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Juan Williams: Kevin McCarthy would be a weak, disastrous Speaker

As House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) chases dreams of leading a GOP majority next year, he might consider this quote from a French Revolution leader: 

“There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”

In the language of today’s Twitter zingers, that’s saying a leader with no followers is just a guy taking a walk. 

McCarthy’s approach to possibly being the next Speaker looks unsteady, like a man who fears he is walking his party and his country off a cliff. 

McCarthy’s trouble begins with polling that favors a GOP House majority after the midterms but by a narrow margin – perhaps fewer than 10 seats.

That will make McCarthy less a leader than a puppet being controlled by the loudest Republicans on his far-right in the House and even louder voices ginning up outrage outside Washington on talk radio.

Already there are screams for McCarthy to drag the party into fiery hearings to impeach President Biden as retribution for House Democrats twice impeaching former President Trump. 

The reality that Trump committed acts worthy of impeachment — such as inciting a riot at the Capitol — while Biden has done no such thing is less important to a future GOP majority in the House than staging a payback circus.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month that there is pressure on House Republicans to immediately introduce articles of impeachment against Biden if they gain majority control.

McCarthy will also face calls from extreme voices to defund the FBI in retaliation for agents raiding Trump’s Florida mansion to recover classified government papers.

The biggest challenge for McCarthy will come from calls among his members for a government shutdown to protest a range of grievances. That includes Congress’s own failure, stemming largely from Republican opposition, to pass immigration reform for the last 30 years.

A preview of those tactics came last month.

“We should not fund a government that is continuing to allow open borders to endanger the American people,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said on the House floor in September. 

Roy signed a letter with 41 other House Republicans stating they would oppose a stoppgap government funding bill. 

Admittedly, they argued that their objection was to a bill being passed “in the remaining months of this Democrat-led Congress” — and they were defeated, for now, when Congress passed just such a continuing resolution late last week.

But the point seems clear. Roy and his fellow right-wingers will be just as willing to wield the threat of a government shutdown over McCarthy, if they take the majority, as they are now with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) still holding the gavel.

According to Moody’s, the last government shutdown under GOP congressional leadership but a Democratic president, in 2013, took more than $20 billion out of the economy.

With fear of recession and inflation still hurting American families, a government shutdown would make economic matters even worse.

As the New York Times put it last month: “It could also mean that the government will struggle to perform such mundane tasks as keeping itself from defaulting on its debt and plunging the global financial system into chaos.”

McCarthy does have a successful model in managing a slim majority.

The current slim Democratic majority managed to pass a COVID-19 relief bill to keep the economy going during the latter stages of the pandemic; a spending plan to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure; and Biden’s bill to lower prescription drug prices and deal with climate change.

Key to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) success was support from the left, despite progressives’ desire for more aggressive support of social safety net programs.

Can McCarthy emulate Pelosi? 

“I think it’ll be very difficult,” Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst with the nonpartisan publication Inside Elections, told The New York Times. “It’s been remarkable to see Nancy Pelosi handle a narrow majority. So, it is possible to pass bills with only a couple of votes to spare… [but] Kevin McCarthy is not Nancy Pelosi.”

Unease about the future of House GOP leadership could be why so many Republican donors are keeping their money on the sidelines this year. 

As Newsweek reported last week: “Democrats appear to be flush with cash with less than two months until crucial midterm elections while Republican candidates show signs of struggling to raise funds.”

Business leaders know that in the last 20 years, things rarely end well for the top person in House Republican leadership. 

Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), once the golden boy of the GOP, was thwarted by Trump.

Before him, former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), a lifelong conservative, was hounded out of office by extreme Tea Party-inspired members for being too willing to make deals to keep the government working.

And long before him, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution, barely survived a coup from his own members for mismanaging the impeachment of President Clinton.

All of this is to say that intramural squabbling resulting in failed leaders is nothing new for House Republican politics. 

But Kevin McCarthy’s ascent to leadership may mark a low point.

Never has a potential House majority GOP had its potential leader boxed in by having most of his members more loyal to an outsider, Trump.

Trump’s showmanship and social media edicts for attacking Democrats will led to endless congressional investigations. 

McCarthy had trouble with just this scenario when he was the frontrunner to succeed Boehner in 2015.

He was derailed because of a cringeworthy admission that the GOP’s breathless Benghazi investigation had nothing to do with protecting troops but was staged to drive down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers. 

Does anyone really think McCarthy is up to the job?

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

Source: TEST FEED1

Putin puts US officials on edge with nuclear saber rattling

U.S. officials are on edge over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent threat to use nuclear weapons, ahead of his illegal and contested move to claim huge swathes of Ukrainian territory.

Current and former U.S. officials on Sunday said that although there is nobody in Russia who could stop Putin from deploying nuclear weapons, such a move would guarantee a cataclysmic response from the U.S. and its NATO allies.

“To be clear, the guy who makes that decision, I mean, it’s one man. There are no checks on Mr. Putin. Just as he made the irresponsible decision to invade Ukraine, you know, he could make another decision,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday.

Austin added he doesn’t “see anything right now” to indicate that Putin has definitively made such a decision.

Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster on Sunday that Putin is “under extreme pressure” after battlefield failures and domestic frustration over a mobilization order that could send hundreds of thousands of reservists into the war.  

“I think the message to [Putin] is: If you use a nuclear weapon, it’s a suicide weapon. And the response from NATO and the United States doesn’t have to be nuclear,” McMaster told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on CBS. 

Putin’s move to annex four regions of Ukraine on Friday came after he warned that Moscow would deploy its massive nuclear arsenal to protect Russian territory or its people.

“This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them,” the Russian president said in a televised address.

Officials in Kyiv and Washington have said they take the threat seriously, but will not be deterred from fighting to push out Russia from the regions it now claims.

Putin’s decision to call up as many as 300,000 reservists has been met with protests across the country and thousands of Russian military-age men fleeing the country to avoid the call-up.

But experts have said the poorly trained reinforcements are unlikely to change the course of the war, and fear Putin could be increasingly dangerous if Russia continues to suffer costly and embarrassing losses.

The Russian president is responding with “the only quiver he has left, which is to, you know, to threaten the use of a nuclear weapon,” McMaster said.

Former CIA director and retired Army Gen. David Petraeus on Sunday said that, if Russia used the weapons, the U.S. would lead a fierce NATO response.

The alliance “would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea,” Petraeus said on ABC’s “This Week.” 

“[Putin] is trying to cast this in any way that he can in a way to appear threatening, to be threatening, to try to get Europe to crack. He thinks he can out-suffer Europe, if you will,” Petraeus added.

“But I don’t think he’s going to out-suffer Europe. Europe’s going to have a tough winter, there’s going to be very reduced flow of natural gas, but they’ll get through it and I don’t think they’ll crack on the issue of support for Ukraine.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a recent interview said he has told Russian officials “to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons,” but also warned of the lack of checks on Putin from within the Kremlin.

“Russia has gotten itself into the mess that it’s in is because there is no one in the system to effectively tell Putin he’s doing the wrong thing,” the secretary of state told CBS “60 Minutes” host Scott Pelley in an interview that aired last week.

“It’s very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific,” Blinken said.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan last week said the United States will “respond decisively” to any nuclear weapon use and said the U.S. has “spelled out in greater detail exactly what that would mean” in top-level talks with senior Russian officials.

“Let me say it plainly: If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia,” the top national security aide said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has long cautioned of Russia’s “nuclear terror” and “nuclear blackmail” amid the conflict and the tensions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the start of the war more than seven months ago.

However, he dismissed Putin’s nuclear threats as a “bluff” back in March, changing his tune during an interview last weekend.

“Look, maybe yesterday it was bluff. Now, it could be a reality,” Zelensky said of Putin’s remarks on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Here are key ballot measures to watch for in November

Voters in several states are set to make decisions in November on some of the biggest policy questions facing the country. 

At stake is everything from the way certain states conduct elections to the future of reproductive rights — an issue that has taken on heightened importance in the months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights case. 

Here are five issues that voters will weigh in on through ballot measures when they head to the polls in November.

Abortion rights

After Kansas voters soundly rejected a proposed amendment in August that would have stripped abortion protections from the state constitution, voters in four states are set to decide questions of reproductive rights in November. 

In California and Vermont — two deep-blue states that already have already have liberal abortion laws — voters are weighing proposed constitutional amendments that would enshrine reproductive rights into their state constitutions. 

The California proposal would add “reproductive freedom” — including the right to have an abortion and to “choose or refuse contraceptives” — to the state constitution, while the Vermont measure would enshrine “personal reproductive autonomy” into state law. 

In Michigan, voters will also decide whether to enshrine the right to have an abortion into the state constitution. The state Supreme Court earlier this month ordered the proposal to be added to the ballot after the state elections board deadlocked over whether to allow the initiative. 

Meanwhile, Kentucky voters will answer a similar question to the one posed in Kansas earlier this year: whether to amend the state constitution to make clear there are no protections for abortion rights in the Commonwealth. 

Likewise, in Montana, voters will decide on a ballot measure providing personhood protections to infants born alive after attempted abortions.

Marijuana policy

At least five states will give voters a say in November on whether to legalize recreational marijuana for residents 21 or older.

Among those states are Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota. While the details of the ballot questions differ in each state, the measures could mark a sweeping expansion of marijuana in deep-red territory. 

At the same time, Maryland state lawmakers voted to throw the issue of marijuana legalization to voters. 

Advocates had hoped to put a similar question on the ballot in Oklahoma, but the state Supreme Court rejected that effort last week, saying that voters would have to wait until either the next general election or a special election to decide the matter.

Meanwhile, voters in Colorado, where marijuana is already legal, will decide whether to define certain psychedelic plants and fungi as natural medicine — a move that would pave the way for adults over the age of 21 to grow, possess, use and transport certain psychedelics.

Election reform

Nevada could move a step closer to joining Maine and Alaska on the list of states that use ranked-choice voting if residents approve a ballot measure, known as Question 3, this fall. 

The ballot measure also asks voters whether they want to implement an open primary system, in which all candidates would appear on the same primary ballot. The top-five vote-getters would then advance to the general election. 

In order for the proposal to go into effect, however, voters will have to approve it both this year and again in 2024.

Another ballot question in Connecticut asks voters whether the state should allow no-excuse early voting. The Nutmeg State is currently one of five states without some form of early voting.

Nebraska voters, meanwhile, will consider whether to add a voter ID requirement to the state constitution, while Arizona voters will be asked about several proposed changes to the voter ID and mail-in ballot policies.

One of those changes would require voters to include their date of birth and voter ID number for mail-in ballots. Another would require people voting in person to show a photo ID, doing away with a policy that allows voters to show two other forms of non-photo identification instead of a photo ID.

Climate change and the environment

Faced by worsening climate change-related disasters such as droughts and wildfires, California voters will decide in November whether to increase taxes on personal income above $2 million a year to fund wildfire prevention programs and infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles, like electric vehicle charging stations.

The tax hike would be relatively small — only about 1.75 percent. But the state legislative analyst’s office estimates that the increase alone would bring in between $3.5 billion and $5 billion annually, and that amount would grow over time.

On the other coast, in New York, voters are being asked to allow the state to borrow $4.2 billion through the issuance of bonds to fund certain environmental projects and policy efforts. 

The largest tranche of that money — $1.5 billion — would go to climate change mitigation efforts, including land conservation and renewable energy projects, while hundreds of millions of dollars would go toward things like improving stormwater systems and zero-emission school buses. 

Slavery

While the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude when it was ratified 1865, it carved out an exception that allows the practice as a punishment for a crime.

Even now, nearly 160 years later, 20 state constitutions include language allowing it as a punishment for a crime or repayment of debt. In November, voters in five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont — will decide whether to do away with the practice.

While most of the ballot questions simply seek to declare that slavery and involuntary servitude in any form are not permitted, other measures go further. In Alabama, the proposal would remove “all racist language” from the state constitution.

If approved, the ballot measures could have major impacts for criminal justice reform. Incarcerated individuals could receive higher wages for prison work — or prison labor could be done away with entirely.

It wouldn’t be the first time that voters moved to repeal language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude from their state constitutions. In 2018, similar measures passed in Colorado, Utah and Nebraska.

And 2022 won’t likely be the last time such questions are put on ballots. Voters in several other states, including Florida and Texas, could consider similar measures in future elections.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden has tried to rebuild the refugee system. This year will test that

President Biden has again set an ambitious goal for welcoming 125,000 refugees into the U.S. this fiscal year, a benchmark that would require processing about 100,000 more people than last year.

The Biden administration has sought to be a foil to his predecessor when it comes to refugees after then-President Trump brought refugee processing down to just a trickle.

But it’s Biden who carries the record for resettling the lowest number of refugees in the history of the program. 

“The administration was tackling understandable challenges between the pandemic and multiple crises,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. 

“In terms of setting the [presidential declaration] once again at 125,000, I suppose we could view this as a do-over. Last year we understood why that target was ambitious. This year we hope it’s viewed as a real target to hit, and I think that’s where this year the administration has to rise and take full ownership.” 

During his first year in office, Biden resettled just 11,411 refugees, about 400 fewer than the lowest point under Trump, a total complicated by COVID-19 and the extent the program atrophied during the Trump tenure.

As of mid-September of 2022, Biden had resettled just under 23,000 refugees, a figure that could jump by next Wednesday’s reporting deadline as agencies rush to finish processing. The government projects it will welcome as many as 25,000 refugees this year, according to its report to Congress. 

While the figure means the Biden administration has doubled refugee processing between its first and second year in office, it still has a long way to go to even get close to its goal.

Though Biden’s 125,000 may seem ambitious, it’s not too big a stretch from historical refugee resettlement numbers, which average around 75,000 and have previously surpassed 100,000.

It also comes at a time when there is significant global displacement due to the evacuation of Afghanistan and people fleeing war-torn Ukraine.

But thus far, the Biden administration has not taken these groups in as refugees, instead allowing them into the U.S. through a process known at humanitarian parole, which allows the government to temporarily waive some immigration requirements.

“I think there’s some rhetoric that is helpful to the administration, when referring to people paroled into the U.S. from Ukraine or Afghanistan as refugees,” said Sunil Varghese, policy director with the International Refugee Assistance Project.

There are similarities, he said. Both are fleeing danger and in some cases get some assistance from agencies that help resettle refugees. But parolees are often only allowed into the U.S. for a maximum of two years. 

“When [refugees] come to the United States, they have permanent status. In the United States, they don’t have to go back to the country of persecution, or country of asylum. The Afghans and Ukrainians who are being brought to the U.S. are only provided temporary status. There’s no plan for what happens when that status expires. Most Afghans were evacuated and given permission to stay in the US for two years. Ukrainians are in a similar legal immigration posture. So what happens after those two years is unknown. That is completely different from our refugee program,” Varghese said. 

The U.S. used humanitarian parole to welcome roughly 80,000 Afghans and has approved 97,000 people through the Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian parole program, with another almost 100,000 Ukrainians arriving through other means.

It’s a feature that Vignarajah said favors “speed over stability.”

In the case of Uniting for Ukraine, the idea of the program was to allow Ukrainians to quickly enter the U.S. as many were fleeing the country, noting that many were not seeking official refugee status, as they wished to return home when conditions are safer.

Meredith Owen, director of policy and advocacy at Church World Service, a refugee resettlement agency, said the evacuation of Afghanistan was a catalyst for the administration relying heavily on humanitarian parole.

“We didn’t mean for the administration to rely so much on parole at the exclusion of the resettlement program. But the [Uniting for Ukraine] program was a sign that this administration was considering relying more consistently on temporary protection and temporary protection that doesn’t have built-in access to resettlement benefits,” she said.

As the fighting stretches on and Russian President Vladimir Putin moves to annex four Ukrainian regions, it’s becoming less clear when Ukrainians may be able to return — or if they will want to after establishing themselves elsewhere.

Afghans and Ukrainians allowed into the U.S. through parole can seek to remain in the country, but doing so requires applying for asylum, a process that already had a years-long backlog even before the flights from the two counties.

“The administration won’t do post arrival refugee processing — that is the asylum system. So it would be really short-sighted for the administration to suggest that these folks are here writ large temporarily and make that a blanket statement because we’re seeing more and more Ukrainians travel to the U.S., through [Uniting for Ukraine]. We haven’t seen that slow down. And the longer people are here, the more likely they will want to stay,” Owen said.

Many would rather see the U.S. use the resources of its own refugee program to aid them.

“The world’s humanitarian leader can’t play whack-a-mole as crises emerge. We need a system that can respond consistently,” Vignarajah said.

But advocates are optimistic about the U.S. reaching its goal this year, primarily because they believe the Biden administration has done a lot of the hard work of rebuilding the U.S. refugee program after it was decimated by Trump.

The government has increased the number of “circuit rides,” where refugee officers meet and screen refugees for the program. It’s also increased the number of refugee resettlement sites with offices that coordinate a refugee’s arrival. 

“We’re hoping that 2023 is the year when we go from simply rebuilding to building the refugee program back better. What we’ve seen in the last two years is reinvesting in refugee resettlement agencies, increasing staffing of [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] refugee corps. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing in 2023 the payoffs from that,” Varghese said.

The White House seems to think so.

“Looking ahead, we expect the innovations and efficiencies gained through this intensive effort will provide new hope and opportunities to all refugees in our program,” it wrote in its report to Congress.

Still, many say the Biden administration will have to get creative in order to meet its goal.

In Qatar, where a number of Afghans stayed following the U.S. evacuation, the administration geared up for 30-day processing — something advocates say shows the government is capable of handling cases in weeks or months rather than the years it currently takes.

And the success of Uniting for Ukraine, which initially rolled out using a private sponsorship model, could be adapted in some ways to be incorporated into the refugee program.

“I think the administration can do it. I think it’s shown just looking at the examples of Ukrainians and Afghanistan, [that it has] the ability to move people through the system quickly and in large numbers if they have the desire and will — and backing to reimagine the process,” Varghese said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Petraeus predicts US would lead NATO response to ‘take out’ Russian forces if Putin uses nuclear weapon

Retired Gen. David Petraeus predicted Sunday that the U.S., along with NATO allies, would “take out” Russian forces if Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to use nuclear weapons in his war against neighboring Ukraine. 

During an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Petraeus told co-anchor Jonathan Karl that western powers have to take Russia’s nuclear weapons threats seriously, noting National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s recent remarks that US officials have warned the Moscow of “catastrophic consequences” if the Kremlin deploys nuclear weapons. 

“And what would happen?” Karl asked. 

“Well, again, I have deliberately not talked to Jake about this. I mean, just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a NATO, a collective effort, that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea,” Petraeus replied. 

Karl noted radiation from a nuclear attack in Ukraine would also likely reach nearby NATO countries, effectively making it an attack on the alliance.

“Yes. And perhaps you can make that case. The other case is that this is so horrific that there has to be a response, it cannot go unanswered. But it doesn’t expand, it doesn’t — it’s not nuclear for nuclear,” Petraeus added. “You don’t want to, again, get into a nuclear escalation here. But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.” 

Petraeus’ remarks come after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday moved ahead with illegally annexing four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine, a move that followed a series of setbacks for Russian forces as the war enters its eighth month.

Putin has also declared a partial military troop mobilization that could call up as many as 300,000 reservists.

Russia is also suspected of causing a pipeline rupture that caused a massive methane leak, and Putin has threatened to cut off gas supplies to European countries as winter approaches.

Petraeus said it’s clear that Putin wants European countries to suffer as long as they try to isolate Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

“Well, he’s trying to cast this in any way that he can in a way to appear threatening, to be threatening, to try to get Europe to crack. He thinks he can out suffer Europe, if you will,” Petraeus said. 

“And, you know, the Russians have out suffered Napoleon and the Nazis and so forth. But I don’t think he’s going to out suffer Europe. Europe’s going to have a tough winter, there’s going to be very reduced flow of natural gas, but they’ll get through it and I don’t think they’ll crack on the issue of support for Ukraine.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Officials detail dire impacts from Hurricane Ian, call for more assistance

Local, state and federal officials painted a dire description of Hurricane Ian’s impacts during appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows, with many of them calling for more federal assistance.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell and Fort Myers, Fla. Mayor Kevin Anderson, all of whom surveyed damage from the storm, told show hosts that the storm caused widespread flooding and property damage across the state as hundreds of thousands remain without power.

“I don’t think it has a comparison, not for Florida,” Rubio told co-anchor Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week.” 

“There are entire communities — Fort Myers Beach no longer exists,” Rubio said. “I mean, it’ll have to be rebuilt. It’ll be something different. It was a slice of old Florida that you can’t recapture. Sanibel’s basically flattened.”

Ian made landfall near Fort Myers on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 4 storm, bringing destructive winds and an extraordinary storm surge that some have estimated may have reached as much as 18 feet at its peak.

At least 47 Floridians died from the hurricane, and the death toll has continued to climb as officials pursue the recovery effort. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) office said on Saturday afternoon that first responders so far made more than 1,100 rescues.

“I know we worry a lot about the direct impacts from the storm itself if it’s making landfall, but we see so many more injuries and sometimes more fatalities after the storm because there are so many dangers out there,” Criswell told “Fox News Sunday” anchor Shannon Bream.

“What I can say is, people need to stay vigilant right now,” Criswell continued. “Standing water brings with it all kinds of hazards.”

As officials continue assessing the wreckage, Florida’s two senators said they support congressional funding to aid the recovery, which would go beyond President Biden’s approval of Florida’s emergency and major disaster declarations that freed up federal resources.

But on CNN’s “State of the Union,” co-anchor Dana Bash pressed Rubio on why he didn’t vote for a relief bill in early 2013 following Hurricane Sandy that devastated parts of New York and New Jersey.

Rubio claimed that bill had multiple provisions funding projects unrelated to the storm, although Bash rebuked some of the senator’s examples.

The Florida Republican went on to say he believes an Ian relief bill should have no “pet projects” for other lawmakers.

“I will fight against it having pork in it,” Rubio said. “That’s the key. We shouldn’t have that in there, because it undermines the ability to come back and do this in the future.”

Both Rubio and Scott appeared open to supporting a relief bill even if the funding was not offset to have a net-zero effect on the federal budget.

“Everything you do, you’d love it to be paid for,” Scott said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But we’ve made commitments, and we’re going to help our families, our businesses, our states and local governments, and as federal government, we need to do our job.”

The news anchors also asked officials whether it makes sense to rebuild destroyed communities in low-lying areas near water given climate change and regular hurricanes in the region.

But many officials seemed reluctant to abandon the communities, touting new building regulations and other strategies to mitigate the impacts of future storms.

“You have to make tough decisions when you rebuild,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), whose state was later hit by Ian, told NBC “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd.

“We’ve had two 500-year floods within 23 months of each other,” Cooper continued. “And we know that that’s not true anymore. We know that these areas are vulnerable. So what we’re doing is making sure that we are using strategies like elevation and even buyouts.”

Criswell, the FEMA administrator, said rebuilding decisions should be up to individuals, who she urged to understand their risk and purchase flood insurance.

“We need to make sure that we have strong building codes because we have risks all over,” she told moderator Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” 

“We’ve seen damage inland in the state, and we need to have building codes that can make sure that our properties can withstand the impacts that we’re seeing from these severe weather events,” Criswell added.

Brennan later in the show asked Anderson, the mayor of Fort Myers, if the city needs to pull back development near the water. The hurricane made landfall near the city, and Anderson’s county faced some of the worst human and property losses.

“No, we have good building codes,” Anderson responded. “As I said, the newer homes, they withstood the storm. So as people tear down and build new, they’ll be subjected to the newer, tougher building codes. And in future storms, they should be able to weather it a lot better.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Rick Scott refuses to rebuke Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene rhetoric

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Sunday refused to rebuke violent rhetoric by former President Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in a heated interview with CBS’ Margaret Brennan.

During an appearance on “Face the Nation,” Brennan asked Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to respond to Trump’s racially-tinged statement on Friday in which he called Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who also served as his Transportation secretary, “Coco Chow” and “China loving.”

Brennan also asked Scott whether remarks by Greene during a Trump rally Saturday, in which she suggested Democrats were killing Republicans, was dangerous.

Scott initially responded by suggesting that “what we got to do is we got to bring everybody together” before turning toward criticizing comments by Vice President Harris and saying that Trump was talking about “unbelievable spending that’s causing inflation hurting the poorest families.”

But Brennan pressed by then pointing to yet another part of Trump’s statement in which he says McConnell has a “death wish” for supporting a government funding bill that was supported by Democrats who hold the majority in the Senate.

“But what I quoted you is a phrase saying McConnell ‘has a death wish.’ He said racist things about Elaine Chao. And then, ‘they have already started the killings.’ I mean, that’s not a policy dispute, senator, the language is what I’m talking about. Isn’t that dangerous?” Brennan asked.

“I think we all have to figure out how do we start bringing people together and have a common goal to give every American the opportunity to get a great job, their kids to have an education [so] they believe they can be anything and make sure everybody lives in a safe community,” Scott responded.

McConnell and Trump’s relationship has been a rocky one since the former president was in the White House, and Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly lambasted the top Senate Republican, saying he should no longer serve as GOP leader while attacking Chao, referencing her family’s American business that also has dealings in China.

“He has a DEATH WISH,” Trump said of McConnell on Friday after he voted for a bill to fund the government through mid-December. “Must immediately seek help and advise from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!” using a term that is considered to be a racial slur.

Scott on CBS declined to say if that language brings people together.

“He look — he likes for you know, he gives people nicknames. I’m sure he has a nickname for me, alright?” he said of what Trump called Chao. “So you can ask him what he means by his nicknames… I can try my best to bring people together and I’m gonna try to bring people together.”

The day after Trump’s post, Greene traveled to Michigan to speak at a rally the former president held in support of his endorsed candidates there.

“I’m not going to mince words with you all. Democrats want Republicans dead, and they have already started the killings,” Greene said.

When Brennan told Scott that Greene’s comments we not true, Scott said he had not heard Greene’s remarks before turning to criticizing Harris for a remark she made a Democratic National Committee event on Friday when asked about the administration’s response to climate change.

“It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making,” Harris said at the event. “And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity.”

Scott tied Harris’s comment to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) response to Hurricane Ian in his state.

“But it’s also not helpful what the vice president says, when she thinks that FEMA is going to treat people differently based on their skin color,” Scott said on CBS.

Updated 1:13 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why Democrats face big test with Black women in 2022

Advocates are calling on Democrats to step up their messaging on voting rights and abortion to Black women specifically, arguing it is critical that the party turn out the key constituency to hold on to majorities in the Senate and House.

State laws curbing abortion rights and the ability to easily vote disproportionately affect Black women, making both salient issues to energize a powerful voting bloc for Democrats.

But part of the problem, advocates say, is that Democrats are taking Black women’s votes for granted.

“Democrats are constantly trying to get suburban white women voters, to the extent sometimes that Black women say ‘we’re your core voters, the least you can do is spend some money in our neighborhood,’” said Marcela Howell, CEO and founder of the nonpartisan organization In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.

“The reality is, they go after what they consider swing voters, and we’re not,” she added.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Black women, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, will leave the party, said Laphonza Butler, the first Black female president of EMILY’s List, at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference on Wednesday.

But it could make them more likely to stay home on Election Day, she added, potentially costing Democrats votes in an already difficult political climate. And states with some of the most crucial midterm contests, like Georgia, have also become a ground zero of sorts for both issues and have significant populations of Black women.

“I think that both parties take Black women for granted,” Butler said, but added that it’s more of an issue for Democrats.

“Who is identified as quote, unquote, swing, in my opinion, is who do you find worthy to target, to talk to, to hear from and then to act on behalf of,” said Butler.

That’s not to say there aren’t any candidates speaking to the concerns of Black women — but most of those candidates seem to be Black women. 

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, pointed out that some of the most vocal supporters of Black women have been Democratic candidates like gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Rep. Val Demings, who is running for Senate in Florida, and North Caroline Senate candidate Cheri Beasley. 

“Now you see Black women running for some of the highest offices in the land,” said Brown. “They can see Black women organizers on the ground that are encouraging and pushing and grasping and lifting up Black women.”

She added that the influx of Black female candidates this election cycle is a result of Black women long feeling unheard or overlooked despite the consistent voter turnout they provide Democrats.

There are some current lawmakers speaking to Black women, as well. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) spoke directly to the concerns about reproductive freedom at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation conference. 

”Women of color in the United States have the worst rate of maternal death in the developed world,” said McBath “Now, with increasing threats to women’s health care all across the United States, I’m afraid that if we don’t stand up things are only going to get worse. Make no mistake about it — and I do not say this lightly — this is a crisis for our community. But it is a preventable one. We can pass legislation right now that will ensure that every woman in America has the right to make her own health care decisions with her family and her loved ones and her medical professionals.”

Still, Howell said the party is sending mixed messages to Black women. Instead of “walking in lockstep” the way Republicans do on issues, Democrats “range all over the place” in their priorities, she said.

“In many ways, it makes it a little bit harder to get voters’ attention because they hear different messages,” Howell added. 

A 2019 report from the Center for American Progress found that Black women are drawn to policies on job security, racial justice and health care. Two-thirds of Black women voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. 

While abortion rights have become a major issue on the campaign trail this cycle, Howell said Black women are particularly invested in reproductive justice, which combines racial justice and abortion rights.

“Reproductive rights is the legal component of ensuring that people can access abortion rights. Reproductive justice was started specifically because Black women wanted to merge reproductive rights issues with social justice issues,” explained Howell. 

Decisions about reproductive justice consider topics like affordable health care, access to city services and clean water and affordable quality food. 

But while many Black women care deeply about the issue, advocates say some of those most affected may also have the most difficult time casting a ballot.

The Brennan Center reported that lawmakers in 39 states considered at least 393 restrictive bills for the 2022 legislative session. These laws place restrictions on things like mail-in ballots and early voting, disproportionately affecting Black voters. 

“If you look at who votes in terms of the Black population, it’s older Black women,” said Howell. “Older Black women tend to vote by mail, and they tend to vote early.”

The new voting laws left many Black voters feeling their votes either didn’t matter or were even thrown out during the 2016 election, said Howell. It wasn’t until the results of the 2020 presidential election when In Our Own Voice noticed those sentiments changed.

“After the 2020 election … fewer people felt like their vote might not count,” said Howell. “They also said things like, ‘I believe that Black voters can make a difference in an election and change the outcome of the election.’”

Many of the most restrictive voting laws are in Southern states like Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Texas, which also happen to have high Black populations and some of the most restrictions on access to abortions. 

Other states, like Florida, have redrawn congressional maps, leaving Black voters with significantly less voting power. 

Brown said it is “absolutely” intentional that the same states with the most restrictive reproductive laws are also some of the same ones enacting restrictive voting laws. 

“We understand that voting gives access to impact policy, and that’s power,” said Brown. “We are seeing sexism, racism and control. The core thread between all those things is a question about freedom.”

That presents a challenge, but also an opportunity for Democrats.

Brown said in order for Democrats to show they are invested in Black women, they have to indicate they are willing to “fully commit” to legislation that will protect them. 

“I want to hear an unquestionable commitment to restoring the Voting Rights Act and passing voting rights laws,” she said. “I want to hear that they’re committed to the elimination of the filibuster, that it’s a key legislative priority and they are willing to do whatever they need to do to so we can actually get voting rights legislation passed this session.”

Howell added that as candidates look toward the 2024 presidential election, they must also take time to appear in predominantly Black communities — especially in the South. 

But they also have to show they understand the difference between rights and access, she said. That is, Democrats need to show they’ll not only fight to ensure Black women have the right to vote or get reproductive care, but will have access to both.

“Because you have the right on paper, doesn’t mean you have access to the services,” said Howell. “So when you hear [politicians] talking about abortion access, that means they got the message. That’s when you know, they’re actually talking to women of color, and specifically Black women voters.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Lawsuits, shrunk eligibility take the shine off Biden's student debt relief

President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan hit multiple road bumps this week, leading to the administration ultimately scaling back eligibility, excluding hundreds of thousands of borrowers from its relief plan.

The administration was confronted with the first round of lawsuits against the program, as well as a tough score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that elevated concerns over its cost, both issues that the White House has downplayed in an attempt to keep voters enthusiastic about forgiveness.

The applications for debt relief are expected to open this month under the program, which will forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers earning under $125,000 and up to $20,000 for borrowers who received Pell Grants.

An abrupt update on Thursday, however, said that borrowers with federal student loans not held by the Education Department are no longer eligible to obtain the relief, stirring up confusion.

“There’s so much fear going on, so many borrowers are already calling, rushing to us, ‘What does this mean for me?’ It was very abrupt to have, ‘Today is the day we announce it and the day that is the last day to consolidate within minutes of lawsuits coming out,’” said Natalia Abrams, president of the Student Debt Crisis Center.

One major legal challenge came from several Republican-led states, arguing that the plan is unlawful because there is no statute from Congress authorizing the cancellation of student loan debt.

With the lawsuits in mind and potentially more to come, advocates warn the administration needs to not delay on giving out forgiveness in order to retain enthusiasm from voters about the program ahead of the midterms.

“Every day that people go without having their debt canceled feels more bitter than sweet. To retain that sort of bump in polling that I think people sort of broadly agreed has occurred because of the announcement, to retain that favorability they need to actually cancel the debt,” said Braxton Brewington, spokesperson for the Debt Collective.

“No one wants to go into November with no one’s debt having been canceled,” he said.

Also this week, the CBO released its official estimate that the plan will cost about $400 billion. It also projected that 90 percent of income-eligible borrowers will apply for debt cancellation, which the White House pushed back on as too optimistic of a percentage based on participation in other government programs.

When the president announced the plan in August, Republicans and even some moderate Democrats quickly criticized it for being too costly for taxpayers.

“The announcement didn’t get the political praise they thought it would. When you look at the national reaction, it wasn’t as well received. So, you have that, and you have the legal challenges and the cost estimates coming out,” said Robert Moran, a former senior policy adviser in the Education Department under President George W. Bush.

Others argued that issues such as scope and implementation won’t impact the enthusiasm level about the program from voters.

“Failure to address the prominent campaign promise of student debt forgiveness would have been hard to overcome politically. A few initial bumps on the scope and implementation of the plan aren’t enough to walk back the enthusiasm for student loan forgiveness, particularly in the minds of younger voters,” said Debra Dixon, former chief of staff at the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the Education Department under President Obama.

But Dixon warned that “legal limitations could be another story.”

The other lawsuit this week came from public interest firm Pacific Legal Foundation, which challenged the plan through a plaintiff who is currently paying off loans. The plaintiff claimed he would be subject to an expensive tax in the event of debt relief because he lives in Indiana, which is one of several states that considers debt cancellation taxable income.

“Looking at this whole situation at a very high level, the administration’s always been on somewhat shaky legal ground,” said Moran, a principal at Bose Public Affairs Group. “From a legal standpoint, observationally, this administration is using the Heroes Act, which has always kind of been controversial but everyone has used it, both Republican and Democratic administrations, for various purposes.”

The Heroes Act allows the Education Department to waive or modify statutes or provisions related to student financial assistance programs during war or national emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lawsuits this week are largely being attributed by observers to the timing of the update to exclude some borrowers. But the White House says it is simply trying to speed up effective action.

“Our goal from day one has always been to deliver relief to as many borrowers as possible, as quickly as possible, and this change helps us achieve that,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday.

The update says that only borrowers in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program whose loans are held by the federal government are eligible. The FFEL Program, which stopped issuing loans in 2010, was a student loan system that had private banks manage the loans, though they were guaranteed by the federal government.

While the update was considered abrupt and sudden, a source familiar with the decision said the administration started conversations with the FFEL community shortly after the August announcement to gauge if lawsuits would stem from this exclusion.

The end result on Thursday was that if a borrower with a FFEL loan was preemptively consolidating to prepare for cancellation ahead of the application period opening, they can still qualify to get cancelation.

Many numbers have circulated over how many borrowers will now be excluded from the program, ranging between 700,000 to 5 million.  The administration did not respond to a request for the exact number but Jean-Pierre said on Friday it is “much smaller” than the millions being reported.

The update is worrying other borrowers into thinking they may be excluded, advocates said.

“This is a very, very small group of borrowers, but then being reported out…to where people are thinking this is going to affect all borrowers or most of them,” Abrams said.

Advocates and progressives had pushed for $50,000 per borrower in relief, before the administration announced up to $20,000 per borrower, and the decision to now exclude some borrowers is another issue for them.

“I think it’s just as bittersweet as the announcement in a lot of ways because the relief that Biden announced was already skimpy,” Brewington said. “And so now it just feels, sort of throwing FFEL borrowers under the bus, feels like its skimping on the skimp.”

Source: TEST FEED1

US faces election worker shortage ahead of midterms due to rise in threats

Officials warn the U.S. is facing a shortage of election workers ahead of the November midterms due to a rise in threats against those performing such jobs that experts link to false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

In an interview last month, Kim Wyman, senior election security lead at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said because of those threats 1 in 3 elections officials and poll workers have quit their positions over fears for their safety, and state officials are having a hard time hiring for such positions.

Experts attribute this problem to inflammatory rhetoric stemming from unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and elections officials were complicit.

“Our elections have become very contentious,” said Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.

Jaffer said the country is witnessing a situation where conflict between political parties is now affecting the work of election workers, many of whom are retirees volunteering their time to count votes.

“Instead of respecting that civic duty, now people are taking out their frustrations and anger in politics on these election workers,” Jaffer said. “And that’s a real problem.”

Earlier this year, the Brennan Center for Justice published a survey on the threats local election officials are facing.

The poll found that 1 in 6 election officials reported being threatened because of their job, and 77 percent of respondents said they felt such threats have increased in recent years.

Lawrence Norden, senior director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government program, said these threats can range from verbal abuse and online harassment on social media to death threats via the phone or by mail. He added that in some cases election workers have had their homes invaded and cars damaged.

The survey also found that 20 percent of election officials planned to leave their job before the 2024 election, with one-third of that group “citing political leaders’ attacks on a system they know is fair and honest as one of their top reasons for leaving.”

Another two-thirds of election officials surveyed reported being concerned about politicians attempting to interfere in how they perform their jobs in future elections. 

Norden added that the exodus is also partly due to election workers feeling there’s a lack of policy response from the government against the threats they’re facing.

The Brennan Center’s survey found that nearly 80 percent of election officials felt the federal government was either doing nothing or not doing enough to address the issue. 

“That’s a big problem,” Norden said.

“One thing that we can do is to make sure that people who are working in elections feel supported and I don’t think we’ve been doing a good job at that at either the federal or state level for the most part,” he added.

Federal authorities have taken some action on the issue: The Justice Department last year created a special task force to combat the rising threats against election workers, which the task force’s leader, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, called a “threat to democracy” in a statement announcing the program. 

In August, the task force briefed hundreds of election workers and officials on its work, reporting that it had reviewed over 1,000 reported threats and found that 11 percent of them merited federal criminal investigation. Election workers working in closely contested states were more likely to receive threats, it reported, with 58 percent of potentially criminal threats coming in states where the results of the 2020 election were challenged through lawsuits, recounts and audits, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania.

The task force said it had charged four federal cases over such threats and joined one more, adding that multiple state prosecutions had also been carried out.

Some state and federal lawmakers have also recently taken steps to address the issue by introducing and passing legislation aimed at protecting workers against threats.

In May, Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) signed two bills into law that are intended to fight against insider threats and protect election workers from physical threats and online harassment. One of the laws would make it a crime to threaten election workers or publish their personal information online. 

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

California, Maine, Oregon and Vermont have also recently passed their own laws shielding election workers from threats and harassment.

This month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) introduced similar legislation to address the rising threats against election workers. 

The bill, titled the Election Worker Protection Act, would provide states with resources to recruit and train election workers and also protect them from intimidation and threats. The legislation would also make it a federal crime to threaten, intimidate or coerce election workers. 

“Election workers are facing a barrage of threats from those seeking to undermine our democracy,” Klobuchar said in a statement. 

“We need to respond to these threats head on and make sure that election workers are able to do their jobs,” she added. 

Prior to former President Trump entering the political stage in 2015, Norden said that there were some candidates who would occasionally make unfounded claims of voter fraud, but they wouldn’t gain traction the way they did during the 2020 presidential election. 

“It has become much more common now and it has not been nearly as widely condemned as it needs to be to tamp that down,” Norden said. 

Norden explained that it’s always been the case that certain people will doubt votes were counted accurately, especially when their preferred candidate loses. 

“That’s not new because of Trump,” Norden said. 

“What is new because of Trump is that never before have we had a presidential candidate, well a sitting president, refuse to concede after the election is over and all legal avenues have been exhausted,” he added.

Jaffer added that he wouldn’t solely blame Trump for the country’s polarization but said the former president’s rhetoric and tone, and the response to it from others, has certainly made the situation worse.

“Trump is a symptom of a larger problem that we’ve been seeing for many years, which is an increased polarization of both parties to their extremes,” Jaffer said.

Norden also provided a few suggestions on how to deal with threats against election workers. First, he said there should be more prosecution against individuals making such threats. He also said the federal government should provide additional grants to state and local governments for safety training.

Lastly, he said there’s a need for more and better security for election buildings, including through the installation of camera surveillance, panic alarm systems and bulletproof election offices. 

Norden added that although a minority of Americans believe widespread voter fraud took place during the 2020 election, they’re still causing great damage and negatively impacting many people, including election workers. 

“It’s going to be extremely hard to sustain free and fair elections if a segment of the country refuses to accept when their favorite candidate loses and blames the people who are supposed to be counting votes,” Norden said.

“That’s their job … [and] if the public can’t accept that then we’re not going to have a democratic system much longer,” he added.

Source: TEST FEED1