Author: PolitCens

Under pressure from activists, on Thursday President Joe Biden signed a series of executive actions aimed at curbing gun violence, following recent mass shootings. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, prospects for gun control legislation appear dim for now in the divided U.S. Congress.
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A centrist U.S. Democratic lawmaker, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, is renewing his opposition to changes in the parliamentary rules in the politically divided Senate, imperiling President Joe Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda. In the Senate, now with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, members of both parties in recent years have more frequently employed a filibuster to block key legislation they did not like. Once a filibuster has begun, it requires a 60-vote super majority to end debate and move a bill to a final vote. Some progressive Democrats want to end use of the filibuster in order to approve Biden’s legislative proposals on voting rights, infrastructure spending and more on 51-50 votes, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote in favor of the Biden agenda.FILE – Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, speaks at a hearing in Washington, Feb, 24, 2021.But Manchin, perhaps the most conservative lawmaker in the 50-member Democratic caucus, has long defended the filibuster.  In an opinion article published in Thursday’s Washington Post, Manchin ruled out a rules change to end the filibuster or repeated use of another legislative tactic known as budget reconciliation, which was employed by Democrats to secure passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief deal despite unified Republican opposition.“There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” Manchin declared. “The time has come to end these political games, and to usher a new era of bipartisanship where we find common ground on the major policy debates facing our nation.” He added, “We will not solve our nation’s problems in one Congress if we seek only partisan solutions. Instead of fixating on eliminating the filibuster or shortcutting the legislative process through budget reconciliation, it is time we do our jobs.” Earlier this week, Senate Democrats won permission from the chamber’s parliamentarian to use the reconciliation process again this year. That would enable them to avoid a Republican filibuster of Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal and pass it on a party-line vote. “I simply do not believe budget reconciliation should replace regular order in the Senate,” Manchin wrote in his opinion article. “How is that good for the future of this nation? Senate Democrats must avoid the temptation to abandon our Republican colleagues on important national issues.” “Republicans, however,” he said, “have a responsibility to stop saying no, and participate in finding real compromise with Democrats.” A few weeks ago, Manchin suggested he would be amenable to making it harder to use the filibuster, such as by renewing the tradition from years past when filibustering lawmakers were required to hold the floor during Senate debates by speaking for hours without a recess. Biden, for 36 years a senator himself before serving eight years as vice president and then winning the presidency, says he favors once again making senators actually talk through a filibuster, which is not now the case. But Manchin, with his new statement, declared his opposition to weakening the filibuster, saying, “Every time the Senate voted to weaken the filibuster in the past decade, the political dysfunction and gridlock have grown more severe.” He said, “The political games playing out in the halls of Congress only fuel the hateful rhetoric and violence we see across our country right now. The truth is, my Democratic friends do not have all the answers and my Republican friends do not, either.” While simple majorities are enough to approve legislation in the House, 60 votes are often necessary in the Senate to end debate on controversial issues and move forward to a vote. If the filibuster is eliminated to thwart opponents from blocking key legislation, a Democratic majority, as is currently the case with the Harris tie-breaking vote, could pass legislation with a simple majority. 
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Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin announced his candidacy for governor of New York on Thursday with an attack on incumbent Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the subject of investigations over sexual harassment allegations and COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.
“The bottom line is this; to save New York, Andrew Cuomo’s gotta go,” Zeldin, a fourth-term Congress member from Long Island, said in a news release.
Zeldin, 41, promised to bring “the kind of relentless, fighting spirit towards helping to save our state that Andrew Cuomo only reserves for multi-million dollar self-congratulatory book deals, cover-ups, abuse and self-dealing.”  
Cuomo, who has not announced a run for a fourth term as governor in 2022, is facing allegations that he sexually harassed or behaved inappropriately toward several women. He has resisted calls for his resignation over the harassment claims and his administration’s handling of COVID-19 cases in nursing homes  during the height of the pandemic last year.
Other Republicans who have said they are considering seeking the Republican nomination for New York governor include Andrew Giuiliani, the son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a former aide in the Trump administration.
Zeldin, a loyal ally to former President Donald Trump during the Republican’s time in office, did not mention Trump in his statement announcing his gubernatorial run.
Zeldin is an Army veteran who has represented New York’s 1st congressional district since 2015. He served two terms in the state Senate before that.
“Throughout America’s history, the State of New York has led the way forward for our great country. From George Washington leading the Continental Army from Manhattan to fight another day, to Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech, to the massive industrial advancements that made America the world’s preeminent economic power, to the rebuilding of New York City after 9/11, the Empire State has been a beacon of hope, progress, and patriotism for 250 years.
“With one-party Democrat rule in NYC and Albany, the light that once shone as a beacon of what America can be has gone dark. The New York that was once a magnet for the world’s best and brightest is now forcing its own to leave under the crushing weight of skyrocketing taxes, lost jobs, suffocating regulations, and rising crime resulting from dangerously liberal policies.
“At the helm of New York’s downfall is Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose disgraceful and deadly nursing home order and cover-up is part of a long line of scandals, lies, and harassment. Cuomo has abused the power and trust granted to him and it is time for him to immediately exit stage left.
“I am ready to go all in on this mission and bring New York back from the brink and return it to glory.  
“For many, this feels like a last stand to save our state. Losing is not an option.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland are scheduled to speak Thursday about a set of new measures meant to address gun violence in the United States.Ahead of their remarks, the White House released details of some of the initiatives, calling gun violence a “public health epidemic.”WATCH LIVE at 11:45am EDTPlan details
One action is a proposed rule from the Justice Department to stop the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns” that lack serial numbers and are difficult for law enforcement to trace when they are used in crimes.The Justice Department is also planning to issue a model of what are known as “red flag” laws that give family members and law enforcement the ability to petition a court to temporarily restrict someone deemed to be a danger to themselves or someone else from accessing guns.  The model is intended to give individual states a starting point for enacting their own laws.Another proposed rule from the Justice Department would address stabilizing braces for pistols.  The White House says such devices “can make a firearm more stable and accurate while still being concealable.”The new efforts also include an annual report on firearms trafficking, and a set of community violence interventions.Biden is also planning to nominate David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, to lead the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Chipman was a 25-year agent at the agency where he took part in the investigations of bombings at New York’s World Trade Center and a federal building in Oklahoma City in the 1990s.Recent US mass shootings
The push for measures to counter gun violence comes after the latest mass shootings in the United States, including last month’s killing of 10 people at a grocery store in Colorado and the killing of eight people at spas in the Atlanta area.Such attacks spur debate on the divisive issues of gun control in the United States.A History of Mass ShootingsWho commits public mass shootings? What motivates them to kill? With the help of a landmark database, VOA examines the social, psychological, emotional and environmental factors that contributed to these rare crimes.Republican opposition
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Biden’s moves would “trample over” constitutional rights to bear arms.“He is soft on crime, but infringes on the rights of law-abiding citizens. I won’t stand for it. And neither will House Republicans. Follow the Constitution!” McCarthy tweeted.FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., responds to a reporter’s question during his weekly news conference at the Capitol in Washington.Saving livesJohn Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, praised the administration’s actions, particularly on ghost guns, saying that will “undoubtedly save countless lives.”“We are glad to hear the administration’s commitment that today’s actions are just the beginning, and look forward to continuing to work closely with them to end gun violence in this country,” Feinblatt said in a statement.
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For decades, a public lands tug-of-war has played out over a vast expanse of southern Utah where red rocks reveal petroglyphs and distinctive twin buttes bulge from a grassy valley.
A string of U.S. officials has heard from those who advocate for broadening national monuments to protect the area’s many archaeological and cultural sites, considered sacred to surrounding tribes, and those who fiercely oppose what they see as federal overreach.
On Thursday, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will be the latest cabinet official to visit Bears Ears National Monument — and the first Indigenous one. Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, is scheduled to meet with tribes and elected officials at Bears Ears before submitting a review with recommendations on whether to reverse President Donald Trump’s decision to downsize that site and Grand Staircase-Escalante, another Utah national monument.
The visit underscores her unique position as the first Native American to lead a department that has broad authority over tribal nations, as well as energy development and other uses for the country’s sprawling federal lands.  
“She brings something that no other cabinet secretary has brought, which is that her Indigenous communities are coming with her in that room,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College.
Miller said the outcome of the negotiations will shed light on how the Biden administration plans to respond to other public lands disputes and will likely impact subsequent conversations with other states on natural resources.
Haaland faces competing interests: Tribes across the U.S. have hailed her confirmation as a chance to have their voices heard and their land and rights protected, while Republican leaders labeled her a “radical”  who could, along with President Joe Biden, stunt oil and gas development and destroy thousands of jobs.
Pat Gonzales-Rogers, executive director of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said he looks forward to Haaland seeking tribes’ input, which he called a “far cry” from her predecessors in the Trump administration.  
He noted Haaland is familiar with the landscape — Bears Ears contains many sites of spiritual importance to New Mexico’s pueblos — but acknowledged she has a responsibility to hear from all sides.
“She is the interior secretary for all of us, and that also requires her to engage other groups.”
The coalition wants the monument restored to its original size, or even enlarged, but Gonzales-Rogers said he hopes Haaland’s visit will at least be a step toward a more certainty.
“All parties would like to see some permanence, and they don’t want it to vacillate between either administrations or political ideology,” he said.  
Prominent Utah Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney and new Gov. Spencer Cox, have expressed concern with the review under Biden’s administration and demanded state leaders be involved. Haaland is expected to meet with them, along with Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson and U.S. Rep. Blake Moore during her visit.
Romney said the meeting will give Haaland a chance to receive valuable input from local officials and residents.
“I’m hopeful this visit will also highlight to the Secretary the importance of working with Congress toward a permanent legislative solution for the monuments’ boundaries and management that reflects the input of Utah’s state, local and tribal leaders, rather than unilateral action,” he said.
Former President Barack Obama proclaimed Bears Ears a national monument in 2016. The site was the first to receive the designation at the specific request of tribes.
Its boundaries were downsized by 85% under the Trump administration, while Grand Staircase-Escalante was cut nearly in half. The reductions paved the way for potential coal mining, and oil and gas drilling on lands that were previously off-limits. Activity was limited because of market forces. Environmental, tribal, paleontological and outdoor recreation organizations are suing to restore the monuments’ original boundaries, arguing presidents don’t have legal authority to change monuments their predecessors created.
On the flip side, Republicans have argued Democratic presidents misused the Antiquities Act signed by President Theodore Roosevelt to designate monuments beyond what’s necessary to protect archaeological and cultural resources.
Haaland will be a key player in deciding what comes next.  
She has said she will follow Biden’s agenda, not her own, on oil and gas drilling, and told reporters at a briefing last week that her report to the president will reflect conversations with people who know and understand the area.
“That starts with listening,” she said, adding she has been to Bears Ears and knows “how special it is.”
The Biden administration has said the decision to review the monuments is part of an expansive plan to tackle climate change and reverse the Trump administration’s “harmful policies.”
But Mike Noel, a former state representative and vocal critic of expanding the monuments, said it would be a mistake for the administration to “go back and rub salt in the wounds” by reversing Trump’s decision.  
He said he fears that not allowing local and state officials to make these decisions will only further divide those involved.
“It’s never a good thing when decisions like this are made from Washington, D.C.,” Noel said. “I just think it’s being done wrong, and I hope that the new secretary recognizes that.”
Wilfred Herrera Jr., chairman of the All Pueblo Council of Governors and a former governor of Laguna Pueblo, noted places like Bears Ears and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico connect tribal members to their ancestors. He said protecting them is the council’s highest duty.
“Our current challenge — this threat to our cultural survival — is epitomized by these two examples and many other areas of equal importance,” he said.
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The political dispute over a new election law in the southern state of Georgia has broadened into a debate over whether the United States should participate in a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price acknowledged the U.S. will discuss with allies whether to jointly boycott the games to protest Beijing’s repression of minorities and major human rights abuses. “A coordinated approach will be not only in our interest but also in the interest of our allies and partners,” he told reporters at a daily briefing. But he stressed that no final decision has been reached. FILE – Ground crews work at Sun Trust Park, now known as Truist Park, in Atlanta, Oct. 7, 2018. Truist Park lost the 2021 All-Star Game on April 2, when Major League Baseball moved the game over the objections to Georgia’s new election law.Two days later, when the league announced it would shift the All-Star Game out of Atlanta to Denver, Colorado, the condemnation on the political right was swift. Amid the complaints about “cancel culture” and “wokeness,” a number of conservative commentators and elected officials coalesced around the demand that Biden justify U.S. participation in the Olympics, given the Chinese government’s treatment of its own people. “When Joe Biden decides to boycott the Olympics in China, where the Communist Chinese regime is committing genocide, then he can weigh in on Georgia,” Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee wrote on Twitter. “We can’t wait to see what the U.S. President is going to say about China’s voting rules,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote. “There are no lines at polling places in the Middle Kingdom, because there are no polling places, no absentee ballot controversies because there are no ballots. … Perhaps Mr. Biden can compare the voting rules in Georgia to those in the re-education camps in Xinjiang province.” The Journal’s editors say they do not support a boycott, even as they demand Biden explain why he isn’t calling for one. Backing for boycottHowever, there has also been a chorus of opposition to full U.S. participation in the Beijing Games among conservative lawmakers for several years. Recommended actions have included everything from a full-blown boycott to a more limited “diplomatic boycott” that would see a junior member of the Biden administration heading the U.S. delegation to the games, rather than the president or vice president. Last month, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who was president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, called for a combined economic and diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter games. In a New York Times op-ed, he wrote, “Let us demonstrate our repudiation of China’s abuses in a way that will hurt the Chinese Communist Party rather than our American athletes: reduce China’s revenues, shut down their propaganda, and expose their abuses.” Athletes take part in a curling competition held as a test event for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, at the National Aquatics Center, in Beijing, China, April 1, 2021.Jules Boykoff, a professor of political science at Pacific University and author of four books about the politics of the Olympics, said, “A lot of the arguments for boycotting the games, or moving them, have actually emerged out of Republican circles. (Florida Senator) Marco Rubio, for example, has been on top of it for a long time, as has (Congressman) Christopher Smith in New Jersey.” Boykoff said there has been some Democratic support as well. “Here in the United States, China has become sort of an all-purpose, bipartisan political punching bag. And so, Democrats also have been speaking out a lot about China in general, and then more recently about this idea of the possibility of boycotting the Olympics. So, there’s bipartisan support for considering the possibility.” Full boycott unlikely Some experts, however, believe there is little likelihood of anything more than the limited diplomatic boycott taking place. Victor A. Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Boston who studies the economics of sports, said that historically, Olympic boycotts have been very unpopular within the country doing the boycotting because “athletes lose the opportunity to compete, and in many sports, this is your only opportunity to monetize your perhaps decades of work.” He added, “I would be very surprised if we boycotted. It would be, I think, very politically difficult for Biden, mainly because so many Americans, their hearts really do go out to the athletes themselves, who would miss this opportunity.” Staff members sit near a board with signs of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, at the National Aquatics Center, known colloquially as the “Ice Cube”, in Beijing, China, April 1, 2021.But the fact that the discussion is taking place might be a sign that in the future, human rights abuses could become a major consideration when international organizations are considering bids to host major events. Boykoff said Major League Baseball’s actions in Georgia and the calls to boycott the Beijing Games might be part of a larger trend. While the complexities of derailing the Winter Olympics are orders of magnitude greater than those of moving a single baseball game, he said, he sees them as part of a “larger zeitgeist.” 
 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland are scheduled to speak Thursday about a set of new measures meant to address gun violence in the United States.Ahead of their remarks, the White House released details of some of the initiatives, calling gun violence a “public health epidemic.”One action is a proposed rule from the Justice Department to stop the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns” that lack serial numbers and are difficult for law enforcement to trace when they are used in crimes.The Justice Department is also planning to issue a model of what are known as “red flag” laws that give family members and law enforcement the ability to petition a court to temporarily restrict someone deemed to be a danger to themselves or someone else from accessing guns.  The model is intended to give individual states a starting point for enacting their own laws.Another proposed rule from the Justice Department would address stabilizing braces for pistols.  The White House says such devices “can make a firearm more stable and accurate while still being concealable.”The new efforts also include an annual report on firearms trafficking, and a set of community violence interventions.Biden is also planning to nominate David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, to lead the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Chipman was a 25-year agent at the agency where he took part in the investigations of bombings at New York’s World Trade Center and a federal building in Oklahoma City in the 1990s.The push for measures to counter gun violence comes after the latest mass shootings in the United States, including last month’s killing of 10 people at a grocery store in Colorado and the killing of eight people at spas in the Atlanta area.Such attacks spur debate on the divisive issues of gun control in the United States.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Biden’s moves would “trample over” constitutional rights to bear arms.“He is soft on crime, but infringes on the rights of law-abiding citizens. I won’t stand for it. And neither will House Republicans. Follow the Constitution!” McCarthy tweeted.John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, praised the administration’s actions, particularly on ghost guns, saying that will “undoubtedly save countless lives.”“We are glad to hear the administration’s commitment that today’s actions are just the beginning, and look forward to continuing to work closely with them to end gun violence in this country,” Feinblatt said in a statement.
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U.S. President Joe Biden will unveil a series of executive actions aimed at addressing gun violence on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the plans, delivering his first major action on gun control since taking office.He’s also expected to nominate David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Chipman’s nomination is expected to be announced Thursday. The people could not discuss the matter publicly ahead of an official announcement and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. If confirmed, Chipman would be the agency’s first permanent director since 2015.Biden has faced increasing pressure to act on gun control after a spate of mass shootings across the U.S. in recent weeks, but the White House has repeatedly emphasized the need for legislative action on guns. While the House passed a background-check bill last month, gun control measures face slim prospects in an evenly divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals.Biden is expected to announce tighter regulations requiring buyers of so-called “ghost guns” to undergo background checks. The homemade firearms — often assembled from parts and milled with a metal-cutting machine — often lack serial numbers used to trace them. It’s legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop, and there is no federal requirement for a background check.The president’s plans were previewed by a person familiar with the expected actions who was not authorized to publicly discuss them. Biden will be joined by Attorney General Merrick Garland at the event.The ATF is currently run by Acting Director Regina Lombardo. Gun control advocates have emphasized the significance of the ATF director in enforcing the nation’s gun laws, and Chipman is certain to win praise from them. During his time as a senior policy adviser with Giffords, he spent considerable effort pushing for greater regulation and enforcement on “ghost guns,” reforms of the background check system, and measures to reduce the trafficking of illegal firearms.FILE – In this September 25, 2019, file photo, David Chipman, Giffords Law Center senior policy adviser, speaks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on assault weapons, on Capitol Hill in Washington.Prior to that, Chipman spent 25 years as an agent at the ATF, where he worked on stopping a trafficking ring that sent illegal firearms from Virginia to New York and served on the ATF’s Special Weapons and Tactics team. Chipman is a gun owner himself.Chipman and a White House spokesperson both declined to comment.During his campaign, Biden promised to prioritize new gun control measures as president, including enacting universal background check legislation and banning online sales of firearms and the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But gun control advocates have said that while they were heartened by signs from the White House that they took the issue seriously, they’ve been disappointed by the lack of early action.Biden himself expressed uncertainty late last month when asked if he had the political capital to pass new gun control proposals, telling reporters, “I haven’t done any counting yet.”White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last month, however, that executive actions on guns were coming as well, calling them “one of the levers that we can use” to address gun violence.For years, federal officials have been sounding the alarm about an increasing black market for homemade military-style semiautomatic rifles and handguns. Ghost guns have increasingly turned up at crime scenes and in recent years have been turning up more and more when federal agents are purchasing guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because, in many cases, police departments don’t even contact the federal government about the guns because they can’t be traced.Some states, such as California, have enacted laws in recent years to require that serial numbers be stamped on ghost guns.The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80% receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017, and who had been prohibited from owning firearms, built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.Plans for Biden’s announcement Thursday were first reported by Politico.
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The political dispute over a new election law in the southern state of Georgia has broadened into a debate over whether the United States should participate in a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price acknowledged the U.S. will discuss with allies whether to jointly boycott the games to protest Beijing’s repression of minorities and major human rights abuses. “A coordinated approach will be not only in our interest but also in the interest of our allies and partners,” he told reporters at a daily briefing. But he stressed that no final decision has been reached. FILE – Ground crews work at Sun Trust Park, now known as Truist Park, in Atlanta, Oct. 7, 2018. Truist Park lost the 2021 All-Star Game on April 2, when Major League Baseball moved the game over the objections to Georgia’s new election law.Two days later, when the league announced it would shift the All-Star Game out of Atlanta to Denver, Colorado, the condemnation on the political right was swift. Amid the complaints about “cancel culture” and “wokeness,” a number of conservative commentators and elected officials coalesced around the demand that Biden justify U.S. participation in the Olympics, given the Chinese government’s treatment of its own people. “When Joe Biden decides to boycott the Olympics in China, where the Communist Chinese regime is committing genocide, then he can weigh in on Georgia,” Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee wrote on Twitter. “We can’t wait to see what the U.S. President is going to say about China’s voting rules,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote. “There are no lines at polling places in the Middle Kingdom, because there are no polling places, no absentee ballot controversies because there are no ballots. … Perhaps Mr. Biden can compare the voting rules in Georgia to those in the re-education camps in Xinjiang province.” The Journal’s editors say they do not support a boycott, even as they demand Biden explain why he isn’t calling for one. Backing for boycottHowever, there has also been a chorus of opposition to full U.S. participation in the Beijing Games among conservative lawmakers for several years. Recommended actions have included everything from a full-blown boycott to a more limited “diplomatic boycott” that would see a junior member of the Biden administration heading the U.S. delegation to the games, rather than the president or vice president. Last month, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who was president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, called for a combined economic and diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter games. In a New York Times op-ed, he wrote, “Let us demonstrate our repudiation of China’s abuses in a way that will hurt the Chinese Communist Party rather than our American athletes: reduce China’s revenues, shut down their propaganda, and expose their abuses.” Athletes take part in a curling competition held as a test event for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, at the National Aquatics Center, in Beijing, China, April 1, 2021.Jules Boykoff, a professor of political science at Pacific University and author of four books about the politics of the Olympics, said, “A lot of the arguments for boycotting the games, or moving them, have actually emerged out of Republican circles. (Florida Senator) Marco Rubio, for example, has been on top of it for a long time, as has (Congressman) Christopher Smith in New Jersey.” Boykoff said there has been some Democratic support as well. “Here in the United States, China has become sort of an all-purpose, bipartisan political punching bag. And so, Democrats also have been speaking out a lot about China in general, and then more recently about this idea of the possibility of boycotting the Olympics. So, there’s bipartisan support for considering the possibility.” Full boycott unlikely Some experts, however, believe there is little likelihood of anything more than the limited diplomatic boycott taking place. Victor A. Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Boston who studies the economics of sports, said that historically, Olympic boycotts have been very unpopular within the country doing the boycotting because “athletes lose the opportunity to compete, and in many sports, this is your only opportunity to monetize your perhaps decades of work.” He added, “I would be very surprised if we boycotted. It would be, I think, very politically difficult for Biden, mainly because so many Americans, their hearts really do go out to the athletes themselves, who would miss this opportunity.” Staff members sit near a board with signs of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, at the National Aquatics Center, known colloquially as the “Ice Cube”, in Beijing, China, April 1, 2021.But the fact that the discussion is taking place might be a sign that in the future, human rights abuses could become a major consideration when international organizations are considering bids to host major events. Boykoff said Major League Baseball’s actions in Georgia and the calls to boycott the Beijing Games might be part of a larger trend. While the complexities of derailing the Winter Olympics are orders of magnitude greater than those of moving a single baseball game, he said, he sees them as part of a “larger zeitgeist.” 
 
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Democratic U.S. Representative Alcee Hastings has died at the age of 84, his office said on Tuesday, further narrowing the party’s majority in the lower chamber of Congress.
His office did not provide details on the cause of death. In January 2019, Hastings said he was diagnosed with and receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer.
“I’m heartbroken at the passing of my dear friend, Alcee Hastings,” said fellow Florida Democratic lawmaker Ted Deutch in a statement. “Alcee spoke up for the quiet voices that would otherwise go unheard. He never backed down from a fight for the people he represented and anyone else who needed defending.”
Hastings, who became the first African American elected to Congress in Florida since the post-Civil War period, was serving his fifteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives in a Florida district that now includes parts of Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and the area around Lake Okeechobee, his website said. He was first elected in 1992.
He most recently won his seat with 78.7% of the vote, according to the Florida Department of State.
Hastings served on the powerful Rules Committee, which determines the conditions under which legislation in the House is considered, and was a commissioner on the Commission of Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors and encourages compliance of human rights.
“We sat side by side in the committee for many years and I watched him take down phony arguments and lift up the truth with a turn of a phrase that only he could deliver,” James McGovern, chairman of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement. “I have lost a friend, this Congress has lost a giant, and those who all too often go unseen in America have lost a champion.”
Before his election to Congress, Hastings was an attorney and civil rights activist.
The son of parents who were domestic workers, Hastings was born in 1936 and attended a segregated high school. He spoke about how his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were not allowed to vote, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
In 1979, he was appointed to be a federal district court judge. But two years later, Hastings was indicted on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for soliciting a $150,000 bribe for reducing the sentences of two mob-connected felons convicted in his court, according to the Senate website.
Though Hastings was acquitted, he was impeached and removed from office by the U.S. Senate in 1989. He was not disqualified from holding future elected office.
His death leaves a sixth vacancy in the House of Representatives, which Democrats would now control with 218 seats, against the Republicans’ 211, according to a tally by the House press office.
The further narrowing of the Democrats’ majority could make it even more difficult for the party to pursue their legislative agenda.
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Top Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee on Monday proposed major shifts in former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax reforms to eliminate what they say are incentives for companies to move operations overseas and shift profits to tax haven countries. The plan proposed by Democratic senators Ron Wyden, Sherrod Brown and Mark Warner parallels some of the corporate tax hike proposals announced last week by President Joe Biden to finance $2 trillion in U.S. infrastructure investment. The senators are targeting provisions in the landmark 2017 Tax and Jobs Act that govern how companies’ foreign income is taxed, the Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income system, the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income tax and the Base-Erosion and Anti-abuse Tax. The systems were aimed at returning companies’ deferred offshore income to the United States at lower tax rates, where those profits could be invested in American jobs. But in practice, the Democrats said, they created new incentives for companies to invest more overseas to take advantage of new exemptions. FILE – Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 28, 2020.”Many companies did not even bring back the profits. Those that did, most of it was spent on stock buybacks,” Warner told reporters on a conference call. The Democratic plan would not repeal those taxes but modify them to equalize their rates and move them closer to the main corporate rate. In addition, the plans would create new incentives for investment in research and headquarter jobs in the United States. The proposal will likely face strong opposition from Republicans, who have criticized Biden’s plans to roll back their party’s signature Trump-era legislative achievement as putting U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage. It could pass with only Democratic votes as part of Biden’s larger infrastructure plan, but this would require all 50 Senate Democrats to support it. For one of the taxes, known as BEAT, which aims to capture at least some taxes on corporate profits shifted to overseas entities, the Democratic plan also would restore tax credits for domestic investments in clean energy and low-income communities while adding a higher-rate bracket. Biden’s plan has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, along with a global minimum tax that would be negotiated with other major economies. FILE – Sen. Ron Wyden speaks at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 30, 2020.Wyden said he believes that such a global minimum corporate tax envisioned under the Biden plan can work alongside the reforms proposed by the Democratic senators, as long as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen can get a “good multinational deal struck at the OECD.” Yellen on Monday called for a global minimum tax as she participates in her first International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings as treasury secretary. Regarding a demand from fellow Democratic Senator Joe Manchin for a 25% corporate tax rate, Wyden, the Finance Committee chairman, said the final rate would be the result of discussions within the Democratic caucus and the committee. Wyden also said he believed all Senate Democrats would support the international tax reform proposals.  
 
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U.S. President Joe Biden is looking to raise corporate income tax rates to help pay for his proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure spending plan, but dozens of the country’s biggest and best-known companies are currently legally avoiding paying any federal taxes. Biden says he wants to raise the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 28%. The rate was cut from 35% in 2017 under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.  FILE – Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks during a virtual roundtable with participants from Black Chambers of Commerce across the country to discuss the American Rescue Plan, Feb. 5, 2021.On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for a global minimum tax. In a speech before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, she said the tax would apply to multinational corporations no matter where they locate their headquarters, to prevent countries from trying to outdo one another by lowering tax rates in order to attract business. “Competitiveness is about more than how U.S.-headquartered companies fare against other companies in global merger and acquisition bids,” Yellen said. “It is about making sure that governments have stable tax systems that raise sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods and respond to crises, and that all citizens fairly share the burden of financing government.” Republican lawmakers in Congress are already criticizing the new Democratic president’s infrastructure plan as too expensive and straying far afield from traditional road and bridge repair and construction. The plan aims to fund other programs favored by liberal Democrats, such as manufacturing investment, child-care services and raising wages for essential home-care workers.  For the most part, Republicans also are adamantly opposed to raising taxes, with Biden also proposing to increase taxes on the wealthiest individual taxpayers, those making more than $400,000 a year.  Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said there is no chance Republicans would back any tax increases to pay for Biden’s infrastructure plan.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – President Joe Biden speaks about infrastructure spending at Carpenters Pittsburgh Training Center, March 31, 2021, in Pittsburgh.As the United States added 916,000 jobs in February, Biden defended his tax increase proposal. “Asking corporate America just to pay their fair share will not slow the economy at all,” he said last week. “It will make the economy function better. It will create more energy.”  
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The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case over former President Donald Trump’s efforts to block critics from his personal Twitter account.The court said there was nothing left to the case after Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter and ended his presidential term in January.Twitter banned Trump two days after the deadly attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6. The company said its decision was “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”The court also formally threw out an appeals court ruling that found Trump violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint.Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate opinion arguing that the bigger issue raised by the case, and especially Twitter’s decision to boot Trump, is “the dominant digital platforms themselves. As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms.”Thomas agreed with his colleagues about the outcome of the case, but said the situation raises “interesting and important questions.”The case concerned the @realdonaldtrump account with more than 88 million followers and Trump’s argument that it is his personal property. The Justice Department argued that blocking people from it was akin to elected officials who refuse to allow their opponents’ yard signs on their front lawns.But the federal appeals court in New York ruled last year that Trump used the account to make daily pronouncements and observations that are overwhelmingly official in nature.The case had been styled Trump v. Knight First Amendment Institute, the group that originally sued to challenge Trump’s decision to block his critics.But when Trump left office, President Joe Biden replaced Trump in the case’s title, though the new president had nothing to do with the lawsuit.
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U.S. President Joe Biden recently announced a $2 trillion spending plan aimed at modernizing the nation’s roads and bridges, among other infrastructure. The plan, however, is expected to face obstacles in Congress. VOA’s Michelle Quinn reports.Producer: Mary Cieslak 
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U.S. President Joe Biden would be willing to push through his $2 trillion infrastructure plan without the support of Republican lawmakers if he cannot reach a bipartisan deal, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Sunday. Granholm said Biden would prefer that his plan have Republican backing but, if that does not work, he would likely support using a procedural strategy called reconciliation to allow Democrats to pass it in the Senate. “As he has said, he was sent to the presidency to do a job for America. And if the vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, across the country support spending on our country and not allowing us to lose the race globally, then he’s going to do that,” Granholm said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Most Americans currently support the Democratic president’s plan, said Granholm, one of several senior Biden administration officials who promoted the proposal on television news shows on Sunday. Since taking office in January, the Democratic president has repeatedly said he wants to work with Republicans. But the infrastructure plan — his second major legislative initiative — so far looks unlikely to draw more bipartisan support than his first, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that passed with only Democratic support last month, using reconciliation. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said last week that Biden’s infrastructure plan was “bold and audacious” but would raise taxes and increase debt. He vowed to fight it “every step of the way.” Republican Senator Roy Blunt on Sunday urged Biden to significantly scale back the plan if he wanted Republican lawmakers’ support. “If we’d go back and look at roads and bridges and ports and airports, and maybe even underground water systems and broadband, you’d still be talking about less than 30% of this entire package,” Blunt said on “Fox News Sunday.” Blunt said he believed a smaller goal, of around $615 billion, would be more palatable to some of his Republican colleagues. Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi joined others in his party in trying to cast Biden’s plan as a tax hike rather than an effort to repair and rebuild the country’s transportation, communications, water and electrical networks. “What the president proposed this week is not an infrastructure bill. It’s a huge tax increase,” Wicker told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Biden’s plan would raise the corporate income tax rate after deductions to 28% from the current 21%. His predecessor as president, Donald Trump, and Republican lawmakers cut the corporate rate from 35% to 21% in 2017. Trump repeatedly promised to tackle the nation’s crumbling infrastructure during his presidency but never delivered on that. The Biden infrastructure plan’s investments are long-term and badly needed to drive job growth, Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, said on the Fox program. The initiatives will serve the country well into the 2030s and beyond, added Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Right now, we’re still coasting off of infrastructure choices that were made in the 1950s,” Buttigieg said on NBC. 
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The United States, South Korea and Japan agreed in high-level security talks Friday to work together to keep up pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.In a joint statement after a day of talks, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Kitamura, and South Korea’s national security adviser, Suh Hoon, reaffirmed their commitment to address the issue “through concerted trilateral cooperation towards denuclearization.”The three countries also agreed on the need for full implementation by the international community of U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea, “preventing proliferation, and cooperating to strengthen deterrence and maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” the statement said.The national security advisers also discussed the value of working together to address other challenges, such as COVID-19, climate change and promoting an immediate return to democracy in Myanmar, the statement said.The talks held at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, were the most senior-level meeting among the three allies since Biden took power Jan. 20, and it came against a backdrop of rising tensions after North Korean missile launches last week.Biden, whose administration is finalizing a review of North Korea policy, said last week the United States remained open to diplomacy with North Korea despite its ballistic missile tests, but warned there would be responses if North Korea escalates matters.The White House has shared little about its policy review and whether it will offer concessions to get Pyongyang to the negotiating table to discuss giving up its nuclear weapons.However, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Thursday that denuclearization would remain at the center of policy and any approach to Pyongyang will have to be done in “lockstep” with close allies, including Japan and South Korea.Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, held three meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un but achieved no breakthrough other than a pause in nuclear and intercontinental ballistic tests. Biden, a Democrat, has sought to engage North Korea in dialogue but has been rebuffed so far.Pyongyang, which has long sought a lifting of international sanctions over its weapons programs, said last week the Biden administration had taken a wrong first step and revealed “deep-seated hostility” by criticizing what it called self-defensive missile tests.A U.S. official briefing before the talks said the North Korea review was in its final stages and “we’re prepared now to have some final consultations with Japan and South Korea as we go forward.”Joseph Yun, who was the U.S. special envoy for North Korea under both former President Barack Obama and Trump and is now at the United States Institute of Peace, said the policy options were obvious: “You want denuclearization, and you want to use your sanctions to get to denuclearization.””But how to make the first step, so that at least North Korea is persuaded not to do anything provocative. That’s the challenge.” he said.Some proponents of dialogue are concerned that the Biden administration has not highlighted a broad agreement between Trump and Kim at their first meeting in Singapore in 2018 and warn this could make it difficult to build trust.Asked whether that agreement still stood, the official said: “I understand the significance of the Singapore agreement,” but did not make clear to what extent the issue would be part of the Annapolis talks.The three officials were also expected to discuss a global shortage of semi-conductor chips that has forced U.S. automakers and other manufacturers to cut production.
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President Joe Biden’s plan announced Wednesday to plow $2 trillion into an eight-year overhaul of U.S. infrastructure was met with only limited carping from many voices normally critical of government spending. Meanwhile, economists expressed broad agreement that the plan, as proposed, would power long-run economic growth.It is certainly possible that pumping that much money into the economy, with interest rates near zero and a nascent recovery already taking shape, could cause inflation, said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com.However, he said, “The other part of the discussion is, there’s clearly a huge risk from failing to address infrastructure needs. And I think most people would say that [inflation] is a risk worth taking at this point.”The proposal outlined by Biden in Pittsburgh would direct $620 billion in funding to transportation infrastructure, $300 billion to boost manufacturing, $180 billion to research and development focused on climate-science research, $174 billion to accelerate the use of electric vehicles, and hundreds of billions more to a laundry list of smaller-ticket priorities.All of this massive spending is only the first half of what officials say will be a two-part effort to invest in the country’s future, with the second piece expected next month. The elements of the Biden plan announced Wednesday would be paid for by increasing taxes on U.S. businesses, while the next round of proposals would be paid for by increasing taxes on wealthy individuals.President Joe Biden speaks about infrastructure spending at Carpenters Pittsburgh Training Center, March 31, 2021, in Pittsburgh.Public sector criticism largely mutedIt is a testament to the widespread agreement on the need for infrastructure investment that even groups adamantly opposed to Biden’s plan to pay for it with a tax increase or concerned about the possibility of inflation were quick to praise the proposal’s breadth and ambition.“We need a big and bold program to modernize our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and we applaud the Biden administration for making infrastructure a top priority,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a statement released by the organization. “However, we believe the proposal is dangerously misguided when it comes to how to pay for infrastructure.”In an analysis of the plan, Michael R. Strain, the director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called it “admirably ambitious” even as he expressed concern about the way it was being paid for and worried about inflation.“Much of the debate about the infrastructure plans will focus on whether there is political space for another multitrillion-dollar bill,” he wrote. “I am worried about whether there is economic space.”Construction workers work in Wheeling, Ill., March 31, 2021. President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled his $2 trillion infrastructure plan aimed at revitalizing U.S. transportation infrastructure, water systems, broadband and manufacturing.Too much economic juice?Strain said that a surge in spending this year and next, temporarily fueled by debt while the tax revenue was collected, could combine with the $1.9 trillion spending in the American Rescue Plan to drive inflation.“Can the economy handle a temporary deficit boost this year and next? That will depend on whether the $1.9 trillion stimulus law Biden just signed pushes the economy too hard, leading to consumer price inflation, higher interest rates and financial instability. I am worried that it will,” Strain said.However, the majority of economic analysts seemed more concerned about what might happen if the administration failed to act.“Most economists are in agreement that the costs will be paid back in the economic productiveness of the expenditures, at least in their totality, if indeed it were to be passed as proposed,” said Hamrick of Bankrate.com. “There’s an economic cost to the lack of investment, not only in infrastructure, but these other areas as well. And that needs to be part of the central argument. There’s a cost to not doing it. And there’s a benefit to doing it.”Inflation? So what?“It’s important to recognize that if the plan works as intended, it should increase the productive capacity of the economy,” said David Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “We’re paying real costs today for our inadequate investment in infrastructure. The investments that are made under this plan should help alleviate some of the bottlenecks in the American economy, and that itself will provide a bit of a pressure relief valve against some of the concerns that have been expressed.”Wilcox, former director of the Federal Reserve Board’s domestic economics division and a senior adviser to three Fed chairs, said that Biden’s intention to pay for his infrastructure proposals with tax increases on the wealthy and on businesses should, by itself, “substantially diminish the potential for this plan by itself to contribute to any kind of worrisome overheating of the economy.”A EVgo electric vehicle charging station is seen at a shopping plaza in Northbrook, Ill., March 31, 2021. President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan calls for building a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2030.He added that even if increased infrastructure investment triggered higher inflation, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.”The Fed has indicated that it not only will tolerate but indeed welcome some additional inflation,” Wilcox said. “So all of that says to me that now is a good time to err on the side of providing more relief than it might turn out that American families and businesses actually need.”Mission not accomplishedEven though the U.S. economy has begun to spring back, with the unemployment rate falling sharply from alarming highs early in the pandemic, there are still 9.5 million fewer jobs in the country than there were when employment peaked near the beginning of the pandemic.That’s about the number of job losses the U.S. suffered during the Great Recession.“So the jobs deficit, as of today, remains huge,” Wilcox said. “We’ve got a very long way to go before anybody is going to unfurl the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner on the economy being fully recovered.”Political criticismThe most vocal critics of the Biden administration plan have been Republican leaders in Congress, who claim that the plan is a cover for Democratic priorities not related to infrastructure.”It’s called infrastructure, but inside the Trojan horse it’s going to be more borrowed money, and massive tax increases on all the productive parts of our economy,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, echoing a criticism of the bill he has made many times in recent days, while speaking with reporters in his home state of Kentucky on Wednesday.Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Republican Conference, warned that Biden’s two-step infrastructure plan wasn’t really an infrastructure proposal at all.”Infrastructure means highways, roads, bridges,” he said in an interview with Fox Business News on Tuesday. “They want to do all sorts of social things. They’re talking about free community college, free day care, free senior care and then, of course, the punishing regulations of the Green New Deal. And you add on that all the taxes, that they’re talking about taxes on individuals, taxes on businesses. And they’re trying to resurrect the death tax. The difference could not be more clear.”     
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