servers, either. “We have never taken physical possession of any DNC servers,” the firm stated on its website.
“When cyber investigators respond to an incident, they capture that evidence in a process called ‘imaging.’ It involves making an exact byte-for-byte copy of the hard drives. They do the same for the machine’s memory, capturing evidence that would otherwise be lost at the next reboot, and they monitor and store the traffic passing through the victim’s network. This has been standard procedure in incident response investigations for decades. The images, not the computer’s hardware, provide the evidence,” CrowdStrike explained.
There also wasn’t just one DNC server, as Trump’s claims suggest.
According to court documents filed in a DNC lawsuit against Russia and other parties, the DNC said that “in order to remove the unauthorized users from its network,” it had to “decommission more than 140 servers, remove and reinstall all software, including the operating systems, for more than 180 computers, and rebuild at least 11 servers.” And some of the servers the Russians accessed were “virtual servers,” not physical ones, another court filing said. Trump’s claims are based on conspiracy theories that assert it was Ukrainians who hacked the DNC and then framed it on the Russians, and that CrowdStrike or Ukraine may be hiding a DNC server containing thousands of deleted emails from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. Trump asked Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate CrowdStrike during their July 25 phone call that is at the center of the House impeachment inquiry into Trump.
“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it,” Trump said, according to a memo of the call released by the White House. The ellipses are in the memo.
To be clear, the DNC servers are not the same as the private email server Clinton used as secretary of state. Plus, CrowdStrike has denied ever working for Clinton or having access to her server or emails.
Furthermore, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in 2017 that Russia hacked the DNC, which was also covered in the 2019 report from Russia investigation special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. That investigation was the basis for the Department of Justice charging multiple Russian individuals and groups with “committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the United States political system.”
During the hearing, Hill, the former NSC aide, said that at least some of Trump’s senior advisers had informed the president that the conspiracy theory was false, apparently to no avail.
Former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, for one, said in an ABC News interview in September that he had explained to the president that these theories about Ukraine and the server had been “completely debunked.”
David Holmes, a political counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine who testified to the House intelligence committee alongside Hill on Nov. 21, was asked, “Why would it be to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s advantage to promote this theory of Ukraine interference?”
Holmes responded: “First of all, to deflect from the allegations of Russian interference. Second of all, to drive a wedge between the United States and Ukraine, which Russia wants to essentially get back into its sphere of influence. Thirdly, to besmirch Ukraine and its political leadership, to degrade and erode support for Ukraine from other key partners in Europe and elsewhere.”
Trump on European Union Aid to Ukraine
Trump continued to push the false narrative that European countries aren’t sharing the financial burden in terms of aid to Ukraine, saying that’s why he withheld aid from the U.S. In fact, according to several sources, the European Union’s aid to Ukraine far surpasses that from the United States.
In his “Fox & Friends” interview, Trump said that he held up the aid for “two reasons.” The first, he said, was concerns about corruption. “I want to make sure the money is going to be spent properly.” (That is despite the fact, as we have written, that the Department of Defense certified in May that Ukraine had made substantial progress in fighting corruption.)
“But there’s another reason that is maybe to me the most important,” Trump continued. “Why isn’t Germany, France, the European Union, why aren’t all those countries in Europe, why aren’t they paying? Why is it always the United States, the sucker? I got elected on that.”
Earlier in the interview, the president made the same argument, that he held up the aid due to concerns about corruption and because European countries weren’t contributing.
Trump, Nov. 22: Why isn’t Germany putting up money? Why isn’t France putting up money? Why isn’t all of the European nations, why aren’t they putting up? You have the European Union, and they’re benefitting a lot more by Ukraine than we are. … Why aren’t they putting up money? How come it’s always the United States that puts up money? The suckers. Why is it always the United States? These are the questions I asked. I continue to ask them.
But as we have written, the European Union and European financial institutions have contributed $16.4 billion in grants and loans to Ukraine since 2014, considerably more than the U.S.
European countries have contributed an estimated two-thirds of all of the aid to Ukraine since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched a conflict in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, according to Iain King, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That estimate doesn’t include funding from joint institutions for the EU and the U.S., such as NATO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, EU institutions top the OECD’s list of the top 10 donors of official development assistance to Ukraine, with $425.2 million contributed on average for 2016-2017. The U.S. was second with $204.4 million in assistance, closely followed by Germany, which contributed $189.8 million on its own, in addition to contributions it would have made through the European Union.
When Trump tweeted on Sept. 30 that he held up Ukraine aid because “I was looking for Corruption and also why Germany, France and others in the European Union don’t do more for Ukraine,” Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, responded via Twitter that Trump’s claim had “no relation to reality.” Since 2014, Bildt wrote, “the EU and the European Financial Institutions have mobilised more than €15 billion [or about $16.5 billion U.S. dollars] in grants and loans to support Ukraine. Add to that large amounts from member states. This is way more than the US!” During his impeachment hearing testimony this week, Holmes, the political counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, said the error of Trump’s assumption about lack of support from European countries was communicated to the White House in late August.
Holmes testified that after the hold was placed on the security assistance to Ukraine, people from the State Department involved with Ukraine diplomacy were “scrambling to try to understand why.” When Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, shared that Trump was concerned about burden-sharing with European countries, Holmes said he and others on the Ukraine team, in coordination with other U.S. missions in Europe and NATO, began “looking into the facts of what the Europeans have provided and what we have provided.” The results, he said, were “very illuminating.”
Holmes said they learned that the United States provided combined civilian and military assistance to Ukraine since 2014 of about $3 billion, plus $3 billion in loan guarantees that he said “get paid back largely.”
“The Europeans at the level of the European Union plus the member states combined since 2014, my understanding, have provided a combined $12 billion to Ukraine,” Holmes said.
In other words, he said, “If the concern was …. that others weren’t spending as much as we were to support Ukraine then that information showed a different story.” Holmes said he believed that information was communicated to the White House in late August.
Under questioning from the intelligence committee’s Republican counsel, Steve Castor, Holmes then confirmed that the pause in aid was lifted just a couple weeks later, in mid-September. But if the argument is that Trump released the aid after he learned that Europe was indeed paying more than its fair share, we should note that in his Fox News interview on Nov. 22, Trump continued to maintain that Europe is not.
Schiff’s ‘Parody,’ Again
The president added a twist to his well-worn talking point that Schiff, the House intelligence committee chair, “made up” a statement on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president. Trump said “after he got caught, three days later he started saying parody.” Schiff said it was a parody the same day he gave the embellished, dramatic rendition of the call.
Trump, Nov. 22: Adam Schiff gets up before Congress and he made up my statement. … He made it up. Then after he got caught, three days later he started saying parody. … I released the transcript of the call immediately. Had I not done that, I would have had a big problem. A big problem because they all lied about my call. My call was perfect. If you heard Adam Schiff’s made-up version of my call, I mean it was the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
As we’ve explained before, the White House released a memo on the July 25 phone call on Sept. 25 that represents the recollections of staff assigned to listen in on the call. The following morning, at the beginning of a Sept. 26 House intelligence committee hearing, Schiff gave a dramatic retelling of that White House memo. Schiff said he was recounting “the essence of what the president communicates” in his call with Ukrainian President Zelensky “in not so many words.”
We leave it for readers to judge whether or not it was immediately clear that Schiff wasn’t reading from the White House memo, but rather giving his own take on it. And as we’ve said before, some of Schiff’s version was similar to the memo and some wasn’t. He wrongly said the president told Zelensky: “And I’m going to say this only seven times so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand. Lots of it.”
The memo doesn’t show Trump saying anything about “seven times” or asking Zelensky to “make up dirt.”
But Trump is wrong to say that Schiff “got caught” and “three days later he started saying parody.” About an hour after Schiff’s remarks, during the committee hearing, Republican members called out Schiff for misrepresenting the phone call, and he responded by saying his comments were partly “in parody.”
“But luckily the American public are smart, and they have the transcript. They’ve read the conversation; they know when someone’s just making it up,” Republican Rep. Mike Turner said, indicating it was clear to him and others that Schiff was giving his own dramatic reading.
A few minutes later, Schiff responded: “My summary of the president’s call was meant to be at least part in parody. The fact that’s not clear is a separate problem in and of itself. Of course, the president never said if you don’t understand me, I’m going to say it seven more times. My point is that’s the message that the Ukraine president was receiving in not so many words.”
White House Memo Backed Up Whistleblower Complaint
Trump also repeated his false claim that the Aug. 12 whistleblower complaint “bore no relationship to my call,” meaning the July 25 phone call to Zelensky.
As we have written, more than once, the whistleblower’s account of that call largely reflects the White House-released memo about it.
The whistleblower made three main claims about the call that were corroborated by the memo: Trump asked Zelensky to “initiate or continue an investigation” into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden; assist the U.S. in investigating allegations that “Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine”; and “meet or speak” about these matters with Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Attorney General William Barr.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire also testified on Sept. 26, the day the intelligence committee publicly released the whistleblower complaint, that the complaint “is in alignment with” the White House memo of the call. | 1 |
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are criticizing the FBI over its handling of the tip line in its investigation of the sexual misconduct allegations of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett KavanaughBrett Michael KavanaughManchin would oppose second high court nominee right before 2024 election Advocates fear Supreme Court's Alabama moves could weaken minority protections in VRA Will Republicans apply the 'Barrett rule' to Biden's nominee? MORE. The Democrats, led by Sens. Sheldon WhitehouseSheldon WhitehouseDemocratic Senate debates merits of passion vs. pragmatism Senators introduce a resolution honoring Tom Brady's career Senate panel advances appeals court nominee despite objections from home state Republicans MORE (R.I.) and Chris CoonsChris Andrew CoonsBipartisan group of lawmakers introduce coastal resilience legislation Biden to meet with Senate Judiciary Democrats on Supreme Court vacancy Senate Democrats shift strategy after progressive agenda falters MORE (Del.), wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday seeking answers after the agency revealed it gathered more than 4,500 tips in relation to its investigation of the claims against Kavanaugh. The lawmakers wrote that revelation “confirms that the FBI’s tip line was a departure from past practice and that the FBI was politically constrained by the Trump White House.” “It also belies the former president’s insistence that his administration did not limit the Bureau’s investigation of Justice Kavanaugh, and his claim that he ‘want[ed] the FBI to interview whoever they [sic] deem appropriate, at their discretion’,” the lawmakers said. Assistant FBI Director Jill Tyson wrote to Whitehouse and Coons on June 30, revealing how many tips the agency received as part of the investigation. Tyson was responding to an August 2019 inquiry, in which Whitehouse and Coons raised concerns that the White House had set limits on the probe. Tyson said Kavanaugh’s nomination was the first the time the FBI had set up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate confirmation. She said all “relevant tips” were referred to the Office of the White House Counsel. It was unclear from Tyson’s letter if the FBI followed up on any of the tips. The lawmakers said Tuesday that the details “corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts” of people who said they contacted the FBI with information but were ignored.“If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all,” they wrote.Kavanaugh was confirmed in October 2018 despite multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him, which he has denied.Christine Blasey Ford gave sworn Senate testimony saying that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to remove her clothes when they were in high school. Other women later spoke out against him.Whitehouse and Coons were joined by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durban (D-Ill.), Patrick LeahyPatrick Joseph LeahyOn The Money — GOP senators block Biden's Fed picks Negotiators make progress in fiscal 2022 spending talks Senators introduce a resolution honoring Tom Brady's career MORE (D-Vt.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Mazie HironoMazie Keiko HironoBiden to meet with Senate Judiciary Democrats on Supreme Court vacancy Will Republicans apply the 'Barrett rule' to Biden's nominee? Confirmation bias: The fighting has already begun, and Biden hasn't even named a nominee MORE (D-Hawaii), and Cory BookerCory BookerCory Booker and Rosario Dawson have reportedly split Schumer asks for input as Democrats finalize cannabis bill Bass would move hundreds of LAPD officers from desk jobs into patrols if elected mayor MORE (D-N.J.) | 1 |
Oct. 12 marks the federal holiday of Columbus Day — or, if you live in jurisdictions like the District of Columbia, Indigenous Peoples Day. The debate over honoring Christopher Columbus as a consequential historical figure, vs. decrying Columbus as a driving force behind the genocide of Native Americans and transatlantic slavery, returned to Philadelphia this year. The city’s Art Commission voted in August to remove the Columbus statue from Marconi Plaza following protests and conflict at the site, including weapon-carrying vigilantes who claimed to be protecting the statue in June.While Columbus Day remains a holiday in Philly, the debate rages on. The Inquirer asked a founding board member of Indigenous Peoples’ Day Philly Inc. and a Philadelphian invested in the tradition: Is it time to drop Columbus Day?» READ MORE: Columbus Day is still an official city holiday in Philly. Here’s why.Yes: The ‘holiday’ celebrates genocide, colonialism, and fake news.By Trinity NorwoodColumbus Day idealizes a murderer who got lost during his expedition and minimizes the negative effects of colonialism on America’s Indigenous peoples. In the same way Germany does not have a national holiday or statues to memorialize Hitler because of his deplorable actions against humanity, Christopher Columbus should not be celebrated either.The actions of Columbus and the colonizers who followed him sparked the two greatest crimes in the history of the Americas: the transatlantic slave trade, and the genocide of Indigenous peoples.To list all the crimes Columbus was directly a part of, supported, or sparked would take much longer than an op-ed, but the evidence we have against this man and his views of Indigenous people should be damning enough for our society to have a sense of shame over that part of our history. Yet still, we have a national holiday dedicated to him.As a society, we recognize that slavery and genocide are terrible, yet we still celebrate the perpetrators of the events within our own history. If someone murdered, mutilated, and sold your loved ones into rape and slavery, how would you feel about the rest of your country celebrating one of their accidental accomplishments? (Because remember — reaching the Americas was never Columbus’ goal. He thought he was in Asia.)I don’t believe we should erase Columbus, but what should be taught is what actually happened on his journey. Columbus had a contract with the Spanish monarchy to pillage the Indies and keep a percentage for himself. When he landed in the Caribbean, not only did he have no idea where he was, the Indigenous people had to help him and his crew. Then after their acts of generosity and kindness, he systematically enslaved and murdered Native people.Moreover, it is widely believed that Columbus wasn’t even the first European to visit the Americas. That title belongs to the Viking explorer Leif Eriksson, who is thought to have landed almost five centuries before Columbus set sail. Besides, the notion that Europeans have any claim to “discovery” of this land is ridiculous, given that Indigenous civilizations already existed in the Americas. So, what exactly are we celebrating on Columbus Day?“The notion that Europeans have any claim to ‘discovery’ of this land is ridiculous.”To my Italian American friends who feel that removing Columbus Day ignores their history in this country, I leave you with this: Columbus never stepped foot in what is now the continental United States, so he is not part of any North American heritage. And most importantly, there are plenty of other Italian Americans to be proud of and celebrate, like Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, or the great humanitarian Mother Frances Cabrini. As a country, we should be celebrating that Columbus did not accomplish his main objective: eradicating the Indigenous peoples of this continent. Although he tried, Indigenous people not only survived but are powerful and vibrant. We should be celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day and the powerful notion that even through colonization, genocide, boarding schools, and biochemical warfare: We are still here.Let’s stop rewriting history to make ourselves feel good. It’s time to acknowledge the faults of those who came before us, seek reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and once true healing begins, the “good” feeling we can all share will be genuine — and you can still enjoy super sales in October, even if Columbus’ name isn’t attached to it.Trinity Norwood is the director of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation’s “Royalty Program” and founding board member of Indigenous Peoples’ Day Philly Inc.No: Columbus definitively changed history, and that’s worth recognizing.By Christopher TremoglieColumbus Day will be dramatically different in Philadelphia this year. The restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have canceled any large parades, and that means no Columbus Day Parade down Broad Street. Additionally, over the summer, there were attacks to discredit Columbus’ legacy in American history. This has left many to wonder: Should Philadelphia celebrate Columbus Day? The answer to that is a resounding yes.Why? Because Columbus changed the world forever. Columbus’ voyage to America “was the most significant thing to ever happen in our species,” astrophysicist and public commentator Neil deGrasse Tyson said. Such a feat is worthy of celebrating.Columbus’ accomplishments for human civilization are undeniable. He introduced the concept of reaching the east by going west. He made known to Europe the existence of the North and South American continents and laid the groundwork for future explorers. As such, this exploration “demonstrated the incompleteness” of the theories and geography of his contemporaries, as multiple scholars have noted, challenged the intellectual climate at the time, and helped pave the way for a heliocentric model of the universe. Columbus’ journey facilitated an immeasurable social, economic, and political change in the world.» READ MORE: As we await Columbus statue’s fate, Philly should plan to review all monuments | EditorialAdditionally, Columbus Day is of cultural significance to Italian Americans. After the largest mass lynching in U.S. history — of 11 Italian immigrants — occurred in 1891, President Benjamin Harrison announced Columbus would be celebrated the following year in 1892 to honor those murdered. The National Italian American Foundation has stated that Columbus Day provides a “sense of dignity and self-worth in light of the hostility and discrimination many Italian immigrants, Italians Americans, and Catholics (more broadly) faced.” The day has taken on symbolism that is bigger than Columbus himself.For the past few years, left-wing activists have been vandalizing Columbus statues, claiming the statues celebrate the genocide of Indigenous people. In June, protesters in Philadelphia marched against our city’s Columbus statue. Nationally, protest groups vandalized or toppled Columbus statues in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and Miami, among other cities, often with red paint and graffiti.“The history of humanity is one of conquest and a clash of civilizations.”But the history of humanity is one of conquest and a clash of civilizations. Columbus arrived in a New World already marked by violence. As he wrote in his journal upon arriving into the New World: “I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies … that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves.” Archaeological research indicates that some North American tribes had a culture of violence predicated on acquiring territory and “destroying enemy populations … accompanied by mutilation of the bodies of the vanquished” that existed for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. The scrutiny applied to violent behavior from Columbus and his crew should be applied to other inhabitants of the Americas, with the recognition that history — and its most impactful figures — is widely complicated.Judging Columbus through the supercilious goggles of social justice advocates in the 21st century is an unfair practice. Judging Columbus’ actions through civilization in the 15th century, however, is a more truthful and pedagogical pursuit. The spirit of exploration he has come to stand for warrants celebration. His legacy — positive and negative — warrants recognition.Christopher Tremoglie attends the University of Pennsylvania, double majoring in political science and Russian and East European studies, and is an intern with the National Columbus Education Foundation. christopher.tremoglie@gmail.com @cwtremoRead more Inquirer Pro/Cons: | 1 |
Vice President Kamala Harris said Sunday she will increasingly be calling on United Nations allies to help with the immigration crisis at the U.S. southern border, blaming part of today's issues on a lack of continuity caused by former President Donald Trump.Harris reiterated during a Sunday morning CNN interview that the immigration crisis flowing out of the Northern Triangle countries of Central America won't "be solved overnight." She noted that if such a complex issue were easy, "it would have been handled years ago."The vice president blasted the Trump administration for bringing all efforts to solve the "root problems" of the border crisis to a "standstill." She said next month's meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is part of a post-Trump collaboration to "rebuild."
Harris has criticized Trump's border wall efforts as a simple stopgap that doesn't solve the "extreme hunger and economic devastation" that is bringing Central American migrants to the border in the first place."We're going to be increasing the requests that we're making of our allies in the United Nations," Harris told CNN's Dana Bash. "This is about the Western Hemisphere, we are a neighbor in the Western Hemisphere. We have the capacity to actually get in there if we are consistent. Part of the problem is that under the previous administration, they pulled out, essentially, a lot of what had been the continuum of work, and it essentially, came to a standstill.""We have to rebuild it," Harris said, stressing that the border crisis needs continuity even amid wide U.S. partisan divides. "This has to be a function of an American priority, not just a function of whoever happens to be sitting in this chair."
The U.S. must "institutionalize and internationalize" the humanitarian and migration issues to America's allies, she said. "This has to be a function of an American priority...but we are a neighbor in the Western Hemisphere."Harris said she's been working with U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to bring in international resources to help solve the problems.Harris sought to humanize the families and children who have made the dangerous trip to the U.S. southern border by noting "most people don't want to leave home." She stressed that droughts and an inability for migrant families to "satisfy the basic necessities of life like feeding children" are at the root cause of the border influx."If parents and children cannot literally eat, cannot have basic essentials that people need to live, then of course they're going to flee and that's what we're seeing," Harris added."We're making progress, but it's not going to be evidenced overnight," Harris said, describing how she is carrying on the work Biden did during his time as vice president under former President Barack Obama.Newsweek reached out to Harris' offices as well as Mexican diplomatic officials in Washington for additional remarks Sunday morning.
US Vice President Kamala Harris (R) swears-in Linda Thomas-Greenfield (2nd L) as US Ambassador to the United Nations, alongside her husband Lafayette Greenfield (2nd R), and their son, Lafayette Greenfield II, in the Vice President's Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, February 24, 2021.
SAUL LOEB / Contributor/Getty Images | 1 |
Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores and confronting police after officers shot a suspect in Englewood hours earlier. The mayhem marked the second time since late May that the city’s upscale shopping district has been targeted by looters amid unrest, reigniting the debate over policing as city leaders continued to point fingers and downtown again was shut down overnight heading to Tuesday. As businesses owners boarded up shops and braced for the possibility of additional looting, some cautioned against simplifying the situation or blaming any single issue. “It’s not just people looting,” said Patsy Mullins, whose Gold Coast store, Accessorize, was completely emptied. “Let’s dig to the root of the problem, let’s not look at the surface. ... We need to get to the bottom of this. Otherwise, well, this problem will never be solved and it will continue again and again.” City officials said the seeds for the crime spree were sown on social media Sunday afternoon, after officers shot and wounded a 20-year-old man who allegedly had fled and fired shots at them. Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday decried “a false rumor on social media” that police officers killed a 15-year-old boy. That led residents to clash with police officers in Englewood and prompted calls to head toward downtown. A Chicago police officer walks past Macy's on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago after the store and others in the area were looted early on Aug. 10, 2020. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) The looting began around midnight, with people streaming in and out of high-end stores. Some could be seen throwing merchandise into a rental truck and other large vehicles before driving away. “This was not an organized protest,” Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said. “Rather, this was an incident of pure criminality. This was an act of violence against our police officers and against our city.” Black Lives Matter Chicago, which protested outside a Near South Side police precinct Monday night, blasted Lightfoot for accepting the police version of events and not doing more to institute reforms. The organization suggested the man was right to flee authorities, given the department’s history of racism and abusive tactics. “In a predictable and unfortunate move, she did not take this time to criticize her officers for shooting yet another Black man,” the organization’s statement read. “Lightfoot instead spent her time attacking ‘looters.’ The mayor clearly has not learned anything since May, and she would be wise to understand that the people will keep rising up until the CPD is abolished and our Black communities are fully invested in.” Workers clean up merchandise boxes outside the Best Buy store on North Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood following looting on Aug. 10, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) More than 100 people have been arrested so far, according to Chicago police. At least three appeared in bond court Monday, including a 25-year-old Joliet man who police say threw a brick at them while trying to break into the Burberry store on North Michigan Avenue. Thirteen officers were injured during the mayhem, authorities said. A civilian and private security guard were shot and wounded. In the wake of the unrest, shattered glass, broken mannequins, toiletries and shoe boxes littered the city’s toniest streets. Many store owners worried how they would survive the latest turmoil amid the pandemic and with insurance claims still unpaid from the previous looting spree. “I just don’t know what the next move is going to be,” said Mullins, the accessory store owner. “I’m out of work. They’ve destroyed everything, they’ve taken all the merchandise that I have to sell. This requires an investment of money to rebuild and replenish.” It took police officers roughly four hours to get downtown under control, leading to a political blame game and calls for the Illinois National Guard to once again help quell unrest in the country’s third-largest city. Downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins, who said he was on Michigan Avenue from midnight to 4 a.m., described a scene in which officers were overwhelmed by looters and apparently did not have much of a plan for restoring order. He criticized Lightfoot for failing to develop an effective strategy following looting incidents in May and June. “The real question today is, where was the strategy? What was the decision making at the highest levels?” said Hopkins, 2nd. “That means the police superintendent and the mayor, who’s a very hands-on mayor when it comes to these kinds of decisions.” Chicago police keep watch outside a looted and damaged Apple Store at North and Clybourn avenues following early morning looting and violence Aug. 10, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) The Black Lives Matter movement released a statement suggesting Lightfoot should not be surprised by the Magnificent Mile being targeted, given Chicago politicians have long valued protecting the high-rent area while poorer neighborhoods have suffered from disinvestment and neglect. “Over the past few months, too many people — disproportionately Black and Brown — have lost their jobs, lost their income, lost their homes, and lost their lives as the city has done nothing and the Chicago elite have profited,” the organization’s statement read. “When protesters attack high-end retail stores that are owned by the wealthy and service the wealthy, that is not ‘our’ city and has never been meant for us.” Police shooting unfolds The violent stretch began Sunday afternoon, when the Police Department’s newly created community safety team responded to a call about man with a gun in the Englewood neighborhood, authorities said. Officers found a man walking east on 57th Street and Racine Avenue matching the physical description and attempted to stop him, police said. The man, later identified as 20-year-old Latrell Allen of Chicago, fled, leading to a foot chase by officers. Authorities said Allen shot at the officers during the chase and two officers returned fire. Allen, who was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and unlawful use of a weapon, authorities said. Chicago police investigate shootings that occurred in the early morning of Aug. 10, 2020, as sporadic looting occurred in Downtown Chicago. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune) Outside Allen’s Aberdeen Street home, his mother, Latricsa, received a rundown from a neighbor of the prior day’s events that ended with her son shot five times. The mother’s voice raised as neighbor Tenisha Caldwell cast doubt on much of the police version of events. Caldwell said she watched from her front porch as an officer fired gunshots at the fleeing man. She also told Latricsa Allen that her son tried to give up before shots were fired. Allen expressed relief that her eldest son was expected to survive his five bullet wounds, each bullet having missed a vital organ. “He said, ‘Mama, I’m all right,’” she recounted. “He said, ‘Mama I love you.’ I said, ‘I love you, too.’ He said, ‘Mama, they shot me. They shot me five times.’” Allen said her son denied having a gun, though police posted a photo of a gun they said they found at the scene. The community safety team officers were not wearing body cameras, meaning there may not be video to either support or challenge the department’s account. When pressed by the Tribune to explain the lack of video, a Police Department spokesman said those officers don’t wear cameras despite the team’s stated mission of intervening in Chicago’s most violent areas. The Civilian Office Police Accountability, the city agency that investigates officer-involved shootings, said surveillance cameras showed “the pursuit of a man matching the description of the person (believed) to be in possession of a firearm.” Those recordings were not released. COPA also issued a public plea Monday for anyone with video or information about the shooting to come forward. The lack of immediate, independent corroboration drew skepticism from several community groups, including Black Lives Matter Chicago. More than an hour after the Sunday shooting, police and witnesses said a crowd of about 30 people faced off against officers holding a police line near 56th and Aberdeen. Police said a man among the crowd stoked the group’s anger by passing along misinformation, including that police shot a teenage boy. During a scuffle, one officer was hit with pepper spray and a second officer suffered a minor shoulder injury. A large number of officers cordoned off streets in nearly every direction until the mood of the crowd cooled off. But by that time, Brown said, messages began appearing on social media encouraging people to head downtown. The officers had stopped several people on Lake Street near Michigan Avenue when shots were fired from a passing car around 4:30 a.m., nearly five hours into the widespread vandalism, police spokesman Tom Ahern said. No officers were shot, but a squad car was hit, he said. It was not known if anyone in the gunman’s car was shot. Shortly after midnight, the looting began as people darted through broken store windows and doors along Michigan Avenue carrying shopping bags full of merchandise. Cars dropped off more people as the crowd grew. One woman with shopping bags in her hands fell on the sidewalk as an officer was chasing her. Another woman appeared to have been pepper-sprayed. A rock was thrown at a squad car. Brad Stein, center, hands Jason Knudsen, general manager of Binny's, expensive bottles of Champagne and wine they are removing from the store in River North in case of additional looting. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune) Blame game begins The scene was reminiscent of the looting that occurred more than two months ago amid the response to the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. On Monday, both Lightfoot and Brown implicitly criticized Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, saying there weren’t consequences for looters earlier this summer. Lightfoot, who endorsed Foxx for reelection, became angry when asked follow-up questions about Foxx’s handling of cases and told a reporter not to bait her. “What we’re saying is, as a result of what happened last night, there have to be consequences,” Lightfoot said. “We’ve got teams of people that are aggressively out there identifying the people responsible, looking at the plates, and we’re going to bring them to justice. “But when we do make those arrests, our expectation is that this is going to be treated with the level of seriousness it should be. Period,” she said. “Don’t try to bait us, mischaracterize, pit one against the other, we’re not playing that. We’re in a serious situation here and we need a serious response. That’s what we’re saying.” Foxx pushed back with her own news conference a few hours later, insisting the cause of the unrest cannot be conflated with her office’s response to protests earlier this year. She encouraged prosecutors to dismiss misdemeanor charges — and felony charges, in certain cases — related to the protests, but said her office approved charges for the vast majority of looting-related felony arrests in the unrest earlier this summer. Those cases are making their way through the courts, slowed by both the pandemic and typical pace of the Cook County justice system. In denouncing the looting and promising to be tough on those responsible, Foxx said the situation also must be viewed amid the backdrop of a global health crisis, record unemployment and nationwide protests against systemic racism. “The reality is that as we seek to figure out what is happening in what is truly an unprecedented summer, it requires us to ask tough questions, to do deep deliberation and to put all hands on deck. All hands on deck means that rather than standing and pointing fingers, we work together.” The idea that a lax criminal justice system alone paved the way for the looting oversimplifies the situation, said David Stovall, a professor of African American studies and criminology, law and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. If the Sunday police shooting did touch off the reaction, then the decades of a strained relationship between police and the community has to be considered too. Stovall said those who engaged in the looting are potentially reacting to that history and demonstrating their lack of trust in law enforcement. It’s not surprising that they questioned those official facts and then decided to “strike back,” he said. “If we’re going to get hit, then we are going to strike back at the spaces that hurt you the most,” Stovall said, describing the mindset. The looting seemed to be centered in Streeterville and on North Michigan Avenue, but some was reported on State Street in the Loop and on the Near North Side. Police appeared to be getting things under control by 4 a.m., though some vandalism continued into the daylight hours. The CTA suspended train and bus service into downtown during the morning rush, while Illinois State Police blocked off ramps from expressways. Bridges across the Chicago River were raised, except for the one on LaSalle Street for emergency vehicles. City officials said they will restrict access to the downtown from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for the time being. Illinois House Republican leader Jim Durkin called for the National Guard to be brought in. The Guard was used to help enforce street closures during looting in early June, marking the first time in more than a half century that a Chicago mayor had asked for the Guard’s help in quelling unrest. “Once again, Illinois government has failed to protect its residents and businesses,” said Durkin, a Western Springs legislator. “It is time to bring in the National Guard and accept any and all federal assistance to stop the chaos that is destroying our state. No more excuses. No more failures.” The Illinois National Guard has not received any requests for support at this time. Lightfoot, who has fought President Donald Trump’s insistence that federal troops are the best way to restore order in troubled American cities, said she will not seek military assistance. “No, we do not need federal troops in Chicago, period, full stop,” Lightfoot said. “I’m sure the president will have his way with this incident, but I’m calling upon him to do the things that we do need (such as gun control).” Pedestrians take photos of the damage at the Macy's State Street store following early morning looting and violence in Chicago on Aug. 10, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) | 1 |
Michael Forest Reinoehl, a self-described anti-fascist who said he provided security for Portland racial justice protests, appears to have targeted a participant in a pro-Trump rally, emerging from an alcove of a parking garage before firing two gunshots, one that hit the man’s bear spray can and the other that proved fatal, according to a police affidavit unsealed Friday.Police found a single Winchester .380-caliber bullet casing on the street, a metal canister of “Bear Attack Detector” that had a “large defect” in it and a collapsible metal baton just north of Aaron “Jay” Danielson’s body, a detective said in the affidavit.Danielson, 39, was pronounced dead at 8:55 p.m. last Saturday on Southwest Third Avenue, about 10 minutes after the shooting was reported. He died from a single bullet to the upper right chest, an autopsy found. The bullet was found lodged in his back.During a search of Reinoehl’s basement rental unit in a Northeast Portland house on 92nd Avenue, police found ammunition of the same caliber used in Danielson’s shooting and clothing Reinoehl wore that night, prosecutors said. The search didn’t appear to have turned up the gun used.Portland police obtained a warrant Thursday afternoon charging Reinoehl with second-degree murder with a weapon and unlawful use of a weapon. That night, four officers from three different Washington agencies shot at Reinoehl after he walked out of an apartment outside Lacey, Washington, and tried to flee as they moved in to arrest him. Reinoehl was hit multiple times and died at the scene. He had a handgun but Washington investigators said it’s not clear yet whether he fired it.On Friday afternoon, a judge unsealed the affidavits for his arrest warrant and a warrant for the search of Reinoehl’s residence. The documents offer new details of the deadly encounter between Reinoehl and Danielson shortly after a car caravan in support of President Trump had left Portland’s downtown last weekend.Several witnesses told police they saw Danielson holding a can of mace or bear spray and then heard two shots, the affidavit said.Police found damage to the bear spray canister that was retrieved from the street, leading investigators to believe it was struck by the first of two bullets fired by Reinoehl.Police slowed down video captured by a livestreamer of the shooting and said it appeared that a shot was fired, followed by an explosion of the chemical and then a quick second gunshot, the affidavit said. Danielson stumbled two or three steps before collapsing in the street.Detectives found a loaded 9mm handgun on Danielson’s waistband and three magazines of 9mm red-tip ammunition in his right cargo pants pocket, the affidavit said. Surveillance video from the nearby Third Avenue parking garage showed Danielson holding a baton in his left hand and the bear spray in his right hand before the shooting, according to police.Reinoehl is seen hiding in an alcove of the garage and reaching into a pouch or waistband as Danielson and a friend, Chandler Pappas, walk south on Third Avenue.Homicide Detective Rico Beniga wrote that Reinoehl “conceals himself, waits and watches” as Danielson and Pappas pass him.After the two men go by, Reinoehl followed them, walking west across the street moments before the gunshots were fired, police said.Investigators said it appeared as if Reinoehl stood holding his gun with both hands extended when he fired. After the shots, his right hand remained extended and pointed at Danielson before he turned to run away, police said.Both Danielson and Pappas were wearing Patriot Prayer hats, signifying their support of the right-wing group based in Vancouver.Pappas told police that he and Danielson had been drinking earlier in the evening and were facing off with Reinoehl and a man who was with him when the gunshots occurred.A witness told police he heard one of the men confronting Danielson and Pappas say something like, “We’re going to (expletive) kill you,” the affidavit said.Justin Dunlap, who caught the shooting on his livestream video, said he heard Reinoehl or the man near him say something similar to “You wanna go.”A motorist driving by told police he saw a Black man in the area say “Hey, there’s the guy.” A third witness said Reinoehl “peeked out” of the alcove as Danielson and Pappas went by before approaching them, according to the affidavit.As part of the investigation, police learned that Reinoehl had sent a text message to his teenage son on Aug. 7 that read, “Sell me the gun for a quarter pound of weed and $100 I’m getting tired of this shit I need a piece now,” according to the affidavit.Reinoehl was identified on social media within hours of the shooting. His younger sister also told detectives that the man seen in the footage was Reinoehl.Police had seized a gun from Reinoehl during an early morning protest downtown on July 5, but it was of a different caliber than the one used to shoot Danielson, according to the affidavit. Reinoehl was given a citation then, accused of possessing a loaded gun in a public place, resisting arrest and interfering with police on Southwest Main Street. Police took a Walther 9mm semi-automatic handgun from Reinoehl. The citation was dropped by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office on July 30, and Reinoehl spent no time behind bars. The office earlier this week said it was still reviewing the case.Rienoehl described himself on social media as “100 % ANTIFA” but later said in an interview that he wasn’t a member of antifa or other groups. He appeared to admit in the report published by Vice News on Thursday that he fired the shots at Danielson. He said he acted in self-defense, believing he and a friend of his were about to be maced or stabbed, was aware of what he did and ran from the scene.“I had no choice,” he told the interviewer, then added, “I mean, I, I had a choice. I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color, but I wasn’t going to do that.”Portland police released this photo on Friday, Sept. 4, 2020, of a witness they're seeking in the fatal shooting of Aaron "Jay" Danielson the weekend before in downtown Portland.Reinoehl also said lawyers advised him against saying anything, but that “I feel it’s important that the world at least gets a little bit of what’s really going on, because there’s been a lot of propaganda put out.”Portland police also Friday asked for the public’s help in identifying a man who was with Reinoehl on Saturday night at the time of the shooting, wearing a black hood, mask and sweatshirt.Detectives said they’re still interested in interviewing the man who also ran from the scene. They ask that anyone with information on his identity contact Detective Beniga at 503-823-0457 or rico.beniga@portlandoregon.gov.Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt said in a statement that investigators in Washington state also are trying to find out more about what led to Reinoehl’s death.“The loss of life is tragic,” Schmidt said in a statement. “It has a profound impact on families, friends and community members. The apprehension of a fugitive, in particular one under investigation for murder, is especially dangerous for law enforcement. I am thankful that no one else was injured or killed during last night’s incident in Lacey, Washington, and I appreciate the coordination between law enforcement agencies throughout this investigation.”-- Maxine BernsteinEmail at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212Follow on Twitter @maxoregonianNote to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission. | 1 |
WASHINGTON—In an acknowledgment of the Republican Party’s new dominance in Congress, President Barack Obama and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, soon to be leader of the Senate, tentatively began charting a path forward Wednesday on trade, taxes and other policy matters.A phone conversation between the two men, who have had a distant and prickly relationship, underscored the new political landscape that Mr. Obama will face in his final two years in office: a Senate that has slipped from his party’s control and a Republican majority in the House on track to be unmatched in at least 68 years. As they debate policy, Republicans also will be able to point to state-level gains Tuesday that included the re-election of tax-cutting GOP governors who pursued conservative agendas. In separate news conferences, Messrs. Obama and McConnell flagged areas of potential compromise. Mr. Obama invited congressional leaders from both parties to the White House Friday to discuss how they can accomplish goals in the lame-duck legislative session beginning this month, such as a new, legal authorization for the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State militants. Republicans gained at least seven Senate seats in Tuesday’s balloting and will hold at least 52, with further pickups possible once tallying in Alaska is complete and Louisiana holds a run-off next month. The GOP has gained at least 13 seats in the House and has won at least 243 seats—a majority that is likely to grow as the final races are called. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promised bipartisanship, saying at a Wednesday news conference that ‘when the American people choose divided government, I don’t think it means they don’t want us to do anything.’ Getty Images As Democrats and Republicans began to absorb this dramatic shift in the Washington power alignment, promises to find common ground were mixed with reminders of deep divisions between the two parties. Both Messrs. Obama and McConnell said they believed the public had sent a message that they should work together. But asked whether the election was a repudiation of his plans to unilaterally adopt changes to the immigration policy, Mr. Obama said, “I don’t want to try to read the tea leaves on election results. What I am going to try to do as president is to make sure that I’m advancing what I think is best for the country.” Mr. McConnell, speaking in his home state of Kentucky, said the president’s expected unilateral decision to give protections to illegal immigrants “poisons the well” for agreement in Congress on immigration. “It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull to say, ‘If you guys don’t do what I want, I’m going to do it on my own.’ ” Both men also pointed to potential common ground. They said more could be done to expand U.S. exports, a policy area in which both have previously eyed legal changes that would make it easier for the U.S. to strike trade deals. Many congressional Democrats have opposed this legal authority, but Mr. Obama could now work directly with Republicans to complete an agreement. Both also spoke about opportunities to agree on changes to the tax code, which the two parties have pursued in the past with virtually no success. Mr. Obama is aiming for an overhaul of business taxes he believes could free up new revenue to spend on infrastructure projects. Mr. McConnell was more careful, saying tax-law changes were a potential area of agreement but declining to weigh in on specifics. In a nod to voter opposition to the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Obama said he is open to making “responsible” changes to his signature legislative achievement. He declined to specify what targeted changes he is willing to accept, saying he preferred to discuss ideas in private with Mr. McConnell and other lawmakers on Friday. Mr. McConnell, who is under pressure from Senate conservatives to fight for a full repeal of the health law, said he’d prefer that course, but acknowledged that such a move might be impossible while Mr. Obama is in office and able to veto any such effort. Mr. McConnell said lawmakers would move to repeal a tax on medical devices and make other targeted changes to the health law. President Barack Obama said Congress needs to pass a budget, fund the military's efforts to combat ISIS, and fund doctors working to stop the spread of Ebola. Photo: AP Mr. Obama said Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, would brief lawmakers during Friday’s White House meeting on military operations in Iraq and Syria. A new authorization of military force is needed to replace the one Congress passed in 2001 after the Sept. 11 terror attack because the U.S. is confronting a different type of enemy, he said. Mr. Obama congratulated Republicans for a “a good night” in Tuesday’s elections, but also took pains to assert his own political credibility. “I’m the guy who’s elected by everybody, not just from a particular state or a particular district,” he said. He noted twice during his news conference that two-thirds of voters sat out of Tuesday’s election. More From Capital Journal Mr. McConnell promised bipartisanship, saying that “when the American people choose divided government, I don’t think it means they don’t want us to do anything.” But he also suggested that the new Republican Senate majority would take an assertive posture toward the White House. Asked whether the Senate would hold hearings on Internal Revenue Service reviews of conservative groups that the GOP says showed bias, Mr. McConnell said: “Oh, you can bet on that.” Tuesday’s outcome shocked the White House, which wasn’t expecting such a clear repudiation by voters. Robert Gibbs, Mr. Obama’s former press secretary and campaign adviser, described Tuesday’s results as a “wipeout.” Mr. Obama now enters his final two years in office a weakened president after suffering two of the worst midterm defeats for a White House in modern times. The end of Mr. Obama’s administration will be sharply different from his first two years in office when Democrats had control of the House and Senate. President Barack Obama discusses what he is eager to work on with the new congress elected during the midterm elections. Photo: AP President Barack Obama said Washington hears the American people and knows they expect politicians to get the job done. Photo: AP The across-the-board losses for Democrats left the party without a majority in either chamber for the first time in eight years. The new power alignment suggests that Vice President Joe Biden will take on a larger role in outreach to Capitol Hill, said Bill Daley, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff in the year after the 2010 midterm elections. Mr. Biden had negotiated past deals with Mr. McConnell. “He’s the only guy in the building who knows the Hill in a really serious way,” Mr. Daley said of the vice president. Democrats and Republicans said Wednesday that voters sent a clear message of discontent with the White House. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the vote reflected in large part the president’s standing with the American people currently,” said Ted Strickland, a Democrat who served as Ohio’s governor and now is president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. —Kristina Peterson contributed to this article. Write to Colleen McCain Nelson at colleen.nelson@wsj.com and Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday endorsed the U.S. government’s authority to detain immigrants awaiting deportation anytime - potentially even years - after they have completed prison terms for criminal convictions, handing President Donald Trump a victory as he pursues hardline immigration policies.FILE PHOTO: The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, U.S., May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua RobertsThe court ruled 5-4 along ideological lines, with its conservative justices in the majority and its liberal justices dissenting, that federal authorities could place such immigrants into indefinite detention anytime without the possibility of bail, not just immediately after they finish prison sentences.The ruling, authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, left open the possibility that some immigrants could challenge their detention. These immigrants potentially could argue that the use of the 1996 federal law involved in the case, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, against them long after finishing their sentences would violate their due process rights under the U.S. Constitution.Most of the plaintiffs in the case are legal immigrants.The law states the government can detain convicted immigrants “when the alien is released” from criminal detention. Civil rights lawyers in the case argued that the language of the law shows that it applies only immediately after immigrants are released. The Trump administration said the government should have the power to detain such immigrants anytime.In dissent, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer said the ruling raises serious due process questions.“It runs the gravest risk of depriving those whom the government has detained of one of the oldest and most important of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms,” Breyer wrote.But Alito wrote that it is not the court’s job to impose a time limit for when immigrants can be detained after serving a prison sentence. Alito noted that the court has previously said that “an official’s crucial duties are better carried out late than never.” Alito said the challengers’ assertion that immigrants had to be detained within 24 hours of ending a prison sentence is “especially hard to swallow.”It marked Trump’s latest immigration victory at the court. The conservative justices also were in the majority in June 2018 when the court upheld on a 5-4 vote Trump’s travel ban targeting people from several Muslim-majority countries.Tuesday’s decision follows a February 2018 ruling in a similar case in which the conservative majority, over liberal dissent, curbed the ability of immigrants held in long-term detention during deportation proceedings to argue for release.‘MOST EXTREME INTERPRETATION’American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Cecilia Wang, who argued the newly decided case for the challengers, said that in both rulings “the Supreme Court has endorsed the most extreme interpretation of immigration detention statutes, allowing mass incarceration of people without any hearing, simply because they are defending themselves against a deportation charge.”Wang said the ACLU is “looking into follow-up litigation along various avenues.”Trump has backed limits on legal and illegal immigrants since taking office in January 2017.Kerri Kupec, a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman, said administration officials were pleased with the ruling.The case’s plaintiffs included two legal U.S. residents involved in separate lawsuits filed in 2013, a Cambodian immigrant named Mony Preap convicted of marijuana possession and a Palestinian immigrant named Bassam Yusuf Khoury convicted of attempting to manufacture a controlled substance.In the two detention case rulings, the Supreme Court reversed the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a liberal leaning court with jurisdiction over a large part of the western United States that Trump has frequently criticized. In both cases, litigation against the federal government started before Trump took office.In the latest case, the administration had appealed a 2016 9th Circuit ruling that favored immigrants, a decision it said would undermine the government’s ability to deport immigrants who have committed crimes.The 9th Circuit had ruled that convicted immigrants who are not immediately detained by immigration authorities after finishing their sentences but then later picked up by immigration authorities could seek bond hearings to argue for their release.Other regional federal appeals courts that have addressed the issue did not rule the same way as the 9th Circuit and were more in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling. That means immigrants in those regions who were subject to mandatory detention already were not entitled to bond hearings.Under federal immigration law, immigrants convicted of certain offenses are subject to mandatory detention during their deportation process. They can be held indefinitely without a bond hearing after completing their sentences.In April 2018, conservative Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s four liberals in a 5-4 ruling that could hinder the administration’s ability to step up the removal of immigrants with criminal records, invalidating a provision in another law, the Immigration and Nationality Act.Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Will Dunhamfor-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up | 1 |
© Getty Images President BidenJoe BidenUS could spend M monthly on testing unvaccinated federal workers: official GOP senator opposes Biden court pick, likely blocking nominee Overnight Energy & Environment — Biden says Russia attack could spike oil prices MORE on Sunday said he will call on Russian President Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinOvernight Energy & Environment — Biden says Russia attack could spike oil prices Experts paint dark picture for region, global order if Russia invades Overnight Defense & National Security — Russia throws curveball with troop withdrawal MORE to respect human rights when the two leaders meet in Geneva in June.“I had a long conversation, two hours recently, with [Chinese] President Xi, making it clear to him that we can do nothing but speak out for human rights around the world because that’s who we are. I’ll be meeting with President Putin in a couple weeks in Geneva making it clear that we will not, we will not, stand by and let him abuse those rights,” Biden said in remarks delivered at the annual Memorial Day service in Delaware.The White House announced last week that Biden and Putin will meet on June 16, marking the first face-to-face meeting between the two presidents since Biden took office as president.The leaders, according to White House press secretary Jen PsakiJen PsakiOn The Money — GOP senators block Biden's Fed picks Psaki calls Republicans 'irresponsible' for blocking Biden's Fed nominees Biden warns energy prices could be impacted if Russia invades Ukraine MORE, “will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability in the U.S.-Russia relationship.”The meeting is one stop on Biden’s tour of Europe. The president is scheduled to attend a Group of Seven (G-7) summit in the United Kingdom from June 11 to 13, then travel to Brussels for a NATO summit and meetings with European leaders on June 14.With that itinerary, Biden will be face-to-face with Putin after demonstrating solidarity with the United States’s European allies and the NATO alliance.Biden called for a meeting with Putin in April, after the administration levied sanctions on Russia, meant to punish the country for its involvement in the SolarWinds cyberattack and interference in the 2020 presidential election. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 faxThe contents of this site are © 1998 - 2022 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. | 1 |
Less than a week out from Election Day and President Donald Trump is playing catch-up. In 2016, he won 30 states (and Maine's 2nd Congressional District) and their 306 electoral votes. Today, just 20 states, worth 125 electoral votes, are safely in his column. Former Vice President Joe Biden is holding 24 states worth 290 electoral votes in his column. October 2020 Electoral College Ratings (Full chart here)
To win the election, Trump will need to win every state we currently have in the Toss Up column: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Maine's 2nd CD, as well as the newest addition, Texas. Even then, Trump would be 22 electoral votes short of 270. He would need to win at least two of the seven states currently sitting in Lean Democrat: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Hampshire. Trump carried all but Minnesota, Nevada and New Hampshire in 2016.
At this point, Ohio and Maine's 2nd District are probably the most promising for Trump, followed by Texas and Iowa. If he were to win all of those, he'd be at 188 electoral votes, still 82 votes shy of 270. Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina are pure Toss Ups with Biden ahead by anywhere from 1 to 2 points in those states. Even if Trump were to win all of those states, he'd then need to move into the Lean Democratic territory where Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania offer the best opportunities. If you just looked at polling averages, Arizona would be the best opportunity for Trump. Biden has a small — but steady — 3 point lead. Even so, given Trump's unpopularity among suburban voters, it's hard to see how he makes up needed ground in Maricopa (Phoenix). In Wisconsin, a huge spike in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations has led state health officials to plead with residents to leave home only when absolutely necessary. That COVID is the dominating issue in these final days of the campaign is a problem for the president. Charles Franklin, the Marquette University Law School poll director, told the AP recently that "approval of his handling of COVID is the next-strongest predictor of vote choice, behind voters' party affiliation and their overall approval of Trump's performance as president." In the most recent Marquette poll in early October Trump had an anemic 41 percent approval rating on his handling of the virus. Picking up Arizona and its 11 electoral votes would get Trump to 259 electoral votes, 11 shy of 270. Picking up Wisconsin (10 EV) or Minnesota, where the Trump campaign is spending time and effort (10 EV), would leave both candidates stuck at 269.
This is where Pennsylvania becomes even more critical. In Pennsylvania, the conventional wisdom, as well as the Trump campaign, see a tightening race. The FiveThirtyEight polling average puts Biden ahead by 5 points. But, congressional district polling paints a different — and more difficult — picture for the president. These polls find Biden expanding Clinton's margins in suburban Philadelphia, but also find Trump failing to put up the same kind of numbers he did in 2016 in central, western and northeastern Pennsylvania.
But, while Trump has a narrow path to 270, Biden is looking at several different pathways to 270. Biden can afford to lose states in Toss Up like Georgia, North Carolina or Iowa and still have plenty of different options to get to an electoral college victory. Of course, all three are hosting competitive Senate races that could tip the balance of power in the upper chamber. Notably, Biden is spending the final week of the campaign traveling to Iowa and Georgia.
Texas is a state that Biden doesn't need to win, but it is clear that it's more competitive than ever. Texas' shift from Lean Republican to Toss Up shouldn't come as a surprise. Recent polling in the state — both public and private - shows a 2-4 point race. That's pretty much in line with the hotly contested 2018 Senate race in the state where Sen. Ted Cruz narrowly defeated Rep. Beto O'Rourke 51 percent to 48 percent. A huge surge in early vote (as of October 26th, almost half of Texas' registered voters had already cast a ballot) suggests that we could see record turnout in a state that has added many new residents since 2016. That also adds a level of uncertainty to the equation. Statewide and district level polling show Biden running strong in and around metro suburban parts of the state, but underperforming with Latino voters. In his analysis of the New York Times/Siena poll (10/20-25) of the state, the New York Times' Nate Cohn writes that "Biden has a lead of only 57 percent to 34 percent among that group, somewhat beneath most estimates of Mrs. Clinton's support among Hispanic voters four years ago. The finding broadly tracks with national surveys, which have shown Mr. Trump improving among Hispanic voters compared with his 2016 standing. Similarly, Hispanic voters in the Times/Siena poll say they backed Mrs. Clinton by a margin of 60 percent to 29 percent."
But, it's also the case that we don't have a whole lot of experience with Texas as a battleground state. Neither do national pollsters. In an analysis of polling errors in 2016 and 2018, my colleague David Wasserman wrote this week that polls in the Southwest "undershot Democrats' final margin in 17 of 19 cases, including by an average of 1.4 points in 2016 and 4.2 points in 2018." | 1 |
Brett Kavanaugh cleared a key hurdle Friday as Senate Republicans aim to confirm him to the Supreme Court this weekend.Senators voted to end debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination, setting up a confirmation vote for Saturday afternoon.It was a dramatic moment on the Senate floor as Kavanaugh did not know even an hour before the vote whether he would muster the 51 votes needed to advance because four undecided senators — Susan CollinsSusan Margaret CollinsOvernight Health Care — Biden eyes additional COVID-19 funding Senate confirms Biden FDA nominee Biden's FDA pick clears key Senate hurdle MORE (R-Maine), Lisa MurkowskiLisa Ann MurkowskiOvernight Health Care — Biden eyes additional COVID-19 funding Overnight Energy & Environment — Biden says Russia attack could spike oil prices Dem plan to suspend the gas tax faces bipartisan pushback MORE (R-Alaska), Jeff FlakeJeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeFlake meets with Erdoğan in first official duties as US ambassador Poll: Sinema approval higher among Arizona Republicans than Democrats Cruz to get Nord Stream 2 vote as part of deal on Biden nominees MORE (R-Ariz.) and Joe ManchinJoe ManchinOvernight Health Care — Biden eyes additional COVID-19 funding Overnight Energy & Environment — Biden says Russia attack could spike oil prices Dem plan to suspend the gas tax faces bipartisan pushback MORE (D-W.Va.) — declined to announce their positions.Senate Republicans acknowledged ahead of time that they might not know the outcome of the vote by the time it started — an unusual move for a leadership team that likes to keep a tight grip on floor action.“This may be one of the exceptions to the rule. Ordinarily we would know but a number of my colleagues … reserve their right to make their own announcement,” Sen. John CornynJohn CornynDemocrats show little appetite for Biden's call for gun control Poll finds Abbott with 10-point lead on Beto O'Rourke in Texas Photos of the Week: Marking COVID-19 deaths, Mt. Etna and Olympic snowboarders MORE (R-Texas), the Senate majority whip, said Friday morning before the cloture vote. “So there’s going to be a lot of drama.”Kavanaugh’s nomination got a last-minute boost when Flake, Manchin and Collins voted to end debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Manchin was the only Democrat to vote “yes.”Murkowski, however, voted against advancing the nomination, the only Republican to do so.She voiced her opposition so softly that senators on the floor and members of the press in the overhead galleries had trouble discerning if she was a yes or a no.Murkowski’s vote caused a murmur through the press gallery, and Cornyn and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellGOP scrambles to figure out what Trump legal drama means for future Senate leaders send Putin symbolic warning shot amid invasion fears GOP boycotts Biden Fed nominees' vote as bank fights inflation MORE’s (R-Ky.) chief of staff, Sharon Soderstrom, went straight to her and Collins, who were sitting next to each other on the floor, to make sure Kavanaugh’s nomination wasn't headed for defeat. Collins sparked some concerns among Republican senators by hugging Murkowski after she voted "no."Murkowski and Collins were soon surrounded by a larger group of colleagues, including GOP Sens. Lamar AlexanderLamar AlexanderMcConnell gets GOP wake-up call The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Alibaba - Democrats return to disappointment on immigration Authorities link ex-Tennessee governor to killing of Jimmy Hoffa associate MORE (Tenn.), Lindsey GrahamLindsey Olin GrahamThe conservative case for nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court The Hill's Morning Report - World poised for war Anxious Democrats want Biden to speed up vetting for Supreme Court pick MORE (S.C.), Rob PortmanRobert (Rob) Jones PortmanSenators eye Plan B amid Russia sanctions stalemate Putin's Ukraine gambit unites Western democracies he sought to divide Josh Mandel tests Ohio's appetite for red meat rhetoric MORE (Ohio.) and Tom CottonTom Bryant CottonWhat to know ahead of a verdict in Palin vs NYT case Overnight Health Care — GOP shows support for Canadian protesters Overdose epidemic costs US T per year: research MORE (Ark.).Murkowski told reporters after the vote that she has been “wrestling” with the decision, which she described as the “most difficult” of her political career.“I have been wrestling with whether or not this was about the qualifications of a good man or is this bigger than the nominee and I believe we are dealing with issues right now that are bigger than a nominee,” Murkowski said.She added that while she considers Kavanaugh a “good man … it just may be that in my view he's not the right man for the court at this time."Republicans hold a slim two-seat majority in the Senate, which allows them to lose one vote from their conference and still confirm Kavanaugh without Democratic help.The vote’s drama was upped a notch Thursday evening when Sen. Steve DainesSteven (Steve) David DainesSenate confirms Biden FDA nominee Photos of the Week: Marking COVID-19 deaths, Mt. Etna and Olympic snowboarders Stock trading ban gains steam but splits Senate GOP MORE (R-Mont.) announced that he would leave Washington after the procedural vote to fly to Montana for his daughter’s wedding on Saturday, possibly leaving Republicans short-handed for the final confirmation vote.Cornyn told a Texas radio station on Friday that GOP leaders have been in “close consultation” with Daines and are “working closely with him to figure it out.”Daines, after the cloture vote, told reporters that they had the final vote “covered.”“We’re going to have a new Supreme Court justice this weekend and I’m going to get to walk my daughter down the aisle,” Daines said.But Kavanaugh isn’t, yet, a lock for confirmation.The situation was made more uncertain because leadership believes Murkowski will be a “no” vote on the final up-or-down confirmation vote. Sen. John ThuneJohn Randolph ThuneOvernight Energy & Environment — Biden says Russia attack could spike oil prices GOP scrambles to figure out what Trump legal drama means for future Dem plan to suspend the gas tax faces bipartisan pushback MORE (R-S.D.), the No. 3 GOP Senator, said he would be “surprised” if she changes her mind and votes to confirm Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court seat."I think she's cast her vote on this one and I think people kind of want to hear her thought process a little bit,” he said.Meanwhile, Collins has not if she will support Kavanaugh during a final up-or-down confirmation vote, even though she agreed to support him on the procedural motion. She is expected to announce her position on Kavanaugh during a 3 p.m. floor speech on Friday, but GOP senators say they are confident she will ultimately be a yes."We feel good about it, but every senator votes their conscience and casts their own vote so we'll let them do that and see how it comes out tomorrow. But I think today was a pretty good indication of where folks are, so we'll see,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 Republican senator, asked about the prospects for Saturday’s vote.The Friday morning vote came a day after senators began reviewing a 46-page supplemental FBI report on sexual assault allegations that threw Kavanaugh’s nomination into chaos and sparked a national conversation on sexual assault. Republicans said the report did not offer any evidence corroborating the accusations of sexual misconduct from Christine Blasey Ford or Deborah Ramirez. Democrats countered that the investigation was too limited and left out key witnesses who supported Ford’s account.Ford alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in the early 1980s when they were both in high school. Ramirez says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when they were both college students at Yale University.And though key swing votes remained undecided Thursday after being briefed on the FBI’s report, their colleagues appeared confident that Kavanaugh would ultimately get the votes to be confirmed after Collins and Flake spoke positively about the investigation.Collins told reporters that the FBI’s work seemed “very thorough.” Flake added that “no new corroborative information came out of it.”“I think most of the members that have been done there, have had a chance to review those documents and there isn’t anything that I don’t think we didn’t already know,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 3 Republican senator, told reporters on Thursday evening, asked if he thought the FBI’s report had swayed any Republican senators.Friday’s vote marks the beginning of the end of a deeply bitter, partisan fight over Kavanaugh’s nomination. Republican senators have increasingly been confronted in the Capitol by protesters and several members have been escorted to votes and committee hearings by Capitol Police officers.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck GrassleyChuck GrassleyThe real reason Jim Jordan is ranting against Jan. 6 committee staff Parkland father climbs crane near White House to deliver gun violence message Biden presses Congress on gun violence on Parkland anniversary MORE (R-Iowa) accused Democrats and allied liberal groups of waging a concerted campaign to destroy the nominee’s reputation.“What left-wing groups and their Democratic allies have done to Judge Kavanaugh is nothing short of monstrous,” he said.Democrats lashed out at Republicans over the process for investigating the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh and have focused their closing argument on his “credibility” and if he “mislead” the committee.“It's important to remember why we are here today. We are here to determine whether Judge Kavanaugh has demonstrated the impartiality, the temperament, the evenhandedness that's needed to serve on this great high court of our land. ... I do not believe Judge Kavanaugh has earned this seat,” said Sen. Dianne FeinsteinDianne Emiel FeinsteinDemocrats show little appetite for Biden's call for gun control Lawmakers rolling out Violence Against Women Act without 'controversial' provision Biden to meet with Senate Judiciary Democrats on Supreme Court vacancy MORE (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, ahead of Friday’s vote.But both sides were locked in partisan sniping even before Ford’s sexual assault allegation surfaced in mid-September.Democrats say Kavanaugh misled the Judiciary Committee during his hearing for his current circuit court spot and wanted the Trump administration to turn over documents from Kavanaugh’s work as a staff secretary for President George W. Bush.Republicans dismissed the request as a “fishing expedition.” Democrats said the paperwork was crucial to understanding Kavanaugh’s thinking and work on controversial Bush administration issues including torture and surveillance.Democrat are currently bogged down in a lawsuit to compel agencies to give them the documents as part of an unprecedented Freedom of Information Act request.Kavanaugh, if confirmed, is expected to help tilt the Supreme Court to the right for years to come and give Republicans and President TrumpDonald TrumpHillicon Valley — Cyberattack hits Ukrainian defense On The Money — GOP senators block Biden's Fed picks Florida county clerk's typo directed ticketed drivers to site selling Trump merchandise MORE a significant win a month before the Nov. 6 midterm elections.Trump touted the FBI’s report and criticized protesters who have been confronting Republican senators in the lead-up to Friday’s vote.“The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love!” Trump added of the protesters.Alexander Bolton contributed.Updated at 12:54 a.m. | 1 |
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who accused him of sexual misconduct, testified for more than eight hours in an often-wrenching hearing Thursday that highlighted and exposed many of the nation’s raw divisions.The hearing, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, laid bare the enormous stakes as the GOP tries to advance a nomination that would tilt the high court to the right and Democrats push for a thorough investigation into sexual-misconduct allegations in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Hovering over the proceedings were the coming November elections, which will determine control of Congress and the Trump administration’s ability to advance its agenda. Shortly after the conclusion of the hearing, President Trump, who has forcefully defended his nominee, described the judge’s testimony as “powerful, honest and riveting” in a tweet. He also called for the Senate to vote on his nomination and criticized the process as a “total sham.” The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Friday on the nomination. Republican senators said they expected the full chamber would hold its first procedural vote Saturday, and a final vote is expected early next week. Judge Kavanaugh, fired up with indignation and frequently fighting back tears, defended his personal reputation against the assault allegations, while taking partisan swipes at the panel’s Democrats. “This confirmation process has become a national disgrace,” he told the committee. “You have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy.” Earlier in the day, Dr. Ford, a California college professor, her voice halting at times, told lawmakers she had been “haunted by memories” since the alleged attack at a house party in the summer of 1982, which she said had left her struggling academically and coping with panic and anxiety for decades. She said she was “100%” certain it was Judge Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge who pushed her into a room, and that it was the judge who groped her and tried to remove her clothes. Mr. Judge has said he has no memory of the incident. Dr. Ford, 51 years old, said her memory of “the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense” was “indelible.” Judge Kavanaugh, 53, has denied the allegations. Hearing Brings Nation to StandstillSupreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexual assault, give hours of testimony to the Senate Judiciary CommitteeSupreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh prepares to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to sexual-assault allegations against him.Erin Schaff/Press Pool1 of 17••••• All eyes now will be on three Republican senators who have said they are concerned by the allegations and haven’t committed to backing Mr. Kavanaugh: Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Mr. Flake said late Thursday he was still undecided on the Kavanaugh vote. His position is of more immediate import because he is on the Judiciary Committee. Republicans have an 11-10 advantage on the panel, so a single “no” vote means the panel would send Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate with a negative recommendation. In the full Senate, Republicans hold a 51-49 advantage, so Judge Kavanaugh can afford no more than one GOP defection if all Democrats vote against him. The Kavanaugh confirmation process has put an even greater focus on the concerns of women voters in the midterm elections of 2018. The WSJ's Gerald F. Seib explains. Photo: Getty The hearing was one of the Capitol’s landmark moments, evoking the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings 27 years ago that focused on sexual-harassment claims, and on Thursday television sets and digital screens across the country lit up with the same event. And it wasn’t just inside the Beltway: Images shared on social media showed people watching on airplanes, and stock brokers froze to attention at the New York Stock Exchange. Mr. Trump watched the start of the hearings on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from United Nations meetings in New York. He watched Judge Kavanaugh in the White House residence. The two central figures in the showdown, Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh, didn’t watch each other’s testimony, according to their representatives. The hearing came just short of one year since the #MeToo movement was launched with the New York Times’s first revelations about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. The movement has cut a swath through the political world, as at least a dozen politicians at the federal level have resigned, lost elections or announced they were retiring in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct. Republicans avoided attacking Dr. Ford directly and set their aim on Democratic lawmakers, accusing them of withholding information about her allegations until the near-final stages of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. In response, Democrats repeatedly pressed Judge Kavanaugh to ask for a full Federal Bureau of Investigation look into the matter. The judge didn’t commit to pursuing a further investigation. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) at one point blasted Democrats and suggested the accusations against the judge were part of a power grab, telling fellow Republicans that if they voted down Judge Kavanaugh, “You're legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.” In later questioning, Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) cited Mr. Graham’s comments in asking Judge Kavanaugh: “Do you think that people who would believe Dr. Ford are legitimizing despicable things?” Judge Kavanaugh replied by saying, “Listen to both sides before you make a bottom-line conclusion.”
More At stake in the hearing was the fate of a Supreme Court pick who could deliver a conservative tilt to the court for decades. The near-term political stakes were also high, as Republicans battle to keep their majorities in the House and Senate this fall. The confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh is the top priority for many GOP voters, with filling the federal bench with conservatives a key reason that even those with reservations about Mr. Trump backed him in 2016. Republicans worry that if they can’t deliver confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh, it would demoralize GOP voters and depress turnout in a midterm election where their majority hinges on multiple tossup races. But Republicans also run the risk of seeming insensitive to women voters who are already defecting in droves to the Democratic Party’s candidates. To limit that risk, they delegated the job of questioning Dr. Ford to an outside counsel, Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, while the Republicans on the panel mostly questioned Judge Kavanaugh themselves. In his opening statement, the judge noted that the other people who were alleged to be at the 1982 party all said they didn’t recall Dr. Ford’s accounting of it; earlier, she had refuted that suggestion by saying they weren’t the ones attacked. He also pointed to calendars that he kept as an adolescent that he said showed he was mostly out of town on weekends or had other engagements that would have left him no time for such a party. “I am innocent of this charge,” he declared. Some Republicans were unsettled by the hearing. Jennifer Horn, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, said she believed Dr. Ford’s testimony was credible and should give Republicans pause. “This is a come-to-Jesus moment for the Republican Party,” said Ms. Horn, who serves on the board of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. “They have to decide who they are and what do they stand for.” Ed Rollins, a GOP strategist with the pro-Trump Great America PAC, called Dr. Ford “a very powerful witness” and said the “Republican strategy to not participate but be represented by a prosecutor was a serious blunder.” Judge Kavanaugh, though, “did what he needed to do. Any Republican who votes against him will pay a political price,” Mr. Rollins added. Several Republicans watching the hearing, the majority of whom support Judge Kavanaugh, said Dr. Ford appeared credible, but they wouldn’t say whether or how that might affect their vote on the nomination. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh each testified Thursday. Photo: Michael Reynolds/Press Pool; Matt McClain/Press Pool Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) said she has “great empathy and sympathy” for Dr. Ford. “I think she’s giving very compelling testimony,” Ms. Capito said during a short break in the hearing. “I think something very bad has happened to her.” Inside the White House, officials were watching the hearing with some trepidation, aware of the stakes. At the lunch break, one official said viewers would find Dr. Ford “emotional and sympathetic,” but said she had given varying numbers of people present at the party on the night in question. Mr. Flake may have aptly predicted the inconclusive outcome of the hearing in a speech he gave Wednesday, when he quoted Simon & Garfunkel and said “people will hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.” Write to Janet Hook at janet.hook@wsj.com, Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com and Natalie Andrews at Natalie.Andrews@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
Associated Press/Manuel Balce CenetaSen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., left, with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017Two senators on Tuesday urged Congress to move quickly on bipartisan legislation that would provide legal status to the hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States since they were children, and now face losing protection from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.The latest call for action on the DREAM Act, issued by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, came just hours after the Trump administration said it would phase out DACA over the next six months."Today this announcement that was handed down, first by Attorney General Sessions and then by the president, tells us that the clock is ticking," Durbin told media."We are now in a countdown toward deportation for 780,000 protected by DACA today. For those young men and women across America, I can tell you this is a moment of great concern, great fear, and great anxiety about what's going to happen to their lives."The most recent version of the DREAM Act, introduced in July, would offer legal permanent residence - and eventually a pathway to citizenship - to young immigrants if they arrived in the US as children, obtained a high school degree or GED, and are enrolled in higher education, employed, or serve in the military.Immigrants would also have to undergo background checks, demonstrate English-language proficiency, and have a criminal record clear of felonies or other "serious crimes."Durbin has introduced the DREAM Act in various iterations throughout the last 16 years and received minor victories, although none of the bills managed to pass both the House and Senate at the same time. Durbin and Graham both expressed hope that the latest version of the legislation would be passed by the end of September."I am committed to fixing this problem once and for all," Graham said at the news conference. "This is a defining moment … we are the party of a constitutional process. We believe in doing it right. But 'right' means taking care of these kids."Graham praised Trump's decision to rescind DACA and pass the issue over to Congress, but noted that some of his Republican colleagues will likely be reluctant to offer young undocumented immigrants legal status, lest the move encourage more illegal immigration."I think most Republicans believe you have to have a secure border or you'll have 11 million more [undocumented immigrants] in the future," he said, adding that his solution is to work on subsequent legislation that would address border security, after the DREAM Act is passed.Passing DREAM in the near future will be difficult. Congress is gearing up for a busy month packed with must-pass legislation, including bills to raise the debt ceiling, fund the government, overhaul the tax code, and stabilize the individual health-insurance exchanges. | 1 |
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., at a Senate hearing in May. She is under sharp criticism for her comments about a "public hanging" in a state with a dark history of lynchings. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., at a Senate hearing in May. She is under sharp criticism for her comments about a "public hanging" in a state with a dark history of lynchings. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images In a video posted on Twitter over the weekend, Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi is seen complimenting a supporter by saying, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her. Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy. pic.twitter.com/0a9jOEjokr— Lamar White, Jr. (@LamarWhiteJr) November 11, 2018 Hyde-Smith, who is white, is the appointed incumbent locked in a runoff for her Senate seat with Democratic challenger Mike Espy, a former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary who is African-American. The now viral video was posted on Twitter Sunday by Lamar White Jr., publisher of a progressive site in Louisiana called The Bayou Brief. White says he received the video from a source. It shows Hyde-Smith speaking to a small group in Tupelo, Miss., standing with cattle rancher Colin Hutchinson. In a statement, Hyde-Smith said that her remark on Nov. 2 was an "exaggerated expression of regard." "Any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous," she said. At a campaign event Monday, Hyde-Smith refused to answer repeated questions about her comments, saying she has nothing to add to her statement. Espy's campaign calls Hyde-Smith's comments "reprehensible" and says they have no place in political discourse. "We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state," said Espy campaign spokesman Danny Blanton in a statement. Former Democratic Rep. and Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy at a rally for his Senate campaign in Jackson, Miss., on Nov. 5. Espy is facing GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a Nov. 27 runoff. Rogelio V. Solis/AP hide caption toggle caption Rogelio V. Solis/AP Former Democratic Rep. and Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy at a rally for his Senate campaign in Jackson, Miss., on Nov. 5. Espy is facing GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a Nov. 27 runoff. Rogelio V. Solis/AP Mississippi has a tortured history of racially motivated killings. According to the NAACP, Mississippi had 581 lynchings between 1882 and 1968, more than any other state. The state's population has the highest percentage of African-Americans of any state, 37 percent according to the last census. "Hyde-Smith's decision to joke about 'hanging,' in a state known for its violent and terroristic history toward African-Americans is sick," said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson in a statement to NPR. "To envision this brutal and degenerate type of frame during a time when Black people, Jewish People and immigrants are still being targeted for violence by White nationalists and racists is hateful and hurtful." During an appearance on CNN, Espy was asked if the comment was racist. "All I know is we need leaders now here in 2018 that will bring us together," Espy replied. "My campaign is a campaign that tries to reach across the racial chasm, reach across the party chasm and bring us together." Because neither candidate got more than 50 percent of the vote on Election Day, Espy and Hyde-Smith are in a runoff on Nov. 27 in the special election to replace former Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired amid health concerns in April. Mississippi GOP Gov. Phil Bryant stood by Hyde-Smith, whom he appointed to the seat. "All of us in public life have said things on occasion that could have been phrased better," Bryant said, according to the AP. "When you make as many speeches as we do in public life, that does occur. But I know this woman and I know her heart. I knew it when I appointed her. I know it now. She meant no offense by that statement. There was nothing in her heart of ill-will." President Trump has endorsed Hyde-Smith. Her appointment made her the first woman ever to represent Mississippi in Congress. Espy served as agriculture secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton. In 1986, he became the first African-American from Mississippi elected to Congress since Reconstruction. | 1 |
WASHINGTON—President Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone was sentenced to three years and four months in prison on Thursday for lying to Congress and witness tampering, after a tumultuous two weeks in which Mr. Trump denounced the handling of the case and the government trial lawyers withdrew.At a 2½-hour hearing in a filled-to-capacity courtroom, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson repeatedly criticized Mr. Stone, saying that he had shown “flagrant disrespect” for Congress and the court, and dismissed claims that he was being prosecuted for his politics. “The problem is that nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t a stunt and it wasn’t a prank,” Judge Jackson said. Hours after the sentencing, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Stone’s conviction as unfair and repeated his call for the exoneration of his former political adviser, who has asked for a new trial based on the alleged bias of a juror in his case. “I want the process to play out,” Mr. Trump said in comments in Las Vegas. While Mr. Trump suggested he wouldn’t immediately intervene in Mr. Stone’s case, he left the door open to exercising his presidential power to pardon or commute Mr. Stone’s sentence. “I’m going to watch the process…and at some point I’m going to make a recommendation.” His comments marked a sharp shift from two days earlier, when he said he hadn’t given “any thought” to pardoning Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone, a Republican consultant who has known Mr. Trump for decades, was convicted in November in a case that resulted from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and any ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. The sentence was far less than the seven to nine years that trial prosecutors had initially recommended under federal guidelines before Attorney General William Barr and other senior officials overruled their recommendation and suggested a lighter punishment.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTSIs Roger Stone’s sentence appropriate? Why or why not? Join the conversation below. Judge Jackson said following the guidelines would result in a sentence that “would be greater than necessary,” but criticized what she described as the Justice Department’s “unprecedented” reversal. She said prosecutors were right to endorse a guideline sentence, as they do in the vast majority of criminal cases. The judge said she was basing her sentence on those imposed in other comparable cases, referencing the 30 months that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, received for his 2007 conviction of lying to a grand jury and obstructing justice. Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Libby in 2018. At the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Crabb backed the original recommendations of prosecutors in calculating a guideline range, a development that seemed to minimize the Justice Department’s second recommendation calling for a lighter sentence. Judge Jackson acknowledged Mr. Stone’s history of cultivating a public persona as a provocateur and a prankster. But she ruled that Mr. Stone’s pretrial behavior—including questioning the legitimacy of the proceedings and posting online after being ordered not to—should be taken into account. Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for lying to Congress about his contact with WikiLeaks, the organization that released emails hacked by Russian intelligence officials. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday breaks down the charges. Photo Illustration: Laura Kammermann She also chastised Mr. Stone’s defense team for trying to argue at trial that Mr. Stone’s lies didn’t amount to much, an argument they boiled down to: “So what?” “The truth still exists,” Judge Jackson said, describing that argument as the “most pernicious” aspect of the case. Crowds began gathering early Thursday at the federal courthouse in Washington, with cameras lining both entrances and Mr. Stone’s supporters holding a banner outside the courthouse that asked Mr. Trump to #PardonRogerStone and another group with a two-story inflatable rat. Mr. Stone declined to speak at the hearing. The flamboyant Republican operative won’t have to start serving his sentence until after Judge Jackson rules on his request for a new trial. She hasn’t specified when that will occur. His defense attorneys argued that his age, lack of criminal history and involvement in charitable causes warranted a sentence of probation. President Trump said Thursday he would ‘love to see Roger exonerated.’ Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press Given the lack of criminal history, the judge calculated the recommended sentence at 5.8 to 7.25 years in prison. Judges often depart from those guidelines. The guidelines suggested that Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, for example, faced around 20 years in prison for financial crimes including tax fraud, but he was ultimately sentenced to a total of around 7½ years in prison. In the Stone case, prosecutors filed their initial recommendation last week based on those guidelines. Mr. Trump said their recommendation was “horrible and very unfair.” Within hours, senior Justice Department officials ordered a lower recommendation that suggested the court could appropriately discount several additional levels of punishment. That prompted the four trial prosecutors to withdraw from the case. At the sentencing hearing, Judge Jackson noted that it was unusual for the government not to argue for the maximum sentence. Mr. Crabb from the U.S. attorney’s office tried to reassure the court that they were not backing away from the prosecution but declined to discuss the specifics of why the Justice Department filed two separate memos. “The Department of Justice and United States attorney’s office is committed to enforcing the law without fear, favor or political influence,” said Mr. Crabb. “This prosecution was and is righteous.” Mr. Crabb attributed the two memos to a “miscommunication” between prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and leaders in the Justice Department, but declined to elaborate. Mr. Trump’s criticism of Mr. Stone’s prosecution centered on one of the jurors in his case, a woman who had previously run for Congress as a Democrat. He called her “totally tainted” on Thursday at the graduation ceremony for Hope for Prisoners, a program that helps those leaving prison re-enter the workforce and their communities. According to transcripts of jury selection, Mr. Stone’s lawyers asked the juror in question about potential bias—including Democratic politics—but didn’t seek to exclude her from the jury pool. Mr. Trump’s comments came after Mr. Barr said in an unusual television interview last week that Mr. Trump’s tweets about Justice Department cases made it “impossible” for him to do his job. Since then, Mr. Trump has showed no sign of easing his commentary on cases related to his former advisers, though he acknowledged that he was aware his tweets complicated Mr. Barr’s job. A federal jury convicted Mr. Stone of lying to Congress in its investigation of Russian election interference and misleading lawmakers about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks, which published emails stolen from Democrats that jolted the 2016 campaign. He was also convicted of tampering with a witness, Randy Credico, a New York comedian who had evidence to contradict Mr. Stone. That count carries a heftier punishment than the others Mr. Stone faced, as physical harm or threats to potential witnesses against a defendant are considered among the most serious crimes in the U.S. criminal-justice system. At trial, prosecutors highlighted dozens of expletive-filled text messages and emails in which Mr. Stone pressured Mr. Credico to stonewall Congress, including saying at one point he was going to take Mr. Credico’s dog, and relaying in another: “Prepare to die.” Mr. Stone’s attorneys unsuccessfully argued that the threats against Mr. Credico were simply the way the two men communicated. “They have a long 20-year relationship. In the context of that private conversation, Mr. Credico understood that it was just Stone being Stone. He’s all bark, no bite,” said defense attorney Seth Ginsberg. Mr. Credico testified at the trial, and later wrote to the court that he never personally felt threatened by Mr. Stone and urged the judge not to send him to prison. On Thursday, Judge Jackson referred to Mr. Credico’s testimony before the grand jury in which he said he was wearing a disguise at times and went into hiding because he was afraid for his safety. “His level of concern may have changed over time,” Judge Jackson said. —Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article. More Corrections & Amplifications Roger Stone was sentenced to three years and four months in prison. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that he was sentenced to three years in prison. (Feb. 20, 2020) Write to Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com and Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
CALEXICO, Calif.—President Trump made his case for more barriers as he visited the border with Mexico on Friday, while continuing to say the U.S. immigration system is being overwhelmed by Central Americans seeking asylum. “We can’t take you anymore. I’m sorry. Can’t happen. So turn around,” Mr. Trump said of the migrants. He made the comments during a discussion with border officials that was followed by a visit to a proposed border wall at one of two international ports of entry in California’s Imperial Valley. Mr. Trump recently declared a border emergency to redirect more funding for a border wall. Mr. Trump blasted the asylum system, asserting that people are making up stories of being threatened by violence at home to be able to stay in the U.S. “It’s a scam. It’s a hoax,” Mr. Trump said. “I know about hoaxes, I just went through a hoax. Our system is full.” Gang violence remains a problem in Central America, and Mr. Trump’s recent call to cut off financial aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador has been criticized by members of both parties as counterproductive. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen recently said the department estimated about 100,000 migrants crossed the border illegally or asked for refuge at legal border crossings in March, a level not seen in more than a decade. Despite the tough rhetoric Friday, Mr. Trump has backed off a threat to close the border entirely, saying Mexico had made progress in apprehending migrants and stopping their journey to the U.S. border. Before leaving Washington, however, he reiterated a new threat: If the situation doesn’t improve, he will impose tariffs on Mexican-made vehicles entering the U.S. “If for any reason Mexico stops apprehending and bringing the illegals back to where they came from, the U.S. will be forced to Tariff at 25% all cars made in Mexico and shipped over the Border to us. If that doesn’t work, which it will, I will close the Border,” he wrote on Twitter. “This will supersede USMCA,” he added, referring to the revised North American trade pact. He also said Ron Vitiello, a veteran border official, is no longer being considered to lead the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He has been serving in an acting director role since June 2018. The nomination was withdrawn unexpectedly on Thursday. “Ron’s a good man,” Mr. Trump said. “But we’re going in a tougher direction.” During a visit to the U.S. border town of Calexico, Calif., President Trump threatened to close the border again, along with adding tariffs to Mexico’s cars, if the country fails to curb illegal immigration. Photo: Reuters The move leaves the agency without a leader at a crucial time, and Mr. Trump didn’t mention any potential replacements. The president has sent mixed signals. He said Thursday he would give Mexico a year to show action before leveling tariffs, but later said he could still close the border. On Friday he said, “I never changed my mind at all. I may shut it down at some point, but I’d rather do tariffs.” Mr. Trump said the tariffs would work “100%.” He said he was also looking at an economic policy for drugs coming over the border. Mexico’s recent shift in its migration policies has caused tensions at the U.S.-Mexico border. The administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has begun offering humanitarian visas to Central American asylum seekers making the trek across Mexico and has also has cut back on deportations. Meanwhile, the number of illegal immigrants detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection has risen. Mexico hasn’t commented on whether it had stepped up migrant apprehensions in recent days as Mr. Trump has asserted, but government officials have said they believed trade and migration issues should be kept separate. Mr. Trump didn’t immediately clarify how he would carry out potential levies against Mexico. The Commerce Department has studied applying global tariffs on automobiles and auto parts on the grounds that such imports constitute a threat to national security. The U.S., Mexico and Canada in November signed a new pact overhauling their 25-year-old trade zone, concluding a year and a half of diplomacy after Mr. Trump was on the verge of pulling the U.S. out of the bloc. The pact needs congressional approval and has encountered some opposition. Mr. Trump scoffed at that as “purely political” in remarks to reporters Thursday. “The USMCA, everybody wants to see it passed,” he said. “But we’ll see. Whatever they want to do is OK with me.” After the border tour, Mr. Trump was scheduled to hold a series of fundraisers in California and Nevada on Friday and Saturday. He is also to deliver a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas. —Juan Montes in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, Santiago Pérez in Mexico City and Louise Radnofsky in Washington contributed to this article. Write to Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com and Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | 1 |
Congressman Who Took Nude Dip In Sea Of Galilee Apologizes : The Two-Way Kansas Republican Kevin Yoder was among a group of lawmakers who got in the water during a late-night escapade last summer. He was reportedly the only way to fully disrobe. Yoder says he was in the water only briefly. America August 20, 20128:34 AM ET Saying he apologizes for "any embarrassment I have caused for my colleagues and constituents," Kansas Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder has confirmed a Politico report that he was the "nude member of Congress" who took a dip in the Sea of Galilee last year during a late-night escapade "that involved drinking [and] numerous GOP freshmen lawmakers." According to Politico: "During a fact-finding congressional trip to the Holy Land last summer ... Yoder took off his clothes and jumped into the sea, joining a number of members, their families and GOP staff during a night out in Israel ... sources told POLITICO. Other participants, including the daughter of another congressman, swam fully clothed, while some lawmakers partially disrobed. More than 20 people took part in the late-night dip in the sea, according to sources who were participants in the trip." As The Kansas City Star reminds its readers this morning, "Christians consider the Sea of Galilee a holy site; it is where the Bible says Jesus walked on water." Yoder told the Star that: "Part of the reason I made that decision at that moment was there was really nobody in the vicinity who could see me. ... I dove in, hopped right back out, put my clothes on and, regardless, that was still not the behavior people expected out of their congressman." According to the Star, the congressman said he remained in the water for about 10 seconds. Politico says that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., was on the trip as well. He apparently was not among the group that went to the Sea of Galilee. Politico says that Cantor "was so upset about the antics that he rebuked the 30 lawmakers the morning after the Aug. 18, 2011, incident, saying they were distracting from the mission of the trip." Yoder is running unopposed for a second term. | 1 |
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