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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/house-dems-first-bill-increases-voting-access

House Democrats’ First Bill Focuses On Increasing Voting Access

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are unveiling their first bill for the new Congress, a good-government package to limit big money in politics, make it easier for citizens to vote and require presidents to disclose their tax returns.


The legislation, called H.R. 1, sets the tone for Democrats as they take the majority in January.

The bill would create national voter registration and expand access to early, online voting. It would increase federal support for state voter systems, including paper ballots to prevent fraud.

Political groups would need to disclose donors, and members of Congress would be barred from serving on corporate boards.

In a nod to President Donald Trump’s resistance to releasing his tax returns, the bill would require presidents to do so. It also would create a Supreme Court ethics code.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/dems-salivate-at-prospect-of-bringing-cohen-to-hill-to-testify

Dems Salivate At Prospect Of Bringing Cohen Back To The Hill To Testify

After Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, Democrats are counting down the days until they can take over House control and bring the President’s ex-fixer back to Congress to testify.

According to a Thursday Politico report, Cohen’s newfound loquaciousness could help clear up issues from the Trump Tower Moscow deal to the Stormy Daniels hush money.

Members in the other chamber are eager to hear from Cohen as well, with even Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) joining ranking Democrat Mark Warner (D-VA) in floating that Cohen should return in light of the newest revelations that he lied to the committees last time.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/facebook-sandberg-commissioned-staff-research-soros

Facebook’s Second In Command Commissioned Staff To Research Soros

Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was directly involved in efforts to research liberal philanthropic billionaire George Soros, The New York Times reported.

According to three people with knowledge of the matter who spoke to the Times, Sandberg asked Facebook’s communications staff via email to look into Soros’s finances after he called Facebook and Google a “menace” to society at the World Economic Forum. Sandberg reportedly wanted to know whether Soros stood to benefit financially from attacks on the tech mammoths.

Not long after, Facebook hired a public relations firm that disseminated information to reporters about Soros’s financial backing of groups critical of the social media giant. After a Times report revealed Facebook’s payments to the Republican-backed firm, Definers Public Affairs, the company was criticized for propagating anti-Semitism.

In an interview with CNN earlier this month, Zuckerberg admitted he regretted the attacks.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/flake-stand-draws-republican-ire

Flake’s Last-Minute Stand Draws Frustration From Fellow Republicans

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), often mocked by Democrats for initially taking a stance against his own party only to fall in line when it matters, seems to be holding firm in his conviction to oppose GOP judges until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) allows a vote on the bill to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

And, according to a Thursday Politico report, Flake’s Republican peers are not taking kindly to his stand.


So far, Flake has reportedly pushed pause on 21 potential judges, including opposing Thomas Farr on the Senate floor.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told Politico that Flake is carrying things “too far.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accused Flake of pulling a fast one on voters who wanted rapid confirmation of conservative judges.

Despite the criticism, Flake seems unshaken.

“There are judges there that I want to move too. And I hope to be able to do that,” Flake told Politico. “As soon as we get a vote. We need a vote.”

He was much less certain on whether McConnell will cooperate. When Politico asked if Flake sensed that the majority leader would soon fold, Flake was blunt: “Nope.”
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/mueller-focuses-ivanka-don-jr-roles-trump-tower

Mueller Focuses On Ivanka And Don Jr’s Roles In Trump Tower Moscow

Special counsel Robert Mueller is asking questions about President Trump’s children — Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — and their roles in efforts to bring a Trump Tower to Moscow, Yahoo reported.

According to sources who spoke to Yahoo, some of Ivanka and Trump Jr.’s efforts were separate from the work Michael Cohen was doing to pursue a deal. Ivanka helped recommend an architect and Trump Jr. was “peripherally” apprised to plans, according to Yahoo.

While both of the Trump children’s’ efforts concluded in 2013, both were also aware of Cohen’s attempts to develop in Moscow until at least January 2016. However, a source familiar with the Trump Organization said their knowledge of Cohen’s efforts was limited to the time period he described to Congress, which — as revealed by his guilty plea on Thursday — was untruthful.

“There’s no question they knew about it, but they had no knowledge of any work on the project after January 2016,” the source told Yahoo.

Cohen pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying Congress about how long he pursued the potential deal in Moscow, which was under consideration as late as 2016.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-scrambles-save-palestinian-aid-after-strategic-misstep

Trump Scrambles To Save Palestinian Aid After Realizing Strategic Misstep


WASHINGTON (AP) — For two years, the Trump administration has unabashedly slashed U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Now, amid signs it may finally roll out its long-awaited Middle East peace plan, the administration is scrambling to save what little remaining Palestinian assistance it provides.


The striking turnabout is the result of the belated realization that an obscure new law will likely force the U.S. to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, including security assistance supported by Israel, by the end of January. Eliminating such aid, which totaled $61 million this year even as other assistance was being cut, would deal a blow to Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation that both sides value. The law would also require the Jerusalem offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development to close.

To avert that possibility and remove a potentially lethal complication to the promised peace plan, the administration is rushing to find a solution. It will dispatch Army Lt. Gen. Eric Wendt, who serves as U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to Congress in the coming days to urge lawmakers to come up with a fix to the law, known as the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018, to allow the aid to continue.

Congressional aides said they expect Wendt and other officials to start making the case next week in the hope of securing a fix in the short time it has left in session this year.

The House and Senate are set to adjourn on Dec. 13 and Dec. 14, respectively. If that fails, officials said they expect to redouble their efforts when the new Congress convenes in January.

The State Department, to whom Wendt reports, declined to comment on the effort but acknowledged the problem.

“We are studying the potential impact of ATCA,” the department said in an emailed response to queries about the matter from The Associated Press. “At this time, no changes have been made to U.S. security assistance to the Palestinian Authority or other ongoing programming.”

ATCA made its way through Congress and was signed by President Donald Trump in early October with little fanfare. The White House perfunctorily announced the Oct. 3 signing in a two-paragraph statement that said only that the law “allows certain assets that are seized or frozen by the United States to be used to satisfy judgments against a terrorist party for claims based on an act of terrorism.”

But for the Palestinians and potentially others the law has more severe consequences.

Under ATCA, the Palestinian Authority would be disqualified from receiving any U.S. aid unless it agrees to pay court judgments of sometimes up to hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of American victims of Palestinian attacks. The deadline for accepting that condition is 120 days from Trump’s signing, or January 31, 2019.

The Palestinians say they will do no such thing and accuse the administration of acting in bad faith. They note that the administration has already cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for health, education, development and good governance programs, closed the PLO office in Washington, recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital over their fervent objections and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. In addition, the administration has downgraded its main diplomatic mission to the Palestinians by folding it into the embassy to Israel.

“Palestinian-U.S. security cooperation is based on the fact that we are against terrorism and fighting it,” said Nabil Shaath, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s adviser for international affairs. “Therefore, nobody can say that such an act can be implemented on us.”

In this case, however, the administration is siding with the Palestinians in seeking a way around the requirements of the law. So are some pro-Israel members of Congress who have supported the administration’s policy toward Israel and the Palestinians in the past, according to aides.

Legal experts who have studied ATCA say the easiest fix would be to have Congress amend the law to allow the president or secretary of state to waive the aid cut-off on national security grounds.

“A waiver or some sort of work around is going to be very important for this administration or any future administration that wants to pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace,” said Scott Anderson, an international lawyer and former American diplomat who is now a fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington. “Cutting off the ability to supply that kind of security assistance would be short-sighted to say the least.”
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...osition-to-trump-judicial-nominee-thomas-farr

Tim Scott Announces Opposition To Trump Judicial Nominee Thomas Farr

A key Republican senator has come out against Thomas Farr’s nomination to the federal bench, potentially dooming Farr’s confirmation unless the vote count changes.

“I am ready and willing to support strong candidates for our judicial vacancies that do not have lingering concerns about issues that could affect their decision-making process as a federal judge,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said in a statement quoted by The State newspaper. “This week, a Department of Justice memo written under President George H.W. Bush was released that shed new light on Mr. Farr’s activities. This, in turn, created more concerns. Weighing these important factors, this afternoon I concluded that I could not support Mr. Farr’s nomination.”

In addition to Scott, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has said he will vote against Trump judicial nominees, including Farr, until a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is allowed a vote.

Democrats have objected to Farr based on his role in voter suppression legislation employed in North Carolina, where he is nominated to be a judge in the Eastern District. As a lawyer for the Republican legislative majority, Farr defended a law that a panel of appeals court judges wrote targeted African American voters with “almost surgical precision.”

The law reduced early voting; eliminated same-day registration, voting out-of-precinct and pre-registration of high schoolers; and created a new requirement for photo identification.

The document Scott referred to in his statement, recently obtained by the Washington Post, is a Justice Department memo on Sen. Jesse Helms’ 1990 campaign. Helms’ campaign, for which Farr served as lead counsel, sent postcards “designed to intimidate and threaten black voters throughout the State of North Carolina in order to discourage them from participating in the November 6, 1990 general election,” the memo said.

Farr denied knowing anything about the postcards before they were sent. The suit, in which Farr defended Helms’ campaign, ended in a consent decree.
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Tim Scott’s scary ass finally did something right...
 
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