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Ben Ginsberg, a GOP election lawyer who helped George W. Bush prevail in the Florida recount in 2000, is now wielding his legal expertise to provide advice to election officials threatened by Republican-initiated voting laws.

Hes teaming up with Democratic lawyer Bob Bauer to help election officials from both parties deal with harassment stemming from Donald Trumps grievances about the 2020 election and new state laws that restrict their authority.

Ginsberg and Bauer, who previously worked together in 2013 as co-chairs of a presidential commission on how to remove barriers to voting, will serve as co-chairs of the new Election Official Legal Defense Network, founded in collaboration with the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. The network will provide officials with legal advice and representation at no cost, they said.

Election officials face an increasing wave of state laws subjecting them to criminal penalties for performing their professional duties, while at the same time facing threats of violence to themselves and their families, Bauer and Ginsberg said in a joint statement, along with David Becker, director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

Ben Ginsberg, right, and Bob Bauer, launched a legal defense network to advise election officials threatened by new state voting laws.

Longtime disagreements between the major political parties over voting rules have been exacerbated since the 2020 election. Republicans say new laws are needed to restore public confidence after Trumps false claims the election was stolen. Democrats counter that these laws are intended to prevent their supporters, including minorities, from casting ballots.

Intimidation of election officials is actually becoming a strategy, Ginsberg said Wednesday in a call with reporters, with weaponized poll watchers and threats to election officials being used by partisans to try to gain office.

The network of volunteer lawyers being assembled will help these officials across the country to respond to threats and avoid being bullied, he said. Legal services offered could range from informal advice to litigation.

Ginsberg was at the forefront of GOP election efforts for decades, including Bushs Florida recount battle against Al Gore after the 2000 election. More recently, hes worked cooperatively with Democrats, including Bauer, Barack Obamas White House counsel. Ginsberg has fiercely criticized Trump and said that widespread voter fraud cited by Republicans to justify restrictive voting laws doesnt exist.

Bauer said on the call that the involvement of Ginsberg and other Republicans serving on the legal networks advisory board should send a message to the public. We need a strong note of bipartisanship to be sounded in defense of these officials, he said.

Examples where local election officials say they may be threatened include a new Texas law signed Tuesday by Gov. Greg Abbott (R). The Texas law ends drive-thru voting, implemented by Harris County to facilitate socially distanced voting in Democrat-dominated Houston during the pandemic. It limits mail-in voting and gives more power to partisan poll watchers, among other things.

Abbott said in signing it that the Texas law would restore trust and confidence in our elections.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Brennan Center for Justice and others, the law will make it harder for election workers to maintain safety and security in the polling place by curtailing election workers authority to remove partisan poll watchers who are harassing voters. The law could subject election workers to prosecution if they try to limit poll watchers behavior.

Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria, who joined the lawsuit, said her First Amendment free speech rights would be restricted under the bills anti-solicitation provision, which makes it a crime for her to encourage individuals to apply to vote by mail.

Any American whether Republican, Democrat or independent must know that systematic efforts to undermine the ability of those overseeing the counting and casting of ballots on an independent, nonpartisan basis are destructive to our democracy, Ginsberg and Bauer said in a Washington Post op-ed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kenneth P. Doyle in Washington at kdoyle@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bennett Roth at broth@bgov.com; Kyle Trygstad at ktrygstad@bloombergindustry.com

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Bush, Obama Lawyers Advising Threatened Election Officials (1) | Bloomberg Government - Bloomberg Government

Problematic celebrity activist Rose McGowan has claimed that the families of former President Barack Obama and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) are in on a Democratic plot to protect convicted sexual assaulter Harvey Weinstein.

McGowan made her comments while endorsing Larry Elder, an anti-LGBTQ Republican California gubernatorial recall candidate, during a Sunday press conference in Los Angeles. Elder is one of several Republicans along with Caitlyn Jenner trying to unseat Gov. Newsom in tomorrows recall election.

Related:Republicans are poising themselves to win regardless of the outcome in California recall

In 2017, McGowan, an actor and activist in the #MeToo movement, said that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 1997. At the Sunday press conference, she accused Newsoms wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, of trying to bribe her in order to keep her from accusing Weinstein of sexual assault.

She said that Jennifer Newsom had offered McGowan whatever it would take to make [McGowan] happy. McGowan also said that Jennifer Newsom inferred that she was a Weinstein rape victim to get into [a] private group of Weinstein rape victims.

McGowan then said that the Newsoms, the Obamas, and other Hollywood Democrats are all in on it it presumably being a campaign to protect Weinstein.

As proof of the Obamas involvement, she brought up the fact that Malia Obama, Michelle and Barack Obamas daughter, had an internship at the Weinstein Company immediately after her father left the presidency. Her internship began months before Weinstein was publicly accused of three decades worth of numerous sexual assaults by roughly 87 women.

Weinstein was a major donor to Democratic candidates, including Obama.

In January 2020, McGowan came out as a Republican via Twitter, though she initially backtracked, claiming she had only written the tweets because she had freaked out. In April, McGowan went on the right-wing cable network Fox News to call Democrats a deep cult against changing the world for the better.

In 2018, she implied that transgender women face less harassment than cisgender women. Numerous statistics have shown that transgender women face disproportionately high levels of harassment, assault and violence (including sexual) compared to the general population.

When a trans woman publicly called her out for her comments at a 2018 book reading event, McGowan accused her of being a paid plant, possibly paid by Harvey Weinstein. McGowan then cancelled the rest of the stops in her book tour.

In 2014, she said that gay men are more misogynistic than straight men and gay men spent the last century fighting for the right to stand on top of a float wearing an orange Speedo and take molly.

Despite her anti-LGBTQ comments, she has actively campaigned for same-sex marriage.

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Rose McGowan says the Obamas were 'in' on Harvey Weinstein's sexual assaults - LGBTQ Nation

EPA plans to propose the nations strongest rules against methane emissions this month, escalating the Biden administrations use of regulatory tools to reduce greenhouse gases from fossil fuel companies.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan confirmed last week that his agency will meet President Bidens September deadline to propose methane regulations for the oil and gas sector, as laid out in one of the presidents first executive orders.

The upcoming rules for new and existing oil and gas infrastructure are expected to be stricter even than an Obama-era standard set in 2016, which was reinstated in June after Congress took the unusual step of invalidating a Trump EPA rollback and replacement rule.

Environmentalists at the time applauded lawmakers use of a Congressional Review Act resolution, which garnered some bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, to cancel former President Trumps effort to weaken methane requirements. Now theyre pressing EPA to surpass the Obama rule, saying technological advancements over the last five years have made greater reductions cost-effective.

And existing infrastructure has yet to be regulated, even though it releases the overwhelming majority of the sectors methane.

EPA seems poised to deliver.

Regan said during an event last week hosted by Resources for the Future that methane reduction has never been done as aggressively as we plan to do it.

Tomas Carbonell, a former lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund, is overseeing the rulemaking process as deputy assistant administrator for stationary sources in EPAs air office. As of yesterday, the rule had not been sent to the White House for review.

Methane is an important piece of the global warming puzzle, particularly in the near term.

Its the second-most plentiful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere after carbon dioxide. And its responsible for 30% of current warming, according to an April report from the United Nations climate science body.

Because it is 86 times more climate-forcing than CO2 over a 20-year time frame, experts say that cutting methane in the short term will buy the world valuable time to make the structural economic changes needed to avoid the worst climate impacts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report made this clear: Methane reduction is the biggest and really the only strategy to rein in warming over the next 20 years, said Sarah Smith, program director for superpollutants at the Clean Air Task Force. And the next 20 years are critical when it comes to avoiding climate tipping points and feedbacks and irreversible changes to the planet.

In the U.S., the oil and gas sector contributes an estimated 35% of U.S. methane emissions, making it a prime target for more stringent regulations covering a broader swath of the industry.

The EPA methane proposals will also arm the Biden administration with an important early achievement ahead of U.N. climate talks scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland. Biden has pledged to cut U.S. emissions in half from 2005 levels by the end of this decade, but the world is still waiting for details about how those reductions will be achieved.

The methane package will provide a down payment.

The timing is probably not a coincidence, said Rosalie Winn, climate and clean air attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund. With the release of the oil and gas next-generation methane standards, I think the international community will be looking for a strong signal with these rules that the Biden administration is taking steps towards meeting the commitments that it laid out last spring.

The Obama methane rule covers infrastructure across the oil and gas supply chain including production, processing, transmission and storage at facilities built in 2015 and later. Earlier sources are not covered, though the Obama EPA started the process of exploring options for an existing source rule in 2016.

That process came to an abrupt halt when Trump took office in January 2017. His administration spent four years working to scuttle the Obama-era rule in ways it hoped would also erect future barriers to regulating methane from existing sources, which are more plentiful and would carry more compliance costs.

In 2018, EPA proposed a relaxation of its requirement that oil and gas developers inspect new wells for leakage semiannually. Instead, it introduced an annual inspection requirement for most facilities.

Then, in a subsequent 2019 proposal, it argued that the Obama EPA hadnt laid the legal groundwork for regulating methane from the petroleum sector. That replacement rule targeted volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, instead of methane.

In doing so, EPA narrowed the universe of new oil and gas sources that would be regulated, effectively creating an exemption for transmission and storage facilities because they have less associated VOCs. It was also an attempt by EPA to dismantle the legal basis for regulation of existing sources. Because existing oil and gas infrastructure isnt a significant contributor of VOCs, the Trump EPA argued that no existing source rule would ever be needed.

The June CRA motion, which reinstated the Obama rule for new oil and gas infrastructure, also upended the Trump EPAs attempt at heading off a methane rule for older infrastructure. And it gave Bidens EPA a blank slate to come up with two new rules for both, with two proposals expected this month and final rules as soon as next year.

EPA held public listening sessions on methane regulation in June, followed in late August by hearings on technical innovations in methane reduction, which could support stricter rules.

Environmental advocates who spent the last four years battling Trump administration attempts to roll back methane protections say the Biden administration can deliver even deeper reductions by borrowing measures pioneered in leading states like Colorado.

The 2016 standards were always intended to be a starting point for addressing methane pollution from the oil and gas sector, said Winn. EPA needs to go well beyond that to realize the level of emissions reduction that are necessary in this climate moment and for the Biden administrations broader climate goals and international commitments.

Smith from Clean Air Task Force said the U.S. petroleum sector could cut methane 65% by the middle of this decade by introducing new requirements including monthly, rather than semiannual, inspections.

A plan by the Clean Air Task Force also called for the use of zero-emissions pneumatic controllers to regulate pressure during production, making sure that abandoned wells are plugged to prevent leakage, and major reductions in the use of flaring to burn off excess gas at the wellhead.

Flaring weve long known is a wasteful practice that releases CO2 and hazardous air pollution, said Smith. But what were learning more and more is that its also a major methane source.

Thats because flares can become unlit and release unabated natural gas into the atmosphere. Colorado has already cracked down on routine flaring, as would a proposed rule for New Mexico.

These proposals come as the industry is slowly shifting its position on methane regulation, though it hasnt been uniform and major trade groups have been slower to evolve than some of their members.

Companies like BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp. challenged the Trump administrations moves to dismantle the Obama rules, which they said had created a level playing field for U.S. operators. At the same time, the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America cheered the weaker regulations.

But as Biden prepared to take office this year, API signaled more openness to such regulations which it said industry should help shape.

In a blog post a week before Bidens inauguration, API CEO Mike Sommers described federal methane regulation, which it had previously opposed, as key to public confidence in our industrys performance as we engage with the new administration.

Testifying in June at an EPA listening session, API Senior Vice President for Regulation Frank Macchiarola said the trade group was focused on working with the Biden administration in support of the direct regulation of methane for new and existing sources.

As EPA puts the finishing touches on its proposals, Democrats in the Senate are mulling the introduction of a methane fee as part of a budget reconciliation package that could apply to many of the same emissions sources across the oil and gas industry.

Brian Prest, a fellow at Resources for the Future, has studied how such a policy would impact leakage rates on the one hand and natural gas prices on the other. He said a high fee might incentivize industry to find reductions that EPA rules might miss.

Regulations might get you part of the way to what a methane fee might achieve, but a methane fee might go further to the extent that its higher, he said.

API has come out against the Democrats methane proposal.

In a letter yesterday to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over legislation that could be wrapped into the larger reconciliation bill, API and industry allies warned of adverse environmental and economic impacts and pointed out that methane emissions are already being mitigated via appropriate regulatory programs.

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Methane rule to eclipse past regulations, including Obama's - E&E News

Lil Nas X attends the BET Awards 2021 at Microsoft Theater on June 27, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.Photo: Paras Griffin (Getty Images)

Last week, Lil Nas X announced his pregnancy with his debut album, Montero, which comes out on September 17. In keeping with his very extra announcement, this week he dropped yet another extra AF promo for the album, albeit a charitable onea registry with 15 different organizations for fans to donate to.

Not gonna lie; this is pretty cool, and within the first two hours, followers had already tweeted that theyd begun to match Nas Xs donations.

As previously reported by The Root, Montero includes 15 tracks, each of which is matched to an organizationwhich is not to say theres necessarily a correlation between the songs and the organizations. For example, the track Dolla Sign Slime (feat. Meg the Stallion) is matched to the Arianna Center, which engages, empowers and lifts up the trans community of South Florida [placing] special emphasis on the most marginalized, including the Trans Latinx community, undocumented immigrants, people living with HIV and AIDS, and those who have experienced incarceration. Some of the other organizations include the Transinclusive Group, The Bail Project, Central Alabama Alliance Resource & Advocacy Center/OLTT, The Counter Narrative, Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference and more.

While creating a philanthropic registry to celebrate his upcoming due date is admirable, Nas X of course couldnt help but stick to his internet trolling ways. On September 4, the rapper tweeted a photo of an elaborate gift basket with the caption: omg im trying not to cry! thank u for the early baby shower gift @BarackObama.

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The tweet honestly had fans confused as fuck, myself included. Did the 44th President actually send this man a gift basket for his baby shower? Who on Obamas team gave the green light to do such a thing? And most importantly, why did we all spend so much time wondering if this was real or fake?

While Obama was posting about Hurricane Ida and various relief efforts, Nas X was trolling the internet in his name and making fans believe the former president had sent him a gift for his upcoming delivery.

Regardless, Nas Xs baby registryopen now as a page on his websiteis a fantastic way for people to become more aware, get more involved in different organizations and continue to donate where its needed.

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Its an Album! Lil Nas X Releases His 'Baby Registry' and Once Again Trolls the Internetand Barack Obama? - The Root

On the afternoon of October 9, 2009, President Barack Obama met with his top generals, Cabinet officials, and his vice president to hash out strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Earlier that morning, Obama learned hed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The war in Afghanistan was now eight years old, and Obama had campaigned on the idea that the Bush administrations effort there had been headed in the wrong direction.

Gens. Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus, along with much of the military brass, were pushing for a troop increase of 40,000 to 85,000 in Afghanistan. Doing so would allow for a counterinsurgency strategy, they claimed, and would give the Americans time to recruit and train a larger Afghan national army and police force. The pivotal meeting is captured in Bob Woodwards 2010 book Obamas Wars.

Advocates for an expanded war found their most nettlesome opponent in Joe Biden.

As I hear what youre saying, as I read your report, youre saying that we have about a year, Biden said to McChrystal. And that our success relies upon having a reliable, a strong partner in governance to make this work?

McChrystal said yes, that was the case. Biden turned to Karl Eikenberry, a former general who was now ambassador to Afghanistan. In your estimation, can we, can that be achieved in the next year?

Eikenberry told Biden no, it was not possible, because there was no strong, reliable partner in Afghanistan. Eikenberry followed with a pessimistic 10-minute assessment of the situation and pinpointed another logical failure that would manifest itself more than a decade later. We talk about clear, hold and build, but we actually must include transfer into this, Eikenberry said, adding that to eventually withdraw, the transfer was key.

Eikenberry said he would challenge [the] assumption that the U.S. and the Afghan government were even aligned. Right now were dealing with an extraordinarily corrupt government, he said.

Petraeus, when he spoke, acknowledged what had become obvious. I understand the government is a criminal syndicate, he said. But we need to help achieve and improve security and, as noted, regain the initiative and turn some recent tactical gains into operational momentum, Petraeus said, adding that he strongly agreed with McChrystals pitch for a larger force.

Biden cut in: If the governments a criminal syndicate a year from now, how will troops make a difference? he asked.

Biden was getting at something fundamental: Did anybody believe what the generals were proposing was actually possible? Bidens questions were largely ignored by the war planners, but the conversation held in that meeting makes clear that the answer was readily available by 2009: It was not possible and would collapse quickly once U.S. support was withdrawn. Instead of following Bidens lead, the Obama administration allowed the carnage to drag on fruitlessly for another 12 years.

Woodwards next lines are the most telling: No one recorded an answer in their notes. Biden was swinging hard at McChrystal, [Defense Secretary Bob] Gates and Petraeus.

Biden pressed on. Whats the best-guess estimate for getting things headed in the right direction? If a year from now there is no demonstrable progress in governance, what do we do?

Again, no answer.

Again, Biden asked: If the government doesnt improve and if you get the troops, in a year, what would be the impact?

Finally, Eikenberry responded. The past five years are not heartening, he said, but there are pockets of progress. We can build on those. In the next six to 12 months, he added, We shouldnt expect significant breakthroughs.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, said that the dilemma was whether to focus on adding troops or better governance. But not putting troops in guarantees we wont achieve what were after and guarantees no psychological momentum. Preventing collapse requires more troops, but that doesnt guarantee progress. She added, The only way to get governance changes is to add troops, but theres still no guarantee that it will work.

Richard Holbrooke, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, chimed in with a reality that was largely kept from the U.S. public. Our presence is the corrupting force, Holbrooke said. Woodward then paraphrased his explanation: All the contractors for development projects pay the Taliban for protection and use of roads, so American and coalition dollars help finance the Taliban. And with more development, higher traffic on roads, and more troops, the Taliban would make more money.

He added that the numbers were all fake, noting that he had sent staff to investigate the claims being made by contractors that they had trained a massive number of Afghan police. About 80 percent of the force was illiterate, he said, drug addiction was common, and that was for the police officers who actually existed. Many, he said, were ghosts who got paychecks but never showed up.

Hesaid that with a 25 percent attrition rate, McChrystals projections for the growth of Afghan forces was mathematically impossible. Its like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it, Holbrooke said.

Holbrookes argument is largely paraphrased by Woodward because, known as somebody willing to speak uncomfortable truths in high-level meetings, he was somebody the other officials had simply begun to ignore. Wrote Woodward: Several note takers had learned to do the same thing when Holbrooke embarked on his discourse. They set down their pens and relaxed their tired fingers. The big personality had lost its sheen. He was not connecting with Obama.

Bidens summation, said Woodward, returned to the theme that the project was doomed due to the failure to have built a real Afghan government. Obama thanked his advisers for getting him closer to a decision. On December 1, he announced publicly hed be surging 40,000 new troops into Afghanistan, while preparing for an exit. The surge came, but it was left to Biden to finally lead the way out.

The rest is here:
Biden's Question in 2009 Exposed Folly of Afghanistan War - The Intercept