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Trump outlines preferred policies if GOP retakes Congress in CPAC speech

Former President Trump outlined steps for the GOP to take if they win back control of Congress in November during his speech Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) convention. 

Trump said the midterms need to be a “national referendum” on President Biden and Democratic control of Congress, and Republicans must ensure Democrats have a “crippling” defeat. His speech at the convention in Dallas, Texas concluded its third day. 

Trump pointed to candidates he backed in primaries on multiple occasions like Tudor Dixon, the Republican nominee for governor of Michigan, and Kari Lake, who won the GOP nomination for governor of Arizona. 

He said GOP candidates should campaign on holding the Biden administration accountable and working to “shut down” the southern border, reduce crime and beat inflation. He said restoring “public safety” is the first job for the next Congress, and he knows the Republicans who are running are “not going to play games.” 

Trump reiterated his call for instituting a death penalty for drug dealers. He said China does not have any drug issues because it executes drug dealers following swift trials. 

He said the process “sounds horrible” but would be effective in bringing down drug dealing. 

Trump said congressional Republicans should make clear that no money will be provided to funding Biden’s “open border agenda.” 

Republicans have sharply criticized the Biden administration for increases in the number of undocumented immigrants since he took office. Biden lifted several Trump-era policies after becoming president, most recently Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed the federal government to quickly expel undocumented immigrants and prevent them from seeking asylum. 

Trump said the country needs a “record” increase in the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to deport undocumented immigrants, and the government should implement tougher penalties for repeat offenders. 

Trump said teaching any inappropriate “racial, sexual and political material” to schoolchildren “in any form whatsoever” should be banned, and if federal officials push this “radicalism,” the Department of Education should be abolished. 

He backed several other cultural issues that have become key parts of many Republicans’ platforms, like banning transgender individuals from playing a sport with the gender they identify with and ending a “censorship regime” to protect free speech. 

He said the next Congress has many urgent tasks to address, and there is no time to wait. 

Trump also hinted at a potential third run for the presidency in 2024, saying that he won millions more votes in 2020 than in 2016 and that “we may have to do it again.” 

Trump told New York Magazine last month that he has already decided about whether to run again, but the big decision will be whether he announces before or after the midterm elections 

He said the country’s comeback will begin in November with the midterms, but 2024 will be the “big one.”

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Sanders rips Inflation Reduction Act, says it will have 'minimal impact on inflation'

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ripped the Inflation Reduction Act Saturday for doing little to fight inflation and not enough to help Americans struggling to afford health care, child care and housing.  

“According to the [Congressional Budget Office] and other economic organizations that have studied this bill, it will have a minimal impact on inflation,” Sanders declared on the Senate floor to open debate on the 755-page bill, which will raise taxes on corporations, fight climate change and reduce some prescription drug costs.  

The line of criticism echoed what Senate Republicans have said for days in pointing to a Penn Wharton analysis concluding the bill will have a negligible impact on inflation.  

Sanders argued the Democratic bill falls far short of what is needed when Americans are growing increasingly disillusioned with government and a tiny fraction of wealthy individuals and families own a hugely disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth.  

He pointed to the lower standard of living many younger people know expect compared to their parents’ generation, the daunting cost of housing for people starting out in the work world and the stagnation of wages. 

“This legislation does not address any of their needs,” Sanders said. “This legislation does not address the reality that we have more income and wealth inequality today than at any time in the last hundred years.”  

He complained the bill doesn’t address the fact that CEOs of major corporations make 350 times as much as their workers, or do more to improve a health care system. 

“This bill does nothing to address the systemic dysfunctionality of the American health care system,” he charged. 

He also noted the bill “as currently written does nothing” to address the nation’s rate of childhood poverty, a pointed reference to Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) opposition to including an extension of the expanded child tax credit — which expired at the end of last year — in the bill.   

He said the bill also fails to address the nation’s affordable housing crisis.  

“Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that we face or build one unit of safe and affordable housing. Just another issue that we push aside,” he grumbled.  

But Sanders’s biggest complaint is legislation doesn’t give Medicare enough authority to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.  

He said “the good news” is the bill would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry but the “bad news” is the provision does not go into effect for four years, at which time only 10 drugs will be covered.  

“This provision will have no impact on the prices for Americans not on Medicare. Those prices will continue to rise uncontrollably,” he said.  

Sanders announced he will offer an amendment that would require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the Department of Veterans Affairs.  

He said that proposal would save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. 

In a floor speech Wednesday, he said he would use that money to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60 and extend Medicare benefits to cover vision, hearing and dental care.  

Sanders told reporters earlier Saturday that he plans to offer three other amendments to the bill related to prescription drugs and Medicare.  

One amendment would expand Medicare to provide dental, vision and hearing benefits, another would provide $30 billion to establish a Civilian Conservation Corps to combat climate change, and a fourth would expand the $300 per month Child Tax Credit for the next five years. 

His arguments, however, are largely falling flat with Democratic senators who say they won’t vote for any amendments that could jeopardize the support of Manchin and fellow centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).  

A Democratic senator said Schumer has urged colleagues not to offer amendments to the bill that could upset the carefully crafted compromise he reached with Manchin and Sinema after weeks of negotiation.  

One Democratic aide said Sanders’s insistence on voting on his amendments would delay final passage of the bill.  

But Schumer has limited leverage over Sanders, who as chairman of the Budget Committee, has the official role of managing the floor debate on the bill, which is being moved under special budgetary reconciliation rules to circumvent a GOP filibuster.  

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who played a major role in crafting the prescription drug compromise with Sinema, pushed back against Sanders’s criticism.  

He hailed it as a major victory because it would set an important precedent of empowering the government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry.  

“I think there is a reason big PhRMA is fighting this so hard. They know once you put negotiation into law, embedded into law, there will be no turning back. That’s what this all about,” he said, he referring to the pharmaceutical industry’s trade association. “This is a seismic shift between government and this lobby.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Harris breaks 50-50 deadlock to advance landmark climate, tax, health bill

The Senate voted along party lines Saturday afternoon to advance a sweeping bill to reform the tax code, tackle climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs, taking a big step closer to giving President Biden a major victory before the November midterm elections.  

The Senate voted 51 to 50 to proceed to the 755-page bill, after Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the Capitol to cast the tie-breaking vote. 

The vote puts the bill on a trajectory to pass the Senate sometime Sunday, barring an unexpected setback, such as the sudden absence of a Democratic senator.  

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) hailed the bill’s impending passage as a major achievement.  

“The time has come for the Senate to begin debate on this historic piece of legislation. The Inflation Reduction Act is a groundbreaking bill for the American people, for families struggling to pay the bills, for seniors struggling to pay for medication, for kids struggling with asthma,” Schumer said on the floor moments before the vote.  

“This is one of the most comprehensive and impactful bills Congress has seen in decades,” he declared promising it would reduce inflation, lower drug costs, fight climate change and close tax loopholes.  

The procedural vote sets up 20 hours of debate to be divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans followed by an open-ended series of amendment votes, known as a vote-a-rama.  

Members of both parties, however, predict they will yield most of the time back to move more quickly to considering amendments. 

Senate Republicans expect votes on between 40 and 50 amendments.  

A final vote will happen sometime Sunday. 

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued the legislation “will kill American jobs and hammer our manufacturing sector” and “have no meaningful impact on global temperatures whatsoever.”  

He warned that empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices will hurt research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.  

“The policy would bring about a world where many fewer drugs and treatments get invented in the first place,” he said. 

Republicans want to inflict as much political damage on vulnerable Democratic incumbents such Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Raphael Warnock (Ga.) by forcing votes on border security, domestic energy production, inflation and crime.  

Democrats have their own plan to force Republicans to take a tough vote on capping the out-of-pocket costs of insulin bills at $35 a month.  

They expect to challenge a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian against a provision sponsored by Warnock to cap insulin prices. Democrats say Republicans who vote to sustain an objection to the insulin provision are undermining an effort to fight inflation and help Americans with diabetes.  

The broader legislation will raise approximately $740 billion in revenue by implementing a 15 percent corporate minimum tax, empowering Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices and imposing a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks.  

The Senate voted Saturday to begin debate on the Inflation Reduction Act after receiving an updated analysis of the bill from the Congressional Budget Office. CBO estimates the bill will reduce the deficit by $100 billion over the next decade.  

Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who negotiated the bill, say it will shrink the deficit by more than $300 billion over ten years.  

The corporate minimum tax will raise $258 billion in revenue but will exempt full expensing deductions for businesses across all sectors — a change that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) negotiated with Schumer. 

Giving Medicare authority to negotiate lower drug prices is projected to save the government $288 billion over ten years and the excise tax on stock buybacks will raise $74 billion.  

Another $124 billion in revenue will come from improving operations at the IRS and beefing up enforcement of tax compliance.  

It would spend $369 billion on energy security and climate change programs estimated to reduce global warming emissions by 40 percent by 2030.  

It would provide money for consumer home energy rebates, grants to make affordable housing more energy efficient and tax credits to accelerate domestic manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.  

It would provide generous tax credits to buy new and used electric vehicles, though critics of the bill say those credits couldn’t be used immediately as they don’t apply to vehicles with batteries produced in China or dependent on Chinese minerals.  

It would extend expiring health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act another three years at a cost of $64 billion.  

A group of Senate Democrats worked Saturday afternoon to persuade Democratic colleagues to vote against supporting any amendments to the bill, as it could upset the delicate compromise negotiated by Schumer and the two centrists who held out for months: Manchin and Sinema. 

“I’m not voting for amendments. I’m trying to keep this bill clean and get it out of here. It’s too important.”  

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he plans to offer an amendment to dramatically expand Medicare’s authority to negotiate lower drug prices, which he says would raise $900 billion over ten years.  

He wants to use the money to expand Medicare by lowering the eligibility age to 60 and extending adding comprehensive dental, vision and hearing benefits.   

Source: TEST FEED1

Who’s the real loser in Pelosi’s Taiwan visit?

Defying China’s stark warnings and condemnation — and even the Pentagon’s opposition — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) boldly embarked on a two-day whirlwind visit to Taiwan where she vowed to protect the island country’s independence and democracy. 

Beijing has always considered Taiwan a rogue nation that still belongs to China.  

This was Pelosi’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” moment. She singlehandedly brought China to its knees — if only for a few days. 

But Pelosi’s swan song will come at a big price — not for her or the U.S., but for Taiwan. The thousands of small businesses there doing business with China will suffer immensely.

No doubt, China will put the hammer on the U.S as well. Expect harsh and sudden combative measures. Just this week, China sanctioned Pelosi and her family, and suspended or canceled future cooperation on such issues as climate control, maritime security, and communications between military leaders.  

And don’t discount that President Xi may step over President Biden’s “red line” by supplying Putin’s Ukraine invasion with badly needed drones, or he may cut off supply of rare earth minerals, pharmaceutical drugs and medical supplies to the U.S. After all, Pelosi stepped over Xi’s red line.

Ultimately, however, the world’s most powerful country will weather the storm. “There is not much Beijing can do to the U.S.,” said James Zimmerman, the four-time chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, “and any economic sanctions will only harm China’s own shrinking economy.”

On the other hand, Taiwan, an island nation just 13 times the size of Rhode Island, is too small, too nimble, and too economically dependent on China to withstand an economic cold war with Beijing.

Many China experts expected an all-out war, but why fire missiles when Beijing could just as easily destroy Taiwan with economic and trade weapons?

Kenneth Rapoza, a senior contributor to Forbes who has been following China since 2011, feels an economic war makes much more sense “because using trade as an attack will make it harder for the U.S. to counterattack. I have never heard of the U.S. going after another country because it imposed a tariff or trade ban.”

China is Taiwan’s largest trading partner accounting for 42 percent and 22 percent of Taiwan’s exports and imports, respectively, in 2021, totaling a whopping $270 billion.

Within 24 hours of Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, China’s Ministry of Commerce suspended the export of natural sand, a vital material for semiconductor production and construction, and halted the imports of citrus fruit and fish products. 

And that is only the tip of the iceberg. 

China could easily sanction or — worse — cease the thousands of Taiwanese companies operating factories in China, producing such products as auto parts, consumer electronics and industrial chemicals that are vital not only to Taiwan’s economy but to the world’s supply chains.

In a doomsday scenario, China could possibly sanction Taiwanese company Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer and the largest private employer in China, resulting in billions of dollars of lost revenue, thousands of Taiwanese jobs lost, and double-digit percentage losses on Taiwan’s annual GDP.

An earnest and unprecedented economic sanction from the mainland, “would be nothing short of devasting to Taiwan’s economy,” said Jack Gao, program economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. “The ripples would not only be felt in East and Southeast Asia, but in economies around the world.”

But doomsday scenarios are just that, and how many “end of the world” stories have come and past? Many. My biggest worry is for the thousands of small Taiwanese mom-and-pop factories operating in never-heard-of places in China like Zhongshan and Jinan that produce bland and boring items like spark plugs, bicycle spokes, and plastic-injected pencil boxes. It’s these no-name entrepreneurs who will suffer the wrath of China. It’s their China visas that will be canceled and revoked; it’s their factories that will be ceased and closed for “health and safety violations.” It’s their livelihoods that will die, and worst of all, no one will ever know about it. After all, mom-and-pop closures don’t make headlines.

China needs Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) more than Foxconn and TSMC need China. Just ask Huawei, the world’s largest supplier of telecommunications equipment and which contracts much of its cellphone and other telecommunications hardware manufacturing to Foxconn.

However, China doesn’t need older, often outdated, small mom-and-pop factories, especially ones owned Taiwanese. Just the opposite: Shutting these down would be a blessing for China. It would lower China’s green-house effects, put an end to low-tech industries that no longer serve the interests of the Communist Party, and ease some of China’s power shortages.

But China’s true agenda in closing Taiwanese factories will be to devastate Taiwan quietly, one-by-one via the thousands of mom-and-pops doing business with China that — in aggregate — would definitely cripple Taiwan economically.

Let’s not worry about China’s sanctions on Pelosi and her family. I don’t expect her to be touring the Great Wall any time soon anyway. And don’t fret about TSMC’s sand supplies; I haven’t heard of any worldwide shortages of sand lately.

I will, however, be thinking of my fisherman friend in Kaohsiung who, for the past 10 years, has been farming and exporting live grouper to China’s hundreds of restaurants in Hong Kong and southern China. Thanks to Pelosi’s visit, he soon may no longer be able to sell groupers to China, which more than likely would put him out of business.

Needless to say, my friend is no big fan of Nancy Pelosi.

Stanley Chao is managing director of All In Consulting, a Los Angeles-based firm which focuses on business development in China. He has worked in China and the Asia Pacific region for more than two decades and is the author of “Selling To China” (2012). Follow him on Twitter @stanleychao6.

Source: TEST FEED1

Read full text: Senate climate, tax bill grows to 755 pages, passes key CBO test

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Saturday unveiled the updated text of the Inflation Reduction Act, which now spans 755 pages after a late round of negotiations with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to protect manufacturers from tax increases and impose an excise tax on stock buybacks.  

Schumer’s office announced that the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed the bill meets the special reconciliation instructions laid out in a budget resolution passed last year, which means Democrats can pass it with a simple majority vote.  

The bill Schumer unveiled on July 27 after weeks of negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) stretched 725 pages.  

The Democratic leader made several changes to the bill over the past week to win over Sinema, who was left out of the final round of talks with Manchin.  

He agreed to remove a piece of the 15 percent corporate minimum tax to shield manufacturing companies from losing the ability to fully expense capital expenditures, a key provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  

He also agreed to drop a provision strongly favored by Manchin to close the carried interest loophole, which allows asset managers to pay a 20 percent capital gains tax rate on income earned from advising on profitable investments — a lower rate than many middle-income Americans pay.  

But Schumer made up for the lost revenue by adding an excise tax on stock buybacks that is expected to generate 74 billion over the next decade.  

Read the legislation the Senate is voting on below:

Source: TEST FEED1

Americans support the Collins and Manchin election reform legislation

The bipartisan legislation announced last month by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.), along with another eight Republicans and six Democrats, is a crucial step toward increasing trust in elections. The lack of faith in our election outcomes being voiced on both the left and right poses a serious threat to American self-government. Confidence that our representatives have been chosen by the voice of the people, as provided by our Constitution and laws, is the bedrock of the most successful republic in history.

Still, the path to passing the elections legislation in 2022 is fraught. Many believe the partisan divide in Congress is too great to be bridged, particularly with midterm elections in November and a busy congressional calendar.

A unique poll suggests surprising bipartisan consensus that Congress overcome the challenges to pass the proposed legislation. This poll is different than most because before answering, the more than 3,000 participants spent an hour or more reviewing a brief on election reforms that makes the strongest case for and against measures included in the bipartisan legislation. The participants are members of the CommonSense American program at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). They come from every state. About one quarter are Republicans, one quarter Democrats, and 45 percent independents.

The drafting of the brief our members reviewed itself defied the idea that bipartisan legislation is unrealistic. We consulted with a cross-partisan group of more than 30 leading elections experts to ensure that the brief was accurate and fairly represented competing perspectives. We were struck by how many proposals readily attract bipartisan expert support.

The bipartisan agreement among experts and everyday Americans is perhaps most striking for updates to the Electoral Count Act (ECA) at the center of bipartisan package. The ECA directs how and when states certify and send the results of the presidential election to Congress. It also establishes how Congress counts the electoral votes and resolves disputes. Passed by Congress in 1887, the ECA’s tortured, archaic language is challenging to interpret and apply to current circumstances. The attempts by both parties to manipulate its imperfections have been rising over the last 20 years. Beginning with the 2000 presidential election, congressional Democrats have exploited the ECA to object to the last three Republican presidential wins. President Trump and some of his Republican allies then escalated ECA exploitation dramatically in 2020.

The intensifying attempts to challenge the results of presidential elections have convinced many Republican and Democratic members of Congress, scholars, and election experts that the law governing the counting of electoral votes must be updated. The threat also convinces everyday Americans. For example, an overwhelming 90 percent of CommonSense American members who reviewed the brief support making the existing language even more explicit that the vice president’s responsibilities are ceremonial with no authority to reject or delay the counting of a state’s electoral votes.

Equally remarkable, we find that both parties dramatically underestimate the other party’s support. Democratic members of CommonSense American think only 41 percent of Republican members support clarifying the vice president’s role. In fact, at 81 percent the level of actual Republican support is nearly twice what Democrats think. Similarly, Republican members think that 67 percent of Democratic members support it, when 98 percent actually do.

There is also strong cross-partisan support among experts and everyday Americans for the other proposed ECA reforms. For example, our members agreed with experts on each of the following:

• 80 percent support clarifying existing ECA language that Congress must honor courts’ rulings in ECA disputes.
• 80 percent support clarifying that a state legislature must abide by the election laws it had in place on Election Day unless there has been a major natural disaster or similarly catastrophic event.
• 75 percent support raising the threshold for objections from one senator and one representative to one-quarter of each chamber.

As with the bipartisan Senate group and elections experts, the bipartisan support does not stop with ECA updates. For example, our poll finds:

• 81 percent support for enhancing the federal criminal penalties for threatening election workers.
• 68 percent support sharing full transition resources with both candidates if there is a delay determining the winner of the presidential contest.

As challenging as bipartisan action is in our bitterly partisan times with hotly contested midterm elections fast approaching, few issues attract greater bipartisan support than commonsense election reforms. As crowded as the congressional calendar is, no issue is more fundamental than increasing trust in elections. With the stakes so high and the support so broad, Congress should act and act now to build confidence in the elections that define ours as a system by, for, and of the people.

Keith Allred is the Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD) and a former professor of negotiation and conflict resolution at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate Democrats form pact to protect climate, tax bill from changes

A group of Senate Democrats is planning to vote down all proposed amendments to their ambitious climate, taxes and health care bill during Saturday’s marathon session, hoping to preserve the bill’s chances of passing.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told The Hill on Saturday that “a large number” of Democrats have signed on to the strategy of defeating all amendments at Saturday’s vote-a-rama.

The purpose of the plan, according to Booker, is to prevent any changes that could tank the legislation. 

“We don’t want to compromise the final bill passage,” the New Jersey Democrat said, adding “We should stick together.”

“So there’s a large number of us and a growing number of us that are gonna do everything we can to defend the most historic bill in American history on climate change, the most significant bill in my lifetime for prescription drug costs and an incredible bill that’s gonna help more overall energy and health care costs for Americans,” he continued.

The Senate will hold a vote-a-rama on an open-ended series of amendments before taking a final vote on the 755-page bill. It’s part of the chamber’s budget reconciliation package that allows the majority party to pass major legislation with only 51 votes, thereby circumventing a filibuster. 

Democrats are using this special process to pass their climate, tax and health care package, titled the Inflation Reduction Act. It contains a number of provisions central to President Biden’s domestic agenda.

Senators are allowed to offer as many amendments as they want during the vote-a-rama. 

Republicans see it as a chance to put forward last-minute amendments and force their colleagues to take tough votes. They are expected to propose hundreds of changes though fewer than 50 are expected to get votes on the floor.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he plans to offer four amendments, including proposals to expand Medicare and to give the government significantly more power to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. He is frustrated that the prescription drug language in the budget bill will cover only 20 drugs and won’t begin to go into effect until 2026. 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is urging against proposing amendments to the bill, according to a Democratic senator who spoke to The Hill on condition of anonymity. 

Those amendments will put Democratic colleagues into a tough position. It will force them to choose between proposals that are popular with their base and Schumer’s strategy of keeping the compromise he struck with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) intact. Any changes to the bill could imperil final passage, Schumer and other Democrats worry. 

Booker said he is aware of some colleagues “trying to talk” to Sanders to warn him that nothing will be gained from forcing votes on his amendments.

“That could create this kind of dem-on-dem violence where we are not only imperiling the bill but also putting other members in tough positions, that if they stick with the team that wants to try to push all amendments away that could put them into a position where somehow they’re attacked by people that think that they were doing something that was not, something that was counter to that,” he said.

The New Jersey Democrat noted that even though he and his colleagues may agree with the measures put forward, they plan to oppose them to protect the bill’s chances of passing.

“There will be a lot of things that come up tonight that many of us passionately agree on. I heard somebody might file a bill on the child tax credit. Well me, [Sens. Sherrod Brown (R-Ohio) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.], we’ve been leading that for years. And Brown, Bennett and I are gonna have to vote against something we believe in,” he said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who vowed to “evaluate amendments individuals,” said he is “likely to be” against all revisions — even if he agrees with the substance of the change.

“I am deeply and strongly inclined to preserve this bill as it is because it is so consequential and we need, at the end of the day, to maintain unity,” he told The Hill.

“So as much as I may sympathize with a lot of the goals of amendments and would vote for those measures independently of this bill, I think this measure is so immensely consequential that it should be preserved,” he added.

Asked about Sanders’ amendments, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he plans to vote against all changes brought to the floor, adding “I’m trying to keep this bill clean and get it out of here. It’s too important.”

Pressed on if there’s an agreement among Democrats to stay unified on amendments, the No. 2 Senate Democrat said “There are some who have some ideas we’re trying to discourage.”

Asked about conversations between Schumer and Sanders, a Democratic senator told The Hill “I’d be surprised if they weren’t taking place.”

Alex Bolton contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Five signs progressives are in danger of losing influence

Progressives finally got some relief after moderate Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) agreed to back Democrats’ expansive economic and climate legislation this week. And while the uproar over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade also helps their cause, as indicated by a recent rejection of further restrictions in Kansas, their road to success has been rocky. 

Left-wing Democrats have suffered major losses at the ballot box, seen endorsements from their biggest stars lose their oomph and are still struggling to find a suitable successor to lead their movement in the future. 

Here are five signs that progressives may be losing influence.

Defeats continue to pile up

Progressives endured two major blows this week from primaries that could have given them a much-needed boost of momentum just a few months away from the midterms. Instead, they again came up short, giving moderates more cause for their case that voters prefer a middle-ground approach, particularly in the battleground Midwest.

The biggest ousting came when Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a pro-union powerhouse in the lower chamber, lost his reelection to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in a redrawn district that pitted the two incumbents against each other for the first time. 

Progressives took the loss particularly hard. 

“This defeat is painful,” said Leah Greenberg, a leading activist who co-founded the group Indivisible. “Not simply because of the grit and conviction Andy Levin brings to Congress as a progressive champion, but because it is a deeply troubling demonstration of how dark money from conservative billionaires can manipulate our broken political system.”

Liberals also saw one of their most promising rising stars, Lucas Kunce, a young Marine veteran, lose to moderate Trudy Busch Valentine in the Missouri Senate primary. Valentine was seen as the establishment’s choice to head into the general election, and narrowly won the majority of the votes.

Endorsements fall flat

When progressive heavyweights like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) back a down-ballot race, it’s supposed to help move the needle, at least in theory. Conventional political wisdom says that endorsements alone don’t usually sway voters, but they can provide a helpful stamp of approval in close contests. Look no further than Majority Whip James Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) famous hat tip to Biden during the 2020 presidential primary.

Leading up to November, however, lesser-known contenders have seen the backing of top progressive figures fail to nudge voters in their direction, raising questions about whether their name ID still carries the weight it once did.

In several races that have garnered national attention — from Ohio and Michigan to Missouri – Sanders, Warren and Ocasio-Cortez have offered support to progressives over moderate rivals, at times physically showing up to stump on their behalf. Sanders and Warren both campaigned for Levin in Michigan, while Ocasio-Cortez gave a last-minute backing to former Ohio House candidate Nina Turner, who lost to Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) earlier in the off-cycle. 

The trio did endorse two candidates who have had better success: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) won his primary against centrist Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) and progressive Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes is heading into a race against GOP Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in one of the most highly anticipated contents of the cycle. But their mixed track record raises an element of doubt that they can help push progressives across the finish line. 

Outspent and outmaneuvered 

Progressives have complained about the outsized influence they believe special interest groups and committees have had throughout this cycle. They see one ideologically aligned political organization in particular – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – as meddling with intraparty races by spending heavily to preserve moderate seats or elect new members of their flank to Congress.  

The group’s strategy has been effective in places like Ohio and Michigan’s respective 11th Congressional Districts. Sanders, who is Jewish, has publicly railed against the group. In a May interview with The New York Times, the Vermont Independent went as far as to call it “a war for the future of the Democratic Party.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Majority for Israel PAC celebrated another win this week in Stevens’s victory against Levin, who is also Jewish.

“Democratic voters in three states elected six DMFI PAC endorsees to fight for them in November, bringing our winning record to 85 percent of the races in which we’ve endorsed this cycle,” said Mark Mellman, the group’s chairman.

Redistricting woes

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) current chairman, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), is running in a redrawn New York district that has placed him in a primary battle against Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), a Black progressive seen as a new leader within the party and particularly for the left.  

Maloney’s prior district was more of a toss-up than the solidly blue one that Jones currently represents.

To many progressives, the move was indicative of a problem they fear will only get worse each cycle. As the redistricting process continues, it will naturally pit centrists and liberals against each other, with the former having the upper hand and institutional support. 

“The DCCC has seemingly decided to focus on kneecapping popular progressive candidates instead of taking their fight to the Republicans,” said Max Burns, a Democratic strategist working on midterm races, including in New York. 

Another Black progressive, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), the first male member of the “Squad,” is mired in a primary challenge in the state’s 16th Congressional District against moderate Vedat Gashi, who is being supported by the former lawmaker whom Bowman ousted: former Rep. Eliot Engel. 

Progressive campaign operatives and those close to Bowman view the challenge and aligned endorsement as tit for tat, rather than expressing a substantive difference over policy or ideology.

“The electoral map is no friend to progressives,” said Michael Starr Hopkins, another Democratic strategist and campaign operative who has been outspoken about Democrats’ electoral problems. “Progressives are being forced to defend seats that they weren’t expecting to defend.” 

No natural successor for 2024

Despite the growing desire for an alternative to another Biden term, progressives are uncertain about who that might be. A growing tally of lawmakers who have been asked about their political aspirations have said they won’t seek the presidency, but nearly just as many have hedged about whether they think Biden should run again. He’s said he will, and his aides remain outwardly confident in his decision. 

But the predicament has placed a spotlight on progressives, who are already skeptical of Biden and view him as deeply unpopular. They also desperately want Democrats to move major legislation over the next three months.

The party got a flicker of hope on Thursday night, when Sinema agreed to back the president’s biggest legislative package. Some progressives argue they need to pass that, while still push for even more of his campaign pledges, instead of speculating about who could take him on.

“I think progressives are burning good energy speculating about 2024 and replacing Biden,” said Burns. “If he chooses not to run, that’s one thing, but the loose talk about primarying him is politically tone deaf and, honestly, counterproductive to our broader progressive goals.”

Source: TEST FEED1

US strategic advantage depends upon addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities of weapon systems

Russia’s war with Ukraine is an act of ruthless ambition exemplifying the commitment of President Vladimir Putin to achieve “victory” at all costs. The motions of a hybrid war are in swing, as we witness the fusion of conventional and unconventional tools of conflict on the battlefield. Russian state-backed actors have employed cyber operations to disrupt, degrade, and deny Ukrainian infrastructure, including its power grid, transportation networks, and satellite communications. Encoded in Russian cyber doctrine is the reliance on asymmetric tactics to create parity with, or gain advantage over, adversaries. As the conflict fans wider and deeper, U.S. defenders and policymakers must consider additional nonconventional capabilities Russia may implement to gain battlefield advantage. One such possibility is the use of cyberattacks against modern Western weapon systems.

Many weapons systems are built upon technologies that carry inherent digital vulnerabilities, making them susceptible to cyberattack. As the possibility of a miscalculation that results in a NATO/Russia confrontation increases, so does the risk of exposure of such digital weaknesses.

Power to create improvements in weapon system cybersecurity exists within the U.S. Congress; however, with each passing fiscal year, policymakers lose opportunity to buy down the fiscal burden of remediation. Known digital vulnerabilities in Joint Force weapon systems introduce unintended and unrealized risk from technologically advanced adversaries, and Congress has the opportunity to address them in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023.

Battlefield within weapons systems

The seminal 2018 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, “Weapon Systems Cybersecurity: DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Vulnerabilities” represents an inflection point. The report revealed mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities in nearly all developmental and prototyped Department of Defense weapon systems. Declassified examples aren’t rare:

• A 2021 briefing from the DOD Inspector General revealed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in a B-2 Spirit Bomber, guided missile, missile warning system, and tactical radio system. 

• The 2018 annual report from the Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation found legacy variants of the Infantry Carrier Vehicle are susceptible to cyberattack in contested environments.

• A 2021 GAO report demonstrated the ease with which an adversary could compromise and assume control of weapon system platforms, undetected.

There are a number of challenges that make weapon systems difficult to secure. Supply chain disruptions, and compatibility and maintenance supportability of systems with decades-long lifecycles are some. The modernization of legacy weapon system technology with bolt-on information technology (IT) and operational technologies (OT) is another. OT components control the most sensitive functions of aircraft, ground combat vehicles, and artillery, like engine and transmission controllers and braking systems. Converged OT and IT are under-secured, creating opportunities for adversaries to penetrate critical environments, move laterally across defense networks, and wreak havoc on operations.

National Cyber Director Chris Inglis recently said enhanced scrutiny must be applied to OT as “critical functions depend upon that to an even greater degree than they do upon general-purpose IT.”

Awareness into action

Beginning with the FY 2016 NDAA, Congress has directed multiple reports aimed at scoping the extent of digital vulnerabilities of DOD weapon systems; however, it has failed to assign accountability measures or appropriate commensurate funding to remediate them.

There are several instances of congressional efforts to drive awareness. The House Armed Services Future of Defense Task Force issued a 2020 report concluding the volume of vulnerabilities within weapon systems, compared to the threat from adversaries, presents a national security risk. The 2020 Cyberspace Solarium Commission legislative proposal recommended DOD assess and address cyber vulnerabilities of weapon systems annually.

This year, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and Chief Technology Officer for the DOD released a memo unveiling a National Defense Science and Technology Strategy to strengthen U.S. military technology.

Notably, a 2022 letter from a bipartisan group of House Armed Services Committee (HASC) members commended the Department for efforts to ensure new weapon systems are developed with OT vulnerabilities in mind, reiterating the need for further work to address weaknesses in systems.

Other steps to take

U.S. Representative Jim Langevin, outgoing Chairman for HASC’s Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems (CITI) subcommittee recently stated, it’s time to move “from admiring the problem of cybersecurity to providing actionable solutions.”

There are promising homegrown initiatives emerging across the DOD, commercial providers developing innovative technologies, and ongoing military training to enable weapon system operators. For instance, this years’ Emerald Warrior exercise simulated cyberattacks within aircraft operations for the first time.

Such initiatives are important, but more is needed from the 2023 NDAA.

Expand existing programs: Given the evolving threat landscape and OT commonality among platforms, DOD should expand programs to cover a wider range of systems and establish plans to address cybersecurity vulnerabilities on older systems. At the core of these plans should be robust monitoring and discovery programs.

Include remediation upfront: Congress should approve language for inclusion in the NDAA around remediation for cyber incidents, and finalization of commercial technology maturation and expansion into DOD programs and weapon systems.

Create a baseline: Congress should include language directing the DOD to address serial data network vulnerabilities, certify a baseline to track technological improvements, and build upon efforts to reduce cybersecurity risk.

Accountability measures: Codify mechanisms to assess progress against legislative and policy requirements. Such efforts would hold DOD responsible for ensuring the security and readiness of Joint Force Weapon Systems.

Russia’s willingness to engage in Ukraine, coupled with the potential for miscalculation on the battlefield that draws in NATO, increases the urgency by which Congress and the DOD should secure weapon systems from cyberattack.

Few would argue that maintaining control of weapons systems is a national security imperative to address immediately. Congress and the DOD should work diligently and quickly to require, fund, and deploy cyber security solutions that protect U.S. weapon systems as soon as possible.

Whether a B-52 or Stryker, fully remediating legacy and modern weapons systems across the Joint Force requires investment today to ensure U.S. and NATO maintain a strategic advantage if called upon to perform operations tomorrow.

Alexander Gates is the chief research officer at OT cybersecurity firm Shift5. He previously had a 40-year career serving at some of the highest levels of U.S. national security in the areas of cyber threat, signals intelligence, research, and information assurance. He served in the U.S. Air Force; led cyber initiatives at the NSA, including standing up its Threat Operations Center; and as a former Senior Advisor for Cyberspace at the U.S. Department of Energy, he led intelligence-driven initiatives to secure the nation’s electric grid. Gates has also represented the NSA and DOE at the White House and Pentagon, and before congressional committees.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump wins CPAC straw poll with more than two-thirds of the vote

Former President Trump won a comfortable majority of the vote in the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) straw poll, maintaining his position as the favorite for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. 

Organizers announced at CPAC’s convention in Texas that Trump won 69 percent of the vote, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) with 24 percent. Trump expanded his lead from the last CPAC straw poll in February, when he received the support of 59 percent of voting attendees to DeSantis’ 28 percent. 

This story is developing

Source: TEST FEED1