USA News and Discussions

[caltrek]

Sinema Sparks Fury by Choosing Filibuster Over Democracy
Jake Johnson
January 13, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... -democracy

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was met with a torrent of outrage on Thursday after she delivered a floor speech reiterating her opposition to weakening the Senate's 60-vote threshold, striking a major blow to her party's plan to finally overcome Republican obstruction of voting rights legislation.

"While I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country," Sinema (D-Ariz.) said, referring to the Democratic leadership's plan to pursue changes to the 60-vote filibuster if GOP senators continue to block the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

From a follow-up article, also by Jake Johnson in Common Drreams:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... r-hell-out

Extract:

Referring to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's (D-Ariz.) Thursday speech defending the 60-vote legislative filibuster, Martin Luther King III argued Saturday that "what she said is, 'I support voting rights, but not as much as I support the ability of someone to take those rights away.'"
"The filibuster is a meaningless Senate rule," he added. "It's a remnant of slavery used to block civil rights for generations."
…
The Arizona Democrat's refusal to consider even a voting rights exception for the filibuster has infuriated Arizona residents who've watched the state's Republican-controlled legislature ram through voter suppression measures along party lines, making a mockery of Sinema's purported desire for bipartisan cooperation.

"I want the Senate to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and the only way that will happen is if we carve out the filibuster," Tessa Williams, an Arizonan who attended Saturday's demonstrations in Phoenix, told the local Arizona Republic. "It's critical to protect the right to vote. It's under threat right now, and I think it's much more important that Senator Sinema gets behind this legislation than hold on to the filibuster."
…
Sinema's speech Thursday—delivered just before President Joe Biden addressed the Senate Democratic caucus in a closed-door meeting—intensified calls for her ouster in 2024, the end of her first six-year term. A recent Data for Progress survey showed that 70% of likely Arizona Democratic primary voters disapprove of Sinema's job performance.

[caltrek]

Early last year we argued about whether the events of January 6 constituted a coup or were just the results of some kind of organized riot. Well, now that the Justice Department has had a chance to investigate, this is what seems to be emerging:


Former Federal Prosecutor Indicates DOJ Believes It Can Prove Insurrection Was 'Armed Effort to Overthrow Our Government'
David Badash
January 16, 2022

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/jan-6-2656415546/

Introduction:

(Alternet) A well-known former federal prosecutor is making clear how significant it is that the Dept. of Justice decided to charge eleven people, mostly members of the far right wing anti-government extremist group Oath Keepers, with seditious conspiracy on Thursday.

Joyce Vance, the former U.S. Attorney for Alabama for eight years who is now a law professor and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, says the fact that DOJ used that charge on Thursday is “very significant” and means they believe they can prove January 6 was “an armed effort to overthrow our government.”

The Justice Department when it speaks has a different burden than when folks in the political arena or in the news media speak,” Vance said Friday afternoon on MSNBC. “DOJ knows that if it makes an allegation, it has to be able to prove it in court with admissible evidence beyond the reasonable doubt. So the fact that DOJ is now calling what happened on January 6 “an insurrection” and referencing violence and the firearms – the storing of firearms across the river that you all have just been talking about, strikes me as very significant. It confirms the importance of this event. It was not a tourist day in D.C. It was not a riot. It was a an armed effort to overthrow our government.”

Vance says she believes DOJ has “a strong case,” says it’s clear DOJ has “cooperating individuals who’ve turned over, for instance, private communications that would be very difficult to obtain.”

“The fact that they have access to these communications, that they know who was talking to who but more importantly, what they were saying is essential in proving that conspiracy.”

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Biden administration suspends 44 flights by Chinese airlines
Source: Axios

The Transportation Department said on Friday that it is suspending 44 China-bound flights conducted by the country's airlines after the Chinese government canceled dozens of flights from American carriers.

Driving the news: Chinese authorities have suspended 44 flights since Dec. 31 from United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Airlines due to coronavirus concerns.

What they're saying: DOT said that the Chinese government's actions "are adverse to the public interest and warrant proportionate remedial action by the Department."

Its "unilateral actions against the named U.S. carriers are inconsistent with the provisions of the agreement and are premised on circumstances wholly outside of the carriers’ control," the department added, referring to a U.S.-China bilateral agreement.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/biden-transportat ... c38da.html

[weatheriscool]

Biden administration raises minimum wage for federal employees to $15
Source: Axios

Federal agencies are being directed to raise the minimum wages for government employees to $15 an hour, according to new guidance from the Office of Personnel Management shared first with Axios.

Why it matters: The guidance will impact almost 70,000 federal employees, most of which work at the Departments of Agriculture, Defense and Veterans Affairs. OPM is directing agencies to implement the new wage by Jan. 30.

The largest share of employees, more than 56,000 people, currently paid below $15 work at the DOD.

Catch up fast: During his first week in office, President Biden signed an executive order directing OPM — which serves as the chief human resources agency and personnel policy manager for the federal government — to provide a report to the president with recommendations to promote a $15 per hour minimum wage for federal workers.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/minimum-wage-incr ... 98f50.html

[Ken_J]

can we set up the guillotines yet? seriously what the hell are people waiting for?

[weatheriscool]

He pretty much said that blacks vote as much as anyone else and don't need any extra help. In fact blacks vote and come out on election day at a higher percentage then any other group...

I forgot the number and % but I remember that it was quite high. Much higher then hispanics...Hispanics make up 18% of this country and only make up 13% of the electrate while blacks make up 13% and make up about that number of the electrate.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Republicans vote to allow 18-year-olds to carry concealed weapons on school property

Posted: Jan 20, 2022 5:10 PM CST

MADISON, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Republicans in the state Assembly passed a series of bills to expand gun laws in the badger state, including a proposal to allow some high school students and parents to have firearms on school property.

During the Assembly's return to the floor since the new year, Republicans passed legislation that would lower the concealed carry age from 21 to 18, allow legal gun owners to have their weapon in their vehicle when dropping off or picking up their child from school, and allow anyone with a concealed carry license from any state to be armed in Wisconsin.

With gun violence on the rise in Wisconsin and across the nation, Republicans believe more residents should be able to carry a gun legally to protect themselves.

State Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers), author of the bill to lower the concealed carry age, contends if 18-year-olds can vote, they should be allowed to arm themselves.

"They are mature enough, they are adult enough to make these decisions and yet we are going to deny them the basic human right of self-defense?" Sortwell said.

https://www.cbs58.com/news/republicans- ... l-property

[caltrek]

The Roots of Republican Paranoia
by Daniel Cubas
January 19, 2022

https://manomagazine.com/the-roots-of-r ... -paranoia/

Introduction:

(Mano) They’re coming for you.

OK, I don’t know exactly who “they” are. But trust me, if you are a Republican, you’re next.

Yes, the “ludicrous idea that conservatives are particularly oppressed has been a theme of right-wing activism at large throughout the Trump era.” And we have now reached the logical conclusion of a political movement based upon fictional persecution, which is that “all of American life is a woke hellscape” that true patriots must vanquish.

For example, if a thuggish teenager murders a couple of people in the street, he becomes an “avatar of this imagined oppression for the next generation of conservatives,” who are outraged that “the system dared put him on trial for it.” Similarly, lunatics who stormed the Capitol and are now on trial are the real victims of the January 6 riot, because some of them might miss their Caribbean vacations.

The laughable idea that liberals are suppressing conservatives is engrained as a hard truth within the Republican Party. Indeed, “conservative activism hinges on the idea that the system isn’t fair to them,” and that their only recourse is often violence.

[caltrek]

I could forgive McConnel's slip of the tongue if he were actually doing more to help Afro-Americans and other people of color retain their right to vote. Instead, all he does is lead the effort to obstruct such efforts.

GOP States Are Shredding Voting Rights and Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema Are Now Complicit
by Ari Berman

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) For the fifth time during the last year, Senate Republicans blocked Democrats on Wednesday from passing sweeping legislation that would roll back GOP efforts to make it harder to vote.

Their justification: there is no GOP effort to make it harder to vote.

“The big lie on the other side is that state legislatures controlled by Republicans are busily at work trying to make it difficult for people to vote,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week.

That, of course, is exactly what Republicans have been doing.

Nineteen states passed 34 new laws in 2021 reducing voting access, according to the Brennan Center, which catalogued at least 16 different ways Republicans have sought to restrict voting rights, including making it more difficult to vote by mail and easier to remove voters from the rolls, cutting the number of early voting days, erecting new barriers to voter registration, and reducing the number of polling places

caltrek's comment: Worse still, and not even mentioned in the Mother Jones article, are the ways in which state legislators are maneuvering to make it easier for themselves to overrule voter results should they not go their way. Trump's pathetic attempts in this regard in the last election as being a bit of a dry run for that scenario.

[caltrek]

A New Document Suggests Trump Considered Ordering Soldiers to Seize Voting Machines
by Pema Levy
January 21, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ive-order/

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied Donald Trump’s attempt to withhold White House documents from Congress’s January 6 committee. Today, new records are already coming to light—and illuminating the extreme steps the Trump administration considered when seeking to maintain power.

Among the documents now in committee hands is a draft executive order which, had it been issued, would have directed the secretary of defense to seize voting machines. According to Politico, which broke this news, the draft, dated December 16, 2020, reflects advice given to Trump by attorney Sidney Powell.

• On Dec. 18, 2020, Powell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump administration lawyer Emily Newman, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne met with Trump in the Oval Office.

• In that meeting, Powell urged Trump to seize voting machines and to appoint her as a special counsel to investigate the election, according to Axios.

Citing conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines, the order directs the nation’s top military leader to “seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information.” The order called for a special counsel to bring charges based on the seized information and authorized the defense secretary to use the national guard.

[caltrek]

Here is that Axios article referenced above:

Inside the Craziest Meeting of the Trump Presidency
by Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu
February 2, 2021

https://www.axios.com/authors/zbasu/

Introduction:

(Axios) Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. It was early evening on Friday, Dec. 18 — more than a month after the election had been declared for Joe Biden, and four days after the Electoral College met in every state to make it official.

"How the hell did Sidney get in the building?" White House senior adviser Eric Herschmann grumbled from the outer Oval Office as Sidney Powell and her entourage strutted by to visit the president.

President Trump's private schedule hadn't included appointments for Powell or the others: former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and a little-known former Trump administration official, Emily Newman. But they'd come to convince Trump that he had the power to take extreme measures to keep fighting.

As Powell and the others entered the Oval Office that evening, Herschmann — a wealthy business executive and former partner at Kasowitz Benson & Torres who'd been pulled out of quasi-retirement to advise Trump — quietly slipped in behind them.

The hours to come would pit the insurgent conspiracists against a handful of White House lawyers and advisers determined to keep the president from giving in to temptation to invoke emergency national security powers, seize voting machines and disable the primary levers of American democracy.

caltrek's comment: While this article is dated, recent evidence made public, some of which was discussed in the Mother Jones artilce, has validated key points made at that time.

[caltrek]

Justice Stephen Breyer to Retire from Supreme Court, Paving Way for Biden Appointment
January 26, 2022

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/suprem ... t-n1288042

Introduction:

(NBC) WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen Breyer will step down from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, according to people familiar with his thinking.

Breyer is one of the three remaining liberal justices, and his decision to retire after more than 27 years on the court allows President Joe Biden to appoint a successor who could serve for several decades and, in the short term, maintain the current 6-3 split between conservative and liberal justices.

At 83, Breyer is the court's oldest member. Liberal activists have urged him for months to retire while Democrats hold both the White House and the Senate — a position that could change after the midterm elections in November. They contended that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stayed too long despite her history of health problems and should have stepped down during the Obama administration.

[caltrek]

Religious Leaders Call on Senate to Pass Voting Rights Bill — to No Avail
by Mark Winfield
January 21, 2022

https://baptistnews.com/article/religio ... -no-avail/

Introduction:

(Baptist Global News) The United States Senate’s Jan. 19 refusal to pass voting rights legislation sent to it from the House of Representatives happened despite the appeals of religious leaders nationwide in the week of Martin Luther King celebrations.

The National Council of Churches issued a statement Jan. 17 urging the Senate to pass the voting rights bill, known as the John R. Lewis Act, as a moral imperative.

“American democracy is at an inflection point,” the council said. “Voting rights are again hanging in the balance and … we are compelled to speak out about the urgency of passing critical legislation to ensure the right to vote in our nation.”

The NCC statement pointed to its 1963 Human Rights Policy Statement about the inherent worth, rights and responsibilities of all persons.

That statement recognizes “the right to full participation of the person in political and civic life, including the opportunity to vote by secret ballot.” It further declares that the right to vote “is a basic human right.”

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

We Uncovered How Many Georgians Were Disenfranchised by GOP Voting Restrictions. It’s Staggering.
by Ryan Little and Ari Berman
January 28, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ia-voters/

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) “States are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared last year.

Facts on the ground in Georgia tell a different story. A new data analysis by Mother Jones shows that the number of voters disenfranchised by rejected mail ballot applications skyrocketed after the GOP-controlled legislature passed sweeping new restrictions on mail voting last year. The law enacted in March 2021 shortened the time people have to request and return mail ballots, prohibited election officials from sending such applications to all voters, added new ID requirements, and dramatically curtailed the use of ballot drop boxes, among other changes.

During municipal elections in November, Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail ballot applications rejected—and ultimately not vote as a result—than in 2020. If that same rejection rate were extrapolated to the 2020 race, more than 38,000 votes would not have been cast in a presidential contest decided by just over 11,000 votes.

In November 2021, Georgians who successfully obtained mail ballots were also twice as likely to have those ballots rejected once they were submitted compared to the previous year. If that were the case in 2020, about 31,000 fewer votes would have been cast in the presidential election.

This data from a key swing state suggests that voter disenfranchisement caused by GOP-backed voting restrictions could significantly increase in 2022 and 2024. People who vote in local elections are usually highly informed about how the voting process works and should be the least likely to have their ballots rejected, so the true impact of the GOP’s cutbacks to voting access will likely be felt even more in the fall, when a larger and less experienced electorate casts ballots.

caltrek's comment: In the past, some have complained about "identity politics" and the need to focus on economic issues instead. Here the connection should be obvious. White voters tuned into Fox News and other such right-wing sources are less likely to understand their true economic interests. Unencumbered by such handicaps, Black voters are more likely to vote for their economic interests, meaning that the policies they support will also be more favorable to relatively uneducated and therefore low-income voters, regardless of color. Yet, racist policies emphasize keeping people of color in a subordinate position. Meaning that everybody in the lower economic stratum will be worse off.

[caltrek]

Manchin Gets Thousands from GOP Megadonor After Tanking Build Back Better
by Julia Conley
January 29, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... anking-bbb

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) After he announced in December he would not be supporting President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act, Sen. Joe Manchin's political action committee received the maximum allowable contribution from billionaire Republican donor Ken Langone.

The Hill reported late Friday that the wealthy investor, who supported former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, gave $5,000 to Manchin's Country Roads PAC less than two weeks after the right-wing Democratic senator from West Virginia said he would not join his party in supporting the president's agenda.

Langone's wife also contributed $5,000 to the PAC, while other political donations the megadonor made around the same time went to the Koch family-backed Americans for Prosperity Action and the Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC.

As Common Dreams reported in November, Langone praised Manchin's "guts and courage" for standing in the way of the Build Back Better Act's passage and promised to hold "one of the biggest fundraisers" he's ever hosted to support the senator.

Manchin in recent months demanded that the Democrats remove the Clean Electricity Performance Program from the Build Back Better Act, dashing plans to put the U.S. "electric sector on a path to zero emissions," as one lawmaker said. He also refused to support paid family leave and an extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which has helped tens of millions of families afford rising grocery bills, child care, and other essentials, before ultimately stalling negotiations over the package in December.

[caltrek]

GOP Declares Deadly Capitol Attack 'Legitimate Political Discourse'
by Brett Wilkins
February 4, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... -discourse

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Progressives expressed outrage Friday after the Republican National Committee formally declared the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election "legitimate political discourse."

"January 6th was not "legitimate political discourse"—it was a violent insurrection on our Capitol," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) tweeted in response to the RNC declaration.

"I didn't know if I'd make it out alive," she added. "Some didn't. We cannot let the GOP whitewash what happened."

The New York Times reports the Republican National Committee (RNC) voted overwhelmingly Friday to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for their participation in the Democrat-led bipartisan commission investigating the January 6 attack.

The RNC censure resolution accuses Cheney and Kinzinger of "participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse," and of "utilizing their past professed affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes."

[caltrek]

Fact check: Mike Pence did not have the power to overturn 2020 election results in order to keep Trump in office
by McKenzie Sadeghi
February 1, 2022

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/fac ... 284564002/

Introduction:

(USA Today) Following Donald Trump’s rally in Texas in which he defended the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, the former president issued a statement repeating the claim that his vice president, Mike Pence, had the authority to overturn the 2020 election results.

Trump – who has for more than a year falsely claimed that the presidential election was rigged against him – asserts that current bipartisan efforts by lawmakers to change the Electoral Count Act of 1887 prove Pence had the constitutional authority to determine which votes counted.

“If the Vice President had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?” reads a Jan. 30 statement that was shared to Twitter by Trump's spokesperson, Liz Harrington.

A screenshot of his statement went viral on Facebook, where it was shared by the page American Conservativism in a Jan. 31 post that accumulated more than 800 likes in less than a day with the caption, “That’s right!! Mike Pence failed us.”

“Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away,” Trump added in his statement. “Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the election!”