Tag: divided

Democrats want to restore Roe. They’re divided on whether to go even further.

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“We would never advocate for a false or politically determined limit on abortion,” said Pamela Merritt, the Missouri-based executive director of Medical Students for Choice. “Viability is an arbitrary line. It’s a legacy of Roe that we don’t need to resurrect. And we know the language of viability can be manipulated by state legislatures, just as they are already trying to redefine what a child is or what rape is.”
The rift among progressives threatens to fracture the abortion-rights movement as it readies for costly ballot initiative fights that are likely to play central roles in coming state and federal elections.
In Missouri, the local Planned Parenthood affiliate recently quit the ballot effort because most of the nearly dozen versions activists submitted to state officials propose only protecting abortion access before the fetus is viable or until 24 weeks of pregnancy, while other versions would impose other restrictions, such as parental consent requirements.
“We have long said that Roe was never enough, especially for marginalized communities shouldering the hardest impact of abortion bans,” said Vanessa Wellbery, the vice president of policy and advocacy for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. “We are deeply committed to rebuilding a system that ensures all people can access abortion and all providers can provide it without political or legislative interference.”
The ballot measures in Ohio and Nevada also only protect abortion until viability, while South Dakota’s would legalize the procedure through the second trimester.
Groups defending the viability limit argue that it is widely supported by voters and has the best chance of passing in conservative and swing states.
“Yes, Roe was always the floor. But right now Missouri is in the basement,” said Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Pro-Choice Missouri. “It’s not the end game. It’s the first step in a long term effort and process.”
They also note that the more moderate language is similar to what voters approved in Michigan in November, and protects the right to an abortion even after the fetus is viable if the pregnancy endangers the pregnant person’s life or their physical or mental health.

“People have asked, does this allow abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason? That answer is, no. It doesn’t,” said Kellie Copeland, an executive committee member of Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, the statewide coalition supporting the ballot measure. “But it does allow for people to be able to get the care that they need.”
These divisions within the abortion-rights movement mirror those on the anti-abortion side as heated battles erupt in several states argue over whether to allow exceptions to abortion bans or hold firm to the view that abortion should be illegal no matter the circumstances that led to the pregnancy. On both sides, those pushing a compromise point to polling showing that voters overwhelmingly oppose complete bans on the procedure but support some limits — especially in conservative-leaning states.
“You’ve got to meet voters where they’re at,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “Look, we’re going to go for the most expansive, most broad access that we can get from these constitutional amendment efforts.”
‘A literal codification of Roe’
Interest in launching abortion-rights ballot initiatives exploded in the wake of the 2022 midterms, which saw progressives win each of the six state constitutional amendment fights related to abortion that went before voters that year — in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont.
In Ohio and South Dakota, advocates are gathering signatures to restore Roe’s protections for abortion prior to viability. In Missouri, the secretary of state’s office is reviewing 11 versions of the proposed ballot measure and will release summaries of each before canvassing can begin. In Nevada, lawmakers just launched an effort to get the measure on the ballot in 2026; it must twice pass the biennial legislature before going to a popular vote.
Democratic officials in Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland and Washington state also proposed legislation this year to put abortion rights constitutional amendments before voters, but only Maryland’s legislature has approved the measure, teeing up a statewide popular vote in 2024.
Most involved in the efforts agree that eliminating all restrictions on abortion would be preferable, but cite in-state polling and research to argue that measures with the viability standard have the best chance of passing.
“We’re pushing a literal codification of Roe because that is what we think is palatable to the majority of citizens in South Dakota,” explained Adam Weiland, co-founder of Dakotans for Health, which is collecting signatures to make the procedure legal again. “Even if people in our state have more progressive views than expected when it comes to abortion, it’s still a conservative state and we need to be respectful of that. Most people are pretty comfortable with no government interference in the first trimester. But that support becomes more unstable the further along you get.”
A 2022 Pew Research poll of more than 10,000 people found that support for abortion waned as the pregnancy went along: Americans are twice as likely to support abortion than say it should be illegal at six weeks, roughly split on whether it should be legal at 14 weeks and about twice as likely to say it should be illegal than legal after 24 weeks.
Backers of the viability strategy also argue that a constitutional amendment with more specific language could make it harder for anti-abortion lawmakers to find a loophole in the future.
And because over 90 percent of U.S. abortions happen during the first trimester, they also argue that protecting abortions prior to viability — the standard held up for decades by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey — would provide broad relief from the near-total bans in place now in South Dakota, Missouri and elsewhere.
“We don’t want medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion, and maybe it’s not surprising that medical groups have to draw a line there. But as advocates, as grassroots organizers, we feel an urgency,” Schwarz said.
‘We have momentum on our side’
Adopting a viability limit, however, would mean agreeing that abortion can’t always be a unfettered choice between a patient and physician, a concession that is too much for some local and national groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Ultraviolet and Medical Students for Choice. These groups warn the ballot measures as written will permanently lock in limitations they consider dangerous — and they’re threatening to withhold their support unless changes are made.
“It cannot be left to any politician to decide when an obstetrician-gynecologist must stop providing evidence-based care, to determine when a doctor can save the life of a patient, or which patient has a greater need for abortion than any other,” said Jennifer Villavicencio, an OB-GYN and leader of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Other abortion-rights organizations dispute the premise that a measure that goes beyond Roe would not pass in a red or purple state — pointing to polling showing high support for abortion rights and opposition to restrictions.
“We need to start from the most expansive and expansionist place possible and not go in with preconceived notions about what people will or will not support,” said Sonja Spoo, the director of political affairs for the abortion rights group UltraViolet. “The people putting forward these restrictions, they’re not doing it because of mal-intent. It’s based on their feeling of what they think can come to fruition. But we see that we have momentum on our side and that this is an opportunity for education and a culture shift rather than codifying bans.”
Supporters of the ballot measures argue that the proposals’ fetal viability language is broad enough to allow abortions in a range of different circumstances later in pregnancy and leaves the decision up to doctors. Under the proposals, for example, providers would be responsible for deciding whether a fetus is viable based on the facts of the case and whether there is a “significant likelihood” of the survival of the fetus without extraordinary medical measures.
“It’s sticky to talk about, but it’s also something that we know gives voters assurance that what we’re talking about here is something they can understand and appreciate,” said Caroline Mello Roberson, southwest regional director for NARAL.
Yet some medical and abortion-rights advocacy groups argue the built-in flexibility is a mirage that would leave patients and providers vulnerable to prosecution.
“When you are practicing under an elected body that is so aggressive and the potential consequences for providers are a felony, time in jail, loss of license, etcetera, those ‘protections’ on paper don’t play out in reality,” said Colleen McNicholas, the head of ACOG’s Missouri chapter and the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region. “We already know that now. We have physicians right now who are afraid to provide completely legal care like miscarriage management or emergency contraction or ectopic care.”
CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this report misstated the abortion rights group All* Above All’s intent to withhold support from ballot measures over viability limits.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 4, 2023
GOP divided on how to respond to ‘lab leak’ report

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Others are calling for the White House to hold classified briefings on what they knew about Covid-19’s origins, when they knew it, and what led to the latest agency assessment. And still more hope to use the lab leak assessment as momentum for sanctions and investment restrictions on the world’s second-largest economy.
The spectrum of responses played out on Tuesday across nearly a dozen hearings and legislation markups aimed at deterring what GOP lawmakers say is increasingly aggressive behavior from China that the Biden administration has not effectively addressed.
The Covid news “reinforces the vigilance we’re going to have to have vis a vis China on just about every front,” said Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.). “It takes a little time to get momentum, but you’re going to see a lot of fresh China-countering policies from this Congress.”
The U.S. government has not reached a consensus on how the coronavirus pandemic started. But The Wall Street Journal’s weekend report that the Energy Department made a “low confidence” endorsement of the lab leak theory provided fresh ammunition for those who have long accused the federal government of misleading the public about Covid-19, potentially sowing more distrust about the threat the virus still poses.
But even as some Republicans argued the Energy Department news vindicates the lab leak theory they’ve promoted for years, they warned against focusing on the past at the expense of current threats.
“Most certainly, we can have additional hearings, but I think there are other priorities right now,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told POLITICO. “We’ve got a war in Europe right now. We’ve got a new peer competitor in China right now that is growing faster than we are in terms of military capabilities. We’ve got challenges within our own country in terms of a huge debt that we really have to address. So, when we look at the pandemic and talk about assigning blame, I think most of us have already assigned it.”
Going forward, Republicans say they hope to cobble together a China-Covid strategy that includes both fact-finding missions and new policies to counter threats in the U.S. and abroad.
“We should protest that China tried to cover this up, because that delayed our ability to respond,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Senate’s top Republican appropriator and member of the Intelligence Committee, told POLITICO. “We also need to take a look at the kind of research that was being done at that lab, and whether it did receive American tax dollars to support it, which is an open question right now.”

The GOP policymaking, however, got off to a sputtering start on Tuesday. The House Financial Services Committee advanced 10 bipartisan bills, but skirted any meaningful new restrictions on the Chinese economy. The House Foreign Affairs Committee also advanced a handful of bipartisan messaging bills, while clashing over a proposed ban for the Chinese social media app TikTok.
And in the House Science Committee, Republicans broke with their committee chair on Tuesday over what kind of restrictions to impose on Chinese scientists working in the U.S. and Chinese collaborations with American scientists overseas.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) called for curbs on what information U.S. universities share with China, while freshman Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) pushed for ramped-up surveillance of Chinese students and STEM researchers who work in the United States.
Federal law enforcement “should probably be keeping a pretty close eye on” them, he said. “Because there’s significant links back to the place where they come from, including the family that remains in place.”
Chair Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) stopped short of endorsing those moves, though he agreed that Beijing has made efforts “to steal the results of our research and innovations — whether that’s through cyberattacks, forced intellectual property acquisition or malicious recruitment initiatives like the Thousand Talents Program,” which aims to lure academic talent to China from other countries.
Several Republicans said the DOE assessment has revived the caucus’ interest in bills of theirs that failed to advance last year.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said the Energy Department report could be a “breakthrough” for his legislation to declassify intelligence around the origin of Covid.
“I’m guessing this is going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back on this issue,” he said. “It’s going to cascade.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) was similarly confident Tuesday that the revelation would lend momentum to his bill to create a 9/11-style, nonpartisan commission to study Covid’s origin — a provision that was left out of the spending bill that passed in December — though he noted that conversations are at the staff level and haven’t yet progressed to members.
Several lawmakers told POLITICO they need more information before they can decide how best to proceed when it comes to U.S.-China policy.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who sits on the Oversight subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Tuesday that he’s requested a classified briefing from the Energy Department and has yet to receive a response.
“I don’t think we’ve been given a straight story,” he said. “So obviously, when they came up with this observation, I wanted more information.”
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#GOP #divided #respond #lab #leak #report
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 1, 2023
Congress divided over support to Sisodia

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New Delhi: Differences have cropped up between Delhi unit of Congress and the central party over extending support to deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, arrested in connection with alleged corruption in the now-scrapped liquor policy for 2021-22.
While the Delhi unit of the party welcomed the CBI action, veteran leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday night flayed it and termed all the probe agencies “harassment tools” of the BJP-led Central government, thus bringing forth the underlying difference.
Apparently, Delhi Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit has sought time from the Lieutenant Governor to attack the AAP over the issue.
According to sources, the state leaders are upset over being snubbed publically by Ramesh with some privately alleging that he has a soft corner for AAP.
In an oblique reference to the arrest of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia by the CBI in connection with the excise policy scam, the Congress on Monday termed the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax Department “harassment tools” of the BJP-led Central government.
“@INCIndia has always held the belief that institutions like the ED, CBI and Income Tax Department have become instruments of political vendetta and harassment under ‘Modi Sarkar’. These institutions have lost all professionalism. Opposition leaders are selectively targeted to destroy their reputation,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, without mentioning anything about the arrest of the deputy of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
.@INCIndia has always held the belief that institutions like ED, CBI & Income Tax Dept have become instruments of political vendetta & harassment under Modi Sarkar. These institutions have lost all professionalism. Oppn leaders are selectively targeted to destroy their reputation
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) February 27, 2023
The Congress’ reaction had come 24 hours after Sisodia’s arrest by the CBI on Sunday after a day-long questioning, even as the leaders of the party’s Delhi unit welcomed the move.

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#Congress #divided #support #Sisodia
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 28, 2023
Divided government threatens to clip wings of Congress’ China hawks

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“The worst mistake we could make is for our China positioning to be dictated by the House of Representatives. There aren’t a lot of thoughtful policy makers over there. We should make our own policy,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Biden administration officials are set to give a broad China briefing to senators Wednesday afternoon, after holding two straight classified briefings on the Chinese spy balloon and three unrelated aerial craft shot down by the military. Those meetings have shined a bright light on bipartisan concern over China’s surveillance capabilities, putting Beijing front and center as the 118th Congress gets off to a slow start.
Yet there are already signs that translating bipartisan worry into legislation would be a struggle. Even senators who are cheerleading further action to hold Beijing accountable — such as re-upping provisions to boost competition with China that Democratic leaders scrapped from last year’s semiconductor bill — talk about their priorities with at least some doubt.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a brief interview Tuesday that “there’s desire to do some of it, if we could,” but observed: “we’ll see where the House is.” A Schumer spokesperson later added that last year’s legislation “was a major step forward to improving American competitiveness, but we need to do more.”
Lawmakers originally had high hopes for that legislation, known as the CHIPS Act, as a way to stand up to China. But the final version did little more than subsidize microchips, with leadership taking out more China-specific provisions in order to ease passage through both chambers after more than a year of bicameral debate.
Now, senators are eager to take up those scrapped measures, despite the added problem of partisan gridlock. Senators say even provisions that won bipartisan support last year, such as a trade compromise meant to cut costs for American manufacturers, are unlikely to go anywhere this term.
“The very strong vote we saw on the [trade provisions] is hard to remove from support that was behind” the broader bill, said Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.). “That was offered as an amendment, and as a standalone, it would be difficult this Congress to get that through, but I think we should try.”
And the prognosis isn’t looking better elsewhere. The Foreign Relations Committee’s top two senators are planning to introduce an updated version of a bill that would challenge China’s economy by strengthening U.S. competitiveness. But senators were clear there’s still a lot of details they’re ironing out.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the foreign relations panel, said that Democratic and Republican panel staff are meeting to draft the legislation. He added that he plans to meet with House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) “on a broad range of issues.”
“I would like to think from my conversations that there is bipartisan, bicameral interest” in addressing China, he said.
Suzanne Wrasse, a spokesperson for Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the top Republican on the panel, called bipartisan efforts to boost competition with China a “work in progress” but said the “hope is that this Congress we can avoid another badly broken legislative process on the Senate floor.”
On the other side of the Capitol, a spokesperson for McCaul said he is part of the discussion on the potential legislation but had no further details to share about the negotiations. A spokesperson for the Ways and Means Committee, the counterpart to the Senate Finance Committee that worked out the trade compromise last year, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Meanwhile, the House is on recess until the end of the month, and the Senate is set to be out next week.
Not everyone is so pessimistic about the chances of moving legislation. Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and ranking member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) both said on Tuesday they’re hopeful at least some of the provisions — like removing tariffs on imports from developing nations and goods used by American manufacturers — could be revived this year.
And Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, was optimistic that a substantial bipartisan committee vote on China competition legislation could lead to movement on the Senate floor.
As for the prospects of passage in the House, Kaine said “this may be one of the bills where it actually helps for the Senate to go first.”
On the national security side, Democrats and Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill have sought to nudge the Pentagon to better posture U.S. forces in the Pacific in order to deter Beijing. Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services panels have sounded the alarm over China’s military modernization and nuclear expansion, and they’ve made the country a priority as they craft annual defense legislation.
Emerging from a classified briefing on Tuesday, some senators also argued Congress should fund improvements in “domain awareness” so the military can better track slow-moving or low-flying objects.
“I think all of this is gonna provide a wake-up call and hopefully motivation to authorize and appropriate money to get on it,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who had an unidentified object shot down off the coast of his state last week.
“I think it’s a revealing moment for the American people who haven’t been tracking this that this country, their leadership, has no problem looking at the whole world, including the American people, and lying their ass off,” Sullivan added of the spy balloon. “And that’s dangerous.”
There’s also been bipartisan consensus on arming Taiwan as concerns grow that China could be rapidly building its military capability to invade the self-governing island in the coming years.
Defense policy legislation enacted in December incorporated a swath of provisions proposed by Menendez and Risch aimed at beefing up Taiwan’s defense. Lawmakers notably voted to step up arms sales to Taiwan, greenlighting $10 billion in security assistance over the next five years.
“If there’s one thing that seems to unify Republicans and Democrats today it’s addressing the China threat, and the spy balloon probably got everybody’s attention like nothing else,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Yet he underscored the huge scope of “the challenges we face” on the issue beyond the balloon episode: “an aggressive China, not only economically, but also building a huge military and nuclear arms threat to not only Taiwan … but also to the region and the rest of the world.”
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#Divided #government #threatens #clip #wings #Congress #China #hawks
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 16, 2023
Inside Putin’s Russia, divided over his war: a soldier, artist and actor speak out – video

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The Guardian speaks to three St Petersburg residents: a soldier, a street artist and an actor, all with very different views on Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine which is nearing its first anniversary.
Maxim, who has just come back from the frontline, thinks a Putin victory is in clear sight. ‘MV Picture’ shows her doubt towards the war through her art while Andrey, an actor, isn’t quite sure where his loyalties should lie
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#Putins #Russia #divided #war #soldier #artist #actor #speak #video
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 8, 2023
Pakistan Senate divided over condolences for Musharraf

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Islamabad: The Pakistan Senate was sharply divided over the idea of offering prayers for late President Pervez Musharraf, as the treasury side strongly opposed it while PTI insisted on it and later praised him, and PPP lawmakers condemned the former leader for undermining the Constitution.
Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani asked JI Senator Mushtaq Ahmad to offer prayers for victims of earthquake in Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, and Musharraf, who had passed away in Dubai on Sunday, The News reported.
The House echoed with slogans of “no, no” raised by the members from the treasury benches while Mushtaq Ahmad, who sits on the opposition side, also straight away said there will be no prayers for Musharraf and Sanjrani sensed the majority was opposed to it and accordingly urged him to skip him in prayers.
Leader of the Opposition Shahzad Wasim, who was a member of then Musharraf’s cabinet, as state minister for interior and PML-Q senator from 2003-06, wondered what was the harm in offering prayers for him, prompting JI legislator to retort, “he was a certified traitor who broke the Constitution twice” and was responsible for conflagration in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
However, this could not quiet the leader of opposition and he continued with defending the former military ruler while members from the government rose in their seats and gathered around the chairman’s podium.
PPP Senator Moula Bux Chandio rose to insist that the one who breaks the law is a traitor and argued those defending Musharraf were also traitors.
“You are sitting in the Parliament and have taken oath under the Constitution. You should adopt the path which leads to democracy,” he contended.
He recalled how Musharraf’s indictment in treason case had to be put off for the third time in January 2014, when he went to a military hospital instead of appearing before the court to face the charge, The News reported.

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#Pakistan #Senate #divided #condolences #Musharraf
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 7, 2023
House divided: The megadonor couple battling in the GOP’s civil war

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“Dick is super hard core, and his wife is not so much,” said former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, a past Dick Uihlein ally who was elected in the 2010 conservative wave. Candidates from “the hard right and the tea party and blow it up and burn it down — those were the kind of politicians that Dick always supported. His wife was a bit more establishment. So, they would often disagree on certain candidates.”
The split between the Uihleins — the most powerful donor couple in the GOP, if not all of politics — has come to represent the rift cleaving the Republican Party writ large. While Liz has spent millions of dollars buttressing the party hierarchy, including candidates and super PACs backed by GOP leaders, Dick has invested even more heavily in tearing it down, pouring millions into far-right primary challengers and insurgent groups.
Those close to the Uihleins say they have a warm and affectionate marriage, despite their differences over politics. Friends say their personalities complement one another: She is outgoing and engaging, he more quiet and reserved, and sometimes prickly.
The two worked hand-in-hand to launch a shipping supplies company out of their basement in 1980, starting out selling carton resizers. According to Forbes, the southeastern Wisconsin-based Uline — which now sells goods out of an 800-plus page catalog, with items ranging from beer carriers to butcher paper — brought in $6.2 billion in revenue last year.
The couple’s combined political giving to federal candidates and causes over the last decade tops $230 million, plus tens of millions more to state-level groups, according to campaign finance records. Dick is the more active donor, but Liz has made millions of dollars’ worth of contributions in her own right.
The Uihleins started contributing to candidates in the 1990s, and their diverging views on politics soon showed through.
Dick donated to a pair of far-right candidates during the 1996 Republican primary, Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes. Liz, meanwhile, later revealed that she voted for Democrat Bill Clinton in the 1992 and 1996 elections.
Their donations began to soar after the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision easing campaign finance restrictions, but the beneficiaries of their largesse were almost immediately at odds. Dick — who has privately complained that Republican leaders give in too easily — funneled vast sums to anti-establishment groups like the anti-tax Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Action, two groups that frequently clashed with party leadership over contested GOP primaries.

Dick would later become the primary funder of Restoration PAC, a super PAC that, according to its website, exists to support “truly conservative candidates, and [oppose] Leftists and the woke agenda.”
Liz, however, focused her giving on mainstream party organizations: During last year’s midterm election, she was a major donor to the RNC, the GOP’s House and Senate campaign arms, and to super PACs aligned with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Those who know the Uihleins — neither of whom responded to requests for comment — say they look for starkly different things when it comes to deciding where to direct their funds. They describe Liz as driven by pragmatism, methodically seeking out the Republican most likely to win.
She has doled out cash to party organizations that protect sitting Republican incumbents, like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the McConnell-linked Senate Leadership Fund. And Liz is known for maintaining close ties with the party hierarchy. One of her top aides, Tony Povkovich, is serving on the host committee for the 2024 Republican National Convention, to be held in Milwaukee, Wis. According to one person familiar with the discussions, she has offered to financially support the convention.
Liz has also attended RNC finance events, and during the 2016 campaign, then-RNC Chair Reince Priebus tapped her to serve on a fundraising committee benefiting Donald Trump.
Dick, by contrast, is drawn to conservative purists, anti-establishment outsiders and underdogs — some of whom are seen as lost causes.
Over the years, he has been criticized for squandering millions of dollars on failed longshot candidates, including several in 2022, like Illinois gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey and Arkansas Senate hopeful Jake Bequette. He has funded unsuccessful primary challenges against a number of sitting GOP officeholders, including former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, Arkansas Sen. John Boozman and the late Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran.
Dick’s anti-establishment bent has strained his relationship with Republican leaders — many of whom resent him for financing primary challengers against incumbents and for bolstering candidates they contend hurt the party’s prospects. A single seven-figure donation from Dick, senior Republicans complain, can become a serious headache.
Some top Republicans say they don’t bother reaching out to Dick and only work with Liz, though Dick has on occasion cut six-figure checks to the main party committees in Washington.
“She likes to be a much more influential Republican Party donor,” Walsh said. “Dick could give a fuck about any of that.”
Those who’ve interacted with the Uihleins say they make their spending decisions independent from one another, take their meetings with candidates separately and rely on different teams of gatekeepers.
While Liz is known to lean on Povkovich, Dick is advised by a team of hard-edged conservative activists including Dan Proft, a radio show host who waged an unsuccessful 2010 campaign for Illinois governor, and John Tillman, who leads the libertarian-leaning Illinois Policy Institute. Brian Timpone, a former TV reporter who oversees a network of conservative websites, is another key figure in Dick’s orbit.
Candidates pitching Liz must show they have a path to victory. Those appealing to Dick must prove they are true believers.
“They come at it from two different perspectives. Dick is ideological and insurgent-focused, and Liz is just more about issues and about mechanics of the campaign and, ‘How are you going to win?’ and ‘What’s your message?’” said Keith Gilkes, a longtime Wisconsin-based GOP strategist. “They’re completely opposite people in terms of the questions and conversations with candidates.”
That has caused strains at times. According to two people familiar with the discussions, Liz privately expressed anger over her husband’s decision to spend millions of dollars to bolster disgraced ex-Gov. Eric Greitens during last year’s Republican Senate primary in Missouri. Greitens, who stepped down from the governorship after being accused of sexually assaulting his hairdresser, was aggressively opposed in the primary by McConnell’s political operation. Greitens ended up losing the nominating fight.
Walsh recalled that Dick “would often awkwardly laugh about, or talk about, the fact that there’s tension at home because she’s supporting somebody and he’s supporting somebody else.”
Liz appeared to address the divide between her and her husband following the 2020 election, when she wrote a post on her company’s website arguing that families could survive their political differences. Even though she voted for Clinton in the ‘90s, Liz recounted, her marriage “still survived.”
“Family,” she wrote, “still trumps politics.”
Whether the Uihleins — who live in Lake Forest, Ill., about 25 miles south of their company headquarters — clash during the 2024 election remains unclear. Some people familiar with the couple point out that, despite their differences, the two have sometimes overlapped in their support for candidates and causes.
One instance came during the 2016 GOP primary, when both gave millions in support of then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s short-lived presidential bid.
“Both are conservative. They just both have strong opinions on individual candidates,” Walker said. “One of the ones they agreed on was me.”
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#House #divided #megadonor #couple #battling #GOPs #civil #war
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 6, 2023
Congressional centrists plot deal-cutting course in divided government

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“The center is still going to be where people are going to have to gather around in order to get anything done,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Sunday. If Senate Democrats “can’t find basically nine centrist moderate, reasonable Republicans who want to accomplish something in the next Congress here … then it will be just basically a stalemate,” he added.
In interviews on Sunday during the No Labels confab, Manchin and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said their work would not halt just because it may be tougher to convince McCarthy’s majority to take up legislation. They did admit that their work might look a bit different this Congress.
That’s primarily thanks to tricky leadership politics: McCarthy barely won the speakership after a brutal intraparty battle and could easily find his job on the line if he compromises with Democrats, particularly on immigration. Manchin has already met with McCarthy and Collins plans to seek a meeting soon. Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell facilitated the dealmaking aspirations of centrists like Collins and Manchin last Congress, cutting against the grain of their partisan reputations.
But the set of challenges facing lawmakers this year doesn’t help either. Now the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, Collins described the No Labels-aligned centrists’ tasks as more urgent than simply seeking consensus on issues that have long bedeviled Congress, like the border.
She said that her allies must also be prepared to keep the government funded and raise the debt ceiling if McCarthy and President Joe Biden can’t come to an agreement.
“We’re more focused on issues. Now, in focusing on issues, we obviously discuss the possibility of political agreements and negotiations,” Collins said in an interview. “In some ways, No Labels is designed for dealing with divided government.”
Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) were scheduled to attend the Florida meeting, as were Texas Reps. Henry Cuellar (D), Tony Gonzales (R) and Vicente Gonzalez (D), with immigration a big focus among the House members and Sinema. Collins attended via Zoom.
Manchin said he’s also closely consulting with the leaders of the Problem Solvers Caucus, led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Josh Gottheimer
(D-N.J.).

It’s a continuation of a surprising reemergence of the political center in Washington, albeit one with uncertain prospects. The centrist group’s first breakthrough came in the waning days of the Trump administration, when senators cut a deal on $900 billion in Covid aid. After stops and starts once Biden became president, a rotating cast of bipartisan senators helped write new laws on infrastructure, gun safety, microchips, Electoral Count Act reform and same-sex marriage protection.
Today, Collins’ job involves reforming appropriations so that some spending bills come to the floor far in advance in the Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government, a difficult tightrope to walk but a popular demand in both chambers. Without more floor action on spending bills, the prospects of a stopgap spending bill — or worse, a shutdown — increase.
“I have yet to talk to a Democrat or a Republican in either body who thinks the current system of an end-of-the-year, gigantic belated spending bill serves either Congress or the country well,” Collins said.
She’s discussed the matter with Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.), House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) and that panel’s ranking member, Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
Manchin specifically mentioned energy permitting reform as an area McCarthy is open to pursuing; last year’s party-line tax, climate and health care bill that he shaped included a side deal on permitting that many Republicans and some Democrats opposed, leaving the matter in limbo. Manchin said McCarthy’s view is that “permitting is something we all know has to be done” in order to speed up project construction.
In his capacity as the Senate’s Energy Committee chair, Manchin has spoken with House Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and plans to speak soon with Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).
The West Virginian also still believes the 2013 Gang of Eight bill should form the basis of any immigration reform plan, emphasizing that bill’s border security component. Sinema and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) are already trying to forge a deal in that space.
Spokesperson Hannah Hurley said Sinema is committed to working with lawmakers “on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers of Congress and delivering measurable and meaningful progress on bipartisan solutions to the crisis at our border.”
And Manchin is open to a piecemeal immigration reform effort preferred by Republicans if that’s what it takes: “I’ll take anything I can get that’s going to be productive and promising.”
Hanging over it all is whether Manchin or Sinema will run for reelection or follow the path of their friend Rob Portman, the Ohio Republican senator who retired last Congress. Manchin said he hopes the point is moot given the stakes and the players.
“‘We can’t have a bipartisan conversation because then you might take credit for it. It might help you get reelected.’ That’s crazy stuff. Crazy, crazy mentality,” Manchin said of some colleagues’ reluctance to work across the aisle. “You’re elected in the Senate for a six-year term. You better work all six years on doing the right thing, rather than just four years.”
In addition to current elected officials, No Labels also invited a contingent of former officials to Florida, many of whom have been involved in the group for years. Among them were: Former Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.); former Govs. Larry Hogan (R-Md.), Bill Haslam (R-Tenn.), Pat McCrory (R-N.C.), Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) and Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.); and former Reps. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Max Rose (D-N.Y.) and Hawaii’s Tulsi Gabbard, who recently left the Democratic Party.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 6, 2023
Telangana: It’s a do-or-die battle for a demoralised, divided Congress

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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.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 29, 2023
In divided Russia, ‘compassion has become civil resistance’

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MOSCOW — Malika sobbed as she laid flowers at the foot of a statue of a Ukrainian poet in the center of the Russian capital.
In addition to her sorrow — the act was a commemoration of the victims of a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro — she had two reasons to also feel unease.
The first was the flashing blue lights of the police car parked a few meters away. In Russia, any expression of sympathy for Ukraine can be considered to discredit the Russian Armed Forces, and in the days before Malika’s visit, several people had been arrested.

“I despise them,” she said of the officers mulling around the memorial.
Her second reason for concern was her fellow Muscovites walking by. “Someone could overhear that I am playing Okean and notify the authorities,” she said, referring to the Ukrainian rock band playing through her headphones whose music has become the unofficial soundtrack of those who oppose the war.
According to Russian media, the police were first alerted to the makeshift memorial by nationalist vigilantes.
“That’s the country we live in now,” Malika said. “I look around me at these people who go about their lives as if nothing is happening, and I’m horrified.”
Even Malika’s ex-husband, with whom she shares a son, is “on the other side of the divide” when it comes to his views on the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine has severed his country from the Western world. It’s also created a rift within Russian society, pitting countrymen against each other and siloing them more than ever into information bubbles.
Although the accuracy of polling in Russia is often questioned, the survey results — whether from independent, state-financed or leaked secret surveys by the Kremlin — all suggest a majority of the Russian population supports the war, or at least is prepared to accept it as a fact of life.
From exile, independent Russian-language media continue to produce critical news, taking advantage of platforms such as YouTube and Telegram. Though they claim to cater mainly to people still inside Russia, they admit that in doing so they are mostly trying to retain their old audience.
Expanding that audience to pro-Kremlin Russians is a Herculean task: Just as opposition-leaning Russians eschew state television, those who support the Kremlin consume state-funded media as their main source of news, or follow a selection of pro-war channels on social media.
A woman embraces a Russian soldier in Moscow | Yuri Kadobnov/AFP via Getty Images
In real life, however, the bubbles overlap. The fault line runs through families, friends and workplaces.
For decades, Dmitry, a 45-year-old director who opposes the war, would gather with his longtime friends around Christmas time. This year he wasn’t invited to the reunion. “They know how I think, so in their own way they were trying to avoid an uncomfortable situation,” he said.
Similarly, a young female designer who asked to remain anonymous said she cut contact with her mother for months because the latter kept sending her links to pro-war YouTube videos.
“My family is like a microcosm of Russia as a whole and I don’t know how to live with it,” she said. “There is a complete lack of understanding between us, as if we’re from different planets.”
For Russian authorities, the societal divide is cause for celebration, as the result of their years-long concerted effort to marginalize opposition sentiment.
On Thursday, the Kremlin branded Meduza, by far the most-read independent news outlet among young Russians, an “undesirable organization.” Russians who share a link to an article now risk a fine or even criminal prosecution.
Nevertheless, there is still room for isolated acts of protest, as long as they stay within strict parameters.
In recent weeks, improvised memorials like that at the statue in Moscow to the victims of the strike on Dnipro, which killed аt least 46 civilians, have popped up in cities across Russia. Those like Malika who bring flowers or toys are largely left alone.
But the moment the sentiment is put into words, allowing bystanders to catch on to the message and perhaps even join in, the authorities move in.
A video widely circulated on social media showed a young woman named Yekaterina Varenik as she was detained by police after holding up a handwritten sign at the Moscow memorial. Before she was escorted off, she was allowed to deposit a red carnation at the statue, but not the sign.
On the video, a police officer can be heard repeating the words on the sign — “Ukrainians are not our enemies, but our brothers” — into his phone, presumably informing his superiors on the other end of the line.
A Moscow court later handed Varenik a 12-day prison sentence and a fine.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a political analyst whom authorities have labeled a “foreign agent,” said Varenik’s fate was illustrative of where Russia stands today.
“In the context of the war and at risk of prosecution, the simple expression of compassion has become an act of civil resistance,” he added.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

January 24, 2023