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nrashkind

NYPD coronavirus deaths: A 3rd NYPD member dies after hundreds of officers test positiv... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by nrashkind on 29 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • New York City police lost its first detective to Covid-19, marking the third NYPD death to the disease that has afflicted the department.
  • Detective Cedric Dixon, a 23-year veteran, worked in the 32nd Precinct in Harlem, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said.
  • Two other members of the department have died from coronavirus, which has infected at least 512 NYPD employees.
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  • Dennis C. Dickson, a custodian who worked at police headquarters, died Thursday, Shea said.
  • On Friday, 4,122 NYPD employees were out sick, a senior NYPD official said. That's about 11% of the department's workforce.
  • At least 442 uniformed NYPD members and 70 civilian members have tested positive for coronavirus, the official said.
  • Officers have been looking for groups of people congregating and telling them to disperse.
  • "Men and women of the New York Police Department are stepping up. They're here for you. They're out there putting themselves -- uniform and civilian -- at risk to keep you safe," Shea added.
katherineharron

Why Joe Biden's endorsement wave matters - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 09 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Since his resounding victory in the South Carolina primary, Biden has snagged over 40 endorsements from members of Congress and governors. On Monday, Sen. Cory Booker offered his support, a day after Biden's campaign announced that he secured the backing of another former rival of his in the Democratic presidential race, California Sen. Kamala Harris.
  • There have been 14 party primaries without an incumbent running since 1980. The leader in endorsements from members of Congress and governors this long after the Iowa caucuses have won 11 out of 14 of them (79%). This success rate undersells Biden because the people winning in endorsements who went on to lose were trailing in the national polls.
  • Since his resounding victory in the South Carolina primary, Biden has snagged over 40 endorsements from members of Congress and governors. On Monday, Sen. Cory Booker offered his support, a day after Biden's campaign announced that he secured the backing of another former rival of his in the Democratic presidential race, California Sen. Kamala Harris. No candidate has lost when ahead in the national polls and endorsements at this point, as Biden is right now. There have been 14 party primaries without an incumbent running since 1980. The leader in endorsements from members of Congress and governors this long after the Iowa caucuses have won 11 out of 14 of them (79%). This success rate undersells Biden because the people winning in endorsements who went on to lose were trailing in the national polls.
Javier E

Revealed: the true identity of the leader of an American neo-Nazi terror group | World ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...americas-neo-nazi-terror-group

leader white supremacy group terror

shared by Javier E on 24 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Using encrypted apps, members of the highly organized group planned terror campaigns; vandalized synagogues; established armed training camps and recruited new members.
  • The US attorney for Maryland, Robert K Hur, speaking after the recent arrest of three members of the Base, said that they “did more than talk – they took steps to act and act violently on their racist views”.
  • Rinaldo Nazzaro has maintained a decidedly low profile: he has no visible presence on any major social media platforms, no published writings under his own name, and no profile in local or national media.
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  • The Guardian was able to unravel Nazzaro’s identity due to his 2018 activities in a remote corner of the Pacific north-west.
  • Last August, an Oregon-based antifascist group, Eugene Antifa, warned that the Base was planning a “hate camp” in the neighboring state of Washington, and claimed Nazzaro (operating under the alias of “Spear”) had purchased land in Stevens county for training purposes. This warning came after a leak of the Base’s internal chats.
  • Property record searches revealed that three 10-acre blocks of undeveloped land were purchased in December 2018 for $33,000 in the name of a Delaware LLC called “Base Global”. In a telephone conversation in late November, Manke confirmed that this was the block of land he had been referring to.
  • The location of the land is consistent with “Norman Spear’s” advocacy of a white supremacist strategy called the Northwest Territorial Imperative (NTI), which was promoted by the deceased white supremacist Harold Covington.
  • The strategy argues for the creation of a separatist ethnostate in the Pacific north-west and encourages white supremacists to move to the region.
  • The plan, he said, would trigger the relocation to the Pacific north-west of the white population in the United States.
  • Under the motto “there is no political solution”, the Base embraces an “accelerationist” ideology, which holds that acts of violence and terror are required in order to push liberal democracy towards collapse, preparing the way for white supremacists to seize power and institute an ethnostate.
  • Materials inspected and sources consulted by the Guardian indicate that Nazzaro, as “Spear”, has faced persistent suspicions from current and former members of the group that he is a “fed”, or the agent of a foreign government, or that the Base is a “honeypot” intended to lure neo-Nazis out into the open for the benefit of law enforcement agencies.
  • The Guardian has discovered that all of the business addresses associated with Nazzaro’s OSI LLCs are “virtual offices”. This describes a situation where a second company provides a business address, and sometimes meeting rooms and greeting services, for businesses who do not wish to maintain their own premises.
Javier E

Warnings Ignored: A Timeline of Trump's COVID-19 Response - The Bulwark - 0 views

thebulwark.com/ne-of-trumps-covid-19-response

timeline trump response pandemic history policy politics

shared by Javier E on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • the White House is trying to establish an alternate reality in which Trump was a competent, focused leader who saved American people from the coronavirus.
  • it highlights just how asleep Trump was at the switch, despite warnings from experts within his own government and from former Trump administration officials pleading with him from the outside.
  • Most prominent among them were former Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb, and Director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness at the National Security Council Dr. Luciana Borio who beginning in early January used op-eds, television appearances, social media posts, and private entreaties to try to spur the administration into action.
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  • what the administration should have been doing in January to prepare us for today.
  • She cites the delay on tests, without which “cases go undetected and people continue to circulate” as a leading issue along with other missed federal government responses—many of which are still not fully operational
  • The prescient recommendations from experts across disciplines in the period before COVID-19 reached American shores—about testing, equipment, and distancing—make clear that more than any single factor, it was Trump’s squandering of out lead-time which should have been used to prepare for the pandemic that has exacerbated this crisis.
  • What follows is an annotated timeline revealing the warning signs the administration received and showing how slow the administration was to act on these recommendations.
  • The Early Years: Warnings Ignored
  • 2017: Trump administrations officials are briefed on an intelligence document titled “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.” That’s right. The administration literally had an actual playbook for what to do in the early stages of a pandemic
  • February 2018: The Washington Post writes “CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak.” The meat of the story is “Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the world’s hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Congo.”
  • May 2018: At an event marking the 100 year anniversary of the 1918 pandemic, Borio says “pandemic flu” is the “number 1 health security issue” and that the U.S. is not ready to respond.
  • One day later her boss, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer is pushed out of the administration and the global health security team is disbanded
  • Beth Cameron, former senior director for global health security on the National Security Council adds: “It is unclear in his absence who at the White House would be in charge of a pandemic,” Cameron said, calling it “a situation that should be immediately rectified.” Note: It was not
  • January 2019: The director of National Intelligence issues the U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment of threats to national security. Among its findings:
  • A novel strain of a virulent microbe that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major threat, with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to acquire efficient human-to-human transmissibility.”
  • Page 21: “We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”
  • September, 2019: The Trump Administration ended the pandemic early warning program, PREDICT, which trained scientists in China and other countries to identify viruses that had the potential to turn into pandemics. According to the Los Angeles Times, “field work ceased when funding ran out in September,” two months before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan Province, China.
  • 2020: COVID-19 Arrives
  • anuary 3, 2020: The CDC is first alerted to a public health event in Wuhan, China
  • January 6, 2020: The CDC issues a travel notice for Wuhan due to the spreading coronavirus
  • Note: The Trump campaign claims that this marks the beginning of the federal government disease control experts becoming aware of the virus. It was 10 weeks from this point until the week of March 16 when Trump began to change his tone on the threat.
  • January 10, 2020: Former Trump Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert warns that we shouldn’t “jerk around with ego politics” because “we face a global health threat…Coordinate!”
  • January 18, 2020: After two weeks of attempts, HHS Secretary Alex Azar finally gets the chance to speak to Trump about the virus. The president redirects the conversation to vaping, according to the Washington Post. 
  • January 21, 2020: Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the CDC tells reporters, “We do expect additional cases in the United States.”
  • January 27, 2020: Top White House aides meet with Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to encourage greater focus on the threat from the virus. Joe Grogan, head of the White House Domestic Policy Council warns that “dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.”
  • January 28, 2020: Two former Trump administration officials—Gottlieb and Borio—publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal imploring the president to “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic.” They advocate a 4-point plan to address the coming crisis:
  • (1) Expand testing to identify and isolate cases. Note: This did not happen for many weeks. The first time more than 2,000 tests were deployed in a single day was not until almost six weeks later, on March 11.
  • (3) Prepare hospital units for isolation with more gowns and masks. Note: There was no dramatic ramp-up in the production of critical supplies undertaken. As a result, many hospitals quickly experienced shortages of critical PPE materials. Federal agencies waited until Mid-March to begin bulk orders of N95 masks.
  • January 29, 2020: Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro circulates an internal memo warning that America is “defenseless” in the face of an outbreak which “elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”
  • January 30, 2020: Dr. James Hamblin publishes another warning about critical PPE materials in the Atlantic, titled “We Don’t Have Enough Masks.”
  • January 29, 2020: Republican Senator Tom Cotton reaches out to President Trump in private to encourage him to take the virus seriously.
  • Late January, 2020:  HHS sends a letter asking to use its transfer authority to shift $136 million of department funds into pools that could be tapped for combating the coronavirus. White House budget hawks argued that appropriating too much money at once when there were only a few U.S. cases would be viewed as alarmist.
  • Trump’s Chinese travel ban only banned “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days.” This wording did not—at all—stop people from arriving in America from China. In fact, for much of the crisis, flights from China landed in America almost daily filled with people who had been in China, but did not fit the category as Trump’s “travel ban” defined it.
  • January 31, 2020: On the same day Trump was enacting his fake travel ban, Foreign Policy reports that face masks and latex gloves are sold out on Amazon and at leading stores in New York City and suggests the surge in masks being sold to other countries needs “refereeing” in the face of the coming crisis.
  • February 4, 2020: Gottlieb and Borio take to the WSJ again, this time to warn the president that “a pandemic seems inevitable” and call on the administration to dramatically expand testing, expand the number of labs for reviewing tests, and change the rules to allow for tests of people even if they don’t have a clear known risk factor.
  • Note: Some of these recommendations were eventually implemented—25 days later.
  • February 5, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar requests $2 billion to “buy respirator masks and other supplies for a depleted federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment.” He is rebuffed by Trump and the White House OMB who eventually send Congress a $500 million request weeks later.
  • February 4 or 5, 2020: Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and other intelligence officials brief the Senate Intelligence Committee that the virus poses a “serious” threat and that “Americans would need to take actions that could disrupt their daily lives.”
  • February 5, 2020: Senator Chris Murphy tweets: Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.
  • February 9, 2020: The Washington Post reports that a group of governors participated in a jarring meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield that was much more alarmist than what they were hearing from Trump. “The doctors and the scientists, they were telling us then exactly what they are saying now,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said.
  • the administration lifted CDC restrictions on tests. This is a factually true statement. But it elides that fact that they did so on March 3—two critical weeks after the third Borio/Gottlieb op-ed on the topic, during which time the window for intervention had shrunk to a pinhole.
  • February 20, 2020: Borio and Gottlieb write in the Wall Street Journal that tests must be ramped up immediately “while we can intervene to stop spread.”
  • February 23, 2020: Harvard School of Public Health professor issues warning on lack of test capability: “As of today, the US remains extremely limited in#COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs haveCDC test kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.
  • February 24, 2020: The Trump administration sends a letter to Congress requesting a small dollar amount—between $1.8 billion and $2.5 billion—to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. This is, of course, a pittance
  • February 25, 2020: Messonier says she expects “community spread” of the virus in the United States and that “disruption to everyday life might be severe.” Trump is reportedly furious and Messonier’s warnings are curtailed in the ensuing weeks.
  • Trump mocks Congress in a White House briefing, saying “If Congress wants to give us the money so easy—it wasn’t very easy for the wall, but we got that one done. If they want to give us the money, we’ll take the money.”
  • February 26, 2020: Congress, recognizing the coming threat, offers to give the administration $6 billion more than Trump asked for in order to prepare for the virus.
  • February 27, 2020: In a leaked audio recording Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee and author of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) and the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (reauthorization of PAHPA), was telling people that COVID-19 “is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
  • March 4, 2020: HHS says they only have 1 percent of respirator masks needed if the virus became a “full-blown pandemic.”
  • March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence is asked about legislation encouraging companies to produce more masks. He says the Trump administration is “looking at it.”
  • March 7, 2020: Fox News host Tucker Carlson, flies to Mar-a-Lago to implore Trump to take the virus seriously in private rather than embarrass him on TV. Even after the private meeting, Trump continued to downplay the crisis
  • March 9, 2020: Tom Bossert, Trump’s former Homeland Security adviser, publishes an op-ed saying it is “now or never” to act. He advocates for social distancing and school closures to slow the spread of the contagion.
  • Trump says that developments are “good for the consumer” and compares COVID-19 favorably to the common flu.
  • March 17, 2020: Facing continued shortages of the PPE equipment needed to prevent healthcare providers from succumbing to the virus, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkeley and Ron Wyden call on Trump to use the Defense Production Act to expand supply of medical equipment
  • March 18, 2020: Trump signs the executive order to activate the Defense Production Act, but declines to use it
  • At the White House briefing he is asked about Senator Chuck Schumer’s call to urgently produce medical supplies and ventilators. Trump responds: “Well we’re going to know whether or not it’s urgent.” Note: At this point 118 Americans had died from COVID-19.
  • March 20, 2020: At an April 2nd White House Press Conference, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who was made ad hoc point man for the coronavirus response said that on this date he began working with Rear Admiral John Polowczyk to “build a team” that would handle the logistics and supply chain for providing medical supplies to the states. This suggestion was first made by former Trump Administration officials January 28th
  • March 22, 2020: Six days after calling for a 15-day period of distancing, Trump tweets that this approach “may be worse than the problem itself.”
  • March 24, 2020: Trump tells Fox News that he wants the country opened up by Easter Sunday (April 12)
  • As Trump was speaking to Fox, there were 52,145 confirmed cases in the United States and the doubling time for daily new cases was roughly four days.
katherineharron

Fact check: Trump makes false claims about governors not wanting tests, and repeats err... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump

shared by katherineharron on 23 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • "Ultimately, we're doing more testing, I think, than probably any of the governors even want," Trump said, suggesting that his administration was leading the way on coronavirus testing. Trump later said that "not everybody believes as strongly as some people on testing." And suggesting that calls for more testing are some sort of partisan plot, he claimed that "some people want (us) to do testing because they think it's impossible for us to fulfill that goal."
  • Trump is off the mark. There have been bipartisan calls from governors and medical professionals for the Trump administration to ramp up testing and give states the supplies they need to get it done. There is no evidence that calls for more tests are some sort of anti-Trump plot; nonpartisan public health experts have said it's critical for the government to significantly increase the level of testing as part of any plan to end social distancing and lift economic restrictions.
  • During Wednesday's press briefing, Trump repeated a false claim he's made numerous times about the travel restrictions imposed on China due to the coronavirus.
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  • Trump's comments are misleading because he did not "close our country to China." On February 2, the United States began implementing travel restrictions that denied entry to foreign nationals who had visited China within 14 days of arrival in the United States. But the travel restrictions contain exemptions for US citizens who had visited China, which makes Trump's characterization that there was a "ban" misleading.
  • "As you know, Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia, I worked very hard for his election, he beat their superstar, he beat the superstar of their party. I think you can say I helped a lot," Trump said, "Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey they all went in, they campaigned for him very, very hard and he lost."
  • Michelle Obama did not campaign for either of Kemp's opponents. Kemp beat Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a man, in the primary and Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, a woman, in the general election.
  • Trump's description of the Chinatown visit has changed repeatedly. At previous briefings, Trump claimed Pelosi was "holding a street fair" in Chinatown -- and that, during her visit, she called for a "Chinatown parade," "parties in Chinatown," and a "march" against his travel restrictions on China.
  • Pelosi did not hold a rally or a street fair, and she did not call for a parade, parties or a march. Rather, amid concerns about rising anti-Chinese bigotry, she walked around Chinatown, visited businesses and a temple, ate at a dim sum restaurant and spoke to reporters to urge people to "come to Chinatown."
katherineharron

Pelosi slams White House for limiting coronavirus task force testimony - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis

shared by katherineharron on 05 May 20 - No Cached
  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday slammed the Trump administration's move to restrict coronavirus task force members from testifying before Congress this month.
  • The White House issued a memo seeking to limit task force members' hearing appearances after recently blocking Dr. Anthony Fauci from testifying before a House subcommittee this week. Fauci is still expected to appear before a Republican-led Senate committee later this month.
  • "For primary response departments, including HHS, DHS, and State, in order to preserve department-wide resources, no more than one COVID-related hearing should be agreed to with the department's primary House and Senate authorizing committee and appropriations subcommittee in the month of May, for a total of no more than four COVID-related hearings department-wide," the memo states.
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  • "During the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, Task Force members were on the Hill 24/7. They've been working non-stop since the beginning, and the workload has not diminished," the official said. "Given the continual press briefings and agency-led briefings with committees, I don't think anyone can reasonably say we aren't being transparent, but we need to make sure the Task Force members have the time they need to focus on the task at hand, not on preparing for 4-hour hearings several times a week."
  • And while McEnany said the White House is open to providing officials as witnesses during testimony in the Democratic-led House, the source close to the task force said the administration is more amenable to testimony in the Republican-held Senate
lenaurick

US slams Russian veto of UN resolution on Syria - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

syria politics history crisis culture

shared by lenaurick on 03 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • The latest attempt to punish Syrian regime leaders failed after the two permanent members voted against a resolution to impose sanctions for Damascus' use of chemical weapons, the first vetoes by Russia and China before US Ambassador Nikki Haley.
  • "Russia and China made an outrageous and indefensible choice today," Haley said, speaking in the Security Council chamber after the vote. "It is a sad day on the Security Council when members start making excuses for other member states killing their own people."
  • The veto was the seventh time Russia has blocked a Security Council resolution aimed at the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the past five years, protecting its Syrian ally from any diplomatic action
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  • He demanded the council act, asking, "Who couldn't condemn today those attacking innocent women and children ... with chemical weapons?"The vote was 9 in favor, 3 against as Bolivia joined Russia and China, and 3 abstentions, from Egypt, Kazakhstan and Ethiopia.
  • The resolution would have condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria, a violation of international law, and placed UN sanctions on 21 Syrian scientists, military commanders and entities alleged to be involved in their use.
  • It also outlined an embargo on the sale of certain chemical substances as well as materials that could be used to transport the weapons, including helicopters.
  • "It is very difficult to see how the Security Council can ever play our rightful role in setting up mechanisms that will allow accountability in Syria given that Russia now for the seventh time has backed a brutal dictator rather than backing justice and accountability and the Syrian people," Rycroft said.
  • ecfruchtman on 03 Mar 17
     
    The latest attempt to punish Syrian regime leaders failed after the two permanent members voted against a resolution to impose sanctions for Damascus' use of chemical weapons, the first vetoes by Russia and China before US Ambassador Nikki Haley. "Russia and China made an outrageous and indefensible choice today," Haley said, speaking in the Security Council chamber after the vote.
daltonramsey12

Two U.S. Service Members Killed in Afghanistan, Pentagon Says - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...afghanistan-pentagon-says.html

shared by daltonramsey12 on 27 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • daltonramsey12 on 27 Apr 17
     
    WASHINGTON - Two American service members were killed in action Wednesday night in an operation in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said. Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the service members were killed in an action targeting the Islamic State in Nangarhar province.
krystalxu

Congress has a sexual harassment problem, lawmakers and staffers say - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Sexualize harass National Congress

shared by krystalxu on 25 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • an informal roster passed along by word-of-mouth, consisting of the male members most notorious for inappropriate behavior, ranging from making sexually suggestive comments or gestures to seeking physical relations with younger employees and interns.
  • "Amongst ourselves, we know," a former Senate staffer said of the lawmakers with the worst reputations. And sometimes, the sexual advances from members of Congress or senior aides are reciprocated in the hopes of advancing one's career -- what one political veteran bluntly referred to as a "sex trade on Capitol Hill."
  • Both House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell support ramping up sexual harassment training.
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  • Both senators are men and still currently in office.
  • One woman said years after leaving her job in Congress, she still feels anxious about being alone in elevators with men.
  • Some members of Congress forgo a Washington-area apartment and sleep in their offices, a practice several sources highlighted as problematic.
  • The dozens of interviews that CNN conducted with both men and women also revealed that there is an unwritten list of male lawmakers
  • "There is a certain code amongst us, we acknowledge among each other what occurs."
  • Most offices are staffed by early-career professionals who are trying to make a name for themselves in Washington. They also report directly to members of Congress.
  • "You can't prove it" and "it'll be a nightmare" to move forward, Manzer said.
anonymous

4 Proud Boys Charged With Conspiracy Over Capitol Attack : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...piracy-over-jan-6-capitol-riot

shared by anonymous on 20 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Four alleged leaders of the Proud Boys have been indicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol over allegedly conspiring, including in discussions on encrypted messaging apps, to obstruct the certification of President Biden's Electoral College victory.
  • The indictment unsealed Friday charges the defendants — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zach Rehl and Charles Donohoe — with six counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of law enforcement, destruction of government property and conspiracy.
  • Nordean is the president of his local Proud Boy chapter in Washington state; Biggs is a Proud Boy member and organizer in Florida; Rehl is the president of a local chapter of the group in Philadelphia; and Donohoe is the president of his local Proud Boy chapter in North Carolina. Nordean and Biggs had previously been charged by complaint.
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  • The defendants are the latest with ties to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, to face conspiracy charges over their alleged roles in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.
  • Two days before Congress met to certify the results, Washington, D.C., police arrested the Proud Boys chairman, Enrique Tarrio.
  • Prosecutors allege that after Tarrio's arrest, Donohoe expressed concern that encrypted communications that included Tarrio were now compromised and in the hands of police.
  • Donohoe then created a new channel, called "New MOSD," on an encrypted messaging app that included his co-defendants. Donohoe also, according to the indictment, "took steps to destroy or 'nuke' the earlier channel."
  • Donohoe posted a message that same day to the new channel in which he says: "Hey have been instructed an listen to me real good!
  • Later that day, an individual identified in court documents only as an unindicted co-conspirator posted: "[W]e had originally planned on breaking the guys into teams. Let's start divvying them up and getting baofeng channels picked out," referring to channels on handheld radios.
  • The following day, the indictment says, a new encrypted messaging channel called "Boots on the Ground" was set up for Proud Boys in Washington.
  • That evening, Biggs posted a message to the channel that said he was trying to get a sense of their numbers so they can "go over tomorrow's plan."
  • Rehl told the channel he was on his way to Washington and was bringing radios with him. He added that there was a person who would program the devices later that evening.
  • That same evening, Biggs allegedly posted a message that read: "We have a plan. I'm with Rufio."
  • The indictment alleges that the members of the encrypted messaging channels were told to meet at the Washington Monument at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6.Proud Boys did show up at the monument at 10, including the defendants, according to the indictment. From there, the group marched to the Capitol with Nordean, Biggs and Rehl near or at the front of the crowd.
  • Once there, the indictment says, the defendants "charged toward the capitol by crossing over the barriers that had been violently disassembled and trampled by the crowd moments before."
  • The Proud Boys are not the only extremist group to see its members charged with conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot. Members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right paramilitary group, are also facing conspiracy charges. So far, more than 300 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol breach. Prosecutors say at least 100 more could still be charged.
mattrenz16

Oath Keepers Founder Is Said to Be Investigated in Capitol Riot - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...oath-keepers-capitol-riot.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • F.B.I. agents and federal prosecutors are investigating Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers militia, for any role he might have played in the storming of the Capitol two months ago, according to court documents and a law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter.
  • The Oath Keepers, who largely draw their members from the ranks of former military and law enforcement personnel, have from the start been a central focus of the sprawling investigation into the Capitol riot, which has led to charges against nearly 300 people. Eleven members of the group stand accused of a variety of crimes stemming from the siege, most prominently an alleged conspiracy reaching back to shortly after Election Day to break into the Capitol and interfere with Congress’s Jan. 6 certification of the Electoral College vote.
  • In the same communiqué, Mr. Rhodes announced that the Oath Keepers would be sending “multiple volunteer security teams” to provide protection to “V.I.P.s” at events surrounding Mr. Trump’s speech and rally in Washington earlier on the day of the riot. The New York Times has identified a group of Oath Keepers who worked as security guards for Mr. Trump’s close ally and adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. at such events, and this week two of them — Roberto Minuta and Joshua A. James — were arrested in connection with the Capitol attack.
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  • Prosecutors overseeing the investigation of Mr. Rhodes, who attended Yale Law School after his military service, have nonetheless struggled to make a case against him. The official with knowledge of the matter said his activities have so far have seemed to stay within the boundaries of the First Amendment.
  • Known for his distinctive black eye patch — the result of a gun accident — Mr. Rhodes has long been known to the F.B.I. and remains under investigation for a matter separate from the riot at the Capitol, a Justice Department official said. For years, he has earned a reputation as a leader of the right-wing “Patriot” movement, often spewing incendiary rhetoric to recruit and inspire militia members.
  • Throughout the Obama years, gathering momentum as a militia group, the Oath Keepers repeatedly inserted themselves into prominent public events. They turned up, for instance, in 2014 at a cattle ranch in Nevada after its owner, Cliven Bundy, engaged in an armed standoff with federal land management officials. That same year, members of the group went to Ferguson, Mo., in a self-appointed mission to protect local businesses from riots prompted by the death of Michael Brown, a Black man who was shot by the police.
hannahcarter11

House GOP fights back against mask, metal detector fines | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...inst-mask-metal-detector-fines

mask safety house gop vaccine

shared by hannahcarter11 on 31 May 21 - No Cached
  • GOP lawmakers are doing everything they can to avoid paying fines for running afoul of rules imposed by Democrats that require masks and security screenings before entering the House chamber.
  • At least six Republicans have been fined in recent days for protesting the House floor mask requirement, adding to five others since February who were penalized for failing to complete security screenings.
  • Lawmakers can appeal the fines to the House Ethics Committee, which so far has upheld metal detector penalties against two Republicans and dropped two others against Rep. Hal RogersHarold (Hal) Dallas RogersHouse GOP fights back against mask, metal detector fines Sixth House member issued ,000 security screening fine House Ethics panel to drop K metal detector fines against Clyburn, Rogers MORE (R-Ky.) and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).
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  • he hefty monetary enforcements are yet another example of the distrust that has deepened since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Democrats say they can't count on certain Republicans to abide by safety measures, while GOP lawmakers argue the fines are an unnecessary power grab by the House majority.
  • The rules state that the fines will be deducted from the offending lawmaker’s salary and can’t be paid for with office budget or campaign funds
  • Mast further argued that the fine was unconstitutional and “unenforceable,” citing in part the Constitution’s 27th Amendment that prohibits any change in the salary of members of Congress from taking effect until after the next election.
  • While Mast, Miller-Meeks and Norman have all confirmed they are fully vaccinated, the other Republicans fined for going maskless have either declined to disclose their vaccination status or openly said they aren’t vaccinated.
  • The Capitol’s attending physician, Brian Monahan, explained in a memo that masks are still required in the House chamber unless members are recognized to speak during debate because it is “the only location where the entire Membership gathers periodically throughout the day in an interior space.” 
  • A recent CNN survey found that all Democrats in the House and Senate confirmed they are vaccinated.
  • Democrats also felt they had to impose fines to compel enforcement of security screenings enacted in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot after several Republicans refused to go through newly installed metal detectors outside the House chamber.
  • Democrats defending the penalties argue that rules enforcing metal detector screenings or masks enforce what they believe is ultimately a minor inconvenience.
anonymous

Can Biden Stay on the Sidelines of the Andrew Cuomo Saga? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...iden-cuomo-sex-harassment.html

shared by anonymous on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • President Biden has made only a passing comment on the crises that have engulfed Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and he seems to be hoping to avoid getting pulled in any further.
  • Mr. Biden is one of the very few people in the nation with the potential to prevent a protracted standoff between an increasingly isolated Mr. Cuomo and the rest of the Democratic Party.
  • The governor and his allies have urged people to wait for the results of the investigations to buy time, in the hope of stabilizing Mr. Cuomo’s support.
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  • But a prolonged period of intraparty sparring over Mr. Cuomo’s future could be problematic for Mr. Biden. It threatens to distract from his early initiatives, including mass vaccination efforts and his party’s imperative to sell the public on the nearly $2 trillion stimulus package Mr. Biden signed into law last week.
  • On Tuesday, the White House will hold its weekly call on the coronavirus with the National Governors Association, which Mr. Cuomo typically leads as chairman of the group. Ms. Psaki said she expected Mr. Cuomo would join the call, adding, “We’ll leave that up to him.”
  • During the presidential campaign, Mr. Biden successfully avoided getting dragged into controversies that didn’t directly relate to him. But the bullying behavior Mr. Cuomo is accused of is contrary to the standard Mr. Biden has set for his own White House.
  • Still, the governor has flatly refused to contemplate resignation while questioning the motives of the women who have accused him of sexual harassment, invoking “cancel culture,”
  • When Mr. Biden in 2020 was accused of sexual assault by a woman who had worked in his Senate office decades earlier, he denied her allegation but did not impugn her motives. Mr. Cuomo has questioned the motivations of some of his accusers.
  • Still, support for Mr. Cuomo has eroded significantly from the highs of his coronavirus press briefings in the spring of 2020 — when he hit 71 percent approval — and even from February, when his approval among all voters was 56 percent in a Siena College poll.
  • “The state is about to be flush with Covid cash,” Mr. Sellers said. “Better days ahead for constituents. Hang on until you become everyone’s favorite bank.”
  • Some members of Congress and their aides were put off by a statement that the former senior member of the delegation, Representative Nita Lowey, of Westchester, had made in defense of Mr. Cuomo, according to a person familiar with the matter. The members had the sense that Ms. Lowey was inappropriately “instrumentalized” as a shield for Mr. Cuomo, the person said, adding that while it wasn’t the precipitating event for other members to speak out last Friday, it had left an impression.
  • Mr. Biden’s fondness for Mr. Cuomo does not necessarily extend to the staff level. The governor’s sharp-elbowed political operation has jabbed at many people in his path over the years.
ethanshilling

Republicans Push for Greater Power Over How Elections Are Run - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...republicans-election-laws.html

US Politics republicans

shared by ethanshilling on 24 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • In the turbulent aftermath of the 2020 presidential contest, election officials in Georgia, from the secretary of state’s office down to county boards, found themselves in a wholly unexpected position: They had to act as one of the last lines of defense against an onslaught of efforts by a sitting president and his influential allies to overturn the will of the voters.
  • Buried in an avalanche of voting restrictions currently moving through the Georgia Statehouse are measures that would give G.O.P. lawmakers wide-ranging influence over the mechanics of voting and fundamentally alter the state’s governance of elections.
  • “It’s looking at total control of the election process by elected officials, which is not what it should be,” said Helen Butler, a Democratic county board of elections member.
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  • State Representative Barry Fleming, a Republican who has been a chief sponsor of the bills in Georgia, did not respond to requests for comment.
  • Nationwide, Republican lawmakers in at least eight states controlled by the party are angling to pry power over elections from secretaries of state, governors and nonpartisan election boards.
  • In Georgia’s new voting bill, the State Legislature is looking to strip Mr. Raffensperger of his role as the chair of the State Election Board and make him an ex-officio member without a vote.
  • If the bill becomes law, the State Election Board, under control of the Legislature, would have more authority over these county boards, including the ability to review and fire their members.
  • Jon Greenbaum, the chief counsel for the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said Republicans were engaged in an “all-out effort to change the voting rules in lots of ways that would allow for greater opportunity for them to challenge the eligibility of electors,” and that the party would “add micromanagement by state legislatures to the process of running an election.”
  • It’s not just Georgia. In Arizona, Republicans are pushing for control over the rules of the state’s elections. In Iowa, the G.O.P. has installed harsh new criminal penalties for county election officials who enact emergency voting rules.
  • Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, has not weighed in publicly on the changes to election administration and oversight.
  • The threat of increased punishment seemed to be directed at three county election officials in the state, who last year chose to mail absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in their counties, drawing the ire of state Republicans.
  • Bobby Kaufmann, the Republican state representative in Iowa who sponsored the voting bill, said the county auditors’ actions were “as much the inspiration for the bill as anything,” pointing to their decisions to mail out ballots with prepopulated information.
  • In Arizona, the Republican-controlled Legislature is pursuing multiple paths to tip the scales of election oversight.
  • Ms. Hobbs, who was the target of many Republican attacks after the 2020 election, said that purely partisan politics were at play in the bills.“The Legislature wasn’t interested in control over elections until I got here and happened to have a ‘D’ by my name,” she said.
  • Efforts in other states to muddle with the mechanics of elections have gone beyond state legislatures. In Michigan, the state Republican Party has indicated that it is unlikely to ask a G.O.P. member of the State Board of Canvassers who chose to certify last year’s election results to return to his post.
  • It is nearly assured that almost all of these bills will face legal challenges from Democrats, who have signaled that combating the efforts to restrict voting will be a top priority through both federal legislation and the courts.
anonymous

Canadian Police Handling of Colten Boushie's Death Denounced in Report - The New York T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rimination-colten-boushie.html

shared by anonymous on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • When seven police officers arrived at the home of Debbie Baptiste in August 2016, encircling the house and carrying rifles, they informed her that her son was dead. Then, instead of comforting the grieving mother, they asked if she had been drinking and told her to “get it together.”
  • The scathing report by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found that the officers treated Ms. Baptiste “with such insensitivity that her treatment amounted to a prima facie case of discrimination.”
  • “It felt like I was forever fighting a battle that could never be won,” Ms. Baptiste told a news conference on Monday. “The injustices of racism in the courtroom, the discrimination needs to stop. Things need to change. We need a change for the future generation.”
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  • Mr. Stanley was acquitted in 2018 after testifying that he had unintentionally shot Mr. Boushie in the back of the head when his semiautomatic pistol experienced a rare mechanical malfunction. The verdict shocked many Indigenous Canadians.
  • On Monday Mr. Trudeau told reporters that the treatment of Mr. Boushie’s family and friends “was unacceptable,” adding, “We have seen, unfortunately, examples of systemic racism within the R.C.M.P., within many of our institutions, and we need to do better.”
  • The National Police Federation, a union representing the mounted police, countered the report’s findings, saying it “advances a perspective that disrespects our members and brings their impartiality, dedication and professionalism into question.”
  • The killing and the acquittal remain sources of anger for many Indigenous Canadians who have argued the case exposed significant flaws in Canada’s legal system.
  • The two men came out with guns and also attacked the Escape with a hammer. After Mr. Boushie was killed, the others fled.
  • As a result, the commission found, police descended on Ms. Baptiste’s house on the Red Pheasant Cree Nation, her Indigenous community, with two goals: to inform her of Mr. Boushie’s death and to search for a member of Mr. Boushie's group of friends as part of a related investigation into theft and attempted theft.
  • “Ms. Baptiste displayed distress at the news they had just given her, one member told her to ‘get it together,’” the report found. “One or more RCMP members smelled her breath” apparently for signs of alcohol.
  • The report also noted that the police destroyed recordings and transcripts of their communications from the time of the killing, which did follow standard retention protocols, but occurred knowing that Mr. Boushie’s family and the commission had initiated complaints for which these files would have been relevant.
Javier E

Mob Violence Against Palestinians in Israel Is Fueled by Groups on WhatsApp - The New Y... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-violence-groups-whatsapp.html

mob violence israel palestine right-wing crisis Politics

shared by Javier E on 20 May 21 - No Cached
  • Last Wednesday, a message appeared in a new WhatsApp channel called “Death to the Arabs.” The message urged Israelis to join a mass street brawl against Palestinian citizens of Israel.
  • “Together we organize and together we act,” read a message in one of the WhatsApp groups. “Tell your friends to join the group, because here we know how to defend Jewish honor.”
  • The episode was one of dozens across Israel that the authorities have linked to a surge of activity by Jewish extremists on WhatsApp, the encrypted messaging service owned by Facebook.
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  • Since violence between Israelis and Palestinians escalated last week, at least 100 new WhatsApp groups have been formed for the express purpose of committing violence against Palestinians, according to an analysis by The New York Times and FakeReporter, an Israeli watchdog group that studies misinformation.
  • While social media and messaging apps have been used in the past to spread hate speech and inspire violence, these WhatsApp groups go further, researchers said. That’s because the groups are explicitly planning and executing violent acts against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up roughly 20 percent of the population and live largely integrated lives with Jewish neighbors.
  • That is far more specific than past WhatsApp-fueled mob attacks in India, where calls for violence were vague and generally not targeted at individuals or businesses
  • Even the Stop the Steal groups in the United States that organized the Jan. 6 protests in Washington did not openly direct attacks using social media or messaging apps,
  • In the groups, attacks have been carefully documented, with members often gloating about taking part in the violence, according to The Times’s review. Some said they were taking revenge for rockets being fired onto Israel from militants in the Gaza Strip, while others cited different grievances. Many solicited names of Arab-owned businesses they could target next.
  • “It is a perfect storm of people empowered to use their own names and phone numbers to openly call for violence, and having a tool like WhatsApp to organize themselves into mobs,” said Achiya Schatz, director of FakeReporter.
  • Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said, “Police are tracking social media and monitoring movements on the ground.” He said that while Israelis have been involved in some attacks, they were largely “protecting themselves” against attacks by Palestinian citizens of Israel. He added, “Police investigations are continuing.”
  • One official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, added that the police had not seen similar WhatsApp groups forming among Palestinians.
  • Islamist movements, including Hamas, the militant Palestinian organization that controls the Gaza Strip, have long organized and recruited followers on social media but do not plan attacks on the services for fear of being discovered.
  • A WhatsApp spokeswoman said the messaging service was concerned by the activity from Israeli extremists. She said the company had removed some accounts of people who participated in the groups. WhatsApp cannot read the encrypted messages on its service, she added, but it has acted when accounts were reported to it for violating its terms of service.
  • The groups have since grown steadily in size, Mr. Schatz said. Some have become so big that they have branched off into local chapters that are dedicated to certain cities and towns. To evade detection by WhatsApp, organizers of the groups are urging people to vet new members, he said.
  • On one new Telegram channel that The Times reviewed, “The Revenge Troops,” people recently shared instructions for how to build Molotov cocktails and makeshift explosives. The group asked its 400 members to also provide addresses of Arab-owned businesses that could be targeted.
  • In another group with just under 100 members, people shared photos of guns, knives and other weapons as they discussed engaging in street combat in mixed Jewish-Arab cities. Another new WhatsApp group was named “The unapologetic right-wing group.”
  • “We destroyed them, we left them in pieces,” said one person in “The Revenge Troops” Telegram channel, alongside a photo showing smashed car windows. In a different group, a video was uploaded of black-clad Jewish youths stopping cars on an unnamed street and asking drivers if they were Jewish or Arab.
  • We beat “the enemy car-by-car,” said a comment posted underneath the video, using an expletive.
  • “Our government is too weak to do what is necessary, so we take it into our own hands,” wrote one person in a WhatsApp group dedicated to the city of Ramle in central Israel. “Now that we have organized, they can’t stop us.”
mariedhorne

Far-Right Affiliations Seen Among Those Recently Charged in Capitol Riot - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...ed-in-capitol-riot-11610930392

capitol riot

shared by mariedhorne on 19 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Adherents of the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers have been charged for alleged roles in the riot. Several of the groups used violent rhetoric urging members to attend the D.C. rally the day of the Capitol riot.
  • An Indiana man, Jon Schaffer, identified as a member of the heavy metal band Iced Earth, was arrested on charges of engaging in violence in a restricted building, disorderly conduct and other crimes, and was photographed wearing a baseball cap at the riot bearing the words “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member,” according to an affidavit for his arrest filed on Saturday. The Anti-Defamation League calls the group an “antigovernment right-wing fringe organization.”
  • Another defendant, 24-year-old Colorado resident Robert Gieswein, appears to be affiliated with the Three Percenters, according to another affidavit filed Saturday seeking his arrest on federal charges.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “We’re not going to merge into some globalist, communist system, it will not happen. There will be a lot of bloodshed if it comes down to that, trust me.” The other members of Mr. Schaffer’s band have said they didn’t condone or support the riot.
  • Prosecutors say Mr. Betancur scaled scaffolding on the Capitol, posed in a photo with a Confederate battle flag, and “has voiced homicidal ideations, made comments about conducting a school shooting and researched mass shootings.”
  • The Jan. 7 post was copied and pasted on another social-media site, where it was viewed by others at least 54,000 times, prosecutors said.
anonymous

Ocasio-Cortez Says She 'Narrowly Escaped Death' At Capitol : House Impeachment Vote: Li... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...z-recounts-capitol-insurrectio

shared by anonymous on 13 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • In an hour-long Instagram Live video Tuesday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., described her personal experience last week when a violent mob of pro-Trump extremists breached the Capitol and forced lawmakers into hiding
  • But I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die."
  • We were very lucky that things happened within certain minutes that allowed members to escape the House floor unharmed. But many of us narrowly escaped death."
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • In her video on Tuesday, she said she felt unsafe in the secure room where she was held with other lawmakers while the Capitol was under lockdown.
  • "I myself did not even feel safe going to that extraction point, because there were QAnon and white supremacist sympathizers and frankly white supremacist members of Congress in that extraction point, who I know, and who I had felt would disclose my location and allow me to, who would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, etc.
  • She also pointed to several Republican members' refusal to wear masks while under lockdown, which she says endangered the lives of her colleagues.
  • At least three Democratic members of Congress have tested positive for the coronavirus in the days following the insurrection.
katherineharron

Something *very* important for our politics happened on Tuesday - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

maryland

shared by katherineharron on 13 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • While the eyes of the world were focused on the impeachment efforts against President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Gov. Larry Hogan of neighboring Maryland did something extremely important in beginning the long process of unwinding our current political polarization.
  • The Republican governor announced that via executive order he had created an independent commission he will task with redrawing the state's congressional and legislative lines following the decennial reapportionment later this year.
  • "This commission is the first of its kind in the long history of our state," Hogan said in making the announcement. "Unlike the partisan, backdoor manner in which our state's political power brokers have conducted the state's redistricting process, we want to make sure that this time the people of Maryland are actually the ones drawing these lines—not the politicians or the party bosses."
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Only the most ardent political junkies closely follow the re-shuffling and re-drawing of legislative and congressional districts that follow the decennial census. (Guilty, your honor!)
  • In fact, like many things that the general public either knows nothing about or has a decided lack of interest in, how these lines are drawn and by whom has an outsized impact on the sort of government we have -- and what the motivations of our elected officials are.
  • For decades, the line-drawing process has fallen, in most states, to state legislators and governors. What that has meant, in the main, is that when Democrats control the state capitol and, therefore, the line-drawing process, they create districts that are as favorable as possible for their side.
  • The strategy of both sides has been simple: Pack as many of the opposition party's voters into as few districts in the state as possible while spreading out their own voters to make as many districts winnable for their side as they can. Innovations in redistricting software have made this slicing and dicing of people based on their party registration or past voting history an art form -- allowing the line-drawers to literally go street by street when it comes to crafting new districts.
  • The state's congressional districts have regularly changed hands between the parties, with Republicans winning two previously-held Democratic seats in the 2020 election. And generally speaking, three of the four districts in the state -- the exception being the Republican-friendly 4th in western Iowa -- are extremely competitive every two years. Check out the winning percentages for four incoming members of Congress in the state: 62%, 49%, 50% and 51.3%. In the state's 2nd District, the Republican candidate leads the Democrat candidate by six -- SIX! -- votes.
  • The vast majority of members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, represent what we would call "safe" districts -- meaning that their only chance of losing their job would be in a primary, not a general election.
  • In 1956, for example, less than 6 in 10 House incumbents won with 60% of the vote or more, according to Vital Statistics on Congress. By 2002, the first election after the 2001 nationwide redistricting, 85% of all House incumbents seeking reelection won with 60% or higher. In 2014 and 2016, that number hovered in the mid-to-high 70s before dipping to just 63% in the tumultuous 2018 midterm election.
  • The practical, political effect of this trend is simple: Members of Congress have little reason to demonstrate their ability to work across the partisan aisle and every reason to be as partisan and ideological as possible in hopes of staving off any sort of primary challenge.
  • Independent or bipartisan commissions to redraw the maps in states -- as Hogan is trying to do in Maryland -- work to reorient the incentive structure for members by creating districts that are far more competitive between the two parties in general elections.
  • Maps drawn over the past two decades -- by Democrats and Republicans -- in places like North Carolina, Texas and yes, Maryland -- have come under legal scrutiny for using political considerations as the sole motivator in creating legislative and congressional districts. Maps in which one party overreached have, occasionally, led to unpredictable results in which the party in power loses seats they expected to win because they tried to divide up their own voters among too many districts.
  • While bipartisan -- and independent -- line-drawing commissions are on the rise in recent years, the majority of states in the country still rely on politicians to draw lines.
leilamulveny

Paul Ryan condemns party members' plot to reject Biden's election win. - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-to-reject-bidens-election-win

transition biden new york times US policy

shared by leilamulveny on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Former House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Sunday issued a rare statement condemning members of his own party for attempting to overturn President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the November election.
  • “Efforts to reject the votes of the Electoral College and sow doubt about Joe Biden’s victory strike at the foundation of our republic,” Mr. Ryan wrote. “It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans. The fact that this effort will fail does not mean it will not do significant damage to American democracy.”
  • The legal process was exhausted, and the results were decisively confirmed. The Department of Justice, too, found no basis for overturning the result. If states wish to reform their processes for future elections, that is their prerogative. But Joe Biden’s victory is entirely legitimate.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A bipartisan group of centrist lawmakers, including a number of Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mitt Romney of Utah — also urged their fellow party members to stand down.
  • “All challenges through recounts and appeals have been exhausted. At this point, further attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election are contrary to the clearly expressed will of the American people and only serve to undermine Americans’ confidence in the already determined election results.”
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