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Russia bars US lawmakers previously left off sanctions list from entering country

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released an updated list of nearly 1,000 Americans permanently barred from traveling to the country Saturday, including the members of the U.S. House who were left off a previous Russian sanctions list.

In early April, Russia sanctioned every member of the House excluding 39, all of whom have now been sanctioned according to Saturday’s list.

Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.),Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) are among those who were left off the earlier list but included on the new one.

The ministry did not indicate a reason why the representatives were excluded from the previous list.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who had been left off of the first sanctions list, was specially cited on Saturday’s as being “one of the initiators of the announcement of the Russian TV channel RT and the agency Sputnik in the United States as foreign agents.”

Russia placed retaliatory sanctions on 398 members of Congress on April 13, weeks after the U.S. sanctioned hundreds of Russian lawmakers.

“These individuals, including the leadership and committee chairmen of the lower house of the U.S. Congress, are placed on the Russian ‘stop list’ on a permanent basis,” said the Russian Foreign Ministry at the time.

The list of sanctioned Americans also includes President Biden, Vice President Harris and other members of the Biden administration as well as an assortment of former lawmakers and officials, business executive, think tank leaders and others, including dozens identified on the list only by their name and the designation “US citizen.

Source: TEST FEED1

Frustrated Dems weigh limited options after Buffalo shooting

Democrats are scrambling for answers in the wake of the shooting massacre in Buffalo, N.Y., the latest in a string of racist mass killings that have stunned the country, terrified minority communities — and frustrated reform-minded lawmakers who are left scouring for a viable response.

The deadly tragedy in Buffalo, where a lone gunman shot 13 people in a grocery store, 11 of them Black, killing 10, follows on the heels of similar bigoted attacks in Texas and Pittsburgh, where racist gunmen singled out specific ethnic minorities they deemed a threat to White culture and power.

And it’s put Democrats in a familiar position: Full of ideas for combating racist violence but lacking the political heft to see most of them through.

While House Democratic leaders this week successfully rushed to pass legislation giving the federal government new tools to combat domestic terrorism, the bill appears to lack the needed Republican support to move through the Senate.

Similarly, House Democrats passed legislation last year expanding mandatory background checks prior to gun sales, but the idea has hit a brick wall in the 50-50 upper chamber, where Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to any new restrictions on firearms.

And in a midterm election year, when Democrats are fighting to protect threatened incumbents in tough battleground districts, there’s been little appetite to consider stricter firearm controls, such as a ban on military-style semi-automatic rifles, for fear it would haunt those vulnerable lawmakers at the polls in November.

Indeed, unlike the most prominent mass shootings of years past, when Democrats hurried to promote to promote a host of gun reform proposals, the Buffalo massacre has prompted no plan from party leaders to bring more gun legislation to the floor — a strategy that some liberal lawmakers say is a mistake. 

“One issue in the House that we should hopefully revisit is [Rep. David] Cicilline’s [D-R.I.] assault weapons ban legislation, which has not yet received a vote,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). 

“I wish it would.”

The situation highlights the limitations of Democrats’ policy powers, despite their control over the White House and both chambers of Congress. And in the absence of a legislative pathway, Democrats are searching for other avenues to address the scourges of epidemic gun violence, rising white nationalism and the sometimes deadly confluence of the two. 

The suspect in the Buffalo shooting appears to be the latest example, having posted an online screed just before the incident promoting white “replacement theory,” the baseless notion that leftist elites want to grow the numbers of immigrants and other minorities in the United States to dilute the influence of white voters.

Raising public awareness of that threat, some Democrats say, should be the party’s highest priority in the wake of the tragedy.

“We have to speak out, first of all, and talk about the toxic combination of gun violence, white supremacy and domestic terrorism,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It’s up to Democrats to educate the public about what’s taking place in this country. Because if we don’t, then people don’t really see the connection. And it’s Buffalo today, who knows where tomorrow.”

President Biden offered a boost to the public messaging effort on Thursday, when he visited the site of the Buffalo shooting — a Tops grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood — and delivered a speech denouncing the “poison” of white supremacy. 

“We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America,” Biden said. “None.”

But some Democrats are hoping he will go further, calling on the administration to take unilateral steps aimed at combating gun violence in the absence of congressional action.

Swalwell said a good place to start would be a ban, imposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, on devices called auto sears, which convert semi-automatic firearms into automatic weapons. 

“I think by executive order they can fix that,” he said.

Joining Democrats, GOP leaders have condemned the Buffalo massacre — and white supremacy — in no uncertain terms. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) characterized the suspect as “the very worst of humanity.” 

But Republicans have declined to denounce replacement theory. In fact, some GOP lawmakers have promoted similar ideas, warning that Democrats have hopes to solidify political power by flooding the country with like-minded minorities — a strategy that would simultaneously disenfranchise America’s white population.

“For many Americans, what seems to be happening, or what they believe right now is happening is — what appears to them is — we’re replacing national-born Americans, native-born Americans, to permanently transform the landscape of this very nation,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said in a committee hearing last year.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), the third-ranking House Republican, has aired a similar warning, posting Facebook ads last year that accused Democrats of plotting a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION” through proposals to grant “amnesty” to undocumented immigrations. 

Those comments — combined with the refusal of GOP leaders to condemn replacement theory by name — have infuriated Democrats on Capitol Hill, who say Republicans want all the political advantages that come with stirring up white grievance without accepting any of the responsibility when someone escalates it to violence. 

“Republicans should denounce replacement theory. That’s the first thing that needs to be done,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “Republicans need to acknowledge that this is a false and vile racist theory and they need to tell their supporters that.”

Lieu, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, noted that the panel held a hearing last year on the threat posed by violent white nationalism. One tool Congress now has for taking on the problem, he said, is to fund the law enforcement agencies charged with tackling it properly. 

“The FBI director has said that white nationalist terrorism is the greatest domestic terror threat that we’re facing,” he said. “And if the various agencies need more resources, then I think they should ask us, and we’d be happy to look into it.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), head of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, is also planning to call attention to the issue, scheduling a June 8 hearing on gun violence. 

Others haven’t lost hope in the legislative route, and the assault weapons ban is not the only proposal getting renewed attention following the Buffalo shooting. 

Cicilline this week was busy promoting another bill he’s sponsored, along with GOP Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), that is designed to defuse active-shooter incidents by creating a new post within the Justice Department to coordinate threat information to local authorities in real time. 

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) is also floating several reform proposals. Citing the Buffalo suspect’s reported fixation with white supremacist chat rooms, Wasserman Schultz is advocating for Congress to strengthen checks on internet content, a highly contentious topic governed by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

“If you look at the shooter’s manifesto …. he was infused with hatred through his time spent on the Internet,” she said. “So, while balancing free speech rights, we have to really deal with the fact that social media is no longer the bulletin board concept that it was when it first came into being. … We have to adopt the virtual version of prohibiting you from shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”

With the midterms fast approaching, the prospects are slim that such controversial legislation would find the bipartisan support to reach Biden’s desk. Still, some Democratic leaders are hoping to air at least some of those proposals, if only to draw a distinction between the two parties when it comes to combating gun violence.

“What we plan to highlight is inaction on the other side of the chamber, if we can’t get something done,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus. “That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. The stakes are too high.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Progressive state lawmaker joins primary for House seat to replace Nadler

New York state Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou (D) announced Saturday that she will run in the state’s 10th Congressional District in a bid to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), whose address has been moved into another House district by redistricting.

Niou made the announcement in New York City’s Chinatown, boasting of her “reputation as the Assembly’s most effective progressive lawmaker” and plans to boost the district’s economy.

She will face off in the primary race against former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), who announced his candidacy to represent the district Friday, and Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), who currently represents New York’s 17th Congressional District but said he would be running in its 10th Congressional District after a judge approved a new congressional map for the state late Friday. 

Nadler announced this week that he would challenge Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) to serve New York’s 12th Congressional District. He confirmed he would be running in that district on Saturday following the news of the approved map.

“In this fight, it is not enough to elect more Democrats if they are not willing to cause good trouble. We must elect the right Democrats. We must elect Democrats willing to put in the work and fight hard every single day to make our democracy truly for everyone, and build the better America that you deserve,” said Niou in her announcement.

Niou, who says she will be a “bold and unapologetic progressive voice for our communities,” was the first Asian-American to represent Chinatown in the New York Assembly.

She was first elected to New York’s 65th Assembly district in 2016. Last year, she participated in a 15-day hunger strike organized by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance to campaign for debt relief for taxi drivers.

“I am running to hold accountable the people who rigged our economy, trashed our climate, profiteered during a pandemic, and cheered on the rise of white supremacist violence like what we saw in Buffalo,” Niou said in her announcement speech. “We will not do that with the same go-along, get along approach advocated by the same go-along, get along politicians. Our loved ones, our neighbors, and our families deserve better than that. You deserve better than that.”

Source: TEST FEED1

As cases rise, Americans are ‘checked out’ on COVID-19

COVID-19 cases are on the rise, but many Americans are over thinking of the virus as a crisis.  

Even in blue cities, restaurants are packed with people, and many Americans don’t wear masks even on the subway or on airplanes.  

Amid this national attitude, it may be extremely difficult for local or national leaders to try to reimpose any COVID-19 restrictions.   

An Axios/Ipsos poll this week found just 36 percent of Americans said there was significant risk in returning to their “normal pre-coronavirus life.”  

At the same time, cases are rising to over 100,000 per day.   

About 18 percent of the U.S. population now lives in “high” risk areas where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urges everyone to wear masks indoors, and another 27 percent lives in “medium” areas where higher-risk people should consider wearing masks.   

But experts say that the average American is not constantly checking the CDC risk levels in their area.  

“People have checked out a little bit,” said Chris Jackson, senior vice president at the polling firm Ipsos. “People aren’t as tuned in.”  

While CDC Director Rochelle Walensky this week called on Americans in “high” risk areas to wear masks, there has not been a similar push from President Biden, who has the biggest megaphone in the government.   

Unlike earlier in his tenure, Biden has not been issuing sustained warnings about COVID-19, instead focusing on the war in Ukraine and efforts to fight rising prices.   

This week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), often seen as an ideological ally of Biden, declined to reimpose mask mandates despite the city rising to a “high” COVID-19 level.   

“It appears as though there’s a new norm that is settling in our city and our country,” Adams said. “Variants are going to come. If every variant that comes, we move into shutdown thoughts, we move into panicking, we’re not going to function as a city.”  

Andy Slavitt, the Biden administration’s former senior adviser on COVID-19 response, acknowledged the difficulties in responding given current attitudes.   

“You have to understand that at this point in time that you can’t make people necessarily care more than they do,” he said, saying there are “fewer policy levers,” available.   

He called for a “middle zone conversation” on masks, where people could be encouraged to wear them in certain instances even if they are not mandated.  

Unlike in the early days of the pandemic, there are tools available that help make the virus more manageable and reduce the need for tighter restrictions.  

Vaccines and booster shots provide strong protection against severe illness and hospitalization. The Pfizer treatment pills known as Paxlovid reduce the risk of severe illness or death by roughly 90 percent if taken within five days of the onset of symptoms.   

But even funding in Congress to boost supplies of treatments and purchase updated vaccines for the fall is stalled, a sign of the diminishing political appetite for the COVID-19 response.  

The U.S. passing one million deaths from the virus this week did little to shake up the environment.   

The fall and winter pose an even greater risk as the weather gets colder, and as the virus continues to evolve. There is a potential for a new variant to circulate that evades the current vaccines’ protection even more.   

Jackson of Ipsos polling said there is at least some room for attitudes to change if the situation gets significantly worse, noting that only about one-third of Americans said the pandemic is “over.”  

“It’s not necessarily something they’re going to shut their lives down about, but when we ask point blank, ‘Is the pandemic over?’ two thirds say, ‘no,’” he noted.   

Hospitalizations are still relatively low, compared with spikes earlier in the pandemic, but they are on the rise, with over 20,000 people in the hospital with the virus, according to a New York Times tracker.   

Deaths are at a relative low, but there are still around 300 Americans dying from the virus every day.   

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha this week said deaths have not risen along with cases in part because of the effect of treatments like Paxlovid, but those stores are at risk of running out without new funds.   

“We’re using therapeutics to save lives; we’ve got to continue doing that,” Jha said. “At some point, we’re going to run out of the treatments we have.  And without additional resources, we will find ourselves in the fall or winter with people getting infected and no treatments available for them because we will have run out.”  

Slavitt said the administration’s main focus should be getting funding from Congress and working on updated vaccines.   

“My own view is a little bit soured that human nature is such that, you know, whatever science makes easy, people might do,” he said. “But whatever requires even the slightest bit of sacrifice, or compromise for the sake of some other unknown person getting infected, is a much harder stretch and a much harder messaging.”  

Source: TEST FEED1

Time for a strategic pause on NATO expansion

It’s easy to understand why some would think bringing Sweden and Finland into NATO is a good idea. It would serve Putin right to have his illegal, immoral, and unjustified invasion of Ukraine end up more than doubling Russia’s border with NATO. It would reflect what appears to be the majority sentiment in Finland and a growing majority of Swedes. Both countries have “first-rate” military capabilities as well as strong democratic traditions, which would bolster NATO’s power and reputation. 

But the desire to humiliate Putin and reinforce U.S. global military dominance is shortsighted and dangerous. It risks escalating, expanding, and prolonging the war in Ukraine. It will vastly increase the probability of a nuclear exchange, which could easily spiral into a global holocaust. The U.S. Senate — which by a two-thirds majority must give its advice and consent to the ratification of protocols adding new members to the alliance — should think hard before rubber-stamping the admission of new candidates.

Escalating, expanding, prolonging the war in Ukraine

The highest priority of the United States should be to bring this war to a swift conclusion through an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated settlement that is fair and durable.

Yet the Biden administration — under pressure from Congress and the foreign policy establishment — has only ratcheted up its war aims, from containing Russia to crushing it.  Following a high-level visit to Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described the U.S. goal as seeing “Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kinds of things it has done in invading Ukraine,” while Democratic leaders called for an outright military “victory”. 

The deepening U.S. involvement is not mere rhetoric; the United States has now admitted to providing operational intelligence that Ukrainian forces used to target and kill Russian generals as well as to sink Russia’s prized warship. Deliveries of increasingly heavy and sophisticated arms from the United States and its allies have gone beyond allowing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to defend his country; they have emboldened him to vastly expand his demands for entering peace talks. Whereas he had earlier indicated significant flexibility on the Donbas, Zelensky is now demanding “a restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of more than 5 million refugees, membership in the European Union, and accountability from Russian military leaders.” 

In this environment, pressing NATO up against Russia’s doorstep is a provocation that will only raise the stakes in the Ukraine war and make it more difficult for Putin to back down. It was a mistake to incorporate the former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO after the end of the Cold War, as many leading analysts and policymakers argued at the time, and it ultimately served to reinforce Russia’s sense of isolation and encirclement. 

Indeed, Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and its receipt of arms and training from the United States were certainly key factors in Putin’s decision to invade. Expanding NATO now will raise the stakes for Putin in a way that virtually guarantees the war will drag on longer and increases the chances it will expand beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Setting back prospects for peace in Europe

Saying “yes” to Finland and Sweden will make it far more difficult to say “no” to Ukraine. More importantly, Finnish and Swedish accession to NATO could end up destabilizing Europe rather than protecting it. Neither country faced a serious threat from Russia before this crisis, but the arms bonanza that will inevitably result from their incorporation into NATO could create incentives for Russia to push back. The war has already provided a huge boon for defense contractors, as pressure ramps up to modernize and improve the interoperability of systems and flush out the last remaining Russian military equipment. 

What Europe needs is not a redrawing of Cold War boundaries and the creation of a larger NATO footprint, but a new architecture of security and economic institutions that all European countries, including Russia, can eventually join.

Raising nuclear risks

The world has been rightly aghast at Russian threats to use nuclear weapons if its existence is jeopardized, although the United States has also refused to rule out the first use of nuclear weapons. Given the danger that even a single tactical nuclear weapon could cause calamitous damage and quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear exchange, keeping the war in Ukraine from turning nuclear ought to be a central objective of U.S. and NATO military planners. Which begs the question: how does expanding NATO advance that objective?

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified that Putin might turn to nuclear weapons if he believed he was losing the war in Ukraine, especially if NATO were to intervene. Confoundingly, a “resounding military defeat” is exactly what some U.S. senators are goading the Pentagon to seek. Moreover, NATO’s expanding involvement in the war — and potentially, NATO’s expanding size — raise the ante for Putin, vastly increasing the chances of a nuclear conflagration. Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, experts deemed the world to be “the closest it has ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse.”

President Biden himself seems to understand the need to avoid pushing Putin into a corner. “The problem I worry about now,”he told a gathering of Democrats, “is that he doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying to figure out what we do about that.”Yet imposing debilitating economic sanctions, calling Putin a “war criminal,” and prematurely announcing U.S. support for NATO membership for Sweden and Finland only narrow Putin’s options and make Russia increasingly likely to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Nuclear risks are not limited to deliberate use. As Thomas L. Friedman explains, “the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up fast and furious.” The basing of more NATO troops and nuclear weapons closer to Russian soil could certainly make Putin’s fingers twitchier.

The alternative

In addition to taking NATO membership off the table for Ukraine, the West could put NATO membership for Sweden and Finland on the negotiating table with Russia. A promise not to expand NATO at all would be fairer to Ukraine and could sweeten the pot for Russia to dial back its territorial ambitions. Such a proposal would need to be part of a broader international effort to stop the fighting, address Russia’s legitimate security concerns, and prevent more people from dying inside Ukraine and around the world. After all, the war’s impacts are beginning to be felt in the form of worldwide food shortages that could end up killing far more people than the fighting does.

More broadly, Europeans and Americans should begin thinking about what kind of cooperative security arrangements would be most likely to deter violent conflict, build positive peace, and promote human development inside and beyond their borders. What they ultimately come up with may bear little resemblance to the NATO we have now — and hopefully will not require the increased spending for weapons and war that is now projected. At the very least, U.S. and NATO leaders must avoid falling prey to the same hubris to which Putin succumbed in his disastrous invasion of Ukraine.

Diana Ohlbaum served as a congressional foreign policy advisor for more than 20 years, including as a senior professional staff member of the House and Senate Foreign Affairs/Foreign Relations Committees. She currently leads the foreign policy team at FCNL, the Quaker peace and justice lobby, and chairs the board of the Center for International Policy, a progressive foreign policy think tank.

Source: TEST FEED1

Sunday shows preview: White House combats baby formula shortage, defends policies amid inflation

The ongoing nationwide baby formula shortage and responses to the crisis are expected to dominate this week’s Sunday show circuit, along with ongoing high inflation.

Baby formula supplies have been hit by supply chain issues as well as a recall of several products from Abbott Nutrition, a massive provider of infant formula, earlier this year following the deaths of two infants who had ingested products produced at the company’s Sturgis, Mich., plant and contracted a rare bacterial illness.

The facility has been shut down since February while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigated its safety. Abbott Nutrition said this week that it has reached an agreement with the FDA to restart operations at the plant, saying that the agency has not definitively linked its formula to the illness and that the company has been making corrective improvements to address FDA concerns.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration and lawmakers have scrambled to address the baby formula shortage as retailers have rationed supplies and parents have struggled to find products needed to feed their children.

President Biden signed a bill Saturday that is aimed at expanding baby formula access for those enrolled in the government nutrition program for women, infants and children (WIC).

The Access to Baby Formula Act passed the Senate by unanimous consent Thursday after passing the House on a vote of 414-9 on Wednesday.

The Biden administration announced Thursday that 1.5 million bottles of infant formula would be delivered from Europe to the United States in the coming days and distributed to in order to increase U.S. supply.

The deliveries are part of “Operation Fly Formula,” one of several steps the White House is taking to address the shortage.

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said the same day to a House panel that infant formula shortages are likely to ease in the coming days, claiming that “very significant progress” had been made toward reopening the Abbott plant.

National Economic Council Director Brian Deese appeared on PBS News Hour Thursday, where he offered assurances that the necessary steps are being taken in response to the crisis.

Deese said that “immediately” after the Abbott facility shut down, “the administration began working with manufacturers and retailers to try to make sure that production was increasing.”

He added that more importance must be placed on competition in the infant formula industry: “We need to think about how we can bring more competition into this market, more new entrants into this market, so that the American consumer is not reliant on any one private company as much as we are today.”

Deese is set to appear on CNN’s “State of the Union” and “Fox News Sunday.”

The White House has also continued to confront high inflation, seeking to compare its policies to those of a possible GOP administration in an effort to defend itself against criticism over the issue.

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who will appear on will appear on “Fox News Sunday,” countered in a statement last week, saying: “Every time Joe Biden lies about his failed economic record, he is insulting every struggling American family and small business owner. Biden might be living in an alternate reality, but voters are not, which is why they solely blame Biden and Democrats for the rising prices they see for everyday goods, gas, and groceries.”

A poll this week found that Americans primarily attribute the high inflation to the Biden administration’s policies, as well as the war in Ukraine.

Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson (Ark.), who said earlier this month that he is considering a bid for the White House in 2024 and has also recently criticized Biden over inflation, will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chairman of the GOP Senate campaign arm, will be on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Biden bashed Scott’s proposed tax plan, which would require all Americans who currently pay no income tax to start paying them and expiring federal legislation, likely Medicaid and Social Security programs among others, after five years.

Scott hit back at Biden with an ad launched shortly after the remarks.

“How do you destroy America’s economy? Look around. Joe Biden and the woke Democrats are doing it,” Scott says in the ad. “I’m Rick Scott. I’ve got a plan to rescue our country. Washington hates it. That’s how you know it’s good.

The senator also said this week the president is unable to do his job and called for him to resign.

“What he ought to do for this country right now is he ought to resign. He can’t do the job,” Scott said Friday. “And we ought to get somebody in there who wants to do the job and can do the job. He clearly can’t.”

Some have speculated that Scott may be eyeing a run for president in 2024 if former President Trump doesn’t run for reelection.

Below is the full list of guests scheduled to appear on this week’s Sunday talk shows:

ABC’s “This Week” — White House COVID-⁠19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha; retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chair.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” — To be announced.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.); Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.); former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

CNN’s “State of the Union” — National Economic Council Director Brian Deese; Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.); Josh Shapiro, Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor.

“Fox News Sunday” — Deese; Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

FOX News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” — Sen Tom Cotton (R-Ark); Kash Patel, Fmr. Chief of Staff for the DOD; Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.); Mark Penn, Fmr Sr. Advisor to the Clintons and Stagewell Chairman and CEO

Source: TEST FEED1

New Orleans shooting leaves 1 dead, 3 wounded

The New Orleans Police Department said early Saturday that they were investigating a shooting that left one person dead and three others wounded.

“Members of the New Orleans Police Department are investigating a Homicide by Shooting that left a 43-year-old man dead, a 29-year-old female, 50-year-old female and a 59-year-old male injured,” police tweeted.

Police said the shooting took place at a gas station close to midnight on Friday in the lower Ninth Ward, Fox 8 New Orleans reported. 

The conditions of the three people wounded were not immediately clear. However, the news outlet noted that a private vehicle took the 29-year-old woman to a hospital to be treated while the 50-year-old woman and 59-year-old man were taken to a hospital through New Orleans EMS.

The Hill has reached out to New Orleans police for comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

US frustrated over ‘problematic’ NATO ally Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is frustrating the U.S. and its allies by opposing the bid by Sweden and Finland to join NATO.

The position is complicating the message of unity the Biden administration wants to send to Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

The bids by Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance are historic — and a big defeat for Russia, which does not want them added to the group. The fact that their decision to do so is the result of the Russian war is a point that has been highlighted by U.S. officials.

But the diplomatic victory over Moscow is clouded by Erdoğan’s opposition over charges that the Nordic countries harbor Kurdish terrorist groups.

NATO members must unanimously agree to accept the members.

There are whispers that Ankara is looking for something — such as U.S. fighter jets — to give its blessing.

Erdoğan will talk with Finnish officials on Saturday and has kept the door open to a shift, telling reporters that “we will continue all these discussions for the sake of not interrupting diplomacy.”  

Turkey is widely seen as a necessary but problematic partner.

Erdoğan for years has rankled Washington over his pursuit of Russian weapons systems, military adventures in Syria, domestic political oppression, and violence against U.S. federal security and American protestors in the capital. 

Yet the administration and lawmakers concede Turkey provides a key bulwark of security for NATO in the Black Sea and has provided arms to Ukraine that have proven decisive in the fight against Russian forces. 

And while the U.S. is frustrated Erdoğan’s government has resisted joining sanctions against Russia, they relent that Ankara is a unique venue to host any peace talks that may come between Kyiv and Moscow. 

“Turkey is an important NATO partner. We have very important military installations in Turkey, it’s in our interest to have a good relationship with Turkey,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md), the number two Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Hill. 

“They’ve been a good partner in regards to Ukraine. So I want to make sure that we act as a responsible partner, by making it clear that we don’t want them to have a relationship with Russia, which could be contrary to our security needs within NATO.”

The administration has been tight-lipped about what it could offer Turkey to get its acceptance for Finland and Sweden.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday that the U.S. is prepared to be supportive in any way, but described the disagreement as one largely between Turkey, Finland, and Sweden.

He and other officials have expressed confidence that the alliance will uniformly agree on allowing the Nordic countries to become members.

Sullivan also said there were no plans for President Biden and Erdoğan to speak but noted that Biden would be “happy to do it” if asked. 

Biden hosted the leaders of Finland and Sweden at the White House on Thursday as a sign of robust U.S. support for their joining the alliance. During a Rose Garden event, Finnish Prime Minister Saul Niinistö directly appealed to Turkey.

“As NATO allies, we will commit to Turkey’s security just as Turkey will commit to our security,” Niinistö said. “We take terrorism seriously. We condemn terrorism in all its forms and we are actively engaged in combating it. We are open to discussing all the concerns Turkey may have concerning our membership in an open and constructive manner.”

Rose Gottemoeller, a former deputy secretary general of NATO, said she expects Finland and Sweden’s applications will ultimately be successful, but predicted it will be a “very hard bargain” with Turkey.

“It is a serious matter because this was always at the top of the list of issues when I was deputy secretary general,” Gottemoeller said. “They were using this issue constantly as leverage.”

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, questioned whether Turkey could sustain opposition to Finland and Sweden’s membership. 

“If you’re a member of a group, and 29 want to do it and you don’t, that’s a heavy lift,” he said. He also described the U.S. and Turkish relationship as having “pluses and minuses.”

Not all lawmakers are so diplomatic. Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, warned against giving in to Turkey’s behavior.  

“In general, I don’t think Turkey should be rewarded. Turkey hasn’t agreed to put any European or American sanctions on Russia, I mean the list is long, I don’t understand how we keep rewarding authoritarian figures,” he said. 

Menendez has warned that the administration should not entertain Turkish requests to buy more F-16 fighter jets.

“I’m not a supporter of sending F-16’s to Turkey. They’re still in violation of CAATSA sanctions,” Mendendez said, referring to Turkey’s ownership of the Russian S400 missile defense system that violates federal law. 

The State Department is proposing to sell Turkey upgrades and munitions for its existing F-16s, a strong signal of closer cooperation between Washington and Ankara.

Lawmakers are muted over whether they will support the proposal. 

“I think it’s important for us to keep Turkey as a strong NATO ally,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), also a Foreign Relations Committee member, told The Hill when asked if she supported the F-16 upgrades.

Some Democrats are looking to provide strict oversight of any military equipment sales to Ankara, in particular responding to concerns from Greece that Turkey is carrying out provocative military flights over Greek islands.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned in a speech Tuesday to a joint session of Congress against weapons sales to Turkey, without naming Ankara specifically.

“The last thing that NATO needs, at a time when our focus is on helping Ukraine defeat Russia’s aggression, is another source of instability on NATO’s southeastern flank,” Mitsotakis said.

“And I ask you to take this into account when you make defense procurement decisions concerning the eastern Mediterranean.”   

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told The Hill that Mitsotakis was “completely right” and that lawmakers may use the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act to address concerns over Turkey’s actions in the eastern Mediterranean but did not get into specifics.  

“There’s just not an easy answer to it… The [U.S. and Turkish military-to-military] relationship is still pretty strong, but it’s at the diplomatic and senior-elected level where things are really rocky right now,” Kaine said. 

“They’re being really problematic right now.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats need to break out of struggle between moderates and progressives

The two most powerful politicians in Washington, D.C., are President Joe Biden and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). 

Our checks and balances system built into the Constitution limits the power of each of the three branches of government, especially the presidency. Indeed, James Madison and his colleagues were preeminently concerned to vest power in the legislature and prevent the kind of autocratic power associated with the British Crown and European monarchies in general.

President Biden needs Congress to advance virtually any major agenda item he has, and Congress — given its current composition — can be prevented from passing major legislation if one U.S. Senator refuses to side with 49 other U.S. Senators from his own party.

Biden and his Capitol Hill allies will take another stab at passing some version of the Build Back Better Bill, even as the Russia-Ukraine War and the likely prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned dominate attention in Washington. 

The saga also illustrates how you can come from one of the smallest, least economically powerful states in the country and be one of the most powerful politicians in the country: Delaware and West Virginia are two such states.

Only in America do we see such a wide distribution of power — and only in America do we see a federal government as incapable of implementing major change. In parliamentary democracies, the executive and legislature are, in most cases, from the same party. When they want to move left, they do; when they want to move right, they do.  

Democrats in Washington today are still fighting over whether to be moderates or progressives: They are stuck. Some prominent swing state U.S. Senate primary races — such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina — have seen progressive rather than moderate candidates elected, but no one knows if this will pay off in the general election, especially against Trump-aligned Republicans.

On Capitol Hill, insiders have been saying that prospects of a Biden rescue of core elements of the Build Back Better Bill, including extending the child tax credit, child care subsidies, and lower prescription drug costs, are slim. This is the case so long as Manchin, whose popularity in conservative West Virginia soared 17 percent during the last year as he blocked the Biden agenda, has a vote in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is also an impediment, but less of a challenge. 

It’s time for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to advance one or more bills that will transcend the moderate vs. progressive battle. The national Democratic Party needs to be reset, even though most individual races will lean progressive or moderate. At some point, the entire party needs to move forward toward a new center for the entire country.

If the party cannot heal itself, it cannot heal the nation.

One place to start is family policy. Democrats want paid parental leave and major child care subsidies. Republicans have not budged. Democrats need to give in: Give the Republicans something that would interest them, notably a tax credit for stay-at-home parents. Give hard-working middle-class parents a choice between such a tax credit and child care subsidies after a period of paid parental leave.

Providing this option would speak to the massive cultural conflict in the country that is typically submerged in family policy debates: the side that wants to give women the path back to work after giving birth, and the side that wants parents to receive the choice to have one of them to stay home for several years with a newborn, actually mom or dad, or one of the moms or dads if it is an LGBTQ family.

Since the 1980s, Democrats have failed to pass paid parental leave and major child care subsidies at the federal level; it’s time to adopt a different strategy.

Even if offering the tax credit for stay-at-home parents fails to convince Manchin, it would help many of the Democrats running in November get reelected — or elected for the first time — because there are millions of voters who would respect a candidate who wanted to offer them or their adult children this choice.

It could help Democrats running for office begin to transcend the moderate vs. progressive battle within the party.

Dave Anderson is the editor of “Leveraging: A Political, Economic, and Societal Framework” (Springer, 2014). He is also the author of “Youth04: Young Voters, the Internet, and Political Power” (W.W. Norton & Company, 2004) and co-editor of “The Civic Web: Online Politics and Democratic Values” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). He has taught at George Washington University, the University of Cincinnati, and Johns Hopkins University. He was a candidate in the 2016 Democratic Primary in Maryland’s 8^th Congressional District.

Source: TEST FEED1