“AUSTIN, Texas — A federal appeals court Friday night quickly allowed Texas to resume banning most abortions, just one day after clinics across the state began rushing to serve patients again for the first time since early September.
Abortion providers in Texas had been bracing for the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals to act fast, even as they booked new appointments and reopened their doors during a brief reprieve from the law known as Senate Bill 8, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, suspended the Texas law that he called an “offensive deprivation” of the constitutional right to an abortion. But in a one-page order, the New Orleans-based appeals court temporarily set aside Pitman’s ruling for now while it considers the state’s appeal.
The court gave the Biden administration, which had brought the lawsuit, until Tuesday to respond.”
“A sweeping overhaul of global corporate tax rules took a major step forward Friday, as 136 nations backed a 15 percent minimum levy on profits and a new approach to tackling the most successful companies of the Internet economy.
The agreement, announced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, included countries accounting for more than 90 percent of world output.
Importantly, the accord was joined by several low-tax jurisdictions that had resisted the deal, such as Ireland, Hungary and Estonia. All members of the Group of 20 nations and the OECD have signed on, capping more than six years of diplomatic bargaining.
‘Virtually the entire global economy has decided to end the race to the bottom on corporate taxation,’ said Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who negotiated the pact. ‘Rather than competing on our ability to offer low corporate rates, America will now compete on the skills of our workers and our capacity to innovate, which is a race we can win.’
Friday’s announcement, potentially the most significant shift in global taxation in a century, updates a July agreement that had been backed by 130 nations. The tax changes still must be turned into legislation and passed by each of the participating countries, including the United States.” Read more at Washington Post
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday vowed that Republicans will not offer any more assistance to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. In a letter sent to President Biden, McConnell made clear he would be willing to allow the United States to default on its national debt rather than work with Democrats.
The letter came a day after the Senate passed a bill on a party-line vote to raise the nation’s debt ceiling through early December, temporarily staving off a potential government shutdown and default. McConnell and Biden also spoke about the matter by phone Friday, said a person familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to confirm a private phone call.
In the letter to Biden, McConnell took credit on behalf of Republicans for having ‘filled the leadership vacuum,’ likely referring to the handful of GOP senators who had helped advance Thursday’s measure procedurally. No Republican senators ultimately supported the final measure, which passed on a 50-to-48 vote.
After the vote Thursday night, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the Senate floor to praise the result — and to blast Republicans for what he described as a ‘risky drama.’ What had been avoided, Schumer said, was ‘a first-ever, Republican-manufactured default on the national debt.’
‘Republicans played a dangerous and risky partisan game, and I am glad that their brinksmanship did not work,’ Schumer added. ‘For the good of America’s families, for the good of our economy, Republicans must recognize in the future that they should approach fixing the debt limit in a bipartisan way.’
McConnell said that Schumer’s speech had ‘poisoned the well even further’ and indicated that, when the issue arises again in December, Democrats should not bank on any Republican help.
‘Last night, in a bizarre spectacle, Senator Schumer exploded in a rant that was so partisan, angry, and corrosive that even Democratic Senators were visibly embarrassed by him and for him,’ McConnell wrote. ‘This childish behavior only further alienated the Republican members who helped facilitate this short-term patch.’
Representatives for the White House and for Schumer’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday night.
The Republicans’ opposition to raising the debt ceiling in a bipartisan manner had for weeks frustrated Schumer and his fellow Democrats, who repeatedly pointed out that the debt ceiling covered past spending, including bipartisan initiatives to respond to the coronavirus pandemic enacted last year. But the entreaties failed to loosen the GOP blockade until McConnell offered a roughly two-month extension after meeting with his conference Wednesday.
That deal drew attacks from former president Donald Trump, who mocked McConnell’s offer as a weak surrender.
‘Looks like Mitch McConnell is folding to the Democrats, again,’ Trump said in a statement Thursday. ‘He’s got all of the cards with the debt ceiling, it’s time to play the hand. Don’t let them destroy our Country!’
On Friday, McConnell told Biden that Democrats would need to raise the debt ceiling in December through the process of reconciliation, which would not require Republican votes.
“Your lieutenants on Capitol Hill now have the time they claimed they lacked to address the debt ceiling through standalone reconciliation, and all the tools to do it. They cannot invent another crisis and ask for my help,” McConnell wrote.
Many Democrats had been calling to change the Senate’s filibuster rules to raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation, but faced resistance within their own party — most notably from Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who on Thursday could be seen reacting to Schumer’s floor speech by placing his head in his hands.
Manchin joined the Republican chorus to criticize Schumer’s speech afterward.
‘I didn’t think it was appropriate at this time,’ Manchin told CNN’s Manu Raju late Thursday as he left the Capitol. ‘I just think that basically what we’ve got to do is find a pathway forward, to make sure that we de-weaponize. We have to de-weaponize.’
Manchin did not elaborate when asked how the Senate would raise the debt ceiling come December if Republicans once again refused to cooperate but suggested he was still opposed to eliminating the filibuster rules.” Read more at Washington Post
“WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's administration Friday formally rejected the first attempt by former President Donald Trump to withhold White House documents from a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It sets up a possible legal fight to decide whether the records are ultimately released.
In a letter to the National Archives obtained by USA TODAY, White House Counsel Dana Remus wrote that ‘President Biden has determined that any assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interest of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents.’
‘As President Biden has stated,’ Remus continued, ‘the insurrection that took place on January 6, and the extraordinary events surrounding it, must be subject to a full accounting to ensure nothing similar ever happens again.’
Trump has claimed executive privilege over a wide range of documents sought by the Jan. 6 Select Committee detailing communications and activities of his aides as the Capitol came under attack by Trump supporters. The committee has requested documents from several federal departments and agencies including the National Archives, the custodian of White House records.
Trump responded in a letter to the Archives Friday, saying the committee requested an ‘extremely broad set of documents and records, potentially numbering in the millions.’ He said the requests ‘unquestionably contain’ information protected by executive and other privileges such as presidential communications, deliberative process and attorney-client privileges.
He cited more than 50 documents sought by the select committee he claims are protected by executive privilege, vowing to take ‘all necessary and appropriate steps to defend the Office of the Presidency’ if the committee seeks other privileged information.
‘This Committee's fake investigation is not about January 6th any more than the Russia Hoax was about Russia,’ Trump said in a statement. ‘Instead, this is about using the power of the government to silence 'Trump' and our Make America Great Again movement, the greatest such achievement of all time.’
Trump and some of his top allies are defying the investigation with some Trump advisors such as Steve Bannon challenging subpoenas as part of an effort to delay the probe. Trump aides have also cited executive privilege in their refusal to comply with the subpoenas that asked them to produce relevant documents by Jan. 7.
The White House has said it would not be appropriate for Biden to assert executive privilege to block the release of the initial tranche of documents sought by the select committee, a bipartisan House panel made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans.
‘The president is dedicated to ensuring that something like [Jan. 6] could never happen again, which is why the administration is cooperating with ongoing investigations including the January 6 Select Committee to bring to light what happened as a part of this process,’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.
Psaki added that it is an ‘ongoing process’ and noted that this is just the first set of documents.
‘We will evaluate questions of privilege on a case by case basis,’ she said.
Executive privilege fight could end up in court
Jonathan Shaub, an assistant professor of law at the University of Kentucky, said Trump may decide to sue the National Archives but he faces an uphill legal battle.
A Supreme Court ruling in 1977 found that while executive privilege ‘survives the individual President's tenure,’ it ‘must be presumed that the incumbent President is vitally concerned with and in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch.’
But the Supreme Court did not hold that an incumbent president's decision always takes precedence over the former president's claim. As a result, the law in this area remains unsettled, according to Shaub, which could result in a lengthy court challenge that could ultimately delay the investigation.
‘Litigation by Trump could thus very easily frustrate the committee’s ability to get information for a substantial period of time,’ Shaub said.
The Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters led to injuries of more than 150 Capitol police officers and five deaths. It came before members of Congress counted electoral votes that certified Biden's election victory over Trump. More than 600 rioters have been charged with federal crimes.
Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University School of Law, said Biden's position fits within precedent of the executive branch, but emphasized the case is ‘so historically momentous.’” Read more at USA Today
“WASHINGTON — The select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot threatened on Friday to pursue criminal charges against Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald J. Trump, for refusing to comply with its subpoena, announcing it would consider initiating contempt of Congress proceedings.
In a statement after Mr. Bannon informed the panel that he would not cooperate in the inquiry, the panel’s leaders said they would ‘swiftly consider’ a criminal contempt referral, raising the prospect of what could be a prolonged legal battle over what could be crucial evidence in the investigation.
The committee has ordered four former Trump administration officials — Mr. Bannon; Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; Dan Scavino Jr., a deputy chief of staff; and Kash Patel, a Pentagon chief of staff — to sit for depositions and furnish documents and other materials relevant to its investigation.
Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel have had some communication with the committee, according to the joint statement issued on Friday by Representatives Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman. Mr. Scavino had not been served the subpoena until Friday, Politico reported.” Read more at New York Times
“Donald Trump is sending the clearest signals yet that he’s planning another presidential run in 2024 as he heads to Iowa for a rally this weekend.
The Saturday event in the first-in-the-nation caucus state is the latest sign the former president is gearing up for a third White House bid as he also doles out midterm endorsements, hires aides in places like Iowa and boasts in media interviews of what he sees as a glide path to victory in a 2024 GOP primary.
After it was reported this week that aides had to hold him back from officially announcing a bid, Republicans are viewing a Trump candidacy as a near certainty.” Read more at The Hill
“WASHINGTON — Despite all the Republican-paid political events and big bar tabs from lobbyists, foreign dignitaries and other supporters of President Donald J. Trump, the Trump International Hotel in Washington lost an estimated $74 million between 2016 and 2020, according to data released on Friday by House investigators.
The tally came from Mr. Trump’s own auditors, showing losses that generally increased through his tenure in the White House, even as Mr. Trump’s annual financial disclosure reports showed revenues of more than $40 million a year, at least until the pandemic hit.
The new account of revenues and annual losses at the hotel — which is in a federally owned landmark known as the Old Post Office building — was released as House Democrats push the Biden administration to turn over additional documents to determine if Mr. Trump broke federal rules by continuing to operate the hotel through his family while serving as president.
‘The documents provided by G.S.A. raise new and troubling questions about former President Trump’s lease,’ said a letter sentFriday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee to the General Services Administration, asking for more information.
The materials released by House investigators estimated that the hotel also generated nearly $3.8 million in revenue from foreign government officials during the first three years Mr. Trump was in office, be it hotel stays or meals or other business. The president drew in foreign dignitaries who often liked to be seen at his hotel, at times even meeting with Mr. Trump’s aides at the complex.
Millions more were spent by the Republican National Committee and various election campaigns and other political groups backing Republican candidates, or supporting Mr. Trump’s re-election efforts, Federal Election Commission reports show. During his presidency, the Trump hotel became a showcase of special-interest lobbying and maneuvering by allies of Mr. Trump to draw his attention or support.
Still, the overall message was that the Trump International Hotel, despite all the headlines, is a money-losing operation, said David J. Sangree, an accountant who runs a firm, Hotel & Leisure Advisors, that evaluates hotel industry performance and who looked at the audited reports at the request of The New York Times.
‘You would expect a hotel in Washington, D.C., to earn a profit,’ he said.
The Trump family often has various ways of counting revenues and losses, for example presenting one set of figures suggesting losses to property tax authorities in an effort to reduce tax bills and giving another to the public that suggests higher returns reflecting well on Mr. Trump’s business acumen.
Prosecutors in New York are already investigating whether Mr. Trump essentially keeps two separate sets of books: one with glowing numbers that banks and insurers received and another bleaker set of data for tax collectors.” Read more at New York Times
“Two parents were found guilty in federal court in Boston on Friday for participating in a bribery scheme to have their children fraudulently admitted as athletic recruits to some of the most prestigious universities in the country.
Gamal Abdelaziz, a former casino executive, and John Wilson, a private equity financier, were the first people to stand trial in the federal investigation known as Operation Varsity Blues.
The investigation has snared more than 50 parents, coaches, exam administrators and others in an admissions scheme that implicated college athletic programs at the University of Southern California, Yale, Stanford, Wake Forest and Georgetown. Many other wealthy parents, including some celebrities, have pleaded guilty rather than take their chances in court.
Mr. Abdelaziz, 64, was accused of paying $300,000 in 2018 to have his daughter admitted to U.S.C. as a top-ranked basketball recruit even though she did not make the varsity team in high school. Mr. Wilson, 62, was accused of paying $220,000 in 2014 to have his son admitted as a water polo recruit at U.S.C. His son did play water polo, but prosecutors said he was not good enough to compete at the university.” Read more at New York Times
“President Biden on Friday signed a declaration committing the U.S. to accept up to 125,000 refugees for the coming fiscal year, formalizing an earlier promise that allows funds to be released to help resettle them.
The ambitious announcement comes as the White House resettled just 11,411 refugees at the close of the fiscal year last week, the lowest figure in the history of the U.S. refugee program and one that failed to top the 11,814 low-point set under Trump.
While making good on a campaign promise, the commitment comes as refugee resettlement agencies have been told to expect as many as 95,000 Afghan refugees this coming year following the U.S. evacuation.
Biden notified Congress of his recommendation to set the refugee cap at 125,000 for the coming fiscal year in September.
But the report seems to express some internal doubt about the government’s ability to meet that goal. It told Congress that the State Department would issue funding for 65,000 refugees.” Read more at The Hill
“MADISON, Wis. — Federal prosecutors announced Friday that they won't file charges against a white police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin last year — a shooting that sparked protests that led to the deaths of two men.
Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Blake, who is Black, during a domestic disturbance in Kenosha in August 2020. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down and sparked several nights of protests, some of which turned violent. An Illinois man shot three people, killing two of them, during one of the demonstrations.
State prosecutors decided not to file charges against Sheskey earlier this year after video showed that Blake, who was wanted on a felony warrant, was armed with a knife.
The U.S. Department of Justice launched its own investigation days after the shooting.” Read more at USA Today
“The political battle in Florida over masks in schools escalated this week, as the state Board of Education voted to authorize sanctions on eight local school districts for not following instructions from Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration that make masks optional.
The eight districts, whose boards all voted to require masks in school buildings, could face cutbacks equal to their school board members’ salaries unless, according to the Tampa Bay Times, they show within 48 hours that they are in compliance with state orders. The districts are in Alachua, Brevard, Broward, Duval, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach Counties.
The measure was approved unanimously during a conference call meeting on Thursday by the State Board of Education, all of whose members are appointees by Republican governors. The vote came after superintendents from the eight districts argued their mask policies had been effective at curbing the spread of the virus.
After the vote, one of the superintendents, Alberto M. Carvalho of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, noted on Twitter there had been ‘no major outbreaks’ in his district and that student cases had been declining after a spike in early September.” Read more at New York Times
“Small but significant: The Biden White House will be the first to officially commemorate Indigenous Peoples' Day this upcoming Monday.
Why it matters: This gives White House backing to efforts to refocus the federal holiday celebrating Christopher Columbus toward an appreciation of Native peoples, AP notes.
Biden also issued a Columbus Day proclamation, noting injustices against Indigenous peoples: ‘It is a measure of our greatness as a Nation that we do not seek to bury these shameful episodes of our past.’
Changing Columbus Day would require an act of Congress.
Biden's Indigenous Peoples' Day proclamation honored Native Americans for their commitment to the U.S. military, and in fighting COVID.
It also recognized U.S. injustices against those it now honors:
For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures. Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples' resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.
The bottom line: Biden is pivoting from former President Trump, who last year denounced ‘radical activists [that] have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy.’” Read more at Axios
“WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia has a ready retort to fellow Democrats who say shrinking the party’s social safety net bill will mean depriving vulnerable populations of critical resources: Limit access to every program in the ambitious measure to only those Americans who need it most.
But Mr. Manchin’s idea holds little appeal for Democrats like Representative Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and mother of four whose largely upper middle-class district in New Jersey voted narrowly for Donald J. Trump in 2016, then sent her to the House in 2018 after 34 years of Republican representation.
Last month, Ms. Sherrill successfully amended the House’s version of the Build Back Better Act to do the opposite of what Mr. Manchin is demanding on a centerpiece of the bill: a child care subsidy to help parents get back to work in a pandemic-ravaged economy.
In the original plan, more than $200 billion in child care benefits were limited to families making up to 200 percent of a state’s median income. Ms. Sherrill made the benefit almost universal.
‘For my constituents, building a generational new system of affordable child care that will finally help working parents enter the work force, and then excluding them from it will represent a severe blow to their faith in the federal government,’ she said.
‘New Jersey already pays more than $10 billion in taxes than we receive in federal spending,’ Ms. Sherrill added, ‘and I will not let another federal program pay less to New Jersey tax payers than it does to all other Americans.’
Her position reflects the dilemma Democrats face as they contemplate shrinking 10 years and $3.5 trillion of climate and social safety net programs into a likely size of around $2 trillion. At heart, as they work to unite around President Biden’s signature domestic policy package, Democrats are debating the meaning of government itself, and which citizens should benefit from the taxes almost all of them pay.
They are also clashing over how best to get Americans to embrace an expansion of the safety net. With Republicans routinely bashing them as the party of the rich, Democrats may have a hard time defending a plan that lavishes benefits on the leafy suburbs of Montclair and Chatham, N.J. But they also know that the most popular government programs — and the most stable ones — have been those broadly enjoyed, even by the upper reaches of the middle class, such as Social Security and Medicare.
Liberal Democrats, as well as some from politically competitive districts like Ms. Sherrill’s, argue that the bill’s benefits should be available to everyone. That would mean fewer programs — but more comprehensive ones.
‘We don’t ask parents, when they send a child to first grade, how much money they make. We say bring that child in, and we’re going to do the best we can to give her a first-rate education,’ Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said. She added, ‘We build roads and bridges without asking who should be allowed to ride on them. We say everyone rides, because it makes us all better off.’
Mr. Manchin and some other conservative-leaning Democrats whose support could prove pivotal in passing the bill say that with federal spending already at unsustainable levels, something has to give, and federal programs like Medicaid, food stamps and welfare have been ‘means tested’ for a half a century.
‘I think we should still be a compassionate, rewarding society,’ Mr. Manchin said on Wednesday, then added, ‘but compassion means taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves, whether they’re young, whether they have some type of a challenge in life, whether it be mental or physical. Those are the responsibilities that we have.’
In a private memo outlining Mr. Manchin’s stance on the multitrillion-dollar package, he called for any new spending related to ‘families and health’ to be ‘needs-based with means-testing guardrails.’ His position could curtail efforts to expand Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing care, to expand universal public school to prekindergarten and two years of community college, and to make federally paid family and medical leave available even to employees of companies that already provide paid leave.
His goal, Mr. Manchin later said, was to avoid ‘basically changing our whole society to an entitlement mentality.’
Mr. Manchin’s language has inflamed tensions within the Democratic caucus. Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, declared: ‘I believe that seniors having teeth in their mouth, or children having child care is not entitlement. It’s justice.’” Read more at New York Times
“A Massachusetts man who attempted to scam the government out of more than half a million dollars in coronavirus relief funds intended to help small businesses stay afloat, then faked his own suicide, was sentenced to 56 months in prison, federal prosecutors said.
David Staveley, 54, of Andover, was the first man in the U.S. charged for COVID business loan fraud when he was arrested, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Staveley and his accomplice, David Butziger, 53, of Rhode Island, claimed to have dozens of employees earning wages at four different businesses. But they did not own the businesses and there were no employees working for them, prosecutors said. The pair submitted applications for nearly $543,7778 in funds shortly after the small business loan program was announced.” Read more at USA Today
“KABUL, Afghanistan — An Islamic State suicide bomber devastated a Shiite mosque in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on Friday, killing dozens of worshipers in a deadly continuation of the terrorist group’s campaign against the Hazara minority.
The massacre, while the mosque was crowded for Friday Prayer, was the group’s second attack against a mosque in just a few days. And it was the realization of Afghan Hazaras’ fears that the Islamic State’s predation would go unchecked under the rule of the Taliban, which itself preyed on the Hazara in the past.
Witness accounts described a powerful explosion with many casualties. Matullah Rohani, a Taliban official in Kunduz, told local media that at least 43 people were killed by the attack and more than 140 were injured.
A local Shiite community leader put the death toll much higher. Sayed Ahmad Shah Hashemi, who represents Kunduz Province’s Shiite population, told The New York Times that more than 70 people were killed in the attack.” Read more at New York Times
“Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden used a racial trope to describe the chief of the NFL Players Association in a 2011 email. A review of other emails in the same thread didn’t make clear what prompted Gruden’s comment about DeMaurice Smith. Gruden, one of the biggest coaching stars in professional football, said he couldn’t specifically recall writing the email but apologized.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
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