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  • Texas Republicans pass bills targeting elections administration in Houston-area county | CNN Politics

    Texas Republicans pass bills targeting elections administration in Houston-area county | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Texas Republicans have approved a pair of bills targeting the elections process in Harris County, the state’s largest and home to Houston, with voting rights activists accusing the GOP of plotting a “power grab” in an increasingly Democratic county.

    The measures, which passed the Republican-controlled state House and Senate, now head to the desk of GOP Gov. Greg Abbott.

    On Sunday, lawmakers passed legislation known as SB 1933 that would authorize the office of the Texas secretary of state – an Abbott appointee – to “order administrative oversight” of a county elections office if, for instance, a complaint is filed or there’s cause to believe there’s a recurring pattern of problems involving election administration or voter registration. The measure would affect any county that has a population of more than 4 million people – Harris County is the only county in the state that meets that criterion.

    Last week, the state House passed a measure along party lines that would eliminate the position of elections administrator in a county with a population of more than 3.5 million people – which, again, would only apply to Harris County. Under that bill, known as SB 1750, the elections administrator’s duties would be transferred to the county tax assessor-collector and county clerk. The Harris County elections administrator, a position created in 2020, is appointed by the county’s election commission, which is Democratic-controlled. The county’s tax assessor-collector and clerk are both Democrats. The measure had passed the state Senate earlier this month. If signed, the law would go into effect on September 1.

    Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, a Democrat, said last week that the county would sue the state over the two bills, which he called “clearly unconstitutional.”

    “(Our) state’s constitution bars lawmakers from passing laws that target one specific city or county, putting their personal vendettas over what’s best for Texans,” Menefee said in a statement.

    While Republicans have long had a stronghold on Texas, Harris County has leaned more Democratic in recent years. President Joe Biden won the county by double digits in 2020. And Democrat Beto O’Rourke won the county in November’s governor’s race, while losing statewide by double digits to Abbott.

    Harris County experienced election problems last year that caused the county’s former elections administrator, Isabel Longoria, to resign amid a mail-in ballot counting discrepancy during the March primary. The problems included damaged ballots that delayed the reporting of results and a vote discrepancy that left thousands of ballots out of the unofficial primary results. The county also experienced issues during the general election, paper ballot shortages, machine malfunctions and delays in opening polling places.

    “Voters should have confidence in their elections, and when they see Harris County Elections Administrators botch election after election in 2022 that confidence is shaken,” Houston-area state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who authored both bills, said last month.

    Bettencourt has defended his legislation, saying in a statement that SB 1933 would “ensure the failures, or the fiasco of the general election never occurs again with the Texas Secretary of State oversight of the election process, if necessary.”

    But James Slattery, an attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy group, said the bills would “open the door for the Governor and his allies to manipulate elections in the nation’s third largest county for their own partisan gain.”

    “It is the latest power grab by state officials in a Session dominated by efforts to centralize power and gut the right of local communities to govern themselves,” he said in a statement.

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  • Biden addresses nation after avoiding catastrophic default: ‘The stakes could not have been higher’ | CNN Politics

    Biden addresses nation after avoiding catastrophic default: ‘The stakes could not have been higher’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden declared bipartisanship alive and well during his first ever Oval Office address on Friday, pointing to the compromise measure that raises the federal borrowing limit and avoids a catastrophic default as evidence his sometimes-mocked views of Washington are not a thing of the past.

    Addressing the nation from behind the Resolute Desk, Biden sought to harness the vintage presidential setting to make the case for a style of governing he insisted was not only still relevant but essential to avoiding disaster.

    Encouraging Americans to “treat each other with dignity and respect” and to “stop shouting,” he said the package he brokered with Republicans ensures economic progress going forward and amounts to a “crisis averted” – even though it sparked fury from some in his own party.

    And he vowed to continue working toward priorities that were left out – including raising taxes on the wealthy – in an implicit reelection message.

    “Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher,” he said.

    It’s been several years since Americans have witnessed the type of seated, direct-to-camera speech Biden delivered Friday. Past presidents have employed the Oval Office to deliver statements during moments of crisis, like after the terror attacks on 9/11 or when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.

    Biden was speaking not amid a crisis but having avoided one. Yet by evoking a style of speech used by presidents for decades, he seemed to also harken to an era of government that did not look down on attempts at compromise.

    “I know bipartisanship is hard and unity is hard, but we can never stop trying, because at moments like this one, the ones we just faced where the American economy and the world economy is at risk of collapsing, there is no other way,” he said in his speech.

    The decision to speak in the most formal of presidential settings came after weeks of fraught negotiations over the borrowing limit. The deal ultimately struck between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy raises the debt ceiling for two years, freezes domestic spending, imposes some new work requirements on food stamps and alters certain energy permitting rules.

    Biden had intentionally avoided declaring victory after brokering the agreement, partly in the hopes of securing the necessary Republican votes for the bill to pass.

    That tactic appeared to work; the measure cleared the House and Senate in bipartisan fashion. Biden said he planned to sign the bill Saturday and called the engagements with his Republican interlocutors “respectful.”

    He began his evening address by underscoring his efforts to work across the aisle to secure a positive outcome – an objective he noted had been met with intense skepticism.

    “When I ran for president, I was told that the days of bipartisanship is over and Democrats and Republicans could no longer work together. I refuse to believe that,” Biden said. “The only way American democracy can function is through compromise and consensus.”

    The president said neither Republicans nor Democrats “got everything they wanted but the American people got what they needed.”

    “We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse,” he said.

    The Treasury Department has said it will run out of cash to pay its bills in full and on time on Monday. Economists had warned of severe consequences of a national default.

    Despite the bill’s passage, the legislation known as the Bipartisan Budget Agreement had detractors on both the left and right. Many liberals and conservatives voted against it, and the most right-wing lawmakers have raised the prospect of trying to oust McCarthy from his leadership role for what they say were insufficient spending cuts.

    On the left, progressive Democrats balked at some of the new work requirements added to the bill, though an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed the measure would likely keep the number of Americans on food stamps at roughly the same levels. The bill lifted work requirements for veterans and those experiencing homelessness.

    Democratic critics have also voiced outrage at approval included in the bill of a natural gas pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia.

    Biden and his aides have argued they were successfully able to stave off the most extreme Republican positions to arrive at a bill that ultimately avoided economic disaster.

    Through it all, some Democrats have grumbled at the president’s approach to the situation. While Biden initially said he would not negotiate over raising the debt ceiling, demanding only a “clean increase,” he ultimately entered into talks with McCarthy that tied the borrowing limit to budget cuts.

    Others encouraged Biden to use the 14th Amendment, which states the US debt “shall not be questioned,” to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Biden said it was possible to explore that option in the future, but it was too risky to deploy with the imminent threat of default.

    “Nothing would have been more catastrophic” than a default, Biden said in his remarks.

    This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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  • Golf’s new Saudi deal presents questionable political, business and sporting realities | CNN Politics

    Golf’s new Saudi deal presents questionable political, business and sporting realities | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The PGA Tour once advertised its brightest stars with the catch phrase “These guys are good.” A better slogan might now be “These guys are even richer.”

    In a bombshell announcement so staggering that many golf fans thought it was fake at first, the venerable PGA Tour unveiled a partnership Tuesday with Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund, the financier of its sworn rival LIV Golf – a breakaway circuit that split the sport and seeded feuds among its top players.

    The deal means that the PGA Tour – built on the image of quintessentially American Arnold Palmer, who epitomized post World War II US values – will now rest atop a pile of money put up by the regime that the US blamed for the murdering and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, that was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001, attack, and that has frequently been condemned by Washington for infringing women’s rights.

    It is beyond doubt that the new reality of pro-golf will mean a better spectacle for fans since it will end the split between the two rival tours and will also fold in the DP World Tour (formerly known as the European tour) and mean the brightest stars will play one another more often.

    For many sports fans in the US and elsewhere, that’s just fine. They like to plop down on the couch and watch their favorite golfer on the back nine on Sunday or their Gulf-owned Premier League team on TV. Who can begrudge them one oasis free from bitter, tribal modern politics?

    And the deal is also undeniably a great piece of business, assuming PGA Tour players accept it. Global golfers stand to win a lot more money, various tours will be invigorated and Saudi Arabia’s government and its ruthless leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), get to be associated with one of the planet’s most prestigious year-round sporting properties. And all pending litigation between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour was also mutually ended under the new agreement.

    But for others, Tuesday’s peace deal on the links raises painful moral issues. It also exposes top PGA leaders – who had blasted golfers who defected to LIV – to accusations of hypocrisy and reflects the way modern professional sports are hostage to the highest bidders. This can only pose uncomfortable questions to fans whose values and history clash with those of distant and sometimes politically dicey entities who effectively own their teams and top stars.

    PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, for instance, had some explaining to do – not least to the tour’s players gathered at the Canadian Open this week after many tweeted that they had no advance notice of the deal. Monahan had played the 9/11 card last year at the same event, saying that two families that were close to him had lost loved ones in the worst terror attack on American soil, adding, “I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

    Now Monahan stands to be the effective supremo of global golf, save for the four majors – the sport’s most prestigious tournaments – aided by a gusher of Saudi cash.

    9/11 Families United effectively accused Monahan of using the tragedy as leverage in a business deal to reunite golf. He “co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sports washing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation,” the group said in a statement. “But now the PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation so that Americans and the world will forget how the Kingdom spent their billions of dollars before 9/11 to fund terrorism, spread their vitriolic hatred of Americans, and finance al Qaeda and the murder of our loved ones.”

    Monahan was asked about his reversal after what he said was a “heated” meeting with PGA Tour players on Tuesday.

    “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” he said. “Anytime I said anything, I said it with the information that I had at that moment, and I said it based on someone that’s trying to compete for the PGA TOUR and our players.”

    Major champions who jumped to the rival circuit last year like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Cam Smith might also now wonder whether their PGA tour brethren will face the same grilling over human rights that they had to endure at the time.

    One very famous golfer was delighted by the deal and seemed keen to claim some reflected credit – former President Donald Trump. The current front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination associated himself with LIV after the PGA Tour and other golf governing bodies distanced themselves from him over his radioactive political reputation. Trump has hosted several tournaments at his courses for LIV – a circuit that sits well with his record of refusing to sever links with the Saudis over the murder of Khashoggi in 2018, reasoning that the Saudis were great customers of the US.

    “A big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf. Congrats to all!!!” Trump wrote in block capital letters on his Truth Social platform.

    Some defenders of LIV golfers have pointed out that the players were only making a choice to prioritize personal interests over moral ones in partnering with the Saudis – a calculus that mirrored decades of US foreign policy. Indeed, President Joe Biden had called on the 2020 campaign trail for the kingdom to be treated as a “pariah” because of Khashoggi’s murder only to travel to the kingdom as president to fist-bump MBS when he needed a spike in oil price production to bring down American gas prices.

    On Tuesday, after the LIV/PGA partnership was announced, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat down for talks with the Crown Prince in Riyadh.

    The idea that politics and sport shouldn’t mix has always been quaint. The Olympics and the World Cup are two of the planet’s most political spectacles after all. And modern sport has long run on money as monster TV rights contracts translate into huge salaries for top soccer players, Formula One Drivers, NBA stars and the top names in other sports.

    But Tuesday’s LIV/PGA Tour agreement lays bare questions of morality so starkly precisely because of the way golf has sold itself. In a sport where players call penalties on themselves, and commentators idolize top players in whispered tones as paragons of gentlemanly conduct, patriotism and family values, the origin of the sport’s new financial lifeline is glaring.

    The PGA Tour and Saudi partnership may be the most prominent example yet of the phenomenon known as sports washing, whereby an authoritarian nation seeking to buff up its image – despite serious criticism over its political system and human rights performance – woos the world’s top sporting stars. China was accused of such an agenda with its 2008 and 2022 Summer and Winter Olympics, where attempts at political activism largely fizzled under its repressive rule. The Qatar World Cup last year was another example of a nation that used its financial muscle to present a new image to the world. Various controversies during the tournament over LGBTQ rights and the plight of workers who built the stadiums undercut global governing body FIFA’s pretensions to inclusion.

    The Saudis, Qataris and others are using their oil wealth to buy themselves a foothold among the world’s most powerful nations and to create tourism, entertainment and sporting legacies to sustain them when their reserves of carbon energy are depleted.

    This mirrors a global shift in power and especially financial muscle – from the capitals of Western Europe to new epicenters in the emerging economies of the Middle East, India and China. Soccer, like golf, is taking its share of the cash. Traditional working class football clubs knitted into their communities for decades in the UK, for example, now suddenly find themselves owned by foreign energy magnates. Premier League giant Manchester City was bought by a United Arab Emirates-led group. And Newcastle United is owned by a Saudi Arabia-led consortium, forcing fans to consider (or not) the ethical dimensions of their support for their hometown clubs. And global cricket has been transformed by the Indian Premier League, which pays lavish salaries in a shortened form of the game.

    One of the top names in soccer, Cristiano Ronaldo, is playing out the twilight of a glorious career spent at Europe’s top clubs in the up-and-coming Saudi league for a massive salary. And on Tuesday, Saudi team Al-Ittihad announced the signing of Real Madrid and French forward Karim Benzema, completing a sporting double whammy for the kingdom.

    There are as many sporting questions about the PGA Tour/LIV Golf partnership that remain unanswered. The partnership combines the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity. A spokesman for the PGA tour told CNN that the deal is not a merger.

    “After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” Monahan said, describing a “transformational partnership” that would “benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners and fans.”

    Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, told CNBC he expected the partnership to be finalized within weeks and revealed, in a stunning move, that he had told LIV figurehead and Hall of Famer Greg Norman about the deal only moments before going on air.

    LIV lured some of the PGA Tour’s top stars with massive signing bonuses and huge purses at substantially fewer events than the PGA tour, prompting the premier US circuit to unveil its own select “designated events” with upped prize money. The two sides were locked in bitter legal battles that have now been resolved.

    It remains unclear, however, what steps LIV stars will have to take to potentially be able to return to events like The Players Championship, currently hosted on the PGA tour from which they were banned.

    Then there is the question of how current PGA Tour members will respond.

    Former British Open Champion Collin Morikawa tweeted, “I love finding out morning news on Twitter.”

    The sudden announcement also did not specify what would happen to LIV tour events, which have struggled to draw a strong TV audience, beyond this season. Monahan’s announcement did hint that the new entity was committed to the new format of team events that has been introduced by LIV, to compliment golf’s traditional reliance on individual tournaments.

    The golfer with the widest smile on Tuesday was probably Mickelson. The three-time Masters champion took the most heat for deserting the PGA tour for a reported massive payday, and was one of the most outspoken supporters of LIV – a breakaway he argued was a way to revolutionize the structure of professional golf and to secure more rewards for players.

    Mickelson was also open about the reality of partnering with the Saudis, calling them “scary m*therf**kers to get involved with,” in an interview with golf journalist Alan Shipnuck that he later claimed was off the record. Shipnuck has written that he offered Mickelson no such agreement.

    On Tuesday, Mickelson simply tweeted: “Awesome day today,” with a smiley sunshine emoji.

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  • Meta lowers the minimum age for its Quest headsets from 13 to 10 | CNN Business

    Meta lowers the minimum age for its Quest headsets from 13 to 10 | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Facebook-parent Meta plans to lower the minimum age for its virtual reality headsets from 13 years old to 10 years old, despite pressure from lawmakers not to market its VR services to younger users.

    Parents will be able to set up accounts for children as young as 10 years old on Meta’s Quest 2 and Quest 3 headsets starting later this year, the company said in a blog post Friday.

    Preteens will be required to get a parent’s approval to set up an account and download apps onto the device, according to the company. Meta said it will also use children’s ages to “provide age-appropriate experiences” such as recommending suitable apps.

    “There’s a vast array of engaging and educational apps, games, and more across our platform, the majority of which are rated for ages 10 and up,” Meta said in the post.

    The company’s push to lower the minimum age comes as Meta and other social media companies face growing scrutiny over their impact on young users, including their potential to harm teens’ mental health or lead them down harmful content rabbit holes.

    Parents and lawmakers have also specifically raised alarms about the use of VR — and the future version of the internet Meta calls the “metaverse” — by teens and children.

    Earlier this year, two Democratic senators urged Meta to suspend a plan to offer Horizon Worlds, the company’s flagship VR app, to teens between the ages of 13 and 17, arguing the technology could harm young users’ physical and mental health. The lawmakers, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, called Meta’s plan “unacceptable” in light of the company’s “record of failure to protect children and teens,” in a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

    But in April, Meta forged ahead with its plan to allow teens as young as 13 in the United States and Canada to use Horizon Worlds, prompting additional outcry from lawmakers and civil society groups.

    Parents told CNN last year about instances of discovering their children were viewing violent and disturbing content in VR and struggling to come up with ways to keep their kids safe.

    Meta is attempting to address some of parents’ concerns.

    In its Friday blog post, Meta said parents will be able to set time limits and enforce breaks for their preteens on the headsets. The accounts of users under 13 will be set to private and have their active status hidden on apps by default unless parents choose to change those settings. Meta also makes it possible to cast content from its VR headsets to a TV or phone screen, so parents can watch what their kids are seeing.

    Meta said it will not serve ads to users in this age group, and that parents can choose whether their child’s data can be used to improve the company’s services. Meta added on Friday that Horizon Worlds will remain restricted to users 13 and older in the United States and Canada (and 18 and older in Europe) when it allows preteens to create parent-manged accounts on the headsets later this year.

    Meta’s headset and Horizon Worlds represent Zuckerberg’s vision for a next-generation internet, where users can interact with each other in virtual spaces resembling real life. The company has so far struggled to attract a mainstream audience for these products.

    Update: This story has been updated to reflect Meta’s plan to continue restricting Horizon Worlds to users 13 and older.

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  • Supreme Court limits federal prisoners’ ability to bring some post-conviction challenges | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court limits federal prisoners’ ability to bring some post-conviction challenges | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of a federal prisoner who argued he should be able to challenge his 27-year sentence for firearms possession based on changes in the law since his trial.

    The court’s decision will make it harder for federal prisoners to bring certain types of post-conviction challenges.

    Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the 6-3 opinion in the case. The three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.

    “Because of how Justice Thomas and the other conservative justices read the relevant statutes and the Constitution, there will now be a significant number of federal prisoners who are unable to bring potentially meritorious collateral challenges to their convictions and sentences once their direct appeal has ended,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

    Marcus Jones was convicted in 2000 of two counts as a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of making false statements to acquire a firearm. At trial, he said he knew he had previously been convicted of a felony, but he thought his record had been wiped clean. Nevertheless, the jury was not told that it had to find that Jones knew he was a convicted felon. Eventually, he was sentenced to 327 months for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and 60 months for making false statements.

    In 2002, he went back to court and filed what is called a 2255 motion meant to challenge his original conviction, but he lost.

    Seventeen years later, in a case called Rehaif v. United States, the Supreme Court narrowed the felon in possession statute. The court held that the government has to prove the defendant knew he was still a felon at the time of his new offense in order to convict him.

    Jones appealed in federal court hoping to wipe away his felon in possession of a firearm conviction. He cited the Rehaif decision in his petition, noting that the Supreme Court had changed the rules. Lower courts ruled against him.

    In Thursday’s opinion, the court ruled against him as well, holding that under 2255 there are limited conditions in which Congress has permitted federal prisoners to bring second or successive collateral attacks on their sentences.

    “The inability of a prisoner with a statutory claim to satisfy those conditions does not mean that he can bring his claim in a habeas petition under the savings clause,” Thomas wrote in his majority opinion.

    “It means he cannot bring it at all. Congress has chosen finality over error correction in his case,” he said.

    Sotomayor and Kagan, in a jointly written dissent, argued that the majority opinion “yields disturbing results.”

    A prisoner who is “actually innocent, imprisoned for conduct that Congress did not criminalize” is forever barred from raising that claim “merely because he previously sought postconviction relief,” they wrote.

    Jackson filed her own dissent. She said that because the Rehaif case “changed the scope of a criminal statute” it should apply “retroactively to individuals (like Jones) whose conviction had become final at the time it was issued.”

    She wrote that she was also “deeply troubled by the constitutional implications of the noting-to-see here approach that the majority takes with respect to the incarceration of potential legal innocents.”

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Ron DeSantis is campaigning on his record. Judges keep saying it’s unconstitutional | CNN Politics

    Ron DeSantis is campaigning on his record. Judges keep saying it’s unconstitutional | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Gov. Ron DeSantis has toured the country calling Florida the place “where woke goes to die.” But it’s still alive at the company Sara Margulis runs.

    At Honeyfund, a website for engaged couples to create gift registries that can pay for their honeymoons, Margulis’ Florida employees learn about privilege and institutional racism. Margulis, the CEO and co-founder, said the training makes her staff better suited to serve couples of any background. Planning for this fall’s employee retreat is underway, with a session scheduled on DEI – or diversity, equity and inclusion, a term DeSantis often rails against.

    DeSantis tried to ban such employee training in 2022, when the Florida Republican championed what he called the Stop WOKE Act. But Honeyfund and others sued on the grounds that the law violated their free speech. A federal judge agreed and blocked it from going into effect. The DeSantis administration then appealed – one of many of the governor’s ongoing legal battles as he pursues the presidency.

    “Companies aren’t ‘going woke’ out of allegiance to Democrats. Time after time, diversity has proven to be good for the bottom line,” Margulis said. “Valuing diversity means understanding it, understanding means training and training means having to deal with this law. We were really handed a chance to make a difference for other business owners by challenging it, and we took it.”

    In his early outreach to Republican voters as a presidential candidate, DeSantis has portrayed himself as a fighter and, crucially, a winner in the cultural battles increasingly important to conservatives. If elected to the White House, he’ll take those fights to Washington, he has said.

    “I will go on offense,” DeSantis said in Iowa last month. “I will lean into all the issues that matter.”

    But back in Florida, the agenda at the centerpiece of his pitch remains unsettled. Still ongoing are more than a dozen legal battles testing the constitutionality of many of the victories DeSantis has touted on the campaign trail. Critics say DeSantis has built his governorship around enacting laws that appeal to his conservative base but that, as a Harvard-trained lawyer, he knows are unconstitutional and not likely to take effect.

    In addition to halting parts of the Stop WOKE Act, judges have also intervened to freeze implementation of other DeSantis-led laws cracking down on protesters and Big Tech. The six-week abortion ban he signed this year – which he has called the “heartbeat bill” when speaking to conservative, and especially evangelical, audiences – won’t take effect unless the state Supreme Court determines that a privacy clause in Florida’s constitution doesn’t protect access to the procedure. Disney – the most famous of DeSantis’ political adversaries – has argued in court that the governor overstepped his power when he orchestrated a takeover of the entertainment giant’s special taxing district to punish the company for speaking out against his agenda. So did Andrew Warren, the twice-elected Tampa prosecutor whom DeSantis suspended last year in another act of political retaliation.

    DeSantis has repeatedly predicted he will ultimately prevail in these challenges. Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for his campaign, called the lawsuits “the tactics of activists who seek to impose their will on people by judicial fiat.”

    “These attempts to circumvent the will of the legislature are not indicative of anything beyond the failure of the left’s ideas at the ballot box,” Griffin said in a statement. “Governor DeSantis is a proven fighter who will bring the same temerity to the presidency.”

    Recent weeks, though, have seen a handful of reminders that several pillars of his record remain fragile even as they figure prominently in his stump speeches.

    On Friday, a federal judge blocked a new Florida law that gave the DeSantis administration the power to shut down bars or restaurants that admit children to certain “adult live performances,” widely seen as a crackdown on drag shows.

    Another federal judge said Wednesday that Florida could not restrict transgender adults on Medicaid from receiving gender-affirming care. The same judge earlier this month had stepped in to allow three transgender children to receive puberty blockers while a lawsuit seeking to overturn a state ban on the treatment proceeds. In both rulings, the judge said there was “no rational basis” to prevent the care and declared “gender identity is real,” casting doubts on the future of the state’s prohibition.

    DeSantis, as a presidential candidate, has seized on conservative concerns over such treatment, particularly for minors. His efforts to halt it – including signing a law that prohibits transgender children from receiving gender-affirming treatments and punish doctors who run afoul of it – are prominently featured in his stump speeches. Speaking to North Carolina Republicans after the ruling, the governor acknowledged the legal fight, but he assured the audience: “We are going to win.”

    “It is mutilation, and it is wrong, and it has no place in our state,” he said.

    DeSantis of late has also taken credit for the GOP’s narrow US House majority, noting the highly partisan map he pushed through his state legislature, which ultimately helped Republicans net four critical seats. But those suing Florida to invalidate the state’s congressional boundaries have new reason for optimism after the US Supreme Court ordered Alabama officials to redraw its map to allow an additional Black-majority district. The DeSantis map was similarly criticized as diminishing the power of minority voters in Florida.

    “Many of the things coming from the governor are form over function,” said Cecile Scoon, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, one of plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit. “They want to get to a certain result, so they find a means to do it, whether it makes logic or legal sense or not.”

    The US District Court for the Northern District of Florida has in particular stymied DeSantis’ agenda. Two judges on the bench, Mark Walker and Robert Hinkle, have repeatedly ruled against the governor, often punctuating their opinions with harsh and colorful repudiations.

    Walker, in one ruling blocking parts of the Stop WOKE Act, compared Florida’s treatment of the First Amendment under DeSantis to the “Upside Down,” the nightmare alternative dimension from the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” In another lawsuit over the law, this one filed by college professors, Walker called the law “dystopian” and wrote that DeSantis and Florida Republicans had “declared the state has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom.’”

    Hinkle, in January, chided DeSantis’ suspension of Warren as political, unconstitutional and executed with “not a hint of misconduct,” though he ultimately ruled he was powerless to intervene. Warren is appealing, though he suffered another defeat when the state Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a separate request to reinstate him.

    Ruling this month against the state in the two cases dealing with transgender care prohibition, Hinkle called the law “an exercise in politics, not good medicine.”

    “Nothing could have motivated this remarkable intrusion into parental prerogatives other than opposition to transgender status itself,” he wrote.

    DeSantis has shrugged off these defeats as the work of left-leaning judges. President Barack Obama nominated Walker to his district court judgeship in 2012, and Hinkle was selected by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Neither nomination drew objection from Senate Republicans at the time.

    When Walker ruled to block Florida’s anti-riot law – comparing it to past attempts to squash dissent from Civil Rights activists in the 1950s and 60s – DeSantis dismissed it as “a foreordained conclusion in front of that court.”

    “We will win that on appeal,” DeSantis said. “I guarantee we’ll win that on appeal.”

    That assurance came 21 months ago. In the meantime, the law has yet to take effect.

    Dana Thompson Dorsey, a professor of education law, was among seven Florida college professors who sued to block the Stop WOKE Act over provisions that limited how she and her colleagues could talk about race and sex with students. She called Walker’s decision halting the law a “work of art.”

    Since then, she has continued to teach critical race studies to her doctoral students at the University of South Florida, while DeSantis has taken his fight against the concept national. But despite winning injunctive relief, she remains troubled by the new environment for higher education under DeSantis.

    “There is a lot at stake and it’s not just for those of us brave enough to be plaintiffs,” she said. “The idea of telling adults what they can and cannot learn is unfathomable. The students who become our future leaders will repeat our mistakes if they don’t understand the past.”

    While legal challenges have prevented DeSantis from fully realizing his vision for Florida, the uncertainty has not always benefited opponents and the plaintiffs suing to block his agenda.

    Abortions after 15 weeks have paused in most cases in Florida while providers await a ruling on the state’s ban. Andrew Warren remains out of office. Transgender care providers are in uncertain territory – Hinkle’s limited rulings provided relief but only for those who sued the state.

    The League of Women Voters of Florida is taking the state to court over new restrictions on third-party voter registration. Fines for violating the law could cost as much as $250,000 a year and the organization has asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement. In the meantime, the league decided it would no longer collect and turn in voter registration forms, pausing for now a practice that has been central to its civic outreach for more than 75 years.

    “That’s a very sad and horrible result, but we cannot figure out a way to protect ourselves without that major change,” Scoon said.

    DeSantis has also managed to maneuver when legal challenges have threatened to stymie his efforts, thanks to a closely aligned Republican-led legislature.

    When a lawsuit accused the governor of breaking state law when he sent two planes carrying migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, lawmakers helped change the law to allow him to do so. His administration recently orchestrated the transport of migrants from El Paso, Texas, to California.

    After several individuals arrested last year for voter fraud by DeSantis’ new election security force had their cases dismissed, lawmakers again tweaked the law to try to make it easier for the state to secure convictions.

    DeSantis and Florida Republicans have signaled they intend to keep fighting in court, too. The budget DeSantis signed earlier this month included $16 million for legal battles underway and the ones to come.

    “We will never surrender to the woke mob,” the governor recently told an audience in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are going to leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history where it belongs.”

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  • Here is the CNN polling director’s advice for reading polls | CNN Politics

    Here is the CNN polling director’s advice for reading polls | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Anyone who spends time following American politics is bound to encounter reports about polling.

    Done right, it can be valuable to figure out what’s motivating voters and which candidates are resonating. Done wrong, it’s misleading and counterproductive.

    That’s why for this newsletter I end up talking a lot to Jennifer Agiesta, CNN’s director of polling and election analytics, about which surveys meet CNN’s standards and how I can use them correctly.

    With the 2024 election just around the corner, it seemed like a good time to ask for her tips on what to look out for and avoid as the industry adapts to the changing ways Americans live and communicate. Our conversation, conducted by email, is below.

    WOLF: My impression is that polling seemed to miss the rise of Donald Trump in 2016 and then missed the power of Democrats at the national level in 2022. What’s the truth?

    AGIESTA: In both 2022 and 2016, I would say that polling – when you lump it all together – had a mixed track record. Methodologically sound polling – assessed separately from the whole slew of polls out there – did better.

    In 2022 especially, many polls actually had an excellent year: National generic ballot polling on the House of Representatives from high-quality pollsters found a close race with a slight Republican edge, which is exactly what happened, and in state polls, those that were methodologically sound had a great track record in competitive races.

    Our CNN state polls in five key Senate battlegrounds, for example, had an average error of less than a point when comparing our candidate estimates to the final vote tally, and across five contested gubernatorial races we had an average error of less than a point and a half.

    But there were quite a few partisan-tinged polls that tilted some of the poll averages and perhaps skewed the story of what the “polls” were showing.

    In 2016, you probably remember the big takeaway that the national polls were actually quite accurate and the bigger issues happened in state polling.

    Some of that was because more methodologically sound work was happening at the national level, and many state polls were not adjusting (“weighting” is the survey research term for this type of adjustment) polls for the education level of their respondents.

    Those with more formal education are more likely to take polls, and with an electorate newly divided by education in the Trump era, those polls that didn’t adjust for it tended to overrepresent those with college degrees who were less likely to back Donald Trump.

    You add to that evidence of late shifts in the race and extremely close contests and a good amount of that polling in key states did not paint an accurate picture (the polling industry’s assessment of the 2016 issues is here). Most state polling now does adjust for education.

    WOLF: How, generally, does CNN conduct its polling?

    AGIESTA: CNN has recently made changes to the way we conduct our polling to be more in line with the way people communicate today, using several different methodologies depending on the type of work we’re doing.

    A few times a year, we conduct surveys with 1,500 to 2,000 respondents who are sampled from a list of residential addresses in the United States. We initially contact those respondents through a mailing, which invites them to take the survey either online or by phone, depending on their preference and at their convenience, and then we follow up with an additional reminder mailing and some phone outreach to people in the sample who are members of groups that tend to be a bit harder to reach.

    These polls stay in the field for almost a month. This process allows us to get higher response rates and to obtain a methodologically sound estimate of some baseline political measures for which there aren’t independent, national benchmarks such as partisanship and ideology.

    We also conduct polling that samples from a panel of people who have signed up to take surveys, but who were initially recruited using scientific sampling methods, which helps to protect against some of the biases that can be present in panels where anyone can sign up.

    Our panel-based polls can be conducted online, by phone or by text message depending on how quickly we’re trying to field and how complicated the subject matter is.

    WOLF: What are the signs you look for in a good poll and what are some of the polling red flags?

    AGIESTA: It can be really hard for people who aren’t well-versed in survey methodology to tell the difference between polls that are worth their attention and those that are not.

    Pollsters are using many different methodologies to collect data, and there isn’t one right way to do a good poll.

    But there are a few key indicators to look for, with the first being transparency. If you can’t find information about the basics of a poll – who paid for it, what questions were asked (the full wording, not just the short description someone put in a graphic), how surveys were collected, how many people were surveyed, etc. – then chances are it’s not a very good poll.

    Most reputable pollsters will gladly share that kind of information, and it’s a pretty standard practice within the industry to do so.

    Second, consider the source, much as you would with any other piece of information.

    Gallup and Pew, for example, are known for their methodological expertise and long histories of independent, thoughtful research. Chances are pretty good that most anything they release is going to be based in solid science.

    Likewise, most academic survey centers and many pollsters from independent media are taking the right steps to be methodologically sound.

    But a pollster with no track record and fuzzy details on methodology, I’d probably pass.

    I would also say to take campaign polling with a grain of salt. Campaigns generally only release polls when it serves their interest, so I’d be wary of those numbers.

    In the same vein, market research that’s publicly released that seems to prove the need for a specific product or service – a mattress company releasing a poll that says Americans aren’t getting great sleep, for example – maybe don’t take that one too seriously either.

    WOLF: The coming primary season offers its own set of challenges because there are polls focused on specific early contest states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Do you have any advice regarding these early contest polls in particular?

    AGIESTA: Polling primary electorates is notoriously difficult. It’s more difficult to identify likely voters, because they tend to be fairly low turnout contests, the rules on who can and can’t participate are different from state to state, and the quality of voter lists that pollsters may use for sampling varies by state.

    On top of that, as the election gets closer, the field of candidates and the contours of the race may change just before a contest happens – remember how the Democratic field shrank dramatically in the two days between the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday in 2020 as an example.

    So when you’re looking at primary polling, it is very important to remember that polls are snapshots in time and not necessarily great predictors of future events.

    WOLF: Most of what general consumers like me want to see from a poll is which candidate is ahead. But I’ve heard you caution against focusing on the horse-race aspect of polling. Why?

    AGIESTA: There are several reasons for that caution.

    First is that polling of any kind has an error margin due to sampling. Even the most accurate poll has the possibility of some noise built into it because any sample will not be a perfect measure of the larger pool it’s drawn from.

    Because of that, any race that’s closer than something like a 5-point margin will mostly just look like a close race in polls.

    The value of polling in that situation is twofold: What it can tell you about why a race is close or what advantages each candidate has, and once you have multiple polls with similar methodologies, you can start to get a sense of how a race is trending.

    Polling is great for measuring which issues are more important to voters, how enthusiastic different segments of the electorate are, and what people think about the candidates in terms of their personal traits or job performance. Those measures can tell you a lot about the state of a race that you can’t get solely from a horse-race measure.

    WOLF: What is the best way to track who is ahead or behind in an election?

    AGIESTA: When you’re looking at trends over time, there are a few tactics that can help to make sense of disparate data.

    The best option is following the trend line within a single poll. If a pollster maintains the same methodology, the way a race moves or doesn’t in that poll’s trend line can tell you a lot about how it’s shaping up.

    That is sometimes hard to find though, as not every pollster conducts multiple surveys of the same race.

    Another good way to measure change over time is to lean on an average of polls, though, as we learned in 2022, those averages can vary pretty widely depending on how they’re handling things like multiple polls from the same pollster or whether they are including polls with a partisan lean.

    WOLF: I don’t have a landline and I don’t answer my phone for strange numbers. What makes us think polling is reaching a wide enough range of people?

    AGIESTA: Many polls these days are conducted using methods other than phone.

    Looking over the 13 different pollsters who released surveys that meet CNN’s standards for reporting in May or June on Joe Biden’s approval rating, only six conducted their surveys entirely by phone. And those phone pollsters are calling far more cellphones than landlines.

    The most important thing for any poll, regardless of how it’s conducted, is that it reaches people who are representative of those who are not answering the poll, and so far, it appears that right mix is achievable through multiple possible methodologies.

    WOLF: Are there specific groups of people that pollsters acknowledge they have trouble reaching? What is being done to fix it?

    AGIESTA: There are several demographic groups that pollsters know are frequently harder to reach than others – younger people, those with less formal education, Black and Hispanic Americans are among the most notable – and the prevailing theory of why 2020 election polling went awry is that some Republicans were less likely to participate in surveys than others.

    Pollsters have several techniques to combat this.

    Some pollsters who draw on online panels where they know the demographic and political traits of people who might participate in advance will account for this in their sampling plans.

    Phone pollsters can do something similar when they use a sample drawn from a voter list that has some of that information connected to a voter’s contact information.

    And if a pollster really wants to dig deep on a hard-to-reach group, they can conduct an oversample to intentionally reach a larger number of people from that group to improve the statistical power of their estimates within that group.

    WOLF: What is the next big challenge facing pollsters?

    AGIESTA: Well, the next election is always a good contender for the next big challenge for pollsters!

    But I think the big challenge looming over all of that is making sure that we’re finding the right ways to reach people and keep them engaged in research. The industry’s leaders are thinking through the right ways to use tools such as text messaging, social media and AI while still producing representative, replicable work.

    Elections are the attention-grabbing part of survey research, but pollsters measure attitudes and behaviors around so many parts of everyday life that our understanding of society would really suffer if survey methods fail to keep up with the way people communicate. I’m excited to see it continue to evolve.

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  • Biden elevates CIA director to Cabinet, a symbolic nod to central role | CNN Politics

    Biden elevates CIA director to Cabinet, a symbolic nod to central role | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden is elevating CIA Director Bill Burns to his Cabinet, a symbolic measure that nonetheless represents the major role he has played in national security amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    “Under his leadership, the CIA is delivering a clear-eyed, long-term approach to our nation’s top national security challenges – from tackling Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukraine, to managing responsible competition with the People’s Republic of China, to addressing the opportunities and risks of emerging technology,” Biden wrote in a statement.

    “Bill has always given me clear, straightforward analysis that prioritizes the safety and security of the American people, reflecting the integral role the CIA plays in our national security decision-making at this critical time,” he said.

    The CIA has been central in the administration’s strategy toward Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, including downgrading and releasing intelligence surrounding the invasion in the leadup to the conflict last year.

    Burns has traveled to Ukraine and Moscow, along with other nations, as part of the administration’s approach to the war.

    The role of CIA director has been in and out of presidential cabinets over the past several years. Former President Donald Trump’s CIA directors – Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel – were Cabinet-level posts, but Biden chose not to include the post in his Cabinet when taking office.

    “The President’s announcement today recognizes the essential contributions to national security the Central Intelligence Agency makes every day, and reflects his confidence in our work,” Burns said in a statement. “I am honored to serve in this role, representing the tremendous work of our intelligence officers. It is also an honor to serve alongside our exceptional intelligence community colleagues, under the leadership of DNI Avril Haines.”

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  • Iran helping Russia build drone stockpile that is expected to be ‘orders of magnitude larger’ than previous arsenal, US says | CNN Politics

    Iran helping Russia build drone stockpile that is expected to be ‘orders of magnitude larger’ than previous arsenal, US says | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    US intelligence officials have warned that Russia is building a drone-manufacturing facility in country with Iran’s help that could have a significant impact on the war in Ukraine once it is completed.

    Analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency told a small group of reporters during a briefing on Friday that the drone-manufacturing facility now under construction is expected to provide Russia with a new drone stockpile that is “orders of magnitude larger” than what it has been able to procure from Iran to date.

    When the facility is completed, likely by early next year, the new drones could have a significant impact on the conflict, the analysts warned. In April, the US released a satellite image of the planned location of the purported drone manufacturing plant, inside Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone about 600 miles east of Moscow. The analysts said Iran has regularly been ferrying equipment to Russia to help with the facility’s construction.

    They added that to date, it is believed that Iran has provided Russia with over 400 Shahed 131, 136 and Mohajer drones – a stockpile that Russia has almost completely depleted, they said.

    Russia is primarily using the drones to attack critical Ukrainian infrastructure and stretch Ukraine’s air defenses, a senior DIA official said. Iran has been using the Caspian Sea to move drones, bullets and mortar shells to Russia, often using vessels that are “dark,” or have turned off their tracking data to disguise their movements, CNN has reported.

    The US obtained and analyzed several of the drones downed in Ukraine, and officials say there is “undeniable evidence” that the drones are Iranian, despite repeated denials from Tehran that it is providing the equipment to Russia for use in Ukraine.

    The DIA analysts showcased debris from drones recovered in Ukraine in 2022 during the briefing on Friday, comparing them side-by-side with Iranian-made drones found in Iraq last year.

    One of the drones recovered in Ukraine had only its wings and engine partially intact. But judging by its shape and size, it appeared to be a Shahed-131, the same model as an Iranian-made drone found in Iraq. The analysts removed components from one and easily slid them onto the other, showing that they are virtually “indistinguishable” in their design.

    Other drone components found downed in Ukraine were nearly identical to Iranian-made components found in Iraq, the only apparent difference being that the components found in Ukraine featured cyrillic lettering. A phrase written on one component roughly translated to “for grandfather” in Russian, a reference to Russia’s fight against the Nazis in World War II.

    The analysts said they were allowing journalists to see the drones in person because they want to give policy makers and the public “undeniable evidence” that Iranian-made drones are being used by Russia in Ukraine.

    Components from Iranian-made drones found in Iraq (left) and Ukraine (right). Photo shared by the US Defense Intelligence Agency's Office of Corporate Communications.

    The US also wants to raise awareness so that western companies begin to better monitor their supply chains for signs that their components are being illegally diverted to help manufacture the drones. The  Biden administration launched an expansive task force last year to investigate how US and western components, including American-made microelectronics, were ending up in the Iranian-made drones being used in Russia.

    Tehran, for its part, has flatly denied providing the drones for Russia during the war.

    “The Islamic Republic of Iran has not and will not provide any weapon to be used in the war in Ukraine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in October. In November, Amir-Abdollahian acknowledged that Iran had supplied drones to Russia, but said they had been delivered to Russia months before the war began.

    A senior DIA official said on Friday that analysts first saw signs of a growing Russian-Iranian military partnership in April 2022. The White House revealed in July 2022 that Iran was preparing to provide Russia with the drones.

    The DIA also showcased an Iranian-made Shahed-101 drone recovered in Iraq, which is smaller and lighter than the Shahed-131 and has not previously been shown to the public, the analysts said. There is a possibility that Iran could begin providing the Shahed-101 to Russia, particularly because they are more compact and easier to ship, they added.

    The US had intelligence late last year that Iran was considering providing ballistic missiles to Iran, but that plan appears to have been “put on hold” for now, one of the analysts said.

    Iran benefits from providing Russia with military equipment because it can showcase its weapons to international buyers and gets money and support from Russia for its space and missile programs in return, the analysts said. But providing ballistic missiles would represent a “monumental” escalation in Iranian support for Russia’s war, the analysts said, and it is not clear that Tehran is willing to take that risk at this point in the conflict.

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  • Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic announce industry group to promote safe AI development | CNN Business

    Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic announce industry group to promote safe AI development | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Some of the world’s top artificial intelligence companies are launching a new industry body to work together — and with policymakers and researchers — on ways to regulate the development of bleeding-edge AI.

    The new organization, known as the Frontier Model Forum, was announced Wednesday by Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic. The companies said the forum’s mission would be to develop best practices for AI safety, promote research into AI risks, and to publicly share information with governments and civil society.

    Wednesday’s announcement reflects how AI developers are coalescing around voluntary guardrails for the technology ahead of an expected push this fall by US and European Union lawmakers to craft binding legislation for the industry.

    News of the forum comes after the four AI firms, along with several others including Amazon and Meta, pledged to the Biden administration to subject their AI systems to third-party testing before releasing them to the public and to clearly label AI-generated content.

    The industry-led forum, which is open to other companies designing the most advanced AI models, plans to make its technical evaluations and benchmarks available through a publicly accessible library, the companies said in a joint statement.

    “Companies creating AI technology have a responsibility to ensure that it is safe, secure, and remains under human control,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith. “This initiative is a vital step to bring the tech sector together in advancing AI responsibly and tackling the challenges so that it benefits all of humanity.”

    The announcement comes a day after AI experts such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio warned lawmakers of potentially serious, even “catastrophic” societal risks stemming from unrestrained AI development.

    “In particular, I am concerned that AI systems could be misused on a grand scale in the domains of cybersecurity, nuclear technology, chemistry, and especially biology,” Amodei said in his written testimony.

    Within two to three years, Amodei said, AI could become powerful enough to help malicious actors build functional biological weapons, where today those actors may lack the specialized knowledge needed to complete the process.

    The best way to prevent major harms, Bengio told a Senate panel, is to restrict access to AI systems; develop standard and effective testing regimes to ensure those systems reflect shared societal values; limit how much of the world any single AI system can truly understand; and constrain the impact that AI systems can have on the real world.

    The European Union is moving toward legislation that could be finalized as early as this year that would ban the use of AI for predictive policing and limit its use in lower-risk scenarios.

    US lawmakers are much further behind. While a number of AI-related bills have already been introduced in Congress, much of the driving force for a comprehensive AI bill rests with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has prioritized getting members up to speed on the basics of the industry through a series of briefings this summer.

    Starting in September, Schumer has said, the Senate will hold a series of nine additional panels for members to learn about how AI could affect jobs, national security and intellectual property.

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  • Manchin: Americans want a ‘reasonable, responsible middle’ | CNN Politics

    Manchin: Americans want a ‘reasonable, responsible middle’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Joe Manchin declined to say Sunday whether he would run on a centrist presidential ticket but the moderate West Virginia Democrat said Americans were sick of the political division in the country.

    “We cannot basically have a divided country, and we cannot withstand that,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” in an interview with Dana Bash. “There’s a movement going on that people want, to bring the extremes back to the sensible and reasonable, responsible middle.”

    Manchin would not respond when asked by Bash if he would consider running for president on a ticket of the business-friendly centrist group No Labels, which is seeking to get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states.

    Manchin, who holds a pivotal vote in the narrowly divided Senate, has refused to say whether he thinks President Joe Biden deserves a second term in office. He has also been critical of certain aspects of the president’s agenda, and last week he called on Biden to negotiate on the debt ceiling instead of pursuing “an ideological agenda.”

    Manchin, who is up for reelection next year, told NBC News on Sunday that any decision about his political future would be made at the end of the year.

    “My filing date is January 15 in 2024, and I will make my decision maybe a little bit before that, but not until the end of the year, I can assure you,” he said.

    The Democrat would rank among the most vulnerable senators this cycle if he chooses to run for a third full term in deep-red West Virginia – a state former President Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2020.

    Asked about Trump’s recent indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, Manchin said that “no one is above the law” but also that “no one should be targeted by the law, especially through the political process.”

    “So we’ll just wait and see next week. I hope they are very thorough in the job they do, and basically people should have faith in this judicial system of ours,” the senator told Bash.

    Manchin said he did not believe the former president was being targeted but added, “You have to remove all doubt. You have to make sure – cross every ‘T,’ dot every ‘I’, as they say.”

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  • READ: Trump indictment and statement of facts related to hush money payment | CNN Politics

    READ: Trump indictment and statement of facts related to hush money payment | CNN Politics

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    Former President Donald Trump has been charged with 34 criminal counts in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
    Read the indictment here.

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  • $35 political contribution to Democrats raises fresh scrutiny of Judge Merchan | CNN Politics

    $35 political contribution to Democrats raises fresh scrutiny of Judge Merchan | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Judge Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case in New York, donated $35 in political contributions to Democrats in 2020, including a $15 contribution to the campaign of Trump’s opponent, President Joe Biden.

    The political donations are undoubtedly small, but they nevertheless raise questions about Merchan’s impartiality as he has come under attack by the former president as a “Trump-hating judge.”

    “While the amounts here are minimal, it’s surprising that a sitting judge would make political donations of any size to a partisan candidate or cause,” said Elie Honig, a senior CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.

    According to federal election records, Merchan made the three donations in July 2020 through ActBlue, an online fundraising platform for Democratic candidates and causes.

    Merchan contributed $15 earmarked for the Biden campaign, and made two $10 contributions, one earmarked to the Progressive Turnout Project, a voter outreach organization, and another to Stop Republicans, a subsidiary of the Progressive Turnout Project.

    Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University, said that New York, like most US jurisdictions, has adopted language from the American Bar Association Model Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibits judges from “soliciting funds for, paying an assessment to, or making a contribution to a political organization or candidate.”

    “The contribution to Biden and possibly the one to ‘Stop Republicans’ would be forbidden unless there is some other explanation that would allow them,” Gillers said.

    But Gillers said that the donation “would be viewed as trivial, especially given the small sums.” He said if a complaint was made, the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct would remind the judge of the rules.

    Asked if this could be grounds for a legal challenge or recusal, Gillers said, “Absolutely not. This does not come anywhere near the kind of proof required for recusal.”

    Trump has been attacking Merchan and his family, including his daughter, whose political consulting firm did work for the Biden campaign and now-Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. Trump has also complained about Merchan for presiding over the case against the Trump Organization, which was convicted on tax fraud charges late last year.

    CNN’s John Miller reports that the New York Police Department is tracking numerous threats against Merchan but has not seen specific, credible threats.

    An attorney for Trump on Thursday condemned those making threats against Merchan. Joe Tacopina, one of the lawyers representing Trump in the case, told CNN the threats were “appalling and we condemn anyone participating in such behavior.”

    Trump lawyer Susan Necheles declined to comment on the donations. But the former president’s political allies are pointing to the contributions to argue the judge should remove himself from the case.

    “He donated to Joe Biden’s campaign. He should get off this case. And this judge has a history, with President Trump, in prior cases,” Mike Davis, a former Republican chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and founder of a conservative judicial advocacy group, told CNN’s Pamela Brown. “He finds out that this judge actually donated to Biden’s campaign. So, that at least raises the appearance of impartiality – the appearance that this judge could not be impartial against President Trump.”

    Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a CNN legal analyst and former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said that the political donations amount to an “unforced error” for Merchan.

    “Judge Merchan has a reputation of being a fair down the middle judge, however, donating to a defendant’s political rival can cause the appearance of a conflict, even where there is none, and creates an unforced error in this case involving Trump,” she said.

    A search of federal election databases does not turn up any additional political contributions for Merchan. New York state campaign finance records show that he gave a $99 contribution in 2002 to Rolando Acosta, who has served as a New York state appeals court judge since 2017.

    A source familiar with the court system said that the court administration doesn’t monitor judges’ personal affairs. The decision to recuse from the case would be up to Merchan himself.

    If he doesn’t, however, Trump’s lawyers could appeal the matter to a New York state appeals court.

    A spokesperson for the courts said, “We decline to comment on pending cases.”

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  • Americans hold mixed views on getting back to ‘normal’ after Covid-19, new polling shows | CNN Politics

    Americans hold mixed views on getting back to ‘normal’ after Covid-19, new polling shows | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans’ views of the disease’s impact have stagnated into a complex set of mixed feelings, recent polling suggests, with few believing that the pandemic has ended but most also saying that their lives had returned mostly – if not entirely – to normal.

    The US Senate passed a bill last week that would end the national Covid-19 emergency declared in March 2020. The US House approved the measure earlier this year, and the White House has said President Joe Biden will sign it despite “strongly” opposing the bill. The administration had already planned to wind down the emergency by May 11.

    In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey about the Biden administration’s original plan to end the public health emergency by May, 59% of Americans said they expected the decision to have no impact on them or their family, with the remainder about evenly split between the 20% who thought it would have a positive effect and the 21% who thought the impact would be negative.

    Only 24% of Americans personally feel that the pandemic is over, a recent Monmouth University poll found, with 20% saying it will end eventually and 53% saying that it’ll never be over. Those numbers were very similar to Monmouth’s polling last fall, suggesting that a sense of some lingering abnormalcy may well be the new normal.

    Relatively few Americans say either that their lives have completely returned to a pre-pandemic normal or that their lives are still completely upended by it. The Monmouth poll found a 69% majority saying that their daily routine was at least mostly back to what it was pre-pandemic – but only about a third, 34%, say that things were completely the same as they were three years ago. Another 20% said things were partially back to normal, and 11% that they were still not normal at all.

    Declaring to pollsters that the pandemic is over may be something of a political statement for ordinary Americans as well. Republicans were 17 points likelier than Democrats to say that their own routines were mostly back to normal, the Monmouth poll found, and 28 points likelier to say that the pandemic had completely ended.

    The results of the Monmouth survey echo a February Gallup poll that found 33% of Americans saying that their life was completely back to pre-pandemic normal, 20% saying that they expected it would eventually return to normal and nearly half that their life would never fully return to the way it was pre-pandemic. Gallup also found that views about the pandemic’s trajectory were nearly unchanged from their polling in October, when 31% thought normalcy had completely returned.

    “The 47% who don’t foresee a return to normalcy may be getting used to a ‘new normal’ that, for some, means occasional mask use, regular COVID-19 vaccines and avoidance of some situations that may put them at greater risk of infection, particularly at times when COVID-19 infections are spiking,” Gallup’s Megan Brenan wrote.

    About half of Americans, 48%, are continuing to mask up in public on at least some occasions, the Monmouth poll found, though only about 21% said they do so most or all of the time. In KFF polling from earlier this year, 46% of Americans said they’d taken some form of precautions – including mask-wearing or avoiding large gatherings, travel or indoor dining – over the winter due to news about the triple threat of Covid-19, the flu and RSV.

    In KFF’s latest poll, just over half the American public said they’d been boosted against Covid-19, but only 23% reported receiving the latest bivalent version of the booster vaccine.

    At the broader societal level, in a CNN poll last fall, more than 6 in 10 Americans said they believed the pandemic had permanently reshaped multiple aspects of the American landscape, from healthcare (66%) and education (63%) to the economy (61%) and the way most people do their jobs (69%).

    But while the public sees the pandemic’s effects as far-reaching and ongoing, they’re also not top of mind. In a Quinnipiac University survey released last week, fewer than 1% of Americans picked Covid-19 as “the most urgent issue facing the country.”

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  • Justice Department asks Supreme Court to intervene in abortion drug ruling | CNN Politics

    Justice Department asks Supreme Court to intervene in abortion drug ruling | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court Friday to intervene in an emergency dispute over a Texas judge’s medication abortion drug ruling, requesting that the court step in now rather than wait for an appeal to formally play out at the federal appellate level.

    The case is the most important abortion-related dispute to reach the high court since the justices overturned Roe v. Wade last term. It centers on the scope of the US Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate a drug that is used in the majority of abortions today in states that still allow the procedure.

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in the filing that it “concerns unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment and unleashing regulatory chaos by suspending the existing FDA-approved conditions of use for mifepristone.”

    She said that if the ruling were allowed to stand it would “inflict grave harm on women, the medical system, the agency, and the public.”

    Danco, a manufacturer of the drug, also asked the justices to step in on an emergency basis before Friday, with an attorney for the company saying in its filing that leaving the lower court opinion in play will “irreparably harm Danco, which will be unable to both conduct its business nationwide and comply with its legal obligations under the FDCA nationwide.”

    “The lack of emergency relief from this Court will also harm women, the healthcare system, the pharmaceutical industry, States’ sovereignty interests, and the separation-of-powers,” the attonrey, Jessica L. Ellsworth, told the justices.

    The clock is ticking. If the Supreme Court does not step in, the district court’s ruling, as amended by a subsequent appeals court opinion, will go into effect at midnight CT, and access to the drug, Mifepristone, will be restricted while the appeals process plays out.

    Both the government and Danco are asking the court to freeze the lower court opinion, or alternatively, agree to take up the case themselves and hear arguments before the summer recess, a very expedited time frame.

    The controversy began when US District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a broad ruling that blocks the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug, as well as changes the FDA made in subsequent years to make the drug more accessible.

    Late Wednesday, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals froze part of the ruling. The court said the drug, that was approved in 2000, could stay on the market, but agreed with Kacsmaryk that access could be limited.

    The appeals court ordered a return to the stricter, pre-2016 FDA regime around the drug, which prevents mailing the pill to patients who obtained it through telehealth, or virtual visits with their providers rather than traveling to a clinic or hospital to obtain the drug in person.

    The restrictions also affect the instructions on the label for the medication, shortening the window of obtaining the pill to seven weeks into pregnancy as opposed to 10. It’s possible however that even with the ruling in effect, some providers could go “off-label” and continue to prescribe mifepristone up until 10 weeks. Mifepristone is one of the drugs used for an abortion via medication as opposed to surgery.

    Prelogar, the solicitor general, argued in her filing to the Supreme Court that the FDA’s expert judgment should not be challenged.

    “FDA has maintained that scientific judgment across five presidential administrations, and it has modified the original conditions of mifepristone’s approval as decades of experience have conclusively demonstrated the drug’s safety,” she wrote, reminding the justices that currently, “more than half of women in this country who choose to terminate their pregnancies rely on mifrepristone to do so.”

    She highlighted a key threshold issue in the case, arguing that the doctors opposed to abortion who are behind the suit do not have the legal right to be in court. That is because, she said, they neither “take nor prescribe” the drug, and the FDA’s approval “does not require them to do or refrain from doing anything.”

    CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck, who is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said the 5th Circuit’s ruling “froze the craziest, most harmful parts of Kacsmaryk’s ruling,” but that access to mifepristone is still significantly limited.

    “The panel ruled that the challenge to the 2000 approval of mifepristone itself is likely time-barred, so it froze that part of the ruling,” he wrote on Twitter. “But it *didn’t* freeze Kacsmaryk’s block of the 2016 and 2021 revisions that (1) make mifepristone available up to 10 weeks; and (2) by mail.”

    Medication abortion has emerged a particularly heated flashpoint in the abortion legal battle since the Supreme Court last year overturned the Roe v. Wade precedent that protected abortion rights nationally.

    In November, anti-abortion doctors and plaintiffs brought the lawsuit challenging the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug and targeting how the agency has since changed the rules around its use in ways that have made the pill easier to obtain.

    A split 5th Circuit panel said in its order that it was reinstating the approval of the drug because of certain procedural obstacles the plaintiffs face in challenging it. But the appeals court said that the abortion pill’s defenders had not shown that they were likely to succeed in defeating the plaintiffs’ claims against the FDA’s more recent regulatory actions toward mifepristone.

    The appellate order was handed down by Circuit Judges Catharina Haynes, a George W. Bush nominee, and Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, both Donald Trump nominees. Haynes, however, did not sign on to some aspects of the order.

    The FDA approved mifepristone after a four-year review process. It has shown to be a safe and effective way to terminate a pregnancy in the two-plus decades it’s been on the market. But anti-abortion doctors and medical associations allege that the agency ran afoul of the law by not adequately taking into account the drug’s supposed risks.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Klobuchar says Biden and McCarthy should negotiate over budget, not debt limit | CNN Politics

    Klobuchar says Biden and McCarthy should negotiate over budget, not debt limit | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Sunday that she believes President Joe Biden should sit down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and negotiate Republicans’ proposed spending cuts, but she insisted those talks should be in relation to the federal budget – not raising the debt limit.

    “Of course, President Biden should sit down with Speaker McCarthy,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” ahead of the House’s expected vote this week on McCarthy’s bill to raise the debt limit. “But let me put an idea out there. The proposal that McCarthy has put forward, that belongs in the budget. … Our main goal right now is to make clear that we are going to avoid default.”

    “They should start those negotiations now,” the senator added.

    McCarthy introduced a proposal last week to raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit by an additional $1.5 trillion in exchange for cuts to domestic spending programs across the board.

    But Biden and his top advisers have said they will not negotiate a debt ceiling increase and will only accept a clean proposal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.

    The US hit its debt ceiling in January and can’t continue to borrow to meet its obligations unless Congress raises or suspends it. The Treasury Department is avoiding default – which would happen this summer or early fall – by using a combination of cash on hand and “extraordinary measures,” which should last at least until early June, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in January.

    A breach of the US debt ceiling risks sparking a 2008-style economic catastrophe that could wipe out millions of jobs and set America back for generations, Moody’s Analytics has warned.

    McCarthy said Sunday he believes he will secure the necessary votes to pass his debt limit bill, telling Fox News, “We will hold a vote this week, we will pass it and send it to the Senate.”

    The California Republican also repeatedly criticized Biden over his refusal to negotiate a debt limit plan. The White House has attacked the GOP debt limit proposal as a nonstarter and something that would take the country to a “totally irresponsible” debt default.

    “I’m beginning to wonder about the words that he says and the thoughts that he’s using, because the idea that he won’t even negotiate for more than 80 days, he is now putting the country in default. We are the only ones being responsible and sensible about this,” McCarthy said.

    Meanwhile, Klobuchar, in her interview Sunday, also addressed concerns regarding the continued absence of her Senate colleague Dianne Feinstein, who is recovering from shingles. The California Democrat’s absence has kept her party from advancing certain Biden judicial nominees out of the Judiciary Committee, on which she serves.

    “She has served our country well. She has said she’s coming back. And we await her return,” Klobuchar said when asked whether she agrees with Democrats who have called on Feinstein to resign.

    Feinstein’s return, Klobuchar said, would “resolve the problem” over the holdup in moving certain nominations through the Judiciary panel.

    Klobuchar added, however, that “at some point, when we have debt ceiling votes and the like, there may be another consideration that she will have to make with her family.”

    With Biden preparing to launch his reelection campaign this week, Klobuchar said the president will have an “incredibly strong record” to run on, ignoring concerns raised over his age.

    “He is a steady hand, when you look at what’s out there right now, with Donald Trump and what we’re hearing again. People don’t want that chaos back again,” she said.

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  • Sexual assaults in the US military increased by 1% last year | CNN Politics

    Sexual assaults in the US military increased by 1% last year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US military saw a 1% increase in sexual assaults last year, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual report.

    There were 7,378 reports of sexual assault against service members in 2022, according to the Fiscal Year 2022 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, released on Thursday. That is up from 7,260 reports of assault in 2021.

    All of the services aside from the Army saw an increase in reports from last year, officials said during a briefing on the report on Thursday: the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force saw a 9%, 3.6%, and 13% increase in reports, respectively. The Army, meanwhile, saw a 9% decrease.

    Overall, the number of reports of assault has consistently increased in the military since 2010.

    And while the Defense Department is working through implementing dozens of recommendations from an independent review commission on sexual assault, officials said commanders and service members on the ground still have a responsibility to do their part.

    “At the end of the day, we can only do so much at the headquarters level,” Beth Foster, director of the Office of Force Resiliency, told reporters. “But, you know, really, this is on our commanders, on our [non-commissioned officers], our frontline leaders to make sure that they are addressing this problem. And, you know, the Secretary says … we need to lead on that. And that that is for at every level of the department.”

    In addition to the 7,378 reports of assault that occurred during military service in 2022, there were also 797 Defense Department civilians who reported being assaulted by service members, and 580 service members who reported being assaulted before their military service.

    The report released Thursday looks at the number of sexual assault reports, as opposed to a separate report the Pentagon releases every other year that estimates the total number of service members experiencing sexual assault. Ideally, the Defense Department has said a sign of progress would be seeing the number of reports go up, while the prevalence of sexual assault go down.

    However, the 2021 prevalence survey – released August 2022 – showed an in increase in how many service members were estimated to have experienced assault. The Pentagon estimated that 35,875 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2021.

    Also, within the report released on Thursday was data showing a decrease in how many cases of assault, which had evidence that supported the charges, were referred to court-martial by commanders. Only 37% of cases were referred to court-martial in 2022, which falls in line with a steady decrease over the last 10 years.

    Instead, there has been an increase in cases that are dealt with through administrative action and discharges of offenders. Dr. Nate Galbreath, the deputy director for the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, told reporters on Thursday that the decrease in court-martials is in part because of support being provided to victims of military sexual assault.

    “One of the things that we’ve seen year after a year since 2015, with the addition of the Special Victims Counsel program – which are attorneys that represent victims throughout the military justice process – is that victims have made it abundantly clear that they would like to help see the department hold their offenders appropriately accountable, but they’d like to do it through nonconfrontational means, and that’s essentially what we see in the percentages with administrative actions and discharges and non-judicial punishment,” Galbreath said.

    He added, however, that the decrease in taking sexual assault cases to court is also due to victims not having faith in the military justice system to handle their cases appropriately.

    The military services’ newly appointed Special Trial Counsels, who are appointed officers that report directly to the service secretaries and have exclusive authority to prosecute sexual assault cases, will be charged with restoring “that perception of fairness back into the system.”

    Ultimately, officials reiterated that while work is ongoing, the ongoing trend of sexual assault isn’t going to change “overnight.”

    “We certainly, if we could flip a switch and make this change instantly, we would,” Foster said. “But we know this is going to take some time.”

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  • The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2024 | CNN Politics

    The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2024 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Opportunity is ripe for Republicans to win back the Senate next year – if they can land the candidates to pull it off.

    The GOP needs a net gain of one or two seats to flip the chamber, depending on which party wins the White House in 2024, and it’s Democrats who are defending the tougher seats. Democrats hold seven of the 10 seats that CNN ranks as most likely to flip party control next year – and the top three are all in states former President Donald Trump carried twice.

    But this spring’s recruitment season, coming on the heels of a midterm cycle marred by problematic GOP candidates, will likely go a long way toward determining how competitive the Senate map is next year.

    National Republicans got a top pick last week, with Gov. Jim Justice announcing his Senate bid in West Virginia – the seat most likely to flip party control in 2024. (Rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising figures and historical data about how states and candidates have performed.) But Justice appears headed for a contentious and expensive primary. And in many other top races, the GOP hasn’t yet landed any major candidates.

    Democrats, meanwhile, are thankful that most of their vulnerable incumbents are running for reelection, while a high-profile House member has largely cleared the field for one of their open Senate seats.

    Pollster asked Democrats who they like for 2024. Here’s what he found

    The unknown remains West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. Responding to Justice’s candidacy, Manchin – who has said he’ll decide about running by the end of the year – had this to say to CNN about a potentially messy GOP primary: “Let the games begin.”

    The anti-tax Club for Growth’s political arm has already committed to spending $10 million to back West Virginia Rep. Alex Mooney in the GOP primary. And tensions between the club, which has turned against Trump, and more establishment Republicans could become a feature of several top Senate races this cycle, especially with the National Republican Senatorial Committee weighing more aggressive involvement in primaries to weed out candidates it doesn’t think can win general elections.

    In the 2022 cycle, most of Trump’s handpicked candidates in swing states stumbled in the general election. But the former president picked up a key endorsement this week from NRSC Chair Steve Daines. The Montana Republican has stayed close with Trump, CNN has previously reported, in a bid to ensure he’s aligned with leadership.

    Democrats defending tough seats have previously used GOP primaries to their advantage. Manchin survived in 2018 in part because his opponent was state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. That wasn’t an accident. Democrats had spent big attacking one of his primary opponents to keep him out of the general election.

    Last year’s midterms underscored that candidates really do matter after Republicans failed to harness favorable national winds in some key races. In a presidential year, the national environment is likely to loom large, especially with battleground states hosting key Senate races. It will also test whether some of the last remaining senators who represent states that back the opposite parties’ presidential nominees can hold on.

    President Joe Biden, who carried half of the states on this list in 2020, made official last week that he’s running for reelection. The GOP presidential field is slowly growing, with Trump still dominating most primary polling. It’s too early to know, however, what next year’s race for the White House will look like or which issues, whether it’s abortion or crime or the economy, will resonate.

    So for now, the parties are focused on what they can control: candidates. Even though the 2024 map is stacked in their favor, Republicans can’t win with nobody. But there’s plenty of time for would-be senators to get into these races. Some filing deadlines – in Arizona, for example – aren’t for nearly another year. And there’s an argument to be made that well-funded or high-profile names have no reason to get in early.

    Here’s where the Senate map stands 18 months from Election Day.

    Incumbent: Democrat Joe Manchin

    joe manchin 2024 senate race

    Sen. Joe Manchin isn’t one to shy away from attention – and he’s getting plenty of it by keeping everyone guessing about his reelection plans. Assuming he runs, Democrats will have a fighting chance to defend this seat in a state Trump carried by 39 points in 2020. The senator has repeatedly broken with the White House – on Biden’s first veto and the White House’s debt ceiling stance, for example.

    Without Manchin, Democrats know West Virginia is all but lost. Manchin raised only $371,000 in this year’s first fundraising quarter, which ended March 31, and Republicans are already attacking him, with One Nation – the issue advocacy group aligned with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell – launching an ad campaign tying him to the Inflation Reduction Act. (The senator went on Fox News last week and threatened to back a repeal of his own bill.) Still, Manchin has nearly $10 million in the bank, as well as outside cover from Democratic-allied groups.

    Republicans will likely be spending quite a lot of time and money attacking each other in the primary. The Club for Growth’s political arm is backing House Freedom Caucus member Alex Mooney, while Gov. Jim Justice will likely have backup from GOP party leaders. The wealthy governor, who was first elected as a Democrat before switching parties in 2017, has high name ID and is close with Trump. Mooney also has Trumpian credentials, having won a member-on-member House primary last year with the former president’s endorsement. The congressman is already attacking the governor in an ad as “Liberal Jim Justice,” using imagery of his opponent in a face mask.

    Incumbent: Democrat Jon Tester

    jon tester 2024 senate race

    Democrats got welcome news with Sen. Jon Tester’s announcement that he’s running for a fourth term – and that he raised $5 million in the first quarter (more than a million of which came from small-dollar donors). Tester is running in Trump country – Montana backed the former president by 16 points in 2020 – but like Manchin he has a well-established brand to draw on, which includes breaking with Biden when he needs to. (Tester also voted for a GOP resolution to roll back a Biden administration ESG investing rule, which prompted the president’s first veto.) The GOP field is still taking shape. Republicans are interested in retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, a businessman with the potential to self-fund, and state Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

    Another potential candidate is Rep. Matt Rosendale, who lost to Tester in 2018 after winning the GOP nomination with the help of the Club for Growth, which has recently been at odds with Trump. Rosendale made a telling appearance at Mar-a-Lago in April for Trump’s post-indictment speech after snubbing the former president’s pick for House speaker in January when he didn’t back Kevin McCarthy. The congressman hasn’t said yet whether he’s running, but he raised only about $127,000 in the first quarter of the year – well short of what he’d need for a competitive Senate bid.

    Incumbent: Democrat Sherrod Brown

    sherrod brown 2024 senate race

    Sen. Sherrod Brown is the only Democrat to win a nonjudicial statewide race in Ohio over the past decade, so the big question for 2024 is whether he can defy expectations again in his red-trending state. Trump has twice carried the Buckeye State by 8 points, and his handpicked candidate, JD Vance, defeated Democrat Tim Ryan by about 6 points in last year’s Senate race despite the Republican’s campaign struggles.

    Brown is much more of an institution in Ohio than Ryan, and he’s built up relationships not just among White working-class communities but urban centers too. He raised $3.6 million in the first quarter of the year. Two wealthy Republicans are in the race to try to take him on – businessman Bernie Moreno, whom Trump has praised, and state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team. Both men ran for Senate in 2022, but Moreno dropped out ahead of the primary. Dolan, who ran as a moderate conservative less than enthralled with Trump and his election lies, finished third in a crowded field. Rep. Warren Davidson and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose could also jump into this year’s GOP race.

    Incumbent: Independent Kyrsten Sinema

    kyrsten sinema 2024 senate race

    Arizona has the potential to be one of the most interesting races this cycle, but a lot depends on whether Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema runs for reelection. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who’s running to her left, outraised the incumbent $3.8 million to $2.1 million in the first quarter. Sinema has a clear cash-on-hand advantage – nearly $10 million to Gallego’s $2.7 million.

    Earlier this month, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb became the first major Republican to enter the race, leaning into a law enforcement message. But the filing deadline isn’t until next April, so there’s still plenty of time for others to jump in. Some Republicans are anxious about the potential entry of Kari Lake, last year’s losing gubernatorial nominee, who still maintains she won. She’d likely be popular with the base in a state that’s become a hotbed of election denialism, but her candidacy could pose a serious risk for the party in a general election. The NRSC recently pushed her to move away from election conspiracy theories, CNN reported.

    Former attorney general nominee Abe Hamadeh and Karrin Taylor Robson, who lost last year’s gubernatorial primary to Lake, have also met with NRSC officials, CNN reported. Also in the mix could be Republican businessman Jim Lamon, who lost the party nod for the state’s other Senate seat last year. Republicans would like to see Sinema run because she and Gallego would likely split the vote on the left. But they’ve got their work cut out from them in landing a candidate who can appeal to the GOP base without alienating the general electorate in a state that narrowly backed Biden in 2020.

    Incumbent: Democrat Jacky Rosen

    jacky rosen 2024 senate race

    Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is, as expected, running for reelection, touting her middle-class roots and bipartisan legislative wins in an announcement video in April. “Nevada is always a battleground,” the senator says – a reminder that Democrats don’t want to take this state for granted. Rosen was first elected in 2018 – a midterm year – by 5 points. Last fall, her Democratic colleague, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, defeated former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt by less than a point.

    The state tends to get bluer in presidential years, but Biden and Hillary Clinton both carried it only by about 2 points. Republicans don’t yet have a major name in the race, but they’re watching two defeated candidates from last year – Army veteran Sam Brown, who lost the GOP Senate nod, and attorney April Becker, who lost a bid for a redrawn House seat.

    Incumbent: Democrat Tammy Baldwin

    tammy baldwin 2024 senate race

    Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced earlier this month that she’s running for a third term, giving Democrats an automatic advantage for now over Republicans, who have no declared candidates in this perennial battleground state. Baldwin raised $2.1 million in the first quarter, ending with nearly $4 million in the bank.

    Establishment Republicans have expressed strong interest in Rep. Mike Gallagher. Even Rep. Tom Tiffany, who recently bought Senate web domain names, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he thought his fellow congressman should run. But there’s little sign that Gallagher, the chair of the new House select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, is interested. Two businessmen with the ability to tap into or raise significant resources could be in the mix – Eric Hovde, who lost the GOP Senate nomination in 2012, and Scott Mayer. And then there’s controversial former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who could draw support in a GOP primary but seriously complicate a general election for Republicans.

    Democrats are feeling good about the recent state Supreme Court election, which the Democratic-backed candidate won by 10 points, flipping control of the bench to liberals. Still, the competitiveness of this state – which Biden carried by about half a point after Trump had won it by a similar margin four years earlier – shouldn’t be underestimated.

    Incumbent: Democrat Debbie Stabenow (retiring)

    debbie stabenow 2024 senate race

    Rep. Elissa Slotkin has mostly cleared the Democratic field of major rivals in the race to succeed retiring Democrat Debbie Stabenow in another Midwestern battleground state. A few less-known names are in, and actor Hill Harper – of “The Good Doctor” and “CSI: NY” – could throw his hat in the Democratic ring, but it’ll be hard to rival Slotkin’s fundraising. She brought in about $3 million in the first quarter.

    On the GOP side, State Board of Education member Nikki Snyder announced her campaign in mid-February, but she hadn’t raised much money by the end of the first quarter. Former Rep. Peter Meijer could run, but his vote to impeach Trump would likely kill his prospects of winning the nomination – unless it were a heavily splintered primary field. Other possible GOP names include businessman Kevin Rinke and former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who finished second and sixth, respectively, in last year’s gubernatorial primary. (Craig was a write-in candidate after failing to make the ballot because of invalid signatures.)

    Michigan Democrats did well last year – retaining the top three executive offices and flipping the state legislature – and they feel optimistic about their chances in the state in a presidential year. Still, Biden only won the state by less than 3 points. And while Slotkin has experience winning tough races, a lot may depend on whom the GOP nominates and which way the national winds are blowing next year.

    Incumbent: Democrat Bob Casey

    bob casey 2024 senate race

    Democrats breathed another sigh of relief when Sen. Bob Casey, who disclosed a prostate cancer diagnosis earlier this year, announced that he was running for a fourth term. A former state auditor general and treasurer and the son of a two-term governor, Casey is well known in the Keystone State. He most recently won reelection by 13 points against a hard-line congressman who had tied himself closely to Trump.

    This year, national Republicans are eyeing former hedge fund executive Dave McCormick, who lost the GOP nomination for Senate last year, as a top-tier recruit. Upon Casey’s reelection announcement, McCormick immediately attacked him, saying in a statement that a vote for Casey was “a vote for Biden and [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer.” The wealthy Republican has been on tour promoting his new book, “Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America,” and has hired staff but has yet to launch a campaign.

    And consternation remains among national Republicans that losing 2022 gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano could jump into the race. An election denier who lost by 15 points last fall, Mastriano could jeopardize the race for Republicans. His candidacy would likely inspire a concerted effort by national Republicans to defeat him in the primary.

    Incumbent: Republican Ted Cruz

    ted cruz 2024 senate race

    Texas and Florida – both in a far different category of competitiveness compared with the rest of the states on this list – are trading places this month. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is running for reelection after passing on another presidential bid. He raised $1.3 million in the first quarter – relatively little for a massive, expensive state – and ended March with $3.3 million in the bank. He’s proved to be a compelling boogeyman for the left, with Democrat Beto O’Rourke raising millions to try to unseat him in 2018, ultimately coming up less than 3 points short.

    After a gubernatorial loss last year, O’Rourke hasn’t made any noise about this race. But Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who raised about half a million dollars in the first quarter, is looking at it. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, is also weighing a bid, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Still, unseating Cruz in a state Trump won by nearly 6 points in 2020 will be a tall order.

    Incumbent: Republican Rick Scott

    rick scott 2024 senate race

    Sen. Rick Scott has a history of close elections – he was first elected in 2018 by a fraction of a point following two prior narrow wins for governor. But GOP Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis won commanding victories last fall, suggesting the state is getting redder.

    Democrats don’t seem to have a major candidate as yet, but whoever opposes Scott is likely to use his controversial policy proposal – released last year during his NRSC chairmanship – against him. Scott’s plan had originally proposed sunsetting all federal programs every five years, but the senator later added a carve-out for Medicare and Social Security amid backlash from his own party. His most immediate headache could come in the form of intraparty attacks along those lines – and others.

    Attorney Keith Gross has launched a primary challenge, alluding in his announcement video to Scott’s tenure as the head of a hospital chain company that the Justice Department investigated for health care fraud. While the company pleaded guilty to fraudulent Medicare billing, among other things, and paid $1.7 billion in fines, Scott wasn’t charged with a crime. It’s unclear how much of his own money Gross, who previously ran for office in Georgia as a Democrat, would put into a campaign.

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  • E. Jean Carroll asks judge to amend lawsuit to seek further damages for what Trump said at CNN town hall | CNN Politics

    E. Jean Carroll asks judge to amend lawsuit to seek further damages for what Trump said at CNN town hall | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    E. Jean Carroll has asked a judge to amend her initial defamation case against former President Donald Trump to seek additional punitive damages after he repeated his statements at a CNN town hall.

    The request was made in a letter to the judge seeking clarity on the initial lawsuit following a civil jury verdict earlier this month finding Trump sexually abused Carroll and awarding her $5 million.

    Carroll’s attorneys said Trump’s defamatory statements repeated during the town hall earlier this month go directly to the issue of punitive damages, which are intended to punish the person found liable.

    Carroll’s initial lawsuit was held up on appeal and relates to statements Trump made in 2019 while he was president. The trial involved a statement Trump made in 2022.

    An appeals court sent the initial lawsuit back to the lower court judge just before the trial. It is up to the judge to determine whether it moves forward.

    Carroll has alleged that the former president raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book.

    Trump denied all claims brought against him by Carroll and appealed the jury’s judgment.

    While the jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll, sufficient to hold him liable for battery, the jury did not find that she proved he raped her.

    Trump was quick to jump on this aspect of the jury’s verdict at a CNN town hall hosted in New Hampshire the day after the jury came to its decision, saying “They said, ‘He didn’t rape her.’ And I didn’t do anything else either.”

    “I have no idea who this woman – this is a fake story, made up story,” Trump said, calling Carroll a “whack job” and going on a tangent about her ex-husband and pet cat.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Inside the Treasury Department team monitoring early economic warning signs as default threat looms | CNN Politics

    Inside the Treasury Department team monitoring early economic warning signs as default threat looms | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Nearly five months before the US was projected to hit the debt ceiling, a small team inside the Treasury Department began alerting top officials to early effects already being felt in the US financial system.

    The cost of insuring US debt, as measured by the price of credit-default swaps, was rising – a sign that investors were beginning to view US bonds and other securities as increasingly risky.

    That early warning – and subsequent ones over the last month as the swaps pricing has surged – came out of the Treasury Department’s Markets Room and its eponymous team of nine financial analysts who are responsible for monitoring and analyzing global financial markets to inform the policy work of top Treasury Department and White House officials.

    As the US rapidly approaches a potential default date in early June, top US officials are increasingly relying on the Markets Room to monitor for signs of disruption in the financial markets.

    “In the same way that a doctor wants to understand the vital signs of a patient as they’re thinking about how to treat them, at Treasury keeping abreast of understanding the various ways in which the economy is healthy or unhealthy. And part of that is understanding the market,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told CNN in an interview.

    “So, we’re spending a lot of time with them better understanding what the costs are today, in order to make sure that we’re in a position to share that information with Congress, in order to prevent us from getting into a position where for the first time in our history, we’re unable to pay all of our obligations on time.”

    That work begins each day before dawn, when staffers take turns waking up around 3:30 a.m. ET to compile data about overnight market developments and begin making calls to contacts working in European and Asian markets.

    At around 7 a.m. ET, those data and insights land in the inboxes of top policymakers at the White House and Treasury Department.

    At 9 a.m. ET, before the US markets open, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her senior leadership team huddle virtually with the Markets Room and other key Treasury Department aides for a briefing on the state of the financial markets and issues to watch for that day.

    “Almost every American is influenced by what’s happening around the globe and global markets either through your 401(k), or your attempt to borrow money for your small business or for your home. So, this team of individuals, every morning, provides us a briefing and an update on what’s happening around the world,” Adeyemo said.

    In recent weeks, that daily briefing has heavily focused on reverberations of the debt limit standoff, from updates on auctions of Treasury bills to market reactions and commentary from market analysts and economists.

    Much of the rest of the day is spent monitoring developments in the financial markets and fielding inquiries from top policymakers at Treasury and the White House for analysis on those developments.

    And at the end of the day, the Markets Room also helps policymakers digest the biggest developments in the financial markets with another widely read one-page memo delivered after the US markets close and before the Asian markets open.

    Beyond the Treasury Department, a White House spokesperson said the unit’s twice-daily memos are “a valuable asset” for officials at the National Economic Council and Council of Economic Advisers.

    “Those offices also rely on the Markets Room’s real-time updates – either in memos or meetings – when more regular monitoring is warranted,” the spokesperson said.

    Officials say the Markets Room is focused on monitoring the global economy’s recovery from the pandemic-induced recession, lingering inflation and the trajectory of the global economy.

    Albert Lee, the Markets Room director, described the unit as an early warning system on the global financial system for top US policymakers.

    In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the team was among the first to sound alarm bells inside the federal government about early shocks in pockets of the financial system and predicting rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

    The team also played a critical role during the banking crisis earlier this year, tracking the sharp selloff of stock and outflows of deposit at Silicon Valley Bank that ultimately triggered the bank’s collapse.

    As the Treasury Department acted to address the second-largest bank failure in US history and prevent any spillover effects in the banking sector, top Treasury Department officials leaned on the Markets Room team to track the feedback of their policy actions.

    “It was critically important for us to understand how markets were interpreting the actions that we took that made clear to the American people that your deposits were safe,” Adeyemo said. “We were monitoring signs of distress in the banking sector.”

    With one week until the government can potentially no longer pay its bills, the US stock market is only just beginning to show signs of concern about a potential default and Treasury officials say the team is focused on tracking further reactions from the stock market as well as the Treasury securities market.

    The stock market’s reaction has, up until now, been relatively muted – especially as compared to the 17% drop the S&P 500 suffered amid the 2011 debt ceiling crisis. But Treasury officials say volatility in the securities market is already affecting the federal government, raising the cost to borrow.

    Yields on short-term Treasury securities have surged and recent auctions for securities are leaving a heftier price tag for the federal government, which Adeyemo said recently incurred $80 million in additional costs for a recent auction of Treasury bills.

    “So, the cost of borrowing has already gotten more expensive when it comes to us borrowing in the short term for the US government,” Adeyemo said. “So as the debt limit manufactured crisis goes on, and costs go up for the government, it also means that costs will go up for the American people as well.”

    Adeyemo declined to disclose what contingencies are being prepared should the US default. But when the US faced a similar standoff on the debt in 2011, Federal Reserve officials and Treasury Department officials quietly prepared a plan to prioritize payments on US debt and delay paying other government bills and obligations, like Social Security and payments to veterans, according to transcripts of a central bank meeting released in 2017.

    “The most important thing for the American people, for our country, for our credibility, not only with our creditors, but with the American people is to pay all of our bills on time. That’s what our system is built to do,” Adeyemo said. “I’ve spent a good part of a decade working here at the Treasury Department. What I can tell you is that there’s no plan that would allow us to meet all of our commitments other than Congress, raising the debt limit.”

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