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WASHINGTON – The bitter and increasingly tight contest between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden turned on a handful of battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, dashing hopes for a decisive victory for either candidate.Trump was projected to win the critical states of Florida and Texas while the Democratic former vice president was forecast to flip Arizona – the first state on the board for Biden that Trump had won in 2016. Biden also picked up an Electoral College vote in a Nebraska congressional district that voted for Trump four years ago. The president hadn't converted any new territory by early Wednesday morning.But many states remained up for grabs early Wednesday as ballots were being counted, and some state officials began to signal the tallying would continue well into the day. Democrats' hope that Biden could bring the race to an early close by capturing Florida evaporated early Wednesday. Republicans breathed another sigh of relief when must-win Ohio was added to Trump's column. Biden made an unplanned visit to the Buckeye State on Monday, hoping the state might be within his reach on Election Day.Trump touted his wins in Florida and Texas during early morning remarks at the White House on Wednesday and claimed – falsely – that he had already won. Neither candidate had reached the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, and millions of votes were still being counted in several key battleground states."Frankly, we did this win election," Trump told supporters. "As far as I’m concerned, we have already have won."Trump pointed to his early lead in Pennsylvania and suggested it would be “almost impossible” for Democrats to catch up there and several other states. In fact, there were enough outstanding votes in those states to swing the totals back to Biden's favor. Trump described the counting of the mail ballots as a "fraud on the American public."Trump said he would be "going to the US Supreme Court" and that "we want all voting to stop." The remarks were similar to those he raised before the election casting doubt on the validity of ballots that had been cast by mail because of the pandemic. Polling has shown that those ballots, which were legitimately cast, may favor Biden. While Trump racked up a number of early wins, the overall race remained too close to call, with officials in several key battlegrounds indicating that they had a large share of outstanding absentee ballots. Polling indicated those votes are more likely than not to tilt in Biden's favor, but whether those votes would be enough for the Democrat was unclear. Biden thanked his supporters an early Wednesday rally, saying he was confident of victory against Trump based on support in Arizona and the so-called “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.“Keep the faith, guys,” Biden told a cheering crowd honking their car horns outside Chase Center on the Riverfront. “We’re going to win this.”Biden told the crowd their patience was commendable. But he said it was well known before voting ended Tuesday that it would take a while to count record early voting by mail. “We’re going to have to be patient,” he said. “It ain’t over until every vote is counted, ballot is counted.”Millions turned out for an election that will decide how the nation responds to a pandemic that has killed a quarter of a million Americans, bolsters an economy that has taken a beating from the virus and heals deep divisions over racial injustice. Trump and Biden each claimed early and predictable state calls, with Trump projected to win Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and North and South Dakota. Biden locked down a slew of blue states in the Northeast, including his home state of Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. As the night progressed, Biden kept Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, California and Washington state in Democrats' column. Trump retained Kansas, Idaho and Utah.Biden was projected to win both Minnesota and New Hampshire, two of the few states Trump lost in 2016 that the campaign hoped to flip. Trump had campaigned in both states in the final weeks.As Americans settled down to watch the earlier returns, campaign aides and political prognosticators began pouring over Election Day survey data to try to glean some clues about the electorate's mood. The pandemic was foremost on voters' minds, according to a survey of voters the electorate, conducted by the Associated Press.Forty-two percent said it's the most important issue facing the country, by far the highest response to the question. Twenty-seven percent picked the economy, which is related. Nearly all – 95% – said the federal government's response to the pandemic was a factor in deciding how to vote. The same share said the economic downturn was also factor. That's a slightly higher share than said the same of protests over police violence (92%) or Supreme Court nominations (90%).And more voters disapproved of Trump's handling of the pandemic than approved: 58% to 42%.By the end of an emotionally draining and bitter contest, the two candidates had spent more money than any campaign in history and were expected to generate record turnout, with more than 100 million Americans casting ballots before any polling location opened on Election Day. Long lines formed at schools and government buildings, underscoring the significance of the choice for many voters."Winning is easy. Losing is never easy – not for me, it’s not,” Trump said during at his campaign headquarters Tuesday, adding he had not readied a victory or a concession speech. “Everybody should come together and I think success brings us together.”How to watch:Here's when you'll start seeing results and what to expect 2020 Election Results | USA TODAYFundamental questions about the direction of the country and its democracy were at stake. Throughout the campaign, Trump cast the election as America’s last chance to avoid careening left. Biden ran a race that focused heavily on his character and the promise of avoiding another four years of chaos, division and Trump-style drama. Biden started the day at church with his wife, Jill, and two granddaughters. He flew to his birthplace of Scranton, Pa., where he signed the living room wall in his childhood home. "From this house to the White House with the grace of God,” he wrote.Highest stakesBiden walked into Election Day with a wider path to the presidency. Polls indicated he held a steady lead nationally and in two of the battlegrounds – Michigan and Wisconsin – that thrust Trump to victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Polls have shown a narrower lead for him in Pennsylvania. If Biden captures all three states, the election would represent a rebuilding of the “blue wall” that has benefited Democrats as far back as Bill Clinton.Trump and his aides insisted the polls underestimated his support. Trump and Biden offered stark contrasts on policy as well as style, with the president vowing to continue his efforts to curb legal and illegal immigration, cut taxes, push federal courts to the right and pursue an “America first” foreign policy that has threatened to upend the global order that emerged after World War II. Live:House Democrats say they're set to gain seats, warn of 'Election Week'Biden:Biden heads to church, Scranton home on Election DayBiden hopes to shore up the 2010 Affordable Care Act he helped shepherd through Congress with his former boss, President Barack Obama, reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and reset relationships between the U.S. and its allies. "This election is one that historians and political scientists are going to be talking about for a long time," said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, "because of the massive outpouring of Americans who are determined to vote and determined that their vote will count."World watches:As America votes, its friends and foes alike are watchingVoter turnout 2020:Early voting tops 100 million ballots castKindness at the polls:Groups offer voters free pizza, snacksEric Cantor, a former Republican congressman from Virginia, described the decision in weighty terms. “What’s at stake in this election is the American position in the world in terms of its economic competitiveness, as well as its military dominance,” he said.COVID redraws the map No issue featured as prominently, or threw the differences between the two candidates into such stark relief, as COVID. Trump’s administration encouraged rapid progress on a vaccine, but the president handed much of the response to the virus to state leaders as he sidelined his own top scientists and dismissed their recommendations.A watershed event that could have brought people together instead split them further apart as other nations got a better handle arresting the spread of infections and death.That contrast was on display throughout a surreal campaign in which Trump himself was hospitalized with the virus, recovered and used the episode to argue the virus wasn’t all that bad – even as he was forced to repeatedly acknowledge that the treatment he received was out of reach for most Americans. Trump:Trump visits campaign HQ on Election DayCampaign methods differed as much as the candidates during the pandemic. After briefly suspending his massive rallies, Trump resumed the boisterous events – packing mostly maskless supporters shoulder to shoulder on airport tarmacs across the country. “This is a poll,” Trump of the supporters who came out for his final, post-midnight, rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. “This is not the crowd of somebody who’s going to lose this state.”He repeatedly mocked Biden for “hiding” in his basement and wearing a mask, arguing that a president had to project an image of confidence rather than setting an example for others to follow. Biden did campaign mainly from home for months, holding virtual fundraisers and inviting Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., to be his running mate on a video call. As the weeks went by, he began holding more small events, with participants donning masks and maintaining social distance, sometimes from their cars at drive-in rallies.Biden chose western Pennsylvania for his first and last major campaign event, telling supporters in Pittsburgh Monday night that they “represent the backbone of this nation.”Protests, BLM alter courseRacial justice protests during the summer revealed another stark contrast.The death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25 sparked nationwide protests for racial justice. The incident rekindled attention on the shooting death of Breonna Taylor during a police raid on March 13 in Louisville, Kentucky. And outrage erupted Kenosha, Wisconsin, after a police officer shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake on Aug. 23.Trump campaigned as the law-and-order president, supporting police as protests occasionally turned violent with arson, burglaries and shootings. He accused state and local officials such as the mayor of Portland and governor of Oregon of timidity in quieting the protests. Federal authorities cleared a path June 1 with batons and tear gas for Trump to walk from the White House to a nearby church to hold a Bible aloft.More:Black, Latino, Asian and Native Americans flock to polls amid difficult year More:Before polls close , demonstrators will be in Washington and elsewhereBiden walked a line between supporting peaceful protests while denouncing violence. He urged greater training for police to calm tense confrontations, while dismissing proposals from more progressive supporters to defund police. And Biden, who had lost his wife, a daughter and a son to an accident and illness, met relatives of the victims.“He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how whether he walked again or not, he wasn’t going to give up,” Biden said of Jacob Blake.A nation holds its breath Both men ratcheted up their rhetoric during the campaign, describing their opponent as dangerous and wildly out of step with mainstream American values. As both parties launched a series of last-minute legal battles over voting laws, Trump repeatedly sought to undermine confidence in election systems, arguing any votes counted after the polls closed on election night should be considered suspect.The argument and claims of widespread fraud were demonstrably false: Millions voted on paper ballots effortlessly because of the pandemic. There was little indication of major problems at the polls on Tuesday.Voters decide:It's up to the voters: Presidential election to set the country's courseClosers:Trump, Biden deliver last arguments as millions decide nation's future The tensions that have plagued the country since before Trump took office remained at an elevated state heading into the election, with law enforcement agencies preparing for violence regardless of who wins. Authorities erected a new fence around the White House late Monday night, with memories of the Black Lives Matter protests from the summer still fresh.The FBI is reviewing a Texas highway incident last week in which a caravan of vehicles waving Trump flags swarmed a Biden campaign bus. Similar incidents have occurred in other states since then. Trump, a real-estate magnate and former reality TV star, won the White House in 2016, despite polls heading into Election Day that showed Hillary. For Biden’s part, the campaign marked his third attempt at the presidency, after serving eight years as vice president and 36 representing Delaware in the Senate.Whoever wins will be the oldest president sworn in – older than Ronald Reagan when he was sworn in for a second term in 1985. Trump is 74 and Biden turns 78 on Nov. 20.Battleground states:These are the 12 states that will determine the 2020 electionCan the GOP keep the Senate?:Can Republicans hold on to the Senate majority? Here's how Democrats could win control from the GOP.Can Democrats expand advantage in House?:Will Democrats expand their control in the House? Here are the races and surprises to watch | 0 |
Sen. Bernie Sanders. | Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP LAS VEGAS – Moderate Democrats watched in horror as Bernie Sanders soared to a landslide victory in Nevada. It wasn't the win that was surprising — it was the walloping Sanders gave his opponents, his ability to dominate among Latino voters, and the momentum he gained moving into South Carolina and Super Tuesday. The performance sent already worried Democrats into a full-blown panic.
“In 30-plus years of politics, I’ve never seen this level of doom. I’ve never had a day with so many people texting, emailing, calling me with so much doom and gloom,” said Matt Bennett of the center-left group Third Way after Sanders' win in Nevada. Bennett said moderates firmly believe a Sanders primary win would seal Donald Trump’s reelection. “It’s this incredible sense that we’re hurtling to the abyss. I also think we could lose the House. And if we do, there would be absolutely no way to stop [Trump]. Today is the most depressed I’ve ever been in politics.” A renewed sense of urgency washed over establishment Democrats, who fear it’s quickly becoming too late to stop Sanders. Biden supporters moved to persuade the party to coalesce around him as the best hope of blunting Sanders' momentum. A super PAC for Biden renewed discussions with jittery donors who had frozen their financial support for the former vice president as they awaited signs of whether billionaire Mike Bloomberg would emerge as the strongest moderate candidate, according to two donors with knowledge of the talks.
Among the pitches from pro-Biden forces to donors: Bloomberg could not overcome past policies that alienated minorities, most prominently the stop-and-frisk policing tactic he embraced as New York City mayor. They argued that if Bloomberg stays in the race, Sanders will clean up on Super Tuesday, then it’s game over. “For the establishment, I think it’s Joe or bust,” said Simon Rosenberg, New Democrat Network president, who served as a senior strategist for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018.
“Biden is the only one who has a path to defeat Bernie. It would involve him winning South Carolina and then performing well enough in the early March states to keep the race competitive,” Rosenberg said. “I don’t think Bloomberg can recover quickly enough from the hits he’s taken in recent days to remain competitive or win the nomination.” In the hours after Sanders’ Nevada win, moderates hastened the powerful South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn, who serves as House Majority Whip, to quickly endorse Biden and help consolidate African American support, two sources with knowledge of the discussions said. On Sunday, Clyburn was already on TV morning shows warning South Carolina would not take kindly to a self-described democratic socialist in down ballot contests. “We are going to let people know how we feel about these candidates, and it may not line up with Nevada or New Hampshire or Iowa," Clyburn told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
But with so many moderates remaining in the mix, the anti-Sanders support remained splintered, further clearing his way.
“Everybody other than Bernie thinks everybody other than Bernie should drop out — except themselves,” said Chris Lippincott, a Democratic strategist in Texas, which votes on Super Tuesday. “Maybe the [South] Carolina results provide a little clarity as to who really has a fighting chance. Unless that happens, they’re just crabs in a bucket pulling each other down.”
Even the backup plan of consolidating moderate support at a brokered convention could be flawed, Bennett said. “We could hit a tipping point where he’s over 50 [percent],” Bennett said of Sanders. It was not just Sanders’ victory, but the lopsidedness of the outcome that struck fear into moderate Democrats. In one day, Sanders proved that he could broaden his coalition beyond the narrow base that many assumed would limit his appeal.
In 2016, Sanders struggled with African American voters. But now he's narrowing the gap between himself and Biden in South Carolina. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, an Illinois congressman who stumped for Sanders in Nevada, said the victory signals a new level of credibility for Sanders, particularly to minority voters previously unconvinced he could win. “Voters will take note of his performance in Iowa, New Hampshire, and then, as you know, a state that begins to represent greater diversity in the country, and that will cause people to take a second look,“ Garcia said of Sanders. “People have seen that in places in 2016 where he came up short, he's taken the time to go there, and to listen to people to engage with people.”
Sanders reveled in broadened support, telling supporters in Texas that “we have just put together a multi-generational, multi-racial coalition which is going to not only win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep this country.”
Sanders had barely learned he won when the arrows started flying. Pete Buttigieg told supporters that the Vermont senator “believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans.”
And he urged Americans to “take a sober look at what's at stake” before “we rush to nominate Sen. Sanders.”
It was Buttigieg’s “rush to nominate” line that crystallized the urgency of the situation for many moderates. But no candidate left Nevada feeling damaged enough to drop out. To the contrary, they all felt they had a plausible enough case to carry on.
Buttigieg argued he is the only Democrat who has defeated Sanders in a campaign, a reference to the Iowa result in which both he and Sanders have claimed victory. Biden heads to his best early state in South Carolina, with its large population of black voters. Klobuchar, after performing well in many previous debates, has another one to look forward to on Tuesday.
Amanda Renteria, who was national political director of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, said that Biden “met expectations in Nevada, which gives him good momentum as he now faces his biggest test — South Carolina.”
But Sanders, she said, is a “formidable frontrunner.” “He has been from the beginning,” she said. “It’s never been clear to me why anyone has discounted him in any way. He is years ahead with a built-in operation, a very strong support base, and talented, seasoned staff. The only question was how crowded the field would be. As it turns out, that, too, is to his advantage.” | 0 |
Federal law enforcement officials have arrested two members of the Proud Boys, a rightwing nationalist extremist group, for their role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.The riot is now the subject of a second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, who is accused of inciting the rightwing mob at a rally that immediately preceded the assault. Federal authorities have charged more than 150 people in the onslaught.Federal prosecutors indicted Dominic Pezzola, 43, of Rochester, New York, and William Pepe, 31, of Beacon, New York on charges of conspiracy, civil disorder, unlawfully entering restricted buildings, and disorderly conduct in restricted buildings.Both men were identified as members of the Proud Boys, who, federal charging documents note, describe themselves as a “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists”. The far-right group is known for using violent tactics against its opponents.Pezzola was the subject of one of the most widely distributed videos of the Capitol riots, in which he used a protective shield ripped away from a Capitol police officer to smash a window leading into the Capitol.Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney for Washington, said in a court filing that Pezzola had “showed perseverance, determination, and coordination in being at the front lines every step along the way before breaking into the Capitol”, and that his actions in shattering the window and allowing an initial group of rioters to stream through “cannot be overstated”.Pezzola was later seen inside the Capitol building with a cigar, having what he described as a “victory smoke” and boasting that he “knew we could take this”. Pezzola’s lawyer described his client as a self-employed family man.In a search of Pezzola’s home in Rochester, New York, FBI agents found a computer thumb drive with hundreds of files detailing how to make firearms, poisons or explosives, Sherwin wrote in arguing that Pezzola should continue to be held without bail.Pepe was also photographed inside the Capitol. Federal authorities later identified him as a Metro-North Railroad train yard laborer who called in sick to attend the Trump rally that preceded the riot. Metro-North suspended Pepe without pay. He was also forced to surrender a shotgun and a hunting rifle, according to the Associated Press.In yet another arrest, federal authorities have charged Dawn Bancroft, a woman who entered the Capitol building and took a video of herself inside, with unlawful entry into a restricted building, disorderly conduct inside a restricted building, and violent entry into a restricted building.An affidavit from the FBI said Bancroft at first denied entering the building. When she was shown her own video of the event, the affidavit said she “stated that she lied”. Bancroft’s video showed her inside the Capitol with a friend and said she was searching for “Nancy”, believed to be Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, so they could shoot her “in the friggin’ brain”.Police are still searching for a suspect in the placement of pipe bombs in front of the Republican and Democratic party headquarters on 5 January.The FBI said it believed the suspect had placed the bombs in Washington DC between 7.30 and 8.30pm, and that the suspect was wearing Nike Air Max Turf shoes in yellow, black and gray. Authorities have increased the reward for information leading to the suspect’s arrest from $75,000 to $100,000. | 0 |
The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear a challenge to the Trump administration's use of Pentagon money to build the southern border wall and also its appeal of a ruling that blocked a policy sending asylum applicants to Mexico while they wait for their appeals to be heard.A federal appeals court ruled in June that the government improperly diverted $2.5 billion of Pentagon counterdrug program money to build more than 100 miles of border wall. The court said only Congress could approve such a transfer.President Donald Trump ordered the use of the department money last year after a fight over his budget led to a partial government shutdown. It ended after Democrats approved money for border wall construction, but nowhere near what the president wanted.The wall's opponents, including the Sierra Club and some border communities, said the president cannot spend more than Congress has authorized or use the money in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of appropriations already made. Their lawsuit also said an emergency declaration law invoked by the president allows use of Pentagon construction funds only to support the military."There is no emergency requiring the use of the armed forces along the U.S.-Mexico border, and construction of a border wall is not necessary to support such use of the armed forces," the suit said. A separate law passed by Congress allows the use of Defense Department support only for building facilities needed to block drug smuggling at the border, they said.The Sierra Club said the wall would also cause irreversible environmental damage. "Endangered species could disappear from our southern border, while fragile landscapes are decimated by this destructive and pointless vanity project," Gloria Smith, the group's managing attorney, said.In defending the plan, the Department of Justice said federal law gives the president wide latitude in deciding when to declare a national emergency."The statutory scheme leaves to the president the determination of whether a national emergency requires the use of the armed forces," the department said, adding that federal law allows use of the money for unforeseen military requirements.The government also said that the groups filing the lawsuit had no legal standing to challenge the wall program.The Supreme Court will hear the case early next year, with a decision by the spring. But if Joe Biden wins the election, the federal government would probably stop construction anyway.'Remain in Mexico' policyAlso Monday, the court agreed to hear the administration's appeal of a lower court ruling on its "remain in Mexico" policy of returning asylum-seekers to that country while awaiting court hearings.In response to a surge of immigrants at the southern border from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the Trump administration began sending people seeking asylum back across the border to Mexico instead of allowing them to wait in the U.S. for their cases to be heard.From late January 2019 until the program was suspended because of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 60,000 people were shuttled back to Mexico under what the government called the Migrant Protection Protocols.An immigrant rights group challenged the policy in court, arguing that it put the lives of thousands of people at risk by sending them to highly dangerous conditions in Mexico, where gun battles, murders, kidnappings and sexual assaults were common. Their lawsuit said the program violated a treaty requiring the U.S. to guarantee that it would not "expel or return" noncitizens to any place where they faced the likelihood of persecution.Lower federal courts agreed and ordered the government to stop enforcing the program, but the Supreme Court in March put that on hold and allowed the government to resume the policy while it appealed those rulings.In urging the Supreme Court to hear the case, the Trump administration said people attempting to enter the country illegally actually seek asylum only about half the time, and only about 9 percent of applications are granted. Sending them to Mexico to wait for a decision, the Department of Homeland Security said, reduced one of the key incentives for illegal immigration — the ability to stay in the U.S. during immigration proceedingsIn many cases, the government said, people without a valid asylum claim simply skip their hearing dates and disappear into the U.S.The Department of Homeland Security largely discontinued the program in March after an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention barred entry at the border of anyone lacking legal authority for admission.The case also will be heard early next year, with a decision by the spring.Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington. | 0 |
Opinion|The President on Inequalityhttps://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/opinion/the-president-on-inequality.htmlEditorialDec. 4, 2013The issues that have obsessed Washington for the last few months — the government shutdown, the broken health care website, the unrelentingly bitter tone of a stalemated Congress — mean very little to most Americans. For a broad swath of the country, what matters hasn’t changed since the recession, and it is economic anxiety. Six in 10 workers in a Washington Post poll last week said they were worried about losing their jobs, the highest number in decades. Many of the millions who are unemployed have reached new depths of despair.On Wednesday, in one of his strongest economic speeches, President Obama pushed past all the distractions of his opponents and addressed the core of those fears. He will spend the rest of his presidency, he said, on “the defining challenge of our time:” reducing economic inequality and improving upward mobility. “I am convinced that the decisions we make on these issues over the next few years,” he said, “will determine whether or not our children will grow up in an America where opportunity is real.” An American child born into the lowest 20 percent income level has a less than a 1-in-20 chance of making it to the top, as Mr. Obama pointed out. But one born in the top 20 percent has a 2-in-3 chance of staying there. And the top 10 percent now takes half of the national income, up from a third in 1979. That’s a level of inequality on par with Jamaica and Argentina, and such concentrated wealth leads to more frequent recessions, higher household debt and growing cynicism and despondency.That cynicism is often expressed in a lack of faith in government’s ability to do anything about the problem. This view ignores how much inequality has been made worse in the past few decades by government decisions. The emphasis on cutting taxes and spending that began in the Reagan years is a direct cause of economic insecurity now. It has led, for example, to education cuts that have harmed children in low-income school districts. Reversing those decisions can still have an enormous impact.Mr. Obama did not reveal a sheaf of new ideas in his speech. But he did remind listeners of the many good ideas he has proposed about inequality over the years, most of which have been blocked by Republican opposition. A higher minimum wage would have an immediate effect on the buying power of millions of workers, stimulating growth and employment. Greater spending on high-quality preschool, a new emphasis on career and technical education and affordable higher education would all help to lower the barriers to economic mobility. Stronger collective-bargaining laws and nondiscrimination protections would help restore a balance in workplaces now tilted strongly toward employers.And the Affordable Care Act, as Mr. Obama said forcefully, has enhanced security for millions of people who were previously uninsured or who lived in fear of losing their policies because of illness. “This law is going to work,” he said, “and for the sake of our economic security, it needs to work.” It will reduce personal bankruptcies, he said, cut sick time and keep children healthier and performing better in school.What he should have added was the need to raise tax revenue, which is crucial to making the kinds of investments big enough to have a real effect on growth. The tax code must be overhauled to eliminate the absurdly generous breaks given to those at the very top — an idea that Mr. Obama has campaigned on but rarely brings up, given the implacable Republican opposition. But the president did issue a clear challenge to his opponents. Where are the Republican ideas for reducing the income gap? Most in the party don’t even recognize it as a problem. “You owe it to the American people to tell us what you are for,” he said, “not just what you’re against.” The silence from Republicans explains why economic inequality is rising. | 0 |
President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrive for a group photograph at the Group of Seven summit on June 7 near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. (Carl Court/Getty Images) KRUN, Germany — Before he sat down with the leaders of the seven largest industrialized democracies here Sunday, President Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a sign of how important their sometimes strained relationship has become to his presidency. Obama toured a small Bavarian village with the German chancellor, and he kept the mood light. The president praised the alphorn music that greeted his arrival, drank a beer and joked about needing some lederhosen. Then the two leaders discussed for about 45 minutes some of the thorniest and most important foreign policy problems Obama is facing in the fourth quarter of his presidency. The list Sunday included the financial crisis in Greece, sanctions designed to punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine and two issues Obama views as critical to his legacy: progress against climate change and the passage of free-trade agreements in Asia and in Europe. Merkel’s support will be critical in all of those endeavors. “Merkel is the European leader he openly admits he’s been probably the closest to, and yet that relationship has really weathered a number of storms over the last year,” said Julianne Smith, a former deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Germans were outraged in 2013 after information released by whistleblower Edward Snowden showed that the National Security Agency was monitoring U.S. allies’ communications, including those of Merkel. The scandal resurfaced last month when new revelations suggested that Berlin’s foreign intelligence agency, known as the BND, might have helped the United States gather intelligence on hundreds of European companies and politicians. The result has been a “spike in anti-Americanism,” said Heather Conley, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. [Germans, still outraged by NSA spying, learn their country may have helped] In her public remarks, Merkel referred generally to “differences of opinion” with the United States but said the two countries shared an essential partnership based on “mutual interests.” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the sensitive surveillance issues did not come up in Obama’s meeting with Merkel. Instead the two leaders, both pragmatists when it comes to foreign policy, focused on areas in which they could cooperate. Obama needs Merkel’s help most acutely in Ukraine, where Russian separatists recently launched a new offensive. About half of his meeting with Merkel was focused on the way forward in what increasingly looks like a stalemated conflict, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to believe that if he can hold out long enough, the resolve of Ukraine’s European allies will fracture. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, during a visit to Germany last week, conceded that tough economic sanctions had not curbed Putin’s aggressive behavior and suggested that other measures would be needed, though he did not specify what those might entail. Obama has maintained that the only way to stop the fighting in Ukraine is through a diplomatic solution, driven by the sanctions regime that is in place. His message Sunday to the European allies, which would need to renew the sanctions at a meeting later this month, was to “stay vigilant” and focused. That is where Merkel will be crucial. A fluent Russian-speaker, Merkel is the Western leader with the closest relationship with Putin. “Obviously, Chancellor Merkel has played an important and leading role in preserving this unity,” Earnest said. [At G-7, Obama’s primary task is confronting his Putin problem] Less clear is what the White House and the allies will do if the increasingly fragile peace in Ukraine crumbles entirely. Obama and the other Group of Seven leaders will need over the next few days to “try to forge a consensus” on how the West might respond if the Russians continue to escalate the fighting, said Charles Kupchan, White House senior director for European affairs. For now, the prospect of selling defensive weapons to Ukrainian forces, an idea that has little support among Washington’s European allies and relatively strong backing in Congress, appears to be dead. The White House is also relying on Merkel to help forge a compromise with Greece that satisfies the country’s creditors without ruining its economy or forcing Greece out of the European Union. Such a collapse could cause volatility in global financial markets, hurting Europe and the United States. On trade, Obama is pushing a 12-nation deal in the Asia-Pacific region, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which faces staunch resistance from many in his party. If it succeeds, the president would like to conclude a similar deal with Europe, where Merkel’s assistance would again be essential to overcome resistance among some on the continent to free-trade deals. The trade issue has become “something of a proxy for engagement in the world,” said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security. Obama would like to emerge from the next two days of meetings with the G-7 allies with informal pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a climate-change summit this year in Paris. It is an issue on which Obama’s goals and aspirations are largely in sync with those of Merkel and many of the other European leaders. The meetings this week in Germany are an “important milestone on this issue,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Obama. “We can move both with announcing our own targets and taking steps to support other countries to protect the environment.” | 0 |
As part of his new effort to focus on school safety in response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, President Trump has returned to an old punching bag: his predecessor. Trump's school safety commission will investigate an Obama policy originally meant to help minority students avoid disciplinary discrimination. The policy, despite its success in some areas, has come under fire in conservative circles because of a perception that it lets dangerous individuals avoid punishment.Trump said the commission will look into a "repeal of the Obama administration's 'Rethink School Discipline' policies," The New York Times reported. Bustle has reached out to the White House for comment.The "Rethink School Discipline" guidelines originally came in the form of a letter jointly filed by the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice and the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education. It relies on research from those departments that points to systematic discrimination that minority students suffer in terms of school discipline, and it suggests ways for school to be more careful in handing out punishment.Sen. Marco Rubio pointed to the Obama policy as a reason why the alleged Parkland shooter might have slipped through the disciplinary cracks. However, critics said Rubio's argument was a weak one, given that the shooter is white and was disciplined to the full extent of the school's capability when he was expelled.Joe Raedle/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesAccording to a December 2016 White House report, the Rethink School Discipline policies aim to "support all students and promote a welcome and safe climate in schools" by guiding schools to limit the number of suspensions that they handed out. The research presented there had found that minority and disabled students were given out-of-school suspensions at a much higher rate than their peers, so the policy laid out numerous ways that schools could work with other stakeholders to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for all students.When schools bought into the policies, they saw some growth and change in their school atmospheres. However, fixing a problem with so many layers inevitably takes time and hard work, so the policies didn't solve everything immediately — especially because, as The American Prospect reports, many of the schools with the most disciplinary problems also have issues with funding. Connecting this effort with the similarly necessary effort to stop school shootings, however, has critics saying that the administration is conflating two entirely separate issues.Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesOne point that critics have brought up is that school shooters, unlike the minority students at the receiving end of discriminatory disciplinary practices, are usually white. Many of the mass school shootings that most deeply shook the nation — Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland — had nothing to do with students who would have been affected by this policy, and instead were carried out by white men. As Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department assistant secretary for civil rights in the Obama administration, told USA Today, solving the problem of discrimination in schools "is completely divorced and should be completely divorced from how to address external shooters."The New York Times reports, however, that the Trump administration has targeted this set of policies because of a belief that they allow potential shooters to essentially slip through the cracks. This is part of the administration's set of guidelines meant to improve school safety, which gun control advocates had hoped would include pledges that the president had mentioned in the past, like a higher minimum age for buying rifles. Instead, the guidelines largely toed the NRA's desired line and focused on "hardening" schools rather than toughening gun control. The suggestion that this Obama-era policy could be repealed is a perfect example of that spirit. | 0 |
The administration on Wednesday outlined a $1 trillion plan, which includes $500 billion in cash payments to individual Americans and $300 billion toward helping small businesses, as well as $50 billion for airlines and $150 billion for other affected sectors.Trump’s hastily crafted stimulus, which has won early support from most Republican lawmakers, marks a sea change on the political right. The president and many of his conservative allies rose to power on the strength of a grass-roots movement forged in opposition to the bank bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis and President Obama’s subsequent economic stimulus package.Scrutiny of Trump’s plan continues to grow as some Republicans express unease about its scope and leading Democrats warn against federal giveaways to corporations without accountability measures that would ensure taxpayer money does not fund stock buybacks or executive pay.And there is some trepidation within the administration about the political risks associated with the perception that industries spend money as they wish — as well as uncertainty about how, exactly, all of the money would be spread around, according to officials involved in the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private talks.President Trump and the coronavirus task force discussed on March 18 the administration’s ongoing efforts to deal with the growing health crisis. (The Washington Post)Trump’s ability to enact his plan and weather the turbulence could have an enormous impact on his political fate and determine whether he is remembered as this era’s Herbert Hoover, who was president at the onset of the Great Depression, or its Franklin Roosevelt, his successor who guided the nation out of economic and geopolitical turmoil.“This is Trump’s World War II,” said Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation fellow and an informal Trump economic adviser. “It’s really critical to not only whether he is reelected but how he will be judged by history.”Trump, keenly aware that the state of the economy could determine whether he gets reelected, has been fixated in recent weeks on stock market declines and sees the plan shepherded by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as crucial to providing confidence to investors and ensuring an eventual recovery.“Everybody seems to want to go big and they want to get to the recovery, the big day,” Trump said at a news conference Wednesday. He added, “There’s going to be a comeback very, very quickly, as soon as this is solved.”For now, Trump is benefiting from quick support from even some of the staunchest spending hawks inside the Republican Party, many of whom are hearing desperation from anxious business leaders and constituents as vast sectors of the economy are shutting down.Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) — who built a national profile years ago as the head of a hard-line small-government advocacy group — said this crisis “is not like an ordinary recession or even a severe recession. This more like an act of God or war footing.”Toomey said comparing current proposed legislation with the financial industry bailout of 2008, which he opposed, is misguided because “those were caused by a bubble in real estate and financial institutions being overleveraged, all kinds of human error.”“It’s a different thing when a lethal pathogen affects large numbers of Americans,” Toomey said.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed that the Senate will not recess before reaching bipartisan agreement on the stimulus legislation. And his advice to his conservative colleagues: Rally together even if bills are fiscally problematic.“My counsel to them is to gag and vote for it anyway, even if they think it has some shortcomings, and to address those shortcomings in the bill that we’re in the process of crafting,” McConnell said Tuesday.When Mnuchin visited with Republican senators at their Tuesday lunch, the secretary pleaded with them not to use the politically charged word “bailout” in describing the proposed relief for Boeing, one of many large corporations that stands to benefit from the administration’s plan. One senator raised a hand and asked if they should instead call them “freedom payments,” which prompted laughter, according to a person briefed on the closed-door meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the discussion.Trump, who has been fielding calls from business executives for days, has been focused on stopping the stock market from cratering and preventing the unemployment rate from spiking into the double digits. He has advocated for a sweeping stimulus plan — so much so that when aides presented him with a $850 billion proposal, he encouraged a $1 trillion price tag, according to several people familiar with his thinking.Trump “doesn’t give a [expletive]” about how his rescue plan affects the federal debt, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be frank. “It’s all about the markets and the economy for him. It’s all about the jobs numbers.”Trump’s mind-set aligns with a broader GOP move away from the alarmism about federal deficits toward a more blasé view about government red ink, a shift that predates the coronavirus. Trump contended during the 2016 campaign that he could eliminate the debt in eight years, but during his first three years in office the debt has surged from $20 trillion to $23 trillion. One adviser who has discussed the matter with Trump said the president does not believe voters will be concerned about adding to the debt.Outgoing acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney last month told an audience at Oxford University, “My party is very interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House. The worst thing in the whole world is deficits when Barack Obama was the president. Then Donald Trump became president, and we’re a lot less interested as a party.”In late 2008, Congress passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which allowed the Treasury Department to buy toxic assets from financial institutions as a means to keeping big banks from going under during the subprime mortgage crisis. A few months later, after President Obama took office, Congress passed a bailout of the automotive industry.Both measures became controversial, leading to a populist backlash against government initiatives that appeared to pick winners and losers during a crisis.On the right, the tea party movement formed preaching austerity and prioritizing the ballooning federal debt. The tea party powered the Republican wave election in 2010 that installed Toomey, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and other stars in the Senate and House.One of the victims that year was Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), whose vote for TARP became the top issue in his reelection campaign. Tea party activists besmirched him as “Bailout Bob,” and at the 2010 state Republican convention he lost the party’s nomination to Mike Lee, who went on to win the seat that fall.Another victim was Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), who this week recalled the fierce backlash in his district in early 2009, after he had voted for both TARP and the bailout for auto manufacturers.“I remember sitting in an office in downtown Greenville, facing the windows and watching throngs of people walking to a rally on Main Street carrying homemade signs: ‘Throw the bums out!’ ‘Socialism!’ ‘No bailouts!’ ” Inglis said. “Here we were discussing the start of my 2010 campaign and we were just whistling past the cemetery because here’s all these people, and you could hear the intensity in their voices.”Inglis lost overwhelmingly in the Republican primary to Trey Gowdy, who ran to his right and went on to win the seat.A similar movement formed on the left, as Occupy Wall Street took shape among liberals and powered a decade-long leftward shift in Democratic politics, which found expression in the presidential candidacies of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).Former labor secretary Robert Reich, a leading voice among liberals on domestic policy, said, “Politically it’s fine and good to bail out individuals, to provide direct subsidies, extended unemployment insurance, paid sick leave, expanded Medicaid — all of that makes a great deal of sense. It is less acceptable to bail out particular industries.”Even some of Trump’s top supporters are concerned that the rush for stimulus is mistaken and does not guarantee an economic turnaround.Supply-side economist Arthur Laffer, whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, warned that pumping federal dollars into the economy “sounds compassionate” but would not necessarily spark the market back into action.“I’m very worried that this government — or any government — in a panic does stupid things,” Laffer said. “They need to breathe into a brown paper bag a bit, think it through clearly. This is no time to abandon the free market with government interference.”Some Trump allies in the Senate are calling for adjustments to the stimulus proposal. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote in a Fox Business op-ed article Wednesday that “large corporations that have enjoyed years of growth and prosperity” should not receive taxpayer dollars and that small businesses and gig-economy workers should be the main beneficiaries.Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) similarly has said relief should be focused on working families so Americans see that taxpayer money is being handled well. “Let’s make sure we’re taking care of them first,” he said.As for bailing out airlines or other industries, Hawley said “very strict conditions” must be set, such as a loan secured by collateral that would be paid back in full.“If you’re coming to me and just saying, ‘We just want a bunch of taxpayer money, just give it to us,’ I’m not going to do that,” Hawley said.Josh Dawsey, Paul Kane and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report. | 0 |
May 6, 2021 / 11:42 AM / MoneyWatch Vaccine access could soon expand to kids Vaccine access could soon expand to kids 07:34 Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine is 96% effective in teenagers 12- to 17-years-old, the drugmaker said Thursday. The company announced results of the Phase 2 trial in reporting first-quarter earnings. Its vaccine generated $1.7 billion in revenue in its fiscal first quarter. Evidence that Moderna's vaccine is effective in teens comes as rival Pfizer is expected to receive federal authorization by early next week to use its COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents. Federal approval of one or more vaccines against the disease could enable many American middle and high school students to be vaccinated before the start of the 2021-22 school year.Currently, COVID-19 vaccines are only approved for use in people 16 and older.
Moderna said that its vaccine trial for younger people, which had more than 3,200 participants, included 12 cases that started 14 days after the first dose. The company said no serious side effects were found, although common side effects included pain at the injection site and, after the second dose of vaccine, headache, fatigue, myalgia and chills.The pharmaceutical firm said it's continuing to collect data in the teen trial and "is in discussions with regulators about a potential amendment to its regulatory filings." CDC director on new U.S. vaccination goal 04:10 Download our Free App For Breaking News & Analysis Download the Free CBS News app Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue EMERGENCY COMPONENT - NATIONAL EMERGENCY COMPONENT - NATIONAL EMERGENCY COMPONENT - NATIONAL EMERGENCY COMPONENT - NATIONAL | 0 |
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday a spate of sexual assault scandals surrounding the military shows enlisted women are "putting up with way too much crap."
"I want to salute the women who serve and are putting up with way too much crap," the military prosecutor, said on "Fox News Sunday." "This needs to end. When a victim comes forward, they should have an advocate to walk them through the military justice system. And commanders who allow this to continue to flourish, quite frankly, should be fired. The president spoke well of this problem. It is a disgrace to the United States Military."
In the past month, two officers charged with preventing sexual assault have been arrested and an enlisted soldier was charged with secretly filming female cadets at the United States Military Academy.
(PHOTOS: Female war veterans: From uniform to Congress) | 0 |
6:54 am ET By The New York Times 6:54 am ET6:54 am ET By The New York Times Photo Protesters outside the Republican Party Lincoln Day event in Birch Run, Mich., last week, where Donald J. Trump was the keynote speaker.Credit Good Tuesday morning. Cameras and microphones flocked to Donald J. Trump on Monday as he fulfilled his civic responsibilities and reported for jury duty in Manhattan. But it is his strict immigration proposals that continue to gain widespread attention and expose tension in the party over which crucial voting bloc is best to alienate and upset: Mr. Trump’s already angry supporters or Hispanics. Republicans were hoping to leave their immigration woes behind, but six months before the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Trump has made that impossible. By articulating his policy of rounding up immigrants and building a big wall, Mr. Trump has forced the party to talk about immigration in the terms of its most ardent activists. So much for Republicans wooing Hispanic voters with a more moderate tone. “Chasing extremists on immigration to win the primary will end the Republican Party’s ability to win the general election in 2016, and it will destroy the party,” said Kica Matos, a spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement. “If you alienate the fastest-growing voting block in the country you cannot win today, and you cannot survive tomorrow.” Conservatives walk a tightrope in both directions, running the risk of upsetting their base by breaking too far from Mr. Trump, who leads in the polls. But a Gallup survey this month found that just 31 percent of Republicans favor deporting all illegal immigrants — as Mr. Trump wants to do. The tension in the party was evident on Monday when Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said that Mr. Trump’s plan to build a wall “didn’t make any sense” and when Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin echoed Mr. Trump’s support for ending birthright citizenship, suggesting to Iowans that he had inspired much of Mr. Trump’s overall plan. On Monday evening, Lorella Praeli, the America Latino outreach director for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign, released a statement linking Mr. Walker to Mr. Trump, and both of them to the rest of the party. “It is disturbing that Republican presidential candidates continue to embrace extreme anti-immigrant positions as core pieces of their immigration platform,” Ms. Praeli said. As Mrs. Clinton heads to Nevada on Tuesday to meet with members of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., she will most likely be eager to resume the debate. — Alan Rappeport Stay tuned throughout the day: Follow us on Twitter @NYTpolitics and on Facebook for First Draft updates. What We’re Watching Today Jeb Bush will attend a national security forum in South Carolina hosted by Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security. Mr. Bush, who has been lagging in the polls despite his presumed front-runner status when he entered the race, regained some national attention with recent speeches linking the rise of the Islamic State to the policies of President Obama and Mrs. Clinton‘s tenure as secretary of state. The Des Moines Register’s Soapbox continues as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio take their turn with the bipartisan, and sometimes vocal, crowd at the Iowa State Fair. And Mrs. Clinton‘s appearance before labor leaders in Nevada is the latest round in the Democratic fight for the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s endorsement, which the group has hinted it will take its time announcing — a seeming effort for leverage to influence the eventual Democratic nominee’s policy positions. Walker to Release Plan on Repealing and Replacing Health Care Law Mr. Walker, who is seeking to re-enter the national conversation after slipping poll numbers and a lackluster outing in the first Republican debate, will tackle a subject on Tuesday that many of his rivals have so far ducked: a detailed replacement for Mr. Obama’s health care plan. In a speech in Minnesota, Mr. Walker plans to take aim at the Republican-controlled Congress for failing to “put a bill on President Obama’s desk to repeal Obamacare,’’ according to a preview of his remarks. Still, many who follow Republican proposals for replacing the Affordable Care Act will find the details of Mr. Walker’s Patient Freedom Plan familiar. It eliminates the individual mandate to buy health insurance and gives individuals tax credits to buy coverage, up to $3,000 for someone over 50. It allows plans to be sold across state lines. It promises tort reform. Mr. Walker would revamp two of the Affordable Care Act’s most popular features: Instead of requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents’ plans, states would decide the matter; and instead of a prohibition on insurers discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, Mr. Walker would give federal aid to states for high-risk pools. He would pay for his own plan by lowering the cost of Medicaid, largely by turning it into a block grant to states, and by ending the tax deduction for costly employer-provided plans. An issue Mr. Walker does not address: How many of the estimated 16.5 million people who gained coverage under the law would lose it under repeal, and how many would be covered under the Walker proposals? — Trip Gabriel Bulletins: Context for Trump; Backing for Kasich; Megadonor for Cruz Though Mr. Trump‘s immigration plan stretched the boundaries of previous conservative platforms, some of his proposals are based on assertions that have been broadly debunked. Mr. Kasich is seen as a moderate in the Republicans’ rambunctious field of candidates, but the governor of one of the country’s most conservative states, Robert Bentley of Alabama, gave him his endorsement on Monday, providing a potential boon to Mr. Kasich’s perceived bona fides. And Senator Ted Cruz of Texas’s team has confirmed the identity of a previously mysterious megadonor: Ben Nash, the chief executive of PCS Wireless, who donated $250,000 to the Stand for Principle PAC tied to Mr. Cruz. Senate Republicans Reach Outside Senate to Twist Arms on Iran With August past its midpoint, Senate Republicans are stepping up the pressure on Democrats in advance of the September debate over the Iran nuclear agreement. And not just on the Democrats currently serving in the Senate. “Will These Democrats Side With President Obama or the American People?” asked the headline of a news statement issued on Monday by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In addition to three House members seeking Senate seats in Florida and Illinois, the release singles out other potential Democratic Senate challengers, including Ted Strickland in Ohio and Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, and accuses them of being evasive on the Iran deal. The Republicans also pointedly note that Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the presumed leader of the next crop of Senate Democrats, has come out against the deal. The Democratic Senate contenders say they are still studying the deal, and they seem in no hurry to go public with their views despite Republican attempts to smoke out even the Democrats who won’t have to vote on the deal. But the push by Republicans is evidence that they see their virtually united opposition to the Iran agreement as a political winner and that they intend to make the issue central to the 2016 Senate campaign season. — Carl Hulse Our Other Favorites From The Times Following the declared hopes of congressional Republicans, officials in some Republican states are moving to cut public funding for Planned Parenthood or to investigate it in response to videos claiming that it profits from fetal tissue sales. Mrs. Clinton, who is having some difficulty overcoming the perception that she is unapproachable on the campaign trail, is also widening her embrace of donations from “super PACs”: Her focus on campaign finance overhaul has snagged on the financial gap between her campaign and those of Republicans raising vast sums through the outside groups. In an interview with The New York Times magazine, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, Mr. Trump‘s ascent, and his “elevator pitch for Socialism.” And on Room for Debate, a Times Editorial Department blog, college students discuss the issues that matter most to them this elections season, including climate change, jobs and, of course, student debt. The text message has suddenly become a go-to tactic for candidates when they need to cut through the noise online and reach supporters quickly and directly. What We’re Reading Elsewhere Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, The Associated Press writes, has pledged to contribute $450,000 to finance a proposed switch in the state from a primary to a caucus system, a move that would “allow Paul to run for president and re-election to his U.S. Senate seat simultaneously without violating a state law banning candidates from appearing on the ballot twice.” Writing for CNN, Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, offered a plan to address the cholera epidemic in Haiti, arguing that the United Nations should acknowledge its role in the outbreak — it has been tied to peacekeeping troops — and that “the United States must assume a greater leadership role in our own hemisphere.” And Mr. Cruz has “dispatched” a campaign operative to Guam, The Guardian reports, to try and secure the territory’s nine delegates. Reports of possible presidential candidacies by Al Gore and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. are just reflective of the desire among reporters for a candidate who can “hypnotize the press,” Politico says. Mr. Trump‘s immigration plan is getting some praise on the left for seeking to expand the H-1B visa program to help skilled foreign workers stay in the United States, Breitbart.com reports. Like the Politics Newsletter? Get it delivered to your inbox. | 0 |
Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia has been widely praised. But many critics wish that he would infuse the policy with greater substance and energy. In fact, the administration has the opportunity to fill in one of the great missing pieces of that policy — a strategic relationship with the continent’s second most populous country, India — once a new government is formed in New Delhi. But both countries will have to make some major changes. The immediate obstacle for the United States is that the man who will become India’s next prime minister, Narendra Modi, was placed on a blacklist of sorts by the George W. Bush administration, was denied a visa to enter the United States and has been shunned by U.S. officials for a decade. This ostracism should stop. This manner of singling out Modi has been selective, arbitrary and excessive. Modi, a Hindu nationalist politician, is (until he becomes the prime minister) head of the government in the Indian state of Gujarat. He held that job in 2002 when fierce rioting between Hindus and Muslims broke out. In that capacity, it is alleged, he encouraged — or did nothing to stop — vigilante violence against Muslims and police complicit with the violence. More than one thousand people, most of them Muslims, died. Prosecutions of those accused in the killings have been minimal. It is a dark episode in India’s history, and Modi comes out of it tainted. But his actual role in it remains unclear. Three Indian investigations have cleared him of specific culpability, although the probes have been criticized by human rights groups with credible concerns. This is an important challenge for Indian democracy — one that many vocal groups in civil society are taking up — but the question for U.S. officials is: Does Modi’s behavior trump concerns of U.S. national interest? He is the only person ever to have been denied a visa on grounds of “severe violations of religious freedom,” which makes the decision look utterly arbitrary. Consider, for example, the case of Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister of Iraq. He heads a government that is deeply sectarian and has been accused of involvement with death squads, reprisal killings and the systematic persecution of Sunnis in his country. And yet, far from being shunned, Maliki has been received in Washington as an honored guest on many occasions by two White House administrations. Consider a report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the very body that singled out Modi. It lists countries that are of “particular concern” for their “systematic, ongoing and egregious” oppression of religious minorities. Saudi Arabia, whose leaders are paid enormous respect by Washington, is in that top tier. The report recommends that Pakistan be added to that list because of its persistent violence against minorities, which, the report says, is at an all-time high. The report also says that Iraq should be in this group. Not a single government official from any of these countries — or any other country anywhere — has ever been placed on a blacklist or been denied a visa for violating religious freedom. When human rights issues are used in a blatantly selective manner, they rightly invite charges of hypocrisy. In this case, as often happens, U.S. foreign policy is guilty more of incoherence than conspiracy. When it was created in 1998, the USCIRF was eager to demonstrate that it was not going to focus exclusively on violence against Christians. The Gujarat riots took place soon afterward, and their brutality — and the seeming complicity of state authorities — attracted global attention. Hearings resulted in the blacklist and ban against Modi. No one at a high level in the Bush administration paid any attention because Modi was a regional official, unlikely — it was thought — to ever ascend to national office. If the United States can shift policy on this matter, Modi will have to get over his irritation with America. More important, he will have to shift his country’s posture on a much larger series of issues. For several years, Indian foreign policy has been adrift, so much so that the country has almost disappeared as a serious player in the region and the world. This is partly because India’s previous government ran out of steam, muddling along on every front, domestic and foreign. But it is also because New Delhi’s ruling elites remain ambivalent about the kind of foreign policy they should conduct, trapped between their old, Third World, anti-colonial impulses and the obvious requirements of a new Asia in which China is emerging as the dominant power. The result is that India has shied away from the kind of robust relationship with the United States that would help it economically, militarily and politically. If the United States and India, the world’s oldest and largest democracies, could create a genuine partnership, it would be good for Asian stability, for global prosperity, and, most especially, for the cause of democracy and human rights around the world. Read more from Fareed Zakaria’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Fareed Zakaria Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Post. He is also the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and a contributing editor for the Atlantic. Follow | 0 |
Updated Tuesday at 1:15 p.m. President Barack Obama announced a handful of new executive actions on Tuesday, aiming to better the mental health care and economic livelihood of military veterans.The actions are intended to help give veterans "quality health care," and "every opportunity to pursue the American Dream," while improving the VA, a White House fact sheet said. The orders will expand on a bill Congress passed earlier this month, allocating $16.3 billion to overhaul the VA.Speaking to the American Legion at their 96th convention, the president highlighted progress the Department of Veterans Affairs had made and promised even more reform. The address came just months after it was revealed that veterans were waiting months to receive medical care and languishing on secret wait lists at the VA. Both political parties slammed the president and his administration for their handling of crisis, which led to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's resignation. The new secretary, Bob McDonald, joined Obama at the Legion on Tuesday to talk about the improvements they've made."We are going to get to the bottom of these problems. We're going to fix what is wrong. We're going to do right by you and we are going to do right by your families, and that is a solemn pledge and commitment that I'm making to you here," he said to applause.The White House started the day with a fact sheet full of good news: In 17 months, 50% of the VA's disability claim backlog has been reduced; a quarter of a million veterans who were on wait lists have been contacted to set up doctor’s appointments; 10,000 schedulers have been trained or retrained; mobile clinics and additional resources like full-time and temporary staff have been deployed to areas that need them, including the Phoenix facility where lengthy wait times were first uncovered; a new recruitment program will attempt to draw better doctors to the VA facilities will launch this week, and the VA will begin releasing information about the accessibility and wait times their hospitals provide. “This is more information than any private hospital in the U.S. provides,” the White House noted. In his speech, the president added that the VA was "instituting a new culture of accountability" and that whistleblowers would be better protected.When it comes to mental health care, new executive actions will work to improve PTSD treatment, mental health care awareness, incorporate more mental health care into primary care settings, automatically transition active service members receiving mental health treatment into care through the VA and reform suicide prevention programs.Meanwhile, the executive actions will also attempt to help military families stay afloat, bolstering military spouse and veteran employment programs, creating a public-private partnership that will help banks better identify and notify active service members’ families that they are eligible for reduced mortgage rates and lower monthly payments, making it easier for service members to both be educated and educate their kids.“Our service women and men have earned important financial protections under the law, but too many do not exercise these important rights. But when business and government work together we can make a difference,” the White House said.Veteran homelessness, the president also announced, is down by a third in the last four years—25,000 veterans have moved into housing during that time. | 0 |
New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang arrives to an early voting site before casting his vote in June. | John Minchillo/AP Photo Former presidential and New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang is set to launch a third party next month, according to two people familiar with the matter. Yang is expected to start the party in conjunction with the Oct. 5 release of his new book, "Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy."
It’s not clear what the name of Yang’s third party will be or how he plans to deploy it in 2022 or 2024. Yang and his team did not respond to requests for comment.
But the book’s publisher, Crown, did give some clues about the type of platform Yang may pursue. It writes that the book is an indictment of America’s “era of institutional failure” and will introduce “us to the various ‘priests of the decline’ of America, including politicians whose incentives have become divorced from the people they supposedly serve.”
The book is blurbed by businessperson Mark Cuban (“a vitally important book”) and The New York Times’ Kara Swisher (“Can there be another political party in the U.S.?...In Forward, Yang does not just give us a laundry list of intractable problems, but shows how we can find solutions if we think in new ways and summon the courage to do so.”).
A former businessperson, Yang surprised many in the political world with creative, outsider campaigns for both president and mayor. His presidential campaign outlasted and raised more money than those of much more seasoned politicians. But, ultimately, that did not translate to votes as he dropped out shortly after the New Hampshire primary and faded in the polls as the mayoral race came to a close. He ran predominantly on the idea of a universal basic income, which would see the government give citizens a monthly $1,000 check. It was a quirky policy proposal that did not fit neatly into the ideological prism of either party and won Yang converts among many apolitical figures online and in the media — some of whom dubbed themselves the “Yang Gang.”
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U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday issued a new policy that will reshape the way schools and universities respond to complaints of sexual misconduct, bolstering the rights of the accused and narrowing the scope of cases colleges are required to investigate. "We released a final rule that recognizes we can continue to combat sexual misconduct without abandoning our core values of fairness, presumption of innocence and due process," DeVos said in a call with reporters. In announcing the new policy, which carries the weight of law, DeVos condemned the Obama administration for adopting a "failed approach" that turned campus disciplinary panels into "kangaroo courts." DeVos' changes narrow the definition of sexual harassment and require colleges to investigate claims only if they're reported to certain officials. Schools can be held accountable for mishandling complaints only if they acted with "deliberate indifference." Students will be allowed to question one another through representatives during live hearings. The regulation largely mirrors a proposal DeVos issued in November 2018 but tempers some measures that drew some of the heaviest criticism. The earlier proposal, for example, suggested that colleges would not be required to handle complaints arising beyond campus borders, but the final rule clarifies that their duties extend to fraternity and sorority houses, along with other scenarios in which the college exercises "substantial control" over the accused student and the "context" where the alleged misconduct occurred. DeVos also clarified for the first time that dating violence, stalking and domestic violence also must be addressed under Title IX, and she added new language ordering schools to provide special support for victims regardless of whether they file a formal complaint. Title IX is the 1972 law barring discrimination based on sex in education. The law and DeVos' regulation apply to the nation's colleges and universities, along with elementary and secondary schools. Devos said the new rule "takes historic steps to strengthen Title IX protections for all students and to ensure all students can pursue an education free from sex discrimination." The changes take effect Aug. 14. The Education Department finalized them after reviewing more than 120,000 public comments submitted in response to DeVos' proposal. The final policy was quickly condemned by opponents who say it weakens protections for victims and will discourage many from reporting misconduct. The National Women's Law Center promised to take legal action. "We refuse to go back to the days when rape and harassment in schools were ignored and swept under the rug," said Fatima Goss Graves, the group's president and CEO. "We won't let DeVos succeed in requiring schools to be complicit in harassment, turning Title IX from a law that protects all students into a law that protects abusers and harassers." Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., chairman of the House education committee, said the policy "creates new barriers to justice" for victims. "While the department's stated intent was to secure due process for those accused of sexual misconduct, the actual effect of its rule will be to erode protections for students, weaken accountability for schools and make it more difficult for survivors seeking redress," he said. The overhaul drew praise from Republicans and from groups that represent the accused. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate's education committee, said it "respects and supports victims and preserves due process rights for both the victim and the accused." The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties group, called it an "important victory." "Students shouldn't have to relinquish their basic rights when they step foot on a college campus, but at almost every top college in this country, that's exactly what happens," said Samantha Harris, the group's senior fellow. Among the most hotly contested changes is DeVos' rule allowing students to question one another at live hearings. Advocates for victims say it's a "cruel" policy that forces victims to relive the trauma of sexual violence. DeVos added new limits around the hearings in her final rule, saying students must never be allowed to question one another directly, and she said only questions that campus officials deem "relevant" can be asked. The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, an association of more than 200 public universities, said it still has significant concerns about cross-examinations, saying the requirement will likely discourage reporting. "Some will worry about an anguish-inducing process that includes requiring them to face direct questioning by respondents' aggressive counsel in a live hearing courtroom-like setting," said Peter McPherson, the group's president. While cross-examinations will be required at the college level, the final rule makes it optional for primary and secondary schools. Under the new rules, the definition of sexual harassment is narrowed to include "unwelcome conduct determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" that it denies a person access to a school's education programs or activity. The Obama administration, by contrast, used a broader definition that included any "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," including "sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal, nonverbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature." Colleges now will be required to dismiss complaints that fall short of the updated definition, although any allegation of rape or sexual assault will be deemed to have met the definition. Opponents also take issue with a measure in the final policy allowing schools to choose a higher standard of proof when deciding cases of sexual misconduct. The Obama administration encouraged schools to use a "preponderance of the evidence" standard, meaning that the allegation is more likely than not true. But the new rules allow schools to use a "clear and convincing" standard, meaning the claim is highly probable. Democrats and some education groups had asked DeVos to postpone the final rule until after the coronavirus pandemic, saying schools were too busy responding to the crisis to implement complex federal rules. The American Council on Education, an association of college presidents, urged DeVos on Wednesday to delay the policy until summer 2021, saying the timing reflected "appallingly poor judgment." "This is irrational, unrealistic and completely at odds with the Trump administration's oft-repeated statement to tread lightly when imposing complex new regulations," the group said in a statement. DeVos said schools had been given fair warning. “Civil rights really can’t wait, and students’ cases continue to be decided now,” she said. “We’ve been working on this for more than two years, so it’s not a surprise to institutions that it’s been coming.” | 0 |
President Trump and China finally agreed to a partial trade deal on Friday, putting the 21-month trade war between the world’s two largest economies on pause — for now.Trump’s White House rushed to characterize it as “amazing” and “historic.” Top Chinese officials held a rare news conference to emphasize this deal was a win for them that meets the “growing needs of the Chinese people.” Stocks hit record highs Thursday as Wall Street applauded the news, but stocks ended little changed Friday as details trickled out. Democratic leaders and many China hawks slammed Trump, saying he caved too easily. Many business groups were cautiously optimistic.The full text of the deal has not been made public, but Trump’s team and Chinese officials confirmed that the president agreed to scale back some tariffs in exchange for China buying about $200 billion more of U.S. goods in the next two years and opening up to U.S. financial firms.Here’s a rundown of the winners and losers:WinnersTrump, at least politically. He can say he made a deal, even it’s limited. It by no means fulfills all the objectives Trump set out to achieve in resetting the trade relationship with China. But he and his team are already spinning this as Trump keeping yet another campaign promise, even in the midst of Democrats trying to impeach him. News of the deal made the front pages of major newspapers and was mentioned on TV. He can trumpet the deal particularly to farmers and manufacturing workers hit hard by the trade war. The China deal (and the recently agreed-upon U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal) also make it likely the U.S. economy will grow at 2 percent or more next year, avoiding a recession and helping Trump’s reelection chances.Farmers. China has committed to buying a record amount of U.S. agricultural products next year, surpassing the prior record of about $26 billion in 2012. U.S. officials say China has agreed to buy $32 billion of agricultural products, though Trump says China will probably “hit $50 billion.” The Chinese refuse to utter that exact figure, but they have agreed to bump up purchases, and they know Trump wants headlines saying it’s the “most ever” even if it’s not quite $50 billion. This will be a much-needed injection of cash for farmers, who have been pounded by China’s retaliatory tariffs despite a program Trump set up to compensate them for losses. Farm bankruptcies are up 24 percent from last year and farm debt is projected to reach a record high, according to the U.S. Farm Bureau. But farmers who voted for Trump before are likely to return to him again after this deal.Apple and other tech companies. Apple stock soared Friday, even as the overall market was flat. Tech companies like Apple are some of the biggest beneficiaries of this “phase one” deal because they will not be hit by tariffs. Trump had planned to put tariffs on cellphones, laptops and other popular tech products made in China and shipped to the United States on Dec. 15, but this deal scraps those plans entirely. This is a reminder that certain U.S. companies have quietly managed to avoid most of the tariffs, even as others suffered.Walmart and other retailers. Trump scaled back (or canceled) tariffs on the most popular items that Americans buy in stores, a massive relief for major U.S. retailers such as Walmart who were trying to figure out how to pass on the higher costs to consumers next year. The Dec. 15 tariffs on toys and tech products aren’t happening now, and the tariffs enacted in September on many clothing products (shoes, coats, etc.) were cut in half from 15 percent to 7.5 percent. Many retailers were able to keep prices down this holiday season because some shipments arrived before the tariffs went into effect, but it would have been much harder to avoid price hikes in 2020. Now that’s not an issue.Wall Street investors. The S&P 500 index is on track for a total return of around 29 percent this year. That would make this the best year for stocks since 2013 and one of the best years of all time. Stocks did fall sharply at the end of last year, but much of that pain has been forgotten after the rebound. Trump loves touting stock market highs — he did it again Friday after this deal sent stocks to a record close on Thursday. About half of Americans have at least some money in the stock market.President Trump on Sept. 4 said the stock market would be 10,000 points higher without his trade war with China. (The Washington Post)JPMorgan Chase and other U.S. financial companies. One of the biggest breakthroughs in the deal is China finally allowing U.S. banks and credit card companies to enter China on their own without having to partner with a local Chinese company. This has been on the wish list of big American banks for years. JPMorgan Chase already started the groundwork this summer to open in China in anticipation of this deal.Business leaders. Chief executives of just about every major U.S. company have been urging Trump to strike a deal soon. On Thursday, shortly after Trump gave his final sign-off, he met with the heads of Cummins, Stanley Black & Decker and Union Pacific, who welcomed the deal. Trump frequently claims his tariffs are paid by China, but that’s not true. U.S. companies have been footing the bill (and sometimes passing costs on to consumers). And that bill so far has been $88 billion, one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history, according to the right-leaning Tax Foundation. This deal lowers that burden a bit and, importantly, signals Trump is unlikely to ramp up tariffs further in 2020.The Chinese government. China didn’t have to give too much here, and its leaders played Trump skillfully at the end, refusing to confirm there was a deal for hours after the White House leaked there was one. China did agree to buy about $200 billion more of U.S. agriculture, energy and manufactured goods, but it was planning to do most of that anyway. It had even offered around that level of purchases in mid-2018. The biggest concession China made in this deal is to agree to penalties if it doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain, but there is a long process the United States is supposed to go through before imposing punitive tariffs. In the meantime, Chinese leaders can say they got Trump to roll back some tariffs.LosersPeter Navarro, Stephen K. Bannon and China “hawks.” This deal does little to fundamentally change China’s ambitious “Made in China 2025” plans. Trump’s had many trade advisers like Navarro urging him to keep the tariffs on and push China for a bigger deal that would include China committing to no longer subsidize key industries and steal U.S. trade secrets. Instead, Trump scaled back tariffs and settled for a much less ambitious agreement. Trump promises there will be a “phase two” after the election, but many fear this will end up being a one-and-done deal.Trump’s “MAGA” trade agenda. The China deal may be a win for Trump politically, but his goal of forcing China to overhaul its economic policies did not happen here. China remains a power player and its “Made in China 2025″ plan is still moving ahead. China also did not agree to scale back any of its government subsidies for industries like steel. While the latest trade data shows a small reduction in the trade deficit with China, the U.S. trade deficit with other nations (especially in southeast Asia) is growing.Bankrupt farmers. Some farmers didn’t make it to see the gains from this deal after two brutal years for agriculture. In addition to a spike in farm bankruptcies, farmer suicides are on the rise and now exceed veteran suicide rates.Democrats. The “phase one” China deal is part of a string of positive news that is causing an upswing in markets and the economic outlook for 2020. A recession looks unlikely now. Trade was the biggest concern, economists said, and that’s mostly off the table now. It’s going to be harder to run against Trump. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) tried to cast this deal as Trump “selling out” to China, but it is going to be easier for Trump to swat away those attacks, especially if farm purchases set records.U.S. companies still facing tariffs. Trump still has tariffs in place on about $370 billion of Chinese imports. That includes hefty 25 percent tariffs on many parts used in manufacturing, especially for autos. Those tariffs look like they are going to stay in place for a long time. Many small and midsized businesses have been hit the hardest since they have less ability to shift production to Thailand or Vietnam.Huawei. The Chinese tech giant has become the poster child of Trump’s anger against China. Huawei has been accused of spying on the U.S. government and U.S. companies via Hauwei phones and tech products. Trump heavily restricted Hauwei’s operations. The Chinese government tried to intervene numerous times, but Trump mostly held firm. Huawei told The Washington Post this week that the company may need two or three years to recover from Trump’s actions. The phase one deal does not address Huawei’s situation.China’s economy. China was already facing a slowing economy before the trade war began. Trump’s tariffs exacerbated the pain. While there is relief that he isn’t going forward with tariffs on all Chinese products, as he had planned to do Dec. 15, Trump has still kept in place tariffs on nearly $370 billion worth of imports. Even more importantly, there is evidence that some companies shifted their supply chains out of China to other countries. That business, while modest as a share of China’s total economy, is unlikely to return.Barack Obama and George W. Bush. There will be debate for years about whether Trump’s trade war was worth it and whether he achieved enough from the deal. But there’s agreement that Trump changed the conversation about China. There was bipartisan support to go after China for unfair business practices, and Trump seized on that in a way that his two predecessors did not.Related: | 0 |
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) ― The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Native American elk hunter, citing an 1868 treaty between his tribe and the U.S. government as it revived his legal challenge to a conviction for hunting out of season in Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming.In a 5-4 ruling, the high court sided with Crow Tribe member Clayvin Herrera. It found that the treaty, which gave tribe members hunting rights on “unoccupied” lands, is still in force even though it was signed before Wyoming became a U.S. state in 1890.Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has a record of backing tribal rights, sided with the court’s four liberals, with the other four conservative justices in dissent. The same lineup voted in favor of tribal rights in a previous case this term, ruling that members of the Yakima Nation did not have to pay taxes for importing fuel into Washington state.Monday’s ruling does not immediately void Herrera’s conviction because the state can still argue that the Bighorn National Forest location where he and others hunted bull elk in 2014 is not “unoccupied,” meaning he would not have been able to legally hunt there.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the court, said treaty rights do not automatically disappear when a territory becomes a state. Sotomayor cited historical evidence that the Crow Tribe made a high priority of hunting rights during its treaty negotiations with the government.“Yet despite the apparent importance of the hunting right to the negotiations, Wyoming points to no evidence that federal negotiators ever proposed that the right would end at statehood,” Sotomayor wrote. “This silence is especially telling.”Attorney Kyle Ann Gray, left, Clayvin Herrera, and attorney George Hicks pose for pictures on the steps of the Supreme Court, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in Washington.ASSOCIATED PRESSHerrera, who is from Montana, was charged with hunting elk off-season or without a state hunting license. He was convicted and received a suspended prison sentence, a fine and a three-year hunting ban. An intermediate Wyoming appeals court upheld the conviction in 2017 and the state’s Supreme Court left that ruling in place.“We are gratified that the Supreme Court held that the treaty hunting right guaranteed to the Crow Tribe and Mr. Herrera was not abrogated by Wyoming’s admission to the union or the creation of the Bighorn National Forest,” Herrera’s lawyer, George Hicks, said in a statement.It marked the court’s second ruling in favor of a hunter in the past two months. The court ruled in March that the federal government could not prevent an Alaskan man from riding his hovercraft on a river through territory overseen by the National Park Service to reach remote moose-hunting grounds in the northernmost U.S. state.(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) | 0 |
On Sunday night, Texas Gov. Rick Perry tweeted this image out from his personal @governorperry Twitter account accompanied by the text "A2":A tweet just went out from my account that was unauthorized. I do not condone the tweet and I have taken it down.
— Rick Perry (@GovernorPerry) September 1, 2014The woman in the picture above is Rosemary Lehmberg, the Travis County district attorney whom Perry tried to have removed from her job after a drunken-driving arrest in April 2013. Perry's threatened veto to funding for the Travis County Public Integrity Unit, which he made good on when Lehmberg did not resign, is at the center of the indictment of the governor late last month.Perry spokespeople did not immediately respond to e-mails seeking explanation for just what happened with that first tweet. | 0 |
If you’re familiar with the navel-gazing internecine squabbles of the US national media, you probably know that Bari Weiss, the millennial conservative writer who for years attracted controversy and online consternation for her opinion columns, recently quit the New York Times, saying that the newspaper was insufficiently supportive of her because of her political views.Weiss’s departure comes on the heels of an open letter, signed by more than 150 pundits, commentators and public intellectuals, Weiss included, that decried the censoriousness of internet “cancel culture”. And that letter itself came soon after the firing of Weiss’s mentor, James Bennet, as the New York Times’ opinion editor, in response to the publication of an op-ed calling for the use of state violence against protesters, which Bennet claimed not to have read.After announcing her resignation, Weiss published a letter to the paper’s publisher, AG Sulzberger, citing her reasons for departing the paper. “My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views,” Weiss wrote. “My work and my character are openly demeaned in company-wide Slack channels.”The assertion of much of Weiss’s future work is likely to be that a culture of illiberal liberalism at the New York Times and other media outlets has victimized her personally, and is also gravely dangerous for the republic. Weiss has already moved to enhance her own career by positioning herself as a martyr for free speech and a brave defender of unpopular truths. With this claim, Weiss will have many of her fellow elites nodding along sympathetically: the open letter, combined with a pearl-clutchingly offended response to Bennet’s ouster, has made it clear that there is a section of the professional intellectual class – pundits, thinktank operatives and tenured professors – who feel shocked and affronted by the online rudeness of those who disagree with them. This clique has ushered in a creature unique to the era of internet media, whose ascent ironically threatens to plunge our public discourse even further into the realm of bad faith: the professionally cancelled pundit.The professionally cancelled pundit is a genre of primarily center-right contrarian who makes their living by deliberately provoking outrage online, and then claiming that the outrage directed at them is evidence of an intolerant left run amok. Usually but not exclusively white millennials or Gen X writers, the cancelled pundit has a sheen of faded patrician prestige, like a stack of unread New Yorkers in a basket beside a toilet. They believe themselves deserving of deference and they think themselves brave for complaining when they don’t get it. They’re beloved by white boomers, Romney Republicans and those who use the word “woke” derisively. Their work is meant to appeal to people uncomfortable with social forces that challenge the established hierarchy of power.In the open letter, a number of the professionally cancelled outlined the primary assertion of their genre: that the left in particular is unduly censorious and mean-spirited in ways that challenge the free exchange of thought, and rightwing ideas, or at least their own rightwing ideas, should be given a dignified and respectful hearing.But the letter, and the assertions by the cancelled pundits that they are defenders of free speech, is misguided on a number of fronts.First, in framing sometimes rude online reaction to their opinions as a first amendment issue, they confuse for a violation of their civic right to free speech a personal discomfort with the tone of those who talk back. And second, while they are correct in noting that platforms such as Twitter, where many of these aggrieved public figures seem to spend a great deal of their time, can be rancorous, they are wrong in assigning the cause of this indecorousness in the public conversation to a censorious nature in the left ideologies they oppose. Weiss and her compatriots believe that public discourse has become less decorous because it has moved to the left. But really, it’s because it has moved online.The fact is that rudeness is incentivized by social media platforms; the slow, dispassionate “argument” that the professionally cancelled pundit claim to be advocating for is not. “Social media as a ‘public square’ where ‘good faith debate’ happens is a thing of the past,” the Slate writer Lili Loofbourow explained in her own Twitter thread. “Disagreement here [online] happens through trolling, sea-lioning, ratios, and dunks. Bad faith is the condition of the modern internet.” This is in large part because online platforms are designed that way: to maximize engagement, they promote the most incendiary content and reward outrage, shock and performative disdain.Are the professionally cancelled pundits naive about the way social media platforms incentivize crudeness, or are they merely playing dumb? I suspect the latter. The cancelled pundits are right that social media can be asinine. But they are not victims of this dynamic: they seem to be savvy manipulators of it. Signatories of the open letter, including Weiss but also many others, have built careers and their own notoriety by seeming to solicit and revel in online anger. They direct deliberately offensive screeds at the sections of social media that are most likely to be incensed by them; they pick fights with people with large Twitter followings so that those people will publicly retort.Watching the behavior of the professionally cancelled makes the outraged attention they receive seem less like an unfortunate or unfair byproduct of good faith engagement than like a deliberately solicited result, leading me to believe that many these pundits manufacture controversy so as to drive attention to themselves – and, crucially, so as to drive web traffic to their pieces. They want to be cancelled, too, so that they can depict themselves as rebels; the outraged attention they solicit has the added bonus of giving transgressive glamour to their otherwise repetitious, poorly researched and incurious writing.As far as making money goes, this might not be such a bad strategy. In the digital media sphere, where clicks are revenue and outrage drives clicks, attention is itself a currency, and it holds the same value whether it is laudatory or vexed. Of all people, Weiss should have known this: the New York Times opinion section, where she worked, was such a huge driver of traffic that it became integral to the paper’s revenue model, in no small part because of the outraged online attention that her own articles generated. When we consider this reality, the claims that she and the rest of the professionally cancelled make to being defenders of free speech seem like flimsy pretenses of civic mindedness, meant to justify their own careers as glorified shock jocks.But for all their cynicism and sense of their own victimhood, the professionally cancelled are not solely to blame for their manipulation of social media. So are those of us who reward them with our notice. The outraged are complicit in the actions of the outrage-mongers. If liberals and progressives stopped giving these people our eyes, our clicks, and hours of our lives, then their power to rake in money, to shore up their own fame, and to determine the parameters of the public conversation would be diminished. If we want these people to be less powerful, then we have to stop giving them what they want: our attention. Weiss’s resignation letter reads less like an internal HR document and more like a pitch for a new venture, and it’s likely that Weiss will soon be outfitted with a book deal or a cushy new perch from which to continue her opining. Hours after Weiss announced her departure from the Times, another professional contrarian, Andrew Sullivan, who has provoked outrage for his repeated endorsements of race science, announced that he would be leaving his longtime role at New York magazine. The conservative talking head Ben Shapiro also left his role as editor-in-chief at the rightwing clickbait outlet the Daily Wire.The simultaneous moves from three professional rightwing attention seekers prompted speculation that they are planning to launch a new venture together. If they do, it is sure to produce a lot of outrage bait, snappy headlines and unkind missives meant to move readers from shock to anger, and from anger to clicks. This time, let’s not fall for it. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist | 0 |
The TV WatchStepping Out of a Husband’s Shadow, and Perhaps Overshadowing HimAug. 29, 2012She may be too good.Ann Romney is so gifted at politics, she may actually make her husband look a little bad. Their personality gap — her ease, his discomfort — has been evident in most of the many joint interviews they have given television reporters.But it really stood out during her bold, boisterous testimonial to him at the Republican convention on Tuesday night. She was electric — when Mitt Romney came to her side at the end, he somehow sapped the energy from the moment.“I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a ‘storybook marriage,’ ” she said. “Well, in the storybooks I read, there were never long, long rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. And those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called M.S. or breast cancer.”Mrs. Romney has been afflicted with both.The adversity she glossed over with such poise was hers to overcome, not his; her energetic, excited performance highlighted her appeal even more than his steadfastness.She addressed the women in the audience in complicit tones. “And if you listen carefully, you’ll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men,” she said. “It’s how it is, isn’t it? It’s the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right.”Mrs. Romney, wearing a bright red silk dress, gave a tribute that was loving and generous and revealed just how much Mr. Romney owes his talented and determined spouse.Her multiple sclerosis is under control, but stress, she has said, is a trigger. Expectations for her speech were high. (Fox News predicted it would be a “campaign game-changer.”) So were the political risks of speaking while Hurricane Isaac was tearing up the Gulf Coast. Mrs. Romney was careful to begin with a word of prayer for those at risk.ImageCredit...Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesShe seemed a little hyped up and nervous, and that giddiness was disarming. (She said “sexful” instead of “successful.”) She described herself as a grandmother, but at times she sounded like a young girl trying to convince her classmates that the guy she is bringing to the prom is better than he seems. “I could tell you why I fell in love with him. He was tall, laughed a lot, was nervous — girls like that, it shows the guy’s a little intimidated — and he was nice to my parents,” she said. “But he was really glad when my parents weren’t around.”Most of all she worked hard to play down the Romney wealth and privilege. She described herself as the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner. (Earlier in the day, she distributed cookies to reporters on the press plane, Welsh cakes she made from her grandmother’s recipe.) She recalled their life as newlyweds in a basement apartment with a fold-down ironing board as a dining room table.His wealth, she insisted, was his own doing, not a hand-me-down. “And let’s be honest. If the last four years had been more successful, do we really think there would be this attack on Mitt Romney’s success?” she asked, supplying her own answer: “Of course not.”She tried to make his reticence into a virtue: “Mitt doesn’t like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not as a political talking point.”Like many a would-be first lady, Mrs. Romney was tapped to make her husband seem more approachable and personable. “I know this good and decent man for what he is,” she said, “warm and loving and patient.” As with other politicians who seem to have a happy family life, his marriage, which produced five devoted sons and 18 grandchildren, is as much a part of his campaign biography as his success at Bain Capital.But more than any other candidate in recent memory, Mr. Romney delegates his likability to his wife.He was born into a political family — his father ran for president, his mother for Senate — but Ann Romney is the natural.“The funny thing is, I don’t really get that nervous when I speak, I don’t get that nervous when I do TV interviews or anything else,” she told Diane Sawyer of ABC moments after practicing with the teleprompter. “The only time I get nervous is when I show my horse.” | 0 |
President Obama has directed the Defense Department to strengthen its non-nuclear capabilities. President Barack Obama called Wednesday for “peace with justice” as he proposed reducing U.S. nuclear arsenals by as much as one-third in a wide-ranging call for action delivered on the eastern side of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. “Our work is not yet done. For we are not only citizens of America or Germany, we are citizens of the world,” Obama said, drawing on John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech on the west side of the the city, in which he called on Berliners to look ahead to “the day of peace with justice” and to the rest of mankind. “We may not live in fear of nuclear annihilation — but as long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe.” He said the United States is now looking to do more to reduce that threat. “After a comprehensive review, I have determined that we can ensure the security of America and our allies and maintain a strong and credibility strategic deterrent while reducing our deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third,” he said. “I intend to seek negotiated cuts with Russia to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures” and to work with NATO allies for “bold reductions in Europe.” “We can forge a new international framework for peaceful nuclear power, reject the nuclear weaponization that North Korea and Iran may be seeking,” he added. Obama has directed the Defense Department to strengthen its non-nuclear capabilities, to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks, and to reduce the role of nuclear launches in contingency planning. New START calls for the United States and Russia to cut their arsenals to 1,550 nuclear warheads by 2018. Obama’s proposal, which would bring that number down to about 1,000, comes as tensions between the United States and Russia over Syria have been on stark display — most recently on Monday, as Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a cold joint statement at the G8 summit, and appeared to make little progress on the issue. In another big speech in a major European city, in Prague during the spring of 2009, Obama set an even more ambitious long-term goal: “a world without nuclear weapons.” It’s a hope he’s reiterated since, including at last year’s Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, and one in which he’s said he still believes. Obama spent much of his speech Wednesday leaning on Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech given 50 years ago next week, as he laid out a vision in which the United States and Germany “pursue peace and justice not only for our countries, but for all mankind.” While remaining “vigilant” about terror threats, “we must move beyond the mindset of perpetual war,” Obama said, echoing the philosophy he laid out last month in his speech on counterterrorism in the post-post-9/11 era. In the United States, “that means redoubling our efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo,” he said to cheers. “It means tightly controlling our use of new technology like drones, it means balancing the pursuit of security with the protection of privacy,” he added, referring to the National Security Agency surveillance programs that have drawn fierce criticism from some Americans — and Germans — in recent weeks. “And I’m confident that balance can be struck.” Obama stressed that continuing to fight for civil rights is a key part of living up to Kennedy’s legacy. “As long as walls exist in our hearts to separate us from those who don’t look like us, or think like us, or worship as we do, then we’re going to have to work harder together to bring those walls of division down,” he said. He drew some of the most enthusiastic responses from the crowd when discussing gay rights. “We are more free when all people can pursue their own happiness,” he said. “Peace with justice” also means taking “bold” action on climate change, Obama said. While touting the progress he’s made in doubling fuel efficiency standards for the coming decade, he acknowledged his critics on the issue. “We know we have to do more. And we will do more,” he said, hinting at the climate plan he’s expected to unveil in July. As interpreted by Obama, Kennedy’s vision also means “meeting our moral obligations” by fighting hunger around the world, strengthening public health programs and “empowering people to build institutions, to abandon the rot of corruption, to create ties with trade, not just aid, both with the West and among the nations that are seeking to rise and increase their capacity because when they succeed, we will be more successful as well.” Also looming — but not as direct and acknowledged an influence — was Ronald Reagan’s 1987 “tear down this wall” speech, and Obama’s own 2008 speech in Berlin, which drew a crowd of 200,000. “This is our moment, this is our time,” the then-candidate said nearly five years ago. Tickets for Wednesday’s event were intentionally limited to 6,000 — heading off the inevitable comparisons with the 2008 speech — but only about 4,500 people attended. “No wall can stand against the yearning of justice, the yearnings for freedom, the yearnings for peace that burns in the human heart,” Obama said, later adding that “while I am not the first American president to come to this gate, I’m proud to stand on its eastern side to pay tribute to the past.” The gate, which has been open since 1989, is “a symbol, the symbol of freedom” for Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her introduction of Obama. | 0 |
(CNN)The Supreme Court on Thursday said two provisions of an Arizona voting law that restrict how ballots can be cast do not violate the historic Voting Rights Act that bars regulations that result in racial discrimination. The ruling will limit the ability of minorities to challenge state laws in the future that they say are discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. The vote in the case is 6-3 breaking along conservative-liberal ideological lines. Justice Samuel Alito delivered the majority opinion.The case comes as several Republican-led states, encouraged by former President Donald Trump's unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud, are considering more restrictive laws and Democrats are fighting a frantic battle in courts to combat what President Joe Biden has called an "assault on democracy." The court upheld two provisions of the Arizona law. The first provision says in-person ballots cast at the wrong precinct on Election Day must be wholly discarded. Another provision restricts a practice known as "ballot collection," requiring that only family caregivers, mail carriers and election officials can deliver another person's completed ballot to a polling place."Neither Arizona's out-of-precinct rule nor its ballot-collection law violates §2 of the VRA," Alito wrote. "Arizona's out-of-precinct rule enforces the requirement that voters who choose to vote in person on election day must do so in their assigned precincts. Having to identify one's own polling place and then travel there to vote does not exceed the "usual burdens of voting.'"Alito said that while the Voting Rights Act provides "vital protection against discriminatory voting rules, and no one suggests that discrimination in voting has been extirpated or that the threat has been eliminated ... Section Two of the law does not deprive the States of their authority to establish non-discriminatory voting rules." And touching on arguments made by Republicans and Trump, Alito said that "one strong an entirely legitimate state interest is the prevention of fraud.""Fraud can affect the outcome of a close election, and fraudulent votes dilute the right of citizens to cast ballots that carry appropriate weight" Alito wrote, adding that fraud can "also undermine public confidence in the fairness of elections and the perceived legitimacy of the announced outcome."Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said the high court's decision on Thursday regarding voting rights and invalidating a California rule that requires charitable organizations that solicit donations to disclose a list of their contributors to the state attorney general, shows "full flavor" of the court's new conservative majority."In narrowing the Voting Rights Act and striking down California's donor disclosure rules, the Court is handing two major legal and political victories to Republicans -- decisions that likely would not have been possible as recently as three years ago. One has to assume that it is a distinct and undeniable harbinger of things to come," Vladeck said Thursday.Justice Elena Kagan, writing for her two liberal colleagues, Justice Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, accused the majority of trying to rewrite the law. "No matter what Congress wanted, the majority has other ideas," Kagan wrote, saying the court "has no right to remake Section 2" -- only Congress does. "The law that confronted one of this country's most enduring wrongs; pledged to give every American, of every race, an equal chance to participate in our democracy," Kagan said, "deserves the sweep and power Congress gave it.""That law, of all laws, should not be diminished by this Court, " she added.President Joe Biden said he is "deeply disappointed" in Thursday's ruling."In a span of just eight years, the Court has now done severe damage to two of the most important provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- a law that took years of struggle and strife to secure," Biden said in a statement. "After all we have been through to deliver the promise of this Nation to all Americans, we should be fully enforcing voting rights laws, not weakening them."History of Arizona lawsuitThe 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals had invalidated both Arizona provisions under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, stressing the state's "long history of race-based discrimination against its American Indian, Hispanic, and African American citizens" and highlighting a "pattern of discrimination against minority voters has continued to the present day." While the Democratic National Committee urged the justices to affirm the ruling, Arizona's attorney general, the state Republican Party and the former Trump Justice Department told the court to reverse a lower court, uphold the provisions and establish legal a standard that could make it more difficult to bring claims under the Voting Rights Act in the future. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, told the justices that the voting rules represent "appropriate election integrity measures that do not create any disparate impact on racial minorities, but serve us all equally well." "Arizona endorses without qualification the Voting Rights Act goal of ending racial discrimination in voting," he told the justices, and added that claims demonstrating that the law disparately impacts minovery voters can go forward. Absent such a showing, he said, "Section 2 would exceed Congress's powers to enforce the Reconstruction amendments, improperly inject race into all voting laws, and impede a state's ability to run their elections." Michael Carvin, a lawyer for the state GOP, took a harder line. He asked the justices to hold that no challenges that concern neutral "time, manner, or place" restrictions could be brought under Section 2. That could help greenlight many of the laws that are currently being passed in states like Texas and Georgia. Texas, for instance, is pushing for a ban on after-hours voting, and a mandate to limit Sunday early voting as well as requiring voters requesting absentee ballots to provide their driver's license number or Social Security number. For its part, the Biden administration filed a letter with the court agreeing that the two Arizona provisions did not violate the Voting Rights Act, but disagreed with the suggestion to limit future claims under the law. In court, Bruce Spiva, a lawyer for the DNC, reminded the justices that "voting discrimination still exists, no one doubts this." He said that minorities were twice as likely to be impacted by the out-ofprecinct law in part due to confusing placement of polling places and that the ballot collection law impacted Native Americans and Hispanic who depended upon it to cast absentee ballots. "More voting restrictions have been enacted over the last decade than at any point since the end of Jim Crow," Spiva said, adding that "the last three months have seen an even greater uptick in proposed voting restrictions, many aimed squarely at the minority groups whose participation Congress intended to protect." Thursday NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the ruling was a "frontal attack on democracy". "The Court sent the clear message that vote suppressors around the country will go unchecked as they enact voting restrictions that disproportionately impact voters of color," Johnson said.Reliance on Section 2 Eight years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 5-4 majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, effectively gutting Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision that required states with a history of discrimination to obtain the permission of the federal government or the courts -- known as "pre-clearance" -- before enacting new laws related to voting. The justices struck down the provision of the law that determined which states would be covered, leaving it to Congress to update the formula. Congress has yet to act. Since then, challengers to voting rules had turned to Section 2 of the law that bars laws that result in discrimination. That section only allows lawsuits after the restriction has gone into effect.In the years since, states once covered by those pre-clearance provisions have made far-reaching changes to their voting rules. They include Arizona, which in 2016, passed its law restricting who can return a ballot on behalf of a voter. The court's Arizona decision is considered crucial to the ongoing battles over voting rights because Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is one of the few legal tools remaining to counteract laws viewed as disenfranchising Black and other minority voters. The US Justice Department is relying on Section 2 to sue the state of Georgia over the raft of voting restrictions the GOP-controlled legislature enacted this year. Those new provisions, which include discarding most out-of-precinct votes and restricting ballot box locations, were passed with the intent "to deny or abridge the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of race or color," the DOJ alleged. Other groups suing to stop restrictive laws from taking effect in Georgia and other states also have centered their complaints, at least on part, on Section 2's anti-discrimination provisions. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger applauded the ruling Thursday and said the Justice Department should "heed this decision and dismiss their wrong, politically motivated lawsuit against Georgia."This year has brought a wave of new laws restricting access to the ballot. Republican sponsors -- spurred on by Trump's baseless fraud claims -- say the new measures are needed to prevent wrongdoing and restore confidence in a voting system that saw record numbers of Americans cast their ballots by mail and other avenues of voting that opened up during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats and voting rights advocates say the laws aim to discourage voting, particularly by minorities, college students and people with disabilities. In all, 17 states have enacted 28 new laws restricting voting as of June 21, according to the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice. Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center, decried Thursday's ruling."Today the Supreme Court made it much harder to challenge discriminatory voting laws in court. The justices stopped short of eviscerating the Voting Rights Act, but nevertheless did significant damage to this vital civil rights law and to the freedom to vote," he said.More limits could be on the way. In July, Republicans in the Texas legislature head into a special session where they are likely to revive some of the nation's most restrictive voting limits. The proposals in Texas could impose limits on absentee voting, grant new powers to partisan poll watches and take aim at new voting methods -- such as drive-through and 24-hour voting -- deployed in populous Harris County, home to Houston, last year. Democrats in Congress are working on a new version of the Voting Rights Act that tries to restore federal government's ability to pre-approve changes to voting practices in some states. Republican opposition to the legislation, however, makes that update unlikely to pass in an 50-50 Senate unless moderate Democrats agree to dismantle the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate to advance legislation. In his statement, Biden renewed calls to pass the "For the People Act" and "John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act," said the ruling "puts the burden back on Congress.""This is our life's work and the work of all of us," Biden wrote. "Democracy is on the line."This story has been updated with comments from President Biden. | 0 |
Atkinson will leave his job in 30 days, Trump told the House and Senate Intelligence committees, and he has been placed on administrative leave effective immediately, according to a congressional source.Trump did not name a permanent successor. "As is the case with regard to other positions where I, as President, have the power of appointment ... it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general," Trump wrote. "That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General."The announcement that he's firing Atkinson late on a Friday night comes as the President is dealing with a worldwide pandemic from the novel coronavirus, which has consumed his presidency since the end of the impeachment trial only two months ago. Trump has faced widespread criticism for the federal government's response to the outbreak, and has said the impeachment trial "probably did" distract him from responding to the virus' outbreak during the trial in January and early February.Atkinson's firing is the latest case of the Trump administration removing officials who took part in the President's impeachment. Trump also removed Alexander Vindman, a then-National Security Council official who had testified in the House's proceedings, along with Vindman's twin brother, both of whom were reassigned out of the NSC, and fired then-US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.Other officials, including then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and her acting successor, Bill Taylor, left the Trump administration after the impeachment proceedings.Trump also fired former FBI Director James Comey in 2017 while the FBI was investigating the President.The congressional source said that Atkinson was informed on Friday evening that Trump had fired him. The statute for the intelligence community inspector general requires that both intelligence committees be notified 30 days before the inspector general can be dismissed, so Trump could not immediately remove Atkinson -- he could only place him on leave until the 30 days pass.Top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence committees blasted the move.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in statement that Trump must "immediately cease his attacks on those who sacrifice to keep America safe, particularly during this time of national emergency."House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff of California, who led the House's impeachment investigation, said the firing was "another blatant attempt by the President to gut the independence of the Intelligence Community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing.""This retribution against a distinguished public servant for doing his job and informing Congress of an urgent and credible whistleblower complaint is a direct affront to the entire inspector general system," Schiff said in a statement. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, "In the midst of a national emergency, it is unconscionable that the President is once again attempting to undermine the integrity of the intelligence community by firing yet another an intelligence official simply for doing his job."Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the firing was "all too familiar a pattern in this administration.""When you speak truth to power, you should be a hero. But in this administration, when you speak truth to power, all too often, you get fired," Schumer told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield on Saturday. Atkinson -- a career, nonpartisan official -- came under fire from the President's allies last year for alerting lawmakers to the then-unknown whistleblower complaint, which Congress later learned was an allegation that Trump had sought dirt on his political rival former Vice President Joe Biden from Ukraine's President while withholding US security aid from Kiev.The allegation sparked a House impeachment inquiry that detailed the quid pro quo effort and led to Trump's impeachment in December on two articles. The Senate acquitted Trump on both charges in February.One of the former attorneys for the anonymous whistleblower, Andrew Bakaj, told CNN the firing of ICIG Michael Atkinson was not unexpected yet still "disheartening" and "pretty clearly retaliation" for his role in transmitting the initial complaint to Congress."I think Atkinson was quite honorable and acted with integrity. The way he handled himself underscored his independence and neutrality. Not all IG's have historically done that," said Bakaj, who no longer represents the whistleblower after they hired new legal counsel earlier this year. "In this case you have an individual who got an allegation, did an investigation and came to an independent conclusion. This is truly a loss to the IG community and also a shot across the bow for any future whistleblowers from coming forward."Bakaj said Atkinson "had the courage to do what was right" when he shared the whistleblower complaint with Congress despite clashing with his then-boss, then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, over whether it rose to the level of "urgent concern."After the whistleblower complaint was shared with Congress, Atkinson testified before the intelligence committees, explaining how he had attempted to corroborate the complaint in order to determine it was credible and should be shared with Congress. Maguire initially pushed back on that recommendation, but the White House ultimately relented and released the complaint.Bakaj told CNN that Atkinson's replacement was ultimately expected and, in some ways, serves as a "bookend" for the impeachment saga. "The door is finally closed," he said, adding that he was alerted that Trump had been planning to fire Atkinson for some time.Maguire formally resigned from US government service in February after Trump made it clear he would not be nominated for the job full time, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.Other top intelligence officials also have recently left the administration, after Trump picked US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to replace Maguire as acting director of national intelligence. Russ Travers, who was head of the National Counterterrorism Center, was fired last month by Grenell in a move that was seen as a removal of someone not perceived as loyal enough.Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Susan Collins of Maine issued statements later Saturday on Atkinson's removal."Like any political appointee, the Inspector General serves at the behest of the Executive. However, in order to be effective, the IG must be allowed to conduct his or her work independent of internal or external pressure," said Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It is my hope the next nominee for the role of ICIG will uphold the same important standards laid out by Congress when we created this role."Grassley said that "Congress has been crystal clear that written reasons must be given when IGs are removed for a lack of confidence," adding, "More details are needed from the administration.""The intelligence community inspector general is particularly essential to ensuring the nation's secrets are well protected and powerful, highly invasive surveillance authorities are not abused. Going forward the ICIG must step up its focus on investigating those abuses and preventing leaks of classified information," he said.Collins noted that Trump followed established procedure by notifying Congress 30 days prior to the removal of the inspector general along with the reasons for the removal in line with The Inspector General Reform Act. But she added that she "did not find his rationale for removing Inspector General Atkinson to be persuasive.""While I recognize that the President has the authority to appoint and remove Inspectors General, I believe Inspector General Atkinson served the Intelligence Community and the American people well, and his removal was not warranted," Collins said.Tom Monheim, a career intelligence official, will be the acting intelligence community inspector general, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.This story has been updated with additional reporting.CNN's Zachary Cohen, Alex Marquadt, Manu Raju, Phil Mattingly and Nicky Robertson contributed to this report. | 0 |
Story highlightsPresident Obama gives address on climate change at United Nations on TuesdayU.N. secretary-general is hosting world leaders at a one-day climate change summitThe Obama administration unveiled a climate change action plan in 2013President Barack Obama told a United Nations meeting on Tuesday that pollution must be contained to address climate change. Specifically, he called out China, saying that the most populous country on Earth, with the fastest increase in carbon pollution, must join the United States to lead the rest of the world in carbon reduction."We have a responsibility to lead," Obama said to applause. "That's what big nations have to do."Obama was speaking at the U.N. Climate Summit, a one-day meeting hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and open to leaders of all 193 U.N. member states.Wednesday begins the U.N. General Assembly meeting, which has marked climate change as one of its top issues as well. The event offers Obama a chance to shift the conversation away from the threat posed by ISIS, Ebola, and other national security matters and focus on an issue where he can tout accomplishments.Hours after ordering strikes on Syria, Obama said that the "urgent and growing threat of climate change" would ultimately "define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other" issue.Obtaining broad agreement to combat global climate change does not come easy, an issue the President addressed. For instance, China has been reluctant to stem the influx of energy production, as it's in more demand. And in the United States, the issue is controversial, with some claiming to believe that humans don't cause climate change. "In each of our countries, there are interests that will be resistant to action. In each country there is a suspicion that if we act and other countries don't -- that we will be at an economic disadvantage. But we have to lead," Obama said. Obama painted a tragic picture caused by a changing climate in the U.S., detailing floods in Miami, wildfires in the West, hurricanes in the north and drought followed by excessive rain in the middle of the country. Obama noted that some countries are more impacted than others by climate change, but said, "No nation is immune."Actions announcedThe President unveiled a series of actions to urge the international community to cut emissions. He also announced measures to help developing countries better prepare for climate change. While efforts are still under way to meet and exceed goals set for 2015, the President outlined a partnership plan to meet additional carbon reduction goals by 2020. "We cannot condemn our children and their children to a future that is beyond their capacity to repair -- not when we have the means, the technological innovation and the scientific imagination to begin the work of repairing it right now," he said. "I believe in the words of Dr. King that there is such a thing as being too late." Actions taken so farIn June 2013, Obama announced a plan to cut carbon pollution, including directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish new emission standards for active coal plants in the United States, and working with other countries including China and India -- two of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases -- to establish new plans for addressing pollution globally.The plan included many executive actions -- things that don't need approval from Congress, such as new standards for coal plants -- that were controversial.A year later, in June, 2014, the EPA proposed a new plan designed to cut carbon emissions by 30% by the year 2030. That plan has become a popular subject in several Senate races this year, including West Virginia and Kentucky. Still to be doneFor the environmental community, the next big frontier to tackle is methane emissions -- different from carbon emissions but, environmentalists say, just as important in the fight against climate change. "For us the big next steps include making a decision to address methane pollution from the oil and gas sector," said John Coequyt, director of the international climate campaign at the Sierra Club, one of the country's oldest environmental organizations. "That's one of the biggest unresolved pieces."PollingA demonstration in New York on Sunday featuring appearances from U.N. leader Ban and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, turned out tens of thousands of supporters, but polling indicates that many Americans do not list addressing climate change as an issue they believe should be a top priority for the President and Congress. A Pew research poll conducted earlier this year found that 29% of respondents listed "dealing with global warming" as a top policy priority -- and that number has remained virtually unchanged since Obama took office in 2009.And a Gallup poll conducted in March 2014, found that a little under a fourth of Americans -- 24% -- list climate change as a national problem that they worry about "a great deal."However, when it comes to addressing climate change, polling indicates most Americans back action. A Gallup poll from June found that 65% of those surveyed support the government tightening pollution regulations on businesses. | 0 |
Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesSept. 21, 2018WASHINGTON — The deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit.Mr. Rosenstein made these suggestions in the spring of 2017 when Mr. Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director plunged the White House into turmoil. Over the ensuing days, the president divulged classified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations emerged that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide.Mr. Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job. He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the president’s dismissal of Mr. Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Mr. Rosenstein was caught off guard when Mr. Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used.Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes in interviews over the past several months, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Mr. Rosenstein’s actions and comments.None of Mr. Rosenstein’s proposals apparently came to fruition. It is not clear how determined he was about seeing them through, though he did tell Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment.The extreme suggestions show Mr. Rosenstein’s state of mind in the disorienting days that followed Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Sitting in on Mr. Trump’s interviews with prospective F.B.I. directors and facing attacks for his own role in Mr. Comey’s firing, Mr. Rosenstein had an up-close view of the tumult. Mr. Rosenstein appeared conflicted, regretful and emotional, according to people who spoke with him at the time.Mr. Rosenstein disputed this account.“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect,” he said in a statement. “I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”A Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Mr. Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Mr. Rosenstein made it sarcastically.But according to the others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other F.B.I. officials who were interviewing to be the bureau’s director could also secretly record Mr. Trump.ImageCredit...Alex Wong/Getty ImagesMr. McCabe, who was later fired from the F.B.I., declined to comment. His memos have been turned over to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in the investigation into whether Trump associates conspired with Russia’s election interference, according to a lawyer for Mr. McCabe. “A set of those memos remained at the F.B.I. at the time of his departure in late January 2018,” the lawyer, Michael R. Bromwich, said of his client. “He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.”The revelations about Mr. Rosenstein come as Mr. Trump has unleashed another round of attacks in recent days on federal law enforcement, saying in an interview with the newspaper The Hill that he hopes his assaults on the F.B.I. turn out to be “one of my crowning achievements,” and that he only wished he had terminated Mr. Comey sooner.“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Mr. Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention. Say, ‘I don’t want that guy.’ Or at least fired him the first day on the job.”Days after ascending to the role of the nation’s No. 2 law enforcement officer, Mr. Rosenstein was thrust into a crisis.On a brisk May day, Mr. Rosenstein and his boss, Mr. Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia investigation because of his role as a prominent Trump campaign supporter, joined Mr. Trump in the Oval Office. The president informed them of his plan to oust Mr. Comey. To the surprise of White House aides who were trying to talk the president out of it, Mr. Rosenstein embraced the idea, even offering to write the memo about the Clinton email inquiry. He turned it in shortly after.A day later, Mr. Trump announced the firing, and White House aides released Mr. Rosenstein’s memo, labeling it the basis for Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Democrats sharply criticized Mr. Rosenstein, accusing him of helping to create a cover story for the president to rationalize the termination.“You wrote a memo you knew would be used to perpetuate a lie,” Senator Christopher Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote on Twitter. "You own this debacle.”The president’s reliance on his memo caught Mr. Rosenstein by surprise, and he became angry at Mr. Trump, according to people who spoke to Mr. Rosenstein at the time. He grew concerned that his reputation had suffered harm.A determined Mr. Rosenstein began telling associates that he would ultimately be “vindicated” for his role in the matter. One week after the firing, Mr. Rosenstein met with Mr. McCabe and at least four other senior Justice Department officials, in part to explain his role in the situation.During their discussion, Mr. Rosenstein expressed frustration at how Mr. Trump had conducted the search for a new F.B.I. director, saying the president was failing to take the candidate interviews seriously. A handful of politicians and law enforcement officials, including Mr. McCabe, were under consideration.To Mr. Rosenstein, the hiring process was emblematic of broader dysfunction stemming from the White House. He said both the process and the administration itself were in disarray, according to two people familiar with the discussion.Mr. Rosenstein then raised the idea of wearing a recording device, or “wire,” as he put it, to secretly tape the president when he visited the White House. One participant asked whether Mr. Rosenstein was serious, and he replied animatedly that he was.If not him, then Mr. McCabe or other F.B.I. officials interviewing with Mr. Trump for the job could perhaps wear a wire or otherwise record the president, Mr. Rosenstein offered. White House officials never checked his phone when he arrived for meetings there, Mr. Rosenstein added, implying it would be easy to secretly record Mr. Trump.Mr. Rosenstein mentioned the possibility of wearing a wire on at least one other occasion, the people said, though they did not provide details.The suggestion itself was remarkable. While informants or undercover agents regularly use concealed listening devices to surreptitiously gather evidence for federal investigators, they are typically targeting drug kingpins and Mafia bosses in criminal investigations, not a president viewed as ineffectively conducting his duties.In the end, the idea went nowhere, the officials said. But they called Mr. Rosenstein’s comments an example of how erratically he was behaving while he was taking part in the interviews for a replacement F.B.I. director, considering the appointment of a special counsel and otherwise running the day-to-day operations of the more than 100,000 people at the Justice Department.At least two meetings took place on May 16 involving both Mr. McCabe and Mr. Rosenstein, the people familiar with the events of the day said. Mr. Rosenstein brought up the 25th Amendment during the first meeting of Justice Department officials, they said. A memo about the second meeting written by one participant, Lisa Page, a lawyer who worked for Mr. McCabe at the time, did not mention the topic.Mr. Rosenstein’s suggestion about the 25th Amendment was similarly a sensitive topic. The amendment allows for the vice president and a majority of cabinet officials to declare the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesMerely conducting a straw poll, even if Mr. Kelly and Mr. Sessions were on board, would be risky if another administration official were to tell the president, who could fire everyone involved to end the effort.Mr. McCabe told other F.B.I. officials of his conversation with Mr. Rosenstein. None of the people interviewed said that they knew of him ever consulting Mr. Kelly or Mr. Sessions.The episode is the first known instance of a named senior administration official weighing the 25th Amendment. Unidentified others have been said to discuss it, including an unnamed senior administration official who wrote an Op-Ed for The New York Times. That person’s identity is unknown to journalists in the Times news department.Some of the details in Mr. McCabe’s memos suggested that Mr. Rosenstein had regrets about the firing of Mr. Comey. During a May 12 meeting with Mr. McCabe, Mr. Rosenstein was upset and emotional, Mr. McCabe wrote, and said that he wished Mr. Comey were still at the F.B.I. so he could bounce ideas off him.Mr. Rosenstein also asked F.B.I. officials on May 14, five days after Mr. Comey’s firing, about calling him for advice about a special counsel. The officials responded that such a call was a bad idea because Mr. Comey was no longer in the government. And they were surprised, believing that the idea contradicted Mr. Rosenstein’s stated reason for backing Mr. Comey’s dismissal — that he had shown bad judgment in the Clinton email inquiry.Mr. Rosenstein, 53, is a lifelong public servant. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal judge before joining the Justice Department in 1990 and was appointed United States attorney for Maryland.Mr. Rosenstein also considered appointing as special counsel James M. Cole, himself a former deputy attorney general, three of the people said. Mr. Cole would have made an even richer target for Mr. Trump’s ire than has Mr. Mueller, a lifelong Republican: Mr. Cole served four years as the No. 2 in the Justice Department during the Obama administration and worked as a private lawyer representing one of Mrs. Clinton’s longtime confidants, Sidney Blumenthal.Mr. Cole and Mr. Rosenstein have known each other for years. Mr. Cole, who declined to comment, was Mr. Rosenstein’s supervisor early in his Justice Department career when he was prosecuting public corruption cases.Mr. Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Mr. Rosenstein and have also targeted Mr. McCabe, who was fired in March for failing to be forthcoming when he was interviewed in an inspector general investigation around the time of Mr. Comey’s dismissal. The inspector general later referred the matter to federal prosecutors in Washington.The president’s allies have seized on Mr. McCabe’s lack of candor to paint a damning picture of the F.B.I. under Mr. Comey and assert that the Russia investigation is tainted.The Justice Department denied a request in late July from Mr. Trump’s congressional allies to release Mr. McCabe’s memos, citing a continuing investigation that the lawmakers believed to be Mr. Mueller’s. Mr. Rosenstein not only supervises that investigation but is also considered by the president’s lawyers as a witness for their defense because he sought the dismissal of Mr. Comey, which is being investigated as possible obstruction of justice. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Coming off an appearance on the global stage, and facing more problems on the investigative front, President Trump is preparing a State of the Union address designed to outline his vision of a safer and stronger United States, officials said.While touting the tax cuts he signed into law last year, Trump will also outline a second-year agenda that includes an infrastructure proposal, an immigration plan, and a new approach to trade with other countries, said officials who briefed reporters ahead of Trump's first State of the Union address. One added that the U.S. economy was "roaring."While most of Tuesday's prime-time speech will be devoted to domestic issues, the president is also expected to discuss some foreign policy, officials said. They said that includes his plan to have China and other countries pressure North Korea economically to persuade it to give up nuclear weapons.Officials previewed the themes of the State of the Union on the condition they not be named, saying they didn't want to get ahead of the president's remarks.Technically, this is Trump's first State of the Union address; his speech to lawmakers last year was billed an address to Congress, because first-year presidents aren't expected to have a good handle on the state of the union.The theme of this year's speech is a "a safe, strong, and proud America," officials said, and Trump is expected to discuss how the the tax cut package he signed late last year will spark the economic recovery.The president made much the same argument during his appearance this week at an economic summit in Davos, Switzerland.The State of the Union also comes amid a special counsel probe into Russian efforts to influence Trump's election in 2016, as well as questions as to whether the president tried to obstruct the investigation.As for the coming year, Trump plans to discuss a trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal designed to repair the nation's roads and bridges, and to build new ones.Trump will take the podium in the U.S. House chamber less than a week after his aides unveiled a new immigration plan, including a revival of a program to block deportation of young people brought into the country illegally by their parents.Democrats are insisting on a program for these "DREAMers" before they support extension of a temporary spending than expires Feb. 8. Opposition could lead to a second government shutdown this year.As for trade, Trump will echo his campaign call for "fair" and "reciprocal" deals, perhaps involving the re-writing of items like the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. Trump also discussed trade at Davos, a trip marred by new revelations in the Russia probe.The New York Times reported that back in June Trump ordered the dismissal of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and backed down only after White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to quit over the move.Trump denounced the report as "fake news." | 0 |
Lawmakers in both parties sharply criticized President Donald Trump on Thursday for planning to declare a national emergency to build his long-promised border wall."Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement.“It is yet another demonstration of President Trump's naked contempt for the rule of law. This is not an emergency, and the president's fear-mongering doesn't make it one," they added.Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also advised against such a move by the president."I think it's a dangerous step," Cornyn said.White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump would sign a congressional deal to avoid a shutdown Friday but will also declare a national emergency "to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border."The potential emergency declaration, which Trump could try to use to obtain existing government funds from agencies and departments to build the wall without congressional approval, set off a chorus of criticism from Democrats and Republicans."It would be a gross abuse of power — and likely illegal — for President Trump to go around Congress to fund his wall. Inventing an unnecessary national emergency would be a power grab that would likely be blocked by the courts," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said in a tweet.Democrats highlighted other pressing problems for which they said a national emergency would be appropriate and accused Trump of manufacturing a crisis at the border to uphold a campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border."Gun violence is a national emergency. Climate Change is a national emergency. Income inequality is a national emergency. Access to healthcare is a national emergency. Building a wall on the southern border is not," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., tweeted Thursday.Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., said in a statement he would "support every effort to challenge his declaration in court.""We cannot allow the president to get away with a national emergency declaration, which is a clear abuse of power and likely unconstitutional," he said.Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said he could only imagine the blowback if President Barack Obama had tried the same thing."The inability to negotiate with a coequal branch is not an emergency. A failure to secure money is just not just the same as a natural disaster or terrorism event. And I look forward to a big bipartisan vote rejecting this nonsense. Can you imagine the screaming (if) Obama did this?" he asked.A number of Republicans also said they would oppose any emergency declaration, arguing that it sets a precedent for a future Democratic administration and amounts to presidential overreach.Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., criticized the administration for the idea of issuing a national declaration, as well as Congress voting on a voluminous bill with little time for consideration."I, too, want stronger border security, including a wall in some areas. But how we do things matters. Over 1,000 pages dropped in the middle of the night and extraconstitutional executive actions are wrong, no matter which party does them," Paul said in a tweet."I’m disappointed with both the massive, bloated, secretive bill that just passed and with the president's intention to declare an emergency to build a wall," he added.Other Republican lawmakers echoed Paul's concerns, worried that such a move by Trump would embolden a future Democratic president to tackle controversial issues such as gun violence."I do not support this decision because declaring a national emergency sets a very dangerous precedent that undermines our constitutional separation of powers. By circumventing Congress and Article I of the Constitution, President Trump is opening the door for any future president to act alone without congressional approval," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wa., said in a statement."If elected president, how would Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders use this precedent for a national disaster declaration to force the Green New Deal on the American people?"Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, concluded, "Whether the president has the authority or not, it sets a dangerous precedent and places America on a path that we will regret."Dartunorro Clark covered national politics, including the Covid-19 recovery, for NBC News. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear pulled off an apparent upset Tuesday night over Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump, NBC News projects.And Democrats flipped both chambers of the Virginia state Legislature, giving the party complete control of the commonwealth for the first time in years. In Mississippi, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves is the apparent winner in the governor's race over Democratic state Attorney General Jim Hood on Tuesday night, according to an NBC News projection.Tate was endorsed by Trump, who campaign for him in Tupelo on Friday night. Tate had been favored in the red state, which has not elected a Democratic governor in 20 years.In Kentucky, Trump couldn't save the unpopular Bevin after campaigning with him on the night before the election in Lexington, where the president told supporters that a loss by the GOP governor would be portrayed as Trump's having suffered "the greatest defeat in the history of the world."With 99 percent of precincts reporting, the candidates were separated by less than 10,000 votes. Beshear was leading with 49.4 percent, or 706,865 votes, to Bevin's 48.7 percent, or 696,918 votes.Bevin declined to concede on Tuesday night, citing unspecified "irregularities" in a speech to supporters, while Beshear declared victory, telling the crowd, "My expectation is that he will honor the election that was held tonight."Under Kentucky law, candidates can request a recount but have to foot the bill for it.Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politicsTurnout appeared to be higher than expected and is estimated at 1.4 million — roughly 400,000 more than the last governor's contest in 2015, according to an NBC News analysis.The race was competitive from the start because Bevin is one of the least popular governors in the country, according to the Morning Consult poll, due in part to a history of incendiary comments and fights over public teachers and health care.He tried to nationalize the contest and tie himself to Trump to overcome that headwind, with a closing campaign ad tying Beshear to "socialists in Washington (who) want to impeach Trump.""Talk to the average person. Ask the next 100 people who come in here if they care about this impeachment process, and they will tell you almost to a person that they do because they find it to be a charade," Bevin said Tuesday at his polling place. "We don't appreciate when a handful of knuckleheads in Washington abdicate their responsibility as elected officials and try to gin up things that are not true because they can't handle the fact that Hillary Clinton didn't win."Now, though, Republicans may begin to worry about their prospects in next year's elections if the president was unable to deliver his base in a state he won by 30 percentage points in 2016."You've got to vote," Trump told the crowd at Monday's rally. "If you lose, they are going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can't let that happen to me!"Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale on Tuesday night tried to put the best spin on the outcome and suggested Bevin was a weak candidate, noting five of the six Kentucky Republicans running statewide won."The president just about dragged Gov. Matt Bevin across the finish line, helping him run stronger than expected in what turned into a very close race at the end," Parscale said.Trump later tweeted much the same himself.Beshear, the son of the last Democratic governor in the state, Steve Beshear (who served two terms, 2007 to 2015), focused on bread-and-butter issues, including defending the Obamacare Medicaid expansion enacted by his father, and on his ability to work with Trump. But he aligns with national Democrats in support of abortion rights, putting him at odds with the bulk of Kentuckians."This is not about who is in the White House," Beshear said Tuesday before the polls closed. "It's about what’s going on in your house. It’s about the fact a governor can't affect federal policy but a governor can certainly impact public education, pensions, health care and jobs — four issues that Matt Bevin has been wrong on and we're going to do a lot of right."President Donald Trump welcomes Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves to the stage at a rally in Tupelo, Miss., on Nov. 1, 2019.Andrew Harnik / APMeanwhile, in Mississippi, with 91 percent of precincts reporting, Reeves was leading 53.8 percent to Hood's 45 percent, or 391,513 votes to 327,224 votes.Hood had earned a nickname as the "last Democrat in Dixie" after winning four statewide elections as attorney general by sounding nothing like a national Democrat.Hood's ads featured him hunting, repairing machinery and talking about God, and he's vowed to continue defending the state's strict new anti-abortion law in court if elected. "I bait my own hook. Carry my own gun. And drive my own truck," he says in one recent ad.But it wasn't enough to overcome the state's heavily conservative lean, where Reeves portrayed Hood as a "liberal" and a "phony" who wanted to impeach Trump."All I know about Jim Hood is he fought very hard to elect crooked Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama," Trump said Friday at a Tupelo rally for Reeves. "He wanted Obama to win so badly and then he wanted Hillary to win, and that's not the kind of guy we need here, not Mississippi."NBC News projects, based on an analysis of past election results, that Reeves is likely to satisfy Mississippi's unusual electoral law, which requires gubernatorial candidates to exceed 50 percent and also win at least 62 of the 122 State House Districts. The final vote results, however, may take two to three more days.Reeves had nonetheless called Hood a "liberal and phony" who wants to take residents' guns, and a closing ad argued that Hood, as attorney general, sued Trump but "refused to challenge Obama, even one time."Seitz-Wald reported from Washington, and Hillyard from Kentucky. | 0 |
WASHINGTON -- A batch of new polls from two key battleground states produced some of the largest leads yet for President Barack Obama, drawing criticism from the campaign of Republican nominee Mitt Romney.In Ohio and Florida, the new surveys from The Washington Post and the polling partnership of CBS News, The New York Times and Quinnipiac University show Obama leading by margins approaching double-digits.While the margins produced by these and other surveys vary, they collectively point to a consistent underlying trend: Big gains in enthusiasm among Democratic partisans have helped boost Obama since the party conventions.In Florida, a state widely considered a must-win for Romney, results ranged from a whopping 9 point Obama lead (53 to 43 percent) on the new CBS/Times/Quinnipiac poll, to a 4 point Obama advantage on the Washington Post poll (51 to 47 percent), to a much narrower 1 point edge for Obama (48 to 47 percent) on a Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald/Mason Dixon poll.Most of the other polls have been closer to the Post and Mason-Dixon results. The HuffPost Pollster tracking model, which combines results from all public polls -- national and statewide -- to produce an estimate for each state shows Obama leading in Florida by just over five percentage points.In Ohio, the two new live interviewer surveys both give Obama wide leads. The CBS/Times/Quinnipiac poll shows him leading by 10 percentage points (53 to 43 percent), while the Washington Post poll has Obama ahead of Romney by 8 (52 to 44 percent).A third survey conducted by Gravis Marketing, a call center whose automated surveys do not sample cell phones and that consistently produces more Republican-leaning results, found a smaller lead for Obama (45 to 44 percent). The Gravis numbers were the closest margin for Romney among the recent polls. Three other Ohio polls released in the last week gave Obama leads varying between 3 and 7 percentage points.The HuffPost Pollster tracking model, which also corrects for pollster "house effects" -- consistent differences across polling firms -- currently gives Obama an advantage of just over six percentage points.On Monday, Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse joined a chorus of conservative pundits in questioning the partisan and demographic composition of recent polls in battleground states. "I don't think [the polls] reflect the composition of what 2012 is going to look like," Newhouse told the Hill.Both the CBS/Times/Quinnipiac and Washington Post polls reported the partisan composition of their samples, the percentages of likely voters who said they think of themselves as Democrats, Republicans or independents. Conservative critics have been comparing the party identification results from recent polls to the partisanship expressed by voters surveyed by exit pollsters in 2008, typically focusing on the margins separating Democrats and Republicans. In both Ohio and Florida, the Washington Post poll found the Democratic advantage to be slightly narrower than 2008, while the new CBS/Times/Quinnipiac polls show it to be slightly wider in Ohio and considerably wider in Florida.The most notable difference, however, is that all of the current polls are showing more independents among likely voters than exit polls found had voted four years ago. So in absolute terms, the percentages of both Democrats and Republicans fall short of the exit poll estimates from four years ago. That difference is not surprising. Voters typically express a slightly greater sense of partisanship moments after voting than they do weeks or months before voting.Contrary to the assertions of some commentators, the pollsters who conduct the CBS/Times/Quinnipiac and Washington Post surveys do not directly set the partisanship or the demographics of their likely voter samples. They first sample all adults in each state, weighting the demographics of the full adult sample (for characteristics such as gender, age, race and education) to match Census estimates for the full population.They then use different methods to select "likely voters" -- those who indicate they are likely to vote -- without further adjusting their characteristics. If the partisanship or demographics of the likely voters changes, it tells us something about the attitudes that will drive voter turnout.The means used to select those likely voters vary across polls, and are arguably as much art as science, but the most recent results provide an important measure of rising Democratic enthusiasm. "Nearly half of Florida Democrats now say they are more enthusiastic about voting than in the past," CBS News reports, "up from 24 percent at the start of August." National surveys like Gallup and the Pew Research Center have tracked similar trends.No measure of voting intention is perfect and, as CBS also reports, Romney retains some key advantages among other cuts of the most engaged voters. "The race is far closer," they add, "among voters who say they are paying a lot of attention to the campaign - it's a tie among that group in Ohio, and Mr. Obama's lead in Florida shrinks to four among this subset."For the moment, however, surveys continue to track rising Democratic enthusiasm, and those changes explain much of the improvement for Obama over the last month.Barack Obama's Greatest Hits | 0 |
DOJ's inspector general has finished a draft report tied to the 2016 election.The Justice Department's internal watchdog has concluded that James Comey defied authority at times during his tenure as FBI director, according to sources familiar with a draft report on the matter.One source told ABC News that the draft report explicitly used the word "insubordinate" to describe Comey's behavior. Another source agreed with that characterization but could not confirm the use of the term.In the draft report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz also rebuked former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for her handling of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's personal email server, the sources said.On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump complained of "numerous delays" in the release of Horowitz's final report, which is expected to run several hundred pages long and be released in the coming days. The sources who spoke to ABC News were willing or able to address only a portion of the draft report's complete findings."What is taking so long with the Inspector General's Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery James Comey," Trump said on Twitter. "Hope report is not being changed and made weaker!"There is no indication the president has seen – or will see – a draft of the report before its release. Horowitz, however, could revise the draft report now that current and former officials mentioned in it have offered their responses to the inspector general's conclusions, according to the sources.Almost from the start, the long-awaited report was expected to chastise Comey for his handling of the Clinton-related probe. But in apparently describing Comey's defiance of authority, the draft report was criticizing a man who prided himself on his leadership style at the FBI and has since dedicated his post-government life to promoting a new generation of effective leaders.The draft of Horowitz's wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe, according to sources. Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.Before Comey sent the letter to Congress, at least one senior Justice Department official told the FBI that publicizing the bombshell move so close to an election would violate longstanding department policy, and it would ignore federal guidelines prohibiting the disclosure of information related to an ongoing investigation, ABC News was told.In an interview in April, ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Comey: "If Attorney General Lynch had ordered you not to send the letter, would you have sent it?""No," Comey responded. "I believe in the chain of command."But in backing Trump's ultimate decision to fire Comey last year, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein slammed Comey's letter to Congress and said it "was wrong" for Comey "to usurp the Attorney General's authority" when he announced in July 2016 that the FBI would not be filing charges against Clinton or her aides."It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement," Rosenstein said in a letter to Trump recommending Comey be fired. "At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors."Horowitz's draft report cited Comey for failing to consult with Lynch and other senior Justice Department officials before making his announcement on national TV. While saying there was no "clear evidence" that Clinton "intended to violate" the law, Comey insisted the former secretary of state was "extremely careless" in her "handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.""I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say," Comey said before cameras on July 5, 2016.By then, Lynch had taken the unusual step of publicly declaring she would accept the FBI's recommendations in the case, after an impromptu meeting with former president Bill Clinton sparked questions about her impartiality.Comey has defended his decisions as director, insisting he was trying to protect the FBI from even further criticism and "didn't see that I had a choice.""The honest answer is I screwed up a couple of things, but ... I think given what I knew at the time, these were the decisions that were best calculated to preserve the values of the institutions," Comey told ABC News. "I still think it was the right thing to do."More than a year ago, as lawmakers increasingly voiced concern over how the FBI and Justice Department handled matters surrounding the 2016 election, the inspector general's office announced that it had launched an investigation into an array of allegations, including an allegation "that Department or FBI policies or procedures were not followed in connection with, or in actions leading up to or related to, the FBI Director's public announcement on July 5, 2016."A week before the announcement, while the investigation into Hillary Clinton was still underway, a political firestorm erupted in Washington after Lynch happened to run into Bill Clinton in Arizona and briefly met with him inside a plane sitting on a tarmac there. Days later, with questions swirling over whether Bill Clinton tried to improperly influence the investigation into his wife, Lynch haphazardly announced that she would not recuse herself from the matter but would "fully expect to accept" whatever recommendation the FBI made.Comey later called it a "tortured half-out, half-in approach." And after such a "strange" announcement, "I decided I have to step away from her and show the American people the FBI's work separately," Comey told ABC News.The inspector general's office seemed to similarly view Lynch's announcement as strange, with the draft report criticizing her for how she handled the impromptu tarmac meeting and its aftermath, according to sources familiar with the findings.In April, when Comey was promoting his new book "A Higher Loyalty," Lynch issued a statement saying that during the Clinton email investigation she "trusted" the "non-partisan career prosecutors" handling the case "to assess the facts and make a recommendation -- one that I ultimately accepted because I thought the evidence and law warranted it."Nevertheless, ABC News has confirmed that Horowitz's draft report went on to criticize senior FBI officials, including Comey and fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, for their response to the late discovery of a laptop containing evidence that may have related to the Clinton investigation.That discovery prompted the FBI's letter to Congress announcing the reopening of the Hillary Clinton email probe. Hundreds of thousands of emails had been found on the laptop of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, whose wife, Huma Abedin, was a top aide to the secretary of state.It took weeks for the FBI to start analyzing the laptop's contents, and Horowitz's draft report criticized senior FBI officials for how long the laptop languished inside the bureau, sources told ABC News.The Associated Press first reported that the draft report criticized senior FBI officials for their handling of the laptop.McCabe was fired from the FBI in March, after Horowitz concluded in a separate report that McCabe "lacked candor" when speaking to internal investigators about his role in a disclosure to the media. The matter has since been referred to the U.S. attorney in Washington for possible prosecution, and McCabe's legal team is now seeking a grant of immunity from lawmakers who want him to testify before a Senate panel about Horowitz's findings.Talking with ABC News about his own firing, Comey said he decided to write a book afterward because, "It occurred to me maybe I can be useful by offering a view to people, especially to young people, of what leadership should look like and how it should be centered on values."ABC News was unable to ascertain information about another key part of the inspector general's report: whether animus toward Trump may have influenced the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails or the subsequent probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.FBI senior agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page exchanged hundreds of messages in the lead-up to the election, including messages calling Trump "an idiot" and saying the Republican Party "needs to pull their head out of their" rear-ends. The messages also included critiques of Hillary Clinton."There are so many horrible things to tell, the public has the right to know. Transparency!" Trump said in his Twitter message on Tuesday.Representatives for Comey, Lynch and McCabe declined to comment for this article. A spokesman for the inspector general's office also declined to comment.Top Stories | 0 |
Credit...Ross D. Franklin/Associated PressMarch 18, 2016PHOENIX — When Donald J. Trump campaigns in Arizona, he talks up the endorsements he has received from Jan Brewer, the former governor who signed some of the nation’s toughest immigration laws, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose aggressive pursuit of illegal immigrants has prompted discrimination charges by the Justice Department.When Bernie Sanders campaigned here on Monday, he ceded the stage to a teenage girl, who spoke of her parents’ arrest in a raid by Sheriff Arpaio and the reprieve from deportation they received from the federal government.And in ads airing across the state this week — his in English, hers in Spanish — Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton deliver opposing messages: Mr. Cruz vows to undo executive actions by President Obama delaying the deportation of certain undocumented immigrants, while Mrs. Clinton promises to stop deporting parents whose children are citizens of the United States.The presidential race has moved to Arizona — a state at the center of the nation’s battle over immigration — and each side is using the issue to try to woo a deeply divided electorate ahead of Primary Day on Tuesday.ImageCredit...Sam Hodgson for The New York Times“We’re not just at the center of the immigration discussion,” Tyler Bowyer, chairman of the Republican Party of Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, said in an interview. “The border is our backyard. We live the challenges of immigration every single day.”Arizona is a state in demographic transition. Latinos are poised to become the majority, and they already account for the largest number of students in public schools. But the state is also a magnet for retirees, and older white residents play an outsize role in elections and tilt the state to the right.Republicans control every statewide office and both chambers of the Legislature. There are currently several anti-immigration measures under consideration in the Legislature, and on Thursday, people who oppose these measures staged a protest at the office of Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who has not made his position on the bills known.In many ways, Arizona’s political battles over immigration predicted the tensions and divisions that are defining the presidential election. Mr. Trump is a prime example, with his promises to build a wall at the border and make Mexico pay for it. The state’s Latino population swelled to 2.5 million last year from 440,000 in 1980, while the share of white residents has steadily declined.Sheriff Arpaio stepped up raids as conservative legislators pushed bills that imposed heavy sanctions on employers who hire undocumented immigrants and expanded the legal definition of identity theft to include anyone seeking employment without proper documentation.Then, in 2010, Ms. Brewer signed the “show me your papers” law, which gave the police broad powers to question anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. It fueled national protests and boycotts, but also helped her win a second term, creating two images of Arizona: to some, a synonym for intolerance; to others, an example of how fed-up citizens and elected officials could fight back against illegal immigration.Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Phoenix, said in an interview, “Our immigration laws have been a very effective tool to mobilize the right, and it’s once again going to reward a politician who’s going to be preying on people’s anxieties, be it Cruz or Trump.”Today, the state has fewer undocumented immigrants than it did in 2009, according to an analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center. And based on census numbers, scholars at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University projected that four in five of the state’s Latino residents will be a United States citizen by 2030.Apprehensions by the Border Patrol have been on the decline, falling by 25 percent in the last fiscal year alone, in part because Mexico’s improved economy has given fewer of its citizens reason to risk the perilous crossing.Still, profound challenges remain, fueled by geography — the border between Arizona and Mexico runs for about 370 miles — and opportunity. This month, Border Patrol agents arrested a convicted sex offender who had previously been deported as well as a man wanted for murder in Maricopa County as they tried to enter the country illegally.ImageCredit...John Moore/Getty Images“People are angry, they’re upset,” Ms. Brewer said in an interview. “The heartache and the loss and the suffering of people who have been harmed by illegal immigrants who come across our border is very real.”In 2011, the Justice Department accused Sheriff Arpaio of engaging in “unconstitutional policing” by unfairly targeting Latinos and demanding proof of citizenship. Two years later, a federal judge, G. Murray Snow of United States District Court in Phoenix, ruled that he and his deputies had systematically violated the constitutional rights of Latinos by targeting them during raids and traffic stops.But Mr. Arpaio is unrepentant. He said that of the 8,600 undocumented immigrants his office had turned over to federal immigration authorities after their arrests for felony and misdemeanor crimes in the past two years, 3,000 had returned to county jails. The reason, he said, “is not that they’re all running back across the border, is that the federal government is releasing them back onto our streets.”Mr. Cruz’s television ad here features Steve Ronnebeck of Mesa, Ariz., whose 21-year-old son, Grant, was killed last year during a robbery at a convenience store. An illegal immigrant with a criminal record who was out on bond awaiting deportation is charged with murder in the case. The ad denounces Mr. Obama’s executive actions on immigration.“I hope I get to be there the day President Cruz tears up those illegal executive actions instituted by President Obama,” Mr. Ronnebeck says in the ad.ImageCredit...Deanna Alejandra Dent for The New York TimesMrs. Clinton’s TV ad — titled “Valentía,” which in Spanish means “courage” — opens with split-screen images of Mr. Trump and Mr. Arpaio and a narrator declaring, “When it looks like everyone is against you, learn who is your best friend.”Mr. Trump’s pledge to build a wall continues to be his most popular applause line at his rallies here. By contrast, Mr. Sanders, who spent much of the week traveling the state, accused Sheriff Arpaio of using “un-American and uncivilized law enforcement tactics” against Latinos.A Merrill poll of likely voters in Arizona conducted this month showed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump tied if they were to face off in the general election, and Mr. Cruz with a six-point advantage over Mrs. Clinton. In a matchup between Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders holds a three-point edge. The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points.The only remaining candidate who has not campaigned in Arizona is John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, who nonetheless received the endorsement of the state’s leading newspaper, The Arizona Republic, on Friday.“In an election year dominated by threats and put-downs,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote of Mr. Kasich, “the most understated candidate is the most competent.” | 0 |
Facebook has failed on civil rights. On Wednesday, after two years of work, the social media giant finally released the results of its independent audit, a wide-ranging report on the state of civil rights on Facebook, from hate speech to advertising to algorithmic bias. The auditors found that the company simply hasn’t done enough to combat hate and abuse on its platform. Following up on two previous updates in December 2018 and June 2019, the audit concludes that the company’s handling of civil rights issues is “too reactive and piecemeal,” and ultimately raises doubts about whether Facebook is actually committed to addressing its myriad problems. That’s especially concerning given that the November 2020 election is just months away.
Former ACLU director Laura W. Murphy, who led the report along with civil rights attorney Megan Cacace, compared Facebook’s work to climbing Mount Everest. She noted that though the social media company had made some progress, Facebook still hadn’t invested enough resources or moved quickly enough to address its many civil rights challenges, creating “legitimate questions about Facebook’s full-throated commitment to reaching the summit.”
The audit, which was commissioned by Facebook at the urging of civil rights leaders and politicians, comes amid a growing advertiser boycott of the platform called Stop Hate for Profit, which is led by civil rights groups including the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Color of Change, none of which seem to have any plans to halt their campaign. More than 1,000 companies have now signed on, despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissing its impact. For these leaders of the boycott, who have long tried to work alongside Facebook, the findings of the audit confirm much of what they’ve previously said about the company: that it isn’t taking issues around hate speech, bias, polarization, and diversity seriously enough. “Ridding the platform of hate and misinformation against Black people only became a priority when there was a PR crisis to endure,” said Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, who hinted that Congress may have a role in protecting civil rights on the ever-embattled platform.
The report is an important one for Facebook’s reputation, but it isn’t binding. Facebook can choose to implement the recommendations in the report or to dismiss them — which is what some advocates like Robinson fear. In a blog post announcing the report’s release on Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that the company “won’t make every change they [auditors] call for,” but that it “will put more of their proposals into practice.”
Regardless of what the company ends up doing, the audit serves as a thorough examination of Facebook’s longstanding struggle to reconcile its stated values around free speech with the history of harm caused by unchecked vitriol and discrimination on its platform. With that overarching theme in mind, here are five key takeaways about Facebook and civil rights from the 89-page report. 1) Holding Trump to a different standard sets a troubling precedent
Facebook has failed to penalize Trump for violating its community guidelines, the auditors say, which stands “to gut policies” that had represented progress for civil rights on the platform. The report specifically highlights a group of Trump’s posts that made misleading claims about voting and the president’s infamous “looting … shooting” post about protesters. Echoing previous concerns from civil rights groups, the auditors say these posts clearly violate Facebook’s community guidelines and that not removing them establishes a concerning precedent for Trump and other politicians. The voting-related posts by Trump referenced in the report include false claims about mail-in ballots in California, Michigan, and Nevada. Facebook ultimately decided that these posts did not violate its guidelines, arguing in the case of Michigan and Nevada that the language in the posts was merely “challenging the legality of officials.” The auditors explain that they “vehemently expressed” their view that the posts violated policy but were “not afforded an opportunity to speak directly to decision-makers” until after the final decision was made. Facebook’s decisions, they said, constitute a “tremendous setback for all of the policies that attempt to ban voter suppression on Facebook.”
Trump’s “looting ... shooting” post represents a similar pattern of self-justified inaction. In that post, the president appeared to threaten violence against Black Lives Matter protesters, using language that echoed civil rights-era white segregationists. Though Facebook executives called the White House requesting that Trump change or delete the post, the company ultimately did nothing about it. By contrast, Twitter chose to label an identical post by President Trump on its platform for violating its rules about glorifying violence.
Facebook defended its decision by arguing that threats of state action are allowed on the platform. The auditors say that logic ignored “how such statements, especially when made by those in power and targeted toward an identifiable, minority community, condone vigilantism and legitimize violence against that community.“ They added, “Random shooting is not a legitimate state use of force.” Again, the auditors say they were not included in the decision-making process in time. Facebook’s decision about the “looting … shooting” post, which Mark Zuckerberg later defended on a call with employees, prompted criticism from company executives and a virtual employee walkout. It was one of the incidents that inspired the Stop Hate for Profit boycott. In June, Facebook announced it will label posts that violate its community guidelines but are left up because they’re deemed newsworthy (and if their public interest value eclipses the harm they cause), but that doesn’t seem to happen very often. The audit revealed that over the past year, the company only applied the newsworthy exception to politicians 15 times, and only once in the United States, and it was not immediately clear what those instances were. Meanwhile, the company still hasn’t taken any action against Trump’s past posts, and the auditors concluded that for many civil rights advocates, “the damage has already been done.” Even if Facebook has policies supporting civil rights, the auditors concluded, the refusal to enforce them against Trump has eroded trust in the company and leaves room for other politicians to follow in Trump’s footsteps. 2) Valuing free speech above all else creates problems
While Facebook’s leadership has repeatedly emphasized the company’s commitment to free expression, the auditors found that this comes at a cost. Facebook systematically chooses to prioritize the speech of politicians over clamping down on harmful and hateful rhetoric, which hurts its users overall. Several times in the report, the auditors cite Zuckerberg’s 2019 speech at Georgetown as a “turning point,” where Facebook reiterated its commitment to free expression as “a governing principle of the platform.” Facebook’s choice not to fact-check politicians — and to allow them to sometimes break Facebook’s own rules against posting harmful content because what politicians say is inherently newsworthy — represents another problem. Both steps have significantly hurt the company’s civil rights efforts, the auditors said. Allowing politicians to spread misinformation about voting, which Zuckerberg in his Georgetown speech argued was a form of free expression, particularly undermines Facebook’s commitment to its values. The auditors said they found Facebook’s prioritization of free speech over other values, like nondiscrimination and equality, “deeply troubling.” By forming exemptions for politicians’ content, they argue, a “hierarchy of speech is created that privileges certain voices over less powerful voices.”
The report, however, acknowledges that Facebook is failing to address the tension between its civil rights promises and its monolithic commitment to free expression. Instead, the company should work to develop a more comprehensive understanding of free speech that acknowledges how typical users actually experience the platform. “For a 21st century American corporation, and for Facebook, a social media company that has so much influence over our daily lives, the lack of clarity about the relationship between those two values is devastating,” lead auditor Laura W. Murphy wrote in the report’s introduction. “It will require hard balancing, but that kind of balancing of rights and interests has been part of the American dialogue since its founding and there is no reason that Facebook cannot harmonize those values, if it really wants to do so.”
3) Hate speech is still a problem for Facebook, and we don’t know how bad it really is
Facebook has long struggled with hateful and violent speech on its platform, including from white nationalists streaming talk shows on Facebook Watch and members of the “boogaloo movement” that promote anti-government ideology and has instigated violence at recent racial justice protests.
Facebook’s audit highlights that the company has a long way to go in combating hate speech, particularly around white nationalism. Facebook has made some progress: It says it’s gotten better at identifying hate speech, and it now has a team of 350 people who work exclusively on combating dangerous groups on Facebook. But the auditors say hateful content often stays on the platform for longer than it should or doesn’t get removed in the first place. This is an “especially acute” problem with content targeting African Americans, Jews, and Muslims, according to the audit. For example, the auditors asked Facebook to ban all content that promotes white nationalist or white separatist ideology, something it has so far failed to do. The company has explicitly banned phrases like “white nationalism” or “white separatism,” but that simplistic approach still allows racist content to continue to spread on the platform, the auditors said. The audit also criticized Facebook for not taking down hateful events fast enough. The report highlights how in 2019, it took Facebook more than 24 hours to remove an event intended to physically intimidate attendees at the Islamic Society of North America’s annual meeting in Houston, Texas. Facebook has acknowledged its misstep with that incident, but auditors called for the company to fundamentally revise its review process to expedite the removal of such events. Properly moderating events, the report says, is essential “to ensure that people cannot use Facebook to organize calls to arms to harm or intimidate specific groups” during the current nationwide protests. One thing complicating Facebook’s hate speech problem is the fact that there’s not enough hard data to know how bad it is or how it impacts different groups. The report says “the absence of data for analysis and study seems to undercut efforts to document and define the problem, identify its source, and explore potential mitigation.” While the audit focused on issues of hate speech, it also touched on a related and even more complex issue that has dogged Facebook for years: whether its platform politically polarizes its users and how this might be connected to the hate speech that spreads on Facebook. A recent Wall Street Journal report found that Facebook’s leadership shut down efforts to make the site less divisive by shelving internal research on whether social media increases polarization. Facebook, and Zuckerberg in particular, has denied these claims and criticized the Journal’s reporting. Zuckerberg has vehemently disputed the notion that Facebook is polarizing its users, arguing that on the whole the platform brings people together. The auditors questioned that conclusion, saying they “do not believe that Facebook is sufficiently attuned to the depth of concern on the issue of polarization and the way that the algorithms used by Facebook inadvertently fuel extreme and polarizing content.” Under public pressure after the 2016 election, Facebook adjusted its News Feed’s algorithm so that it promotes posts from friends and family over news articles. Still, the auditors believe this wasn’t sufficient action and that “Facebook should do everything in its power to prevent its tools and algorithms from driving people toward self-reinforcing echo chambers of extremism, and that the company must recognize that failure to do so can have dangerous (and life-threatening) real-world consequences.” Facebook can do this, the auditors say, not just by removing hateful content but also by redirecting users “away from (rather than toward) extremist organizations” in the types of recommendations it makes.
4) Covid-19 showed Facebook can effectively police harmful content when it wants to
The Covid-19 pandemic raised the stakes for how the company handles harmful content. Notably, in response to the pandemic, Facebook began to aggressively take down misinformation related to Covid-19, removing hundreds of thousands of false posts that Facebook identified as having the potential to cause imminent physical harm. This new approach contrasts starkly with how the company combats other types of misinformation, which Facebook has historically chosen not to act on. The report says that “Facebook has no qualms about reining in speech by the proponents of the anti-vaccination movement, or limiting misinformation about COVID-19, but when it comes to voting, Facebook has been far too reluctant to adopt strong rules to limit misinformation and voter suppression.”
Moderating pandemic-related content is also getting more complicated for the platform: As Recode’s Peter Kafka explained in late May, the discussion around Covid-19 has evolved from a public health concern into a rancorous and partisan political debate that encompasses voting rights, state reopening plans, and the politics of wearing (or not wearing) masks. The report notes the majority of the 100,000 pieces of content between March and May taken down for violating its voter inference policies were related to Covid-19. 5) The person Facebook hires to be its new civil rights executive needs real decision-making power
For years, civil rights leaders have pressured Facebook to create a role that would ensure that the company is thinking about whether its products and policies are treating people fairly. With the publication of this report, Facebook announced that it is creating a senior vice president on civil rights leadership role. But auditors say that isn’t enough. They want Facebook to create a “civil rights infrastructure.”
The audit recommends that the new vice president of civil rights should manage a team rather than work in a standalone position; they should have a mandatory say in key “decisions with civil rights implications,” such as whether or not to remove controversial posts from a politician. The auditors specifically said the new vice president of civil rights “must be ‘in the room’ (meaning in direct dialogue with decision-makers) when decisions are being made and have direct conversations with leadership.”
Fewer than 10 people weighed in on Zuckerberg’s controversial final decision not to take down Trump’s post referencing “shooting” at protests, according to a transcript of an internal Facebook all-hands meeting Recode reported on in June. Of the people Zuckerberg cited in the meeting, only one was Black, and none had roles dedicated exclusively to civil rights. In a statement to Recode, Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, said the newly announced position was “an important step” but added that “their office needs to be provided with full resources to be effective.”
“Without this, there is no reason to believe that Facebook will prioritize civil rights protections moving forward,” Robinson said. “All we can count on is Zuckerberg pontificating about free expression, while giving a free pass to politicians to lie, sow discord, and thrive off of hate and political chaos.” What’s next
For civil rights leaders who have been waiting on the results of this report for two years, the big question is what comes next. Will Facebook enact the many changes in this audit it has said it’s “considering” or “piloting”?
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, in her blog post announcing the audit’s release on Wednesday, called it the “beginning of the journey — not the end” for Facebook’s handling of hate speech and related issues. But some civil rights organizations are losing patience, and according to the audit, some are considering stopping their work with Facebook altogether. This is an alarming sign, considering how close the November election is.
“I’m not looking only for what the audit recommends, but what Facebook is going to do about it,” Jessica González, president of the civil rights organization Free Press, which has been one of the organizations leading an advertising boycott of Facebook, told Recode. Advertisers are continuing to sign on to the boycott, with around 125 new ones signing up so far this week alone, González told Recode on Wednesday. Congress is also likely to press Facebook on these issues at an upcoming congressional hearing on antitrust issues in July, during which Zuckerberg and other major tech executives are set to testify. “I know that we can’t snap our fingers and transform a social media network in a day, but [Facebook has] been way too lethargic about this,” said González. “The actions don’t meet the words.” | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Democrats in the Senate are trying this week to convince their Republican colleagues that updated voting rights legislation is necessary, but the bill they are bringing forward is unlikely to pass. The For the People Act, which passed in the House largely along party lines in March, is unlikely to pass the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster in the evenly divided Senate. In the House, one Democrat and all Republicans voted against it, and it has no Republican support in the Senate. One Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has also proposed changes. | 0 |
Story highlightsHouse Republicans, President Obama still far apart on budget priorities, GOP leaders say "He did himself some good," Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin saysObama offered "just a bunch of platitudes," Georgia congressman says Some in the Republican caucus think Obama should have reached out long agoPresident Barack Obama entered the conference room in the Capitol basement to a standing ovation, but after nearly an hour and a half of discussion with House Republicans, there was little evidence that the meeting -- part of the White House's "charm offensive" on Capitol Hill -- did much to change the partisan gulf between the president and his chief adversaries. At a news conference after the meeting, House Speaker John Boehner thanked the president for coming but also noted the challenges remaining on a host of issues, especially ones related to reducing the deficit."We know how there are some very real differences between our two parties (on issues like) jobs, balancing the budget and what do we do to get economy moving again," Boehner said. "Republicans want to balance the budget. The President doesn't. Republicans want to solve our long term debt problem. The President doesn't. We want to unlock our energy resources to put more Americans back to work. The President doesn't." The speaker added, "But having said that, today was a good start and I hope that these kinds of discussions can continue." Republicans' top priority -- tackling federal spending and reining in record deficits -- came up early in the Republican conference meeting. Oklahoma Rep. Jim Lankford asked the first question, pressing the president to explain why he wouldn't join House Republicans in their effort to balance the budget in a decade. Obama, according to several Republicans, explained that he didn't share that priority, an answer that many emphasized as they left the meeting.Georgia Rep. Paul Broun, a conservative who is running for the Senate, mentioned that exchange as he left, telling reporters, "basically his whole talk was just a bunch of platitudes and no substance to it.""He thought what was more important was that deficits fall below growth as a percentage of GDP -- certainly a laudable goal, but I think the federal government, like any business or any family, needs to work towards a balanced budget," Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, said afterward.House Majority Leader Eric Cantor gave a blunt assessment about the divide on fiscal issues, suggesting it could carry over to other issues."If the president wants to let our unwillingness to raise taxes get in the way, then we're not gonna be able to set differences aside and focus on what we agree on," Cantor told reporters at the GOP leaders' news conference. When Lankford raised fiscal issues during the meeting, he also pointed out that the president's other meeting on Wednesday was with his political arm, Organizing for Action. Word of that meeting rankled many GOP members who suggested Obama was more concerned with political goals than working across the aisle."We know the president is going to speak before Organizing for Action tonight," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, who leads the House Republicans' campaign arm, told reporters as he left the meeting. "We know he's made it clear that taking out the House is his big priority, and we know he's been on the never-ending campaign tour up to this point, so there's a trust factor." Mindful of the House GOP undercurrent that Obama is chiefly focused on scoring political points, one source inside the meeting said the president addressed those concerns directly at the end of the meeting. This source told CNN that the president told GOP members that if he were only focused on the midterms, he would not be pushing immigration reform because that's not necessarily helpful for some members of his party. He said he would not push for entitlement reform because a lot of Democrats don't agree and are nervous about tackling such a politically explosive issue.He told them that he runs the country, that he wants it to succeed and that he looks around the room and sees other people who love their country. Obama said they have a moment and should seize it, according to this source.But Walden did say the session helped build some trust, and it was a good opportunity to raise a wide spectrum of issues. He mentioned Israel as one area where both parties found some common ground.Exiting the conference, House Budget Committee Chairman and former Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) said of the president: "He did himself some good."Several members in the meeting said it helped open a dialogue but lamented that the session was only the second time the president had traveled up Pennsylvania Avenue to talk to House Republicans since he was elected."The president doesn't spend a lot of time working with members of Congress. He doesn't have to -- he's president of the United States -- but I think it's made his job a lot more difficult, and it's made our task a lot more difficult because there's very little communication," Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart said after the meeting.Cotton described the president's demeanor in the meeting as "affable" and said the various members who asked questions were "very cordial and respectful."According to multiple GOP sources, conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington screened questions in advance and called on members after the president made opening remarks.Rep. Michael Grimm of New York said the event had been peppered with occasional lighter moments such as speculation after word got around the room that the new pope was about to be announced. "Anyone who thinks this president is anything but affable and pleasant when he's speaking with group is just simply wrong. They haven't met him," said Grimm. But he added he was waiting to see if the president would follow up his outreach with some bipartisan action. Obama fielded some tense questions during the meeting. Michigan Rep. Candice Miller told reporters she was not satisfied with the president's response to her complaint that the White House had suspended public tours after forced spending cuts went into effect. Republicans have charged that the closures were politically motivated, but Obama said Wednesday the decision had been made by the Secret Service. | 0 |
The National Hurricane Center said Friday that the storm’s center had been “hugging the coast” in Florida as it continued toward Georgia and South Carolina and warned of a surge of up to nine feet that could cause dangerous flooding.Late Friday night, the hurricane center said “strong winds and storm surge” were also spreading north along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina and warned of “rising water levels” expected in both states into early Saturday morning.While Matthew is expected to continue weakening over the coming days, forecasters expect it to remain a hurricane until it pivots away from the East Coast on Sunday. On Friday afternoon, as it lashed northeast Florida, hurricane-force winds extended 60 miles from the storm’s center and tropical-storm-force winds reached as far as 185 miles.At least four deaths in the state were linked to the storm Friday, officials said. Two were medical emergencies that ambulances couldn’t reach and two were women killed by falling trees. One of these women was trying to “ride out the storm” in a camper trailer about halfway between Jacksonville and Orlando when a tree was knocked onto the camper, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said.More than 1.1 million people in Florida lacked power by Friday night, according to the office of Gov. Rick Scott.Officials there were very concerned about storm surge, which had been projected for as high as 11 feet. Scott said he was particularly worried about Jacksonville, home to more residents than any other city in the South.On Friday afternoon, video footage on social media showed water breaking through barriers surrounding Jacksonville, which is right along the coast in the northeastern corner of Florida. A cascade of water flooded along palm trees swaying in the wind and rushed toward houses not far from the water. Wind gusts approaching 70 mph were also recorded at the Jacksonville airport.At a news conference on Oct. 7, Fla. Gov. Rick Scott warned residents to be prepared for flooding and storm surge from Hurricane Matthew. (Reuters)Millions have been ordered to evacuate homes along the Southeast, and all along the coast many more stocked up on supplies and hunkered down as the storm approached. Matthew roared across the Caribbean before approaching the United States, and officials blamed it for at least 300 deaths in Haiti, a figure certain to climb once rescue workers are able to reach cutoff areas.President Obama on Friday said that much like during Sandy in 2012, the storm surge could cause significant damage.“I want to emphasize to everybody that this is still a really dangerous hurricane,” Obama said during remarks in the Oval Office after he met with the heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Homeland Security.Obama again urged residents to listen to what local officials are saying, expressing concerns about areas in northern Florida and Georgia.“Do not be a holdout here because we can always replace property, but we can’t replace lives,” he said.Across the Southeastern United States, officials pleaded all week with residents to take seriously the threat of a storm that would be the strongest hurricane to hit the country since Wilma in 2005.As Hurricane Matthew skirts around the Florida coast, devastating wind gusts are already pummeling residents up and down the state. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)More than 2.5 million people were told to evacuate in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, where schools and government offices alike were shuttered this week. Florida said airports in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Melbourne were closed, while airlines canceled nearly 1,500 flights through the state. Disney World closed down Friday, and college football games from Gainesville, Fla., to Columbia, S.C., were called off or rescheduled.Flood warnings were issued through late Friday night for northern Nassau County, in Florida not far from the Georgia line, as well as Camden and Glynn counties in southeastern Georgia, the National Weather Service said. A flash flood warning was announced for Savannah, Ga., through 5:45 a.m. Saturday.Officials in Georgia and South Carolina announced curfews in some places intended to keep people off the roads at night. One in Charleston was to take effect at midnight and last until 6 a.m., the Charleston police said Friday night.“Let’s not underestimate how dangerous this hurricane can be,” Gov. Nathan Deal (R) said at a news conference Friday. “There’s nothing certain about this other than the danger.”In preparation for the storm’s arrival, more than 170 medical facilities in South Carolina had been emptied or were in the process of being evacuated by Friday evening, although one of the largest, the Medical University Hospital in Charleston, decided against evacuating its staff or 550 patients.An estimated 355,000 people have evacuated the coastal area of South Carolina, officials said. With 69 shelters open statewide, Gov. Nikki Haley (R) again urged people to evacuate in advance of the storm’s arrival. “There is nothing safe about what is getting ready to happen,” she said.There was even extreme caution from the Waffle House, the southern institution that has famously become a yardstick for emergency responders looking to gauge the impact disasters have on communities because of how quickly it reopens restaurants.Waffle House said Friday that it has closed more than two dozen locations from Florida to South Carolina.Hurricane Matthew pummels the Southeast coastStorm surge and rainwater burst the banks of Colonial Lake and partially submerge park benches after Hurricane Matthew hit Charleston, South Carolina October 8, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake (Jonathan Drake/Reuters)Obama had declared emergencies in four states — Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and, on Friday, North Carolina — opening up federal aid and assistance. Governors also declared emergencies and activated thousands of National Guard members to help with the response.Forecasts had used dire language when describing the storm’s potential impact. The National Weather Service warned that brutal winds could leave some places “uninhabitable for weeks or months.” The National Hurricane Center called it “extremely dangerous” and spoke grimly of flooding dangers.While northern Florida saw the brunt of the storm Friday, residents of Palm Beach County to the south were taking down shutters, raking up leaves and cleaning up the effects of the storm.“We got lucky,” David Pinciss. He noted that the state’s governor had been dramatic in news conferences, but also said he was glad he evacuated.“Whatever the governor said was going to happen didn’t happen, and that’s good,” he said.At the Breakers Hotel on Palm Beach, Mark Reid, director of golf and grounds, was treating his team of 30 workers to lunch Friday.“They all left their homes this morning before they even had a chance to take their shutters down to come into work, and I’m grateful for that,” Reid said. He added that the oceanfront hotel’s grounds suffered no damage. “Just a few palm fronds to clean up,” Reid said. “We are in good shape, and we’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”Matthew continued to make its way north through the day Friday, and the National Weather Service reported a series of blistering winds across the Florida coastline.A wind gust of 68 mph was reported in Daytona Beach, while gusts topping 100 mph were recorded in northern Brevard County, east of Orlando, according to the weather service. By the afternoon, gusts of around 80 mph were registered in Flagler Beach and St. Augustine.Flash flood warnings in the Jacksonville area were announced through Friday evening, and flood warnings were also issued in parts of Volusia, Brevard and Seminole counties.In Volusia County, officials said there were initial reports of major damage that included a destroyed iconic fishing pier in Daytona Beach; structural damage to business and homes; fallen trees, flooding and widespread power outages. But the storm’s shift to the east eased some of the risks that had been feared.“I don’t think 30 miles has ever meant so much to a community, said Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen. “We are very fortunate the eye of the storm stayed 30 miles from the coast. I believe it made all the difference in how catastrophic the damage could have been.”Authorities said they would continue to enforce a curfew until 7 a.m Saturday and said they would additional deliveries of food and water to area shelters to ensure needs are met.Social video shows winds from Hurricane Matthew violently shaking power lines in a residential neighborhood of Daytona Beach, Fla. (Storyful)As the storm moved toward Daytona Beach on Friday morning, trees were whipped around and downed branches and power lines dotted the roads. Only police cars could be seen driving around. Just to the south in Ormond Beach, a neighbor’s tree landed on the roof of Lynn Kearns’s home, but she still had no plans to leave.“Our street doesn’t usually flood,” said Kearns, who has lived in this part of Florida for nearly 30 years. The pine tree dangled off the roof as Kearns spoke.Her windows were boarded up and she was watching the wind whip trees along the street, part of which was already flooded. But she said leaving would be too difficult for her mother and two dogs.At a Hampton Inn in Ormond Beach, guests ate breakfast Friday by flashlight and LED candlelight after the electricity went out earlier that morning.After a night of howling winds and whistling gusts, the power went out at 7:30 a.m., and through the morning large raindrops popped against windows as sheets of rain swept in all directions.Cochise Israel lives a half-block from the beach and would ordinarily have stayed there. He said he prefers to be in the home when the roof tears off so he can move furniture into dry areas, adding that he favors “fighting it off as opposed to going back to complete destruction.”“I’ve always rode them out,” said Israel, 38. “If anyone is in trouble, I have chainsaws and help them get out. I’ve always been the hero.”He spent much of the week helping board up homes and fill sandbags for his older neighbors who opted to ride out the storm. But he said he had little choice but to leave this time, because he had to take care of his 97-year-old great aunt, Dorothy Butler, who suffers from dementia.“It’s kind of hard to be so far away,” Israel said.As guests gathered around the hotel doors to watch the squalls, the temperature in the rooms continued to rise. One of the guests, Pat Sheil, had called Tuesday to reserve a spot at the Hampton Inn for her and her cat, because her manufactured home was squarely in the path of Matthew’s winds.“I don’t know what I’m going back to,” said Sheil, 73.Berman reported from Washington. Renae Merle and Lacey McLaughlin in Daytona Beach, Fla.; Lori Rozsa in Palm Beach, Fla.; Dustin Waters in Charleston, S.C.; and Angela Fritz, Brian Murphy and Susan Hogan in Washington contributed to this report, which was first published at 9:57 a.m. and will be updated throughout the day. Further reading: | 0 |
VideotranscripttranscriptClinton Calls Trump Threat to DemocracyHillary Clinton’s comments came as Donald J. Trump has repeatedly declined to say that he would accept the results of the presidential election.N/AHillary Clinton’s comments came as Donald J. Trump has repeatedly declined to say that he would accept the results of the presidential election.CreditCredit...Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesOct. 21, 2016CLEVELAND — Hillary Clinton entered the final phase of her campaign on Friday, working to ensure a victory that is decisive enough to earn a mandate for her presidency and a surge of voters to help Democrats win congressional races.Emerging from a nine-day absence from the trail, Mrs. Clinton seized on the momentum of her performance in the final presidential debate, choosing Ohio — a battleground state where she has struggled the most against Donald J. Trump — as her first stop on a four-day swing. With new polls showing Mrs. Clinton closing in on Mr. Trump in the state, her campaign is glimpsing the opportunity for a clean sweep of traditional swing states.Reminding voters of Mr. Trump’s refusal in Wednesday’s debate to say definitively he would accept the outcome on Election Day, Mrs. Clinton said that as secretary of state she had visited countries whose leaders jailed political opponents and invalidated elections they did not win. “We know in our country the difference between leadership and dictatorship,” she said.She also portrayed herself as a candidate who could attract independent, undecided and even Republican voters unhappy with Mr. Trump’s campaign. “I want to say something to people who may be reconsidering their support of my opponent,” she said. “I know you still may have questions for me, I respect that. I want to answer them. I want to earn your vote.”Her stop here marked the start of a rare multiday tour of swing states as the Clinton campaign revved up its efforts to decisively defeat Mr. Trump on Nov. 8, including releasing a powerful minute-long ad featuring Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq. The ad featuring Mr. Khan, who was attacked by Mr. Trump after he spoke at the Democratic convention, will run in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, as well as other crucial states.With Mrs. Clinton holding a healthy lead in most national polls, Democrats have turned their focus to trying to ensure victory by as large a margin as possible, deploying Michelle Obama in Arizona and President Obama in Florida. The larger the victory, the less Mr. Trump and his supporters can claim foul play, Mrs. Clinton’s allies said.A month ago, Ohio seemed to be aligning as a Trump stronghold, as its large bloc of white working-class voters responded to Mr. Trump’s economic populism and America-first message. But the state is now back in play, with a poll from Suffolk University in Boston showing a tied race.Mrs. Clinton’s afternoon rally at a community college in Cleveland, the heart of Democratic strength in Ohio, was aimed at increasing early voting, which began last week.While early voting has traditionally been a Democratic strength in Ohio, the data shows potential complications for Mrs. Clinton on this front. Requests for early ballots are down 22.3 percent in Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is, compared with the same period in 2012. Requests are also off 12.7 percent in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, the capital, according to data compiled by Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who studies voter turnout.A decided advantage for Mrs. Clinton here is the strength of Democrats’ grass-roots efforts. The party has leased 93 offices statewide, according to Chris Wyant, the Clinton campaign director in Ohio.Mr. Trump’s Ohio director cut ties recently with the state’s Republican chairman, Matt Borges, over Mr. Borges’s sharply worded public doubts about Mr. Trump. “They have an internal civil war on the Republican side,” Brian Fallon, Mrs. Clinton’s press secretary, told reporters here.He added that two weeks ago, Mr. Trump was slightly ahead in the state. “But Ohio is really a symbol of the progress we’ve made in the past two weeks since the first debate,” he said.ImageCredit...Damon Winter/The New York TimesOhio is not essential to Mrs. Clinton’s road to the White House. She could lose it and still romp through the Electoral College given her dominance in other swing states like Virginia, Pennsylvania and Colorado, according to polls.Mr. Trump spent the day hopscotching to rallies in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, a state where Mrs. Clinton has built a formidable lead. While he projected a subdued confidence at a rally in Fletcher, N.C., he also seemed to prepare for at least the possibility of an Election Day loss.“I don’t know what kind of shape I’m in, but I’ll be happy, and at least I will have known, win, lose or draw — and I’m almost sure, if the people come out, we’re going to win — I will be happy with myself,” he said.At his rally in Fletcher, he offered a slightly more restrained version of his typically freewheeling speech, largely hewing to his prepared remarks.VideotranscripttranscriptTrump to Accelerate Campaign ScheduleDonald J. Trump said in Fletcher, N.C., that from now on he would be packing his schedule with events and expressed determination to win the presidential election.N/ADonald J. Trump said in Fletcher, N.C., that from now on he would be packing his schedule with events and expressed determination to win the presidential election.CreditCredit...Damon Winter/The New York TimesGone were his complaints of a “rigged” and “stolen” election — they have drawn condemnation by Democrats and Republicans alike — and he did not, as he has recently, try to counter accusations from the 10 women who have come forward to accuse him of inappropriate sexual advances.The Trump campaign has said that it plans to increase Mr. Trump’s schedule in the final weeks, potentially holding as many as six rallies a day. Mr. Trump explained that he wanted to have no regrets, should he lose.“I don’t want to think back, ‘If only I did one more rally, I would have won North Carolina by 500 votes instead of losing it by 200 votes.’”Later, again seeming to acknowledge that he might not win the White House, he grumbled, “What a waste of time if we don’t pull this off.”Mr. Trump’s team increasingly views North Carolina as a state that is critical to a victory in November, along with others like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, visited the same town just last week.At a rally later on Friday in Johnstown, Pa., Mr. Trump took the stage with a renewed vigor — “I just got caught in the rain,” he bellowed, “how does my hair look?” — and he returned to his theme of a “rigged system.”Speaking to a crowd in the mill town, Mr. Trump cast himself as the champion of Pennsylvania’s working class. “The iron and steels forged in your mills formed the backbone of our nation,” he said, promising to bring prosperity back to the region. “You were the leading steel producer in the United States — did you know that?”In Cleveland, Mrs. Clinton accused Mr. Trump of buying Chinese-made steel for his high-rise buildings. “I’m going to let Donald try to explain himself to the steelworker filing for unemployment,” she said.Seemingly energized by the more raucous Pennsylvania crowd, Mr. Trump ended his rally with a call to victory. “We will win,” he said. “We will shock the world.”Then, Mr. Trump, who, on the eve of a campaign trip to Scotland, admitted he did not really understand the nuances of the “Brexit” vote, ended with an ebullient rallying cry by predicting an upset victory. His win in November, he said, would be “Brexit-plus.”But a full day of events seemed to drain some of the energy from Mr. Trump, whose mood often rises on the strength of his crowds. At his final rally of the day, in Newtown, Pa., the Republican nominee began well ahead of schedule, spoke for just 30 minutes and wrapped up his speech at 7:31 p.m. — exactly one minute after he was originally slated to take the stage. | 0 |
Jan. 31, 2013WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final approval on Thursday to legislation suspending the statutory debt ceiling until May, officially turning Congress’s attention to the next budget showdown: $1 trillion in across-the-board military and domestic spending cuts set to begin on March 1.The 64-to-34 vote ended for now a clash that had threatened the full faith and credit of the United States government. But the next budget fight is just four weeks away. House Republican leaders insist that the across-the-board cuts, known as sequestration, are coming, even as senators in both parties scramble for short- and long-term remedies.Senate Democratic leaders hope to present legislation next week at a party retreat that would mix revenues and spending cuts to replace the first three months of indiscriminate cuts while longer-term negotiations continue.Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, is assembling his own proposal to replace the across-the-board cuts with the elimination of duplicative efforts in the federal government in areas like the promotion of environmentally friendly construction, science and technology education, and work force training.Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has drafted more ambitious legislation to raise nearly $200 billion for sequester replacement by closing off a variety of offshore tax shelters, ending preferential tax treatment for many private equity and hedge fund managers, and taxing the exercise of stock options more heavily.“The fiscal situation is grave enough, the threat of sequestration is so serious in terms of its impact on our domestic priorities and on our security, that I believe that if we can get this in front of the Congress, because it will have huge public support, it will pass,” Mr. Levin said in an interview.But even the architects of such efforts are pessimistic that they have time to win passage.“I think sequester’s going to happen,” Mr. Coburn said. “I think people want it to happen.”Yet the economic recovery remains weak, and unemployment high. This week, Washington got one of the first signs of how the sequester might play out in the economy, when government figures showed that the economy had contracted in the final three months of 2012, largely a result of a 22 percent drop in military spending.Economists cautioned that they did not expect such a precipitous decline to continue in the coming quarters. Moreover, the drop came after a surge in military spending in the third quarter, as offices rushed to spend money obligated to the 2012 fiscal year.Still, the automatic cuts have the potential to derail the recovery. Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting firm in St. Louis, estimated that if the sequester came into full effect starting in March, it would knock 0.7 percentage points from economic growth in 2013, dropping it to 1.9 percent. Economists say hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost, if not more.ImageCredit...Win Mcnamee/Getty ImagesWith half of the sequester hitting military spending, the worst effects would be felt by the Pentagon and military contractors. Congress already cut half a trillion dollars from military spending in the 2011 Budget Control Act, and the sequester would cut a further half-trillion.Defense companies have been engaged in an extensive behind-the-scenes effort to sway lawmakers, and they have warned that the cuts might lead to serious job losses, while also threatening the country’s security. “We’re sounding a full-throated alarm about this,” said Marion Blakey, the president of the Aerospace Industries Association, a lobbying group. “It was never intended to take place. It is terribly bad public policy. And it would have a very negative effect on our economy.”Concerns about the sequester cast a shadow over corporate earnings season in January. Many businesses said they expected Congress to delay or reduce the cuts, but warned of a bleak outlook if they took full effect. “While we recognize that both parties are strongly opposed to allowing sequestration to happen, we remain deeply concerned that sequestration could occur as the default outcome if negotiations fail,” Marillyn A. Hewson, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, told investors in January. “Sequestration not only puts at risk our defense industrial base, it also harms military readiness.”But with just four weeks to go, the search for any replacement for the across-the-board cuts seems to be stumbling out of the gate.Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Thursday that she would try to enlist the White House to help stop her own leadership’s three-month bill. She wants any legislation to last at least a year.“I hope the White House is not colluding with the 90-day reprieve,” she said. “This is like appeals on death row.”Mr. Levin’s tax bill effectively pits the defense industry against other heavyweights, especially high-tech companies like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Facebook, all of which are singled out by the Levin bill as abusers of the tax code. Dan Stohr, a spokesman for the Aerospace Industries Association, said military contractors were not going to be drawn into that fight.With the price of failure so high, Mr. Levin and Mr. Coburn said this week that their longstanding quests to cull the tax code of egregious loopholes and cut overlapping government programs could finally succeed. Mr. Levin pointed to two cases in particular. Microsoft develops software in the United States, sells intellectual property rights to subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions offshore, then shifts the bulk of its profits from product sales to those tax havens by paying its own subsidiaries royalties. Hewlett-Packard, like many companies, pays no taxes on overseas profits until they are brought back to the United States, but it has been able to keep cash flowing home through a series of tax-free loans from its offshore subsidiaries to its California headquarters.In testimony in September to Mr. Levin’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard executives said they were following the letter of United States tax law, but also said that the law was putting their companies at a disadvantage with competitors from other countries. Mr. Levin conceded that that argument had been persuasive with colleagues for years, as he sought to tighten tax loopholes.In lieu of a deal, Republican senators are drafting legislation at least to give agencies the flexibility to make the cuts more selectively, Mr. Coburn said.“Necessity becomes the mother of invention,” he said. “We’ve got smart people in these agencies. They will do what’s most important and least expensive.” | 0 |
Judge Throws Out 2 Antitrust Cases Against FacebookThe decisions were a major blow to attempts to rein in Big Tech. The judge said one of the complaints, from the Federal Trade Commission, lacked facts and gave the agency 30 days to refile it.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York TimesPublished June 28, 2021Updated Oct. 4, 2021WASHINGTON — In a stunning setback to regulators’ efforts to break up Facebook, a federal judge on Monday threw out antitrust lawsuits brought against the company by the Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states.The judge eviscerated one of the federal government’s core arguments, that Facebook holds a monopoly over social networking, saying prosecutors had failed to provide enough facts to back up that claim. And he said the states had waited too long to bring their case, which centers on deals made in 2012 and 2014.The judge said the F.T.C. could try again within 30 days with more detail, but he suggested that the agency faced steep challenges.The rulings were a major blow to attempts to rein in Big Tech. In Congress, legislators pointed to the decisions as proof that century-old antitrust laws needed updating for the internet sector.“This really stings,” said William E. Kovacic, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. “This is a reminder to those who have wanted a dramatic, sweeping litigation campaign to take on Big Tech that there’s nothing easy about it, because the courts have a different view of the antitrust system.”Representatives for the F.T.C. and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who led the states’ case, said they were reviewing the judge’s decision and considering their legal options.Christopher Sgro, a spokesman for Facebook, said: “We are pleased that today’s decisions recognize the defects in the government complaints filed against Facebook. We compete fairly every day to earn people’s time and attention and will continue to deliver great products for the people and businesses that use our services.”The news pushed Facebook’s stock up 4.2 percent, and the company passed $1 trillion in market capitalization for the first time. It is one of only half a dozen companies to reach such a valuation.Congress, President Biden and many states have made weakening the grip of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google a high priority. Mr. Biden has installed critics of the technology giants in key regulatory roles, including Lina Khan as chair of the F.T.C., and he is expected to issue broad mandates this week for federal agencies to address corporate concentration across the economy. Ms. Khan’s first major task as chair will be to rewrite the Facebook lawsuit to address the judge’s criticisms.Courts have narrowed interpretations of antitrust laws over the years, making government cases difficult to win. Last week, the House Judiciary Committee advanced six bills that would overhaul antitrust laws, with the goal of loosening the influence that the big companies have over wide swaths of the economy.“Today’s development in the F.T.C.’s case against Facebook shows that antitrust reform is urgently needed,” said Representative Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado and a co-sponsor of the antitrust bills. “Congress needs to provide additional tools and resources to our antitrust enforcers to go after Big Tech companies engaging in anticompetitive conduct.”Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri and a critic of Big Tech, said on Twitter that the court had acknowledged Facebook’s “massive market power but essentially shrugged its shoulders.”ImageCredit...Pool photo by Mandel NganThe lawsuits by the states and the Federal Trade Commission argued that Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion two years later squashed competition in social networking. The regulators argued that Facebook should break off the two apps and that new restrictions should apply to the company on future deals. Those are some of the most severe penalties that regulators can demand.The F.T.C. was split on its decision to pursue the lawsuit. Its chairman at the time, Joseph J. Simons, a Republican appointed by President Donald J. Trump, and the two Democratic commissioners voted in favor of the suit. The two remaining Republican commissioners voted against it.The state suit was signed by attorneys general from 46 states and the District of Columbia and Guam. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and South Dakota did not join the case.Facebook asked the court to dismiss both suits in March. The company argued that it was continually challenged with competition, including from new rivals such as TikTok. It also argued that the regulators had failed to prove how the services, which are free, harmed consumers. The judge’s dismissal of both suits, so early in process, stunned regulators and Facebook executives.The judge, James E. Boasberg of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, wondered why the states had waited so long to try to unwind Facebook’s deals for Instagram and WhatsApp. Regulators had not tried to block them when they happened. He also rejected allegations that Facebook squashed rival apps by blocking their ability to easily interact with the social media platform.“Ultimately, this antitrust action is premised on public, high-profile conduct, nearly all of which occurred over six years ago,” he wrote, “before the launch of the Apple Watch or Alexa or Periscope, when Kevin Durant still played for the Oklahoma City Thunder and when Ebola was the virus dominating headlines.”Judge Boasberg, who was appointed to his current post by President Barack Obama, said the F.T.C. did not sufficiently prove that Facebook was a monopoly. He said the agency’s definition for social media was too vague, and in a reference to an interpretation of antitrust law prevalent in courts that is anchored in consumer prices, he noted that the product was free.“It is almost as if the agency expects the court to simply nod to the conventional wisdom that Facebook is a monopolist,” he wrote. “After all, no one who hears the title of the 2010 film ‘The Social Network’ wonders which company it is about.”But, he said, “‘monopoly power’ is a term of art under federal law with a precise economic meaning.”Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat of Connecticut and member of the Judiciary Committee, noted how internet companies defied conventional market definitions.“The court rejected the F.T.C.’s case because it wasn’t clear under our current antitrust laws that Facebook has a monopoly in online networking — a flabbergasting assertion given Facebook’s firm grip over consumers, their data and the social media market,” Mr. Blumenthal said.The decision was a disappointment for the growing cohort of activists who have pushed regulators to move to break up the biggest tech companies. Sarah Miller, the executive director of the antitrust think tank the American Economic Liberties Project, said she hoped the states would appeal the dismissal and that the F.T.C. would file its case again. But she said the ruling underscored the need for Congress to update the laws that police market concentration.“The courts are going to need, ideally, some congressional guidance here, given that they have some outsized role in determining the outcomes of antitrust cases,” Ms. Miller said. “Sometimes losses can be good because it can just reinforce that necessity, and we’re hoping that this will serve to do that.”Lawmakers in Congress are trying to overhaul antitrust with an eye toward the digital economy. But there is no guarantee that the two parties will be able to agree on the specifics.In Europe, courts have also provided companies a cushion against crackdown efforts by the authorities. Last year, a European Union court struck down efforts by the bloc’s antitrust regulator to force Apple to pay 13 billion euros, about $15 billion at the time, in unpaid taxes. In May, Amazon scored a victory against a similar order to repay €250 million in taxes.In Germany, an effort by antitrust regulators to crack down on Facebook’s data-collection practices has been stalled in courts. And Google has used court appeals to fight three judgments from E.U. regulators that it violated antitrust laws, which resulted in billions of dollars in fines and orders to change some business practices. Google said it has complied with the judgments while the appeals are underway.David McCabe, Adam Satariano and Mike Isaac contributed reporting. | 0 |
New York (CNN Business)The US economy in the summer recovered much of the historically enormous ground it lost in the spring, expanding at the fastest rate on record in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.Still, the recovery remains incomplete. The economic crisis that Covid-19 brought on is far from over, and the pandemic threatens to plunge the American economy into turmoil again as infection numbers continue to rise rapidly across the country.The third quarter, however, was one for the record books. Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — grew at an annualized and seasonally adjusted rate of 33.1% between July and September. This was a faster rate of expansion than economists had predicted.It was also the fastest growth rate since the government began to track quarterly GDP data in 1947. It represented a sharp, albeit partial, recovery from the prior three months, when the economy contracted at an annualized, seasonally adjusted rate of 31.4%.The government reports GDP as an annualized rate, which assumes that the growth rate from one quarter to another will continue for a full year. This practice makes it easier to compare data over time.But with the unprecedented economic woes of the pandemic, some economists suggest actual GDP growth is the better metric to tell the story of America's economy.Looking at the quarterly data alone, GDP grew 7.4% from the second to the third quarter, compared with a 9% decline between the first and second quarter.The rapid growth reflects the restarting of the economy after the spring lockdown, but America is not out of the woods yet. "This is going to be seized upon by both ends of the political spectrum as either evidence of the strength of the post-lockdown economic rebound or a cursory warning that the gains could be short-lived," said Aberdeen Standard Investments senior global economist James McCann in emailed comments.There's truth to both sides: the economy did partially rebound as lockdown restrictions eased. But the big boost is behind us and Covid-19 infections are rising again. On top of that, Congress remains at an impasse on another stimulus package.Even though the third quarter's annualized growth rate was a larger number than the decline in the second quarter, it doesn't mean the economy has fully bounced back.The drop between April and June was so severe that even though the third quarter increase was large, it's starting from a much lower base. Comparing the size of the economy in the third quarter to the pre-pandemic fourth quarter of last year hammers this home: Overall, economic activity is still $670 billion, or 3.5% below where it was at the end of 2019. As we move on from the violent swings in economic activity between March and September, "the sober realities of the economic situation will become more apparent," said Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch Ratings.He expects growth to slow sharply again: "we are still a long way from normalization and the surge in the virus cases means social distancing and all its related economic implications are here to stay."Not yet back to normalThe National Bureau of Economic Research said the pandemic recession started in February. It defines a recession as the period between the peak of economic activity and its nadir. Whether the recession is officially behind us isn't clear yet. If it is, it would have been much shorter than the average downturn.But economists worry that the economy is slowing down again in the final three months of the year. Meanwhile, Covid-19 infections are spiking again and worries about renewed lockdown restrictions that could deepen the pandemic recession. In Europe, rising infection rates have already led to tighter rules.The Back-to-Normal Index created by Moody's Analytics and CNN Business shows economic activity has barely changed in weeks.Millions of people are still unemployed and rely on government benefits to make ends meet. As of September, the US labor market was still down 10.7 million jobs compared with pre-pandemic times.Personal income fell in the third quarter, decreasing $541 billion following a $1.45 trillion increase in the second quarter, as the effect from pandemic programs, including stimulus checks waned.Supplemental unemployment benefits of $600 per week expired at the end of July and have only partially been matched by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.As the impact of those stimulus programs wanes, it could hold back the recovery. That's because the US economy relies heavily on consumer spending.Between July and September, a big increase in consumer spending, particularly on health care, food services and accommodation, as well as cars, drove the economy's bump. Overall, though, spending on services remains well below its pre-pandemic high.On the other end of the spectrum, federal, state and local government spending decreased and the country imported more foreign goods, which is subtracted from GDP.Economists expect much more modest growth — far below the 10% annualized mark — in the final quarter of the year. It will take until the end of 2021 for economic output to get back to where it was before the virus hit, said Gregory Daco, chief US economist at Oxford Economics. | 0 |
The news and images from the conflict between a stunningly militarized police force and peaceful community protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, were horrifying Wednesday night, even before reporters from the Washington Post and Huffington Post were arrested, and MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee was tear-gassed and terrorized.
Let’s be clear: Michael Brown’s killing remains the horror here, but the cops’ continued brutality, against peaceful protesters and reporters, has been appalling. Every news anchor should broadcast from Ferguson on Thursday.
Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of Huffington Post were arrested after police tried to clear out a McDonald's in which they were working. MSNBC.com’s Trymaine Lee, who has been doing crucial reporting from Ferguson (as he has from so many scenes of violence and police-community conflict this year), was choking on tear gas, and could barely speak, as he tried to narrate the chaos on MSNBC’s “Last Word” Wednesday night. Lee said cops began lobbing tear gas and flash grenades within only 15 seconds of warning the crowd.
“This looks like a textbook case of what not to do,” Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund told Lawrence O’Donnell.
On the 49th anniversary of the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, it’s important to remember that the famous Kerner Commission established to look at 1960s urban upheavals found that virtually every “riot” was triggered by police brutality – and that has continued in our own time, from the so-called Rodney King riots in 1992 through today. On MSNBC Ifill indicted the failures of police training and culture that led not only to the killing of Michael Brown, but also the overreaction to every night of protests.
But Ifill also made the important point that the militarization of the Ferguson police is something entirely new and enormously disturbing. The images Wednesday night should wake all of us up to the alarming militarization of local cops all over the country. How did a local police department get tanks and trucks and body armor that look like it all was designed for the streets of Baghdad and not a little city outside St. Louis?
I know the answer; good journalists have been reporting on this for a while. I apologize for not writing about this sooner. This is a bipartisan disaster that ought to be inspiring a renewal of bipartisan cooperation between civil libertarians of every political stripe. Yet local and national political leaders have been under-involved.
Alderman Antonio French has become a folk hero on Twitter for his on-the-ground reporting. But Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, has been mostly AWOL, and Sen. Claire McCaskill belatedly tweeted that she’s communicating with the Justice Department Wednesday night. (While her tweet seemed belated, I should note that McCaskill had been in touch with the Justice Department before that.) Missouri's other senator, Republican Roy Blunt, has said nothing. In this obvious libertarian moment, Sen. Rand Paul has been silent, reportedly fundraising in the Hamptons this week. (Update: Paul just wrote this for Time.)
President Obama lamented the killing of Brown, and Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Justice Department will investigate it, but the administration has said nothing to date about the police department brutality using federally funded weaponry.
Michael Brown's killing was awful enough, but the Ferguson police department's crude and brutal crackdown on protest reminds us that the so-called war on terror is now terrorizing innocent people -- in this country too.
Here's some amazing footage from KARG Argus Radio -- yes, radio, because television trucks were asked to leave before the tear gas canisters started flying. | 0 |
ATLANTA (AP) — Sen. Kelly Loeffler repeatedly refused to acknowledge that President Donald Trump lost reelection in November, as she debated her Democratic opponent, Rev. Raphael Warnock, ahead of twin Georgia runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate.Asked specifically about President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia and whether she agreed with Trump’s unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, Loeffler sidestepped the matter during a debate Sunday. Although Trump has lost round after round of court challenges in Georgia and other battleground states, and Georgia’s results were certified last month, Loeffler described Trump as merely pursuing “every legal recourse.”She alleged, without any supporting details, irregularities in the November elections, prompting Warnock to chide her for “casting doubt” on a legitimate election in an effort to appease Trump and his supporters. “The people have spoken on the presidential election, and they’re waiting on their senator to be focused on them, not the person in the White House,” he said. The exchange came as a top election official in the state accused Trump and his allies of spreading falsehoods and leading Republicans said they worried that unfounded attacks on the election system could depress turnout in the Jan. 5 runoffs.Loeffler and Warnock face off in a Sunday night debate. (Dec. 7)But Loeffler steered clear of any criticism of Trump, even as she tacitly acknowledged his defeat. Her victory is necessary to prevent a leftward march under complete Democratic control in Washington, she said. “Everything is at stake in this election, the future of our country,” she said, warning of a range of liberal and progressive policies that could never become law if Trump was in the Oval Office. More than a dozen times Loeffler blasted “radical liberal Raphael Warnock” and hammered the pastor as a socialist who would ensure everything from a government takeover of the U.S. healthcare system to the seizure of Americans’ guns. Warnock, who is not a socialist, countered by blasting Loeffler as a self-interested, uber-wealthy politician who “lied not only on me, but on Jesus” by highlighting and, he said, misrepresenting excerpts of his sermons. The battle between Loeffler and Warnock and a second runoff between Republican Sen. David Perdue with Democrat Jon Ossoff will determine which party controls the Senate at the outset of Biden’s presidency. Republicans need one seat for a majority. Democrats need a sweep to make Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote. The debate came a day after Trump campaigned in Georgia alongside the two senators. The president repeated his baseless claims that Biden’s victory in Georgia and nationally were due to fraud.Georgia officials are on the cusp of completing a third count of about 5 million presidential ballots in the state, with Biden already having been officially certified as the winner despite Trump’s protests. Gabriel Sterling, a top deputy to Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier Sunday that Trump and those echoing him are undermining democracy with deliberate falsehoods. “At this point, it’s a game of whack-a-mole” Sterling said. “They are stoking anger and fear among his supporters. And hell, I voted for him.”Meanwhile, Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, both Republicans, said they opposed Trump’s entreaty for a special legislative session ostensibly to select Republican electors over the Democratic slate already certified for Biden. “The mountains of misinformation are not helping the process; they are only hurting it,” Duncan said. While Loeffler dodged inquiries about Trump’s defeat, Warnock avoided saying whether he’d support expanding the Supreme Court, a priority for some progressives. He said he was more interested in coronavirus pandemic relief, but never answered explicitly whether he was opposed to adding justices. On COVID, the rivals confirmed their confidence in a vaccine and said they’d take it. But they drew contrasts on another economic aid package. Warnock highlighted Loeffler’s criticisms earlier this year of some congressional aid. Loeffler blamed Democratic leaders for Congress’ failure to pass a new round of assistance this fall.The runoffs, necessary because none of the candidates received a majority of votes in November, have put Georgia squarely in the national political spotlight. Both major parties and activist groups are plowing tens of millions of dollars into the state, along with a flood of field workers and volunteers from around the country.Vice President Mike Pence campaigned in the state last week, as former President Barack Obama headlined a virtual rally for Democrats. Biden, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992, has promised to visit before the runoff, acknowledging that the outcome will shape the legislative reach of his presidency.Before the prime time matchup, Ossoff debated an empty podium, blistering Perdue as a “coward” for skipping the debate. Ossoff suggested Perdue, whose prolific stock trading has drawn attention during the pandemic, declined to debate because he didn’t want to “incriminate himself” over his personal financial activities that the challenger summed up as “cartoonish abuse of power.”“It shows an astonishing arrogance and sense of entitlement for Georgia’s senior U.S. senator to believe he shouldn’t have to debate at a moment like this in our history,” Ossoff said.Perdue’s campaign manager responded with an email statement that said Ossoff “lost a debate against himself.” The statement did not address any details of Ossoff’s attacks on the senator. Another Perdue aide followed up with a statement emphasizing that “the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, DOJ and the SEC ... independently cleared Sen. Perdue of any and all wrongdoing.” The Associated Press and other media have reported details of key trades Perdue made after members of Congress began receiving classified briefings about COVID-19 but while Perdue and other officials were downplaying its dangers in public. Perdue’s trades also involved companies whose business activities fall under jurisdiction of some of the senator’s committees.Ossoff brushed aside a moderator’s reminder that authorities have not found any legal wrongdoing on Perdue’s part. “His blatant abuse of his power and privilege to enrich himself is disgraceful,” Ossoff said. “He can’t defend the indefensible. ... The standard for our elected officials must be higher than merely evading prosecution.” | 0 |
Credit...Brian Blanco/European Pressphoto AgencyAug. 10, 2013ORLANDO, Fla. — President Obama on Saturday assured thousands of disabled veterans meeting here that while the war in Afghanistan was ending, like the one in Iraq before it, the work of helping the wounded warriors of those conflicts “has only just begun.”Mr. Obama, addressing the annual convention of the Disabled American Veterans, said that his administration was finally shrinking a backlog of years of benefits claims — by 20 percent in the past five months. But new waves of claims were coming in, he added, including from aging Vietnam veterans able to seek help for ailments that may stem from exposure to Agent Orange, and from recent combat casualties suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries.“This time of war may be coming to an end, but the job of caring for our veterans goes on,” Mr. Obama said. “And our work caring for our newest veterans has only just begun.” The president noted that even though the last veteran of World War I died two years ago, survivor benefits still go to the children of those who fought in that war, as well as in the Spanish-American War, and even to the daughter of a Civil War veteran — just as benefits will go to the heirs of what he called “the 9/11 generation.”Mr. Obama spoke before an estimated 3,400 attendees, joined by his wife, Michelle Obama, who was received warmly, reflecting her work, along with Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., advocating for military families. From Florida, the Obamas flew to Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, for an eight-day family vacation.The president said his administration was committed to increasing spending for veterans’ physical and mental health, education and job assistance; for programs addressing homelessness among veterans; and for hiring more workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and paying overtime, to eliminate the claims backlog.In keeping such promises, Mr. Obama is helped by the fact that spending for veterans is supported by both parties in an otherwise polarized Washington, and was exempted from what Mr. Obama called the “reckless across-the-board budget cuts” known as sequestration, which has strained other military and domestic programs. Those cuts took effect in March, when Republicans in Congress rejected the president’s proposals for alternative deficit reductions, including tax increases for the wealthiest taxpayers and for some corporations.Mr. Obama took credit for the exemption, saying, “I made it clear that your veterans’ benefits are secure from this year’s sequester.”But, in an appeal to veterans to apply pressure on lawmakers ahead of the budget battles to come this fall, he added, “The best way to protect the V.A. care you have earned is to get rid of the sequester altogether.“Congress needs to come together and agree on a responsible plan that reduces our deficits and keeps our promises to our veterans, and keeps our promises to future generations,” he said, drawing some of the loudest applause he received.Mr. Obama, who last appeared at the disabled veterans’ convention in 2010, provided his audience with an update on an Army Ranger, Sgt. First Class Cory Remsburg, whom he had spoken of three years ago, after the soldier suffered a traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan. After years of surgery and therapies, he remains blind in one eye and unable to fully move his left side, but he is making progress with speech and movement, Mr. Obama said.On an overhead video projection, the president could be seen getting emotional for a moment as he recalled meeting Sergeant Remsburg privately in Phoenix on Tuesday — a meeting the White House did not divulge to reporters who were there to cover Mr. Obama’s speech on housing policy.The wounded warrior slowly stood from a chair with his parents’ help, looked at the president and saluted sharply. “Rangers lead the way,” he said.“Cory is 30 years old. His recovery, like so many of yours, will last a lifetime,” Mr. Obama said. “And when it comes to our work of making sure that our nation is fulfilling its promises to the men and women who served and sacrificed, America cannot give up either.” | 0 |
A fight over a Manhattan grand jury subpoena could yield a major decision on presidential power. Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesNov. 14, 2019WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to bar his accounting firm from turning over eight years of his tax returns to Manhattan prosecutors.The case, the first concerning Mr. Trump’s personal conduct and business dealings to reach the court, could yield a major ruling on the scope of presidential immunity from criminal investigations.Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said a federal appeals court had committed a grave legal error in allowing the accounting firm to provide the tax records. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will grant review in this significant constitutional case and reverse the dangerous and damaging decision of the appeals court,” Mr. Sekulow said in a statement.In their petition urging the Supreme Court to hear their appeal, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that he was immune from all criminal proceedings and investigations so long as he remained in office. But even if some federal investigations may be proper, the petition said, the Supreme Court should rule that state and local prosecutors may not seek information about a sitting president’s conduct.“That the Constitution would empower thousands of state and local prosecutors to embroil the president in criminal proceedings is unimaginable,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote.Much of the petition was devoted to a plea that the justices hear the case. If they turn it down, the accounting firm has indicated that it will supply the requested records.Mr. Trump’s lawyers noted that the Supreme Court heard cases concerning claims of immunity from Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton.“The court should do the same here,” the petition said. “Whether the Constitution permits an assertion of this kind of authority over the chief executive raises a momentous question of first impression about the scope of presidential immunity.”In the two earlier cases, United States v. Nixon in 1974 and Clinton v. Jones in 1997, both presidents suffered unanimous losses.Last week, a unanimous three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled against Mr. Trump. The court, in a focused ruling, said state prosecutors may require third parties to turn over a sitting president’s financial records for use in a grand jury investigation.Mr. Trump has fought vigorously to shield his financial records, and prosecutors in Manhattan have agreed not to seek the tax returns until the case is resolved by the Supreme Court. In exchange, they insisted on a very quick briefing schedule, one that would allow the court to announce whether it would hear the case as soon as next month and to issue a decision by June, as the presidential election enters its final stages.Other cases involving Mr. Trump are also in the pipeline. They involve matters as diverse as demands from House Democrats for tax and business records, a request for access to redacted portions of the report prepared by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, and challenges to Mr. Trump’s business arrangements under the Constitution’s emoluments clauses.On Wednesday, the full United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to rehear a ruling from a divided three-judge panel that Mr. Trump’s accounting firm must comply with the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s demands for eight years of his financial records. A lawyer for Mr. Trump said he would appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court, too.The legal fight in the New York case began in late August after prosecutors in the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, subpoenaed Mr. Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, for his tax returns and those of his family business dating to 2011.In Thursday’s filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers called that move unprecedented.“For the first time in our nation’s history,” they wrote, “a state or local prosecutor has launched a criminal investigation of the president of the United States and subjected him to coercive criminal process.”The petition said the subpoena was “politically motivated” and sought information that was not relevant to any legitimate criminal inquiry.“The practical threat that state criminal process poses to a president cannot be overstated,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote. “State and local prosecutors have massive incentives to target him with investigations and subpoenas to advance their careers, enhance their re-election prospects or make a political statement.”The Manhattan prosecutors are looking into hush-money payments made to two women just before the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for payments he made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Mr. Trump.Mr. Cohen was also involved in money paid to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who also said she had a relationship with Mr. Trump. The president has denied the relationships.Prosecutors say they need the documents to decide whether the payments violated state laws.Mr. Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that at least some of the requested documents had nothing to do with Mr. Vance’s investigation.“The grand jury subpoena to Mazars,” they wrote, “is not tailored to the 2016 payments and business records he claims to be investigating. It seeks reams of the President’s confidential information, reaches back to 2011, and asks for documents — like those relating to a hotel in Washington, D.C. — that have nothing to do with New York.”Mr. Vance’s office, the petition said, “just photocopied congressional subpoenas relating to federal issues that New York County has no authority to investigate, and sent it to Mazars.”A spokesman for Mr. Vance declined to comment on Thursday’s filing beyond saying that his office planned to file a brief opposing Supreme Court review next week.In September, Mr. Trump’s lawyers sued to block the subpoena, arguing that criminal investigations of presidents are barred by the Constitution. They said sitting presidents are not only protected from being indicted, a proposition that is widely but not universally accepted, but also cannot be subjected to the burdens of criminal investigations, especially from local prosecutors who may use the criminal process for political gain.When the case was argued last month before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Judge Denny Chin asked about a statement Mr. Trump had once made — that he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone without political fallout.Judge Chin asked William S. Consovoy, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, about the legal consequences of such a hypothetical crime.“Local authorities couldn’t investigate?” Judge Chin asked, adding: “Nothing could be done? That’s your position?”“That is correct,” Mr. Consovoy said. “That is correct.” In a footnote to last week’s decision, Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann, writing for the appeals court panel, said allowing a grand jury to inspect tax returns did not seem likely to impose a burden on Mr. Trump’s ability to fulfill his constitutional responsibilities.“We note that the past six presidents, dating back to President Carter, all voluntarily released their tax returns to the public,” Judge Katzmann wrote. “While we do not place dispositive weight on this fact, it reinforces our conclusion that the disclosure of personal financial information, standing alone, is unlikely to impair the president in performing the duties of his office.”Judge Katzmann noted that Mr. Trump had conceded that his immunity would last only as long as he held office.“There is no obvious reason why a state could not begin to investigate a president during his term and, with the information secured during that search, ultimately determine to prosecute him after he leaves office,” he wrote.On Thursday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote that the proper way to address any misconduct by a sitting president is through impeachment proceedings. “Allowing a single prosecutor to investigate a sitting president through the issuance of criminal process no less invades Congress’s impeachment authority than the filing of a criminal charge,” they wrote. | 0 |
FeatureIt can be deeply painful to be reminded that the traditions one loves are exclusionary to othersChristmas is (finally) upon us. After months of red-and-green evergreen decorations in every store, and an increasingly unbroken stream of Santa-centric pop songs in every public place, the annual American onslaught reaches its peak this week.Every year, those of us who don’t celebrate Christmas find ourselves having the same debates over and over again, starting well before Thanksgiving and continuing into the New Year. Well-meaning friends, neighbors, and colleagues insist to us that we should not be bothered by the giant Christmas trees in every building lobby, or the Christmas music supplanting our usual radio fare. Christmas, the argument goes, is secular; therefore, everyone should be comfortable participating in it, whether or not they identify as Christian.According to the Pew Research Center, Jews are the largest non-Christian religious group in the U.S. But we are far from alone: American Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and others are also excluded at Christmastime. And yet, Hanukkah is almost always framed as the default alternative to Christmas, and the pushback to secular Christmas tends to be dominated by Jewish voices. Of all the thinkpieces and blog posts I've read on the topic, the vast majority are by Jewish authors.As an assimilated American Jew, I'm intrigued by this. It speaks to America's love of binaries, and our need to find one common antagonist for Santa Claus. (As I said to a friend recently, "Ah yes, the two genders: Christmas and Hanukkah.") But it also says a lot about privilege in the U.S.: who's granted it under what conditions, and how people react when we feel our privilege slipping away.The very nature of privilege is that it's invisible to those who have it. When your identity and experiences are treated as the cultural and societal default, it's natural to assume that everyone else experiences the world the way you do. For those who grew up celebrating Christmas, it can be hard to conceive of decorated evergreen trees, Santa suits, "All I Want for Christmas is You" on the radio, as anything other than neutral symbols of the "magic" of the season.Though Christmas arose from Christianity, it has taken on a life of its own in America. Not every American who celebrates Christmas identifies as Christian, or practices Christian religious observance. Even in my family of origin, though we did not celebrate Christmas, we put up strands of lights outside our house in winter, and my Brooklyn-raised father would talk about how magical New York City becomes at Christmastime.So far, so secular. But much the same story can be told about Hanukkah — a minor Jewish holiday elevated to provide an American consumerist alternative to Christmas. And yet, American Hanukkah remains inextricably linked with the religious tradition from which it arose. When we see a tiny menorah next to a huge Christmas tree in an office window, or a few lonely bags of gelt in the "seasonal" aisle at the supermarket, we still think of these as Jewish first, and American second (if at all).Because America loves a binary, we tend to view privilege as an all-or-nothing state: either you have it, or you don't. Since it's easier to see other people's privilege than our own, having the primacy of one's experiences questioned can feel tantamount to a threat. And it can be deeply painful to be reminded that the traditions one loves are exclusionary to others. Easier, then, to think of Christmas as something religion-less, and therefore open to all.But what about the Jewish side of the story? Why is our identity placed in opposition to the Christmas-celebrating majority? There's privilege at work here, too — privilege that I am only just becoming aware of myself.On the spectrum of American Jewishness, I'm relatively assimilated. I don't keep kosher, or go to synagogue, or even consider myself religious. I celebrate Hanukkah and Passover, and have a nodding acquaintance at best with most other Jewish holidays. I fit the Ashkenazi Jewish phenotype, but I also have the fair skin and the life experiences associated with whiteness. (I'm not alone in this: According to a recent study, the vast majority of Jews in the U.S. identify as white.)So the Christmas season means being actively, relentlessly confronted with the gaps in my privilege. For most of the year, I can be relatively secure in the knowledge that I belong — that I'm welcomed and safe in the only country I've ever called home. But when Christmas rolls in, as thick and all-encompassing as the San Francisco fog I've known all my life, I'm suddenly — precariously — other.Christmas is an inescapable reminder that my Jewish identity confers both privilege and marginalization. I've grown up with the hereditary trauma of Jewishness, the millennia-deep awareness that our identity could, at any time, be used to displace or kill us. And, it must be said, much of that anti-Semitic oppression throughout history has come from our Christian neighbors.These are not idle fears. The current presidential administration came to power on a long-building wave of white supremacy, which treats Christianity as the national default and traffics in anti-Semitism as core to its ideology. Waves like this have broken on us before, and will again. So, for us, Christmas is neither neutral nor secular. It is firmly associated with a religious tradition that erases our existence at best, and oppresses us at worst.Unlike other religious minorities in the U.S., Jews like me have been granted enough privilege to be newly rattled every year when Christmas rolls in, and to be treated as authoritative anti-Christmas voices when we do speak up. So here we are, shouting across a religious and cultural divide, while our Christmas-celebrating peers do the same. All of us wrestling, ultimately, with what it means to be truly comfortable in our identity as Americans.Let me be clear: There is nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas, or with finding deep personal joy in the Christmas season. Celebrating Christmas does not necessarily make one complicit in oppression. But expecting others to do the same, to erase our own experiences for the sake of preserving the magic of the season, is oppressive. Though many Americans can happily compartmentalize religious Christian observance and secularized Christmas cheer, not all of us have the luxury of doing so.For many of us, Christmas is not, and never has been, truly secular. And when we argue over whether someone is right to be put off by Christmas trees in public spaces, we risk losing sight of what's really at stake.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here. | 0 |
Let’s eliminate money problems from the admissions equation for qualified students.Nov. 18, 2018Credit...Andrew Mangum for The New York TimesMichael R. BloombergMr. Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP and served as mayor of New York, 2002-2013.Here’s a simple idea I bet most Americans agree with: No qualified high school student should ever be barred entrance to a college based on his or her family’s bank account. Yet it happens all the time.When colleges review applications, all but a few consider a student’s ability to pay. As a result, high-achieving applicants from low- and middle-income families are routinely denied seats that are saved for students whose families have deeper pockets. This hurts the son of a farmer in Nebraska as much as the daughter of a working mother in Detroit.America is at its best when we reward people based on the quality of their work, not the size of their pocketbook. Denying students entry to a college based on their ability to pay undermines equal opportunity. It perpetuates intergenerational poverty. And it strikes at the heart of the American dream: the idea that every person, from every community, has the chance to rise based on merit.I was lucky: My father was a bookkeeper who never made more than $6,000 a year. But I was able to afford Johns Hopkins University through a National Defense student loan, and by holding down a job on campus. My Hopkins diploma opened up doors that otherwise would have been closed, and allowed me to live the American dream.I have always been grateful for that opportunity. I gave my first donation to Hopkins the year after I graduated: $5. It was all I could afford. Since then, I’ve given the school $1.5 billion to support research, teaching and financial aid.Hopkins has made great progress toward becoming “need-blind” — admitting students based solely on merit. I want to be sure that the school that gave me a chance will be able to permanently open that same door of opportunity for others. And so, I am donating an additional $1.8 billion to Hopkins that will be used for financial aid for qualified low- and middle-income students.This will make admissions at Hopkins forever need-blind; finances will never again factor into decisions. The school will be able to offer more generous levels of financial aid, replacing loans for many students with scholarship grants. It will ease the burden of debt for many graduates. And it will make the campus more socioeconomically diverse.But Hopkins is one school. A recent analysis by The Times found that at dozens of America’s elite colleges, more students came from the top 1 percent of the income scale than from the entire bottom 60 percent of that scale — even though many of those lower-income students have the qualifications to get in.And until recently, by some estimates, half of all high-achieving low- and middle-income students have not even been applying to top colleges — largely because they believe they can’t afford it, doubt they’ll be accepted, or aren’t even aware of their options.As a result, they often lose out — and so do colleges that would benefit from their talents and diverse perspectives. Our country loses out, too.College is a great leveler. Multiple studies have shown that students who attend selective colleges — no matter what their family’s background — have similar earnings after graduation. But too many qualified kids from low- and middle-income families are being shut out.As a country, we can tackle this challenge and open doors of opportunity to more students by taking three basic steps:First, we need to improve college advising so that more students from more diverse backgrounds apply to select colleges. Through a program called CollegePoint, my foundation has counseled nearly 50,000 low- and middle-income students about their options, and helped them navigate the financial aid process. Second, we need to persuade more colleges to increase their financial aid and accept more low- and middle-income students. Through the American Talent Initiative (which my foundation created several years ago), more than 100 state and private schools have together begun admitting and graduating more of these students.Third, we need more graduates to direct their alumni giving to financial aid. I’m increasing my personal commitment — the largest donation to a collegiate institution, I’m told. But it’s my hope that others will, too, whether the check is for $5, $50, $50,000 or more.But these steps alone are not sufficient. Federal grants have not kept pace with rising costs, and states have slashed student aid. Private donations cannot and should not make up for the lack of government support.Together, the federal and state governments should make a new commitment to improving access to college and reducing the often prohibitive burdens debt places on so many students and families.There may be no better investment that we can make in the future of the American dream — and the promise of equal opportunity for all.Michael R. Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP and served as mayor of New York, 2002-2013.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. | 0 |
Confusion reigned on Thursday over a possible debate between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.After kicking off a media frenzy by accepting an offer to debate Sanders, Trump changed his mind at least twice in the same day when pressed about whether he was serious about the prospect. Addressing reporters on Thursday in his first press conference after crossing the threshold of delegates needed to become the Republican nominee, Trump reiterated his willingness to debate Sanders for charity to the tune of at least $10m. This came after Trump’s campaign said earlier in the day that the Republican was only joking when he first expressed his openness to debating Sanders during an appearance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday.“I’d love to debate Bernie – he’s a dream,” Trump said at the press conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, on Thursday.“The problem with debating Bernie is he’s gonna lose [the Democratic race] … but I’d debate him anyway. We’ve already had a couple of calls from the networks, so we’ll see.”He added: “If I debated him, we would have such high ratings, and I think we should take that money and give it to some worthy charity.” Trump refused to take part in any further Republican debates after the Florida primary when the field winnowed down to three candidates.Sanders responded:I am delighted that @realDonaldTrump has agreed to debate. Let’s do it in the biggest stadium possible.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 26, 2016
Trump’s comments echoed his remarks to Kimmel in an interview the night before, when he told the late-night talkshow host: “If I debated him [Sanders], we would have such high ratings, and I think we should take that money and give it to some worthy charity.” Sanders, the leftwing senator from Vermont who is lagging behind Clinton in the delegate race to clinch the Democratic nomination, responded immediately in a tweet, writing: Game on. I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7 primary.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 26, 2016
Sanders’ campaign confirmed he was serious about the opportunity if Trump was, but an aide to Trump clarified on Thursday that the former reality TV star was joking and had no intention to actually debate Sanders. A debate between candidates from both parties before the conclusion of the nominating process would have been highly unusual and a potential headache for Clinton, who turned down an invitation from Fox News to debate Sanders earlier this week – citing the need to shift gears toward the looming battle with Trump in November.“We believe that Hillary Clinton’s time is best spent campaigning and meeting directly with voters across California and preparing for a general election campaign that will ensure the White House remains in Democratic hands,” Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jen Palmieri said in a statement.A debate during the remainder of the primary season would indeed serve as more beneficial to Sanders, offering him another public platform to make his case in what has been a grueling contest against Clinton. The senator has often referred to poll numbers on the stump that show him faring better than Clinton in a hypothetical match-up against Trump, although Clinton has countered that she has spent more than two decades in the public eye whereas Sanders has yet to be vetted at the national level.Trump, although evidently unwilling to debate the senator, has made overtures toward Sanders’ supporters by echoing their complaints that the establishment is working in Clinton’s favor.“The system is rigged against him,” Trump told Kimmel, referring to Sanders. “I think it’s very unfair.”Sanders and Clinton last faced off on the debate stage on 9 March in Miami. Since then, Clinton has marched significantly closer to sealing the nomination but has still lost a series of contests to Sanders along the way.Sanders has routinely charged that the DNC, which remains officially neutral in the primary, is aiding Clinton by limiting debates and scheduling them on weekends when there would be less of an audience. The senator’s disdain for party leaders escalated last week, when Sanders said he would not reappoint Debbie Wasserman Schultz as chair of the DNC if elected president and endorsed her primary opponent as she seeks re-election to Congress in south Florida.Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and founder of the center-left thinktank New Democrat Network, wrote in a column this week that the California debate should proceed as initially planned between Clinton and Sanders.“For the DNC to walk away from the debate now, given that Sanders has signaled his desire to proceed, will only confirm the worst suspicions of Sanders partisans,” Rosenberg wrote. DemocratsRepublicans | 0 |
President Trump, shown here at the White House on Tuesday, has blocked critics on Twitter.(Alex Brandon / Associated Press) A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that President Trump violated the 1st Amendment by blocking some critics from access to his Twitter feed. The decision by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals might seem like poetic justice visited on a president who can dish it out but can’t take it. But as a matter of constitutional law, the ruling isn’t persuasive.In 2017, a group of Twitter users who had been blocked from seeing and responding directly to Trump’s tweets filed suit in federal court in New York. One plaintiff was blocked after she responded to a Trump tweet in which he said that he wouldn’t have been elected if he had relied on the “fake news” media. She replied: “To be fair, you didn’t win the WH: Russia won it for you.”At the time, the Los Angeles Times editorial board — while criticizing Trump for his thin skin — expressed skepticism that his Twitter account was a “designated public forum” that must be open to all viewpoints. We noted that @realDonaldTrump was a long-standing personal account (it predates Trump’s presidency) even though Trump used it to make policy pronouncements.A federal district judge disagreed, and her ruling was affirmed by the 2nd Circuit. Writing for a three-judge panel, Judge Barrington D. Parker said that “once the president has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with.”The idea that Trump’s motive in tweeting is to provide a forum for a robust exchange of ideas is the legal fiction to end all legal fictions. And even if @realDonaldTrump is classified as an official presidential platform, the Supreme Court has held that “government speech” doesn’t create a public forum. Otherwise Trump’s critics would be entitled to equal time at his news conferences.Parker acknowledged but rejected the argument that Trump’s tweets are “government speech.” Yet elsewhere in his opinion he cited a statement by former White House press secretary Sean Spicer that Trump’s tweets should be considered “official statements by the president of the United States.” That seems like a contradiction.Again, to question the legal theory adopted by the court isn’t to defend Trump’s practice of blocking his critics. As we observed in our 2017 editorial: “Whatever the courts say about the constitutional issue, Trump is acting childishly by excluding citizens who dare merely to disagree with him from @realDonaldTrump — a forum that he considers an important channel of communication.” But not every act of presidential pettiness is a violation of the 1st Amendment.Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute »Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook A cure for the common opinion Get thought-provoking perspectives with our weekly newsletter. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Michael McGough is the Los Angeles Times’ former senior editorial writer, based in Washington, D.C. He wrote editorials for The Times from 2006 to 2021. Before that, McGough worked for 30 years for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a reporter, editorial writer, editorial page editor and Washington correspondent. He wrote about law, national security, politics, foreign policy and religion. McGough is a graduate of Allegheny College and also attended the University of Kent at Canterbury in England and Yale Law School, where he received a master of studies in law degree. More From the Los Angeles Times | 0 |
President Barack Obama gave a statement Thursday after the White House announced U.S. drone strikes had killed innocent American and Italian hostages in Pakistan, saying he takes full responsibility for the operation."I profoundly regret what happened," Obama said, apologizing to the families of the deceased.A statement from the White House identified the hostages as Dr. Warren Weinstein, an American held by al Qaeda since 2011, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian national who had been an al Qaeda hostage since 2012. According to the White House, the operation in which the two were killed targeted an al Qaeda-associated compound, "where we had no reason to believe either hostage was present, located in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan."This image made from video released anonymously to reporters in Pakistan, including the Associated Press on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows Warren Weinstein, a 72-year-old American development worker who was kidnapped in Pakistan by al-Qaida more than two years ago, appealing to President Obama to negotiate his release.Obama noted he had spoken with both Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the wife of Weinstein about the deaths."As a husband and as a father, I cannot begin to imagine the anguish that the Weinstein and Lo Porto families are feeling today," Obama said."I know there's nothing I can ever say or do to ease their heartache," he added.Two other Americans who were working with al Qaeda were also recently killed in the same region, according to the White House. Ahmed Farouq, an American who was an al Qaeda leader, was killed in the same operation that took the lives of Weinstein and Lo Porto, while American Adam Gadahn, a member of al Qaeda, was killed in a separate operation in January. The White House said the two were not specifically targeted and counterterrorism officials "did not have information indicating their presence at the sites of these operations."The Wall Street Journal reports this is the first known instance in which the U.S. has accidentally killed hostages in a drone strike."No words can fully express our regret over this terrible tragedy," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement.Obama defended U.S. counterterrorism operations in his remarks Thursday, saying the strikes occurred after "hundreds of hours of surveillance" had been conducted. He noted "it is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally, and in our fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes...can occur."After Obama gave his remarks, Weinstein's wife released a statement on behalf of the family condemning the "cowardly actions of those who took Warren captive" and expressing disappointment in the U.S. government.“I want to thank Congressman John Delaney, Senator Barbara Mikulski, and Senator Ben Cardin – as well as specific officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation – for their relentless efforts to free my husband.” Elaine Weinstein said. “Unfortunately, the assistance we received from other elements of the U.S. Government was inconsistent and disappointing over the course of three and a half years. We hope that my husband’s death and the others who have faced similar tragedies in recent months will finally prompt the U.S. Government to take its responsibilities seriously and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families.”This story has been updated with a statement from Elaine Weinstein.Most Iconic Photos Of Obama's First Term | 0 |
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, beginning to venture out on the campaign trail, went to Pittsburgh on Monday to deliver a searing rebuke to President Trump. “This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country. He can’t stop the violence — because for years he has fomented it,” Biden declared. “You know, he may believe mouthing the words ‘law and order’ makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is.”The former vice president began with an explicit, extensive and emphatic condemnation of all violence, something Trump has not done. His tone was pugnacious as he ticked off the calamities — covid-19, unemployment, racial unrest — and made clear these horrors are in “Donald Trump’s America.” He asked after listing each calamity whether we would really would feel safe under Trump. He also blasted Trump for inciting violence and using “LAW & ORDER!” to distract from the pandemic disaster. “He failed to protect America so he is trying to scare America.”Anticipating Trump’s planned visit to Wisconsin, Biden called the president out for not deploring violence from white militia and from police using unreasonable force. Given the White House news conference in which press secretary Kayleigh McEnany refused to condemn the killing of two protesters in Wisconsin allegedly by a White teenager, the shooting of Jacob Blake or far-right militias traveling to other cities, Trump is obviously seeking to pander to white supremacists. Each time the White House speaks — or doesn’t — Trump seems to reaffirm his intent is to encourage violent Whites and to provoke a violent response.Trump has been posing as a helpless observer of the death and destruction. Biden asked: “Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected? We need justice in America. And we need safety in America. We are facing multiple crises — crises that, under Donald Trump, keep multiplying.” The thing that ties them all together, he argued, is an “incumbent president who makes things worse, not better . . . [and] who sows chaos rather than providing order.”At a time when Trump is trying to ignore the casualty count from covid-19 and incite white supremacists, Biden wants to remind people who is supposed to be in charge. He presents Trump with a dilemma: The president can either insist everything is great in an ongoing effort to gaslight the public, or he can argue — again — that he alone can fix it.Americans are not going to forget that more than 180,000 are dead, that kids cannot go to school and that — as Trump keeps reminding them — racial division is deepening. Arguing that he is better equipped to fix what he broke is a more difficult argument. The right’s accusations that Biden is a socialist, or that he will be hypnotized by socialists, falls flat. Biden wisecracked, “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?”Biden condemned Trump’s obnoxious reference to “Democrat Cities,” declaring they are all American cities. He also pilloried Trump for playing “such a subservient role” to Vladimir Putin in refusing to address bounties the Russian government placed on U.S. troops. “It’s not only dangerous. It’s humiliating and embarrassing for the rest of the world to see,” he said. “It weakens us.”Follow Jennifer Rubin‘s opinionsFollowTrump has tried to characterize the Obama-Biden years as a disaster but, in fact, the economy was stronger under President Barack Obama than the pre-pandemic economy under Trump. We did not have Americans dying at the rate of 1,000 a day, nor did we have to shelter in place; indeed, many of us critical of some Obama policies look back fondly on the relative calm and prosperity we were enjoying as Obama left office.Biden is going to do everything to make this a referendum on Trump — the Trump pandemic, the Trump recession, the Trump violence. If that is the aim, he got off to a solid start in Pittsburgh.Watch Opinions videos:Historian Carol Anderson traces the evolution of voter suppression tactics — from poll taxes to poll closures — and argues they are all rooted in White rage. (The Washington Post)Read more: | 0 |
President Barack Obama called the Islamic State's execution of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, an American hostage also known as Peter, "pure evil" on Sunday.Obama released the statement after the White House confirmed that an ISIS video showing Kassig's murder was authentic. Below is Obama's full statement:Today we offer our prayers and condolences to the parents and family of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known to us as Peter. We cannot begin to imagine their anguish at this painful time.Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity. Like Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff before him, his life and deeds stand in stark contrast to everything that ISIL represents. While ISIL revels in the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction, Abdul-Rahman was a humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed by the Syrian conflict. While ISIL exploits the tragedy in Syria to advance their own selfish aims, Abdul-Rahman was so moved by the anguish and suffering of Syrian civilians that he traveled to Lebanon to work in a hospital treating refugees. Later, he established an aid group, SERA, to provide assistance to Syrian refugees and displaced persons in Lebanon and Syria. These were the selfless acts of an individual who cared deeply about the plight of the Syrian people. ISIL's actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own. Today we grieve together, yet we also recall that the indomitable spirit of goodness and perseverance that burned so brightly in Abdul-Rahman Kassig, and which binds humanity together, ultimately is the light that will prevail over the darkness of ISIL.Fighting in Iraq | 0 |
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, reportedly believes that war is coming soon. (Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency) The headlines this month have been alarming. “Steve Bannon’s obsession with a dark theory of history should be worrisome” (Business Insider). “Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable” (the Huffington Post). “Steve Bannon Wants To Start World War III” (the Nation). A common thread in these media reports is that President Trump’s chief strategist is an avid reader and that the book that most inspires his worldview is “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy.” I wrote that book with William Strauss back in 1997. It is true that Bannon is enthralled by it. In 2010, he released a documentary, “Generation Zero,” that is structured around our theory that history in America (and by extension, most other modern societies) unfolds in a recurring cycle of four-generation-long eras. While this cycle does include a time of civic and political crisis — a Fourth Turning, in our parlance — the reporting on the book has been absurdly apocalyptic. I don’t know Bannon well. I have worked with him on several film projects, including “Generation Zero,” over the years. I’ve been impressed by his cultural savvy. His politics, while unusual, never struck me as offensive. I was surprised when he took over the leadership of Breitbart and promoted the views espoused on that site. Like many people, I first learned about the alt-right (a far-right movement with links to Breitbart and a loosely defined white-nationalist agenda) from the mainstream media. Strauss, who died in 2007, and I never told Bannon what to say or think. But we did perhaps provide him with an insight — that populism, nationalism and state-run authoritarianism would soon be on the rise, not just in America but around the world. Because we never attempted to write a political manifesto, we were surprised by the book’s popularity among certain crusaders on both the left and the right. When “The Fourth Turning” came out, our biggest partisan fans were Democrats, who saw in our description of an emerging “Millennial generation” (a term we coined) the sort of community-minded optimists who would pull America toward progressive ideals. Yet we’ve also had conservative fans, who were drawn to another lesson: that the new era would probably see the successful joining of left-wing economics with right-wing social values. Beyond ideology, I think there’s another reason for the rising interest in our book. We reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic (too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of nearly all traditional societies: that social time is a recurring cycle in which events become meaningful only to the extent that they are what philosopher Mircea Eliade calls “reenactments.” In cyclical space, once you strip away the extraneous accidents and technology, you are left with only a limited number of social moods, which tend to recur in a fixed order. Along this cycle, we can identify four “turnings” that each last about 20 years — the length of a generation. Think of these as recurring seasons, starting with spring and ending with winter. In every turning, a new generation is born and each older generation ages into its next phase of life. The cycle begins with the First Turning, a “High” which comes after a crisis era. In a High, institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, even if many feel stifled by the prevailing conformity. Many Americans alive today can recall the post-World War II American High (historian William O’Neill’s term), coinciding with the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy presidencies. Earlier examples are the post-Civil War Victorian High of industrial growth and stable families, and the post-Constitution High of Democratic Republicanism and Era of Good Feelings. The Second Turning is an “Awakening,” when institutions are attacked in the name of higher principles and deeper values. Just when society is hitting its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of all the social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity. Salvation by faith, not works, is the youth rallying cry. One such era was the Consciousness Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Some historians call this America’s Fourth or Fifth Great Awakening, depending on whether they start the count in the 17th century with John Winthrop or the 18th century with Jonathan Edwards. The Third Turning is an “Unraveling,” in many ways the opposite of the High. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. Third Turning decades such as the 1990s, the 1920s and the 1850s are notorious for their cynicism, bad manners and weak civic authority. Government typically shrinks, and speculative manias, when they occur, are delirious. Finally, the Fourth Turning is a “Crisis” period. This is when our institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up, always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. If history does not produce such an urgent threat, Fourth Turning leaders will invariably find one — and may even fabricate one — to mobilize collective action. Civic authority revives, and people and groups begin to pitch in as participants in a larger community. As these Promethean bursts of civic effort reach their resolution, Fourth Turnings refresh and redefine our national identity. The years 1945, 1865 and 1794 all capped eras constituting new “founding moments” in American history. Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture and religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics, economy and empire). In our paradigm, one can look ahead and suggest that a coming time period — say, a certain decade — will resemble, in its essential human dynamic, a time period in the past. In “The Fourth Turning,” we predicted that, starting around 2005, America would probably experience a “Great Devaluation” in financial markets, a catalyst that would mark America’s entry into an era whose first decade would likely parallel the 1930s. Reflecting on the decade we’ve just lived through, we can probably agree that the 1930s parallel works well. In the economy, both decades played out in the shadow of a global financial crash, and were characterized by slow and disappointing economic growth and chronic underemployment of labor and capital. Both saw tepid investment, deflation fears, growing inequality and the inability of central bankers to rekindle consumption. In geopolitics, we’ve witnessed the rise of isolationism, nationalism and right-wing populism across the globe. Geostrategist Ian Bremmer says we now live in a “G-Zero” world, where it’s every nation for itself. This story echoes the 1930s, which witnessed the waning authority of great-power alliances and a new willingness by authoritarian regimes to act with terrifying impunity. In social trends, the two decades also show parallels: falling rates of fertility and homeownership, the rise of multi-generational households, the spread of localism and community identification, a dramatic decline in youth violence (a fact that apparently has eluded the president), and a blanding of pop youth culture. Above all, we sense a growing desire among voters around the world for leaders to assert greater authority and deliver deeds rather than process, results rather than abstractions. We live in an increasingly volatile and primal era, in which history is speeding up and liberal democracy is weakening. As Vladimir Lenin wrote, “In some decades, nothing happens; in some weeks, decades happen.” Get ready for the creative destruction of public institutions, something every society periodically requires to clear out what is obsolete, ossified and dysfunctional — and to tilt the playing field of wealth and power away from the old and back to the young. Forests need periodic fires; rivers need periodic floods. Societies, too. That’s the price we must pay for a new golden age. If we look at the broader rhythms of history, we have reason to be heartened, not discouraged, by these trends. Anglo-American history over the past several centuries has experienced civic crises in a fairly regular cycle, about every 80 or 90 years, or roughly the length of a long human life. This pattern reveals itself in the intervals separating the colonial Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II. Fast-forward the length of a long human life from the 1930s, and we end up where we are today. America entered a new Fourth Turning in 2008. It is likely to last until around 2030. Our paradigm suggests that current trends will deepen as we move toward the halfway point. Further adverse events, possibly another financial crisis or a major armed conflict, will galvanize public opinion and mobilize leaders to take more decisive action. Rising regionalism and nationalism around the world could lead to the fragmentation of major political entities (perhaps the European Union) and the outbreak of hostilities (perhaps in the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, the Baltic states or the Persian Gulf). Despite a new tilt toward isolationism, the United States could find itself at war. I certainly do not hope for war. I simply make a sobering observation: Every total war in U.S. history has occurred during a Fourth Turning, and no Fourth Turning has yet unfolded without one. America’s objectives in such a war are likely to be defined very broadly. At the end of the 2020s, the Fourth Turning crisis era will climax and draw to a close. Settlements will be negotiated, treaties will be signed, new borders will be drawn, and perhaps (as in the late 1940s) a new durable world order will be created. Perhaps as well, by the early 2030s, we will enter a new First Turning: Young families will rejoice, fertility will rebound, economic equality will rise, a new middle class will emerge, public investment will grow into a new 21st-century infrastructure, and ordered prosperity will recommence. During the next First Turning, potentially the next “American High,” millennials will move into national leadership and showcase their optimism, smarts, credentials and confidence. Sometime in the late 2030s, the first millennial will be voted into the White House, prompting talk of a new Camelot moment. Let a few more years pass, and those organization-minded millennials may face a passionate and utterly unexpected onslaught from a new crop of youth. Welcome to the next Awakening. The cycle of history keeps turning, inexorably. Neil Howe is the author, along with William Strauss, of “Generations,” “The Fourth Turning” and “Millennials Rising.” | 0 |
VideotranscripttranscriptThird Democratic Debate HighlightsHillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley had heated exchanges on issues such as foreign policy on Saturday in Manchester, N.H., during the third Democratic presidential debate.N/AHillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley had heated exchanges on issues such as foreign policy on Saturday in Manchester, N.H., during the third Democratic presidential debate.CreditCredit...Richard Perry/The New York TimesDec. 19, 2015Hillary Clinton largely looked past her Democratic rivals in Saturday night’s debate, instead repeatedly assailing the Republican field, led by Donald J. Trump. She called Mr. Trump a threat to the nation’s safety, saying he was fast “becoming ISIS’ best recruiter.”Deflecting persistent attacks from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland over gun control, Wall Street and foreign military entanglements, she accused Mr. Trump of undermining the fight against terrorism.Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state, sought to frame next year’s election as a choice between her cleareyed approach to national security and the recklessness of Republicans who have demonized Muslims since the recent attacks on Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.“I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here in the United States, and literally around the world, that there is a clash of civilizations,” she said, “that there is some kind of Western plot or even war against Islam, which then, I believe, fans the flames of radicalization.”Mrs. Clinton defended herself forcefully when she came under assault from Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Malley.But from her opening statement on, she took every opportunity — and even created some — to ignore her adversaries onstage and go after what she suggested was the true opposition.Her above-the-fray posture in the debate, held at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, N.H., signaled Mrs. Clinton’s confidence, just weeks before the first votes in Iowa, that neither of her Democratic rivals would prove a significant obstacle on her march to the nomination.“Bringing Donald Trump back into it,” she said at one point, “you don’t want to alienate the very countries and people you need to be part of the coalition” — referring to the Muslim nations that would be sought as military allies in fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Malley both did their best to anger Mrs. Clinton. Mr. O’Malley claimed that she changed her views on guns “every election year,” and Mr. Sanders reminded viewers of her 2002 vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq.“Our differences are fairly deep on this issue; we disagreed on the war in Iraq,” Mr. Sanders said, accusing Mrs. Clinton of being overly hawkish in embroiling the United States in overseas conflicts. “Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be.”Mrs. Clinton criticized Mr. Sanders for his previous opposition to bills backed by supporters of gun control, but was at her fiercest after he challenged her on national security.“With all due respect, senator, you voted for regime change with respect to Libya,” she said, before mentioning the former Libyan dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. “You joined the Senate in voting to get rid of Qaddafi, and you asked that there be a Security Council validation of that with a resolution.”Both her rivals argued that the United States needed to fight the Islamic State, but not necessarily to depose President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.“It is not Assad who is attacking the United States,” Mr. Sanders said.Mr. O’Malley agreed. “We shouldn’t be the ones declaring Assad must go,” he said. “We have a role to play, but it is not the role of traveling the world looking for new monsters to destroy.”Mrs. Clinton all but accused her rivals of naïveté. “I think it’s fair to say Assad has killed, by last count, about 250,000 Syrians,” she said, adding that she had wanted to arm the moderate Syrian opposition years ago to avoid the creation of a dangerous power vacuum. “I wish it could be either-or,” she said.Mr. O’Malley, who has been lagging badly behind both of his rivals, proved an irritant to Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton. He faulted them both for being insufficiently courageous on gun control and made a point of noting his relative youth next to Mr. Sanders, 74, and Mrs. Clinton, 68.“May I offer a different generation’s perspective on this?” Mr. O’Malley, 52, interjected at one point.Later, in an exchange about assault weapons, he said, “ISIL training videos are telling lone wolves the easiest way to buy a combat assault weapon in America is at a gun show, and it’s because of the flip-flopping political approach of Washington that both of my two colleagues on the stage have represented there for the last 40 years.”Mrs. Clinton has spent much of this year repositioning herself to appeal to her party’s progressive base, but she bypassed the best chance she had Saturday to embrace the sort of populism that is Mr. Sanders’s calling card.When she was asked, “Should corporate America love Hillary Clinton?” — a reference to a magazine article during her 2008 presidential campaign — she spread her arms.“Everybody should,” she said, grinning. “I have said I want to be the president for the struggling, the striving and the successful.” She spoke at length about wanting to strengthen the economy and offered praise for responsible employers, noting that her father had been a small-business man.Mr. Sanders, finally stepping in after Mrs. Clinton was finished, was blunt about his views but only glancingly criticized her ties to corporate interests.ImageCredit...Richard Perry/The New York Times“They ain’t going to like me,” Mr. Sanders said of the business community. “And Wall Street is going to like me even less.”Mr. O’Malley did criticize Mrs. Clinton for her Wall Street connections, recalling that at the Democratic debate last month in Iowa, she defended her fund-raising from the financial industry by suggesting those donors supported her efforts to rebuild Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.Mrs. Clinton said again on Saturday that donations from Wall Street made up a small percentage of her contributions, then turned the question around by noting that Mr. O’Malley had gladly raised money from Wall Street as head of the Democratic Governors Association.There were a few such tense moments, but the disputes were tamer than those that have become routine on the Republican debate stage, and were entirely on policy grounds.Mrs. Clinton criticized Mr. Sanders for proposing expensive government programs without providing details of how to fund them. She estimated that his proposals to make health care and college free would require a 40 percent increase in federal spending, or $18 trillion to $20 trillion. “I think we’ve got to be really thoughtful about how we’re going to afford what we propose,” she said. “Which is why everything I propose, I explain exactly how I’m going to pay for it.”Mr. Sanders said his plans would help middle- and working-class families and likened them to Social Security and the New Deal. Pressed repeatedly on how he would pay for them, Mr. Sanders cracked a wry smile and said, “Now, this is getting to be fun.”Mr. Sanders said his plans would require an increase in taxes but would ultimately save working Americans money. He said a three-month family leave for working families would amount to only $1.61 a week in higher taxes. Mr. O’Malley also would not rule out potentially raising taxes.Mrs. Clinton, casting an eye toward tax-averse general election voters, made a firm pledge not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.At another point, Mr. Sanders attacked Mrs. Clinton’s ties to Wall Street. But he also pointed to the policies of the presidential administration of her husband, Bill Clinton, including the dismantling of part of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, leading to the commingling of commercial and investment banks. “I led the effort,” Mr. Sanders said, “against Alan Greenspan, against a guy named Bill Clinton — maybe you know him, maybe you don’t.”But Mrs. Clinton scarcely wanted to engage her rivals, except when sharply attacked, and the three Democrats found much to agree on. Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton both, for example, proposed building a coalition of Muslim countries to help fight the Islamic State.“Tell Yemen, go to war against ISIS,” Mr. Sanders said. “I would tell Qatar, instead of paying $200 billion on the World Cup, spend it on fighting ISIS, which is at your doorstep.”There were even moments when undiluted comity broke out.Asked whether it was time for the role of the presidential spouse to be redefined, Mrs. Clinton said that her husband would not, as first gentleman, pick out the china or flowers for state dinners, but would offer advice on policy issues, particularly “how we’re going to get the economy working for everybody, which he knows a little bit about.”Mr. Sanders used the question to heap praise on Mrs. Clinton, saying she “not only did an outstanding job as our first lady but redefined what that role could be.”At the outset, Mr. Sanders was asked about the revelation that at least one of his aides had gained access to and copied information about Mrs. Clinton’s supporters from the Democratic Party’s voter database. But neither he nor Mrs. Clinton showed any appetite to relitigate it.Asked by the ABC News moderators whether Mrs. Clinton, who looked on icily as Mr. Sanders explained the data breach, deserved an apology, Mr. Sanders said, “Yes, I apologize.”“I very much appreciate that comment, Bernie,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It really is important that we go forward on this.”Mr. Sanders called for an independent investigation of the breach, which prompted the Democratic National Committee to bar his campaign temporarily from the party’s voter file. He noted that one campaign worker had already been fired and said he would fire any other aide found to have acted improperly. (After the debate, his spokesman, Michael Briggs, said two other aides had been suspended Saturday in connection with the data breach.)But Mr. Sanders said that his aides might not have been the only ones viewing information they should not have seen.“I am not convinced that information from our campaign may not have ended up in her campaign,” Mr. Sanders added.Yet even the unsubstantiated suggestion of impropriety by Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was not enough to lure her into a back-and-forth on the subject.As in the first two debates, Mrs. Clinton was the focal point throughout — even when she was not actually on stage. As the moderators resumed after a long commercial break, both her opponents returned to their places to answer questions about the economy, but Mrs. Clinton’s podium stood empty.“Sorry,” she said with a grin as she returned.Both Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Malley used their closing statements to compare the Democratic trio favorably with the Republican field. “I think we have a lot more to offer the American people than the right-wing extremists,” Mr. Sanders said.But Mrs. Clinton, emerging from another debate unscathed, seemed to acknowledge that much of the American public was probably more absorbed, on the Saturday night before Christmas, by the return of the “Star Wars” franchise.“Thank you, good night, and may the force be with you,” she said, beaming. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department has opened an investigation into whether bank records belonging to President Trump's private lawyer were illegally leaked to a lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels.Those records show that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen took payments from corporations — including telecom giant AT&T and drug-maker Novartis — seeking to curry favor with President Trump. Rich Delmar, the general counsel for the Treasury Department's Office of Inspector General, said Wednesday that investigators want to know if the disclosures violated the Bank Secrecy Act. That law allows the Treasury Department to collect information on suspicious bank transfers, subject to strict privacy provisions. Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, included detailed information about payments to Cohen's in a seven-page dossier he sent to news outlets Tuesday night. The New York Times says it was able to confirm much of Avenatti's information by reviewing Cohen's financial records. More:AT&T, Novartis face scrutiny over hefty payments to Trump lawyer Michael CohenThe Treasury inspector general's investigation was prompted by the New York Times report, Delmar said.Avenatti won't say where he received the information on Cohen's bank history. But on Twitter, Avenatti challenged reporters to seek out the suspicious activity reports collected by the Treasury Department. "Why is no media outlet doing a story on the refusal of the Treasury Department to release to the public the 3 Suspicious Activity Reports that were filed concerning Essential Consultants, LLC's bank account?" Avenatti wrote. "This deserves immediate attention. The SARs should be released now."In a court filing Wednesday in New York, Cohen’s lawyers pushed back on Avenatti’s document, saying it contained “blatantly incorrect statements.”Cohen’s lawyers, Stephen Ryan and Todd Harrison, said Avenatti improperly attributed two transfers — one from a Malaysian firm to a Canadian bank and another from a Kenyan bank to an account in Israel — to the wrong Michael Cohen. But they said Avenatti also appears to have some information from Cohen’s actual bank records and their client “has no reason to believe that Avenatti is in lawful possession of those records.”AT&T and Novartis both said they turned over information about their dealings with Cohen to special counsel Robert Mueller, who's investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian agents in the 2016 presidential election. And in a court hearing last month, federal prosecutors suggested that it had already subpoenaed Cohen's business clients and that the companies had confirmed that they did not have an attorney-client relationship.More:In hiring Michael Cohen, AT&T betrays a complicated relationship with Trump | 0 |
Story highlightsTrump called for a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton; earlier Monday, he said it should be shut downBill Clinton says his family's charitable foundation will alter how it works if Hillary Clinton wins (CNN)Hillary Clinton leads in the polls nationally and in key battleground states, but the flood of stories regarding her private email server and donations to the Clinton Foundation demonstrate the former secretary of state won't be able to completely outrun voter skepticism -- or Donald Trump.Trump went on offense Monday, using the bulk of a speech in Akron, Ohio, to attack Clinton."No issue better illustrates how corrupt my opponent is than her pay for play scandals as secretary of state," Trump said.
"I've become increasingly shocked by the vast scope of Hillary Clinton's criminality. It's criminality. Everybody knows it," he said as the crowd erupted in a sea of "Lock her up!" chants."The amounts involved, the favors done and the significant numbers of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately, immediately, immediately," Trump said. "After the FBI and Department of Justice whitewash of the Clinton email crimes, they certainly cannot be trusted to quickly or impartially investigate Hillary Clinton's new crimes, which happen all the time."During an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel" Monday night, Clinton brushed off any concerns about the release of additional emails after a federal judge Monday gave the State Department until next month to come up with a plan for making public thousands of emails that the FBI recovered as part of its probe into Clinton's use a private email server."Jimmy, my emails are so boring," she said. "And I'm embarrassed about that. They're so boring. So we've already released, I don't know, 30,000 plus, so what's a few more?"Trump also encouraged his supporters to "watch" on Election Day, raising the specter of voter fraud: "When I say 'watch,' you know what I'm talking about." Recently, Trump had warned that the November election could be "rigged."
Trump supporter Sen. Jeff Sessions suggested that the Democratic presidential candidate used her high position to "extort" from international governments for her family's foundation. "The fundamental thing is you can not be Secretary of State of the United States of America and use that position to extort or seek contributions to your private foundation," he told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day" Tuesday. "That is a fundamental violation of law and that does appear to have happened."For Trump, the controversies are a welcome opportunity to push the idea that Clinton is part of the Washington establishment and can't be trusted to shun special interests. A Washington Post/ABC News poll from earlier this month showed that 59% of voters believe that Clinton is not honest and trustworthy. (That same poll has that 62% believe Trump is not trustworthy.)Trump bluntly argued that Clinton's actions at the State Department amounted to corruption, even suggesting Clinton was at the center of a racketeering scheme."We are going to take government away from the special interests that give her tens of millions of dollars so that she can broadcast absolutely phony ads about me and we're going to give it back to the voters," Trump vowed. "Come November 8th, we are once again going to have a government that serves you and your family and your country, not the special interests, the donors and the lobbyists."It's a good time for Trump to go on offense against Clinton. She is spending most of the week fundraising, with several high-dollar events in California. His campaign is also keen on reminding people that Clinton hasn't had a press conference in months -- and therefore hasn't had to answer repeated questions on each new development.Trump's attacks aside, stories emerging over the past few days from a federal courtroom, Capitol Hill and an event on Long Island show it doesn't take much to get the issue of Clinton's emails and the Clinton Foundation back into the news cycle.Clinton got some bad news from a federal judge Monday, who gave the State Department until September 23 to determine a plan on how to release nearly 15,000 documents the FBI had obtained as part of its investigation into her private email server -- possibly creating a timeline where thousands of emails could be made public right before Election Day.Trump's focus on Clinton may help take the spotlight off of himself ever so slightly. Having restructured his campaign team last week, Trump was expected to deliver a speech later this week outlining his immigration policy. But that speech has been delayed, a campaign source said. So the campaign turned its attention on Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and her emails. That was readily apparent Monday, as both Trump and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence brought up the issue."It's time for Hillary Clinton to come clean about the Clinton Foundation," Pence said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Clinton Foundation last week announced it would ban donations to from corporations and foreign countries if Hillary Clinton is elected. Pence rhetorically asked why there wasn't a conflict of interest when she was Secretary of State."Apparently she'll have a conflict of interest with the Clinton Foundation if she becomes President but I guess she didn't have a conflict of interest taking foreign donations while she was secretary of state of the United States of America," Pence saidHillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, accused Trump of using the issue to hide from his own problems."The Foundation has already laid out the unprecedented steps the charity will take if Hillary Clinton becomes president. Donald Trump needs to come clean with voters about his complex network of for-profit businesses that are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, and other business groups with ties to the Kremlin," Podesta said.This isn't the first time Trump has brought up the foundation or emails, but a previous attack didn't end up going well. A suggestion that Russian hackers search for Clinton's 33,000 missing emails led to questions about whether he would be committing treason by asking foreign agents to hack a US presidential candidate.Bill Clinton outlines foundation futureAs questions mount about the activities and future of the foundation, former President Bill Clinton announced major changes that would be implemented should Hillary Clinton win the White House.Bill Clinton will curtail his direct involvement in the charity and the group will transition some programs to like-minded charities, he said in a statement on the foundation's website Monday. Clinton last week also said he would stop giving paid speeches."Over the last several months, members of the Foundation's senior leadership, Chelsea, and I have evaluated how the Foundation should operate if Hillary is elected," the former president wrote. "Throughout the process, our top priorities have been preserving our most important programs, supporting the people who work for the Foundation and its affiliated programs, and resolving legitimate conflict of interest questions."A spokesman for the Clinton Foundation pointed to the new post from the former president when asked about Trump's comments.Bill Clinton also announced last week that the Clinton Global Initiatives meeting of high-dollar donors, celebrities and foreign leaders next month would be its last. The Clinton Foundation has raised money in the years since Bill Clinton left the White House and has launched a host of charitable efforts targeting climate change, improving quality of life for women and girls in developing countries and fighting health crises. New email releases, subpoenas from CongressThe charitable foundation has been scrutinized throughout Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, but the organization has faced greater scrutiny since emails were newly uncovered showing a top Clinton Foundation donor seeking access to a top diplomat when Clinton was secretary of state.New emails obtained by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch and released Monday show then-Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band asking top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin to arrange a meeting with the then-secretary of state for the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa. The crown prince made a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative that he would fund his own charity in the amount of $32 million for the crown prince's scholarship program. The funds and program were not controlled by the Clinton Global Initiative.Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said Monday that the new exchange, and others, showed donors buying access to the secretary of state through the foundation. But none of the exchanges appeared to show a direct quid pro quo."No matter how this group tries to mischaracterize these documents, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton never took action as Secretary of State because of donations to the Clinton Foundation," Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin said about the newest emails.Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill Monday, congressional Republicans subpoenaed three technology companies involved in her unusual home server setup. The subpoenas were issued after the companies did not cooperate with a House committee's investigation into the issue, said House Science panel Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas.And on Long Island, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell pushed back on suggestions that he may have given Clinton the idea to use a private email account, telling media outlets that "her people are trying to pin it on me.""The truth is, she was using (the private email server) for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did," Powell said Saturday in East Hampton, New York, People magazine and the New York Post reported.Correction: Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa made a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative that he would fund his own charity in the amount of $32 million for the crown prince's scholarship program. The funds and program were not controlled by the Clinton Global Initiative. A previous version contained incorrect information.CNN's Eugene Scott and Ted Barrett contributed to this report. | 0 |
(Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) In the future, Americans — assuming there are any left — will look back at 2016 and remark: “What the HELL?” They will have a point. Over the past few decades, we here at the Year in Review have reviewed some pretty disturbing years. For example, there was 2000, when the outcome of a presidential election was decided by a tiny group of deeply confused Florida residents who had apparently attempted to vote by chewing on their ballots. Then there was 2003, when a person named “Paris Hilton” suddenly became a major international superstar, despite possessing a level of discernible talent so low as to make the Kardashians look like the Jackson 5. There was 2006, when the vice president of the United States — who claimed he was attempting to bring down a suspected quail — shot a 78-year-old man in the face, only to be exonerated after an investigation revealed that the victim was an attorney. And — perhaps most inexplicable of all — there was 2007, when millions of people voluntarily installed Windows Vista. Yes, we’ve seen some weird years. But we’ve never seen one as weird as 2016. This was the Al Yankovic of years. If years were movies, 2016 would be “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” If years were relatives, 2016 would be the uncle who shows up at your Thanksgiving dinner wearing his underpants on the outside. (Claritza Jimenez,Elahe Izadi/The Washington Post) Why do we say this? Let’s begin with the gruesome train wreck that was the presidential election. The campaign began with roughly 14,000 candidates running. Obviously not all of them were qualified to be president; some of them — here we are thinking of “Lincoln Chafee” — were probably imaginary. But a reasonable number of the candidates seemed to meet at least the minimum standard that Americans have come to expect of their president in recent decades, namely: Not Completely Horrible. So this mass of candidates began the grim death march that is the modern American presidential campaign — trudging around Iowa pretending to care about agriculture, performing in an endless series of televised debates like suit-wearing seals trained to bark out talking points, going to barbecue after barbecue and smiling relentlessly through mouthfuls of dripping meat, giving the same speech over and over and over, shaking millions of hands, posing for billions of selfies and just generally humiliating themselves in the marathon group grovel that America insists on putting its presidential candidates through. And we voters did our part, passing judgment on the candidates, thinning the herd, rejecting them one by one. Sometimes we had to reject them more than once; John Kasich didn’t get the message until his own staff felled him with tranquilizer darts. But eventually we eliminated the contenders whom we considered to be unqualified or disagreeable, whittling our choices down until only two major candidates were left. And out of all the possibilities, the two that We, the People, in our collective wisdom, deemed worthy of competing for the most important job on Earth, turned out to be ... ... drum roll ... ... the most flawed, sketchy and generally disliked duo of presidential candidates ever! Yes. After all that, the American people, looking for a leader, ended up with a choice between ointment and suppository. The fall campaign was an unending national nightmare, broadcast relentlessly on cable TV. CNN told us over and over that Donald Trump was a colossally ignorant, narcissistic, out-of-control sex-predator buffoon; Fox News countered that Hillary Clinton was a greedy, corrupt, coldly calculating liar of massive ambition and minimal accomplishment. In our hearts we knew the awful truth: They were both right. It wasn’t just bad. It was the Worst. Election. Ever. And that was only one of the reasons 2016 should never have happened. Here are some others: ● American race relations reached their lowest point since ... okay, since 2015. ● We learned that the Russians are more involved in our election process than the League of Women Voters. ●Much of the year the economy continued to struggle, with the only growth sector being people paying insane prices for tickets to “Hamilton.” ● In a fad even stupider than “planking,” millions of people wasted millions of hours, and sometimes risked their lives, trying to capture imaginary Pokémon Go things on their phones, hoping to obtain the ultimate prize: a whole bunch of imaginary Pokémon Go things on their phones. ● A major new threat to American communities — receiving at least as much coverage as global climate change — emerged in the form of: clowns. ● In a shocking development that caused us to question our most fundamental values, Angelina and Brad broke up even though they are both physically attractive. ● We continued to prove, as a nation, that no matter how many times we are reminded, we are too stupid to remember to hold our phones horizontally when we make videos. ● Musically, we lost Prince, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen; we gained the suicide-inducing TV commercial in which Jon Bon Jovi screeches about turning back time. Did anything good happen in 2016? Let us think. ... Okay, the “man bun” appeared to be going away. That was pretty much it for the good things. And now, finally, it is time for 2016 to go away. But before it does, let’s narrow our eyes down to slits and take one last squinting look back at this hideous monstrosity of a year, starting with ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) January ... which actually begins on a positive note with the capture of elusive Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who in 2015 escaped (for the second time) from a Mexican prison when authorities failed to notice the signs reading (in Spanish) “WARNING: ESCAPE TUNNEL UNDER CONSTRUCTION.” Since then Guzmán had been in hiding except for an interview with Sean Penn, a guest spot with Jimmy Kimmel and a series of commercials for Buffalo Wild Wings. Mexican police finally are able to track him down during his four-week stint as a guest judge on “America’s Got Talent.” He is taken to Tijuana and incarcerated in what authorities describe as “a very secure Motel 6.” In health news, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, responding to the spread of the little-understood Zika virus, cautions Americans not to have unprotected sex with foreign mosquitoes. Meanwhile the Flint, Mich., water crisis worsens when samples taken from the city’s main water supply are found to contain traces of a Chipotle burrito. North Korea successfully tests a hydrogen bomb, although this achievement is tarnished somewhat by the fact that the explosion causes the death, by startling, of the isolated nation’s lone remaining chicken. In what critics cite as yet another example of declining U.S. prestige, Iran seizes two U.S. naval vessels and captures 10 crew members; what makes the incident particularly embarrassing is that these vessels were docked in Cleveland. The captured sailors are released, but only after Secretary of State John Kerry assures the Iranian government that he will not deploy James Taylor. The Powerball jackpot reaches a record $1.6 billion, with an estimated 45 percent of the tickets being purchased by the city of Detroit using money budgeted for “infrastructure.” Speaking of huge amounts of money being wasted, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) February ... the presidential primary season takes center stage. On the Republican side, the big issue — as you would expect, given the stakes in this election — is Donald Trump’s hand size and whether it does or does not correlate with the size of his portfolio, which he claims is huge, although he is reluctant to show it to the non-supermodel public. The hand-size issue is raised by Marco Rubio, who scores in the early polls, then fades as voters realize that he is still in the early stages of puberty. Trump’s strongest rival is Ted Cruz, a veteran debater so knowledgeable and confident that Mahatma Gandhi would want to punch him in the face. Meanwhile Jeb Bush, who was considered the early favorite, fails to gain traction with the voters despite having by far the most comprehensive set of policy initiativezzz Sorry! We nodded off thinking about Jeb, as did the voters. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is widely presumed to be the front-runner based on being a historic woman with a lengthy résumé of service to the nation who, with her husband, Bill, has serviced the nation for decades to the tune of several hundred million dollars. She is declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses via a controversial and confusing process that, in some precincts, involves dodgeball. But Clinton faces an unexpectedly strong challenge from Bernie Sanders, a feisty 217-year-old senator from Vermont with a message of socialism, but the good kind of socialism where everybody gets a lot of free stuff, not the kind where starving people fight over who gets the lone remaining beet at the co-op. Sanders wins the New Hampshire Democratic primary, followed — in what some observers see as a troubling sign — by Vladimir Putin. In other February news: ● A lengthy standoff at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon finally comes to an end when anti-government militants, after protracted negotiations, are eaten by the federal wildlife. ● Following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the nation’s political leaders observe a period of mourning and reflection lasting 3 billionths of a second, then commence the important bipartisan work of not making any progress whatsoever on a replacement. ● The troubled Chipotle chain temporarily closes all of its restaurants after several customers are attacked by what health authorities describe as “E. coli bacteria the size of adult pythons.” ● The Denver Broncos win the Super Bowl, thanks in part to a costly unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called on the Carolina Panthers defense for stealing Peyton Manning’s walker. Speaking of unsportsmanlike, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) March ... the Republican presidential race grows increasingly nasty, spiraling downward in tone to the point where Ted Cruz makes the following statement, which we swear we are not making up: “Donald Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him.” This sounds as though Cruz is saying that he would copulate with a rat, as long as the rat was not Donald Trump. Presumably that is not what Cruz meant, but nobody really wants to know what he did mean. Meanwhile Ben Carson announces, in his extremely low-key and soft-spoken manner, that he is going to suspend his campaign. Or visit Spain. Or possibly rob a train. There is no way to be certain. On the Democratic side, Clinton and Sanders are also in a tight and testy battle, although Clinton slowly gains the upper hand thanks to the Democratic Party’s controversial formula for allocating “superdelegates,” which is as follows: ● 57 percent go to Clinton. ● The remaining 43 percent also go to Clinton. Responding to charges from the Sanders camp that the Democratic National Committee is tipping the scales in Clinton’s favor, chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz states that “the DNC is scrupulously neutral in the contest between Secretary Clinton and the senile Commie fart.” In other political news, President Obama nominates Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. Republican leaders are quick to note that, while Garland appears to be qualified, his name is an anagram for “Rancid Lark Germ.” But by far the most controversial political issue of the month — which nobody thought about before, yet which all of a sudden is the defining civil rights struggle of the 21st century — is the question of who can pee where in North Carolina. In foreign affairs, Obama pays a historic visit to Cuba but is forced to leave after three days when he discovers that there is only one golf course. A historic baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team has to be called off in the fourth inning because all but four of the Cuban players have switched sides. Speaking of historic, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward/For The Washington Post) April ... England observes the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, who celebrates the occasion by wearing a large hat and smiling grimly at horses. Meanwhile world tension mounts when satellite imagery reveals that North Korea has positioned an 18-story-tall plastic bottle containing an estimated 40 million liters of Diet Coke on the border with South Korea, and has somehow obtained what one military analyst describes as “Mentos mints the size of barns.” North Korea insists that the project is “strictly defensive,” but the United Nations Security Council, responding with its toughest sanctions yet against the rogue nation, votes to unfriend Kim Jong Un on Facebook. In another alarming international development, Russian fighter jets, continuing a pattern of increasingly provocative behavior toward the United States, attack the control tower at LaGuardia Airport. After assessing the damage, airport authorities announce that departing flights will be delayed an average of four months, nearly twice as long as usual. Secretary of State Kerry calls the act “a deliberate provocation” and, in his strongest response to date, warns that the United States is considering “a harshly worded memorandum.” In U.S. presidential politics, Ted Cruz, making a last-ditch effort to stop the Trump juggernaut, announces that his choice for running mate is — prepare for a game-changing jolt of high-voltage excitement — Carly Fiorina. This would be the same Carly Fiorina who dropped out after the New Hampshire primary because she got approximately six votes. On the plus side, Cruz manages to make this announcement without mentioning rats. In other political news, Hillary Clinton is troubled by a persistent cough that leaves her unable to speak at some campaign stops, forcing her to express her commitment to working families by shattering a porcelain figurine of a Wall Street banker with a hammer. A Trump spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that the Trump campaign “will not speculate on Mrs. Clinton’s health,” adding that “she obviously has some terrible disease.” Speaking of bad news, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) May ... tragedy strikes the Cincinnati Zoo when zoo authorities, fearing for the life of a 3-year-old who climbed into the gorilla enclosure, are forced to shoot and kill a gorilla named Harambe, who instantly becomes way more revered on the Internet than Mother Teresa. In other domestic news, passengers at major U.S. airports complain that they are missing flights because security lines are so long. Q. How long are they? A. One of them contains a Wright brother. Asked for an explanation, a spokesperson for the federal Transportation Security Administration, which is responsible for screening passengers, blames the airline industry, pointing out that “If the airlines didn’t keep selling tickets, we wouldn’t have all these people showing up at airports trying to catch flights.” The spokesperson suggests that people planning to travel by air during busy times should consider other options, such as suicide. In a medical breakthrough, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital announce that they have performed the first successful penis transplant in the United States. The patient’s name — we are not making this item up — is Manning. Abroad, satellite surveillance reveals that North Korea has constructed what military analysts describe as “an extremely large slingshot” as well as a latex balloon believed large enough to hold a quantity of water equivalent to Lake Tahoe. The North Korean government insists that these items are intended for “medical research.” In sports, suspicions of doping by Russian Olympic athletes resurface after little-known sprinter Vladimir Raspatovsky, who has never previously posted a world record time, wins the Kentucky Derby. Speaking of winners, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) June ... it becomes evident that, barring some highly unlikely political development, the next president of the United States will be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the nation is in the grip of a worsening heroin epidemic. Coincidence? You be the judge. Speaking of coincidences: Bill Clinton happens to find himself in the same airport as U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and — as any two people would do if one of them was the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and the other was married to the subject of a federal investigation — they meet privately aboard Lynch’s Justice Department jet. When word of the meeting leaks out, Lynch assures the press that she and Bill did not discuss the FBI investigation into Hillary’s email, adding, “nor did we inhale.” For her part, Hillary continues to insist that she never emailed anything classified, and even if she did she actually didn’t, besides which so did a lot of other people such as Colin Powell and Harry Truman, and this so-called scandal is ancient history from literally years ago that just makes a person sigh and roll her eyes because it is preventing her from fighting for working families while at the same time being a historic woman. Also for the sake of balance we should note that throughout June Donald Trump continues to emit a steady stream of truly idiotic statements. In sports, Cleveland — in a historic upset — actually wins something. But the big sports story for June, and the year, is the death of Muhammad Ali, a person so remarkable that even the tidal wave of phony, saccharine media-manufactured grief-hype that engulfs modern celebrity deaths cannot detract from the simple truth that he really was as great as he said he was. Internationally, the top story is “Brexit” — the decision by voters in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. This comes as a big surprise to professional pollsters, who had confidently predicted the opposite result; they enjoy a hearty laugh, then head across the Atlantic to apply their talents to the forthcoming American presidential election. Meanwhile British politics is plunged into chaos, the result being that in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward/For The Washington Post) July ... Prime Minister David Cameron and other top officials resign, new people take office, and the United Kingdom essentially has a new government, ready to move on. This entire process takes about two weeks, or less time than it takes the major American political parties to agree on the seating arrangements for a “town hall debate.” In U.S. politics, the Republicans gather in Cleveland to nominate Trump, although many top party officials are unable to attend because of an urgent, compelling need to not be there. Nevertheless Trump receives enthusiastic prime-time endorsements from former celebrity Scott Baio, several dozen Trump children and current Trump wife Melania, who enthralls delegates with a well-received speech in which she tells her heartwarming story of growing up as an African American woman in Chicago. The dramatic highlight comes on the final night, when Trump, in his acceptance speech, brings the delegates cheering to their feet with his emotional challenge to “grab the future by the p---y.” On the Democratic side, the month gets off to a rocky start when FBI Director James Comey, announcing the results of the bureau’s investigation, reveals that when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, her official emails, some including classified material, were basically as secure from prying eyes as a neon beer sign. Nevertheless Comey says he is recommending that no criminal charges be brought against Clinton, because, quote, “I don’t want to die.” With that legal hurdle cleared, relieved Democrats gather in Philadelphia for their convention, which opens — in a bid to placate Sanders delegates — with the ceremonial caning of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. This is followed by several hundred speeches praising Hillary Clinton for the many accomplishments she has achieved, as well as the achievements she has accomplished, while at the same time being, historically, a woman. In her acceptance speech, Clinton calls on Americans “to join with me in building a better world for us and for our children,” adding, “or I will crush you like an insect.” In a media shake-up, Roger Ailes resigns as chairman of Fox News following allegations that his name can be rearranged to spell “I ogle rears.” As the month ends, skydiver Luke Aikins sets a world record by jumping out of a plane 25,000 feet over California without a parachute or wingsuit. He manages to land safely in a net despite the fact that on the way down — in what John Kerry calls “a deliberate provocation” — he is strafed by Russian fighter jets. Speaking of provocations, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) August ... Donald Trump goes to Mexico, having been informed by his team of foreign-policy advisers that this is where Mexicans come from. He meets with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, and although he does not try to convince Peña Nieto that Mexico should pay for the huge imaginary wall that he has promised to build, Trump does demonstrate his legendary prowess as a hard-nosed businessman by negotiating what he describes as “a fantastic price” on a souvenir sombrero that he claims is “easily four feet in diameter.” Meanwhile newly released State Department emails cause some people to suggest that the reason a variety of dodgy foreign businesspeople and nations gave millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state was that they expected — Get a load of THIS wacky right-wing conspiracy theory! — to receive special access to or favors from the U.S. government. Hillary has no choice but to roll her eyes and laugh in a violently unnatural manner at this latest attempt to use these discredited smear tactics to prevent her, a historic and lifelong woman, from fighting for working families as well as working for fighting families. Abroad, the Summer Olympics open in Brazil amid dire warnings about Zika, riots, muggers, muggers with Zika, and windsurfers being attacked by predatory oceangoing feces. But the games for the most part go smoothly, the biggest glitch being when one of the diving pools mysteriously turns a dark, murky green. The mystery is finally solved when the pool is drained, revealing a Russian nuclear submarine, which Russia insists is in international waters. In the athletic competition, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt becomes the first athlete ever to win the men’s 100-meter final wearing flip-flops. But the U.S. team dominates the Games, with the most memorable performance coming from a team of athletes led by swimmer and rocket scientist Ryan Lochte competing in the Four-Man Gas Station Wall Pee. Elsewhere in sports, the opening of the National Football League season provides a much-needed diversion to Americans who are sick of being bitterly divided over politics and welcome the opportunity to be bitterly divided over how players respond to the national anthem. Speaking of bitter, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) September ... Clinton and Trump square off in the first presidential debate, which leads to a national conversation about an issue of vital concern to all Americans, namely the alleged weight gain of Alicia Machado, Miss Universe of 1996. This topic is raised by Clinton in an obvious attempt to bait Trump into wasting valuable campaign time talking about something that cannot possibly benefit him, so naturally Trump, who by his own admission has an extremely high IQ, latches on to it like a barnacle on the Titanic. He focuses on the former Miss Venezuela with laserlike intensity for the better part of a week before getting back to his previous campaign strategy of engaging in bitterly personal Twitter feuds, often with other Republicans. But it is also not a totally great month for Clinton, who appears to collapse while being helped into a van after hastily leaving a 9/11 memorial ceremony. Her campaign, responding with the transparency, openness and candor for which it is famous, initially downplays the incident, saying that Clinton felt “overheated.” Ninety minutes later she appears outside her daughter’s apartment building and tells reporters, “I’m feeling great.” But later that afternoon her physician releases a statement saying that two days earlier, Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia. This leads to renewed speculation about Clinton’s health, which is quickly quelled by a vast army of Clinton campaign officials, surrogates, allies, lackeys, henchpersons and media flunkies, all heavily armed with talking points and declaring, in unison, that she has no undeclared health problems and is going to power through this minor, pesky so-called pneumonia, which is old news and will not distract her from being a historic person of gender with a lifelong commitment to fighting for working etc. Speaking of overheating, Samsung announces a recall of all Galaxy Note 7 phones after an attempt to rebrand them as “smart charcoal lighters” meets with consumer resistance. Adding to Samsung’s woes are reports that some of its top-loading washers have exploded, although the company insists that the machines are “perfectly safe when operated using the delicate cycle,” provided that “there are no humans nearby.” In other technology news, Apple announces the release of the iPhone 7, which is basically the iPhone 6 with the added convenience of not having a headphone jack. The marketing slogan is “At Least It Doesn’t Burst Into Flames.” In entertainment news, “Game of Thrones” once again wins the coveted Emmy Award for Drama Series With the Most Naked People. But for sheer drama, no TV show can compare with what happens to the American political system in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward/For The Washington Post) October ... when the U.S. presidential election, until now a cross between farce and soap opera, mutates into a full-on horror show. The early part of the month goes badly for Trump with the release of a 2005 video in which he talks about kissing and groping women, which according to him he can get away with because he’s a star who uses Tic Tacs. Trump quickly apologizes for the video, noting that (a) it was recorded long ago when he was just 59 years old; (b) his remarks were “locker-room banter” such as you would hear in any locker room in America occupied by morally deficient billionaire pigs; (c) Bill Clinton did way worse things; and (d) WHAT ABOUT BENGHAZI? But the story does not go away. Over the next week Trump is accused of improper groping by enough women to form a professional softball league. Trump responds to these allegations with a five-pronged defense: Prong One: These women are lying. Prong Two: ALL of them. They are LIARS. Prong Three: They are frankly not attractive enough to be groped by a star of his magnitude. Prong Four: The election is rigged! Prong Five: WHAT ABOUT BILL CLINTON AND BENGHAZI? Meanwhile the Clinton campaign is dealing with a steady stream of WikiLeaks emails suggesting that the Clinton Foundation is dedicated to humanitarian relief in the same sense that the Soprano family was dedicated to waste management. But this kind of scandal is ho-hum stuff for the Clinton campaign, whose slogan has slowly morphed from “Stronger Together” into “At Least She’s Predictably Corrupt.” As the month wears on and Trump continues to flail away unconvincingly at his alleged groping victims, it appears more and more likely that Clinton has established herself, with just enough voters, as the least loathsome choice in this hideous, issues-free nightmare of an election. And then, just when we thought it could not get any weirder or any worse, we are hit with the mother of all October surprises in the form of the incurable genital wart on the body politic known as Anthony Weiner. While probing Weiner’s laptop (Har!) for evidence of alleged sexting with an underaged girl, the FBI reportedly discovers thousands of emails that were sent from or to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, which apparently had a higher Internet profile than Taylor Swift. FBI Director James Comey sends a letter informing Congress that the FBI is taking another look at the email issue. In a display of the intellectual integrity that has made our political class so respected by ordinary citizens, all the Democrats and allied pundits who praised Comey in July as a courageous public servant instantly swap positions with all the Republicans and allied pundits who said he was a cowardly hack. This new development sends the political world into Full Freakout Mode, with cable-TV political analysts forced to change their underwear on an hourly basis. Meanwhile millions of critical swing voters switch from “undecided” to “suicidal.” In non-campaign-related October news: ● A government report concludes that the Affordable Care Act (Motto: “If You Like Your Doctor, Maybe You’ll Like Your New Doctor”) is going to cost many people a lot more, while continuing to provide the same range of customizable consumer options as a parking meter. ● In a chilling reminder of the nation’s technological vulnerability, a series of cyberattacks disrupts popular Internet sites such as Twitter and Netflix, forcing millions of Americans to make eye contact with one another. ● In yet another blow to Samsung, the Federal Aviation Administration announces that it will not permit commercial aircraft to fly over states known to contain Galaxy Note 7s. ● In the arts, Bob Dylan refuses to answer his doorbell, forcing members of the Swedish Academy to leave the Nobel Prize for literature in his mailbox. The month ends on an upbeat note as Americans celebrate Halloween, a welcome escape from the relentless drumbeat of bad news, as evidenced by this FoxNews.com headline, which we swear we are not making up: “Some Florida parents plan to arm themselves while going trick-or-treating over clown concerns.” Speaking of treats, in ... (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) November ... the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. Finally! Yay! What a fun month! Okay, that’s our summary of November. Now it’s time to move along to the events of ... De- No, that would be wrong. This is supposed to be a review of the whole year, warts and all, and we have to face reality. So let’s all take a deep breath, compose ourselves and go back to ... November ... which begins with yet another letter to congressional leaders from FBI Director Comey, who lately has generated more correspondence than Publishers Clearing House. This time, he says, concerning the newly discovered emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop: never mind. This forces Republicans and Democrats to again swap positions on whether Comey is a courageous patriot or total scum. For a brief period members of Congress are so confused about who stands where that they are in real danger of accidentally working together and accomplishing something. Fortunately before this happens the two sides are able to sort things out and resume being bitterly deadlocked. As Election Day approaches, a consensus forms among the experts in the media-political complex, based on a vast array of demographic and scientific polling data evaluated with sophisticated analytical tools. These experts, who have made lucrative careers out of going on TV and explaining America to Americans, overwhelmingly agree that Hillary Clinton will win, possibly in a landslide, and this could very well mean the end of the Republican Party. The Explainers are very sure of this, nodding in unison while smiling in bemusement at the pathetic delusions of the Trump people. Unfortunately, it turns out that a large sector of the American public has not been brought up to speed on all this expert analysis. And so it comes to pass that the unthinkable happens, in the form of ... Decem- No, damn it! We have to do this! What happens in ... November ... is that Donald Trump is elected president of the United States, unless this turns out to be one of those really vivid dreams, like the one where you’re at the dentist but you’re naked and your dentist is Bette Midler and spiders keep coming out of your mouth. Trump’s victory stuns the nation. Not since the darkest days of the Civil War have so many Americans unfriended each other on Facebook. Some even take the extreme step of writing “open letters.” Angry, traumatized protesters cry, march, shout, smash windows, set fires — and that’s just the New York Times editorial board. Leading celebrities who vowed to leave the country if Trump won immediately start making plans to ... okay, to not actually leave the country per se, but next time they definitely will and YOU’LL BE SORRY. In Washington, Democrats who believed in a strong president wielding power via executive orders instantly exchange these deeply held convictions with Republicans who until Election Day at roughly 10 p.m. Eastern time believed fervently in filibusters and limited government. On TV, the professional Explainers, having failed spectacularly to predict what just happened, pause for a period of somber and contrite self-reflection lasting close to 15 minutes before they begin the crucial work of explaining to the rest of us what will happen next. Joe Biden lies awake nights, staring at the ceiling. Meanwhile a somber Trump, preparing to assume the most powerful office on the planet, puts the pettiness of the campaign behind him and — facing a world rife with turmoil — gets down to the all-important work of taking Twitter shots at the cast of “Hamilton.” He also begins assembling a Cabinet that — reflecting the diversity of the nation he has been elected to lead — includes several non-billionaires. The president-elect also receives classified briefings, during which he learns, among other things, that there are a LOT of foreign countries, including some where he does not even have golf courses. Meanwhile the Democrats, now on a multi-year losing streak that has cost them the presidency, both houses of Congress and a majority of the state legislatures, desperately seek an explanation for their party’s failures. After a hard, critical look in the mirror, they are forced, reluctantly, to stop seeking scapegoats and place the blame where it belongs: the electoral college, the Russians, Facebook and of course James Comey. In the month’s biggest non-election news, the death of Fidel Castro is greeted with expressions of sorrow from several dozen world leaders who never had to live under his rule, and tears of happiness from many thousands of Cubans who did. As the bitter and tumultuous month finally draws to a close, Americans briefly stop fighting over politics and come together to celebrate Thanksgiving in the same way the Pilgrims did in 1623: fighting over flat-screen TVs. But the focus turns back to politics in… (Illustration by Mark Ward /For The Washington Post) December ... during which Trump continues to dominate the news, his face appearing 24/7 on every channel including the Food Network, even when the TV is turned off. Early in the month the president-elect ruffles the feathers of the Chinese government when — in what is viewed as a departure from diplomatic protocol — he texts Beijing a poop emoji. Also he threatens a drone strike against Alec Baldwin. But the big story continues to be the Trump Cabinet. His choice for secretary of defense is James N. “Mad Dog” Mattis, who impresses Trump with his sophisticated understanding of modern military strategy and also by biting the head off a live hamster. Most of the drama, however, involves the herd of hopefuls auditioning for secretary of state, including former Trump foe Mitt Romney, who dons wingtip kneepads for his pilgrimage to Trump Tower, after which he explains to the press that his previous criticisms of Trump have been taken out of context, particularly his use of the phrase “scum toad,” which Romney says he meant “in the spirit of constructive dialogue.” Chris Christie dines alone in a Golden Corral in Freehold, N.J., pondering whether to accept the ambassadorship to Belize. The New York Times and Washington Post, seeking to improve their understanding of pro-Trump America, partner with TV network news divisions to create “Operation Outreach,” in which teams of reporters will travel to non-coastal regions carrying rucksacks full of chewing tobacco and moon pies, which they will trade with the natives in return for colorful quotes about their political views, religious beliefs, sex practices involving livestock, etc. Meanwhile abroad: ● French President François Hollande announces that he will not seek reelection, leading professional pollsters to predict, based on scientific analysis of the data, that he will win in a landslide. ● In a disturbing development, North Korean troops mass near the South Korean border armed with what intelligence sources identify as “a large quantity of Samsung Galaxy Note 7s.” Finally, mercifully, 2016 draws to a close. On New Year’s Eve, a festive crowd gathers in Times Square, and millions more tune in on TV, to watch the ball drop that marks the dawn of the new year. This is one of the great traditions that connect us as a nation, and it serves to remind us that, although we disagree on many things, we are all part of the same big family — the American family — and when all is said and done, we hate each other. This is what we are thinking as the big lighted ball begins to slowly descend the pole, traveling roughly two feet before it is vaporized by Russian fighter jets. Happy new year, fellow Americans. It’s going to be exciting. Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist and author. His latest book is “Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland.” Email us at [email protected]. For more articles, as well as features such as Date Lab, Gene Weingarten and more, visit The Washington Post Magazine. Follow the Magazine on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's comments about sexual harassment allegations in her party's own ranks touched off a fierce blowback not only from Republicans, but also from progressives, who said they feared it muddled the Democrats' message on misconduct by putting politics ahead of protecting women.In an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Pelosi, D-Calif., offered supportive words for Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who has been accused of sexually harassing former members of his congressional staff and who reached a taxpayer-funded settlement with one accuser who said she was fired for rejecting his advances.Pelosi praised Conyers, who has denied the allegations, as an "icon," questioned the identity of his accusers and declined to call for his resignation — all within moments of having hailed the "zero tolerance" movement against sexual misconduct as "transformative ... so wholesome, so refreshing, so different."Pelosi's comments were criticized as tone-deaf and a bad flub — one that diluted the message that Democrats want to be sending on sexual misconduct, particularly in light of Roy Moore's Senate campaign in Alabama and President Donald Trump's support for him."I'm trying to think of a political interview in recent history that's been as damaging to a politician, simply because she was so unprepared and could not answer questions about a huge crisis that is sweeping across the nation and so many industries, not just politics," said Elise Jordan, a Republican strategist and MSNBC analyst."I think that Democrats on Capitol Hill are underestimating the movement that's happening right now and the tenor of the nation when it comes to zero tolerance for sexual harassment and sexual assault. It's another example of Washington protecting their own — they're protecting the boys who are in the club," Jordan added. "It's about the ties of the club, the bonds of the club, and no one will defy that even when it's a question of morality and standards from the party that ostensibly says they support women."As Democrats also wrestle with groping allegations against Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., Pelosi's remarks raised questions about the credibility of the party's messaging and the degree to which its elected leaders are willing to put the protection of women ahead of political considerations. Some Democrats worried that they came at the cost of drawing a distinction with Trump and Moore.Rep. John ConyersAlex Wong / Getty Images file"We have no moral high ground against the likes of Roy Moore if we sit by in silence when Al Franken and John Conyers get to sit in their seats," Democratic strategist Lis Smith said. "We can't be the party that says we stand up for women only when it's politically convenient — we have to apply the same standards to ourselves."Amid a torrent of criticism from progressive activists — and as Republicans called her a hypocrite — Pelosi tried to limit any fallout.Conyers, who Democratic aides said already had agreed before Pelosi went on camera Sunday to temporarily step away from his post as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, made his plans public shortly after her appearance. Then Pelosi issued a her own statement after the interview, stressing the seriousness of sexual misconduct allegations."Zero tolerance means consequences," Pelosi said in the later statement, noting that she had called for an ethics investigation into Conyers. "We are at a watershed moment on this issue, and no matter how great an individual's legacy, it is not a license for harassment. I commend the brave women coming forward."Several Democratic lawmakers declined to make on-the-record comments about Pelosi's remarks, not wanting to make a bad situation worse for her.Some junior members of the Democratic caucus have long grumbled that Pelosi should consider stepping aside to allow younger leaders to rise and because they fear that the Republican Party will try to make an issue of her in the midterm elections next year. But one lawmaker and two veteran Democratic aides said Sunday that they didn't think the interview would cost her support among House Democrats."This is not going to move the numbers in any substantial way," the lawmaker said.But for the silence about Pelosi's comments among Democrats in Congress, beyond the Capitol, there was concern that Democrats need to speak clearly on the issue of sexual misconduct.Nomiki Konst, a former member of the Democratic National Committee and a surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, said Democratic leaders are in a "prickly position" when lawmakers who have advanced women's rights are themselves accused of sexual misconduct."There is no doubt that Nancy Pelosi is a feminist and that she has stood by women," Konst said, "but this is a moment when we really need to say, 'How are we going to look back on this in 20 years?'" | 0 |
Washington (CNN)A growing number of Republicans are openly scoffing at President Donald Trump's handling of national security issues, with the Senate's number two Republican bashing Trump's criticism on Wednesday of the heads of the US intelligence community ahead of a vote on a measure disapproving Trump's Middle East policy. The rebuke from Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate majority whip, came as the GOP-led chamber prepared to vote on an amendment breaking with Trump's plans to pull the US military away from Syria and Afghanistan. "I don't know how many times you can say this, but I prefer the President would stay off Twitter -- particularly with regard to these important national security issues where you've got people who are experts and have the background and are professionals," Thune said. "I think in those cases when it comes to their judgment, take into consideration what they're saying. ... I think we need to trust their judgment."Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and other top intelligence officials had appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday and contradicted Trump on a range of issues, including North Korea, Iran and ISIS.Trump issued a string of tweets Wednesday morning in response, defending his foreign policy decisions and taking issue with their statements, saying in regard to Iran that the intelligence officials were "extremely passive and naive." The same day Trump's intelligence appointees appeared before the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced an amendment rebuking the President's push to withdraw troops from the Middle East. "It would recognize the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan," the Kentucky Republican said Tuesday. Asked about the amendment, Thune said, "I think it reflects ... that we want to trust our military leaders when it comes to some of these decisions."GOP-Trump break on Syria amendmentA day before the Senate has a key vote on the Syria amendment, McConnell went to the floor to blast unnamed Democrats for filibustering the measure. "I didn't expect that my colleagues across the aisle would make a partisan stand and try to block this straightforward sense of the Senate amendment, when it really just restates what most of us thought was a broad, bipartisan consensus about American leadership in the world," McConnell said. But his attack on Democrats couldn't mask the reality summed up in his own complaint: that the Republican-led Senate was set to vote Thursday on a measure authored by the GOP leader himself that would criticize Trump's decision to pull out of Syria against the advice of his military and national security advisers."I intend to support it. I think most Republicans will," Thune said. "It reflects the widely held view in the conference that, again, you want to trust our military leaders when it comes to some of these decisions, and obviously these precipitous withdrawals in the past have not been good for us."Asked why Republicans couldn't persuade Trump in private to reverse his decision instead of turning to a public rebuke via a major vote in the Senate. Thune said, "I think they tried.""I think a number of our members, as you know, talk to the President on a fairly regular basis and have articulated to him that they think the policies that he wants to employ with regard to Syria, for example, are not the right ones. That's being conveyed," Thune said. Senate Armed Services Chairman James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said he will vote for the measure because he thinks it will help clarify that the withdrawal of US troops from Syria should be condition-based. "He was kind of painted in a corner," Inhofe said of the President. "It was just pull out, walk out. We all saw that the day that he said it. I happened to be with him at that time. And he has always felt it should be condition-based and I think this will clarify that. I think so."Inhofe was asked if Republican senators felt like they need to be on the record urging Trump not to pull the troops."Apparently so," Inhofe replied. Another Republican senator said Trump's move to withdraw troops quickly had "kicked off an important debate.""The precipitous withdrawal in Iraq didn't work" said Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. "We don't want to repeat that. So, the question is, how do you do it in a careful, thoughtful way working with our regional allies."It was not clear how many Democrats would oppose McConnell's amendment, even though many of them generally support getting troops out of Afghanistan and Syria. "My complaint, and I think I speak for a lot of Democrats, we're not against a plan to withdraw US military presence, but it's got to be done in consultation, conjunction and coordination with our allies. You don't just announce it," said Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who's a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said he couldn't say how he would vote until he studied the amendment."I will take a look at it," Sanders said. "I really can't speak to it until I study it." Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, said he would vote for the amendment, if a reporter's description of it held true after the senator had studied it. "I do think we need to learn from past mistakes and I do think we need to have a thoughtful withdrawal," Tester said. "I think we do agree with the President that the quicker we can get out of Syria the better, but it has to be with a plan, and if it is not with a plan than it would be a huge mistake."One GOP senator, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, said he expected a "substantial number of Democrats" to vote for McConnell's amendment. "The reason is, partly because they agree with him on the policy, which is true with some of the more hawkish members," the Republican said. "The second reason is that they would view it as opposite of where the President is. That seems to be part of their MO." | 0 |
The remaining part of the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building falls on 4 July, 2021 (Getty)The remaining structure left behind after the Miami building collapse has been brought down by demolition crews using explosives, after warnings that a tropical storm could render the site unsafe.Rescue teams are expected to resume the search for survivors once the demolition is complete at the Champlain Towers South condo building. They have so far recovered the remains of 24 people, with 121 still missing.No one has been pulled out of the rubble alive since the first day following the 24 June collapse at Surfside in southern Florida.The search and rescue mission was suspended on Saturday to allow engineers to prepare the site for demolition. The precarious remaining portion of the 12-storey building was rigged with strategically placed explosives that successfully brought down the structure on Sunday after 10.30pm.Rescuers said they were now just awaiting clearance to resume the work of trying to locate any survivors still buried under the rubble.“We are standing by. We are ready to go in, no matter the time of night,” Miami-Dade County mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a news conference earlier on Sunday evening.Rescuers believe that the detonation will have allowed them access to some parts of the original collapse site for the first time, especially the garage area that is a focus of interest.Miami-Dade fire chief Albert Cominsky said that once a new path to enter the rubble is secured, “we will go back to the debris pile, and we’ll begin our search and rescue efforts”.The decision to take down the building with a controlled explosion came amid mounting concerns that the damaged structure was at risk of falling due to a storm set to hit Florida.Small holes were drilled into the foundation of the building where explosive charges were placed (AP)A warning has been issued for the approaching tropical storm Elsa, which could bring strong winds to the area later on Monday, posing a danger to the damaged building and endangering the lives of rescuers.According to the latest forecast, the storm has moved westward, mostly sparing south Florida, with heavy rain and sustained winds of 60mph. But officials said the area could still feel the effects of the storm.Meanwhile, the mayor asked residents to stay inside their houses and close their windows for at least two hours after the blast. Local authorities sent representatives door to door to advise neighbours.A pile of debris remains after the partially collapsed 12-story building was taken down (Getty)Ms Levine Cava expressed sympathy with the families of people still missing in the rubble, and said those who were asked to evacuate from the remaining part of the building had “left their entire lives behind”.“I truly believe ... that the family members recognise and appreciate that we are proceeding in the best possible fashion to allow us to do the search that we need to do,” Ms Levine Cava said.The demolition involved a technique known as “energetic felling”, a method of controlled explosion that uses small strategically placed detonation devices and relies on the force of gravity.The mayor explained that the explosion would bring down the building in a way that disturbed the existing mound of debris as little as possible, as scores of people are still believed to be trapped underneath it.Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s assistant chief Ray Jadallah earlier on Sunday said small holes were drilled into the foundation of the building, where explosive charges were placed.A general contractor was hired by state officials to lead the demolition. The BG Group, based in Delray Beach, Florida, was hired for the project worth $935,000.Additional reporting by agenciesRead MoreIdentifying the remains a burdensome task in condo collapseFallout continues from biggest global ransomware attack‘I know I’m lucky’: 88 year old has tearful reunion with neighbour who carried her out of collapsing condo | 0 |
A husband and wife who were caught on video brandishing firearms at protesters outside their St. Louis home have turned their rifle over to police after a search warrant was executed.Authorities went to Mark and Patricia McCloskey's home Friday amid an ongoing investigation into the incident.The couple went viral last month after arming themselves with a rifle and a handgun as they confronted a group protesting police brutality and recent actions by the city's mayor.Still images and video of the confrontation circulated throughout social media as Black Lives Matter protests took place across the country following the death of George Floyd.In a video of the June 28 incident, Mark McCloskey is heard yelling: "Get the h--- out of my neighborhood. Private property. Get out."The confrontation ended with no injuries or arrests.The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement Saturday that detectives executed a search warrant at the home in the affluent St. Louis neighborhood of Central West End."Seized as evidence from the residence was a Colt, semi-automatic, .223 caliber rifle," the statement said.The department declined to provide further details.Attorney Joel Schwartz, who has taken over the case for the couple from another lawyer, told NBC News in a phone interview Saturday that the McCloskey's home was not searched by police and they voluntarily gave up the rifle.The second weapon was turned over to the previous lawyer, Schwartz said.Schwartz maintained his clients' innocence and said they are "law-abiding citizens that were well within their rights.”The attorney said the couple does regret their actions but said they did not break any laws. The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office said the matter remains under investigation.In a June statement, police described the McCloskey's as "victims" of trespassing and fourth-degree assault."The victims stated they were on their property when they heard a loud commotion coming from the street," police said. "When the victims went to investigate the commotion, they observed a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with 'No Trespassing' and 'Private Street' signs."Police said the McCloskeys told the group that they were on private property and needed to leave."The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims. When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police," the statement read.Demonstrators were in the neighborhood to protest against police brutality and Mayor Lyda Krewson, a Central West End resident who had released the names and addresses of activists who want to defund the police. Krewson has since apologized.Daniel Shular, a freelance photojournalist who was at the protest, previously told NBC News that he did not see anyone break the gate leading to the neighborhood and recalled seeing people simply walk through an open gate."I kind of turned around to take some pictures of people coming through the gate, then I turned back around and by then he had his long gun in his hand," he said. "And the woman came out with a pistol and started pointing it with her finger on the trigger at everybody."Shular said he saw at least one armed protester but said it's "not super out of the ordinary for the protests here."Albert Watkins, the previous attorney for the McCloskeys, said last month that his clients are supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and became fearful because white protesters were acting aggressively.It's unclear why the McCloskeys switched attorneys. | 0 |
(CNN Business)Amazon wasted no time to reach out to newly installed US President Joe Biden about prioritizing its essential workers in his administration's vaccine distribution plans. In a letter sent to Biden Wednesday, Amazon (AMZN) executive Dave Clark wrote that the company "stands ready to assist" in vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days, as Biden has pledged to do.As part of that offer, Clark highlighted that Amazon has more than 800,000 US-based employees — most of whom work in essential roles at Amazon fulfillment centers, AWS data centers, and Whole Foods Market stores — and these workers "should receive the Covid-19 vaccine at the earliest appropriate time." He added that Amazon has an agreement in place with a licensed third-party occupational health care provider to administer vaccines at its facilities.It's not the first time that Amazon has advocated for early access to the vaccine for its essential workers. In December, Clark penned a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices about access to the vaccine "at the earliest appropriate time." Others submitted similar requests, including Uber for its drivers, and the National Retail Federation, which advocated for the retail industry.The push comes as worker safety has become an area of intense scrutiny during the pandemic for the company, whose business has surged even as the broader economy has been mired in a pandemic-induced recession. In October, Amazon said more than 19,000 of its front-line US employees at Amazon and Whole Foods have tested positive or been presumed positive for the coronavirus, shedding light for the first time on how its workforce has been affected by Covid-19 after months of both internal and external pressure for more transparency.In Clark's letter, he suggested the company can help the administration more broadly, although the details are unclear. He wrote Amazon is "prepared to leverage our operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration's vaccination efforts. Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately in the fight against Covid-19, and we stand ready to assist you in this effort."Amazon did not immediately respond to CNN Business' request for further information. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — “This is how I’m going to die, defending this entrance,” Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell recalled thinking, testifying Tuesday at the emotional opening hearing of the congressional panel investigating the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.Gonell told House investigators he could feel himself losing oxygen as he was crushed by rioters – supporters of then-President Donald Trump – as he tried to hold them back and protect the Capitol and lawmakers.He and three other officers gave their accounts of the attack, sometimes wiping away tears, sometimes angrily rebuking Republicans who have resisted the probe and embraced Trump’s downplaying of the day’s violence. Six months after the insurrection, with no action yet taken to bolster Capitol security or provide a full accounting of what went wrong, the new panel launched its investigation by starting with the law enforcement officers who protected them. Along with graphic video of the hand-to-hand fighting, the officers described being beaten as they held off the mob that broke through windows and doors and interrupted the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win.Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who rushed to the scene, told the committee — and millions watching news coverage — that he was “grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country.” That assault on him, which stopped only when he said he had children, caused him to have a heart attack.Daniel Hodges, also a D.C. police officer, said he remembered foaming at the mouth and screaming for help as rioters crushed him between two doors and bashed him in the head with his own weapon. He said there was “no doubt in my mind” that the rioters were there to kill members of Congress. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn said one group of rioters, perhaps 20 people, screamed the n-word at him as he was trying to keep them from breaching the House chamber — racial insults he said he had never experienced while in uniform. At the end of that day, he sat down in the Capitol Rotunda and sobbed. “I became very emotional and began yelling, ’How the (expletive) can something like this happen?” Dunn testified. “Is this America?” “My blood is red,” he said. “I’m an American citizen. I’m a police officer. I’m a peace officer.”Tensions on Capitol Hill have only worsened since the insurrection, with many Republicans playing down, or outright denying, the violence that occurred and denouncing the Democratic-led investigation as politically motivated. Democrats are reminding that officers sworn to protect the Capitol suffered serious injuries at the hands of the rioters. All of the officers expressed feelings of betrayal at the Republicans who have dismissed the violence. “I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room,” Fanone testified, pounding his fist on the table in front of him. “Too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad. The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.” The witnesses detailed the horror of their assaults and the lasting trauma in the six months since, both mental and physical. At the hearing’s end, the witnesses all pleaded with the lawmakers to dig deeper into how it happened. The lawmakers on the committee, too, grew emotional as they played videos of the violence and repeatedly thanked the police for protecting them. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida told them she was hiding near an entrance they were defending that day and said “the main reason rioters didn’t harm any members of Congress was because they didn’t encounter any members of Congress.”Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the panel, shed tears during his questioning. He said he hadn’t expected to become so emotional. “You guys all talk about the effects you have to deal with, and you talk about the impact of that day,” Kinzinger told the officers. “But you guys won. You guys held.”Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s other Republican, expressed “deep gratitude for what you did to save us” and defended her decision to accept an appointment by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “The question for every one of us who serves in Congress, for every elected official across this great nation, indeed, for every American is this: Will we adhere to the rule of law, respect the rulings of our courts, and preserve the peaceful transition of power?” “Or will we be so blinded by partisanship that we throw away the miracle of America?” The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, withdrew the participation of the Republicans he had appointed last week after Pelosi rejected two of them. She said their “antics” in support of Trump, and his lies that he won the election, weren’t appropriate for the serious investigation. McCarthy has stayed close to Trump since the insurrection and has threatened to pull committee assignments from any Republican who participates on the Jan. 6 panel. He has called Cheney and Kinzinger “Pelosi Republicans.”On Tuesday, McCarthy again called the process a “sham.” He told reporters that Pelosi should be investigated for her role in the security failures of the day but ignored questions about Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had identical authority over the Capitol Police and Capitol security officials.After the hearing, Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the probe could move forward urgently, with subpoenas “soon.” The investigation is expected to examine not only Trump’s role in the insurrection but the groups involved in coordinating it, white supremacists among them. The probe will also look at security failures that allowed hundreds of people to breach the Capitol and send lawmakers running for their lives. Some of those who broke in were calling for the deaths of Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, who was hiding just feet away from the mob.Capitol Police have repeatedly said they are hamstrung by a lack of funding. Senate leaders said Tuesday they had reached a deal on a $2.1 billion emergency spending bill that could provide more resources. Shortly after the insurrection, most Republicans denounced the violent mob — and many criticized Trump himself, who told his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat. But many have softened their tone in recent months and weeks.And some have gone further, with Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde saying video of the rioters looked like “a normal tourist visit,” and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar repeatedly saying that a woman who was shot and killed by police as she was trying to break into the House chamber was “executed.” ___Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant, Brian Slodysko, Eric Tucker, Kevin Freking and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report from Washington. Associated Press writer Aaron Morrison contributed from New York. | 0 |
June 4, 2020 / 10:15 AM / CBS News George Floyd, the Minnesota man who died after an officer arresting him pressed his knee onto his neck, died by homicide, according to the results of two autopsies released on Monday — one by the county medical examiner and the other by independent pathologists commissioned by Floyd's family. But the two autopsy reports differed on exactly how the man died. Dr. Allecia Wilson, one of the pathologists who conducted the independent autopsy, said Monday afternoon that Floyd died as a result of mechanical asphyxiation. But the report released later Monday by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office said Floyd died of "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression." The manner of death was ruled homicide, but the office noted that "is not a legal determination of culpability or intent." A preliminary autopsy report cited earlier by prosecutors said the county medical examiner's review "revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."
Floyd's death has led to widespread outrage, protests and unrest across the nation. The Minneapolis officer seen kneeling on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, was charged last week with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The independent autopsy was conducted by Wilson and Dr. Michael Baden. Baden is the former chief medical examiner of New York City, and was also hired in 2014 to conduct the autopsy of Eric Garner, a black man who died when an NYPD officer used a banned chokehold during his arrest. Both Garner and Floyd pleaded with officers that they couldn't breathe before their deaths seen on disturbing videos, and "I can't breathe" has become a rallying cry among those protesting police brutality. George Floyd, left, and former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with third-degree murder for Floyd's death. Baden said Floyd died as a result of compression on his neck and back from the officer, which interfered with blood flow and his breathing."George died because he needed a breath," said Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Floyd's family. "He needed a breath of air." The Hennepin County medical examiner's office, however, said Floyd experienced cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by the officer. The county autopsy said Floyd had "other significant conditions" including "arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease; fentanyl intoxication; [and] recent methamphetamine use." The office had not previously released the findings pending toxicology reports.But Baden said the further testing wouldn't reveal evidence of compressive pressure on Floyd's neck and back since the pressure would have been released when it was no longer applied. He said large areas of scrapes and abrasions on Floyd's face indicated the force that was used to press him into the ground. Baden also said that he could find no underlying conditions that contributed to Floyd's death, saying he was in good health. In a criminal complaint, Hennepin County prosecutors said Chauvin "had his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Two minutes and 53 seconds of this was after Mr. Floyd was "non-responsive." Crump said Floyd's death was the result of that sustained pressure to his neck and the pressure on Floyd's back from other officers holding him down."What those officers did, as we have seen on the video, is his cause of death — not some underlying, unknown health condition," Crump said. "George Floyd was a healthy young man."Crump said Floyd died on the scene."The ambulance was his hearse," Crump said. Floyd family attorney: Officer should be char... 05:19 Crump said the family understands the "righteous anger" of protesters and said they support the people who want to work towards change, but he called the violence "unacceptable." He encouraged the community to "take a breath for justice, take a breath for peace, take a breath for our country, but more importantly, take a breath for George, since he didn't get the opportunity to take a breath."
Another lawyer representing Floyd's family, Antonio Romanucci, said the three other officers involved are also criminally responsible for Floyd's death. All have been fired, but none of the others have been charged. He called those officers "shameless" and said they had every opportunity to prevent Floyd's death, knowing that restricting his airway could kill him. The family has called for those officers to be charged, and for Chauvin to face first-degree — rather than third-degree — murder charges.Romanucci also blasted the Minneapolis police department for what he described as a failure to properly train officers about chokeholds and restraint. "This was a brutal and public display of an eight-minute prolonged death," Romanucci said. "This was the lowest level of human respect and dignity that any community should ever have to endure. What this really was was the weight of the Minneapolis police department on George's neck."The Minneapolis police department has not responded to requests from CBS News for information about its training.Editor's note: This article has been updated with the results of the county medical examiner's report. Erin Donaghue Erin Donaghue reports and writes for CBSNews.com on topics including criminal justice, social justice and culture. Twitter | 0 |
New York (CNN Business)Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday filed proposed class-action lawsuits targeting Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey, as well as YouTube and its parent company's CEO Sundar Pichai, in a Hail Mary move after being removed from their platforms. Courts have typically dismissed similar suits, and these are likely doomed from the start as well.The announcement about the lawsuits comes after the companies removed Trump's access to their platforms in the aftermath of the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill. Twitter banned Trump altogether, and he is currently suspended from Facebook for at least two years. YouTube also suspended Trump in January, but it said in March that his account would be reinstated when the company is confident that the risk of violence has receded. Twitter (TWTR), Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOGL), which owns YouTube, declined to comment.Tech companies have consistently rejected claims that their platforms discriminate based on partisan ideology. Independent studies have not corroborated such accusations, and several have found that partisan voices, particularly on the right, are among the most engaged-with on the platforms.Trump's suits continue a trend that began during his presidency: Throwing the book against companies he perceives to be a threat to his political brand. Last spring, while he was still in office, Trump signed an executive order aimed at "preventing online censorship" and seeking to expand legal liability for tech companies.But the tech companies are legally permitted to run their platforms as they see fit, and courts have dismissed a string of similar lawsuits. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all cited the potential for future incitement of violence or risks to public safety following the Capitol riot in announcing their decisions to remove Trump's accounts. Trump announced the suits during a press conference Wednesday, saying that he is asking a court in Florida "to order an immediate halt to social media companies' illegal, shameful censorship of the American people.""We're going to hold big tech very accountable," he said. During the nearly hour-long event, Trump and others involved in the effort made grandiose claims about the potential for the lawsuits that are likely at odds with the suits' actual potential for success. Less than an hour after the event, Trump's team began sending out fundraising appeals related to the lawsuits. The website recruiting participants for the proposed class action suits also featured a link to donate, and the Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising appeal invoking the suit as well. The complaints against Twitter, Facebook and YouTube claim that the platforms' removals of Trump amount to censorship and allege that the decisions violate his First Amendment right to free speech. Such actions by the companies have previously been protected under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, a federal law that provides legal immunity to websites that moderate user-generated content, and has been used by tech platforms to nip many lawsuits in the bud."Plaintiff respectfully asks this Court ... to prohibit Defendants from exercising censorship, editorial control, or prior restraint in its many forms over the posts of President Trump and Putative Class Members," the Twitter complaint states. (A court still must certify that each of the lawsuits can proceed as a class action.)The complaints also take issue with the way that the platforms attempted to address the spread of misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic, including their leaning on the CDC -— which Trump clashed with as president and which the suit falsely claims has a "highly questionable reputation" — to help determine what information about the virus and treatments for it was true and what was false and dangerous. Among the relief requested by the suits is an order that the social media companies immediately reinstate the accounts of Trump and other members of the proposed class action suit who were removed from the platforms, an order requiring the social media companies to remove warning labels on Trump's posts and a judgment declaring Section 230 unconstitutional.Prior legal efforts against Big TechThe push to bring legal action against tech platforms over bias allegations has spread nationwide. In May, Florida passed a law allowing politicians that have been suspended or removed from social media to sue those companies.But the effort has run up against the realities of current law — and the Constitution. Last week, a federal judge blocked Florida's law from going into effect, saying government attempts to force social media companies to host political speech violates the First Amendment. (Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has vowed to appeal.)The judge's ruling also said the Florida law ran counter to Section 230, which Trump had sought to weaken with his executive order. In Congress, numerous bills have been proposed to narrow the scope of Section 230, including by some Democrats who believe tech companies are not doing enough to curb hate speech and harassment online.But much of the momentum for changing Section 230 has come from Republicans upset about how social media companies have enforced their rules when conservatives have broken them. Trump, in his order, accused tech companies of "engaging in selective censorship that is harming our national discourse," and pushed for the Federal Communications Commission to "clarify" Section 230.Legal experts and FCC officials themselves questioned the agency's authority to do that, citing the same First Amendment issues that tied up the Florida law. President Joe Biden later rescinded Trump's order.Now, having failed to turn the machinery of the US government against the tech industry, Trump is trying to get at it through the courts himself. But with Section 230 still on the books, it's unclear how he could succeed.Trump's suits do advance an unusual argument to try to get around that, but legal experts said that argument also lacks merit and is not likely to succeed.A key claim in the suits is that because it coordinated with and relied on the guidance of public health officials around information and misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, social media should be treated as a "state actor" subject to First Amendment restrictions on censorship.The idea is a "huge stretch on the law and the facts," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "No court has subscribed to this theory, so Trump seems unlikely to prevail."Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, said collaboration between the public and private sector does not turn companies into the government."Everything in these complaints is preposterous, which should not come as a surprise given Trump's affinity for filing frivolous lawsuits," Schwartzman said. "The fact that platforms talk to the government, and even cooperate on taking down speakers who violate the law or threaten national security does not make them instruments of the state."CNN's Michael Warren and Ashley Semler contributed reporting. | 0 |
Trevor Hughes, Rick Jervis, Jonathan Shorman and William M. WelchPresident Obama declares a major disaster in OklahomaAt least 24 people -- nine of them children -- are killed and more than 200 injured after tornado levels Moore%2C Okla.National Weather Service estimates winds approached 200 mph9 year old girl identified as victimMOORE, Okla. — Rescuers neared an end of their desperate search for survivors in the debris of destroyed homes, schools and businesses Tuesday, a day after after a massive tornado blasted through this Tornado Alley town, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 200.The National Weather Service upgraded its estimate of the storm's force, saying it was the strongest type, EF-5 and packing incredible fury with winds of more than 200 mph. A day earlier it had said the storm was an EF-4.Fire Chief Gary Bird said he is "98 percent sure" there are no more survivors or bodies to recover under the rubble in the town. He said every damaged home had been searched at least once and that the work could be completed by nightfall Tuesday, though rain slowed efforts.Bird said no additional survivors or bodies have been found since Monday night.Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak said losses were likely to exceed the $3 billion in losses from the 2011 tornado that devastated Joplin, Mo., in 211, when 161 people were killed. He spoke with Reuters after touring the scene.Efforts were hindered by Tuesday's unsettled weather, which included bouts of hail and lightning. Additionally, roads were clogged by debris and the thousands of residents trying to return home and check their damage.Authorities dramatically reduced the number of confirmed dead after earlier reporting that at least 51 people had died in Monday's storm.Amy Elliot, spokeswoman for the state medical examiner's office, blamed the confusion on chaos after the storm cut a path more than a mile wide through this Oklahoma City suburb of 41,000 people. She said nine of the dead were children, and that the death toll could climb.One of the victims was identified Tuesday night as Ja'Nae Hornsby, 9, who was a student at Plaza Towers Elementary School, which was demolished by the tornado, said Pastor James Dorn Jr. of Mt. Triumph Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, where the girl grew up attending."She was an awesome child, awesome student in school, the kind of child that made you happy to be around,'' Dorn said. "She wasn't troublesome. Just a super kid that always had a smile on her face.''Dorn said the girl's parents rushed to the school when the twister hit and were unable to find their daughter. They went to shelters and called hospitals hoping to find her. "Then this morning they were informed by the medical examiner that Ja'Nae was one of the children that lost her life,'' Dorn said, adding that the church was establishing a memorial fund in her honor.Angela Berg, also a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner, said Tuesday night that the office was not yet ready to release a list of those killed."We will rebuild, and we will regain our strength," Gov. Mary Fallin said at an afternoon press conference.Fallin said at least 237 people were injured and that officials are working to develop "firm" casualty numbers. Fallin also praised the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its administrator, Craig Fugate -- and thanked first responders for a "job well done."The National Weather Service spokeswoman Keli Pirtle said Tuesday the agency upgraded the tornado from an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale to an EF-5 based on what a damage assessment team saw on the ground. The weather service uses the word "incredible" to describe the power of EF-5 storms.The weather service says the tornado's path was 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.Pirtle says Monday's twister is the first EF-5 tornado of 2013.On average, over 1,000 tornadoes hit the U.S. each year, and only one might be an EF-5, reports National Climatic Data Center. Since the early 1950s, only 59 EF-5 tornadoes have hit the USA, according to the Tornado History Project. Moore, Okla., has been hit by two of those.Everyone was a first responder in Moore. When the storm destroyed the Plaza Towers Elementary School, rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain of parents and neighborhood volunteers. Parents carried children in their arms to a triage center in the parking lot.Firefighter Russ Locke was among those who helped search through the school's crushed remains, where about 75 students and staff had huddled when the tornado hit. Several children were killed there; others were pulled alive from the wreckage."You have your own kids, and you want to find other people's kids and for it all to be OK," Locke said, tearing up. "And sometimes it doesn't work out like that."About a mile away, the walls tumbled down at Briarwood Elementary. Miraculously, no one there died.The tornado stormed east across town, snapping 30-foot trees in half, crushing homes and hurling chunks of aluminum siding like missiles.Jalayne Jann, 40, had just arrived home from work when the tornado descended on her neighborhood. She grabbed two of her five dogs and dashed into her underground concrete shelter, emerging minutes later to an apocalyptic scene: two walls to her brick home pulverized, trees down, cars crushed and homes for miles in either direction flattened."Shocked," she said Tuesday as she surveyed her ruined home. "We've lived here a long time. We're used to tornadoes. But they always go around or over. Nothing ever like this."Johnnie Schatswell, 70, piled his wife, Vivian, and two dogs into a bathtub and laid atop them as the tornado crushed his home. Boards and bricks pelted his back as the storm intensified. Later, a neighbor yanked back a collapsed kitchen wall to help free them, he said."It's like a roar I've never heard before," he said of the storm. "And never want to hear again."Even in areas where destruction was not complete, pieces of fencing were scattered across once-green lawns now covered in mud and chunks of wood. Garage doors were buckled and ripped from hinges, cars had been smashed by flying debris.Judy Odom, who has lived in the same home here for 40 years, said she stayed there Monday night despite some damage."I don't even know what I'm supposed to do," she said. "I suppose I'll go talk to my insurance company."Trisha Ulrey, 46, said she had just pulled into the parking lot of Highland West Junior High to pick up her children, Rachel, 14, and Jacob, 12, when she was told the storm was too close -- school officials weren't letting students go."People were screaming mad," Ulrey said. "They wanted to go home to their own shelters. But teachers were saying, 'You can die between here and your shelter.'"The storm roared around them and the school's roof rattled. After the 45-minute ordeal was over, she said she knew school officials had done the right thing."It could have been much, much worse if they had let them go," Ulrey said.President Obama, who declared a major disaster in Oklahoma late Monday, spoke to the nation Tuesday morning. The president, who had just received a briefing on recovery efforts, said Oklahoma "will have all the resources they need at their disposal."Pope Francis tweeted: "I am close to the families of all who died in the Oklahoma tornado, especially those who lost young children. Join me in praying for them."The were concerns that the area might be victimized by charity scams. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt dispatched more than 30 investigators Tuesday to conduct investigations."The first scam we typically see after devastation like this is charity fraud," Pruitt said. "For those folks around the country who want to donate funds to help families in Oklahoma, please be alert and only donate to reputable relief charities such as the Salvation Army or the Red Cross."The Red Cross said it was accepting $10 pledges from people who text "REDCROSS" to 90999. People can also donate at the organization's website.Claudia Todd, immediate past president of the district PTA in Moore, said the action officials at Plaza Towers Elementary took Monday afternoon as a monstrous tornado took aim at them is a routine drill practiced monthly at most schools in the district.Along with fire drills, sheltering in place for extreme storm events are practiced at least once a month, where students and teachers practice filing into interior classrooms during storms, she said. When a freshman joins a school, they also take home a procedure book with items such as dress code – and the carefully explained shelter drill."You take those precautions seriously, especially in Oklahoma," said Todd, who also works as a junior attendance secretary at nearby Southmoore High School.After the May 1999 tornado, those drills were practiced with even more seriousness, she said."When you hear those warnings, you don't just go, 'It's just another warning,'" Todd said. "You take them seriously."The National Weather Service said Monday that the tornado spent 40 minutes on the ground, a 20-mile swath of death with winds approaching 200 mph.Moore is no stranger to such tragedy; the Tornado Alley town was torn apart by another massive twister 14 years ago.On May 3, 1999, a record-setting EF-5 tornado obliterated the city of 55,000 with winds measured at 318 mph, the highest ever on the earth's surface. The storm killed 36 people, injured hundreds and caused about $1 billion in damage.The National Weather Service in Norman, Okla., said a tornado warning was in effect Monday afternoon for 16 minutes before the twister developed. The tornado was given a preliminary rating of EF-4."We've been through this before,'' City Manager Steve Eddy said, referring to the 1999 tornado and others over the years. "Our citizens are resilient.On Sunday, a tornado packing winds as high as 200 mph left two people dead in Oklahoma. Tornadoes and high winds injured more than 20 in the region.Steve Bowen, of global reinsurance firm Aon Benfield, estimated that the Moore tornado could become only the fourth in world history to cause non-inflation adjusted economic losses "beyond $1 billion."So far this year — not including this most recent five-day outbreak — severe storms have caused $3.5 billion in economic losses in the USA, Bowen said. Of that $3.5 billion, at least $2 billion was covered by insurance."By the time the current storm system finally winds down by the middle of this week, I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up as the costliest U.S. natural disaster event we've seen so far in 2013," said Bowen.Trevor Hughes reports for The Coloradoan in Fort Collins; Jonathan Shorman for The News-Leader in Springfield, Mo.Contributing: Doyle Rice; Donna Leinwand Leger, Laura Petrecca, John Bacon, USA TODAY; The Associated Press | 0 |
The Week in Patriarchy is a weekly roundup of what’s happening in the world of feminism and sexism. If you’re not already receiving it by email, make sure to subscribe.Why are sexual assault and misbehaviour allegations against Biden being ignored?Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has been accused of sexual assault by a former staffer. Tara Reade, who worked with Biden when he was a Delaware senator, alleges he inappropriately touched her and penetrated her with his fingers without consent in 1993.“It happened all at once, and then … his hands were on me and underneath my clothes,” Reade recalled in an interview with podcast host Katie Halper on Wednesday. “He said ‘come on, man, I heard you liked me. For me, it was like, everything shattered … I wanted to be a senator; I didn’t want to sleep with one.”Rightwing news outlets have gleefully seized upon the accusations against Biden; the story has also been discussed by leftwing commentators. However, the mainstream media has largely ignored the allegations. Instead there have been headlines like The top 10 women Joe Biden might pick as VP (CNN) and Joe Biden’s inner circle: No longer a boy’s club (AP).It is hugely frustrating to see conservatives, who couldn’t give a damn about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, weaponize the accusations against Biden. However, it’s also frustrating to see so many liberals turning a blind eye. The accusations against the former vice-president are serious; why aren’t they being taken seriously?One obvious reason is that Reade’s accusations are very hard to prove. The incident happened a long time ago and there weren’t any witnesses. Reade also gave a slightly different version of events last year; she accused Biden of touching her neck and shoulders in a way that was inappropriate and uncomfortable, but did not say anything sexual took place. This inconsistency obviously doesn’t mean she’s lying; unfortunately, it is easy to use against her.Reade’s story may be impossible to verify, but this is the case with the vast majority of sexual assault allegations. It is nearly always a case of “he said, she said” – and it is nearly always the “he’ that is automatically believed. The #MeToo mantra “Believe Women” doesn’t mean that women never lie; it means that our systems of power are biased towards believing men never lie. It means that it takes decades of allegations and scores of women coming forward for powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby to be brought to justice. All the mantra means is that you shouldn’t automatically disbelieve women.You know who has talked publicly about the importance of taking women seriously? Biden. During the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Biden stood up for Dr Christine Blasey Ford, noting: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”Does this presumption not apply when the guy being accused is a Democrat running for president? It would seem that way. In January, according to reporting from the Intercept, Reade asked for help from the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which has supported accusers of high-profile people like Weinstein. Reade was reportedly told by the National Women’s Law Center, the organization within which the Time’s Up fund is housed, that it couldn’t assist with accusations against a presidential candidate because it would jeopardize their non-profit status. The Intercept further notes that “the public relations firm that works on behalf of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund is SKDKnickerbocker, whose managing director, Anita Dunn, is the top adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign”.There are some people who will insist that drawing attention to the new allegations against Biden is playing into the Republicans’ hands. That it will destroy Biden’s campaign and guarantee us four more years of Trump. Not only is that argument hypocritical, it is also hugely unlikely that Reade’s accusations will do any damage whatsoever to Biden’s ambitions. Allegations of sexual assault certainly haven’t posed any hindrance to Trump. The allegations against Kavanaugh didn’t stop him from becoming a supreme court justice. The allegations against Louis CK didn’t kill his career in comedy. And the multiple women who have accused Biden of touching them inappropriately in the past haven’t exactly derailed his career.Why does coronavirus kill more men than women?Around the world, men in every age bracket are dying from coronavirus at higher rates than women. Men have accounted for 71% of Covid-19 deaths in Italy, for example. And in Spain twice as many men as women have died. Nobody is entirely sure what’s causing this gender gap. Biology, lifestyle and behaviour probably all play a role but we won’t know what the balance is until sex-disaggregated data is more widely available.Telegram sexual abuse scandal shocks South KoreaPolice have named 25-year-old Cho Ju-bin as the man who allegedly ran a sexual blackmail ring on the app Telegram. Women and underage girls were blackmailed into sending degrading images of themselves through the app; the images were then made available to subscribers. Police took the unusual step of naming Cho after five million South Koreans signed petitions demanding his identity be revealed. His arrest comes just months after the “Burning Sun Scandal”, in which a number of K-pop stars were implicated in a prostitution ring.Should women be eligible for the US military draft?A congressionally mandated commission thinks so. The National Commission on Military, National and Public Service released a report on Wednesday recommending that women register for possible obligatory military service.Incels are thrilled with the coronavirus lockdownsThey’re gleeful that nobody can have casual sex any more, apparently. However while quarantine may stop people hooking up with strangers, it seems some are having sex parties on Zoom.The week in pet-riarchyThe one silver lining to the public health crisis we’re currently facing? New York City, the center of America’s pandemic, is running out of shelter animals. There’s been a huge spike in people fostering dogs and cats to help them get through these ruff times. | 0 |
Credit...Franck Robichon/EPA, via ShutterstockJune 9, 2019FUKUOKA, Japan — Global finance leaders meeting in Japan this weekend said they were increasingly worried that the trade dispute between the United States and China, which shows no signs of abating, could propel the world economy into a crisis.The sense of gloom at the gathering of the Group of 20 major economies came amid increasing evidence that global economic growth is slowing amid President Trump’s renewed trade war with Beijing. In a closing statement, or communiqué, officials at the G-20 warned that trade tensions have “intensified” and agreed to address the risks.But the Trump administration, intent on rewriting the rules of international commerce in America’s favor, gave no sign that it was ready to back down. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued to blame China for prolonging the fight and insisted that the trade dispute was not hurting America’s economy or hampering global growth.“I don’t think in any way that the slowdowns you’re seeing in parts of the world are a result of trade tensions at the moment,” Mr. Mnuchin told reporters on the sidelines of the G-20.Mr. Trump is expected to meet with President Xi Jinping of China in late June, a critical encounter that could determine whether the world’s two largest economies can resolve their dispute. Talks between the two countries fell apart last month, with Mr. Trump accusing China of reneging on a trade deal and China insisting that the United States was not negotiating in good faith.Tensions have since increased as Mr. Trump raised tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods and threatened to tax nearly all Chinese imports. Beijing has responded with higher tariffs on American goods, and in a white paper released last Sunday, Chinese officials vowed to “never give in” on issues of principle.Mr. Trump will make a decision about the next round of tariffs after his meeting with Mr. Xi.“We are not far from a real and open trade war between China and the U.S.,” Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said in an interview on the sidelines of the gathering on Sunday. “I think all the G-20 people are aware that kind of situation would lead to an economic crisis, to a lack of growth and to a slowdown everywhere in the world.”Mr. Mnuchin met on Sunday with Yi Gang, the governor of the People’s Bank of China. It was the first face-to-face contact between officials from the two countries since the talks broke down last month. Mr. Mnuchin, in a tweet, described their discussion of trade as “candid.”But he said he had no plans to return to Beijing before Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi meet and that Chinese officials would not be traveling to Washington. The Treasury secretary, who has shuttled back and forth to China several times in the past year, said he had had no contact with Liu He, the Chinese vice premier and top trade negotiator, since early May.Policymakers from around the world voiced their concerns about Mr. Trump’s protectionist approach to Mr. Mnuchin in hopes that the former Goldman Sachs banker, who has been a more moderate voice on trade, might persuade the president to back away from tariff threats and find a way to make peace with China.Mr. Le Maire said he made this case directly to Mr. Mnuchin and urged the Treasury secretary to consider a multilateral approach, such as working through the World Trade Organization, to confront China. He also noted that the steel and aluminum tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on imports last year have had a ripple effect, compounding the protectionism emanating from the United States.This year the European Union was forced to impose quotas to slow a flood of cheap Chinese steel, which otherwise would have gone to the United States, to its shores.In Germany, which has been bracing for Mr. Trump to make a decision about imposing tariffs on auto imports, anxiety about trade has led to a decline in business sentiment and spending.“We all hope there will be a way out of these trade tensions,” Olaf Scholz, the German finance minister, said in an interview. “Because every one of us knows that our fundamental economic data are influenced by the insecurity of this situation.”He added, “As an indirect effect of these insecurities, companies postpone their decisions to invest.”Canada is also feeling pain as a result of strained relations between the United States and China. Last year, Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese tech giant Huawei, who faces extradition to the United States. Since then, China has detained two Canadians, rebuffing Canada’s calls for their release. It has also begun blocking imports of Canadian canola.“We’re seeing actions in China to restrict the trade of canola,” said Bill Morneau, Canada’s finance minister. “We don’t see that as something related to the quality of the canola, but rather as a trade response to our legal system.”All the friction is taking a toll on many of the world’s largest economies as businesses race to reorient their supply chains and anxiously await new trade barriers. Mr. Trump has added to the uncertainty in recent weeks, threatening tariffs on allies like Mexico to solve problems, such as immigration, that have nothing to do with trade.This month, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund warned about the prospects of slowing economic growth, and both pointed to widening trade disputes as a culprit. The bank noted that global trade growth has slowed to its lowest level in a decade while the I.M.F. said that the tariffs that the United States and China placed on each other’s imports could reduce global gross domestic product by 0.5 percent, or $455 billion, next year.The Trump administration views America’s relative economic strength as a source of leverage, but there are also signs that the tariffs are taking a toll in the United States.In a survey of businesses conducted by the Federal Reserve in May, contacts across the central bank’s 12 districts mentioned tariffs 37 times, up from 19 in the April report and 18 in March.Businesses reported a range of experiences: Some said they were passing along cost increases, while others said they could not. Pecan farmers in the Dallas district were considering shifting into hemp and away from their tariff-impaired crop, while clothing stores in Richmond, Va., reported that they had stocked up on inventory to avoid import taxes and could not place new “seasonally appropriate” orders.In Fukuoka, a coastal city known as a trade gateway to the rest of Asia, finance ministers debated how to assess the effects of trade tensions on the global economy. The United States, expressing skepticism its protectionist measures are dampening growth, was an outlier. In drafting the communiqué, it resisted language that would call for trade tensions to be resolved.To the relief of many at the meeting, the Trump administration did resolve its immigration fight with Mexico and back off from a threat to impose more tariffs. Mr. Mnuchin rescheduled a Saturday morning meeting here to confer with White House officials about the decision. He said that he was pleased that the additional tariffs did not need to be imposed and that the United States could focus its attention on China.The Treasury secretary said he believed that the tariffs on China would encourage businesses to move manufacturing to other countries, creating new winners and losers but not dampening overall output. He acknowledged that other finance ministers expressed concern about the United States continuing on its current path.For months, Mr. Mnuchin has been viewed as a moderate voice and optimist on Mr. Trump’s trade team, but before his meeting with Mr. Yi he struck a more strident tone, laying blame for the faltering negotiations directly on China and accusing it of backing out of commitments. Echoing Mr. Trump’s threat, he warned that if China does not return to the negotiating table then more tariffs are coming.“It’s important to continue to communicate if they’re going to eventually get a deal,” said Clete Willems, a former top White House trade official who recently joined the firm Akin Gump. “There have been periods like this before: A few weeks ahead of last year’s G-20, expectations were exceedingly low and presidential engagement provided a jump-start for what was a period of very productive engagement.”In an interview, Mr. Mnuchin expressed confidence that the United States could weather the trade dispute with China despite economic weakness around the world. He dismissed recent warning signs, such as weak employment and retail sales figures, as aberrations and said he saw no indication that the economy was slowing.“Like a lot of negotiations, sometimes you go backwards before you go forwards,” Mr. Mnuchin said. “We’re either going to have an agreement or we’re not going to have an agreement. We’re prepared for both outcomes.” | 0 |
Rubio's support is crucial for the Gang of Eight's success. Sen. Marco Rubio issued an Easter morning statement saying he is “encouraged” by progress in talks on immigration reform but added: “Reports that the bipartisan group of eight senators have agreed on a legislative proposal are premature.” The headline of his statement, timed for release just before the Sunday talk shows: “Rubio: No Final Agreement on Immigration Legislation Yet.” Rubio, whose support is crucial if the Senate’s Gang of Eight is to have a deal, spoke out one day after business and union groups signed off on a temporary worker program that appeared to be the biggest remaining hurdle for Senate negotiators. ( Also on POLITICO: Labor, business reach immigration deal) Officials close to the negotiations say the Senate group is on track to announce a deal shortly after the Senate returns the second week of April. But Rubio made clear in his statement that he won’t be rushed. “I believe we will be able to agree on a legislative proposal,” he said. “However, that legislation will only be a starting point. … Arriving at a final product will require it to be properly submitted for the American people’s consideration through the other 92 senators from 43 states that weren’t part of this initial drafting process.” Here is Rubio’s full statement: “I’m encouraged by reports of an agreement between business groups and unions on the issue of guest workers. However, reports that the bipartisan Group of Eight senators have agreed on a legislative proposal are premature. “We have made substantial progress, and I believe we will be able to agree on a legislative proposal that modernizes our legal immigration system, improves border security and enforcement and allows those here illegally to earn the chance to one day apply for permanent residency contingent upon certain triggers being met. However, that legislation will only be a starting point. “We will need a healthy public debate that includes committee hearings and the opportunity for other senators to improve our legislation with their own amendments. Eight senators from seven states have worked on this bill to serve as a starting point for discussion about fixing our broken immigration system. But arriving at a final product will require it to be properly submitted for the American people’s consideration through the other 92 senators from 43 states that weren’t part of this initial drafting process. In order to succeed, this process cannot be rushed or done in secret.” | 0 |
Credit...David Zalubowski/Associated PressOct. 14, 2014WASHINGTON — After countless dire emails and months of fading bravado, national Democrats in recent days have signaled with their money what they have been loath to acknowledge out loud: They will not win back the House and they will most likely lose additional seats in November.Since last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has essentially given up efforts to unseat Republicans in several races, pulling advertising money from a dozen campaigns in Republican-held districts to focus on protecting its embattled incumbents.Democrats need 17 Republican seats to win back the majority, but of the 25 races still on the campaign committee’s battlefield, only seven currently belong to Republicans. That means Democrats are playing defense in 18 districts and offense in seven.“This is shaping up to be the quintessential sixth year of a president’s term, and a referendum on this president,” said Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign committee’s Republican counterpart.Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic campaign committee, refused on Tuesday to admit the basic math that had put control of the House out of reach.“I haven’t even conceded the Mets aren’t in the World Series this year,” he said.But campaign committee aides now say they never really expected to win the majority, and had not been able to gain traction because of President Obama’s stubbornly low approval ratings, Senate races that have gone poorly for the Democrats in states like Colorado and Iowa, and governors races that went sour (Illinois) or never really developed (California, New York.)They called the retrenchment a “fine-tuning” of the battlefield.“I absolutely would not say we’re in triage mode,” Mr. Israel insisted. “There’s a difference between triage and making strategic decisions.”No matter what they call it, the moves over the past week have been drastic. The campaign committee has withdrawn from races once seen as the most promising in the country.“The mystery for many Democratic consultants is, ‘Where is all the money? Where did it go?’ ” said David Wasserman, a House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, who pronounced himself “flabbergasted” by the committee’s move. “The general feeling had been they had more money than they had winnable races. Now the feeling is they don’t have enough money to counter Republican outside group spending. It’s a surprise.”Representative Mike Coffman of Colorado, once seen as one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country, will no longer face advertising by the campaign committee. His opponent, Andrew Romanoff, the speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, was considered one of the Democratic Party’s best recruits for 2014. But the money that was supposed to take Mr. Romanoff to the finish line was hastily shifted to California to save Representative Ami Bera, who Democrats feared was being buried in an avalanche of Republican spending.The Romanoff campaign, eager to show the Democrat was not out of the race, released an internal poll Tuesday night showing he was down just a point.“This remains one of the closest races in the country,” said Denise Baron, a Romanoff spokeswoman. Democrats spent months painting Barbara Comstock, a Virginia state delegate, as too conservative for her suburban Washington district, which has an open seat because Representative Frank Wolf, a Republican, is retiring. Last week, the campaign committee left her opponent, John Foust, a Fairfax County supervisor, to fend for himself.“The net effect of the decision is there is no effect,” said Shaun Daniels, Mr. Foust’s campaign manager, who maintained that Mr. Foust remained poised for victory.In California, Representatives Jeff Denham and David Valadeo, Republicans in districts carried by Mr. Obama, were supposed to be doomed by their party’s refusal to embrace immigration reform. A year ago, Washington Democrats hailed their recruits as rising stars.Last week, the Democrats pulled out.Two years ago, Rodney Davis, a Republican, won his Southern Illinois House seat by a mere 1,000 votes, and Democrats saw former Circuit Judge Ann Callis as a candidate who was tough enough to knock him off. The Democratic campaign committee even invited her to Mr. Obama’s inauguration in 2013 as they wooed her into the race. Last week, the committee also took its money from her.“That is such a death blow to a campaign, when the national party pulls out their money,” said Andrea Bozek, the Republican campaign committee’s spokeswoman. “It’s ‘see you later.’ ”The Republican committee, by contrast, remains in pursuit of 16 House districts held by Democrats, from Maine to California to Florida. Of those, 13 were won by Mr. Obama in 2012.Republicans set out to win what House leaders called a “governing majority” of 245 seats — 12 more than they hold now. Three weeks before Election Day that appears to be difficult, but not impossible. Mr. Wasserman said the Cook Political Report projected the election would net Republicans from two to 12 seats, with the range likely to fall from five to 10.“I think we’ll get close if we don’t” reach 245, Mr. Walden said, noting the Republican high-water mark was 246 during Harry Truman’s presidency.Democratic Party officials say that despite a political environment shifting against them, a blowout is not coming. The Democrats should still win the Southern California seat of retiring Republican Gary G. Miller, a seat held by a Republican in a district dominated by Democrats.But they are also making strong plays for more Republican seats in Arkansas, the panhandle of Florida, and in Iowa. They are still in the running even in Nebraska’s 2nd House district, where Representative Lee Terry is struggling. And Republicans are making odd moves of their own, rushing to shore up Representatives Lynn Jenkins and Kevin Yoder, in reliably red Kansas.“What has surprised me,” Mr. Israel said, “is the unconventional has become conventional.” | 0 |
Washington (CNN)With the Russia investigation over, there's a new conflict consuming Washington: Attorney General William Barr versus special counsel Robert Mueller.The tension between the two men -- Barr, the public face of the Justice Department, and Mueller, an outwardly silent figure who's spoken publicly only through written documents -- has been building for weeks and was on full display Wednesday as the attorney general testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee.Barr's final two minutes of testimony before the Judiciary Committee prompted him to call Mueller's March 27 letter criticizing Barr's release of a four-page summary of the special counsel's report "a bit snitty." At other points of his testimony, Barr undercut the special counsel's team of prosecutors and rejected Mueller's decisions and reasoning."I think it was probably written by one of his staff people," Barr said about the March 27 letter. Separately, when Barr was asked if Mueller's team of prosecutors were "the best and the brightest," the attorney general responded, "Not necessarily."Special counsel office spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment on who wrote the March 27 letter, which was signed by Mueller, or to respond to Barr's gripes. In addition to the fight over Barr's rollout of the report, Barr and Mueller have also diverged on their legal approaches, especially related to the obstruction of justice investigation into President Donald Trump. Barr's testimony Wednesday made that even clearer.Legal dramaBarr dinged Mueller on Wednesday for three of his prosecutorial choices: That Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, that Mueller continued to investigate obstruction and that Mueller rejected the Trump personal attorneys' legal reasoning on an obstruction case. "We were frankly surprised that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction," Barr testified. "We did not understand exactly why the special counsel was not reaching a decision, and when we pressed him on it, he said that his team was still formulating the explanation."It was the "very purpose -- the function he was carrying out," Barr added.Barr leaned into an argument he had made to the Justice Department in writing before he became attorney general: that the President shouldn't be investigated for obstruction. He said he disagreed with Mueller's work in a broader sense."I think that if he felt he shouldn't go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, then he shouldn't have investigated," Barr said. "That was the time to pull up."Yet Mueller describes in the report his reasoning for investigating Trump -- and continuing to investigate him. The obstruction investigation wasn't merely a political distraction, Mueller says, and the special counsel sought to preserve what happened while "memories were fresh and documentary materials were available," according to the report. Mueller reasoned that even if a president cannot be prosecuted while in office, he or she can still commit crimes, noting a prosecution could come later, once the President has left office, or Congress may consider the findings. Half of Mueller's report examines the President's actions on 10 topics and how those actions could become part of an obstruction of justice case.Mueller devotes a significant part of his report analyzing Trump's actions against a legal standard to bring a case to court. Several times, Mueller describes how Trump's intended actions could have obstructed the investigation."The difference is I used the proper standard," Barr said about his decision not to prosecute Trump on obstruction.Barr also took issue with Mueller's reaction to the President's personal legal team. The Trump lawyers had argued to Mueller that the head of the executive branch couldn't obstruct an investigation. Yet Mueller rejected that. Barr, instead, highlighted how the President has "constitutional authorities to supervise proceedings.""The President could terminate that proceeding, and it would not be a corrupt intent, if it was based on false allegations," Barr said. Finally, Barr and Mueller appear to have an even deeper divide over what Mueller's report says.Barr downplayed on Wednesday the evidence Mueller collected over how the President attempted to obstruct justice, particularly when he told then-White House counsel Don McGahn to remove Mueller.Mueller dismissed the President's concerns over conflicts of interest as an excuse when he looked at Trump's orders to McGahn. Yet Barr focused on the conflicts issue as a reasonable explanation for what Trump did. Who started it?Barr released his four-page summary of the Mueller report on March 24. Mueller then memorialized in two letters to Barr his reactions on March 25 and March 27. Only the March 27 letter has been publicly released, but it references the first letter as well.In the March 27 letter, released Wednesday morning just before the hearing, Mueller told Barr he "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusion." He urged Barr to release more information to the public immediately, and accused the attorney general of undermining the public's confidence. They spoke on the phone the next day, March 28. The Justice Department has described that chat as "cordial," nodding to previous descriptions of the two men's 30-year friendship. Others were in the room, Barr testified, and heard the call over speakerphone.In testifying about the call, Barr said Mueller's complaint was more about media coverage of his summary -- yet Mueller's letter clearly took issue with what Barr wrote to Congress. As senators pressed Barr on his approach of blaming the media, he moved more toward criticizing Mueller and his team."I said, Bob, what's with the letter? You know. Why don't you just pick up the phone and call me if there is an issue?" Barr told senators about the call.Yet Mueller did not appear at the press conference Barr held on April 18 hours before the Justice Department released a redacted version of the 448-page Mueller report. By then, the President had spent almost a month claiming he was fully exonerated. At that press conference, Barr said he and Mueller "disagreed with some of the special counsel's legal theories," but that generally Mueller had left the decision on charging the President to the attorney general, and that Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided Trump shouldn't be charged.Barr on Wednesday pointed to Mueller for the delay in the public release of the report. He and Mueller discussed redacting confidential information from the grand jury in the report early in March, he said, but when Mueller handed the report to him, "unfortunately it did not come in that form." Mueller, for his part, isn't yet scheduled to testify, though several members of Congress have said he must. CNN's Kara Scannell contributed to this report. | 0 |
Days before she tested positive for COVID-19 in early April, Tanya Beckford was already worried about dying because of the conditions in the Connecticut nursing home where she has worked for 23 years. She wasn’t feeling well and says she and her co-workers, facing a shortage of masks, gloves and gowns, had started wearing plastic trash bags over their uniforms for protection as they cared for infected residents. Beckford, a certified nursing assistant (CNA) in the Alzheimer’s unit at Newington Rapid Recovery Rehab Center in Newington, Connecticut, had been running a low-grade fever but says the facility was only sending workers home if their temperature reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit — per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. In an effort to ensure there were enough staff to care for all the residents, Beckford says, employees had been told they were not allowed to take any more time off. “I went to the administrator, like, ‘I am sick, and you guys are still keeping me in here, I don’t have the proper PPE (personal protective equipment) to work with now, and I just don’t want to die,'” says Beckford, 48. Days later, she tested positive for COVID-19. The coronavirus pandemic has devastated nursing homes across the country. There have been more than 35,000 COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities, according to the Associated Press — a figure that accounts for about a third of the country’s coronavirus deaths. The industry has been sharply criticized by relatives of the dead, who’ve accused nursing homes of being slow to take action against the virus and of trying to dodge responsibility for their loved ones’ deaths. But nursing home employees, who face serious occupational hazards even in non-pandemic times, say they’re caught in an impossible situation and being blamed for problems rooted in America’s failed elder-care system. Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here. They’re struggling to protect themselves and support their families on menial salaries while caring for a population that is among the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Nursing home employees who contract COVID-19 have been forced to use up their limited sick time or vacation time, go without pay, or lose their jobs entirely. Through it all, they have dealt with grief and despair as elderly residents to whom they’ve become emotionally attached become sick with COVID-19 and die. “The worst thing that I get upset about is hearing the word hero, hero, hero being thrown around for us. And no one is treating us as such. We feel disrespected,” says Beckford, who has been on sick leave since April 10 and is still recovering from pneumonia caused by the virus. “I would love to see them give us the proper PPE that we need, give us some kind of compensation, and for goodness sake, I don’t have any more vacation or sick time now, and the year is just beginning. Give me back some kind of compensation and put back my time.” Newington Rapid Recovery Rehab Center denies Beckford’s allegations, including that employees were forced to use trash bags for protection. “At no time has our staff been without appropriate PPE. The building has been properly staffed throughout the crisis,” it said in a statement, adding: “We have been strictly following the CDC protocol for health care workers.” When she recovers, Beckford plans to return to work there. But recent lawsuits — brought by relatives of nursing home workers who died of COVID-19 and by former nursing home employees — are drawing attention to the conditions within some facilities that workers say put them and patients at unreasonably high risk. Carlenia Milanes, a licensed practical nurse, spent weeks unwittingly caring for COVID-19 patients at Alaris Health at Hamilton Park in Jersey City, N.J., while the facility initially prohibited employees from wearing masks, according to a lawsuit filed April 22. The suit claims the nursing home hid coronavirus cases from employees, “refused to test patients and pressured staff to work even if they had symptoms of the highly contagious and deadly disease, all while patients and staff alike were dying of COVID-19.” On April 3, Milanes sent an email to Jersey City officials sounding an alarm and saying the nursing home’s strategy “is to put blinders on even at the cost of human life.” “Something needs to be done or more people and staff get sick and possibly die,” Milanes wrote, according to the lawsuit. “I need your help.” Milanes, 28, called in sick for the following day after developing symptoms of COVID-19, but her suit alleges that she was told she would be fired if she didn’t present a doctor’s note. In her lawsuit, Milanes also alleges the facility allowed seemingly healthy residents to share rooms with residents who had symptoms of COVID-19. By May 27, there were 110 COVID-19 cases among the facility’s residents, including 31 deaths, and 42 COVID-19 cases among staff, including two deaths, according to data reported to the state. Milanes was among the affected staff members; the COVID-19 test she took on April 6 came positive. A nursing home worker participates in a vigil outside of a nursing home in Brooklyn, N.Y. on May 21, 2020. Workers say they need safer conditions to better protect nursing home residents and the people who care for them from the coronavirus. Stephanie Keith—Getty Images “I’m not afraid to work. I would take care of anyone, but if I’m sick, how am I going to be any good for a patient?” says Milanes, a single mother whose 7- and 10-year-old daughters have since shown symptoms of COVID-19 as well. “I’m somebody’s mother. I’m somebody’s sister. I’m somebody’s daughter. And granted yes, this is what I signed up for, but protect me.” LaDawn Chapman, a CNA at the same facility, also filed a lawsuit against Alaris on April 22 that echoes many of Milanes’ allegations, including that the facility lacked adequate protective gear for employees and did not notify employees about coronavirus cases. The lawsuit says Chapman was likely exposed to COVID-19 through a patient and multiple coworkers and had a doctor’s note advising her to self-isolate for two weeks. She was told that unless she had symptoms of the disease, she had to come to work, her lawsuit alleges. Both women say they were fired, but Alaris Health denies this. Five days after the suits were filed, Alaris Health sent each woman a letter saying they were “mistaken” about being fired and setting dates that each was expected to return to work. In a statement, Alaris spokesperson Matt Stanton also denied the lawsuits’ other allegations. “I can tell you that each and every allegation in this case is false,” he said. “No employees were terminated. At no time was information withheld from staff, our residents or their loves ones [sic]. Thankfully, adequate PPE has never been an issue at any of our facilities. In fact Alaris required N95 masks and PPE for all staff well before the (New Jersey Department of Health) and CDC mandates. Finally, no employees were ever pressured to work while sick. Staff showing COVID-19 symptoms were sent home and required to adhere to strict return to work protocols as published by the NJ DOH.” In Texas, Maurice Dotson, a CNA at West Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Austin, died on April 17 after contracting COVID-19. His mother sued the nursing home on May 13, accusing it of failing to provide staff with protective equipment and exposing workers and patients to “unreasonable risks of serious harm.” A spokesperson for West Oaks said Dotson “touched countless lives and was a respected and comforting presence,” but declined to comment on pending litigation. Leaders in the long-term care industry have argued that nursing homes need more support and funding from state and federal governments. And the industry has sought immunity from potential lawsuits related to the pandemic, but the laws and executive orders granting them immunity from civil liability in some states, including New Jersey, might not protect them from all legal claims. “While I understand that you can’t judge a nursing home that’s in the midst of a pandemic by the same standards you would on a regular day, it doesn’t give these nursing homes the license or the right to behave recklessly or engage in willful misconduct,” says Bill Matsikoudis, an attorney who is representing nursing home workers and residents in the lawsuits against Alaris Health at Hamilton Park. ‘It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse’ Infection control has long been a challenge in long-term care facilities, where hands-on care is a necessity, and the pandemic has exacerbated that problem. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in a report released May 20, said that 82% of nursing homes surveyed from 2013 to 2017 were cited for infection prevention and control deficiencies. Meanwhile, the median pay for nursing assistants was $29,640 last year — just above the national poverty level for a family of four, which is $26,200. By comparison, the median salary for a full-time worker last year was about $49,000, according to weekly earnings data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In part because of that low pay, many nursing home employees work second jobs, which increases their risk of contracting the virus and unwittingly carrying it to residents. “If the aides were paid a living wage, they would not need to have multiple jobs,” says Joanne Spetz, director of the Health Workforce Research Center for Long-Term Care at the University of California, San Francisco. “That forces the workers to put themselves at more and more risk to support themselves, and that also puts their clients at risk and their residents at risk.” And while staff shortages have long been an issue at nursing homes, the problem becomes worse when workers stay home sick. As their colleagues take on the extra work, the care and time they’re able to give patients suffers. The median pay for nursing assistants was $29,640 last year — just above the national poverty level for a family of four, which is $26,200. “A lot of nursing homes are worried,” says David Grabowski, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical school who focuses on long-term care. “Who steps in here? Maybe it’s the National Guard, maybe it’s contract nurses. But it’s not like these places have a big roster of folks ready to plug into these positions.” In New York City on May 20, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would provide staff to fill in for nursing home workers who contract COVID-19 and must stay home. All of this suggests that the looming shortage of elder care workers in the U.S. is likely to worsen, now that the pandemic has laid bare many of the problems in the industry. “It’s a two-way street. We need to pay them a rate commensurate with all we’re asking of them and support them,” Grabowski says. “Otherwise they’re not going to be there to do this.” The response to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes has varied by state. In Maryland— where nursing home residents and staff account for more than half the state’s coronavirus deaths — Gov. Larry Hogan required in early April that all nursing home workers wear masks at all times and then ordered testing of all residents and workers, whether they showed symptoms or not. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently mandated twice-weekly COVID-19 testing of nursing home workers. But he also faced criticism from the nursing home industry and residents for originally directing long-term care facilities to accept back coronavirus patients released from the hospital. He walked back that policy on May 10 amid concerns that it would cause the virus to further spread within nursing homes. On May 5, Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker introduced legislation that would require nursing homes to provide workers with training in how to avoid COVID-19 exposure, sufficient personal protective equipment, increased testing and at least two weeks of paid sick leave. Parts of the bill were incorporated into the new $3 trillion pandemic relief package that passed the House, but that legislation is unlikely to become law as it faces overwhelming Republican opposition in the Senate. Following complaints about a lack of transparency within nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is now requiring them to report coronavirus cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as to residents and their families. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) — which has received at least 230 COVID-19 complaints related to nursing homes — released guidance on May 14 aimed at reducing workers’ exposure to the virus. It recommends that facilities encourage workers to stay home if they’re sick, develop a process for decontamination and reuse of protective gear, and train workers on how to protect themselves. Debbie Berkowitz, program director for the worker safety and health program at the National Employment Law Project, says there needs to be stronger oversight at state and federal levels and that nursing homes should ramp up training of employees on treating COVID-19 and increase testing of workers and patients within their facilities. She says any solution will also hinge on staffers having enough protective equipment — a consistent obstacle for frontline workers. “Mentally, physically, emotionally, you’re fighting a disease. And on top of that, we have to fight administrators to give us protective gear,” says Nicole Jefferson, a part-time CNA at Apple Rehab in Rocky Hill, Conn., who thinks of her 3-year-old and 14-year-old daughters each time she enters a COVID-19 room. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want my kids to die. What more can we do?” Members of the Massachusetts National Guard are sprayed down as they leave a nursing home and rehabilitation center in Quincy, Mass., on April 9, 2020. They were deployed to assist nursing homes with COVID-19 testing. Boston Globe via Stan Grossfeld—The Boston Globe/Getty Images An Apple Rehab administrator reached by phone said “we have plenty of protective gear,” but directed further questions to a spokesperson, who did not respond to a request for comment. In Illinois, thousands of nursing home employees who are members of the SEIU Healthcare union had voted to strike on May 8, before reaching a last-minute deal on a new contract. It includes an increase in base pay to $15 an hour, an extension of $2 hazard pay and five additional paid sick days for coronavirus. The new contract also guarantees that staffers won’t be required to work without adequate protective equipment. But Francine Rico, a CNA at the Villa at Windsor Park nursing home in Chicago who was on the bargaining committee, says workers still don’t have enough. Rico says she was given a raincoat to wear for protection and takes care of her N95 mask “like it’s gold.” “How do they expect for this virus, this pandemic, to even lift if we’re still wearing the same PPE gear in and out of the rooms?” says Rico, 52. The nursing home has had 143 cases of coronavirus and 33 deaths as of May 23, according to data reported by the state. In a statement, Villa at Windsor Park called its workers “heroic” and said the facility is screening staff for symptoms at the start and end of their shifts. “In as much as there has been a national shortage of PPE, Villa at Windsor Park has at all times had sufficient levels PPE, including those necessary for infection control and personal protection, to ensure that we meet the needs within the center,” the statement said. Rico’s sister, Eartha Sears, is a CNA in the same facility and says she recently returned to work after using up all her sick time and vacation time while recovering from COVID-19. “I wish they’d [use] better judgment about safety — not just our safety, the residents’ safety as well,” says Sears, 56. “Because it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.” Meanwhile, employees are contending with the mental and emotional toll of continuing to work in places ravaged by illness, losing residents and coworkers they’ve known for years. “They teach you when you’re in school as a CNA not to take any of this personally,” says Beckford. “But if you’re a human being with a heart, you’re going to feel something for the people that you’re working with for such a long time.” Beckford graduated with a master’s degree in 2018, planning to transition into social work, but she stayed at the nursing home to continue caring for her oldest residents. “Unfortunately, once I return to work, the majority of my residents will not be there,” she says. Milanes says many of the residents she cared for have died in the past two months. She says she recently received a job offer from a different nursing home, and she plans to start when she tests negative for COVID-19. But everything about the career she once loved has changed. “Maybe I’m afraid because I cared about them, and I know that they’re all dead,” she says. “I’ve cried, I just don’t think that I’ve had time to really grieve.” Write to Katie Reilly at [email protected]. | 0 |
On the morning of March 11th, 2004, ten bombs exploded during the morning commute at Madrid’s Atocha train station. One hundred and ninety-two people were murdered and over 2,000 injured. Three days later, the government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar lost power in an election that swung suddenly to the Socialist Party. The attack, the deadliest in Spain’s history, was seen by many as an al-Qaeda-inspired retaliation for the Aznar government’s support for the already unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq. In jihadist lore, this is a legendary success story: a terror attack that inspired enough fear to swing a Western election. This story has been kicking around the back of my cabeza since Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, and I thought of it again after the explosion Saturday night in Chelsea. Demographic math and a basic failure by the celebrity demagogue to reach out beyond his base makes a general election win unlikely but hardly impossible. Trump can’t be counted out until all the votes are counted. Though he’s a uniquely unqualified candidate, I’ve been concerned about an outside X-Factor event suddenly changing the emotional calculus of the electorate in ways that we would later regret. This could be a sudden economic collapse or a cyber October-surprise. But terrorism has always seemed the prime known-unknown. After all, terrorism is now a depressingly regular feature of American life. While no attacks have rivaled 9/11, we saw at least 45 thwarted terror plots in the first ten years after the destruction of the World Trade Center and in the last year alone suffered horrific losses in the San Bernardino and Orlando slaughters. But we have no template for the impact of an attack just before an American election. We are in a long war, a “generational struggle against radical jihadist terrorism,” as Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said. Many attacks have been the result of lone wolves, darkly inspired rather directed by centralized terror organizations, like the Boston bombing. This risk won’t evaporate overnight, no matter who is elected president in less than two months.Trump has based his campaign on fear and anger of the “other,” most infamously pledging to at least temporarily stop Muslim immigration to the United States (later dialed back to an ambiguous regional restriction). Fear of immigration, especially Muslim immigration, has been a mainstay not only of Trump’s campaign but also his European dopplegangers in UKIP and Le Pen’s National Front Party, which has been buoyed by repeated horrific jihadist attacks from Paris to Nice.Trump rarely loses an opportunity to exploit terror. Within minutes of initial fog-of-war reports about Saturday night’s explosion in Chelsea, Trump told a crowd in Colorado Springs that a bomb had gone off in New York and while “nobody knows exactly what's going on but, boy we are really in a time—we better get tough folks." Always classy, he then touted a new poll showing him 4-points up.He has previously tried to make political hay of the San Bernardino and Orlando attacks, with less than successful results. But now we’re 50 days from the election and polls show the race is tightening. To some extent, that’s to be expected. But after months of primaries and analytic navel-gazing this is real time, with 29 people injured by an explosion in the heart of New York, just a few blocks from The Daily Beast’s headquarters. This came hours after an apparent IED exploded in Seaside, New Jersey, on the site of a U.S. Marine charity race, which had been mercifully delayed, curtailing casualties. There is still much we don’t know about both detonations, but New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s statement calling the Chelsea bomb was “an intentional act” but adding “we do not see a link to terrorism.” A Saturday night stabbing of eight people at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, by a man in a security guard uniform was claimed by ISIS on Sunday morning, which issued a statement describing the assailant as "a soldier of the Islamic State." This dark trifecta of weekend incidents one week after the anniversary of 9/11 all add to the drumbeat of anxiety which has driven many voters into the arms of Trump, someone they see as a strong man in chaotic times. More detailed information will come in over the coming hours and days. But there’s reason to fear this pattern could continue between now and November. Whether it is the work of lone wolves or something more coordinated, it doesn’t take Nostradamus to see that terrorists view President Trump as an asset in their efforts to portray America as discredited and in decline. His divisive instincts play perfectly into ISIS’ attempts to recast what used to be called The War on Terror as a war between America and Islam everywhere, rather than a rag-tag band of extremists, many radicalized remotely, parading under the broad banner of an apocalyptic death cult. If this pattern continuing sounds unlikely, consider the fact that America’s two biggest geo-political competitors, Russia and China, have been cheering the prospect of a Trump presidency, presumably because they see it as a harbinger of American decline and retreat from the world, despite all the tough guy rhetoric. It’s a helpful bit of historical symmetry that “America First” has consistently symbolized a flag-waving acquiescence to overseas dictators with bloody expansionist ambitions.The fact that so many of the Republican Party’s national security mandarins have declared Donald Trump unfit for office, should offer a reality check for reflexive Republicans and open-minded independents alike. The latest respected figure to join this chorus was former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “on national security, I believe Mr. Trump is beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform…He is unqualified and unfit to be commander in chief."Against this unflattering backdrop, it’s tempting to say that the hawkish former Secretary of States Hillary Clinton could be in a better position to benefit if, God forbid, terror attacks continue through the election. After all, she has a demonstrated record on national security and far more detailed policy proposals on how to deal with ISIS, (which admittedly isn’t hard given Trump’s laughable talk of a “secret plan” to the win the war.) But sexism impacts negative perceptions of Hillary Clinton just as racism fueled many of the unhinged criticisms of President Obama, especially the Birther conspiracy theories that Trump did so much to pump up over the past five years. We have no national template for a Golda Meir-type leader in our country. There will be many who are susceptible to the idea that an older woman can’t possible be as tough on terrorism as a blustery old man who loves to declare that he’ll “bomb the shit” out of ISIS. "Strong and wrong" leaders have real emotional appeal during times of crisis. The certainty of the demagogue can be more compelling than the sober strategies offered by statesmen and stateswomen.As we get more information, it may be that these incidents are not connected with terrorism but the ensuing drumbeat of anxiety only adds to Trump’s desire to declare himself a prophet who warned about terrorism and immigration before it was cool. This all falls into his fear-based wheelhouse. Terrorism is one of the defining fights of our time. But terror, of course, is designed to elicit fear and change policy and behavior in ways that benefits terrorists. We unfortunately know that a precedent exists for terrorists impacting a western government’s elections. We’ll need to steel ourselves and hope that Americans vote with their head as well as heart on November 8th. | 0 |
During the 2016 presidential campaign, one candidate famously claimed that drug companies were “getting away with murder”—using armies of lobbyists to influence Congress and artificially inflating drug prices.But a lot can change in two years. That candidate was Donald Trump, who aggravated fellow Republicans on the trail with his forceful and blunt criticism of the pharmaceutical industry. Taking a page from the Democrats, he embraced a plan to allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug manufacturers, promising that such a scheme could save hundreds of millions of dollars and reduce drug prices. When he was asked why the plan, which has circulated around Capitol Hill for about 15 years, hadn’t yet passed Congress, Trump said without reservation that it was all drug companies’ fault.Recommended ReadingThe industry is now having the last laugh. In a speech Friday on drug pricing, President Trump completed his 180-degree turn on Candidate Trump’s promises. The White House’s new plan, as outlined, does seek to address high prescription-drug costs. “We will not rest until this job of unfair pricing is a total victory,” Trump said. But it doesn’t directly challenge the pharmaceutical industry and the direct role it plays in setting prices. Indeed, the new policy largely meets the goals of big pharma, signaling an ever-tightening bond between Trump and drug manufacturers.One of the major pieces of the plan that Trump outlined Friday is an ongoing effort to change the federal government’s 340B Drug Pricing Program, which provides rebates to hospitals that treat a high share of Medicaid and uninsured patients. Those rebates are intended to lower the cost of care by forcing drug manufacturers to provide medications—especially high-cost drugs for chronic conditions—at cheaper prices to the neediest populations. But the $18 billion 340B program has been the setting for a war between drug manufacturers, who claim hospitals are simply pocketing the savings and not passing them on to patients, and the hospitals themselves. They claim drug manufacturers aren’t actually lowering prices, and instead are using the rebates as an excuse to increase their list prices.In a policy document released Friday, the White House described its commitment to requiring that safety-net hospitals “use their 340B drug discounts to provide care to more low-income and vulnerable patients.” But an earlier move from the administration undercuts that commitment. Late last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services slashed the 340B program to the tune of somewhere between $900 million to $1.65 billion, effectively siding with drug manufacturers who say the rebates aren’t worthwhile.Trump also seemed to take aim at a longtime industry foe in his speech: pharmacy benefits managers, or PBMs. PBMs function as industry middlemen, administering the prescription-drug programs for large insurance programs covering the majority of Americans. These companies handle negotiations between insurers and drug manufacturers on drug prices, including managing rebates from manufacturers that are designed to entice insurers into accepting certain medications on their plans. Drug manufacturers argue that PBMs have wrangled too-high rebates that they keep to themselves instead of passing on to consumers.In its policy document, the White House vaguely committed to “requiring Pharmacy Benefit Managers to act in the best interests of patients.” Trump was much more forceful in his remarks. “We’re very much eliminating the middlemen,” Trump said, apparently referring to PBMs. “The middlemen became very, very rich.”Drug companies argue that limiting the 340B discounts and PBM rebates will reduce the consumer costs, especially for elderly people receiving their health care through Medicare Part D. But on that front, Trump has also walked back a major campaign pledge: allowing Part D to negotiate directly with insurers to lower costs of the drugs it offers. Trump said in his speech Friday that “we will have tougher negotiation,” and the policy blueprint released by the White House pushes for “allowing greater flexibility in benefit design to encourage better price negotiation.” But that policy doesn’t seem likely to affect the baseline negotiating capacity of the program: Congress would probably need to pass legislation to allow the health and human-services secretary to make deals with drug companies. Without that legislation in place, Trump has little executive authority to change anything.While Trump did outline support for a Medicare program that would limit out-of-pocket spending on drugs, that reform seems similarly toothless. That’s because it would have little to do with actual drug prices. Instead, it would increase the amount that Medicare would pay for some seniors’ drugs, in effect shifting more tax dollars toward hiding the true costs of care for consumers.Perhaps the most impactful set of policies that Trump outlined—and that he actually has the power to pursue—involve what he calls “putting American patients first”: intervening in an escalating drug-price war and increasing research-and-development competition between domestic drug companies and international drug companies. International competition has long been a major focus of drug lobbying, as manufacturers in the United States claim they shoulder most of the burden of research, while price-setting in other countries means they don’t reap commensurate global profits. In response, Trump promised to release a comparison of global drug prices. He also pledged to change drug-patenting and Food and Drug Administration regulation to enhance domestic research and expand the ability of pharmaceutical companies to keep effective monopolies over their drugs.In all, while the president promised “the most sweeping action in history to lower the costs of prescription drugs for the American people,” the policies described Friday seem somewhat marginal, and none address the actual prices pharmaceutical companies are charging.Trump seemed to frame his remarks, as well as the new policy outline, as a continued rebuke of the industry, saying “the drug lobby is making an absolute fortune at the expense of American consumers.” But that rebuke falls especially flat this week, given the still-unfolding story that pharmaceutical giant Novartis paid his personal attorney Michael Cohen $1.2 million to gain a better understanding of the president’s health-care policy.Trump’s policy seems to fall pretty much in line with what Novartis and other pharmaceutical companies have lobbied for years to get. With health secretary and former Eli Lilly president Alex Azar on board to fill in the details, the president outlined a plan that validated longtime drug-industry critiques of Part D payments, rebates, and PBMs. The plan shifts more government money toward obscuring the list prices of manufacturers’ drugs, and takes a protectionist stance on American companies. President Trump calls his plan “American patients first,” but the interests of American pharmaceuticals may be taking priority. | 0 |
“A new Rasmussen poll just came out just a very short while ago, and it has our approval rating at 55 percent and going up.”Trump has a tendency to focus only on polls that are good for him. Rasmussen has a right-leaning bias and earns a C+ grade from FiveThirtyEight.com. Other polls show Trump with significantly lower approval ratings, such as Gallup (40 percent) and Pew Research Center (39 percent).“Trump’s overall job approval is much lower than those of prior presidents in their first weeks in office,” Pew said. “Nearly half (46%) strongly disapprove of his job performance, while 29% strongly approve.”But Trump apparently dismisses such findings:“The stock market has hit record numbers.”This is a flip-flop for Trump. Before he was elected, he dismissed the stock-market performance under President Barack Obama as “artificial” and “a bubble,” as Sopan Deb of The New York Times noted:“Plants and factories are already starting to move back into the United States, and big league — Ford, General Motors, so many of them.”Trump keeps giving himself credit for business decisions made before he became president. Ford’s decision has more to do with the company’s long-term goal — particularly its plans to invest in electric vehicles — than with the administration. Here’s what Ford chief executive Mark Fields said about the company’s decision to abandon plans to open a factory in Mexico: “The reason that we are not building the new plant, the primary reason, is just demand has gone down for small cars.”“To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, a mess.”Trump indicated he was backing up this statement by noting that “jobs are pouring out of the country…. The Middle East is a disaster. North Korea.”The state of foreign policy is open to interpretation — Trump claimed he was developing “a plan for the defeat of ISIS,” the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.But the economy was in pretty good shape when Trump became president, especially compared to the economic crisis that Obama inherited in 2009. In January 2009, coinciding with the last labor report of the George W. Bush administration, nearly 800,000 jobs disappeared, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to the nearly 230,000 jobs added in January 2017. (Trump has given himself credit for the January numbers, but the data was collected when Obama still held office.)“We got 306 [electoral college votes] because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before, so that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.”This statement is wrong on several levels.Trump ended up with 304 electoral votes, because two electors he earned voted for someone else.Trump did get more raw votes than any other Republican candidate in history — but he also earned 2.9 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. Another 8 million people voted for third-party or write-in candidates. Moreover, turnout of the voting-age population (54.7 percent) was lower than in the elections of 2012, 2008 and 2004. [Correction: Once all the votes were counted, turnout of the voting-age population in 2016 was higher than 2012, but lower than 2004 and 2008.]Finally, Trump was wrong on the size of his electoral college win. Of the nine presidential elections since 1984, Trump’s electoral college win ranks seventh. When a reporter pointed out his error, Trump first indicated that he was talking about Republican candidates. But George H.W. Bush received 426 electoral votes in 1988. Trump’s response: “I don’t know, I was given that information.”“We’ve ordered a crackdown on sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal law and that harbor criminal aliens, and we have ordered an end to the policy of catch and release on the border. No more release. No matter who you are, release. We have begun a nationwide effort to remove criminal aliens, gang members, drug dealers and others who pose a threat to public safety. We are saving American lives every single day.”There is limited research on the impact of sanctuary policies and crime. And the research that does exist challenges Trump’s claim. We previously awarded Three Pinocchios to Trump’s claim that sanctuary cities “breed crime.”There’s no official definition of “sanctuary,” but it generally refers to rules restricting state and local governments from alerting federal authorities about people who may be in the country illegally. Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and state and local law enforcement can decide how much they want to cooperate with the federal government for immigration enforcement. There are between 165 and 608 local and state governments with sanctuary policies, and they vary in their approach.A handful of studies looked at whether there is a causation between sanctuary cities and crime. They either found no statistically significant impact of sanctuary policies on crime, or a reduction in crime due to immigrant-friendly policing strategies. Sanctuary jurisdictions release inmates after their criminal case is complete, and extensive research shows that noncitizens are not more prone to criminality than U.S.-born citizens. Moreover, some sanctuary jurisdictions do cooperate with the federal government if they believe the inmate is a public safety threat.“In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. I have heard 80 percent. I find that hard to believe. That is just a number I heard, that they are overturned 80 percent of the time. I think that circuit is in chaos and that circuit is frankly in turmoil. But we are appealing that, and we are going further.”Trump is referring to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which ruled against reinstating his travel ban. But there are other ways to slice the data, and it’s important to put this number into context. None of the data supports Trump’s contention that the court is “in chaos” and “in turmoil.”Each court’s reversal rate changes every year, so it’s easy to cherry-pick this data. Under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the 9th Circuit court did not set a “record” for reversals. The 9th Circuit’s reversal rate was usually higher than the average, but not always the highest. In the 2014-2015 term, the 9th Circuit’s reversal rate was 63 percent, below the average rate of 72 percent. In the 2015-2016 term, the latest year of data available, the 9th Circuit court’s reversal rate was 80 percent, and the average rate was 67 percent.Most cases that are reviewed by the Supreme Court are reversed. For this reason, a 2010 analysis by the American Bar Association also looked at the number of cases reversed in each appellate court compared to the total number of cases terminated by the appellate court. From 1999 to 2008, 80 percent of 9th Circuit court cases reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed (compared to the median rate of 68.3 percent). But the number of reversed cases represented only one-fifteenth of 1 percent of the total number of appeals terminated by the 9th Circuit Court during that 10-year period.Moreover, the 9th Circuit rules on more cases in general. According to SCOTUSblog: “Far more cases come to the Court from the Ninth Circuit than any other court, and — not surprisingly — Ninth Circuit rulings make up a sizeable portion of the docket of argued and decided cases — 75 cases, or 25.7% for the last four Terms including the current session.”“We have also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipelines. Thousands and thousands of jobs, and put new buy-American measures in place to require American steel for American pipelines.”Trump, in saying “thousands and thousands of jobs,” leaves himself some wiggle room here. (He’d previously incorrectly said 28,000 jobs.) Moreover, some of these jobs have already been created. Workers in Arkansas, for instance, have already built about half of the high-strength line pipe needed for the project, some 333,000 tons.“You [the media] have a lower approval rate than Congress. I think that’s right.”Trump indicated that he wasn’t sure if this assertion is correct. It is not. The public’s trust in the media has certainly fallen over the years. But a 2016 Gallup poll shows that Congress is viewed positively by 9 percent of respondents, compared to 20 percent for newspapers and 21 percent for television.That’s not a high confidence level — besides Congress, only “big business” ranks lower than the media — but it’s enough to make Trump’s claim incorrect.“When WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information.”WikiLeaks actually released hundreds of thousands of classified State Department cables, in a significant blow to U.S. diplomacy.“Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates.”Trump overstates the disclosure about Clinton reportedly getting a single debate question. During the Democratic primaries, a debate was held in Flint, Mich., to focus on the water crisis. Donna Brazile, then an analyst with CNN, sent an email to the Clinton campaign saying that a woman with a rash from lead poisoning was going to ask what Clinton as president could do the help the people of Flint.There’s no indication Clinton was told this information, but in any case it’s a pretty obvious question for a debate being held in Flint. In her answer, Clinton committed to remove lead from water systems across the country within five years. Lee-Anne Waters, who asked the question, later said Clinton’s answer “made me vomit in my mouth” because that was too long to wait in Flint.“You know, they say I’m close to Russia. Hillary Clinton gave away 20 percent of the uranium in the United States. She’s close to Russia.”An entire chapter is dedicated to this uranium deal in Peter Schweizer’s “Clinton Cash.” In the book, Schweizer reveals ties between the Clinton Foundation and investors who stood to gain from a deal that required State Department approval.Trump’s claim suggests the State Department had sole approval authority, but the department is one of nine agencies in the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States to vet and sign off on all U.S. transactions involving foreign governments. As we’ve noted before, there is no evidence Clinton herself got involved in the deal personally, and it is highly questionable that this deal even rose to the level of the secretary of state. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also needed to approve, and did approve, the transfer.“We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. Got a bad decision.”Trump appears to have forgotten that imprecise wording in the executive order led to confusion over whether U.S. permanent residents — green-card holders — were also banned from returning to the United States. The White House counsel later issued guidance making clear that they were not covered. The Court of Appeals later said that the counsel’s statement was not a sufficient fix.“Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven’t made a phone call to Russia in years. Don’t speak to people from Russia.”The Wall Street Journal reported during the campaign that before Trump gave a foreign-policy speech in April, he met with the Russian ambassador: “A few minutes before he made those remarks [calling for improved relations with Russia], Mr. Trump met at a VIP reception with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak. Mr. Trump warmly greeted Mr. Kislyak and three other foreign ambassadors who came to the reception.”Trump also is being misleading when he says has “nothing to do with Russia.” Trump repeatedly sought deals in Russia. In 1987, he went to Moscow to find a site for a luxury hotel; no deal emerged. In 1996, he sought to build a condominium complex in Russia; that also did not succeed. In 2005, Trump signed a one-year deal with a New York development company to explore a Trump Tower in Moscow, but the effort fizzled.In a 2008 speech, Donald Trump Jr. made it clear that the Trumps want to do business in Russia, but were finding it difficult. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son said at a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”Alan Garten, general counsel of the Trump Organization, told The Washington Post in May: “I have no doubt, as a company, I know we’ve looked at deals in Russia. And many of the former Russian republics.”“You go to some of these inner city places and it’s so sad when you look at the crime. You have people — and I’ve seen this, and I’ve sort of witnessed it — in fact, in two cases I have actually witnessed it. They lock themselves into apartments, petrified to even leave, in the middle of the day. They’re living in hell.”“Inner cities” is not a category by which crime is measured, and Trump often uses this term to refer to large, urban cities. In 2016, there was an uptick in the homicide rate in the 30 largest cities. One outlier city — Chicago — was responsible for 43.7 percent of the total increase in homicide rates in 2016. Overall, violent crime is on a decades-long decline, since the height of the crack cocaine epidemic in the early 1990s.The homicide rate in the 30 largest cities also increased in 2015, but the two-year trend does not indicate the return of a crime wave in “inner cities.” Crime trends can randomly fluctuate year to year, and criminologists consider the data over much longer periods of time — at least 10 to 15 years — to draw conclusions about trends.We explored Trump’s exaggerated rhetoric on crime here.Send us facts to check by filling out this form | 0 |
Janet Napolitano, who as President Obama’s homeland security secretary has one of the broadest and most challenging portfolios of any Cabinet member, announced Friday that she is stepping down to become president of the University of California system. Napolitano has been a central figure in the debates over immigration and counterterrorism policies while also managing the government’s response to tornadoes, hurricanes and other natural disasters. Her resignation comes at a critical time for the Obama administration, as Congress debates a controversial bill to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. Napolitano’s departure has been in the works for several months, and she plans to leave her post in early September, according to two administration officials. A former governor of Arizona and a Democrat once seen as a potential candidate for national office, Napolitano, 55, will exit the political stage to run one of the country’s largest public university systems. In a statement released Friday morning, she said that serving in the Obama administration to help protect Americans from harm “has been the highlight of my professional career.” “We have worked together to minimize threats of all kinds to the American public,” she added. In addition to being on the front lines in the politically charged immigration debate, Napolitano helped lead the responses to deadly tornadoes in the Midwest and Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the Northeast last year, as well as the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the H1N1 virus. Some of her actions have come under scrutiny. Critics faulted her for playing a role in toughening airport security procedures, including through the introduction of full-body scanners. More recently, she was questioned by Congress on whether DHS agencies missed clues about the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings. Obama thanked Napolitano for her more than four years of service, saying, “Janet’s portfolio has included some of the toughest challenges facing our country.” “The American people are safer and more secure thanks to Janet’s leadership in protecting our homeland against terrorist attacks,” Obama said in a statement. “I’ve come to rely on Janet’s judgment and advice, but I’ve also come to value her friendship.” An early political backer of Obama’s who was sworn in as homeland security secretary in 2009 on the first day of his administration, Napolitano was among a handful of Cabinet officials to remain in their posts into his second term. She had given no public indication that she would leave, although she was seen as a possible successor to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should he depart. Administration officials said Napolitano, who had extensive law enforcement experience in Arizona, did not hide her desire to be attorney general and grew discouraged about her prospects as Holder stayed well into Obama’s second term. One administration official familiar with Napolitano’s thinking cautioned that she simply seized what she considered to be a great career opportunity, calculating that after serving longer than any other homeland security secretary, it was time for a new challenge. “The process was underway for some time, but it didn’t formalize until recently, and she informed the president when she made her decision,” said the official, who requested anonymity to speak about the process. Republicans on Capitol Hill generally praised Napolitano’s tenure. Sen. John McCain said that his fellow Arizonan had “served our nation with honor” and that he had “never doubted her integrity, work ethic or commitment to our nation’s security.” Who will replace her? Administration officials declined to speculate immediately on a possible replacement, but they stressed that the position itself is a difficult one to fill. DHS, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is sprawling and complex, with 240,000 employees spread across 22 government agencies. It oversees issues ranging from the weather to natural disasters to airport and border security to drug interdiction to protection of the president. Both Obama and President George W. Bush tapped governors — who manage sprawling bureaucracies in their own states and must develop expertise across a range of issues — to head the department. In Napolitano’s case, she came into the job with a law enforcement background as a former state attorney general and U.S. attorney, as well as experience administering a large government and grappling with immigration issues at Arizona’s border with Mexico. Douglas B. Wilson, a top Pentagon official during Obama’s first term, said Napolitano’s legacy will be revamping the once-troubled Federal Emergency Management Agency and managing the 21 other disparate agencies that fell under her control. “In an organization that faces drama every day, she was a no-drama leader,” said Wilson, a longtime friend. “She is very, very good at taking combinations of individual fiefdoms and playing to their strength to get the best out of them individually and making them into an effective collective.” In seeking a replacement, Obama may try to avoid a contentious confirmation battle with the Senate at a time when he is pushing a controversial immigration bill. Two DHS agency heads who maintain particularly good relations with congressional oversight agencies are seen as possible contenders: W. Craig Fugate, the current FEMA administrator, previously worked for two Republican governors in Florida as the state’s emergency management director. Fugate is well-liked by the White House and has been credited with improving FEMA since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. John S. Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration and a former deputy director of the FBI, has built good relations with Congress despite objections over recent proposed changes to screening procedures at airports. If Obama wanted a seamless transition, he could tap Rand Beers, who has been Napolitano’s acting deputy, or Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban-born lawyer who ran the department’s Citizenship and Immigration Services and was recently nominated to become deputy DHS secretary. Other potential replacements include former Navy secretary Richard Danzig, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad W. Allen or New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, whom Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) personally recommended on Friday. ‘Remarkably gifted’ Napolitano will be the first woman to run the 10-campus University of California system, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported her appointment Friday morning. Napolitano’s lack of an education background makes her an unusual pick to lead an academic institution. She has roots in California, though: As a student at Santa Clara University, she became the university’s first female valedictorian. Sherry Lansing, a UC regent and former film industry executive who headed the search committee, said in a statement that “those who know her best say that a passion for education is in her DNA.” Lansing described the search as “extensive,” saying the committee reviewed more than 300 potential nominees but that Napolitano was “a remarkably gifted candidate” and received a unanimous vote of recommendation from the committee. “While some may consider her to be an unconventional choice, Secretary Napolitano is without a doubt the right person at the right time to lead this incredible university,” Lansing said. Juliet Eilperin and Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report. | 0 |
President Donald Trump on Thursday issued “a full pardon” to Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative activist and provocateur who regularly peddles conspiracy theories.D’Souza pleaded guilty in 2014 to violating campaign finance laws with an illegal donation to a GOP Senate candidate.Trump announced the pardon in a tweet, claiming D’Souza “was treated very unfairly by our government!”Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D’Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2018
Trump believes that D’Souza was “a victim of selective prosecution for violations of campaign finance laws,” according to a statement from the White House explaining the pardon.It also noted that D’Souza “accepted responsibility for his actions, and also completed community service by teaching English to citizens and immigrants seeking citizenship.”All of Trump’s presidential pardons have been outside the standard process for issuing pardons run by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney.He pardoned a former Navy sailor, Kristian Saucier, after Saucier made his case on Trump’s favorite TV network, Fox News.In August, Trump pardoned right-wing, anti-immigrant sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio was found guilty for criminal contempt after violating a federal judge’s order instructing him to stop racially profiling Latino drivers, whom he and his office regularly rounded up because he suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.The president also issued a pardon for Scooter Libby, who was convicted for lying and obstructing justice after the leak of then-covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity.Last week, the president issued a posthumous pardon to boxing champion Jack Johnson, which came at the recommendation of actor Sylvester Stallone.A DOJ spokeswoman confirmed to HuffPost that D’Souza’s pardon did not go through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. She declined to comment further. Also on Thursday, Trump said on Air Force One that he’s considering issuing pardons or commuting sentences for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and cook and TV personality Martha Stewart. Blagojevich was on Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” TV series, and Stewart hosted “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart,” a spinoff of Trump’s “The Apprentice” series.D’Souza is famous for his right-wing conspiratorial documentaries, as well as a long history of offensive comments, from smearing the survivors of the Parkland school shooting earlier this year to regularly making racist remarks about President Barack Obama.Later Thursday, D’Souza thanked Trump for the pardon and criticized “Obama and his stooges.”Obama & his stooges tried to extinguish my American dream & destroy my faith in America. Thank you @realDonaldTrump for fully restoring both— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 31, 2018
This post has been updated with more information about Trump’s pardons and a response from a Department of Justice spokeswoman. | 0 |
Consider him the elephant not in the room, simultaneously absent from this picture and looming over it.Donald Trump did not attend Saturday’s funeral of Barbara Bush in Houston, Texas. Reporters were told that was because Trump generously wanted to spare the mourning Bush family the “disruptions due to added security” that would have come with his presidential presence. But that same White House statement may well have given the game away when it added that Trump did not attend “out of respect for the Bush family and friends attending the service”. Normally, the way you pay your respects to a grieving family is to show up, not stay away. Unless, of course, you know that the bereaved family in question hates your guts – in which case the greatest courtesy you can pay them in their hour of distress is to leave them alone.Which might explain the unstated emotion that seems to join everyone in this picture. It’s an unusual group photo: they’re not family, they’re not friends, and they’re not a team. Rather, the official connection between them is that they have all lived in the country’s most important residence, whether as president or first lady – or in Hillary Clinton’s case, having attempted the double. They are there to honour the missing member of this exclusive club, the woman whose death has brought them to this moment. (The only living members missing are Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, who were travelling.)The warmth between them – Republican George W Bush with arms around both his wife and Democrat Hillary – is the camaraderie you often see between one-time partisan rivals now bonded by having shared a rare and extraordinary experience. (You see something similar in those pictures of duelling heavyweight boxers reunited in retirement.) But there’s something else too.The picture is not sombre, even though this is a funeral. Obama and Bill Clinton are smiling broadly; W has that lopsided grin that suggests he’s cracked one of his fratboy jokes. They seem relaxed. And the source of that relaxation? Could it possibly be their collective relief that Trump is not there?That, surely, is the one thing this group can agree on. Bush Sr revealed last year that he voted for Hillary in 2016 rather than back the official Republican nominee whom he’d dismissed as a “blowhard”. Bush Jr said he left his ballot blank. Neither of them ever endorsed Trump, who had mocked son/brother Jeb Bush as “low energy” and whom Barbara herself had condemned as a “comedian”, a “showman” and an appalling sexist. Bushes, Clintons, Obamas: all have their own reasons to despise the Donald. He denied Hillary her dream; he claimed Barack Obama was not born in the US; he is the very opposite of a Bush Republican.Which leaves Melania. Shouldn’t she be uncomfortable among all these people who despise her husband? What explains her apparent ease, smiling as readily as the rest of them?The clue might be in some of the other pictures taken at Saturday’s service. There she was, seated next to Barack Obama, looking positively cheery. “Have you ever, ever, EVER seen Melania smile like this, and look this relaxed, beside her own husband? Ever?,” tweeted the science writer Steve Silberman. Others noted the oddity that here was the first lady looking happier than she had in ages – at a funeral.There is indeed no shortage of pictures of Melania looking miserable or ignored by Trump, as he walks up or down the stairs of Air Force One without her, not showing his wife even the most basic courtesy, let alone marital affection. Compared to the hostile environment that is a Trump marriage, a moment with the real-life presidents’ club must have felt like blissful respite. | 0 |
Donald Trump unleashed an early-morning tirade against former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado on Twitter. | AP Photo
The Republican nominee loses all impulse control, and unleashes a violent Twitter rant against his Miss Universe nemesis.
While Hillary Clinton is riding high after the first presidential debate, Donald Trump is jumping down into the gutter.
In the wee hours of Friday morning, the impulse-control-deficient Republican nominee let loose a torrent of tweets, calling former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado “disgusting” and accusing her of having a sex tape. “Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an ‘angel’ without checking her past, which is terrible!” read one tweet sent a little after 5 a.m., followed by, “Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con.”
He wrapped up his rant with: “Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?”
It was his most vicious lashing out since Hillary Clinton revived his long-running feud with Machado on Monday night’s debate stage. As Trump tried to again attack Clinton’s “stamina,” the Democratic nominee sprung a trap, saying one of the worst things Trump has said about a woman was his public shaming of Machado after she gained a few pounds during her reign. “He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman ‘Miss Piggy.’ Then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ because she was Latina,” Clinton said. “Donald, she has a name. Her name is Alicia Machado and she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet she's going to vote this November.”
Trump has since been unable to restrain himself, attacking Machado as Clinton’s camp has pushed her forcefully into the public eye, playing right into the Democratic nominee’s argument that Trump lacks the temperament and impulse control to be commander in chief.
And Clinton’s gambit is paying off. While most pundits swiftly declared Clinton the winner of Monday night’s showdown for her poised and lucid showing, a burst of polls out Thursday night and Friday morning provided the first tangible evidence that voters agreed.
A Florida poll showed Clinton with a 4-point lead over Trump (a 2-point gain since the previous survey), and polls out of New Hampshire and Michigan gave the former secretary of state 7-point leads in both of those states.
If other surveys follow suit, it will provide Clinton with some breathing space after a tense patch in which polls showed that the presidential race had tightened into a dead heat going into Monday’s faceoff.
Later Friday, Trump defended himself against political pundits who spent much of the day attacking him for the very-early morning Twitter spree, writing, “For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o'clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!”
In an Instagram post responding to Trump's attacks against her, Machado wrote in Spanish that the GOP nominee was "reviving defamations and false accusations about my life.” She said that she "will keep standing, sharing my story, and my absolute support of Mrs. Clinton on behalf of all women, my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, friends and the female community."
"This, of course, is not the first time I have faced a situation like this," she added. "Through their campaign of hate, the Republican candidate tries to discredit and demoralize a woman, which is definitely one of his most terrifying features. With this, he is seeking to distract attention from his real problems and of his real incapacity to even pretend to be the leader of this great country."
Clinton's campaign jumped on Trump's Machado tweets later Friday morning, eager for yet another chance to highlight his tendency to fling derogatory remarks at women. "What kind of man stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?" Clinton posted to her Twitter account, the second in a nine-tweet flurry. "Trump obsessively bullies Rosie O'Donnell — an accomplished actor. He insulted Kim Kardashian for her weight — when she was pregnant. Pathetic," she wrote minutes later, punctuating her online attack by telling her followers that "while Donald continues day 5 of his Machado meltdown, we'll be in Florida talking about national service. You'll want to watch."
She drove home a similar message at an afternoon rally in Coral Springs, Florida, suggesting Trump's latest tirade “proves yet again that he is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander in chief.” “I mean, really, who gets up at 3 o’clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe? I mean, he hurled as many insults as he could. Really, why does he do things like that?” Clinton asked. “Because he’s an idiot,” one supporter shouted, though Clinton herself actually responded by calling “his latest Twitter meltdown ... unhinged, even for him.”
The episode took another bizarre turn late Friday, when BuzzFeed reported that Trump himself once made a cameo — fully clothed — in a softcore porn video.
"There's been a lot of talk about sex tapes today and in a strange turn of events only one adult film has emerged today and its star is Donald Trump," Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told her traveling press.
Clinton's campaign has eagerly trotted Machado out as a surrogate, hosting a conference call with the former beauty pageant winner earlier this week. On Friday, the campaign provided a readout of Clinton's call to Machado, where she thanked the former Miss Universe for her support and courage. Machado replied that she has been a longtime supporter of Clinton's and looks forward to her becoming president.
“The Clinton campaign could not have asked for more,” David Axelrod, President Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist, said on CNN.
Axelrod said it is “unfathomable” that Trump made such a self-destructive move on the Friday after the debate, adding that it was a “shrewd thing” for Clinton to poke Trump on his past comments about Machado.
“They wanted to make this an issue and he is cooperating in that project,” he said. “And I'm telling you, none of his advisers are telling him to do this. This is the way Donald Trump is, he's very reactive, the Clinton folks figured that out, they were pushing his buttons all throughout that debate and he is still reeling from that.”
Speaking to Clinton's traveling press pool Friday morning, the former secretary of state's communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, said lashing out at women after a poor debate performance has become something of a pattern for Trump, who also feuded with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly after the first Republican primary debate. She said Trump's attack against the former pageant winner is "distasteful to voters and backfires on him," adding that "It is, on some level, how he's run most of his campaign, which is to divide people."
"The resolution of the issue for him is simple. He could stop attacking her and apologize. I think that's the point of her tweets. He insulted her in real-time as Miss Universe, he did it last night, he did it two days ago. Hillary's going to stand up and defend her. And it is a pattern with him," Palmieri told reporters. "It is not apparent to us why he simply can't stop attacking her. He's had many opportunities to right the offense that she took to how she was treated 20 years ago."
The GOP nominee's early-morning flurry of tweets is made even more problematic by the fact that much of the allegations about Machado in his tweets represent a stretching of the truth at best, if not an outright falsehood. The "past" to which Trump referred in his tweets is likely an allusion to a 1998 Venezuelan murder case in which Machado was investigated, but never charged, for allegedly driving a getaway car for her then-boyfriend after he shot and wounded his brother-in-law at a memorial service. The judge in that case later accused the former Miss Universe of threatening him over the phone, an allegation she denied.
And while Trump, joined by conservative media moguls Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, has suggested that Machado has previously appeared in pornographic films, there is no evidence to suggest that that is the case. The former Miss Universe has posed nude in Playboy and appeared in risque reality TV shows, but The Daily Beast and other media outlets that have investigated claims that she appeared in pornographic videos have found those claims to be false.
His suggestion that Clinton may have helped Machado gain U.S. citizenship is also problematic. The former pageant winner told Cosmopolitan Magazine this week that she became a citizen last August specifically to vote against Trump, well after Clinton's 2013 departure from the State Department. Even if Clinton had still been at the State Department when Machado became a citizen, the naturalization process would have been out of her control because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles the naturalization process, is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Any influence she would have had over Machado's citizenship process would have been limited to whatever clout she maintained as a former Cabinet secretary.
Asked Friday morning if either the campaign or Clinton herself had helped Machado become a U.S. citizen, Palmieri said they had not.
Trump, in his tweetstorm on Friday morning, also continued chafing at media reports that his advisers were disappointed with his debate performance and plan to force him to aggressively practice before the next showdown on Oct. 9.
In his Twitter spree, the Manhattan billionaire warned against believing the reports.
“Anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying ‘sources said,’ DO NOT believe it. There are no sources, they are just made up lies!” Trump tweeted a little after 3 a.m.
He followed up with another tweet at about 9 a.m., saying, “Remember, don't believe ‘sources said’ by the VERY dishonest media. If they don't name the sources, the sources don't exist.”
Trump’s allies in recent days have been flooding the airwaves, trying to spin his shaky performance on Monday night as a stellar one. One of the main talking points has been that Trump was a “gentleman” for not bringing up Bill Clinton’s infidelities and hasn’t gotten the credit he deserved.
“He thought about it, and I’m sure he said to himself, ‘a president of the United States shouldn’t attack somebody personally when their daughter is sitting in the audience,’” Newt Gingrich told Sean Hannity on Thursday. “And he bit his tongue, and he was a gentleman, and I thought in many ways that was the most important moment of the whole evening. He proved that he had the discipline to remain as a decent guy even when she was disgusting.”
Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway also lamented that the billionaire has gotten short-changed.
“I thought he was a complete gentleman to her and he hasn't gotten a lot of credit for that,” Conway said on “The View” during a brutal discussion with the hosts, who piled on, challenging Conway’s defenses of Trump.
At one point, Whoopi Goldberg even shot back at Conway, “Kellyanne, honey, I’m a New Yorker. Don't B.S. a B.S.-er.” Conway, throughout the interview, tried to thread the needle of justifying Trump’s campaign, even while not fully endorsing some of his actions, including the threats to go after Bill Clinton’s sex scandals from the 1990s. “I'm not advising him to go there,” Conway said, while adding, “it's fair game to think about how Hillary Clinton treated those women after the fact.” | 0 |
The Israeli air force has destroyed a tower block in Gaza City housing the offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera in what has widely been decried as an attack on press freedom.The airstrikes on Saturday – the sixth consecutive day of hostilities between Israel and Hamas – came roughly an hour after the Israeli military ordered people to evacuate al-Jalaa tower.There was no immediate explanation beforehand for why the 15-storey building was targeted. As well as the two international media organisations, the high-rise was home to several other news outlets, offices including several internet providers, and private apartments.🚨 Israel has given a “warning” that it will bomb the building that houses Al Jazeera offices and other international media channels in Gaza City in one hour...our colleagues have already evacuated— لينة (@LinahAlsaafin) May 15, 2021
The building was hit approximately six times before collapsing in plumes of black smoke which engulfed the entire neighbourhood.Al Jazeera broadcast live a phone call between the building’s owner, Abu Husam, and an Israeli intelligence officer in which Husam asks the officer to give the media personnel time to evacuate equipment from their offices. His request was denied.Al Jazeera also broadcast live the destruction of the building: “And the tower has come down,” said the news anchor, Halla Mohieddeen, as the building collapsed. “Whenever you see journalists doing live updates from Gaza, they are usually standing on the roof of that building that has now been flattened in an airstrike by the Israeli military.”A statement from the Israel Defence Forces said the building had contained military assets belonging to the intelligence offices of Hamas.“Prior to the strike, the IDF provided advance warning to civilians in the building and allowed sufficient time for them to evacuate the site,” the IDF said.The aftermath of the attack on al-Jalaa tower in Gaza City. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters“Hamas deliberately places military targets at the heart of densely populated civilian areas in the Gaza Strip.”Late on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said the building was used by Hamas military intelligence. “It was not an innocent building,” he said. Neither the IDF nor the prime minister provided evidence to back up the claim. An AP reporter, Fares Akram, tweeted just before the tower was hit: “We ran down the stairs from the 11th floor and now looking at the building from afar, praying Israeli army would eventually retract.”Earlier on Saturday, Akram published a first-person piece in which he described how an Israeli bomb had destroyed his family’s farm in the northern Gaza Strip the day before. Six of his relatives, including his father, three friends and several colleagues have died in the three wars and other hostilities between Israel and Hamas, he wrote.And now bombs could fall on our office. We ran down the stairs from the 11th floor and now looking at the building from afar, praying Israeli army would eventually retract. https://t.co/WU2eLEX7kn— Fares Akram (@faresakram) May 15, 2021
“The Associated Press office is the only place in Gaza City I feel somewhat safe. The Israeli military has the coordinates of the high-rise, so it’s less likely a bomb will bring it crashing down.“But on a deeper level, it’s speaking to people in Gaza, working to get their voices out of a territory they themselves cannot leave, that keeps me sane. When I tell the world what’s happening here, I find some small solace.” Mostefa Souag, acting director general of Al Jazeera Media Network, described the bombing of the company’s offices as “a blatant violation of human rights” and a war crime, calling on the international community to condemn the attack and “to hold Israel accountable for its deliberate targeting of journalists and the media institutions”.Associated Press’s president and chief executive, Gary Pruitt, said: “We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organisations in Gaza.01:20Israeli fighter jets hit targets in central Gaza as fight with Hamas escalates – video“This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life.” The current hostilities between militants in the Gaza Strip and Israel are the worst clashes since the 2014 war. Several reports, citing Egyptian mediation sources, said that on Thursday night Israel rejected a ceasefire proposal that Hamas, the Islamic group which controls the area, had agreed to.Since Monday night, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, which has pounded the Gaza Strip with strikes. In Gaza, at least 139 people have been killed, including 39 children and 22 women; in Israel, seven people have been killed, including a six-year-old boy and a soldier. | 0 |
The Philadelphia Inquirer's executive editor is stepping down after his newspaper ran a headline reading "Buildings Matter, Too" that garnered widespread backlash. June 12 will be the last day for the newspaper’s top editor, Stan Wischnowski, CNN reported, citing a memo shared with the Inquirer’s staff. His replacement has not been announced. Dozens of journalists for the newspaper called out of work last Thursday, two days after the headline ran in print amid public demonstrations and social unrest following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in police custody in Minneapolis. The headline — referencing Black Lives Matter — in Tuesday’s paper accompanied a column denouncing the destruction of buildings in Philadelphia amid the unrest. The newspaper apologized on Wednesday for running a headline that “suggested an equivalence between the loss of buildings and the lives of black Americans.” An open letter signed by 44 journalists for the Inquirer said the staff is tired of “working for months and years to gain the trust of our communities — communities that have long had good reason to not trust our profession — only to see that trust eroded in an instant by careless, unempathetic decisions." Wischnowski, who’s also the Inquirer’s senior vice president, joined the newspaper more than 20 years ago and has been in the executive editor position for 10. The memo announcing his exit was sent to staff by the newspaper’s publisher, Lisa Hughes. Floyd, who was 46, died on May 25. A criminal complaint accuses fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, while three other officers have also been fired and were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder in connection with Floyd’s death. | 0 |
Politics|State Department Proposes January Release of Hillary Clinton Emailshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/state-department-proposes-january-release-of-clinton-emails.htmlMay 19, 2015More than 50,000 pages of emails from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state might not be made public until early 2016, according to a State Department court filing on Monday.In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed this year, the State Department said that reviewing 55,000 pages of exchanges from Mrs. Clinton’s private email account would be labor-intensive and time-consuming.Noting the considerable public interest in the emails, the department “is endeavoring to complete the review and production of them as expeditiously as possible,” said John F. Hackett, acting director of the Office of Information Programs and Services at the State Department. “The collection is, however, voluminous and, due to the breadth of topics, the nature of the communications, and the interests of several agencies, presents several challenges.”The State Department is proposing a date of Jan. 15, 2016, for releasing the emails.The department is dividing the material into small batches, with plans to review about 1,000 emails a week. In addition to the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act office, subject-matter experts within the department will review the emails before their release, as will other government agencies when relevant, including the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council.“Currently, this project is staffed full time by a project manager and two case analysts, as well as nine FOIA reviewers who devote the entirety of their time at the State Department to this effort, plus other analysts and information technology specialists who provide collateral assistance to this review in addition to their regular duties,” the filing stated. “The team managing this project has met daily since early April to implement and oversee this large undertaking.”The proposal, made in response to a lawsuit by Vice News, was filed in United States District Court in Washington on Monday.In the coming days, the State Department is expected to release just under 900 pages of Mrs. Clinton’s emails related to Libya and the attack on the American outposts in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.The revelation in March that Mrs. Clinton used a private email account with messages stored on a private server, rather than an official State Department address, set off a political furor that threatened to overshadow her entry into the presidential race.At the time, Mrs. Clinton promised the emails would be released quickly, but the delay proposed by the State Department would not necessarily provide a breather. The Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary would come just after the State Department’s target for releasing the emails. | 0 |
PoliticsBiden Keeps Up Pressure On Putin To Pull Back Russian Troops, End Ukraine CrisisRussian President Vladimir Putin has suggested there may be a diplomatic solution to the predicament he created.S.V. DateU.S. NewsU.S. Skater Vincent Zhou Recalls Most ‘Difficult’ Moment From COVID Isolation At OlympicsThe 21-year-old was forced to withdraw from the men's short program after testing positive for the coronavirus.Lee MoranEntertainmentStephen Colbert Taunts Trump With The Only Tax Advice He May Need From Now OnTrump is looking for a new accounting firm after his old one dropped him.Ed MazzaPoliticsBiden Gains Nothing By Picking A Centrist Supreme Court NomineeRemember what happened when Obama selected Merrick Garland to appeal to Republicans?Jennifer BenderyPoliticsFox News Analyst Offers Mortifying Take On Trucker Protest Crackdown"By this rationale, they could have cracked down on the civil rights movement. They could have arrested Martin Luther King," said law professor Jonathan Turley.Josephine HarveyPoliticsCivil Rights Groups To Biden DOJ: Stop Relying On 100-Year-Old Racist Precedents In CourtResidents of Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories have been denied equal rights, including the right to vote, because they were considered “uncivilized race[s].”Paul BlumenthalPoliticsSen. Josh Hawley: ‘It Is Not A Pro-Riot Mug’The Missouri Republican said he only saluted the peaceful protesters -- and the others should go to jail.Arthur DelaneyPoliticsBlack West Virginia Lawmaker Sues Anti-Abortion Group Over Racist KKK Image Targeting HerWest Virginia delegate Danielle Walker filed suit against West Virginians for Life after the group emailed her and posted a graphic of a KKK member doing a Nazi salute.Sarah Ruiz-GrossmanMediaJury Rejects Palin’s Defamation Claim Against The New York TimesShe is expected to appeal.Sara BoboltzCelebrityFamily Of Cinematographer Who Was Killed On Set Of ‘Rust’ Sues Alec BaldwinAt least three other lawsuits have been filed over the shooting.By Andrew Dalton, APEntertainmentNick Cannon Appears To Hint He’s Missing Ex-Wife Mariah Carey In New Song ‘Alone’"I’ve been lying, I say I’m cool when I know I miss it,” the daytime talk show host sings on the track.Kimberley RichardsEntertainmentJohn Mulaney And Andy Samberg’s ‘Chip ‘N Dale’ Reboot Makes Fun Of RebootsThe teaser, which features a CGI Dale, a 2-D Chip and a Roger Rabbit cameo, takes a very meta look at the duo 30 years after their Disney hit.Elyse Wanshel | 0 |
Monica Lewinsky speaks onstage during The Hollywood Reporter's Power 100 Women In Entertainment at Milk Studios on December 5, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for The Hollywood R) Monica Lewinsky is having a déjà vu day. The former White House intern was incredulous Friday amid revelations that President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial defense team will feature Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated her sexual relationship with Bill Clinton in 1998. “This is definitely an ‘are you f--king kidding me?’ kinda day,” Lewinsky tweeted as news broke that Starr was among four new additions to Trump’s legal team. Starr investigated Clinton for years over a real estate investment, but later expanded his probe to include the ex-president’s sexual relationship with Lewinsky. Clinton lied about that relationship under oath, and Starr filed an eponymous report on the matter the prompted the former president’s impeachment. Most Read | 0 |
"I'm excited to join @CNN to help shed light on the election and the candidates' experiences," Yang wrote in a tweet following the announcement. "Learned a lot these past months and am glad to contribute to the public discussion."He'll appear on the network in his new capacity later Wednesday, he added. Yang, a businessman who ended his campaign last week, rose from obscurity to become a highly-visible candidate, rallying a coalition of liberal Democrats, libertarians and some disaffected Republicans to form a devoted group of followers known as the Yang Gang. A prominent platform in his campaign was his so-called Freedom Dividend, a plan to give every American adult $1,000 a month universal basic income that he argued would alleviate a host of social ills and eradicate poverty.Yang's campaign was defined by the candidate's happy go-lucky style. Videos of him singing in a church choir, dancing to the "Cupid Shuffle" and crowdsurfing at events regularly went viral, helping burnish his image as a candidate just happy to be with his fans.He also often used high-profile moments to compliment his opponents. After former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke dropped out and before a Democratic debate where they would have been standing next to each other, Yang simply tweeted, "I miss Beto." After New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker failed to qualify for a debate stage, Yang used yet another debate stage moment to tell voters, "Cory will be back," a move that was appreciated by Booker and his top campaign aides.This story has been updated to include reaction from Yang.CNN's Dan Merica and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report. | 0 |
The latest White House fence jumper has been charged with assault of two police dogs and making threats, officials said Thursday, and has had previous run-ins with law enforcement at the executive mansion and elsewhere.Dominic Adesanya, 23, of Bel Air, Md., is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service for jumping outstanding warrants, the Secret Service said in a statement.The White House intruder, who kicked and punched at White House security dogs after he landed on the North Lawn of the White House, has also been charged with resisting arrest and unlawful entry.A veterinarian treated the two members of the canine unit -- Hurricane and Jordan -- for minor bruising, the service said in a statement.The president was in the residence at the time of the intrusion; the man was unarmed.This is not Adesanya's first arrest at the White House.Records show he was also charged with unlawful entry at the White House complex in late July, reported the Associated Press. A court document says he told an officer that a security barrier he jumped over "was easy and that the next fence to the south grounds of the White House would not be a problem as well."The president was in the residence at the time of the intrusion; the man was unarmed.The incident took place a month after another jumper raced across the White House lawn and made his way inside the building.That Sept. 19 intrusion, along with reports of other security problems, triggered investigations of the Secret Service and led to the resignation of director Julia Pierson.The intrusion onto the White House grounds also came the same day that a gunman went on a rampage in Canada's capital city of Ottawa, including the Parliament building. | 0 |
Trump Steps Up Attacks on Mail Vote, Making False Claims About FraudPresident Trump initially said he might withhold federal funding for Michigan and Nevada if the states moved forward in expanding vote by mail, though he later backed off that threat.Credit...Megan Jelinger/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPublished May 20, 2020Updated June 19, 2020WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday escalated his assault against mail voting, falsely claiming that Michigan and Nevada were engaged in voter fraud and had acted illegally, and threatening to withhold federal funds to those states if they proceed in expanding vote-by-mail efforts.The president inaccurately accused Michigan of sending mail ballots to its residents, as his aides later acknowledged, and he offered no basis for his claims of illegal actions by either Michigan or Nevada. The Michigan secretary of state has sent ballot applications — not the ballots themselves — to registered voters, a growing practice among election officials, including in states led by Republicans. In Nevada, where the Republican secretary of state declared the primary a nearly all-mail election, ballots are being sent to registered voters.As most states largely abandon in-person voting because of health concerns over the coronavirus, Mr. Trump and many of his Republican allies have launched a series of false attacks to demonize mail voting as fraught with fraud and delivering an inherent advantage to Democratic candidates — despite there being scant evidence for either claim.By day’s end Mr. Trump had corrected his tweet about Michigan, saying officials there had mailed applications, not ballots, though he continued to assert the secretary of state had acted illegally. He also backed off his threat to hold back funding, saying Michigan would find out “very soon if it’s necessary,” according to a pool report from the White House. “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”Mr. Trump has often made threats about cutting off funding to states but has not always followed through. Aides compared his Wednesday morning tweets to previous attempts to withhold federal funds to sanctuary cities.But his assault on the electoral process comes as Republicans are spending millions of dollars on broad efforts that could suppress voting in heavily Democratic areas in November, particularly in battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Republican-controlled legislatures and G.O.P. election lawyers around the country are trying to block or minimize widespread absentee voting and other measures that would make voting easier.The efforts include recruiting volunteers to monitor polling places and challenge voters deemed suspicious, which the G.O.P. says are needed to prevent fraud but that Democrats say are intended to suppress turnout in a bid to aid Mr. Trump.“Trump seems to think that anything that makes it easier for people to vote is going to hurt him,” said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, “and he’s consistently expressed the view that anything that makes it easier to vote leads to voter fraud when there is absolutely no evidence to support that claim.”Mr. Trump’s first tweet Wednesday targeted Michigan, a critical swing state that he won narrowly in 2016. “Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” the president wrote. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!”An hour later he made a similar threat against Nevada, saying the state had created “a great Voter Fraud scenario” and adding, “If they do, ‘I think’ I can hold up funds to the State.”His attacks continue a pattern of insinuations about voting fraud that cast doubt on the integrity of elections, which some Democrats worry are a prelude to potential efforts by Republicans to dispute the outcome in November if Mr. Trump loses. The presumptive Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., has suggested several times that he expects Mr. Trump to disrupt or even seek to delay the November election.Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, quickly clarified on Wednesday that the state is not mailing ballots to all Michigan voters. On Wednesday, she began mailing ballot applications to all registered voters.“I was notified about the tweet this morning and it caught me off guard because it, of course, was inaccurate,” Ms. Benson, a Democrat, said in an interview. “It is nothing different from what my Republican colleagues in other states are doing. It boggles my mind that this, which is completely within my authority, would in any way be seen as controversial.”Ms. Benson said she had already spent $4.5 million to mail voters ballot applications using money from the federal CARES Act, which Congress passed to help states deal with the coronavirus. She had previously sent absentee ballot applications to all voters for the state’s local elections on May 5.Mr. Trump’s outbursts come as the White House and his re-election campaign are confronting polls showing the president trailing Mr. Biden both nationally and in key swing states.Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, dodged questions about what was illegal about Michigan sending out ballot applications. “Illegality and legality of it, that’s a question for the campaign,” Ms. McEnany said.Ms. McEnany said only that there was evidence and “bipartisan consensus on the fact that mass mail-in voting can lead to fraud.”Late Wednesday, a campaign spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, said: “President Trump is correct. There is no statutory authority for the secretary of state in Michigan to send absentee ballot applications to all voters. Existing case law in Michigan supports that conclusion as well.”A Trump campaign official cited a 2008 Michigan case in which a judge said local clerks could not send absentee ballot applications to a limited universe of voters, a different set of circumstances. Michigan voters in 2018 passed a constitutional amendment expanding access to absentee voting. Anyone can now print and distribute absentee ballot applications, Ms. Benson said, and the form is available online. Her spokesman, Jake Rollow, said Mr. Murtaugh’s claim is “false.”The president’s attack on Nevada is particularly confounding, given that the state’s effort to switch to a nearly all-mail election was made by Secretary of State Barbara K. Cegavske, a Republican. Democrats have sued Ms. Cegavske to block her effort to close nearly all of the state’s in-person polling places for the June 9 primary and mail ballots to all registered voters.“If it has not become apparent yet, Donald Trump makes stuff up,” said Marc Elias, the Democratic elections lawyer who is suing Ms. Cegavske to require more in-person polling places to remain open. “So I don’t think he has a particular objection other than someone has told him that he is losing in Michigan and in Nevada, so today he decided to tweet about Michigan and Nevada.”A spokeswoman for Ms. Cegavske said, “Nevada has many safeguards in place to ensure the integrity of an all-mail election.”The president is scheduled to visit a Ford Motor plant that is manufacturing ventilators in Ypsilanti, Mich., on Thursday. This is his first trip to the state since January, and comes at a time when his campaign advisers are increasingly concerned about his chances there.Mr. Trump’s tweets a day ahead of the trip were seen as unhelpful to boosting his political standing in a critical state, and his political opponents immediately pounced on them. William Kristol, a prominent conservative Trump critic, said on Twitter that his group, Defending Democracy Together, was buying air time in Michigan ahead of the president’s visit there, to air a new advertisement in defense of safe and secure voting.Senior administration officials defended Mr. Trump’s deeper concerns about mail-in voting, even though the president himself voted by mail earlier this year in the Florida primary.For his part, Mr. Trump has been concerned by reports on Fox News about potential fraud in Nevada’s vote-by-mail primary, and reports that thousands of ballots were being sent to inactive voters, aides said. They said Mr. Trump is not opposed to absentee ballots, but believes that vote-by-mail has been abused to hurt Republican candidates.In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, states around the country have been expanding their vote-by-mail options. Georgia officials decided last month to send absentee ballot applications to nearly seven million voters, and on Wednesday the Republican secretary of state urged people to cast their votes by mail ahead of next month’s primary elections.Municipal officials in Milwaukee have also said they will send vote-by-mail applications to registered voters in hopes of easing stress on in-person voting locations. In Wisconsin, the state’s bipartisan election commission is meeting on Wednesday to decide whether to mail ballot application forms to all registered voters and more than 200,000 people who are eligible to vote but not registered.Some state Republican parties have been actively encouraging their supporters to vote by mail. In Pennsylvania, another state that recently passed a law to move to no-excuse vote by mail, Republicans set up an online portal that helps voters understand the new law.Attacking mail voting carries significant risk for Mr. Trump, if Republicans avoid the system in November, said John Pudner, a conservative political operative, pointing out that it could decrease the vote in some key demographics.“Just looking at the senior vote in many states, if there’s a falloff in that, if he loses a chunk of that and he loses Florida, he’s in big trouble,” Mr. Pudner said. Yet, he said, Mr. Trump's repeated attacks on mail voting means “it tends to be harder for independent thinking in the party on it.”Alan Blinder contributed reporting from Atlanta. | 0 |
Credit...Adrees Latif/ReutersAug. 21, 2014FERGUSON, Mo. — Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the Missouri National Guard to begin a withdrawal from this small city on Thursday, signaling that the authorities believed they had largely restored order after nearly two weeks of unrest set off by the police shooting of an unarmed, 18-year-old black man. The move came after two nights of calm marked by none of the clashes between the police and protesters that had been a regular occurrence since the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown. In a statement, Mr. Nixon said the situation had “greatly improved with fewer incidents of outside agitators interfering with peaceful protesters and fewer acts of violence.” In Washington, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who had ordered a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting soon after it took place, indicated that the federal effort was moving forward. “It’s going to take time for us to develop all the facts, develop all the evidence and see where the case will ultimately go,” he said. “It’s most important that we get it right.”Federal prosecutors, however, face significant obstacles to bringing civil rights charges in the shooting, officials said Thursday, a reflection of both the unclear nature of the case and the strict standards of federal law.The authorities said that, whatever their investigation concluded, the Justice Department expected to deliver a detailed report into the shooting, a move that indicated the emotional nature of the case and the department’s view that it could offer the public a thorough, independent review of the facts.Mr. Nixon originally sent the National Guard to Ferguson on Monday after curfews and shifting police tactics failed to quell the unrest that brought nightly demonstrations by peaceful protesters chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” but also violent clashes and looting. The announcement that the National Guard would be slowly moved out was met with relief here from residents and officials who said they were finally, tentatively seeing widespread calm.Mr. Nixon’s appearances throughout Thursday reflected a city recovering from a crisis, not in the middle of one. He visited teachers and administrators at a small university in St. Louis, stopped by a public library and met a small group of residents for coffee at the Corner Coffee House in Ferguson.VideoAttorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Capt. Ronald S. Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol spoke after a more peaceful night of protests in Ferguson, Mo.CreditCredit...Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto AgencyOnly seven arrests were made overnight Wednesday, said Brian Schellman, a spokesman for the St. Louis County police, who added that the department had made 204 arrests relating to the protests since Aug. 9. A sizable but peaceful crowd gathered at the site of Mr. Brown’s death on Canfield Drive. The Original Red’s BBQ, a restaurant on West Florissant Avenue that had been damaged and boarded up all week, was doing a brisk business on Thursday afternoon. After dark, demonstrators marched without incident along the stretch. Still, officials were acting cautiously, aware that the peace was tenuous and that the mood could change. Mr. Nixon said the withdrawal of the National Guard would be “systematic.”In another effort to keep the area under control, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department released a cellphone video taken by a witness showing the separate shooting of a black man by the police in nearby St. Louis on Tuesday. In contrast to the slow reaction by officials in Ferguson to the shooting of Mr. Brown, Sam Dotson, the St. Louis police chief, went to the scene of the shooting to provide information to the public.Chief Dotson said Thursday that the video taken by the bystander confirmed the Police Department’s version of events — that two officers were confronted by Kajieme Powell, 25, who was behaving erratically and brandishing a knife, and that they shot and killed him after he moved closer, ignoring repeated warnings that he should drop the knife. Although the video showed the man walking toward the officers and saying, “Shoot me now,” it was unclear whether the knife was raised when he was shot. The chief said that at least 12 shots could be heard in the video.Chief Dotson said the police released the video in the interest of transparency. “I don’t think any of us can deny that the tension, not only in St. Louis but around the country and the world because of the activity in Ferguson over the last 10 or 12 days, certainly has led to us making sure that we got this right,” he said.Since the shooting of Mr. Brown, two separate investigations have been underway. As the federal authorities look into whether the police in Ferguson violated civil rights, the St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, has started to present evidence regarding the shooting of Mr. Brown to a grand jury.VideoAttorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who met with the family of Michael Brown during his trip to Ferguson, Mo., said that mistrust exists between the police and the people they are meant to serve.CreditCredit...Alex Wong/Getty ImagesSome have called for Mr. McCulloch to recuse himself from the case since his parents worked for the St. Louis police and his father was shot and killed by a black man.Mr. McCulloch has repeatedly said that he has no plans to recuse himself but that the governor, who has the power to remove him, should make his position known. “We have begun presentation of evidence to the grand jury and will continue to do so in a fair, full and impartial manner,” Mr. McCulloch said Thursday in a statement. “However, the governor must settle this issue now. To leave this issue unresolved now leaves the possibility of exercising this power at a later date, which will cause a significant and unwarranted delay in the resolution of the investigation and resolution of the case.”A spokesman for the governor said Thursday night that Mr. Nixon would not ask Mr. McCulloch to step aside. The Justice Department has also been continuing its investigation. But for the federal government to bring charges, it will need to prove that the police officer, Darren Wilson, intended to violate Mr. Brown’s civil rights when he opened fire and that he did so willfully — meaning he knew it was wrong but fired anyway.“That’s a high hurdle,” said Craig B. Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor. “It’s different from saying, ‘He shouldn’t have shot him.’ It’s different than sheer negligence. It’s saying that he intended to violate this young man’s civil rights.”Two federal law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, said the federal investigation had not concluded whether Officer Wilson’s shooting qualified as excessive and willful.The police are given wide latitude when deciding when to use deadly force. The Supreme Court has ruled that officers must have probable cause to believe they face the threat of serious injury or death.Witnesses have given conflicting accounts of Mr. Brown’s shooting. Many agree that it began with a struggle between the officer, who was in his patrol car, and Mr. Brown, who was leaning in through an open window. Eventually, Officer Wilson got out of the car — some witnesses say his gun went off inside the car — and Mr. Brown ran away.Witnesses differ over the final moments, however. Some say Mr. Brown charged at the officer. Others say he was not moving and may have had his hands up in surrender.The local authorities and the county grand jury are trying to sort out those conflicts as they decide whether to file state charges. The discrepancies add another level of complexity for federal investigators, who take an officer’s situation into account when deciding whether a shooting was willful and excessive.Justice Department officials, in conversations with civil rights groups, have sought to explain the limitations of their authority, though officials said that the discussions were not intended to signal the investigation’s direction.Nearly half of the civil rights cases the F.B.I. investigates are related to law enforcement officers who may have acted beyond their authority. In 2012, the F.B.I. opened 380 such cases, accounting for 42 percent of all civil rights cases. Along with prosecutions for using excessive force, civil rights charges can include sexual assault, making false arrests, fabricating evidence and destroying property.Normally, after a civil rights investigation, the Justice Department summarizes its findings in court documents or, if the case ends without charges, the authorities release a short statement closing the matter. In this case, the authorities said they expected to offer a full explanation of their decision-making regardless of the outcome.In addition to the investigation into Officer Wilson, Mr. Holder and top Justice Department officials are considering whether to open a broader civil rights investigation into the Ferguson Police Department. Officials are concerned about reports of other allegations of police abuse, including a 2009 case in which a man said that officers beat him, then charged him with damaging government property — by getting blood on their uniforms.Such cases, known as “pattern or practice” investigations, have been one of the Justice Department’s tactics in addressing police discrimination. In April, the government accused the Albuquerque Police Department of a pattern of excessive force that routinely violated people’s constitutional rights. The police killed 23 people and wounded 14 others over four years.But with prosecutors and F.B.I. agents still working in Ferguson, and with tensions easing, a decision on whether to open that investigation risks inflaming the situation anew.“There’s nothing I want to announce at this time in regards to that,” Mr. Holder said Thursday. “We are keeping all our options open.” | 0 |
Syria took a break on Tuesday from its gruesome six-year civil war to announce plans to sign the Paris climate agreement, leaving the United States as the only country to reject the emissions-cutting deal. The announcement came at the 23rd Conference of the Parties in Bonn, Germany, the world’s biggest climate conference. The non-binding Paris accord, through which signatories pledge to reduce emissions of planet-warming gases over the coming decades, was brokered in 2015, when the annual conference was held in the French capital.The deal was considered historic because it was the first climate agreement to include the U.S. ― the world’s biggest historic emitter, with by far the largest per-capita carbon footprint ― and China, which currently produces the most carbon pollution on a national level. The U.S. took a lead role in shaping the deal.Only war-torn Syria and Nicaragua, which protested the agreement’s failure to impose strict demands on major polluters, refused to sign.But President Donald Trump, who rejects scientists’ warnings about climate change, announced plans to withdraw from the pact in June, insisting developing nations received more benefits and the U.S. got none. In his announcement ― which, under the terms of the deal, fully can’t go into effect until November 2020 ― Trump seemed to conflate the accord with a trade deal, demonstrating what was widely described as a poor understanding of how the Paris agreement actually works.“Like the playground bully that eventually loses all his friends, Donald Trump has isolated himself on the world stage,” Joe Ware, a spokesman for the charity Christian Aid, said in a statement. “When even Syria, with all its problems, can see the sense of a global climate agreement it really shows how ideologically wedded to climate denialism the US Republican Party has become.”Scott Pruitt, EPA administrator, spoke after President Trump made the statement that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, in the Rose Garden of the White House, on June 1.NurPhoto via Getty ImagesIn September ― the most active month on record for hurricanes in the Atlantic ― Nicaragua vowed to sign the agreement in solidarity with other nations already struggling with the effects of climate change, including more violent, less predictable storms and drought. The Central American nation made it official last month.The addition of Syria, whose strongman President Bashar Assad became de facto winner of the ongoing civil war in July as Trump ended U.S. support for rebel groups, makes his country look somewhat more stable, and offers a poetic recognition of a cause of the conflict. Beginning in 2006, Syria suffered its worst droughts in roughly 900 years, forcing as many as 1.5 million Syrians to move from the countryside to cities. The migration sowed some of the civil strife that boiled over into the pro-democracy protests that started the war. Some have called the conflict a “climate war.”Meanwhile, in the U.S., Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt last month proposed eliminating the Clean Power Plan, the only federal regulations aimed at reducing the country’s carbon footprint and bringing it in line with goals set in the Paris agreement. Pruitt also has vowed to host a red team-blue team debate on climate science, essentially giving the tiny minority of researchers who doubt overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is man-made equal standing with scientists who accept the peer-reviewed conclusion. SYRIA just joined the Paris climate deal, leaving US as the *only* nation on Earth opposed.So by "America first," they meant America last.— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) November 7, 2017
Burning fossil fuels, industrial farming and deforestation are rapidly increasing the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, causing the planet to warm, according to 97 percent of peer-reviewed climate research. A research review published last November found significant flaws in the methodologies, assumptions or analyses used by the 3 percent of scientists who concluded otherwise.Yet the U.S. delegation at this year’s COP 23 conference in Germany plans to advocate increased use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, and natural gas ― a major source of methane, which traps about 30 times more heat than carbon dioxide.“This discussion is a follow-up to the Administration’s success at the G20, where the United States expressed its support for helping countries meet their climate objectives through the use of cleaner and more efficient fossil fuels and other clean energy sources and technologies,” a White House spokesman, Raj Shah, said in a statement to The New York Times last week. “It is undeniable that fossil fuels will be used for the foreseeable future, and it is in everyone’s interest that they be efficient and clean.4 Surprising Places At Risk From Climate Change | 0 |
FUJAIRAH, United Arab Emirates — A U.S. drone was shot down in international airspace above the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, U.S. Central Command said, contradicting a claim by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that it had struck the aircraft after it entered Iranian airspace.The news comes amid rising tensions in the region, with American officials blaming Iran for what they said was an attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. Iran has denied any involvement.A Central Command spokesman, Capt. Bill Urban, said in a statementthat a surface-to-air missile hit an RQ-4A Global Hawk in international airspace above the strait. He called the incident "an unprovoked attack."Iranian and U.S. officials have previously delivered conflicting reports identifying the drone as an RQ-4A Global Hawk or its naval variant, the MQ-4 Triton.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement early Thursday that the U.S.-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its air force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region, after the aircraft had violated Iranian airspace.In a later statement, they said the drone left a U.S. base in the Persian Gulf shortly after midnight local time on Thursday, moved around the Strait of Hormuz before entering Iranian airspace four hours later when it was immediately shot down.The commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, said on state television that the strike served as a signal that Iran will not back down from threats. "We have no intention of war, but we are standing strong," he said.The head of Iran’s national security council said the country’s airspace is its red line, and there would have been a firm response regardless of which country trespassed.But Urban disputed the allegations, saying, "Iranian reports that the aircraft was over Iran are false."The incident comes a day afterthe U.S. militarysaid that the one of the tankers sabotaged in the Gulf of Oman last week was attacked with limpet mines that bore "a striking resemblance" to devices in Iran’s arsenal.Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced Monday that the Trump administration would send 1,000 additional troops to the region.Shanahan said that the decision to increase forces was a response to a request from Central Command to address air, naval and ground-based threats.Shanahan stepped down Tuesday and withdrew his name from consideration to be named permanently to the Cabinet position. President Donald Trump named Secretary of the Army Mark Esper, a former Raytheon executive, to take Shanahan's place as acting defense secretary.That announcement came within minutes of a report published in The Washington Post that outlined a series of alleged domestic violence incidents within Shanahan's family. Shanahan said in a statement that it was "unfortunate" that details from the Post story were "dredged up." He said that continuing with the confirmation process would harm his children. NBC News has not confirmed The Post’s report.Earlier this week, Central Command said in a statement that a U.S. MQ-9 drone was shot down over Yemen on June 6 by what it thinks was a Houthi SA-6 surface-to-air missile. Iran-allied Houthi rebels are fighting Saudi-backed forces in Yemen in a conflict that has become one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.“The altitude of the engagement indicated an improvement over previous Houthi capability, which we assess was enabled by Iranian assistance,” Central Command said in the statement about that incident.Central Command also said this week that on June 13 “a modified Iranian SA-7 surface-to-air missile” attempted to shoot down a different drone of the same type that had arrived to monitor one of the ships damaged in the Gulf of Oman in the incident involving the two tankers.That missile was ineffective, Central Command said.“Subsequent analysis indicates that this was a likely attempt to shoot down or otherwise disrupt the MQ-9 surveillance of the IRGC attack on the M/T Kokuka Courageous,” Central Command said of that alleged attempt, referring to the Revolutionary Guard and one of the tankers involved.Courtney Kube reported from Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Ali Arouzi from Tehran and Phil Helsel from Los Angeles. Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.Ali ArouziAli Arouzi is NBC News' Tehran bureau chief and correspondent. | 0 |
The reaction signals a widening rift among Western allies over China. French officials accused President Biden of acting like his predecessor.Credit...Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPublished Sept. 16, 2021Updated Nov. 9, 2021PARIS — President Biden’s announcement of a deal to help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines has strained the Western alliance, infuriating France and foreshadowing how the conflicting American and European responses to confrontation with China may redraw the global strategic map.In announcing the deal on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said it was meant to reinforce alliances and update them as strategic priorities shift. But in drawing a Pacific ally closer to meet the China challenge, he appears to have alienated an important European one and aggravated already tense relations with Beijing.France on Thursday reacted with outrage to the announcements that the United States and Britain would help Australia develop submarines, and that Australia was withdrawing from a $66 billion deal to buy French-built submarines. At its heart, the diplomatic storm is also a business matter — a loss of revenue for France’s military industry, and a gain for American companies.Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s foreign minister, told Franceinfo radio that the submarine deal was a “unilateral, brutal, unpredictable decision” by the United States, and he compared the American move to the rash and sudden policy shifts common during the Trump administration.Underscoring its fury, France canceled a gala scheduled for Friday at its embassy in Washington to mark the 240th anniversary of a Revolutionary War battle.“This looks like a new geopolitical order without binding alliances,” said Nicole Bacharan, a researcher at Sciences Po in Paris. “To confront China, the United States appears to have chosen a different alliance, with the Anglo-Saxon world separate from France.” She predicted a “very hard” period in the old friendship between Paris and Washington.The deal also seemed to be a pivot point in relations with China, which reacted angrily. The Biden administration appears to be upping the ante with Beijing by providing a Pacific ally with submarines that are much harder to detect than conventional ones, much as medium-range Pershing II missiles were deployed in Europe in the 1980s to deter the Soviet Union.A statement from Mr. Le Drian and Florence Parly, France’s Armed Forces minister, called “the American choice to exclude a European ally and partner such as France” a regrettable decision that “shows a lack of coherence.”The Australian vessels would have nuclear reactors for propulsion, but not nuclear weapons.France and the rest of the European Union are intent on avoiding a direct confrontation with China, as they underscored on Thursday in a policy paper titled the “E.U. Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific,” whose release was planned before the fracas.It said the bloc would pursue “multifaceted engagement with China,” cooperating on issues of common interest while “pushing back where fundamental disagreement exists with China, such as on human rights.”VideotranscripttranscriptBiden Announces a Defense Deal to Counter ChinaPresident Biden said that the United States and Britain would help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines, adding to the Western presence in the Pacific.Today, we’re taking another historic step to deepen and formalize cooperation among all three of our nations, because we all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term. We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve, because the future of each of our nations and indeed the world depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead. This is about investing in our greatest source of strength, our alliances, and updating them to better meet the threats of today and tomorrow. You know, as the key project under AUKUS, we are launching consultations with Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines for its navy. Conventionally armed. I want to be exceedingly clear about this. We’re not talking about nuclear-armed submarines. These are conventionally armed submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. This technology is proven; it’s safe. The United States and the U.K. have been operating nuclear-powered submarines for decades.President Biden said that the United States and Britain would help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines, adding to the Western presence in the Pacific.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe degree of French anger recalled the acrimonious rift in 2003 between Paris and Washington over the Iraq war and involved language not heard since then.“This is not done between allies,” Mr. Le Drian said. His comparison of Mr. Biden to Mr. Trump appeared certain to be taken in the White House as a serious insult.And France said it had not been consulted on the deal. “We heard about it yesterday,” Ms. Parly told RFI radio.The Biden administration said it had not told French leaders beforehand, because it was clear that they would be unhappy with the deal. The administration decided that it was up to Australia to choose whether to tell Paris, said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the matter publicly. But he allowed that the French had a right to be annoyed, and that the decision was likely to fuel France’s desire for a European Union military capability independent of the United States.Administration officials described the president’s commitment to the Atlantic alliance as unwavering, and Mr. Biden said on Wednesday that the deal was “about investing in our source of strength, our alliances, and updating them.”At least with respect to France, one of America’s oldest allies, that claim appeared to have backfired. France had struck its own deal in 2016 to provide Australia with conventional submarines, and a legal battle over its collapse appears inevitable.“A knife in the back,” Mr. Le Drian said of the Australian decision, noting that Australia was rejecting a deal for a strategic partnership that involved “a lot of technological transfers and a contract for a 50-year period.”Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, did not even mention France in the videoconference with Mr. Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain during which the deal was announced.Britain’s partnership with the United States in the deal is another irritant to France, after the British exit from the European Union and Mr. Johnson’s embrace of a “Global Britain” strategy aimed largely at the Indo-Pacific region. Longstanding French suspicion of an Anglophone cabal pursuing its own interests to the exclusion of France is never far beneath the surface.ImageCredit...Charly Triballeau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe deal also challenged President Emmanuel Macron of France on some of his central strategic choices. He is determined that France should not get sucked into the increasingly harsh confrontation between China and the United States.Rather, Mr. Macron wants France to lead the European Union toward a middle course between the two great powers, demonstrating the “European strategic autonomy” at the core of his vision. He has spoken about an autonomous Europe operating “beside America and China.”Such comments have been an irritant — if no more than that, given how far Europe stands militarily from such autonomy — to the Biden administration. Mr. Biden is particularly sensitive on the question of American 20th-century sacrifice for France in two world wars and France’s prickliness over its independence within the NATO alliance. Mr. Macron has not visited the White House since Mr. Biden took office, nor is there any sign that he will soon.The E.U. statement on Indo-Pacific strategy committed European nations to deeper involvement at all levels in the region.Its wording, combining broad “engagement” with dissent on human rights, broadly reflected Mr. Macron’s quest for a policy that does not risk rupture with China but also avoids bowing to Beijing. France said the strategy confirmed “its desire for very ambitious action in this region aimed at preserving the ‘freedom of sovereignty’ of all.”The document did not anticipate Australian nuclear submarines, potentially armed with cruise missiles, becoming a potent player in the Pacific in a way that may alter the naval balance of power in an area where China has been extending its influence.Presenting Europe’s strategy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, the E.U. foreign policy chief, said in Brussels that the submarine deal reinforced the bloc’s need for more strategic autonomy.“I suppose that a deal like that wasn’t cooked the day before yesterday,” Mr. Borrell said. “Despite that, we weren’t informed.” The American-British-Australian agreement, he argued, was more proof that the bloc needs to “exist for ourselves, since the others exist for themselves.”Conventional submarines can remain submerged for days or, at most, weeks, while nuclear-powered ones routinely patrol underwater for months at a time. Their range is limited only by their food supplies.“In terms of the maritime battle space, there is no comparison in capability, no matter how good the diesel boat, especially given the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean,” said Adm. James G. Stavridis, a former supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe. “This will also permit complete interoperability with the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the major maritime force in the Pacific. It is smart technologically and geopolitically on the part of the Australians.”ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Biden, with his “America-is-back” foreign-policy message, had promised to revive the country’s alliances, which were particularly undermined by Mr. Trump’s dismissiveness of NATO and the European Union. Hopes ran high from Madrid to Berlin. But a brief honeymoon quickly gave way to renewed tensions.The French were disappointed that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken did not make Paris, where he lived for many years, one of his first destinations in Europe. And they were angered when Mr. Biden made his decision on the American withdrawal from Afghanistan with scant if any consultation of European allies who had contributed to the war effort.“Not even a phone call,” Ms. Bacharan said of the Afghan decision.In his comments on Wednesday, Mr. Biden called France a key ally with an important presence in the Indo-Pacific. But the president’s decision, at least in French eyes, appeared to make a mockery of that observation.The French statement on Thursday said that France was “the only European nation present in the Indo-Pacific region, with nearly two million citizens and more than 7,000 military personnel” in overseas territories like French Polynesia and New Caledonia in the Pacific and Reunion in the Indian Ocean.Next week, Mr. Biden will meet at the White House with leaders of “the Quad” — an informal partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the United States — in what amounts to a statement of shared resolve in relations with Beijing. He will also meet with Mr. Johnson, apparently before the Quad gathering.Given the Australian deal, these meetings will again suggest to France that in the China-focused 21st century, old allies in continental Europe matter less.For Britain, joining the security alliance was further evidence of Mr. Johnson’s determination to align his country closely with the United States in the post-Brexit era. Mr. Johnson has sought to portray himself as loyal partner to Mr. Biden on issues like China and climate change.London’s relations with Washington were ruffled by the Biden administration’s lack of consultation on Afghanistan. But the partnership on the nuclear submarine deal suggests that in sensitive areas of security, intelligence sharing and military technology, Britain remains a preferred partner over France.Reporting was contributed by Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt in Washington; Aurelien Breeden in Paris; Mark Landler in London; and Elian Peltier in Brussels. | 0 |
Establishment Republicans initially reacted with horror. But Trump’s 36-second off-script jeremiad proved a key turning point toward victory for the polarizing nominee, White House officials and Kavanaugh allies said, turbocharging momentum behind Kavanaugh just as his fate appeared most in doubt. Tuesday evening in Southhaven, Miss., Trump laid into Ford with the ruthlessness of an attack dog and the pacing of a stand-up comedian. The crowd roared with laughter and applause. Aides privately crowed as footage of the performance was played and replayed many times over, shifting the national discussion from scrutiny of Kavanaugh’s honesty and drinking habits to doubts about Ford’s memory. And in Washington, Republican senators — though they condemned Trump’s mockery of Ford — felt emboldened to aggressively demand Kavanaugh’s confirmation, which became a near-certainty Friday and looks to become official with a vote Saturday.“As long as he was willing to go to the mat for him, it fortified probably people up here, too,” said Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the chamber’s third-ranking Republican leader.The three-week maelstrom — from when Ford first shared her story with The Washington Post to Saturday’s expected confirmation vote — fused the nation’s cultural reckoning over sexual assault with tribal politics, carrying ramifications not only for next month’s midterm elections but for the long-term identities of both political parties.At the center, as always, was Trump, who used his bully pulpit to champion Kavanaugh and accused men everywhere. Initially restraining his combative impulses and deferring to the Senate on process, the president ultimately followed his own gut as if he were, in the description of one aide, “a strategic boogeyman.”The result is likely to be, according to counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, “a crowning achievement of his presidency.”“If people look at this as an apocalyptic fight, he’s the ultimate fighter who doesn’t give up, doesn’t give in and doesn’t back down, even if there’s an avalanche of criticism and vicious, vile reactions from the other side,” Conway said.Yet for all of Trump’s public declarations, the actual deciders of Kavanaugh’s fate were a trio of Senate Republicans with an independent streak — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Jeff Flake of Arizona — whose demands for an FBI investigation prolonged the process but also ended up ensuring Kavanaugh’s confirmation.Republican leaders, who for nearly two years have accommodated Trump’s brushfires in service to a shared agenda, plowed through the chaos to fulfill a wish of the movement right: replacing the Supreme Court seat held by swing vote Anthony M. Kennedy with a conservative ideologue. The GOP’s hardball approach left Democrats shaken and defeated.“They are succeeding because they have broken all the rules and norms,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “They adopted the strategy that the best defense is a good offense.”This portrait of Kavanaugh’s fraught confirmation process is the result of interviews with more than two dozen senators, Senate staffers, White House officials and outside Republican advisers, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss behind-the-scenes machinations.After three weeks of uncertainty and pitched partisanship, it was Collins on Friday who all but determined the outcome in an extraordinary 44-minute address on the Senate floor.The Maine moderate had signaled her thinking earlier with a “yea” on a procedural vote to move forward, before sitting down to lunch with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the members-only Senate dining room.Collins struck defiant notes in defense of Kavanaugh and lambasted liberal activists and senators, whom she argued never gave the nominee a fair shake. Although she said she found Ford’s testimony “sincere, painful and compelling” and believes she has survived a sexual assault, she explained in some detail that she did not see any substantiating witnesses or evidence for her claims that Kavanaugh was the aggressor.The final words of her address were the ones many GOP leaders had been longing to hear: “I will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.”McConnell led the Republican senators — nearly two dozen in attendance — in a standing ovation. One by one, Collins’s compatriots celebrated her decision. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) enveloped Collins in a giant bear hug.Within moments, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) became the only Democrat to say he would vote to confirm Kavanaugh, and coupled with Flake’s earlier expression of support all but guaranteed the nominee’s ascension to the Supreme Court.'I don't even know him'From the moment Kennedy announced his retirement on June 27, the White House realized the battle to fill his seat would be far more difficult than the one for Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to replace the late Antonin Scalia. Picking a successor for Kennedy’s swing seat gave Trump an opportunity to solidify a conservative majority on the court for decades to come — and White House advisers decided they would need to mount a vigorous political campaign.The chief strategist was Donald McGahn, the White House counsel who has had a tempestuous relationship with Trump but rose up through the conservative movement.Trump, too, understood the stakes, aides said. If he could solidify the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, the president calculated, that move alone could permanently endear him to Republican voters — especially evangelical Christians — and override doubts about how he conducts himself in office.Trump had no particular personal affinity for Kavanaugh, although a dinner was arranged between the two men and their wives to cultivate a relationship. “I don’t even know him,” the president told the Mississippi crowd, “so it’s not like, ‘Oh, gee, I want to protect my friend.’ ”Nevertheless, Trump felt invested in Kavanaugh, and he entrusted McGahn, with whom the president barely was on speaking terms, to muscle through this final victory before departing the White House later this fall. “Kavanaugh’s an establishment guy. He was a Bush guy,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), referencing the nominee’s experience as White House staff secretary under President George W. Bush. “There was a lot of pushback, you know — ‘Don’t go [down] that road,’ ‘That’s not why you won,’ and he said, ‘Wait a minute. I want to pick the best people to be on the court I can,’ and he said he was incredibly impressed by his background, just the whole package of Kavanaugh.”McGahn built a war room on the fourth floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building staffed with nearly a dozen lawyers, two communications operatives and a stable of Kavanaugh’s former law clerks. A farm team at the Justice Department conducted research and drafted talking points. Leonard Leo, a longtime leader of the conservative Federalist Society, and to a more limited degree Republican lawyer William A. Burck, were key advisers. And an assortment of well-funded outside groups, including the Judicial Crisis Network, worked to buff Kavanaugh’s public image through television and online advertisements and surrogate media appearances.The team treated Kavanaugh like they would a presidential candidate, including choreographing his public movements. When Kavanaugh visited Capitol Hill, McGahn and an entourage of clerks and aides accompanied the judge to meetings with senators and devised routes to avoid interactions with protesters.Still, even the Kavanaugh operation drew pointed criticism from Republican allies on Capitol Hill and others in Trump’s orbit, who at times privately questioned everything from the selection of Kavanaugh himself to the war room’s ability to effectively manage a bloody-knuckled partisan brawl.'Speak from your heart'The story of Kavanaugh’s nomination can be told in two parts. Until Sept. 16, he was a milquetoast Bush Republican whose confirmation hearings had failed to animate much of the country. But that Sunday, when The Washington Post published Ford’s detailed account of sexual assault when she and Kavanaugh were teenagers in suburban Maryland, the Supreme Court nomination gripped the nation — casting Kavanaugh as a predator with a drinking problem for some and an unfairly smeared folk hero for others.The initial Ford allegations momentarily sent the White House reeling, as they scrambled to assess her credibility and the veracity of her claims. The president was immediately advised, including by Conway, not to attack Ford, but to say that she deserved to be heard — a line he stuck to for several days.In the coming day, stories of Kavanaugh’s alleged debauchery as a high school and college student dribbled out from former classmates, as well as two additional claims of sexual misconduct: Deborah Ramirez claimed in the New Yorker that Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her as an undergraduate at Yale University, and Julie Swetnick, represented by attorney and potential Democratic presidential candidate Michael Avenatti, suggested that Kavanaugh had been present at parties where women were gang-raped.But the additional claims had an unexpected effect: Widely deemed less credible than Ford’s assault allegation, they gave Kavanaugh’s supporters fresh ammunition to cast all of the charges as a political hit job.Kavanaugh, a former political staffer who had micromanaged his confirmation process and media coverage of his nomination, was eager to defend himself publicly — and McGahn, McConnell, Trump and other advisers were encouraging him to do just that. Kavanaugh and his wife, Ashley, sat for a television interview with Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum.The interview was widely criticized — “objectively a horrible idea,” in the words of one White House official. Kavanaugh appeared wooden and dispassionate, sticking only to a few talking points, and Trump, an avid consumer and critic of television news, thought he appeared weak and unconvincing.But the Kavanaugh team believed the Monday sit-down served its purpose: He was on camera denying allegations in clips that helped fill the news vacuum in the run-up to that Thursday’s scheduled Senate testimony from him and Ford.“It filled the void,” a second White House official said.Then came the whiplash — more than eight hours of Senate testimony, first from Ford, then from Kavanaugh, that captivated the nation and even left the president seesawing from fatalism to enthusiasm about Kavanaugh’s confirmation prospects.When Ford had finally finished, McGahn spoke privately to Kavanaugh, who had not watched, urging him to be passionate. “Speak from your heart,” McGahn advised the nominee, according to someone familiar with their discussion.Kavanaugh roared into the committee room and shouted his opening statement, which he had personally written the night before with the help of one trusted clerk. The hotly defiant performance was so effective in the eyes of his advisers — and, perhaps most importantly, of the president — that a group gathered in Vice President Pence’s Capitol Hill office began to cheer and pump their fists. Some even had tears in their eyes.'It fired up his base'The hearing galvanized activists on both sides and left jittery senators — including Flake, one of 11 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee — torn between competing accounts and party loyalties.Flake, who has repeatedly criticized Trump’s rhetoric and had been positioning himself as the pivotal swing vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination, decided to vote “yes” last Friday to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination from the committee to the full Senate floor.But Flake was confronted that day in a Senate elevator by two women who tearfully accused him of dismissing credible allegations of assault. He told fellow senators the FBI should reopen its background investigation to review the sexual misconduct allegations.Flake, along with Murkowski and Collins, met with McConnell and the committee’s Republican members in the leader’s Capitol office and said they would not vote to confirm Kavanaugh until there had been an FBI investigation. The trio laid out the scope of the probe, which would take no more than one week and which they decided would not include Swetnick’s claims.“How do we confine it to credible allegations versus any number of things that we would’ve expected to come out?” recalled Senate Judiciary member Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).McConnell spoke with Trump and convinced him that the only option was to delay a vote and move forward with the FBI probe, according to people familiar with their conversation.McConnell understood that Murkowski, who generally keeps her own counsel, was the true wild card. After being personally lobbied by sexual assault survivors from Alaska, she announced Friday morning that she would not vote to confirm Kavanaugh.In the closing days of the Kavanaugh fight, Trump’s role was mostly public-facing. His aides conceded that the president would not have much sway with the trio of Republicans who were on the bubble.“I think in terms of the people that we needed to in the end win over, it’s sometimes the less said is better,” Thune said, referring to Trump’s role.On the campaign trail, however, Trump ratcheted up the partisan warfare at his rallies. In Mississippi, the president — already fuming over a New York Times investigation into his family’s allegedly fraudulent tax schemes — felt the media was not properly scrutinizing Ford’s account and decided to engage.“How did you get home? ‘I don’t remember,’ ” Trump said, reenacting Ford’s hearing. “How did you get there? ‘I don’t remember.’ Where is the place? ‘I don’t remember.’ How many years ago was it? ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.’ ”The riff lasted less than a minute, but had lasting ramifications. The senators whose votes Kavanaugh was wooing said they were aghast at the president’s rally-stage behavior. But Kavanaugh allies saw a clear benefit: An argument by the president that bucked up Kavanaugh, discredited Ford and became a clarion call for conservatives.More than two dozen Trump supporters interviewed at the president’s campaign rally Thursday in Minnesota said they wish he had not gone after Ford, fretting that doing so was not presidential. Yet many also acknowledged the president had simply spoken aloud what many of them thought privately.“There are things he says that I wish he wouldn’t say, but I will take it — for all that he has done, I’ll take it,” said Matthew Hoffland, 24, a web developer from Sparta, Wis. “It fired up his base.”Jenna Johnson in Rochester, Minn., contributed to this report. | 0 |
WASHINGTON ― Lawmakers on Capitol Hill broadly agreed on Tuesday that something should be done about young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and who will eventually lose deportation protections if Congress does not step in to help them. But Republicans are already placing conditions on their support that could kill the effort entirely. They are willing to vote for protecting so-called “Dreamers” ― but not without getting something in exchange for it. “Hopefully there will be some give and take and we can accomplish something,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said, suggesting Democrats could support efforts to boost border security.President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that his administration rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, with enforcement to begin in six months. That time period gives Congress time to pass its own measures to allow undocumented young people to stay in the country, something that a majority of Americans support. Most Republicans in Congress have previously opposed such measures. A majority of them voted against past versions of the Dream Act, a stand-alone bill that would provide legal status to young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Some GOP senators voted for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that included measures for Dreamers in 2013, but also would have increased border security and included other enforcement measures. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the sponsors of the current iteration of the Dream Act, argued during a press conference on Tuesday that lawmakers “don’t have that luxury right now” of taking the time to pass another comprehensive bill, given the six-month time limit. Only four Republicans are currently co-sponsoring the Dream Act: Graham, Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). Gardner announced his support on Tuesday evening. Another possibility for stand-alone legislation is the Recognizing America’s Children Act, or RAC Act, that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) plans to introduce in the Senate soon. The RAC Act in the form already introduced in the House would grant legal status to certain young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. at age 15 or younger before 2012; the 2017 Dream Act would be open to individuals who came before the age of 18 and were in the U.S. since four years prior to the bill taking effect. Tillis indicated on Tuesday that his bill is meant to pass on its own ― he told reporters that although “we need border security measures, it’s a different bill going through Congress.” “The bottom line of it is, I don’t think DACA as a clean bill can get through the Congress by itself,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a call with reporters on Tuesday, according to Politico. He added that this was an “opportunity for compromise between people that want DACA plus a lot of other things dealing with legal immigration, and I suppose even some things dealing with illegal immigration, that can probably be packaged together.”Some Republicans want to pair protections for Dreamers with cutting legal immigration, which Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is pushing through in a bill called the RAISE Act. That legislation ― which has nothing to do with Dreamers ― was the only specific measure that Trump or Attorney General Jeff Sessions mentioned on Tuesday while announcing the DACA decision. The RAISE Act would face opposition not just from Democrats, but some Republicans as well. Trump hasn’t actually said what he specifically wants Congress to do about Dreamers, although the White House previously indicated he wouldn’t sign a stand-alone bill like the Dream Act. “I have a love for these people and hopefully now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly,” the president said on Tuesday afternoon. “And I can tell you, speaking to members of Congress, they want to be able to do something and do it right. And really, we have no choice, we have to be able to do something, and I think it’s going to work out very well.”Even if enough Republicans ultimately come out in support of a stand-alone Dream Act, it’s no sure bet that all Democrats would join them. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who helped defeat a similar measure in 2013, said Tuesday he opposed the president’s “ill-informed” decision to rescind DACA. But the vulnerable red state Democrat, who is facing a tough re-election fight in 2018, would not say whether he would vote to provide legal status to Dreamers in the future.“I don’t know. It depends on what it is,” Tester said, adding that Congress now had an “opportunity” to tackle comprehensive immigration reform, which he supports. Democrats are unlikely to compromise on funding Trump’s border wall, some said. But they might be willing to accept other measures. Graham, when touting the Dream Act, noted that his Democratic colleagues had voted for border security and enforcement measures as part of the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill. “In order to get 68 votes in the Senate, I swallowed hard,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top champion of the Dream Act, said at the press conference with Graham of the 2013 bill. “I’ve been open to border security issues, I continue to be open to them. The wall, though, is a wall too far.” 11 Documentaries About Immigration Everyone Should Watch | 0 |
Ezra KleinAug. 26, 2021Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York TimesIn 2005, two of my colleagues at The American Prospect, Sam Rosenfeld and Matt Yglesias, wrote an essay I think about often. It was called “The Incompetence Dodge,” and it argued that American policymakers and pundits routinely try to rescue the reputation of bad ideas by attributing their failure to poor execution. At the time, they were writing about the liberal hawks who were blaming the catastrophe of the Iraq war on the Bush administration’s maladministration rather than rethinking the enterprise in its totality. But the same dynamic suffuses the recriminations over the Afghanistan withdrawal.To state the obvious: There was no good way to lose Afghanistan to the Taliban. A better withdrawal was possible — and our stingy, chaotic visa process was unforgivable — but so was a worse one. Either way, there was no hope of an end to the war that didn’t reveal our decades of folly, no matter how deeply America’s belief in its own enduring innocence demanded one. That is the reckoning that lies beneath events that are still unfolding, and much of the cable news conversation is a frenzied, bipartisan effort to avoid it.[Get more from Ezra Klein by listening to his Opinion podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show.”]Focusing on the execution of the withdrawal is giving virtually everyone who insisted we could remake Afghanistan the opportunity to obscure their failures by pretending to believe in the possibility of a graceful departure. It’s also obscuring the true alternative to withdrawal: endless occupation. But what our ignominious exit really reflects is the failure of America’s foreign policy establishment at both prediction and policymaking in Afghanistan.“The pro-war crowd sees this as a mechanism by which they can absolve themselves of an accounting for the last 20 years,” Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, told me. “Just think about the epic size of this policy failure. Twenty years of training. More than $2 trillion worth of expenditure. For almost nothing. It is heartbreaking to watch these images, but it is equally heartbreaking to think about all of the effort, of lives and money we wasted in pursuit of a goal that was illusory.”Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, phrased it well: “There’s no denying America is the most powerful country in the world, but what we’ve seen over and over in recent decades is we cannot turn that into the outcomes we want. Whether it’s Afghanistan or Libya or sanctions on Russia and Venezuela, we don’t get the policy outcomes we want, and I think that’s because we overreach — we assume that because we are very powerful, we can achieve things that are unachievable.”It is worth considering some counterfactuals for how our occupation could have ended. Imagine that the Biden administration, believing the Afghan government hollow, ignored President Ashraf Ghani’s pleas and began rapidly withdrawing personnel and power months ago. The vote of no-confidence ripples through Afghan politics, demoralizing the existing government and emboldening the Taliban. Those who didn’t know which side to choose, who were waiting for a signal of who held power, quickly cut deals with the Taliban. As the last U.S. troops leave, the Taliban overwhelms the country, and the Biden administration is blamed, reasonably, for speeding their victory.Another possible scenario was suggested to me by Grant Gordon, a political scientist who works on conflict and refugee crises (and is, I should say, an old friend): If the Biden administration had pulled our allies and personnel out more efficiently, that might have unleashed the Taliban to massacre their opposition, as America and the world would have been insulated and perhaps uninterested in the aftermath. There have been revenge killings, but it has not devolved, at least as of yet, into all-out slaughter, and that may be because the American withdrawal has been messy and partial and the Taliban fears re-engagement. “What is clearly a debacle from one angle may actually have generated restraint,” Gordon told me. “Having spent time in places like this, I think people lack a real imagination for how bad these conflicts can get.”Let me offer one more: Even though few believed Ghani’s government would prevail in our absence, and the Trump administration cut them out of its deal with the Taliban, there’s widespread disappointment that the government we supported collapsed so quickly. Biden has been particularly unsparing in his descriptions of the Afghan Army’s abdication, and I agree with those who say he’s been unfair, underestimating the courage and sacrifice shown by Afghan troops throughout the war. But put that aside: Americans might have felt better seeing our allies in Afghanistan put up a longer fight, even if the Taliban emerged victorious. But would a multiyear civil war have been better for the Afghans caught in the crossfire?Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, put it simply: “I think there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance, and smart people are struggling with how to rationalize defeat. Because that’s what we have here in Afghanistan — a defeat.”I will not pretend that I know how we should have left Afghanistan. But neither do a lot of people dominating the airwaves right now. And the confident pronouncements to the contrary over the past two weeks leave me worried that America has learned little. We are still holding not just to the illusion of our control, but to the illusion of our knowledge.This is an illusion that, for me, shattered long ago. I was a college freshman when America invaded Iraq. And, to my enduring shame, I supported it. My reasoning was straightforward: If George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell and, yes, Joe Biden all thought there was some profound and present danger posed by Saddam Hussein, they must have known something I didn’t.There’s an old line: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And so it was with the Iraq war. Bush and Clinton and Powell and Blair knew quite a bit that wasn’t true. As Robert Draper shows in his book “To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq,” they were certain Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Only he didn’t. They were also certain, based on decades of testimony from Iraqi expats, that Americans would be welcomed as liberators.There were many lessons to be learned from the Iraq war, but this, for me, was the most central: We don’t know what we don’t know, and, even worse, we don’t always know what we think we know. Policymakers are easily fooled by people with seemingly relevant experience or credentials who will tell them what they want to hear or what they already believe. The flow of money, interests, enmities and factions is opaque to outsiders and even to insiders. We do not understand other countries well enough to remake them according to our ideals. We don’t even understand our own country well enough to achieve our ideals.“Look at the countries in which the war on terror has been waged,” Ben Rhodes, who served as a top foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama, told me. “Afghanistan. Iraq. Yemen. Somalia. Libya. Every one of those countries is worse off today in some fashion. The evidentiary basis for the idea that American military intervention leads inexorably to improved material circumstances is simply not there.”I wrote a book on political polarization so I am often asked to do interviews where the point is to lament how awful polarization is. But the continuing power of the war-on-terror framework reflects the problems that come from too much bipartisanship. Too much agreement can be as toxic to a political system as too much disagreement. The alternative to polarization is often the suppression of dissenting viewpoints. If the parties agree with each other, then they have incentive to marginalize those who disagree with both of them.At least for my adult life, on foreign policy, our political problem has been that the parties have agreed on too much, and dissenting voices have been shut out. That has allowed too much to go unquestioned, and too many failures to go uncorrected. It is telling that it is Biden who is taking the blame for America’s defeat in Afghanistan. The consequences come for those who admit America’s foreign policy failures and try to change course, not for those who instigate or perpetuate them.Initially, the war in Afghanistan was as broadly supported and bipartisan as anything in American politics has ever been. That made it hard to question, and it has made it harder to end. The same is true of the assumptions lying beneath it, and much else in our foreign policy — that America is always a good actor; that we understand enough about the rest of the world, and about ourselves, to remake it in our image; that humanitarianism and militarism are easily grafted together.The tragedy of humanitarian intervention as a foreign policy philosophy is that it binds our compassion to our delusions of military mastery. We awaken to the suffering of others when we fear those who rule them or hide among them, and in this way our desire for security finds union with our desire for decency. Or we awaken to the suffering of others when they face a massacre of such immediacy that we are forced to confront our passivity and to ask what inaction would mean for our souls and self-image. In both cases, we awaken with a gun in our hands, or perhaps we awaken because we have a gun in our hands.To many, America’s pretensions of humanitarian motivation were always suspect. There are vicious regimes America does nothing to stop. There are vicious regimes America finances directly. It is callous to suggest that the only suffering we bear responsibility for is the suffering inflicted by our withdrawal. Our wars and drone strikes and tactical raids and the resulting geopolitical chaos directly led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis.This is the deep lacuna in America’s foreign policy conversation: The American foreign policy establishment obsesses over the harms caused by our absence or withdrawal. But there’s no similar culpability for the harms we commit or that our presence creates. We are much quicker to blame ourselves for what we don’t do than what we do.My heart breaks for the suffering we will leave behind in Afghanistan. But we do not know how to fix Afghanistan. We failed in that effort so completely that we ended up strengthening the Taliban. We should do all we can to bring American citizens and allies home. But if we truly care about educating girls worldwide, we know how to build schools and finance education. If we truly care about protecting those who fear tyranny, we know how to issue visas and admit refugees. If we truly care about the suffering of others, there is so much we could do. Only 1 percent of the residents of poor countries are vaccinated against the coronavirus. We could change that. More than 400,000 people die from malaria each year. We could change that, too.“I want America more forward-deployed, but I want it through a massive international financing arm and a massive renewable energy arm,” Senator Murphy told me. “That’s the United States I want to see spread across the world — not the face of America today that’s by and large arms sales, military trainers and brigades.”The choice we face is not between isolationism and militarism. We are not powerful enough to achieve the unachievable. But we are powerful enough to do far more good, and far less harm, than we do now. | 0 |
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis on the minimum wageA %2410.10 hike could lift 900%2C000 workers out of poverty%2C but cost 500%2C000 jobsDemocrats say the CBO projections can be unreliableWASHINGTON — President Obama's call to raise the federal minimum wage could help lift 900,000 workers out of poverty, but at a cost of as many as 500,000 jobs, according to an analysis released today by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.The White House and congressional Democrats--who are seeking to make a federal minimum wage hike a top issue in the 2014 elections--took issue with the politically sensitive report and said CBO's findings are inconsistent with the prevailing view among economists that raising the minimum wage does not impact employment."Zero is a perfectly reasonable estimate of the impact of the minimum wage on employment ," countered Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman in a conference call with reporters in response to the CBO report.Obama initially called on Congress to raise the $7.25 hourly minimum wage to $9, but he has since rallied with leading Senate Democrats who are pushing for a $10.10 increase. The Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to vote on a wage increase in March, but it is unlikely to get a vote in the GOP-controlled House.Raising the minimum wage gets broad public support in polls, but it faces near unanimous opposition from congressional Republicans. Democrats are expected to use the issue on the campaign trail in the midterm elections.A Gallup poll released Monday showed that nearly one in four Americans say that jobs and unemployment are their top concern, underscoring Democrats' sensitivity to the CBO's conclusion that a wage increase could result in job losses.CBO examined the budget impacts of raising the minimum wage to $9 and $10.10. The report concluded that a $9 increase would lift 300,000 workers above the poverty line, but cost 100,000 new jobs as employers are expected to reduce workforces to make up for higher wages. A $10.10 increase would lift 900,000 workers above the poverty line, but cost 500,000 jobs.Furman and Betsey Stevenson, also a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, said the CBO analysis does not take in to account the impacts of higher wages on increasing productivity, reducing turnover and absenteeism and improving worker output. "I think that that understanding has moved employment effects to zero," she said, "I think CBO didn't fully appreciate that in their review."Republicans were quick to highlight the report's warning of job losses."This report confirms what we've long known: while helping some, mandating higher wages has real costs, including fewer people working. With unemployment Americans' top concern, our focus should be creating — not destroying — jobs for those who need them most," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., joined the White House in questioning the veracity of the CBO report, citing competing economic consensus that a wage increase would be an economic stimulus and boost jobs. "What's more, in past years, the CBO itself has acknowledged the uncertainty of its own predictions and ignored new perspectives in the wide array of analysis on the minimum wage," she said.The CBO report acknowledges that long-term conclusions on the effect of the minimum wage are difficult to predict. In 2007 – the last time Congress voted to raise the federal minimum wage to the current $7.25 rate – CBO reported that "the potential employment and unemployment impacts of raising the federal minimum wage rate to $7.25 per hour are difficult to predict, but are likely to be small."Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the sponsor of legislation to raise the wage to $10.10, issued a lengthy critique of the CBO report."More than 600 economists, including seven Nobel Prize laureates, recently affirmed the growing consensus that low-wage workers benefit from modest increases in the minimum wage without negative consequences for the low-wage job market," Harkin said, adding that his legislation would increase wages for 28 million workers, and create 85,000 new jobs.Follow @DaviSusan on Twitter. | 0 |
WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spoke to Fox News in an interview aired Monday night on "The Story with Martha MacCallum," following allegations of sexual misconduct by two women.Sitting next to his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, the nominee flatly refuted the accusations as he sought to defend himself days before the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to have another hearing on his confirmation. President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the high court.That vote on Kavanaugh's nomination has been pushed back so he can answer allegations leveled by one of his accusers: psychology researcher and Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford. She alleges that, while both were in high school, Kavanaugh held her down, put his hand over her mouth to silence her, and tried to remove her clothes. A second woman, Deborah Ramirez, a Yale University classmate of Kavanaugh's, claims that he exposed himself to her and shoved his penis in her face at a dorm room party in their freshman year at the Ivy League school. She said they were playing a drinking game at the time and admits there are gaps in her memory of that night. Here are five takeaways from the interview:Kavanaugh a 'virgin' in high schoolThe judge said he never had sexual intercourse "or anything close to (it)" until long after he left Georgetown Prep, the elite all-boys Catholic high school he attended in Rockville, Maryland.“So you’re saying through all these years that are in question that you were a virgin?” MacCallum asked Kavanaugh.“That’s correct," he replied.She pressed on: “And through what years in college, since we’re probing into your personal life here?”“Many years after, I’ll leave it at that," he answered. "Many years after."Kavanaugh was emphatic in his denials“The truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise. I am not questioning and have not questioned that perhaps Dr. Ford at some point in her life was sexually assaulted by someone at some place, but what I know is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone,” Kavanaugh said.He went further by saying he wasn't even in the same place where Ford was when the alleged assault took place.“I was never at any such party," he told MacCallum. "The other people who alleged to be present have said they do not remember any such party. A woman who was present, another woman who was present who was Dr. Ford’s lifelong friend has said she doesn’t know me and never remembers being at a party with me at any time in her life.”The judge said he won't withdrawKavanaugh appears resolute about his desire to be confirmed to the nation's highest court.“I’m not going to let false accusations drive us out of this process and we’re looking for a fair process where I can be heard and defend my integrity, my lifelong record," Kavanaugh said."My lifelong record of promoting dignity and equality for women starting with the women who knew me when I was 14 years old," he continued. "I’m not going anywhere.”So far, Trump is standing by his pick. He told reporters during an appearance at the United Nations General Assembly in New York that Kavanaugh "is an absolutely outstanding person. Hopefully he will be confirmed quickly."He spoke with his wife at his sideAshley Kavanaugh sat next to her husband as he forcefully defended himself.Often nodding in agreement as the judge spoke, Ashley Kavanaugh said she's known him for 17 years and described him as "decent ... kind ... and good" as she defended him."It's been very difficult to have these conversations with your children," she told MacCallum. "But they know Brett and they know the truth. And we told them from the very beginning of this process this will be not fun sometimes. You're going to hear things. People feel strongly and you need to know that. Just remember you know your dad."Ashley Kavanaugh was the personal secretary to President George W. Bush when Brett Kavanaugh worked in the White House. His first date with his future bride was Sept. 10, 2001. The next morning, they were among those whisked out of the White House during the 9/11 attacks. He chose a friendly audience for the interviewKavanaugh chose Fox News for his only interview – so far – to refute the allegations.MacCallum, who joined Fox News Channel in 2004, is one of the more prominent personalities on a network that features Sean Hannity, Geraldo Rivera and Brit Hume.She did not pull punches.MacCallum pointedly asked Kavanaugh to address: the specific allegations (he repeatedly refuted them); whether he had ever blacked out from drinking too much in high school (he said that never happened); and whether similar allegations by someone in high school should count against them later in life ("I think everyone's judged on their whole life," he responded.)Shaunna Thomas, executive director of UltraViolet Action, a progressive groups that opposes Kavanaugh's confirmation, criticized the judge for choosing the "comfort of a partisan network" to air his denials.“If Kavanaugh really wanted to get to the truth, he’d go to the FBI, not Fox News," she said. "This was the move of a political hack, not a nominee to the Supreme Court." | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden criticized Russia in his first visit to the State Department on Thursday, part of the new leader's effort to reverse the foreign policy posture of his predecessor."I made it clear to President Putin in a manner very different from my predecessor that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia's aggressive actions — interfering with our elections, cyber attacks, poisoning its citizens — are over. We will not hesitate to the raise the cost on Russia and defend our vital interest and our people," Biden said.Former President Donald Trump was reluctant throughout his term to publicly speak out against Vladimir Putin. Trump suggested in 2018 that he believed Putin over American intelligence when the Russian president denied that he meddled in the 2016 election, he refused to condemn the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and was quiet on Russia's hacking of U.S. government agencies last year. Trump's ties to Russia were also the subject of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe."The politically motivated jailing of Alexei Navalny and the Russian efforts to suppress freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are a matter of deep concern to us and the international community," Biden said, adding that Navalny had been "targeted" for exposing corruption and should be "released immediately and without condition."In addition to signaling a new approach towards Russia, Biden announced a number of steps he will take to unwind Trump's foreign policy, which rested on an "America First" approach to interacting with the world.Biden said he will order an end to American support for offensive operations in Yemen, calling the war a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe," and will order a freeze on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany initiated by Trump.Biden said he will also sign an executive order to restore the refugee admission program which was drastically cut under Trump, with the goal of approving 125,000 refugees in the first full fiscal year of his presidency, and he will issue a memorandum protecting the rights of LGBTQ individuals around the world.Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution in 2019 calling on the U.S. to end involvement in Yemen. Trump's decision was largely seen as an effort to side with Saudi Arabia, who the former president courted to purchase U.S. weapons.Biden stressed the importance of officials in the foreign and civil service, signaling another break from Trump who frequently criticized career officials as part of the "deep state" and threatened to cut the department's budget. Trump's first secretary, Rex Tillerson, was seen as dismantling the agency and hollowing out the ranks of career employees and the department's civilian workforce shrank under Trump's administration."I want the people who work in this building and in our embassies and consulates around the world to know that I value your expertise, and I respect you," Biden said. "I will have your back. This administration is going to empower you to do your jobs, not target or politicize you."National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters ahead of Biden's visit that it was "not an accident that he has chosen the State Department as the venue for these first remarks," adding that Biden "wants to send a clear message that our national security strategy will lead with diplomacy."In his speech, Biden said that he has already been in touch with many world leaders to "begin re-forming the habits of cooperation and rebuilding the muscles of democratic alliances that have atrophied from four years of neglect and abuse."Thursday's actions build off a number of foreign policy moves Biden has taken in his first two weeks in office. He rejoined the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization, ended a ban on U.S. entry from majority-Muslim countries and extended a crucial nuclear arms control treaty with Russia until 2026.Biden’s speech comes as he is already confronting new international crises in just his first two weeks in office: the imprisonment of Navalny and a military coup in Myanmar."There can be no doubt: In a democracy, force should never seek to overrule the will of the people or attempt to erase the outcome of a credible election. The Burmese military should relinquish power," Biden said.Biden also referenced the Jan. 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that targeted American democracy, saying that the nation's values were "pushed to the brink in the last few weeks" but that "the American people will emerge from this stronger, more determined, and better equipped to unite the world in fighting to defend democracy – because we have fought for it ourselves."White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said that there are no foreign trips in the works as of now and many global meetings with world leaders are expected to be virtual this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.Lauren Egan is a White House reporter for NBC News based in Washington.Abigail Williams is a producer and reporter for NBC News covering the State Department. | 0 |
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is exploring "mechanisms" to revoke security clearances for former U.S. officials who have criticized him for his handling of the Russia investigation and his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday.Sanders said the administration is reviewing clearances for former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director director James Comey, former national intelligence director James Clapper, former CIA director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser Susan Rice and former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe."They politicize and in some cases actually monetize their public service and their security clearances in making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia," Sanders said.More:Ex-CIA Director John Brennan compares Trump to Bernie MadoffMore:Exclusive: James Comey strikes back against 'morally unfit' Donald Trump More:In war of words with Trump, fired McCabe says he will no longer be silentBrennan, who worked in senior roles in President George W. Bush's administration and was a CIA director under President Barack Obama, offered particularly incendiary criticism of Trump's handling of his meeting in Helsinki with Putin. After a news conference in Helsinki in which Trump appeared to favor Putin's denials over the findings of the intelligence community, Brennan wrote on Twitter that the president's performance was "nothing short of treasonous."Security clearances can allow government officials to work with companies on classified defense programs and advise private contractors. They also can be something of a professional courtesy, allowing former national security officials to talk to their successors.Having a security clearance does not entitle anyone to access classified information.Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, told CNN his clearance "has nothing to do with how I or any of us feel about the president. And I don't get the briefings. I don't have access to classified information."Susan Hennessy, executive editor of the blog Lawfare, tweeted that "former high-ranking national security officials typically stay in access in order to support their successors and provide insight and continuity when necessary."In announcing the review of security clearances, Sanders said that "making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the president is extremely inappropriate."Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for McCabe, said in a statement that his clearance "was deactivated when he was terminated, according to what we were told was FBI policy. You would think the White House would check with the FBI before trying to throw shiny objects to the press corps."Hayden tweeted: "I don't go back for classified briefings. Won’t have any effect on what I say or write."Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he has urged Trump to revoke clearances because "public officials should not use their security clearances to leverage speaking fees or network talking-head fees."Republican consultant Liz Mair said, "Using executive authority to punish critics sets a bad precedent and looks abusive and overpunitive," and the Trump administration "already has a bad rap where that’s concerned. Why worsen it?"Asked whether the administration would look into any security clearances for Obama himself or Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders said: "I'm not aware of any plans for that at this point."It's not known how Trump might revoke the clearances, if he wants to move forward.Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy specialist with the Federation of American Scientists, said Trump probably has the legal authority to do it, given his status as commander-in-chief. As a technical matter, he might have to order the agencies that granted the clearances to terminate them."He might encounter resistance at that point," Aftergood said, if the requests are seen as some kind of "vendetta." | 0 |
The lawsuit, brought by 18 Republican-led states, could severely disrupt the country’s $3.5 trillion health care system. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
health care The lawsuit could jeopardize health care coverage for more than 20 million people insured through the 2010 health care law.
Obamacare’s future will once again be at stake Tuesday when a federal appeals court considers a Trump-backed lawsuit aimed at scrapping the health care law in the heat of the 2020 election cycle. The court will hear oral arguments on whether the Affordable Care Act is no longer valid after Congress eliminated the tax penalty for not purchasing health insurance. The lawsuit, brought by 18 Republican-led states, could jeopardize health care coverage for more than 20 million people insured through the 2010 health care law, eliminate insurance protections for preexisting conditions, and severely disrupt the country’s $3.5 trillion health care system. Should the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rule against the law, that would all but guarantee the Supreme Court would again take a case directly challenging the ACA’s survival. The high court, which has twice upheld the health care law since it passed in 2010, would likely deliver a final verdict on the ACA as the 2020 campaign season ramps up.
A group of red states filed this latest legal threat to Obamacare in February 2018, months after Republican-led efforts to repeal the law collapsed in Congress. They argue that Congress' decision to scrap the individual mandate penalty in 2017 rendered the law unconstitutional because the Supreme Court previously upheld the mandate as a valid exercise of taxing power. In December, U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor sided with the Republican-led states, stunning legal experts. “If ultimately the trial court's decision does get upheld, it’s going to have really far-reaching consequences,” said MaryBeth Musumeci, associate director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. “That will be pretty complicated to disentangle and reach nearly everyone in the country.”Legal experts across the political spectrum, who had earlier dismissed the lawsuit as a long shot, contend Reed’s decision was an overreach. Even if the individual mandate was unconstitutional, they say unrelated provisions of the law — like the expansion of Medicaid to millions of low-income adults in nearly two-thirds of states — should be allowed to stand. Even a pair of Republican attorneys general in Ohio and Montana, which both expanded Medicaid, have argued that O’Connor’s ruling went too far and would have detrimental consequences.
“There’s a pretty strong bias … to try to preserve things under law, rather than knock them down,” said Tom Miller, a health care expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “The preponderant stance has been to go minimal in terms of knocking out broad federal laws.” Democrats seized on failed Republican efforts to dismantle Obamacare as a top rallying cry in the last election cycle, which helped them win control of the House and minimize losses in the Senate. In particular, the Trump administration’s stance in the lawsuit has been a political gift for Democrats. Last year, the administration refused to defend Obamacare but urged the court to strike only the law’s popular protections for pre-existing conditions. In March, the administration expanded its legal attack by urging the 5th Circuit to uphold the federal judge’s ruling against the entire law. “The scale of cruelty is so large it's almost unimaginable,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on a call with reporters Monday. “President Trump and the Republicans are just playing a dangerous political game with people's lives.” Democrats’ health care messaging has been muddled this year by growing calls among progressives, including some 2020 presidential candidates, to vastly expand government coverage and virtually abolish private insurance. Republicans have lambasted such a universal, government-run system as socialized medicine that will lead to skyrocketing taxes and rationing of care, and moderate Democrats fear “Medicare for All” could cost the party its advantage on health care in 2020.
“The Republicans’ best argument … is, ‘Hey, you folks thought we were crazy a couple of years ago? Look at these ‘Medicare for All’ Democrats,” said Miller of AEI, the conservative think tank. However, an appellate court ruling against the ACA would again put pressure on Republicans to produce a health care plan after failing to agree on a viable replacement for years. California and 19 other Democratic-led states have led the legal defense against the ACA lawsuit. The House of Representatives also joined the defense this year after Democrats won back control of the chamber in November.
Even before oral arguments, the conservative-leaning 5th Circuit spooked ACA supporters by questioning whether the blue states or the House have the legal standing to appeal the federal judge's decision invalidating the law. The inquiry, issued two weeks ago, was sparked by the Trump administration’s recent shift in legal strategy to support the judge’s decision, essentially putting the plaintiffs and defendants on the same side of the lawsuit.
Obamacare advocates feared that the appeals court could let O'Connor's ruling against the law stand without a review by a higher court. But in legal briefs filed last week, all of the parties involved in the lawsuit — including the Republican-led states behind it — argued that the appeal should be allowed to proceed. If the appeals court reverses the judge's decision and finds the ACA is constitutional, the red states and the Trump administration could appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, which again could determine the law's fate. In previous major cases, the court narrowly saved the individual mandate in 2012, and in 2015 it upheld the law’s premium subsidies in a 6-3 decision.
“Judge O'Connor is not going to get to decide the constitutionality of the ACA — either in the red states or nationwide — without some kind of Supreme Court review,” said Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan Law School professor who’s written extensively about the case. “By hook or by crook, the Supreme Court will get the case.”
The ACA has remained in effect since the judge found it unconstitutional, and the Trump administration has said it will enforce it while the lawsuit winds through the courts. Meanwhile, the law’s insurance marketplaces have largely stabilized after a few rocky years. Enrollment has decreased slightly and many insurers are turning a profit, despite the elimination of the individual mandate penalty. | 0 |
It looks like President Trump got his point across.The Justice Department has decided to back off its earlier recommendation that Trump's longtime adviser Roger Stone receive a sentencing of seven to nine years following his seven-count conviction last year for lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstructing a House investigation into possible coordination between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. A department official confirmed the news to The Associated Press, describing the recommendation as "extreme, excessive, and grossly disproportionate" to Stone's offenses.Upon learning about the initial recommendation, Trump was displeased, slamming the proposed sentence. Per AP, there hasn't been any contact between the Justice Department and the White House over the decision to lessen the sentence, so there's no telling if Trump was the driver behind the move, but the official's characterization of the recommendation does echo the president's. Tim O'Donnell | 0 |
Police: Boston bombings suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev is in custody.
His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed earlier Friday.
Police: Events began after store robbery, fatal shooting of MIT police officer Thursday night.
Police believe brothers were involved in officer's death; transit officer also wounded during overnight manhunt
Full story here; iReport; profile of suspects; also, see CNN affiliates WBZ; WCVB; WHDH
[Updated 10:47 p.m. ET] Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev is at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Kelly Lawman said.
Meanwhile, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham congratulated law enforcement on the arrest of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect and noted that the incident should be prosecuted as a terror case. The "perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorist trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans," the senators said.
"Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel."
[Updated 10:11 p.m. ET] "We've closed an important chapter in this tragedy," President Barack Obama said at the conclusion of the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt on Friday night.
[Updated 9:49 p.m. ET] Suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev is in serious condition in the hospital, Boston police Commissioner Ed Davis said.
But how did law enforcement find suspect Tsarnaev? A Watertown resident saw blood on a boat in his neighbor's backyard, Davis said.
"He opened the tarp and saw a man covered in blood," he said. The man retreated and alerted law enforcement.
Despite being bloody, the suspect exchanged gunfire with authorities from his hiding place, Davis said. Tsarnaev did not have explosives on him at the time of capture, according to Davis.
[Updated 9:41 p.m. ET] Massachusetts is celebrating the collaborative efforts of law enforcement, the public and the media in leading to the capture of the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.
"We're so grateful to bring justice and closure to this case," Massachusetts State Police spokesman Col. Timothy Alben said at a news conference in Watertown less than an hour after the capture of suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev. "We're exhausted, folks, but we have a victory here tonight."
Gov. Patrick Deval praised local, state and federal agencies "who brought their A-game" along with members of the public "for their patience and participation in the case."
"Its a night where I think we're all going to rest easy," he said.
[Updated 9:20 p.m. ET] Now trending ahead of 9:30 press conference: #BostonStrong.
[Updated 8:59 p.m. ET] Law enforcement officials erupted in cheers in Watertown, Masssachusetts, on Friday night moments before Boston police tweeted that the remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was in custody. CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) April 20, 2013
[Updated 8:44 p.m. ET] Boston bombings suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev is in custody, the Boston Police Department said in a tweet. Suspect in custody. Officers sweeping the area. Stand by for further info.
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) April 20, 2013
[Updated 8:44 p.m. ET] Law enforcement officials repeatedly appealed for surrender by a person believed to be Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the suspect in this week's Boston Marathon bombings, who was inside a boat in the backyard of a house in Watertown, Massachusetts, according to CNN staff at the scene. Among other things, they said, "We know you're in there" and "Come out with your hands up."
[Updated 8:39 p.m. ET] The FBI took two males and a female into custody for questioning Friday evening at New Bedford, Massachusetts, residence believe to have been connected to Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, New Bedford Police Lt. Robert Richard said.
[Updated 8:32 p.m. ET] FBI agents interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev - the 26-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect killed following a gunfight with authorities overnight - in 2011 at the request of foreign government, an FBI official said Friday. The other government - who the official would not name - suspected that Tsarnaev may have ties to extremist groups. The FBI investigated, including interviewing Tsarnaev, but the matter was closed after no derogatory information was found, according to the official.
[Updated 8:13 p.m. ET] A person believed to be Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the suspect in this week's Boston Marathon bombings, is cornered on a boat in a yard in Watertown, Massachusetts, law enforcement officials said.
[Updated 8:05 p.m. ET] Authorities believe the person they've engaged in Watertown, Massachusetts, is Dzhokar Tsarnaev, a suspect in this week's deadly Boston Marathon bombings, a law enforcement official told CNN. CNN crews reported hearing multiple explosions near the site where authorities have engaged the suspect.
[Updated 7:46 p.m. ET] As many as a dozen people were being moved away from the scene of intense police activity in Watertown, Massachusetts, including a young girl being carried in a police officer's arms, CNN's David Fitzpatrick reported.
[Updated 7:34 p.m. ET] Authorities have engaged the possible remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings in Watertown, Massachusetts, a senior federal law enforcement official said.
[Updated 7:14 p.m. ET] The Boston Police Department tweeted that there are "police operations" on Franklin Street in Watertown, Massachusetts. CNN crew at the scene heard gunshots and saw several law enforcement vehicles race toward the scene. Heavy police presence in area of Franklin St in Watertown. Residents remain inside.
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) April 19, 2013
[Updated 6:26 p.m. ET] A "stay indoors" order has been lifted in Boston while the manhunt continues for the remaining suspect in Monday's Boston Marathon bombings.
Authorities believe that 19-year-old Dzhokar Tsarnaev is likely still in Massachusetts, state police spokesman Col. Timothy Alben said Friday.
"He's a very violent and dangerous person," Alben said in a news conference Friday. "We do not have an apprehension of our suspect this afternoon, but we will have one."
Massachusetts state troopers will remain in Watertown, where the suspects engaged in an overnight gunfight with police, for at least three more days, Alben said.
Some 200 rounds" of gunfire were exchanged during the firefight, Gov. Deval Patrick added.
The area's public transit system, known as the T, has reopened Friday night after being shut down most of the day, Patrick said.
"We can return to living our lives."
[Updated 5:54 p.m. ET] Fifteen patients wounded in this week's marathon bombings remained hospitalized Friday at Boston Medical Center, the hospital said. One of those patients is in critical condition, 10 are in serious condition, and four are in fair condition. The Boston hospital - one of several in the area treating the wounded - received 23 patients tied to Monday's blasts overall.
Eleven patients wounded in this week's Boston Marathon bombings remain at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital - down from the more than 30 patients total the hospital has treated, and not including those treated at its affiliate Faulkner Hospital - the hospital said Friday. One of those patients is in critical condition. Several other Boston-area hospitals are still treating injured patients as well.
[Updated 5:12 p.m. ET] Anzor Tsarnaev - father of Boston bombings suspects Dzhokar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev - who earlier told Russian national TV network Zvezda that he believed his sons were "framed" tells CNN from Dagestan that he was questioned Friday by Russian security services and then released.
[Updated 4:16 p.m. ET] Connecticut State Police have issued a new vehicle lookout alert in connection with the probe in neighboring Massachusetts: They say Boston-area authorities are looking for a 1995 gray Honda Odyssey with Massachusetts registration 93NN73. A suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing might be in that vehicle, police said.
Connecticut police have issued a few vehicle alerts today, saying they've been monitoring information coming from investigators across the state line.
[Updated 4:05 p.m. ET] Anzor Tsarnaev, father of the suspects, told Dagestani TV netowrk Zvezda that he believes "someone framed" his sons.
"Someone framed them," Anzor Tsarnaev said during the interview Friday in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan. "I don't know exactly who did it. But someone did. And being cowards, they shot the boy (Tamerlan) dead. There are cops like this."
Anzor Tsarnaev said that whoever was behind the Boston Marathon bombings "is a bastard."
He said he was trying to get in touch with his family members in Canada and the United States, but he can't get through by phone.
"Those are my kids, you understand? Maybe he will be shot dead, too," he told Zvezda. "They will say, well, he had weapons. Kids with weapons? ... They should arrest him maybe and bring him, but alive. Alive. And justice should decide who's right and who's guilty."
Noting that he had lived in the United States, Zvezda asked him whether he ever had problems with the U.S. justice system.
'No, never. But I just didn't face it ever. So can I know about the justice there? I didn't have any problems," he said.
[Updated 3:53 p.m. ET] Boston police say the second vehicle they were looking for today, a vehicle with Massachusetts plate 116 GC7, has been found.
[Updated 3:43 p.m. ET] "Investigators are recovering a significant amount of homemade explosives" from last night's Watertown scenes, and “there is no proof yet of accomplices," Massachusetts State Police Spokesman David Procopio said, according to CNN's Susan Candiotti.
Police had said that the suspects were throwing explosives at them during last night's pursuit in the Watertown area.
[Updated 3:27 p.m. ET] Amtrak service between Boston and New York has been suspended, police say: #CommunityAlert: AMTRAK service between Boston and New York suspended pending further notice.
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) April 19, 2013
Earlier Friday, Amtrak service between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, was suspended. MBTA public transit service also is suspended in the Boston area.
[Updated 3:12 p.m. ET] A number of Friday evening events have been canceled or postponed in Boston because of the manhunt.
This includes tonight's Red Sox game at Fenway Park, scheduled for 7:10 p.m., and a Boston Bruins game. OFFICIAL: Tonight’s Red Sox game at Fenway Park scheduled for 7:10pm has been postponed to support efforts of law enforcement officers.
— Boston Red Sox (@RedSox) April 19, 2013 #CommunityAlert: Bruins Game, Red Sox Game & Big Apple Circus performance scheduled for tonite have been postponed.
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) April 19, 2013
[Updated 2:30 p.m. ET] Two students at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, where Dzhokar Tsarnaev was registered, told CNN that they saw him on campus this week, after Monday's Boston Marathon bombing, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.
Also Friday, a helicopter with a number of law enforcement personnel landed on campus, Lawrence reported.
The school ordered an evacuation of its campus on Friday. The school is located 65 miles south of Cambridge, just west of New Bedford.
[Updated 2:15 p.m. ET] Boston police confirm they're looking for a green '99 Honda sedan with Massachusetts registration 116 GC7.
[Updated 2:04 p.m. ET] Connecticut State Police have issued an alert for another vehicle, saying a wanted suspect in the Boston Marathon attack now could be in a 1999 green Honda Civic with Massachusetts license plate number 116 GC7. The CSP cited Boston authorities.
Connecticut police issued a similar alert earlier today for a different vehicle; that vehicle eventually was found unoccupied Friday in the Boston area, Boston police said.
[Updated 1:51 p.m. ET] More details on the Tsarnaev brothers:
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the Boston Marathon attack suspect now at large, came to the United States on July 1, 2002, at age 8 on a tourist visa, a federal source said. While here, he sought asylum and became a citizen on September 11, 2012.
His older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police overnight, came to the United States four years after his brother, on Sept. 6, 2006, at the age of 20, the source said. He came legally but was not naturalized. He was a green card holder and in the country lawfully.
See profile of the Tsarnaev brothers.
[Updated 1:23 p.m. ET] Dzhokar Tsarnaev became a U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012, a federal official said Friday. See profile of the Tsarnaev brothers.
[Updated 1:17 p.m. ET] Here's the latest chronology that CNN has on Thursday night's shooting and subsequent manhunt:
The violence began late Thursday with the robbery of a convenience store, according to Timothy Alben, superintendent of the Massachusetts state police. Soon after, in Cambridge, across the Charles River from Boston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier was fatally shot while he sat in his car, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said in a statement.
Police believe the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were responsible for the shooting.
The two suspects, according to authorities, then hijacked a vehicle at gunpoint in Cambridge, telling the driver that they are the marathon bombers, a law enforcement source told CNN's Joe Johns. At some point, apparently at a gas station, the source said, the driver escaped.
Police, who were tracking the vehicle using its built-in GPS system, picked up the chase in Watertown. The pursuit went into a residential neighborhood, with the suspects throwing explosives at the police. A firefight erupted and ultimately one suspect - later identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev - got out of the car. Police shot him, and his brother ran over him as he drove away, according to the source.
Earlier, there had been reports that Dzhokar Tsarnaev escaped on foot instead of by vehicle.
A source briefed on the investigation said Tamerlan Tsarnaev was wearing explosives and an explosive trigger. He died later at Beth Israel Hospital.
Richard H. Donohue Jr., 33, a three-year veteran of the transit system police force, was shot and wounded in the incident and taken to a hospital, a transit police spokesman said Friday. The officer's condition was not immediately known.
[Updated 12:45 p.m. ET] Police are continuing to run down new leads and go door to door in Watertown in the Boston Marathon terror attack investigation, said Timothy Alben, superintendent of the Massachusetts state police. He told reporters that law enforcement will conduct a controlled blast later in Cambridge, an indication that police found suspected explosives.
[Updated 12:44 p.m. ET] Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says his request for people in the Boston area to stay indoors remains in effect for now. "We know what an inconvenience it is, in Watertown and Cambridge in particular ... but it’s been enormously helpful … to law enforcement.”
[Updated 12:30 p.m. ET] The Kyrgyz government said Friday that the two Boston Marathon suspects moved from Kyrgyzstan 12 years ago to the Russian region of Dagestan, from where the Tsarnaev family emigrated to the United States.
"Given that the suspects left the Republic at the ages of 8 and 15, the State Committee for National Security of Kyrgyzstan considers it inappropriate to link them to Kyrgyzstan," it said.
Read this profile on the Tsarnaev brothers.
[Updated 12:25 p.m. ET] Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, was registered at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, which ordered its campus evacuated on Friday. The school is located 65 miles south of Cambridge, just west of New Bedford.
"UMass Dartmouth has learned that a person being sought in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing has been identified as a student registered at UMass Dartmouth," the school said in a news release. "The campus is closed. Individuals on campus should shelter in place unless instructed otherwise."
[Updated 12:06 p.m. ET] Boston bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev has tweeted since the Boston Marathon bombings on what friends of his tell CNN is his Twitter account.
The tweets included one at 1:43 a.m. Wednesday that said, "I'm a stress free kind of guy."
On Monday at 8:04 p.m. - hours after the bombings - he tweeted a lyric from a song that rapper Jay-Z has sampled: "Ain't no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people."
On Tuesday shortly after midnight he tweeted, "There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don't hear them cuz they're the minority."
[Updated 11:55 a.m. ET] The uncle of the Tsarnaev brothers told reporters outside his home in Montgomery County, Maryland, this morning that his family is "ashamed" to be related to the suspects.
Ruslan Tsarni said the 19-year-old suspect still on the run "has put a shame on our family, a shame on the entire ethnicity." Tsarni urged his nephew to turn himself in.
He said anyone capable of committing such a crime are "losers."
[Updated 11:20 a.m. ET] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry praised law enforcement in their hunt for the Boston Marathon attack suspects.
"I think it is fair to say this entire week we have been in pretty direct confrontation with evil," he said. "In the past few days we have seen the best and we have seen the worst of human behavior and it is the best that all of us really want to focus on."
[Updated 10:55 a.m. ET] Taxi service in Boston has been restored, police said. The service had been suspended earlier today because of the manhunt in the Boston bombings case. Taxi service in the City of Boston has been restored.
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) April 19, 2013
[Updated 10:52 a.m. ET] More details on the discovery of the vehicle that police had been looking for: Boston police say that it was found unoccupied:
[Updated 10:50 a.m. ET] Another flurry of police activity is happening in Watertown, the Massachusetts community where police say one suspect was killed and another was being sought.
Police are asking reporters to move back - and stay down - as a number of other officers are drawing guns in a certain area, CNN's Deborah Feyerick reports from Watertown.
[Updated 10:41 a.m. ET] Connecticut State Police say that a vehicle that might be connected to a suspect in the Boston Marathon attack has been recovered in the Boston area. The vehicle is a gray Honda CR-V with Massachusetts plate 316 ES9.
Connecticut police earlier had issued a lookout notice for the vehicle.
This is what Boston police had to say about the vehicle earlier, on Twitter: "Police seeking MA Plate: 316-ES9, ’99 Honda CRV, Color – Gray. Possible suspect car. Do not approach."
[Updated 10:29 a.m. ET] A high school friend of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the suspect who Boston police say still is at large, is recalling what he remembers about him.
Eric Mercado told CNN that he went to Cambridge Rindge & Latin, a public high school, with Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19. Both graduated, he said.
"We hung out; we partied; we were good high school friends," Machado told CNN. "We're all, like, in shock. We don't really understand. There were no telltale signs of any kind of malicious behavior from Dzhokar. It's all coming as a shock, really."
[Updated 10:24 a.m. ET] More background on the brothers that several sources tell CNN are the suspects involved in Thursday night's shootings and police chase and Monday's Boston Marathon bombings:
The Tsarnaev brothers were Kyrgyz passport holders, and used those passports when applying for green cards in the United States, an official in the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan said, according to CNN's Ivan Watson.
This doesn't mean they were born in Kyrgyzstan or that their family were Kyrgyz natives. Many Caucasus refugees received passports or refugee status in surrounding countries.
[Updated 10:14 a.m. ET] Some background on the brothers that several sources tell CNN are the suspects involved in Thursday night's shootings and police chase and Monday's Boston Marathon bombings:
Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, the Boston Marathon attack suspect now at large, came to the United States as a tourist in the early 2000s and asked for asylum while he was here, a federal source said. He was naturalized last year. Tamerlan, the 26-year-old brother who was killed overnight, came "a few years later" and was a green-card holder, not a naturalized citizen, the source said, according to CNN's Mike Ahlers.
[Updated 10:02 a.m. ET] We now have the name of he Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer who was killed Thursday night - he was Sean Collier, 26, of Somerville, Massachusetts, according to the Middlesex district attorney’s office.
[Updated 9:48 a.m. ET] An aquatic director at Harvard University told CNN that he hired Dzhokar Tsarnaev as a lifeguard more than two years ago, but hasn't seen him for more than a year.
"He seemed like a very quiet, unassuming young man," the aquatic director, George McMasters, told CNN Friday morning. "He showed up on time, watched the water, rotated from position to position fine, got along well with students and swimmers there at the pool."
[Updated 9:34 a.m. ET] Boston police have released a new photo of Dzhokar Tsarnaev - the suspect still being sought in the Watertown area.
[Updated 9:31 a.m. ET] The Boston bombings suspect who was killed in a confrontation with police overnight in the Boston area was wearing explosives and an explosive trigger when his body was recovered, a source briefed on the investigation says, according to CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
Several sources tell CNN that the dead suspect has been identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and the one still being sought in Watertown is Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19.
Police have publicly said that the dead suspect is the man that the FBI previously identified as "Suspect No. 1" in the Boston Marathon bombings. They also have said publicly that the suspect that they chased and last saw in Watertown overnight is the man that the FBI said was "Suspect No. 2"; Boston police also have said that they're looking for Dzhokar Tsarnaev.
[Updated 9:16 a.m. ET] The brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon attack haven't been connected to the Russian region of Chechnya for many years, the Chechen president's office said, according to the Interfax news agency.
The Tsarnaev family years ago moved out of Chechnya to another Russian region, lived some time in Kazakhstan, and then went to the United States where the family members received a residence permit, the office said.
"Therefore, the individuals concerned did not live as adults in Chechnya," said Alvi Kamirov, press secretary for Chechnya's president.
[Updated 9:01 a.m. ET] Boston police have now named a suspect that authorities have been seeking this morning. "Suspect identified as 19 year-old Dzhokar Tsarnaev of Cambridge. Suspect considered armed & dangerous," Boston police said on Twitter.
Dzhokar Tsarnaev is a Boston Marathon bombings suspect that police are looking for in Watertown following a chase overnight and shootings overnight, several sources told CNN earlier Friday.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was the suspect who was killed during a police confrontation overnight, those same sources told CNN.
Police have said that the man identified by the FBI as "Suspect No. 1" in the Boston Marathon bombings was killed in the police confrontation. The man identified by the FBI as "Suspect No. 2" is on the loose, last seen in Watertown, police said.
[Updated 8:52 a.m. ET] A recap of the developments that began Thursday night:
The violence began late Thursday with the robbery of a convenience store, not long after the FBI released images of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, Massachusetts State Police spokesman Col. Timothy Alben said.
Soon after, in Cambridge, across the Charles River from Boston, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer was fatally shot while he sat in his car, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said in statement. Police believe the bombing suspects were responsible for the shooting.
The same two suspects, according to authorities, then hijacked a car at gunpoint in Cambridge. They released the driver a half-hour later at a gas station. As police picked up the chase, the car's occupants threw explosives out the windows and shot at officers, according to the district attorney's office.
Officers fired back, wounding one of the men, possibly the person identified by the FBI as "Suspect No. 1." The man died at Beth Israel Hospital. He had bullet wounds and injuries from an explosion, according to officials. The second man apparently escaped.
Richard H. Donohue Jr., 33, a three-year veteran of the transit system police force, was shot and wounded in the incident and taken to a hospital, a transit police spokesman said Friday. The officer's condition was not immediately known.
[Correction at 1:36 p.m. ET] The 8:52 a.m. entry above initially said that the second man apparently escaped on foot. "On foot" has been removed, as that part no longer appears to be the case.
[Updated 8:44 a.m. ET] Police activity in Watertown - where authorities believe they last saw "Suspect No. 2" during a chase overnight - seems to be picking up, CNN's Deborah Feyerick reports from the community. A helicopter is hovering over a building, and reporters are being asked to move back from where they were.
[Updated 8:30 a.m. ET] The FAA has ordered a 3.5-nautical-mile temporary flight restriction over Boston "to provide a safe environment for law enforcement activities." The restriction is from surface to 3,000 feet, according to the FAA website.
[Updated 8:21 a.m. ET] “All taxi service in the city of Boston has been suspended pending further notice,” Boston Police said on its official Twitter account.
This meshes with authorities' request that all of Boston and many of its suburbs stay indoors - with doors locked - until further notice. All public transportation in Boston already has been suspended, schools are closed, and Amtrak service from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island, also has been suspended.
[Updated 8:16 a.m. ET] The Boston-area transit police officer who was shot and wounded overnight is Richard H. Donohue Jr., 33, a three-year veteran of the force, a transit police spokesman said Friday. Donohue was shot during the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
[Updated 8:14 a.m. ET] Several sources tell CNN that the dead suspect has been identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and the one still being sought is Dzhokar Tsarnaev, age 19.
[Updated 8:10 a.m. ET] The suspects involved in the Boston bombings are brothers originally from the Russian Caucasus and had moved to Kazakhstan at a young age before coming to the United States several years ago, according to a source briefed on the investigation, CNN's Deborah Feyerick reported.
The older of the two brothers had the first name Tamerlan, had studied at Bunker Hill Community College, and wanted to become a engineer, the source said. He then took a year off to train as a boxer, according to the source.
The source said that a posting on a social media site in his name included the comments: "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."
The source added that it should not be assumed that either brother was radicalized because of their Chechen origins.
[Updated 8:07 a.m. ET] "All of Boston" should shelter in place, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has just told reporters. The same applies to suburbs of Watertown, Newton, Belmont, Cambridge and Waltham, he said.
By shelter in place, Deval said he meant people should stay indoors, keep doors locked and not answer doors for anyone except for police.
Patrick also has confirmed to reporters that one Boston bombings suspect is dead and the other is on the loose.
He added:
- An Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer was "seriously wounded" and is in surgery right now.
- An MIT security officer was killed.
[Updated 7:59 a.m. ET] A recap of what authorities are telling Boston-area residents to do: Police ordered businesses in the suburb of Watertown and nearby communities to stay closed and told residents to stay inside and answer the door for no one but authorities.
The subway and Amtrak train systems have been shut down. Every Boston area school is closed.
"It's jarring," said CNN Belief blog writer Danielle Tumminio, who lives in Watertown.
[Updated 7:58 a.m. ET] The Boston bombings suspect who currently is on the run has been in the United States for "at least" a couple years, a federal law enforcement source tells CNN.
[Updated 7:40 a.m. ET] Boston police say on Twitter: "Door-to-door search 4 suspect in Watertown continues. Uniformed officers searching. Community consent critical." #CommunityAlert: Door-to-door search 4 suspect in Watertown continues. Uniformed officers searching. Community consent critical.
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) April 19, 2013
[Updated 7:39 a.m. ET] The suspects in the Boston Marathon terror attack were brothers, a terrorism expert briefed on the investigation said, according to CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
[Updated 7:34 a.m. ET] One of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing - the man police were looking for Friday morning - has a name that is common among people from the North Caucasus, a source with knowledge of the investigation said Friday. That region includes the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya.
Earlier Friday, The Associated Press reported that the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings are brothers believed to be from an area near Chechnya.
[Updated 7:32 a.m. ET] Police in the Boston-area community of Cambridge say the public should "clear area of Norfolk Street in Cambridge." "Ongoing investigation. Potentially dangerous," Cambridge police said on Twitter. Media/public advised to clear area of Norfolk Street in Cambridge. Ongoing investigation. Potentially dangerous. Stay clear. #CambMA
— Cambridge Police (@CambridgePolice) April 19, 2013
[Updated 7:29 a.m. ET] Boston police have given a heads-up to the public: They'll be conducting a "controlled explosion" - basically neutralizing a suspicious object - near the area of Commonwealth Avenue and Charlesgate.
[Updated 7:28 a.m. ET] Recapping what a doctor at Boston's Beth Israel told reporters this morning about the death of the man police believe is "Suspect No. 1" in the Boston bombings: He had bullet wounds and injuries from an explosion, the doctor said.
The doctor said he didn't know the cause of death, and he didn't know what the explosion was. The suspect was pronounced dead after unsuccessful attempts to reanimate him, a hospital spokesman said.
Police said the man believed to be "Suspect No. 1" was wounded in Watertown near Boston following a pursuit. That pursuit came about after the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, authorities said.
[Updated 7:03 a.m. ET] The Associated Press has reported that the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings are brothers believed to be from an area near Chechnya.
[Updated 6:48 a.m. ET] More transportation options in an out of Boston are being shut down as police look for "suspect No. 2" in the Boston Marathon bombings. Amtrak train service between Providence, Rhode Island, and Boston has been suspended, Amtrak said Friday.
This comes after Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority shut down Boston-area bus, subway, commuter rail, and ferry routes.
The FBI on Thursday released this image of what it called "suspect No. 2" in Monday's Boston Marathon bombings. Authorities said Friday that they're looking for him in the Boston suburb of Watertown.
[Updated 6:36 a.m. ET] A number of universities in the Boston area have been closed because of the manhunt for a suspect in the Boston Marathon terror attack, school officials said. They include Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Emerson College, and Boston College.
[Updated 6:23 a.m. ET] A person who was shot and killed in the Boston Marathon terror attack manhunt is believed to have had explosives on his body, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said Friday.
[Updated 6:19 a.m. ET] Here's some more details about the public-transportation shutdown in Boston: All Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority service is suspended at the request of the police, Joe Pesaturo, the authority's public information officer, said Friday. This includes bus, subway, commuter rail, and ferry routes in the Boston area.
This comes as police say they're continuing to hunt down one of the suspects in Monday's Boston Marathon terror attack.
[Updated 5:59 a.m. ET] "Harvard University is closed due to public safety concerns. Please continue to watch this page for updates," the university announced on its website.
[Updated 5:55 a.m. ET]: President Obama was briefed overnight on the events happening in Watertown, CNN's Brianna Keilar reports.
[Updated 5:51 a.m. ET]: "Vehicle traffic in and out of Watertown suspended," say Boston Police on an official Twitter account.
[Updated 5:43 a.m. ET]: Mass transit in Boston has been suspended at the request of the police, says Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
[Updated 5:37 a.m. ET]: Boston Police, via its official Twitter account, says businesses near 480 Arsenal Street in Watertown, Massachusetts, are closed until further notice. Employees are also instructed to stay home.
[Updated 5:20 a.m. ET]: MIT cancels Friday's classes, according to a letter from Israel Ruiz, the school's executive vice president and treasurer, and school Chancellor Eric Grimson.
"MIT suffered a tragedy last night: an MIT Police officer was shot and killed on our campus in the line of duty," says the letter, addressed to the MIT community. "While the circumstances around the officer's death remain the subject of an active investigation, what is certain is that the officer gave his life to defend the peace of our campus. His sacrifice will never be forgotten by the Institute. We are thinking now of his family, and our hearts are heavy. In consultation with faculty chair Sam Allen, we have decided to cancel classes today (Friday). All employees are encouraged to use their best judgment about whether they are prepared to come in to work today: any absence today will be considered excused."
[Updated 5:03 a.m. ET]: Police in Watertown sending robocalls to residents instructing them to stay indoors, reports CNN's Drew Griffin.
[Updated 4:45 a.m. ET]: One of the suspects believed to have planted bombs at the Boston Marathon is dead after a shootout with police, a police spokesman said.
The FBI on Thursday released this image of who it called "suspect No. 1" the Boston Marathon bombings. On Friday, police said he was killed in a Boston-area shootout with police.
[Updated 4:21 a.m. ET]: A suspect on the loose in Watertown, Massachusetts, matches the description of Suspect 2 - a man pictured wearing a white cap - wanted in connection with the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, police said early Friday.
[Updated 3:54 a.m. ET]: Massachusetts State Police, via Twitter: "Police will be going door by door, street by street, in and around Watertown. Police will be clearly identified. It is a fluid situation."
[Updated at 3:48 a.m. ET]: Massachusetts State Police, on its official Twitter feed, warns Watertown residents to stay in their homes and to not answer the door "unless it is an identified police officer." "If any concerns about someone at door, call 911 immediately. Repeat–Do not answer door, stay away from windows, keep doors locked," the state police says in another tweet.
[Updated 2:40 a.m. ET]: Massachusetts State Police spokesperson Dave Procopio said that they believe multiple possible explosive devices were used against police tonight during this incident at Watertown. It was unclear if the incident, which followed a police chase of a stolen vehicle, was related to the shooting on the MIT campus or any other incident in the Boston area.
[Updated 2:31 a.m. ET]: FBI spokesman Martin Feely tells CNN's Susan Candiotti: "We are engaged with our partners trying to determine if there is a connection." CNN's Drew Griffin, who is on the scene in Watertown, Massachusetts, said FBI agents are on the scene.
[Updated 2:21 a.m. ET]: MIT releases statement on shooting death of campus police officer: "MIT is heartbroken by the news that an MIT Police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty on Thursday night on campus, near Building 32 (the Stata Center). Our thoughts are now with the family." http://bit.ly/15lcg2r
[Updated 2:19 a.m. ET]: Boston Police Department's official Twitter feed says "there is an active incident ongoing in Watertown. Residents in that area are advised to remain in their homes. More details when available."
[Updated 2:07 a.m. ET]: CNN's Gabe Ramirez on the scene in Watertown, Massachusetts, says that authorities are ordering people in the area to shut off their cell phones.
[Updated 1:49 a.m. ET]: At least one person was arrested in Watertown, Massachusetts early Friday morning, stripped naked before being taken in custody, CNN photojournalist Gabe Ramirez observed. It is unclear if this arrest was related to the shooting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus or any other incident in Boston the area.
[Updated 1:23 a.m. ET]: Dozens of police have rushed to an area of Watertown, Massachusetts, just over two miles from Cambridge, said CNN's Drew Griffin, who is near the scene. A "very large event has taken place," Griffin said. There were reports that explosives were involved.
[Posted at 12:45 a.m. ET]: A university police officer has died after being shot on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge late Thursday, state police spokesman Lt. Mark Riley said. The MIT officer was responding to a disturbance when he was shot, according to the state district attorney's office. He sustained "multiple gunshot wounds."
State police and the FBI were called in after the shooting and found the campus policeman near Building 32 on MIT's campus. He was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the district attorney's office said. Dozens of officers surrounded and cordoned off the building, known as the Stata Center, which houses computer science laboratories as well as the department of linguistics and philosophy, according to MIT's website. | 0 |
Story highlightsPeter Bergen: Romney sought to draw clear line between his and Obama's foreign policyHe says Romney's problem is Obama set a tough line with drone war, bin Laden missionRomney made sense on idea of tying Egypt aid to democracy, fulfilling peace treaty, he saysBergen: Romney trying to create illusion of substantive differences with ObamaOn Monday, Mitt Romney delivered what his campaign billed as a major foreign policy address, in which he sought to distinguish himself from the man he called the "lead from behind" president. The speech at the Virginia Military Institute, which largely focused on the Middle East, served as something of a warm-up for the two remaining debates between Romney and Obama to be held later this month, one of which will focus entirely on foreign policy, while the other will deal with both domestic and national security issues.In the forthcoming debates Romney will have the tricky job of trying to position himself as tougher on national security than Obama -- who tripled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan during his presidency and ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Obama has also authorized six times as many drone attacks as George W. Bush did in Pakistan against suspected members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. The attacks during the Obama administration have killed at least 1,400 people, almost double the number of prisoners that were transferred to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by the Bush administration.Obama is also the first American president to authorize the assassination of a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who played an operational role in al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate and was killed by a US drone strike in Yemen last year. Indeed, Obama has vastly escalated the American covert war in Yemen, using CIA drones and U.S. Special Operations Forces, such as SEAL Team 6.Criticism of Obama's national security policies is growing on the left about the overall legality of CIA drone strikes and, in particular, the al-Awlaki killing.Given those facts, how then do you run to the right of Obama on national security? Well, you might say that you are planning to go to war with Iran because of its advancing nuclear program. Or you might say that you will institute an American no-fly zone over Syria without a United Nations authorization for such a measure. Or that you will keep U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan well past the withdrawal date of 2014 announced by the Obama administration.The problem with such policy choices is that the American public has little appetite for more wars in the Muslim world. No such policies were mentioned in Romney's speech on Monday, nor will they likely feature in his future debates with the president.On Monday Romney did say, regarding Syria, that his administration would "identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad's tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets," a policy that is more aggressive than providing "nonlethal" help, such as communications equipment, which the Obama administration is already giving to Syrian opposition forces.But even this supposed distinction from Obama was less than meets the eye, as Romney did not directly say that his administration would arm the Syrian rebels. And close American allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar are already providing weapons to them.If the U.S. were to start arming the rebels directly, identifying exactly which parts of the Syrian opposition should get arms might be difficult, because the opposition is a tangled mess of many factions that even includes elements of al Qaeda. According to Leila Hilal, a Middle East expert at the New America Foundation, there are more than 800 militias now operating in Syria, making it a complex task to sort out the ones that are both militarily viable and more aligned with American interests.In his Monday speech, Romney advanced the sensible idea that the $1.5 billion in yearly American aid to Egypt should be conditioned on its building up its democratic institutions and maintaining its peace treaty with Israel. But other than this good idea, Romney offered few specific policies to distinguish himself from what the Obama administration is already doing in the greater Middle East.Romney explained that he would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability and would not hesitate to put more sanctions on Iran. But this is basically the position of the Obama administration, which has said it will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons and has imposed such onerous sanctions on the country that the Iranian currency has plunged in value as much as 80% against the dollar since the beginning of the year.On Afghanistan, Romney said he will work to transition from U.S. combat troops to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014, which is -- the Obama administration's policy. Romney said he would not make a "politically timed retreat" from Afghanistan, a somewhat mystifying construction, since this year Obama negotiated a well-publicized Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Afghan government that will keep an as-yet-unspecified number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in an advisory and counterterrorism role until 2024. That is something that Romney didn't mention in his Monday speech and hardly suggests a precipitous Obama-led retreat from Afghanistan, which is already America's longest war. Famously, Romney didn't mention that longest war in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention in August, so his new embrace of the Afghan War seems a tad belated. Romney's Monday speech underlined the fact that there is more agreement than disagreement between mainstream Democrats and mainstream Republicans on foreign policy issues.To create the illusion that there are genuine substantive policy differences, Romney enlisted the issue of trade, saying on Monday that he would "champion free trade. ... The president has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years." There have been serious critiques of Obama for not being more active in negotiating new trade deals, but to claim that he hasn't signed any in the past four years is demonstrably false. In fact, the Obama administration signed trade deals with Panama, Colombia and South Korea last year, which a headline on FoxNews.com termed the "biggest since NAFTA." When stories on Fox undercut your claims as a Republican contender for president, you have a problem. Romney was also grasping at straws when he said on Monday that "the size of our Navy is at levels not seen since 1916." That isn't really true even in the trivial, numerical sense -- but more importantly, the U.S. Navy in 1916 did not consist of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines with enough nuclear weapons to wipe out life on much of the planet. The United States today has 11 aircraft carriers, while the Chinese have recently built their first one, which won't actually be able to handle aircraft operations for years into the future. And the overall idea that the U.S. is falling behind militarily is nonsensical. The U.S. spent more on defense in 2011 than the countries with the next 13 highest defense budgets combined. If Monday's speech is a preview of how Romney will handle the foreign policy debates with Obama, the president will be on much firmer ground than he was with his uncertain performance during the first debate, which focused exclusively on domestic issues. | 0 |
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