The Texas Republican Party adopted a new platform declaring that the 2020 election violated the Constitution and President Biden “was not legitimately elected.”
“We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” the platform reads.
James Wesolek, the Texas GOP’s communications director, told The Hill that the resolution passed by voice vote.
The platform claims that “substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas” affected results in five states, swinging the election in Biden’s favor.
The party also claimed various secretaries of state, who serve as the top elections official in many states, “illegally circumvented” state legislatures, committing constitutional violations.
“We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and to show up to vote in November of 2022, bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans and overwhelm any possible fraud,” the platform states.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and a coalition of leading federal and state election officials said the contest was the “most secure” election in American history.
Several recounts and audits have also confirmed that former President Trump lost several key states, but Trump has continued to repeatedly give voice to baseless claims of voter fraud.
The platform’s passage comes amid a series of public hearings held by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The panel has sought to connect Trump’s claims of voter fraud to the riot that disrupted the counting of the Electoral College votes. The committee showed testimony at its second hearing revealing that many members of Trump’s inner circle did not believe he had won the election.
Republicans in state governments across the country have pushed legislation to restrict access to the ballot in the wake of the 2020 race as candidates aligned with Trump are still claiming that widespread fraud marred the election.
A Republican-led county commission in rural New Mexico refused to certify the state’s primary election results last week without raising specific concerns about discrepancies, leading the New Mexico Supreme Court to step in after a request from New Mexico’s Democratic secretary of state.
More than a third of Americans — 38 percent — said that they believe that Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, according to a poll from The Economist and YouGov earlier this month.
The new Texas Republican Party’s platform also includes sections declaring homosexuality as “abnormal” and opposition to “all efforts to validate transgender identity.”
People take pictures next to a mural during a Juneteenth celebration in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 2021. Last year, the U.S. designated Juneteenth a federal holiday with President Joe Biden urging Americans “to learn from our history.”
Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images
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Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images
People take pictures next to a mural during a Juneteenth celebration in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 2021. Last year, the U.S. designated Juneteenth a federal holiday with President Joe Biden urging Americans “to learn from our history.”
Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images
African Americans throughout the nation celebrate Juneteenth, but who knows what actually happened on June 19, 1865? As the nation observes the second federal legal holiday marking the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas, there are a number of misconceptions about the historical event that keep getting repeated.
Myth #1: President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, and it’s outrageous that it took two and a half years for the news to finally reach enslaved people in Texas.
Fact: Many slaves knew about Lincoln’s executive order emancipating them. The news was widely covered in Texas newspapers—with an anti-abolitionist spin—and Black people would have overheard white people discussing it in private and in public. Moreover, “There was an incredibly sophisticated communication network among slaves in Texas,” says Edward T. Cotham, Jr., Texas Civil War historian and author of Juneteenth, The Story Behind The Celebration. “News like that spread like wildfire. We know some slaves knew about the Emancipation Proclamation even before slaveowners. It didn’t mean anything because there was no army to enforce it.”
June Collins Pulliam is a fifth-generation Galvestonian whose enslaved great-great-grandparents, Horace and Emily Scull, were freed by the Juneteenth Order. “It wasn’t that all these poor people didn’t get the message,” she says, “It was that there was no one enforcing it, no one making it happen!”
Myth #2: Major Gen. Gordon Granger penned General Orders No. 3, the Juneteenth Order, and is credited with freeing Texas slaves.
Fact: The order—which includes the powerful language “all slaves are free” and “absolute equality”—was actually written by Granger’s staff officer, Maj. Frederick Emery, who hailed from an abolitionist family in Free Kansas. “As a crusader against slavery in Kansas, Emery was well versed on the subject of emancipation,” writes Cotham in his Juneteenth book.
Sam Collins III, the unofficial ambassador of Juneteenth tourism in Galveston, says, “Granger is just one of the characters in the story. He’s not any great hero. Matter of fact, he was no friend of the enslaved people. There are reports of Granger sending runaway slaves back to slave states.”
Myth #3: Gen. Gordon Granger read the Juneteenth Order from a balcony to the people of Galveston, announcing that “all slaves are free.”
Fact: According to Cotham, Gen. Granger never read the order publicly, nor did any member of his staff. It would have been posted around town, particularly at places where Black people gathered, such as “the Negro Church on Broadway,” as Reedy Chapel-AME Church was then called. Most enslaved people in Texas learned of General Orders No. 3 when the slavemaster called them together and read them the news.
Myth #4: The Juneteenth Order was basically a Texas version of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Fact: General Orders No. 3 stated unequivocally “all slaves are free,” but it also contained patronizing language intended to appease planters who didn’t want to lose their workforce. Forty-one words of the brief 93-word order urged enslaved people to stay put and keep working.
“The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
Sam Collins: “The last two sentences advised the freedmen to remain at their present homes and work for wages. So you’re free, but don’t go anywhere.”
Ed Cotham: “Many years later, the formerly enslaved (interviewed for the 1930s WPA Slave Narratives) remembered when the Freedom Paper was read to them. The slaveholder wanted to keep them working, but they didn’t hear it that way. Once they heard “all slaves are free” they said to hell with you. That’s what made the Juneteenth Order so memorable and made it succeed.”
He has called for Nupes to become a single political grouping in the Assembly, but that’s been met with a chorus of derision from the Socialists, Greens and Communists. “There was never any question of one single group,” said Socialist MP Pierre Jouvet.
TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) – A Japanese court ruled on Monday that a ban on same-sex marriage was not unconstitutional, dealing a setback to LGBTQ rights activists in the only Group of Seven nation that does not allow people of the same gender to marry.
The ruling dashes activists’ hopes of raising pressure on the central government to address the issue after a court in the city of Sapporo in March 2021 decided in favour of a claim that not allowing same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
Three same-sex couples – two male, one female – had filed the case in a district court in Osaka, only the second to be heard on the issue in Japan.
In addition to rejecting their claim that being unable to marry was unconstitutional, the court threw out their demand for 1 million yen ($7,400) in damages for each couple.
“I actually wonder if the legal system in this country is really working,” said plaintiff Machi Sakata, who married her U.S.-citizen partner in the United States. The two are expecting a baby in August.
“I think there’s the possibility this ruling may really corner us,” Sakata said.
Japan’s constitution defines marriage as being based on “the mutual consent of both sexes”. But the introduction of partnership rights for same-sex couples in Tokyo last week, along with rising support in opinion polls, had raised the hopes of activists and lawyers for the Osaka case.
The Osaka court said that marriage was defined as being only between opposite genders and not enough debate on same-sex marriage had taken place in Japanese society.
“We emphasised in this case that we wanted same-sex couples to have access to the same things as regular couples,” said lawyer Akiyoshi Miwa, adding that they would appeal.
ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS
Japanese law is considered relatively liberal in some areas by Asian standards, but across the continent only Taiwan has legalised same-sex marriage.
Under current rules in Japan, members of same-sex couples are not allowed to legally marry, cannot inherit each other’s assets – such as a house they may have shared – and also have no parental rights over each other’s children.
Though partnership certificates issued by some municipalities help same-sex couples rent property together and have hospital visitation rights, they do not give them the full legal rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples.
Last week, the Tokyo prefectural government passed a bill to recognise same-sex partnership agreements, meaning local governments covering more than half of Japan’s population now offer such recognition.
While Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said the issue needs to be carefully considered, his ruling Liberal Democratic Party has disclosed no plans to review the matter or propose legislation, though some senior party members favour reform.
An upcoming case in Tokyo will keep alive public debate on the issue, particularly in the capital, where an opinion poll by the local government late last year found some 70% of people were in favour of same-sex marriage.
Legalising same-sex marriage would have far-reaching implications both socially and economically, activists say, and would help attract foreign firms to the world’s third-biggest economy.
“International firms are reviewing their Asian strategy and LGBTQ inclusivity is becoming a topic,” said Masa Yanagisawa, head of prime services at Goldman Sachs and a board member of the activist group Marriage for all Japan, speaking before the verdict.
“International businesses don’t want to invest in a location that isn’t LGBTQ-friendly.”
Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the emancipation of slaves in the U.S., was Sunday, June 19th. Because the federal holiday – officially known as Juneteenth National Independence Day – fell on a Sunday, government offices will be closed today (Monday, June 20th).
The U.S. Post Office will also be closed Monday, so mail will not run. Regular mail service will resume on Tuesday. Priority Mail Express items will be delivered Monday.
Postal service employees will be getting the day off Monday.
“Juneteenth National Independence Day will be recognized as a holiday eligible to USPS full-time and part-time career employees,” USPS said.
Despite the federal holiday, UPS and FedEx will be delivering on a normal schedule on Monday.
Juneteenth is the fifth federal holiday of the year, following New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. birthday, President’s Day and Memorial Day. There are six more federal holidays this year: Independence Day (July 4th), Columbus Day (Oct. 10), Veterans Day (Nov. 11), Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 24th) and Christmas Day (Observed on Dec. 26th).
According to the USPS, if a holiday falls on a Saturday, for most USPS employees, the preceding Friday will be treated as a holiday for pay and leave purposes. If a holiday falls on a Sunday, it will be observed on a Monday.
More than half a dozen affordable housing projects in California are costing more than $1 million per apartment to build, a record-breaking sum that makes it harder to house the growing numbers of low-income Californians who need help paying rent, a Times review of state data found.
The seven subsidized housing developments, all in Northern California, received state funding within the last two years and are under construction or close to breaking ground. When completed, they will provide homes for more than 600 families.
“That is untenable,” said Assemblyman Tim Grayson (D-Concord), who is writing legislation aimed at simplifying state affordable housing financing. “That is not a sustainable model. We have got to do something to reduce the cost.”
A key driver of the increases is labor and material prices, which have soared because of inflation, supply-chain problems and worker shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. But a Times investigation published in 2020 found numerous factors within the control of state and local governments also to blame for the high cost of building affordable housing in California.
In comparison with private sector development, low-income housing is often saddled with more stringent environmental and labor standards. Affordable housing projects also frequently face high parking requirements, lengthy local approval processes and a byzantine bureaucracy to secure financing.
It costs more to build low-income housing in California than anywhere else in the U.S., and the coronavirus pandemic is likely to make matters worse.
Despite promises by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials to rein in costs, they haven’t made comprehensive changes to address the factors cited by The Times, whose findings are similar to those of auditors and academic researchers in recent years.
“We haven’t seen any relief on any of those [cost] drivers,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, research director for UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, which publishedone of the reports. “We’ve only seen more challenges piling on top of each other. There’s been nothing to bend the curve. It just rises further upward.”
To support housing for low-income residents, federal, state and local governments provide direct financing and tax credits, which reduce what banks and other large investors owe theInternal Revenue Service and the state treasury if they help pay for housing projects. The funding requires developers to cap what tenants pay in rent.
One of the seven projects at issue, a rehabilitation of an 84-unit public housing complex in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood, will offer two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments for between $1,186 and $2,805 a month.
The amounts are far below market rates in San Francisco, where the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,592 a month, according to real estate firm Apartment List. The Hayes Valley apartments are only available to families earning less than 60% of the region’s median income.
The project, which is a partnership between the city of San Francisco and St. Louis for-profit developer McCormack Baron Salazar, costs $91.7 million, which translates to almost $1.1 million per apartment.
Previously, The Times identified one other — much smaller —proposed affordable housing development in California that eclipsed $1 million per apartment to build. But that project, which called for the construction of 10 units for low-income families in Solana Beach along the San Diego coast, collapsed in 2020 because it grew too expensive.
The seven projects that now top $1 million per unit would be the costliest built in California and probably the country. They are in the San Francisco Bay Area, the state’s priciest region, with three in San Francisco, two in Oakland and one apiece in San Jose and Concord, a Contra Costa County suburb. The most expensive is a rehabilitation of 69 public housing units in San Francisco at a cost of more than $1.2 million per apartment.
Developers and supporters of each project emphasize they’re sorely needed to provide safe and secure homes for lower-income and homeless residents. A proposed 80-unit complex in San Jose for formerly homeless foster youth and families will serve a neighborhood rife with overcrowding with two or three households frequently sharing a single apartment, said Geoff Morgan, president of First Community Housing, the complex’s nonprofit developer.
But Morgan conceded the price tag of just over $80 million is hard to stomach.
“It’s nauseating,” Morgan said. “I hate it.”
Many of the factors contributing to the high cost of the project, known as Roosevelt Park, were identified by The Times in 2020. The complex has a two-level underground parking garage and the highest level of environmental certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, and developers will pay construction workers union-level wages. San Jose officials also wanted commercial space included in the project, which required more parking and a separate elevator, Morgan said.
The project additionally struggled to get financing through the state’s affordable housing system and is relying on six government funding sources to pay for its construction.
The Terner Center study on the cost to build low-income housing found that projects paying union-level wages to construction workers could cost $50,000 more per apartment and those built to stricter environmental standards cost $17,000 more per apartment than those that aren’t. The study examined developments the state funded between 2008 and 2019.
The Times analysis of a similar set of projects found that for each additional funding source a project needed, the average per-unit cost increased by more than $6,000.
A developer working to preserve affordable rentals in South L.A. and build housing for homeless people has won praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Mayor Eric Garcetti, who see his work as an important step in dealing with the city’s housing crisis. But the entrepreneur’s efforts are also facing criticism from tenant advocates. A look inside SoLa Impact.
A significant part of the cost comes from developers paying attorneys and consultants to navigate state and local bureaucracies to secure financing.
Most large states have one agency that hands out affordable housing dollars. California has five — with varying requirements for what gets funded. Those agencies report to different elected officials, leaving no one in charge of overseeing the system as a whole. A 2018 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that 14% of the price tag for California’s affordable housing projects was made up of consulting fees and other administrative costs — the highest in the country and more than developers spend on land.
When unveiling his state budget proposal in January 2020, Newsom pledged to lead an effort to streamline how developers get their funding.
“I’ve just had enough with TCAC and CDLAC and OPRs and CalVets and HCDs and CalHFAs,” the governor said, name-dropping the alphabet soup of departments involved in financing housing projects. “Six of you understand what the hell I just said. No one else does. And that’s the point.”
But Newsom and others have not overhauled that process. Instead, they have implemented smaller reforms, such as consolidating funding streams within agencies and modifying regulations for evaluating individual projects to better account for costs.
This year, Grayson’s legislation to centralize state affordable housing funding under the governor failed in a fiscal committee. He’s introduced a new version, Assembly Bill 2305, which passed the Assembly last month and is awaiting a Senate committee hearing.
“We should be looking at where we could save money on the government side so that we can fund these projects and make it pencil out for the developer on the building side,” Grayson said. Doing so, he said, is necessary “so that the people that need it the most are not the ones that suffer the most because the housing’s not built.”
In the meantime, Newsom and state lawmakers have pumped unprecedented sums into affordable housing construction. This year’s budget includes a record $17 billion for housing and homelessness programs, including $1.75 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds to finance proposed low-income developments that had stalled before breaking ground. Five of the 27 developments funded so far through that program are among those that cost more than $1 million per apartment to build.
The governor’s office declined an interview request. Gustavo Velasquez, a Newsom appointee who heads the California Department of Housing and Community Development, said the $1.75-billion effort is meeting its goal of accelerating construction of developments that had been stuck.
“It is what it is,” Velasquez said. “Yes, there are some projects that were very expensive, arguably, in the Bay Area, many of them because the cost of housing there is more than in other parts of the state.”
Newsom has not taken a position on Grayson’s legislation.
State Treasurer Fiona Ma, whose office is responsible for allocating affordable housing tax credits to developers, also declined an interview request. In response to written questions from The Times, Ma said she opposed Grayson’s bill, which would diminish her power over the financing process, calling the effort “overly simplistic.”
“Bureaucratic structures are the least of California’s problems,” Ma said. “Streamlining local government land-use approvals and federal tax law constraints is the more effective approach.”
Ma said that the agencies under her control prioritize cost concerns when handing out funding and that land values and inflation have driven recent increases.
Building this affordable housing project in Solana Beach will cost more than $1 million per apartment. We discuss how that happened with the developer.
During the pandemic, developers have had to contend with historic surges in material and labor prices. Those costs have gone up nearly 30% since February 2020, according to the state’s California Construction Cost Index. Last year’s 13.4% annual increase was the highest since the index began tracking costs more than a quarter-century ago. This year’s cost escalations are on pace to exceed that amount.
“What really hit people was in the beginning of the year, all of a sudden within a few months, we had a 15% increase,” said Morgan, the developer in San Jose. “That was crazy. I’ve never seen that in my career, and I’ve been doing this for over 20 years.”
Others blame high building costs on the historic lack of investment in low-income housing.
The three San Francisco projects costing more than $1 million per apartment will rebuild 310 units from the city’s public housing stock, which has deteriorated over decades. Included in the total are the millions developers must spend to temporarily relocate existing tenants during construction. So is the value of the existing properties, even though, in these cases, they’re publicly owned.
But the projects’ price tags also encompass layers of city requirements for affordable housing that go beyond the state’s, such as some mandates to include public art, increase access for people with disabilities and hire local construction workers, including those from disadvantaged neighborhoods.
“Each of these issues has its own constituency and has its own advocacy and its own social benefit,” said Lydia Ely, a top San Francisco housing official. “Each one on its own is worthy, and added up all together, they start to make an impact.”
Though the price tag for low-income housing in Greater Los Angeles has not reached $1 million per apartment, it’s also rising. One 79-unit development under construction in Hollywood is costing nearly $848,000 per apartment to build, the highest on record of state-funded projects in the region.
These cost escalations show no signs of abating. Besides the seven projects already funded at more than $1 million per apartment, half a dozen other proposed projects identified by The Times across the Bay Area also eclipse that amount.
PARIS, June 19 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron lost control of the National Assembly in legislative elections on Sunday, a major setback that could throw the country into political paralysis unless he is able to negotiate alliances with other parties.
Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition, which wants to raise the retirement age and further deepen EU integration, was on course to end up with the most seats in Sunday’s election.
But they will be well short of the absolute majority needed to control parliament, near-final results showed.
A broad left-wing alliance was set to be the biggest opposition group, while the far-right scored record-high wins and the conservatives were likely to become kingmakers.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called the outcome a “democratic shock” and added that if other blocs did not cooperate, “this would block our capacity to reform and protect the French.”
A hung parliament will require a degree of power-sharing and compromises among parties not experienced in France in recent decades. read more
There is no set script in France for how things will now unfold. The last time a newly elected president failed to get an outright majority in parliamentary elections was in 1988.
“The result is a risk for our country in view of the challenges we have to face,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said, while adding that from Monday on, Macron’s camp will work to seek alliances.
Macron could eventually call a snap election if legislative gridlock ensues.
“The rout of the presidential party is complete and there is no clear majority in sight,” hard-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon told cheering supporters.
Leftwing Liberation called the result “a slap” for Macron, and economic daily Les Echos “an earthquake.”
ALLIANCES?
United behind Melenchon, leftwing parties were seen on course to triple their score from the last legislative election in 2017.
1/16
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron arrive to vote in the second round of the French parliamentary elections, at a polling station in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, France, June 19, 2022. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
In another significant change for French politics, far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party could score a ten-fold increase in MPs with as many as 90-95 seats, initial projections showed. That would be the party’s biggest-ever representation in the assembly.
Initial projections by pollsters Ifop, OpinionWay, Elabe and Ipsos showed Macron’s Ensemble alliance winning 230-250 seats, the left-wing Nupes alliance securing 141-175 and Les Republicains 60-75.
Macron became in April the first French president in two decades to win a second term, as voters rallied to keep the far-right out of power.
But, seen as out of touch by many voters, he presides over a deeply disenchanted and divided country where support for populist parties on the right and left has surged.
His ability to pursue further reform of the euro zone’s second-biggest economy hinges on winning support for his policies from moderates outside his alliance on both the right and left.
MODERATES?
Macron and his allies must now decide whether to seek an alliance with the conservative Les Republicains, who came fourth, or run a minority government that will have to negotiate bills with other parties on a case-by-case basis.
“There are moderates on the benches, on the right, on the left. There are moderate Socialists and there are people on the right who, perhaps, on legislation, will be on our side,” government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoire said.
Les Republicains’ platform is more compatible with Ensemble than other parties. The two together have a chance at an absolute majority in final results, which requires at least 289 seats in the lower house.
Christian Jacob, the head of Les Republicains, said his party will remain in the opposition but be “constructive”, suggesting case-by-case deals rather than a coalition pact.
The former head of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, and Health Minister Brigitte Bourguignon lost their seats, in two major defeats for Macron’s camp.
Macron had appealed for a strong mandate during a bitter campaign held against the backdrop of a war on Europe’s eastern fringe that has tightened food and energy supplies and sent inflation soaring, eroding household budgets.
Melenchon’s Nupes alliance campaigned on freezing the prices of essential goods, lowering the retirement age, capping inheritance and banning companies that pay dividends from firing workers. Melenchon also calls for disobedience towards the European Union.
Jason Vaughn, 38, a Republican delegate from Houston, claimed credit for adding the “show up to vote” language in the Biden resolution. “My fear is that if we keep telling people the election was stolen, they’re going to not go and vote,” Mr. Vaughn said.
Mary Lowe, a delegate from the Fort Worth suburbs who was focused on education issues at the convention, said she was surprised the 2020 election results were a focus of attention by her Republican colleagues. But, she added, “I don’t know too many people that felt that Biden won.”
Ms. Lowe, the chairwoman of the Tarrant County chapter of a group known as Moms for Liberty, said she was among those delegates openly critical of Mr. Cornyn. But she added that she was embarrassed by the booing and did not participate in it.
“I don’t believe that booing is polite,” Ms. Lowe said. “I feel elected officials should be treated with proper decorum.”
Jamie Haynes, 47, a Republican delegate who lives in the Texas Panhandle with her husband and who says that, together, they own “a lot of guns,” said the boos directed at Mr. Cornyn showed there was a “resounding strong opinion that Republicans do not want their gun rights shaved — not just taken away — but even just shaved in any form.”
The resolution rebuking Mr. Cornyn that passed at the convention opposed red flag laws, which allow guns to be seized from people deemed to be dangerous. Those laws, according to the resolution, “violate one’s right to due process and are a pre-crime punishment of people not adjudicated guilty.”
PARIS, June 19 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron lost control of the National Assembly in legislative elections on Sunday, a major setback that could throw the country into political paralysis unless he is able to negotiate alliances with other parties.
Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition, which wants to raise the retirement age and further deepen EU integration, was on course to end up with the most seats in Sunday’s election.
But they will be well short of the absolute majority needed to control parliament, near-final results showed.
A broad left-wing alliance was set to be the biggest opposition group, while the far-right scored record-high wins and the conservatives were likely to become kingmakers.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called the outcome a “democratic shock” and added that if other blocs did not cooperate, “this would block our capacity to reform and protect the French.”
A hung parliament will require a degree of power-sharing and compromises among parties not experienced in France in recent decades. read more
There is no set script in France for how things will now unfold. The last time a newly elected president failed to get an outright majority in parliamentary elections was in 1988.
“The result is a risk for our country in view of the challenges we have to face,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said, while adding that from Monday on, Macron’s camp will work to seek alliances.
Macron could eventually call a snap election if legislative gridlock ensues.
“The rout of the presidential party is complete and there is no clear majority in sight,” hard-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon told cheering supporters.
Leftwing Liberation called the result “a slap” for Macron, and economic daily Les Echos “an earthquake.”
ALLIANCES?
United behind Melenchon, leftwing parties were seen on course to triple their score from the last legislative election in 2017.
1/16
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron arrive to vote in the second round of the French parliamentary elections, at a polling station in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, France, June 19, 2022. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
In another significant change for French politics, far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party could score a ten-fold increase in MPs with as many as 90-95 seats, initial projections showed. That would be the party’s biggest-ever representation in the assembly.
Initial projections by pollsters Ifop, OpinionWay, Elabe and Ipsos showed Macron’s Ensemble alliance winning 230-250 seats, the left-wing Nupes alliance securing 141-175 and Les Republicains 60-75.
Macron became in April the first French president in two decades to win a second term, as voters rallied to keep the far-right out of power.
But, seen as out of touch by many voters, he presides over a deeply disenchanted and divided country where support for populist parties on the right and left has surged.
His ability to pursue further reform of the euro zone’s second-biggest economy hinges on winning support for his policies from moderates outside his alliance on both the right and left.
MODERATES?
Macron and his allies must now decide whether to seek an alliance with the conservative Les Republicains, who came fourth, or run a minority government that will have to negotiate bills with other parties on a case-by-case basis.
“There are moderates on the benches, on the right, on the left. There are moderate Socialists and there are people on the right who, perhaps, on legislation, will be on our side,” government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoire said.
Les Republicains’ platform is more compatible with Ensemble than other parties. The two together have a chance at an absolute majority in final results, which requires at least 289 seats in the lower house.
Christian Jacob, the head of Les Republicains, said his party will remain in the opposition but be “constructive”, suggesting case-by-case deals rather than a coalition pact.
The former head of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, and Health Minister Brigitte Bourguignon lost their seats, in two major defeats for Macron’s camp.
Macron had appealed for a strong mandate during a bitter campaign held against the backdrop of a war on Europe’s eastern fringe that has tightened food and energy supplies and sent inflation soaring, eroding household budgets.
Melenchon’s Nupes alliance campaigned on freezing the prices of essential goods, lowering the retirement age, capping inheritance and banning companies that pay dividends from firing workers. Melenchon also calls for disobedience towards the European Union.
For the first time, Colombia will have a leftist president.
Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and a longtime senator who has pledged to transform the country’s economic system, has won Sunday’s election, according to preliminary results, setting the third largest nation in Latin America on a radically new path.
Mr. Petro, 62, received more than 50 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent counted Sunday evening. His opponent, Rodolfo Hernández, a construction magnate who had energized the country with a scorched-earth anti-corruption platform, just over 47 percent.
Shortly after the vote, Mr. Hernández conceded to Mr. Petro.
“Colombians, today the majority of citizens have chosen the other candidate,” he told his supporters in Bucaramanga. “As I said during the campaign, I accept the results of this election.”
Just over 58 percent of Colombia’s 39 million voters turned out to cast a ballot, according to official figures.
Mr. Petro’s victory reflects widespread discontent in Colombia, a country of 50 million, with poverty and inequality on the rise and widespread dissatisfaction with a lack of opportunity, issues that sent hundreds of thousands of people to demonstrate in the streets last year.
“The entire country is begging for change,” said Fernando Posada, a Colombian political scientist, “and that is absolutely clear.”
The win is all the more significant because of the country’s history. For decades, the government fought a brutal leftist insurgency known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, with the stigma from the conflict making it difficult for a legitimate left to flourish.
But the FARC signed a peace deal with the government in 2016, laying down their arms and opening space for a broader political discourse.
Mr. Petro had been part of a different rebel group, called the M-19, which demobilized in 1990, and became a political party that helped rewrite the country’s constitution.
Both Mr. Petro and Mr. Hernández beat Federico Gutiérrez, a former big city mayor backed by the conservative elite, in a first round of voting on May 29, sending them to a runoff.
Both men had billed themselves as anti-establishment candidates, saying they were running against a political class that had controlled the country for generations.
Among the factors that most distinguished them was how they viewed the root of the country’s problems.
Mr. Petro believes the economic system is broken, overly reliant on oil export and a flourishing and illegal cocaine business that he said has made the rich richer and poor poorer. He is calling for a halt to all new oil exploration, a shift to developing other industries, and an expansion of social programs, while imposing higher taxes on the rich.
“What we have today is the result of what I call ‘the depletion of the model,’” Mr. Petro said in an interview, referring to the current economic system. “The end result is a brutal poverty.”
His ambitious economic plan has, however, raised concerns. One former finance minister called his energy plan “economic suicide.”
Mr. Petro will take office in August, and will face pressing issues with global repercussions: Lack of opportunity and rising violence, which have prompted record numbers of Colombians to migrate to the United States in recent months; high levels of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon, a critical buffer against climate change; and growing threats to democracy, part of a trend around the region.
He will face a deeply polarized society where polls show growing distrust in almost all major institutions.
Mr. Petro could also reshape Colombia’s relationship with the United States.
For decades, Colombia has been Washington’s strongest ally in Latin America, forming the cornerstone of its security policy in the region. During his campaign, Mr. Petro promised to reassess that relationship, including crucial collaborations on drugs, Venezuela and trade.
In the interview, Mr. Petro said his relationship with the United States would focus on working together to tackle climate change, specifically halting the rapid erosion of the Amazon.
“There is a point of dialogue there,” he said. “Because saving the Amazon rainforest involves some instruments, some programs, that do not exist today, at least not with respect to the United States.”
Megan Janetsky contributed reporting from Bucaramanga, Colombia, and Sofía Villamil and Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá.
Prescylia Mae raises her fist in the air during a Juneteenth re-enactment celebration in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 2021.
Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images
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Prescylia Mae raises her fist in the air during a Juneteenth re-enactment celebration in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 2021.
Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images
When Juneteenth became a federal holiday last year, South Carolina organizer Jamal Bradley was excited for it to finally get the recognition it deserves. But his enthusiasm was quickly dashed when he learned state leaders decided not to follow suit in observing the holiday.
“It just lets me know there’s still work left to do in South Carolina,” said Bradley, who started a petition for Juneteenth to become a state holiday.
Also known as “Emancipation Day” or “Freedom Day,” Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas and gave word to enslaved African Americans that they were free — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. The holiday has been celebrated by many Black families for generations, but began to gain wider attention in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Despite the federal recognition, some Black organizers are beginning to see that local support can be a harder lift. While every state has at some point recognized Juneteenth as a day of observance, 26 states have yet to adopt Juneteenth as a paid public holiday, including seven former Confederate states, according to the Pew Research Center.
Reasons for the delay vary from state to state. In some places, it’s due to lagging bureaucracy. In other places, it’s due to disputes over when to actually celebrate the holiday.
Likewise, there’s a range of implications. On a practical level, the lack of a state holiday means local employees may not be able to take time off to observe Juneteenth. It may also mean state government buildings will remain open on the holiday. But to many Black activists, the extent to which Juneteenth is embraced by state governments speaks volumes about their progress toward racial justice.
“Our lawmakers are missing an opportunity to show that this state is ready to move forward,” Bradley said.
It could be years until every states adopt Juneteenth
Bradley believes it’s particularly important for former Confederate states to recognize Juneteenth. His home state, South Carolina, was the first state to secede from the Union. For South Carolina to officially recognize Juneteenth, Bradley says, it would be a milestone for both the state and the nation.
Earlier this year, state lawmakers proposed a bill offering a floating holiday for state employees to use on Juneteenth. That legislation was advanced by the Senate but has thus far failed to clear the House.
“It wouldn’t have fully reconciled what has taken place, but it would’ve been a good start,” said Bradley, who’s organized Juneteenth celebrations in the capital of Columbia for the past five years.
He’s hopeful that South Carolina will eventually adopt Juneteenth, but believes it may take years.
Some activists want Juneteenth to be equal to July 4th
Doris Moore Bailey from Lakeland, Fla., believes it’s time for Juneteenth to be treated like July Fourth.
Florida also has yet to designate Juneteenth as an official state holiday, in part because of a controversy over what day to commemorate: June 19 or on the day enslaved people in Florida learned they were emancipated. A Juneteenth state holiday bill died after some historians argued the state should honor Florida’s Emancipation Day instead. A Union general read the Emancipation Proclamation in Tallahassee on May 20, 1865.
“We have two Independence days, June 19 and Fourth of July, one freed the people and one freed the land,” said Bailey.
Since 1992, she and former state representative, Dr. Alzo Reddick, has worked to establish Juneteenth as an annual tradition in her city. Three decades ago, her event garnered less than 50 people. This year, over 300 residents attended.
Despite the growing popularity in Lakeland and across Florida, Bailey says she still struggles to receive support from city leaders. The city has publicly proclaimed June 19 as Juneteenth Day in Lakeland, but it has yet to be recognized as an official public holiday.
Mayor Bill Mutz said it wasn’t considered to be a public holiday because the city calendar is planned a year in advance, but that Juneteenth was “certainly something we can observe in the future.”
But Bailey believes there’s still work to be done for non-African American lawmakers to take Juneteenth more seriously and more quickly.
“It can still be divisive,” she says. “They’re not going to do a heavy lift to make it equal to July Forth. The challenge is, this is a marathon, not a sprint. That’s how I see the journey of Juneteenth.”
Establishing traditions for future Black generations
So far, Alabama has only adopted Juneteenth as a state holiday for this year, but whether that will be a permanent policy is ultimately to the state legislature. To Unique Morgan Dunston, a state-recognized Juneteenth is an opportunity to tell a more accurate, complete portrayal of American history.
Growing up in Marshall County, Ala., Dunston never learned about nor had the opportunity to celebrate Juneteenth. Yet, she was surrounded by Confederate holidays, statues and customs.
It wasn’t until 2020 that Dunston says she understood Juneteenth’s significance. Now, she’s been working to help raise awareness about the holiday and organize celebrations for her community.
Having Juneteenth recognized in all levels of government can be especially meaningful in places like Marshall County, Dunston says, where Black residents make up less than 3% of the population.
“It’s weird, Juneteenth feels new but we’re talking about something that happened in 1865,” Dunston said. “But I love that children will know what Juneteenth is and not have to learn about it as an adult like I had to.”
D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee says that four people, including a 15-year-old male, two adult civilians and a police officer, were shot at the intersection of 14th and U Streets in Northwest. The teenager has died.
The shooting was first reported to WTOP after 8 p.m. in the area near a “Moechella” event — a downtown Juneteenth celebration not approved by D.C. officials.
We can confirm that one of our members working in the area of 14th and U St NW has been shot. The member has been transported to the hospital and is in stable condition.
A fight broke out and causing people to disperse shortly before officers shut the event down in the area. Contee said some weapons were obtained in the event area just before the shooting took place.
Mayor Muriel Bowser offered condolences to the family who lost their child in the shooting and shared concerns over crowd control issues with unapproved events and the presence of guns in heavily populated, public areas.
“We need some accountability here,” she said.
The other two adults injured in the shooting have been hospitalized and several firearms were discovered in the area. Police are currently seeking a suspect.
Police announced several street closures as a result of the shooting in Northwest. The investigation is ongoing.
MPD Activity at 14th St & U St, NW
⛔️14th St, NW btw V St & Wallach Pl, NW
⛔️U St, NW btw 13th St & 15th St, NW
⛔️T St, NW btw 16th St, NW & Georgia Ave, NW
⛔️Florida Ave, NW btw 15th St, NW & Georgia Ave, NW
🚗 All Closures are in both directions // Watch for MPD direction
— DC Police Traffic (@DCPoliceTraffic) June 20, 2022
A map of the approximate shooting location is shown below.
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Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Democrats should be focused on winning elections and suggested they should not treat the transgender debate as a priority.
Clinton made the comments in an extensive interview with the Financial Times published Friday. The reporter pressed Clinton to state her position on some of the issues Democrats have pushed for on the national level that are unpopular among most Americans.
“Democrats seem to be going out of their way to lose elections by elevating activist causes, notably the transgender debate, which are relevant only to a small minority. What sense does it make to depict JK Rowling as a fascist?” the reporter asked.
“We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window,” Clinton responded. “Look, the most important thing is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority.”
WASHINGTON, USA – JULY 14: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivers a speech during a campaign rally at Northern Community College in Annandale, Washington, USA on July 14, 2016. (Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Clinton’s press office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
Clinton has made a habit of criticizing the most radical members of the Democratic Party in recent months. She warned in December that progressive Democrats could lose elections for the Party in 2022.
“I think that it is a time for some careful thinking about what wins elections, and not just in deep-blue districts where a Democrat and a liberal Democrat, or so-called progressive Democrat, is going to win,” Clinton said at the time. “I understand why people want to argue for their priorities. That’s what they believe they were elected to do.”
“Look, I’m all about having vigorous debate. I think it’s good, and it gives people a chance to be part of the process,” she added. “But, at the end of the day it means nothing if we don’t have a Congress that will get things done, and we don’t have a White House that we can count on to be sane and sober and stable and productive.”
Texas swimmers Erica Sullivan and Evie Pfeifer embrace as 500 Freestyle winner Lia Thomas walks past during the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 17th, 2022 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta Georgia. (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Clinton’s Friday comments come days after President Joe Biden signed an executive order claiming Republicans “bully kids” with restrictions on transgender drugs and operations for minors.
Several Republican-led states have pushed to ban hormone treatments and gender transition surgery for minors, as well as prevent males who are transgender from competing in women’s sports.
The war in Ukraine could last for years and will require long-term military support, according to Nato and other western leaders. “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years,” Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild on Sunday. The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, added: “I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war.”
He was right to be cautious. That victory was indeed a high point, but right away he saw its depressing, implicit message – that from high points there is only one way to go, and that is down.
The interest surrounding the Juneteenth holiday has dropped significantly compared to 2021, according to new data.
Data from real-time media monitoring platform NewsWhip Spike, compiled by Newsweek, compared public and media interest for Juneteenth between 2021 and 2022.
Focussing on the days leading up to the holiday, for 2022, there had been a 91 percent fall in social interactions and a 30 percent fall in articles produced.
The data determines public interest by the amount of social media interactions on articles and media interest as the number of articles published.
In the six days before Juneteenth 2022, there were 3,495,502 fewer social interactions and 6,681 fewer articles in 2022.
For 2021, there was a public interest total of 3,830,147, significantly higher than its 2022 total of 334,645.
In terms of media interest, the data showed a 2021 total of 22,061 articles for the period, again higher than its 2022 total of 15,380.
Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and its name stems from the date the historic event occurred: June 19, 1865. On that day, the 250,000 African Americans still enslaved were told that the Civil War had ended and that they had been legally declared freed.
The event was made a federal holiday by Congress on June 16, 2021, and it was signed into law by President Joe Biden the next day.
Despite the historical significance, the holiday is not universally recognised in all states across the U.S. as a paid holiday.
Around 24 states and the District of Columbia are set to legally recognize Juneteenth as a public holiday this year, according to a Pew Research Center analysis which forecasts that more states will recognize it as a paid holiday next year.
June 19 falls on a weekend this year, and, therefore, some states are celebrating it on different days that week. Since the holiday was signed into federal law, multiple states have had Juneteenth as a paid holiday for employees.
According to The Pew Charitable Trusts:
New York,
Maine,
Louisiana,
Illinois,
Oregon,
Massachusetts,
Virginia,
Washington, and
Texas, which was the first state to officially recognize the holiday in 1980.
Georgia,
Ohio,
Nebraska,
Maryland,
South Dakota,
Colorado,
Connecticut, and
Delaware,
Alabama recently recognized Juneteenth as a paid state holiday, according to News Observer.
However, some states are treating Juneteenth as a day of remembrance or observance rather than a legal paid holiday. Those states include Tennessee, Florida, California, South Carolina and Mississppi.
people carry Juneteenth flags as they march during a Juneteenth re-enactment celebration in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 2021. Juneteenth Interest Wanes as Day Off Remains Elusive to Most Americans t/Getty
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