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Olivia Rodrigo slams justices over abortion ruling at festival: 'We hate you!'

Singer Olivia Rodrigo used her performance at the U.K.’s Glastonbury Festival over the weekend to slam the Supreme Court in the wake of the bombshell ruling to overturn Roe v Wade.

Taking the stage with fellow singer Lily Allen, the “Driver’s License” performer denounced the 6-3 decision to strike down the 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion.

Rodrigo said she was “heartbroken,” “devastated” and “terrified” over the ruling, adding, “so many women and so many girls are going to die because of this.”

Rodrigo joined Allen in singing her 2009 hit song titled “F*** You,” dedicating it to the conservative members of the Supreme Court who showed they “don’t give a s**t about freedom.”

She added, “This song goes out to the justices: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh. We hate you!”

Rodrigo condemned the leaked Supreme Court decision prior to it being finalized during a concert in Washington, D.C. last month.

“I hope we can use our voices to protect our rights to have a safe abortion, which is a right that so many people before us have worked so hard to get,” she told the audience at the time.

Rodrigo’s abortion rights activism comes a year after she visited the White House to promote youth COVID-19 vaccination.

Source: TEST FEED1

Giuliani slapped by supermarket employee, police say

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was attacked by an employee at a Staten Island supermarket on Sunday, according to authorities.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed to The Hill on Sunday that Giuliani was slapped in the “mid-back” at a ShopRite while on the campaign trail for his son Andrew’s gubernatorial campaign.

“All of a sudden, I feel this, ‘Bam!’ on my back,” Giuliani told the New York Post, adding he nearly fell down from the blow.

“All of a sudden, I hear this guy say, ‘You’re a f–king scumbag,’ then he moves away so nobody can grab him,” he added.

The 39-year-old ShopRite employee was detained after the incident, according to the NYPD.

The Hill has reached out to Giuliani’s camp for comment.

Giuliani has been a central figure in the ongoing public hearings on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, having played a key role in efforts to overturn President Biden’s election victory.

Trump aides testified that the former mayor was visibly drunk on the night of the election, claims that Giuliani has denied.

Source: TEST FEED1

Emhoff to lead delegation for Marcos' inauguration in Philippines

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff has been tapped to lead a delegation to the Philippines for the inauguration of newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

In a statement on Sunday, the White House said that Emhoff will attend Marcos’ inauguration on Thursday along with a delegation including Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.).

Marcos clinched his country’s presidency in a landslide victory in May, which observers credited to a savvy social media campaign that spread misinformation about his family’s history of human rights abuses and plundering state coffers.

Marcos’ father was forced from power in 1986 and died in exile in Hawaii, with his families and cronies accused of amassing $5 billion to $10 billion while he was in power.

However, the Biden administration was quick to congratulate the new Philippines’ president, as it seeks to counter China’s influence in the region.

Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, who remained widely popular during his term in office, maintained closer ties with China and Russia, while at times railing against the United States.

Marcos has said in prior interviews that he wants his country to have a better relationship with the U.S. but also reiterated that he wants to maintain a positive relationship with China as well.  

In a phone call after his election win, Biden also expressed his interest to work with Marcos on expanding relations between the two countries. 

“President Biden underscored that he looks forward to working with the President-elect to continue strengthening the U.S.-Philippine Alliance, while expanding bilateral cooperation on a wide range of issues, including the fight against COVID-19, addressing the climate crisis, promoting broad-based economic growth, and respect for human rights,” the White House said in a statement at the time.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden administration should chart strategy for US solar

The move by the Biden administration to intervene in a dispute over tariffs on solar parts from Southeast Asia poses a key question: what is our long-term strategy for promoting the buildout of zero- and low-carbon resources domestically, while ensuring U.S. manufacturers are a dominant global player in the clean energy transition?

To recap: U.S. solar manufacturers believe Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are helping China to circumvent U.S. tariffs on solar equipment, spurring a Department of Commerce investigation. U.S. solar installers blamed the investigation for jamming up solar supply chains, placing a cloud over renewable energy projects across the country.

In an attempt to appease both sides, the Biden administration this month invoked the Defense Production Act to stimulate domestic manufacturing of clean energy equipment — and issued a two-year reprieve from new solar tariffs on the four countries. The solution was applauded by installers yet felt like less than a half-measure for domestic manufacturers.

China is almost certainly gaming the system. Southeast Asian countries rely heavily on upstream components from China to manufacture solar cells that they then export to the U.S. At the same time, China’s solar industry has been dogged by accusations of human rights abuses, including forced labor. And its product is far more carbon intensive than the solar panels we make in the U.S.

Even setting aside China’s problematic labor practices, it is contrary to our national interests to rely so heavily on a single country for the bulk of solar components needed to decarbonize the U.S. power sector. Consider that China now produces more than 80 percent of all solar-grade polysilicon produced worldwide — and does so with more than twice the emissions of manufacturers in the U.S. or Europe. It is counterproductive to allow such a carbon-intensive producer to advance its stranglehold on an industry that is essential for decarbonizing the globe. 

The U.S. leads the world in innovative thin-film solar panels that generate 90 percent less greenhouse gas emissions during their manufacture than the silicon-based panels in which China specializes. Because the U.S. has no comprehensive federal level climate policy, the U.S. does not recognize or reward these innovative domestic manufacturers. Rather, we perpetuate our dependency on the Chinese solar industry.

The administration now has an opportunity to chart a longer-term strategy that fulfills its ambition to decarbonize the U.S. power sector while positioning the U.S. to become a solar manufacturing leader. Such a strategy must enhance the competitiveness of our cleaner domestic manufacturers, incentivize the installation of panels with lower carbon intensity, and ensure there is adequate supply of panels to meet U.S. demand.

Thoughtful trade policy would reward cleaner production throughout the solar supply chain by accounting for the carbon intensity of imports. This wouldn’t close the door to panels made with higher carbon intensity but would send a market signal to preference panels made with less carbon—something we should be exploring in other industries as well. In doing so, we would give a well-earned competitive edge to our cleaner domestic manufacturers without jeopardizing supply chains. 

Longer-term, such an approach can position the U.S. to become a dominant player in next-generation solar. Other countries have started to explore how to preference low-carbon panels with some success, and we might heed their example.

Taking it a step further, the administration could partner with like-minded countries to prioritize trade in low-carbon panels, similar to the agreement the U.S. is negotiating with the European Union on steel. Such a “club” approach offers a huge environmental upside. On a global scale, cleaner production of solar energy infrastructure has the potential to avoid 2 billion tons of carbon emissions over the next ten years, according to the Ultra-Low Carbon Solar Alliance. Introducing incentives for lower-carbon intensity solar panels would also create global demand for U.S.-made solar panels and new opportunities for export.

The Biden administration has an opportunity to harness trade policy to accelerate the build out of clean energy while rewarding the use of lower-carbon panels and the U.S. companies that make them. This is how it can deliver a win — ]not just for solar installers or solar manufacturers — but for the climate.

Greg Bertelsen is CEO of the Climate Leadership Council.

Source: TEST FEED1

QAnon leader returns with first post in more than a year

The leader of the conspiracy theory movement QAnon published his first post in more than a year. 

The New York Times reported that the movement’s leader, referred to as Q, posted a message Friday on the message board 8kun.

“Shall we play the game again?” read the post, which quickly made the rounds on other social media platforms.

One user on 8kun commented under Q’s post asking why he had been gone for so long. Q replied that “it had to be done this way,” according to the Times. 

“Are you ready to serve your country again?” The leader asked users in another post. “Remember your oath.”

Ron Watkins, a computer programmer and a former administrator of 8kun, is believed by many to be the man behind Q. An HBO documentary and two forensic analyses showed similar writing styles between the two individuals.

Watkins, who is currently running for a seat in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, has repeatedly denied claims that he is the QAnon leader.

QAnon has stoked a series of conspiracy theories and played a pivotal role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, where pro-Trump supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop the certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory. 

Q’s return comes amid a series of public hearings being held by the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol, seeking to place former President Trump at the center of efforts to overturn the election.

The Capitol insurrection resulted in the deaths of five people. 

The posts also came on the same day that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, an outcome long desired by the conservative legal movement.

Source: TEST FEED1

Five things to watch for at this week’s NATO meeting

President Biden will convene with allies this week at a NATO summit in Madrid, which is expected to focus on the security alliance projecting its unity and coordination amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

The meeting, which follows the Group of Seven summit in Germany, is expected to cover a hosts of issues beyond the Russian war, including the bids by Finland and Sweden to join the organization.

Here are five things to watch for at the NATO meeting.

A show of support for Ukraine

Russia’s war in Ukraine has entered its fourth month and NATO leaders are expected to make showing their support for Ukraine a top priority.

This is a top priority for Biden, who has put support for Ukraine front-and-center to his agenda.

“He’s going into a NATO Summit where the alliance has truly never been more unified,” said John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications.

Biden, on his visit to Poland in March, touted that Putin has not been able to divide NATO and has consistently stressed that the most important thing is for the U.S. and allies to stay coordinated. He also reinforced his commitment to the collective defense principle of NATO’s Article 5, which states that an attack against one NATO apply is an attack against all. 

Ukrainian President Zelensky will virtually address the NATO meeting. Biden said a visit to Ukraine is unlikely on this trip.

Zelensky’s address will “give the leaders an opportunity to hear from him directly and will also enable NATO Allies to showcase their continued resolve to support Ukraine as it defends itself,” a senior administration official said.

Turkey’s battle over Finland and Sweden’s membership bids 

Finland and Sweden have applied for NATO membership but the Nordic countries are held up in talks with Turkey, which has opposed the bids due to support from those two governments toward Kurdish groups that Turkey considers to be terrorist organizations.

Turkey can essentially veto Finland and Sweden from joining NATO, since all members must agree to taking on new states.

It’s not clear if Biden, who has voiced his support for Finland and Sweden, will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the issue. Senior administration officials, when asked about a meeting, have pointed to opportunities for leaders to meet on the margins of the summit even if there are no scheduled meetings.

Daniel Fried, former U.S. ambassador to Poland and an expert at the Atlantic Council, argued that Biden should become more directly involved in addressing the disagreements with Erdogan.

“Biden should be hands on with this one,” Fried said.

Turkey has indicated that it does not see the summit as a deadline in deciding whether to accept the Nordic countries. With Turkey maintaining its opposition to their membership, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hasn’t provided a timeline on when Finland and Sweden might officially join. 

Rose Gottemoeller, a former deputy secretary general of NATO, predicted it would take at least a year for the two countries to join the alliance if Turkey drops its objections. The legislative bodies in each NATO member state must offer approval.

In Congress, there has been bipartisan agreement over the Finland and Sweden bids, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee easily passed a resolution earlier this month pressing NATO to quickly admit them.

Eyeing the China threat 

Leaders at the NATO Summit are expected to endorse a new strategic concept – the first since 2010 – which for the first time will explicitly address challenges posed by China. 

Kirby on Thursday told reporters that the strategic concept builds on months of conversations about the threat that China poses to international security.

“I think it’s a reflection of our allies’ equal concerns over the effect of Chinese economic practices, use of forced labor, intellectual theft, and coercive aggressive behavior not just in the region but elsewhere around the world. That they believe it’s important to factor China into the new strategic concept,” he said.

The White House has also highlighted that leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea are participating in the summit for the first time this year. 

While Russia is the most immediate threat to the alliance, China is considered a multifaceted and longer-term threat. The alliance is expected to discuss economic and cyber threats emanating from China as well as security in the Indo Pacific. 

Biden administration officials have insisted that they continue to be focused on China even while addressing the war in Ukraine. 

“Instead of distracting us from the Indo-Pacific and China, the president’s leadership with respect to supporting Ukraine has actually galvanized leaders in that region and effectively linked out efforts in Europe and in Asia and those Asian countries that will be participating in the NATO summit, I think speak volumes about that fact,” Kirby said.

Still, experts say that the U.S. is inevitably having to split its attention between security in Europe and Asia.

“​​The United States is in more of a balancing act,” said Gottemoeller.

Nations to upgrade force commitments 

NATO members are expected to make good on commitments to increase force posture to bolster defense of allies during Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Biden administration officials said the new plans will help strengthen NATO and deter Russian aggression at a critical moment. 

“The President has been very clear in the context of the Ukraine crisis that NATO would defend every inch of NATO territory,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters. 

Fried said there will be particular discussions about bulking up NATO’s presence in the Baltic states and Poland, which are close neighbors to Ukraine. 

“What the Ukraine war shows us is that Russia could attack but it also shows us that it is possible to defend the Baltics,” he said, noting that the Russian forces have performed below expectations. “There’s an argument that NATO ought to up its eastern deployments to brigade strengths.” 

Focus on defense spending

Talk of upping defense spending has been a contentious topic for the alliance, particularly during the previous administration when former President Trump pressured countries to spend more on defense to meet NATO’s target that each member state dedicates 2 percent of gross domestic product to defense spending. 

The war in Ukraine has caused nations to commit to spending more on their defense, most notably Germany, which pledged earlier this year to spend above 2 percent GDP after years of lagging below that level. 

​​“All along in this crisis, the NATO countries have been pledging more for defense spending,” said Gottemoeller. “I think all of them are going to be looking at their defense budgets.”

Gottemoeller said she wouldn’t be surprised if there is a recommitment to the 2 percent pledge or concrete pledges on further defense spending.  

A senior administration official said the U.S. expects the “upward trajectory” of defense spending over the last seven years to continue and accelerate and would work to make sure the alliance is well-resourced.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden decries 'barbarism' after Russia strikes kindergarten in Kyiv

President Biden on Sunday condemned a Russian missile attack that damaged a kindergarten in Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, in advance of two major international summits.

“It’s more of their barbarism,” Biden said at the official welcome of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Germany.

The timing of the attack is largely seen as a show-of-force in advance of the G7 summit — which gathers leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies, all of which have all enacted sanctions against Russia for its invasion — and a NATO summit scheduled later in the week.

Kyiv’s mayor said the long-range missiles hit at least two residential buildings, killed at least one person and injured six others, including a 7-year-old girl. The Associated Press saw emergency workers battling flames and rescuing civilians from the buildings.

The blasts came after weeks of calm in Ukraine’s capital as Russia focuses its war efforts in the country’s east.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday made a plea for countries to send Ukraine air defense systems, saying dozens of Russian missiles had struck Ukraine in just the past day.

Russia has largely turned its attention to the Donbas region, where it has apparently captured the city of Sieverodonetsk, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry, in Moscow’s latest conquest after backing separatists in the region for years.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an interview on CNN that a Russian victory would be “absolutely catastrophic” for the world.

Meanwhile, at a bilateral meeting between Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Sholz on Sunday, Biden noted the unity between NATO and G7 countries in its sweeping response to Russia’s invasion.

“Putin has been counting on, from the beginning, that somehow NATO and the G7 would splinter,” Biden said. “But we haven’t, and we’re not going to.” 

Biden also said on Sunday that the G7 would ban Russian gold imports in efforts to further financially strain the country.

Sholz echoed similar sentiments.

“The good message is that we all made it to stay united, which obviously Putin never expected,” he said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Impact of overturning Roe on the midterms? Look at Kavanaugh‘s impact on 2018 elections

In the 2018 midterms, 40 U.S. House seats flipped from Republican to Democrat; 38 of those races had public polling. In 27 of those, the Republican candidate led in September and/or October, coinciding with U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearings; those 27 Republican candidates went on to lose in November.

In considering how the overturning of Roe v. Wade might impact the 2022 midterms, we must understand 2018. 

Many have sought to make sense of the last midterms — how it was a check on President Donald Trump’s power, or how winning over older voters was key. These are rational, supportable arguments. They’re also slow-burn issues.

Because Democrats were girding for the 2018 midterms beginning in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016 — after the unexpected happened. It took time. In Gallup’s first presidential poll of Trump during his first week in office, he received 13 percent support from Democrats and 42 percent from independents. Over the next two years, he never again earned that much support from either group. In the final Gallup poll begun right before the midterms, Trump garnered 5 percent support from Democrats and 34 percent from independents.

So yes, a majority of the country had had enough, and history showed first-term presidents often lost House seats in the first midterms. But Democrats needed to take back 24 seats. Even with Trump’s approval rating in the 30s, Democratic victory was nowhere close to assured, even if they won all seats that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won “or that Trump won by less than three percentage points.”

So, what would cause 27 Republican House candidates to lose in November despite polling well in September and/or October? An unexpected spark. A closely watched, political galvanizing event that hardens views and spurs action.

On the eve of Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony, in which she claimed Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her, 32 percent of respondents in an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll stated that they believed Ford, while 26 percent believed Kavanaugh; 42 percent were undecided, and 58 percent said they planned to follow the Senate proceedings “closely or very closely.”

After Blasey Ford’s testimony, those who believed her jumped to 45 percent, compared to only 33 percent who believed Kavanaugh. The trust gap between these two had doubled. And much of America was engaged.

This is when the midterms were decided. Everything leading up to it was, for many Americans, a gradual erosion of political and societal norms. But nonetheless, it was gradual. Often politically imperceptible. A general state of un-ease favoring the status quo over an electoral revolution. But Republicans giving an accused sexual predator a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court was the lightning rod that struck the political life out of 27 House Republicans who, up to that point, had had a good shot at winning in November and keeping the chamber in GOP hands.

Nearly four years later, the overarching circumstances are comparable, though the stakes are infinitely higher. 

After more than a year of Democratic malaise that has sapped President Joe Biden of a significant percentage of Democratic and independent support, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. Conservatives are now gunning for a contraception ban and the elimination of LGTBQ rights. The midterms are less than five months away.

Just as a substantive plurality of Americans sided with Blasey Ford over Kavanaugh, a substantive majority of Americans support abortion rights, including in many red states such as Florida, Iowa, and Alaska.

Since the draft ruling was leaked nearly two months ago, the question has remained the same: Will Democrats make the 2022 midterms a referendum on whether women or the government have ultimate control over women’s bodies?

Friday’s Supreme Court ruling presents a road map for how Democrats can help sustain electoral fervor. The majority opinion states, “a law regulating abortion” is valid “if there is a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests.” The jurists proceed to argue that “legitimate interests” include “the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability.”

In arguing that the government has ultimate control over women’s bodies, the court implies that stripping women of their freedoms has nothing to do with gender discrimination — that women’s lack of bodily autonomy can co-exist with “the prevention of discrimination.”

What this ruling lacks in justification, it makes up for in appendices: a bizarrely constructed list of “statutes criminalizing abortion” intended to bolster the majority’s arguments. Except these statutes are not plucked from recent state law. They span the periods between 1825 to 1919 — probably not coincidentally brushing up against the date of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (women’s suffrage). The referenced 1848 Virginia statute, for example, begins with “Any free person…” Because the best way to rally America to your cause is to base your arguments on a time when Black people were considered cattle and wives were servants.

The ruling is a dog whistle to systemic misogynists who praise zygotes one day, and then lobby against any help for them nine months later. 

It’s also an electoral battle cry to the majority of Americans who refuse to allow the moral norms of 1848 to influence the legal standards of today.

Today it’s women’s autonomy; tomorrow it will very likely be gay rights and birth control.

For Democrats to win — and perhaps win big — in November, they already have everything they need: They simply need to make the 2022 midterms a referendum for the majority of citizens who recognize 19th-century immoral norms don’t belong in 21st-century America.

B.J. Rudell is a longtime political strategist, former associate director for Duke University’s Center for Politics, and recent North Carolina Democratic Party operative. In a career encompassing stints on Capitol Hill, on presidential campaigns, in a newsroom, in classrooms, and for a consulting firm, he has authored three books and has shared political insights across all media platforms, including for CNN and Fox News.

Source: TEST FEED1

Americans' views of economy, finances worsen: poll

Three-quarters of Americans rate the current condition of the economy as fairly bad or very bad, and a majority are concerned about their ability to afford day-to-day expenses, according to a new CBS News-YouGov poll.

The proportion of Americans who view the state of the economy as fairly bad or worse has grown for each of the past two months, rising from 63 percent in April to 75 percent in the latest poll.

Republicans were more likely to have a negative view of the national economy, with just nine percent saying it is at least fairly good. Thirty-six percent of Democrats and 20 percent of independents viewed the economy as at least fairly good.

The increased pessimism comes after inflation rates in May surpassed economists expectations, with annual inflation hitting a 40-year high of 8.6 percent. Rising oil, food and shelter costs largely fueled May’s inflation spike. 

Those price hikes have left many Americans feeling unsure of their ability to retire, take vacation or even afford day-to-day items, according to the poll.

One-third of respondents said they were very concerned about their ability to afford basic goods and services while 32 percent said they were somewhat concerned. Seventy-three percent expressed at least some concern for their ability to save money.

Just one in ten Americans said they were very confident in their plans for retirement, while 41 percent said they were very concerned.

Much of the economic pain has been felt at the pump, with the national average price for a gallon of gas clocking in at $4.90 on Sunday, according to AAA. Sixty-two percent of respondents said the price of gas has had a lot of impact on them personally.

President Biden backed a federal gas tax holiday last week, but the proposal has been met with skepticism from many lawmakers. 

A slight majority of those polled — 54 percent — said they supported Biden’s proposal, compared to 46 percent who opposed the move.

As the Federal Reserve responds to surging inflation by rapidly raising interest rates, nearly half of respondents said they expect the U.S. economy next year to be in a recession.

Fed leaders and the Biden administration have attempted to downplay concerns of a recession, arguing it is possible to cool off demand without causing a major economic downturn.

But a growing number of economists are casting doubt on the possibility of a so-called “soft landing.” 

Larry Summers, who served as treasury secretary under former President Clinton, has said a recession is likely, which economists at Goldman Sachs last week doubled their prediction of a recession’s likelihood to 30 percent and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned of an economic “hurricane” earlier this month.

The new poll revealed that 44 percent of respondents believed a recession will occur next year, and an additional 25 percent believed the economy will slow. Thirteen percent believed the economy next year will be booming or growing, and 18 percent believed it would hold steady.

The poll was conducted between June 22 and 24 through interviews with 2,265 U.S. adult residents. The margin of error is 2.6 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1