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Democrats Begin Push for Biggest Expansion of Voting Since 1960s

Democrats Begin Push for Biggest Expansion of Voting Since 1960s

Democrats began pushing on Wednesday for the most substantial expansion of voting rights in a half-century, laying the groundwork in the Senate for what would be a fundamental change to the ways voters get to the polls and elections are run.At a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders made a passionate case for a bill that would mandate automatic voter registration nationwide, expand early and mail-in voting, end gerrymandering that skews congressional districts for maximum partisan advantage and curb the influence of money in politics.The effort is taking shape as Republicans have introduced more than 250 bills to restrict voting in 43 states and have continued to spread false accusations of fraud and impropriety in the 2020 election. It comes just months after those claims, spread by President Donald J. Trump as he sought to cling to power, fueled a deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 that showed how deeply his party had come to believe in the myth of a stolen election.Republicans were unapologetic in their opposition to the measure, with some openly arguing that if Democrats succeeded in making it easier for Americans to vote and in enacting the other changes in the bill, it would most likely place their party permanently in t Read the full article

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Biden May Be the Most Pro-Labor President Ever; That May Not Save Unions

Biden May Be the Most Pro-Labor President Ever; That May Not Save Unions

Two months into the new administration, labor leaders are proclaiming Joseph R. Biden Jr. to be the most union-friendly president of their lifetime — and “maybe ever,” as Steve Rosenthal, a former political director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said in an interview.Mr. Biden has moved quickly to oust government officials whom unions deemed hostile to labor, and to reverse Trump-era rules that weakened worker protections. He has pushed through legislation sending hundreds of billions of dollars to cities and states, aid that public-sector unions consider essential, and tens of billions to shore up union pension plans.Perhaps most notably, the president appeared in a video alluding to a union vote underway at an Read the full article

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The House Moves to Avert a Shutdown

The House Moves to Avert a Shutdown The House races to avoid a shutdown, while the Senate prepares for a hasty Supreme Court confirmation process. It’s Wednesday, and this is your politics tip sheet. Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox every weekday.Image  Credit... Where things standHouse Democrats reached a deal with the White House yesterday on a stopgap spending measure that seeks to avert a government shutdown just weeks before the November election.The bill now needs to be approved by the Senate before it can be sent to President Trump’s desk. Congress has been unable to agree on the broader spending bills that would keep the government funded when the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1.There has also been virtually no progress on a new round of coronavirus relief legislation, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing for the House to remain in session until a bill is passed.In a letter signed by 20 Democrats and 14 Republicans, the lawmakers wrote, “Our constituents do not want us home campaigning while businesses continue to shutter.”The House passed a stimulus package of more than $3 trillion in May, after which Senate Republicans proposed a narrower measure, but negotiations have been stalled since then.Yesterday was National Voter Registration Day — not that many voters needed the reminder. Political experts say this election could drive record turnout, and even before yesterday’s pseudo-holiday, more than 61.4 #BidenJosephRJr #HouseofRepresentatives #PresidentialElectionof2020 #Shutdowns(Institutional) #TrumpDonaldJ #UnitedStatesPoliticsandGovernment #updatesonusnewsonacqro #usnewsacqro #usnewsacqroupdates #usnewsonacqro #usnewsupdates #usanews Read the full article

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Democratic Donors Push Biden for a Cabinet Free of Fossil Fuel Connections

Democratic Donors Push Biden for a Cabinet Free of Fossil Fuel Connections WASHINGTON — Liberal activists have opened a new front in their battle to push Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the left on climate change: a campaign to pressure the Democratic presidential nominee to reject advisers with any ties to fossil fuel companies.The targets include former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and others who served in the Obama administration.Last week more than 60 deep-pocketed donors asked Mr. Biden to commit to a moratorium on all new coal, oil and natural gas development — and to select advisers who are “free from fossil fuel influence.” The group, which includes Kathy Washienko, a clean-energy investor in Seattle; Robin Chase, a co-founder and former chief executive of Zipcar; and Adelaide Park Gomer, the president of the Park Foundation philanthropic group and a longtime anti-fracking activist, implored Mr. Biden to “choose new, bolder leadership” than those with whom he worked under President Barack Obama.“This incumbency of old ideas (like ‘all of the above’ energy policy) must end,” the donors wrote.The effort comes just days after Mr. Biden denounced President Trump as a “climate arsonist” and made the case that Americans suffering from wildfires, floods and hurricanes could not afford four more years of a climate-change denier in the White House. Even many of Mr. #BidenJosephRJr #Environment #GlobalWarming #Greenhousegasemissions #NaturalGas #PresidentialElectionof2020 #TrumpDonaldJ #UnitedStatesPoliticsandGovernment #updatesonusnewsonacqro #usnewsacqro #usnewsacqroupdates #usnewsonacqro #usnewsupdates #usanews Read the full article

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Democratic Donors Push Biden for a Cabinet Free of Fossil Fuel Connections

Democratic Donors Push Biden for a Cabinet Free of Fossil Fuel Connections WASHINGTON — Liberal activists have opened a new front in their battle to push Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the left on climate change: a campaign to pressure the Democratic presidential nominee to reject advisers with any ties to fossil fuel companies.The targets include former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and others who served in the Obama administration.Last week more than 60 deep-pocketed donors asked Mr. Biden to commit to a moratorium on all new coal, oil and natural gas development — and to select advisers who are “free from fossil fuel influence.” The group, which includes Kathy Washienko, a clean-energy investor in Seattle; Robin Chase, a co-founder and former chief executive of Zipcar; and Adelaide Park Gomer, the president of the Park Foundation philanthropic group and a longtime anti-fracking activist, implored Mr. Biden to “choose new, bolder leadership” than those with whom he worked under President Barack Obama.“This incumbency of old ideas (like ‘all of the above’ energy policy) must end,” the donors wrote.The effort comes just days after Mr. Biden denounced President Trump as a “climate arsonist” and made the case that Americans suffering from wildfires, floods and hurricanes could not afford four more years of a climate-change denier in the White House. Even many of Mr. #BidenJosephRJr #Environment #GlobalWarming #Greenhousegasemissions #NaturalGas #PresidentialElectionof2020 #TrumpDonaldJ #UnitedStatesPoliticsandGovernment #updatesonusnewsonacqro #usnewsacqro #usnewsacqroupdates #usnewsonacqro #usnewsupdates #usanews Read the full article

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When Joe Biden’s in Town, but It’s Hard to Tell

When Joe Biden’s in Town, but It’s Hard to Tell TAMPA, Fla. — As in-person spectacles go, Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pandemic-era campaign appearances can resemble the pandemic-era N.F.L. — quiet, eerie and almost entirely fan-free.There is scant physical evidence that the former vice president and Democratic nominee is in town. His visits are scarcely publicized beforehand, logistical details are closely held and his event venues serve as much as video studios as places of gathering. Barely anyone is allowed near the candidate.“I had to call an editor friend of mine at The Tampa Tribune to find out where he’d be,” said Rita Fox, a supporter of Mr. Biden’s from St. Petersburg, Fla. She stood across the street from Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and near an entrance to Hillsborough Community College, where Mr. Biden was holding a veterans round-table event last week before about a dozen sanitized and socially distanced guests in a gymnasium whose bleachers remained folded up against the walls. No pull-asides, touching of the candidate or photos were permitted.These measures are taken to ensure maximum protection against the coronavirus, Mr. Biden’s campaign said. The productions also serve a strategic voter-outreach purpose, as they will typically draw significant local news coverage and be viewed online by tens of thousands of voters. #BidenJosephRJr #Coronavirus(2019nCoV) #DemocraticParty #Kissimmee(Fla) #PresidentialElectionof2020 #Tampa(Fla) #updatesonusnewsonacqro #usnewsacqro #usnewsacqroupdates #usnewsonacqro #usnewsupdates #usanews #VotingandVoters Read the full article

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Trump Scorns His Own Scientists Over Virus Data

Trump Scorns His Own Scientists Over Virus Data WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday rejected the professional scientific conclusions of his own government about the prospects for a widely available coronavirus vaccine and the effectiveness of masks in curbing the spread of the virus as the death toll in the United States from the disease neared 200,000.In a remarkable display even for him, Mr. Trump publicly slapped down Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the president promised that a vaccine could be available in weeks and go “immediately” to the general public while diminishing the usefulness of masks despite evidence to the contrary.The president’s comments put him at odds with the C.D.C., the world’s premier public health agency, over the course of a pandemic that he keeps insisting is “rounding the corner” to an end. Mr. Trump lashed out just hours after Dr. Redfield told a Senate committee that a vaccine would not be widely available until the middle of next year and that masks were so vital in fighting the disease caused by the coronavirus, Covid-19, that they may even more important than a vaccine.“I think he made a mistake when he said that,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “It’s just incorrect information.” A vaccine would go “to the general public immediately,” the president insisted, and “under no circumstance will it be as late as the doctor said.” As for Dr. Redfield’s conclusion that masks may be more useful than a vaccine, Mr. #BidenJosephRJr #CentersforDiseaseControlandPrevention #Coronavirus(2019nCoV) #GuterresAntonio #HealthandHumanServicesDepartment #masks #PresidentialElectionof2020 #RedfieldRobertR #Senate #TrumpDonaldJ #UnitedNations #UnitedStatesPoliticsandGovernment #updatesonusnewsonacqro #usnewsacqro #usnewsacqroupdates #usnewsonacqro #usnewsupdates #usanews #VaccinationandImmunization Read the full article

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Trump’s ‘Secret’ Health Plan Is a Promise Voters May Have Heard Before

Trump’s ‘Secret’ Health Plan Is a Promise Voters May Have Heard Before WASHINGTON — When Donald J. Trump first ran for the White House, he promised to “come up with a great health plan,” one that would repeal the Affordable Care Act but replace it with something better, something that would maintain its biggest selling point: protecting people with pre-existing medical conditions.Once elected, he swore he had a “wonderful plan” and would be “putting it in fairly soon.”On Tuesday night, President Trump was at it again, during a town-hall-style meeting broadcast on ABC, where he was schooled by Ellesia Blaque, an assistant professor of Africana and Ethnic Literatures at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She told him she had a congenital illness, demanded to known what he would do to keep “people like me who work hard” insured — and cut him off when he tried to interrupt her.“We’re going to be doing a health care plan very strongly, and protect people with pre-existing conditions,” Mr. Trump told her, adding, “I have it all ready, and it’s a much better plan for you, and it’s a much better plan.”After four years, during the worst health crisis in a century, the unkept promise may be catching up to Mr. Trump. There still does not seem to be any plan, because other than abolishing the Affordable Care Act — which requires insurers to cover pre-existing conditions and which the White House is asking the Supreme Court to overturn — the Republican Party cannot agree on one.And #BidenJosephRJr #HealthInsuranceandManagedCare #PresidentialElectionof2020 #RepublicanParty #SupremeCourt(US) #TrumpDonaldJ #UnitedStatesPoliticsandGovernment #updatesonusnewsonacqro #usnewsacqro #usnewsacqroupdates #usnewsonacqro #usnewsupdates #usanews Read the full article