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Russian foreign minister Lavrov says Kremlin 'ready to discuss' Griner prisoner swap

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday in Cambodia that the Kremlin is “ready to discuss” a prisoner swap for U.S. WNBA star Brittney Griner.

The Russian government is “ready to discuss the topic, but within the framework of the channel that has been agreed by the presidents,” Lavrov said according to CNN.

“There is a specified channel that has been agreed upon by [Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden], and no matter what anyone says publicly, this channel will remain in effect,” Lavrov said at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken followed up on Lavrov’s comment at the same summit, CNN reported, saying that the U.S. will continue to pursue discussions with Russia.

“We put forward, as you know, a substantial proposal that Russia should engage with us on. And what Foreign Minister Lavrov said this morning and said publicly is that they are prepared to engage through channels we’ve established to do just that. And we’ll be pursuing that,” he said.

Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison on Thursday after spending months in detention for carrying an illegal substance through airport security in the country.

“Today, American citizen Brittney Griner received a prison sentence that is one more reminder of what the world already knew: Russia is wrongfully detaining Brittney,” said President Joe Biden after learning of the sentence.

The ruling “puts a spotlight on [Washington’s] very significant concern with Russia’s legal system and the Russian government’s use of wrongful detentions to advance its own agenda using individuals as political pawns,” said Blinken according to CNN.

“The same goes for Paul Whelan,” he added.

Former U.S. Marine Whelan has been in captivity in Russia since 2018 and has received more attention after Griner’s detention in the country.

David Whelan, Paul Whelan’s brother, told The Hill that it will be “really hard” if his sibling is excluded from a deal freeing Griner.

“If Paul is left behind again it will be really hard, and yet we realize that Ms. Griner’s case is a different case and it’s a different person and it’s a different family, and the U.S. government has to deal with each of these cases one by one,” David Whelan said on Tuesday.

Source: TEST FEED1

Economy adds whopping 528K jobs in July, shatters expectations

The U.S. added 528,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 in July, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department, a stunning gain that defied predictions of a slowdown.

Economists expected the U.S. to have added roughly 250,000 jobs in July and keep the jobless rate at 3.6 percent, according to consensus estimates released before the report.

But the economy added more than double the number of jobs experts predicted, even as consumer confidence plunged and gross domestic product shrank over the first half of the year. The jobless rate also returned last month to its pre-pandemic level of 3.5 percent, which in February 2020 set a 50-year low for unemployment.

The stunning July jobs gain will raise questions about how close U.S. economy actually is to a recession after months of growing concern over a sharp slowdown. The resilience of the labor market also means the Federal Reserve may have more room—or at least feel more pressure—to rapidly raise interest rates and fight inflation without fears of triggering steep job losses.

“If you thought the economy was in a recession, you were wrong. Demand for workers skyrocketed in July, far exceeding expectations. Paired with falling gas prices, the economic outlook for the third quarter starts looking better,” wrote John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult, in a Friday analysis.

“Today’s numbers also increase the likelihood of more aggressive rate hikes by the Fed as it tries to tame inflation, and downside risks remain elevated later in the year.”

Updated at 8:53 a.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Whistleblowers are essential to Inflation Reduction Act climate efforts

Oftentimes, politics in Washington can start to feel predictable. But for those who care about addressing climate change, last week the Senate produced an unexpected bombshell worthy of a season finale. After declaring that there was no deal to be had on tax reform and climate change, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced that he had reached a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on a blockbuster reconciliation package to invest in climate change and clean energy solutions, lower health care costs and reduce the deficit.

Especially after the Supreme Court limited the (Environmental Protection Agency) EPA’s ability to effectively regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector, signaling its general skepticism of ambitious regulatory action even when that’s what Congress intended, the spending power is now an essential plank of reversing the effects of climate change. But wherever public funds are invested, some will try to take advantage, engaging in waste, fraud and abuse that hurts the taxpayers and blunts the effectiveness of important programs.

Under the False Claims Act (FCA), it is illegal to, among other things, knowingly present a false claim to the government for payment or approval. These frauds can be reported in a confidential complaint to the Department of Justice by a whistleblower. Whistleblowers can be traditional insiders, but they need not be affiliated with the fraudster, for example a competitor.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, if passed, will include a variety of new investments and incentives to combat climate change. To ensure that the significant investments announced in this deal have the most impact, the government, aided by whistleblowers through the False Claims Act and other whistleblower programs, will need to ensure that those who abuse these programs are held to account.

Some components of the bill may be especially vulnerable, but also squarely covered by the False Claims Act, giving the government and whistleblowers a path to stopping the wrongdoing. First, the bill includes rebates and tax credits focused on consumer energy consumption. According to the Senate Democratic leadership summary of the bill’s climate provisions, $9 billion is invested in “consumer home energy rebate programs, focused on low-income consumers, to electrify home appliances and for energy efficient retrofits.” Another $1 billion is dedicated to “mak[ing] affordable housing more energy efficient.”

Similar green energy home renovation programs, like the property assessed clean energy (PACE) program created under the Obama administration, attracted predatory and fraudulent participants, as laid out in a segment of John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight.” In addition, even if contractors use energy-saving materials, they may cut corners in how they use them, resulting in little or no benefit to carbon emissions or consumer cost. The focus on low-income households and disadvantaged communities is essential but may exacerbate the attraction of bad actors. False claims to obtain the rebates directly or causing consumers to falsely claim them could be addressed through the False Claims Act.

Second, the bill includes billions of dollars in grants and new penalties to encourage emissions reduction from large industrial emitters, as well as methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. Falsely claiming or overstating emissions reduction or the environmental friendliness of business operations is already a frequent problem in a variety of markets, so much so that it is commonly referred to as greenwashing. Misrepresentations to the federal government about emissions reductions or “clean” products have already been used as the basis for False Claims Act liability. And the Biden administration had already signaled that environmental compliance issues would become an enforcement priority through, among other things, the FCA.

Third, the bill creates and funds a $27 billion “Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator,” which is colloquially referred to as the “Green Bank.” The focus of the Green Bank will be “leverag[ing] public and private funds to invest in clean energy technologies and infrastructure.” As we have learned from programs like the Paycheck Protection Program created to support small businesses during the pandemic, fraudsters tend to be attracted to well-funded and new federal lending programs. The Green Bank will be no different. Appropriate safeguards, oversight and accountability are essential to ensure that wrongfully obtained funds are returned and the wrongdoers held accountable.

Finally, the bill includes at least $6 billion in new money to fund environmental justice and equity-focused grant programs intended to empower disadvantaged communities in addressing climate change, clean transportation and other environmental justice issues. In addition to potentially the same wrongdoing described above, these grant programs are likely to include certain equity-focused requirements similar to minority business enterprise (MBE) or disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) requirements in other government programs that try to improve historically disenfranchised communities’ ability to access lucrative government contracts and grants. All too often, these requirements are abused by firms that pretend to be, for example, owned by qualifying ethnic minority individuals when they are not. This sort of fraud violates the False Claims Act.

Now that Congress is so close to enacting what Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) has called “the most significant action we’ve taken on climate, that we will take on climate and clean energy, ever,” we must ensure that these historic investments are protected and their return maximized. Whistleblowers who know of wrongdoing that causes fraud, waste and abuse in these programs will not only be doing the right thing to protect taxpayer dollars. They will also be helping to combat climate change.

Max Rodriguez is an attorney at Pollock Cohen LLP. Rodriguez represents individuals and entities in False Claims Act and other whistleblower matters, complex litigation, appeals and impact litigation. Rodriguez was the primary author of an amicus brief on behalf of 192 Members of Congress to the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA.

Source: TEST FEED1

Far-right mayor wins GOP primary for Nashville US House seat

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Andy Ogles, a far-right county mayor, won Tennessee’s crowded Republican primary on Thursday in a reconfigured congressional district in left-leaning Nashville that the party is hoping to flip in November. In a warning ahead of the general election, he said, “Liberals, we’re coming for you.”

Ogles, the Maury County mayor and onetime leader of the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity’s state chapter, emerged among nine candidates after a hard-fought primary for the state’s 5th Congressional District. The seat drew heavy interest from Republicans after GOP state lawmakers carved Nashville into three districts, leading incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper to announce his retirement.

“We’re at war. This is a political war, a cultural war, and it’s a spiritual war,” Ogles said in his victory speech. “And as we go forward, we’ve got to get back to honoring God and country.”

Ogles will face Democratic state Sen. Heidi Campbell in November. The new district favored Donald Trump over Joe Biden by 12 percentage points in 2020.

Voters in Tennessee’s primary elections also cast ballots for a Democratic gubernatorial nominee to take on Republican Gov. Bill Lee in November. The Democratic primary remained too early to call Friday morning between Nashville physician Jason Martin and Memphis City Councilman JB Smiley Jr.

Smiley would be the state’s first Black nominee for governor. Martin, a political newcomer, said he was spurred to run by Lee’s hands-off response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lee will have a strong advantage in November in a state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2006. He defeated a Democratic opponent by 21 percentage points in 2018.

In the congressional race, Ogles scored Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s endorsement and overcame a fundraising advantage from his top opponents, former Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell and retired Tennessee National Guard Brig. Gen. Kurt Winstead. He also benefited the most from third-party groups, which ran TV ads touting his opposition to COVID-19 mandates and dragging down his opponents as insufficiently conservative.

Ogles described the GOP primary as “establishment versus the conservative wing of the party,” saying voters were getting a “true conservative” in his nomination. He didn’t shy from inflammatory comments during his victory speech, calling for the impeachment of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as treason charges against the Department of Homeland Security secretary over the administration’s handling of immigration issues.

Campbell, who was unopposed in her Democratic primary, said the race was “symbolic of the crossroads” the country finds itself at.

“One where we move forward together, protecting working families, our freedoms, and future — or one where extreme politicians turn us backward, controlling our lives and ruling for the wealthy few,” she said before the GOP primary was called for Ogles.

Redrawn congressional districts helped put Tennessee among the states where Republicans hope to flip a seat in a push to reclaim control of the U.S. House. Tennessee held the only statewide elections in the nation Thursday.

In the other two Nashville-area districts, the Republican incumbents didn’t have primary opponents. The new maps weight their districts in their favor.

In the new 6th District, which includes more of the city, Republican U.S. Rep. John Rose brings a huge fundraising edge into a general election against Democrat Randal Cooper, who defeated a primary opponent. Over in the new 7th District, Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green ran unopposed and will face Democrat Odessa Kelly, who also didn’t face an opponent.

But at least in Nashville, anyone who turned on a TV was more likely to see ads for a Republican running for the 5th Congressional District than a candidate for anything else.

The election marked the first time voters get a say over a seat that had been subject to months of Republican political brokering.

Political infighting over the carefully crafted district — it meanders through six counties — led the state Republican Party to boot three candidates off the ballot, including Trump’s pick, former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus. One of the booted candidates, video producer Robby Starbuck, was attempting a write-in campaign.

One local contest stood out Thursday.

In the Shelby County district attorney’s race, Democratic challenger Steve Mulroy was leading incumbent Republican Amy Weirich, who drew national attention when she prosecuted Pamela Moses, a Black woman, for registering to vote erroneously, resulting in a six-year prison sentence that was later discarded. Weirich has been criticized for failing to say outright whether she will or won’t prosecute doctors who perform abortions. Mulroy said he would make abortion prosecutions “extremely low priority.”

Gov. Lee, meanwhile, is the first to avoid a primary challenge since Democratic Gov. Ned McWherter in 1990, said Tennessee legislative historian Eddie Weeks.

Weeks said he could not find an African American nominee for governor, Democrat or Republican, in state history. Yet, he noted that in 1876, William Yardley, an African American Knoxville official later elected to the county court, ran as an independent when the Republican Party declined to nominate a candidate for governor. Democratic Gov. James Davis Porter won reelection that year.

Tennessee had a Black Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate as recently as 2020.

Source: TEST FEED1

China sanctions Pelosi over Taiwan trip: 'Egregious provocation'

China on Friday imposed sanctions on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) following her visit to Taiwan, with the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs calling the trip a “gross interference” and an “egregious provocation.”

Pelosi arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday after days of speculation about whether she would make the trip to the self-governing island and potentially intensify tensions with China, which does not recognize Taiwan as being an independent nation. Rather, Beijing views the island as a territory that will eventually be reunified with China.

“In disregard of China’s grave concerns and firm opposition, Speaker of the U.S . House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi insisted on visiting China’s Taiwan region. This constitutes a gross interference in China’s internal affairs. It gravely undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, seriously tramples on the one-China principle, and severely threatens peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a China foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

“In response to Pelosi’s egregious provocation, China decides to adopt sanctions on Pelosi and her immediate family members in accordance with relevant laws of the People’s Republic of China,” the statement concluded.

The sanctions follow a warning from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian last month, who said that Pelosi visiting Taiwan would “seriously violate” the “one China” policy, in which the U.S. recognizes Beijing’s view that there is only one Chinese government. Lijian also noted that China will take strong and resolute measures to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity” if Pelosi made the decision to go to Taiwan.

Some members of the Biden administration were also opposed to Pelosi visiting Taiwan, with President Biden telling reporters last month that the U.S. military “thinks it’s not a good idea right now.”

Pelosi explained in an op-ed published in The Washington Post shortly after she landed on the self-governing island why she made the decision to visit Taiwan.

“In the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) accelerating aggression, our congressional delegation’s visit should be seen as an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom,” Pelosi wrote.

The speaker of the house is now the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to Taiwan since 1997, when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) visited the island.

Source: TEST FEED1

The one thing Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit achieved

Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to Taiwan has demonstrated one thing beyond question: The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is a strategic genius — perhaps on par with Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and far exceeding that other strategic genius of the moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin. In one bold stroke, she has goaded Beijing into seriously overplaying its hand, baiting it into over-reacting to a more-or-less routine diplomatic gesture and so accelerating and amplifying the counterbalancing dynamics already at play in the region.

The result: The crystallization of an anti-hegemonic coalition in the Western Pacific that will effectively contain Chinese expansionism for decades to come.

I jest, of course. Nancy Pelosi is no strategic genius; Beijing has by no means overplayed its hand; and the speaker’s visit to Taiwan will have no such salutary impact on the regional balance of power. But her visit was consequential nevertheless; for at this pivotal moment in world affairs, it raises a crucially important question: How should the United States manage the complex and always-fraught three-way relationship between Beijing, Taipei and Washington?   

Historically, there have been three discrete answers to this question, each shaped by the overarching geopolitical context of the moment.

The first of these answers crystalized during the early years of the Cold War. During that era – defined fundamentally by two antagonistic ideological blocs competing for supremacy in a rapidly decolonizing world – Washington recognized the anti-communist Kuomintang regime that had been forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan as the legitimate government of all of China. The relative weakness of the newly established People’s Republic of China (PRC), its alliance with the Soviet Union and the imperatives of the United States’s strategy of containment all inclined and enabled Washington to adopt a policy of robust support for Taiwan.

Diplomatically, this took the form of recognizing the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) as encompassing all of the mainland and supporting its claim to China’s seat on the United Nations Security Council. Militarily, this support took the form of garrisoning the island with several thousand U.S. troops and deploying the U.S. Navy to patrol the Taiwan Strait, and even implicitly covering it with the American nuclear umbrella.

During the second half of the Cold War, both the global geopolitical context and Washington’s Taiwan policy changed dramatically. Geopolitically, rising Sino-Soviet tensions through the 1960s eventually resulted in Beijing leaving the Soviet bloc and siding (more or less) with the United States within the still-bipolar international order, shifting the global balance of power in favor of the West.

Diplomatically, this inclined and enabled Washington to downgrade its relationship with Taiwan. Perceiving the need to lock in its new strategic relationship with the PRC, in 1979 the United States shifted its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, withdrew its troops from the island and adopted a more ambiguous policy of “strategic ambiguity,” according to which Washington was not formally committed to defend Taiwan against China but was nevertheless committed “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character” and “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”

And then, during the post-Cold War period of Pax Americana, the advent of a new unipolar order dominated by the United States converged with liberalizing reforms within the PRC to push the issue of Taiwan to the back burner. In the new era of neoliberal globalization and American military primacy, mutually beneficial economic relations between Taiwan and the PRC expanded dramatically, and fears that Beijing would use military force to “reincorporate” the island into its fold largely evaporated, especially after the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1996 subsided.

This inclined and enabled Washington to continue to adhere to its policy of strategic ambiguity, which continued to work because it was reflective of, and consistent with, both the balance of power on the global stage and the constellation of interests at play within the Beijing-Taipei-Washington relationship. 

In all three of these historical cases, the United States crafted a Taiwan policy that was consistent with the logic of the then-prevailing international order. The result: Taiwan was secured, broader U.S. interests in the region and around the world advanced and – not trivially – major war was avoided.

Now, however, we have entered a radically different geopolitical moment — one that renders all previous answers to the Taiwan question moot. Both the Cold War and the post-Cold War unipolar moment have come and gone. In their place has crystallized a new international order — one that is defined by a more multipolar distribution of power, by the terminal demise of the institutional operating system built by the U.S. in 1945 and coming fully into its own with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, and by the definitive end of the “end of history” fairytale — the utopian delusion that in the aftermath of the Cold War the world had entered a time in which wars of conquest would be no more.

In this new geopolitical world, the U.S. can’t simply deploy troops to Taiwan to secure the island as it did early in the Cold War. Nor can it count on Chinese military weakness and its inability to carry out a cross-strait amphibious assault — if Beijing doesn’t already have that capability, it soon will. Nor, finally, can it count on China’s leaders eschewing military action (invasion or blockade) in the interests of further integrating itself into the U.S.-dominated liberal international economic order.

While that was once China’s overriding interest, those days are long past. In short, in this new geopolitical moment, Washington cannot fall back on its old playbook for managing its relationship with Taiwan and the PRC. The rules have changed, and the relative abilities of the players have shifted to the point where that playbook is simply irrelevant. 

And that brings us back to Mrs. Pelosi’s brief stopover in Taipei. If her decision to visit Taiwan, and all the storm and fury that surrounded it, can be said to have achieved anything, it is that it has raised once again the question of how the United States should answer the Taiwan question. It is worth recalling that Washington has answered this question correctly on three previous occasions, each time prudently trimming its policy sails to the then-prevailing geopolitical winds.

The challenge now is to gauge those winds anew and once again trim the sails of our Taiwan policy accordingly. Let’s hope that those with their hands on the tiller in Washington are as adept at judging the geopolitical winds as their predecessors.

Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter @aalatham.

Source: TEST FEED1

Chinese ambassador called to White House amid tensions over Pelosi Taiwan visit

Chinese ambassador Qin Gang has been called to the White House following a strong reaction from the Chinese government to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) trip to Taiwan.

“After China’s actions overnight, we summoned Ambassador Qin Gang to the White House to démarche him about the PRC’s provocative actions,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told The Washington Post, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Kirby said that the White House “condemned” the military drills China began conducting in the waters surrounding Taiwan following Pelosi’s visit to Taipei City.

“We condemned the PRC’s military actions, which are irresponsible and at odds with our long-standing goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

Pelosi visited Taiwan as part of a trip to multiple countries across the Indo-Pacific region to discuss security issues in southeast Asia.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the visit violated the “one-China” policy and that it “gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for ‘Taiwan independence.’”

“China will definitely take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity in response to the U.S. Speaker’s visit,” read a statement from the ministry.

Kirby’s statement reinforced that “nothing has changed about our one-China policy,” but that the U.S. would be ready to respond to threats from China.

“We will not seek and do not want a crisis,” he said. “At the same time, we will not be deterred from operating in the seas and skies of the Western Pacific, consistent with international law, as we have for decades — supporting Taiwan and defending a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

Pelosi: US will 'not allow' China to isolate Taiwan

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday said during a press conference in Tokyo that the U.S. will “not allow” Taiwan to be isolated by China, days after her controversial visit to Taipei City.

“We will not allow them to isolate Taiwan,” Pelosi said of China. “The Chinese government is not doing that.”

The Chinese government lashed out at Pelosi after her trip to Taiwan, which Beijing views as Chinese territory, saying that it violated the “one-China policy” and warning that the visit would lead to fractures in the U.S.-China relationship.

“We said from the start that our representation here is not about changing the status quo here in Asia and the status quo in Taiwan,” Pelosi reinforced at the press conference.

She continued: “To have peace in the Taiwan Straits and to have the status quo prevail.”

Pelosi criticized China for its attempts to keep Taiwan separated from the international community, saying that the Chinese government had barred Taiwan from the agenda of the World Health Organization.

“They may try to keep Taiwan from visiting or participating in other places, but they will not isolate Taiwan by preventing us to travel there,” she said.

Pelosi and other Democratic representatives visited Taipei City and Tokyo on a trip through the Indo-Pacific region to discuss security issues with various countries.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan “gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for ‘Taiwan independence.’”

However, Pelosi praised Taiwan, calling it “one of the freest countries in the world.”

“This is about saying: ‘Let’s celebrate Taiwan for what it is: a great democracy with a thriving economy, with respect for all of its people,’” she said at the conference.

Pelosi also emphasized the need to speak out for human rights in China, saying that if the U.S. shies away from those topics because of commercial interests, “we lose all moral authority to speak out about human rights any place in the world.”

Following the visit of the U.S. delegation, China has begun conducting military drills in the waters surrounding Taiwan.

Updated at 7:39 a.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Whistleblower legislation is especially urgent now

This fall will be the season of truth for truth-tellers. Much of the nation was transfixed by the testimony of witnesses to the Jan. 6 Committee. But none of those political appointees or career civil servants who blew the whistle had credible rights against retaliation. Politicians have slathered them with lavish praise for their courage, but whistleblowers need rights, not compliments. This fall will be a test for Democrats if they back up their rhetoric with leadership to schedule votes and use their majority to pass laws. For Republicans, it will be a test whether their primary loyalty is to voters or to former President Trump. 

Whistleblowers are people who use freedom of speech to challenge abuses of power that betray the public trust. Two recent events illustrate what happens when we listen to these messengers, and what happens when we allow the messenger to be silenced. This past spring, a Netflix documentary — “Meltdown: Three Mile Island” — traced how brazen nuclear safety violations in the Three Mile Island (TMI) cleanup threatened a full meltdown that could have taken out the East Coast. It was prevented because three engineers blew the whistle. 

By contrast, when Congress approved multi-trillion-dollar spending increases after the last election, it failed to update America’s antiquated whistleblower law for government contractors. Not surprisingly, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz estimated there could be upwards of $100 billion in fraud. When Congress passed the $700 billion stimulus in 2009, it included best practice whistleblower protection for that spending, which was remarkably fraud- and scandal-free. 

Whistleblowing laws traditionally have enjoyed unanimous, bipartisan support. That all changed when President Trump branded the impeachment whistleblowers as traitors who should be hanged. In the aftermath, it has become far too partisan an issue, with the exception of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). The voters know better. A Marist poll of likely voters before the 2020 elections found that 86 percent wanted stronger whistleblower protection laws. Recent swing state surveys sustain the trend. 

There can be no credible debate about whether whistleblowers are bipartisan. They are bipartisan because abuses of power are bipartisan — not limited to any party or ideology. The Government Accountability Project represents numerous whistleblowers challenging both the Trump and Biden administrations. Minority parties are crippled when those accused of abusing power succeed in concealing the truth. That is why both parties, and the country, need whistleblowers. 

The TMI incident shows why those with the courage to speak out deserve gold-standard legal rights against retaliation. In the U.S., too often these rights are fool’s gold. We pioneered whistleblower protection but our laws are dated compared to global best practices. In key respects, they are dinosaur rights, weaker than those found in countries in Europe, Africa and the South Pacific. The stranger-than-fiction truth revealed in “Meltdown” vividly illustrates why this is unacceptable. 

Weak laws matter because profiles in courage are the exception, rather than the rule. U.S. laws are a disorganized patchwork of over 60 inconsistent and piecemeal statutes passed over 70 years and are in various stages of antiquity. For example, although they provide the most significant evidence and public warnings, federal employees who blow the whistle do not have a day in court to seek justice from a jury of the citizens they risked their careers to defend. Unlike every other major sector of the U.S. labor force, their free-speech rights are limited to administrative hearings by a dysfunctional agency vulnerable to political pressure, which already faces a backlog of over 3,000 cases. 

There’s a real chance this year to replace false advertising with genuine rights. We are at a crossroads for serious legislative reform that Congress can achieve before it adjourns. Eight bills would create credible whistleblower rights for government employees, including: those in the civil service; intelligence community employees; government contractor whistleblowers, whether worker or owner; all who challenge law enforcement abuses, whether citizens, victims or anyone else; Department of Veterans Affairs employees; Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission employees; judicial employees; and even soldiers under the Military Whistleblower Protection Act. 

Every legislator who is committed to fighting fraud, waste and abuse should vote for these bills. If democracy dies in the darkness, the credible flow of truth is what keeps the lights on. Will Congress flip the switch? 

Tom Devine is legal director at the Government Accountability Project. Follow on Twitter @GovAcctProj.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — Democrats on brink of budget bill win

At last, they have the votes.

Senate Democrats likely sealed the fate of their $740 billion reconciliation bill when Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) late on Thursday announced a deal with leaders, handing President Biden and his agenda a massive (and elusive) victory (The Hill). 

In a statement, Sinema said that the final bill will do away with a provision that would have nixed the carried interest loophole, which she has opposed throughout negotiations. 

“We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation,” Sinema said. “Subject to the Parliamentarian’s review, I’ll move forward” (The Hill).

The Arizona Democrat’s decision likely clears the way for the package to be passed in the coming days. Earlier on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that the upper chamber will reconvene on Saturday and will move ahead with a procedural vote to kick off consideration of the climate, tax and health care proposal. 

The vote to proceed to the legislation is expected on Saturday afternoon, followed by a series of amendment votes (also known as “vote-a-rama”), meaning that final passage could come either late Sunday or early Monday (The Hill). 

Schumer said in a statement that the deal with Sinema “preserves the major components of the Inflation Reduction Act,” including on prescription drug costs, climate change and the $300 billion in deficit reduction. 

“I am pleased to report that we have reached an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act that I believe will receive the support of the entire Senate Democratic conference,” Schumer said. 

The president hailed Sinema’s decision as “another critical step toward reducing inflation and the cost of living for America’s families.”

▪ The Washington Post: Democrats, Sinema reach deal on Inflation Reduction Act, after key changes to tax policies.

▪ Politico: Sinema signs onto Dems’ party-line bill ahead of momentous Saturday vote.

The bill, as originally written, would spend $369 billion on the energy and climate program. Nixing the carried interest loophole move takes away $14 billion in total projected revenue. In its place, Democrats are set to implement a new excise tax on stock buybacks, which is expected to bring in more revenue than the item Sinema jettisoned (The Associated Press). 

With questions surrounding the Arizona centrist out of the way, there is little standing in the way of the bill’s passage. As Sinema referenced in her statement, one of the few matters left to be resolved is the Senate parliamentarian, who continues to vet the proposal.

The parliamentarian’s pending ruling is also giving Senate Republicans the slimmest bit of hope. Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho), the top GOP member on the Senate Finance Committee, told CNN that the party is challenging “every piece that we can” with the Senate’s budget referee.

“We are challenging as much as we can across the entire bill,” Crapo said. 

COVID-19 is the other issue that could always throw a wrench into the party in power’s carefully laid plans. No Senate Democrats are currently out, but more than a handful of members have missed time in recent weeks due to positive test results, complicating business in the upper chamber. 

As of now, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is the lone senator out after testing positive earlier in the week, but he could be back by the time the vote on final passage is held. Senate Democrats will need every one of their 50 members present, including Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has been absent due to recovery from hip replacement surgery. 

Looking ahead, if the Senate advances a final bill, the House will briefly return from the August recess to vote on it next week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters last week. 

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: AARP, Big Pharma locked in battle over drug pricing bill. 

▪ Politico: Pharma group leader says Democrats who vote for reconciliation bill “won’t get a free pass.”

LEADING THE DAY

➤ GEOPOLITICS

Basketball star Brittney Griner, 31, on Thursday was convicted in a Russian court of drug possession charges with criminal intent. She was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony, on top of the five months she has been in detention since February, and she was fined the equivalent of $16,700 (The Associated Press). 

Griner — a two-time U.S. Olympic champion and an eight-time all-star with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury who pleaded guilty to accidentally packing in her luggage vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — is embroiled in geopolitical tensions between Washington and the Kremlin. 

U.S. officials had anticipated a harsh verdict based on Russian law and previous international prosecutions. Griner and her lawyers have 10 days to appeal, a period during which she will remain in the detention facility in which she’s been held since her arrest.

Biden immediately denounced the verdict and the long prison sentence as “unacceptable.” 

“I call on Russia to release her immediately so she can be with her wife, loved ones, friends, and teammates,” he said, adding that he would continue to work to bring home Griner and Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia on an espionage conviction (The Hill).

Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly appealed last month to the Russian government to work out a prisoner exchange for Griner and Whelan, arguing both Americans are “wrongfully detained.” On Thursday, the secretary issued a statement that Russia’s sentence “further compounds the injustice” of Griner’s wrongful detention and assailed Moscow’s use of its legal system “to advance its own agenda, using individuals as political pawns.” 

Blinken described the release of Griner and Whelan as a personal priority and the continued aim of the U.S. government. Russia, through an unofficial intelligence back channel, floated a request for a prisoner swap involving Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel from the country’s domestic spy agency who was convicted of murder in Germany and remains in German custody (CNN).

“We appreciate and continue to support the efforts of @POTUS and @SecBlinken to get a deal done swiftly to bring Brittney, Paul and all Americans home,” Griner’s agent, Lindsay Colas, said on Twitter.

“We should use all available tools,” Colas continued. “This is a time for compassion and a shared understanding that getting a deal done to bring Americans home will be hard, but it is urgent and it is the right thing to do.”

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver jointly called the Russian court’s verdict and lengthy sentence “unjustified and unfortunate, but not unexpected.” U.S. professional basketball associations are committed to Griner’s safe return, they added. “It is our hope that we are near the end of this process of finally bringing BG home to the United States.” 

➤ ADMINISTRATION

The Department of Health and Human Services declared a health emergency in an effort to quell the monkeypox outbreak and ramp up the government’s response. The move allows the administration to reallocate federal funds and resources to combat the virus, which has infected more than 6,600 Americans. 

The decision is also expected to help with distributing vaccines to affected areas. New York and San Francisco in recent days have complained that they do not have enough two-dose jabs to meet demand. California, Illinois and New York City are among the spots that have already declared a state of emergency due to rising cases. 

The administration’s pending announcement comes days after it named top officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to lead the White House’s response to the outbreak (The Associated Press).

🌏 China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan, including missiles fired into Japan’s exclusive economic zone, represent a “significant escalation” said Blinken on Friday while traveling in Cambodia. He urged Beijing to back down. Speaking to reporters, the secretary accused China of using the Speaker’s recent visit as a “pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.” The Pentagon has ordered the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier group “to remain on station in the general area to monitor the situation,” he added.

“We will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” Blinken said. “We’ll continue to conduct standard air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait, consistent with our long-standing approach to working with allies and partners to uphold freedom of navigation and overflight” (The Associated Press).

▪ Bloomberg News: China sanctioned Pelosi and her immediate family in retaliation for her Taiwan visit.

▪ Reuters: Pelosi, who is traveling in Japan at the end of an itinerary through Asia, on Friday praised Taiwan and said her trip, which angered China, was not about changing the regional status quo.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: The Speaker, flanked by U.S. officials in Tokyo on Friday, said the U.S. will not allow China to isolate Taiwan by preventing American officials from traveling to the independent island.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ POLITICS

Former President Trump had some big wins in primary contests this week, but two of his top endorsees with media backgrounds could potentially spell trouble for the Republican Party come November. 

Trump’s support helped put two GOP primary candidates in key states over the top: Kari Lake in Arizona and Tudor Dixon in Michigan, though the latter won handily. Both candidates have aired complaints about the veracity of the 2020 election results, putting both behind the eight-ball heading into the stretch run. 

As The Hill’s Niall Stanage notes in his latest Memo, Lake is hardly the type of candidate who is set up for success in November, and the polls show as much. According to the latest surveys, Lake, a former local news anchor in Phoenix, trails Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. As for Dixon, she also trails Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), a top target for Republicans this year.  

Adding to Trump’s troubles, the two gubernatorial picks are on top of struggles three of his Senate candidates have had in recent weeks, all of whom were celebrities in their own right before entering the political arena: Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, J.D. Vance in Ohio and Herschel Walker in Georgia. 

With Tuesday’s primaries in the rearview mirror, Trump will turn his attention to Wisconsin tonight as he appears to stump for Tim Michels, a gubernatorial candidate, in Waukesha.

In Wyoming, Harriet Hageman, the top GOP primary challenger to Rep. Liz Cheney (R) for the state’s at-large House seat, said on Wednesday at a candidate forum that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against Trump, her firmest public stance on the election yet. Trump has endorsed Hageman and is working assertively to defeat Cheney (The Hill).

Shortly after, former Vice President Dick Cheney made his biggest foray into the race by cutting an ad on behalf of his eldest daughter, saying that no single individual has been a “greater threat to our republic” than the former president.

“He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it and deep down I think most Republicans know it,” Cheney said (The Hill). 

CNN: Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) doubles down on debate remark that she doesn’t think Biden will run in 2024 despite apologizing. 

📝 Introducing NotedDC, The Hill’s curated commentary on the beat of the Beltway. Click here to subscribe to our latest newsletter. 

OPINION

■ Team soft landing is starting to pull ahead, by Jared Dillian, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion. https://bloom.bg/3P0nsJO 

■ Alex Jones’ lawyers mistakenly revealed the truth, editorial, Houston Chronicle. https://bit.ly/3Qh9V2l

WHERE AND WHEN

The House is out for the August recess and will return to Washington on Sept. 13. The lower chamber could convene later this month, pending Senate action.

The Senate convenes on Saturday at noon and will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to the reconciliation package.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10:30 a.m. Biden will sign two pieces of legislation targeting COVID-19 small business relief fraud.

Vice President Harris at 3 p.m. will speak to Latina state legislators from Kansas, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Illinois, New York and Texas from her ceremonial White House office about administration efforts to protect reproductive rights.

Secretary Blinken is in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday and will next travel to Manila, Philippines, for meetings with President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra heads to Leominster, Mass., for a 9 a.m. roundtable event at Growing Places, a grassroots nonprofit focused on food insecurity. The secretary will be joined in a discussion about nutrition, Black maternal health and reproductive care by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). Becerra at 1:30 p.m. will be in Boston’s Codman Square Health Center for a roundtable discussion about health and reproductive rights, accompanied by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D). 

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on U.S. employment in July. A job market slowdown is anticipated (The New York Times).

The White House daily briefing is scheduled at 2 p.m.

🖥  Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://thehill.com/hilltv, on YouTube and on Facebook at 10:30 a.m. ET. Also, check out the “Rising” podcast here.

ELSEWHERE  

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Russian forces have ratcheted up attacks on Ukrainian defenses in the eastern part of the country even as their overall assault has slowed to a crawl (The New York Times). 

In Ukraine, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe is in dire condition and poses a hazard, according to the head of the United Nations nuclear agency. Conditions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the country’s southeast are “out of control,” Rafael Mariano Grossi said during an interview this week. “What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous,” he said (The New York Times).

The Bank of England on Thursday raised interest rates by the most in a quarter-century even as it predicted the U.K. economy will fall into recession later this year, underscoring global central banks’ urgency in fighting a surge in inflation. The rate increase to 1.75 percent from 1.25 percent was the largest since 1995 and the first half-point increase since the bank was granted independence in 1997. The move mirrors recent rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (The Wall Street Journal).

Despite Germany’s plans to break away from nuclear power, conservatives in the country are pushing to reverse that aim (The New York Times). 

In Chile, an enormous sinkhole in the vicinity of a copper mine appeared in the desert and is under investigation by geological experts (CBS News). 

➤ PANDEMIC

As soon as this week, the CDC is expected to ease its COVID-19 guidance, including for schools. The updated recommendations are expected to ease quarantine advice for people exposed to the virus and to de-emphasize 6 feet of social distancing as a precaution for the virus, which spreads through the air (CNN).

🦠 House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) announced on Thursday on Twitter that he tested positive for COVID-19 and has mild symptoms (The Hill). 

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,032,820. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 377, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

➤ COURTS, RIGHTS & LAW

The Supreme Court’s June ruling expanding gun rights threatens to upend firearms restrictions across the country as activists wage court battles over everything from bans on AR-15-style guns to age limits. Gun laws may be dramatically reshaped in the U.S. as a result of the high court’s decision. The Associated Press explores how states are proceeding in response.

The Justice Department on Thursday filed civil rights charges against four Louisville police officers over the drug raid that led to the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman whose fatal shooting helped fuel the racial justice protests of 2020. The charges are another effort to hold law enforcement accountable for the killing of the 26-year-old medical worker after one of the officers was acquitted of state charges earlier this year (The Associated Press).

A jury on Thursday ordered far-right Infowars broadcaster Alex Jones to pay $4.1 million to the family of a 6-year-old boy killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, compensating them for pain and suffering after Jones repeatedly claimed the mass shooting, which killed 20 school children and six adults, was a hoax. Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse died, had sought $150 million for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury will also decide whether to award punitive damages. The panel will hear testimony on that subject today (NBC News and The Associated Press). 

To fund her 2020 reelection bid, former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced took bribes from a banker and a former FBI agent, according to Justice Department charges on Thursday, and promised something to banker and backer Julio Martin Herrera Velutini in return. In February 2020, Vázquez Garced demanded the resignation of an agency head and appointed a new director favored by the banker a few months later, according to the federal indictment. She lost her race in 2020 (The Washington Post).

➤ STATE WATCH  

Republican governors in Texas and Arizona have caused havoc up the East Coast by busing migrants out of their states for asylum and immigration processing elsewhere. Many undocumented immigrants are ending up in homeless shelters, on the streets or in the hands of Washington, D.C., and New York City service providers and local charitable organizations. Officials have asked the Biden administration to intervene in what D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has described as an emerging humanitarian crisis. She recently asked for National Guard intervention (The New York Times).

The Hill: Kentucky is expected to face enormous costs after recent devastating floods.

THE CLOSER

👏👏👏 Kudos to our Morning Report Quiz masters! We were in search of smart guesses about swaps and trade this week, and alert readers came through.

Here’s the Friday winners’ circle as August begins: Kathleen Kovalik, Brent Tracy, Terry Pflaumer, Jaina Mehta, Jane Heaton, David T. Johnson, Pam Manges, Jeremy Serwer, Daniel Bachhuber, Candi Cee, Larry Cutlip, Richard E. Baznik, Stanley Wasser, Patrick Kavanagh, Robert Bradley, Harry Strulovici, David J. Anderson and Steve James.  

Baseball experts this week described the Washington Nationals’s trade of Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres as a monumental midseason event because he’s the first player 23 or younger to be traded in-season in a year when he was an All-Star. Plus, Soto has been heralded as baseball’s best hitter with the potential to be an all-time great with the change in teams. Thus, the answer we were looking for was “all of the above.” 

China on Wednesday blocked the export of sand to Taiwan among other retaliatory responses to register its opposition to the visit by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the independent island.  

The administration wants to swap imprisoned WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, both held in Russia, reportedly for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who has been behind bars in Illinois since 2012. Bout’s nickname (among possible options) is “Merchant of Death,” according to press accounts.  

The Razoni became the first ship this week since the onset of Russia’s war with Ukraine to be able to transport exported grain (corn) out of a Ukrainian port. 

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