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The Slatest Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings on Aug. 7 in Washington.
Win McNamee/Getty Images Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland died early Thursday due to complications stemming from longtime health issues, the Democratic leader’s office announced.* He was 68. Cummings, who has played a high-profile role in a myriad of investigations into President Donald Trump as the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, underwent a medical procedure last month but had not yet returned to his office this week when the House was back in session. “A sharecropper’s son, Cummings became the powerful chairman of a U.S. House committee that investigated President Donald Trump, and was a formidable orator who passionately advocated for the poor in his black-majority district, which encompasses a large portion of Baltimore as well as more well-to-do suburbs,” the Associated Press notes. “Cummings’ long career spanned decades in Maryland politics. He rose through the ranks of the Maryland House of Delegates before winning his congressional seat in a special election in 1996 to replace former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who left the seat to lead the NAACP.” Cummings, whose district includes parts of Baltimore and Howard counties, was a frequent recipient of Trump’s tirades, as he had played a prominent role in the impeachment inquiry and other investigations into the administration. Correction, Oct. 17, 2019: This post originally misstated when Cummings died. It was Thursday, not Tuesday. | 0 |
Story highlightsDana Bash: Keep your eye on Senate drama; can GOP regain control?Gloria Borger: How the white vs. nonwhite vote goes could be criticalCandy Crowley: It's all about the suburbs -- and one special county in OhioPeter Hamby: Pasco County will shed light on how the Sunshine State will goA long and bitter presidential election comes to a close Tuesday when Americans choose between a second term for President Barack Obama and a new direction with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.CNN's reporters, correspondents, analysts and anchors share what they'll be watching for that might tip off how the election will go:Acosta: Romney's make-or-break stateIt's been called Obama's election "firewall." But truth be told, it's looking more and more like Romney's make-or-break state.Consider the day's agenda. Late Monday, the Romney campaign revealed the GOP nominee and running mate Paul Ryan will make public appearances in Cleveland on Election Day in one last push for undecided voters. No other state can make the same claim.What other state can boast an event in which the Romney campaign plane pulled into an aircraft hangar before thousands of cheering supporters? That bit of grandiose stage crafting was pulled off by the Romney campaign in Columbus on Monday night. Despite the campaign's confidence in winning Ohio, a Republican source close to Romney's operation in the state said the result there will be "close, very close."It might come down to Romney's opposition to the U.S. auto bailout. His "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" op-ed in The New York Times in 2008 (a headline he did not write) may prove to be his downfall in Ohio, where one in eight jobs are tied to the auto industry. Who would have thought a newspaper column, not Romney's business career nor his record as governor of Massachusetts, would have the potential of denying him the White House?Romney tried to mitigate the impact of the auto issue by making a discredited claim at an event in Ohio that Chrysler was considering moving all of its Jeep production to China. His campaign then continued to tell that story, in various renditions, in ads in the state to stinging reviews from the state's newspapers.Bash: Unexpected GOP struggles in SenateThe neck-and-neck presidential race might be dominating headlines, but there are a lot of rich dramas playing out across the country in the battle for control of the Senate.Heading into Election Day, there are nearly a dozen true toss-up races that could go either way.Republicans hold 47 seats. To retake control of the Senate, the GOP needs a net gain of four. With 23 Democratic seats up for grabs in a terrible economy, it seemed like a no-brainer that Republicans would be able to flip four. But it's now a struggle for the GOP.The central reason is that Republicans are defending several unexpected races on their own turf. Indiana's Senate race is going to be one of the evening's early bellwethers to determine the balance of power in the Senate. GOP candidate Richard Mourdock's poll numbers plummeted in this red state after he awkwardly said a few weeks ago that pregnancy from rape is a gift from God. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET, and if Democrat Joe Donnelly wins, it will set Republicans back -- especially since the GOP already expects to lose the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe in Maine. The state's popular former governor, independent candidate Angus King, is on track to win there.Here are three other nail-biters I'll be watching:Virginia: With more than $80 million spent so far, it's the most expensive Senate race in the country. Former GOP Sen. George Allen is trying to get his seat back after a narrow defeat six years ago. The man who beat him, Jim Webb, is retiring, and former Gov. and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine hopes to keep the seat in Democratic hands.Montana: Neither Republicans nor Democrats will even privately predict which way this one will go. Incumbent Democrat Jon Tester is trying to hold on for a second term in this red state. GOP challenger Rep. Denny Rehberg started out the race about 1% ahead in the polls. Now, $50 million later, they're in the exact same place -- a 1% differential between them.Massachusetts: Going into Election Day, Republican strategists were pessimistic about holding onto this red seat in the traditionally blue state. GOP Sen. Scott Brown had fallen behind his well-funded Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren -- a liberal icon who was the president's former consumer advocate. Brown's win in the race to fill the late Ted Kennedy's seat stunned the political world, and he insists he'll surprise everyone again. But the president is expected to take Massachusetts by double digits -- and with him at the top of the ticket, it may be hard for Brown to beat back a Warren win.Borger: How will the white vs. nonwhite vote splitOne important indicator I will be looking at Election Night is the question of ethnicity -- and how the white vs. the nonwhite population splits. In the 2008 election, 74% of the electorate was white. That percentage has declined recently because of the growth in the Hispanic and voting African-American population.Given the ongoing Republican trouble with Hispanic voters and the assumption that African-Americans will, once again, vote overwhelmingly for the president, Romney needs a strong white turnout to help propel him to victory.In an analysis by Republican pollster Bill McInturff, the question of the white/nonwhite divide is called the most "critical" of the election. His analysis shows that if the white percentage of the electorate drops to 72%, Obama will probably win the election.One key to watch is how the white vote itself splits between Obama and Romney. In the latest national poll CNN/ORC International, taken from Friday to Sunday, Obama received 40% of the white vote, while Romney got 57%. In 2008, Obama received 43% of the white vote, which means he is polling less than that currently.Crowley: Virginia suburbs and I-4 corridor The first thing I'll watch is the exit polls to see who's voting and where -- in particular, heavy Latino turnout in Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and Florida could indicate Obama wins those states.Then, it's Virginia, Florida and Ohio.I'll watch the Virginia suburbs of Washington, particularly the female vote. Romney won't win here, but he has to hold down Obama's numbers while running up his own score in the rural area. Romney has to win Virginia.Florida is all about the Interstate 4 corridor. North of it votes Republican, south of it Democratic. The I-4 corridor decides.Everyone will tell you to watch Lake, Stark and Hamilton counties in Ohio. There are good reasons to watch all of them, reasons no doubt delineated by my colleagues. But for me, it's all about Ottawa County, which has correctly picked the presidential winner in Ohio since 1944. That's a better record than pollsters. I'll watch Ottawa.Hamby: How goes Pasco? Polls begin to close in Florida at 7 p.m. ET, and a handful of counties will report their absentee and early vote tallies immediately.Once that happens, political pros in Florida will be anxiously refreshing election board websites in a handful of those counties -- Pinellas, Duval, Orange -- in search of early clues about which way the state is trending.One of them is Pasco County, outside Tampa. Officials there are diligent about posting returns as quickly as possible. The county has a slight Republican tilt, but Obama won the early and absentee vote there in 2008 despite losing the county on Election Night. For Democrats, it was a promising sign that Obama was well on his way to being competitive statewide, even in GOP-leaning areas.In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry in the Pasco early/absentee vote by eight points. Bush ended up winning the county by 10 points. In a shift four years later, Obama beat John McCain by five points in the early absentee vote. He ultimately lost the county -- but only by 3.5 points, thanks to the votes the campaign banked early.If Obama is losing Pasco by more than that Bush/Kerry margin by the time the first returns are posted, it could be a tough night for Obama in Florida."If you are looking for good news for Romney out of Pasco, if they have a 10- to 12-point lead in the absentee and early vote, that probably portends that they are going to have a really good night in suburban counties," said one top Florida Democrat.King: The suburban vote and who votes in the swing statesA narrow and then a more global point:• Watch the vote in the suburbs around Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, and in northern Virginia. These are two early-closing states; if Romney is holding his own in the suburbs, we have a competitive night. If not, it could be effectively over before we get to the Central Time zone.• Who votes determines who wins: The composition of the electorate in the swing states is the first and best clue. Does the electorate look like 2008? If so, then Obama is likely on a path to victory. But if the percentage of African-American, Latino and younger voters is down just a bit -- and the electorate looks, say, more like the 2004 presidential election -- then Romney has a shot. Preston: What happens afterward?It goes without saying that we are all looking at turnout in the key battleground states -- can Romney and Obama get their respective bases to show up at the polls and at the same time, convincing the independent voters to vote for them?What is piquing my interest is not only what happens in the next few hours but what will be the political climate for the next president-elect. Washington is already polarized, and there are great challenges facing Congress before the end of the year.Whoever wins the presidency and the parties that control the House and the Senate need to put the bitterness of this election behind them and work together.The big question: Can they do that?Steinhauser: Can Romney broaden the electoral map?This election will be won or lost in the battleground states. Or will it?Romney's presidential campaign is making a last-minute push in two states that should be safe for Obama: Pennsylvania and Minnesota.Romney campaigned in Pennsylvania on Sunday and goes back to the Keystone State on Election Day. Running mate Ryan campaigned in Pennsylvania on Saturday and in Minnesota on Sunday, and the campaign's up with ads in both states.Is this a head fake by the Romney campaign, or does it see the tightening public opinion polls in both states as evidence it might be able to turn Pennsylvania and Minnesota from blue to red?The Romney campaign says it's playing offense. The Obama campaign says the move is a sign of desperation by the Romney camp. We'll find out who's right on Election Night.Yellin: Will voters send a clear message? Have you heard? The early voter was this year's soccer mom -- the must-have vote both sides fought over.Obama appears to have won most of the early vote but not at the same margins as 2008, leaving Team Romney a window it says it can pry open. Now it's about who turns out: Will the president recreate the same coalition as he did in 2008? This is a euphemism for how white the voters will be on Election Day. If enough Latinos and African-Americans vote, Obama gets a second term. If they don't, it's President Romney.I'm not a fan of reading tea leaves to guess where this will end. Can't we wait till the votes are counted?I'll be watching for what voters are saying at the ballot box. I know -- so old-fashioned. Will whoever becomes president have a mandate? And to do what?In 2008, it was pretty clear that Americans wanted change -- a change from the Bush years. In 2010 -- the tea party midterms -- they wanted less spending, smaller government.It's not clear what the mandate might be after this campaign. Do Americans want the government to do more or less to help with tough economic times? The next president will confront tax reform and deficit reduction and changes to our health care system. These are huge issues that could prompt more gridlock in Washington -- unless there's a clear message from voters.Do voters want compromise in Washington? If so, when it gets right down to it, are they willing to compromise on the issues that matter most to them -- debt or taxes or reforming Medicare? There's the rub. | 0 |
The White House is done trying to negotiate on infrastructure with a group of Republicans after weeks of talks between President Joe Biden’s administration and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) came to an unceremonious end Tuesday.The administration is now turning its attention toward a broader bipartisan group of 20 senators, which includes Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), as they continue to seek at least some GOP support for an infrastructure package.The administration also said it was working with Democratic leaders in Congress to ensure passage of an infrastructure package this summer, aiming to alleviate anger from progressives eager for the White House to give up hope on reaching a deal with the GOP. Biden had a call with Capito Tuesday, after meeting with the lead Republican negotiator on infrastructure in the White House last week — a conversation that Capito said was the end of talks between the two parties.“I spoke with the president this afternoon, and he ended our infrastructure negotiations,” Capito said.Republicans had offered a plan half the size of what the White House has proposed on infrastructure, one that included far less in new federal spending on infrastructure projects. It also did not address key priorities sought by Democrats on climate, housing and elder care.White House officials said Biden had been willing to cut more than $1 trillion in spending from his original proposal, while Republicans had only offered $150 billion in new spending since the start of negotiations.Biden “informed Senator Capito today that the latest offer from her group did not, in his view, meet the essential needs of our country to restore our roads and bridges, prepare us for our clean energy future, and create jobs,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. In the end, Republicans refused to engage on major tax provisions — like an increased corporate tax rate — that the Biden administration initially wanted to see in the bill. Biden, meanwhile, made a major concession: offering to leave the current, historically low corporate tax rate intact in exchange for a minimum corporate tax rate. Community members gather outside of Senator Shelley Moore Capito's office as West Virginians in Charleston call for an investment in care, climate, and families on June 3.Emilee Chinn via Getty ImagesThe White House is now shifting gears to negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators who are working an alternative compromise on infrastructure. But that group, which is meeting on Tuesday, is said to be discussing an even smaller proposal that excludes the same kind of Democratic priorities Biden was pushing for in his talks with Capito. The group of 20 senators also worked, but ultimately failed to reach a compromise, on coronavirus relief late last year. The administration did emphasize it is preparing for Democrat-only infrastructure legislation, which has always been the most likely outcome. Biden spoke with both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday, saying they were coordinating to pass legislation in the House this month and move it to the Senate floor in July. “The president is committed to moving his economic legislation through Congress this summer,” Psaki reiterated in a statement. Schumer told reporters on Tuesday that Democrats were proceeding with both tracks.“It may well be that part of the bill that will pass will be bipartisan and part of it might be reconciliation, but we’re not going to sacrifice the bigness and boldness in this bill. We will just pursue two paths and, at some point, they will join,” Schumer said.Already, progressive lawmakers in Congress are getting impatient with the bipartisan talks. On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told reporters she believes the Senate should go ahead with a budget reconciliation package, which would allow Democrats to pass an infrastructure bill on party lines. “So far, we’ve got nothing,” Warren said, of what has come out of bipartisan talks.Several Democrats also voiced concerns after being briefed on the bipartisan negotiations in a caucus lunch on Tuesday, warning that continued dealing with Republicans would needlessly narrow the size of an infrastructure package.Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) also tweeted Monday that he’s “very anxious” climate legislation will be completely left out of the negotiations, saying he senses “trouble.”“Climate has fallen out of the infrastructure discussion, as it took its bipartisanship detour. It may not return,” Whitehouse wrote. “Don’t see the preparatory work for a close Senate climate vote taking place in the administration. Why not marshal business support?” | 0 |
February’s meager gain follows other signs of economic sluggishness. But there were encouraging signs in the data as well.March 8, 2019The economy’s remarkably steady job-creation machine sputtered in February and produced a mere 20,000 jobs. It was the smallest gain in well over a year and came on top of other signs that the economy was off to a sluggish start in 2019. For months, the labor market could be counted on for an upbeat counterpoint to negative developments, including a fragile global economy weighed down by trade tensions. In the United States, growth for the first quarter is expected to dance around the 1 percent bar, as the shot of adrenaline delivered by last year’s tax cuts fades. Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago, said Friday’s news from the Labor Department was worrisome. “This is a disappointing report,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way to sugarcoat it.”But the longer-term trend is what matters, and there were competing interpretations of whether the report was a troubling omen or a fluke.Beyond the month’s payroll figure, the report offered some unambiguously good news, including 3.4 percent year-over-year wage growth, the strongest in a decade. Revisions to previous months’ estimates added 12,000 jobs, bringing the average gains for December, January and February to 186,000. The official jobless rate fell to 3.8 percent, from 4 percent in January. A broader measure of employment that includes part-timers who would prefer full-time work and those too discouraged to search fell to 7.3 percent from 8.1 percent. “That’s a year’s worth of improvement in one month,” said G. Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at the private bank Brown Brothers Harriman. Aftereffects of the government shutdown and wretched weather may have contributed to anomalies in the report. “This is the strangest jobs report I’ve seen in a long time,” Mr. Clemons said. “It’s bizarre. I can’t help but think there is noise in there.” During the decade-long expansion, the economy has churned out 20 million jobs. The anemic job creation and rising wages could indicate that the pool of available workers was drying up, and employers were having trouble filling openings.“The real challenge is the shortage of people,” said Tom Gimbel, chief executive of LaSalle Network, a staffing firm in Chicago. He said he speaks to roughly two dozen hiring managers and chief executives every week, and everyone is bullish. “I haven’t had anybody in 2019 tell me that they’re not going to be adding head count,” he said. But the combination of the payroll news with the prospect of torpid first-quarter growth and stubborn trade disputes cannot be brushed off, said Mr. Tannenbaum, the Northern Trust economist. “It’s a signal we need to be cautious with the U.S. economic outlook,” he added. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 was down roughly 0.2 percent on Friday. It was the fifth straight decline for the index, a marked slowdown after the first two months of the year. The fallout from the government shutdownThe labor report could reflect some of the confusion and delays prompted by the 35-day partial government shutdown, which extended through most of January. Furloughed federal workers and affected contractors had to scrounge for part-time work when their paychecks were halted. Those circumstances were reflected in January’s report, which showed that the number of workers who snagged part-time jobs for economic reasons jumped by nearly half a million and those temporarily unemployed rose by roughly 175,000.“They now have paychecks and don’t need to drive Uber to make ends meet,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton. ImageCredit...Keith Srakocic/Associated PressThe shutdown also postponed hiring both within the government and in the private sector, in part because the federal electronic service that verifies the employment eligibility of prospective workers — E-Verify — was not operating. Some of those hires, particularly in the public sector, may be in the pipeline. Government payrolls — federal, state and local — were down by 5,000.Delays in income-tax refunds may also have had an impact, if people held off with discretionary purchases, Ms. Swonk said. The leisure and hospitality showed no growth. Some of the layoffs that big retailers like Gap, JCPenney, Sears, Dollar Tree and Abercrombie & Fitch have announced may be starting to trickle through as well, with a drop of 6,100 in the retail sector.In addition, the construction industry, which is closely linked to weather conditions, shed 31,000 jobs last month.More broadly, optimism continues Outside of the government’s report, signs of employer confidence were still evident. “I’ve been in this business over 40 years, and February always presents kind of a pause,” said William H. Stoller, chairman and chief executive of Express Employment Professionals, which is based in Oklahoma City. He compared it to taking a breath during a marathon, before a second wind kicks in. “I don’t see it hitting the wall at all at this point,” he said.Other recruiting and employment professionals also expect the labor market to regain its momentum. Bill Ravenscroft, a senior vice president at the staffing firm Adecco, pointed to a growing willingness to convert temporary workers into full-time staff members. The high rate of conversion, he said, shows there is little concern that layoffs will be needed down the road.With job postings outpacing applicants, Adecco has started to offer daily pay to lure more people into the pool of potential workers. Many job seekers can’t wait two weeks for the paychecks, Mr. Ravenscroft said. Now, “if you log eight hours that day, you get paid for it.”Sanford Health’s weight-loss and lifestyle program, Profile, has been on a hiring binge, said Nate Malloy, Profile’s chief executive. He said he expected 100 new locations, many of them franchises, to open this year. “We’re adding around 50 to 100 employees a month” across locations, he said. Most are health coaches, with starting wages of $15 to $20 an hour. As has been the case throughout the recovery, job opportunities can vary widely by region. Hard-pressed rural areas have experienced the slowest growth in employment, yet residents are often unable or unwilling to abandon their homes and move to other areas. The job growth reflected in the monthly reports is spread relatively evenly across large urban areas, but the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project found that “rural counties — the majority of which were already struggling — seem to be increasingly left behind with employment barely growing over the last five years.”Nationwide, though, employers talked about their hiring plans. Ace Hardware, a cooperative of independently owned and operated hardware stores, expects an additional 160 stores will open this year, creating 2,500 jobs, said Kane Calamari, the company’s personnel chief. Of the 681 employers surveyed last month by Vistage, an association of small-business owners and executives, nearly 60 percent said they planned to increase their total staff over the next 12 months. That share is down from last year, said Joe Galvin, Vistage’s chief research officer, but is still strong.And on Twitter, President Trump continued to be an enthusiastic cheerleader for the economy. Shortly after the report’s release Friday morning, he cited a Fox News commentator’s observation that United States has “the strongest economy in the world,” writing, “So true!”Matt Phillips contributed reporting. | 0 |
Some who follow the issue say Keystone remains a tough call for the administration. Green activists aren’t resigned to losing the Keystone battle. But Friday’s latest blow was yet another disappointment in their often strained relationship with President Barack Obama. The new State Department report that discounted most of the environmental community’s warnings about the Keystone XL oil pipeline puts the final decision on the project closer to Obama’s desk, after years in which he’s been able to dodge rendering a verdict. It all may come down to which Obama makes the final call: the president who declared in Tuesday’s State of the Union that “climate change is a fact” or the one who, in the same speech, touted an “all of the above” approach to energy policy — a phrase that environmentalists had specifically urged him to stop using. ( Also on POLITICO: Greens suffer another Keystone setback) This is also the same White House that picked health care over a giant cap-and-trade bill in 2010 but three years later launched the biggest-ever regulatory attack on carbon pollution from coal-burning power plants. Adding to the tension for deep-pocketed, politically connected greens is the fact that Friday’s unwelcome message on Keystone came from a department led by one of their most passionate champions, Secretary of State John Kerry. Some environmentalists fumed, while others looked for silver linings, including some additional language in the sprawling final document that could be used to bolster their arguments. “It’s just a study; it doesn’t recommend a course of action,” said Kenny Bruno, a lead spokesman in the campaign against tapping Canadian oil sands. Pipeline critics, he said, have “the winds at our backs” because the decision is “no longer in the hands of lower-level bureaucrats in the State Department. It’s in the hands of climate champions Barack Obama and John Kerry.” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said the analysis gives Obama and Kerry “everything” they need to reject the pipeline. “We are cautiously confident that he will make the right choice,” Brune said of Obama. ( Also on POLITICO: Obama's options on Keystone) The analysis is “just an input,” billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer said. “So we don’t have an answer yet, and the fight is far from over.” But others denounced the entire review process so far as corrupt and flawed. “This document will be seen by the entire environmental community — in which I certainly include myself — as a sham,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.). He was one of several Keystone opponents who complained about news reports in which oil industry groups or Canadian officials offered previews of what they had heard the study would say. “The fact that the Canadian government and the oil industry were reportedly briefed on today’s news before Congress was given the courtesy of a heads-up speaks volumes,” Grijalva said. “It encourages the already widely held impression that the fix was in from the beginning. If the administration expects to avoid the lasting stink of having ignored every red flag in the book, it needs to explain itself.” The added details in the final version will allow Obama and Kerry to use them as they see fit, said one former Obama administration official closely following the Keystone process. “I think it would be wrong to conclude that this is a rubber stamp for the project and right to conclude it provides additional information that the administration will be looking at before a final decision is made,” the former official said. “The administration is looking to keep its options open here.” ( MAP: Keystone XL pipeline) Obama has offered some hints that he thinks both sides have overstated the impact of the Alberta-to-Texas oil pipeline, which the State Department study indicates will be neither a major environmental problem nor a powerhouse job creator. But by letting the decision linger for years, Obama has also allowed pipeline opponents to elevate its political significance — adding it to the holy trinity of green litmus tests alongside drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and saving the Pacific Northwest’s spotted owl. “I don’t necessarily think that there’s a real climate change impact in this decision,” said another former administration official who worked on energy issues. “The oil is there. It’s going to be extracted. Its going to be sold to someone. By trying to frame this as a big political battle and a test of the president’s courage, I think it was a strategic miscalculation by the environmental community.” Politically, though, some who follow the issue say Keystone remains a tough call for the administration. It plays green activists and Democratic donors against each other headed into this year’s midterm elections. And several party activists offered contrasting arguments for whether a pro-Keystone or anti-Keystone decision works more to the Democrats’ benefit. The second former administration official said Obama would have reason to consider making a pro-Keystone decision now to take away a potent Republican talking point. Keystone has become “a dog whistle for their [GOP] base, probably because the environmental community made it one,” the ex-official said. But Chris Lehane, a longtime party operative who worked for Al Gore’s 2000 campaign and is now affiliated with Steyer’s anti-Keystone super PAC, said Obama would risk dampening midterm turnout among two critical Democratic voting demographics — Hispanics and under-30s — by permitting the pipeline. “If you’re talking about the raw politics of this, if you’re a Democrat and trying to maximize turnout, you have to look at which cohorts you’re trying to maximize,” he said. Lehane also recalled Obama’s recent comments to The New Yorker’s David Remnick about a president having a chance to influence only one paragraph in the history books. “This would fall square in the type of paragraph the president was addressing in that conversation,” Lehane said. Environmentalists say they aren’t conceding a loss quite yet. “Is it politically easier for him to approve this thing? Maybe,” said Roger Ballentine, a former environmental adviser to Kerry and President Bill Clinton. “But I don’t think it’s politically hard to reject it.” He argued that the need for a new pipeline to send Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast is unwarranted when U.S. oil production levels have topped exports for the first time since 1995. “If I’m a senator and someone tries to beat me up on this, I say, ‘Look, what we should be doing is focusing on the infrastructure we need to responsibly develop,’” said Ballentine, now president of Green Strategies. Obama is in a no-win situation as he weighs the appeals from greens, Republicans, industry and Canada, which is both a leading U.S. trading partner and “one of our best friends in the world,” said former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. “The politics are complicated and to a large extent zero-sum,” Crowley said. “Which is why the administration is taking its time trying to manage a least-bad outcome.” On the pipeline’s merits, people on both sides said the final State Department report left Obama some room to either kill or reject the project. For instance, the report said building Keystone is unlikely by itself to cause Canada to dramatically expand production from its western oil sands, increasing greenhouse gas emissions. That may happen — or not happen — for reasons besides the pipeline. The analysis was clearly a disappointment to many pipeline critics, who wanted the State Department to deem the pipeline an outright climate and environmental hazard. But pipeline opponents also offered differing interpretations on whether the report had softened the State Department’s past view that the project wouldn’t pose significant environmental harm. “In this report, for the very first time, the State Department acknowledges a scenario in which the Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline dramatically increases carbon pollution,” said National Wildlife Federation CEO Larry Schweiger. “That’s a welcome and long overdue change, and it gives President Obama all the evidence he needs to reject Keystone XL.” Climate activist Bill McKibben, a Vermont-based author spearheading the fight against the pipeline, was less optimistic. He said the report “reflects some grudging movement” by the State Department to recognize the environmental impact of the pipeline. “They’re at the point of saying night is late afternoon,” he said. Meanwhile, at the State Department on Friday afternoon, Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones repeatedly told reporters, “Whether one pipeline specifically would affect the overall development of the oil sands, that specific answer is not in this document.” | 0 |
VideoThe Upshot’s David Leonhardt breaks down the April Jobs report in less than 30 seconds.May 2, 2014After a frustrating series of false starts since the economic recovery began five years ago, American businesses appear to be increasingly confident about hiring new workers. In the best monthly showing in more than two years, employers added 288,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said on Friday, representing three consecutive months in which payrolls grew by more than 200,000. The report, combined with other recent data, suggests the economy is poised to expand at a faster pace in the coming months, after a slow start in the depths of winter. Despite the big jump in payrolls, wages did not grow at all in April, illustrating why so many Americans remain doubtful that they will benefit from what both the Federal Reserve and the White House see as evidence of a resurgent economy.“The payroll numbers suggest that the economy is recovering from a weather-induced slowdown,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. But, he said, “we still have not reached the point where workers have negotiating power.”Even a sharp drop in the nation’s unemployment rate, to 6.3 percent from March’s 6.7 percent, provided little cause for celebration, since it was primarily because of a large decline in the number of people participating in the labor force rather than an increase in the number of Americans telling government survey workers that they had found a new job. As a result, even as President Obama sought to seize on the upswing in the job market as evidence that his policies are working, he continues to struggle to capitalize politically on the improving economy.ImageCredit...Michael Nagle for The New York TimesAlthough the unemployment rate is at the lowest level of Mr. Obama’s presidency, his job approval rating is also near a record low. Economists had anticipated a jump in hiring in April, as the bitterly cold winter faded into memory and consumer and business activity rose in tandem with temperatures, but the increase was much better than had been expected and cut across both white-collar and blue-collar sectors of the economy. Professional and business services was the single biggest gainer, adding 75,000 positions, while the number of construction jobs jumped by 32,000.In addition, government statisticians also revised upward the number of jobs added in February and March, suggesting the economy was stronger than first assumed.Month-to-month swings in hiring represent a snapshot of the economy, rather than a portrait, and frequently blur. But April’s 288,000 increase, which was adjusted to take account of normal seasonal variations and is itself subject to further revision, was well above the average monthly gain of 194,000 in 2013. “It’s as good as I could have expected,” said Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “It was either a post-winter catch up, or the start of a stronger trend. There’s no way to know yet, but I’m happy either way.”At big companies like YRC Worldwide, a trucking firm based in Overland Park, Kan., April was something of a turning point. For the first time in several years, the company’s chief executive, James L. Welch, said, YRC has hired full-time recruiters to find more drivers and is also advertising open positions and participating in career fairs again.So far this year, YRC has hired 600 people, mostly hourly workers like truckers, mechanics and dock workers, with the bulk of them coming aboard in April. If business remains brisk in May and June and the growth trajectory seems more certain, Mr. Welch said, YRC will add another 1,000 employees to its total work force of 32,000 by the end of the year. Positions like these are especially important if the recovery is to benefit all Americans, especially since a majority of workers lack a college degree. Hourly workers at YRC earn roughly $21 an hour, and benefits are fully covered by the company.But Mr. Welch is not prepared to open the doors wide just yet. “I’m very curious to see how freight levels are in May and June,” Mr. Welch said. “We’re trying to figure out if this is an overhang from the winter, or is it the economy getting better. I don’t have the answer yet.” The uncertainty faced by companies like YRC is echoed by the conflicting signals evident in Friday’s report. While most observers agreed the surge in hiring that companies reported in April reflected more confidence among executives as profits soar and stock prices rise, Washington officials as well as professional economists were divided on the deeper significance of the contraction in the labor force. Unlike the payroll data, the figures on the labor force come from a separate survey of households that is used to determine the unemployment rate. In an interview, Thomas E. Perez, the labor secretary, suggested the big drop in the number of workers in the household survey was caused by fewer new entrants coming into the job market, rather than a sudden exodus out of it. One explanation, he said, could be that last month’s survey was taken a week earlier than usual to accommodate Easter, reducing the number of seasonal workers and high school graduates who otherwise might have been counted as part of the work force. “It’s a huge Rorschach test for everyone who is reading it,” said Guy Berger, United States economist at RBS. “People expecting a spring rebound are zeroing in on the payroll advance, while pessimists are looking at the household survey and the decline in the participation rate.” The pivot point in the debate, Mr. Berger added, is the course of inflation in the months ahead and how that might affect the Fed’s decisions on when to begin raising short-term interest rates. A falling unemployment rate and big payroll gains might normally suggest that wage pressures could begin to rise, but the lack of salary increases for ordinary workers and the lackluster participation rate portend otherwise.Janet L. Yellen, the new chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, and her immediate predecessor, Ben S. Bernanke, have both emphasized that other yardsticks besides the traditional unemployment rate are needed to gauge the economy after the financial crisis and the Great Recession. “Yellen can hang her hat on the participation rate to argue inflation is not a threat,” Mr. Berger said.The feeble participation rate, which reflects the share of all working-age adults with a job or actively looking for one, suggests a sizable amount of slack remains in the labor force, helping keep wage gains modest because employers know they can appeal to a wide range of applicants when they have new jobs to offer. But many companies draw from a relatively specialized pool, which is good for those with appropriate skills but limits the possibilities for those who are out of work.Take the case of Synchronoss Technologies, a maker of software for cloud computing and mobile communication. The company, based in Bridgewater, N.J., is looking to hire roughly 150 workers in the next few months, many of them in positions like software development and engineering that start at $75,000 to $100,000. More senior positions pay $150,000 to $200,000.Most of those jobs require specialized skills and usually go to people with extensive experience who are nearly all currently employed or to college students and former interns. “We could get 50 résumés for a position and two to four of those people will be brought in for interviews,” said Stephen Waldis, Synchronoss’s founder and chief executive. “If we’re lucky, that might yield one hire.” | 0 |
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators in writing Monday that neither he nor his older brother were in touch with any overseas terror groups, according to NBC's Pete Williams. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, backed Williams' report that the suspects were not involved with any Islamic terrorist groups.Boston bombing suspect tells investigators, in writing, he & his brother were not in touch w/ any overseas terror groups - @PeteWilliamsNBC— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) April 23, 2013
The news organization tweeted the information Monday night. NBC was the first media outlet to report that Suspect 2, as he was dubbed by the FBI, was captured late Friday evening.NBC also reported that Tsarnaev (whom friends called "Jahar") told authorities in writing that he and his brother discovered instructions for bomb-making on the Internet. MORE: Bombing suspect tells investigators, in writing, brothers got instructions on how to make bombs from the Internet - @PeteWilliamsNBC— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) April 23, 2013
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police, were motivated by religion, according to U.S. officials. Investigators have also been looking into Tamerlan Tsarnaev's time spent in Russia. The older brother was known to have traveled to two predominantly Muslim Russian provinces, Dagestan and Chechnya. Authorities were examining whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have been influenced by the region's militant population, who have railed against Russian security forces for years. Although it was first reported that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would not receive Miranda warnings, he was reportedly read the Miranda rights after a delay, at his hospital bed Monday.GRAPHIC WARNING: Boston Marathon explosion | 0 |
(CNN)Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday morning signed into law a controversial voting bill aimed at curbing access to mail-in voting in the state, joining a host of other GOP-led states pushing new limits in connection with former President Donald Trump's baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election.In signing the bill during an appearance on "Fox & Friends," the Florida Republican highlighted provisions of the bill including stricter voter ID requirements for voting by mail, creating limits on who can pick up and return a voter's ballot, and banning private funding for elections. "Me signing this bill says: Florida, your vote counts, your vote is going to be cast with integrity and transparency and this is a great place for democracy," DeSantis said after signing the bill. Local media outlets told CNN that they were not allowed to go inside the morning signing event and that it was a Fox News exclusive. Some of the restrictions created by the bill, Senate Bill 90, also include expanding partisan observation power during ballot tabulation and creating additional restrictions for drop box use.The new Florida voting law faces immediate legal challenges.A coalition that includes the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Black Voters Matter Fund announced it had filed a lawsuit within minutes of DeSantis signing the law. It challenges several provisions, including its new restrictions on ballot drop boxes and the prohibition on organizations and volunteers returning ballots on behalf of voters.A separate lawsuit filed Thursday morning by Common Cause, Florida branches of the NAACP and a disabilities rights group describes the new law as "the latest in a long line of voter suppression laws targeting Florida's Black voters, Latino voters, and voters with disabilities."Last week, after days of contentious debate and last-minute amendments bouncing between chambers, the Florida Republican-controlled state House and Senate came to an agreement and approved SB90 along party-line votes on the eve of the state's final day of the legislative session.The bill is part of a Republican-led effort nationwide to restrict voting access at the state level in the wake of record turnout in last November's elections. A tally by the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University found that 361 bills with provisions that restrict voting had been introduced in 47 states as of March 24.In the past month, the effort to restrict voting has intensified as state legislatures begin to head into the final months of their respective sessions.Democrats frequently mentioned the continued public fallout from Georgia's recent election overhaul bill during debate on the Florida measure, which they called a "revival of Jim Crow in this state.""That bill that was passed in the state just north of us sent us a message, and the response to that bill should let us know we should not be doing this," Democratic state Rep. Michael Grieco said during House debate, pleading, "Please do not Georgia my Florida."Florida Republicans, who have repeatedly acknowledged that their state ran a successful and secure 2020 election, said the bill would provide "guardrails" to prevent anyone from "gaming the system" in the future."We've had voter ID. It works. It's the right thing to do," DeSantis said on Fox News last week, adding that the state's 2020 election was "fair and transparent, and the reforms we have coming will make it even better."DeSantis' signature comes as former President Trump continues to cement his hold on the Republican Party.On Monday, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, publicly rejected Trump's most recent false charge that he would've won the 2020 election if not for "fraudulent" votes, her latest rebuke of the former president that has put her at odds with many members of her own party."The 2020 presidential election was not stolen," Cheney tweeted on Monday. "Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system."Cheney is now facing backlash from her fellow Republicans and is expected to be removed from her leadership position.CNN's Dianne Gallagher, Wesley Bruer, Jade Gordon, Alex Rogers and Manu Raju contributed to this story. | 0 |
NewsWorldAmericasUS politicsMcConnell accuses Democratic administration of not being interested in acting in bipartisan fashionMcConnell complains he hasn't spoken with Biden since inaugurationLeer en EspañolMitch McConnell complained during an interview on Wednesday that President Joe Biden has not spoken with him since the presidential inauguration.In an appearance on Fox News, the Senate minority leader said he had not been invited to the White House so far during this administration, claiming that Democrats are not interested in acting in a bipartisan fashion.Host Bill Hemmer asked when he had last spoken with the president, to which Mr McConnell replied: “I don’t believe I have spoken with him since he was sworn in. We had a couple of conversations before that.”Mr McConnell’s office clarified that the president and minority leader have spoken regarding the situation in Myanmar since the inauguration, but that the context of the comments remains regarding reaching bipartisan consensus on the economic agenda for the country.When Mr Hemmer noted that 10 Republicans were invited to the White House in early February, Mr McConnell said that Democrats “are not interested in doing anything on a bipartisan basis in the political centre”.Read moreBiden news live: Latest updates as Trump accused of using migrants as ‘pawns’Obama blasts ‘cowardly’ GOP for blocking gun control laws limiting ‘weapons of war’Lauren Boebert criticized for tweeting about Biden during shooting in her stateHe added: “They’d be more than happy to pick off a few of our members and do what they would like to do.”“They're going hard left,” he continued after describing the proposed $3 trillion infrastructure package as a “Trojan horse” that includes massive “tax increases”.“They misread the election. It's a 50-50 Senate and a very narrow Democratic majority in the House, not a mandate to turn America into Bernie Sanders's view of what America ought to be.”Mr McConnell was also asked about the Democratic opposition to the filibuster on the grounds it is racist.He dismissed the belief, arguing that the filibuster pre-dates debates regarding civil rights.The filibuster has been used as a legislative tool by Republicans to oppose civil rights bills on a number of occasions.Register for free to continue readingRegistration is a free and easy way to support our truly independent journalismBy registering, you will also enjoy limited access to Premium articles, exclusive newsletters, commenting, and virtual events with our leading journalistsEmailPlease enter a valid emailPlease enter a valid emailPasswordMust be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a numberMust be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a numberMust be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a numberFirst namePlease enter your first nameSpecial characters aren’t allowedPlease enter a name between 1 and 40 charactersLast namePlease enter your last nameSpecial characters aren’t allowedPlease enter a name between 1 and 40 charactersYou must be over 18 years old to registerYou must be over 18 years old to registerYear of birthI would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy noticeYou can opt-out at any time by signing in to your account to manage your preferences. Each email has a link to unsubscribe.Already have an account? sign in | 0 |
An emotional Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, was sentenced Wednesday to 3 years behind bars for what a Manhattan federal court judge called a “veritable smorgasbord" of criminal conduct, including making secret payments to women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, lying to Congress about the president’s business dealings with Russia and failing to report millions of dollars in income.Judge William Pauley found Cohen, 52, deserved “a significant term of imprisonment” for crimes that were driven by “personal greed and ambition.”Cohen appeared to get choked up as he pleaded with the judge for mercy. He told Pauley he was taking “full responsibility” for his actions — but laid much of the blame at the feet of the former boss he once said he'd take a bullet for.“I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen that I deeply admired," Cohen told the judge, saying his blind loyalty to Trump led him to choose “darkness over light.”Michael Cohen exits the courthouse after his sentencing in New York on Dec. 12, 2018.Shannon Stapleton / ReutersHe noted that Trump had blasted him as being weak on Twitter.“It was correct but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds," Cohen said. "My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, and I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands."Since he first pleaded guilty in August, Cohen said Trump "publicly mocks me, calling me a rat and a liar, and insists that the court sentence me to the absolute maximum time in prison.""I am committed to proving my integrity and ensuring that history will not remember me as the villain of his story."He appeared to tear up as he apologized to his family and to the people of the United States.“I am truly sorry and I promise I will be better," he said.One of the charges Cohen pleaded guilty to, lying to Congress about his dealings concerning a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow, stemmed from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the Trump campaign's potential collusion with Russia in the 2016 election. The other eight — involving tax evasion, lying to financial institutions and violating campaign finance laws by hiding payments to a porn star and a Playboy Playmate who claimed they had affairs with were Trump — were brought by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos urged the judge to hand down a stiff sentence against Cohen, whose crimes "portray a pattern of deception, of brazenness, and of greed." He also said he'd failed to completely cooperate with investigators, despite the guilty plea.A prosecutor with the Special Counsel's Office, Jeannie Rhee, struck a kinder tone, and told the judge that Cohen had "provided consistent and credible information about core Russia-related issues under investigation" by their office. The former fixer "has provided valuable information, investigative information, to us while taking care and being careful to note what he knows and what he doesn't know," she said.A sentencing memo filed by Mueller’s office said Cohen had provided federal investigators with information about his contacts with people connected to Trump and the White House.Cohen lawyer Guy Petrillo argued his client deserved a break for having stood up to the president."He came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our country," knowing he would be subjected to a "barrage of attack by the president," Petrillo told the judge, according to NBC New York.He argued in court papers that Cohen should be spared jail time, while prosecutors said he should get a little less than the approximately five years called for by federal sentencing guidelines.Pauley sentenced him to a total of 36 months behind bars, and three years of post-release supervision. The judge order him to pay $1.4 million in restitution and forfeit $500,000, while fining him $50,000 for lying to congress. Cohen must turn himself in to start serving his sentence by March 6.The judge said Cohen deserved some credit for his decision over the summer to admit guilt and cooperate in the Russia probe. In what sounded to be pushback against Trump's criticism of "rats" and "flippers," Pauley said, "Our system of justice would be less robust without the use of cooperating agreements with law enforcement." But, the judge said, Cohen's assistance "does not wipe the slate clean.""Somewhere along the way Mr. Cohen appears to have lost his moral compass," the judge said. "As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better."Cohen's daughter broke down in tears after the judge handed down his sentence, and was comforted by her glum looking father.After the proceeding, the U.S. Attorney's office in New York revealed it had struck a non-prosecution agreement with National Enquirer publisher AMI earlier this year for its $150,000 payout to one of the alleged Trump mistresses, former Playboy model Karen McDougal."As a part of the agreement, AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate’s presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election," prosecutors said. "AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election."In court as a spectator for the packed hearing was Michael Avenatti, whose porn star client Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump. He said the "nation owes a sense of gratitude" to the actress for having spoken out about Cohen and Trump.Trump, who insists the affairs never happened, argued on Twitter earlier this week that the payments to the women were "a simple private transaction," not a campaign contribution. And if it was a prohibited contribution, Trump said, Cohen is the one who should be held responsible."Lawyer's liability if he made a mistake, not me," Trump wrote, adding, "Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced. WITCH HUNT!"Trump refused to answer questions about Cohen and his "dirty deeds" charge as he was leaving a signing ceremony at the White House later Wednesday.Daniels, meanwhile, took to Twitter to celebrate the news. She noted that she was performing at a club in North Carolina. "Tonight's strip show will also be a victory dance!" she tweeted.After the sentencing, Cohen's former lawyer, Lanny Davis, promised that his client would release everything he knows about the president once Mueller completes his investigation.“That includes any appropriate congressional committee interested in the search for truth and the difference between facts and lies. Mr. Trump's repeated lies cannot contradict stubborn facts,” Davis said in a statement.Davis later in a phone interview compared Cohen to Richard Nixon's former White House Counsel John Dean, who helped investigators unravel the Watergate cover-up.“It's just beginning,” he told NBC News.The charges Cohen pleaded guilty to:Charges brought by the Southern District:Count 1-5: Evasion of assessment of income tax liability for pleading guilty to failing to report more than $4 million in income from 2012 through 2016.Counts 6: False statements to a bank for Cohen pleading guilty to understating debt from his taxi medallion business in the process of applying for a home equity line of credit with a bank.Count 7: Causing an unlawful corporation contribution for when he pleaded guilty to orchestrating a payment made by American Media to Karen McDougal for her “limited life story”, an allegation that she had an affair with Donald Trump.Count 8: Excessive campaign contribution for when he pleaded guilty to making an excessive political contribution when he paid adult film actress Stephanie Clifford aka Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her story and silence about Clifford’s alleged affair with Donald Trump.Charge brought by Robert MuellerCount 1: False statements to Congress for when Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress on Aug. 28, 2017, when he sent a two-page letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as well as during testimony before Congress. | 0 |
Washington (CNN)A small number of M1 Abrams tanks and other armored vehicles will participate in President Donald Trump's July Fourth celebrations in Washington on Thursday, US defense officials have confirmed to CNN.However, they will not parade down Pennsylvania Avenue due to the need to protect roads and bridges.Trump later confirmed tanks would be present during remarks in the Oval Office."I'm going to be here and I'm going to say a few words and we're going to have planes going overhead, the best fighter jets in the world and other planes too and we're gonna have some tanks stationed outside," Trump said while also acknowledging that measures would need to be taken to protect infrastructure."You've got to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks so we have to put them in certain areas but we have the brand new Sherman tanks and we have the brand new Abrams tanks," Trump added.While the US continues to operate the M1 Abrams tank the US military has not used World War II-era M4 Sherman tanks since the 1950s."We have some incredible equipment, military equipment on display -- brand new. And we're very proud of it," Trump said.The event is being referred to as a "Salute to America," and will feature fireworks and a speech from Trump.A US defense official said that the current plan is to have a very small number of armored vehicles participate as part of a "static display" at the event on the National Mall. The vehicles will not be moving thereby reducing the chance of damaging local infrastructure. The number of vehicles will be very small with the current plan to have two M1 Abrams tanks, two Bradley fighting vehicles and an armored M88 Recovery Vehicle, along with an "appropriate" number of accompanying personnel.Multiple US military aircraft will participate in the celebrations as well, according to two defense officials, including the B-2 stealth bomber and F-22 fighter jets.CNN had also previously reported that the Blue Angels demonstration team, which typically flies F/A-18s, would be present along with F-35 stealth jets and that the VC-25, the aircraft that serves as Air Force One when the President is on board, also will participate.Earlier in his administration, Trump had announced his intent to hold a military parade on Veterans Day in Washington, DC, however he canceled those plans following estimates that put the cost of such a parade at tens of millions of dollars.Trump blamed local Washington officials for the high costs of the canceled parade.Military planners had determined that the now-canceled parade was not going to feature tanks or other tracked vehicles due to concerns they could damage infrastructure.A Pentagon memo said the parade will "include wheeled vehicles only, no tanks," adding that "consideration must be given to minimize damage to local infrastructure."By not having the tanks and Bradleys drive on DC streets as part of the July 4th festivities, planners hope to avoid any potential damage. As there are currently no armored vehicles stationed in DC, the vehicles are likely to be brought into DC via trains and transported to the location on the back of trucks.The Washington Post was first to report Trump wanted tanks to take part in the July 4 event. Other military assets will participate including the US Navy's flight demonstration team the Blue Angels and ceremonial units such as the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, the US Army Band ("Pershing's Own"), and the United States Marine Corps Silent Drill Team.One military official told CNN that F-35 stealth jets will also likely participate.The Pentagon declined to comment on any costs associated with the July 4th celebration and with the units associated.A spokesperson for the military's National Capital Region/US Army Military District of Washington referred CNN to the Department of the Interior, which did not respond to questions.Officials told CNN that the White House has been actively involved in the planning of the celebration and had asked the Pentagon not to discuss details prior to the event. A US military official told CNN last week that the cost of using military assets in this year's July Fourth celebration was estimated to be less than $1 million and that the military personnel involved are to be drawn from units based in the Washington area, helping to drive down costs.The Department of Interior previously confirmed that Trump will give his "Salute to America" address on the National Mall this July Fourth, an unusual move by the President.Trump and other presidents have previously held events at the White House to celebrate the nation's birthday, but typically have not been present at the traditional large celebrations on the Mall. | 0 |
Vision benefits are among those that will now be available to same-sex spouses. The same-sex spouses of federal employees can begin applying for benefits including health insurance and retirement accounts immediately, the Obama administration said Friday, two days after the Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act. The Office of Personnel Management offered the guidance in a letter to the heads of executive departments and agencies, detailing access to many of the benefits to which legally married same-sex spouses will now have the same access heterosexual married couples do, including health, life, dental, vision and long-term care insurance. The memo, signed by acting director Elaine Kaplan, does not go into detail about the benefits available to same-sex couples who marry in one state but live in another where those unions are not legal. By omitting a specific reference to state laws, and repeating that benefits will be available to all legally married couples, OPM appears to be making the case that couples will have access to the listed benefits regardless of the state in which they live. ( PHOTOS: Reactions to Supreme Court’s gay marriage rulings) President Barack Obama said Thursday that, “speaking as a president, not a lawyer,” he believes couples married in one state should be treated as married in all 50 states, but that his administration is working on the legalities of making that reality. In a statement Friday, the president applauded the expansion of access to federal benefits. “This is a critical first step toward implementing this week’s landmark Supreme Court decision declaring that all married couples — gay and straight — should be treated equally under federal law,” he said. “Thousands of gays and lesbians serve our country every day in the federal government. They, and their spouses and children, deserve the same respect and protection as every other family. Under the president’s direction, the Justice Department is leading the implementation of the repeal of Section 3 of DOMA. After the high court’s Wednesday ruling, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also said that the Pentagon will move quickly to expand benefits to same-sex couples. Attorney General Eric Holder welcomed Friday’s announcement. “Americans in same-sex marriages are entitled to equal protection and equal treatment under the law,” he said in a statement. “By extending health insurance and other important benefits to federal employees and their families, regardless of whether they are in same-sex or opposite-sex marriages, the Obama administration is making real the promise of this important decision.” The changes announced Friday “will make a meaningful, positive difference in the lives of many,” Holder said. “As the president directed, the Department of Justice will continue to coordinate with other federal agencies to implement this ruling as swiftly and smoothly as possible. I look forward to sharing additional information as it becomes available..” | 0 |
Far-fetched? Hardly. Beating Trump in November does not require an electoral juggernaut. This is because Trump himself, despite his frequent boasts to the contrary, is no electoral juggernaut. The president won the Electoral College in 2016 by a whisker. He carried three states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania—by a combined 77,744 votes. Notably, in those states, Clinton won roughly 600,000 fewer votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. The reason: a failure to mobilize black voters, and dismal performances among both affluent suburbanites and working-class whites.
The question that has hung over this Democratic race is one of electability—the search for someone who could address those specific shortcomings, in those specific states, and defeat Trump. Biden still has plenty of detractors in the party. He still makes many Democrats queasy every time he starts speaking off the cuff. But after Tuesday, there can be no disputing his capacity for winning in November. Last night proved it beyond doubt: Joe Biden is no Hillary Clinton. And that may be enough to take down Trump.
On March 9, 2016, the morning after the Michigan primaries, I published a reported analysis in National Review: “Michigan Shows Trump Could Redraw Electoral Map vs. Clinton.” This wasn’t clairvoyance, by any stretch: Between studying the exit polls and splicing the election results, it was impossible to ignore the storm brewing in my home state. Trump was supercharging turnout and forging a unique appeal with independents and white working-class voters; Clinton was flopping with those same groups while struggling to energize black voters and young people, two vital pieces of the coalition that had lifted Obama to victories in 2008 and 2012. If this was happening in Michigan, I wrote, it was happening in Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, too.
Nothing I’ve ever written provoked so much scorn. Emails rained down by the hundred. Didn’t I know about the “Blue Wall” of states Democrats couldn’t possibly lose? Yes, I sure did. But the evidence of change was too compelling to ignore. And so, even though I reserved the right to change my mind—which I did, buckling to the onslaught of lopsided polling and predicting that Trump would lose in November—there was ample reason to suspect that those primary results might foreshadow the November election.
In that sense, Tuesday felt like a mirror image of 2016.
There is no question Trump has advantages heading into the fall: He has a sprawling campaign apparatus, an unprecedented amount of money, and, as always, the attention of the world and a knack for knowing how to exploit it. By every tangible metric, the president will be tougher to beat as an incumbent than he was as a rookie candidate.
And yet, the evidence of his vulnerability is too compelling to ignore. This is particularly true of a match-up with Biden in the three states that will help determine the outcome this November. If the 2016 primary “resembled a giant, mitten-shaped red flag” for Democrats, as I wrote the other day, this 2020 primary resembled a giant, mitten-shaped red flag for Trump.
Start with the suburbanites. Livingston County isn’t the only longtime GOP stronghold with a new Democratic congresswoman. One county over, in Oakland, Haley Stevens won the 11th District much the same way Slotkin did in the 8th—by limiting her losses in the most conservative precincts. Running for governor on the same ticket, Gretchen Whitmer won Oakland by a whopping 17 points—more than twice Clinton’s margin of victory in 2016, bending sharply the trajectory of a county that for decades has been a bastion of country club, center-right Republicanism.
If Tuesday was any indication, things won’t get easier for the GOP this fall. Voters overran the polls in Oakland County. Four years after a total turnout of roughly 180,000 in the Democratic primary, Oakland had counted more than 250,000 votes on Tuesday—with 90 percent of precincts reporting. When the final votes are tabulated, Oakland will have witnessed a turnout increase in the neighborhood of 45 percent.
The story isn’t just the voting spike, but Biden’s concurrent performance. Unofficially, he beat Sanders by 22 points in Oakland County, where Clinton beat Sanders by just 4 points in 2016. And whereas Clinton won roughly 92,000 votes there, Biden is on pace to win more than 150,000. It was a similar story in neighboring Macomb County, a more downscale suburb of Detroit, where turnout soared and Biden vastly outperformed Clinton. Nearly 130,000 people participated in the Democratic primary, up 33 percent from 2016. And whereas four years ago Clinton and Sanders fought Macomb to a virtual draw, with Clinton winning some 47,500 votes, Biden topped Sanders by 17 points, collecting more than 66,000 votes in the process.
Biden’s performance among the wealthier suburbanites in these counties should be highly worrisome to Trump. These voters—particularly whites with college degrees—are accepting of the former vice president in a way they never were of Clinton. Four years ago, exit polling of Michigan’s primary showed Sanders winning college-educated whites by 11 points; Biden beat Sanders among that demographic by 14 points on Tuesday, a 25-point swing.
If more of those upper-scale suburbanites are found in Oakland, then Macomb is home to more middle-class Metro Detroiters. Interestingly—and just as worrisome for Republicans—both groups behaved the same way at the polls. Sanders, who won whites without a college degree by 15 points over Clinton, lost them by 10 points to Biden. That’s an identical 25-point swing. This was visible not only in Southeast Michigan, but in Mid-Michigan, Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, conservative rural areas that were dominated by Sanders four years ago. With most of the votes counted, Biden appeared poised to win every single one of those counties north of Ingham, many of them by healthy margins, an astonishing feat.
The story of The Trump Realignment has been an exchange between the two parties: More of the well-educated suburbanites fleeing the GOP for the Democratic ranks, with more of the blue-collar rural and exurban voters joining the Republican Party. This tradeoff, while unsustainable for the GOP over future election cycles, never figured to torpedo Trump’s reelection. But what Biden demonstrated on Tuesday was an ability to have it both ways—accelerating the GOP’s exodus in the suburbs while stopping his party’s bleeding in the exurban and rural areas beyond. If he can do that in November, he’ll win. But there’s an even more pressing imperative for Biden next fall: mobilizing black voters. For all his successes in Michigan on Tuesday, here’s an area where he failed to distinguish himself from Clinton—and thus, an area where his campaign might want to worry. Exit polls showed black voters accounting for 18 percent of the primary electorate, down slightly from 21 percent four years ago. Biden carried this group by 39 points, essentially identical to Clinton’s 40-point win.
Making this all the more intriguing was turnout. In Wayne County, the Democratic beachhead that’s anchored by Detroit, participation was up—but only by 41,612 votes over 2016, a modest 15 percent increase. (The statewide voting increase will clock in at more than 400,000 votes, or roughly 35 percent overall, once the final precincts are tallied.) It was a similar story in Genesee County, home to Flint, where turnout bumped up just a few thousand votes from 2016. The numbers were better for Democrats in Ingham County and Saginaw County, both of which have sizable black populations. But given the well-documented failures of Clinton to energize this core constituency in Michigan—and considering Trump’s determination to whittle away at those all-important margins, particularly among black men—this is a problem Democrats need to address. It might be meaningless that exit polls show Biden winning blacks by far bigger margins in the South than in the Midwest. But it’s not something Democrats can leave to chance.
Setting aside these mixed results with black voters, the breadth of Biden’s win in Michigan suggests he’ll be formidable in November. He won men and women, college graduates and non-college graduates, middle-income voters and high-income voters, union households and non-union households. There is room for improvement, not just with blacks but with young people and self-described progressives as well. But the truth is, no Democratic nominee in recent memory has had so much of the party consolidated around them this early in the nominating process.
This electoral climate is historically volatile. Having been impeached only months ago, and now presiding over a reeling economy and facing a potential pandemic as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States, the president will be walking through a minefield all the way to November. Trump has proved to be such a masterful political Houdini, escaping from one jam after another, that he has taken on an aura of invincibility. His inner circle has come to believe Trump cannot be defeated. Nothing, they say—not the Mueller investigation, or the crisis at the southern border, or the government shutdown, or the Ukraine whistleblower, or the blue wave in the midterm elections, or even the early primary results—has demonstrated any capacity for the Democrats to take down the president.
That might be true. But Tuesday felt different—a day we’ll look back on if, in fact, Trump loses. There are six to eight battleground states that will decide the election this fall, and three that will continue to receive the most attention by far: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Finally, one of them has voted, giving us a long-awaited window into November. If the president was looking, he couldn’t have liked what he saw. | 0 |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In the last days of his life, former Vice President Walter Mondale received a steady stream of phone calls of appreciation. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris all called to say goodbye and thank you. It was a sign of respect for a man many Americans remember largely for his near-shutout defeat for the White House in 1984. But well after his bruising loss, Mondale remained a revered liberal elder — with a list of accomplishments that are still relevant today. As a young senator, he co-wrote the Fair Housing Act of 1968, a pillar of federal civil rights legislation. He later engineered a 1975 bipartisan deal that ended the two-thirds rule for stopping filibusters, so that 60 senators instead of 67 could cut off debate. Under President Jimmy Carter, he became the first vice president with a day job, as adviser to the president, not just a bystander. He called it the “executivization” of the vice presidency.And as a Democratic presidential nominee, he chose the first female nominee for vice president from a major party.Harris, who won the job 36 years later, specifically thanked him for all he did to change the office, according to a person familiar with the calls who asked for anonymity to discuss the private conversations. Mondale, 93, died Monday at his home in Minneapolis, as the city awaits a verdict in a murder trial that has forced the nation to again wrestle with structural racism. He welcomed that debate, his family said in a statement: “We are grateful that he had the opportunity to see the emergence of another generation of civil rights reckoning in the past months.”Mondale was appointed senator from Minnesota to succeed his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, who resigned to become vice president. He won Senate elections in 1966 and 1972, and stepped down to become vice president in 1977. Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Mondale went into private law practice — while beginning his own campaign for the presidency. He won the nomination in 1984, chose Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate, and was crushed in the landslide that reelected Reagan, carrying only Minnesota and the District of Columbia.Mondale was ambassador to Japan from 1993 until 1996. In 2002, at 74, he was drafted for a political reprise, running a truncated campaign for the Senate after Sen. Paul Wellstone, the Democratic nominee, was killed in a plane crash shortly before the election. Mondale was favored at first, but he lost the election.And it cost him one record that had consoled him in earlier defeat — until then, he had won every time he was on the ballot in Minnesota. Instead, he got another, unwanted, record: the only man to lose elections in each of the 50 states.After his 1984 defeat to a former actor, Mondale said one of his campaign problems was that “I’ve never really warmed up to television and ... it’s never really warmed up to me.” Even his supporters said he came across as plastic and bland. His wife, Joan, said he was not a showman, just stable, hardworking and honest. “We call it Norwegian charisma,” she said.Even so, Mondale has some striking moments on television, none more so than in a 1984 campaign debate against Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado, whose primary upsets threatened Mondale’s front-runner standing for the Democratic nomination. “You know, when I hear your new ideas I’m reminded of that ad ‘Where’s the beef?’” he told Hart, using a fast-food chain’s slogan to question the substance of his rival’s campaign proposals.Suddenly, the bland candidate had delivered a telling quip and created a slogan that stuck. It was no ad-lib and it wasn’t original — a Mondale campaign ally had used it before. But no matter, it was a boost as Mondale limped through the presidential primaries, losing more states than he won, but steadily gaining delegates to capture the nominationAgainst the favored Reagan, Mondale’s best opening came when the president’s age, 73, became an issue. The president seemed disengaged and even confused in early campaign debates. Reagan undid that one with his own quip in the final debate. Asked about it, the president said: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”Mondale could only smile as the audience laughed. But he said later he was smiling through tears because he knew from that moment that his quest was hopeless.Full Coverage: Walter MondaleThen there was the 1984 Mondale line Republicans made into a telling issue against him. In accepting his nomination, Mondale said that whoever won the election, taxes were going to be increased. “Let’s tell the truth,” he said. “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.” Republicans translated that into a Mondale campaign promise to raise taxes. He said he was just being honest. His forecast was accurate.Mondale, “Fritz” to some of his friends, was a dedicated liberal. He used the label in the subtitle of his 2010 memoir, “The Good Fight.” As attorney general of Minnesota and in the Senate, his major causes included civil rights, consumer protection, education, housing and the problems of migrant workers.The son of a Methodist minister and a music teacher, Walter Frederick Mondale was born Jan. 5, 1928, in tiny Ceylon, Minnesota, and grew up in several small southern Minnesota towns.He was only 20 when he served as a congressional district manager for Humphrey’s successful Senate campaign in 1948. His education, interrupted by a two-year stint in the Army, culminated with a law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1956.Mondale began a law practice in Minneapolis and ran the successful 1958 gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Orville Freeman, who appointed Mondale state attorney general in 1960. Mondale was elected attorney general in the fall of 1960 and was reelected in 1962.As attorney general, Mondale moved quickly into civil rights, antitrust and consumer protection cases. He was the first Minnesota attorney general to make consumer protection a campaign issue.As Clinton’s ambassador to Japan from 1993-96 he fought for U.S. access to markets ranging from cars to cellular phones. He helped avert a trade war in June 1995 over autos and auto parts, persuading Japanese officials to give American automakers more access to Japanese dealers and pushing Japanese carmakers to buy U.S. parts.Mondale kept his ties to the Clintons. In 2008, he endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, switching his allegiance only after Barack Obama sealed the nomination.In 2002, state and national Democrats looked to Mondale when Wellstone died less than two weeks before Election Day. Mondale was working at the Minneapolis law firm of Dorsey & Whitney — he returned to the firm after the brief campaign — and serving on corporate and nonprofit boards.He agreed to stand in for Wellstone, and early polls showed him with a lead over the Republican candidate, Norm Coleman.But the 53-year-old Coleman, emphasizing his youth and vigor, out-hustled the then-74-year-old Mondale in an intense six-day campaign. Mondale was also hurt by a partisan memorial service for Wellstone, in which thousands of Democrats booed Republicans politicians in attendance. One speaker pleaded: “We are begging you to help us win this election for Paul Wellstone.”Polls showed the service put off independents and cost Mondale votes. Coleman won by 3 percentage points.“The eulogizers were the ones hurt the most,” Mondale said after the election. “It doesn’t justify it, but we all make mistakes. Can’t we now find it in our hearts to forgive them and go on?”Years after the 2002 defeat, Mondale returned to the Senate to stand beside Democrat Al Franken in 2009 when he was sworn in to replace Coleman after a drawn-out recount and court battle. Mondale and his wife, Joan Adams Mondale, were married in 1955. During his vice presidency, she pushed for more government support of the arts and gained the nickname “Joan of Art.” She had minored in art in college and worked at museums in Boston and Minneapolis.The couple had two sons, Ted and William, and a daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor Mondale became a broadcast journalist and TV host, with credits including “CBS This Morning” and programs with E! Entertainment Television; she died in 2011. Ted Mondale served six years in the Minnesota state Senate and made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1998, and William Mondale served for a time as an assistant attorney general. Joan Mondale died in 2014 at age 83 after an extended illness.While he lacked the charisma of his mentor Humphrey, Walter Mondale had a droll sense of humor. When he dropped out of the 1976 presidential sweepstakes, he said, “I don’t want to spend the next two years in Holiday Inns.”Reminded of that shortly before he was picked as Carter’s running mate, Mondale said, “I’ve checked and found that they’re all redecorated, and they’re marvelous places to stay.”___Mears reported from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. | 0 |
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President Obama said during his end-of-the-year news conference Friday that the NSA surveillance program would likely see changes in the year ahead. (The Associated Press) President Obama signaled Friday that he may halt the National Security Agency’s collection and storage of millions of Americans’ phone records and instead require phone companies to hold the data. Speaking at a White House news conference near the end of a very difficult year, Obama said that he would have a “pretty definitive statement” on proposed NSA reforms in January, following his family’s annual holiday break in Hawaii. His remarks suggested that Obama’s views have changed significantly since details of the NSA’s far-reaching surveillance programs were publicly revealed in June. He said he believed his administration has struck the right balance between intelligence gathering and privacy protection but acknowledged that concerns about the potential for abuse may make it necessary to rein in the programs to restore public trust. “The environment has changed,” Obama said. He said that it “matters more that people right now are concerned,” and added, “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we necessarily should.” During the 60-minute news conference, Obama also reiterated his claim of personal responsibility for the disastrous rollout of his health-care law. In addition, he expressed optimism that he could advance his agenda in 2014, beginning with immigration reform. In his end of year news conference Friday, President Obama recapped his administration's achievements in 2013 and previewed what's to come in the next year. (The Associated Press) “I think 2014 needs to be a year of action,” Obama said. The president said his NSA review, based on the assessments of intelligence officials and other officials inside and outside of the federal government, would determine which programs to maintain or eliminate, both domestically and internationally. An independent White House panel released a report this week questioning whether the NSA’s sweeping collection of personal data had played any meaningful role in preventing terrorist attacks. A federal judge also ruled that the data collection was probably unconstitutional. Obama acknowledged that the United States needs to provide “more confidence” to the international community amid widespread outrage over revelations of U.S. spying on many foreign allies. “What has been more challenging is the fact that we do have a lot of laws and checks and balances and safeguards and audits when it comes to making sure that the NSA and other intelligence communities are not spying on Americans,” Obama said. “We’ve had less legal constraint in terms of what we’re doing internationally.” He added, “In a virtual world, some of these boundaries don’t matter anymore.” Obama defended the NSA, saying that he has seen no evidence that the agency “acted inappropriately” with the billions of call records it has assembled in a secret database, a claim that is at odds with compliance reports and other documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Obama all but endorsed one of the White House panel’s proposals, which would require phone companies to hold the data that the NSA has been collecting. “It is possible that some of the same information . . . can be obtained by having private phone companies keep those records longer” and allowing the government to search them under tight guidelines, Obama said. That prospect has drawn fire from privacy advocates and technology experts, who say it would be as bad as or worse than having the NSA hold the records. Phone companies also do not want to be the custodians of data sought by law enforcement or civil attorneys. “Mandatory data retention is a major civil liberties problem and something that other groups would oppose categorically,” said Rainey Reitman, activism director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Currently, phone companies keep call records for periods ranging from six months to 10 years. “Requiring by law that companies retain call records longer than they do for business reasons subjects those records to risk of theft by hackers and subpoena by state and local law enforcement and by civil litigants,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Because many entities other than the NSA would gain access, it is a step backwards for privacy.” During the news conference, Obama sought to grapple with a year of partisan turmoil in Washington and his inability to advance an ambitious second-term domestic policy agenda through Congress. Initiatives on gun violence and immigration failed or stalled in the face of Republican opposition, and the president was unable to prevent broad spending cuts known as the sequester or a partial shutdown of the federal government. When asked whether 2013 had been the worst year of his presidency, Obama laughed off the suggestion. “We have had ups and we have had downs,” Obama said. He added, jokingly, “I think this room has recorded at least 15 near-death experiences.” He said that despite the disastrous rollout of the online insurance exchanges at the heart of his signature health-care law, more than 1 million people have signed up for new health-care insurance since October. Obama also noted that statistics released Friday showed the fastest economic growth in two years and said that this month’s budget deal with Congress could be a sign of greater cooperation in Washington. “It’s probably too early to declare an outbreak of bipartisanship, but it’s also fair to say that we are not condemned to endless gridlock,” Obama said. Recent polls suggest that record numbers of Americans disapprove of Obama’s job performance and that his earlier advantages over Republicans in Congress have eroded in many areas. Obama dismissed the importance of the results, saying, “My polls have gone up and down a lot through the course of my career.” Obama defended his selection of openly gay athletes to lead the U.S. delegation at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, considering Russia’s discriminatory laws. “When it comes to the Olympics and athletic performance, we don’t make distinctions on the basis of sexual orientation,” Obama said. He added that this was “a value at the heart of not just America, but American sports.” David Nakamura and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report. | 0 |
Though long a symbol of responsible parenthood — model TV dad, doctor of education, proud supporter of Temple University — Bill Cosby etched his legacy in stone with a speech in 2004 that took black parents to task. It became famous as the “Pound Cake” speech for this passage:“Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals,” Cosby said. “These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged: ‘The cops shouldn’t have shot him.’ What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?”While many lauded Cosby for tackling a delicate subject so directly, it wasn’t long before the trouble began. Before the allegations of sexual assault surfaced, critics lambasted his conservative prescriptions for black America. After the accusations mounted over the past year, the Pound Cake speech was seized upon as an example of gross hypocrisy.Now, the Pound Cake speech has resurfaced in yet another incarnation that no one could have predicted. It was cited by a U.S. district judge as a legal justification for unsealing a deposition that was deeply damaging to Cosby, the same document made public yesterday by the Associated Press that showed that Cosby acknowledged in 2005 that he intended to give Quaaludes to young women with whom he wanted to have sex, as The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi reported.In his memorandum, Judge Eduardo C. Robreno said the speech, and Cosby’s general posture as a “public moralist,” made the deposition a legitimate subject of public interest sufficient to override Cosby’s objections to its disclosure. “The stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper (and perhaps criminal) conduct, is a matter as to which the AP — and by extension the public — has a significant interest,” the judge wrote.The deposition was made public largely because Cosby crowned himself a moral crusader.Bill Cosby’s life and careerLAS VEGAS, NV - SEPTEMBER 26: Comedian/actor Bill Cosby performs at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino on September 26, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)It was a stunning — and deeply ironic — chapter in the story of one of the more enduring and controversial utterances in the past 15 years by an African American about African Americans. And its reappearance in a legal matter so potentially detrimental to Cosby, who has decried the allegations against him as baseless, may also go down in history as a case study in the costs of hypocrisy.The occasion for Cosby’s talk about black parents’ failures was an NAACP awards ceremony in Washington on May 17, 2004 — no less an occasion than the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision ruling school segregation illegal that paved the way for the civil rights victories of the 1960s.“In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on,” Cosby said. “In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.”He asked hard questions.“I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit,” he said. “Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?”Then came the confection that gave Cosby’s most famous address its unusual name, which presaged the debate over Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Mo., 10 years later.“I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else,” Cosby went on. “And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said, ‘If you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother.’ Not: ‘You’re going to get your butt kicked.’ No. ‘You’re going to embarrass your mother. You’re going to embarrass your family.'”Self-abnegation despite the prospect of free pound cake in Mom’s name. It was a nice bit of rhetoric — one that earned Cosby praise in some quarters and criticism in others. The Pound Cake speech left no small mark. Books were written about it; it was discussed in the pages of the Harvard Educational Review.“If Cosby’s call-outs simply ended at that — a personal and communal creed — there’d be little to oppose,” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in the Atlantic in 2008. “But Cosby often pits the rhetoric of personal responsibility against the legitimate claims of American citizens for their rights. He chides activists for pushing to reform the criminal-justice system, despite solid evidence that the criminal-justice system needs reform. His historical amnesia — his assertion that many of the problems that pervade black America are of a recent vintage — is simply wrong, as is his contention that today’s young African Americans are somehow weaker, that they’ve dropped the ball.”“A man who was running around the country yelling at women for how they were conducting their sex lives, a man who held his own marriage up as a model of functional commitment, had in fact been repeatedly unfaithful,” Rebecca Traister wrote in the New Republic last year. “To have gone further — to have really dealt with the possibility that this extremely rich man lambasting poor people for everything from stealing pound cake to wearing low-slung pants to how they named their children — might have drugged and raped more than a dozen women would have made our heads pop off.”Eleven years after that speech, Robreno of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania had to decide whether Cosby could block the release of a deposition related to the comedian’s alleged molestation of a Temple University employee in 2005. (The civil claim was settled; Cosby denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.) The AP intervened last year to request that the record be made available to the public “after more recent allegations of similar misconduct by [Cosby] gained public attention,” as Robreno put it.One the major issues: Cosby’s right to privacy — what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called “the right to be let alone.” Cosby, after all, is not a public figure in the sense that President Obama is; the comedian “does not surrender his privacy rights at the doorstep of the courthouse,” as Robreno wrote. The judge added: “Were this so, well-known nongovernmental public figures, visible in the public eye but pursuing strictly private activities, would be subject to spurious litigation brought perchance to gain access to the intimate details of their personal lives.”So: Would Robreno give Cosby a pass and leave the documents sealed because he is not a legislator, but a funnyman?No.“This case, however, is not about Defendant’s status as a public person by virtue of the exercise of his trade as a televised or comedic personality,” the judge wrote. “Rather, the defendant has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime.”At this point, Robreno, in a footnote, pointed to a number of Cosby’s public statements. Item No. 1: “See, e.g., Pound Cake Speech.” The address the comedian used to shame others was now being used to shame him.Robreno continued: “To the extent that Defendant has freely entered the public square and ‘thrust himself into the vortex of [these public issues],’ he has voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim.”In conclusion, Robreno said the AP wanted the documents not for “commercial gain or prurient interest.” Instead, the news organization sought the dirty details in service of the greater good.Without the speech, Cosby would still stand accused of drugging and raping women, and his decades-old legacy would be endangered if not in tatters.But without Pound Cake, it is unlikely that the public would know that, when Cosby was asked “When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?” in 2005, he said, “Yes.” | 0 |
Credit...Sarah Silbiger/The New York TimesJan. 17, 2019WASHINGTON — A bus emblazoned with the United States Air Force logo was idling outside the Capitol on Thursday, members of Congress on board, ready to depart for Joint Base Andrews and a waiting military aircraft. Inside, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in her office making final preparations to lead the congressional delegation on a secret visit to American troops in Afghanistan with a stop in Brussels.Then came word from the White House: President Trump was grounding their plane and killing the trip.Mr. Trump’s decision to upend Ms. Pelosi’s travel plans was a remarkable bit of one-upmanship in an increasingly bitter government shutdown drama in which Mr. Trump and Ms. Pelosi, the newly elected Democratic speaker, are the main antagonists.The day before, Ms. Pelosi had suggested that the president cancel or delay his State of the Union address this month, citing security concerns amid a prolonged partial shutdown that has forced thousands of federal employees to work without pay. Mr. Trump at first said nothing, but 24 hours later, without mentioning her request, the president released a sarcasm-tinged letter in which he told her the trip was off.“In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate,” Mr. Trump wrote. “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown.”“Obviously,” Mr. Trump added, she still had the option of flying commercial.[Read more on how Nancy Pelosi’s aides are accusing the Trump Administration of leaking her travel plans.]The letter amounted to the latest reminder, if any was needed, that the stalemate over Mr. Trump’s demand that Democrats support his request for $5.7 billion to build a border wall has reached such a poisonous pitch that even the most tradition-bound rituals of government — the president’s annual address to a joint session of Congress, lawmakers’ periodic trips overseas to gather facts and perform oversight — have been consumed in a storm of ill will and competing agendas.It came on the 27th day of the shutdown, a day on which there were once again no negotiations between the two sides. But there was some indication that House Democrats, increasingly concerned that they have not sufficiently countered Mr. Trump’s demands for a wall with ideas of their own, were privately weighing offering their own plan for more effectively securing the border.ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe move would be something of a shift in strategy for the Democrats, who have steadfastly refused to engage in a debate with Mr. Trump about border security as long as the government remains shuttered.“There have been concerns by some members saying we need to tell our constituents what we’re for and what it would look like in terms of border security,” said Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee that handles homeland security. “That is probably a way to respond to that, and a way that does not violate what we are saying: open up the government and then we will talk about border security.”Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon and the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who told a group of committee chairmen at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday that it was time for their party to go public with its own border security ideas, reiterated the idea in an interview.The president, he said, “is making this about border security, but what he is proposing would not provide real border security — it’s a stupid, static wall which is a symbol, and it’s not a great symbol, and it would be ineffective.”Among the investments that Mr. DeFazio said should be made instead are more money for Coast Guard equipment and personnel to intercept maritime drug shipments, better technology to scan vehicles legally crossing the border to detect illegal drugs, resources for costly reconfiguration of border crossings to make them more secure, and funds for additional personnel to police them.“It’s a horrible waste of money when we have real needs,” Mr. DeFazio said of Mr. Trump’s wall, “so I just want to highlight the real needs to counter his fake proposal.”Ms. Pelosi hinted at such a proposal in a morning news conference on Thursday, where she also said that Mr. Trump had yet to respond to her request about delaying his speech. “Very silent more than 24 hours,” the speaker told reporters.But the lull did not last long.Mr. Trump’s decision to revoke Ms. Pelosi’s military transport drew howls of outrage from Democrats and some Republicans, and threw into disarray a long-planned trip by the speaker and senior lawmakers — including the chairmen of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees — to visit American allies and troops stationed overseas.Democrats, newly in control of the House and eager to use their power to challenge Mr. Trump, vowed that they would not be bullied into scrapping the trip altogether.“We’re not going to allow the president of the United States to tell the Congress it can’t fulfill its oversight responsibilities, it can’t ensure that our troops have what they need whether our government is open or closed,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the chairman of the intelligence panel.“We are a coequal branch of government,” Mr. Schiff said, suggesting that the president apparently did not understand the new reality in Washington. “It may not have been that way with the past two years when he had a Republican Congress willing to roll over anytime he asked, but that is no longer the case.”Mr. Schiff was on the bus outside the Rayburn House Office Building near the Capitol when Mr. Trump fired off his letter, along with Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and several other lawmakers in what made for an unusual tableau.Instead of heading for Joint Base Andrews and boarding a military plane, the lawmakers sat stunned on their bus, unsure of what to do next, until it eventually drove slowly to the Capitol driveway — some journalists jogging or riding electric scooters to keep up — to disgorge its perplexed passengers. At one point, the House sergeant-at-arms, the chamber’s chief law enforcement officer, turned up to puzzle over the security arrangements for the lawmakers, whose secret travel plans were now public. And the speaker, holed up in her office with aides as reporters mixed near the Rotunda with tourists oblivious to the drama, calmly plotted her next steps.In the hallway one floor below, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, sputtered with anger.“It’s petty, it’s small, it’s vindictive,” Mr. Hoyer said. “It is unbecoming of a president of the United States, but it is unfortunately a daily occurrence.”White House officials — including Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff — had been irked by Ms. Pelosi’s invocation of security concerns as her premise for urging Mr. Trump to move his speech, and sought to put her in her place after she had emphasized that she represented a coequal branch in governing, according to aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.Depriving Ms. Pelosi of an aircraft was the easiest way to remind her, they said. So Mr. Trump made a play for dominance and one-upmanship reminiscent of his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York. White House aides were tickled by the move, even as some acknowledged that Republican House members might fear for their own trips going forward.Some of Mr. Trump’s usual allies were less amused.“One sophomoric response does not deserve another,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in a statement.“Speaker Pelosi’s threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political,” he added. “President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel is also inappropriate.”[Read the letter here.]Later in the day, the Trump administration had some good news for State Department employees, announcing that despite the stalemate it was asking furloughed workers to return to work on Tuesday, citing the department’s vital national security mission.It was the latest instance of the administration determining that an agency or department has a critical mission and its employees should return to work. But unlike in other parts of the government, the State Department employees will be paid, at least for work performed in the next pay period.Military planes are traditionally provided to congressional delegations for foreign trips, which are typically kept secret because of security concerns, particularly when lawmakers are heading to war zones and the delegation includes high-ranking congressional leaders. The White House has known about the trip since early last week, when it was brought to its attention by the Defense Department, according to White House officials.A spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, Drew Hammill, noted that Mr. Trump had traveled to Iraq to visit with American forces there during what he referred to as the “Trump Shutdown.” He added that the trip by the congressional delegation had a similar purpose.“The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings from those on the front lines,” Mr. Hammill said.A White House spokesman said that all coming official visits by lawmakers, known as congressional delegations or “codels,” would be canceled until the shutdown is over, and by day’s end on Thursday, officials announced that Mr. Trump had also canceled plans to send Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.But Melania Trump, the first lady, kept her plans to fly on a military jet to West Palm Beach, Fla., to go to the family’s Mar-a-Lago compound.As of late Thursday, multiple congressional officials could not say, citing security concerns, whether Ms. Pelosi’s trip to Afghanistan was still on. | 0 |
“We are the firewall, not just for the U.S. Senate, but the future of our country,” Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who is facing Warnock in the special election, told a crowd of about 100 people packed into a restaurant last week to hear from her and Republican Sen. David Perdue. The last time a Georgia Senate race went to a runoff, in 2008, Republican Saxby Chambliss crushed Democrat Jim Martin by 15 percentage points — just a month after he only edged Martin by 3 points in the Obama-fueled November election.
Both parties are mobilizing for a two-month sprint that will focus the entire political world on Georgia and easily cost more than $100 million. But the odds are stacked against Democrats: The runoff system itself is a relic of the Jim Crow era, when the white majority wanted to prevent candidates from winning with a plurality of the vote.
Ossoff, Warnock and their allies are well aware of their party's history of losses. They think they can defy it by out-organizing Republicans and reminding their voters that they have the chance to deliver a Democratic Senate.
"This is a very different state than 2008," Warnock said during a press conference last week. "The issue is not with the voters as much as it is with those who are trying to discourage and demoralize certain parts of our electorate," he added.
Democrats have identified thousands of potential new voters they’re working to register, and tens of thousands of volunteers are already mobilizing voters who showed up on Election Day to turn out again. “There’s a huge surge of momentum and enthusiasm, a feeling of invigoration here,” Ossoff said in an interview last week, standing in the dark outside the local Civic Center in Columbus following a massive drive-in rally, the third of eight events he held across the state in the past week to re-rev up voters still jubilant from Biden’s win.
“It’s going to be about who works harder, who inspires more people to come back out, who does the voter registration work and who has the energy,” Ossoff said.
Throughout his first week of events, the speakers who introduced Ossoff continually hit on one theme: Biden’s win proved Georgia can go blue after a three-decade losing streak, but it’ll take serious work for that to translate into success in January. Daniel Blackman, who is in a runoff for public service commissioner, told the hundreds gathered in a parking lot in Columbus, just across the Chattahoochee River from Alabama, the work “can’t stop, it can’t slow down” and there would be time to sleep on Jan. 6. Tonza Thomas, the first vice chair of the Muscogee County Democrats, said after the event repeating Biden’s success required putting money into the communities and groups who were already familiar with how to turn out the state’s voters. “It’s nothing but a repeat of what we’ve just done,” she said. “If we want it bad enough, we will get back out and do it.” Volunteers for Ossoff’s campaign have already made more than 220,000 phone calls in the days since the runoff was declared, and 21,500 volunteers already signed up for shifts. Warnock’s campaign had 10,000 people sign up to volunteer since the day after the election, doubling their volunteer database. Democrats say they are laser-focused on registering voters and pushing them to vote early or absentee. Nse Ufot, who leads the New Georgia Project, a group focused on voter registration, told POLITICO earlier this month they identified upwards of 100,000 potential voters to register ahead of the Dec. 7 runoff deadline. Ossoff’s campaign estimated more than 20,000 potential new voters became eligible after Nov. 3. They’re relying on a cadre of groups, from those like The New Georgia Project and Fair Fight, founded by 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, to help on the ground, along with the state Democratic Party and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has announced a multi-million dollar field program focused on mobilizing voters.
Abrams has raised at least $9.8 million through an ActBlue page allowing donors to split between Fair Fight and the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns. Organizers all the way down to the local level are preparing for the sprint. James Williams, the president of Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council, spoke at Warnock’s first press conference of the runoff, held in the parking lot of an IBEW headquarters in Atlanta last week. Williams told POLITICO his organization would hit the ground Monday with literature, phone calls and text messages, sending out mailers and registering union members. “We’re going to basically pull everything we can out of the woodworks for this,” Williams said. He and others have emphasized early and absentee voting, which Democrats used heavily this month and will be even more important in the runoffs, which take place right after the New Year's holiday. Abrams tweeted Sunday that 600,000 Georgians had requested absentee ballots already.
“You could be sitting there at the Christmas dinner table, filling our your ballot and getting it ready to go,” Williams said. Republicans are also mobilizing on the ground. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has a dozen staff members in the state partnering with the campaigns and is planning a field program including 21 regional directors and 1,000 field staff organized throughout the state. They’ve already raised a combined more than $32 million through the committee, the two campaigns and a joint fundraising committee, primarily through digital fundraising. Other GOP groups are in: The Club for Growth announced a $10 million investment in the two races, partnering with a handful of Republican senators and other conservative organizations. The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which ran digital advertising and door knocking campaigns for Republican senators this cycle, already has dozens of staff on the ground in Georgia. “What we have to do now, though, is not persuade people,” Perdue said at the event with Loeffler. “What we have to do is get the vote out.”
But Democrats are equally optimistic that the voters are out there for another win — though recent history is against them. The 2008 runoff blowout was an example of the worst-case turnout scenario for the party. But in 2018, Democrats Lindy Miller and John Barrow, the former congressmembers, lost runoffs for public service commissioner and secretary of state by larger margins than in the general election the month before. Those runoffs came after Abrams lost the governor’s race, and without any high-profile Democrat or national implications driving voters.
Miller credited the long-term organization in the state with limiting drop-off in her race, which had much higher turnout than expected, and she anticipates even more voters to participate this time. She said the key now, alongside the surge of money coming to the state, is to ensure they can scale their operations proportional to the national attention.
“That is a very high level of sophisticated activism we're seeing now, where people are ready and willing, and they want to go out there,” Miller said. “That is the tip of the iceberg and a signal for why we should be so optimistic.”
Republicans acknowledge they’re in a fight. But the combination of their success in past runoffs, their performance on Nov. 3 despite Trump’s defeat and the threat of complete Democratic control of Washington are all reasons they expect their voters to be there in January. “Runoffs are all about turnout. It’s not about changing people’s minds in most cases,” said Scott Johnson, a state Board of Education member and former GOP chair of Cobb County. He spoke to POLITICO in the parking lot of the county GOP headquarters after Loeffler’s kickoff event with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), which packed more than 100 supporters into the offices. “We’re going to work hard. We’re going to turn out,” Johnson added. “I’m not believing for one minute the other side isn’t going to work hard and turn out, too. Because they will. Because the stakes are high here.” | 0 |
The jobs recovery is chugging along, but the labor market remains far from fully healed from the crisis. The U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs in April, the strongest month for job growth in two years, the Department of Labor said Friday. That number blew away economists' forecasts, and stocks rose following the news, although they have since fallen back. The oft-quoted unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, down from 6.7% in March. The severe winter had been holding back many economic statistics, as snowstorms slowed the housing market, retail sales and manufacturing. On Friday, the jobs numbers were revised higher for both February and March, showing the economy is over that winter lull. "I'm very happy. It's good to see the economy kicking into gear and that we've really gotten past the weather issue," said John Silvia, chief economist for Wells Fargo. Related: U.S. economy slows to stall-speed That said, the unemployment rate told a more discouraging story. That number, which comes from a survey of households, shows fewer Americans are joining the labor force and fewer people report they're employed. These trends led to the unemployment rate falling to 6.3%, its lowest level since September 2008. "The drop in participation is not due to discouraged workers leaving the labor force," a Department of Labor spokesperson noted, "it's due to re-entrants and new entrants who we expected to see flowing into the labor force, and who didn't this month." This could mean fewer young people are entering the job market for the first time, and more seniors are retiring and staying that way. That said, participation also fell among the prime working-age population, and that's a discouraging sign, said Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial. "These are our 'learners and earners' in society," she wrote in a blog post. "They should be in the prime of their careers; instead, they are un- or underemployed, struggling with a debilitating overhang of student debt and in a sad reflection of our economy, some are giving up entirely." Related: Class of 2014 faces tough job market Economists also caution not to read too much into just one month of data. The big picture remains the same. "The employment data can fluctuate from month to month, and while this month's report happens to be above expectations, it is still broadly consistent with the recent trends we have been seeing in the labor market," Jason Furman, top economic adviser to President Obama, wrote in a White House blog post. (Political reaction) Given the millions of jobs lost in the financial crisis, even solid hiring is still not enough to put the huge backlog of unemployed Americans back to work right away. The jobs recovery has dragged on for four years now, and long-term unemployment remains elevated with 3.5 million people out of a job for six months or more. Related: Recovery on track, but still slow and steady Economists estimate it could take at least another two years until the job market returns to its pre-recession health, when the unemployment rate was around 4% to 5%. The good news is, the recovery is now broad-based across many industries. One of the strongest sectors for job growth, for example, is professional and business services. The industry added 75,000 jobs in April. Over the last 12 months, it has added more than 660,000 jobs. Many of these are likely to be office jobs paying mid- to high-level wages. Retail, restaurants and bars -- traditionally low-wage industries -- have also accounted for strong job growth, and blue-collar industries like manufacturing and construction are on the upswing. The only major sector that continues to cut jobs is the federal government, which slashed 83,000 positions over the last 12 months. CNNMoney (New York) First published May 2, 2014: 8:44 AM ET | 0 |
The debate over if — and how — to reprimand Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has exposed sharp divides within the caucus along generational, religious and ideological lines. | AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Congress
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal allies stepped up their defense of the freshman Democrat.
A vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism in response to controversial comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar is set to slip past Wednesday amid intensifying pressure from the left both inside and outside the House Democratic Caucus.
An array of progressive groups declared their support for Omar, while both the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus — two of the most important factions among House Democrats — wanted more time to review the situation, lawmakers and aides said. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that the vote would likely happen Thursday. They also said a draft resolution would be updated to include additional language rejecting anti-Muslim bias, although some Democratic sources believe that an entirely new document might be crafted.
What is clear, however, is that the furor over Omar's remarks — the second time in two months the Minnesota Democrat has made comments that were condemned by her own colleagues as anti-Semitic — is threatening to overshadow everything else happening in the House. House Democrats are set to pass a major anti-corruption package that deals with ethics and campaign finance reform initiatives and voting rights, but much of the attention is on Omar and how party leaders respond to her comments.
"We're still discussing it," Hoyer said on Tuesday. "The sentiment is that it ought to be broad-based. What we're against is hate, prejudice, bigotry, white supremacy, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism."
"Yes, we're strongly against anti-Semitism, but we're strongly against prejudice directed at any group," Hoyer added.
“People are working through the draft. Not everyone has seen the draft,” added House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries. “I support the notion that we need to respond, and we’re figuring out the appropriate way to respond.”
Pelosi and Omar spoke over the weekend as staffers for Pelosi and other top Democrats began crafting the resolution.
The debate over if — and how — to reprimand Omar for saying pro-Israel advocates have “allegiance to a foreign country” has exposed sharp divides within the caucus along generational, religious and ideological lines. The resolution is being taken up after senior Democrats, including some prominent Jewish lawmakers like New York Reps. Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey, have publicly criticized Omar and demanded she apologize. "I condemn all forms of hatred," said Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a panel that Omar joined in January. "We're talking about anti-Semitism because my colleague said some very hurtful things. But I think we need to be aware all attempts to demean any group of people, whether it's Muslims or LGBT people. We have to be very strong and forceful in condemning it."
Engel did not endorse kicking Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee, as Republicans have demanded.
"I don't think the Foreign Affairs Committee should be used as punishment for anybody," Engel told reporters. "But I do think [Omar] needs to understand what she said is very hurtful. Whether she is on the committee or not is not the issue."
An array of prominent liberal allies like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and outside progressive groups has rallied to the Minnesota Democrat's defense.
Senior Democrats in key caucuses were also pushing party leaders to pause floor action related to Omar, at least temporarily, so members have time to digest the content of the resolution. The CBC is set to discuss the measure at its weekly meeting Wednesday, while progressives are also expected to meet on the issue.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, confirmed that some of her group's members have discussed the resolution with Democratic leaders "to make sure we can have caucus unity on whatever we propose."
Liberals had pushed for language condemning Islamophobia after Omar was targeted in a poster displayed at an event sponsored by the West Virginia GOP. It appeared to link her to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and included a photo of the World Trade Center buildings on fire and a photo of Omar below it.
The draft resolution doesn't mention Omar by name but is a direct response to her most recent comments and comes after a string of Israel-related remarks that her colleagues have claimed are anti-Semitic.
Ocasio-Cortez fired off a series of tweets throughout Tuesday, criticizing what she sees as hypocrisy in Democrats' planned reprimand of Omar. She argued that Democratic leaders should have addressed the issue privately before Omar was "called out" publicly.
Omar exited her Capitol Hill office on Tuesday night with her phone to her head and without taking questions from reporters. A coalition of several Muslim and progressive Jewish organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and IfNotNow, is set to hold a news conference Wednesday morning outside of the Supreme Court in support of Omar. And the Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent out a mass fundraising email in support of Democratic lawmakers who are publicly defending Omar. Other prominent progressive groups and activists, including Democracy for America, CodePink and Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg, underscored their support for Omar on Twitter, using the hashtag #StandWithIlhan.
"One of the things that is hurtful about the extent to which reprimand is sought of Ilhan is that no one seeks this level of reprimand when members make statements about Latinx + other communities (during the shutdown, a GOP member yelled 'Go back to Puerto Rico!' on the floor)," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri in January apologized to Rep. Tony Cárdenas for yelling “Go back to Puerto Rico!” in a tense situation on the House floor during the government shutdown. Smith, however, claimed the remark was not racially motivated and instead was referring to 30-member event in Puerto Rico that occurred during the shutdown, which was heavily covered by conservative media and even drew ire from President Donald Trump.
A senior Democratic aide countered Ocasio-Cortez's criticisms on Tuesday by saying a resolution on the House floor is far from the most severe punishment Democratic leaders could pursue. Republican critics of Omar have demanded she be pulled off of the Foreign Affairs Committee, something Democratic leaders have so far resisted. Some senior GOP lawmakers are even considering offering a censure motion against Omar. "There’s clearly people that are calling for her to be removed from the committee," the Democratic aide said. "This resolution doesn’t mention her name even, this is pretty mild given that she’s a repeat offender." Ocasio-Cortez, who has defended Omar in the past, said on Tuesday that she is not trying to tell people how to feel "or that their hurt is invalid," but questioned why there have not been "resolutions against homophobic statements? For anti-blackness? For xenophobia? For a member saying he’ll 'send Obama home to Kenya?'"
Ocasio-Cortez also called on addressing inappropriate remarks with someone privately before they are called out publicly.
"In this administration + all others, we should actively check antisemitism, anti-blackness, homophobia, racism, and all other forms of bigotry," she tweeted. "And the most productive end goal when we see it is to educate and heal. It’s the difference btwn 'calling in' before 'calling out.'"
Ocasio-Cortez claimed that the resolution falls under "calling out" and should be "one of the measure of last resort," and should only be done after "repeated attempts to 'call in' are disrespected or ignored."
"I believe that Ilhan, in her statement a few weeks ago, has demonstrated a willingness to listen+work w/impacted communities," the New York congresswoman tweeted.
Omar also received backlash last month after she questioned the political influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee by tweeting the phrase "It's all about the Benjamins baby." The congresswoman has since apologized for that statement.
After that remark, House Republicans last month pushed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, although it did not specifically mention Omar. The measure was overwhelmingly approved on the floor, and it won Omar's vote as well.
Rebecca Morin contributed to this report. | 0 |
CLEVELAND — Donald Trump’s acceptance speech hit the mark Thursday night, drawing accolades from a number of GOP political insiders who had doubted his competence to lead the Republican ticket this fall.
That’s according to The POLITICO Caucus — a panel of operatives, activists and strategists in 11 battleground states surveyed immediately following Trump’s speech. Fifty-six percent of Republican insiders said Trump’s speech — a forceful indictment of those responsible for what he perceives as a country in decline, along with an assurance that he is uniquely qualified to solve the nation’s ills — made them feel more confident in his candidacy. “Trump gave a simple message and expanded the Republican Party: law and order, economic populism and defeat the rigged system,” said one Iowa Republican — who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously.
“I felt Trump gave a very good speech and struck on issues and policies that people wanted to hear about,” added a Colorado Republican. “His family and friends did an excellent job of showing the softer side of Donald Trump and gave America a good view of his family, which says a lot about him as a person. I think he is absolutely right — this is a movement, not a ‘normal’ campaign. People have had enough of tired politicians. I think they are going to give him the chance to run the country.”Added a Pennsylvania Republican: “He talked to the people he needed to very effectively. The speech defined the race and made him a voice for the people — something he should have done months ago.”
For many of the GOP insiders, Trump’s acceptance speech Thursday night helped overcome other, rockier moments this week, including Ted Cruz’s speech, in which the Texas senator declined to endorse Trump, despite angry protestations from the crowd at Quicken Loans Arena.
Fifty-nine percent of Republicans picked Trump’s acceptance speech as the “defining moment” of the convention, far more than the 28 percent who said Cruz’s televised snub defined the week.
The Cruz speech received poor marks from those same Republican insiders. Four-in-five said it was a “selfish act” to address the convention without getting behind Trump. Only 20 percent described it as a “principled stand.”
Cruz “showed his true colors as just another craven politician willing to put his own political ambition ahead of the interests of the party and the country,” a Colorado Republican said. “It's a risky bet — if Hillary wins in November as a result of the divisions Cruz continues to foment within the party, the GOP will hold the senator from Texas partially responsible for the multiple justices that Clinton will appoint to the Supreme Court, undermining the very conservative principles and constitution Ted Cruz claims to champion.”
“Cruz almost looks like he trying to ensure that Hillary will win so he can run against her in 2020,” added a Virginia Republican.
“It was beyond selfish,” a Wisconsin Republican said. “It was beyond stupid and showed Ted Cruz for what he is. Cruz’s speech was a head-shaking moment. And, he's toast in 2020. Compare him to Ryan.”Trump certainly still has his Republican critics: Twenty percent said the speech made them less confident in him. And a number of them were despondent in what they saw as an apocalyptic view of the country, when voters want to be inspired.
“It's not morning in America; it's midnight in America, according to Trump,” a Colorado Republican said. “This was a long, depressing speech that did not focus on issues that most Americans are concerned about, specifically, the economy.”
Added a New Hampshire Republican: “We have handed our Party over to a narcissistic, feckless, classless RINO strongman wannabe who is the only candidate that actually gives the horrid Hillary Clinton a chance to win.”
Democrats largely agreed: The consensus among insiders wasn’t that Trump will emerge from Cleveland as a stronger candidate. Instead, many of them believed he delivered a dark, angry speech that served as the capstone of an unusual and damaging convention for the GOP.
“As a Democrat, I heard Trump describe a post-apocalyptic country that I don't live in — full of fear, terror, and pending economic collapse,” a Colorado Democrat said. “It seemed like a speech to white America, or those in white America, who fear the social, cultural, and economic change in our country.”
“The whole thing was a dumpster fire,” a Florida Democrat said of the convention, “but Trump's dark, troubling and borderline anti-American speech will define it.”
In fact, the vast majority of Democrats, 63 percent, said Cruz’s nonendorsement was the defining moment of a convention that, in their eyes, left the GOP more divided than united. It “was a defining moment of an ill-conceived and poorly executed convention,” one Iowa Democrat said.
But there were some signs that Trump struck a chord with some of his tougher GOP critics. One Nevada Republican called it “shockingly measured with populist lines that real people will like.”
Another New Hampshire Republican called it the “best speech” Trump has given thus far.
“But probably still not good enough,” the Republican said.
These are the members of The POLITICO Caucus, not all of whom participated in this survey:
Colorado: Ryan Call, Laura Carno, Matt Chandler, Will Coyne, Adam Eichberg, Mark Ferrandino, Cole Finegan, Michael Fortney, Andrew Freedman, Ted Harvey, Craig Hughes, Owen Loftus, Pete Maysmith, Frank McNulty, Karen Middleton, Christopher Murray, BJ Nikkel, Josh Penry, Rick Ridder, Alan Salazar, Janice Sinden, Pat Steadman, Pat Waak, Steve Welchert, Taylor West, Roxane White, Rob Witwer
Florida: Fernand Amandi, Scott Arceneaux, JP Austin, Tim Baker, Dennis K. Baxley, Slater Bayliss, Dave Beattie, Wayne Bertsch, Ron Book, Pamela Burch Fort, Jose Calderon, Kevin Cate, Kelly Cohen, Gus Corbella, Brian Crowley, Elizabeth Cuevas-Neunder, Justin Day, Judith Diaz, Nelson Diaz, John Dowless, Ryan Duffy, Jessica Ehrlich, Joe Falk, Alia Faraj-Johnson, Mark Ferrulo, Damien Filer, Marty Fiorentino, Rich Heffley, Nick Iarossi, David Johnson, Eric Johnson, Marian Johnson, Eric Jotkoff, Chris Korge, Jackie Lee, Susan MacManus, Beth Matuga, Fred Menachem, Jon Mills, Joe Mobley, Ben Pollara, Andrea Reilly, Steve Schale, April Schiff, Max Steele, Roger Stone, Richard Swann, Kevin Sweeny, Christian Ulvert, Steve Vancore, Ashley Walker, Andrew Weinstein, Andrew Wiggins, Ryan Wiggins, Rick Wilson
Iowa: Tim Albrecht, Brad Anderson, Rob Barron, Jeff Boeyink, Bonnie Campbell, Dave Caris, Sam Clovis, Jerry Crawford, Sara Craig, John Davis, Steve Deace, John Deeth, Derek Eadon, Ed Failor Jr., Karen Fesler, David Fischer, Ben Foecke, Doug Gross, Steve Grubbs, Tim Hagle, Bob Haus, Joe Henry, Drew Ivers, Jill June, Lori Jungling, Jeff Kaufmann, Brian Kennedy, Jake Ketzner, David Kochel, Chris Larimer, Chuck Larson, Jill Latham, Jeff Link, Dave Loebsack, Mark Lucas, Liz Mathis, Jan Michelson, Chad Olsen, David Oman, Matt Paul, Marlys Popma, Troy Price, Christopher Rants, Kim Reem, Craig Robinson, Sam Roecker, David Roederer, Nick Ryan, Tamara Scott, Joni Scotter, Karen Slifka, John Smith, AJ Spiker, Norm Sterzenbach, John Stineman, Matt Strawn, Charlie Szold, Phil Valenziano, Jessica Vanden Berg, Nate Willems, Eric Woolson, Grant Young
Michigan: Jill Alper, Saul Anuzis, Andrea Bitely, Lori Carpentier, Howard Edelson, Jordan Gehrke, Steve Hood, Joe Lehman, Dennis Lennox, Katie Packer, Ronna Romney McDaniel, John Truscott, Stephanie White, John Yob
Nevada: Mac Abrams, Greg Bailor, Barbara Buckley, Yvanna Cancela, Bob Cavazos, Linda Cavazos, Jim DeGraffenreid, Andrew Diss, Peter Ernaut, Ryan Erwin, Chip Evans, Jay Gerstema, Oscar Goodman, Ryan Hamilton, Dan Hart, Pat Hickey, Zach Hudson, Jeremy Hughes, Megan Jones, Lindsey Jydstrup, Adam Khan, Peter Koltak, Roberta Lange, Sam Liberman, Laura Martin, Michael McDonald, Chuck Muth, Erven Nelson, Kristen Orthman, Neal Patel, Nick Phillips, Jon Ralston, Andres Ramires, Emmy Ruiz, Scott Scheid, Mike Slanker, James Smack, Paul Smith, Jack St. Martin, Mari St. Martin, Daniel Stewart, Brendan Summers, Riley Sutton, Robert Uithoven, Michelle White, Ed Williams, Heidi Wixom
New Hampshire: Charlie Arlinghaus, Arnie Arnesen, Patrick Arnold, Rich Ashooh, Dean Barker, Juliana Bergeron, D.J. Bettencourt, Michael Biundo, Ray Buckley, Peter Burling, Jamie Burnett, Debby Butler, Dave Carney, Jackie Cilley, Catherine Corkery, Corriveau, Fergus Cullen, Lou D’Allesandro, James Demers, Mike Dennehy, Sean Downey, Steve Duprey, JoAnn Fenton, Jennifer Frizzell, Martha Fuller Clark, Amanda Grady Sexton, Jack Heath, Gary Hirshberg, Jennifer Horn, Peter Kavanaugh, Joe Keefe, Rich Killion, Harrell Kirstein, Sylvia Larsen, Joel Maiola, Kate Malloy Corriveau, Maureen Manning, Steve Marchand, Tory Mazzola, Jim Merrill, Jayne Millerick, Claira Monier, Greg Moore, Matt Mowers, Terie Norelli, Chris Pappas, Liz Purdy, Tom Rath, Colin Reed, Jim Rubens, Andy Sanborn, Dante Scala, William Shaheen, Stefany Shaheen, Carol Shea-Porter, Terry Shumaker, Andy Smith, Craig Stevens, Kathy Sullivan, Chris Sununu, James Sununu, Jay Surdukowski, Donna Sytek, Kari Thurman, Colin Van Ostern, Deb Vanderbeek, Mike Vlacich, Ryan Williams
North Carolina: Don Davis, Francis X. De Luca, Anita Earls, Jonathan Felts, Tami L. Fitzgerald, Dylan Frick, Taylor Griffin, Robin Hayes, Morgan Jackson, Patsy Keever, Theresa Kostrzewa, Michael Luethy, Ray Martin, Thomas Mills, Melissa L. Reed, Chris Sgro, Paul Shumaker, Dee Stewart, Brad Thompson, Bruce Thompson, Charlie Wallin, Doug Wilson
Ohio: Jerry Austin, Greg Beswick, Matt Borges, Erica Bruton, Tim Burke, Janet Carson, Jai Chabria, Martha Clark, Bob Clegg, Damareo Cooper, Jo Ann Davidson, Michael Dawson, Bill DeMora, Cindy Demse, Kathy Dicristofaro, Katie Eagan, Michael Gonidakis, Wes Goodman, Joe Hallett, Ian James, Melissa Klide Hedden, David Leland, Nick Martin, Rhine McLin, David Pepper, Molly Shack, Mark R. Weaver
Pennsylvania: Chris Borick, Larry Ceisler, Valentino DiGiorgio, Jason Ercole, Dan Fee, Charlie Gerow, Marcel Groen, Leslie Gromis Baker, Mark Harris, Nan McLaughlin, Aubrey Montgomery, Christopher Nicholas, Nachama Soloveichik, David Sosar, Todd Stephens, Doc Sweitzer, David Thornburgh, Ray Zaborney
Virginia: Ray Allen, Sandra Brandt, Marc K. Broklawski, Patsy Brown, Janet Carver, John Cosgrove, Brian Coy, Doris Crouse-Mays, Tom Davis, Julie Dime, Abbi Easter, Mike Farris, John Findlay, Joe Fitzgerald, Sean Harrison, Margo Horner, Robert Hurt, Gaylene Kanoyton, Chris LaCivita, Sue Langley, Frank Leone, Robert G. Marshall, Tucker Martin, Ed Matricardi, Susan J. Rowland, Peter Snyder, Susan Swecker, Jo Thoburn
Wisconsin: Meg Andrietsch, Mary Arnold, Kevin Barthel, Mike Basford, Rebecca Bonesteel, Barry Burden, Terri Burl, Jim Camery, Patrick Guarasci, Robert Hansen, Gary Hawley, Marian Krumberger, Emily Nehring, Jason Rae, Brandon Scholz, John Zapfel
Kristen Hayford contributed to this report. | 0 |
President Trump’s preferred candidate for governor of Georgia won the Republican nomination Tuesday, setting the stage for a marquee November showdown encapsulating the divisions that have deepened during his presidency.Secretary of State Brian Kemp, an immigration hard-liner who won Trump’s support less than a week before the vote, defeated Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in a runoff that resonated loudly beyond the state’s borders. Kemp led Cagle by more than 2 to 1, with most of the votes tallied.“We had the momentum in this race, but those endorsements by the president and the vice president poured gasoline on the fire,” Kemp said in his victory speech.Kemp advances to a showdown against Democratic Party nominee Stacey Abrams, who, if she wins, will be the first female African American governor of any state. The victory by Kemp instantly turned the general election race into a sharp contrast capturing the cultural, racial and political divides that have gripped the country in the Trump era — all in a rapidly diversifying state.With both parties trying to put their best foot forward for November's general election, here are five things to watch in this summer's preliminary elections. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)In a morning tweet, Trump congratulated Kemp on his “very big win” and launched a broadside against Abrams, calling her “crime loving” and “weak” on the military, among other things.Congratulations to Brian Kemp on your very big win in Georgia last night. Wow, 69-30, those are big numbers. Now go win against the open border, crime loving opponent that the Democrats have given you. She is weak on Vets, the Military and the 2nd Amendment. Win!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2018
Abrams soon fired back on Twitter, saying she was “proud to join the company” of three other Democrats — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, Sen. Doug Jones (Ala.) and Rep. Conor Lamb (Pa.) — whom Trump had “campaigned against all the way to victory.”Kemp’s victory served as the latest indication of Trump’s dominance in the Republican Party. His endorsement has proved to be a valuable commodity in primaries from the Deep South to the Northeast in recent months.In Georgia, however, Republicans were left to ponder whether Trump was strengthening the party’s hand ahead of the November election or weakening it. Kemp ran as a Trump-style conservative in a state where the president only narrowly eclipsed the 50 percent mark in 2016. The president’s move put him at odds with many Republican elected officials, including outgoing Gov. Nathan Deal, who backed Cagle.Cagle conceded the race to Kemp just 90 minutes after polls closed. “I committed to him my full, undivided support,” he said.As voters headed to the polls Tuesday morning, Trump reiterated his choice, tweeting: “Today is the day to vote for Brian Kemp. Will be great for Georgia, full Endorsement!”The president first gave his political blessing to Kemp last Wednesday, backing the candidate running as a self-described “politically incorrect conservative
.” Over the weekend, Vice President Pence flew to the state to campaign for Kemp, arguing that he would “bring the kind of leadership to the statehouse that President Donald Trump has brought to the White House.”The White House imprimatur came as a blow to Cagle, the longtime favorite for the nomination. He finished first in the May 22 primary, but his edge faded in a contest that was shaped by embarrassing audio recordings, accusations of “fake news” and Trump’s involvement.As he navigated his way through the crowded primary, with rivals tagging him as the “establishment” candidate, Cagle made moves to appease the right, including a fight to punish Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines for its criticism of the National Rifle Association, as well as support for a tax break for private schools in an effort to weaken another candidate for governor.That became a genuine controversy in June, when conservative gubernatorial challenger Clay Tippins released a recording of Cagle admitting that he had backed the measure specifically to hurt a third candidate, Hunter Hill.“It ain’t about public policy. It’s about . . . politics. There’s a group that was getting ready to put $3 million behind Hunter Hill,” Cagle said on the recording. “Is it bad public policy? Between you and me, it is.”Cagle began to dip in the polls after that recording was aired; Hill would go on to endorse Kemp as the candidate who “won’t sell public policy to the highest bidder.” And Tippins wasn’t done, wounding Cagle again with audio of the front-runner saying that Kemp was running to be the “craziest” candidate in the race.“It sounds like Casey Cagle’s gotten like Hillary Clinton,” Kemp told reporters this month. “I would ask all those crazies to vote Brian Kemp for governor in the Republican runoff.”Kemp has eagerly waded into the culture wars in his campaign, running ads bragging that liberals did not like it when he stood for the national anthem or displayed his guns.In perhaps his most famous spot, released before the first round of voting, Kemp boasted about having a big truck — “just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take them home myself.”Cagle fought back by portraying himself as the true conservative in the race. In his final attack ad, he accused Kemp, who has been secretary of state for eight years, of “20 years of failure.” In another ad, Cagle was pictured rallying a crowd of conservatives — a few wearing “Make America Great Again” caps — against the negative stories.“Dirty tricks and fake news are what we’ve come to expect,” Cagle said. “I’ll never apologize for outlawing sanctuary cities or for stopping liberals from taking the values that make our country great.”Georgia Republicans have held the governor’s mansion since 2003, with legislative majorities that have made Democrats largely irrelevant in state politics. But the smash-mouth nature of the contest has emboldened Democrats, who think that the GOP’s race to the right will alienate the suburban voters who are drifting away from the party in the Trump era.“The race for #GAGov may change, but our values never will,” Abrams tweeted after Kemp’s win. “Service, faith & family guide our vision for GA: Affordable health care. Excellent public schools for every child. An economy that works for all.”Abrams has raised a hefty $6 million for the race — nearly $3 million of it since winning the primary. Trump’s 50.44 percent share of the vote in the 2016 election was the lowest for a Republican presidential nominee in two decades. Democrats have increased their share of the vote since then in local elections.A former minority leader of the Georgia House, she won the Democratic primary while surrounding herself with leaders representing women, labor, the LGBT community and causes on the left — predicting at one rally that a rising coalition of minorities and liberal whites would “turn the state of Georgia, and the nation, blue again.”Georgia’s Hispanic population has grown to nearly 10 percent of the state’s, according to a recent Census Bureau estimate. African Americans make up nearly a third of the state’s population.Kemp and fellow Republicans on Tuesday started accelerating efforts to tie Abrams to national Democratic figures, including former presidential nominee Clinton. Their strategy is in line with the GOP’s playbook in other states that Trump won.Further down the ballot Tuesday, Democrats were picking nominees in two suburban Atlanta congressional districts that were crafted to elect Republicans but swung away from the president’s party in 2016.In the 7th Congressional District, former congressional aide Carolyn Bourdeaux defeated education company chief executive David Kim for the right to challenge Rep. Rob Woodall (R). In the 6th Congressional District, where first-time candidate Jon Ossoff lost a close special election last year, gun-control activist Lucy McBath defeated Kevin Abel.Until 2016, neither district was particularly competitive. While Rep. Karen Handel (R) defeated Ossoff in the 6th District, Trump won just 48.3 percent of the vote there and just 51.1 percent in the 7th District — down from the 60 percent that Mitt Romney had won in both districts in 2012.John Wagner contributed to this report. | 0 |
Day of Seesaw Talks Produces No Accord on Fiscal CrisisCredit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesDec. 30, 2012WASHINGTON — Senate leaders on Sunday failed to produce a fiscal deal with just hours to go before large tax increases and spending cuts were to begin taking effect on New Year’s Day, despite a round of volatile negotiations over the weekend and an attempt by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to intervene. In seesaw negotiations, the two sides got closer on the central issue of how to define the wealthy taxpayers who would be required to pay more once the Bush-era tax cuts expire. But that progress was overshadowed by gamesmanship. After Republicans demanded that any deal must include a new way of calculating inflation that would mean smaller increases in payments to beneficiaries of programs like Social Security, Democrats halted the negotiations for much of the day. The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, made an emergency call to Mr. Biden in hopes of restarting negotiations, and the White House sent the president’s chief legislative negotiator to the Capitol to meet with Senate Democrats. Soon after, Republicans withdrew their demand and discussions resumed, but little progress was made.Lawmakers will be back on Monday. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said the Senate would return at 11 a.m. Monday and then left the Capitol just after 6 p.m. “Talk to Joe Biden and McConnell,” Mr. Reid told reporters when asked if negotiations were continuing.ImageCredit...Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesIn the balance are more than a half-trillion dollars in tax increases on virtually every working American and across-the-board spending cuts that are scheduled to begin Tuesday. Taken together, they threaten to push the economy back into recession.“It looks awful,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat. “I’m sure the American people are saying, with so much at stake why are they waiting so late to get this done?”Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who had said early Sunday that he thought a deal was within reach, said later on his Twitter feed, “I think we’re going over the cliff.”Weeks of negotiations between President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner inched toward a deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, while locking in trillions of dollars in deficit reduction over 10 years and starting an effort to overhaul the tax code and entitlement programs like Medicare. But earlier this month, Mr. Boehner walked away from those talks.Instead he tried to reach a much more modest deal to avoid a fiscal crisis by extending the expiring tax cuts for incomes under $1 million. When Mr. Boehner’s own Republican members revolted, he ceded negotiations to the Senate. But compromise has proved equally elusive in that chamber. Absent a last-minute deal, Mr. Reid is expected to move on Monday to bring to a vote a stopgap measure pushed by Mr. Obama, which would retain lower tax rates for incomes below $250,000 and extend unemployment benefits. But it was not clear that would even get a vote. The objection of a single senator on Monday would run out the clock on the 112th Congress before a final tally could be taken.Mr. Obama appeared on the NBC program “Meet the Press” on Sunday and implored Congress to act. “We have been talking to the Republicans ever since the election was over,” Mr. Obama said in the interview. “They have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers.”ImageCredit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressHe added, “Now the pressure’s on Congress to produce.”After the talks broke down over the inflation demand, Senate Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting on Sunday afternoon to declare the issue off the table for now. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said that holding the line against raising taxes on high-income households while fighting for cuts to Social Security was “not a winning hand.”Then they mustered a new talking point, saying Democrats want to raise taxes only to spend more money. Their new objection: Democrats are seeking a one- to two-year “pause” for across-the-board spending cuts and an extension of expired unemployment benefits for two million people.“We raise taxes, and we spend more?” asked Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas. “It’s business as usual.”For their part, Democrats beat back the inflation proposal, and then promptly proclaimed themselves incensed that Republicans would not soften their position on a generous level of taxation on inherited estates and an insistence that a final deal permanently prevent the alternative minimum tax, a parallel tax system meant to ensure that wealthy people pay more, from expanding to affect more of the middle class. Democrats were also demanding that across-the-board cuts to military and domestic programs — known as the “sequester” — at least be delayed.“We’re not here to defend government, we’re here to make sure of the defense of our country,” said Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, whose state would be hit particularly hard. “Sequester has consequences.”Senate Democratic aides were openly making legislative plans for later this week, to press Democratic proposals after the fiscal deadline is breached — and after the next Congress is sworn in on Thursday with more Democrats in both the House and the Senate. But officials close to the negotiations said the talks were continuing, centered for now on a new axis, Mr. McConnell and Mr. Biden. Much of the umbrage was oddly discordant. Mr. Obama has long advocated for a permanent fix to the alternative minimum tax, which must be “patched” each year to keep it from applying to middle-income families. Until this weekend, both Democrats and Republicans appeared willing to let the across-the-board cuts take effect, at least temporarily, while a larger deficit deal is negotiated early next year. Indeed, many Republicans were the loudest in protesting the cuts. Now that Democrats want them canceled, Republicans equate that position to raising taxes in order to spend more.On some of the biggest sticking points, the two sides are now inches apart. Barely a week after House Republicans refused to vote to allow taxes to rise on incomes over $1 million, Senate Republicans proposed allowing tax rates to rise on incomes over $450,000 for individuals and $550,000 for couples. Democrats countered with a proposal to extend expiring Bush-era tax cuts up to $360,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. For both sides, that meant major movement. Mr. Obama has been holding firm at a $250,000 threshold.Of course, a big question hung over the negotiations in the Senate: even if the Senate can find an accord, would it pass the House?Even on the estate tax, the two sides are not far apart, although their language is. Republicans want to tax estates valued above $5 million at 35 percent. Democrats want to tax inheritances above $3.5 million at 45 percent.If that sounds like a bridgeable divide, Democrats are not conceding an inch. “The net result is that 6,000 Americans would get a $1-million-a-year tax break on their estate tax,” Mr. Durbin said. “The Republicans once again are ready to shut us down over not 2 percent of the population, but 0.1 percent of the population.” | 0 |
The Orlando gunman's wife feared he was going to attack a gay nightclub overnight Saturday and pleaded with him not to do anything violent — but failed to warn police after he left, NBC News has learned.Omar Mateen's wife, Noor Zahi Salman, told the FBI that her husband assured her he was simply going to see friends, although she believed he was actually planning to unleash terror at the Pulse nightclub, a two-hour drive north from their home in Port St. Lucie.Mateen, 29, opened fire at Pulse early Sunday, leaving 49 dead and 53 injured.Twenty-seven victims remained hospitalized Tuesday. Six were in critical condition, according to hospital officials who said the death toll was still at risk of rising because one or two of those patients were “profoundly ill.”Noor apparently had an inkling about her husband's sinister plot after she told the FBI she once drove him to Pulse because he wanted to scope it out.In addition, she said she was with him when he bought ammunition and a holster, several officials familiar with the case said.Authorities are considering filing criminal charges against Noor for failing to tell them what she knew before the brutal attack, law enforcement officials say, but no decision has been made.She is cooperating with investigators, several officials add, but worry that once charges are filed, she may stop talking.Mateen, who was carrying a handgun and a Sig Sauer MCX, died in a shootout with police following the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history — and the most deadly act of terror in the country since 9/11.Related: Several Vexing Questions Remain in Orlando MassacreHe told police negotiators during the three-hour siege that he admired the leader of ISIS, as well as the brothers who bombed the 2013 Boston Marathon and a fellow Floridian who became a suicide bomber for the Nusra Front in Syria.Orlando Police identified the suspect in the Pulse Nightclub shootings as Omar Mateen, 29, a U.S. citizen born in New York.via Orlando PoliceFederal officials said the FBI's analysis of electronic devices belonging to Mateen has so far not turned up anything that would shed light on why he committed the massacre.Mateen had a Samsung cellphone, a computer and a digital camera. Investigators found that he downloaded terrorist-related material, including sermons from Anwar al-Awlaki, the notorious al Qaeda propagandist killed in 2011, and videos of ISIS beheadings. But they have not found anti-gay material or anything written by Mateen that would illuminate his motive or choice of target.Mateen was born in New York to Afghan immigrants described by one family friend as loving, close-knit and "very respectful" of America. His clan ended up in Florida, where he attended Indian River State College near his home.He graduated with an associate of science degree in criminal justice technology in 2006, and later got a job as a private security guard. He was fascinated with law enforcement, people who knew him said.He was married twice, and was the father of a 3-year-old boy.Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.Tom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Jonathan Dienst is a reporter for WNBC-TV in New York, leading its investigative reporting team and covering justice and law enforcement issues.Ken Dilanian is a correspondent covering intelligence and national security for the NBC News Investigative Unit. | 0 |
June 7, 2014WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will take executive actions to ease the burden of college loan debt for potentially millions of Americans, in a White House event coinciding with Senate Democrats’ plans for legislation to address a concern of many voters in this midterm election year. Before an East Room audience, Mr. Obama is scheduled to announce “new steps to further lift the burden of crushing student loan debt,” said a White House official, who declined to be identified describing the actions in advance of the president’s event. Despite past actions by the administration, borrowers’ debt load is growing and retarding the ability to buy homes, start businesses or otherwise spend to spur the economy, economists say.Mr. Obama’s main action will be to expand on a 2010 law that capped borrowers’ repayments at 10 percent of their monthly income. The intent is to extend such relief to an estimated five million people with older loans who are currently ineligible — those who got loans before October 2007 or stopped borrowing by October 2011. But the relief would not be available until December 2015, officials said, given the time needed for the Education Department to propose and put new regulations into effect. Also, Mr. Obama will announce that the department will renegotiate contracts with companies that service federal loans to give them additional financial incentives to help borrowers avoid delinquency or default. The Education and Treasury Departments are to work with the nation’s largest tax-preparation firms, H&R Block and Intuit Inc., to ensure that borrowers are aware of repayment options and tax credits for college tuition.The president said in January, in his State of the Union address, that he would use his “pen and phone” to take executive actions and enlist private institutions on matters when disputes with congressional Republicans block legislation.But legislation generally is more far-reaching, so Mr. Obama will also urge passage of a measure that the Democratic-led Senate plans to take up this week. He plans to discuss the proposal at his Monday event and in a Tuesday question-and-answer session about student loan debt on the Tumblr social-networking website.The Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, would allow an estimated 25 million Americans to refinance student loans, federal and private, at lower interest rates. Reduced interest payments would cost the government about $58 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but the legislation would raise $72 billion by imposing a new tax on some high-income individuals. Because of the tax and the bill’s overall cost, it is unclear whether Democrats can muster enough Republican support to get the 60 votes needed. Even if they succeed, the Republican-controlled House is likely to ignore the measure. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Senate Democratic leader who worked with the White House on the issue, said, “Even though our bill goes further, the president’s action means something will be done even if Republicans block it.” In his weekly address, Mr. Obama defined the choice before Congress in political terms: “Protect young people from crushing debt, or protect tax breaks for millionaires.” About $1 trillion in federal student loans or loan guarantees is outstanding, on top of more than $100 billion in outstanding private student loans that are not federally guaranteed, the Congressional Budget Office reported. While economists argue that a postsecondary education is an investment that pays off, average tuition at four-year public colleges has more than tripled over the past three decades, according to the administration, and 71 percent of those who graduated with a bachelor’s degree carried debt, which averaged $29,400. | 0 |
DES MOINES, Iowa — Bernie Sanders, riding an updraft of insurgent passion in Iowa, has closed to within 7 points of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race.She’s the first choice of 37% of likely Democratic caucusgoers; he’s the pick for 30%, according to a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll.But Clinton has lost a third of her supporters since May, a trajectory that if sustained puts her at risk of losing again in Iowa, the initial crucible in the presidential nominating contest.This is the first time Clinton, the former secretary of state and longtime presumptive front-runner, has dropped below the 50% mark in four polls conducted by the Register and Bloomberg Politics this year.Poll results include Vice President Joe Biden as a choice, although he has not yet decided whether to join the race. Biden captures 14%, five months from the first-in-the-nation vote Feb. 1. Even without Biden in the mix, Clinton falls below a majority, at 43%.“This feels like 2008 all over again,” said J. Ann Selzer, pollster for the Iowa Poll.In that race, Clinton led John Edwards by 6 percentage points and Barack Obama by 7 points in an early October Iowa Poll. But Obama, buoyed by younger voters and first-time caucusgoers, surged ahead by late November.In this cycle, Sanders is attracting more first-time caucusgoers than Clinton. He claims 43% of their vote compared with 31% for Clinton. He also leads by 23 percentage points with the under-45 crowd and by 21 points among independent voters.Sanders, a Vermont U.S. senator, has become a liberal Pied Piper in Iowa not as a vote against Clinton, but because caucusgoers genuinely like him, the poll shows. An overwhelming 96% of his backers say they support him and his ideas. Just 2% say they’re motivated by opposition to Clinton.Back in January, half of likely Democratic caucusgoers were unfamiliar with Sanders, who has been elected to Congress for 25 years as an independent. He has jumped from 5% support in January to 30%. Clinton, a famous public figure for decades, has dropped in that period from 56% to 37%.“These numbers would suggest that she can be beaten,” said Steve McMahon, a Virginia-based Democratic strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns dating to 1980.“But,” he added, “it’s still early, and Hillary Clinton’s done this before. She knows what it takes to win.”If Clinton survives the caucus and primary gauntlet to become the nominee, nearly two-thirds of likely Democratic caucusgoers say they’re “mostly confident” she can win the general election. About 24% are mostly nervous, and 9% aren’t sure.Wild card: Will Biden decide to join race?The open question is what Biden will see in these results. Will he see a teetering front-runner in distress? Or that Sanders has already consolidated a big share of the support available to a Clinton alternative?In a May Iowa Poll, just before his eldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer at age 46, 8% of likely caucusgoers listed Biden as their first choice for president.A Biden bid also would open a two-front war for Clinton. If he were to declare a candidacy, he’d almost certainly get a bump in his numbers.The vice president saps support from both Clinton and Sanders, the poll shows. Without Biden in the mix, Clinton is at 43% and Sanders is at 35%.“So, Biden takes 6 points from Clinton and 5 points from Sanders,” Selzer said.The Iowa Poll of 404 likely Democratic caucusgoers was conducted Aug. 23-26 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.Voters shrug about Clinton email controversyWhat’s driving Clinton’s downward slide and Sanders’ surge?“Voters right now are flocking to the angry, authentic outsiders and moving away from the cautious or calculating establishment insiders,” McMahon said.Clinton has been dogged by media questions and an FBI investigation about whether her use of a private, home-based email server while secretary of state undermined U.S. security.In Iowa on Wednesday, she said use of personal email “clearly wasn’t the best choice.” But Clinton, who says voters don’t bring up the issue, downplays the investigation as “about politics.”Selzer said Clinton is right about the unimportance of the email controversy at this point in the caucus race — 76% of her supporters and 61% of all likely Democratic caucusgoers say it’s not important to them. The emails are at least somewhat important to 28% of all likely caucusgoers, with an additional 10% saying the issue is very important.“The stuff with the emails — that doesn’t bother me,” said poll respondent Craig Glassmeyer, 50, a screen printer from Cedar Rapids. “It’s just being politicized, as well as Benghazi. How could it have been her fault, you know? They really don’t want Hillary in there, and so they’re fighting as hard as they can to block her nomination.”Still, Glassmeyer is one of the 14% who say they’re not sure who their choice is yet or are uncommitted. He’s trying to decide between Clinton and Sanders, “who may be too liberal for me,” he said.Meanwhile, three candidates are in danger of not meeting viability thresholds in the Democratic caucuses.Martin O’Malley, who campaigns on the progressive results he achieved as Baltimore’s mayor and Maryland’s governor, has 3% support.Jim Webb, a former U.S. senator from Virginia who stresses his military experience as a Marine and later a Pentagon official under President Ronald Reagan, is at 2%.And Lincoln Chafee, an ex-Republican and former Rhode Island governor with an anti-war message, gets 1%.The love for Sanders runs deep, the poll shows.Selzer noted that 39% of likely caucusgoers say their feelings about Sanders are very favorable, with another 34% saying mostly favorable. Only 8% have a negative view of Sanders.Contrast that with Clinton: Fewer feel very favorable about her (27%), and twice as many view her negatively (19%).Still, she’s doing better than in fall 2007, when she was viewed negatively by 30% of likely Democratic caucusgoers.Poll respondents say they’re wild about Sanders because of his authenticity, refusal to run a negative campaign and his big ideas, which include government-paid college tuition and health care for all.“He doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and he has answers to actual questions. He doesn’t just use talking points,” said Deb Bolfik, a 41-year-old grocery store worker from Des Moines who intends to support Sanders in the caucuses.Contributing: Jason Noble of The Register | 0 |
Credit...Scott Olson/Getty ImagesMarch 26, 2016Senator Bernie Sanders routed Hillary Clinton in all three Democratic presidential contests on Saturday, infusing his underdog campaign with critical momentum and bolstering his argument that the race for the nomination is not a foregone conclusion.Mr. Sanders found a welcome tableau in the largely white and liberal electorates of the Pacific Northwest, where just days after resoundingly beating Mrs. Clinton in Idaho he repeated the feat in the Washington caucuses, winning 73 percent of the vote. He did even better in Alaska, winning 82 percent of the vote, and in Hawaii, he had 71 percent with a few precincts still be counted, according to The Associated Press.Washington, the largest prize Saturday with 101 delegates in play, was a vital state for Mr. Sanders, whose prospects of capturing the nomination dimmed after double-digit losses to Mrs. Clinton across the South and weak showings in delegate-rich Ohio, Florida and North Carolina this month. As of Saturday evening, Mrs. Clinton had roughly 280 more pledged delegates, who are awarded based on voting, and 440 more superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials — than Mr. Sanders.At a rally in Madison, Wis., late Saturday afternoon, Mr. Sanders assured supporters that his victories had cleared a viable path to the nomination. “We knew from day one that politically we were going to have a hard time in the Deep South,” Mr. Sanders said. “But we knew things were going to improve when we headed west.”ImageCredit...Elaine Thompson/Associated PressNoting the “huge” voter turnout — in Washington, party officials estimated more than 200,000 people participated on Saturday, close to the record set in 2008 — he told the crowd, “We are making significant inroads into Secretary Clinton’s lead.”The victories on Saturday only slightly narrowed the gulf with Mrs. Clinton in the quest for the 2,382 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.But the wins are likely to bestow on the Sanders campaign a surge of online donations with which to buy advertising in the expensive media markets of New York and Pennsylvania, which hold primaries next month. The victory will also embolden Mr. Sanders to stay in the race and continue challenging Mrs. Clinton on her ties to Wall Street and her foreign policy record.Republicans did not hold any contests on Saturday. The next nominating battle for both parties will be the April 5 primaries in Wisconsin, followed by the April 9 Democratic caucuses in Wyoming, another contest that plays to Mr. Sanders’s strengths.His victories on Saturday were not unexpected. All three states have relatively low percentages of the black and the Latino voters who have bolstered Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, and Washington and Alaska held caucuses, the type of voting in which he has done well.ImageCredit...Monica Almeida/The New York TimesYet the results also highlighted the uphill climb Mrs. Clinton would face in winning over the young and liberal voters who have flocked to the Vermont senator, and who often express concerns about her fund-raising and speechmaking practices.On Saturday morning, the auditorium at Eckstein Middle School in North Seattle burst with more than 1,400 caucusgoers holding lattes, pushing strollers and wearing “H” or “Bernie” lapel pins. Bleachers were set up onstage to accommodate the crowd. “This is what democracy looks like,” Janet Miller, the caucus organizer, said from the auditorium’s stage.Mr. Sanders won that precinct on Saturday, and many others. “I appreciate Bernie’s fervor and honesty,” said Ian Forrester, 25, a barista and rock musician who caucused for Mr. Sanders. “We’ve all seen the poor and the middle class suffer during this economic downfall, and we need someone who cares about them, not about corporations.”The Sanders campaign blanketed Washington with $1 million in ads. Mr. Sanders found a sweet spot of support among Seattle’s young voters. A video clip of his rally on Friday, just over the state line in Portland, Ore., went viral after a delicate songbird perched on his podium, inspiring the Twitter hashtag #BirdieSanders. “I think there may be some symbolism here,” Mr. Sanders said to a roar of applause.Mrs. Clinton will have a chance to regain momentum, and a wash of delegates, when the Democratic primary moves to her adoptive home state, New York, on April 19. Her national campaign headquarters is in Brooklyn; on Saturday, Mr. Sanders opened an office in the borough’s Gowanus neighborhood, just a few miles from where he grew up.Lately on the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton, bracing for some losses in the caucus states, seemed to have grown annoyed by the commentary from political rivals that Mr. Sanders’s campaign has drawn far more enthusiastic supporters. “I totally respect the passion of my opponent’s supporters, absolutely respect it,” Mrs. Clinton said while campaigning on Tuesday in Washington.“And here’s what I want you to know,” she continued, “I have, as of now, gotten more votes than anybody else, including Donald Trump. I have gotten 2.6 million more votes than Bernie Sanders,” and “have a bigger lead in pledged delegates, the ones you win from people voting, than Barack Obama had at this time in 2008.”Mrs. Clinton has shifted her focus and her words to taking on the Republicans in November, but given Mr. Sanders’s influence over liberal voters she would need in a general election, she has been cautious how she discusses domestic and foreign policy.With Mr. Sanders’s focus on income inequality and taking on Wall Street, Mrs. Clinton has continued to reach out to working-class voters, including holding a rally on Tuesday at a machinists and aerospace workers union hall at the Boeing factory in Everett, Wash.“I was made an honorary machinist some years ago, so I feel a particular connection here to my brothers and sisters in the machinists,” she told the crowd. “I am no person new to this struggle. I am not the latest flavor of the month. I have been doing this work day in and day out for years.”ImageCredit...Scott Olson/Getty ImagesShe also knocked Mr. Sanders for not supporting the Export-Import Bank, the government-backed agency that provides low-interest loans to help companies doing international business, like Boeing, and which Mr. Sanders and some Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have opposed as “corporate welfare.”And as Mrs. Clinton sought to demonstrate her toughness and preparedness to be commander in chief in response to the terrorist attacks on Tuesday in Brussels, she also had to avoid inflaming liberal primary voters who still associate her with her 2002 Senate vote to authorize the Iraq war.On Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton said the responses to the Brussels attacks by the leading Republican candidates, Donald J. Trump and Mr. Cruz, amounted to “reckless actions” that would alienate American allies, demonize Muslims and embolden Russia.Mr. Sanders ran an emotional 90-second ad in Hawaii, called “The Cost of War,” featuring Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran from Hawaii who reminded viewers that Mr. Sanders voted against the Iraq war.“Bernie Sanders will defend our country and take the trillions of dollars that are spent on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars and invest it here at home,” an impassioned Ms. Gabbard said, against scenic views of Hawaii.Foreign policy was what motivated Warren Jones, 65, a retired software engineer, to caucus for Mr. Sanders on Saturday in Seattle. “She was wrong on Iraq, and proved she didn’t learn from that experience, but was wrong on Libya, too,” Mr. Jones said. “I think in large part she is responsible for ISIS, though there’s plenty of blame to go around.” | 0 |
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert has been chosen as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, President Donald Trump confirmed Friday following multiple reports.The former Fox News host had been Trump’s top pick for the spot since mid-October, shortly after Nikki Haley surprised the White House by announcing her departure by the end of the year. Trump was reportedly looking for a loyal candidate who had a willingness to defend him, according to CNN.Trump called his U.N. pick “very talented, very smart and very quick” as he spoke to reporters in front of the White House, praising her work at the State Department.“I think she’s going to be respected by all,” he said.Haley had insisted that her ambassadorship be a Cabinet-level role, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly has asked that Nauert’s position not be so high-level. Nauert was criticized over a “stunningly tone deaf” Instagram photo she shared in October depicting her smiling in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh shortly after Pompeo arrived there to discuss the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident. The Saudi government would later admit that Khashoggi had been murdered.Sara Boboltz contributed to this report. | 0 |
When a moderate goes against his party, the political media are drawn like moths to a flame. Such was the case with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Sunday, as he appeared on NBC’s, CNN’s and ABC’s Sunday talk shows to explain his opposition to the budget reconciliation bill at the center of President Biden’s legislative agenda.The West Virginia senator came with plenty of rationalizations. He expressed concern about inflation and the national debt. (“Do we have the urgency to spend another $3.5 trillion right now?” he asked on CNN.) He rejected the idea that the bill needed to be moved in tandem with the bipartisan infrastructure deal he helped broker. “We don’t have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there’s some deadline we’re meeting,” he said on NBC of the reconciliation bill. By contrast, he told CNN, “the president went out and campaigned on [the infrastructure deal]. That’s his bill.”But these arguments apply equally to the infrastructure deal and the budget reconciliation bill. Any concerns about the debt or inflation should surely also apply to the $1 trillion for infrastructure, and there’s no deadline that necessitates rushing it, either. President Biden has campaigned for both bills.In September, Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) shared their perspectives on a multi-trillion dollar spending package. (The Washington Post)As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on ABC, “Physical infrastructure is terribly important. But I happen to think that the needs of the human beings of our country, working families, the children, the elderly, the poor are even more important, and we can and must do both.” That’s why, though Manchin claims otherwise, the White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have consistently stated that the two bills are linked.So what, then, really distinguishes the two bills for Manchin? The answer seems to lie in an answer he gave on ABC, when asked whether neither bill may end up passing. “If you don’t need bridges fixed or roads fixed in your state, I do in West Virginia,” he replied. “I need Internet in West Virginia. I got water and sewage problems. I have got all the problems that we have addressed in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.”I, I, I. This isn’t unusual phrasing for Manchin. In a recent New Yorker profile, he described his concerns about West Virginia’s economy as “I can’t lose one job. I don’t have one to spare,” as though his Senate office is the state’s employment center. The decisive factor for Manchin isn’t the debt, the pandemic or the inflation rate. It’s that one bill has what he wants, and the other doesn’t.This “me first” selfishness has served Manchin well for many years, and not just as a blue politician surviving in a red state. A new report from Type Investigations and the Intercept on the coal companies that made his fortune found that “for decades,” Manchin’s coal firms “have relied on mines and refuse piles cited for dozens of Mine Safety and Health Agency violations, multiple deaths, and wastewater discharging that has poisoned tributaries feeding into the Monongahela River, as hundreds of thousands of tons of carcinogenic coal ash are dumped across Marion County.”While Manchin doesn’t own the mines and power plants polluting the state, his businesses have benefited handsomely from them. Since he joined the Senate 10 years ago, the investigation found, he has “grossed more than $4.5 million” from his firms, according to financial disclosures. As the article notes, Manchin has said his ownership interest is held in a blind trust.No doubt Manchin would bristle at the suggestion that his opposition to the reconciliation bill and its climate provisions would have anything to do with their impact on his personal wealth. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, though, the theme remains the same: Manchin gets his, while everyone else can fend for themselves.Luckily, Manchin hasn’t gotten what he wants yet — and that gives the White House and the left leverage. Manchin is famously prickly about pressure campaigns, but his desire for the bipartisan infrastructure bill is palpable. Democrats shouldn’t be shy about threatening to tank both bills if one won’t pass.Similar dynamics have already played out in the House. As the Intercept’s Ryan Grim has reported, for example, progressives on the House Education Committee shut down moderates’ attempts to water down a robust child-care benefit by refusing to vote for a more modest benefit. Sticking to the two-track path is the best chance to ensure that not only does Manchin gets his, but also all Americans get theirs. | 0 |
Former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer announced Saturday night that he was ending his campaign for the Democratic nomination after a disappointing finish in the South Carolina primary.“I said if I didn’t see a path to winning that I would suspend my campaign, and honestly, I don’t see a path where I can win the presidency,” Steyer said at an event in Columbia, adding that he would “of course” be supporting the eventual nominee, because they’re all “a million times better than Trump.”“When the Lord closes a door, he opens a window,” he continued. “I will find that window and crawl through it with you, I promise you that. I love you very much. This has been a great experience, I have zero regrets. Meeting you and the rest of the American people is the highlight of my life.”Steyer had spent over $22 million in South Carolina, far more than his competitors, but he may not secure a single delegate from the state, after finishing third behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. He also invested heavily in Nevada, but finished a disappointing fifth in last weekend’s caucuses, with just 4.7 percent of the vote. Steyer spent $253 million of his personal fortune on the race as of the end of January.Tom Steyer at a town hall meeting on rural healthcare issues on Feb. 27 in Orangeburg, S.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)The billionaire was a late entrant in the race, changing his mind after initially saying he wouldn’t run, and jumping into the field in July. Using his personal fortune to solicit donors on social media and leaning on the email list he had put together during his campaign calling for the impeachment of President Trump, Steyer was able to qualify for the October debates, leading to complaints from some of the other candidates in the race that he had bought his placement with the frontrunners.Steyer made it his focus to try to attract African-American voters, stating in nearly every debate that he was the only candidate on stage in favor of reparations for slavery. His expenditures in South Carolina divided Democrats there, with some accusations that he was attempting to buy support. Steyer was also outspoken in his support for emergency action on climate change, which he also tied to race.“I believe that in every major policy area, there is an unspoken area about race,” Steyer said in a January interview with Yahoo News. “For instance, I’m saying climate is my No. 1 priority. I’m also saying our climate plan is called a justice-based climate plan. And it starts in the communities, like say, Denmark, S.C., or Flint, Mich., where people can’t drink the water. We know who lives there: African-Americans. We know who lives in the San Joaquin Valley, where people can’t drink the water safely out of the taps: low-income Latinos.”Compared to the vitriol faced by former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the second billionaire to enter the Democratic race, Steyer was generally well-received by his fellow candidates. He briefly became a meme after an awkward moment after the conclusion of January’s debate, where he was attempting to say hello to Sanders while the senator was in conversation with Sen. Elizabeth Warren. In another debate moment, Steyer said he disagreed with the assertion of the former nominee Hillary Clinton that nobody liked Sanders.Last year, Steyer also went out of his way to defend former Vice President Joe Biden after Trump urged foreign governments to help investigate Biden and his son Hunter, eventually leading to the president’s impeachment by the House and acquittal by the Senate.“This is an attempted smear by the Trump campaign. Just the way he tried to smear Hillary Clinton,” Steyer said in a September interview with Yahoo News. “I think that Mr. Biden should be left out of this. I don’t think he’s done anything wrong. I think a bunch of newspapers looked at it and decided he hadn’t done anything wrong.”_____Read more from Yahoo News:Full coverage, FAQs & more: 2020 Election CenterPompeo appeared to coordinate with Giuliani on Ukraine, new documents showWith information from China scarce, U.S. spies enlisted to track coronavirusLatinos, Sanders's secret weapon in Nevada, could make him unstoppable on Super TuesdayIs Bezos's $10 billion pledge as generous as it seems? | 0 |
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