US Congress

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats call on GOP to end senator’s ‘reckless’ military promotions block

      by

      The Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville’s block on senior US military promotions in protest of Pentagon policy on abortion is “reckless and dangerous”, eight Democratic senators told Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, in a letter published on Monday.“It falls to you to act now, for the safety and security of our nation,” the Democrats wrote to McConnell, of Kentucky. “We urge you to exercise your leadership and prevail on senator Tuberville to end his reckless hold.”The protest by the former football coach and Donald Trump ally has stretched for months, leaving the US Marine Corps without a permanent leader for the first time since before the civil war and even threatening leadership of the joint chiefs of staff.Tuberville is seeking to bring down a Department of Defense policy that allows service members based in states which restrict abortion rights to travel to ones where such healthcare remains available.The secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, has defended the policy. He has also said nearly 650 senior posts requiring Senate confirmation could be unfilled by the end of the year.Tuberville wants a Senate vote on the policy. Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said last week Democrats “would not object to” a vote but added: “The bottom line is it’s up to the Republican leadership. They are risking our security, and it’s up to them to fix it.”In their Monday letter, the eight Democratic senators – led by Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and including Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Tammy Duckworth (Illinois) and Jacky Rosen (Nevada) – expressed “deep concern for the stability of our armed services and national security and call on [McConnell] to exercise your leadership to protect the readiness of our military”.Tuberville’s block was “threatening our national security”, the senators said, adding: “We know you share our concerns … and as the leader of your conference, we urge you to take stronger action to resolve this situation”.McConnell has said he does not support Tuberville’s protest but has not moved to end it.The senators added: “Although there are numerous ways to legislatively change this policy, senator Tuberville has failed to convince a majority of the Senate to agree with his position.“He continues to try to force his personal beliefs on the women and men who volunteer to serve our country, creating unnecessary havoc and punishing service members for a policy they had no part in writing.”Describing the effects on service members denied promotions, the senators said: “Families who were ordered to move are now living in temporary family housing, children aren’t able to ready themselves for new schools, and spouses are missing vital employment opportunities.”Also on Monday, Tuberville took delivery of a petition from the Secure Families Initiative, an advocacy group for military families.It said: “No matter your political beliefs, we must agree that service members and military families will not be used as political leverage. It’s time to end this political showmanship and recommit to respect the service and sacrifice of those who pledge to defend this nation.”The petition was also sent to Schumer and McConnell. In his own petition last week, Tuberville claimed support from more than 5,000 military veterans.The eight Democrats who wrote to McConnell also said the Kentuckian, as Republican leader, should hold “colleagues accountable when they recklessly cross boundaries and upend senatorial order.“Senator Tuberville’s continuation of this stalemate is reckless, dangerous, and must end.” More

    • 300 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      We last raised the US federal minimum wage 14 years ago. This is unacceptable | Rev William J Barber and Rev A Kazimir Brown

      by

      Researchers at the University of California-Riverside recently released a study showing poverty is the fourth leading cause of death nationwide. Poverty kills more people than homicide, respiratory disease, gun violence and opioid overdoses, the study showed.It’s stress, it’s starvation, it’s disease. And it’s all unnecessary.Policymakers have many tools to counter the death by poverty that is ravaging America. But they have neglected the simplest one in their toolkit for far too long: raising the federal minimum wage. Monday marks 14 years since the last federal minimum wage increase, the longest period America’s lowest-paid workers have gone without a raise since the minimum wage was first put into effect in 1938.The minimum wage has been stuck at an unlivable $7.25 an hour under three presidents. Adjusting for inflation, today’s minimum wage is now worth less than at any point since 1956. Nearly a third of the workforce, or 52 million people, earn less than $15 an hour, including 47% of Black workers, 46% of Hispanic workers, 20% of Asian American and Indigenous workers, 40% of working women and 50% of working women of color. Raising the minimum wage to even $15 an hour would lift 7.6 million people – many of whom are women, immigrants, Black, Latinx or parents – out of poverty and give more than 50 million people a raise.According to the Economic Policy Institute, a worker paid the $7.25 federal minimum wage earns 27.4% less in inflation-adjusted terms than what their counterpart was paid in July 2009 when the minimum wage was last increased, and 40.2% less than a minimum wage worker in February 1968, the historical high point of the minimum wage’s value.Courageous workers in the Fight for $15 and the union movement have pushed 14 states and the District of Columbia to adopt $15 minimum wage laws. We’re proud to have marched with, prayed with, and even gotten arrested with these workers as they’ve demanded living wages and a union. But the sad fact is that 20 states remain stuck at the federal minimum of $7.25 – and working people in those states, the majority of which are in the south, need help now. That’s why, earlier this year, we hit the road with Bernie Sanders and stood alongside workers across the south to demand living wages.These workers are 46% more likely to be paid less than $15 than workers in the 30-plus states with minimums higher than $7.25, according to the Economic Policy Institute. And, according to EPI, there isn’t a place in the country where even a single adult without children can get by on less than $15 an hour. There’s no city, county or state where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a two-bedroom rental, a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed.Yet instead of raising pay for fast-food cooks, home care aides, warehouse workers, retail clerks and others, politicians push a false moral narrative of religious nationalism, trying to trick us into believing that poverty is a moral failing on the individual and that the real moral issues of our time are standing against LGBTQ+ people and a woman’s right to choose while defending tax cuts and gun rights.We will not be duped: the real moral question for our country is where we stand in relation to the poor. Instead of pushing culture wars and partisanship, lawmakers should focus on the 800 people dying each day from poverty in the wealthiest nation on earth. Our politicians have failed to act, and leaders who stand silent in the face of these injustices are guilty of policy murder.Indeed, our demand for a living wage is the moral issue politicians should be focused on. Isaiah 10 says, “Woe unto those who legislate evil and rob the poor of their rights, and make women and children their prey.” And President Franklin D Roosevelt adopted the moral argument of the Social Gospel when he declared that “no business which depends for its existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.” It is a moral travesty that as a nation we continue to expand the military budget in surplus, but refuse to guarantee basic human rights like healthcare and living wages.We are putting our nation’s leaders on notice, across party lines, that we need living wages now. If they don’t act, we’ll vote them out. Poor and low-wealth people make up nearly 40% of the electorate and have the ability to decide elections. We are calling for a Third Reconstruction to lift our nation’s 140 million poor and low-wealth people from the bottom up. This includes raising the outdated minimum wage to a living wage as well as updating the also-obsolete official poverty measure to reflect what it takes to secure a decent standard of living today.America has gone 14 years without a raise. It’s literally killing us. And it’s time for it to change.
      The Rev D William J Barber II is founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School
      The Rev A Kazimir Brown is executive director of Repairers of the Breach More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Filthy Rich Politicians: journalist Matt K Lewis on Trump, ethics and money in Washington

      by

      When Covid-19 materialized as a serious threat, Richard Burr took action. As chair of the Senate intelligence committee, the North Carolina Republican had access to information on the pandemic that was unavailable to the American public. He unloaded hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stocks, including investments in the hospitality industry that was likely to be hard-hit. Burr also contacted his brother-in-law, who made his own stock dump. After the trades were publicized, Burr resigned as chair of the intelligence panel. But he was not charged with a crime.For the reporter Matt K Lewis, the story is part of an ever-increasing problem: the outsized role of wealth in Washington. The Daily Beast journalist has written a book, Filthy Rich Politicians, that was published in the US this week. The extent of the problem is reflected by Lewis’s subtitle: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America.“Rich people get elected, and people, when elected, tend to get richer,” Lewis says. “Over time, it has gotten worse.”The narrative is bipartisan and includes progressives and populists from members of the Squad to election deniers.“I think it’s just an irony that I wrote the book Filthy Rich Politicians in a moment when all the politicians in America … one thing almost all have in common is trying to position themselves as being populist outsiders attacking elites,” Lewis says.He is concerned by politicians bolstering their finances during moments of crisis, as Burr did during Covid.“That, I think, is one of the most interesting and disturbing parts of the book. Everybody kind of knows politicians are rich and some of what they do is sketchy. This, I think, most Americans don’t fully appreciate.”Whether regarding Covid or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lewis says, “These are the moments when it really pays off to have inside information.” He points out that the list of members of Congress who made advantageous stock purchases ahead of the Ukraine war included Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a Democrat, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a notorious hard-right Republican.The House of Representatives has become a flashpoint. In the lower chamber, where members are ostensibly closer to average Americans, incomes have climbed quite high. The average member of Congress is now 12 times wealthier than the typical US household.“In the last four decades, the gap has demonstrably widened between politicians and ‘We, the people,’” Lewis says.Causes range from insider trading to book deals to lobbying, family members and friends getting in on the action through paid positions as campaign or office staffers. Lewis cites numerous examples.The former Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have netted millions from his stock deals, outperforming top investors including Warren Buffett while Nancy Pelosi fended off attempts at reform.In the annals of lobbying, there is Billy Tauzin, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana. On Capitol Hill, Tauzin helped then-president George W Bush pass a Medicare bill. His term done, Tauzin became a lobbyist for Big Pharma.Running for office is a perfect fit for high net-worth individuals. After all, it requires significant time off from work and enough campaign funds to draw in outside donations. It helps if you’re born into wealth, marry into it – or both.Lewis comes from a different background – though he notes that his wife, Erin DeLullo, is a political consultant who has worked with some of the Republicans he criticizes as self-proclaimed populists, despite their Ivy League degrees.Lewis’s father was a prison guard for three decades. The family never lacked for food on the table, but Lewis got a rude introduction to the wider world when he made his own foray into campaign politics. A $1,000 check was late to his bank account, giving him an impromptu lesson in how much it costs to be poor in Washington.Then, after becoming an opinion journalist at the Daily Caller, a conservative site, Lewis learned how rich people populate the DC landscape. One day, he was researching a tip that a prominent liberal family was polluting the environment with its penchant for boating. A family member contended otherwise, asking if Lewis knew anything about sailing or yachting. Lewis confessed he did not, asked his colleagues if they did, and saw a sea of hands.“For me, it really hit home that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, so to speak,” he recalls.Lewis planned his book as a survey of America’s 100 richest politicians. It evolved into a more substantive project, although the original idea is reflected by two lists in the appendix: the 25 wealthiest members of Congress and the 10 richest presidents.The Florida Republican senator Rick Scott – who before entering politics ran a company fined $1.7bn for Medicare fraud – leads the congressional list with more than $200m. Top of the presidential list is Donald Trump, whose net worth topped out at $3.1bn.“Putting money aside, [Trump] changed the game in many ways,” Lewis says. “It’s never going to be the same, and not primarily because of his wealth – he’s such a different type of human being and president than we’ve ever seen.”Ironically, Trump’s populist denunciations of corruption and the DC “swamp” resonated strongly with voters.Citing a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, Lewis says: “Three-quarters of Americans believed politicians were primarily selfish and interested in feathering their own nest. I don’t think it’s any surprise that one year later, Donald Trump was elected. He talked about how the game was rigged, he talked about elites and the establishment and the need to drain the swamp.”The Biden family has also been doing quite well for itself financially – not just the president’s scandal-embroiled son, Hunter, but Hunter’s uncles Frank and James.“There are a lot of ways politicians and their families can become enriched, sort of trading off the family relationship, name and access,” Lewis says.He mentions a story in the Atlantic about Joe Biden’s 1988 run for president: the campaign took in over $11m, with around 20% of that amount going either to the candidate’s family or to companies they worked for.“You have an example of other people’s money – in this case, campaign donors – being transferred to the family of Joe Biden,” Lewis says. “Given my druthers, I would make this illegal.”He offers more suggestions for limiting the influence of wealth in politics, including a counterintuitive proposal: raise congressional salaries.“I firmly believe in it,” Lewis says. “This will happen after we ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks, after we impose a 10-year moratorium on the revolving door of lobbying, after we ban the ability to make millions from a book deal while you’re serving the country, after we ban the hiring of family for congressional offices and campaigns.“It’s not cheap to live in Washington DC. Once we have curtailed the ability to get rich from nefarious or certainly questionable means, I would compensate them even more so they could focus on the actual job.”
      Filthy Rich Politicians is published in the US by Center Street More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Oppenheimer biographer supports US bill to bar use of AI in nuclear launches

      by

      A biographer whose Pulitzer prize-winning book inspired the new movie Oppenheimer has expressed support for a US senator’s attempt to bar the use of artificial intelligence in nuclear weapons launches.“Humans must always maintain sole control over nuclear weapons,” Kai Bird, author of American Prometheus, said in a statement reported by Politico.“This technology is too dangerous to gamble with. This bill will send a powerful signal to the world that the United States will never take the reckless step of automating our nuclear command and control.”In Washington on Thursday, Bird met Ed Markey, the Democratic Massachusetts senator who is attempting to add the AI-nuclear provision to a major defense spending bill.Markey, Politico said, was a friend of Bird’s co-author, the late Tufts University professor Martin J Sherwin.A spokesperson for the senator told Politico Markey and Bird “shared their mutual concerns over the proliferation of artificial intelligence in national security and defense without guardrails, and the risks of using nuclear weapons in south Asia and elsewhere.“They also discussed ways to increase awareness of nuclear issues among the younger set.”J Robert Oppenheimer was the driving force behind US development of the atomic bomb, at the end of the second world war.Bird and Sherwin’s book is now the inspiration for Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster starring Cillian Murphy in the title role.The movie opens in the US on Friday – in competition with Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s film about the popular children’s doll.On Friday, Nolan told the Guardian: “International surveillance of nuclear weapons is possible because nuclear weapons are very difficult to build. Oppenheimer spent $2bn and used thousands of people across America to build those first bombs.“It’s reassuringly difficult to make nuclear weapons and so it’s relatively easy to spot when a country is doing that. I don’t believe any of that applies to AI.”Nolan also noted “very strong parallels” between Oppenheimer and AI experts now calling for such technology to be controlled.Nolan said he had “been interested to talk to some of the leading researchers in the AI field, and hear from them that they view this as their ‘Oppenheimer moment’. And they’re clearly looking to his story for some kind of guidance … as a cautionary tale in terms of what it says about the responsibility of somebody who’s putting this technology to the world, and what their responsibilities would be in terms of unintended consequences.”Bird and Sherwin’s biography, subtitled The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer, was published in 2008.Reviewing for the Guardian, James Buchan saluted the authors’ presentation of “the cocktails and wire-taps and love affairs of Oppenheimer’s existence, his looks and conversation, the way he smoked the cigarettes and pipe that killed him, his famous pork-pie hat and splayed walk, and all the tics and affectations that his students imitated and the patriots and military men despised.“It is as if these authors had gone back to James Boswell, who said of Dr Johnson: ‘Everything relative to so great a man is worth observing.’” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘We’re done with the cover-up’: UFO claims to get their day in Congress

      by

      For decades, US politicians have been reluctant to get involved in the topic of UFOs and aliens.After a series of disclosures in recent months, however, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be lining up to inquire into the question of extraterrestrial life, as the world seems closer than ever to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.Next week, the House oversight committee will hold its first public hearing as part of its investigation into UFOs, weeks after a whistleblower former intelligence official went public with claims that the government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.David Grusch’s allegations about the government harboring alien craft – he has since suggested that the US has also encountered “malevolent” alien pilots – sparked the 26 July hearing, and beyond that, appear to have lit a fire under the Washington establishment.The Republican party has led the initial charge, with a series of claims about extraterrestrial life that, until recently, would have been seen as career-ending.Tim Burchett, the Republican congressman from Tennessee who is co-leading the UFO investigation, declared in early July that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, while a Republican colleague suggested that extraterrestrial interlopers could actually be representatives of an ancient civilization.In a briefing on Thursday, Burchett said he and his co-investigator Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member from Florida, had been “stonewalled” by federal officials when asking about UFOs, and prevented from accessing some “information to prove that they do exist”.“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” he said.Burchett said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials.He added: “We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the cover-up.”In recent days the government itself has joined the UFO discourse. A White House official claimed that aerial phenomena “have already had an impact on our training ranges”, while a bipartisan group of senators have proposed new legislation to collect and distribute documents on “unidentified anomalous phenomena”.The legitimization of UFO discussion has been propelled in part by claims from US military pilots of UFO encounters, along with leaked military videos showing inexplicable happenings in the sky.Following those revelations, in 2021 the Pentagon released a report on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), the term some experts prefer, which found more than 140 instances of UAP encounters that could not be explained. Since then, politicians appear to have moved past some of the stigma around extraterrestrial life.“There’s a sort of critical mass building now,” said Nick Pope, who spent the early 1990s investigating UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD).“And I think even though it’s easy to portray some of the politicians as mavericks, the fact that Republicans and Democrats are lining up, are united in their stance on this … I think we have crossed a line.”Grusch will appear at the hearing on Wednesday, along with David Fravor, a former navy commander who reported seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004, and Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who in 2021 told the 60 Minutes news show he had seen unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.As Burchett has investigated the accuracy of Grusch’s claims, he has begun to make some bold declarations of his own. On the Event Horizon podcast, Burchett was asked if had seen “compelling evidence” that the US was seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”.“Oh, 100%. 100%. No question,” he said.Burchett went on to claim that the US has been hiding evidence of UFOs since 1947, and speculated that the extraterrestrial craft could be dangerous.“If they’re out there, they’re out there, and if they have this kind of technology, then they could turn us into a charcoal briquette,” Burchett said.“And if they can travel light years or at the speeds that we’ve seen, and physics as we know it, fly underwater, don’t show a heat trail, things like that, then we are vastly out of our league.”He is not alone.Days earlier, Mike Gallagher, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, hypothesized that UFO encounters “could actually be an ancient civilization that’s just been hiding here and is suddenly showing itself”.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who, along with Democrats including Kirsten Gillibrand, has maintained a longtime interest in UAPs, has weighed in, as has the Donald Trump disciple Josh Hawley, who claims the US has “downplayed” the number of UFO sightings “for a long, long time”.On Thursday, Luna, the co-lead of the oversight committee investigation, echoed Hawley’s statements, alleging that “the Pentagon and the Department of the Air Force” had been particularly uncooperative.“When I take at face value the numerous roadblocks that we’ve been presented with, it leads me to believe that they are indeed hiding information,” she said.“I look forward to bringing this topic to light, and finding out the truth of what is really out there.”It is doubtful that the hearing on Wednesday will prove conclusively whether or not aliens exist. It is also unlikely the public will find out whether aliens, with their charcoal-briquette capable weaponry, have visited Earth.But still, the desire of politicians, of both sides, to wade into UFO discourse suggests that a corner has been turned, and Pope suggested Republicans’ and Democrats’ willingness to investigate could mean they are beginning to believe.“I think these politicians are doing it because they either know, or more likely strongly suspect that some of this is true,” Pope said.“I don’t think you would go all in – and they are going all in on this – if they weren’t pretty darn sure of themselves. Because the egg on the face if this all turns out to be drones – it would be staggering.” More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      House Republicans pass defense bill, setting up clash on abortion policy

      by

      The Republican-led House of Representatives on Friday approved a huge defense bill that includes amendments overturning the Pentagon’s policies on covering abortion services for the military, healthcare costs for transgender service members and diversity initiatives – setting up a historic clash with Democrats and the Biden administration that could imperil spending on the armed forces.The amendments, pushed by the GOP’s right flank with the support of the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, represent the latest instance of conservative lawmakers using their influence in Congress’s lower chamber to attempt to change Joe Biden’s policies on a range of issues that chiefly animate the Republican base.They also seems certain to spark a major battle with Democrats who hold control of the Senate, and whose assent will be needed for the defense spending bill, a version of which Congress approves every year, to become law.“House Republicans have made a commitment to America that we fight for a nation that is safe,” McCarthy said shortly after the amended National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) covering the 2024 fiscal year passed on a mostly party-line vote.“Radical programs that are forced [on] our troops at the expense of readiness are now eliminated. Cutting-edge technology that is essential for the future of this country and to keep freedom around the world in the rise of China and Russia, will receive more investment than we’ve watched in the past,” McCarthy said, adding that the legislation costing $886.3bn would also give service members their largest pay increase in two decades.The NDAA is one of the bills Congress must pass every year, and often attracts bipartisan support, with politicians of both parties eager to show they support the United States military. But while it is not unusual for the defense spending measure to include provisions addressing other issues on Congress’s mind, rightwing Republicans this year proposed several amendments dealing with some of the most divisive issues in American society.On Thursday evening, Republicans pushed through an amendment to the bill that reverses a defense department policy covering expenses and leave for troops who must travel out of state to seek an abortion. The policy was implemented after the supreme court last year struck down Roe v Wade and allowed states to ban the procedure.The party also supported amendments banning the Pentagon’s healthcare plans from covering gender-affirming care for transgender individuals, as well as a provisions targeting diversity, equity and inclusions programs and banning any teaching in the defense department’s school system that America is “a fundamentally racist country”.Amendments halting military assistance to Ukraine and ending a policy of renaming military bases bearing monikers inspired by the Confederacy were voted down.While they did not formally tell their members to vote against the NDAA, the House’s top Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar released a joint statement accusing Republicans of corrupting legislation that should be used to support American troops.“Extreme Maga Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming their rightwing ideology down the throats of the American people. House Republicans have turned what should be a meaningful investment in our men and women in uniform into an extreme and reckless legislative joyride,” the trio wrote, adding that they would vote against the bill.In the end, only four Democrats supported the NDAA, all of whom represent swing districts. The four Republicans who voted against it were conservatives of varying stripes, with Colorado’s Ken Buck releasing a statement saying the legislation is too expensive.“Our country is careening toward fiscal ruin, and Congress continues to turn a blind eye by passing these massive spending packages with no attention to their cost or efficacy,” Buck wrote, noting that he agrees “with several amendments to this bill”. More

    • 213 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Donald Trump: Arizona attorney general investigating attempts to overturn 2020 vote, reports say – as it happened

      by

      From 3h agoArizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes is moving forward with an investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the crucial swing state, the Washington Post reports.Mayes’s inquiry is the second known attempt by a state to hold the former president accountable for the effort to disrupt Biden’s win. Fani Willis, a Democratic prosecutor in Fulton county, Georgia, is reportedly close to obtaining indictments in her investigation of Trump’s campaign to overturn Biden’s win in that state. Separately, justice department special counsel Jack Smith is still investigating the former president over the January 6 insurrection, and the broader campaign to prevent Biden from entering the White House.Here’s more from the Post’s report:
      Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.
      It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.
      Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, said the investigation is in the “fact-gathering” phase. He declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued and which state statutes the team thinks might have been broken.
      “This is something we’re not going to go into thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get a conviction,’ or ‘Maybe we have a pretty good chance,’” he said. “This has to be ironclad shut.”
      The Secret Service announced it closed the investigation into the cocaine discovered at the White House earlier this month without naming any suspects, but Republicans seem to want to keep the matter alive. Several lawmakers, including House speaker Kevin McCarthy, expressed skepticism at the agency’s conclusion, part of a pattern of attacks on federal law enforcement by the GOP’s right wing. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin outlined plans to continue pressing the supreme court to tighten its ethics, after a series of reports found questionable ties between the justices and parties with interests in its decisions.Here’s what else happened today:
      Arizona’s attorney general is moving forward with an investigation of Donald Trump and his attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory in the state three years ago, the Washington Post reported.
      Florida governor Ron DeSantis remains far below Trump in support among Republicans, but NBC News obtained a memo outlining his campaign’s strategy for success in the presidential primaries.
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, accused Democrats of seeking to retaliate against conservative supreme court justices.
      Durbin left open the possibility of his committee investigating liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor after a report emerged of her staff asking institutions to buy her book.
      Far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was among lawmakers who raised their eyebrows at the Secret Service’s decision to close the investigation into the White House cocaine.
      A spat has broken out between Republican former president Mike Pence and a prominent progressive Democrat over Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s plans to address Congress next week during his visit to Washington DC.Ilhan Omar, a progressive Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, announced she would not attend Herzog’s speech, citing a 2019 episode in which Israel said fellow progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who is of Palestinian origin, could visit family in the West Bank, but only if she avoided promoting the boycott campaign against the country:This afternoon, Pence, who is seeking the GOP’s nomination for president, took direct aim at Omar, one of only three Muslims currently serving in Congress and the only Somali-American:Back at the Capitol, Republicans continue to complain about the Secret Service’s conclusion that it can’t identify who left cocaine at the White House.Here’s Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett’s take, as captured by CNN:Ron DeSantis may be considered frontrunner Donald Trump’s biggest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, but polls have consistently shown that it’s not a particularly close race.Take this one from Morning Consult released on Tuesday. It shows Trump with 56% support among potential GOP primary voters, and DeSantis in second with a measly 17%. If there’s any news there, it’s that entrepreneur and first-time candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is in third place with 8%, ahead of more experienced Republicans like former vice-president Mike Pence and senator Tim Scott.NBC News has obtained a confidential memo from the DeSantis campaign laying out their strategy in the GOP’s primary process. The Florida governor plans to aim for success in the first states that vote, particularly New Hampshire, and focus less on “Super Tuesday”, when 14 states will hold primaries on 5 March.Here’s more from their story:
      Ron DeSantis is trying to reassure donors and activists that his campaign only looks stalled.
      A confidential campaign memo obtained by NBC News lays out what the Florida governor’s presidential campaign sees as its path forward: focusing on the early states, refusing to give up on New Hampshire, not yet investing in “Super Tuesday” battlegrounds, zeroing in on DeSantis’ biography and sowing doubts about his competitors — particularly Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.
      “While Super Tuesday is critically important, we will not dedicate resources to Super Tuesday that slow our momentum in New Hampshire,” the memo states. “We expect to revisit this investment in the Fall.”
      The document, dated July 6, is labeled a “confidential friends and family update” and makes clear that it’s “not for distribution.” Its details about the campaign’s strategy are far more in-depth than what has been shared publicly.
      As DeSantis’ ability to surpass Donald Trump as leader of the Republican Party is now an open question among the GOP faithful, the memo is an effort by the governor’s top aides to reach out to donors to provide more clarity on their path forward.
      Across the DeSantis political universe there is a heightened awareness of the importance of the early states and the reality that DeSantis will burn out without strong performances there. It means that even as the group has a plan in place now, the strategy is subject to change.
      “From my understanding, if we don’t see a bump in the polls, we are basically going to shut down the idea of a national operation,” a DeSantis-aligned operative told NBC News.
      Donald Trump’s top opponent for the Republican presidential nomination is governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, which used to be considered a swing state, but lately has trended towards the GOP. The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Andrew Witherspoon report that the DeSantis administration is carrying out a crackdown against groups that are trying to encourage people to vote:Florida Republicans have hit dozens of voter registration groups with thousands of dollars of fines, the latest salvo in an alarming crackdown on voting in the state led by Governor Ron DeSantis.At least 26 groups have cumulatively racked up more than $100,000 in fines since September of last year, according to a list that was provided by Florida officials to the Guardian. The groups include both for-profit and nonprofit organizations as well as political parties, including the statewide Republican and Democratic parties of Florida.The fines, which range from $50 to tens of thousands of dollars, were levied by the state’s office of election crimes and security, a first-of-its-kind agency created at the behest of DeSantis in 2022 to investigate voter fraud. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and the office has already come under scrutiny for bringing criminal charges against people who appeared to be confused about their voting eligibility.Donald Trump’s legal trouble is both criminal, and civil. As the Associated Press reports, the former president yesterday suffered a setback in his attempt to defend himself against a potent defamation lawsuit:Donald Trump lashed out on social media against the US justice department on Wednesday after it stopped supporting his claim that the presidency shields him from liability against a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he sexually attacked her in the mid-1990s.The former president said in a post on his social media platform that the department’s reversal a day earlier in the lawsuit brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll was part of the “political Witch Hunt” he faces while campaigning for the presidency as a Republican.The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Arizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes is moving forward with an investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the crucial swing state, the Washington Post reports.Mayes’s inquiry is the second known attempt by a state to hold the former president accountable for the effort to disrupt Biden’s win. Fani Willis, a Democratic prosecutor in Fulton county, Georgia, is reportedly close to obtaining indictments in her investigation of Trump’s campaign to overturn Biden’s win in that state. Separately, justice department special counsel Jack Smith is still investigating the former president over the January 6 insurrection, and the broader campaign to prevent Biden from entering the White House.Here’s more from the Post’s report:
      Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.
      It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.
      Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, said the investigation is in the “fact-gathering” phase. He declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued and which state statutes the team thinks might have been broken.
      “This is something we’re not going to go into thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get a conviction,’ or ‘Maybe we have a pretty good chance,’” he said. “This has to be ironclad shut.”
      Joe Biden will meet the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, at the White House next week, his spokeswoman has confirmed.Herzog will be in Washington on 18 and 19 July and will deliver a joint address to Congress.The Israeli president’s US visit comes amid protests in Israel at a government push to advance legislation that would weaken the supreme court’s independence.Israel’s parliament recently voted for a bill that would scrap a “reasonableness” standard that allows the supreme court to overrule government decisions.Biden and Herzog are due to discuss deepening Israel’s regional integration, a more peaceful Middle East and Russia’s relationship with Iran.The White House statement on the visit said:
      President Biden will stress the importance of our shared democratic values, and discuss ways to advance equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis.”
      The Secret Service announced it had closed its investigation of the cocaine discovered at the White House earlier this month without naming any suspects, but Republicans seem to want to keep the matter alive. Several lawmakers, including House speaker Kevin McCarthy, expressed skepticism at the agency’s conclusion, part of a pattern of attacks on federal law enforcement by the GOP’s right wing. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin outlined plans to continue pressing the supreme court to tighten its ethics, after a series of reports found questionable ties between the justices and parties with interests in its decisions.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, accused Democrats of seeking to retaliate against conservative justices.
      Durbin left open the possibility of his committee investigating liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor after a report emerged of her staff asking institutions to buy her book.
      Far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was among lawmakers who raised their eyebrows at the Secret Service’s decision to close the investigation into the White House cocaine.
      In the latest indication that this is not the last we have heard about the White House cocaine saga, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is calling on the Secret Service to continue searching for whomever left the powder at the executive mansion, Fox News reports:Here’s more from the Guardian’s Jenna Amatulli on the cocaine found at the White House, and apparent failure of the Secret Service to discover who brought it there:The investigation into the bag of cocaine found at the White House has concluded, with no suspects identified.In a statement from the Secret Service, the organization emphasized that it implemented safety closures after discovering the cocaine and that it then “field tested and preliminarily determined” the drug “to not be a hazardous compound”.They said the US Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center later analyzed the cocaine for any biothreats and those tests came back negative.On how the item came to be inside the White House, the Secret Service said it conducted a “methodical review of security systems and protocols” that spanned “several days prior to the discovery of the substance”. They “developed an index of several hundred individuals who may have accessed the area where the substance was found” before ultimately concluding there was “insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons”. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US Republicans oppose climate funding as millions suffer in extreme weather

      by

      Swaths of the US are baking under record-breaking heat, yet some lawmakers are still attempting to block any spending to fight the climate crisis, advocates say.Nearly 90 million Americans are facing heat alerts this week, including in Las Vegas, Nevada, which may break its all-time hottest temperature record; Phoenix, Arizona, which will probably break its streak of consecutive days of temperatures over 110F; and parts of Florida, where a marine heatwave has pushed up water temperatures off the coast to levels normally found in hot tubs.Stifling heat is also blanketing parts of Texas, which for weeks earlier this summer sweltered under a record-shattering heat dome which one analysis found was made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Despite this, the state’s Republican senator Ted Cruz is rallying his fellow GOP members of the Senate commerce committee to circulate a memo attacking climate measures in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget, Fox News reported on Wednesday.The memo specifically calls on Republican members of the Senate appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee to reject spending provisions focused on climate resilience and environmental justice efforts for scientific agencies. In one example, the memo objects to a Nasa request to fund its Sustainable Flight National Partnership, which seeks to help zero out planet-warming pollution from aviation.“If the goal is to make imperceptible changes in CO2 emissions as part of the administration’s zealous effort to micromanage global temperatures, then Nasa should abandon such wasted mental energy. Nasa should not become a plaything for anti-fossil fuel environmentalists,” the memo says.It should come as no surprise that Cruz, who has accepted massive donations from oil and gas companies, is defending the fossil fuel industry’s interests, said Allie Rosenbluth, US program co-manager at the environmental advocacy and research non-profit Oil Change International.“What is really devastating for communities who are experiencing extreme heat, wildfires, flooding and drought across the US is that because of these bought-out politicians, they are not getting the support that they need to be resilient in the face of climate impacts at the federal level,” she said.House Republicans are fighting climate spending, too. To avoid a government shutdown, lawmakers must pass a slew of spending bills before current funding expires on 30 September. But Republican members of the GOP-controlled House appropriations committee are slipping in anti-climate provisions, which aim to block renewable energy funding and imperil federal efforts to tackle the climate crisis, into their spending bill drafts.Last week, the Clean Budget Coalition – a group of non-profits such as the League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense Fund and Public Citizen – identified at least 17 of these “climate poison pills” in appropriation bill drafts. Among them are amendments that would prevent the federal government from purchasing electric vehicles or building EV charging stations; block funding for the Green Climate Fund, which helps developing countries meet their climate goals under the Paris agreement; and prohibit funding for a Department of Energy initiative aiming to send 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments to flow to disadvantaged communities.Elizabeth Gore, senior vice-president for political affairs at Environmental Defense Fund, said these proposals will impede lawmakers’ chance to reach a budget deal before their fall deadline.“This is not a starting point for any reasonable negotiations,” she said in a release.Early last month, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling. David Shadburn, senior government affairs advocate at the League of Conservation Voters, said that from his perspective, that agreement didn’t include nearly enough government funding, but now, Republicans are trying to cut funding even more.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We wanted to see more spending. We thought the deal was insufficient,” he said. “But a deal is a deal and yet what Republicans immediately did was go back on it.”All Republican representatives can submit proposals to the House appropriations committee and no member is required to sign off on specific proposals. So it’s not clear who is responsible for each “poison pill”. But Shadburn noted that not a single Republican member of the House voted for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included the most climate spending of any bill in US history and that Republican representatives have also repeatedly attempted to overturn the bill’s climate provisions.“The entire House Republican conference is on the record here … [including] those representing places that are seeing extreme weather,” he said.House Republicans also recently proposed an array of amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act aiming to limit the Pentagon’s deployment of electric vehicles, Shadburn said.One of them, which would force the defense department to terminate contracts for electric non-combat vehicles, came from Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, whose state is preparing for triple-digit heat this week. Another, which would authorize soldiers and civilians at the US army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona to use fossil fuel-powered vehicles, came from Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona, where heat last Friday was comparable to “some of the worst heatwaves this area has ever seen”, according to the National Weather Service.“In addition to the extreme heat in the south-west and elsewhere, there’s massive flooding in Vermont and New York … yet the House this week is spending their time debating just how many climate attacks they should include in the defense authorization,” said Shadburn. “It just shows how unserious they are about doing anything significant to tackle the climate crisis.” More