#Senate Rules and Administration Committee

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley on Wednesday expressed support for proposed changes to the Electoral Count Act, which would clarify rules governing presidential elections and the counting of electoral votes.

"I have not read the bill, but I have read a lot about the bill," Grassley, a Republican, told reporters Wednesday. "And I think that I'm going to vote for it."

Grassley said he would wait to read it before making a final decision about his vote.

The bipartisan effort to amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887 comes after former-President Donald Trump and his allies attempted to exploit ambiguities in the law following the 2020 election to reject electoral votes that were cast for President Joe Biden.

The bill will need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the evenly divided Senate. Even if all 50 Senate Democrats are in favor, it will need at least 10 Republican votes. Nine Republicans were part of the bipartisan negotiations on the bill, and Grassley's support could bring them to 10.

The legislation would clarify that the Vice President's role in presiding over the counting of electoral votes is purely ceremonial, ensuring that the Vice President would not have the power to unilaterally reject or accept electoral votes.

Trump and his allies unsuccessfully pressured former-Vice President Mike Pence to interfere with the counting of electoral votes over objections from White House attorneys, according to testimony given to the House Jan. 6 Committee.

Grassley said that change is among the reasons he would support the bill.

"I don't know what the... law specifically says on this subject," he said. "It probably doesn't say anything, and then people thought well, maybe the Vice President has some discretion. He should not have had this discretion ever. And this law will make it clear that he won't have that discretion."

Grassley said he also supports a provision that would raise the threshold for objecting to electors in Congress. It would require one-fifth of the House and one-fifth of the Senate to bring an objection, a much higher bar than the current law, which allows one member of the House and one member of the Senate to bring an objection.

"This is going to make those challenges much more legitimate if there's a reason for having them," he said.

The measure also would require Congress accept as valid only one slate of electors submitted by each state and certified by that state’s governor or another official. In 2020, multiple states attempted to submit alternate slates of presidential electors without the legal basis to do so.

Derek Muller, a University of Iowa law professor who teaches election law, testified Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, speaking in favor of the proposal.

“At every turn, the bill offers more clarity, more precision and more stability,” Muller said.

Muller said there are significant risks if Congress fails to pass the legislation and leaves the current Electoral Count Act in place without changes.

“Some have attempted to exploit ambiguities over the years, most significantly in 2020,” he said. “To leave those in place ahead of the 2024 election is to invite serious mischief.”

#us politics #news #the des Moines register #2022 #sen. chuck grassley #Republicans #conservatives #gop #Electoral Count Act #Electoral Count Act of 1887 #2020 election #donald trump #trump administration #mike pence #Senate Rules and Administration Committee #Derek Muller #iowa

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #10

March 15-22 2024

The EPA announced new emission standards with the goal of having more than half of new cars and light trucks sold in the US be low/zero emission by 2032. One of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, it'll eliminate 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next 30 years. It's part of President Biden's goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 on the road to eliminating them totally by 2050.

President Biden canceled nearly 6 Billion dollars in student loan debt. 78,000 borrowers who work in public sector jobs, teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters etc will have their debt totally forgiven. An additional 380,000 public service workers will be informed that they qualify to have their loans forgiven over the next 2 years. The Biden Administration has now forgiven $143.6 Billion in student loan debt for 4 million Americans since the Supreme Court struck down the original student loan forgiveness plan last year.

Under Pressure from the administration and Democrats in Congress Drugmaker AstraZeneca caps the price of its inhalers at $35. AstraZeneca joins rival Boehringer Ingelheim in capping the price of inhalers at $35, the price the Biden Admin capped the price of insulin for seniors. The move comes as the Federal Trade Commission challenges AstraZeneca’s patents, and Senator Bernie Sanders in his role as Democratic chair of the Senate Health Committee investigates drug pricing.

The Department of Justice sued Apple for being an illegal monopoly in smartphones. The DoJ is joined by 16 state attorneys general. The DoJ accuses Apple of illegally stifling competition with how its apps work and seeking to undermining technologies that compete with its own apps.

The EPA passed a rule banning the final type of asbestos still used in the United States. The banning of chrysotile asbestos (known as white asbestos) marks the first time since 1989 the EPA taken action on asbestos, when it passed a partial ban. 40,000 deaths a year in the US are linked to asbestos

President Biden announced $8.5 billion to help build advanced computer chips in America. Currently America only manufactures 10% of the world's chips and none of the most advanced next generation of chips. The deal with Intel will open 4 factories across 4 states (Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon) and create 30,000 new jobs. The Administration hopes that by 2030 America will make 20% of the world's leading-edge chips.

President Biden signed an Executive Order prioritizing research into women's health. The order will direct $200 million into women's health across the government including comprehensive studies of menopause health by the Department of Defense and new outreach by the Indian Health Service to better meet the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native Women. This comes on top of $100 million secured by First Lady Jill Biden from ARPA-H.

Democratic Senators Bob Casey, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, and Jacky Rosen (all up for re-election) along with Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse, introduced the "Shrinkflation Prevention Act" The Bill seeks to stop the practice of companies charging the same amount for products that have been subtly shrunk so consumers pay more for less.

The Department of Transportation will invest $45 million in projects that improve Bicyclist and Pedestrian Connectivity and Safety

The EPA will spend $77 Million to put 180 electric school buses onto the streets of New York City This is part of New York's goal to transition its whole school bus fleet to electric by 2035.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's nomination of Nicole Berner to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Berner has served as the general counsel for America's largest union, SEIU, since 2017 and worked in their legal department since 2006. On behalf of SEIU she's worked on cases supporting the Affordable Care Act, DACA, and against the Defense of Marriage act and was part of the Fight for 15. Before working at SEIU she was a staff attorney at Planned Parenthood. Berner's name was listed by the liberal group Demand Justice as someone they'd like to see on the Supreme Court. Berner becomes one of just 5 LGBT federal appeals court judges, 3 appointed by Biden. The Senate also confirmed Edward Kiel and Eumi Lee to be district judges in New Jersey and Northern California respectively, bring the number of federal judges appointed by Biden to 188.

#Thanks Biden #Joe Biden #Democrats #politics #US politics #climate change #climate crisis #student loans #debt forgiveness #shrinkflation #women's health #drug prices

[decolonize-the-left]

The legal offensive, led by Dana Remus, who until 2022 served as President Biden’s White House counsel, and Robert Lenhard, an outside lawyer for the party, will be aided by a communications team dedicated to countering candidates who Democrats fear could play spoiler to Mr. Biden. It amounts to a kind of legal Whac-a-Mole, a state-by-state counterinsurgency plan ahead of an election that could hinge on just a few thousand votes in swing states. The aim “is to ensure all the candidates are playing by the rules, and to seek to hold them accountable when they are not,” Mr. Lenhard said.

WHAT???

You're telling me that this guy

Suddenly gives a single shit about the rules???

The headlines about this are fucking insane also

"will giving voters access to vote for whatever candidate they want dooming democracy"

Normal headline for a country that definitely isn't being run by fascists.

Btw this is Dana Remus

"In August 2022, President Biden questioned in a 60 Minutes interview “how anyone can be that irresponsible” when asked about classified documents in the possession of former President Trump. But when President Biden said this, he knew he had stashed classified materials in several unsecure locations for years, dating back to his time as vice president and even as U.S. senator."

[...]President Biden’s attorneys claim to have first discovered classified material at Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022. However, President Biden and his lawyers kept it secret from the American people before the midterm elections. CBS News broke the story in January 2023, leaving Americans to wonder if the White House had any intention of ever disclosing that President Biden hoarded classified documents for years.

You know what else they did together? Lied about codifying Roe v Wade if they won mid-terms. 6months AFTER dems won a narrow majority, Rie v Wade was overturned.

And like not to be a wacky conspiracy theorist who's right again but

"The case concerned the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi state law that banned most abortion operations after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Mississippi law was based on a model by a Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, with the specific intent to provoke a legal battle that would reach the Supreme Court and result in the overturning of Roe"

Guess what the Alliance Defending freedom works with and serves an agenda for?

Project 2025 yeah, the heritage foundation lists them as partners

Yeah remember how Dana Remus worked with Samuel Alito? Guess who's vote helped overrule abortion rights?

Samuel Alito, correct. Guess who else? Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett.

All Trump appointments.

Odd company to find yourself in without having ANY ties to the ADF or heritage foundation or project2025.

I wonder who the lawyers involved were?

Scott G Stewart. Interesting. Well who appointed him, right?

In 2021, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch appointed Scott G. Stewart as Solicitor General for the State of Mississippi.

Oh so she was voted in.

Well im sure it was a normal election that Democrats didn't tamper with or anything. Like SURELY they didn't intentionally platform this woman using the Pied Piper method? SURELY NOT after platforming Trump and making the entire 2016 elections about anti-Trumpism. SURELY, they wouldn't have tried to make themselves look better by positioning themselves against extremists only to LOSE the bet they were making.

SURELY WE DIDNT LOSE ROE V WADE BECAUSE DEMOCRATS WONT STOP USING THE PIED PIPER STRATEGY TO WIN ELECTIONS? R I G H T???

Riley Collins, 53, is running against the state's treasurer, Lynn Fitch, who was the chair of the group Mississippi Women for Trump in 2016. Riley Collins is running an explicitly anti-Trump message, saying Monday that she doesn’t understand how Donald Trump's Christian supporters can reconcile their politics with their faith

Oh.

Welp.

Everyone thank democrats for Trump and the stacked supreme court and the loss of Roe V Wade. It Truly couldn't have happened without them blasting primetime tv with alt right candidates 24/7.

One day democrats will stop platforming right wing extremists and election tampering but I guess it won't be anytime soon.

Let me ask, what's the biggest argument for voting blue this year?

Right.

And how's that going? Y'all feel confident in that strategy right now?

And don't forget what they did to Bernie. Because Biden is very poetically doing the same fucking shit to sabotage 3rd parties right now.

Remember to act surprised when Trump wins.

Like voters and progressives and leftists haven't been saying for MONTHS that we won't vote Biden. Like swing states aren't voting uncommitted. Like labor unions aren't voting uncommitted. Like he isn't tanking the polls.

You know I will say that this election is a little different. Clinton didn't have nearly this much pushback so early in the race.

Biden's massive gap of votes compared to Trump is gonna look like the grand fucking canyon.

#vote #dont vote #biden #3rd parties #trump #roe v wade #2024 #2025 #project2025 #politics #news #current events #facsism #democrats #Republicans #RFK #usa elections

[tomorrowusa]

Trump solicited about $1 billion from Big Oil at a fundraising conclave at Mar-a-Lago in return for future favorable treatment — if their filthy lucre helps him return to the Oval Office.

We lost four years fighting climate change during the previous Trump administration. A second term would do the planet grievous harm.

It's necessary to alert everybody concerned about the future of Earth of the danger of a second Trump presidency.

A new Washington Post report that Trump made explicit policy promises to a roomful of Big Oil executives—while urging them to raise $1 billion for his campaign—is a powerful story in part because it wrecks what’s left of that mystique. In case you didn’t already know this, it shows yet again that if Trump has employed that aforementioned knowledge of elite corruption and self-dealing to any ends in his public career, it’s chiefly to benefit himself. That counter narrative is a story that Democrats have a big opportunity to tell—if they seize on this news effectively. How might they do that? For starters, the revelations seem to cry out for more scrutiny from Congress. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has been presiding over hearings into the oil industry as chair of the Budget Committee, says it’s “highly likely” that the committee will examine the new revelations. [ ... ]

As the Post reports, an oil company executive at the gathering, held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last month, complained about environmental regulations under the Biden administration. Then this happened: Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation. Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people. Obviously industries have long donated to politicians in both parties in hopes of governance that takes their interests into account, and they explicitly lobby for this as well. But in this case, Trump may have made detailed, concrete promises while simultaneously soliciting a precise amount in campaign contributions.

Just a mention that Tumblr formatting won't permit indentations inside indentations. As a substitute, I used red to depict double indentation.

Anyway...

For instance, the Post reports, Trump vowed to scrap Biden’s ban on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports “on the first day.” He also promised to overturn new tailpipe emission limits designed to encourage the transition to electric vehicles, and he dangled more leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, “a priority that several of the executives raised.” “The phrase that instantly came to mind as I was reading the story was ‘quid pro quo,’” Whitehouse told me. He also pointed to a new Politico report that oil industry officials are drawing up executive orders for Trump to sign as president. “Put those things together and it starts to look mighty damn corrupt,” Whitehouse said.

Trump may just be a pile of orange flab with a porcine mouth and bad hair, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be taken seriously. Among many other bad things, Trump is a figurehead for Big Oil. Oil companies are already busy composing executive orders for Trump to sign.

If elected, Trump would throw into reverse our transition to a decarbonized future, one that’s creating untold numbers of manufacturing jobs—including in the very places that Trump has attacked Democratic elites for supposedly abandoning—all in exchange for mega-checks from chortling fat cats right out of the most garish of Gilded Age cartoons. For good measure, some of that loot could help Trump secure elite impunity for his own corruption and alleged crimes. We can’t say we weren’t warned. Trump has told us all this himself.

Progressives toying with third party temptations need to be set right: The only way to defeat Donald Trump is to vote for Joe Biden.

There will NEVER be a President RFK Jr., a President Jill Stein, or a President Cornel West. Such vanity candidates are usually little more than eccentric freaks. The last time a non-Democrat or non-Republican was elected president was 1848. But with American democracy and the future of the planet at stake, self-indulgence at the ballot box this year could lead directly to dystopia.

#donald trump #climate change #the environment #mar-a-lago #carbon-palooza #big oil #campaign contributions from oil companies #quid pro quo #tax breaks for billionaires #republicans #second trump term #sheldon whitehouse #election 2024 #third parties #vote blue no matter who

[mariacallous]

Announcements by little-known federal agencies rarely spark a “political firestorm,” but that’s what the U.S. Judicial Conference did with a March 12 proposal involving judicial orders stopping nationwide enforcement of federal policies, so-called “national injunctions.” Specifically, the Conference proposed limiting plaintiffs’ ability to “judge shop” to ensure that sympathetic judges would hear their requests for such injunctions. Shortly thereafter, 19 Republican senators slammed the proposals on its merits and for encroaching on legislative authority while nine Democratic senators praised it for restoring public confidence in courts, and those were only opening salvos. (The Chief Justice of the United States presides over the semi-annual meetings of the 26-judge Judicial Conference and appoints the over 200 members of its some 20 committees, almost all of them federal judges. The Conference says it “serves as the policymaking body for the federal courts,” a less-than-precise summation of its actual authority.)

Emblematic of the cases that led to the Conference’s March 12 action is one that made national headlines and is now before the Supreme Court. Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk granted a request by a group of anti-abortion physicians to bar (“enjoin”) enforcement of Food and Drug Administration rules allowing mail distribution of abortion medicines. He applied his injunction to the whole country, not just to that part of Texas that Kacsmaryk serves. Quirks in federal court organization allowed the physicians to be sure their case would go before Kacsmaryk, whose anti-abortion views were well known. Kacsmaryk’s order is on hold pending appeal, but it raises two basic questions (apart from the abortion controversy itself).

First, should a single federal judge have the authority to stop duly enacted statutes and agency rules from being enforced anywhere in the country? Kacsmaryk’s FDA injunction is hardly the only “national” or “universal” injunction that judges (including Kacsmaryk) have issued. Parties left and right have sought them—12 during the George Bush administration, and 19 and 50 respectively during the Obama and Trump administrations. Policymakers and others, left and right, have attacked them, at least when judges have enjoined enforcement of laws that the policymakers favor. The Conference goal on March 12 was not ending such injunctions but rather making it difficult for plaintiffs seeking them to ensure that their case would go before a sympathetic judge.

Thus, the second question: Should federal court rules enable plaintiffs to secure a like-minded judge to hear their case—commonly known as “judge-shopping.” Allowing plaintiffs to pick their judge is contrary to the bedrock federal court principle of randomly assigning cases to judges through an electronic version of drawing names from a hat.

Successful judge-shopping combined with judges’ authority to issue national injunctions is obviously attractive to interest groups. Why try to change national policy by building legislative coalitions or lobbying federal agencies when one strategically selected federal judge can issue an injunction doing the same thing (at least if the appellate courts agree)?

In this post I try to:

Clarify the federal court arcanum about the dispute;

Explain the Conference’s proposed policy and the controversies over the policy and the Conference’s authority; and

Speculate briefly on what may be next.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 5, 2024 (Tuesday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 6, 2024

Possibly the biggest story today in terms of its impact on most Americans’ lives is that as part of its war on junk fees, the Biden administration announced an $8 cap on late fees charged by credit card issuers that have more than a million accounts. These companies hold more than 95% of outstanding credit card debt. Currently, fees average $32, and they fall on more than 45 million people. The White House estimates that late fees currently cost Americans about $25 billion a year. The rule change will save Americans about $10 billion a year.

The administration also announced a “strike force” to crack down on “unfair and illegal pricing.” Certain corporations raised prices as strained supply chains made it more expensive to make their products. But after supply chains were fixed and their costs dropped, corporations kept consumer prices high and passed on record profits to their shareholders. The strike force will encourage federal agencies to share information to enable them to identify businesses that are breaking the law. 

Banking organizations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out swinging. Executive vice president Neil Bradley said that such regulation “to micromanage how private businesses set prices will have the same result: shortages, fewer choices for consumers, a weaker economy, and less jobs.” 

And in what perhaps illustrates why voters don’t appear to know much about what the administration is doing, these stories have gotten far less attention today than the primaries and caucuses. 

Today is Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one territory choose their primary candidates for president and for the House of Representatives and the Senate (although in Alaska, only Republicans vote today and in American Samoa, only Democrats vote today). About 36% of Republican delegates will be awarded today, and that’s the side people will be watching because on the Democratic side, Biden has a virtually uncontested lead with the exception of candidate Jason Palmer, who won the Democratic caucuses in American Samoa.

Trump is expected to win today’s Republican contests, but observers are watching to see what percentage of the vote challenger Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, takes from him. As I write this, she appears to have won Vermont and run strongly elsewhere, especially in the suburbs. Three states conducted exit polls and they, too, show warning signs for Trump as 78% of Haley voters in the North Carolina primary, 69% in California, and 68% in Virginia refused to say they would support the party’s nominee no matter who it is. 

It is also notable that polls showed Trump with a much stronger margin over Haley than materialized today. As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes, it is not yet clear what that means.

Trump is on his way to becoming the Republican presidential nominee. On Friday the Republican National Committee (RNC) will meet in Houston to choose a new chair. The only people running are Trump loyalist Michael Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who hope to become co-chairs. Natalie Allison reported today in Politico that the RNC will not vote on a resolution that would have prohibited the RNC from covering Trump’s legal bills. 

Trump is certainly in need of money. Today, his lawyers demanded a new trial in the second E. Jean Carroll case, complaining that the judge limited what he could say, and asked for a judgment figure significantly lower than the $83.3 million the jurors awarded. By the end of Friday, Trump must post either the money or a bond covering it.

This morning, Trump told Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends that he was not worried about coming up with the money to pay the $454 million he owes in the New York fraud case, or the interest it is accruing at more than $100,000 a day. “I have a lot of money. I can do what I want to do,” Trump said. “I don't worry about anything. I don't worry about the money. I don't worry about money.”

Yesterday, Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, admitted he lied under oath during his testimony in that case. He will be sentenced in April. 

Super Tuesday is also the day that the 2024 presidential campaign begins in earnest for those who had not previously been paying much attention, and Taylor Swift today urged her 282 million followers on Instagram “to vote the people who most represent YOU into power. If you haven't already, make a plan to vote today,” she wrote.

The presidential contest is only one of the many contests on the ballot today, but most of those results are not yet in. 

Although the Arizona primary will not be held until March 19, we did learn today that Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) will not run for reelection. Her exit will leave the Arizona senator’s race to election-denying Trump Republican Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governorship in 2022 (although she continues to insist she won it), and Arizona Democratic representative Ruben Gallego. 

Just as voters don’t appear to know much about what the administration has done to make their lives better, a recent study from a Democratic pollster suggests that voters don’t seem to know much about Trump’s statements attacking democracy. When informed of them, their opinion of Trump falls.

Trump has called for mass deportations of immigrants and foreign-born U.S. citizens; on February 29, he said he would use local police as well as federal troops to round people up and move them to camps for deportation. Asked yesterday by a Newsmax host if he would “order mass deportations if you win the White House,” Trump answered: “Oh, day one. We have no choice. And we’ll start with the bad ones. And you know who knows who they are? Local police. Local police have to be given back their authority, and they have to be given back their respect and immunity.” 

On the one hand, caps to credit card late fees and an attempt to address price gouging; on the other hand, local police with immunity rounding up millions of people and putting them in camps, for deportation. And, in between the two, an election. 

People had better start paying attention. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #deportations #TFG #election 2024 #economy #Bill Bramhall

[graysongoal]

The seeds of the NYPD’s 30 April raid on Columbia University were planted nearly six months ago. On 24 October, Columbia’s senior administration unilaterally created an illegitimate university event policy in the aftermath of peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrations, granting them the power to regulate protests and “‘sole discretion’ to determine sanctions on student organizations and their members”. Thus, senior administration circumvented process and procedure and undermined shared governance, rather than adhere to the rules of university conduct, adopted by our university senate and set out in the university statutes.

...

But instead of engaging with these protesters or charging them with rules of university conduct violations, the administration chose to call the NYPD on to campus – leading to the arrests of 108 student protesters and the unsanctioned arrests of two legal observers on 18 April 2024. This action marked a gross escalation in the administration’s negligence of shared governance: ignoring a unanimous veto by the university senate executive committee, who are required to be consulted before police enter university grounds. This neglectful decision was met with harsh rebuke from much of Columbia and mischaracterized our community as violent extremists. Rather than quell the protest, tensions inflamed and a second encampment, even larger than the first, was erected within hours.

#free palestine #palestine #columbia university

[zvaigzdelasas]

Under intense grilling today by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a mid-level Biden-Harris administration aide repeatedly dodged direct questions about the State Department’s failure to break Azerbaijan’s genocidal blockade of Artsakh – even refusing, on national security grounds, to answer Chairman Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) straightforward query about Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s motives for starving 120,000 indigenous Christian Armenians, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). Thursday’s hearing, titled “Assessing the Crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh,” was chaired by Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) and featured testimony by Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia Yuri Kim. The chair led members of the committee in direct, often confrontational questioning of the State Department refusal to hold Azerbaijan accountable or to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid to Artsakh.[...]

when asked by Senator Menendez “why the United States is not or cannot do more to get humanitarian assistance [to Artsakh],” the Acting Assistant Secretary of State pointed to the passage of a single Russian Red Cross truck through the secondary Aghdam road to Artsakh, noting “that traffic is now flowing,” though she agreed with Senate leaders, “it is not enough.” When asked by Senator Menendez, “Why do you think, despite its signed commitments and a ruling by the International Court of Justice to open the Lachin Corridor, that Aliyev is not opening the corridor?”, Acting Assistant Secretary Kim refused to answer publicly, inferring the matter is classified.[...]

Chairman Menendez was joined by Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in pressing the State Department to enforce Section 907 restrictions on U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) “I have repeatedly expressed my deep opposition to waiving Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, allowing the United States to send assistance to his regime. This clearly alters the balance of military power between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Aliyev’s favor. I think Azerbaijan’s actions over the past three years have vindicated my skepticism,” stated Chairman Menendez. “When you routinely give the waiver under Section 907, saying that Azerbaijan has demonstrated steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia when that’s just not the case,” stated Sen. Cardin, “we lose credibility when that happens, when we aren’t prepared to take decisive steps based upon our values.”[...]

Acting Assistant Secretary Kim defended previous waivers of Section 907, noting that assistance has been used for counter-terrorism and other purposes. She confirmed that President Biden’s 2022 waiver had expired in June. “We have not submitted a new waiver request yet because we are reviewing the situation very carefully,” stated Acting Assistant Secretary Kim.

17 Sep 23

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Joe Biden will sign legislation protecting access to abortion care into law if Democrats win control of Congress in midterm elections this fall.

In remarks to a Democratic National Committee event on 18 October, the President announced plans to sign a bill to codify Roe v. Wade protections on the 50th anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision – what he intends to be his first act of 2023.

In June, the nation’s high court struck down precedents established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion care.

Following the latest ruling, more than a dozen states have outlawed most abortions or severely restricted access to care, leading to the closures of dozens of clinics. Patients and providers across the US have warned of devastating consequences to losing access to legal abortion, while Democratic officials have made abortion rights central to their midterm campaigns as Republicans mull national abortion restrictions.

“If Republicans get their way with a national ban, it won’t matter where you live in America,” Mr. Biden said on Tuesday. “The only sure way to stop these extremist laws that have put in jeopardy women’s health and rights is for Congress to pass a law.”

Democrats would need to pick up several seats in the currently evenly split US Senate for abortion protections to prevail.

Mr. Biden also said he will veto any anti-abortion legislation passed by a Republican-controlled Congress.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act earlier this year, though Senate Republicans have repeatedly obstructed its introduction in that chamber. That bill would codify the right to abortion care as affirmed by Roe v. Wade.

House Democrats were only joined by three Republicans to pass the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act, which would protect the right of abortion patients who live in states that have outlawed or severely restricted care to travel to other states without risking prosecution or legal action in their home states.

The bill also would protect providers and others who help patients travelling out of state for their care.

Legislation would also shield interstate shipments of US Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs used for medication abortion, the most common form of abortion care, accounting for more than half of all abortions in the US.

In a briefing with reporters on Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Republican-led abortion restrictions “disturbing” and “very dangerous.”

“It’s backwards, again, it’s dangerous and it’s severe, in stark contrast to the President and the commitment that he has to leave these decisions between a woman and her doctor,” she said.

This fall, voters in several states will determine whether their state constitutions include explicit protections for abortion care, while elections for control of state legislatures, governors’ offices and secretaries of state will also determine the fates of abortion access across the US.

In his remarks on Tuesday, President Biden pointed to Kansas voters shooting down a recent anti-abortion ballot measure in that state, signalling the electoral consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision in midterm elections.

“One of the most extraordinary parts of [the Dobbs decision] was when the majority wrote, ‘women are not without electoral or political power.’ Let me tell you something – the Court and extreme Republicans who have spent decades trying to overturn Roe are about to find out,” he said.

#us politics #news #the independent #2022 #president joe biden #biden administration #Democrats #codify roe #roe v. wade #abortions #reproductive rights #reproductive health #abortion is a right #planned parenthood v. casey #Women’s Health Protection Act #Ensuring Access to Abortion Act #food and drug administration #Karine Jean-Pierre #us supreme court #scotus #2022 elections #2022 midterms

[batboyblog]

dispatches from Republican America, Jan 24 2024

Texas:

“Texas saw an estimated 26,313 rape-related pregnancies during the 16 months after the state outlawed all abortions, with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association,”

“The authors noted that while some pregnant rape survivors who need abortion care may be able to travel out of state or manage the pregnancy at home with abortion pills, the bans leave many survivors without a viable alternative.”

Oklahoma:

On Tuesday, Oklahoma's superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters, announced he was appointing right-wing social media influencer Chaya Raichik — best known for her controversial Libs of TikTok social media accounts — to an advisory role on the state's Library Media Advisory Committee. That will allow her to help determine which books are appropriate for Oklahoma school libraries.

Raichik's social media accounts are known for targeting liberals, LGBTQ people and teachers. Often, she uses incendiary claims and conspiracy theories to suggest without evidence that members of these groups engage in the indoctrination or sexual exploitation of children. And both Raichik and Walters have been accused of stoking bomb threats toward people and places featured in Raichik's videos: Walters has faced calls to resign over claims that he helped incite bomb threats toward a librarian when he reshared an edited Libs of TikTok video. That video also led to bomb threats against his home; Walters called such threats "reprehensible and unacceptable," according to KOCO News, and said they were being investigated. Raichik, meanwhile, has been accused of inciting threats against hospitals and schools.

Ohio:

Ohio has banned gender-affirming care for minors and restricted transgender women’s and girls’ participation on sports teams, a move that has families of transgender children scrambling over how best to care for them.

The Republican-dominated Senate voted Wednesday to override GOP Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto. The new law bans gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapies, and restricts mental health care for transgender individuals under 18. The measure also bans transgender girls and women from girls and women’s sports teams at both the K-12 and collegiate level.

Officials expect the law to take effect in roughly 90 days. 

Texas (again):

Texas is apparently taking advantage of a loophole in a recent Supreme Court ruling involving the US-Mexico border in order to keep putting up more razor-wire fencing along the Rio Grande riverbank.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 Monday ruling delivered a huge win to the Biden administration in its ongoing legal battle with Texas over the southern border by allowing federal border agents to cut or move barbed wire fencing the Republican-controlled state installed at the border.

The ruling does not call for Texas to take any action in the matter — and the state's Republican governor, Greg Abbott, suggested in a post to X on Wednesday that Texas will keep putting up the fencing, even if federal border agents take it down.

"Texas' razor wire is an effective deterrent against the illegal border crossings encouraged by [President Joe] Biden's open border policies," Abbott said. "We continue to deploy this razor wire to repel illegal immigration."

#Politics #us politics #republicans #rape #transphobia #trans ban #abortion #immigration #Texas #libs of tiktok

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Outcry as Brazil congress moves to gut environment and Indigenous ministries

Plan to drastically dilute bodies’ powers would deal severe blow to Lula’s attempt to reverse Bolsonaro’s era of Amazon devastation

Brazilian activists have voiced outrage after congress moved to drastically dilute the powers of the environment and Indigenous peoples ministries in what campaigners called a potentially crippling blow to efforts to protect Indigenous communities and the Amazon.

Hopes that Brazil could turn the page on Jair Bolsonaro’s era of Amazon devastation were sky-high after the far-right leader lost last year’s presidential election to the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. During his campaign Lula vowed to stamp out environmental crime and champion Indigenous people, and after taking power in January put the veteran environmentalist Marina Silva in charge of environmental affairs and made the Indigenous activist Sônia Guajajara head of a new ministry for Indigenous peoples.

But that optimism received a dramatic reality check on Wednesday as members of the conservative-dominated congress – where the the ruralista caucus representing agribusiness interests remains a powerful force – moved to severely weaken both ministries.

By 15 votes to 3, a congressional committee approved draft legislation that would strip the environment ministry of control of the rural environmental registry, a key tool in the fight against illegal deforestation and land-grabbing, and water resources. The rule change would also strip the ministry for Indigenous peoples of responsibility for delimiting Indigenous territories, handing those powers to the justice ministry.

Silva and Guajajara both denounced the moves, amid anger and alarm that members of Lula’s administration had not done more to oppose the changes, which are likely to be voted on by the lower house and senate in the coming days.

Continue reading.

#brazil #politics #brazilian politics #environmental justice #indigenous rights #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt #environmentalism

[radiofreederry]

As part of the restructuring of the New Republic's governmental structure initiated by Chief of State Leia Organa Solo, the Cabinet was established as a successor to the Ruling Council, which itself had replaced Alliance High Command in the days of the Rebellion. While nominally a part of the executive branch and serving at the pleasure of the Chief of State, in practice all cabinet members are drawn from the Senate and from the governing coalition. The Cabinet members are as follows:

Prime Minister: Cal Omas (Reform) of New Alderaan. The Prime Minister is responsible for much of the day-to-day governance of the Republic and primarily oversees domestic affairs. Also serves as the President of the Senate and the primary liaison between the Chief of State and that body. The Prime Minister also serves as the head of the Cabinet in the absence of the Chief of State - most Cabinet meetings regarding domestic policy occur without the Chief of State's presence.

Minister of Defense: Hera Syndulla (PPP) of Ryloth. Effectively second-in-command of the military, as the Chief of State is Commander-in-Chief. Coordinates military procurement and logistics, negotiates contracts with arms suppliers, and oversees the conduct of active campaigns in the absence of the Chief of State. Syndulla ascended to the role after Gial Ackbar was demoted to Minister Without Portfolio as part of the fallout of Mon Mothma's ouster.

Minister of Commerce: Drextar Pym (Liberal) of Excarga. Engages with the galactic business community and develops private-public partnerships, negotiating government contracts in various aspects of life while encouraging economic stimulation and growth.

Minister of Justice: Darial Anglethorn (PPP) of Beheboth. The liaison of the executive branch to the judicial branch. Coordinates government's counsel in pursuing legal cases of interest to the state. In extreme cases may argue for the government at the Supreme Court.

Minister of Foreign Relations: Elegos A'Kla (PPP) of Caamas. Coordinates the Republic Diplomatic Corps. Pursues cordial relations with affiliated states and friendly non-affiliate galactic factions, and negotiates treaties and armistices with hostile foreign powers. Also serves as the New Republic's official liaison with the New Jedi Order.

Minister of Security and Intelligence: Kerrithrarr (PPP) of Kashyyyk. Coordinates the New Republic's internal security forces and its intelligence community. Also serves as the chair of the Senate Committee on Intelligence.

Minister of Science and Technology: Rees Vera (Liberal) of Mikkia. Coordinates and engages with the New Republic's R&D apparatus to develop technologies with both military and civilian applications.

Minister of the Interior: Lassten Stonk (Liberal) of Ithor. Oversees state-controlled assets and natural resources as well as the budding Galactic Parks System, of which the Bail Organa Memoiral Garden was the first.

Minister of Labor: Garm Bel Iblis (PUP) of Corellia. The government's liaison with the labor movement and the unions. Oversees the Labor Relations Tribunal.

Minister of Health: Doman Beruss (PPP) of Illodia. Oversees the state-run healthcare being established under the Organa Solo administration, and also coordinates with healthcare companies for government contracts, including supplies of bacta and kolto.

Minister of Exchequer: Ponc Gavrisom (PPP) of Calibop. Oversees the Republic treasury and drafts the Chief of State's official budget proposals.

Minister of Education: Lanever Villecham (Liberal) of Tarsunt. Oversees the state's education system and establishes educational standards and essential curricula.

Minister of Transportation: Kordi Freemaker (PUP) of Nubia. Oversees galactic infrastructure, including hyperlane maintenance, and works to improve the Republic's growing public transportation systems.

Minister of Energy and Fuel: Jar Jar Binks (Liberal) of Naboo. Coordinates procurement of energy and fuel from private entities. Works closely with the Minister of the Interior in developing the Republic's public energy reserves.

Minister of Veterans Affairs: Jan Dodonna (PPP) of Commenor. Oversees pensions and services for veterans of the Galactic Civil War as well as the remaining clones of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Minister of Communications and Culture: Grelka Sorka (PPP) of Askaj. Oversees the infrastructure of the HoloNet, and promotes art and culture, especially such as is reparative to the many years of COMPNOR propaganda foisted upon the galaxy.

Minister of Food and Agriculture: Melana Koba (PUP) of Dowut. Coordinates with farmers, ranchers, and factory operators to regulate and secure the galactic food supply, as well as invest in advancements in agtech.

Minister of Housing and Development: Sala Mogag (PPP) of Duro. Coordinates public housing projects and regulates rents and mortgages across the Republic. Also invests in urban renewal projects on blighted worlds such as Taris.

Minister of Equalities: Boona Kalan (Federalist) of Taris. Oversees equalities and civil rights, as well as undoing the bigoted policies instituted by the Empire.

Minister Without Portfolio: Gial Ackbar (PPP) of Dac. Has no official office or purview since his demotion, but acts as an advisor to the Chief of State, particularly on military matters.

#Star Wars #worldbuilding #bill and I are a really good duo for this stuff

[odinsblog]

In interviews during his first decades in the Senate, Mr. Biden said he supported the right to an abortion but opposed federal funding to pay for it. That position was shared by Mr. Gore and other Democrats who wanted to support abortion rights but were uncomfortable making taxpayers who were anti-abortion pay for it.

As Mr. Biden put it in 1986, “If it’s not government’s business, then you have to accept the whole of that concept, which means you don’t proscribe your right to have an abortion and you don’t take your money to assist someone else to have an abortion.”

In the 1980s, he repeatedly voted against funding abortions as part of the health care plan provided to federal employees and in federal prisons, except in cases where it was medically necessarily for the mother.

In 1981, he crafted the Biden amendment to ban the use of foreign aid for biomedical research related to abortion. He repeatedly voted for the so-called Hyde amendment prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortion, including through Medicaid. Both policies remain in place today, despite efforts by Democrats to end the ban on the use of federal funds.

In 1984, Mr. Biden supported an amendment praising the Reagan administration’s “Mexico City policy,” which banned federal funding for organizations around the world that provide abortion counseling or referrals. In 2005, he voted against it, supporting an amendment that would have nullified President George W. Bush’s reinstatement of the policy.

A voter guide put out in 1987 by two abortion rights groups described Mr. Biden as having an “erratic” record on reproductive rights, writing that he had a “mixed voting and rhetorical record on the issue of whether women should have the right to choose an abortion.”

“Joe Biden moans a lot and then usually votes against us,” Jeannie Rosoff, a founder of the abortion rights research organization Guttmacher Institute, told The Wall Street Journal as Mr. Biden weighed whether to enter the 1988 presidential race. “It’s very difficult to know whether this issue is purely personal, purely political or a combination of both with him.”

At the time, opponents of abortion rights say they saw him much the same way as liberals: “Unreliable,” said Marilyn Musgrave, a former Republican congresswoman from Colorado and current vice president of government affairs for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group.

“I don’t believe he’s made a public statement recently about funding, so I don’t know where he really stands on that now,” said Ms. Musgrave. “Perhaps he evolved on that also.”

As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987, Mr. Biden drew praise from supporters of abortion rights for sharply questioning Judge Bork about his opposition to a ruling that struck down birth control bans. In Congress, Mr. Biden repeatedly voted to give access to abortion services for members of the military, and in 1994 he voted to establish fines and penalties for barring access to abortion clinics. In interviews and congressional votes, he defended the Roe ruling.

But at other times, he sided with Republicans and conservative Democrats who were trying to limit abortion access.

When Republicans began introducing legislation in the 1990s that would outlaw a rare abortion procedure they termed “partial-birth abortion,” Mr. Biden emerged as a reliable ally. He voted for the ban, and then against efforts by President Clinton to veto the legislation in 1996 and 1998.

— When Joe Biden Voted to Let States Overturn Roe v. Wade

#politics #joe biden #hyde amendment #abortion #roe v wade #reproductive rights #reproductive justice #scotus #womens health #womens rights #religious reich

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

April 16, 2024

"Make no mistake," said one expert, "the day will come when there is a president in the White House who will not hesitate to make full use of the Orwellian power this bill provides."

With the U.S. Senate poised to vote later this week on legislation to reauthorize a heavily abused warrantless surveillance authority, privacy advocates are ramping up pressure on lawmakers to remove a provision that would force a wide range of businesses and individuals to take part in government spying operations.

Dubbed the "Make Everyone a Spy" provision by one advocacy group, the language was tucked into a House-passed bill that would extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country without a warrant. Americans' communications have frequently been collected under the spying authority.

The provision that has sparked grave warnings from privacy advocates was spearheaded by the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), and the panel's ranking member, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.).

While supporters of the provision, including the Biden White House, claim the proposed change to existing law is narrow, civil liberties defenders say it's anything but.

Currently, U.S. agencies can use Section 702 authority to collect the data of non-citizens abroad from electronic communications service providers such as Google, Verizon, and AT&T without a warrant.

The Turner-Himes amendment would significantly expand who could be ordered to cooperate with government surveillance efforts, broadening Section 702 language to encompass "any other service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used" to transmit or store electronic communications.

That change, privacy advocates say, would mean grocery stores, laundromats, gyms, barber shops, and other businesses would potentially be conscripted to serve as government spies.

"The Make Everyone a Spy provision is recklessly broad and a threat to democracy itself," Sean Vitka, policy director of Demand Progress, said in a statement Tuesday. "It is simply stunning that the administration and House Intelligence Committee do not have a single answer for how frighteningly broad this provision is."

"You can't create a surveillance state and just hope the government won't take advantage."

The New York Timesexplained Tuesday that after the FISA Court "approves the government's annual requests seeking to renew the program and setting rules for it, the administration sends directives to 'electronic communications service providers' that require them to participate."

In 2022, the Times noted, the FISA Court "sided with an unidentified company that had objected to being compelled to participate in the program because it believed one of its services did not fit the necessary criteria." Unnamed people familiar with the matter told the newspaper that "the judges found that a data center service does not fit the legal definition of an 'electronic communications service provider'"—prompting the bipartisan effort to expand the reach of Section 702.

"While the Department of Justice wants us to believe that this is simply about addressing data centers, that is no justification for exposing cleaning crews, security guards, and untold scores of other Americans to secret Section 702 directives, which are issued without any court review," Vitka said Tuesday. "Receiving one can be a life-changing event, and Jim Himes appears not to have any sense of that. The Senate must stop this provision from advancing."

Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote on social media Tuesday that "it's critical to stop this bill."

"The administration claims it has no intent to use this provision so broadly—and who knows, maybe it doesn't. But the plain language of the bill allows involuntary conscription of much of the private sector for [National Security Agency] surveillance purposes," Goitein wrote. "Make no mistake, the day will come when there is a president in the White House who will not hesitate to make full use of the Orwellian power this bill provides. You can't create a surveillance state and just hope the government won't take advantage."

With Section 702 set to expire Friday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a floor speech Tuesday that he has placed the House-passed FISA legislation on the chamber's calendar and will soon "file cloture on the motion to proceed" to the bill, which is titled the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA).

"We don't have much time to act," said Schumer. "Democrats and Republicans are going to have to work together to meet the April 19th deadline. If we don't cooperate, FISA will expire, so we must be ready to cooperate."

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and outspoken privacy advocate, has called RISAA's proposed expansion of government surveillance "terrifying" and warned it would "force any American who installs, maintains, or repairs anything that transmits or stores communications to spy on the government's behalf."

According to the Times, Wyden's office has in recent days been circulating "a warning that the provision could be used to conscript someone with access to a journalist's laptop to extract communications between that journalist and a hypothetical foreign source who was targeted for intelligence."

In a social media post on Tuesday, Wyden echoed campaigners in urging people to contact their senators.

"Congress wants to make it easier for the government to spy on you without a warrant," Wyden wrote. "Scared? Me too. Call your senator at [phone] before April 19 and tell them to vote NO on expanding warrantless government surveillance under FISA."

#privacy #government surveillance #ron wyden

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dave Whammond

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 23, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 24, 2024

In the past two days, the Biden-Harris administration has announced a wide range of new rules to protect ordinary Americans. 

Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the administration has finalized two new rules affecting patients in nursing homes and receiving home care, as well as the workers who care for them. The first sets minimum staffing requirements for facilities funded by Medicare and Medicaid, and the second concerns how home healthcare companies account for Medicaid funding. 

In a speech at the Hmong Cultural and Community Agency in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Harris noted the extraordinary value of healthcare workers. She also explained that about 1.2 million Americans live in federally funded nursing homes, which make up about four fifths of the nursing homes in the country. But the majority of those homes—about 75% of them—are understaffed. This is dangerous and isolating for patients and demoralizing for workers, who have high rates of burnout and turnover.  

Now, nursing homes that receive federal funding will have to provide at least 3.48 hours of nursing care per resident every day, less than the 4.1 hours the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services advocate but enough to require the hiring of about 12,000 registered nurses and 77,000 aides, at an annual cost of almost $7 billion. 

Consumer organizations and labor unions pushed for the new rule, but nursing home operators strongly oppose the new mandate, saying it will force facilities to close because of a shortage of nurses. In response, Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra told Tami Luhby of CNN that no one should live in facilities that are unsafe or should receive inferior care. Luhby noted that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in September launched a $75 million campaign to increase the number of nurses in nursing homes.

The second rule the vice president announced had to do with home health aides. Medicaid currently pays about $125 billion a year to home healthcare companies, which employ hundreds of thousands of workers providing services for elderly and disabled Americans. These companies have never been required to report how that money was being spent. Now they will be required to spend 80% of the federal dollars they receive on workers’ salaries rather than administrative overhead.

Also yesterday, the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a final rule that strengthens the HIPAA medical privacy rule for people from states that ban abortions who seek reproductive health care in states that permit them. In response to threats by Republican state officials to charge women who cross state lines to obtain abortion, contraception, or fertility treatments, the new rule prohibits health care providers, health plans, and other entities from disclosing patients’ reproductive health care records to state officials when they are being sought to investigate or charge patients, doctors, or others.  

Today, the Labor Department announced a new rule that would guarantee that salaried workers who make less than $59,000 a year are compensated fairly for overtime work. The Trump administration set the salary threshold for those who did not have overtime protections at $35,568. As of July 1, 2024, the threshold will be $43,888, and on January 1, 2025, it will rise to $58,656. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said the change could affect 4 million workers.

“Too often, lower-paid salaried workers are doing the same job as their hourly counterparts but are spending more time away from their families for no additional pay,” acting secretary of the Department of Labor Julie Su said. “That is unacceptable. The Biden-Harris administration is following through on our promise to raise the bar for workers who help lay the foundation for our economic prosperity.”

Also today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3–2 along party lines to ban the noncompete agreements that prevent workers from minimum-wage earners to top executives from changing jobs within the industry in which they work; senior executives can still be bound by such agreements. Initially used to protect trade secrets, noncompete clauses have expanded to cover what the FTC estimates to be 30 million people—one in five U.S. workers. They take away workers’ ability to improve their wages and conditions by quitting their jobs and moving to another company or starting their own. The FTC estimates that the end of such clauses could add almost $300 billion a year to workers’ wages. 

“Robbing people of their economic liberty also robs them of all sorts of other freedoms,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said. Neil Bradley, head of strategic advocacy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, countered: “If they can issue regulations with respect to unfair methods of competition, then there’s really no aspect of the U.S. economy they couldn’t regulate.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to sue over the rule. 

A CBS News/YouGov poll released Monday found that, although Biden and Harris have made addressing climate change a centerpiece of their administration, only 10% of the people who say they think climate change is a very important issue had heard or read a lot about what the administration has accomplished, and 49% said they had read not much or nothing about it. When told some of the things the administration has done, a strong majority of those who care about addressing climate change support those policies. 

“Even people who feel the administration has done too little on climate change support these policies,” reporters for CBS News note. They conclude that the disconnect “may be more about Mr. Biden needing to get his message out there than having to convince this ‘climate constituency’—those who call the climate issue very important—of the substance of his policies.” 

Meanwhile, today is the fourth anniversary of the press conference in which former president Donald Trump suggested injecting disinfectant to get rid of Covid, prompting the maker of Lysol to warn people not to use their disinfectant cleaning products internally. Four years later, Trump spent the day in a Manhattan courtroom, where his former friend David Pecker, who ran the company that published the National Enquirer tabloid magazine, testified for the prosecution. 

Legal analyst Lisa Rubin summarized Pecker’s testimony, noting that the big takeaways were that Trump and Pecker were transactional friends for decades and that “the agreement they struck in 2015 went way beyond the ‘catch and kill’ aspect of the scheme that has been known for years.” Together, they not only killed stories damaging to Trump, but also pushed fake stories about Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, who were running against him for the 2016 Republican nomination, as well as Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

As the trial grabs headlines, Trump’s power seems to be diminishing. He is demonstrably not in power in the courtroom, where he must do as the judge tells him and reporters say he has often fallen asleep, and none of his family members have shown up to support him.

Trump seems aware that his power is waning. Early yesterday, he called for supporters to “RALLY BEHIND MAGA,” but only a handful of people gathered outside the courthouse. Today he claimed that the turnout was low because police had “completely CLOSED DOWN” the streets around the courthouse. That was a lie: the streets, the sidewalk, even the courthouse have remained open to the public. 

Pennsylvania’s primary election today revealed Trump’s real electoral weakness. He won about 83.5% of the Republican votes, but Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race in early March and has not campaigned since, won 16.5%. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, the so-called “collar counties,” Haley won closer to 25% of the Republican vote. 

Biden, meanwhile, took the fight against MAGA Republicans to Trump’s home state of Florida. There, an extreme abortion ban signed into law by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis will take effect on May 1, but in November, Florida voters will have the option to add protections for abortion before fetal viability to the state constitution, returning the state to the standards it had before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That measure is expected to energize Democrats in the state.

And then, tonight, by a vote of 79–18, the Senate passed the $95 billion national security supplemental bill that provides funding, mostly for military supplies, to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific and humanitarian aid for war-torn countries; requires the sale of TikTok; and permits confiscating Russian assets. MAGA Republicans are still adamantly opposed to aid for Ukraine, but a strong bipartisan majority has finally gotten the chance to weigh in.

As soon as the measure passed, Biden issued a statement, saying: “Tonight, a bipartisan majority in the Senate joined the House to answer history’s call at this critical inflection point. Congress has passed my legislation to strengthen our national security and send a message to the world about the power of American leadership: we stand resolutely for democracy and freedom, and against tyranny and oppression.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Funding for national security #war in Ukraine #humanitarian aid #MAGA Republicans #women #abortion #reproductive rights #for the people #economic prosperity

[william-r-melich]

Trump Gagged? No Way! - 04/03/2024

The New York supreme court judge Juan Merchan in Trump's "hush money" case has expanded on his earlier gag order which tried to restrict what Trump could publicly say about the case. The order came late yesterday which gags the former president from speaking in public about Manhattan D.A. Alvin Brag's family members and all others named including jurors, potential jurors, counsel, court staff, witnesses, and their families. The judge wrote, “This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose, it merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game,’ for Defendant’s vitriol.” He further wrote that courts are "understandably concerned" on restricting defendants' free speech, especially for those who are publicly notable. He further wrote, “The circumstances of the instant matter, however, are different. The conventional ‘David vs. Goliath’ roles are no longer in play as demonstrated by the singular power defendant’s words have on countless others.” In his ruling arguments he cited from the prosecution, “multiple potential witnesses have already raised grave concerns [...] about their own safety and that of their family members should they appear as witnesses against the defendant.” On those fears he wrote that they would "undoubtedly interfere" with the proceedings, and he continued. “The average observer, must now, after hearing defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well.” State prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote, “Defendant’s dangerous, violent, and reprehensible rhetoric fundamentally threatens the integrity of these proceedings and is intended to intimidate witnesses and trial participants alike—including this Court.” The state attorney's office was referencing Trump's remarks about the judge's daughter.

This judge, Juan Merchan, is compromised with a serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and Trump's lawyers think he should recuse himself from the case because his daughter, Loren Merchan who owns a Democrat political consulting firm, heavily profited from her fundraisers dedicated to hurt and remove Trump from the political scene. The judge's wife, Lara Merchan, used to work for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for a victimless crime of "over valuating" his property to get a more favorable loan, and to which he paid back fully with interest that made Duetsche Bank (no complaints) a lot of money. Another ridiculous, unconstitutionally brought case, which, like all the others, is nothing more than political persecution. Judge Juan Merchan's profile picture on X was of Donald Trump behind bars. I think it's fair to say that this judge is compromised, or as Trump would say, "by a lot!"

Of course, the mainstream media's talking point's echoe-chamber put out that Trump made threatening remarks about the judge's daughter, when in fact he did no such thing. One of his Truth Social posts reads, “Judge Juan Merchan, a very distinguished looking man, is nevertheless a true and certified Trump Hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. In other words, he hates me! His daughter is a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm that works for Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, the Democrat National Committee, Senate Majority PAC, and even Crooked Joe Biden.”

As I have said before, I think all of these cases against Trump should be dismissed and thrown out, as they are obviously political witch hunts directed by Biden's crooked administration and their weaponized justice department. So, Trump appropriately calls them the "Biden trials." The left thinks they can stop him from coming back to DC, and this judge thinks he can silence him, to keep him from pointing out all of the obvious corruption in that's clearly in plain sight for anyone with a functioning brain to see; --No Way! No Way! - will they ever silence or stop him, and No Way! - will they ever silence or stop us, we the people. Trump is right when he declares these trials as being "election interference," and that they should never, ever take place in the United States of America: abso-futting-lutely; -- No Way!

#donald trump #former president #trump #biden administration #crooked joe biden #juan merchan #new york #supreme court #weaponized justice department #democrat national committee #dc #judge #trump derangement syndrome #no way #corruption #political #witch hunt #election interference #biden trials #united states #america #adam schiff #shifty schiff #matthew colangelo #state prosecutor #trump trials #senate majority pac #super liberal democrat firm #political consultant #firm