China recently conducted a “very concerning” test of a hypersonic weapon system as part of its aggressive advance in space and military technologies, America’s top military officer has confirmed.
Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was the first Pentagon official to confirm the nature of a test this year by the Chinese military that was reported as a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon that was launched into space and orbited the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and gliding toward its target in China.
Milley said he could not discuss details because aspects involved classified intelligence. He said the United States was also working on hypersonic weapons, whose key features include flight trajectory, speed and manoeuvrability that make them capable of evading early warning systems that are part of US missile defenses.
The US has not conducted a hypersonic weapon test of the sort Milley said China had achieved.
“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system, and it is very concerning,” Milley told Bloomberg Television.
“I think I saw in some of the newspapers, they used the term Sputnik moment,” he added. “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. So it’s a very significant technological event that occurred, or test that occurred, by the Chinese. And it has all of our attention.”
The launch of a Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957 stunned the world and fed US fears that it was falling behind technologically in an accelerating arms race in the early stages of the nuclear age.
China has disputed western news reports about its test, saying it was working on technology for a re-usable space vehicle for peaceful purposes.
Asked about Milley’s remarks, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said he was conveying concern about China’s military modernization.
“They continue to pursue capabilities that increase tensions in the region,” she said. “And we continue to have concerns about that. And I think that was reflected in his comments.”
Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby, declined to comment on the test or on Milley’s remarks beyond saying that China’s work on advanced hypersonic weaponry is among a “suite of issues” that cause the Biden administration to be concerned by “the trajectory of where things are going in the Indo-Pacific”.
Asked about progress on US hypersonic weapon technologies, Kirby said it “is real, it’s tangible, and we are absolutely working toward being able to develop that capability”. He declined to provide specifics.
Some US defence experts say the worry about China’s work on a hypersonic weapon that could deliver a nuclear weapon from space are overblown.
James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in an essay last week that the United States has long been vulnerable to a Chinese nuclear attack.
“While the prospect of a nuclear attack against the United States is terrifying, this is no Sputnik moment – partly because it’s not entirely clear what was tested, but mostly because the threat of a Chinese nuclear attack on the United States isn’t remotely new,” Acton wrote.
In addition to its advances in hypersonic weapons, China has been expanding its network of underground silos that could be used to launch intercontinental-range nuclear missiles, and it has rebuffed U.S. calls to join nuclear arms control talks. The US also has raised concerns about what it calls Chinese efforts to intimidate Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as part of its territory, and to claim disputed islands and other land features in the South China Sea.
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen told CNN Thursday that a small number of American troops are on the island for training purposes and she has “faith” the U.S. would defend the democracy against a Chinese military attack.
Why it matters: This is the first time a Taiwanese leader has publicly acknowledged the presence of U.S. troops on the self-governing island since the last U.S. garrison left in 1979, when Washington switched formal diplomatic recognition to Beijing.
U.S. defense officials have publicly aired concerns that China’s government will take Taiwan by force in the next four to six years, perhaps sooner as Beijing becomes increasingly aggressive — notably flying a record 145 warplanes into Taipei’s air defense identification zone earlier this month.
Of note: Presiden Biden said at a CNN town hall last week that “we have a commitment” to defend Taiwan if it were under attack. The White House later clarified there hadn’t been a policy change and the U.S. continued to support Taiwan’s self-defense.
Yes, but: Tsai told CNN that if Taiwan was attacked by China’s military, she believed that the United States and other allies would come to the island’s aid “given the long-term relationship we have with the U.S.”
What they’re saying: When asked for the precise number of U.S. military personnel on the island, Tsai told CNN that it’s “not as many as people thought.”
“We have a wide range of cooperation with the U.S. aiming at increasing our defense capability,” she added.
Tsai said the threat from Beijing was increasing “every day.”
Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told reporters Thursday, “We have personnel exchanges and they [U.S. soldiers] would be here for military cooperation, but this is different, according to my definition, from having ‘troops stationed’ here,” per AFP.
Consecutive administrations have purposely maintained a posture of “strategic ambiguity” on the matter of whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan from a Chinese military invasion.
A Chinese government spokesperson responded to Biden’s town hall comments by saying there’s “no room” for compromise over Taiwan.
Representatives for the Biden administration did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
Democrats appear likely to abandon their plans to create a new federal paid family and medical leave program as part of their sprawling domestic policy package, yielding to opposition from a crucial centrist swing vote, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.
But Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the provision’s biggest champion in the Senate, cautioned on Wednesday night that after three conversations, Mr. Manchin had assured her that he was still keeping an open mind.
Still, the odds look long for the inclusion of even a stripped-back family leave provision. The concession to Mr. Manchin was disclosed by three people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe ongoing negotiations. It came after days of harried negotiations to salvage the program, which had already been cut down to just four weeks from a proposed dozen weeks in a bid to appease the senator.
Proponents even offered to narrow the benefit dramatically, to cover leave only for new parents, not sicknesses or other family emergencies.
Donald Trump bashed Democrats’ proposal to tax billionaires to pay for their social spending bill.
This comes after House Finance Chair Richard Neal said the proposal is off the table.
But his Senate counterpart and author of the proposal Ron Wyden said the tax is not “dead.”
Former President Donald Trump assailed the billionaire-tax proposal from Democrats on Wednesday, suggesting he might flee the US to escape taxation. But he said he’d be sticking around.
“I just wonder, will I be allowed to run for president again if I move to another country?” he said in a statement. “No, I guess I’ll just stick it out, but most others won’t.”
Trump was referring to the billionaire-tax proposal that’s on all but doomed in the Senate only hours after it was introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. It would levy a 23.8% capital-gains tax rate on assets like stocks and bonds to compel roughly 700 billionaires to pay annual taxes on their gains, regardless of whether they sell their assets.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia imperiled the measure after criticizing it as both punitive to successful people and unworkable.
“I don’t like the connotation that we’re targeting different people,” he told reporters, floating a 15% “patriotic tax” without elaborating further.
Insider previously reported this proposal would slap people like Tesla CEO Elon Musk with a $10 billion annual bill, which Musk himself spoke out against on Twitter: “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you,” he said.
An analysis from the economist Gabriel Zucman found that the tax could bring in $500 billion, $275 billion of which would come from the 10 richest billionaires. If the proposal came to fruition, it would be a “a major structural reform to the tax system” in which income from wealth is taxed like income from wages, said Frank Clemente, the executive director of the left-leaning advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness.
But just a day after the proposal was brought to the table, House Finance Committee Chair Richard Neal struck it down, telling reporters on Wednesday that it was “very unlikely” the tax would be used to finance Democrats’ scaled-down social-spending bill. At the same time, Wyden was far from throwing in the towel on the proposal he authored.
“I’m not saying that it’s dead,” Wyden told Insider, adding that the White House still backed the proposal.
This disagreement is emblematic of the negotiations Democrats are undergoing as they work to develop a framework for their scaled-down bill. Free community college, paid family and medical leave, and an extended five-year child tax credit are already on the chopping block, CNN reported, and a major Democratic priority to roll back Trump tax cuts was struck down by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to pull back a memo directing the FBI to help local police address reported harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against educators and school board members under questioning from Sen. Mike Lee on Wednesday.
The Utah Republican pointed out that the National School Boards Association has apologized for a letter to President Joe Biden last month saying some of the incidents could be classified as “domestic terrorism.” Garland based his directive to the FBI and federal prosecutors nationwide, in part, on the association’s letter.
“Will you rescind your letter?” Lee asked Garland during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Lee said he and his staff went through every news source mentioned in the school board association’s letter.
“There was no explicit death threat and I reiterate my concern that not every outburst or expression of concern by neighbors among neighbors at a local school board meeting warrants a federal investigation. It certainly doesn’t warrant the involvement of 94 U.S. attorneys in a way that threatens, intimidates and intends to chill First Amendment activity,” he said.
The attorney general’s memo came after the National School Boards Association sent a letter to Biden asking for help from federal law enforcement, referencing the Patriot Act, a law used to deter and punish terrorist acts in the U.S. and abroad.
The organization highlighted situations involving angry parents often frustrated by COVID-19 mask mandates for children and the possibility of teaching critical race theory in schools.
Last week, the association apologized to its members for the letter.
“There was no justification for some of the language use included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for consultation on a communication of this significance,” the group said, noting the safety of its members and schools is its top priority.
The association did not specify what language in the letter was inappropriate. Nor did it explicitly rescind its request for federal backup in dealing with threats and violence, according to Education Week.
From left, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, listen as Attorney General Merrick Garland, not pictured, testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing examining the Department of Justice on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. Tom Brenner, Associated Press
Garland directed the FBI to work with local leaders nationwide to help address what he called a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against educators and school board members over highly politicized issues relating to the coronavirus and school curriculums.
“While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” Garland wrote. “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”
In the Senate hearing, Lee said 17 attorneys general, including Utah Republican Sean Reyes, have reported “no unusual flood” of threats of violence against school board members, “nothing that they can’t handle at the state and local level.”
Garland said the approach in his letter is to meet with local law enforcement, evaluate situations, strategize and open lines of communication.
“I’m hopeful that many areas of local law enforcement will be well able to handle this on their own. But this is what the Justice Department does every day, consult with local and state partners and see whether assistance is necessary,” he said.
Lee said federal involvement chills free speech.
“I question seriously the role of the federal government in protecting people at local school board meetings from their neighbors,” he said. “In hindsight, would you agree that a natural consequence of your memo could be chilling free speech, protected speech by parents protesting local school board policies?”
Garland said that is not the purpose of his directive.
“Senator, the memo is aimed only at violence and threats of violence,” he said. “It states on its face that vigorous debate is protected. That is what this is about, and that is all this is about.”
The following Massachusetts school districts have announced closings or delays for Thursday, Oct. 28, due to widespread power outages from the Nor’easter that swung through New England this week.
The storm, with wind gusts reaching as high as 90 mph in one location, knocked down trees and power lines throughout the region, but hit Cape Cod the and Southeastern Massachusetts the hardest.
“Where, as here, a state enacts a blatantly unconstitutional statute, assigns enforcement authority to everyone in the world and weaponizes the state judiciary to obstruct those courts’ ability to protect constitutional rights,” the brief said, “the federal courts must be available to provide relief.”
In December, the justices will hear arguments in a separate case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392, which takes on a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks. That case is a direct challenge to the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973.
The Texas law, which has been in effect since Sept. 1, makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape, bars state officials from enforcing it and instead deputizes private individuals to sue anyone who performs the procedure or “aids and abets” it.
Understand the Texas Abortion Law
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The most restrictive in the country. The Texas abortion law, known as Senate Bill 8, amounts to a nearly complete ban on abortion in the state. It prohibits most abortions after about six weeks of preganancy and makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape.
The patient may not be sued, but doctors, staff members at clinics, counselors, and people who help pay for the procedure or drive patients to it are all potential defendants. Plaintiffs do not need to live in Texas, have any connection to the abortion or show any injury from it, and they are entitled to at least $10,000 and their legal fees if they win. Defendants who win their cases are not entitled to legal fees.
The Supreme Court refused to block the law on Sept. 1 in a bitterly divided 5-to-4 ruling.
Jonathan F. Mitchell, a lawyer who helped draft the law and who represents individuals who say they want to preserve their right to sue under it, also filed a brief, writing that the federal government was not entitled to challenge the law.
“The constitutionality of the statute must be determined in the lawsuits between private parties,” he wrote, “not in a pre-emptive lawsuit brought against the sovereign government, which is not ‘enforcing’ the statute but merely allowing its courts to hear lawsuits arising under the disputed statutory enactment.”
It is not an unprecedented situation. As recently as 2017, Republicans went it alone on their Trump-era tax cuts using the budget reconciliation process, which shields legislation from a filibuster, knowing that Democrats would not support the corporate tax breaks the G.O.P. was eagerly handing out. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats had substantial enough majorities in the Senate and the House that they could enact the Affordable Care Act on their own over universal Republican resistance.
Aware that Republicans would never support the kinds of social and climate programs they are trying to enact in the safety net legislation, Democrats are the ones using reconciliation this time. With the shoe on the other foot and with razor-thin Democratic majorities, the one-sided legislating has rendered Republicans — who make up exactly half of the Senate and almost half of the House — virtually irrelevant as Congress debates potentially momentous legislation expected to cost at least $1.5 trillion.
“It is really odd,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is among the few Republicans who occasionally join with Democrats on important legislation and who helped craft the bipartisan infrastructure bill awaiting a final vote in the House. “As somebody who is open to ideas from both sides and works on a lot of different initiatives with Democrats, to really not be involved or engaged in any aspect of it is just really odd.”
But there seems to be no fear of missing out among Republicans, given their hostility to the emerging domestic policy package, which — even in its scaled-back form as Democrats whittle it down to appease crucial centrists — would lead to a level of social spending that is anathema to G.O.P. lawmakers.
“They just have to satisfy their political base to the point where it gets pulled so far left,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said of the Democrats. “Obviously we don’t like being shut out of the policymaking, but that is the choice they made.”
California health officials said Wednesday the state will have 4,000 sites ready to administer 1.2 million Covid shots to children 5 to 11 years old as soon as the vaccines receive full approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The announcement came just a day after the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee recommended vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech for that age group. The more than 1.2 million vaccine doses will be ready to distribute within the first week after the shots get approved, said Dr. Erica Pan, the state’s epidemiologist.
“We have around 4,000 sites that are ready to administer and over 1,000 providers across the state enrolled to vaccinate,” Pan said. “And more than 860,000 doses of vaccine have already been ordered.”
More than 3.5 million children ages 5 to 11 live in California, roughly 9% of the state’s population, Pan said. The vaccine rollout to young kids could begin as soon as CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky authorizes the shots, which she’s expected to do after the agency’s advisory panel meets Tuesday.
California’s Department of Public Health is already working with schools to administer vaccines, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state’s Health and Human Services Agency. Some schools in California are collaborating with pharmacies and other health-care providers to give out shots, Ghaly said, adding he expected to see more clinics at education centers appearing in November.
“By the middle of next month, CDPH, working with a lot of local health jurisdictions and other partners, have planned many vaccine locations at schools,” Ghaly said.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Oct. 1 a vaccine mandate for all public grade school students returning to in-person classes once the FDA issues full approval for each age group. The requirement was the first of its kind nationwide. Pfizer’s currently distributing its vaccine under emergency approval. If it receives final regulatory approval before the end of the year, Newsom said it could take effect for students over 12 as soon as Jan. 1
Newsom’s plan will unfold in two phases, starting with kids 12 to 17 once the FDA fully clears vaccines for that age group. The order will then expand to kids 5 to 11, pending the FDA’s approval. The FDA is expected to clear the shots for the younger age group as early as this week with full approval expected to take several months longer. White House officials have said the country has a stockpile of doses to immunize all 28 million of the country’s 5 to 11-year-olds.
If the agency doesn’t fully approve vaccines for those over 12 by the end of the year, Ghaly said the mandate’s starting date would be pushed from January to July. The FDA fully approved Pfizer’s vaccine for everyone 16 and older in August and cleared it for emergency use in adolescents 12 to 15 in May. Moderna and J&J’s vaccines are currently approved for use in adults only.
Senate Democrats’ plan to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from the wealth of billionaires hit a major snag on Wednesday when Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, denounced it as divisive.
The billionaires tax, officially unveiled early Wednesday morning, may have died before the ink was dry on its 107-page text. Mr. Manchin, speaking with reporters, said, “I don’t like the connotation that we’re targeting different people.” People, he added, that “contributed to society” and “create a lot of jobs and invest a lot of money and give a lot to philanthropic pursuits.”
“It’s time that we all pull together and row together,” he said.
The proposed tax would almost certainly face court challenges, but given the blockade on more conventional tax rate increases imposed by Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Democrats have few other options for financing their domestic agenda. Finance Committee aides expressed surprise at Mr. Manchin’s position, insisting that he had expressed at least mild support to the committee’s chairman, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon.
If the proposal can be enacted over Mr. Manchin’s concerns, billionaires would be taxed on the unrealized gains in the value of their liquid assets, such as stocks, bonds and cash, which can grow for years as vast capital stores that can be borrowed off to live virtually income tax free.
A Wisconsin judge laid out the final ground rules this week on what evidence will be allowed when Kyle Rittenhouse goes on trial next week for shooting three people during a protest against police brutality, ruling he’ll permit testimony from the defense’s use-of-force expert and on how police welcomed Rittenhouse and others carrying guns during the demonstration.
The hearing was likely the last before Rittenhouse goes on trial Nov. 1 for the shootings during chaotic demonstrations in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, two days after a white police officer in that city shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back while responding to a domestic disturbance.
Kyle Rittenhouse attends a pre-trial hearing at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Monday, Oct. 25, 2021.
Mark Hertzberg / AP
Rittenhouse, 18, of Antioch, Illinois, was among a number of people who responded to calls on social media to take up arms and come to Kenosha to respond to the protests. Rittenhouse, who is white, is charged with homicide and other crimes in the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz, all also white.
Rittenhouse’s attorneys want use-of-force expert John Black to testify that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Prosecutors have asked Judge Bruce Schroeder to block Black’s testimony, arguing that jurors don’t need an expert to understand what happened that night.
Schroeder told the attorneys that Black wouldn’t be allowed to testify about what Rittenhouse was thinking when he pulled the trigger or whether he definitively acted in self-defense.
Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger said if Schroeder allowed Black to testify only about the timeline of events that night he wouldn’t call his own expert to the stand. Defense attorney Mark Richards agreed to the deal.
Schroeder denied Binger’s request to bar the defense from referring to Rosenbaum, Huber and Grosskreutz as “rioters”, “looters” or “arsonists.” The judge said those terms would be allowed if the defense can produce evidence showing that’s what they were.
Binger asked Schroeder to bar a video that shows police telling Rittenhouse and other armed militia members on the streets that they appreciated their presence and tossing Rittenhouse a bottle of water. The prosecutor said the video would transform the trial into a referendum on police procedure that night when it isn’t relevant.
“This is a case about what the defendant did that night,” Binger said. “I’m concerned this will be turned into a trial about what law enforcement did or didn’t do that night.”
Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi argued the video shows that police felt Rittenhouse wasn’t acting recklessly. Binger countered that the shootings happened after Rittenhouse interacted with the police, but Schroeder decided to allow the video.
“If the jury is being told, if the defendant is walking down the sidewalk and doing what he claims he was hired to do and police say good thing you’re here, is that something influencing the defendant and emboldening him in his behavior? That would be an argument for relevance,” the judge said.
Many conservatives have flocked to support Rittenhouse, calling him a patriot and making him a symbol for gun rights and raising $2 million for his bail. Others, including some liberals and activists, portray him as a domestic terrorist and say he made a volatile situation worse.
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Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Wednesday that China’s test of a hypersonic missile is “very concerning” and “very close” to the kind of “Sputnik moment” that triggered the Space Race during the Cold War.
Why it matters: The comments by America’s top uniformed general underscore the depths of U.S. concerns about China’s rapid military expansion and development of advanced weaponry.
The big picture: In 1957, the Soviet Union’s stunning launch of the Sputnik satellite raised alarms that the U.S. was falling behind in a technology race.
The Financial Times reported last week that China’s test of a hypersonic missile, which could deliver a nuclear weapon that evades U.S. missile defenses, caught intelligence officials by surprise.
“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention,” Milley told Bloomberg Television’s “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.”
Between the lines: Weapons experts told Axios that the “Sputnik” comparisons are not appropriate, noting that the technology China employed is similar to what the U.S. developed with the Space Shuttle program in the 1970s.
“The point about Sputnik is that the Soviets had beaten us to the punch, they put the first satellite up,” said Joshua Pollack, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “Weapons payload aside, this is old hat for the United States.”
But the pace of China’s progress, in tandem with its military aggression toward Taiwan, expansion of nuclear missile silos, and broader geopolitical tensions with the U.S., has been enough to spark fears of a “new cold war.”
What they’re saying: “They’re expanding rapidly — in space, in cyber and then in the traditional domains of land, sea and air,” Milley said. “And they have gone from a peasant-based infantry army that was very, very large in 1979 to a very capable military that covers all the domains and has global ambitions.”
“As we go forward — over the next 10, 20, 25 years — there’s no question in my mind that the biggest geostrategic challenge to the United States is gonna be China,” he added. “They’ve developed a military that’s really significant.”
“But as it relates to election integrity and voter protection, it is vital that we help states get these simple, popular security mechanisms in place to ensure honesty for the 2022 midterms,” added Gidley, who is heading the Center for Election Integrity at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. “I want to make sure that the data we gather and the information we share is built on solid ground as opposed to sinking sand.”
The comments illustrate the growing fissures erupting within Republican circles over how the party should address the last election. It’s a fissure that’s been caused mainly by Trump, who has been intent on continuously re-litigating the 2020 outcome with increasingly outlandish conspiracies that other Republicans echo. Gidley himself has pushed misleading arguments about some of the 2020 election outcomes, including on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
When asked for comment, Lindell — who has led a national crusade to push false claims of fraud and voting machine hacking, and is being sued for defamation by voting machine manufacturer Dominion for $1.3 billion — said in a text message that he would be bringing his “voter fraud” case to the Supreme Court on Nov. 23 at 9 a.m.
The results of it all are evident in new polling which reveals just how intensely Trump voters distrust election security.
A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday shows that 77 percent of Democrats, 49 percent of independents and 28 percent of Republican voters trust the election system a lot or some. Just 9 percent of Republicans say they trust the election system a lot.
Among self-identified 2020 Trump voters, just 22 percent said they believed the 2020 elections were free and fair; while 72 percent said they probably or definitely were not. They were slightly more optimistic about the 2022 elections, with 38 percent saying they believed that they would be free and fair. But 51 percent still said they believed they would not be. Asked if they would vote for a candidate who believed that the 2020 elections should be investigated, 75 percent of 2020 Trump voters said yes, while only 11 percent said no.
The numbers demonstrate the vast skepticism and distrust Trump voters have of elections and the potential challenges Republicans could have convincing voters their ballots count.
“When my fellow Republicans are focused on the wrong things, when they’re focused on conspiracies about secret algorithms on voting machines, and they’re focused on ideas there is a group of ballots printed in China snuck in the back door of the board of elections — all those things are easily disproven,” said Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is running for re-election next May. “But a focus on those things distracts from what I consider the real concerns about election integrity.”
The Morning Consult polI offers some measure of relief for Republicans worried that voters won’t turn out amid talk of vast election conspiracies. A full 92 percent of self-identified Republican voters said that they planned to vote in the 2022 elections, with just 4 percent saying they did not plan to. By contrast, just 70 percent of self-identified Democrats said they planned to vote, and 29 percent said they did not plan to.
Nevertheless, in recent weeks, some prominent Republicans have begun warning in increasingly sharp terms that so much talk of fraud and the 2020 election could depress turnout.
“I’m of the view that the best thing that President Trump could do to help us win majorities in 2022 is talk about the future,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), said on Meet the Press. “[B]etter off to talk about the future than to focus on the past in every election.”
Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, meanwhile, said “re-litigating 2020 is a recipe for disaster in 2022.”
“The election is passed, it’s been certified, the states made decisions on the integrity of each of their elections and made improvements where it need be. It’s about the future, it’s not about the last election, and that — those kind of comments are not constructive,” he said on Meet the Press.
Neither Blunt nor Hutchinson are running for re-election in 2022. And their warnings seem likely to be drowned out by Trump’s routine statements calling for more investigations into an election that has been routinely certified as accurate and secure. In a recent statement, Trump threatened that voters will not show up at the polls unless election laws are changed. And in an interview for a new book by David Drucker, “In Trump’s Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP,” Trump admitted that his focus on 2020 could be an “asset” or a “problem” for the GOP.
Such proclamations have set off a scramble among Republicans worried voters might not show up. Notably, last week Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted, “I recently conducted a poll on Georgia’s elections and if my constituents felt their votes would count during a teletown hall. Sadly, 4% said they won’t even vote due to voter fraud. This is WRONG. Legal votes by Rs are just as important as stopping illegal ones.”
And in interviews, Republicans have called on the ex-president to stop talking about 2020 and start focusing on 2022, instead.
“When people don’t trust elections they don’t participate, bottom line,” said LaRose.
In GOP primary races across the country, however, candidates have openly called for additional “audits” of the 2020 presidential vote, despite its continuous verification. Josh Mandel, a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, has called for “audits” in all 50 states. And Trump endorsed candidate for Arizona governor, Kari Lake, has campaigned on her claim the 2020 election was stolen.
They’ve also fed the movement among elected Republicans to pass voter restriction laws in their statehouses. According to an October tally by the progressive-minded Brennan Center for Justice, “at least 19 states enacted 33 laws that make it harder for Americans to vote” in 2021.
On both sides of the aisle, this has led to an urgency to passing voting reform. According to the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, over three quarters of American voters (78 percent) think working to ensure integrity in U.S. elections should be a priority or Congress. That cuts across party lines, with 79 percent of Democratic voters, 70 percent of independent voters and 83 percent of Republican voters agreeing.
The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted Oct. 22-24, surveying 1,999 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Last week, Democrats once again failed to push through voting rights legislation after Senate Republicans filibustered the Freedom to Vote Act and despite efforts by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to compromise with Republicans on the bill. The bill would have established Election Day as a national holiday, set standards for voter identification laws, expanded the ability to vote by mail and curbed partisan gerrymandering.
Gidley’s group, the Center for Election Integrity, is among the conservative groups working on election reforms with legislators, business and advocacy groups at the state level to try and address issues and concerns around voting procedures. The center has published a list of the “The Top 25 Common-Sense State Election Integrity Reforms” that includes verified voter identification, uniform ballot counting procedures and mail-in ballot reforms.
There are cases of bipartisan work on the issue. Earlier this year Kentucky passed bipartisan legislation that expanded early voting and set in place new voting measures that passed in the Republican supermajority legislature and was signed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
Republican Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, who testified before the Senate on Tuesday and said misinformation is the most serious threat facing the election system, credited his success working with a Democratic governor by making sure their messaging was in lock-step.
“Having both sides at the table meant that his concerns on access, and my concerns on security were all addressed,” Adams said. “That’s the biggest mistake Republicans are making in state legislatures and Democrats are making in Congress. When you do this on a one party basis, the other side thinks you’re trying to cheat them, and you can’t make policy that way.”
Senate Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a new billionaires’ tax proposal, an entirely new entry in the tax code designed to help pay for Joe Biden’s sweeping domestic policy package and edge his party closer to an overall agreement on a shrunken version of the administration’s $3.5tn flagship legislation.
The proposed tax would hit the gains of those with more than $1bn in assets or incomes of more than $100m a year, and it could begin to shore up the big social services and climate change plan Biden is racing to finish before departing this week for the global climate summit in Scotland, Cop26.
The new billionaires’ proposal, coupled with a new 15% corporate minimum tax, would provide alternative revenue sources that Biden needs to win over one key Democrat, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who had rejected the party’s earlier idea of reversing the Trump-era tax breaks on corporations and the wealthy to raise revenue.
Biden met late on Tuesday evening with Sinema and another Democratic holdout, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, at the White House.
With the US Senate evenly split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, Biden needs every Democratic senator on board in order to pass the budget bill with the allowable simple majority, using the so-called reconciliation process – with Vice-President Kamala Harris as the casting vote in the traditional roll of president of the Senate.
“No senator wants to stand up and say, ‘Gee, I think it’s just fine for billionaires to pay little or no taxes for years on end’,” said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, chairman of the Senate finance committee, in helming the new effort at a framework agreement as early as Wednesday.
Biden and his party are homing in on at least $1.75tn in healthcare, child care and climate change programs, scaling back what had been outlined as a $3.5tn plan, as they try to wrap up negotiations.
Taken together, the new tax on billionaires and the 15% corporate minimum tax are designed to fulfill Biden’s desire for the wealthy and big business to pay their “fair share”.
They also fit his promise that no new taxes hit those earning less than $400,000 a year, or $450,000 for couples. Biden insists all the new spending will be fully paid for and not piled onto the national debt.
While the new tax proposals have appeared agreeable to Manchin and could win over Sinema, the idea of the billionaires’ tax has run into criticism from other Democrats as cumbersome or worse.
Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means committee, said he told Wyden the billionaires’ tax may be more difficult to implement than the route his panel took in simply raising rates on corporations and the wealthy.
And there are questions about its constitutionality that could risk legal appeals blocking its implementation.
Overall, the billionaires’ tax rate would align with the capital gains rate, now 23.8%. Democrats have said it could raise $200bn in revenue that could help fund Biden’s package over 10 years.
“I’ve been talking about this for years,” said progressive Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator who ran against Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee for president and has long campaigned for finance reform and a wealth tax.
“I’ve even made billionaires cry over this,” she said.
Republicans have derided the billionaires’ tax as “harebrained”, and some have suggested it would face a legal challenge.
The government’s withering authority is a consequence of its own shortsighted strategy to use gangs to achieve its objectives, human rights advocates say.
Early this month, Pastor Jean Ferrer Michel had parked outside of his church when armed, masked men jumped out of a justice ministry vehicle and bundled him away, his daughter, Farah Michel, said. He was later handed over to a gang and was released only on Monday evening after his family paid multiple ransoms.
Human rights organizations have accused Justice Minister Liszt Quitel of using both government resources and a Haitian gang to kidnap the pastor after a personal dispute.
“The car that kidnapped him came from the ministry of justice, and that is all I can say,” said Ms. Michel, the pastor’s daughter. “If the justice ministry has something to do with this, that is between them, God and their mothers.”
Her family is under threat, she said, and planning to leave Haiti soon.
“You can’t raise a kid in this atmosphere, you can’t give birth, go to a job, raise a family,” she said. “It’s a real nightmare. You’re not sleeping, but you’re in a nightmare.”
The justice minister, Mr. Quitel, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but he denied the allegations to a local radio station.
In the emergency room at St. Damien hospital, the mothers, cousins and grandmothers of patients are spending the night together on blue armchairs because there’s no way to get home. Even there, they are going hungry, with the fuel shortage driving up the cost of food.
With climate change the leading cause of weather disasters that are now five times more common than in the 1970s, the eyes of the world will look to Glasglow, Scotland, for the annual COP26 climate change summit Oct. 31-Nov. 12 to see if leaders will be able to accelerate action.
The issue is no longer something that happens elsewhere. In the United States, 2021 has been a year of almost biblical weather disasters. Extreme cold knocked out power to as much as a quarter of Texans. An unprecedented heat dome brought temperatures as high as 117 degrees and killed hundreds of peoplein the Pacific Northwest. Huge wildfires destroyed thousands of buildings in California. Tropical Storm Henri caused as much as $12 billion in damages. Massive rainfall killed 20 in Tennessee in August. Hurricane Ida caused historic flooding in New York, Philadelphia and beyond.
President Joe Biden will travel to Scotland on Nov. 1 to meet with world leaders. But what will they be able to achieve? Your FAQs:
What is COP26?
COP26 is the annual United Nations meeting of the 197 countries that have agreed to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, originally adopted in 1992. The meeting is the decision-making body of the countries that signed onto the U.N. Framework.It is held to assess how well nations are dealing with climate change.
The body also establishes legally binding obligations on member countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
What does COP26 stand for?
COP is short for “Conference of the Parties” because it is a conference of the parties or countries that signed the agreement. This is the 26th meeting of all the signatories. The first was in 1995 in Berlin. It was supposed to take place last year, but COP26 was postponed due to COVID-19.
Why is COP26 important? Point of no return is approaching fast
Before the industrial revolution, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million. The current measurement is 419 parts per million.
Scientists say humanity has about a decade to dramatically reduce heat-trapping gas emissions before thresholds are passedthat may make recovery from climate collapse impossible.
What are COP26 policy goals?
The overall goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep the global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius due to climate change. Through the burning of fossil fuels that add carbon dioxide and other gasses to the atmosphere, the Earth’s temperature has already gone up an estimated 2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.1 degrees Celsius.
Who’s is going to COP26?
Approximately 20,000 people will be attending the formal talks. They include government representatives, scientists and policy experts.
Aside from hundreds of world political leaders, other well-known names are planning to attend to signal the importance of grappling with climate change. Queen Elizabeth II has said she will be in Glasgow, along with Prince Charles and Camilla and the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Dutchess of Cambridge. Pope Francis plans to attend, depending on his health.
Will President Biden attend COP26?
Yes. Biden will be there Nov. 1 and 2, during the World Leader Summit portion of the meeting but may not arrive able to promise much movement on the part of the United States. His Administration has been trying to pass a climate agenda as part of a larger infrastructure plan. As of last week, it had been blocked by Republicans and one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who does not support the clean energy initiatives that are a centerpiece of the plan. Biden had hoped to come to Glasgow with a renewed U.S. commitment to lowering the nation’s greenhouse gas production, showing America can deliver on its promise to do its part. What he can actually come to the table with is as yet unclear.
Will Greta Thunberg be there? Who’s protesting?
Swedish climate activist and high school student Greta Thunberg plans to attend protests there during COP26. A climate rally scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 6 is expected to drawas many as 150,000 people. More than 10,000 police officers will be deployed of the course of the 13-day conference from across Scotland and the United Kingdom.
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