Archive by Author

Watch live: Deborah Birx testifies on Trump administration's COVID response

Deborah Birx, who served as former President Trump’s White House coronavirus response coordinator, is slated to testify before a House panel Thursday morning.

The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. ET.

Watch the live video above.

Source: TEST FEED1

Watch live: Federal Reserve chairman testifies before House panel on inflation and economic woes

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to testify before a House panel Thursday morning to discuss the state of inflation in the United States.

The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. ET.

Watch the live video above.

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP pollster Frank Luntz: Republicans are saying 'it's time to move on' from Trump

Veteran GOP pollster Frank Luntz said on Thursday that a recent New Hampshire poll showing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) narrowly edging out former President Trump indicates Republicans are saying “it’s time to move on” from Trump. 

During an interview on CNN’s “New Day,” Luntz and the network’s chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, spoke about the University of New Hampshire Granite State Poll, which found that 39 percent of likely Republican primary voters in the state would back DeSantis as their first choice in a list of Republican candidates who are considered possible GOP presidential candidates. Trump, meanwhile, received 37 percent support in that poll. The results are within the survey’s margin of error of 5.5 percent.

“DeSantis is … the greatest threat to Trump when it comes to the Republican Party,” Collins said.

“It’s more than a threat,” Luntz noted. “The governor is proving that his approach and what he’s trying to accomplish and what he has accomplished in Florida is more significant and Republicans are now saying it’s time to move on.”

The pollster noted that Trump is still “the most popular political figure” within the GOP, adding that the former president now has a “specific challenger” for the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

Trump and DeSantis have not officially announced that they are running in the 2024 presidential election, though the former president has at times teased the possibility.

The development comes against the backdrop of hearings conducted by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol rioting, which have sought to show the role that Trump and his allies have played in pressuring then-Vice President Pence and state officials to overturn the 2020 election results.

“There’s now polling out that shows that Donald Trump is actually paying a price for what these hearings are showing,” Luntz said on Thursday.

Source: TEST FEED1

With inflation comes the check for past ‘free’ lunches

With President Biden talking about employing the Defense Production Act to force petroleum companies to open the oil valves wider and produce more gasoline, we are reminded that there is no such thing as a government-provided outcome, environmental or otherwise, without cost. Consumer outrage at $5-per-gallon gas is evidently strong enough to get the attention of a president known for his commitment to improving the condition of the planet.

It’s another version of that old saw famously associated with Nobel laureate and economist Milton Friedman: There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Today, inflation is putting a price tag on past political actions that only sounded free at the time.

Friedman, known for his wit and unwavering free market critique of public policy, was making a simple point: If society’s scarce resources are being used to prepare this proverbial lunch (even if it’s to orchestrate cleaner air or some other worthwhile goal), then we can be certain that some people, somewhere, are paying the bill, voluntarily or otherwise.

Unwavering in his support of the freedom to choose, Friedman once led a march during the Vietnam War with much younger men and women protesting the draft and calling for an all-volunteer army. It was not defense policy that motivated him as much as the cost imposed when individuals have no choice but to go off to war without being fully compensated. Eventually, of course, his message was received, and our laws were changed. Today, we have an all-volunteer military.

That said, the free-lunch politics of most other issues are such that promises get our attention and, when placed in front of the people and our representatives, our approval. Through a pageant of presidents from Obama to Trump to Biden and in face of economic difficulties, we the people have been promised and have received subsidies and checks from the federal government that entered our bank accounts as if by magic.

At the same time, we were promised that only higher income individuals would face tax increases to help pay for the checks. Yes, it sounded a lot like a free lunch. But now, with all that extra cash circulating, every American is facing 8 percent or higher inflation, no matter what their income level. No amount of planning and promising could negate Friedman’s rule, and the bill for the free lunch hits most of us each time we go shopping.

Of course, political promises that sound like free lunches come in many forms. During the Trump administration, animosity toward China regarding respect for intellectual property rights and other trade matters led to the imposition of tariffs on a large variety of Chinese goods imported by the United States. The purpose, one could argue, was to provide “free” trade protection to corporate investors who were complaining about China’s abusive actions. No doubt plenty of investors had legitimate gripes, but the tariffs’ real costs were consistently downplayed by the administration.

All along, those involved in these matters had to know that American consumers would be picking up the tab for the higher priced Chinese goods. There is no such thing as free enforcement of trade policies on unwilling partners. Now, it seems, with inflation alarms ringing loudly, President Biden is giving serious consideration to removing some of the Trump-imposed tariffs, all in the interest of lifting the burden that was not so long ago imposed through active policymaking on American consumers.

Yes, sometimes the check for a free lunch is slow in coming, but eventually, the buck will stop, and someone will have to pay the bill.

Bruce Yandle is a distinguished adjunct fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, dean emeritus of the Clemson College of Business and Behavioral Sciences, and a former executive director of the Federal Trade Commission.

Source: TEST FEED1

Support for tougher gun laws climbs after May mass shootings: Gallup

Americans’ support for tougher gun laws and reform has risen in the wake of several deadly mass shootings last month, according to a new Gallup poll. 

The poll found that 66 percent of respondents said they want stricter gun laws, while 25 percent of those surveyed said they would prefer gun laws remain as they are and 8 percent of respondents believe that they should be less strict. 

The percentage of Americans who want stricter gun laws is up 14 percentage points from a poll conducted after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. in 2018, according to the survey giant.

Fifty-five percent of respondents in the new survey also said they want the government to pass new gun reform legislation in addition to enforcing current laws. 

Another 55 percent said that gun policy is an “extremely important” ahead of the midterm elections, while 27 percent of those surveyed said that gun policy is a “very important” issue to them. 

When broken down by political affiliation, 94 percent of Democrats surveyed said they want to see stricter gun laws, as did 66 percent of independents and 38 percent of Republicans.

This findings come just after Senate negotiators reached an agreement on bipartisan gun safety legislation. 

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes funding for school safety resources, expanded background checks for buyers under the age of 21, penalties for straw purchases of firearms and new protections for domestic violence victims. 

The bill is expected to pass in the Senate, as 14 GOP lawmakers voted to advance it Tuesday evening. A final vote in the upper chamber is expected later this week.

Ninety-two percent of those recently surveyed by Gallup said they would support enhanced background checks on all gun sales, and 86 percent of respondents would support banning individuals who are deemed dangerous from purchasing a firearm. 

The Gallup poll was conducted from June 1 to June 20 with a total of 1,015 respondents surveyed. The poll’s margin of error is 4 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden approval rating at 42 percent: poll

President Biden’s low job approval rating isn’t getting any better.

A NewsNation/DDHQ poll released on Thursday shows that only 42 percent of U.S. voters approve of the job Biden is doing in the White House. By comparison, 58 percent say they disapprove.

That’s largely on par with where his approval rating sat in the same poll conducted last month. Still, it’s the latest evidence that the president’s political fortunes don’t appear to be improving.

Driving Biden’s poor approval rating is deepening economic and financial concerns among voters. According to the poll, 53 percent of voters say they are worse off financially now than they were last year. 

What’s more, respondents were almost unanimously worried about inflation, which is rising at its fastest pace in more than 40 years. Ninety-seven percent say they are either somewhat or very concerned about rising prices, up from 89 percent in the same poll conducted in April.

Overall, 72 percent of those surveyed rank inflation at the top of their list of concerns. Crime came in second place, with only 15 percent naming it as the top issue, the NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll found.

Biden himself won’t be on the ballot this year, but his party is already facing strong headwinds heading into the midterm elections.

Republicans need to net just five seats in the House and one in the Senate to reclaim their majorities in Congress. Making things more difficult for Democrats is the fact that, historically, the party in power almost always loses ground in Congress in midterm elections.

The poll also found that a plurality of voters – 42 percent – blame Biden for the current state of the economy. Another 18 percent blame congressional Democrats, while 21 percent say Republicans in Congress are responsible.

The NewsNation/DDHQ poll surveyed 1,006 registered voters nationwide from June 19-20. It has a margin of sampling error of +/-3 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Work to do: Our full labor history must include Asian Pacific Americans

President Biden recently signed into law a bill that would explore whether to establish a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. In his support of H.R. 3525, Biden said Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) “have literally shaped the history and the contours of this country.”

The news of a potential national museum offers Americans a prime opportunity to better acquaint themselves with Asian Pacific American interventions in unionizing and union history.

Even as employees at corporations such as Apple, Starbucks, Amazon and Microsoft are organizing unions, the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to U.S. union history remain overlooked. Deep connections exist between labor history and historically underrepresented groups, making the early unionizing efforts of AAPIs significant.

One of the earliest labor disputes in the U.S occurred when Native Hawaiians protested their pay and working conditions on a Hawaiian plantation in 1841 by walking off the job.

In 1930, Carlos Bulosan arrived in Seattle from the Philippines at age 17 and spent two decades working low-wage jobs along the West Coast. He was allowed few breaks and meals, lived in second-rate housing, and often experienced discrimination based on his race and nationality. He chronicled many of these experiences in the 1946 semi-autobiographical classic, “America is in the Heart.” While organizing an independent Filipino union for agricultural workers, Bulosan’s friend reportedly was accosted by a woman who exclaimed, “I hate the Filipinos as deeply as I hate unions!”

The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance reported that in 2017, the number of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander workers was highest among all racial groups, as is their participation in labor unions, further proving the need to disaggregate data about workers across specific ethnicities to better understand their needs and cultural backgrounds.

Connecting labor and unionizing to race and ethnicity matters because early movements in labor deliberately excluded immigrants and other marginalized groups, often leading to violence and an early echo of the racism against AAPIs that persists today. Stop AAPI Hate reports over 9,000 recent incidents of anti-Asian discrimination in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, including harassment, physical assault and workplace discrimination.

But the discrimination and targeting of Asian workers is not a new phenomenon in this country.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 targeted Chinese migrant workers and was the first U.S. law to prevent a specific ethnicity or nationality from entry into the United States. Hatred of immigrant Chinese laborers — mostly men, due to U.S. labor and immigration laws — led to one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history when a mob in 1871 killed 19 Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles.

A century later, in 1982, Chinese American auto technician Vincent Chin was killed in a hate crime by two white auto workers who thought he was Japanese and blamed Japan for the economic crisis in the Detroit auto industry. This month marks the 40th anniversary of Chin’s murder.

Of course, all Americans, especially those of marginalized groups, have contributed to increasing the rights of workers, even if their contributions have been overlooked.

Black civil rights leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis   praised the work of unions in helping to bring equality to all Americans. Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer, the Amazon Labor Union leaders in New York, and Nikki Taylor, one of the seven workers trying to organize a union at the Memphis Starbucks, follow in their footsteps.

The history of American farm labor movements, and what would become the United Farm Workers of America, has origins in Latinx organizers, including Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Yet, in this framing, many skip the contributions of Filipino organizers Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz. Itliong was acknowledged in 2013 with the naming of the Itliong-Vera Cruz Memorial Bridge in California. The 2018 publication of a children’s book about Itliong adds to the narrative of these organizers.

But as these stories emerge, Asian Pacific American contributions need to be highlighted.

Almost 15,000 Chinese workers helped build the U.S. transcontinental railroad between 1863 and 1869, but their efforts were until recently overshadowed by white Irish and Mormon workers whose work was made iconic in the 1869 official photograph commemorating the railroad’s completion.

In his endorsement of a museum, Biden said, “More than anything else, it’s going to help people see themselves in the story of America, a story that makes us better Americans.”

Yes, publicly supporting the development of a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture would help make these histories — and other stories of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander history — easier to learn and access.

This is just the beginning. Employers, union leaders and policymakers must actively combat AAPI hate in the workplace and foster cultures of inclusion by hiring more diversely, offering access to support groups and equitable and affordable mental health care, and unequivocally addressing and providing active resolutions to discrimination in the workplace and everywhere.

Leah Milne is associate professor of multicultural American literature at the University of Indianapolis, author of “Novel Subjects: Authorship as Radical Self-Care in Multiethnic American Narratives,” and a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project. Follow her on Twitter @DrMLovesLit.

Source: TEST FEED1

Who is Jeffrey Clark, a key figure in Trump’s DOJ pressure campaign

Jeffrey Clark was a mid-level Justice Department lawyer specializing in environmental law when he became a central part of former President Trump’s plans to oust DOJ leadership who wouldn’t forward baseless investigations into election fraud. 

Clark was introduced to Trump by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and quickly became a leading advocate for the Justice Department to send a letter to Georgia asking the state to suspend its certification of the 2020 election results pending a DOJ investigation into nonexistent fraud. 

As Trump grew increasingly frustrated by a lack of action at DOJ in pursuing his false claims, he became fixated on booting his remaining top DOJ leadership just barely a week after then-Attorney General Bill Barr resigned.

Trump viewed Clark as the man for the job – something Clark warned DOJ leadership about before eventually pitching himself for the role.

The tension peaked at a Jan. 3 meeting at the White House where DOJ officials and White House lawyers warned any upset could lead to mass resignations.

“Jeff Clark certainly was advocating for change in leadership that would put him at the top of the Department, and everyone else in the room was advocating against that and talking about what a disaster this would be,” then acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue said, according to portions of his deposition and others that were released by the committee in a March court filing.

“He repeatedly said to the president that, if he was put in the seat, he would conduct real investigations that would, in his view, uncover widespread fraud; he would send out the letter that he had drafted; and that this was a last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election, and that he could do it, and he had the intelligence and the will and the desire to pursue these matters in the way that the president thought most appropriate.”

DOJ had rejected getting involved in Trump’s campaign affairs, both because they determined his fraud claims were baseless and that doing so would be an abuse of department authority.

But Clark had for days been pushing some of the campaign’s most fantastic claims around voter fraud.

Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Donoghue were surprised to get an email from Clark prior to their White House meeting promoting “various theories that seemed to be derived from the internet,” according to Donoghue. 

That included a theory that the Chinese government may have hacked into Dominion voting machines through a smart thermostat. He followed with a request for an intelligence community briefing on the matter along with the request to have the Justice Department send a letter to Georgia asking it to stall certification of its election results pending a DOJ investigation. 

“Jeff Clark would have no way of knowing what investigations we had conducted or not because he was not involved in election matters,” Donoghue said, noting Clark’s longtime career as an environmental lawyer.

Clark’s credentials would come up repeatedly in the Jan. 3 meeting, where officials used “blunt and direct” language and offered brutal assessments of Clark’s abilities. 

“I made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the attorney general. He’s never been a criminal attorney. He’s never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He’s never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury. And he kind of retorted by saying, ‘Well, I’ve done a lot of very complicated appeals and civil litigation, environmental litigation, and things like that.’ And I said, ‘That’s right. You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill,’” Donoghue said.

“I remember saying at some point that, you know, Jeff wouldn’t even know how to find his way to [FBI Director] Chris Wray’s office, much less march in there and direct the FBI what to do, and that, ‘If you walked into Chris Wray’s office, he wouldn’t even know who you are. So we had these conversations that went around and around and were very blunt and direct,” he said.  

When asked by Trump how they would react if he installed Clark, each of the attorneys threatened to resign, with Donoghue saying he wouldn’t serve “one minute under this guy.” 

Clark was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee in October for pushing the investigation letters.

“These proposals were rejected by department leadership as both lacking in factual basis and inconsistent with the department’s institutional role,” the subpoena states.

He risked being referred for contempt of Congress after walking out of his first deposition after claiming his conversations with Trump were protected by attorney client privilege.

Clark eventually sat with the committee in February, and repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination – a move that can have serious professional repercussions for attorneys. 

Source: TEST FEED1