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Thursday, 7 December 2023

Biden calls on Congress to pass Ukraine aid: ‘We can’t let Putin win’


President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he is willing to make “significant compromises” on border policy in exchange for funding for Ukraine and Israel.

“We need to fix the broken border system — it is broken,” Biden said from the White House ahead of a Senate procedural vote on his national security supplemental that Republicans plan to filibuster over a dispute on immigration policy. “Thus far, I’ve got no response.”

The president tried to elevate the stakes of the vote on his $106 billion supplemental spending plan, warning that a failure would send a dire message to Ukraine and European allies about the level of U.S. support for the embattled country.

“We can’t let [Russian President Vladimir] Putin win. It’s in our overwhelming national interest, in the international interest of all our friends,” he said.

Weeks ago, Republicans insisted on border policy changes in exchange for backing Ukraine and Israel funding, which many of them support.

“It’s take everything we have here — their one proposal, which is extreme — or nothing,” Biden said. “They walked away.”

Progressives Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, have strongly resisted giving away border policy — such as making it harder for migrants to claim asylum or easier for a future president to close the border — in exchange for Biden’s foreign policy agenda.

Biden did not say how the administration or congressional Democrats would proceed once the Senate vote was held, except that he would likely address reporters afterward: “We’ll know where we go from there.”

Republicans have framed their expected opposition Wednesday as a message to express how serious they are about addressing what they call a crisis at the U.S. border. Biden dismissed the effort as “playing chicken with our national security.”

Biden warned that if Congress doesn’t defend Ukraine now, the United States risked having to put boots on the ground if Putin invades a NATO country.

“If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there,” Biden said. “If “Putin attacks a NATO ally — if he keeps going and then he attacks a NATO ally — we’ve committed as a NATO member to defend every inch of NATO territory, and we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today.”

Biden's remarks reflect his latest warning to get his emergency funding request for Ukraine across the finish line. On Monday, White House budget chief Shalanda Young sent congressional leaders a letter warning that inaction before the end of the year on funding threatens to “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield.”



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US files war crime charges against Russians accused of torturing an American in the Ukraine invasion


WASHINGTON — Four Russian men accused of torturing an American during the invasion of Ukraine have been charged with war crimes in a case that's the first of its kind, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

It marks the first prosecution against members of the Russian armed forces in connection with atrocities during their war against Ukraine and the first time the Justice Department has brought charges under a nearly 30-year-old statute that makes it a crime to commit torture or inhumane treatment during a war.

The charges are largely symbolic for now given the unlikely prospects of the Justice Department bringing any of the four defendants — currently all fugitives — into custody. But U.S. officials described the case as a history-making moment in their ongoing investigation into Russian war crimes, and they foreshadowed the potential that more charges could be coming.

“This is our first, and you should expect more,” Attorney General General Merrick Garland said in announcing the case at a Justice Department news conference.

He said the department and the American people have a long memory: "We will not forget the atrocities in Ukraine. And we will never stop working to bring those responsible to justice.”

The four Russians are identified as members of the Russian armed forces or its proxy units. Two of them are described as commanding officers.

The Russians are accused of kidnapping an American man from his home in a Ukrainian village in 2022. The American was beaten and interrogated while being held for 10 days at a Russian military compound, before eventually being evacuated with his wife, who's Ukrainian, U.S. authorities said.

The American told federal agents who had traveled to Ukraine last year as part of an investigation that the Russian soldiers had abducted him, stripped him naked, pointed a gun at his head and badly beaten him, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

He was also subjected to harsh interrogation methods, threatened with sexual assault and forced to participate in his own mock execution, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Eastern District of Virginia.

“The evidence gathered by our agents speaks to the brutality, criminality, and depravity of Russia’s invasion,” Mayorkas said.

Homeland Security and FBI investigators interviewed the American, his family and others who were around the village of Mylove around the time of the kidnapping to identify the four Russians, Mayorkas said.

"Cases like this one are among the most complex the FBI works, but bringing them is essential to deterring crimes like these and showing would-be perpetrators that no one is above the law and the war crimes will not go unpunished,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

Garland has been outspoken on war crimes in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began in February 2022, and the Justice Department assigned federal prosecutors to examine the potential of bringing criminal charges.

Independent human rights experts backed by the United Nations have said they’ve found continued evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces, including torture that ended in death and rape of women aged up to 83 years old.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia doesn’t recognize the ICC and considers its decisions “legally void.” He called the court’s move “outrageous and unacceptable.”

The United States is not a member of the ICC, but the Justice Department has been cooperating with it and supporting Ukrainian prosecutors as they carry out their own war crime investigations.

The four defendants are identified as Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan and Dmitry Budnik, both of whom are described by prosecutors as commanding officers in Russia's armed forces, as well as two lower-ranking officers identified only by their first names.

All four were fighting on behalf of Russia in its war against Ukraine and are identified in the indictment as either members of the armed forces or military units from the Donestk People's Republic. After invading Ukraine, Moscow in September 2022 illegally annexed parts of the Donetsk region and three other Ukrainian regions under its control as part of Russia.

The charges come as the Biden administration, in an effort to show continued support for Ukraine during a separate war between Israel and Hamas, is pressing Congress to approve military and economic aid for Kyiv’s war effort.

The U.S. and Russia do not have an extradition treaty, but the Justice Department has brought repeated criminal cases against Russian nationals, most notably for cyber crimes and including for interference in the 2016 presidential election. In some of those cases, the defendants have been taken into custody by American officials, such as when they’ve traveled outside Russia.



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Wednesday, 6 December 2023

Supreme Court unlikely to launch preemptive strike on wealth tax proposals


The Supreme Court on Tuesday sounded skeptical of a conservative-backed bid to preemptively block Congress from ever passing a tax on wealth.

Conservative and liberal justices asked tough questions of a lawyer representing a Washington state couple seeking to throw out a one-time “repatriation” tax on big companies’ overseas earnings. That tax is an arcane but important provision of Republicans’ 2017 tax bill, which largely cut taxes.

But some wealthy Americans and pro-business groups are hoping to use the case as a vehicle to kill off much more than the repatriation tax. They have urged a broad ruling that would slam the legal door on any prospect of a wealth tax — a proposal that is gaining popularity on the left but also raises constitutional questions.

The court took the case in June amid intense scrutiny of some conservative justices’ relationships with billionaires who use their fortunes to advance political agendas focused on lowering taxes and reining in the role of the federal government.

But on Tuesday, the justices repeatedly questioned the distinctions a lawyer for the taxpayers, Andrew Grossman, attempted to draw between the repatriation tax and other taxes that have long been on the books.

“Why is this any different?” Justice Elena Kagan asked. “There’s a long, century-old history of these kinds of taxes.”

However, some GOP-appointed justices — particularly Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito — seemed wary of an unalloyed victory for the government and appeared to be pushing for an outcome that would preserve latitude for the court to limit federal taxing powers in a future case.

Gorsuch told Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar that the government’s arguments seemed to allow federal authorities to declare almost anything to be income and tax it.

“I’m just asking what the limits of your argument are, and it seems to me there are none,” he said, saying that was a “big door” he was unwilling to leave open.

“That door is already open,” Prelogar responded, citing a series of Supreme Court precedents giving the federal government broad authority to tax various kinds of investments.

By the end of the two-hour-long argument session, the justices seemed to be leaning toward a narrow ruling for the government, with Gorsuch repeatedly asking Prelogar how they might craft a decision in her favor that puts aside some of the thornier issues raised by the case.

Earlier this year, Alito took the unusual step of publicly rejecting calls for him to step aside from the tax case because of his ties to one of the lawyers representing the Washington couple.

The lawyer, David Rivkin, interviewed Alito on a couple of occasions earlier this year for the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. In a four-page statement released in September, Alito turned down calls from Democratic lawmakers for him to recuse based on the interviews and his relationship with Rivkin.

Rivkin did not argue the case Tuesday, leaving that task to Grossman. Both are partners at Ohio-based law firm BakerHostetler. Rivkin was on hand and sat quietly at the far end of the table assigned to counsel for the taxpayers.

At one point, Alito seemed to go out of his way to emphasize that he was seeking to deal fairly with the arguments presented by both sides. He was also the only justice to allude to news reports about the case, which have generally focused on its potential to act as a preemptive strike against a future wealth tax.

“One of the arguments that you press most strongly, and certainly it has resonated a lot in the coverage of this case, is that the adoption of the petitioners’ arguments would have far-reaching consequences,” Alito said to Prelogar. “So, do you think it is fair then to explore what the consequences of your argument would be?”

The court doesn’t take many tax cases, and even fewer like this one that raise questions of what counts as income.

The couple, Charles and Kathleen Moore, complain the repatriation tax triggered a $15,000 tax bill on an investment in an Indian power tool company on which they never received any income. They say the company plowed all of its earnings back into its operations. That makes the repatriation tax a levy on property, not income, they argue, and federal property taxes are effectively banned by the Constitution.

If the court were to throw out the repatriation tax, big companies could receive billions in tax refunds, perhaps with interest. And a broad ruling could also preempt any possibility of Congress adopting wealth tax proposals pushed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressives. Backed by a phalanx of conservative groups, the Moores had asked the court to specifically take up the case to foreclose the possibility of a wealth tax.

At the same time, tax watchers are concerned the justices — who are no experts in the arcana of taxation — could inadvertently blow big holes in the code if they don’t tread carefully. These observers point to a number of long-standing provisions in the code that tax people before they actually receive income, typically in the name of trying to prevent people from dodging the IRS. Many have warned that a sweeping ruling against taxes on “unrealized gains” could throw into legal doubt scads of other sections of the code.

The government pressed on those concerns Tuesday, pointing to a long history of taxes going back to the inauguration of the income tax. Prelogar said it's difficult to draw lines between those provisions and the repatriation tax. A ruling for the Moores would create havoc, she argued.

“It would cause a sea change in the operation of the tax code and cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue,” she said.

Alito noted that the tax in question covers income dating back 30 years, and he questioned whether at some point a tax purportedly on income might functionally be one on wealth.

“Let’s say somebody graduates from school and starts up a little business in his garage, and 20 years later, 30 years later, that person is a billionaire,” Alito said. “Under your argument, can Congress tax all of that on the ground that is income?”

Prelogar called that a “harder question,” adding, “We don't have the same tradition to support Congress levying income taxes in that manner.”

Among the court’s six Republican appointees, Justice Brett Kavanaugh sounded the most untroubled by the government’s position in the case. He dismissed some of his colleagues’ concerns about a broad-based wealth tax as ungrounded in political reality.

“On the proverbial open door … members of Congress want to get reelected,” Kavanaugh said, triggering laughter in the courtroom. “Some of the hypos — that's why they're far-fetched.”

A ruling in the case is expected by late June.



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University presidents defend efforts to combat antisemitism before House panel


Top university presidents defended their responses to antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war before Congress on Tuesday as they faced a grilling from lawmakers.

Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, acknowledged an “alarming” rise in antisemitism at the university amid the tensions that have roiled campuses across the country since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s military response in Gaza.

Gay has been under pressure from prominent donors, alumni, members of Congress and one of her predecessors over Harvard’s response to antisemitism and protests against Israel. On Tuesday, she defended her efforts to combat hate on campuses but also acknowledged some shortcomings.

“I’ve sought to confront hate while preserving free expression,” Gay said during a House hearing. “This is difficult work, and I know that I have not always gotten it right.”



Gay testified alongside the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and MIT at a House education committee hearing amid bipartisan concerns that many top higher education leaders haven’t done enough to stop hate on their campuses.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chair of the panel, told the presidents that “institutional antisemitism and hate are among the poisoned fruits of your institutions’ cultures.” Foxx and a slew of other Republicans sought to tie rising campus antisemitism to their longstanding complaints that higher education is too progressive and intolerant to conservative views.

All three university leaders detailed the efforts they’ve taken in recent weeks to bolster the physical safety of students on their campuses while also seeking to foster healthy debate and learning about the conflict.

Harvard and Penn are among the handful of universities and schools where the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights over the past several weeks have opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism.

Gay and Harvard were the focus for many Republicans on the panel, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y), who has called for her resignation.

In a testy exchange, Stefanik, a Harvard alum, pressed Gay over whether Harvard would punish students or applicants who advocate for the murder of Jews.

“That type of hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me,” Gay responded. She said the university had “robust policies” that hold individuals accountable when speech crosses into conduct, such as bullying, harassment or intimidation.

“We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression even to views that are objectionable, outrageous and offensive,” Gay said.

Lawmakers also scrutinized UPenn President Liz Magill’s response to the school’s participation in a “Palestine Writes Festival” in September. A complaint filed with the Education Department against UPenn cites the festival as a catalyst for antisemitic incidents on campus. She said antisemitic speech at the event was “abhorrent” to her and that the institution put safety precautions into place.



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Liz Cheney says she's considering a third-party presidential bid


Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney is mulling a third-party run for president and will decide in the next few months, she said in interviews published Tuesday while promoting her new book.

“I think that the situation that we're in is so grave, and the politics of the moment require independents and Republicans and Democrats coming together in a way that can help form a new coalition, so that may well be a third-party option," Cheney told USA TODAY.

The former Wyoming congresswoman told The Washington Post that in years past she would have not considered a third-party run, but now she thinks “democracy is at risk at home, obviously, as a result of Donald Trump’s continued grip on the Republican Party.”

A fierce critic of Trump, Cheney served as the vice chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, which sought to prove that the former president was responsible for the attack at the Capitol. Trump often lashed out at Cheney, and his political operation was key in her primary ousting in 2022.

The 2024 race has already garnered a few third-party challengers, including Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Democratic President Joe Biden and Trump are both relatively unpopular in potential 2024 polling match-ups, and another candidate entering the race would present another challenge for them to navigate while seeking the White House. POLITICO reported in October that Biden's campaign is taking third-party challengers seriously and planning counteroffensives.

This weekend, Cheney said she would rather see Democrats win the 2024 election than her own party.

“I don't know if our party can be saved,” Cheney said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe while promoting her new book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” on Tuesday. “We may need to build a new party.”



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Tuesday, 5 December 2023

Sen. Rick Scott demands answers over FSU snubbing as anger builds over college football pick


TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A raging controversy over the snubbing of a football team is becoming — you guessed it — a political football.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is demanding answers from the head of the College Football Playoff selection committee as to why Florida State University became the first undefeated team from a “Power 5” conference to be denied a chance to play in the annual event.

FSU had been in the running for the four-team playoff, but the committee on Sunday announced that it had chosen two one-loss teams — Texas and Alabama — ahead of the FSU team, the Seminoles. The decision ignited a firestorm in part because it appeared to be based on the injury of FSU’s star quarterback.

Even former President Donald Trump weighed in, posting on Truth Social that FSU was “treated very badly by the committee” and then added “really bad lobbying effort. … Let’s blame DeSanctimonious.” DeSantis and Trump are currently engaged in a fight to win the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Scott on Monday sent a three-page letter to Boo Corrigan, the chair of the selection committee asking for detailed information about the process used to deny FSU a spot in the playoffs.

Scott called the decision to slide FSU out of the playoffs “shocking” and he demanded “total transparency” for how the selection committee reached its conclusion. The team had been ranked fourth just a week before.

“There are countless other concerns and arguments that could be voiced here, but the main issue is the justified perception of an unfair system that has wrongly disregarded the known strengths of an undefeated team over the speculated impact of losing a single player,” Scott wrote. “While I doubt the committee’s decision will be reversed to rightly reward FSU for its hard-fought, undefeated season as the committee has done for other undefeated Power Five conference champions in recent years, I do believe that total transparency regarding how this decision was reached would do tremendous good for the committee, the CFP as a whole, and the college football community.”

Scott’s missive may be the first in a series of actions suggested or proposed by Florida politicians. Some state legislators have called for lawsuits, while Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in a social media post called the bypassing of FSU a “corrupt decision” driven by television money.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), an FSU alumnus, labeled the selection committee “trash” in a social media post. Gov. Ron DeSantis said in his own post on X, formally known as Twitter, that “what we learned today is that you can go undefeated and win your conference championship, but the College Football Playoff committee will ignore these results.”

In his letter, Scott pointed out that the decision to keep FSU out of the playoffs, while guaranteeing a spot to a team from the Southeastern Conference, would cost FSU and the Atlantic Coast Conference $2 million.

“While this is a significant amount of money, it is just a fraction of the total economic impact that playoff contention would have created for FSU,” Scott wrote. “Beyond the benefit to the university and its athletic program, the committee’s decision will also likely have profound impacts on the future earnings and opportunities for the players.”

FSU’s season included wins over two SEC teams — Louisiana State and the University of Florida — as well as wins over ACC rivals Clemson and a win in the ACC title game on Saturday. The team’s quarterback, Jordan Travis, suffered a season-ending leg injury in mid-November.

FSU still defeated the University of Florida Gators a week later with a backup quarterback and earned the number four spot in the penultimate playoff rankings. The team, however, was forced to turn to its third-string quarterback in the championship game against Louisville.

The committee, however, dropped FSU after Alabama defeated reigning national champion Georgia in the SEC championship. Alabama had lost earlier in the season to Texas, which the committee put in at the third spot.

In his request to Corrigan, Scott demanded emails, text messages and other communication between selection committee members, as well as any communication the members had with representatives of the SEC, the sports media outlet ESPN, and any else outside of the committee.

ESPN, which is owned by media conglomerate Disney and has exclusive rights to release the playoff rankings, has come under fire because many of its announcers and pundits publicly suggested FSU should be left out of the playoffs in favor of Alabama.

Scott also asked for vote sheets and notes or recordings from selection committee meetings.



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Former US ambassador charged with serving as agent for Cuba


The Justice Department charged a former State Department official for secretly serving as an agent for the Cuban government.

Federal prosecutors allege Victor Manuel Rocha, a 73-year-old resident of Miami, Fla., “secretly supported” Cuba and its clandestine intel-gathering efforts by serving as a covert agent of the country’s General Directorate of Intelligence.

“Rocha provided false and misleading information to the United States to maintain his secret mission; traveled outside the United States to meet with Cuban intelligence operatives; and made false and misleading statements to obtain travel documents,” the DOJ stated.

The DOJ said, when confronted by an undercover FBI agent within the last year, Rocha admitted his ties to the country's government and referred to the U.S. as “the enemy.”

Authorities charged Rocha with conspiracy to act as an agent of the foreign government, acting as an agent of a foreign government and using a passport obtained by a false statement. Rocha is expected to make a court appearance in Miami on Monday.

Rocha began serving on the National Security Council in 1994 and as the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia between 2000 and 2002.

Rocha’s actions come as several high-profile U.S. leaders have been charged or investigated for having improper relationships with other countries. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was charged with serving as an unregistered agent for Egypt and New York City Mayor Eric Adams is being investigated by the FBI to determine whether he conspired with the Turkish government during his 2021 mayoral campaign.

“This action exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.



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