Archive for the ‘Republican’ Category

New election overhaul bill faces same Republican opposition – Roll Call

That included a demonstration Tuesday near the Capitol, as well as nationwide rallies planned for Friday including in West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

The compromise bill, dubbed the Freedom to Vote Act, incorporates much of a sweeping overhaul that House Democrats passed earlier this year. The Senate version of that bill remains stalled in the Rules and Administration Committee.

The Senate tried in June to bring a revised version of the elections and campaign finance overhaul up for debate but mustered only 50 votes, short of the 60 needed.

The new Senate version, like the original overhaul, would establish minimum standards for voting across the country, such as same-day voter registration, universal voting by mail and minimum periods for early voting.

It would also require additional disclosures for groups that engage in election-related spending. The revised bill seeks to put an end to partisan gerrymandering by setting specific criteria for congressional redistricting. It also provides new protections for election workers and would set Election Day as a federal holiday.

See the original post:
New election overhaul bill faces same Republican opposition - Roll Call

Republican taps CNN reporter to investigate Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal | TheHill – The Hill

Rep. Michael McCaulMichael Thomas McCaulRepublican taps CNN reporter to investigate Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal Blinken grilled in first hearing since Afghanistan withdrawal Sunday shows preview: Biden issues new vaccine mandates; House committee marks up .5T reconciliation bill MORE (R-Texas) has hired a formerCNN journalist to serve as an investigatorforthe House Foreign Affairs Committee as it probes President BidenJoe BidenNewsom easily beats back recall effort in California Second senior official leaving DHS in a week Top Republican: General told senators he opposed Afghanistan withdrawal MORE's withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan this summer.

The journalist, Ryan Browne,has workedfor CNNsince 2015 covering the Pentagon and international security matters. He has reported from countries across the Middle Eastand was embedded as a contractor adviser to the Afghan National Army from 2011 to 2013 before joining CNN.

"I look forward to putting together a comprehensive, independent and facts-driven investigation,Browne said in a statement issued through McCaul's office.

It is crucial we discover what led to the chaos of the emergency evacuation, and examine the administrations failed efforts to evacuate all American citizens, green card holders, local allies and other vulnerable Afghans fearing reprisals from the Taliban," he added.

McCaul and other Republicans grilled Secretary of State Antony BlinkenAntony BlinkenTop Republican: General told senators he opposed Afghanistan withdrawal Overnight Defense & National Security Details of Trump's final days prompt call to fire Milley Senate lawmakers let frustration show with Blinken MORE on Monday about the troop withdrawal.McCaul,the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he appreciated Blinkentestifying butaddedthe secretary "once again provided us with little to no new information."

What we saw in Afghanistan was a systemic failure of the federal government that led to the chaos and horrific devastation,McCaul said in the statement.That resulted in the death of 13 American service members and the abandonment of American citizens, green card holders, and our Afghan partners in a country controlled by a brutal terrorist organization."

Blinken defended the Biden administration's response, including its failure to predict how quickly the Taliban would overtake the county after the U.S. withdrawal.

Nothing I or anyone else saw indicated a collapse of the government and the security forces in 11 days, Blinken told lawmakers. This unfolded more quickly than we anticipated, including in the intelligence community.

View post:
Republican taps CNN reporter to investigate Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal | TheHill - The Hill

DeSantis and the Agony of the Anti-Anti-Anti-Vaxx Republican – New York Magazine

The right-wing backlash against the coronavirus vaccines has forced Republican politicians to make an agonizing choice. On the one hand, public health and public opinion both militate strongly in favor of vaccination. On the other hand, a vocal segment of their own base demands resistance.

Most have tried to navigate the fine line between these competing pressures by formally endorsing the vaccine as a personal choice while loudly standing up for the rights of vaccine refusers. Ron DeSantis, the partys leading choice to lead it should Donald Trump decide not to run, exemplifies the careful balance. On Monday, DeSantis announced tough new measures to punish any city or county in Florida that requires its public employees to receive a vaccine, with a $5,000 fine per infraction.

At his press conference, DeSantis stood beside a man who claimed the vaccine changes your RNA, a completely false anti-vaxx talking point. You could tell DeSantis knew this immediately. As soon as the line was uttered, he looked down at the ground, then nervously thrust his left hand into his pocket. His careful work to frame the issue entirely as a matter of rights was suddenly going up in flames:

After this uncomfortable moment, DeSantis still had a choice. He had a turn to speak afterward, and could have explicitly denounced the dangerous, paranoid nonsense that had just been circulated with his imprimatur. But to do so would have been to alienate a crucial constituency. The DeSantis game is to bring along anti-vaxxers without explicitly attaching himself to their most toxic beliefs. They could babble about RNA and Bill Gates all they wished offstage; onstage, the message would be relentlessly focused on the abstract issue of peoples rights.

The forces that brought DeSantis and his party to this pitiable position were roughly twofold. First, the Republican Party has developed a growing skepticism of scientific authority over time. Fifty years ago, Republicans actually trusted scientists more than Democrats did, but the conservative movements attacks on science (especially the varieties of science that implied the need for regulation of pollution or consumer goods) hardened into an institutionalized skepticism; the first COVID skeptics out of the gate were disproportionately drawn from climate-science skeptics.

Second, Trumps panicked response to the coronavirus was to deny it altogether. Once Trump decided the pandemic was a hoax designed to sabotage his reelection, his followers embraced that view, from which it naturally followed that every measure putatively aimed at containing the pandemic was described as unnecessary or harmful.

Republican Party elites found anti-vaxx sentiment embarrassing and unhelpful. Most of them have endorsed the vaccine as a choice, with varying levels of enthusiasm. Yet they have found themselves stuck with an anti-vaxx core too large to risk alienating. This has set off the same kind of finely parsed calculation that they employed to respond to various Trumpian outrages.

Their answer has always been to find a way to avoid defending the indefensible and instead change the question to the excesses of the other side. Was Trumps recorded confession of sexual assault morally acceptable? Who knows? But they did know that Hillary Clintons socialist schemes werent. Was it okay for Trump to strong-arm a foreign government into ginning up a scandal against his opponent? That didnt matter the real issue was the unfairness of the impeachment proceedings, held in a basement, and so forth.

DeSantis had perfected the art of anti-anti-anti-vaxx politics. He had given the jab his official endorsement, yet day after day he sent signals that he would defend the rights of anti-vaxxers. If necessary, DeSantis would trample traditional conservative principles to do so. Conservative Republicans normally respect freedom of contract, but DeSantis used his power to prohibit cruise lines from requiring their passengers be vaccinated. Conservative Republicans also dont generally treat government employment as a sacrosanct right, but here he was insisting, We are gonna stand for the men and women who are serving us. We are gonna protect Florida jobs. Nor do they generally approve of state authority overriding local control of schools, unless that authority is being used to prohibit mask requirements.

The gambit works in theory, as long as everybody can stay on message. The problem with the theory is that hardly anybody actually cares about the abstract principles that DeSantis is claiming to defend. The idea that bodily autonomy trumps personal responsibility, property rights, and local control is a hierarchy of values invented for this circumstance. (My body, my choice is not a notable Republican slogan.) The real point is to signal political solidarity with anti-vaxxers, to show that he believes their views are deserving of respect.

The trouble is that his message that anti-vaxxers have a legitimate point of view has the effect of legitimizing their message. Whats more, getting the anti-vaxxers to stick to the approved talking points is tricky, given the notorious difficulty kooks have with message discipline. Putting a kook in front of a microphone and asking him not to share with the world the evidence of the dubious conspiracy hes uncovered is to demand an unrealistic level of impulse control.

Once a political partys percentage of kooks has risen above a certain threshold, its no longer practical to kick them out. They must instead be placated. It is a constant process of papering over distinctions to avoid an internal schism that would enrage the kooks. The Republican Party didnt set out to position itself with vaccine skeptics. But they have found themselves, once again, standing shoulder to shoulder with the absurd, looking down at their feet and pretending it isnt happening.

Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.

See original here:
DeSantis and the Agony of the Anti-Anti-Anti-Vaxx Republican - New York Magazine

Republicans once called government the problem now they want to run your life – The Guardian

Im old enough to remember when the Republican party stood for limited government and Ronald Reagan thundered Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.

Todays Republican party, while still claiming to stand for limited government, is practicing just the opposite: government intrusion everywhere.

Republican lawmakers are banning masks in schools. Iowa, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona and South Carolina are prohibiting public schools from requiring students wear them.

Republican states are on the way to outlawing abortions. Texas has just banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know theyre pregnant. Other Republican states are on the way to enacting similar measures.

Republican lawmakers are forbidding teachers from telling students about Americas racist past. State legislatures from Tennessee to Idaho are barring all references to racism in the classroom.

Republican legislators are forcing transgender students to play sports and use bathrooms according to their assigned gender at birth. Thirty-three states have introduced more than 100 bills aimed at curbing the rights of transgender people.

Across the country, Republican lawmakers are making it harder for people to vote. So far, theyve enacted more than 30 laws that reduce access to polling places, number of days for voting and availability of absentee voting.

This is not limited government, folks. To the contrary, these Republican lawmakers have a particular ideology, and they are now imposing those views and values on citizens holding different views and values.

This is big government on steroids.

Many Republican lawmakers use the word freedom to justify what theyre doing. Thats rubbish. What theyre really doing is denying people their freedom freedom to be safe from Covid, freedom over their own bodies, freedom to learn, freedom to vote and participate in our democracy.

Years ago, the Republican party had a coherent idea about limiting the role of government and protecting the rights of the individual. I disagreed with it, as did much of the rest of America. But at least it was honest, reasoned and consistent. As such, Republicans played an important part in a debate over what we wanted for ourselves and for America.

Today, Republican politicians have no coherent view. They want only to be re-elected, even if that means misusing government to advance a narrow and increasingly anachronistic set of values intruding on the most intimate aspects of life, interfering in what can be taught and learned, risking the publics health, banning whats necessary for people to exercise their most basic freedoms.

This is not mere hypocrisy. The Republican party now poses a clear and present threat even to the values it once espoused.

Read more here:
Republicans once called government the problem now they want to run your life - The Guardian

Prelogar sails through nomination hearing with only mild Republicans critiques – SCOTUSblog

Event Recap ByAngie Gou on Sep 14, 2021 at 5:51 pm

Elizabeth Prelogar giving her opening statements before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her nomination hearing.

Elizabeth Prelogar, President Joe Bidens nominee to be solicitor general, sat through a swift nomination hearing on Tuesday afternoon. Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she was met with strong praise from Democrats, limited pushback from Republicans, and few questions overall.

From Bidens inauguration on Jan. 20 until her nomination to the position of solicitor general on Aug. 11, Prelogar served as acting solicitor general. Due to a quirk in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, she had to step down from her acting role while the Senate considers her nomination to hold the position on a permanent basis. The solicitor general represents the federal governments interests before the Supreme Court and is sometimes known as the 10th justice because of the influence that the job carries.

Two Republicans homed in on the solicitor generals office for reversing the governments legal position in a number of cases since the change in administrations. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, quoted from a Bloomberg Law article that the Biden administration is on track to reverse the governments position in more cases before the Supreme Court than the Justice Department did during the first full high court term of Donald Trumps presidency. Grassley questioned Prelogar on whether continuing in a similar vein would pose challenges to the offices credibility.

With Prelogar as its acting head, the office changed the positions held by the Trump administration in high-profile cases such as California v. Texas (in which the office defended the Affordable Care Act), Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (in which the office sided with union organizers in a clash with property owners), and Terry v. United States (in which the office supported sentencing reductions for certain crack-cocaine offenders). Both Grassley and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., criticized Prelogar for her role in the shifting positions.

Prelogar affirmed that each change in position was taken after careful consideration. She noted that the office sought views from all federal agencies with stakes in each case being considered to understand the interests of the government, and it asked for recommendations from government litigators to ensure that the office reached its best understanding of the law. We have a very well-established process in the solicitor generals office of soliciting views far and wide, she said. Luckily I did not have to sit there on my own and try to figure it out.

Prelogar has received broad support from throughout the legal community, including in a letter endorsing her nomination from former solicitors general from both Democratic and Republican administrations. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the second woman to hold the job on a permanent basis.

See more here:
Prelogar sails through nomination hearing with only mild Republicans critiques - SCOTUSblog