Summary
Here’s a recap of today:
- Stella Keating, a teenager from Washington, appeared (virtually) before the Senate judiciary committee today in support of the sweeping Equality Act, that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans. “Hi. I’m Stella. And I’m transgender,” she said. “I am here before you today, representing the hundreds of thousands of kids just like me who are supported and loved by their family, friends, and communities across the country.”
- The House reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, legislation that protects victims of sexual and domestic abuse, 244-172. Though the measure to reauthorize the 1994 law, which lapsed in 2018, received bipartisan support in the House, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Republicans oppose certain provisions, including those that protect trans women.
- Joe Biden said the Russian president Vladimir Putin “will pay a price” for his efforts to influence the 2020 election. “There’s places where it’s in our mutual interest to work together,” Biden said on Good Morning America, noting the Start nuclear agreement – but said that there will be consequences for Russia’s efforts to influence the US elections.
- Senate leader Chuck Schumer said he will introduce the “For The People Act” to protect voting rights. “Democracy reform must be a top priority of this Congress,” he said. The legislation is likely to run up against Republican opposition – and escalate debate around the filibuster, which allows parties to block legislation that does not meet a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
- California governor Gavin Newsom is gearing up for a recall challenge, with his fiercest critics saying they’ve filed the requisite signatures needed to call an election to remove him from office. The Wednesday deadline to submit at least 1.5m valid voter signatures to trigger a gubernatorial recall has come two days before the anniversary of California’s first statewide shelter-in-place order.
Updated
Joe Biden said the passage of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act “should not be a Democratic or Republican issue”.
After the House passed the legislation, he asked the Senate to do the same. “Growing evidence shows that Covid-19 has only exacerbated the threat of intimate partner violence, creating a pandemic within a pandemic for countless women at risk for abuse,” he said in a statement. “In short, this is an urgent crisis.”
Biden, while serving as a senator of Delaware, sponsored the 1994 iteration of the Violence Against Women Act, which has since been renewed several times, but lapsed in 2018.
“Writing and passing VAWA is one of the legislative accomplishments of which I’m most proud. VAWA has transformed the way our country responds to violence against women.” he said. “And, with each re-authorization, the Congress has expanded VAWA’s provisions on a bipartisan basis to improve protections, including for Native American women and survivors from underserved communities, and improve efforts to prevent intimate partner violence.
‘That hit home for me’: Atlanta reeling after spa shootings of Asian Americans
Mike Jordan reports from Atlanta:
Christina Lee said her Vietnamese mother came to mind when she heard about the shootings at Aromatherapy Spa and Gold Spa in Atlanta on the night of 16 March.
“I’m thinking about my mom, who owned a nail salon at one point,” said Lee, a Georgia music and culture journalist. “These are the kinds of businesses that open up to people who are new to this country. And to learn that the victims were Korean, that hit home for me too because I’m half-Korean.”
In the area of Piedmont Avenue surrounding the two spas near Atlanta’s Midtown district, the sky was dreary due to looming thunderstorms, and the atmosphere was grim because of the killing of multiple Asian Americans the evening before in a shooting attack.
Spas in the rundown area, which has long functioned as something of a red-light district in Atlanta, locals told the Guardian, are landmarks of sorts.
Not far from Aromatherapy is another spa, ST Jame Spa, and a few steps beyond is an adult nightclub called Club Platinum.
There are clothing boutiques for exotic dancers and adult novelty shops pushing up against a recent boom of condominiums and fast casual restaurants. What was most noticeable on Wednesday were hastily-erected tents for local media dodging rainfall, and the remaining strips of yellow crime scene tape.
Lee, who normally creates podcasts in an office near the two spas, but has not been working there during the pandemic, said the shootings here took her by surprise, as the area is not known for a concentration of residents who identify with the Asian American or Pacific Island communities.
But it was the overarching prejudice toward Asians in general, regardless of their origins, which she feels is growing, that she said was most alarming.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re from Wuhan or not. It never seems to matter,” she said, referring to the Chinese city where the Covid-19 outbreak began.
“How is it possible that this wasn’t a hate crime. I don’t understand that logic, and I hope someone will explain this to me,” she asked.
Read more:
Racist extremists pose most deadly terrorist threat to US, intelligence report warns
From Guardian staff and agencies:
Racially motivated extremists pose the most lethal domestic terrorism threats to the US, according to an unclassified intelligence report that warned that the threats could grow this year.
The blunt assessment, in a report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, echoes warnings made by US officials, including the FBI director, Christopher Wray, who testified earlier this month that the threat from domestic violent extremism was “metastasizing” across the country.
Merrick Garland, the attorney general, has also described it as a top priority as his justice department works to prosecute hundreds of people who participated in the mob attack on the US Congress in January.
The riot laid bare the threat posed by domestic extremists and led Joe Biden to assign his intelligence officials the task of studying the scope of the problems. A brief and unclassified summary of that threat assessment was made public Wednesday; a full classified report was presented to the White House and Congress.
“Today’s report underscores how we face the greatest threat from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, especially white supremacists, and militia violent extremists,” said the Democratic representative Adam Schiff of California, the chair of the House intelligence committee.
Intelligence officials said in their assessment that extremists seen as risks for violence are motivated by a range of ideologies.
Read more:
The House has renewed the Violence Against Women Act
The House reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, legislation that protects victims of sexual and domestic abuse, 244-172.
Though the measure to reauthorized the 1994 law, which lapsed in 2018, received bipartisan support in the House, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Republicans oppose certain provisions, including one to bar people with misdemeanor convictions of domestic abuse or stalking from buying guns. The bill also includes provisions to protect trans women’s access to women’s shelters and right to serve sentences in women’s prisons, which some Republicans oppose.
244-172: House votes to reauthorize and update the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which expired two years ago. 29 Republicans joined all Democrats in voting Yes. Bill now heads to the Senate. pic.twitter.com/bxW2Jlxgjl
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) March 17, 2021
Georgia activists decry efforts to ram voting restrictions through legislature
Georgia activists held an emergency press conference Wednesday evening to decry an effort to sneak new voting changes into a pending bill.
The advocates said they had just about an hours notice to process a 93-page substitute for a bill that was previously two pages. The new substitute included many of the sweeping changes that already passed the Georgia House – requiring ID information for absentee ballots, restrictions on early voting and absentee ballot dropboxes, among other measures – but it also introduced new restrictions.
But there was significant new language in the bill authorizes any registered voter to bring an unlimited number of challenges against another voter’s eligibility and requires local election boards to hold hearings within 10 days. In December, ahead of the US Senate runoff election, the conservative group True the Vote announced efforts to bring challenges against 360,000 voters. A federal judge stopped the purge of 4,000 voters in one county.
The new bill also sets new limits on how Georgia can count provisional ballots from a voter who shows up to cast a ballot in the wrong precinct. A previous House bill would reject provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct entirely, the substitute language would allow the ballots to be partially counted if they are cast after 5 p.m. and the voter signs a written statement saying they cannot get to their correct polling place.
James Woodall, the chapter of the Georgia chapter of the NAACP, said the lack of transparency was “outrageous and immoral.” Helen Butler, an activist with the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, and Yvonne Brooks, of the AFL-CIO, said they had never seen anything similar in decades of closely following matters at the state capitol.
Georgia lawmakers have two more weeks to pass legislation and it’s still unclear which restrictions will ultimately be approved. Activists are also pressuring major corporations in Georgia to take a stand on the bills.
Updated
The Equality Act is geared toward protecting LGBTQ+ Americans, but its protections would also shield people of color, religious groups, women and immigrants, The 19th explains:
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ+ people could not be fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity, a ruling that the Trump administration ignored and the Biden administration began enforcing via executive order last week. But in most states, it’s still legal to refuse to serve LGBTQ+ people in restaurants.
But the Equality Act also would expand protections for groups already covered in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, said Sunu Chandy, legal director of the National Women’s Law Center. That includes rights for people of color, religious groups, immigrants and women.
“I think the focus was on what was at stake in that moment,” said Chandy of the 1964 law. “And now our concept of public accommodations and spaces is just much broader.”
Chandy points out that the original law didn’t include discrimination in retail stores or taxis in its protections. The Equality Act would fill those gaps. Chandy says that applies to “individuals who have particular religious head coverings or are otherwise marked as being connected to a minority religious faith.”
“In the last four years, that sort of hate crime and really explicit discrimination has really increased in a way that’s appalling,” Chandy said. “We need to make sure that those rights are also enshrined in federal law, and not dependent on local law.”
Read more here.
Updated
Stella Keating, a 16-year-old from Washington, testifies in Senate hearing on trans rights
Stella Keating, a teenager from Washington, appeared (virtually) before the Senate Judiciary Committee today in support of the sweeping Equality Act, that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ Americans.
“Hi. I’m Stella. And I’m transgender,” she said. “I am here before you today, representing the hundreds of thousands of kids just like me who are supported and loved by their family, friends, and communities across the country.”
“Hi, I’m Stella, and I’m transgender. I’m here before you today representing the hundreds of thousands of kids just like me who are supported and loved by their family, friends and communities across the country.” pic.twitter.com/gFwqlATmTf
— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) March 17, 2021
The Equality Act, which has broad support among Democrats. It passed the House last month but faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Republicans have staunchly opposed it. Prior to Keating’s speech at the Judiciary hearing, Republican senators including Chuck Grassley of Iowa misgendered and used transphobic language to describe trans girls. The bill will need 60 votes to get through the Senate.
Here’s an explainer on the act from my colleague Sam Levin:
The bill amends existing civil rights laws to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation and provides clear legal protections for transgender and queer people in employment, housing, education, public accommodations, federally funded programs and other sectors.
The Equality Act builds on the landmark US supreme court ruling last year prohibiting employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers. Biden has already issued executive orders to defend trans rights, undoing some of Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies and directing federal departments to follow the guidance of the supreme court decision. But advocates say the Equality Act is vital because it would enshrine protections into law beyond employment, and prevent future administrations from rolling back anti-discrimination rules.
The act would be particularly significant for LGBTQ+ residents in the 27 states that do not have anti-discrimination laws on the books for trans and queer people, where it is legal to deny them housing based on their identities.
“We shouldn’t still be having to fight for equal rights,” said Nic Talbott, a 27-year-old Ohio resident, who was forced to abandon his plans of joining the military due to Donald Trump’s ban on trans service members told Sam last month “We should be able to go to work, find housing and just live our lives without having to worry about whether or not we’re going to be excluded just for being transgender or gay.”
Read more background here:
California governor gears up for recall fight as critics say they’ve reached 2m signatures
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – I’ll be bringing you politics updates for the next few hours. First up, an update from California:
Governor Gavin Newsom is gearing up for a recall challenge, with his fiercest critics saying they’ve filed the requisite signatures needed to call an election to remove him from office.
The Wednesday deadline to submit at least 1.5m valid voter signatures to trigger a gubernatorial recall has come two days before the anniversary of California’s first statewide shelter-in-place order. Counties now have until the end of April to verify petition signatures.
The recall campaign says it has collected more than 2m signatures. “We’re laser-focused on playing this out day by day,” said Randy Economy, a senior advisor to the recall campaign. “Once we get this on the ballot officially, the next phase of the campaign kicks off – and that is to gather support for the recall.”
The campaign, spearheaded by the Republican former sheriff’s deputy Orrin Heatlie, has come out against the Newsom’s administration’s pandemic-era lockdowns, aid to undocumented immigrants and homeless residents, relatively high taxes and spending on social programs. The effort has picked up financial support from big business donors and a few Silicon Valley venture capitalists, including the former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya.
“Well, the reality is, it looks like it’s going on the ballot,” Newsom said Tuesday during a news conference. “We will fight it. We will defeat it.”
Read more here:
Updated
After six women of Asian descent and two others were killed in attacks on massage parlors around Atlanta, Georgia, on Tuesday that local authorities have hesitated to label a hate crime, Joe Biden has called a surge of “brutality against Asian Americans” “troubling”.
Politico has this video from the Oval Office:
President Joe Biden acknowledged the concern expressed by the AAPI community.
— POLITICO (@politico) March 17, 2021
"I have been speaking about the brutality against Asian-Americans, and it's troubling," Biden said today from the Oval Office. https://t.co/fODhw5efHd pic.twitter.com/3M7LNFKqVq
Distribution of white supremacist propaganda nearly doubled across America in 2020, with 5,125 incidents of racist, antisemitic and other hateful messages being reported by an advocacy group.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Wednesday that 2020 had the “highest level” of cases of such propaganda since it started monitoring the phenomenon – an average of about 14 cases daily. There were 2,724 instances reported in 2019, ADL said.
The release of ADL’s report came hours after a gunman fatally shot eight people at several Atlanta-area massage parlors – six of the victims killed were of Asian descent, and seven were women – spurring fears the spree was racially motivated. The shootings were carried out amid an increase in anti-Asian bigotry across the US, which has included harassment and physical attacks.
ADL’s Center on Extremism monitored the dissemination of racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ posters, banners, flyers and stickers by members of white supremacist and far-right groups. A minimum of 30 “known white supremacist groups” were responsible for the bigoted propaganda push, which affected 49 states last year.
Read the full piece:
Count California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein, apparently, on the list of skeptics whose opposition to filibuster reform could undermine some of the top legislative priorities of the Biden administration, starting with a bill to protect voting rights that majority leader Chuck Schumer announced today he would bring to the Senate floor:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) tells Capitol Hill pool she's not yet sold on nixing the filibuster, fretting that it could backfire on Democrats when GOP regains power.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 17, 2021
"I am concerned. That is a factor," she says. "One of the reasons why I'm hesitant."
Separately Feinstein, 87, has come under pressure to step aside before her current term ends in 2024 owing to what senior party officials have described in private as her “diminished acuity”. The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin reported Wednesday that Feinstein’s husband might be up for an ambassador post in Europe, in a development that could potentially move her out of the senate. She dismissed that possibility when asked about it on Wednesday, however:
And the 87-year-old veteran Democrat also said whatever happens with Blum would not affect her plans to serve out her term in full.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 17, 2021
"No," she said when asked if she would leave the Senate early if her husband got the nod.
Two jurors dismissed in George Floyd murder case
A judge on Wednesday dismissed two jurors who had been seated for the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer accused in George Floyd’s death over concerns they had been tainted by the city’s announcement of a $27m settlement with Floyd’s family, the Associated Press reports:
Hennepin county judge Peter Cahill recalled seven jurors who were seated before the settlement announcement last week, and questioned each about what they knew of the settlement and whether it would affect their ability to serve. Former officer Derek Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, had requested the recall.
That five of the seven jurors said they were able to shut out the news or set it aside was a fairly good outcome for those who hope the trial will stay on course, and may reduce the chance of Cahill agreeing to a defense request to delay the trial.
Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter in the 25 May death of Floyd, a Black man who was declared dead after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against his neck for about nine minutes. Floyd’s death, captured on a widely seen bystander video, set off weeks of sometimes violent protests across the country and led to a national reckoning on racial justice.
Cahill was careful to ask jurors if they had heard the news of the settlement without giving details, saying only that there had been “extensive media coverage about developments in a civil suit between the city of Minneapolis and the family of George Floyd” and asking if they were exposed to it.
The first dismissed juror, a white man in his 30s, said he had heard about the settlement. “I think it will be hard to be impartial,” he said.
Read further:
Joe Biden’s nominee to be US trade representative, Katherine Tai, has been confirmed in a unanimous 98-0 Senate vote. She is a former staff member of the House Ways and Means committee, the powerful committee that drafts tax law.
Tai is the first woman of color and the first Asian American to serve as trade representative. She succeeds Bob Lighthizer, who held the post throughout the Trump administration.
Centrist Democrat Joe Manchin, whose vote would almost surely be needed to advance filibuster reform in the US senate, has said he opposes a “carve-out” that would ban the use of the filibuster on voting rights legislation.
New -- Manchin rejects calls for lowering 60-vote threshold. Also rejects calls for requiring 41 sens to sustain filibuster. Also rejects calls for specific carveouts on legislation, like on voting
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 17, 2021
I asked him if he's drawing a line at 60
"I'm still at 60 .. I haven't changed."
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams called on Sunday for such a carve-out, telling CNN, “Protection of democracy is so fundamental that it should be exempt from the filibuster rules.”
Many Democratic senators have taken up that call:
I’m not going to let an antiquated Senate rule undermine the foundation of our democracy. You cannot filibuster Americans’ right to vote.
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) March 10, 2021
But Joe Biden has stopped short of calling for a filibuster carve-out for voting rights, calling for filibuster reform that would require senators to physically hold the floor in order to block a vote on legislation.
Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, has likewise suggested that he would support new rules requiring senators to hold the floor during a filibuster.
But Manchin explicitly opposes the voting rights carve-out, comparing such a compromise measure as “like being a little bit pregnant”:
Manchin on a filibuster carve out for a specific bill like HR 1: “no. No. No. That’s like being a little bit pregnant maybe”
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) March 17, 2021
Read further:
Updated
A lawyer for Charlotte Bennett, one of the women to have accused New York governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment, alleges an “unacceptable conflict of interest” on the part of a law firm selected by the speaker of the state assembly to help in the Cuomo investigation.
A longtime partner in the firm was previously appointed by Cuomo to the board of a State University of New York branch.
State attorney general Letitia James has selected other outside prosecutors to assist in the investigation of Cuomo on separate allegations of sexual misconduct and of an alleged cover-up of nursing home Covid deaths.
Statement from @DebraKatzKMB, Attorney for @_char_bennett_ on @CarlHeastie hiring @DavisPolkReg for impeachment investigation into @NYGovCuomo pic.twitter.com/wkdOCMgGsB
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) March 17, 2021
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan calls on Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which the House is scheduled to vote on today.
She shares a wrenching personal experience from her childhood home (trigger warning for domestic violence).
“It is time that this bill be reauthorized,” Dingell says.
WATCH: Rep. Debbie Dingell tells her experience with domestic violence and passionately advocates for Congress to pass the Violence Against Women Act. pic.twitter.com/jKzW3a22En
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 17, 2021
Schumer to bring voting rights bill to Senate floor
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has announced he will bring voting rights legislation passed in the House of Representatives to the floor of the US senate.
The move is extremely likely to prompt Republicans to lean on the filibuster rule to block a vote on the legislation – which in turn is likely to escalate the battle in recent days over the filibuster from a war of words into a Senate floor showdown in which Democrats might strike the rule down.
👀 Chuck Schumer just said he will put S.1, the “For The People Act” on the Senate floor: “Democracy reform must be a top priority of this Congress.”
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 17, 2021
This is going to blow up the filibuster war when it gets blocked. pic.twitter.com/PEnU1kU7Yk
Updated
Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms places the massage parlor killings in context of a national wave of attacks on Asian Americans during the pandemic.
“It is unacceptable,” she says. “It is hateful. And it has to stop.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said: "We know that many of the victims, the majority of the victims, were Asian. We also know that this is an issue that is happening across the country. It is unacceptable. It is hateful. And it has to stop." pic.twitter.com/rYhHQXVVvs
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 17, 2021
Sheriff Frank Reynolds of Cherokee County, Georgia, where one of the massage parlors attacked on Tuesday is located, says the suspect in the killings “made indicators that he has some issues, potentially a sexual addiction and may have frequented some of these places in the past”:
Sheriff Frank Reynolds says the suspect is in custody at the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center.
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 17, 2021
On the interview with the suspect: "He made indicators that he has some issues, potentially a sexual addiction and may have frequented some of these places in the past." pic.twitter.com/VUAZWlFLrE
The Atlanta police chief says it is too early to say whether the fatal shootings of eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, at three massage parlors in Georgia on Tuesday constituted a hate crime:
Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant on whether shootings at three separate spas that left multiple people dead was a hate crime: “We are still early in this investigation, so we cannot make that determination at this moment.” https://t.co/gcqyHPElJq pic.twitter.com/nlPCOGiuCq
— ABC News (@ABC) March 17, 2021
Hate-crime charges, which come with stiffer sentencing guidelines, apply in cases in which there is evidence of hate- or prejudice-related motives in crimes against members or perceived members of groups targeted for their race, gender, sexual preference, faith or other identity.
FBI director Christopher Wray and Merrick Garland, the attorney general, will brief president Biden later this morning “on the horrific shootings last night in Atlanta,” press secretary Jen Psaki has told reporters, according to Bloomberg White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs.
Biden tells migrants ‘don’t come over’ US border as he tackles inherited ‘mess’
Joe Biden told immigrants making the difficult journey to the US-Mexico border “don’t come over” as the administration attempts to respond to an increase of unaccompanied children seeking asylum.
In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, aired in full on Wednesday morning, the US president also discussed vaccines, Vladimir Putin and the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Biden said his plan for the immediate issue of children needing safety at the border was to increase the number of beds available and speed up the process of placing children with sponsors in the US while their legal cases play out.
“We will have, I believe by next month, enough of those beds to take care of these children who have no place to go,” Biden said.
In the interview Biden was also critical of the existing process for migrants. “You have to try and get control of the mess that was inherited,” Biden said.
Read the full piece:
Updated
Adam Schiff: will the Democratic star of Trump’s impeachment trial be California’s next top cop?
As the lead prosecutor in Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, Adam Schiff, the representative from southern California, became a household name, an icon of the anti-Trump resistance, and a rising star in the Democratic party.
A year on, the congressman looks increasingly well positioned to be appointed as California’s next attorney general. But in Schiff’s home district, criminal justice and immigrant rights advocates say that his record as state senator and congressman, authoring legislation to increase the criminalization and incarceration of Black and brown Californians, should disqualify him from holding the position.
“There’s this real disconnect,” said Jody Armour, a University of Southern California law professor who studies the intersection of race and legal decision making. “The country knows Schiff as sort of an icon. Here in California, we know him as someone who was, in many ways, one of the chief architects of mass incarceration.”
Read the full piece:
Politico have a deep dive this morning look at the feeling among some Republicans that they’ve “bungled” their response to Biden and the Democrats Covid relief plan:
Before the passage of the stimulus bill, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel criticized the legislation as a “boondoggle” and Democratic “grab bag.” But, all told, the RNC issued just two statements on the bill, both after it had already passed. In that void, others were left to try and figure out how to attack a law with a 75-percent approval rating.
“I think this is a missed opportunity and the GOP has to improve its communications campaign pretty dramatically,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who said he had to assign his production team to do a deep-dive examining the bill for political vulnerabilities.
The Republican Party’s stumbles around the passage of the Covid-relief bill were, to a degree, a microcosm of the difficulties it has had finding its footing in the post-Trump era. Indeed, some Republicans said their party was hamstrung in the relief bill fight by the fact that they had so recently supported bills that relied on deficit-spending and pushed similar provisions, like direct payments.
The article also highlights the hypocrisy of some Republican lawmakers in trying to oppose the relief bill:
After Sen. Tom Cotton slammed Democrats for opposing an amendment that would have excluded prisoners from receiving relief checks, critics were quick to point out that he voted for the second relief package last December despite knowing it contained no provision to stop inmates from receiving such payments.
Read more here: Politico – Republicans on Biden’s Covid bill: We bungled this one
Updated
Biden says Putin 'will pay a price' for Russian interference in US election
Joe Biden said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will face consequences for directing efforts to swing the 2020 US presidential election to Donald Trump, and that they would come soon.
“He will pay a price,” Biden told ABC News in an interview that aired on Wednesday morning.
Asked by the Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos what the consequences would be, he said: “You’ll see shortly.”
Biden’s comments come after a US declassified intelligence report on Tuesday bolstered longstanding allegations that Putin was behind Moscow’s election interference, by proliferating “misleading or unsubstantiated allegations” largely designed to denigrate Joe Biden and boost Trump’s re-election, some fed through allies of Trump.
Russia called the findings baseless.
At the same time, Biden noted that the US and Russia can “walk and chew gum” at the same time.
“There’s places where it’s in our mutual interest to work together” such as renewing the Start nuclear agreement, he said, adding that the two leaders have a known history of acquaintance.
“I know him relatively well,” Biden said, adding that “the most important thing dealing with foreign leaders in my experience … is just know the other guy”.
Of Putin, Biden said he does not think the Russian leader has a soul. Biden reiterated what was an old comment, saying in the ABC interview that in response to former Republican president George W Bush’s comment that he had looked into Putin’s eyes and seen his soul, Biden had noted at the time that he had done the same and told the Russian president to his face that he thought he did not have a soul.
“I did say that to him, yes. And his response was ‘we understand one another’,” Biden said, adding: “I wasn’t being a wise guy, I was alone with him in his office, that’s how it came about.”
Asked by Stephanopoulos if he thought Putin was a killer, Biden responded in the affirmative: “Mmmhmm, yes I do.”
Updated
Civil rights groups are escalating pressure on major Georgia companies including Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines to forcefully oppose sweeping new restrictions that would make it harder to vote in the state.
The campaign is focused on some of the largest employers in Georgia and some of America’s most recognizable brands. Home Depot, UPS, Aflac, and Southern Company are also among the companies activists are targeting.
The organizations say the companies’ support could help kill the measures, which are championed by Republican lawmakers and would cut early voting in some of the state’s most populous and non-white counties, require voters to show ID when they vote by mail, and limit the availability of ballot drop boxes. Another bill would entirely eliminate a state policy that allows any voter to cast a mail-in ballot without an excuse.
The restrictions come after the state saw record turnout in the 2020 race and surging participation among non-white voters, resulting in the election of two Democratic senators and victory for Joe Biden in the state.
“It is a dangerous thing for the business community to be silent,” said Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate, to the Guardian. “We are obliged at this moment to call for all voices to be lifted up. And for the alarm to ring not only through the communities that are threatened directly, but by those businesses that rely on the durability of our democracy.”
There is precedent for the effort. Corporate pressure has previously helped bring scrutiny to some of the most controversial bills in US state legislatures, including an anti-LGBTQ+ measure in Indiana and a discriminatory bathroom bill in North Carolina.
Georgia activists have bought billboards near company headquarters, full-page advertisements in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, protested outside Coca-Cola headquarters, and have helped 55,000 Georgia voters send messages to company leadership, said Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, which is helping lead the effort.
But it is particularly hypocritical for corporations to stay silent on voting rights, Ufot said in an interview. Many of them issued statements last year at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests acknowledging the need to improve racial equity in the United States. Georgia-based companies often tout the state’s history in the civil rights movement, she noted. Coca-Cola bought billboards honoring the life of John Lewis, a titan of the voting rights movement, when he died last year.
“It makes me wonder whether or not they were doing it for clout,” Ufot said. “This feels like these are the character moments when you get to see … whether or not they walk their talk. It’s one thing to post your solidarity on social media and it’s another thing to stop something really harmful from happening to the Black community.”
Read more of Sam Levine’s report here: Activists call on Coca-Cola, Delta to fight Republican anti-voting bills in Georgia
'I can hug my grandkids now' – Biden extols virtue of Covid vaccines in TV interview
Joe Biden has been on the TV this morning, with the broadcast of an interview ABC News’ Good Morning America program.
The president warned that the US may not meet his goal of relaxed Covid-19 restrictions by the summer’s Independence Day holiday if people do not continue to take precautions, noting vaccinations will still be underway.
“I won’t even be able to meet the 4 July deadline unless people listen, wear masks, wash their hands and social distance because not everyone by 4 July will have been vaccinated,” Reuters quote him from the interview that aired this morning.
He also called taking the vaccine patriotic. Associated Press note Biden saying “I can hug my grandkids now”, describing it as the biggest change in his life since getting vaccinated on TV in December.
Biden emphasized that the three vaccines authorized for use in the United States are safe and essential to getting the country past the pandemic.
Biden said he had hoped to get politics out of the nationwide vaccination campaign, and that he’s been surprised by some who are refusing to get shots.
The president told ABC News: “I just don’t understand this sort of macho thing about I’m not going to get the vaccine, ‘I have a right as an American, my freedom to not do it. Why don’t you be a patriot, protect other people?”
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Greg Bluestein for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that Biden has been briefed overnight about the shootings at three Atlanta massage parlors which have left eight dead. While details are yet to be confirmed, many of the victims appear to have been Asian women employed in the salons.
The White House on the Atlanta spa shootings: “The president has been briefed overnight about the horrific shootings in Atlanta. White House officials have been in touch with the Mayor’s office and will remain in touch with the FBI.”
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) March 17, 2021
My colleague Alison Rourke has assembled what we know so far:
- Eight people have died in three separate shootings on Tuesday night at massage parlor venues in and around Atlanta, Georgia.
- Two of the venues were in the city of Atlanta, and a third was near Acworth, in Cherokee country, about 30 miles (50km) north-west of the city.
- At around 5pm, five people were shot at Young’s Asian Massage Parlor near Acworth, police said. Two died at the scene and another two in hospital, police said.
- Police were also called to Gold Spa in the north-east of Atlanta at around 5.50pm after reports of a robbery taking place. Police found three women who had died from apparent gunshot wounds.
- While at Gold Spa, further calls reported shots at the Aromatherapy Spa across the street, where police found the body of another woman.
- Seven of the victims were women, and six were Asian, according to police.
- Although no motive has been confirmed, the NYPD counter-terrorism bureau announced it had deployed officers from their Critical Response Command to Asian communities around New York City. Atlanta police said they sent officers to check nearby similar businesses and increased patrols in the area.
- Police took a 21-year-old man, Robert Aaron Long, into custody in south-west Georgia hours after the shootings. On Tuesday evening, Long’s Facebook page appeared to have been removed from the site.
- “Our entire family is praying for the victims of these horrific acts of violence,” Governor Brian Kemp said on Tuesday evening.
Joe Biden is marking St Patrick’s Day as he recommits the US to the Good Friday Agreement, which has come under increasing stress following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. The US president is set for a virtual meeting Wednesday with Ireland’s prime minister, Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
Associated Press report that the president is expected to attend mass near his family home in Wilmington, Delaware, before returning to the White House to partake in St Patrick’s Day celebrations toned down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden and Martin’s virtual bilateral meeting, Biden’s third with a foreign leader since he took office eight weeks ago, will be followed by the presentation of an engraved bowl of shamrock, which has been sent ahead to Washington. It ensures that a tradition that began in 1952 will continue uninterrupted, if modified by Covid-19 concerns.
The White House said Biden will also drop in on Vice-President Kamala Harris’ meeting with Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, and the deputy first minister, Michelle O’Neill. The White House stressed that the US continues to support the Good Friday Agreement and its implementation. It called the agreement “the bedrock of peace, stability, and prosperity for all the people of Northern Ireland”.
Biden and Martin’s meeting also will emphasize their commitment to addressing global challenges and combating the coronavirus, among other issues, the White House said.
“Our two countries are committed to working together to safely restore global travel, work within multilateral fora to prevent and respond to future outbreaks, and ensure a sustainable global economic recovery,” the White House said in a statement.
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White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the US in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League has provided to the Associated Press.
Aaron Morrison writes for the AP that according to the report, there were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical flyers, stickers, banners and posters during the final year of the Trump presidency. That’s nearly double the 2,724 instances reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much harder to quantify, and it’s likely those cases reached into the millions, the anti-hate organization said.
The ADL said that last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda seen in at least a decade. Its report comes as federal authorities investigate and prosecute those who stormed the US Capitol in January, some of whom are accused of having ties to or expressing support for hate groups and antigovernment militias.
“As we try to understand and put in perspective the past four years, we will always have these bookends of Charlottesville and Capitol Hill,” group CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said. “The reality is there’s a lot of things that happened in between those moments that set the stage.”
Christian Picciolini, a former far-right extremist who founded the deradicalization group Free Radicals Project, said the surge in propaganda tracks with white supremacist and extremist recruiters seeing crises as periods of opportunity.
“They use the uncertainty and fear caused by crisis to win over new recruits to their ‘us vs. them’ narrative, painting the ‘other’ as the cause of their pain, grievances or loss,” Picciolini told the AP. “The current uncertainty caused by the pandemic, job loss, a heated election, protest over extrajudicial police killings of Black Americans, and a national reckoning sparked by our country’s long tradition of racism has created a perfect storm in which to recruit Americans who are fearful of change and progress.”
Propaganda, often distributed with the intention of garnering media and online attention, helps white supremacists normalize their messaging and bolster recruitment efforts, the ADL said in its report. Language used in the propaganda is frequently veiled with a patriotic slant, making it seem benign to an untrained eye.
According to the report, at least 30 known white supremacist groups were behind hate propaganda. But three groups NJEHA, Patriot Front and Nationalist Social Club were responsible for 92% of the activity. The propaganda appeared in every state except Hawaii.
Greenblatt acknowledged that free speech rights allow for rhetoric that “we don’t like and we detest.” But when that speech spurs violence or creates conditions for normalizing extremism, it must be opposed, he said.
“There’s no pixie dust that you can sprinkle on this, like it’s all going to go away,” Greenblatt said. “We need to recognize that the roots of this problem run deep.”
Stephen Collinson at CNN has this analysis of a developing story, the confirmation in a report by US intelligence officials that Russia attempting to influence last year’s election in Donald Trump’s favor using disinformation techniques. Collinson writes:
The real bombshell it contains is not the confidence of the spy agencies that Russia hoped to subvert American democracy. It is that US intelligence experts effectively confirmed that for the second election in a row, Trump acolytes repeatedly used, knowingly or otherwise, misinformation produced by the spies of one of America’s most sworn foreign adversaries to try to win a US election.
The readiness of the former President’s men to use Russian misinformation in 2020 – while denying collusion in 2016 – was but one prong of the assault on the integrity of US elections. After all, it came as Trump was challenging democratic customs that form the bedrock of American freedoms.
It ought to be concerning that the sentiments of many Republicans who falsely decry the fairness of the current US electoral system appear to coincide with those of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ultimately, the most alarming implication of the release of Tuesday’s report is that it may not be necessary for Russia to interfere in the 2024 presidential election in the same way as in 2016 and 2020. From Trump’s lies about a stolen second term to claims by some Republican governors that making it harder to vote makes an election more democratic, some Americans are already doing far more themselves to damage the US system than Moscow can.
Read more here: CNN – New US intel report shows Russia, Trump and GOP acolytes have same goals
The timing of Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck’s warning will not have escaped the attention of Secretary of state Antony Blinken, who has this morning landed in Seoul with Defense secretary Lloyd J. Austin III for the next part of their trip to the Asia-Pacific region.
Glad to be in Seoul with @SecDef to meet with President @moonriver365, Foreign Minister Chung, and Defense Minister Suh. The U.S.-ROK Alliance is strong, allowing us to work together to meet today’s global challenges -- from COVID to the climate crisis to nuclear proliferation. pic.twitter.com/zMJFNWH5Rs
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) March 17, 2021
Reuters report that at his meeting with South Korean foreign minister Chung Eui-yong in Seoul, Bliken said the US stood for fundamental rights and freedoms and against anyone who oppressed them. He criticised North Korea for continuing “systemic and widespread abuses” against its own people.
Overnight Justin McCurry in Tokyo has reported for us on a warning that North Korea could be planning ICBM test ‘in near future’:
North Korea could be planning to flight test an upgraded inter-continental ballistic missile [ICBM] “in the near future,” a senior US military official has warned, in what would be the regime’s first serious policy challenge for Joe Biden.
The warning, by Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, who as head of the Northern Command is in charge of defending the continental US, appeared to be based on North Korea’s unveiling at a parade in October of what would be its largest ICBM yet, and not on specific intelligence about an imminent launch.
North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon or ICBM in more than three years, but has continued production of nuclear weapons, improved the design of its ICBM and tested a number of smaller missiles.
VanHerck said Pyongyang’s “considerably larger and presumably more capable” ICBM further increased the threat to the US, adding that he had confidence in US missile defence.
Noting that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had released himself from a moratorium on testing over a year ago, VanHerck said in written testimony to the senate armed services committee: “The North Korean regime has also indicated that it is no longer bound by the unilateral nuclear and ICBM testing moratorium announced in 2018, suggesting that Kim Jong-un may begin flight testing an improved ICBM design in the near future.”
He also warned of the “alarming success” North Korea had achieved in demonstrating its ability to threaten the US mainland with nuclear-armed ICBMs.
Read more of Justin McCurry’s report here: US warns North Korea could be planning ICBM test ‘in near future’ in test for Biden
Republican voters in the United States are increasingly hostile toward illegal immigrants, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, an unease that the Republican Party is moving to capitalize on in its bid to retake Congress in 2022.
Chris Kahn and David Morgan write for Reuters that the poll findings, based on surveys conducted before and after Donald Trump’s presidency, show that Republicans are becoming more unified around the former president’s hardline views on immigration, even as the rest of the country has become more welcoming.
Seventy-seven percent of Republicans said in a poll at the end of February that they want more fencing along the southern border with Mexico, up six points from 2015. And 56% do not want illegal immigrants to have a path to citizenship, which is up 18 percentage points from a 2018 survey.
Republicans are increasingly expressing deep concerns about immigration as families and unaccompanied arrive at the US-Mexico border. 22% of Republicans said in a March 10-11 poll that they consider immigration to be the nation’s most important problem, up from 7% who said so in early February.
Republicans are trying to reinvigorate supporters after losing both the White House and the Senate in last November’s election. They, however, are fractured between Trump loyalists and those who want to move on and make the party more electable. Leaders have signaled that they intend to use immigration in congressional districts, especially along the border, to help turn out the votes of party loyalists and conservative independents in congressional elections next year.
Party officials hope the border issue will also counter Biden*s promotion of the new Covid-19 relief bill and call into question his commitment to national security, and law and order.
“His failure to secure the border and take responsibility is harming the security of the American people. With Biden, it’s open borders but closed schools – clearly a mismanagement of priorities.” Republican National Committee Press Secretary Mandi Merritt said in a statement to Reuters.
The polling showed that Republicans will need to tread carefully in deciding how hard to push an anti-immigration message in the next elections.
While Republicans have become more opposed to programs that would benefit immigrants who entered the country illegally, polling shows the rest of the country appears to be moving in the opposite direction.
Biden administration limiting media access to southern US border – reports
Another area where Joe Biden is experiencing pushback from Republicans is over the growing number of migrants on the southern border of the US. Yesterday Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement: “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.”
This morning Julia Ainsley at NBC News has what they have labelled an exclusive, that the Biden administration has limited what Border Patrol can share with the media about migrants at the border:
The Biden administration is restricting the information Border Patrol agents and sector chiefs can share with the media as a surge of migrants tests the agency’s capacity at the southern border, according to two current and two former Customs and Border Protection officials.
The officials say the restrictions are seen as an unofficial “gag order” and are often referred to that way among colleagues. The officials requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media about the topic.
Border Patrol officials have been told to deny all media requests for “ride-alongs” with agents along the southern border; local press officers are instructed to send all information queries, even from local media, to the press office in Washington for approval; and those responsible for cultivating data about the number of migrants in custody have been reminded not to share the information with anyone to prevent leaks, the officials said.
Read more here: NBC News – Biden administration limits what Border Patrol can share with media about migrant surge at border
21 states threaten legal challenge to Biden's $1.9tn Covid rescue plan
Passing the $1.9tn Covid relief bill through Congress has been an early legislative triumph for Joe Biden’s presidency, but it may not be the end of opposition to it. Tony Romm and Jeff Stein have reported overnight for the Washington Post on the Republican moves against it at state level:
The attorneys general take issue with a $350 billion pot of money set aside under the stimulus to help cash-strapped cities, counties and states pay for the costs of the pandemic. Congressional lawmakers opted to restrict states from tapping these federal dollars to finance local tax cuts.
Lawmakers included the provision to ensure Washington isn’t footing the bill on behalf of states that later take deliberate steps to reduce their revenue. But the guardrails frustrated many Republican leaders, who said in a letter to the Treasury Department that the law’s vague wording threatens to interfere with states in good financial standing that sought to provide “such tax relief with or without the prospect of COVID-19 relief funds.”
The attorneys general from Arizona, Georgia, West Virginia and 18 other states called on the Biden administration to make it clear that they can proceed with some of their plans to cut taxes, including those that predate the stimulus, in a seven-page missive sent to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Otherwise, they said, the relief law “would represent the greatest invasion of state sovereignty by Congress in the history of our Republic” — and they threatened to take “appropriate additional action” in response. Some state officials are already discussing a possible lawsuit.
Read more here: Washington Post – Republican attorneys general threaten key element of the $1.9 trillion stimulus
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Wednesday. Yesterday Joe Biden was out and about promoting his American Rescue Plan. Here’s a catch-up on where we are, and a little of what to expect from the diary today…
- President Joe Biden stopped by a unionized, Black-owned flooring company in the battleground state of Pennsylvania to highlight how his $1.9tn coronavirus relief package will help lift small businesses hurt by the pandemic
- During his visit, part of a cross-country campaign to promote Biden’s first major legislative achievement, Biden said the sweeping new law was a “big deal” and promised the owners: “More help is on the way – for real.”
- 21 Republican states have already expressed a legal challenge to the plan – they say that provisions in the bill restrict them from making local tax cuts
- Russia tried to influence the 2020 US presidential election by proliferating “misleading or unsubstantiated allegations” largely against Joe Biden and through allies of Donald Trump, US intelligence officials said.
- Joe Biden’s homeland security secretary said that even as the US processes a growing number of unaccompanied child migrants at the US-Mexico border, the country remains closed to most asylum seekers. “Now is not the time to come to the border,” Alejandro Mayorkas said.
- At least eight people have been killed in a series of shootings at three Atlanta area massage parlours, with a number of the victims described by authorities as women of Asian descent.
- Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck has warned that North Korea could be planning an ICBM test ‘in near future’.
- This morning Joe Biden will be attending mass in Delaware in honor of St Patrick’s Day. Later back at the White House, he will hold a virtual bilateral meeting with Irish prime minister Micheál Martin. That’s at 1pm EDT (which is 1700 GMT – don’t forget the clocks have changed in the US).
- Jen Psaki’s press briefing will be at 3pm today, and she will be accompanied by secretary of education Miguel Cardona. There’s a Covid response team briefing earlier at 11am.
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