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Buick to go all electric by 2030

Buick plans to go all electric by the end of the decade as major automakers around the globe are making huge investments to compete in the EV market. 

General Motors, which owns Buick, announced Wednesday that the company will offer its first electric vehicle in 2024 and will follow up with several new models. By 2030, the brand will no longer offer vehicles with combustion engines in North America. 

The future EVs will be released under the Electra name, a nod to a full-sized luxury car manufactured by Buick up until 1990. The brand will also bear a new badge, new typography and a “new marketing approach.” 

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Buick showed off a new concept car called the Wildcat EV, which it says illustrates the brand’s new “design language.” 

“The Buick brand is committed to an all-electric future by the end of this decade,” Duncan Aldred, global vice president of Buick, said in a statement. 

“Buick’s new logo, use of the Electra naming series and a new design look for our future products will transform the brand,” Aldred said. 

Buick is the latest brand owned by General Motors to announce plans to electrify its fleet. Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac have all rolled out plans to shift to EVs. 

General Motors last year said it will ramp up sales of EVs and would stop making gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 as part of its broader push to become carbon neutral by 2040. The automaker plans to spend $27 billion on all-electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025. 

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George Conway: Time to end 'ridiculous' Durham probe

Attorney and prominent critic of former President Trump George Conway is calling for an end to Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the origins of the U.S. government’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign for president and it’s alleged ties to Russia.

“I hope it’s headed into the trash can. The Justice Department should put an end to this ridiculous investigation now. This case was a joke,” Conway said Wednesday on MSNBC. “There was nothing here to begin with.”

Conway argued Durham’s probe was “designed to get a bunch of stuff out into the public domain to get people excited,” dismissing it as “a sideshow.”

On Tuesday, Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party, was found not guilty of lying to the FBI regarding Durham’s investigation by a jury.

Sussmann was a key figure in Durham’s probe, which was launched three years ago and has largely failed to prove claims from Trump and his allies that a politically motivated “witch hunt” into alleged ties between him and Russia was carried out by federal law enforcement.

Conway said on Wednesday Durham’s probe has not “cast any doubt” on the legitimacy of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

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US employers report 11.4 M job openings, holding at near-record highs

Job openings remained at near record highs, according to a report released Wednesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

U.S. job openings decreased slightly to 11.4 million on the last business day in April, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover report. About 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in April.

New hires were little changed, at 6.6 million, and job separations remained around 6 million.

Unemployment was lower in April than a year earlier in 388 of the 389 metropolitan areas surveyed. About 170 regions had unemployment rates less than 3 percent, with the overall unemployment rate reported in May standing at 3.6 percent.

The news comes as the U.S. battles record inflation not see in 40 years. Consumers have continued to feel the pain at the pump and at the grocery store. The latest employment numbers indicate that sky-high prices are showing no signs of coming down.

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Study: Coffee may be linked with lower risk of death

Drinking moderate amounts of coffee was linked to a lower risk of death in a new study, though experts caution there are still important unknowns.  

The study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine used data from 171,000 people in the United Kingdom over a seven-year period, and found up to a 30 percent reduction in the risk of death.  

The association with lower risk of death held for both people who drank unsweetened coffee and those who put sugar in it. The most benefit was found for people who drank moderate amounts, about two to three cups per day.  

However, there are still important limitations that mean it is not definitively clear that coffee-drinking is actually causing the lower risk of death.  

Christina Wee, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a deputy editor of the journal, wrote in an accompanying editorial that the study tried to control for other factors like socioeconomic status.  

But she noted that such efforts to isolate the effects of coffee drinking alone are not perfect.  

“Nonetheless, the decision whether to consume coffee (and whether to add sugar) is not a random event and is influenced by difficult-to-measure factors, including occupation and work demands and hours, socioeconomic and emotional stressors, the availability of leisure time, and intolerance to coffee from uncaptured health or clinical reasons, to name just a few,” she wrote.  

A safer assumption, she wrote, is that coffee-drinkers at least do not need to quit for health reasons.  

“Although we cannot definitively conclude that drinking coffee reduces mortality risk, the totality of the evidence does not suggest a need for most coffee drinkers—particularly those who drink it with no or modest amounts of sugar—to eliminate coffee,” she wrote. “So drink up—but it would be prudent to avoid too many caramel macchiatos while more evidence brews.” 

The study authors, from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, also wrote that coffee is a “complex mixture,” and it is difficult to isolate what part of it could be having effects on mortality.  

“Of note, many of the observed associations (including our findings) between high coffee consumption and morbidity and mortality are present with caffeinated as well as decaffeinated coffee, and thus it seems unlikely that caffeine alone can explain all potential health effects of coffee,” they write.  

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Watch live: Biden participates in Coast Guard change of command ceremony

President Biden will deliver remarks during the U.S. Coast Guard change of command ceremony Wednesday morning.

The event is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. ET.

Watch the video above.

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CUNY Law faculty’s problematic endorsement of anti-Israel stance

It was not unexpected last December when the left-leaning student government at the City University of New York (CUNY) Law School adopted a resolution “proudly and unapologetically endors[ing] the Palestinian-led call for Boycott Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.” Similar exercises have become commonplace among students, with scant effect on the real world. It was more surprising last month, however, when the CUNY Law faculty unanimously endorsed the students’ resolution, in a move that might jeopardize the law school’s legitimacy.

CUNY Law promotes itself as the “number one public interest law school in the nation.” With a stated mission of transforming “the law so that it includes those it would otherwise exclude, marginalize, and oppress,” CUNY Law naturally attracts progressive students, eager to participate in its clinical education programs. The goal of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility Clinic, for example, is to “support Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and all other communities . . . that are targeted by local, state, or federal government agencies under the guise of national security and counterterrorism.”

The student government’s impressively researched boycott resolution covers six pages, with 20 paragraphs of accusations against Israel and 26 footnotes. It protests every conceivable university connection to Israel, from using Dell computers (because CEO Michael Dell “is an Israel backer”), to free tuition for NYPD officers (because of their exchange programs with Israel), to serving Sabra hummus (because obviously).

Citing a 2016 executive order from then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez announced that “CUNY cannot participate in or support BDS activities,” and flatly rejected the students’ demand to terminate exchange programs with Israel. The students had virtuously signaled their solidarity with the Palestinian cause, and the chancellor had asserted CUNY’s authority to ignore them. And there matters stood.

But not for long. On May 13, a CUNY Law graduation speaker – a Palestinian-American activist elected by her classmates – announced that the law faculty “just officially endorsed” the students’ BDS resolution. That attracted media attention, and for good reason. Students’ demands are mostly ineffectual, but the faculty is in a position to implement its resolutions. And unlike law students, the faculty does not turn over every three years. That gives its anti-Israel pronouncements permanent standing that may have repercussions in the future.

A CUNY Law spokesperson informed me that the faculty’s BDS endorsement had been unanimous, without any qualifiers or reservations. This is troubling because the students’ resolution is entirely lacking in balance or nuance. Going far beyond a call to end discrimination and the occupation of Palestinian territory, it refers five times to Israel’s alleged “apartheid, genocide, and war crimes,” with additional accusations of “settler colonialism and structural racism.”

These charges, officially embraced by every single faculty member, will surely give pause to any mildly pro-Israel, or even politically neutral, student contemplating enrollment at CUNY Law, for fear of encountering a hostile environment. As one of only two public law schools in New York State – the other is in Buffalo – CUNY Law has an ethical, and perhaps legal, obligation to welcome students regardless of their politics, which evidently escaped the faculty in its rush to condemn Israel. This year’s unanimous vote can too easily become next year’s unquestioned orthodoxy, and ultimately an implicit condition of acceptance in the community.

It gets worse. The faculty accepted “the Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.” The scope of that commitment is only revealed by a link in a footnote, which leads to an extensive BDS website. A few clicks will then take readers to the “Guidelines for the International Academic Boycott of Israel,” which include “the cancellation or annulment of events, activities, agreements, or projects involving Israeli academic institutions or that otherwise promote the normalization of Israel in the global academy [including] conferences, symposia, workshops, book and museum exhibits.”

If honored by any law school, these limitations would constitute a blatant violation of academic freedom for future teachers, scholars or students interested in understanding Israel – beyond its purported crimes – in their research or education. At a public law school, such sweeping viewpoint restrictions on conferences, symposia and book exhibits – prohibiting anything that “normalizes” Israel – also violate the First Amendment.

Individual professors have an absolute right to boycott Israeli institutions as their consciences dictate, but an entire faculty’s adoption of a boycott policy infringes the rights of others. As explained by the American Association of University Professors, “when such noncooperation takes the form of a systematic academic boycott, it threatens the principles of free expression and communication on which we collectively depend.”

Students can be forgiven for endorsing a statement without fully understanding its implications. But law professors – whose careers rest on accurate footnotes – have no such excuse.

Whether it was deliberate or careless, CUNY Law’s boycott commitment may have severe consequences. A law school must be accredited by the American Bar Association for its graduates to take the New York bar, and one of the ABA’s requirements is respect for academic freedom. Likewise, the prestigious Association of American Law Schools requires its members, including CUNY Law, to promote “the core values of . . . academic freedom, and diversity, including diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints.” The ABA and AALS conduct joint site visits every 10 years to determine whether accreditation and membership are still warranted.

No other law school has enacted its own foreign policy, so it remains to be seen whether promotion of an academic boycott will affect accreditation. Chancellor Matos Rodriguez recently reiterated his rejection of the BDS resolutions, and the boycotting professors themselves might have qualms: They never publicized their resolution, it’s not on the law school’s website and the faculty deans declined to answer my specific questions about it. CUNY Law’s next accreditation review is not until 2026, so the faculty has plenty of time to reconsider its imprudent and counter-productive endorsement of the BDS movement.

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. His most recent book is “The Trials of Rasmea Odeh: How a Palestinian Guerrilla Gained and Lost U.S. Citizenship.”

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Senators push for expansion of community mental health clinics

Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) are calling on lawmakers to expand Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHC) nationwide.

“This is an important moment to come together and finally treat health care above the neck the same as health care below the neck,” the senators wrote in a USA Today op-ed.

CCBHCs, which operate as non-profit organizations or part of a local government, provide a range of mental health and substance use disorder services and are particularly aimed at helping vulnerable individuals. 

Blunt and Stabenow helped establish an eight-state Medicaid demonstration program in 2014 to provide the centers with enhanced reimbursement rates to cover increased costs.

The centers are required to provide nine types of services to be designated as the special provider type in Medicaid, including 24-hour crisis care and integrations with physical health services.

“This approach is already changing people’s lives – and saving communities money – in the states where mental health and addiction treatment are funded the same way as other health care,” Blunt and Stabenow wrote.

The CARES Act – the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package then-President Trump signed into law in March 2020 – expanded the demonstration to two other states, enabling Kentucky and Michigan to participate. Congress has also appropriated grant funding since 2018 to support CCBHCs.

The funding has led to more than 430 CCBHCs currently operating in 42 states and the District of Columbia and Guam, according to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.

But those centers funded through the grants do not receive the enhanced Medicaid reimbursements. Blunt and Stabenow last year introduced legislation to expand the Medicaid demonstration nationwide.

“When the grant runs out, so does the health care,” the senators wrote.

“Imagine being told that your heart attack can’t be treated because the grant ran out,” they continued. “That happens to people with mental illness and addiction all the time, and it makes no sense.”

President Biden has included expanding the model to every state that wants to participate in his fiscal year 2023 budget request.

“Let’s get all Americans the mental health services they need,” he said in his State of the Union address in March. “More people they can turn to for help and full parity between physical and mental health care.”

The two senators called Biden’s support for the expansion “so significant,” pointing to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data showing patients at CCBHCs had fewer emergency department visits for behavioral health issues, saw a decrease in homelessness and spent less time in correctional facilities.

“The nationwide expansion of Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics isn’t the only bipartisan behavioral health win in the president’s budget,” the senators wrote. “It would double funding for children’s mental health and behavioral health workforce development and provide more mental health care for veterans and seniors.”

Researchers have raised alarm bells over mental health issues worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A recent national survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing found that 43 percent of U.S. adults who needed substance use or mental health care did not receive that care.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data indicate drug overdose deaths have also risen during the pandemic, growing by 30 percent from 2019 to 2020 and increasing by 15 percent the following year to nearly 108,000 annual deaths.

The Institute of Education Sciences also recently found that seven out of 10 public schools have seen an increase in children seeking mental health services since the beginning of the pandemic, and a poll released in April indicated three-quarters of young adults said that they believe the country is in a mental health crisis.

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Democrats' lead Trump impeachment lawyer to run for Congress

Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who led House Democrats’ efforts in former President Trump’s first impeachment, on Wednesday announced a bid for Congress.

He joins an unwieldy and hotly contested primary for a newly drawn open 10th Congressional District based in New York City.

Other Democratic candidates include former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) and New York Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou.

Goldman’s profile skyrocketed in 2019 during the televised House impeachment proceedings looking into whether Trump threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine to push for a probe into now-President Biden. The House ultimately impeached Trump, but the former president was acquitted in a Senate trial.

In a statement, Goldman hinted that he intends to focus much of his campaign on Trump and his own role in the impeachment.

“The existential threats to our democracy and our fundamental rights are clear and imminent,” Goldman said. “This is a five-alarm fire that too many Democrats in Washington are treating as a tiny, distant flame. Donald Trump and the Republican party he controls are not only trying to take away our rights but are tearing down the foundations of democracy itself.”

“Right now, everything is at stake: the right to choose, the right to vote, the right for all people to reclaim the American Dream. I have fought Donald Trump and the Republicans before and I spent a decade fighting crime in New York City. I am running for Congress to lead the fights for our democracy, our fundamental rights, our safety, and our planet itself.”

Goldman announced a bid for state attorney general last year but dropped out of after current Attorney General Letitia James (D) decided to run for reelection.

The crowded primary is the result of New York’s chaotic redistricting process, which was thrown into tumult after state courts threw out Democratic-drawn maps and established new ones, which include the new version of the 10^th Congressional District.

The district is deep blue, meaning that the Aug. 23 primary is likely to decide the ultimate victor, and the absence of an incumbent is leading to a flood of ambitious Democrats.

For his part, De Blasio has widespread name recognition in the city after his eight years as mayor. Jones, meanwhile, hails from a suburban district but pivoted to the new seat to avoid a primary against Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who oversees House Democrats’ campaign arm.

Jones could face attacks since he is not from the district, but he won a big endorsement Wednesday from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial following the 2021 insurrection – an endorsement that could undermine Goldman’s message.

“After two decades in politics, I can tell the difference between justice politicians and power politicians. Mondaire Jones is the quintessential justice politician,” said Raskin. “America needs fighting progressives with heart, brains and, above all, legislative skill. That’s why I’m delighted to endorse Mondaire for reelection. Thank you, New York, for sending him to do battle with us in the House.”   

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Census blunder may tip 2024 to Democrats

At the risk of overusing a phrase, the 2024 presidential election may be the most important — and perhaps the closest — in history. Last week’s Census Bureau announcement of serious errors will impact the next decade’s congressional apportionment and delegations, and play a crucial role in the presidential race. Given the nature of the mistakes, Democrats could hang onto the presidency under particularly controversial circumstances due to publicly-acknowledged errors.

The Census Bureau acknowledged that 14 states had significant miscounts in the 2020 census. See if you notice a pattern here: Among the overcounted states are Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, Minnesota, New York and Massachusetts. Five of these six voted for Joe Biden in that year’s presidential election. The undercounted states were Texas, Illinois, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas. Five of these six voted for Donald Trump. 

The ability for any agency to accurately count each person in a nation of 330 million is a logistical challenge, to be sure. However, it is difficult to understand how the Census Bureau missed more than 5 percent of the populations of Arkansas, Delaware and Hawaii.

The changes will impact national politics in a dramatic fashion. The 2020 census led to significant changes to congressional seats apportioned to states. Texas gained two congressional seats, while North Carolina, Florida, Montana, Colorado and Oregon each gained one. New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and California each lost one seat in Congress. There was significant surprise that population growth winners such as Texas and Florida didn’t gain more seats. With the possible exception of Illinois not losing a seat, the likely effects of an accurate count would have overwhelmingly aided red states. Simply put, the revised figures show that (mostly) red states had even quicker relative population growth compared to the rest of the country — and especially compared to (mostly) blue states. It is entirely possible that undercounted states could have gained at least one seat in Congress, while overcounted states may have lost at least one each.       

The error resulted in over 600,000 overcounted residents in New York and a similar amount undercounted in Texas. Last year, media coverage lamented that New York lost a member of Congress by being 89 residents short. With the revised, accurate numbers, New York may have lost a second seat — had the corrected numbers been available earlier. Considering that Republicans need to flip just five seats to retake Congress, each misplaced seat is crucial.

Had states known the true figures within the past year, the redistricting process would have been very different for the miscounted states. Not only are the number of seats per state affected, but the district lines are, as well. In addition, the Electoral College determines the weight per state based on the total representatives and senators. The loss or gain of a single seat affects two Electoral College votes — the one gained by one party, and thus lost by the other.

Furthermore, seat apportionments are based on relative growth — whether a state is growing compared to the other 49. The original 2020 figures showed New York’s population increasing by about 800,000 residents, to 20.2 million. Instead, the population remained effectively flat compared to 2010, at 19.5 million. Florida’s population jumped even more than counted originally, ballooning from 18.9 million in 2010 to 21.1 million — about a half-million more than originally estimated.

Can this blunder be corrected in time for either the midterms or the 2024 presidential election? Nope. The Supreme Court considered whether revised, more accurate numbers could be used for reapportionment in 1999 and determined that such differences could not be considered in congressional seat counts. The inaccurate 2020 figures will stand. Since almost every error benefited Democrats, the risk of undermining trust in the Census Bureau and the election is significant. The only potential life-preserver for the GOP is that the current Supreme Court could consider a challenge based on the accurate figure. As of now, no challenge exists — and the time to file one is rapidly running out.

Exact figures for how the correct population statistics would shift congressional apportionment are not available. But we can look directly at the initial 2020 seat allocation and population figures to make an educated guess. Census figures show that Florida and Texas were close to gaining a new seat. Had the top overcounted states lost one seat each and undercounted ones gained one each, Democratic-voting states would have lost nine-net seats in Congress and the same in the Electoral College. The prospect of nine votes in the Democratic column, that would have been in GOP hands, would represent a flip of almost 7 percent of the 270 needed to win the White House. That’s more than just a rounding error.

The consequences of the Census Bureau’s errors will further erode the public’s trust in our electoral system. And if we thought 2000 or 2020 were contentious elections, just wait until a candidate realizes that he or she could have won the White House if the national headcount were done correctly. The inability to change apportionment could spark a constitutional crisis at a time when the country cannot afford one.

Kristin Tate is a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Voice and a libertarian writer. Her latest book is “How Do I Tax Thee? A Field Guide to the Great American Rip-Off.” Follow her on Twitter @KristinBTate.

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