The News Caravan

Tag: Battle

  • Russian army has lost up to half of key battle tanks, analysts estimate

    Russian army has lost up to half of key battle tanks, analysts estimate

    [ad_1]

    Russia’s army is estimated to have lost nearly 40% of its prewar fleet of tanks after nine months of fighting in Ukraine, according to a count by the specialist thinktank the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).

    That rises to as much as 50% for some of the key tanks used in combat, forcing Russia to reach into its still sizeable cold war-era stocks. Ukraine’s tank numbers are estimated to have increased because of the number it has captured and supplies of Soviet-era tanks from its western allies.

    John Chipman, the thinktank’s chair, said the war had been “a political and military failure for Russia” highlighting shortcomings in leadership and deficiencies in its munitions, despite Kremlin modernisation efforts.

    “Russia’s actions over the past year have raised questions not only over the competence of its military and senior military leadership, but also over command cohesion,” he said, launching the IISS’s annual Military Balance audit of the world’s armed forces.

    The thinktank’s figures are based largely on open source images from drones, satellites and on the battlefield, running from the beginning of the war to the end of November, although the conflict means numbers can only be estimated.

    Its headline count is that Russia’s number of tanks in its army have reduced by 38% from 2,927 to 1,800, while there have been particularly heavy losses of its workhorse T-72B3, an upgrade first delivered to its army in 2013.

    Heavy losses on the battlefield have meant that Russia had lost “around 50% of its pre invasion fleet” of the tank and a related variant, Chipman said, and slow industrial production was “forcing Moscow to rely on its older stored weapons as attrition replacements”.

    Russian overoptimism meant that it suffered heavy tank losses at the beginning of the war, particularly in the abortive attack on Kyiv, where large numbers of tanks and armoured vehicles moving in a convoy were destroyed on roads north of the capital. Many others were captured or towed off by tractors as the assault failed.

    Russian troops had anticipated being welcomed in Ukraine, and in some cases carried parade dress in the belief that after a blitzkrieg, the tanks would be used to stage a parade in Kyiv’s streets. Instead, they were picked off by Ukrainian artillery and infantry using anti-tank weapons.

    There has been little sign of an improvement in tank tactics, with several dozen tanks estimated to have been lost in fighting since late January in a so far unsuccessful attempt to seize the Donbas town of Vuhledar. By using reconnaissance drones, Ukraine has been able knock out tanks with its artillery.

    But, while the battlefield losses are notable, Russia retains a large number of old tanks in long-term storage, currently estimated at 5,000, meaning Moscow can continue to pursue an attritional strategy for some time to come.

    graph

    Ukraine, however, has seen its tank count go up to 953 from 858 because it has partly offset its own losses by capturing an estimated 500 from Russia, of which it has “pressed a fair amount into service”, according to the IISS analyst Henry Boyd. It has also had significant donations from Poland, the Czech Republic and other states with Soviet-era armour, but its tank force is currently still half the size of Russia’s.

    skip past newsletter promotion

    Kyiv is hoping to receive a wave of western tanks and fighting vehicles over the next couple of months, which it plans to use to achieve a battlefield breakthrough. German defence minister Boris Pistorius however cautioned on Wednesday it so far only has “half a battalion” of Leopard 2 tanks to send to Ukraine, 14 newer A6 type Leopard tanks in addition to three from Portugal.

    Poland has also committed to sending a battalion of Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv and is currently training Ukrainian troops to use them but Pistorius said “many” were not fit for battle.

    Ben Barry, a land warfare analyst, said he reckoned Ukraine would ultimately receive about a quarter of the 1,000 tanks and fighting vehicles it had sought.

    That might give it “tactical advantage”, Barry said, if accompanied by enough ammunition and spare parts. Even so, the analyst and former tank commander said, it was not clear “that Kyiv has enough combat power to rapidly eject Russian forces”.

    Barry concluded that, as a result, “we can expect another bloody year” in which the fighting would be unpredictable – after a period in which it is estimated that least 200,000 people have been killed or wounded on both sides.

    Additional reporting by Isobel Koshiw in Kyiv

    [ad_2]
    #Russian #army #lost #key #battle #tanks #analysts #estimate
    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • Appeals court backs N.C. attorney general in battle to avoid criminal libel prosecution

    Appeals court backs N.C. attorney general in battle to avoid criminal libel prosecution

    [ad_1]

    Freeman, O’Neill and Stein are all Democrats.

    At Stein’s request, U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles briefly blocked any prosecution, but she later withdrew the temporary order and allowed the prosecution to proceed. Stein appealed to the 4th Circuit, which granted an injunction pending appeal and in the new ruling said Eagles erred when she turned down Stein’s request to block the prosecution.

    Criminal libel prosecutions in the U.S. are almost unheard of in recent decades, but Freeman’s office argued that a 1964 Supreme Court decision upholding a similar Louisiana statute has never been overturned by the high court and remains good law. However, the unanimous three-judge appeals court panel said the North Carolina statute is constitutionally suspect because it appears to ban some truthful statements and because it imposes greater limits on speech related to political campaigns than on other topics.

    “Under this law, prosecutors need never show—or even allege—a ‘derogatory’ statement was false so long as they contend the speaker acted with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity,” Judge Toby Heytens wrote in a 15-page opinion joined by Judges Albert Diaz and Allison Rushing. “Nothing more is needed to show this Act is likely unconstitutional.”

    Heytens is the appeals court’s newest judge and an appointee of President Joe Biden. Diaz was appointed by President Bill Clinton and Rushing is an appointee of President Donald Trump.

    Freeman, the Wake County district attorney, argued that North Carolina courts would interpret derogatory to mean false and that the chance of a prosecutor seeking to apply the law against reckless but truthful statements was remote, but the appeals court disagreed.

    The appeals judges also said the statute’s focus on political speech was problematic. “The Act’s careful limitation to only a subset of derogatory statements to which elected officials may be particularly hostile—those harmful to their own political prospects—raises the ‘possibility that official suppression of ideas is afoot,’” Heytens wrote, quoting another Supreme Court precedent.

    The appeals court ordered the case returned to Eagles for further action, instructing her to consider other factors related to a preliminary injunction against prosecution of Stein and others. But the 4th Circuit’s declaration that the underlying law is probably unconstitutional makes it highly likely the lower court will now block it, unless Freeman agrees to halt any enforcement.

    Freeman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

    [ad_2]
    #Appeals #court #backs #N.C #attorney #general #battle #avoid #criminal #libel #prosecution
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Lawyers for U.S., Navy Seals battle over revoked Covid-19 vaccine mandate

    Lawyers for U.S., Navy Seals battle over revoked Covid-19 vaccine mandate

    [ad_1]

    covid 19 military vaccines 81772

    The appeals court issued no immediate rulings Monday.

    Justice Department attorney Casen Ross urged the appeals court to set aside as moot preliminary injunctions a federal judge in Texas issued early last year against the Biden administration policy requiring service members to receive a coronavirus vaccine unless granted a religious exemption.

    Ross said the National Defense Authorization Act passed in December effectively reversed that policy and rendered the injunctions against the policy moot. Lawmakers acted to nix the military vaccine mandate over the opposition of President Joe Biden, who signed the broader defense measure anyway. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin formally repealed the orders related to the policy last month.

    “This court should accordingly follow its routine practice and vacate those injunctions because these appeals have become moot,” Ross said.

    The Supreme Court stepped in last March to block a portion of the injunctions, essentially giving the military unfettered authority to make deployment decisions. The Biden administration did not ask the high court to disturb portions of the injunctions prohibiting discipline or removal of service members who refused to get vaccinated or said it violated their religious beliefs.

    Three conservative justices dissented from that decision. However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh backed it, saying it was in keeping with a tradition of giving the president broad authority over the military.

    However, at Monday’s arguments, Judge James Ho said he didn’t think the policy was about military needs at all.

    “It was about a vaccine policy for the entire country or at least a large percentage. … So, this was not a military decision. This was a social policy decision,” declared Ho, an appointee of President Donald Trump. “There’s no discussion of military readiness or anything. It’s a perhaps debatable or worthy vaccine mandate policy discussion we can have, but it doesn’t sound in military necessity or military readiness. It sounds in social policy.”

    Ho also suggested that Biden’s stated desire to maintain the policy meant it was possible it could return in the future.

    “This change is a policy you all vociferously oppose. So, it sort of seems weird to say that there’s no controversy anymore,” the judge said.

    While Ho sounded inclined to leave the injunctions in place, another judge on the panel, James Graves, seemed to be considering wiping them out while letting the litigation continue in the district court. Graves, an appointee of President Barack Obama, asked repeatedly whether the injunctions were actually blocking any policy that is currently in effect.

    Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee, expressed concern that the Navy seemed to have abandoned the religious exemption process it had put in place when the mandate was in effect.

    Ho and Duncan pressed Ross about whether the Justice Department contends the case is completely moot or whether the service members can continue to press their legal battle in the lower court. Ross took the unusual tack of declining to say, even though a filing addressing that issue is due in the district court later Monday.

    “The government hasn’t made a filing yet in that case, and, so, I think it would be premature for me to make any representation to this court,” Ross said. “We have a number of hours before it’s actually due. So, I don’t want to get in front of those litigators.”

    [ad_2]
    #Lawyers #U.S #Navy #Seals #battle #revoked #Covid19 #vaccine #mandate
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • California Dems prepare for fierce Senate battle

    California Dems prepare for fierce Senate battle

    [ad_1]

    trump congress spying 48378

    But they’ll have to endure a contentious and expensive intraparty battle first, one that’s already testing loyalties. Nancy Pelosi threw her support behind Schiff Thursday — if Feinstein decides to retire — and 20 current or former members of Congress from California joined the former speaker in his camp. Soon, others in the state’s enormous class of Democratic officials will be similarly forced to take sides as candidates trawl for potentially valuable endorsements.

    And given the close relationships among the state’s Democrats, this year’s Thanksgiving could get awkward.

    “Many of them served together in the state Legislature before — Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff, Mike Thompson — it’s a long list,” said Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), a Schiff backer. “We’ve known each other for, you know, 20, 30 years. So, there’s relationships.”

    There’s still the possibility that other top-tier candidates could shake up the race. In recent days, with the fresh memory of Rick Caruso’s stronger-than-expected showing in the Los Angeles mayoral election, members of the California congressional delegation have privately discussed the possibility of a wealthy self-funded candidate launching a campaign, though previous wealthy aspirants don’t boast a successful track record.

    Money will be critical in the state’s expensive media markets, and Pelosi’s endorsement of Schiff, a longtime ally, has already rippled through the world of prominent California donors. The list of backers she brought along ran the gamut geographically and ideologically: from southern California to the Bay Area and both long-serving members and relatively new frontliner Rep. Mike Levin.

    It’s a significant boost for Schiff, who represents wealthy suburbs around Los Angeles. While he has a healthy fundraising operation already underway in Southern California, Pelosi’s critical cachet around San Francisco could help him lock down donors in the state’s two wealthiest regions. Schiff already had a head start after a competitive reelection campaign forced Porter to deplete much of her account, and Lee’s fundraising has been relatively paltry.

    “To have the most significant and prominent Californian in the state” and “someone who is so identified with Northern California politics endorsing Adam Schiff, from the south, is quite significant,” said John Emerson, who previously co-chaired the DNC’s southern California finance arm.

    “Obviously, it’s going to help from a fundraising standpoint. It’s a momentum-builder,” Emerson added, noting how early Pelosi backed Schiff.

    Two Democrats could easily end up on the November ballot under California’s top-two primary system. While Padilla faced a Republican in the 2022 election — and trounced him by 18 points — the state’s previous two Senate races featured four Democrats: now-Vice President Kamala Harris against then-Rep. Loretta Sanchez in 2016 and Feinstein defeating then-state Sen. Kevin de León in 2018.

    But the contest to succeed Feinstein is comparatively wide open. Feinstein was the longtime incumbent and Harris was an early and prohibitive frontrunner in taking the seat of outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer, who was elected alongside Feinstein in 1992. Then Padilla was appointed to fill Harris’ seat after she became vice president, giving him an incumbency without the battle of a primary.

    In other words, some California Democrats have been waiting decades for a true run at the upper chamber. And it could be the first truly competitive U.S. Senate race under California’s top-two system.

    “It’s difficult insomuch as we have friendships,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), who hasn’t yet backed a candidate but has known Lee and Schiff for a long time. “In a state like California, where you’ve got a big delegation, you have a lot of opportunities to work with one another and get to know one another and become friends, but you have very few opportunities to move up.”

    Some members of the delegation want to see a fully-formed field before they stick their necks out.

    “I think most folks are waiting to see what the actual total field looks like … But obviously, there’s really great folks who have already announced,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a first-term member. And others are waiting for official word on what Feinstein will do, like Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.), who remains publicly undecided out of respect for the senior senator. But as Padilla’s D.C. roommate, he admits he’s been “constantly asking [Padilla] what he thinks or what have you.”

    Others, however, are worried about having too many Democratic candidates. That could fracture the liberal vote in the primary, allowing a Republican to make it through to the general with a plurality alongside one Democratic frontrunner. Progressives worry that would deliver the seat to Schiff, whom they view as unacceptably centrist for the state.

    Liberals are already calculating how to avoid getting locked out of a general election slot.

    “We cannot afford to split the progressive vote and elect somebody that takes corporate money and passes policies that increase suffering,” said Amar Shergill, head of the California Democratic Party’s progressive caucus. “There’s a corporate Democrat wing, whether it’s Adam Schiff or the billionaire of the month. We don’t want folks that are going to follow the corporate agenda.”

    Consolidating behind one candidate will be critical, Shergill said — and that may involve pressuring a less viable progressives to abandon their campaigns.

    “We’re going to come to a point in the calendar — probably end of summer, early fall, where there are going to be one or more progressive candidates in the race, and we are going to tell all of them but one they need to drop out,” Shergill said.

    California’s large bloc of unaffiliated voters could factor heavily into the larger calculus. Many of those roughly five million voters lean Democratic, and their votes could vault a contender into the general — potentially rewarding an appeal to the center.

    At the same time, progressives who grew increasingly dissatisfied with Feinstein are energized by the prospect of replacing her with someone to the left. That energy could benefit the candidate who can harness the California Democratic Party’s devoted leftward base.

    “There is, of course, an ideological divide amongst Democrats. What you’re seeing right now is a strong showing among progressives,” said Assemblymember Alex Lee, who is part of the Legislature’s contingent of Berniecrats. “I think it’s a great position to have multiple strong progressives being considered to run.”

    [ad_2]
    #California #Dems #prepare #fierce #Senate #battle
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Washington launches a new Google battle — with an old playbook

    Washington launches a new Google battle — with an old playbook

    [ad_1]

    And Australia — where regulators already followed their European counterparts in forcing social media companies to pay publishers whenever their content appeared on these platforms — officials are also mulling similar changes to create bespoke rules for tech giants after the country’s competition regulator admitted its current powers hadn’t kept pace with industry.

    “Google has leveraged its data and acquisitions to dominate the adtech market,” Rod Rims, the former head of Australia’s competition and consumer protection agency, told POLITICO. “The huge number of acquisitions that companies like Google and Facebook have made raises the question: Do you need any extra hurdles if you’re so dominant?”

    The tech giants simply grew too fast over the past two decades for antitrust law to keep up. And while the U.S. is now trying retroactively to keep them in check, regulators elsewhere can now do so in advance.

    For the world of antitrust officials, this shift — known as ex ante rulemaking, or efforts to stop potentially anticompetitive behavior before it gets out of hand — is a recognition the current enforcement system is too slow, too complex and too cumbersome to stop companies from scooping up smaller rivals or crowding out new markets before policymakers can respond in time.

    In Europe, for instance, the European Commission has already fined Google roughly 10 billion euros for three separate charges of antitrust abuse dating back a decade. Yet those investigations linked to the company’s respective Android mobile software, search products and online advertising services took years to complete, giving the company time to build up an overwhelming dominance.

    Alphabet — Google’s parent company that denies any wrongdoing in its stable of antitrust cases worldwide, including the most recent charges from Washington — also appealed Brussels’ decisions, dragging out those rulings for years.

    That’s why European policymakers shifted gears to create a new competition rulebook aimed at clamping down on problems before they even arise.

    The goal: to create rules more akin to ongoing oversight within the financial services industry that can pinpoint potential abuse before it requires lengthy investigations. For international authorities, it’s less about dawn raids and glitzy press conferences, and more about everyday regulatory supervision to take the sting out of Big Tech’s dominance.

    Here’s how it will work. Within the EU, a small number of (almost exclusively American) companies will be defined as so-called gatekeepers, or firms that hold a disproportionately dominant position within markets like search, online advertising or mobile app stores. These tech giants will then have to abide by a tougher set of rules than smaller rivals, including bans on so-called self-preferencing, or treating their own products and services more favorably compared with those of others.

    That means Apple will likely have to allow people to download apps from rival online stores. Alphabet will almost certainly be forced to open up its online advertising — and the lucrative data that underpins it — to outsiders. And Meta must allow other messaging services to connect, directly, to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

    “Large gatekeeper platforms have prevented businesses and consumers from the benefits of competitive digital markets,” Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s competition czar, said when announcing the changes last year. “What we want is simple: fair markets also in digital.”

    U.S. policymakers are well aware they are behind their international counterparts.

    Stalled bipartisan legislation, known as the American Innovation and Choice Online Act supported by the likes of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), would similarly outlaw much of Big Tech’s alleged anticompetitive behavior. That would include stopping these companies from preferencing their own services over those of rivals, as well as banning current limits on how smaller competitors use the dominant services to target potential customers.

    Yet even before Republicans regained control over the House last month, the new U.S. antitrust proposals had run into industry-led efforts that claimed they would harm innovation, restrict consumer choice and undermine national security. Now, expectations are that U.S. enforcers like Jonathan Kanter, head of the Department of Justice’s antitrust unit, will have to work with the powers they already have — and not bank on upgraded rules fit for the digital world.

    “We’re going to have to work with the rules we have,” a Capitol Hill staffer told POLITICO on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

    Still, the new antitrust powers dreamed up in Brussels, London and Canberra aren’t the slam dunk that many of those countries’ officials are hoping for. And while some in the U.S. would welcome such bespoke enforcement regimes, U.S. judges would almost certainly throw them out because existing domestic law makes it illegal to treat some companies differently from others.

    In the U.K., for instance, regulators plan to create bespoke competition rules for specific tech giants — with so-called strategic market importance, according to the upcoming British legislation that may be published as soon as the week of Feb. 13.

    That follows repeated evidence from British authorities that the likes of Apple, Alphabet and Meta hold disproportionate power in the local market in everything from advertising to app stores to social media. The companies deny any accusations they have abused their dominance positions.

    U.K. officials believe regulating Amazon and its e-commerce empire will require a different set of rules to overseeing Apple and its increasingly digital empire. That requires individual antitrust guardrails for each firm, or a customized playbook to keep a close tab on how each company expands.

    For Brussels, whose enforcers still have a series of legacy antitrust cases into Silicon Valley’s biggest names (the likes of Meta, Apple and Alphabet deny any wrongdoing,) the shift from lengthy investigations to more hands-on daily supervision is also still a work in progress.

    European officials are currently deciding which tech giants will be designated as so-called gatekeepers. EU lawyers and their counterparts at the companies are haggling over whether a firm’s entire operations or only specific services like an app store or social network should be included in the new rules, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.

    “It’s going to take time to stop people thinking that’s just about investigations,” said one of the EU officials who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity. “We’re in a new era. We have to get our heads around that.”

    [ad_2]
    #Washington #launches #Google #battle #playbook
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Trump big money machine prepares for battle with DeSantis, other rivals

    Trump big money machine prepares for battle with DeSantis, other rivals

    [ad_1]

    Now, Trump’s political apparatus is preparing to follow suit with its own offensive.

    Over the next several weeks, the super PAC’s officials are expected to travel to the four early nominating states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada — to test out possible lines of attack against DeSantis and a handful of other potential rivals before focus groups. The Trump-aligned organization, MAGA, Inc., has begun drafting messages that could be used to undercut opponents, which it says are based on extensive opposition research.

    While the super PAC’s early focus has largely been on DeSantis, officials say its research effort has been expanded to include other prospective candidates. And those involved are not ruling out the possibility of airing early ads targeting Trump’s opponents, potentially before the end of March. The super PAC has hired a media buyer and has begun looking into the cost of running commercials in early primary states, according to a person familiar with the group’s activities. It is also expected to set up a “war room” based in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Trump’s campaign has also set up its headquarters in West Palm Beach, near where the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate is located.)

    Budowich, who heads the pro-Trump super PAC, did not specify an exact date for when the group would start airing ads. In a statement, he said that “MAGA Inc., through deep opposition research, tested messages, and a significant war chest, is building a GOP primary guillotine that will welcome every challenger with swift and decisive force.”

    A DeSantis spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. But on Tuesday, the governor took a rare swing at Trump, arguing that his landslide reelection win this past November in Florida showed that voters approved of his light-touch approach to handling the pandemic.

    “The good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that whether they reelect you or not,” DeSantis told reporters during a press conference when asked about Trump’s recent attacks. “And I’m happy to say — you know in my case — not only did we win reelection, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has had in the history of the state of Florida. … That verdict has been rendered by the people of the state of Florida.”

    With polls showing Trump and DeSantis leading the field in the early-voting states, some people in the former president’s orbit have privately expressed a desire for Trump’s super PAC to begin going after the Florida governor.

    The group has substantial resources at its disposal: Fundraising efforts did not begin until 2023, but upon its launch last year, MAGA Inc. was seeded with $55 million, much of it transferred from Trump’s political action committee, Save America. (Super PAC officials downplayed expectations for a campaign finance report due Tuesday evening, which will cover fundraising for the final weeks of 2022.)

    Now, the super PAC is looking to build its war chest further, and it is planning to hold its first fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 23. Organizers are describing the event as a “candlelight dinner,” that will be attended by the former president. The super PAC has brought on Meredith O’Rourke, a veteran Republican fundraiser, to oversee its finance efforts and has begun hiring a team of regional fundraisers.

    Raising major funds, however, may not prove easy for Trump. Some of Trump’s top donors from 2020, such as hedge fund executive Stephen Schwarzman, have expressed a desire to move on from the former president. Others have also been supportive of DeSantis.

    And some big donors appear likely to sit out the 2024 GOP primary entirely. Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson who has recently dined with Trump and was his biggest financial supporter in 2020, has made clear she has no plans to get involved in the nominating fight.

    [ad_2]
    #Trump #big #money #machine #prepares #battle #DeSantis #rivals
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • House GOP grits its teeth for the ‘big lift’: A budget battle

    House GOP grits its teeth for the ‘big lift’: A budget battle

    [ad_1]

    At the same time, party leadership will have to ensure steep domestic cuts won’t hurt moderates back home, bruising members in vulnerable districts and threatening an already slim House majority. And in the center of what seems like a near-impossible effort — to draft a budget plan with broad GOP support — sits newly installed House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).

    In an interview, Arrington acknowledged that it’s going to be a heavy lift for a conference deeply split by federal spending issues. If the budget measure ever makes it out of committee and to the floor, Republicans can only afford to lose four of their 222 votes.

    “It won’t be easy,” Arrington said. But he added that he’s “looking forward to the challenge of pulling that 218 together so that we can know what it feels like to succeed, and know that we can succeed.”

    Passing a budget resolution — which is technically non-binding — would set a “very defined measure of success” for Republicans, Arrington added, by laying out party demands and putting the negotiating onus back on Democrats in talks over hiking the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit.

    Republicans in the upper chamber are also pressuring the House GOP to adopt a fiscal 2024 budget, particularly Senate fiscal hawks who want to adopt a measure that embraces military funding cuts, in addition to reductions to domestic programs.

    “I think it’s going to be difficult,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said of getting a budget through the House, even as he urged the GOP not to hold military funding “sacrosanct.” Adopting a budget would show that House Republicans “have their ducks in a row” as they pursue fiscal restraints, Braun added.

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) echoed that sentiment, saying his House GOP counterparts have “a big task ahead of them.

    “We want to do everything we can to support their efforts, but also encourage them,” Johnson added, “because the crucial aspect to what they need to do is they have to pass these things with Republican votes.”

    At the same time, House Republicans have to mind the political headaches their fiscal choices will pose to their vulnerable members — which is particularly true when it comes to the messy internal politics of entitlement reform. Some of their members are hesitant to touch mandatory spending and others insist that reforms are necessary for the long-term solvency of programs like Social Security and Medicare.

    Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) this week said Speaker Kevin McCarthy assured him that those programs are safe from cuts.

    Many House Republicans are loath to take a knife to the Pentagon’s budget, however, and doing so would almost certainly jeopardize broad support for a GOP budget plan.

    Despite all its potential to cause intraparty angst, a budget resolution isn’t a particularly detailed document. While it could detail the GOP’s vision for slashing spending over a decade, outline preferred discretionary spending limits, and instruct committees to work on taxes or mandatory spending changes, the budget wouldn’t outline cuts to specific programs.

    Such a plan is considered a basic task of the majority party, but it often gets skipped during the annual budget process.

    Drafting one is a high-stakes dance that many former Budget Committee leaders know all too well. That includes former House Budget Chair Diane Black (R-Tenn.), who shepherded the adoption of a budget resolution in 2017 — allowing Republicans to pass their party-line tax bill.

    Black described it as a “nailbiter” of a vote that followed months upon months of navigating warring factions within the GOP conference. This time, Republicans may not have that kind of time, with a debt default threatening the U.S. in a matter of months, she warned.

    “I think it’s a big lift,” Black said. “I don’t know, frankly, because of where they are right now … that they really have the time to dig in and do it that well. Maybe they do.”

    “There definitely is a time element to how you get everyone on board, given what they’ve already been through with the leadership process,” Black added, referring to the 15-ballot speakership race that consumed the conference earlier this month.

    Former Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), who chaired the House Budget Committee until he retired last year, watched his own budget resolution crash and burn on the floor in 2019, when Democratic leaders were forced to cancel a vote on the measure as progressives decried defense funding levels they deemed too high.

    “Jodey Arrington is a really reasonable guy,” Yarmuth said of his successor. “He’s setting a bar that he may not be able to get over, and Jodey knows that, I’m sure. But they’ve committed to do it, so he’s going to have to try to do it.”

    “When you have the margins that they have … it’s going to be very unlikely that they can bring a budget resolution to the floor that can pass,” Yarmuth added of House Republicans. “That’s the problem we always had.”

    Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), now his party’s top member on the Budget Committee, echoed that point, saying that “getting 218 votes for a budget resolution is difficult under ordinary circumstances.”

    Republicans “have a grueling battle ahead if they decide to pursue this unpopular path,” he said.

    [ad_2]
    #House #GOP #grits #teeth #big #lift #budget #battle
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Telangana: It’s a do-or-die battle for a demoralised, divided Congress

    Telangana: It’s a do-or-die battle for a demoralised, divided Congress

    [ad_1]

    Hyderabad: When the Congress-led Central government bifurcated Andhra Pradesh in 2014, it was hoping to reap the political benefit of the move in the newly created Telangana but nearly a decade later, the party’s position appears to have gone from bad to worse.

    Series of defections after 2014 and 2018 elections, humiliating defeat in by-elections and infighting has left the grand old party demoralised in its former strongholds.

    With Assembly elections a few months away, the party appears to be in a disarray with BJP seeming to have occupied the space as principal contestant for ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).

    Despite the defeats in two Assembly elections even after claiming credit for carving out Telangana, the Congress party failed to learn the lessons and remains a divided house. Repeated interventions and warnings by the party’s central leadership also failed to set the house in order.

    In both 2014 and 2018, the Congress was at least the main rival for BRS but this time the party will be facing the polls even without this status.

    Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra and his earlier visit to the state and his advice to the party leaders to remain united failed to yield the desired results.

    The recent revolt by a group of senior party leaders against state Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy has come as the latest setback for the party even as he was trying to revive party’s fortunes by taking up people’s issues.

    The BJP’s emergence as the strong opponent to BRS has pushed the Congress to the third place.

    Political observers point out that the Congress is not visible in the mainstream media or even the social media. It’s either BRS or BJP. “The BJP has succeeded in building a narrative of BRS versus BJP as such a narrative suits them,” said observer Palwai Raghavendra Reddy

    Series of defections, a string of defeats in by-elections, disastrous performance in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections and continued infighting have weakened the party.

    The resignation of sitting MLA from Munugode constituency Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy and his defection to BJP to force by-election late last year dealt another blow to the Congress. It faced more embarrassment with its candidate finishing a poor third and forfeiting the deposit.

    This was not all. Rajagopal Reddy’s brother and Bhongir MP Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, the star campaigner of Congress party, stayed away from campaigning for Munugode. A video clip of Venkat Reddy predicting Congress party’s defeat during the campaigning left the party leaders red faced.

    After dividing Andhra Pradesh by granting statehood to Telangana in 2014, the Congress was hoping to reap the political dividend by claiming credit for carving out the separate state.

    However, K. Chandrasekhar Rao dashed its hopes by rejecting the proposal to merge his party with Congress. He decided to maintain the identity of TRS (now BRS) as a political party.

    In 2014, the Congress party could win 22 seats in 119-member Telangana Assembly and was completely wiped out in Andhra Pradesh due to the public anger over bifurcation. In Telangana, several party leaders including legislators defected to TRS.

    In 2018, Congress faced another disaster. It could win just 19 seats, though it had forged an electoral alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the Left parties and some smaller parties.

    Even before Congress could gear up for Lok Sabha elections in 2019, it had lost as many as 12 MLAs to the ruling party. Though the party salvaged some pride by winning three Lok Sabha seats, with the reduced strength in Assembly, it lost the status of main opposition to All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), a friendly party of TRS.

    The party suffered a huge embarrassment a few months after Lok Sabha as it failed to retain Huzurnagar Assembly seat, where by-election was necessitated with the resignation of Uttam Kumar Reddy following his election to Lok Sabha.

    The BJP wrested the Dubbak Assembly seat from the TRS in 2020 by-election to consolidate itself. The saffron party, which hardly had any presence in the constituency, pushed Congress party to third position.

    The Congress suffered another humiliation the same year as it could win just two seats in 150-member Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

    Owning moral responsibility for the defeat, Uttam Kumar Reddy resigned as the party chief.

    The Congress party was pinning its hopes on by-election to Nagarjuna Sagar to revive its fortunes in the state. Its senior leader and former minister K. Jana Reddy lost the contest by over 18,000 votes to TRS candidate.

    The appointment of Revanth Reddy as the new state president by the central leadership in 2021 after ignoring several seniors and strong contenders triggered open revolt by a section of leaders, who saw Revanth as an outsider as he had defected to Congress from TDP just before 2018 elections.

    The change of guard also could not bring any change in the party’s fortunes. Several seniors started openly attacking Revanth Reddy for sidelining them.

    In Huzurabad by-election held towards end of 2021, the Congress party’s performance was disastrous. Its candidate secured only 3,012 votes and lost the deposit. It was a big slump for the party, which had secured 47,803 votes in 2018 to finish runners-up.

    The continuing slide raised new questions on the leadership of Revanth Reddy, whose style of functioning also irked some seniors. Recently when he packed the party panels with his loyalists, the senior raised a banner of revolt and launched a movement to save the party. They called it a fight between real Congress leaders and migrants from other parties.

    The allegation by seniors that AICC in-charge Manickam Tagore is siding with Revanth Reddy forced the central leadership to intervene and replace him with Manikrao Thakare.

    The new in charge last began his efforts to put the house in order. It will be an acid test for Manikrao.

    Political observer Raghavendra Reddy believes that this will be the final opportunity for Congress in Telangana. “If the Congress fails to win big numbers, it will be the end of the road for the party. The Congress party’s record across states show that it never made a comeback after losing the status of opposition,” he said citing the instances of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

    [ad_2]
    #Telangana #doordie #battle #demoralised #divided #Congress

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • Ukraine-Russia War: Germany Confirms To Send Its Leopard 2 Battle Tanks To Ukraine – Kashmir News

    Ukraine-Russia War: Germany Confirms To Send Its Leopard 2 Battle Tanks To Ukraine – Kashmir News

    [ad_1]

    BERLIN — Finally Germany has agreed to allow its state-of-the-art Leopard 2 tanks to be donated to Ukraine, in a marked shift from its leaders’ reluctance to significantly increase military support to help the country fight Russia.

    The announcement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday, coupled with an anticipated decision by the US to send about 30 M-1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. After Pressure has been building for weeks on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government to send the tanks and allow NATO allies to do the same before expected spring offensives by both sides.

    Scholz told his Cabinet of his decision that Germany will further strengthen its military support for Ukraine, German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said. “The Federal Government has decided to make Leopard 2 battle tanks available to the Ukrainian armed forces,” he said.

    gettyimages 1244034756 custom c4c23a65dd8ada13a86a8522553652c3198c26f7 s1100 c50
    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stands next to a Leopard 2 main battle tank of the German armed forces while visiting an army training center in Ostenholz, Germany, on Oct. 17, 2022. David Hecker/Getty Image
    Germany’s decision paves the way for other countries such as Poland, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands and Norway to supply some of their Leopard tanks to Ukraine, going some way towards delivering the hundreds of tanks that Ukraine says it needs.

    The Kremlin warned on Wednesday that if Western countries supply Ukraine with heavy tanks they will be destroyed on the battlefield.

    “These tanks burn like all the rest. They are just very expensive,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

    The Kremlin’s warning came as a Moscow-backed official said Russian forces had advanced in Bakhmut, a town in eastern Ukraine that Russia has been trying to capture for months.

    CLICK ON THE BELOW PROVIDED LINKS TO FOLLOW KASHMIR NEWS ON: 

    OUR APPLICATION IS ALSO LIVE ON GOOGLE PLAY STORE, DOWNLOAD MOBILE APPLICATION


    Post Views: 93



    [ad_2]
    #UkraineRussia #War #Germany #Confirms #Send #Leopard #Battle #Tanks #Ukraine #Kashmir #News

    ( With inputs from : kashmirnews.in )

  • Pair of lawsuits kick off state-federal battle over abortion pills

    Pair of lawsuits kick off state-federal battle over abortion pills

    [ad_1]

    The cases come as both supporters and opponents of the right to terminate a pregnancy are increasingly focusing on abortion pills — which recently became the most popular method of abortion in the United States and a common way patients are circumventing state bans on the procedure.

    Anti-abortion advocates and their allies in state and federal office are pushing more states to adopt laws like North Carolina’s — including states that already have near-total bans — hoping to prevent patients from ordering the pills online.

    The North Carolina case, filed in federal district court in Greensboro, challenges the state’s law requiring that abortion pills may only be provided in person by a physician in a certified surgical facility after a mandatory counseling session and a 72-hour waiting period.

    Eva Temkin, the lead attorney in the suit, said those restrictions are hampering physicians, including her client Amy Bryant, as they attempt to serve patients in the state and those coming from other southeastern states that have implemented near-total bans on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

    “The restrictions in North Carolina that our plaintiff and medical providers generally are grappling with have created a lot of inflexibility and inefficiency,” she said. “Since Dobbs there has been a significant increase in the number of patients needing abortion care and these rules impose unnecessary delays and travel costs. Because of these restrictions, providers can’t see the number of patients they’d like to see, for instance, by telehealth.”

    A spokesperson for Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who recently announced his bid for governor, told POLITICO the office is reviewing the lawsuit, declining to comment further.

    The case has echoes of a previous legal fight between the FDA and Massachusetts over that state’s efforts to restrict an opioid medication, Temkin noted, a battle in which federal rules prevailed.

    “It’s a well-settled principle that a state can’t implement a policy that conflicts with and frustrates the objectives of a federal law,” Temkin said.

    “But in some ways, this is the first case of its kind,” she added. “And that’s because this is the first drug on which states have imposed restrictions on access that the FDA has determined are not appropriate.”

    The FDA lifted the in-person dispensing requirement for the drugs in 2021 — at first, just for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic and then permanently after determining the pills were safe to prescribe via telemedicine and send-by-mail. The agency loosened its rules for the medication again earlier this month, allowing them to be dispensed by certified retail pharmacies to patients with a prescription.

    In West Virginia, GenBioPro, the company that manufactures the generic version of the abortion pill, is arguing in federal court that the state cannot impede the regulation or sale of a federally approved medication without violating the supremacy and commerce clauses of the Constitution.

    The drugmaker’s lawsuit also challenges the state’s previous restrictions on medication abortion — including a ban on telehealth prescription of the drug, mifepristone. Those restrictions were superseded by the September 2022 prohibition on the procedure at all stages of pregnancy.

    The state laws “constrict GenBioPro’s ability to market its FDA-approved product to West Virginians who need it,” the company said in the lawsuit. “West Virginia cannot override FDA’s determinations about the appropriate restrictions on a medication that FDA approved for use and Congress subjected to this enhanced regulatory regime.”

    Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups, which filed a lawsuit in Texas in November are challenging the FDA’s two-decade old approval of the abortion pill, mifepristone, a case that could halt access to it nationwide.

    Anti-abortion groups are also mounting a campaign to pressure Walgreens and CVS pharmacies not to carry the drugs in states where they are legally allowed to do so, with lawsuits, protests and boycotts planned for the coming weeks.

    Over the weekend, marking what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden signed a memo directing his health secretary to “consider new guidance to support patients, providers, and pharmacies who wish to legally access, prescribe, or provide mifepristone — no matter where they live.”

    [ad_2]
    #Pair #lawsuits #kick #statefederal #battle #abortion #pills
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )