ReportWire

Tag: political figures – us

  • Sinema leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent | CNN Politics

    Sinema leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as a political independent, she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive TV interview.

    “I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Sinema said in a Thursday interview with Tapper in her Senate office.

    “I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she added. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”

    Sinema’s move away from the Democratic Party is unlikely to change the power balance in the next Senate. Democrats will have a narrow 51-49 majority that includes two independents who caucus with them: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

    While Sanders and King formally caucus with Democrats, Sinema declined to explicitly say that she would do the same. She did note, however, that she expects to keep her committee assignments – a signal that she doesn’t plan to upend the Senate composition, since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer controls committee rosters for Democrats.

    “When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. “I’m going to still come to work and hopefully serve on the same committees I’ve been serving on and continue to work well with my colleagues at both political parties.”

    But Sinema’s decision to become a political independent makes official what’s long been an independent streak for the Arizona senator, who began her political career as a member of the Green Party before being elected as a Democrat to the US House in 2012 and US Senate in 2018. Sinema has prided herself on being a thorn in the side of Democratic leaders, and her new nonpartisan affiliation will further free her to embrace an against-the-grain status in the Senate, though it raises new questions about how she – and Senate Democrats – will approach her reelection in 2024 with liberals already mulling a challenge.

    Sinema wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic released Friday explaining her decision, noting that her approach in the Senate has “upset partisans in both parties.”

    “When politicians are more focused on denying the opposition party a victory than they are on improving Americans’ lives, the people who lose are everyday Americans,” Sinema wrote.

    “That’s why I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington.”

    Sinema is up for reelection in 2024 and liberals in Arizona are already floating potential challengers, including Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, who said earlier this year that some Democratic senators have urged him to run against Sinema.

    “Unfortunately, Senator Sinema is once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans,” Gallego said in a statement following Sinema’s announcement.

    Sinema declined to address questions about her reelection bid in the interview with Tapper, saying that simply isn’t her focus right now.

    She also brushed aside criticism she may face for the decision to leave the Democratic Party.

    “I’m just not worried about folks who may not like this approach,” Sinema said. “What I am worried about is continuing to do what’s right for my state. And there are folks who certainly don’t like my approach, we hear about it a lot. But the proof is in the pudding.”

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Sinema a “key partner” following her decision and said the White House has “every reason to expect that we will continue to work successfully with her.”

    Sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that Sinema gave the White House a heads up that she was leaving the Democratic Party. Schumer said in a statement he also was aware of Sinema’s bombshell announcement ahead of Friday morning.

    “She asked me to keep her committee assignments and I agreed,” Schumer said. “Kyrsten is independent; that’s how she’s always been. I believe she’s a good and effective Senator and am looking forward to a productive session in the new Democratic majority Senate.”

    Schumer also outlined how he did not expect Sinema’s decision to impact Democrats’ plans for next year, saying in his statement, “We will maintain our new majority on committees, exercise our subpoena power, and be able to clear nominees without discharge votes.”

    The Biden White House is offering a muted reaction Friday morning and insisting that they expect to continue having a productive working relationship with the senator.

    One White House official tells CNN that the move “doesn’t change much” other than Sinema’s own reelection calculations.

    “We’ve worked with her effectively on a lot of major legislation from CHIPS to the bipartisan infrastructure law,” the official said. The White House, for now, has “every reason to expect that will continue,” they added.

    Sinema has long been the source of a complex convergence of possibility, frustration and confusion inside the White House.

    “Rubik’s cube, I guess?” was how one former senior White House official described the Arizona senator who has played a central role in President Joe Biden’s largest legislative wins and also some of his biggest agenda disappointments.

    There was no major push to get Sinema to change her mind, a White House official said, noting that it wouldn’t have made a difference.

    “Nothing about the last two years indicates a major effort would’ve made helped – the exact opposite actually,” a White House official said.

    The most urgent near-term effort was to quietly find out what it meant for their newly expanded Senate majority, officials said.

    While there were still clear details to figure out about process, “I think people exhaled when we had a better understanding of what she meant,” one source familiar with the discussion said.

    Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told “CNN This Morning” that “Senator Sinema has always had an independent streak,” adding that “I don’t believe this is going to shake things up quite like everyone thinks.”

    She added, “Senator Sinema has been an independent in all intents and purposes.”

    Sinema and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin have infuriated liberals at various points over the past two years, standing in the way of Biden’s agenda at a time when Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House.

    Sinema and Manchin used their sway in the current 50-50 Senate – where any single Democrat could derail a bill – to influence a host of legislation, especially the massive $3.5 trillion Build Back Better bill that Biden proposed last year. Sinema’s objections to increasing the corporate tax rate during the initial round of negotiations over the legislation last year particularly rankled liberals.

    While Sinema was blindsided by the surprise deal that Manchin cut with Schumer in July on major health care and energy legislation, she ultimately backed the smaller spending package that Biden signed into law before the election.

    Both Manchin and Sinema also opposed changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules despite pressure from their Senate colleagues and Biden to change them. After a vote against filibuster changes in January, the Arizona Democratic Party’s executive board censured Sinema.

    Sinema has been in the middle of several significant bipartisan bills that were passed since Biden took office. She pointed to that record as evidence that her approach has been an effective one.

    “I’ve been honored to lead historic efforts, from infrastructure, to gun violence prevention, to protecting religious liberty and helping LGBT families feel secure, to the CHIPs and science bill to the work we’ve done on veterans’ issues,” she told CNN. “The list is really long. And so I think that the results speak for themselves. It’s OK if some people aren’t comfortable with that approach.”

    Sinema’s announcement comes just days after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection in Georgia, securing Democrats a 51st Senate seat that frees them from reliance on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.

    Sinema declined to address questions about whether she would support Biden for president in 2024, and she also said she’s not thinking about whether a strong third party should emerge in the US.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

    Source link

  • Vocal rat opponent NYC Mayor Adams gets rat infestation ticket dismissed | CNN

    Vocal rat opponent NYC Mayor Adams gets rat infestation ticket dismissed | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    New York Mayor Eric Adams, a vocal rat opponent who made fighting rodents in the city a priority, got his fine dismissed after he was issued a health code violation for an infestation at his Brooklyn property, his spokesman told CNN Friday.

    Adams was issued a summons dated May 10 for a health code violation stemming from a rodent infestation at the property in Bedford-Stuyvesant, noting the minimum penalty was a $300 fine, and the maximum penalty a $600 fine.

    The hearing before the New York Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings was eventually scheduled for Tuesday, at which time the mayor attended the hearing, his spokesperson Fabien Levy confirmed in a statement to CNN. Online records from the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearing indicate the mayor owed a balance of $330.

    “Mayor Adams has made no secret of the fact that he hates rats — whether scurrying around on the streets or terrorizing building tenants. He spent thousands of dollars to remediate an infestation at his residence in Brooklyn earlier this year, and was happy to appear before OATH today to state as much,” Levy said.

    The dismissal of his fine came after headlines splashed this week mocking the irony of the violation from the mayor who has repeatedly reiterated his personal vendetta against the vermin, most recently a “director of rodent mitigation” to rid the streets of its most notorious furry inhabitants.

    When asked about the infestation at a press conference Thursday, Mayor Adams said he is “fixated on killing rats.”

    “When I see one, I think about it all day,” said Adams. “So, on my block, whenever I go over to visit the brownstone, I see one scurrying down the block. It’s a problem,” adding that he spent thousands of dollars to exterminate them.

    In an interview with NY1 on Wednesday, Adams said he spent $6,800 on rat mitigation at his property, adding he “did a good job.”

    “And I want other New Yorkers, if you believe you were fined unfairly, utilize your right to go in front of a person to state, ‘Here’s my case. My receipts are clear,’” he said on NY1.

    At an October news conference, Adams and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced they were limiting the number of hours residential and commercial trash can sit on the curb before being picked up in hopes of addressing what they depicted as an “all-night, all-you-can-eat rat buffet.”

    “The rats don’t run this city,” the commissioner said at the time. “We do.”

    More recently, City Hall announced it was recruiting a new “director of rodent mitigation” to tackle the issue. The job listing indicates the city is looking for a so-called “rat czar” who is “highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty” with a “swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of badassery.”

    The director would be the public face of the city’s fight against the rat population and report to the deputy mayor for operations, per the listing. The gig’s salary ranges from $120,000 to $170,000.

    Source link

  • Jury deliberations in Harvey Weinstein’s 2nd sexual assault trial enter 6th day in Los Angeles | CNN

    Jury deliberations in Harvey Weinstein’s 2nd sexual assault trial enter 6th day in Los Angeles | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The second sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein, the former movie producer accused of using his Hollywood influence to lure women into private meetings and assault them, entered its sixth day Friday in the hands of a Los Angeles jury.

    Weinstein, behind bars in a medical unit, awaits a verdict on two counts of forcible rape and five counts of sexual assault involving four women – a model, a dancer, a massage therapist and a producer. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

    Jurors began deliberating Friday after hearing weeks of testimony from dozens of witnesses. As of Thursday evening, jurors have been in deliberation for about 20 hours.

    At trial, four of the original 11 charges against Weinstein tied to one of the Jane Does were dropped without explanation.

    Weinstein could face 60 years to life in prison, plus an additional five years, if the jury finds him guilty.

    Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence after being convicted of a criminal sex act and third-degree rape during a 2020 trial in New York. His attorneys have appealed the conviction.

    Weinstein’s publicist, Juda Engelmayer, told CNN the former producer is in a detention facility’s medical unit, and is anxious but “hoping for the best.”

    The trial in Los Angeles included testimony from the four accusers identified as Jane Does in court, and other witnesses, including experts, law enforcement, friends of accusers and former aides to Weinstein.

    Additionally, four women testified they were subjected to similar incidents by Weinstein in other jurisdictions.

    All the accusers were asked in court to recount the details of their allegations against Weinstein, provide details of meetings with the producer from years ago and explain their reactions to the alleged assaults.

    Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom – identified by her attorneys as Jane Doe 4 – alleged Weinstein raped her in a hotel room in 2005.

    In closing arguments Wednesday, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez called Weinstein a “titan” who used his power in Hollywood to prey on and silence women.

    “Rapists rape. You can look at the pattern,” fellow prosecutor Paul Thompson told jurors.

    “You have irrefutable, overwhelming evidence about the nature of this man and what he did to these women,” Thompson said.

    Meanwhile, Weinstein’s attorneys have maintained the allegations are either fabricated or occurred consensually as part of a “transactional relationship” with the movie producer, repeatedly saying there is no evidence of assault.

    Defense attorney Alan Jackson called the accusers “fame and fortune seekers.”

    Each morning at trial, Weinstein was brought from a correctional facility and wheeled into the Los Angeles courtroom wearing a suit and tie and holding a composition notebook.

    His accusers all began their oftentimes emotional testimonies by identifying him in the courtroom as he looked on.

    “He’s wearing a suit, and a blue tie and he’s staring at me,” Siebel Newsom said last month, before what was one of the most emotional moments of the trial.

    On Thursday of last week, defense attorney Jackson asked jurors if they could “accept what (the Jane Does) say as gospel,” arguing what they said was a lack of forensic evidence supporting their claim.

    “Five words that sum up the entirety of the prosecution’s case: ‘Take my word for it,’” Jackson said. “‘Take my word for it that he showed up at my hotel room unannounced. Take my word for it that I showed up at his hotel room. Take my word for it that I didn’t consent. Take my word for it, that I said no.’”

    Siebel Newsom described an hourslong “cat-and-mouse period,” which preceded her alleged assault. She, like other accusers, described feeling “frozen” that day.

    Attorneys for Weinstein do not deny the incident occurred, but said he believed it was consensual.

    Jackson called the incident “consensual, transactional sex,” adding: “Regret is not the same thing as rape. And it’s important we make that distinction in this courtroom.”

    Women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing Jane Doe 2 in the case, told CNN she hopes the jury sees her client “has no motive at all to do anything but tell the truth.”

    “She never sought or received any compensation … She doesn’t live in California anymore. But she is testifying because she’s been asked to testify and I hope that they see her as the young woman that she was when she met Harvey Weinstein, and the woman that she is today approximately nine to 10 years later. Her life has changed,” Allred said.

    “To be willing to subject yourself to what could be a very brutal cross-examination. That takes a very special person to do that. And she is a special person. I’m very proud,” Allred said.

    In her closing arguments, Martinez also highlighted that the women who testified chose to do so despite knowing they would face tough conditions in court.

    “The truth is that, as you sit here, we know the despicable behavior the defendant engaged in. He thought he was so powerful that people would … excuse his behavior,” Martinez said. “That’s just Harvey being Harvey. That’s just Hollywood. And for so long that’s what everyone did. Everyone just turned their heads.”

    Source link

  • Brittney Griner arrives in the US after being released from Russian custody in a prisoner exchange | CNN

    Brittney Griner arrives in the US after being released from Russian custody in a prisoner exchange | CNN


    San Antonio
    CNN
     — 

    Brittney Griner, the American basketball star detained by Russian authorities in February, has safely returned to the United States after being released from custody in a prisoner exchange.

    US officials who met Griner on the ground Friday morning said she was “in good spirits and incredibly gracious,” one told CNN. A person who appeared to be Griner stepped off the plane shortly after 5:30 a.m. ET Friday at Kelly Field in San Antonio.

    “So happy to have Brittney back on US soil. Welcome home BG!” tweeted Roger Carstens, a State Department official traveling with Griner, Friday morning.

    LIVE UPDATES: Brittney Griner’s release, Russia’s war in Ukraine

    One of her first stops is expected to be “at a treatment facility where she can get the medical care that she might need after 10 months in detention,” the National Security Council’s John Kirby told CNN on Thursday.

    Griner’s release was secured after a prisoner swap between the US and Russia that involved international arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was arrested in 2008 in Thailand and extradited to the US in 2010.

    The exchange was conducted Thursday in Abu Dhabi, senior Biden administration officials said. A joint statement from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia said the Gulf countries played a role mediating the exchange between the US and Russia.

    It is not a sign of improvements in US-Russian relations, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

    Griner’s arrest and conviction played out against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and added further attention to the plights of other Americans in Russian custody, including Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed. Whelan’s release could not be secured in the latest prisoner swap, while Reed returned to the US in April after a nearly three-year ordeal.

    The Biden administration will continue negotiating with Russia to secure Whelan’s release, it said Friday. Russians “have things they want in this world,” and Moscow knows ultimately the two sides will reach “a mutually acceptable arrangement if they keep talking to us,” a senior administration official told CNN.

    President Joe Biden said efforts to bring Griner home took “painstaking and intense negotiations” as he thanked members of his administration who were involved.

    “This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. We never stopped pushing for her release,” he said Thursday.

    The final deal came together over 48 hours, the officials said, launching the process of moving Griner from the penal colony where she was serving a lengthy sentence.

    Biden gave final approval for the prisoner swap freeing Griner over the past week, an official familiar with the matter said.

    Bout has returned home to Russia, the Russian foreign ministry said Thursday. The prisoner exchange with Griner was “completed successfully at Abu Dhabi Airport” on Thursday, the ministry said.

    Griner’s family thanked Biden and his administration Thursday in a statement, as well as former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, whose Richardson Center worked on behalf of the family to help secure Griner’s release. They also expressed gratitude for the outpouring of public support they’ve received.

    “We sincerely thank you all for the kind words, thoughts and prayers – including Paul and the Whelan family who have been generous with their support for Brittney and our family during what we know is a heartbreaking time,” the statement said.

    “We pray for Paul and for the swift and safe return of all wrongfully-detained Americans.”

    While the safe return of Griner has been heralded by some as a diplomatic achievement, disappointment has been expressed by officials and supporters alike that Whelan was not able to return home.

    Whelan, a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen, was detained at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 by Russian authorities who alleged he was involved in an intelligence operation. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges he has vehemently denied. The US State Department has declared him wrongfully detained.

    The Russians signaled recently that they were only willing to negotiate for Griner and not Whelan, a US official said, because Russia said it has been handling their cases differently based on what each has been accused of.

    The Biden administration repeatedly made offers to get Whelan released as part of this deal, even after Russia made clear only Griner was acceptable.

    In the end, when it was clear Russia was going to refuse on Whelan, the US had to accept it.

    “It was a choice to get Brittney or nothing,” the US official said, adding that was a “difficult decision” for Biden, but again, one he felt he had to make.

    Biden acknowledged that Griner’s release was occurring while Whelan remained imprisoned, saying that Whelan’s family “have to have such mixed emotions today.”

    “This was not a choice of which American to bring home,” Biden said. “Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”

    In a statement, Griner’s family said, “We sincerely thank you all for the kind words, thoughts and prayers – including Paul and the Whelan family who have been generous with their support for Brittney and our family during what we know is a heartbreaking time.”

    Whelan told CNN in an exclusive phone call from the penal colony where is being held in a remote part of Russia that he was “disappointed” the Biden administration has not done more to secure his release. Whelan said he was happy that Griner was released, but that he “was led to believe that things were moving in the right direction, and that the governments were negotiating and that something would happen fairly soon.”

    “I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here,” he said.

    Whelan had been carrying out his sentence at a labor camp in Mordovia, an eight-hour drive from Moscow, where he told CNN in June 2021 he spent his days working in a clothing factory that he called a “sweatshop.”

    The Biden administration has ideas about “new forms of offers” they are going to try with the Russians in an effort to secure Whelan’s release, a senior administration official told CNN on Thursday.

    The official said there is a recognition that the US needs to make available “something more, something different” from what they have offered to the Russians thus far – and didn’t rule out offering a Russian spy in US custody in a potential prisoner swap.

    “There is a willingness to pay even a very big price on the part of this president,” the official said. “We have made clear to the Russians, that we at least are open to talking about that which is at our disposal, that which we could actually deliver. It would be somebody in our custody.”

    Richardson said he hopes Whelan will be returned home by the end of the year.

    “We have tried, my foundation, for four years to get Whelan out and somehow it always falls short. … Possibly because of the espionage charge, because he’s a Marine, he’s wrongfully detained, the Russians hold on to him at the very end. And this is what happened again, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a possibility that we can get him out. I think we can,” Richardson told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

    Whelan’s family expressed happiness at the news that Griner is on her way home but said Thursday they are “devastated” that he was left behind.

    “It’s a great day for the families of the wrongfully detained and we feel wonderful for them,” David Whelan, Paul’s brother, said on “CNN This Morning.” “But we do worry about what’s in Paul’s future. I think it’s become clear that the US doesn’t have any concessions that the Russian government wants for Paul. So I’m not really sure what the future holds.”

    The Biden administration told Whelan’s family ahead of the Griner announcement, David Whelan said.

    Source link

  • Michael Flynn appears before Atlanta grand jury probe into Trump’s election subversion | CNN Politics

    Michael Flynn appears before Atlanta grand jury probe into Trump’s election subversion | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former national security adviser Michael Flynn is appearing Thursday before an Atlanta-area special grand jury probing efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

    CNN spotted Flynn, who was escorted by a small entourage, walk up the stairs of the Superior Court of Fulton County shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday.

    Last month, a judge in Florida ordered Flynn to testify, saying the former Trump administration official “is indeed material and necessary in the special grand jury proceeding in the state of Georgia.”

    Flynn’s attorneys had argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing the investigation, “overstepped her authority,” so he should not be required to travel to Atlanta to testify because there is an “utter lack of facts” to support that Flynn is a necessary witness.

    Fulton County prosecutors want the grand jury to hear from Flynn about a December 18, 2020, meeting he had with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign, according to a court filing.

    During the heated Oval Office meeting, Flynn and Powell floated outrageous suggestions about overturning the election, CNN previously reported. The meeting occurred just three weeks after Trump pardoned Flynn near the end of his tenure.

    Prosecutors in Georgia are also interested in hearing from Flynn about his December 2020 interview on the conservative media outlet Newsmax, where he said that Trump “could order – within the swing states, if he wanted to – he could take military capabilities, and he could place them in those states and basically re-run an election in each of those states,” according to a court filing.

    Flynn invoked his Fifth Amendment right during a deposition earlier this year before the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.

    In 2017, Flynn lost his job as national security adviser under Trump and pleaded guilty in federal court after lying to the FBI and then-Vice President Mike Pence while serving in the Trump White House.

    Source link

  • Opinion: Brittney Griner’s release is cause for celebration and reflection | CNN

    Opinion: Brittney Griner’s release is cause for celebration and reflection | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Amy Bass (@bassab1) is professor of sport studies at Manhattanville College and the author of “One Goal: A Coach, a Team, and the Game That Brought a Divided Town Together” and “Not the Triumph but the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete,” among other titles. The views expressed here are solely hers. Read more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    When Cherelle Griner, resplendent in joyful red, took the podium from President Joe Biden at the White House, she said all of the hard things.

    Biden already had confirmed with a straightforward and powerful tweet — “Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home.” — that the basketball star’s nearly 10-month detention in Russia was, indeed over, and gave brief remarks verifying the news, as well as the fact that US businessman Paul Whelan, imprisoned in Russia on charges of espionage (which he has denied) since December, 2018, was not, as the US had hoped, part of the deal.

    The emotional complications of such a moment were left to Cherelle Griner to express.

    “So today my family is home, but as you all are aware, there’s so many other families who are not whole,” she told the press. “And so, BG is not here to say this, but I will gladly speak on her behalf and say that BG and I will remain committed to the work of getting every American home.”

    As the pre-dawn whispers came to light that Griner had been released in a one for one prisoner swap for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the so-called “Merchant of Death,” the undeniable elation of Griner’s family, friends, teammates and fans was indeed tempered by the fact that Whelan was not coming home.

    While both Biden and Cherelle Griner emphasized the importance of keeping Whelan in the conversation, they did not — as they should not — let that vanquish the euphoria regarding Griner’s return stateside.

    Yet upon Griner’s return, many questions remain. What does her ordeal mean and what comes next?

    While the US State Department described the allegations against Griner as “wrongful,” public response to her detainment and subsequent trial and conviction for carrying vape dispensers containing trace amounts of hashish oil became a primer on so many things.

    Responses to her plight were perhaps especially revealing about sexism and the role of women in elite sport, with reactions on Twitter ranging from those who claimed Griner had it coming — if you do the crime, you do the time — doing battle with teammates and fans who demanded her release.

    Would the path to getting her home have been different if she played in the NBA instead of the WNBA? Would she have been in Russia at all — a place that until her detainment treated (and paid) her like the star that she is — if not for the excessive gendered chasm that exists in the paychecks of American professional athletes?

    We know the answers to these questions. Now that she is coming home, what becomes of her legacy because of this time spent in the headlines off the court, off the sport page?

    As Griner saw a wedding anniversary, a birthday and a WNBA season from behind the bars of a holding cell that could barely contain her towering figure, it became clear that much of the public knew of Griner only as a political pawn, rather than the generational athlete that she is — the first player to dunk in the WNBA.

    Yet her Phoenix Mercury teammates, her coach, her fans and her family rallied around her, demanding that the campaign to bring her home safely stay center stage in the complex landscape of diplomatic imbroglios. At the WNBA All-Star game in Chicago last summer, players wore jerseys bearing her name and number — the historically significant 42 — during the second half of the game, while the league deemed Griner an honorary starter.

    Seeing Griner’s name on that roster is part and parcel of a career with stats that are simply indisputable. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, Griner is a seven-time WBNA All-Star. Her impact on the sport is the stuff that, well, legends are made of: in the gold medal game against Japan at the Tokyo Olympics last year, Griner hit 30 points on 14-of-18 shooting, adding five rebounds and three blocks to her card — a record for points scored by a US woman in a gold-medal game.

    But now Griner’s legacy has taken a sharp turn, the magic she has conjured on the court replaced by images of her in that Russian holding cell, stories of the penal colony outside of Moscow where she recently was sent to serve the nine-year sentence handed down by the Russian court and repeated questions from those who still fail to understand why an elite American athlete chooses to play in Russia.

    “If it was LeBron, he’d be home, right?” Griner’s coach, Vanessa Nygaard, asked last July. “It’s a statement about the value of women. It’s a statement about the value of a Black person. It’s a statement about the value of a gay person. All of those things. We know it, and so that’s what hurts a little more.”

    Griner’s return, however, is no less political than her detainment. While properly deemed a victory for the Biden administration after a critical final midterm win in Georgia on Tuesday, and Griner’s freedom a joyous outcome worth its cost, the return of Bout also gives Vladimir Putin, who for months had been called noncommittal regarding a swap for Griner, a victory in a week when he likely felt he really needed one.

    Amidst news that Russia’s campaign against Ukraine continues to fail on many levels, and Time’s naming of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky as its 2022 Person of the Year, a statement from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about Bout celebrates the work to “rescue our compatriot” and affirms that the “Russian citizen has been returned to his homeland.”

    As for Griner, what comes next should be up to her, with questions of whether or not she will return to the court best left for another day. Instead of jumping into those narratives, perhaps we could pause, take a breath and think about how Griner’s nightmare has revealed so much about things that should never be glossed over. Cherelle Griner said it best at the White House: what must not be forgotten are those families, the Whelans especially included, who still are not whole.

    Source link

  • Biden’s pick for IRS commissioner would face backlog of tax returns while gearing up for next filing season | CNN Politics

    Biden’s pick for IRS commissioner would face backlog of tax returns while gearing up for next filing season | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Even though the Internal Revenue Service has been steadily chipping away at its major backlog of tax filings, millions of individuals and businesses are still waiting for their tax returns to be fully processed and their refunds to be sent.

    Dealing with this mountain of paperwork, as well as deploying the nearly $80 billion that Congress gave the agency earlier this year, could fall to Daniel Werfel, whom President Joe Biden nominated last month to be the next IRS commissioner.

    Werfel, whose Senate confirmation hearing has yet to be scheduled, is no stranger to turmoil at the IRS. He served as acting commissioner for seven months in 2013 after his predecessor was forced to resign following the revelation that the agency targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny.

    Prior to joining the IRS, Werfel worked for nearly 16 years at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, serving as deputy controller and then federal controller. After leaving the government, he joined Boston Consulting Group, where he is a managing director and partner on the federal and public sector teams.

    “The management challenges are significant, both spending the money efficiently and wisely,” said John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner from 2013 to 2017. “It’ll be an interesting, but good challenge for him. I think he’s more than up to it.”

    During his time at the IRS, Werfel responded to numerous congressional investigations, the White House noted when it announced his nomination.

    If confirmed, he is expected to be called again to Capitol Hill. House Republicans, who will take charge of the chamber in January, plan to conduct multiple inquiries into the agency.

    “Will he cooperate with congressional oversight efforts, such as the pending requests related to the continuing large tax return backlog, Child Tax Credit administration, and the agency’s suspicious solicitation of millions of additional tax credit claims right before an election, among many others?” Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the Republican leader of the House Ways and Means Committee, said when Werfel was nominated.

    The Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the IRS, which closed its offices for several months in 2020. Millions of paper returns and correspondence piled up in trailers during the shutdown.

    On top of that, Congress enacted several relief programs that were carried out by the agency in 2020 and 2021 – including three rounds of stimulus checks, a monthly child tax credit and an unemployment compensation exclusion – all of which added to the pressure on its staff.

    The agency has devoted more resources to clearing the massive backlog of paper returns and is moving more quickly than it did a year ago, National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins said during a Tax Policy Center panel discussion last month. But the IRS is still not where she would like it to be.

    There were still 3.2 million unprocessed individual returns as of November 25, according to the agency. Of these, 1.5 million are paper returns waiting to be reviewed and processed and 1.7 million are returns that require error correction or other special handling.

    The IRS also has 800,000 unprocessed amended individual tax returns as of late November. It could take more than 20 weeks for the filings to be processed.

    Those figures remain daunting with only a few weeks left before the agency shuts down its systems to prepare for the upcoming filing year. But they show the IRS is making progress. There were about 3 million individual paper returns and 1.3 million amended returns waiting to be processed as of October 21, Collins wrote in a blog post last month.

    As for business returns, Collins found there were more than 4 million in need of initial processing as well as several hundred thousand amended returns as of October 21.

    Plus, there are 6.3 million suspended returns, of which nearly 3 million were being reviewed for potential identity theft as of late October. And the agency has about 4.5 million pieces of correspondence awaiting processing.

    The IRS does not provide updated processing figures for business returns, correspondence or all suspended returns online.

    What’s more, the agency is only answering about one in 10 calls it receives. The rate was around 85% two decades ago.

    The IRS said it intends to be “healthy” by the end of the year, Collins wrote, but she questioned how the agency defines “healthy.”

    “Regardless of the IRS’ definition, none of the above taxpayers will see the IRS as ‘healthy’ until their return is worked,” she wrote.

    The IRS did not respond to requests for comment.

    The backlog stems in part from cuts to the agency’s budget and staffing levels over the past decade. The budget is down more than 15%, after adjusting for inflation, and staffing has shrunk to 1970s levels, former Commissioner Charles Rettig told a Senate committee earlier this year.

    The agency is already deploying part of the $80 billion in funding that it will receive over 10 years from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, which passed this summer.

    In October, the IRS announced it had hired 4,000 customer service representatives to answer phones and provide other taxpayer assistance. It said it intends to hire another 1,000 staffers by the end of the year.

    Many will be in place at the start of the 2023 tax season, and nearly all will be trained by Presidents’ Day in February, which is traditionally when the agency sees the highest call volumes.

    The IRS expects the phones to be answered at a much higher rate this upcoming season, the agency said.

    In addition, the IRS is looking to hire 700 people for its Taxpayer Assistance Centers across the country. It will be the first time in a decade that its more than 270 walk-in sites will be properly staffed, the agency said.

    While the upcoming tax filing season should be better than the last two, there are reasons for concern, said Larry Gray, national government liaison for the National Association of Tax Professionals. Since the new employees will still be learning, he questioned whether they will be as accurate or be able to answer questions as quickly as those with a few years under their belts.

    Plus, training the new hires is pulling experienced staffers away from processing the backlog.

    “We are moving in a direction to better,” said Gray. But “if you think the backlog is going to be gone, you are waking up in a dream.”

    Source link

  • A Virginia superintendent is fired after a state report into handling of sexual assaults at school is issued | CNN

    A Virginia superintendent is fired after a state report into handling of sexual assaults at school is issued | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Virginia school superintendent was fired Tuesday, a day after a report from the state accused him of lying about a sexual assault involving a student in May 2021.

    The special grand jury report, conducted by the office of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, also criticized former school superintendent Dr. Scott Ziegler and other school officials for mishandling the investigation of an October sexual assault allegedly by the same student that year.

    The superintendent said of the May sexual assault “to my knowledge we don’t have any records of assaults occurring in our restrooms,” at a June 2021 school board meeting, according to the report. At the time, Ziegler said he misunderstood the question.

    The Loudoun County Public School Board voted unanimously to fire Ziegler Tuesday night, but provided no reason for the firing, school spokesman Wayde Byard told CNN.

    “The Special Grand Jury’s report contains important recommendations and information,” Miyares said in a statement to CNN Wednesday. “I’m glad to see that the school board is taking the report seriously, and hope it results in positive change for the LCPS community.”

    CNN has attempted to reach Ziegler for comment. Byard would not comment further regarding allegations into LCPS mishandling of the sexual assault cases outlined in the special grand jury report.

    A teenage student had been arrested for sexual battery and abduction of another student at a Loudoun County public school in October 2021, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said, according to the report.

    The teenager also allegedly sexually assaulted another student in May 2021, according to the report. In that assault, the grand jury report alleged that the sexual assault occurred in a women’s bathroom while the perpetrator was wearing a skirt.

    “National outrage focused on Loudoun County because the student was labeled as gender fluid, LCPS had recently passed a transgender policy to conform with the Virginia Department of Education’s model policy,” said the report.

    CNN could not find evidence substantiating that the student identified as transgender or gender-fluid.

    The 2021 Virginia Department of Education’s Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools outlined that transgender students should be allowed to use bathrooms and staff should use the personal pronouns that were most consistent with their gender identity.

    In 2022, under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Department of Education replaced the policy with an updated one stating that students should use bathrooms according to his or her sex.

    On his first day in office on January 15, Youngkin passed an executive order authorizing an investigation of Loudoun County Public Schools by the Attorney General. Youngkin had mentioned the sexual assault cases at Loudoun schools several times while campaigning for governor.

    “The special grand jury’s report on the horrific sexual assaults in Loudoun has exposed wrongdoing, prompted disciplinary actions, & provided families with the truth. I will continue to empower parents & push for accountability on behalf of our students,” Youngkin tweeted Wednesday.

    Source link

  • The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

    The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

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



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has been campaigning in between his many different court appearances for much of the year.

    But his decision to attend the first day of his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York created another opportunity to appear on camera from inside a courtroom when the judge allowed photographers to document the moment before proceedings got underway.

    Keeping track of the dizzying array of civil and criminal cases is a full-time job.

    He is charged with crimes related to conduct:

    • Before his presidency – a hush money scheme that may have helped him win the White House in 2016.
    • During his presidency – his effort to stay in the White House by overturning the 2020 election.
    • After his presidency – his treatment of classified material and alleged attempts to hide it from the National Archives.

    Trump denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty in all of the criminal cases. He alleges a “witch hunt” against him. But each trial has its own distinct storyline to follow.

    Here’s an updated list of developments in Trump’s very complicated set of court cases, beginning with the one playing out in Manhattan this week.

    The civil fraud trial, unlike Trump’s multiple criminal indictments, does not carry the danger of a felony conviction and jail time, but it could very well cost him some of his most prized possessions, including Trump Tower.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the $250 million lawsuit in September 2022, alleging that Trump and his co-defendants committed repeated fraud in inflating assets on financial statements to get better terms on commercial real estate loans and insurance policies.

    Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his adult sons are liable for fraud for inflating the value of his golf courses, hotels and homes on financial statements to secure loans.

    The trial portion of the case, playing out in court in Manhattan, will assess what damages will be levied against Trump and how Engoron’s decision to strip Trump of his New York business licenses will play out.

    In May, a federal jury in Manhattan found Trump sexually abused former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and awarded her about $5 million.

    A separate civil defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Trump has to pay her. That case for January 15 – the same day Iowa Republicans will hold their caucuses, the first date on the presidential primary calendar.

    In August, Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election. The former president was arraigned in a Washington, DC, courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty.

    The case is based in part on a scheme to create slates of fake electors in key states won by President Joe Biden.

    In late September, Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s request that she recuse herself from the case. Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, has overseen civil and criminal cases related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection and has repeatedly exceeded what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.

    Chutkan set the trial’s start date for March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday, when the largest batch of presidential primaries will occur. The trial marks the first of Trump’s criminal cases expected to proceed.

    Trump has been charged in Manhattan criminal court with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels late in the 2016 presidential campaign.

    The former president pleaded not guilty at his April arraignment in Manhattan.

    Prosecutors, led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuse Trump of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal $130,000 in payments to Daniels made by former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to guarantee her silence about an alleged affair.

    Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels.

    The trial was originally scheduled to begin in late March 2024, but Judge Juan Merchan has suggested the date could move. The next court date is scheduled for February.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is using racketeering violations to charge a broad criminal conspiracy against Trump and 18 others in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.

    The probe was launched in 2021 following Trump’s call that January with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the president pushed the Republican official to “find” votes to overturn the election results.

    The August indictment also includes how Trump’s team allegedly misled state officials in Georgia; organized fake electors; harassed an election worker; and breached election equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia.

    One co-defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, has pleaded guilty to five counts in the case.

    Fulton County prosecutors have signaled they could offer plea deals to other co-defendants.

    Willis this week issued a subpoena to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Trump ally, who in turn demanded an immunity deal in exchange for testimony.

    Trial for two co-defendants is expected to begin this month and could last three to five months. A trial date has not been set for Trump, who has pleaded not guilty.

    Federal criminal court in Florida: Mishandling classified material

    Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges brought by Smith over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Smith added three additional counts in a superseding indictment.

    The investigation centers on sensitive documents that Trump brought to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after his White House term ended in January 2021.

    The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

    Trump was also caught on tape in a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president discussed holding secret documents he did not declassify.

    Smith’s additional charges allege that Trump and his employees attempted to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage sought by the grand jury investigating the mishandling of the records.

    Trial is not expected until May, after most presidential primaries have concluded.

    There are other cases to note:

    Trump’s namesake business, the Trump Organization, was convicted in December by a New York jury of tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records in what prosecutors say was a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation provided to employees.

    Manhattan prosecutors told a jury the case was about “greed and cheating,” laying out a scheme within the Trump Organization to pay high-level executives in perks such as luxury cars and apartments without paying taxes on them.

    Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to his role in the tax scheme. He was released after serving four months in jail at Rikers Island.

    Several members of the US Capitol Police and Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police are suing Trump, saying his words and actions incited the 2021 riot.

    The various cases accuse Trump of directing assault and battery; aiding and abetting assault and battery; and violating Washington laws that prohibit the incitement of riots and disorderly conduct.

    In August, Trump requested to put on hold the lawsuit related to the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, citing his various criminal trials. The estate of Sicknick, who died after responding to the attack on the Capitol, is suing two rioters involved in the attack and Trump for his alleged role in egging it on.

    Other lawsuits have been put on hold while a federal appeals court considers whether Trump had absolute immunity as the sitting president.

    Former top FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who was fired in 2018 after the revelation that he criticized Trump in text messages, sued the Justice Department, alleging he was terminated improperly.

    In summer 2017, former special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election after an internal investigation revealed texts with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page that could be read as exhibiting political bias.

    Strzok and Page were constant targets of verbal attacks by Trump and his allies, part of the larger ire the then-president expressed toward the FBI during the Russia investigation. Trump repeatedly and publicly called for Strzok’s ouster until he was fired in August 2018.

    Trump is set to be deposed this month as part of the case, according to Politico.

    A federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more than two dozen other people and entities that he claims conspired to undermine his 2016 campaign with fabricated information tying him to Russia.

    “What (Trump’s lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote.

    Trump appealed the decision, but Middlebrooks also ruled that the former president and his attorneys are liable for nearly $1 million in sanctions for bringing the case.

    Trump launched a Hail Mary bid in July to revive the sprawling lawsuit, relying on a recent report from special counsel John Durham that criticized the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe.

    Trump’s former lawyer Cohen sued Trump, former Attorney General William Barr and others, alleging they put him back in jail to prevent him from promoting his upcoming book while under home confinement.

    Cohen was serving the remainder of his sentence for lying to Congress and campaign violations at home, due to Covid-19 concerns, when he started an anti-Trump social media campaign in summer 2020. Cohen said that he was sent back to prison in retaliation and that he spent 16 days in solitary confinement.

    A federal judge threw out the lawsuit in November. District Judge Lewis Liman said he was empathetic to Cohen’s position but that Supreme Court precedent bars him from allowing the case to move forward.

    Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward in January for alleged copyright violations, claiming Woodward released audio from their interviews without Trump’s consent.

    Woodward and publisher Simon & Schuster said Trump’s case is without merit and moved for its dismissal.

    Woodward conducted several interviews with Trump for his book “Rage,” published in September 2020. Woodward later released “The Trump Tapes,” an audiobook featuring eight hours of raw interviews with Trump interspersed with the author’s commentary.

    Trump-filed lawsuits: The New York Times, Mary Trump and CNN

    The former president is suing his niece and The New York Times in New York state court over the disclosure of his tax information.

    A New York judge dismissed The New York Times from Trump’s lawsuit regarding disclosure of his tax returns and ordered Trump to pay the newspaper’s legal fees. Trump is still suing his niece Mary Trump for disclosure of the tax documents. She had tried to sue him for defrauding her out of millions after the death of his father, but the suit was dismissed.

    Source link

  • Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN

    Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election is being celebrated by supporters across the nation with many political observers crediting the work of voting rights groups for the consequential win.

    Warnock delivered a victory speech to a fiery crowd in Atlanta on Tuesday night that touched on the power of faith, his deep Georgia roots and the perseverance of voters in the face of Republican-led voter suppression efforts. Election officials said a record number of voters showed up for early voting last week. And Black voters have been largely credited for Warnock’s win, signaling that Georgia is no longer a reliably red state.

    In his speech, Warnock also honored the Black and White unsung heroes of the civil rights movement who died fighting for equal voting rights, making wins like his possible.

    “Tonight, I want to pay tribute to all those, over so many years, who have put their voices, and their lives on the line, to defend that right,” Warnock said. “Martyrs of the movement like (Michael) Schwerner, (James) Chaney and (Andrew) Goodman, Viola Luizzo, James Reeb. And those who stood up and spoke up like Fannie Lou Hamer. John Lewis, who walked across a bridge knowing that there were police waiting to brutalize him on the other side. Yet, by some stroke of destiny mingled with human determination he walked across that bridge in order to build a bridge to a more just future.”

    While Hamer and Lewis have been widely discussed by historians and journalists, Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman, Luizzo and Reeb are lesser known. But that doesn’t negate the significance of their work toward equality. All of them were killed by white supremacists or Ku Klux Klan members.

    Here is what you should know about five “martyrs” of the movement:

    Liuzzo was a 39-year-old wife and mother of five of from Detroit who was killed by Ku Klux Klansmen in Selma on March 25, 1965.

    Historical records show Liuzzo, a White woman, had been committed to fighting for economic justice and civil rights.

    She was an active member of the Detroit NAACP chapter and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit. Family members say she decided to travel to Selma in 1965 after seeing televised news reports of peaceful protesters being beaten and tear-gassed by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

    In Selma, Liuzzo marched and helped transport demonstrators in her car. She was ambushed and shot to death by KKK members while driving Leroy Moton, a Black man, to Montgomery. Within 24 hours of Liuzzo’s death, President Lyndon Johnson announced the arrests of the KKK members. They were all acquitted by Alabama courts, however a federal grand jury found them guilty of violating Liuzzo’s civil rights and they were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    In 1991, a marker honoring Liuzzo was erected at the site where she was killed on U.S. Highway 80, about 20 miles east of Selma

    Rev. James J. Reeb, 38, was attacked by a White mob in Selma in 1965 and he died from his injuries days later.

    Reeb, a White Unitarian minister who lived in Boston, died after traveling to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to answer Martin Luther King Jr’s call to clergy to join demonstrations for voting rights in the aftermath of “Bloody Sunday.”

    The 38-year-old minister was beaten by a group of White men on March 9, 1965 as he and two other White clergymen left an integrated Selma restaurant after having dinner. He was hit in the head and died two days later at a Birmingham hospital.

    His killing gained nationwide attention, prompted vigils in his honor and is believed to have contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

    “The world is aroused over the murder of James Reeb. For he symbolizes the forces of goodwill in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers,” King said as he delivered a eulogy for Reeb in 1965.

    Three White men were indicted with murder in Reeb’s killing but their cases resulted in acquittals.

    Andrew Goodman, left, James Chaney, center, and Michael Shwerner, right, were killed in the summer of 1964.

    Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. The killings were among the most notorious of the civil rights era, and were the subject of the 1988 movie “Mississippi Burning.”

    The three men, who registered African Americans to vote, had just visited the victims of the burning of a Black church in Neshoba County when a sheriff’s deputy took them into custody for speeding. The men were driving a car with license plates registered to the Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO), one of the most active civil rights groups in Mississippi, according to an FBI file on the case.

    After their release from the county jail, a Ku Klux Klan mob tailed their car, forced it off the road and shot them to death. Their bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam, after an extensive FBI investigation.

    Chaney was a 21-year-old Black volunteer with COFO. Goodman, a White 20-year-old, was a college student and new volunteer from New York. Schwerner, a White 24-year-old former social worker, was an established civil rights organizer who was “particularly reviled by the Klan for his work,” according to the FBI file.

    The killings fueled the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the next year.

    In 1967, prosecutors convicted eight defendants for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute, namely the victims’ right to live. None served more than six years in prison.

    No murder charges were filed at the time but nearly 40 years later, Edgar Ray Killen, a part-time Baptist minister and the plot leader, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005 and sentenced to three consecutive 20-year sentences. Killen died in 2018.

    Source link

  • Congress faces time crunch on government funding and sweeping defense policy bill | CNN Politics

    Congress faces time crunch on government funding and sweeping defense policy bill | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are scrambling to try to fund the government and pass a sweeping defense policy bill before a new Congress is sworn in, but there are signs that both sides have struggled to reach agreement over these key outstanding issues.

    Government funding expires at the end of next week on December 16 – and it appears all but certain that lawmakers will have to pass a short-term extension as they try to reach a broader full-year funding agreement.

    Separately, the House has been expected to take up the National Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2023 this week, but it’s not yet clear when a vote will take place amid questions over whether certain controversial policy provisions will be included in the legislation – like eliminating a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for the military. Once the House has passed the bill, it would next have be taken up by the Senate.

    Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell warned on Tuesday that rather than passing a full-year funding bill, lawmakers may have to pass a short-term stop-gap measure to kick the can into early next year. This would set up a huge funding fight and create fears of a government shutdown early in the new Congress, when Republicans will take control of the House and would have to cut a deal with Democrats who run the Senate.

    On government funding legislation, McConnell said: “We don’t have agreement to do virtually anything, which can only leave us with the option of a short-term CR into early next year,” referring to a short-term bill known as a continuing resolution.

    He added: “We don’t even have an overall agreement on how much we’re going to spend, and we’re running out of time.”

    Despite the threat of a stop-gap, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated on Tuesday that senators are “working very hard” to reach a deal to fully fund the government before the upcoming deadline, but acknowledged that “there’s a lot of negotiating left to do.”

    Senate Republican Whip John Thune signaled Tuesday that he doesn’t have a “high level of confidence” both parties will be able to reach a deal on an omnibus government funding bill, as time is running short to pass that massive bill.

    “I don’t have a high level of confidence because I’m looking at the calendar,” the South Dakota Republican said. “It’ll be a very heavy lift, but who knows? I guess I would say is, you know, bring your Yuletide carols and all that stuff here because we may be singing to each other.”

    McConnell complained Tuesday that Democrats were preventing quick passage of the National Defense Authorization Act by trying to add unrelated items at the last minute that Republicans oppose.

    “Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA by trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship whatsoever to defense. We’re talking about a grab bag of miscellaneous pet priorities,” McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.

    “My colleagues across the aisle need to cut their unrelated hostage taking and put a bipartisan NDAA on the floor,” he added.

    Lawmakers released text of an agreement for the NDAA Tuesday night.

    The summary, released by the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it “requires the Secretary of Defense to rescind the mandate that members of the Armed Forces be vaccinated against COVID-19.”

    CNN reported earlier this week that the mandate was likely to be rescinded as part of the defense policy bill.

    In a tweeted statement Tuesday night, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said that “the end of President Biden’s military COVID vaccine mandate is a victory for our military and for common sense.”

    House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said earlier Tuesday that the House was considering eliminating the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for military members in order to gather enough Republican votes to pass the annual defense authorization. Republicans have said they will not support the NDAA with the vaccine mandate in place.

    Hoyer said at his weekly pen and pad with reporters that Democrats were not “willing” to give up the mandate, but that a compromise is required to get the NDAA across the finish line.

    “We’re not willing to give it up. This is not a question of will; it’s a question of how can we get something done? We have a very close vote in the Senate, very close vote in the House. And you just don’t get everything you want,” he said.

    Thune said of the defense policy bill, “I think the ransom the Democrats wanted for stripping the vaccine mandate is a whole bunch of things to include the permitting reform, but also some other things that are just going to be non-starters on our side, and I don’t think we’re going to get in the business of, you know, allowing them to hold us hostage.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

    Source link

  • Power may be back for thousands on Wednesday night as authorities continue to go through tips on electric substation attack | CNN

    Power may be back for thousands on Wednesday night as authorities continue to go through tips on electric substation attack | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The tens of thousands of customers in central North Carolina who haven’t had power since two weekend attacks on utility substations should see the lights come on by late Wednesday, a spokesperson for Duke Energy said at a news conference.

    The two substations in Moore County were damaged by gunfire Saturday night in what investigators believe were “intentional” and “targeted” attacks, officials said, with Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields saying that whoever fired at the substations “knew exactly what they were doing.”

    Duke Energy, which has has about 47,000 customers in Moore County, has made “very good progress” since Saturday and moved up its restoration timeline by a day, saying it expects most customers to have power restored by late Wednesday.

    “That will not happen all at once,” Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks said Tuesday afternoon. “You will see waves of customers coming on. A few thousand at a time.”

    He said new equipment has been installed but it needs to be calibrated and tested so that it works in sync with the grid.

    About 35,000 customers in Moore County remained without power Tuesday afternoon, according to Brooks.

    The mayor of Southern Pines called the attack a cruel and selfish act.

    “There are so many people that are hurting,” Mayor Carol Haney said on CNN on Monday. The revenue stream has been stopped. If you have health issues, it is critical. It is just a horrible, horrible, terrorist, in my opinion, act.”

    No suspects or motives have been announced.

    At Tuesday’s news conference, Moore County Chief Deputy Richard Maness had no major updates about the investigation but said a tip line has been “very, very active” in the past 24 hours.

    Tom McInnis, the North Carolina Senate Majority Whip whose district includes Moore County, told reporters he is looking at potential legislation to modernize penalties for this kind of incident, which he said is something that has never happened in North Carolina.

    The outages have made life difficult for residents. Schools will be closed through Thursday, four days with no classes. Businesses without generators are shuttered. Residents without power must leave their homes for hot food and to charge their electronic devices.

    The owner of a Moore County pharmacy is storing medicines in his home, which is powered by a generator, so that people can continue to get their prescriptions, he said.

    Rob Barrett, the owner of Whispering Pines Prescription Shoppe, believes he has enough gas to keep the generator running, but the pharmacy faces other issues: Some employees have no gas to get to work, and there are communication issues.

    In rural areas of the county, the loss of electricity has also impacted the water supply to families.

    “Rural communities rely on electricity a lot more than people realize,” Andrew Wilkins, whose parents own a farm in Whispering Pines, told CNN. “Many big cities don’t lose their water when the power goes out, but a lot of rural areas rely on a well for water.

    “My family draws their water from a well, so when the power goes out, the well stops and the water pressure drops and we slowly lose water.”

    Southern Pines, a town of about 15,900 residents roughly a 40-mile drive northwest of Fayetteville and a 70-mile drive southwest of Raleigh, lost all power, according to the mayor. Haney said she had to get her 98-year-old mother out of the town and to Charlotte so she could be in a warm home.

    With the power out, the town’s water and sewer system is operating on generator power, according to Southern Pines Fire and Rescue.

    The town’s fire department has seen an increase in car crashes related to the lack of traffic lights, and more fires as people try to find alternate ways to heat their homes, Southern Pines Fire Chief Mike Cameron told CNN.

    The fire department also is getting more medical calls from people using supplemental oxygen or other medical devices that require power, Cameron said.

    FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst is running on a backup generator. However, the hospital is postponing certain elective procedures, and family medicine and other clinics in the country will be closed until power service is restored, hospital officials said in a news release Sunday.

    Investigators are “leaving no stone unturned to find out who did this,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told “CNN This Morning” on Tuesday. FBI and state investigators have joined the investigation.

    “This was a malicious, criminal attack on the entire community that plunged tens of thousands of people into darkness,” Cooper said.

    “Our priorities now are health and safety, getting the power back on as quickly as possible, and making sure that federal, state and local law enforcement find out who did this, and why, and bring them to justice.”

    Several communities across the county began experiencing power outages just after 7 p.m. Saturday, the Moore County Sheriff’s Office said.

    Whoever fired bullets at the substations “knew exactly what they were doing,” Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said Sunday.

    Fields on Sunday noted “no group has stepped up to acknowledge or accept they’re the ones who (did) it.”

    Investigators were trying to determine whether both substations were fired at simultaneously, or one after the other, the sheriff said Monday.

    A countywide mandatory curfew from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. has been in effect since Sunday night, with Fields saying the decision was made to protect residents and businesses.

    Residents fill gas containers Monday just outside the area impacted by the power outage.

    The governor stressed Tuesday that the state needs to learn from the incident, saying “this is unacceptable to have this many people without power for this long.”

    “This is a retirement community, so there are a lot of adult care homes that do not have power,” Cooper told CNN on Tuesday. “We’re providing generators and help to make sure people are safe here.”

    The country needs to have “a serious … conversation about protecting our critical infrastructure,” Cooper said.

    “It was clear that (whoever is behind the gunfire) knew how to cause significant damage, and that they could do it at this substation, so we have to reassess the situation,” Cooper said.

    Officials are not disclosing whether there were cameras at the two affected substations, because that is “part of the investigation that they do not want to reveal at this time,” Cooper said.

    Less than two weeks before Saturday’s substation damage, the FBI said there had been an increase in reported threats to electric infrastructure from people who espouse “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideology.”

    The FBI has received reports of threats to electric infrastructure by people espousing racially or ethnically motivated extremist ideology “to create civil disorder and inspire further violence,” the FBI said in a November 22 bulletin sent to private industry, which CNN obtained.

    Though the motives for Saturday’s damage still are unclear, US officials have consistently been concerned by the interest violent extremists have shown in the country’s electric grid.

    Cooper said Tuesday he was aware of the FBI warning.

    “Matter of fact, we have worked to organize and step up our protection of our infrastructure, particularly in the area of cyber security. We know that those attacks can be massive and put down power or water or other infrastructure for a lot of people across the country, so we’ve been working on that,” Cooper said.

    Source link

  • TSMC ups its Arizona chipmaking investment to $40 billion ahead of Biden’s visit | CNN Business

    TSMC ups its Arizona chipmaking investment to $40 billion ahead of Biden’s visit | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is upping its investment in the United States, announcing Tuesday that it’s building a second semiconductor factory in Arizona and raising its investment there from $12 billion to $40 billion.

    TSMC’s plans come as tensions between Washington and Beijing are rising over chips, with President Joe Biden imposing a sweeping set of controls on the sale of advanced chips and chip-making equipment to Chinese firms.

    Biden visited the manufacturer’s site in Phoenix and spoke about bringing jobs and investment to Arizona, calling TSMC’s $40 billion commitment “the largest foreign investment in the history of this state.” Other lawmakers and business leaders also attended the event, including Apple CEO Tim Cook.

    “American manufacturing is back, folks,” Biden said at the event. “These are the most advanced semiconductor chips on the planet, chips that will power iPhones and MacBooks, as Tim Cook can attest … It could be a game changer.”

    In his remarks, Cook said: “As many of you know, we work with TSMC to manufacture the chips that help power our products all over the world, and we look forward to expanding this work in the years to come as TSMC forms new and deeper roots in America.” He added that with the opening of the new facility, Apple’s own Silicon chips “can be proudly stamped ‘Made in America.’”

    TSMC previously announced that it was building a $12 billion facility in Arizona that will eventually manufacture 3-nanometer chips, TSMC’s most advanced technology. Between the two factories, thousands of “high-paying high-tech jobs” will be added to the state and 600,000 wafers per year will be produced, the company said.

    TSMC accounts for an estimated 90% of the world’s super-advanced computer chips, supplying tech giants including Apple

    (AAPL)     and Qualcomm

    (QCOM)    .

    Chips are an indispensable part of everything from smartphones to washing machines — but are also difficult to make because of the high cost of development and the level of knowledge required, meaning much of the production is concentrated among a handful of suppliers.

    The White House is touting the new investments as a direct result of Biden’s economic plan, including the $200 billion CHIPS and Science Act. Biden has been visiting communities where companies like TSMC and Intel have announced new investments since the passage of the law this summer.

    “It means more workers in these major factories, but it also means more opportunities for suppliers and contractors, good paying construction jobs, opportunities for small and medium sized manufacturers and suppliers,” National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told reporters in a call on Monday. “It means economic opportunity for communities that have often been left behind in economic cycles, including traditional energy communities that have powered our nation for generations and tribal nations.”

    The global chip shortage first surfaced at the beginning of the pandemic, which upended supply chains and changed consumer shopping patterns. Automakers cut back on their orders for chips while tech companies, whose products were boosted by lockdown living, snapped up as many as they could.

    The facility Biden will visit Tuesday in Phoenix is slated to begin producing chips in 2024. The new facility should start production in 2026.

    – CNN’s Nikki Carvajal, Wayne Chang, Clare Duffy and Diksha Madhok contributed to this report.

    Source link

  • Trump’s slow 2024 start worries allies | CNN Politics

    Trump’s slow 2024 start worries allies | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Back in 2015, Donald Trump’s first campaign rally in Iowa as a contender for the Republican presidential nomination came just 10 hours after he declared his candidacy in New York. The following day, he was across the country in New Hampshire, with plans to visit South Carolina before the end of his first week.

    But seven years later – and nearly three weeks into his 2024 presidential campaign – Trump has yet to leave his home state or hold a public campaign event in an early voting state.

    Trump’s disengaged posture has baffled former and current allies, many of whom experienced firsthand the frenetic pace of his two previous White House bids, and who now say he’s missed the window to make a splash with his 2024 rollout. The uninspiring launch of his supposed political comeback comes as his campaign appears to be operating on auto pilot, with few signs of momentum or enthusiastic support from donors or party heavyweights.

    “I don’t know why he rushed this. It doesn’t make sense,” one Trump adviser said of his lackluster announcement speech last month, which came one week after Republicans delivered an underwhelming performance in the midterm elections and as the rest of the party turned its attention to the Senate runoff contest in Georgia.

    Trump’s announcement was roundly panned for lacking zest, so much so that some audience members attempted an early exit, and his recent hosting of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and embattled rapper Kanye “Ye” West at Mar-a-Lago only further galvanized GOP opposition against him. A person familiar with the matter said Trump spent the Sunday after Thanksgiving asking people around him if they thought the backlash to his private dinner with Ye and Fuentes was truly damaging.

    “So far, he has gone down from his bedroom, made an announcement, gone back up to his bedroom and hasn’t been seen since except to have dinner with a White supremacist,” said a 2020 Trump campaign adviser.

    “It’s 1000% a ho-hum campaign,” the adviser added.

    The only other notable event to occur since Trump announced he was running again was both unintended and dreaded for weeks by the former president’s attorneys. Just three days after Trump launched his campaign, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee two ongoing criminal investigations into the 45th president and his associates.

    While some Republicans long speculated that Trump entered the presidential race early to inoculate himself from further legal peril, his candidate status instead appeared to serve as the catalyst for Garland’s announcement.

    A Trump campaign spokesman said the former president has held “multiple events since he announced,” noting his remote appearance at the annual Republican Jewish Coalition summit last month, video remarks to a conference for conservative activists in Mexico, a Patriots Freedom Fund event, his remarks at two separate political events held at Mar-a-Lago, and a tele-rally Monday night for Georgia Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker. None of these events were billed as campaign events.

    Trump’s current campaign trajectory has left both allies and Republican opponents wondering if he will flip a switch in 2023 or fail to adapt to a different political environment. Even as the GOP’s undisputed 2024 frontrunner, some of his closest allies say he simply cannot afford to take his position for granted at a moment when influential Republicans appear exceedingly interested in dislodging him from his influential perch.

    “If Trump was working in a lush jungle environment in 2016, he is in a desert today,” said a Republican close to the former president. “The political landscape has totally changed. He was irresistible because no one understood him but now everybody knows how to deal with him, so the question is, can he recalibrate?”

    Some sources said Trump’s first-out-of-the-gate strategy, which was said to be partly aimed at clearing the GOP primary field, already looks poised to fail.

    “You know what it’s done to dissuade people from getting in? Nothing. He hasn’t hired anyone. He hasn’t been to the early states,” said the 2020 campaign adviser.

    Trump’s lack of impact was on display a week after his announcement, as other 2024 Republican hopefuls took the stage in Las Vegas for the annual RJC summit. Some attacked the former President, while others, once allies of Trump, indicated they were ready to take him on in 2024.

    Just days before the event, Trump’s team announced plans for him to address the group remotely. Two people familiar with the matter said his virtual address was organized by aides at the last minute after he grew agitated upon realizing the event was a cattle call for Republican presidential prospects and he was not on its original list of speakers. The Trump campaign spokesman disputed this account, saying Trump’s remote remarks were planned “many weeks prior to the event.”

    Other sources who for months harbored concerns that Trump wasn’t as enthusiastic about running as he was letting on in public appearances now say his inactivity has increased their worry. Apart from a planned fundraising appearance for a classical education group in Naples last weekend, the former president has yet to announce any events before the end of the year. A person familiar with the matter said Trump’s team is toying with a pre-Christmas event of some kind, though his campaign has not yet finalized any travel. In a statement last week panning a move by Democratic officials to put South Carolina first on the party’s primary calendar, Trump appeared to tease a visit to Iowa, currently the first state to cast votes in both parties’ presidential nominating contests, “in the very near future.”

    “I can’t wait to be back in Iowa,” he said.

    Inside Trump’s campaign, sources said his current approach is entirely intentional, dismissing concerns that he has forfeited the spotlight at a critical time but acknowledging that Trump is currently working with a bare-bones staff.

    The campaign “is doing exactly what everyone always accuses [them] of not doing – taking a breather, planning and forming a strategy for the next two years,” said one source familiar with Trump’s operation said.

    Senior staff are holed up working on a plan,” this person added, noting that Trump’s campaign travel is expected to begin early in the new year, right as possible rivals who have taken the holidays to mull their own political futures may start launching their own campaigns or exploratory committees.

    And while some Trump allies have been surprised by his lack of a hiring spree right out of the gate, his campaign has been content to maintain a lean operation while he’s the only candidate in the field. The former president is not expected to tap a formal campaign manager, instead elevating three trusted advisers – Susie Wiles, Brian Jack and Chris LaCivita – to senior roles, but allies said he will likely need to build out his on-the-ground staff in early voting states in the months to come, as well as a robust communications operation if he finds himself in a competitive primary.

    While those hires don’t need to happen immediately, people close to Trump said his early entry into the 2024 race does raise questions about how he will sustain campaign-related costs over a longer period than other candidates who declare later, including chief potential rival Ron DeSantis. CNN has previously reported that the Florida governor, should he decide to take on Trump, would announce next May or June, after the conclusion of his state’s legislative session and just months before the Republican party could host its first primary debate, according to a party official involved in debate planning.

    “The question a lot of us have is can Trump sustain a campaign for two years. That’s the real difficulty here. The pacing we’re seeing right now is designed to do that,” said a person close to Trump.

    In addition to planning rallies and events and building momentum around the former President, the campaign staff is also looking at how to best insulate Trump after many were caught off guard learning of Trump’s dinner with Fuentes and West. The event, and the days of fallout and negative coverage, has expedited some of the campaign’s long-term plans, including ensuring a senior campaign staffer is always with the former president, a source familiar with the campaign said.

    Trump’s White House staff worked with resort staff during his presidency in a similar fashion to protect Trump from potentially “unsavory” guests of members, the source said. Those close to Trump blamed “low level staffers” for allowing Fuentes to slip into the resort without any flags being raised.

    Source link

  • Sky-high Black turnout fueled Warnock’s previous win. Will Georgia do it again? | CNN Politics

    Sky-high Black turnout fueled Warnock’s previous win. Will Georgia do it again? | CNN Politics


    Atlanta
    CNN
     — 

    Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young rode his scooter alongside Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, Martin Luther King III and a fervent crowd of marchers on a recent Sunday through a southwest Atlanta neighborhood. The group stopped at an early polling location to vote, forming a line with some waiting as long as one hour to cast their ballots.

    At the age of 90, Young says he is selective about public appearances but felt the “Souls to the Polls” event was one where he could motivate Black voters in Tuesday’s hotly contested US Senate runoff between Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker – a historic matchup between two Black men.

    Community leaders and political observers say the Black vote has consistently played a pivotal role in high-stakes races for Democrats, including in 2021, when Warnock defeated then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a runoff. Black voters likely to cast a ballot are near unanimous in their support for the Democrat (96% Warnock to 3% Walker), according to a CNN poll released last week that showed Warnock with a narrow lead.

    A second runoff victory for Warnock could once again hinge on Black voter turnout in a consequential race. If Warnock wins, it would give Democrats a clean Senate majority – one that doesn’t rely on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote and allows Majority Leader Chuck Schumer more control of key committees and some slack in potentially divisive judicial and administrative confirmation fights.

    Voting, Young said, is the “path to prosperity” for the Black community. He noted that Atlanta’s mass transit system and economic growth have been made possible by voters.

    “Where we have voted we have prospered,” Young said.

    The rally led by Young, King and Warnock seems to have set the tone for many Black voters in Georgia. Early voting surged across the state last week with long lines reported across the greater Atlanta area. As of Sunday, more than 1.85 million votes had already been cast, with Black voters accounting for nearly 32% of the turnout, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. The early voting period, which was significantly condensed from 2021, ended on Friday.

    Billy Honor, director of organizing for the New Georgia Project Action Fund, said the Black turnout so far looks promising for Democrats.

    “When we get Black voter turnout in any election statewide that’s between 31 and 33%, that’s usually good for Democrats,” Honor said. “If it’s between 27 and 30%, that’s usually good for Republicans.”

    Honor added: “This has an impact on elections because we know that if you’re a Democratic candidate, the coalition you have to put together is a certain amount of college-educated White folks, a certain amount of women overall, as many young people as you can get to turn out – and Black voters. That’s the coalition. (Former president) Barack Obama was able to smash that coalition in 2008 in ways we hadn’t seen.”

    Young said he believes that Black voters are more likely to show up for runoff elections, which historically have lower turnout than general elections, when the candidate is likeable and relatable.

    Warnock is a beloved figure in Atlanta’s Black community who pastored the church once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He grew up in public housing and relied on student loans to get through college.

    Young said Warnock’s story is inspiring.

    “He is an exciting personality, he’s a great preacher,” Young said. “He speaks from his heart and he speaks about how he and his family have come up in the deep South and developed a wonderful life.”

    Young said some Black voters may also be voting against Walker, who has made a series of public gaffes, has no political experience and has a history of accusations of violent and threatening behavior.

    Last week’s CNN poll showed that Walker faces widespread questions about his honesty and suffers from a negative favorability rating, while nearly half of those who back him say their vote is more about opposition to Warnock than support for Walker.

    Views of Warnock tilt narrowly positive, with 50% of likely voters holding a favorable opinion, 45% unfavorable, while far more likely Georgia voters have a negative view of Walker (52%) than a positive one (39%).

    Still, Walker is famous as a Heisman Trophy-winning football star from the University of Georgia. And among the majority of likely voters in the CNN poll who said issues are a more important factor to their vote than character or integrity, 64% favor Walker.

    He campaigned on Sunday with, among others, GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, one of just three Black senators currently serving in the chamber. Scott tried to tie Warnock to President Joe Biden – who, like former President Donald Trump, has steered clear of the Peach State – and reminded voters in Loganville of the GOP’s losses in the 2021 runoffs.

    At the event, which began with prayers in Creole, Spanish and Swahili from speakers with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Walker encouraged getting out to vote more than he typically does.

    “If you don’t have a friend, make a friend and get them out to vote,” Walker said.

    Back at the “Souls to Polls” march, some Black voters said they were excited to show up and cast their early votes in the runoff race.

    Travie Leslie said she feels it is her “civic duty” to vote after all the work civil rights leaders in Atlanta did to ensure Black people had the right to vote. Leslie she does not mind standing in line or voting in multiple elections to ensure that a quality candidate gets in office.

    “I will come 12 times if I must and I encourage other people to do the same thing,” Leslie said Thursday while at the Metropolitan Library polling location in Atlanta. “Just stay dedicated to this because it truly is the best time to be a part of the decision making particularly for Georgia.”

    Martin Luther King III credited grassroots organizations for registering more Black and brown voters since 2020, when Biden carried the state, and mobilizing Georgians to participate in elections.

    Their work has led to the long lines of voters in midterm and runoff races, King said.

    King said he believes Warnock also appeals to Black voters in a way that Walker does not.

    “Rev. Warnock distinguishes himself quite well,” King said. “He stayed above the fray and defined what he has done.”

    The Black vote, he said, is likely to make a difference in which candidate wins the runoff.

    “Black voters, if we come out in massive numbers, then I believe that on December 6 we (Democrats) are going to have a massive victory,” King said.

    Source link

  • Midwestern Democrat voices concern over Iowa possibly losing front-runner status on 2024 calendar | CNN Politics

    Midwestern Democrat voices concern over Iowa possibly losing front-runner status on 2024 calendar | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois voiced concerns Sunday with Iowa potentially losing its status as the first state to vote in the presidential nominating process following a proposal by President Joe Biden to reshape the 2024 calendar.

    The rule-making arm of the Democratic National Committee voted Friday voted to approve a plan that would make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary, followed by other early-voting states of Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan. The proposal needs to be approved at a full DNC meeting, and states will still need to set their own primary dates.

    Such a shake-up would strip Iowa of the first-in-the-nation status it has held since 1972.

    Bustos, who is from the Quad Cities area that includes both Iowa and Illinois and represents a district that borders the Hawkeye State, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that the “bad” part of the proposal starts with the economic impact it would have on Iowa.

    “The other thing is, do you think a presidential candidate is going to care about ethanol? Or care about farm country as deeply as they do now because Iowa was always that first state for the caucuses?” said Bustos, who is retiring next month after five terms in the House.

    “So that’s the kind of thing that concerns me. I’ve got close to 10,000 family farms in the congressional district I represent. So it’s more about: What issues are going to take a back seat because of this? That is a concern I have,” she added.

    GOP Strategist: If we nominate Trump, Biden will probably win re-election

    Asked by Tapper if Biden was “stabbing the Midwest in the back” with the proposed change to Iowa’s status, Bustos said he wasn’t, pointing to the inclusion of Michigan, a Midwestern state that she said “better exemplifies the make-up of our country.”

    Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status came under scrutiny after the chaos of the 2020 Iowa caucuses received widespread backlash. Additionally, there has been pressure on the Democratic side to oust Iowa from its top slot because it is largely White and no longer considered a battleground state.

    But enacting the new dates on the 2024 Democratic nominating calendar could prove a steep challenge, as primary dates are set at the state level and each state has a different process.

    Lawmakers in Iowa have also made their displeasure with the proposal clear. The state’s junior senator, Republican Joni Ernst, told Fox News on Sunday that “Democrats have really given middle America the middle finger.”

    Source link

  • Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution is a fantasy, but it’s still dangerous | CNN Politics

    Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution is a fantasy, but it’s still dangerous | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s call for the termination of the Constitution is his most extreme anti-democratic statement yet and seems oblivious to the sentiments of voters who rejected election deniers in the midterm elections.

    It may also reflect desperation on the part of the former president to whip up controversy and fury among his core supporters in order to inject some energy into a so-far lackluster 2024 White House bid.

    Trump’s comments on his Truth Social network – which should be easy for anyone to condemn – are exposing the familiar moral timidity of top Republicans who won’t disown the former president. But his latest tirade also plays into the arguments of some Republicans now saying that it’s time to move on from Trump’s fixation with the 2020 election.

    And while it is far too early to write off his chances in the 2024 GOP nominating contest, Trump’s behavior since announcing his third presidential bid also suggests his never-ending quest to shock and to fire up his base now means going so far right he ends up on the extremist fringe and almost in self-parody. In the short time he’s been a candidate, he’s expressed support for rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and dined with a White nationalist Holocaust denier.

    Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for Georgia’s Secretary of State Office, chuckled at the incredulity of Trump’s claim about the Constitution when it was described by CNN’s Pam Brown on Saturday.

    “It’s ridiculous, it’s insane, to suspend the Constitution. Come on man, seriously?” said Sterling, a Republican who helped oversee Georgia’s election in 2020, when President Joe Biden carried the state. “I think more and more Republicans, Americans are saying, ‘Ok I am good, I am done with this now, I’m going to move on to the next thing.’”

    The most immediate question raised by Trump’s latest controversy is what it says about a presidential campaign that has been swallowed up by one far-right authoritarian sideshow after another.

    Far from barnstorming the nation, making a case on the economy, health care and immigration or outlining a program for the future, Trump has given comfort to zealots and insurrectionists.

    He hosted Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago last month, at a time when the rapper now known as Ye is in the middle of a vile streak of antisemitism and praising Adolf Hitler. The far-right Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was at also at that dinner. Trump claimed he didn’t know who Fuentes was but the former president still hasn’t criticized his ideology. Last week, Trump, in a fundraising video, praised the mob that invaded the Capitol in the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, again promoting violence as an acceptable response to political grievances.

    His social media assault on the Constitution appears to be proving the point of the House select committee probing January 6, which has portrayed him as a clear and present danger to American democracy and met on Friday to consider criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

    Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, tweeted on Sunday: “No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.” Trump’s latest wild social media post could even deepen his legal exposure as the Justice Department seeks evidence of his mindset as it investigates his conduct before the attack on the Capitol.

    Trump’s doubling down on authoritarianism also follows a moment when much of the country, at least in crucial swing states, rejected his 2020 election denialism and anti-democratic chaos candidates he picked for the midterms – with a final test on Tuesday in Georgia’s Senate runoff. It appears to make it even more unlikely that the ex-president, even if he wins the Republican nomination, will be the kind of candidate who could win among the broader national electorate. After all, his message failed in two consecutive elections in 2020 and 2022. And even in the wilder reaches of the GOP, which Trump has dominated since 2015, a call to simply trash the Constitution might seem a stretch – and reflect the former president’s increasing distance from reality.

    One could argue that the most prudent response to Trump’s latest radical rhetoric might be to ignore it and his bid for publicity.

    But even if his idea of crushing the Constitution looks far-fetched, his behavior needs to be taken seriously because of its possible future consequences.

    That’s because Trump remains an extraordinarily influential force in the Republican Party. His acolytes hold outsized power in the new House majority set to take over in January, which they plan to use as a political weapon to promote his restoration in the White House. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy is appeasing this group in an increasingly troubled campaign for speaker. The California Republican also last week shielded Trump over criticism of the Fuentes dinner, saying that while such a person had no place in the party, Trump had condemned him four times – a false claim.

    Furthermore, in an electoral sense, the theory that Republican voters may be willing to move on from Trump – and to find a candidate who may reflect “America First” populism but not dine with antisemites – has not yet been tested. Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen are still broadly accepted among GOP voters – only 24% of whom believe that Biden legitimately won in 2020, according to midterm election exit polls.

    And a GOP primary that includes multiple candidates competing with Trump for the presidential nomination could yet again splinter the vote against the former president and allow him to emerge at the top of a mostly winner-take-all delegate race, a vote that would put a prospective authoritarian who has already tried to dismantle the US system of democracy one step from a return to power.

    Ignoring or downplaying public evidence of extremism and incitement only allows it to become normalized. There is already proof that the ex-president’s rhetoric can cause violence – after he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to save their country on January 6. And the rhetoric of people like West and Fuentes, with whom Trump has associated, risks normalizing odious forces in society that will grow if they are not challenged. Fuentes, after all, has appeared with Republican lawmakers like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – an increasingly influential voice in the House GOP conference.

    Years of norm crushing and acceptance of extremists by the twice-impeached former president never convinced the party to purge him or his views. Were it not for principled, conservative Republicans like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Trump’s election-stealing effort might have worked in 2020.

    As they work through an intense lame-duck session of Congress, Republican lawmakers are, for the umpteenth time, going to be asked this week about the tyrannical attitudes of the front-runner for their party’s presidential nod.

    One newly elected Republican, Michael Lawler – who picked up a Democratic-held House seat critical to the slim GOP majority – stood up for the Constitution on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

    “The Constitution is set for a reason, to protect the rights of every American. And so I certainly don’t endorse that language or that sentiment,” Lawler told Jake Tapper. “I think the former president would be well-advised to focus on the future, if he is going to run for president again.”

    Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, said he “vehemently” disagreed with Trump’s statement and said his dinner with West and Fuentes was “atrocious” and that voters would take both incidents into consideration.

    But a fellow Ohio Republican, Rep. David Joyce, demonstrated the characteristic reluctance of members of his party to confront an ex-president who remains hugely popular among its grassroots. Regarding the threat to the Constitution, Joyce said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, “You know he says a lot of things but that doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen,” adding that it was important to separate “fact from fantasy.”

    Joyce didn’t directly condemn Trump’s rhetoric and said he would support whomever the Republican Party nominates in 2024. The fact that Republicans are open to a potential president – who would be called upon to swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution but who has already called for its termination – speaks volumes about how much the GOP is still in Trump’s shadow.

    Source link

  • Biden congratulates Kennedy Center honorees at White House | CNN Politics

    Biden congratulates Kennedy Center honorees at White House | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden congratulated the class of the 45th Kennedy Center Honors Sunday evening, welcoming them to the White House ahead of the star-studded event celebrating the American arts.

    “Tonight, we celebrate a truly exceptional, and this is not exaggeration, a truly exceptional group of artists – group of artists who embody the very spirit of ‘we the people.’ This year’s Kennedy Center honorees – they’re all an incredible group of people,” Biden said.

    The president ticked through all the honorees, their accomplishments and contributions to the arts. Those being honored at the Kennedy Center Sunday night include George Clooney, Amy Grant, Gladys Knight, Tania León and all four members of the Irish rock band U2.

    The honorees, selected for their contributions to American culture by the Kennedy Center’s Executive Committee of its Board of Trustees, are being saluted Sunday night at the Kennedy Center Opera House in front of their peers, according to the Center. The event will be broadcast December 28.

    The Bidens’ attendance will mark the second year that the first family continues the longstanding tradition that was interrupted during the Trump administration.

    In 2017, then-President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump declined to attend the Kennedy Center Honors after two of the honorees that year – television writer and producer Norman Lear and dancer Carmen de Lavallade – said they would skip the Trump-hosted reception at the White House, citing political beliefs.

    At the time, the White House said Trump’s decision would allow the artists “to celebrate without any political distraction.”

    Addressing the honorees Sunday, Biden wrapped his remarks with a message about unity.

    “In the midst of the great division, that was President Lincoln’s plea. That we would do well to remember today at a moment when there’s too much hate, too much anger, too much division here in America and quite frankly around the world. We have to remember today as their song goes – we are one, but we are not the same. We get to carry each other,” Biden said, slightly misquoting the U2 lyrics, which go: “One life, but we’re not the same.”

    Some of the notable attendees at the White House included Sacha Baron Cohen, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Sean Penn, Julia Roberts, Amal Clooney, Matt Damon and former Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone, who was at the US Capitol during the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Also in attendance were Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

    Source link

  • Sen. Sherrod Brown says Ohio is still a swing state ahead of 2024 election | CNN Politics

    Sen. Sherrod Brown says Ohio is still a swing state ahead of 2024 election | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio said Sunday that “of course” the Buckeye State was still a swing state, brushing off concerns about a 2024 reelection bid after Republican J.D. Vance won the state’s other Senate seat last month.

    “I’m not worried. … I know it’s a challenge always, but I’m going about doing my job,” Brown told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

    Vance’s Senate win over Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan continued a long line of Republican victories in a state that has tilted toward the party in recent years. Other than Brown, no Democrat has won a nonjudicial statewide office in the state since 2008, and former President Barack Obama was the last Democratic presidential nominee to win the state, doing so in 2012.

    But Brown, a liberal populist, has found success in Ohio with a progressive message. In 2019, he explored a presidential bid through a “listening tour” that included stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, the four key early-voting states in the 2020 primary, before deciding against a run. He is expected to seek a fourth term next year.

    “Not many people thinking about the 2024 election. I’ll do my job,” Brown said Sunday. “We’ll see how that goes.”

    Brown, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, also said he believed the US is on the “right track” to bring inflation down, and he defended Congress’ role in protecting Americans investing in cryptocurrency following the implosion of FTX, the multi-billion-dollar crypto exchange.

    Soon after FTX went down, crypto firms were inundated by requests from customers seeking to claw their money back – the crypto equivalent of a run on the bank. Several firms have been forced to suspend withdrawals while they sort out their liquidity problems.

    “To say Congress has done nothing is not quite accurate. We’ve done a series of hearings exposing the problems with crypto, the problems for consumers, the problems for our economy here and the problems internationally for their national security,” Brown said. “We will continue that.”

    “I would love to do something legislatively. I don’t know that Congress is capable of that because of crypto’s hold on one political party in the Senate and the House,” he added, referring to the GOP.

    “But we’re trying every day.”

    Source link

  • Antony Blinken says Biden administration supports zero-Covid protesters in China | CNN Politics

    Antony Blinken says Biden administration supports zero-Covid protesters in China | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that the Biden administration supports the zero-COVID protesters in China, explaining that he will address the topic when he visits the country early next year.

    “Of course, we do,” Blinken told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” when asked about the US support for the protesters demonstrating against the Chinese government’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions. “We support the right for people everywhere, whether it’s in China, whether it’s Iran, whether it’s any place else, to protest peacefully, to make known their views, to vent their frustrations.”

    Blinken said he would bring up the protests with Chinese officials in person next month.

    “We will say what we always say and what President (Joe) Biden has said to (Chinese leader) Xi Jinping, which is that human rights and basic civil liberties go to the heart of who we are as Americans. And no American government, no American president is going to be silent on that,” Blinken said.

    The demonstrations in China were triggered by a deadly fire on November 24 in Urumqi, the capital of the far western region of Xinjiang. The blaze killed at least 10 people and injured nine in an apartment building – leading to public fury after videos of the incident appeared to show lockdown measures had delayed firefighters from reaching the victims.

    The city had been under lockdown for more than 100 days, with residents unable to leave the region and many forced to stay home.

    As the protest numbers have swelled, many are also demanding greater political freedoms – and some have even called for Xi’s removal.

    Protests on such a large scale are highly unusual in China. While demonstrations over local grievances occur periodically, the protests are the most widespread since the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement of 1989.

    The Chinese government has cracked down swiftly, deploying police at key protest sites, calling protesters to warn them and tightening online censorship.

    Blinken said Sunday that the US would take the same approach when the rights of protesters are repressed anywhere else: “We speak out against it, we stand up against it, and we take action against it.”

    Demonstrations have rocked Iran for several months, sparking a deadly clampdown from authorities. The nationwide uprising was first ignited by the death of Mahsa (also known as Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in mid-September after being detained by the country’s morality police. Since then, protesters across Iran have coalesced around a range of grievances with the Iranian government.

    Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said Thursday that Iran’s parliament and judiciary are reviewing the country’s mandatory hijab law, according to pro-reform outlet Entekhab.

    Montazeri was also quoted as saying that Iran’s feared morality police had been “abolished,” but Iranian state media strongly pushed back on those comments, saying the interior ministry oversees the force, not the judiciary.

    In an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, Blinken wouldn’t say if the US believes that a move to abolish the morality police would end the protests in the country.

    “That’s up to the Iranian people. This is about that. It’s not about us. And what we’ve seen since the killing of Mahsa Amini has been the extraordinary courage of Iranian young people, especially women, who’ve been leading these protests, standing up for the right to be able to say what they want to say, wear what they want to wear,” Blinken said.

    In his interview with Tapper, Blinken pointed to US sanctions on those responsible for the crackdown on protesters in Iran, but he did not mention any cost that has been imposed on China for its crackdown on protests.

    Blinken said that “fundamentally” the protests in China and Iran were not about the US.

    “This is about people in both countries trying to express their views, trying to have their aspirations met, and the response that the governments are taking to that,” he said.

    Source link