US onAir- 1/21/22

US onAir- 1/21/22

News

Progressive leaders are staring down what they consider the biggest emergency for abortion rights in half a century — and they fear that both Democratic voters and elected officials are failing to appreciate the threat of a world without Roe v. Wade.

The ripple effects of an anticipated Supreme Court ruling scaling back or eliminating the right to an abortion would go beyond the most conservative parts of the country and also hit the blue states that have already become havens for people fleeing a host of new restrictive laws.

Since Texas’ near total abortion ban took effect in September, for example, thousands of people have traveled to neighboring states as well as places as far away as California, Illinois and Washington D.C. to have an abortion, overwhelming clinics and delaying timely care for people in those areas.

“People look at Texas and Mississippi and think: ‘I’m sitting pretty in my blue state. That’s their problem,’” said Kristin Ford, the vice president of communications and research at NARAL. “But when you have a wave of people coming across state lines, that’s going to strain the health care system in your state. Our fates are intertwined.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “met with a severe and a united response” following his meeting Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the latest round of diplomatic talks that Blinken said provided a “clearer path of understanding each others’ concerns.”

Blinken’s meeting with Lavrov came two days after President Joe Biden muddled the US message of severe consequences for Russia, saying at a press conference that a “minor incursion” might not trigger the same response from NATO as an invasion. Biden clarified Thursday that any Russian troops crossing Ukraine’s border would constitute an invasion.

Blinken held a 90-minute bilateral meeting Friday in Geneva with Lavrov, in which the US sought to convince Russia to de-escalate the situation at the Ukrainian border where Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops. Blinken said that the meeting was “not a negotiation,” just like last week’s talks between NATO and the West.

“We didn’t expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are on a clearer path in terms of understanding each other’s concerns, each others’ positions,” Blinken said at a press conference after the meeting. “Let’s see what the next days bring.”

The committee investigating the deadly Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021, has issued scores of subpoenas to individuals and organizations as part of its probe into circumstances and coordination leading up to the storming of the US Capitol.

And the panel has sent letters requesting that others voluntarily appear or provide information.
From targeting some of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies both in the White House and from the Trump campaign, to key organizers of the rally and events preceding the January 6 attack, the committee has shown a keen interest in deciphering what role Trump and his orbit played in spreading misinformation about the presidential election results and how that misinformation fueled the January 6 attack.
Here’s a look at the key figures and organizations contacted by the committee:

Contacted for voluntary interviews

  • Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader
  • Jim Jordan, House lawmaker
  • Scott Perry, House lawmaker
  • Sean Hannity, Fox host
  • Ivanka Trump, the former President’s daughter and former senior White House adviser
PBS NewsHour live episode, Jan. 21, 2022
CNN, January 21, 2022 – 6:00 pm (ET)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/blinken-lavrov-geneva-meeting-ukraine/index.html

Today onAir
CNN, Chris Cillizza,

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/trump-giuliani-january-6-2020/index.html

Vice President Harris and Secretary Vilsack speak on wildfire preparedness in California
CNN, January 21, 2022 – 5:00 pm (ET)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/mitch-mcconnell-civil-rights-comment/index.html

President Joe Biden gives remarks at U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting
Politico, January 21, 2022 – 2:30 pm (ET)

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2022/01/20/our-fates-are-intertwined-abortion-rights-activists-warn-roes-fall-will-hit-blue-states-1406288

White House COVID task force holds news briefing
CNN, January 21, 2022 – 1:00 pm (ET)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/trump-giuliani-january-6-2020/index.html

Donald Trump’s hands are all over the coup attempt
CNN, Chris CillizzaJanuary 21, 2022

With each passing day, it seems, new revelations come to light that suggest how intimately involved then-President Donald Trump and his advisers were in the coup attempt leading up to the events of January 6, 2021.

The latest bombshell came Thursday night when CNN reported that Trump lawyer and confidant Rudy Giuliani, as well as other Trump campaign aides, spearheaded the efforts to gather alternate electors in seven swing states in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
As CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Zachary Cohen and Dan Merica write:
“Giuliani and his allies coordinated the nuts-and-bolts of the process on a state-by-state level, the sources told CNN. One source said there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives, and that Giuliani participated in at least one call. The source also said the Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives.”
The goal of these efforts? To have Vice President Mike Pence declare a dispute about which electors to seat from those seven key states, throwing the matter to the House where a Republican majority of state delegations would vote to recognize the pro-Trump electors rather than the rightful electors.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell defended himself against what he called a “deeply offensive” and “outrageous mischaracterization” of his record on voting rights and race relations, after he had “inadvertently” omitted a word in a comment earlier this week, which sparked a massive backlash on social media.

“This outrageous mischaracterization of my record as a result of leaving one word out inadvertently the other day, which I just now supplied to you, is deeply offensive,” the Kentucky Republican said Friday in Louisville.

On Wednesday, at his weekly policy news conference at the US Capitol, McConnell was asked whether voters of color would be hurt if Democrats’ election legislation did not pass, and he replied: “The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”

He again misspoke on Friday and incorrectly stated what the omitted word had been and had to come back to the mics to clean it up again. At first he said he had meant to say the word “almost” before Americans in his comment. At the end of his news conference, he returned to the mics after consulting with an aide, who seemed to tell him he had misstated it again, clarifying he had meant to say the omitted word was “all.”

Biden, Commerce Secretary Raimondo deliver remarks on semiconductors and supply chains
Politico, January 21, 2022 – 11:00 am (ET)

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2022/01/20/our-fates-are-intertwined-abortion-rights-activists-warn-roes-fall-will-hit-blue-states-1406288

White House COVID task force holds news briefing
MSNBC, January 21, 2022 – 1:00 pm (ET)
Democrats eye new strategy after failure of voting bill
Associated Press, Brian SlodyskoJanuary 21, 2022

Democrats were picking up the pieces Thursday following the collapse of their top-priority voting rights legislation, with some shifting their focus to a narrower bipartisan effort to repair laws Donald Trump exploited in his bid to overturn the 2020 election.

Though their bid to dramatically rewrite U.S. election law failed during a high-stakes Senate floor showdown late Wednesday, Democrats insisted their brinkmanship has made the new effort possible, forcing Republicans to relent, even if just a little, and engage in bipartisan negotiations.

The nascent push is focused on the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that created the convoluted process for the certification of presidential election results by Congress. For more than 100 years, vulnerabilities in the law were an afterthought, until Trump’s unrelenting, false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election culminated in a mob of his supporters storming the Capitol.

 

Americans Feel Burnt Out — Personally And Politically
FivethirtyEight, Alex Samuels and Jean YiJanuary 21, 2022

Like a decent chunk of American workers currently, I’ve been feeling the effects of burnout.

Of course, I can chalk up how I’m feeling to a number of self-imposed expectations and personal habits (or lack thereof), like taking on too many “side hustles” outside of my nine-to-five, or my own forgetfulness when it comes to making lunches during the work day, or working longer hours — as many remote employees are — because the news cycle is relentless and never-ending. I’m by no means the first person to acknowledge this, but being a political reporter is exhausting. And each week, at least for the last year or so, it seems the movie has been the same: Democrats want to pass legislation that has virtually no hope because of partisan polarization and the reality of Senate math, so it fails — or gets kicked down the line. To be clear, I believe the same would happen if the party roles were reversed, too.

But for the most part, I was under the impression that voters were OK with that reality. Survey after survey showed that Republican voters didn’t understand — or just didn’t like — Democrats, and vice-versa. But now there appear to be more voters like me out there: tired of the current state of divisiveness but pessimistic that the ongoing political rancor will subside anytime soon.

According to a September Public Agenda/USA Today/Ipsos poll, 72 percent of Americans thought it would be “good for the country” if there was less political hostility and if people focused more on common ground. But there’s little faith in that reality. Not only did 42 percent of Americans say that they believed political resentment would increase among ordinary Americans, but also many held “very unfavorable” feelings toward Republican voters (18 percent) and Democratic voters (13 percent). Some of this shouldn’t be too surprising. As FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman has written, deep-seated hatred and polarization have come to dominate politics as we know it today. What’s striking, though, is that even among all the political exhaustion, voters — myself included — aren’t hopeful it’ll get better anytime soon.

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