Archive by Author

State-backed hackers targeted US-based journalists in widespread spy campaigns: report

State-sponsored hackers from China, North Korea, Iran and Turkey have been regularly spying on and impersonating journalists from various media outlets in an effort to infiltrate their networks and gain access to sensitive information, according to a report released on Thursday by cybersecurity firm Proofpoint. 

The report reveals that government-backed hackers used various tools to target journalists, including sending phishing emails to gain access to reporters’ work emails, social media accounts and networks.

The report also suggested that state-sponsored hackers routinely pose as members of the media because of the “unique access and information they can provide,” to those countries’ governments.

The hackers could potentially use information they obtained from compromised accounts to spread pro-state propaganda and influence “a politically charged atmosphere.”

“A well-timed, successful attack on a journalist’s email account could provide insights into sensitive, budding stories and source identification,” the report said. 

In one of the operations, the report found that since early 2021, Chinese-backed hackers engaged in numerous phishing attacks mainly targeting U.S.-based journalists covering U.S. politics and national security. 

Some of the malicious emails would have subject lines pulled from recent U.S. headlines, including “Trump call to Georgia official might violate state and federal law,” “US issues Russia threat to China,” and “Jobless benefits run out as Trump resists signing relief bill.”

The attacks also appeared to surge during moments that garnered international attention. For instance, the researchers found an increase in phishing attacks against journalists in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

The report also found similar cyber operations from state-sponsored hackers in Turkey, Iran and North Korea.

In Turkey, for instance, the researchers found that since early 2022, hackers have targeted social media accounts of mostly U.S.-based journalists and media organizations. Specifically, the hackers would attempt to gain access to Twitter credentials of any individual that writes for a media outlet or for an academic institution. 

The researchers also speculated that Turkish-backed hackers may use compromised social media accounts to spread propaganda that favors Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

“It is possible these attacks will ramp up as Turkey’s 2023 parliamentary and presidential elections draw near,” the report said. 

In Iran, the researchers uncovered that hackers would impersonate journalists to gain access to their networks and directly reach out to sources that have expertise in Middle Eastern foreign policy. 

“The threat actor uses these personas to engage in benign conversations with targets, which consist mostly of academics and policy experts working on Middle Eastern foreign affairs,” the report said. 

The researchers concluded their report with a warning to journalists to protect themselves and their sources because these types of attacks are likely to persist as state-sponsored hackers attempt to gather more sensitive information and manipulate public perception. 

“In an era of digital dependency, the media, like the rest of us, is vulnerable to a variety of cyber threats [and] some of the most potentially impactful are those stemming from [state-sponsored] actors,” said Sherrod DeGrippo, vice president of threat research and detection at Proofpoint.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump’s 2020 outrage drives fear of ‘insider’ election threats

Former President Trump’s campaign to undermine the 2020 election is fueling concerns over midterm election security, with experts warning of “insider” threats from the very officials charged with guarding the vote. 

Hundreds of GOP candidates in federal and state races have embraced his false claims about the election, including at least 20 Republican candidates running for secretary of state, according to an NPR analysis. 

Trump’s election denial movement has raised concerns among U.S. officials and experts who fear the conspiracy theories could undermine the legitimacy of future elections.

“I think that’s kind of a new element to the threat landscape of elections,” said William Adler, a senior technologist in elections and democracy at the Center for Democracy & Technology. “I think that the new risk is the risk of insider threats.”

Arizona is among the states where false claims about the 2020 election are the center of this year’s campaigns. 

Trump has endorsed Arizona state representative Mark Finchem, who attended ‘Stop the Steal’ rallies in January, for secretary of state. Finchem was also among several Republican politicians who attended a QAnon conference in Las Vegas last fall. 

Finchem’s opponent, Shawnna Bolick, is also an election skeptic. In early 2021, she introduced a bill that would allow Arizona lawmakers to overturn election results, by a simple majority, in response to fraud claims. Her bill later died in committee.

“There is a conscious campaign of people running for Secretary of State for the express purpose of trying to rig the election,” said David Hickton, founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security.

The trend of election deniers running to oversee elections prompted a dozen House Democrats to urge the Department of Justice to address “insider threats to election systems.”

“Unfortunately, many of the candidates seeking to fill newly vacated state and local election posts support former President Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen,” the lawmakers said in the letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“We are concerned that this new cohort of election officials may be inclined to abuse their authority to directly influence the results of future elections.”

Hickton said that insider threats should be treated with the same urgency as foreign threats.

“Now we have this domestic threat that is a residue from the Trump-MAGA experience. And for the first time in our history, we have candidates who lost and who are now saying that they lost because the election was rigged,” Hickton said. 

“Richard Nixon didn’t do that; Al Gore didn’t do that,” he added. “That’s a guardrail that was protected where we all had a common interest in election integrity.”

Hickton added that another threat to election security is the attempt to suppress votes in certain states, pointing to recent state legislation introduced following the 2020 election that would make it harder for certain voters to cast ballots. 

For instance, lawmakers in Georgia introduced restrictive bills that would limit early and absentee voting and would also require proof of identification to vote. Among Trump’s unfounded claims were that millions of people voted illegally and thousands of dead people voted in Georgia. 

“There is a conscious effort to re-engage in voter suppression by suggesting through disinformation that people who are not qualified to vote are voting or that people are counting votes beyond those that exist,” Hickton said.

“That’s just disinformation and it has to be called out,” he added. 

Jen Easterly, the head of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), told lawmakers in April that her agency is preparing for a slew of security threats leading up to November — including foreign interference, insider threats and physical violence against election officials.

Easterly also pointed lawmakers to a webpage CISA created called the Rumor Control, which the agency is hoping will help debunk common disinformation narratives so voters “have the information they need to maintain confidence in the integrity of elections.”

Some Democrat-led states have passed laws to protect elections from these new insider threats, and increased targeting of officials overseeing the vote count. 

In late May, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed two bills into law intended to fight against insider threats and protect election workers from physical threats and online harassment.

“We want to make sure that every vote is accurately counted,” Polis said as he signed the bills. “And we also want to make sure that those that oversee elections themselves don’t have to worry about their physical safety.”

Adler of the Center for Democracy & Technology said that the federal government needs to set up channels to communicate with state and local officials as they seek to counter a range of threats, from false narratives to cyber attacks on electronic voting systems. 

“The goal of election security is not just to secure machines from being tampered with but also to make sure that people trust the outcome,” Adler said.

“To build trust in our elections you need to come at it from both angles; you need to make sure that the systems are actually secured, but you also need to make sure that disinformation about election security isn’t spreading randomly.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Inflation report deals blow to Schumer-Manchin budget talks

A new report showing that prices have jumped 9.1 percent compared to a year ago is a new setback to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) effort to negotiate a budget reconciliation deal with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D-N.Y.).  

The higher-than-expected inflation report will make it tougher to achieve Schumer’s goal of passing a reconciliation bill before the August recess as Manchin on Wednesday called on his colleagues to slow down and look more carefully at how the legislation might further fuel price increases.  

Manchin now says the provisions of the bill will need to be “scrubbed much better,” including a proposed 3.8 percent tax on wealthy individuals and families who earn money from pass-through businesses, a provision made public last week.  

In the wake of the latest inflation number, Manchin says he’s not sure if he can support a bill that includes anything beyond a proposal to give Medicare power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.  

“We know what we can pass is basically the drug pricing, OK? — on Medicare,” he told reporters Wednesday. “Is there any more we can do? I don’t know but I am very, very cautious. 

“And I’m going to make sure that I have every input on scrubbing everything humanly possible that could be considered inflammatory,” he said.  

“Basically, take your time and make sure we do it and do it right. We can’t afford mistakes in the highest inflation we’ve seen in the last 40 years.”

Manchin has pushed back against Schumer’s effort to try to get a deal wrapped up by the start of the August recess, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 6. Instead, he has argued that negotiators have until the end of September to work out a deal.  

But pushing the talks into September will be cutting it close to the drop-dead deadline as the budget reconciliation instructions that would protect the package from a GOP filibuster expire on Sept. 30.  

Manchin also said he hasn’t signed off on the proposed 3.8 percent tax on pass-through business income earned by wealthy individuals and couples, which floated publicly last week with the implication it had Manchin’s support.  

“If anything, it needs to be scrubbed much better,” he said, adding that complaints the 3.8 percent pass-through income tax will hit small businesses and possibly add to inflation is “extremely concerning.”  

Manchin is hearing from GOP colleagues who warn that increasing taxes on pass-through businesses such as restaurants, construction companies, doctors’ and dentists’ offices and family-owned stores will wind up increasing costs for consumers.  

“They can’t absorb those additional causes. They would have to increase their prices and that would exacerbate inflation,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who worked recently with Manchin on gun-safety legislation.  

Most small businesses are classified as pass-through businesses.  

Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group that favors smaller government and lower taxes, estimates that the tax increase on pass-through business would affect 1,870 tax filers in West Virginia.  

It would only apply to individuals earning more than $400,000 and couples earning more than $500,000.  

Manchin on Wednesday emphasized that he doesn’t want to do anything that will increase costs for people at home.  

“Right now we should all be extremely cautious. People are hurting, people are hurting,” he said.  

“Everyone should be extremely cautious because you cannot do a thing right now that’s going to add or be inflammatory to inflation,” he said.  

Manchin says he’ll close tax loopholes but he doesn’t want to raise taxes.  

“I’m looking at anything that can basically make the system fair. I’m not looking at penalizing anybody, I don’t think we should be raising taxes. But the bottom line is there are loopholes that can be closed. There are things that can be done in a real practical, frugal way,” he said.  

The talks between Schumer and Manchin made progress over the July 4 recess but the worse-than-expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes at a sensitive time in the talks.  

The 9.1 percent increase in prices on an annual basis is the fastest rise in inflation since 1981 and surpasses Dow Jones’s estimate of an 8.8 percent increase.  

Manchin on Wednesday also shot down a demand by two Northeastern House Democrats dto lift the cap on state and local tax deductions, a reform made by former President Trump’s 2017 tax cut.  

“SALT’s not been in the talks at all,” he said.  

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) are threatening to vote against a budget reconciliation bill that doesn’t include a SALT fix, putting pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who is operating with a slim four-seat margin.  

Democratic senators are growing increasingly skeptical about getting a deal with Manchin on a budget reconciliation package any broader than the prescription drug pricing reforms they largely hammered out last year.  

“Well, I’m glad to see he included prescription drugs,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.). “I’ve always been skeptical of reconciliation so we’ll see.”  

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Democrats will have to settle for whatever they can get Manchin to support.  

“There’s so much we need to do but we do as we can get 50 votes for, and I will celebrate what we can get done and work harder than ever for the parts that are still pretty important,” she said.  

Warren balked at the claim that the budget reconciliation package would add to inflation, arguing that’s not the case if it’s fully paid for — something Democrats have promised.  

“It’s important to understand which changes aggravate inflation and which ones ease inflation,” she said. “When spending is to get more workers into the workforce, for example, like universal childcare and it’s fully paid for by taxes on the rich, the consequences of that are not inflationary, they’re deflationary. 

She said if the climate provisions of the bill are fully paid for, “then there’s no inflationary impact.”  

Source: TEST FEED1

Why Biden’s Saudi trip could nudge the kingdom on oil production

President Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia may help prod the country toward increasing oil production — but it’s unlikely to lead to a radical change in the kingdom’s plans.

Oil prices will be on the president’s mind during the controversial trip, which has come under criticism from progressives who say the administration should shun the Saudi leadership over its human rights record, the war in Yemen and the murder of former Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Biden is battling prices that have recently averaged $5 per gallon across the country, which along with inflation have produced stiff headwinds for Democrats facing a difficult midterm election year.

The administration would welcome an effort by the Saudis to increase global supplies in a way that might offset, to some degree, the market disruption caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But experts are saying that U.S. drivers shouldn’t hold their breath.

“It adds to the incentive to increase production, but I do think the Saudis are looking at the overall market dynamics and trying to respond in a relatively careful way,” said Joseph Majkut, director of the energy security and climate change program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

He said any difference from the trip is likely to be modest, even though the Biden visit will be “an important signal that the two countries are working together on energy issues.”

The White House has said there will continue to be discussions with producers like the Saudis.

“We’re in constant contact not just with producers in the Gulf, but producers globally. We’re also working, obviously, on domestic production as well.  And those conversations will continue during this trip,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Wednesday. 

“They — you know, the president talked about energy security in Asia, he talked about energy security in Europe.  He’ll talk about energy security here,” he added. 

Saudi Arabia is the world’s second-largest oil producer, behind only the United States. This, combined with the fact that Saudi Arabia has at least some “spare capacity”  — the oil it can quickly bring onto the market — mean it is a place where the Biden administration can look to try to alleviate high prices. 

Antoine Halff, the former chief oil analyst at the International Energy Agency, told The Hill that he expects Saudi Arabia to increase its production regardless of the visit. 

“A production increase is forthcoming, it might not be huge, but there’s going to be a production increase,” said Halff, who is now an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

He suggested an increase in production would now be presented as a win for Biden from the trip.

“It’s more likely to be presented as a gesture to Biden,” he said, to allow Biden to return with “some claim” of being able to increase supply.

Samantha Gross, director of the Brookings Institution’s Energy Security and Climate Initiative, meanwhile, was skeptical of whether the trip would have any impact at all. 

“I think the impact of this trip on the oil market is going to be zero to very small,” she told The Hill in an interview. Not only do producers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates likely currently have little more production capacity, “they also for sure don’t have a lot of motivation to use it.”

“They’re enjoying the high prices, and I don’t think the prices are so high that they’re demand-destroying,” she added.

At the end of the day, Gross said, any attempts at prodding the Saudis to produce more gas will likely run up against the fact that the U.S. has little to incentivize the kingdom to step it up.

“I don’t feel like the U.S. does have a lot to offer,” she said.

Oil markets have surged since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — sending gasoline prices soaring. 

Halff said that this has been at least partly because of a “reshuffling” of the market following the invasion, with more Russian oil going to India and China, while more Middle Eastern oil has flowed to Europe.

Other factors in high prices have included a lack of private investment in new drilling and demand recovery after the end of COVID-19 lockdowns. 

Analysts say the fact that the world’s two biggest oil producers are talking again is good news in the context of high gas prices.

Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, said he expects the trip to be more likely to be the start of something, rather than an endpoint that brings more oil and lower prices right away.

“I don’t think there’s an expectation that [the Saudis will] necessarily make any additional oil pledges this quarter or even the next quarter,” Kloza added. “But hopefully, it will be the start of a dialogue and maybe an eventual rapprochement.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats see Senate as silver lining in dismal election year

Democrats are banking on a roster of strong Senate candidates to help them retain the upper chamber amid a dismal political environment that increasingly favors Republicans.

In Senate races across the country, Democratic candidates have raked in eye-popping amounts of cash and in some cases have pulled ahead in the polls against their Republican rivals despite GOP confidence that the national mood will help the party flip control of the entire Congress.

Meanwhile, Republican candidates in some high-stakes races have opened themselves up to easy attacks, further adding to Democrats’ optimism.

In Pennsylvania, where Trump-endorsed Mehmet Oz clinched the GOP nod, Democratic candidate John Fetterman has seized on Oz’s out-of-state ties. In Georgia, Republican nominee Herschel Walker has been hit with a string of scandalous headlines involving his secret children. And in Arizona, which is slated to hold its primary next month, Trump-backed candidate Blake Masters has come under scrutiny for some of his past views.

“Republicans are not exactly sending their best,” said one Democratic strategist. “Their lineup this cycle looks like a who’s who of ‘why him?’” 

“If you look at the map and you take out those factors, it’s actually a decent map for them,” the strategist added. “In terms of candidate quality, they have created a perfect storm for Democrats to hold our majority.” 

Over the past week, Democrats have touted a slew of negative headlines about candidates like incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, Oz, Walker and Masters, in an effort to paint the candidates as out of touch and extreme. 

“National Republicans’ disastrous recruitment efforts have left the GOP embracing deeply flawed candidates who are grossly out of step with the American people,” said J.B. Poersch, the president of the Senate Majority PAC. “The candidates themselves are serious liabilities for the GOP this cycle and that tells you all you need to know about their chances in November.”

The party is also seeking to promote the Democratic candidates’ personal brands despite the dismal national mood, President Biden’s plummeting approval rating and soaring inflation that hit 9.1 percent on Wednesday. 

“A good candidate with a strong campaign will be able to create their own environment, and I think that’s what the Democratic candidates have been doing so far,” the Democratic strategist said. 

Democrats point to polls that show their candidates running ahead of Biden in. Most recently, a KLAS TV/The Hill/Emerson College poll found that 44 percent of Nevada voters said they supported incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-Nev.), while Biden holds a 33 percent approval rating in the state. The same poll, which had a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points, showed Laxalt with 41 percent support. 

The party’s operatives are also citing massive second-quarter cash hauls as evidence their Senate campaigns are gaining momentum. On Wednesday, incumbent Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) announced his reelection campaign brought in over $17.2 million during the period. Warnock’s announcement followed other hauls from Senate Democratic hopefuls, including Rep. Val Demings’ (D-Fla.) $12.2 million haul and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s (D) $11 million haul. 

“While Democratic Senate campaigns are posting blockbuster fundraising numbers and our candidates are drawing the support of a broad coalition of voters, Senate Republicans are saddled with a clown car of deeply flawed candidates – and now even Republicans are panicking about the amount of personal and political baggage these GOP candidates are bringing to their races,” said Eli Cousin, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. 

Some Democrats won’t go quite as far as that.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you ‘oh, they’re in full-blown panic mode about this cycle,’” the Democratic strategist said. “But I think it’s very clear to both sides how candidate quality and the proxy war between [former President] Trump and [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell, in terms of candidate recruitment, from the beginning has affected the underlying dynamics.” 

Republicans, for their part, express confidence in these Senate races. 

“I think it’s obviously wishful thinking from Democrats,” said Chris Hartline, communications director at the NRSC. “Democrats’ spin is that their candidates have a brand that is independent of Joe Biden and thus they can survive the political environment.” 

Other Republicans acknowledge what they say are weaknesses held by some of the Republican Senate candidates, but question whether the Democrats’ message can weather the dreary national outlook under Biden. 

“They come with very real vulnerabilities,” said Republican strategist Doug Heye. “The question is can they overcome it and will the atmosphere allow that to. Is running against Joe Biden at 9.1 percent inflation enough? And it may be just given how bad his numbers are.” 

A Politico/Morning Consult poll released this week found that 64 percent of voters said Biden should not run for reelection, while a New York Times/Sienna College poll found that only 44 percent of respondents would cast their ballot for the president if the election were today. 

Democrats argue that Biden’s numbers, particularly pertaining to 2024, are not directly correlated to their 2022 Senate candidates, but Republicans say Biden is dragging them down as the leader of the Democratic Party. 

“I don’t really think there’s a world in which Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock can outrun Joe Biden by 30 points or by 10 points,” said Luke Thompson, a Republican consultant. “They might be able to outrun him by five, they might be able to outrun him by seven, but he is an albatross around their necks and all of the money can’t fix that.” 

Republicans say that the gap between Senate Democratic candidates and Biden in polling will narrow as Election Day approaches and the GOP amplifies their effort to tie the candidates to the president. 

“Gravity is going to bring their numbers closer to parity to Biden’s just as voters start to think about a binary choice between Republicans and Democrats,“ said Hartline, noting that Republicans do not necessarily need Senate Democratic candidates to be as unpopular as Biden to win. 

And as for the money argument, Republicans caution that we have yet to see how Democratic candidates are actually spending their dollars.

“Anybody can raise $9 million in a quarter if you’re willing to spend $8 and a half million to do it,” Thompson said. “Don’t say that we’ve seen anything yet.” 

Additionally, a number of Republican candidates have yet to release their own second-quarter numbers. 

Republicans are also pointing to a bleak economic forecast. 

“I think that they vastly underrated what 9.1 percent inflation is going to do,” Thompson said, referring to Democrats. “The median voter in a lot of these states was not alive the last time inflation was this high. You’re talking about epochal headwinds and I just don’t think these people are ready for it.” 

Democrats are hitting back at the GOP line of attack, calling it “the blame game.”

“[Democrats] are trying to focus on what they’re actually doing to deliver on it instead of just pointing the finger at the other side,” the Democratic strategist said. 

Heye recounted the massive Republican takeover of the House during his time at the RNC in 2010 when Republicans won a net gain of 63 seats in the House. 

“With Biden’s numbers much lower than what Obama’s were in 2010, that dynamic is potentially more true,” Heye said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP sees chance to steal Hispanic voters from Democrats

Republicans are actively courting Hispanic voters in key competitive House districts, hoping to peel away voters from Democrats repeating their historical pattern of investing little and late in reaching out to Latinos. 

The GOP’s approach is a danger to Democrats as Hispanic voters are likely to play a key role in at least a dozen districts in 2022. 

“It couldn’t be a starker contrast between Republicans and Democrats as we engage and do outreach to minority voters, and specifically the Hispanic community,” said Danielle Alvarez, communications director for the GOP. 

Hispanic Democrats in Congress outnumber Republicans four to one, but the Republican Party has recruited a new generation of Hispanic candidates at breakneck speed, most notably in Texas, but also in states like Oregon and Virginia.  

The National Republican Congressional Committee says it has recruited a total of 102 Hispanic candidates in this cycle. 

Excitement about making inroads in the Hispanic community led Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) to launch the Hispanic Leadership Trust PAC in May, aimed at growing the number of Hispanic members in the House. 

“Step one is bringing back everybody that is Hispanic conservative Republican,” Gonzales said. 

The GOP this week seized on a flub by Jill Biden comparing the Hispanic community to breakfast tacos, which the first lady has since apologized for, to help fuel Republicans’ argument that Democrats are not in touch with Hispanic voters.  

Alvarez called the comment “disrespectful” and argued that it is “a window into how Democrats view Hispanics.” The RNC started selling shirts that read “Not your breakfast taco.” 

Historically, most heavily Hispanic districts had a deep Democratic lean, with the exception of districts with proportionately high Cuban-American populations, which tended to lean Republican. 

But recent polling is buoying Republicans who see a chance to make real inroads with Hispanics amid national frustration over high gas prices and inflation.  

A New York Times/Siena College poll this month found that only 41 percent of Hispanics said they intended to vote for Democrats in the upcoming midterms, while 38 percent said they preferred GOP candidates. 

Statisticians warn that polling of Hispanic voters is particularly difficult, and national polls that use likely voter models have historically missed the mark. 

The Pew Research Center’s latest numbers, from March, on Hispanic voter intent show 50 percent of Hispanics intended to vote for a Democratic candidate, while only 28 percent intended to vote for a Republican. Pew is due to release a new survey including weighted Hispanic voter intent ahead of the midterms. 

Most observers agree that high Hispanic turnout is likely to favor Democrats and low turnout Republicans, a reflection that a broad majority of Hispanics are still more likely to vote Democratic.

Nonetheless, the favorable polls are putting a spark into the GOP effort.  

“We never left the ground, and we’ve always been engaging and having these conversations with Hispanic communities and diverse communities across the country,” said Alvarez. 

Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) acknowledged “some inroads” by the GOP when it comes to attracting Latino voters, but quickly added that the trend has been “way overstated.” 

“Everyone has always looked at Latinos as this sort of singular group and not diverse. The truth of the matter is we’re as diverse as anybody else — may even more so,” said Vargas, who represents a huge swath of border between California and Mexico. 

“People say, ‘Look, there’s all these Latinos voting Republican.’ And I say, ‘They always have.’ I mean, because of social issues they always have,” he said. “It’s not a big change, people are just noticing it now.” 

Republicans argue they started their 2022 outreach early by opening community centers where staff work to build relationships with Hispanic communities, recruit and train volunteers, register voters and turn them out to vote.  

The GOP Latino community centers have opened in places where Hispanics traditionally yield political power like Texas and Florida, but also in places where growing Hispanic communities are shifting election results, like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Out of 30 RNC community centers targeting minority communities, 12 are Hispanic community centers. 

The centralized GOP outreach stands in contrast to a Democratic machinery that’s built a broad network of grassroots organizations and a solid power base in the 36-member Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), but has struggled to inculcate an “early and often” Hispanic outreach mantra in its upper echelons, like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee or the House Majority PAC. 

The expanding GOP outreach, led by Hispanic Republicans, is eroding an image Democrats had cultivated of having a virtual monopoly on Hispanic representation. 

In the five Texan districts along the U.S.-Mexico border, all ten major party House candidates are Hispanics with ties to local communities. 

A similar phenomenon is happening in Florida’s three southernmost districts, where all three Republican incumbents are Hispanic, as are the leading candidates in the Democratic primaries. 

Vargas allowed that the situation in Texas might be different, because of polls showing a number of Hispanic Democratic voters have recently jumped parties to support the GOP. But in Vargas’s mind, that switch is just an indication that Texas Democrats haven’t done enough outreach to Latino voters in the state. 

“Outreach is a big deal, absolutely,” he said. “The party has to do a much better job, and they haven’t.” 

Vargas said that Democrats in Texas are assuming Hispanic voters will vote Democratic. 

“I mean, they’re taking them for granted. We certainly don’t in California,” Vargas said. 

The GOP’s Hispanic outreach is aided by candidates who tend to follow party orthodoxy with more discipline than their Democratic counterparts. 

Alvarez said that “the extremism of the Democrats woke leftist movement” contributes to Hispanic voters moving toward the GOP, noting use of the term “Latinx” and mentioning education on gender identity and sexuality in elementary schools.  

“We’re actually more conservative than the average voter on these issues,” said Alvarez. 

New candidates like Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas), who won a special election to represent a formerly Democratic Rio Grande Valley district earlier this year, have hit the ground running on party messaging, using Twitter to lash out against Democrats and paint an image of an inevitable GOP wave among Latinos. 

“It’s really important to have not only the right message but the right candidates to deliver the message,” said Alvarez.

Source: TEST FEED1

Gunshot detection system expanding rapidly in US despite criticism

Local officials are increasingly turning to a gunshot detection technology to help address gun violence, despite serious concerns over its accuracy and potential side effects.

More than 130 cities and towns across the country have now installed the ShotSpotter systems, according to a report released Thursday from the group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP). That’s up from about 85 cities in 2018.

That expansion has been aided by federal funding, with several cities including Detroit, New Haven, Conn., and Albuquerque, N.M., signing big contracts with ShotSpotter using money from the American Rescue Plan Act. The increase could accelerate with new funding that’s been allocated for school safety after the recent shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

“At a time when elected officials are facing more pressure than ever to combat gun violence and we see cities spending hundreds of millions of dollars on gun prevention tech, including all the new money that Congress authorized after Uvalde, we have to look at the fact that this technology — ShotSpotter — is expensive, dangerous and just doesn’t work,” Albert Fox Cahn, STOP’s executive director, said in an interview.

ShotSpotter’s acoustic technology has become a favored tool for police departments to identify when guns are fired and quickly deploy officers without having to wait for 911 calls.

Critics contend that the system is inaccurate, puts officers into situations primed for accidents and results in overpolicing of Black and other minority neighborhoods.

The company claims that it can correctly identify gun shots 97 percent of the time based on reporting from police.

Studies from academics and independent government watchdogs have found that the technology suffers from serious false positive problems, and in the case of Chicago fails to lead officers to gun-related crimes.

While ShotSpotter has commissioned consultants to review its accuracy claims, the studies confirming the 97 percent figure have not included any data backing up the assertion.

“As the ShotSpotter bill grows for taxpayers, the amount of independent performance data remains lamentably low,” STOP’s report reads.

Especially given the questions about the technology’s accuracy, critics contend, having officers deployed primed to deal with gunfire creates unnecessarily dangerous situations.

“Every false alarm for ShotSpotter can potentially lead to a tragic death because you have officers running into situations presuming there is an active shooter, when in fact, there can just be a backfire or fireworks,” Cahn said, pointing to the case of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was killed in Chicago last year by police dispatched after a ShotSpotter alert.

The report released Thursday argues that ShotSpotter can also exacerbate overpolicing in certain communities. STOP found that almost three quarters of the 31 New York Police Department precincts where ShotSpotter is used are either majority Black or Latino.

“ShotSpotter’s apparently discriminatory sensor placement could lead to discriminatory and even deadly police responses. In NYC, plainclothes officers responding to a ShotSpotter alert in Canarsie, Brooklyn, a majority-Black neighborhood, refused to identify themselves to and assaulted a 20-year old man they found smoking marijuana,” the report reads.

The company defends the deployment of its sensors, arguing that it is up to police to place them and that departments make those decisions based on crime data. But the STOP report maintains that law enforcement disproportionately target minority populations based on “geographically and demographically skewed crime data.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Additional action needed to meet Biden’s climate goals: analysis

A new analysis has found that the U.S. is currently not on track to meet President Biden’s climate goals unless it takes additional policy actions to mitigate global warming. 

The report, from research firm Rhodium Group, found that by 2030, the U.S. will have cut its emissions by between 24 and 35 percent compared to where they were at in 2005. 

That’s a significantly smaller cut than the 50 to 52 percent that President Biden has called for. 

But, the projection does not include emissions cuts that would come from regulations that have been proposed, but not yet been finalized.

There are still more rules expected to cut climate pollution that the Biden administration is expected to finalize, including a regulation that aims to curtail the release of a planet-warming gas called methane from the oil and gas sector. 

And the administration is expected to propose additional regulations, including one that would curb emissions from power plants. The Supreme Court recently limited how the agency can go about such regulations, but the Biden administration still has tools at its disposal to regulate these sources of planet-warming gases and is expected to do so. 

This year’s Rhodium Group report is more optimistic than last year’s projection, in which the group estimated that the U.S. would cut its emissions by between 17 and 30 percent. However, the group attributed the shift to higher fossil fuel prices and slower economic growth projections, rather than climate policies. 

Over the past year, hopes for significant legislative action to tackle climate change have dwindled, as Democrats have failed to reach a deal on President Biden’s spending agenda.

Experts told The Hill in April that the lack of legislative action jeopardizes Biden’s climate goals.

Source: TEST FEED1

House Democrats adopt amendment giving DC mayor authority over city's national guard

The House adopted an amendment to the annual defense spending bill on Wednesday that would give the mayor of Washington, D.C. authority over the capital city’s national guard.

The measure — sponsored by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Anthony Brown (D-Md.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), who represents the District of Columbia — was approved in a mainly party-line vote of 218-209 to be added to the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden (Maine) voted with Republicans in opposing the measure, while GOP Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.) supported the amendment. Two Republicans and one Democrat did not vote.

The House is expected to pass the full NDAA this week. The lower chamber will then go into conference in the Senate, where the amendment could be taken out.

The measure calls for giving the D.C. mayor, currently Muriel Bowser, command over the D.C. National Guard. While governors are in charge of the national guards in their respective states, the president currently oversees the force in Washington, D.C.

Conversations about who has authority over the D.C. National Guard moved into the spotlight after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, testified in March 2021 that former President Trump’s Defense Department took roughly three hours to authorize the force to send personnel to the Capitol during the riot.

At the Jan. 6 select committee’s first public hearing last month, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the panel, said Trump “gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day,” explaining that former Vice President Pence urged the National Guard to go to the Capitol.

During debate on the House floor Wednesday, Norton referenced the Capitol riot as reason why the amendment is needed.

“During Jan. 6, the Trump administration delayed deploying the D.C. National Guard to the Capitol for several hours, likely costing lives and prolonging the attack,” she said.

She also said the D.C. mayor is best equipped to make decisions for the nation’s capital, noting that the president would still have the ability to federalize and deploy the force if needed.

“National guards are generally deployed for natural disasters and civil disturbances. The D.C. mayor, who knows D.C. better than any federal official, should be able to deploy the D.C. national guard to protect D.C. residents,” she said.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) said giving the D.C. mayor authority over the city’s National Guard instead of the president is “completely unacceptable,” noting that the mayor of D.C. is not a governor.

“I can’t believe this even has to be said, but the D.C. mayor is not the governor of a state. And the District of Columbia, which houses our federal government, is not and should never become a state,” he said during debate on the House floor.

The House in April 2021 passed a bill to make Washington, D.C. a state, marking the second time the chamber approved such a measure in two years, though it has little chance of passing in an evenly divided Senate.

The House-approved version of last year’s NDAA also gave the D.C. mayor authority over the National Guard, but the provision was not included in the final version of the bill, according to Norton’s office.

Source: TEST FEED1