United States Politics and Government

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Americans Are ‘Voting Out of Fear’

      by

      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to make the case on Sunday that he can do something no third-party or independent candidate has come close to doing in modern U.S. history: win a presidential election. Although polls show him far behind, both major-party campaigns, those of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, view Mr. Kennedy as a potential spoiler.Speaking at a rally on Long Island outside New York City, Mr. Kennedy cited polls that he said his campaign had conducted, showing him winning in two scenarios: one in which he faced only Mr. Biden without Mr. Trump in the race, and one in which he faced Mr. Trump without Mr. Biden.The reason he is behind in a three-way race, he maintained, is that “so many Americans are voting out of fear.”“Their only strategy is to try to keep me off the ballot and then to make everybody terrified of Donald Trump,” he said of Democrats, “and on the other side, they do the same thing,” he added of Republicans. “When somebody is telling you to vote out of fear, they are trying to manipulate you into abandoning your values,” he said.Mr. Kennedy acknowledged to the crowd in Holbrook, N.Y., that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump differed in numerous ways.“If you look at their personalities, their dispositions, their presentation, their ideology, their approach to life, their interactions with other people, there’s a huge, huge difference,” he said.But he argued that issues on which Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump held starkly different positions — like abortion, border security, guns and transgender rights — were “culture war issues” that “are used to divide us all.” He said that on the national debt and chronic disease — issues he called “existential for our country” — their positions weren’t materially different.In discussing the prevalence of chronic disease, Mr. Kennedy lamented the United States’ disproportionately high death rate from the coronavirus compared with the death rate experienced by other developed countries, a disparity attributable in part to the comparatively low uptake of vaccines that Mr. Kennedy has campaigned against.He suggested — in contradiction of scientific evidence of the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines, and data showing higher death rates in states with lower vaccination rates — that the nation’s poor Covid performance was a mark against vaccines.“Whatever we’re doing, whatever we did, it was wrong,” Mr. Kennedy said, referring to vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other pandemic responses. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      College Protests Over Gaza Deepen Democratic Rifts

      by

      Scenes of chaos unfolding on campuses across the country are stoking internal divisions and carry political risk as a major election year unfolds.Nearly seven months after the Israel-Hamas war began, the demonstrations convulsing college campuses nationwide are exposing fresh tensions within the Democratic Party over how to balance free speech protections and support for Gazans with concerns that some Jewish Americans are raising about antisemitism.From New York and Los Angeles to Atlanta and Austin, a surge in student activism has manifested in protest encampments and other demonstrations, drawing significant police crackdowns and sometimes appearing to attract outside agitators. The protests also have emerged as the latest flashpoint in the internal Democratic debate over the war.As scenes of campus turmoil play out across the country in the final days of the school year, the moment also carries political risk for a party that has harnessed promises of stability and normalcy to win critical recent elections, and faces a challenging battle for control of the government in the fall.“The real question is, can the Democrats again portray themselves as the steady hand at the helm?” said Dan Sena, a veteran Democratic strategist. “Things that create national chaos like this make that harder to do.”Mr. Sena and other Democrats have argued that Americans have good reason to associate their opponents with chaos: Former President Donald J. Trump faces multiple criminal cases; the narrow, fractious House Republican majority has its own divisions concerning Israel and free speech; some Republicans have urged National Guard deployments to college campuses; and for years, Republicans have faced criticism over antisemitism in their own ranks.But since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and the Israeli military response that has killed more than 30,000 people, according to local authorities, the fight over American policy toward Israel has been especially pronounced on the left.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Maximizing Profits at the Patients’ Expense

      by

      More from our inbox:The Brave Trump JurorsBlack Voters ‘Want to Be Courted’ by DemocratsBetter Than Debates NATo the Editor:Re “Patients Hit With Big Bills While Insurers Reap Fees” (front page, April 7):Chris Hamby’s investigation uncovers the hard truth for patients who receive care from providers outside their insurance network. While most of us try to save out-of-pocket costs by using in-network health professionals and hospitals, it’s not always possible. And there’s no way to determine what we’ll owe until after we get that care — when it’s too late to reconsider based on the costs we’ve incurred.So, it’s more important than ever for the government to swiftly implement an essential element of the No Surprises Act: Providers should have to give patients an advance explanation of benefits so patients can estimate their financial burden before they get treatment, in or out of network.Health price transparency is improving, but it’s outrageous that even two years after the No Surprises Act passed, everyone except the patient knows the price of a procedure or doctor’s visit in advance, leaving patients unpleasantly surprised.Patricia KelmarAlexandria, Va.The writer is senior director of Health Care Campaigns for U.S. PIRG.To the Editor:This is just the latest example of the schemes deployed by insurers to maximize profits by cutting reimbursements to physicians and shifting medically necessary health care costs onto patients.Whether it’s through third-party entities like MultiPlan or using tactics such as narrowing provider networks and restrictive prior authorization policies, insurers have the perverse incentive to boost revenue over offering adequate payment for quality patient care under the guise of “controlling costs.”More and more patients are being forced to decide whether they should forgo treatment because their insurer won’t pay the bill.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Turns on R.F.K. Jr. Amid Concerns He Could Attract Republican Voters

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump is sharpening his attacks on the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as new polls show an overlap between their core supporters.In a series of posts on his Truth Social media platform on Friday night, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, took aim at both Mr. Kennedy and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer and investor.“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Mr. Trump wrote.Mr. Trump, who had privately discussed the idea of Mr. Kennedy as a running mate, echoed what Democrats have been saying for months about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy — that it could swing the election. He also appeared to be adopting a new derisive nickname for him.“A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him,” he said.Mr. Kennedy fired back on Saturday in his own social media post.“When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged,” he wrote on X. “President Trump’s rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Schumer Says Bill to Aid Ukraine and Israel Shows Congress Isn’t Broken

      by

      The majority leader says the measure to help Ukraine and other recent bipartisan efforts show there is a path to success on Capitol Hill. But deep partisan differences and institutional problems remain.Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, insists that Congress isn’t broken — it just has a stubborn glitch.As he celebrated approval this week of a major national security spending measure to aid Ukraine and Israel that took months of wrangling and strategizing, Mr. Schumer said the success of the package validated his view that bipartisanship can prevail once extreme elements on Capitol Hill are sidelined.“I don’t think that Congress is dysfunctional,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. “It’s that there are some dysfunctional people in Congress, and we can’t let them run the show.”The majority leader said that the passage of the foreign aid bill, the renewal of a warrantless electronic surveillance program and the approval of government funding for the year have shown that Congress can still function if its damaging glitch — right-wing lawmakers invested in chaos — is dealt out.“They are nasty, they are negative and they don’t want to get anything done at all,” Mr. Schumer said of far-right Republicans in the House. He noted that Congress had been able to move ahead on big issues once Speaker Mike Johnson and a significant bloc of House Republicans decided to marginalize the ultraconservatives, even though it has prompted a threat to Mr. Johnson’s speakership.“The idea that Congress can’t function in this modern world with technology and everything else — which admittedly makes it harder — has been disproved by a whole lot of things that succeeded in a bipartisan way,” he said. “But in each case, the hard right had to be resisted.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Talk of an Immigrant ‘Invasion’ Grows in Republican Ads and Speech

      by

      Once relegated to the margins of the national debate, the word is now part of the party’s mainstream message on immigration.A campaign ad from a Republican congressional candidate from Indiana sums up the arrival of migrants at the border with one word. He doesn’t call it a problem or a crisis.He calls it an “invasion.”The word invasion also appears in ads for two Republicans competing for a Senate seat in Michigan. And it shows up in an ad for a Republican congresswoman seeking re-election in central New York, and in one for a Missouri lieutenant governor running for the state’s governorship. In West Virginia, ads for a Republican representative facing an uphill climb for the Senate say President Biden “created this invasion” of migrants.It was not so long ago that the term invasion had been mostly relegated to the margins of the national immigration debate. Many candidates and political figures tended to avoid the word, which echoed demagoguery in previous centuries targeting Asian, Latino and European immigrants. Few mainstream Republicans dared use it.But now, the word has become a staple of Republican immigration rhetoric. Use of the term in television campaign ads in the current election cycle has already eclipsed the total from the previous one, data show, and the word appears in speeches, TV interviews and even in legislation proposed in Congress.The resurgence of the term exemplifies the shift in Republican rhetoric in the era of former President Donald J. Trump and his right-wing supporters. Language once considered hostile has become common, sometimes precisely because it runs counter to politically correct sensibilities. Immigration has also become more divisive, with even Democratic mayors complaining about the number of migrants in their cities.Democrats and advocates for migrants denounce the word and its recent turn from being taboo. Historians and analysts who study political rhetoric have long warned that the term dehumanizes those to whom it refers and could stoke violence, noting that it appeared in writings by perpetrators of deadly mass shootings in Pittsburgh, Pa.; El Paso, Texas; and Buffalo, N.Y., in recent years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Columbia University Senate Is Said to Be Redrafting Resolution Admonishing Its President

      by

      Worried that a censure vote could result in President Nemat Shafik’s removal at a time of crisis, the official university body plans to vote on a watered-down proposal, some members said.Columbia University’s faculty senate, fearing the repercussions of a censure vote against the school’s president, Nemat Shafik, plans instead to vote on a watered-down resolution expressing displeasure with a series of her decisions, including summoning the police last week to arrest protesting students on campus.Senators worried that a censure vote could result in Dr. Shafik’s removal at a time of crisis. And some feared that such a vote would be perceived as yielding to Republican lawmakers who had called for her resignation, according to interviews with several members of the senate who attended a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, some of whom requested anonymity to talk about a private meeting.The senate is scheduled to meet again on Friday to vote on a resolution.Carol Garber, a senate member, was among those who questioned the perception of a censure vote with so much political pressure to remove Dr. Shafik.“It really isn’t a precedent any university wants to set,” said Dr. Garber, a professor of behavioral sciences. “We shouldn’t be bullied by someone in Congress.”The plan to step away from a harshly worded censure resolution followed a presentation by Dr. Shafik at the meeting of the senate, an official university body of more than 100 faculty, students, administrators and staff members. The university did not respond to a request for comment.Emerging from the meeting, Dr. Garber said that some faculty members were “upset and hurt” by Dr. Shafik’s performance during a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, in which she seemed to capitulate to the demands of members of Congress. Dr. Shafik told the House members that the university’s leaders agreed that some protesters had used antisemitic language and that certain contested phrases — like “from the river to the sea” — might warrant discipline.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      A Chinese Firm Is America’s Favorite Drone Maker — Except in Washington

      by

      U.S. authorities consider DJI a security threat. Congress is weighing legislation to ban it, prompting a lobbying campaign from the company, which dominates the commercial and consumer drone markets.The drones circled over the caves and crevices scattered around the mountain trails in northern Utah, feeding real-time video back to a search team on the ground looking for a missing hiker. Nineteen minutes later, they had her coordinates, bringing the rescue — a drill — closer to conclusion.“In this kind of environment, that’s actually pretty quick,” said Kyle Nordfors, a volunteer search and rescue worker. He was operating one of the drones, made by the Chinese company DJI, which dominates sales to law enforcement agencies as well as the hobbyist market in the United States.But if DJI’s drones are the tool of choice for emergency responders around the country, they are widely seen in Washington as a national security threat.DJI is on a Defense Department list of Chinese military companies whose products the U.S. armed forces will be prohibited from purchasing in the future. As part of the defense budget that Congress passed for this year, other federal agencies and programs are likely to be prohibited from purchasing DJI drones as well.The drones — though not designed or authorized for combat use — have also become ubiquitous in Russia’s war against Ukraine.Launching a DJI drone in the Donetsk region of Ukraine in March 2023.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesCommercially available DJI drones have been widely used throughout Ukraine’s war with Russia.David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More