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Global Covid-19 News: Live Updates

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Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in December.Credit…Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

As lawmakers push for billions of dollars to boost the nation’s efforts to track coronavirus variants, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday a new effort to ramp up this work, pledging nearly $200 million in federal funding to better identify the new threats as they emerge.

Calling the $200 million a “down payment,” the White House said that the investment will result in a threefold increase in the number of positive virus samples that labs can sequence, jumping from around 7,000 to around 25,000 each week.

But that goal still remains aspirational, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its lab partners are still far from hitting the weekly 7,000-sample mark.

“When we will get to 25,000 depends on the resources that we have at our fingertips and how quickly we can mobilize our partners,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director, said at a White House news conference on Wednesday. “I don’t think this is going to be a light switch. I think it’s going to be a dial.”

The move comes as a contagious variant first identified in Britain, known as B.1.1.7, continues to sweep across the United States, threatening to slow or reverse the rapid drop of new coronavirus cases. From a peak of almost 260,000 new cases a day, the seven-day average daily rate has fallen to below 82,000, still well above the high point of last summer’s surge, according to a New York Times database.

A growing number of other worrisome variants have also cropped up in the United States, including one that was first found in South Africa and weakens the effectiveness of vaccines. The United States reported its first case of B.1.1.7 that had gained a particularly worrying mutation that has been shown in South Africa to blunt the effectiveness of vaccines, Dr. Walensky said. The F.D.A. is preparing for a potential redesign of vaccines to better protect against the new variants.

Researchers are hoping to increase the number of coronavirus genomes they sequence and rapidly analyze them to spot dangerous mutations. The current level of sequencing is inadequate, experts say. That, plus the lack of national coordination, has left them blind to where the most concerning variants are spreading, and how quickly.

To do more sequencing, officials said, the country needs to scale up its testing in general. The Department of Health and Human Services and Defense Department on Wednesday announced substantial new investments in testing, including $650 million for K-8 schools and “underserved congregate settings,” such as homeless shelters. The two departments are also investing $815 million to speed up the manufacturing of testing supplies and raw materials.

Dr. Walensky said the administration’s efforts to scale up sequencing would result in more “geographic diversity” in the test samples surveyed.

“It’s not just the test and getting the test done,” she said. “We need the computational capacity, the analytic capacity to understand the information that’s coming in.”

The White House’s announcement added to an effort by lawmakers to insert funds for a national sequencing program into an economic relief package that Democratic congressional leaders aim to pass before mid-March, when unemployment benefits begin to lapse.

Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, introduced legislation this month that would provide $2 billion to the C.D.C. to enhance its sequencing efforts, including through grants the agency would award to state health departments. As House lawmakers worked to finalize the details of Mr. Biden’s stimulus proposal ahead of a floor vote later this month, they incorporated Ms. Baldwin’s proposal and allocated $1.75 billion.

In an interview, Ms. Baldwin said she had been working closely with the C.D.C.’s Advanced Molecular Detection program. A substantial amount of money is needed just for staffing and training, she said. She suggested 15 percent as a target of how many positive virus samples should be sequenced around the nation, a goal far beyond what researchers believe is possible in the near term.

“This is intended to create the basis of a permanent infrastructure that would allow us not only to do surveillance for Covid-19, to be on the leading edge of discovering new variants, but also we’d have that capacity for other diseases,” she said of her bill. “There’s significant gaps in our knowledge because of a lack of variants resources.”

Ms. Baldwin’s target of fifteen percent would translate to about 85,000 sequences a week at the current rate of new positive tests. Last week, the United States sequenced only 9,038 genomes, according to the online database GISAID.

United States › United StatesOn Feb. 16 14-day change New cases 64,376 –43% New deaths 1,707 –29%

World › WorldOn Feb. 16 14-day change New cases 325,121 –28% New deaths 9,300 –20%

U.S. vaccinations ›

President Biden at the National Institutes of Health last week.Credit…Evan Vucci/Associated Press

The Biden administration has been quite cautious in setting its public vaccination goals.

During the transition, officials said they hoped to give shots to one million Americans per day — a level the Trump administration nearly reached in its final days, despite being badly behind its own goals. In President Biden’s first week in office, he raised the target to 1.5 million, although his aides quickly added that it was more of a “hope” than a “goal.” Either way, the country is now giving about 1.7 million shots per day.

The Times’ David Leonhardt spent some time recently interviewing public-health experts about what the real goal should be, and came away with a clear message: The Biden administration is not being ambitious enough about vaccinations, at least not in its public statements.

An appropriate goal, experts say, is three million shots per day — probably by April. At that pace, half of adults would receive their first shot by April and all adults who wanted a shot could receive one by June, saving thousands of lives and allowing normal life to return by midsummer.

Biden struck a somewhat more ambitious tone yesterday, telling CNN that anybody who wanted a vaccine would be able to get one “by the end of July.” But Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and an adviser to the president, also said that the timeline for when the general population could receive shots was slipping from April to May or June.

The key fact is that the delivery of vaccine doses is on the verge of accelerating rapidly. Since December, Moderna and Pfizer have delivered fewer than one million shots per day to the government.

But over the next month and a half, the two companies have promised to deliver at least three million shots per day — and to accelerate the pace to about 3.3 million per day starting in April. Johnson & Johnson is likely to add to that total if, as expected, it receives the go-ahead to start distributing shots in coming weeks.

Very soon, the major will be logistics: Can the Biden administration and state and local governments administer the shots at close to the same rate that they receive them?

“I’m not hearing a plan,” Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at Baylor College of Medicine, said. “In the public statements, I don’t hear that sense of urgency.”

Experts said they understood why Biden had set only modest public goals so far. Manufacturing vaccines is complex, and falling short of a high-profile goal would sow doubt during a public-health emergency, as Barry Bloom, a Harvard immunologist, said. If he were president, Bloom added, he would also want to exceed whatever goal was appearing in the media.

The appropriate goal is to administer vaccine shots at roughly the same rate that drug makers deliver them, experts said — with a short delay, of a week or two, for logistics. Otherwise, millions of doses will languish in storage while Americans are dying and the country remains partially shut down.

“We should be doing more,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, said. “I am kind of surprised by how constrained we’ve been.” Many vaccine clinics operate only during business hours, she noted. And the government has not done much to expand the pool of vaccine workers — say, by training E.M.T. workers.

The newly contagious variants of the virus add another reason for urgency. They could cause an explosion of cases in the spring, Hotez said, and lead to mutations that are resistant to the current vaccines. But if the vaccines can crush the spread before then, the mutations may not take hold.

Biden aides have emphasized the challenges — the possibility of manufacturing problems, the difficulty of working with hundreds of local agencies, the need to distribute vaccines equitably. They also point out that they have nearly doubled the pace of vaccination in their first month in office, accelerated the pace of delivery from drugmakers and have plans to do more, like open mass-vaccination clinics and expand the pool of vaccine workers.

Scientists want the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call for improved ventilation as well as mask-wearing to fight the airborne spread of the coronavirus indoors. Fourth graders wear masks in class at Elk Ridge Elementary School in Buckley, Wash.Credit…Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

Scientists are urging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to swiftly set standards to limit the airborne transmission of the coronavirus in high-risk settings like meatpacking plants and prisons.

The push comes nearly a year after research showed that the virus can be spread through tiny droplets called aerosols that linger indoors in stagnant air and can be inhaled.

Action on air standards is even more urgently needed now because vaccination efforts are off to a slow start, more contagious virus variants are circulating in the United States, and the rate of Covid-19 infections and deaths remains high despite a recent drop in new cases, the scientists said in a letter to Biden administration officials.

The C.D.C. issued new guidelines on Friday for reopening schools, but the guidelines made only a passing mention of improved ventilation as a precaution against viral spread. The World Health Organization was slow to acknowledge that the virus can linger in the air in crowded indoor spaces, accepting that conclusion only in July after 239 experts publicly called on the organization to do so.

The 13 experts who wrote the letter — including several who advised Mr. Biden during the transition — urged the administration to blunt the risks in a variety of workplaces by requiring a combination of mask-wearing and environmental measures, including better ventilation. They want the C.D.C. to recommend the use of high-quality masks like N95 respirators to protect workers who are at high risk of infection, many of whom are people of color, the segment of the population that has been hit hardest by the epidemic in the United States.

At present, health care workers mostly rely on surgical masks, which are not as effective against aerosol transmission of the virus as N95 masks are.

Mr. Biden has directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which sets workplace requirements, to issue emergency temporary standards for Covid-19, including those regarding ventilation and masks, by March 15.

But OSHA will only impose standards that are supported by guidance from the C.D.C., said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University and one of the signatories.

(Dr. Michaels led OSHA during the Obama administration; the agency has not had a permanent leader since his departure.)

“Until the C.D.C. makes some changes, OSHA will have difficulty changing the recommendations it puts up, because there’s an understanding the government has to be consistent,” Dr. Michaels said. “And C.D.C. has always been seen as the lead agency for infectious disease.”

An employee scans packages at Amazon’s distribution center in Staten Island, N.Y., November 2020. Conditions at the site is the focus of a lawsuit.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, sued Amazon on Tuesday evening, arguing that the company provided inadequate safety protection for workers in New York City during the pandemic and retaliated against employees who raised concerns over the conditions.

The case focuses on two Amazon facilities: a large warehouse on Staten Island and a delivery depot in Queens. Ms. James argues that Amazon failed to properly clean its buildings, conducted inadequate contact tracing for known Covid-19 cases, and “took swift retaliatory action” to silence complaints from workers.

“Amazon’s extreme profits and exponential growth rate came at the expense of the lives, health and safety of its frontline workers,” Ms. James argued in the complaint, filed in New York Supreme Court.

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said the company cared “deeply about the health and safety” of its workers.

“We don’t believe the attorney general’s filing presents an accurate picture of Amazon’s industry-leading response to the pandemic,” Ms. Nantel said.

Last week, Amazon preemptively sued Ms. James in federal court in an attempt to stop her from bringing the charges. The company argued that workplace safety was a matter of federal, not state, law.

In its 64-page complaint last week, Amazon said its safety measures “far exceed what is required under the law.”

New York, in its suit, said Amazon received written notification of at least 250 employees at the Staten Island warehouse who had Covid-19. In more than 90 of those cases, the infected employee had been at work in the previous week, yet Amazon did not close portions of the building to provide proper ventilation as the state required, the filing said.

Ms. James also argued that Amazon had retaliated against Christian Smalls, a worker the company fired in the spring. Mr. Smalls had been raising safety concerns with managers and led a public protest in the parking lot of the Staten Island facility.

Amazon has said Mr. Smalls was fired for going to the work site for the protest even though he was on paid quarantine leave after he had been exposed to a colleague who had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Ms. James said that by firing Mr. Smalls and reprimanding another protest leader, Amazon sent a chilling message to others.

Eighty percent of Oregon’s 560,000 public schoolchildren remain in fully remote instruction.Credit…Sara Cline/Associated Press

Shortly before Christmas, as Oregon schools faced their 10th month under some of the nation’s sternest coronavirus restrictions, Gov. Kate Brown began a major push to reopen classrooms.

She offered to help districts pay for masks, testing and tracing, and improved ventilation. Most important, she prioritized teachers and school staff members for vaccination — ahead of some older people.

Her goal: to resume in-person classes statewide by Feb. 15.

But today, roughly 80 percent of Oregon’s 560,000 public schoolchildren remain in fully remote instruction. And while some districts are slowly bringing children back, two of the largest, Portland and Beaverton, do not plan to reopen until at least mid-April — and then only for younger students.

Oregon’s halting efforts to return children to classrooms are being repeated up and down the West Coast. The region’s largest city school districts — from Seattle to Portland to San Francisco to Los Angeles — have remained mostly closed, even as Boston, New York, Miami, Houston and Chicago have been resuming in-person instruction.

And the release on Friday of guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that urge school districts to reopen has not changed the minds of powerful teachers’ unions opposed to returning students to classrooms without more stringent precautions.

Tough state health restrictions imposed by Ms. Brown, a Democrat, helped protect the state from experiencing the high death tolls occurring elsewhere. But by December, she was growing alarmed at the toll social isolation was having on children.

“Eleven- and 12-year-olds were attempting suicide,” she said in a recent interview.

Worried that schools would not reopen until the 2021-22 school year if she waited to vaccinate teachers along with other essential workers, Ms. Brown rejected federal guidelines and bumped school employees up in priority, before people 65 and older, even though that constituency would — and did — protest.

Oregon was among a handful of states at the time, and the only one on the West Coast, to single out school employees for the vaccine. (About half of states now prioritize teachers.)

Rental prices in New York City have dropped, but the biggest cuts are mostly in Manhattan, not in cheaper neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens where many essential workers live.Credit…Tom Sibley for The New York Times

Two things have been true since the pandemic flattened New York’s rental market last March: Prices have fallen sharply, but not for the people who need relief most.

Now a new report shows how little those price cuts have helped the more than a million New Yorkers the city calls essential workers.

From mid-March to the end of 2020, there were 11,690 apartments citywide that were considered affordable to essential workers, up more than 40 percent from a year before, according to the listing website StreetEasy. But that share represented just 4 percent of the total market-rate inventory in the city.

Essential workers — a broad category that includes teachers, bus drivers and grocery clerks, among others — make an average of about $56,000 a year. Using a common calculation to measure affordability, based on 30 percent of gross income, the highest comfortable rent on that salary is about $1,400 a month.

Record rent cuts have not bridged the gap. In January, the median monthly asking rent in Manhattan was $2,750, a 15.5 percent drop from the year prior, according to StreetEasy. Brooklyn and Queens also had record cuts of 8.6 percent, dropping to $2,395 and $2,000.

“It highlights a tale of two cities,” said Nancy Wu, an economist with StreetEasy, noting that the biggest price cuts have tended to occur in pricey neighborhoods in Manhattan, where only 12 percent of essential workers live. Neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, where roughly half of that work force resides, often had smaller discounts, or lost affordable inventory, because of high demand.

But most of Manhattan’s affordable apartments were studios, Ms. Wu said, while nearly half of essential workers have at least one child.

Of course, many New Yorkers spend more on rent than they can comfortably afford. In 2018, the latest year data were available, almost 53 percent of New Yorkers were rent-burdened, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their gross income on rent, according to the New York University Furman Center.

global roundup

Japan’s late start on vaccines has raised questions about whether it will be ready to host the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin in Tokyo this July after a one-year delay. Credit…Koji Sasahara/Associated Press

TOKYO — Japan began its national coronavirus vaccination program on Wednesday, starting with the first of 40,000 medical workers and planning to reach the general population by the summer.

The comparatively late start has raised questions at home and abroad about whether the country will be ready to host the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin in Tokyo this July after the pandemic forced a one-year delay.

Japan has managed to keep coronavirus infection levels relatively low and, so far, has recorded around 7,200 deaths. But the authorities declared a one-month state of emergency in early January, after daily case counts reached nearly 8,000. They have since extended it until at least the beginning of March, partly in response to more contagious coronavirus variants.

The vaccine rollout has been slower than in many other developed countries in part because the authorities requested that Pfizer run separate medical trials in Japan. That reflected some public ambivalence toward vaccinations, a general sense of caution that most recently surfaced after media reports about rare side effects related to vaccines for HPV.

Speaking to the news media on Tuesday, Taro Kono, the minister in charge of the rollout, emphasized that it was important to “show the Japanese people that we have done everything possible to prove the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.”

While that slowed the program’s start, he said, “We think it will be more efficient.”

Major obstacles to a rapid rollout remain. Japan relies on other countries for its entire vaccine supply and is still working to approve the vaccines from AstraZeneca and Moderna. It is also short of the special syringes that would allow its doctors to extract an extra, sixth dose from each vial supplied by Pfizer.

In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Kono said the vaccination program was not linked to the Games.

Speaking on Wednesday, the governor of Shimane Prefecture, which has recorded only 280 cases, threatened to pull it out of activities around the Olympic torch relay for fear of spreading infection.

In other developments across the world:

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa received the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine on Wednesday, hours after 80,000 doses arrived in the country. Health care workers will be among the first to receive the vaccine. The country paused its rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine this month after a study suggested that it failed to prevent mild or moderate illness from a variant found in the country. South Africa has recorded nearly 1.5 million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, with 48,855 deaths, according to a New York Times database.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, secured a contract for an additional 300 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Wednesday. The deal allows European countries to order up to 150 million doses in 2021, with an option for as many next year and authorization to donate unused doses to other countries. The commission, which has been under intense scrutiny following the sluggish vaccination rollout across Europe, had previously signed a contract for 160 million doses.

A five-day lockdown that started last week in the Australian state of Victoria will end at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, after 24 hours without a new coronavirus case. Residents will remain restricted to five visitors at a time and will still be required to wear masks in indoor public places.

The city of Auckland, New Zealand, will also emerge from a lockdown at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, after the authorities said that contact tracers could manage a cluster of six local cases. “We don’t have a widespread but rather a small chain of transmission which is manageable via testing procedures,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters.

Hong Kong plans to relax restrictions on a range of businesses on Thursday, provided they enforce use of a government-made app for contact tracing or keep records of customers. Employees must also be tested for the coronavirus every two weeks. Separately, on Tuesday, vaccine experts appointed by the Hong Kong government recommended the use of the Sinovac vaccine, a sign that health authorities will approve it for the city’s 7.5 million residents. They approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in January.

Prosecutors in China said that a batch of fake coronavirus vaccines had been shipped outside the country last year, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday. The fake vaccines were produced by a counterfeiting ring that the authorities broke up in February. Prosecutors said last week that the ring had manufactured and sold about 580,000 vials, for a profit of almost $280 million. The police have also arrested suspects they say smuggled 2,000 vials into Hong Kong, believing them to be genuine. Prosecutors said that 600 of those vaccines were later sent overseas, but did not say where.

Health authorities in Germany have documented rapid growth in the more infectious coronavirus variant first found in Britain, despite a general drop in new infections during a monthslong lockdown. Jens Spahn, the German health minister, said during a news conference on Wednesday that the variant now accounted for 22 percent of tested coronavirus samples, up from 6 percent at the beginning of February.

Palestinian health workers unloading the Gaza Strip’s first shipment on Wednesday.Credit…Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

JERUSALEM — The first doses of coronavirus vaccine arrived in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after Israel approved their delivery.

Mai al-Kaila, the health minister of the Palestinian Authority, said that 2,000 doses of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine had been shipped to the territory.

She said the vaccines would be allocated to frontline medical teams, but the territory’s Health Ministry said the first priority would be dialysis patients and people undergoing transplants, followed by medical workers.

The Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule over parts of the West Bank, while the Hamas militant group controls Gaza. In Gaza, with a population of about 2 million, the number of recorded Covid cases has declined sharply after a surge in December.

The vaccines were delivered amid a heated debate over whether Israel bears responsibility for the health of Palestinians living in occupied territory.

While human rights groups have argued international law requires Israel to provide Palestinians with access to vaccines on a par with what it makes available to its own citizens, supporters of Israel’s policies have contended that the Palestinians assumed responsibility for health services when they signed the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.

The vaccines delivered to Gaza were not supplied by Israel but by the Palestinian Authority.

Still, their transfer required Israeli approval and provoked a debate in Israel’s Parliament. Several right-wing lawmakers had demanded that the government make their delivery conditional on the return of two Israeli citizens and of the bodies of two soldiers believed to be held by Hamas.

“It is forbidden for Israel and its leader to abandon the fate of captive citizens and give up an opportunity to bring back the bodies of the fallen soldiers,” Zvi Hauser, a member of Parliament, told a parliamentary committee that discussed the matter on Monday.

A Hamas spokesman rejected the idea as “an attempt at extortion.”

However, an Israeli government official said that senior Israeli officials had recommended that the request be approved. It was on Wednesday.

In New York City, like other places across the country, the demand for vaccinations far outstrips the supply allocated each week. Credit…Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

The dangerous winter weather has delayed shipments of vaccine doses to New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday, preventing officials from scheduling between 30,000 and 35,000 new vaccination appointments and complicating a rollout already constrained by a limited supply of doses.

The problems in New York City, which could extend to suburbs and neighboring states, came as vaccination efforts have been disrupted nationwide. Clinics have closed and shipments have been stalled as snow and ice grounded flights and made highways dangerously slick. Many of the closures and cancellations have been in the South, where the storm hit hardest, with Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky canceling or rescheduling appointments this week.

Jeffrey D. Zients, President Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, said on Wednesday that the Biden administration is pushing governors to extend the hours of vaccination sites once they reopen.

“People are working as hard as they can, given the importance of getting the vaccines to the states and to providers, but there’s an impact on deliveries,” he said.

Mr. de Blasio said he did not know when the shipments would arrive next or which specific weather conditions were snarling the shipments.

“It’s obviously a national problem what’s happening with the weather, and it is gumming up supply lines all over the country,” Mr. de Blasio said.

In New York City, like other places across the country, the demand for vaccinations far outstrips the supply allocated each week. Mr. de Blasio said on Wednesday that the city had about 30,000 doses on hand, and that those could run out by Thursday.

“We’re going to run out of what we have now,” he said. “We could be doing hundreds of thousands more each week.”

The weather has caused problems for the city’s vaccination efforts before. A heavy snowstorm earlier this month had forced city and state officials to delay appointments for days until driving conditions improved.

On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio said the city was bracing for another bout of snow on Thursday, with forecasts predicting about six or seven inches of accumulation.

The Sambódromo in Rio de Janiero, normally the site of carnival parades, was lit on Friday in honor of victims of Covid.Credit…Buda Mendes/Getty Images

In good times and bad, Rio de Janeiro’s famously boisterous Carnival has endured, often thriving when the going got particularly tough.

People partied hard during years of war, hyperinflation, repressive military rule, runaway violence and even the Spanish Flu in 1919, when the Carnival was considered among the most decadent on record.

This year, though, the only thing keeping the spirit of Carnival faintly alive is online events produced by groups that traditionally put on extravagant street performances.

“It’s very sad for Rio not to have Carnival,” Daniel Soranz, the city’s health secretary, said this past Saturday morning, standing in the middle of the Sambódromo parade grounds as elderly residents got vaccinated under white tents. “This is a place to party, to celebrate life.”

Marcilia Lopes, 85, a fixture of the Portela samba school who hasn’t missed a Carnival for decades, looked relieved after she got her first dose of the Chinese-made CoronaVac vaccine.

She has been so scared of catching the virus for the past year that she refused to leave home for anything. On her birthday, she asked her children not to even bother buying a cake — she was in no mood to celebrate. So Ms. Lopes is missing her beloved Carnival this year, but stoically.

“I’m at peace,” she said. “Many people are suffering.”

Brazil’s coronavirus outbreak has been among the most severe in the world. It has killed more than 239,000 people here, second only to the death toll in the United States, and several Brazilian states are grappling with large caseloads.

As a second wave took hold in recent months, local officials across the country canceled the traditional Carnival celebrations, which normally bring in hundreds of million of dollars in tourism revenue and create tens of thousands of temporary jobs.

Marcus Faustini, Rio de Janeiro’s secretary of culture, said that as painful as it was to slog through carnival season without revelry, there was no responsible way to adapt the megaparty for this era of social distancing.

“It would make no sense to hold this party at this time and run the risk of driving a surge of cases,” he said. “The most vital thing right now is to protect lives.”

Lis Moriconi contributed reporting.

In Europe, pandemic spending has largely focused on helping people and businesses through the crisis.Credit…Yann Schreiber/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Billions of euros are being deployed to nationalize payrolls, suppress bankruptcies and avoid mass unemployment as Europe battles the pandemic. Trillions more are being earmarked for stimulus to stoke a desperately needed recovery.

The European Union has upended its policies to finance the largess, breaking with decades of strict limits on deficits, and overcoming visceral German resistance to high debt.

Austerity mantras led by Germany dominated Europe during the 2010 debt crisis, when profligate spending in Greece, Italy and other southern eurozone countries pushed the currency bloc toward a breakup.

The pandemic, which has killed over 450,000 people in Europe, is seen as a different animal altogether — a threat ravaging all the world’s economies simultaneously.

In the United States, President Biden is pursuing an aggressive strategy to combat the pandemic’s toll with a $1.9 trillion economic aid plan. While the national debt is now almost as large as the economy, supporters say the benefits of spending big now outweigh the costs of higher debt.

In Europe, pandemic spending has so far largely focused on floating people and businesses through the crisis.

For Philippe Boreal, a janitor at a luxury hotel in Cannes, the support has been vital.

“Without the aid, things would be much worse,” said Mr. Boreal, who is collecting more than 80 percent of his paycheck, allowing him to pay essential bills and buy food for his wife and teenage daughter.

But, he said, “at some point you ask yourself, ‘How are we going to pay for all this?’”

For now, such spending is affordable. And government debt may never have to be fully paid back if central banks keep buying it.

But some economists worry that inflation and interest rates could rise if stimulus investment revives growth too rapidly, forcing central banks to put a brake on easy-money policies. And weaker countries could struggle with the higher borrowing costs that resulted.

To people in charge of steering their economies through the pandemic, those potential troubles seem far away.

“We need to reimburse the debt, of course, and to work out a strategy for paying down the debt,” the French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, said in an interview with a small group of journalists. “But we won’t do anything before growth returns — that would be crazy.”

For the strategy to work, Europe must act quickly to ensure a robust recovery, economists warn. While leaders approved a €750 billion ($857 billion) stimulus deal last year, countries haven’t been unleashing stimulus spending, to kick-start a revival and create jobs, nearly as rapidly as the United States has.

“Most of what’s been done in Europe is survival support,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London.

#covid #global #World

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fullspectrum-cbd-oil · 4 years

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Democrats Unveil Bill Requiring U.S. Coronavirus Supply Czar

U.S. Senate Democrats unveiled legislation on Wednesday requiring the Pentagon to name a civilian officer to oversee the nation’s supply and production of medical supplies and equipment needed to combat the spread of the new coronavirus.

The bill, dubbed the Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act, also calls for a comprehensive testing plan that would include viral and antibody testing, and a blueprint for scaling up production of an eventual vaccine for the new coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 respiratory disease.

Democrats, long frustrated by what they view as President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to seize control of the supply chain for personal protective equipment and testing, want the bill to be part of Congress’s next coronavirus legislation. A companion bill is also expected from Democrats in the House of Representatives.

The bill, backed by major unions including the AFL-CIO, surfaced as U.S. states moved to reopen the economy amid reports of supply and testing shortages that health experts warn could lead to a resurgence of coronavirus infections that have already killed more than 58,000 Americans.

“This White House has also not provided our states with all the essential resources and medical supplies we need to combat this pandemic and conduct widespread testing to identify those who are infected,” Senator Tammy Baldwin, one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement.

Baldwin announced the bill with fellow Democrats Senator Chris Murphy and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

The lawmakers said the legislation would establish a more coherent national response by requiring the defense secretary to appoint a civilian executive officer charged with overseeing the production and distribution of COVID-19-related equipment and supplies. The officer would have all authorities available under the Defense Production Act.

The bill would also require the administration to produce weekly national assessments of equipment supplies, identify available stockpiles and industries capable of filling orders, post state requests for assistance and establish an inspector general to oversee implementation.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by David Gregorio)

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): You may have thought that with former Vice President Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee our 2020 drafts were finally over. Well, no such luck. There’s still the question of whom Biden will pick as his vice president. We know thanks to his announcement at an earlier presidential debate that he plans to pick a female running mate, but that’s it.

So we’re back with a snake draft of whom Biden should pick for his VP. How it works is simple: Three rounds total, so between the three of us, nine potential 2020 Democratic veeps. And the draft line up is …

Nathaniel

Sarah

Geoffrey

OK, you’re up, Nathaniel.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): Ahhh, I wanted the second pick.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Hahaha, really?

nrakich: Yeah — I think there are two equally strong contenders for the first overall pick. But I will go for the more obvious one: Sen. Kamala Harris.

Harris obviously ran for president already, which means she’s been vetted. She has also long been considered a rising star in the party. Plus, she would make history as both the first African American and first Asian American vice president, and African American voters are probably a group that Biden should reach out to given that he won the nomination thanks largely to their support. And this goes without saying, but Democrats will want to try to get African American turnout in the general election closer to where it was for former President Barack Obama than where it was for Hillary Clinton.

There will inevitably be some “ooh, remember how they attacked each other in that first primary debate” chatter, but I think that moment is overblown. Harris was doing what she had to do to win. And both before and after that incident, Biden and Harris have reportedly gotten along quite well.

geoffrey.skelley: Some say the first rule of vice presidential selection is to “do no harm,” and Harris would probably fit that bill on a number of fronts. She’s been in the spotlight and vetted as a former presidential candidate, as Nathaniel said. In other words, she’d meet the “Ready on Day 1” test that I think is pretty key for Biden.

Additionally, California isn’t a swing state, but Harris’s Senate seat would likely remain in Democratic hands. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom would appoint her replacement and when her seat is up in 2022, Democrats would be very likely to hold onto it.

nrakich: Yeah, I think the home-state effect of vice-presidential candidates is slim to none. That’s going to inform a lot of my picks.

sarahf: In their veepstakes feature on Tuesday, Politico set up Biden’s VP decision as a choice between appealing to black voters and appealing to the progressive wing of the party. So if he were to select Harris — whom I agree does seem like a very solid pick for him — I guess that only checks one of those boxes. But arguably, it’s not really possible for Biden to check both boxes with one VP.

geoffrey.skelley: I think the Biden campaign would argue Harris gives them some of both — she is a cosponsor on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All legislation, for instance.

sarahf: That’s true, but I still think about how she infamously raised her hand in one of the early debates to say she supported Medicare for All, only to walk that back later.

nrakich: Yeah, one downside to Harris is that the progressive wing of the party doesn’t really trust her. (Think of the “Kamala is a cop” meme.) But I agree, it’s hard to appeal to both, and I think African Americans are the more important constituency for Biden.

sarahf: Well, and to the point you raised initially, Nathaniel, Biden won the nomination thanks in large part to black Democrats’ support — think South Carolina in particular — so it’s hard to not think that is a major consideration for Biden when weighing options.

But OK, I’m up. Ugh. At least I don’t have to go last in this draft.

geoffrey.skelley: Sigh.

sarahf: So I’m not totally sure I agree with my own pick, but if part of the optics around Biden’s VP pick requires appealing to black voters or progressive voters, I wonder if he can’t try and do both by picking Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

I know Sen. Elizabeth Warren would be a more natural, high-profile pick to represent the progressive wing of the party, especially considering she ran for president, and Pressley is only a one-term House representative, but I’d argue Pressley, like fellow Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, represents a new direction for the party, which I think is an important characteristic for Biden’s VP to have.

I suppose that Pressley’s lack of experience is what hurts her chances to be Biden’s running mate the most. Massachusetts isn’t exactly a swing state either.

nrakich: Bold pick! Although I have learned the hard way not to bet against Sarah in these drafts…

I think Pressley is an interesting choice, but ultimately, I think the lack of experience dooms her. Biden, at 77, is the oldest major-party presidential nominee ever. That means the top consideration for the Biden campaign should be picking someone who will be ready to become president on day one.

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, Pressley is fascinating, and it’s no coincidence that her name popped up in discussions about what might happen to Warren’s Senate seat if Warren had won the nomination (or maybe the vice presidency, still). But I agree with Nathaniel that Biden is unlikely to pick a one-term House member.

She’s a rising star, but maybe the 2020 election is just too near.

sarahf: The lack of experience definitely cuts against Pressley. But if Biden’s top VP considerations are appealing to black and progressive voters, I think it’s impressive she can check both boxes. I also thought she was a pretty effective endorser of Warren in the primary, but yeah, I admit that I’m not convinced this will actually happen.

OK, you’re up Geoffrey!!

geoffrey.skelley: Alright, I think my first pick is a bit predictable, but she would obviously fit in nicely with Biden’s political outlook: Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

nrakich: Oh, bad pick.

Maybe my alternative first choice will still be on the board after all…

geoffrey.skelley: She ran for president and has a long history of doing well in a purple state. Plus, she endorsed Biden right after dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary, so that may have also nicely positioned her for consideration.

And again, if the idea is to do no harm, she’s a fairly safe choice. But whereas I can see some progressives coming around to Harris, it’s harder to see that happening with Klobuchar.

Nevertheless, I think that after Harris, she’s probably the second-most-likely senator to get picked.

sarahf: That’s true, Geoffrey, I don’t see progressives warming up to Klobuchar like they might with Harris. In some ways, picking Klobuchar would be Biden doubling down on his base — i.e., appealing to more moderate voters, right?

Why do you say, bad pick, Nathaniel?

nrakich: I just don’t see what Klobuchar adds. She is incredibly redundant with Biden in terms of ideology and appeal to swing voters. Biden should try to pick someone who appeals to a different constituency.

geoffrey.skelley: There’s a chance Biden will view that redundancy as a good thing, though.

nrakich: I’m also not sure that Klobuchar wouldn’t do any harm … While I could see the left grumbling about, but ultimately accepting, Harris, I think they would be much more actively opposed to Klobuchar, who was always toward the center of the Democratic presidential field.

geoffrey.skelley: That’s fair, but at the same time, I suspect Klobuchar wouldn’t turn off some of the voters in the middle the way Harris might.

nrakich: Also, it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker in the same way it would be for some other potential VP picks (cough Tammy Baldwin cough), but if Klobuchar resigns from the Senate, her seat would go to a special election in November 2022, two years ahead of schedule, putting a Senate seat unnecessarily in danger.

geoffrey.skelley: But that’s a concern with almost every senator outside of Harris!

Democrats have a fairly deep bench in Minnesota, too, so that might not be that risky of a move.

nrakich: Hm, I disagree there. Other senators are on different schedules or hail from bluer states than Minnesota.

geoffrey.skelley: Out of the people likely to get picked, though?

Maybe Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

nrakich: Shhh, spoilers!

geoffrey.skelley: Lol, the Senate special election discussion could take up half the chat.

Anyway.

nrakich: Was that not the plan??

In all seriousness, though, it’s a very important factor in the veepstakes discussion. A President Biden would need every Democratic vote in the Senate he can muster to pass his agenda.

sarahf: That’s a good point, but OK — you’re up again, Geoffrey.

geoffrey.skelley: My next pick is Sen. Tammy Duckworth. The Illinois senator flies a little under the radar, but she’s got a fascinating background as an Asian American veteran who lost both her legs as a helicopter pilot fighting in Iraq. She’s also from a blue state, so her seat would be more likely to remain in Democratic hands (it’s up in 2022).

However, as 2010 showed, weird things can happen — the GOP captured this very same seat that year, formerly held by Obama, so it’s worth noting that Illinois isn’t California.

nrakich: Ah, dammit. Duckworth was my second choice. She would be a great pick, for all the reasons Geoffrey says.

geoffrey.skelley: She also gave birth while in office, the first senator to do so!

There’s just a lot to her story that I could see winning the Biden campaign over.

nrakich: Yeah, she has a great story to tell, on many different dimensions.

And her low national name recognition right now could be seen as a reason not to pick her, but it’s also an opportunity.

sarahf: Right, I mean it’s not like Sen. Tim Kaine had a huge national profile prior to when Clinton picked him in 2016.

nrakich: Yeah, I think people generally overrate people who ran for president and lost when thinking about veep contenders.

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, honestly the main reason I picked Klobuchar ahead of Duckworth was Klobuchar ran for president and has more of a national profile. But Duckworth might be the better pick — it’s less clear that she would offend any part of the Democratic coalition.

sarahf: OK, let’s see. It undercuts my first pick (Pressley), but I also think Warren would be interesting. Clearly, I have a Massachusetts bias.

nrakich: Massachusetts bias is nothing to be ashamed of, Sarah.

sarahf: But assuming national profile matters somewhat in who a candidate picks for VP (to be clear, the political science on this isn’t really clear, but it does seem to matter to party elites), Warren has got that covered. And apparently, when Biden was still considering running in 2016, he wanted Warren as his running mate! That’s interesting to me, considering the visible bad blood between the two during the debates (thinking about their heated exchange over who deserves credit for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau).

What Warren would bring to the ticket is an ideological balance that I think few other candidates could give Biden, but I could also see her being a potential general election risk for Biden. I’m also not sure if the other constituency she appeals to — college-educated whites — is where Biden needs the most help?

geoffrey.skelley: Warren would certainly meet the Ready on Day 1 test, plus she’d unify the party pretty well. I do wonder if she’s a case where the Biden campaign might be concerned that the VP pick outshines the presidential nominee. That’s on top of the concerns that her progressive views might alienate some in the middle.

nrakich: Yeah, Warren was also pretty high on my board. If you decide your goal is to appeal to progressives, there’s no better choice (other than, I guess, Sen. Bernie Sanders, although that isn’t going to happen for many reasons). She has the experience to be president and demonstrated that she has a loyal following with her strong presidential campaign.

geoffrey.skelley: That’s true, but there is still the always-thorny electability question about whether Warren’s progressive positions would harm Biden’s attempts to have a broader appeal.

nrakich: Yeah, I wonder how that would play, Geoffrey. In this age of polarization, it’s debatable whether a presidential nominee on the ideological extremes still puts the ticket at a disadvantage; would a vice-presidential nominee on the extremes do the same thing? I’m not so sure.

geoffrey.skelley: I will say that a Warren pick would be interesting in that, at 71 years old by Election Day, Warren would be less likely to end up running for president should Biden win, so the VP pick wouldn’t necessarily be a launch pad for the next presidential contender.

nrakich: Eh, I don’t know, she could probably run in 2024 if she wanted. (I think there’s a strong possibility that Biden would not run for a second term.)

geoffrey.skelley: That’s true, but with most of these other names, the VP would very likely run in the future if the ticket won — or even if it didn’t. But we’re probably getting a little ahead of ourselves here.

sarahf: OK, Nathaniel, you’re up with your second and third picks!

nrakich: OK, next on my list is Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. She has risen quickly in the Senate ranks; though she was just elected in 2016, she has already become chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. (I guess you could ding her for being inexperienced, but she was also state attorney general for two terms before that — in other words, she’s as experienced as Harris.) And, as a Latina, she would bring some racial diversity to the ticket, although I don’t want to imply that means she will automatically boost the ticket with Latino voters. Latinos are not a uniform group, and picking a Mexican American woman from the West wouldn’t necessarily resonate with, say, Cuban American voters in Florida.

(And, for you Senate special-election nerds, Cortez Masto’s seat will be up for election in 2022 regardless, so the only difference will be whether it is an open seat or not.)

geoffrey.skelley: Definitely a good pick. She’s under the radar, sort of like Duckworth, but has a very strong resume and a history-making backstory.

But with the Senate stuff, you wonder if the Biden team’s mindset is, ‘Look, we’ll probably lose the Senate in 2022 even if Democrats overcome a tough map to narrowly gain control of it in 2020, so we should make the best pick regardless of what that means for the Senate.’

nrakich: Yeah, maybe. But there is definitely a downside to picking someone like Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who I suspect will go unchosen in this draft. Baldwin’s seat would go immediately to a special election in 2021, and Wisconsin of course is a purple-to-light-red state. So that would cripple Democrats’ hypothetical Senate majority almost right away.

sarahf: That’s a good pick, Nathaniel, and could be a good way for Biden to broaden his base, considering his struggle to win the Latino vote in Nevada relative to Sanders. Although, of course, that has its limitations. What do we know about Cortez Masto’s politics, though? Isn’t she more of a moderate Democrat?

geoffrey.skelley: According to VoteView.com’s ideological scoring, she’s more or less around the middle of the Democratic Party, maybe slightly to the left of it.

nrakich: I think because she is unknown to many voters, she (and/or Biden) could define her ideology however they want, which I think is a plus. (Although she is a member of the establishment, as evidenced by her leadership of the DSCC.)

sarahf: OK, last round — take us away, Nathaniel.

nrakich: For my last pick, I’ll go with New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. She’s arguably the best pick among Democratic governors, many of whom were just elected in 2018 and therefore aren’t that experienced. However, Lujan Grisham also served six years in the House of Representatives, so I think her combined experience passes the bar. Plus, as a Latina, she is Democrats’ only nonwhite woman governor.

sarahf: I was wondering if we were going to get around to including any governors in this draft!

geoffrey.skelley: I think some folks may be surprised she was the first governor taken!

But agreed, she has an experience level that surpasses some other newly-elected 2018 governors.

nrakich: Yeah, even though many governors are getting high marks for how they’re handling the coronavirus crisis right now, Democrats’ gubernatorial bench is just pretty weak thanks to their drubbings in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. Plus, Democrats really love picking senators as running mates — 15 of the last 18 Democratic vice-presidential candidates have been senators!

sarahf: Is that some foreshadowing of your last pick, Geoffrey?

geoffrey.skelley: I guess that may depend on what you do, Sarah!

sarahf: So for my last pick, I’m going to go with Stacey Abrams. Working against her is the fact that she probably has the least amount of government experience of all the picks named. Yes, she was a Georgia state representative for 10 years, but she isn’t currently a public official. That said, her 2018 gubernatorial bid against Gov. Brian Kemp was close, which is impressive in a red state like Georgia.

It’s a testament to how skilled of a politician she is too, considering she’s been able to stay in the national conversation, even though she’s not currently in office. The way she’s breaking the (unspoken) rules by actively campaigning for VP is fascinating to watch, too. She had this powerful line in a recent interview where she explained her decision to push for the job, saying, “If you don’t raise your hand, people won’t see you.”

I understand how her outspoken desire for the job will be portrayed as a power-hungry move and alienate some in the party because it violates the norms around how nominees pick their running mates, but I could also see that drive resonating with a lot of voters.

nrakich: Yeah, Sarah, I’m also fascinated to see where her unorthodox strategy of campaigning for the job leads. But ultimately, I think Abrams would be a bad pick for Biden because there would be lots of questions about whether she is prepared to step into the role of president.

geoffrey.skelley: “Unorthodox” is the right word — it’s atypical for someone to actively seek the vice presidency in the press.

nrakich: I could see it rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, but also, I think there would be a racial and gendered element to any criticism. Would a white man be criticized for being outspoken about his ambitions?

sarahf: Exactly, Nathaniel, that’s why I think it’s so interesting to see Abrams campaign for the job in this way. You’re right that it probably does irritate some party veterans, but I think it’s a powerful message that could resonate with a lot of rank-and-file voters.

geoffrey.skelley: Abrams could be an energizing force for Biden’s campaign, too. She’s only 46 and has such a strong profile built off her narrow loss in the 2018 gubernatorial race in Georgia. Maybe there’s a case that she helps Biden with black voters and younger ones whom Biden didn’t do as well with during the primary.

sarahf: True. But OK, Geoffrey, take us home! Last pick!

geoffrey.skelley: Alright, for my last pick, I was a bit torn because there are a fair number of directions I could see the Biden campaign going. But I’ll pick “that woman in Michigan” — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Her experience level is a question mark — she only won her office in 2018. But she’s had a lengthy political career in Michigan, and if her approval holds up on her handling of the coronavirus crisis despite becoming a national political figure, maybe that strengthens her resume enough.

While I, too, am skeptical of there being a significant home-state benefit to vice-presidential picks, Whitmer is from Michigan, a state Trump very narrowly carried in 2016. And more broadly, she might serve Biden well in the region as a whole. She’s also only 48 years old, making her one of the younger possibilities we’ve mentioned today. That could give the ticket a nice generational balance.

nrakich: Yeah, on the experience front, I dunno… She might get a pass from the media or low-information voters because she’s been governor during this time of crisis. And she was the Democratic leader in the Michigan Senate, which isn’t nothing. But I just don’t know if that’s enough to be prepared to be leader of the free world.

Her handling of the coronavirus crisis may not be the selling point that many analysts assume it is either. She got in trouble recently for giving a no-bid state contract for tracking coronavirus cases to Democratic-connected firms. That’s the kind of rookie mistake that comes with inexperience.

Plus, how would it look for her to take a leave of absence from the governorship amid a pandemic to go campaign?

sarahf: One other thing that’s been weighing on me as we��ve chatted about Biden’s potential VPs is the kind of weird place we find ourselves in. On the one hand, we know Biden is going to pick a woman, but we just don’t know who.

And that’s complicated because whomever Biden picks, she’ll be tasked with defending his alleged track record with women, which is daunting — there’s the inappropriate touching claims from earlier in 2019 and now former Biden staffer Tara Reade has accused Biden of sexual assault. That’s something that his VP, especially because she will be a woman, will have to speak to no matter who she is.

nrakich: Yeah, I’ll be watching how these latest allegations play out.

For whatever reason — no room in the coronavirus news cycle? media bias? Trump and Republicans aren’t harping on it? — Reade’s allegations haven’t gotten a lot of traction yet. But with Business Insider finding someone whom Reade told about the alleged assault at the time, it seems like they aren’t going away either.

So far, though, female politicians (not that women are the only ones who care about this issue), including some we mentioned in this chat, are still supporting Biden, or at least aren’t saying anything about the accusations. Hillary Clinton even endorsed Biden on Tuesday.

sarahf: Yeah, it’s hard at this point to say how this will all shake out for Biden. If more women step forward or if we get more corroboration around Reade’s allegations, I have to think this causes Biden serious trouble. But even if that doesn’t happen, whoever Biden’s VP is will have to talk about his relationship with women, and as Rebecca Traister wrote for New York Magazine, that might be a hard pill to swallow.

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todaynewsstories · 6 years

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Midwest battleground states tap candidates for midterm elections

WASHINGTON and MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Voters chose nominees on Tuesday in the key battleground states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, setting up what are expected to be tight races as November’s congressional elections draw near.

FILE PHOTO: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker waves after speaking during the third day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

Wisconsin Republicans tapped state senator Leah Vukmir to battle incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, according to an Associated Press projection, after a bruising primary that could hamper her chances in November.

That state helped drive Republican Donald Trump’s surprising presidential win two years ago and turnout there and in neighboring Minnesota could serve as a barometer of Democratic strength headed into the midterm elections.

Both states have shown signs of drifting rightward in recent years. Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win Wisconsin in 32 years and he narrowly lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton in Minnesota.

All 435 U.S. House members and one-third of the Senate are running for re-election in November. Democrats need to add two Senate seats to seize control of that chamber.

In the House, Democrats need to win 23 seats to take control, which would derail or stall much of Trump’s policy agenda and increase congressional oversight and investigation of the administration.

Vukmir emerged victorious after a bitter primary fight with Kevin Nicholson, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran backed by conservatives such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Steve Bannon, the former Trump political adviser, in which each candidate accused the other of a lack of fealty to Trump.

“It’s now critical for our party to unify behind Leah so we can achieve our ultimate goal: defeating Tammy Baldwin,” U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement congratulating Vukmir.

Charlie Sykes, a longtime Republican commentator in Wisconsin, said the bruising primary could help Baldwin keep her seat, a blow to Republicans who once saw her as a top target.

“The biggest winner is Baldwin,” Sykes told Reuters. “It was an unnecessarily nasty intramural fight.”

Republicans also made their choice to replace Ryan, who is retiring from his seat in southeast Wisconsin. Bryan Steil, a former aide to Ryan, was projected to trounce Paul Nehlen, an avowed white nationalist, to be the Republican nominee.

Steil will face Randy Bryce, an ironworker known on Twitter as “Iron Stache,” in November in a suburban Milwaukee district that Democrats covet.

Wisconsin Democrats tapped Tony Evers, the state schools chief, to battle incumbent Republican Governor Scott Walker, who is seeking a third term.

Whether Walker, a former presidential candidate, can survive the challenge will be closely watched, as another measure of Democratic intensity.

“A really strong Democratic turnout in November could cause him to lose,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist in Washington. State Democrats will be motivated by their opposition to Trump in trying to bring down Walker, he said.

FILE PHOTO: Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton speaks to media after signing bills to eliminate the state’s $5 billion budget deficit and reopen state government and services that have been shut down for three weeks, in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S. on July 20, 2011. REUTERS/Eric Miller/File Photo

TRADE FACTORS

Minnesota Republicans picked state senator Karen Housley to take on Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator Tina Smith, appointed after former Senator Al Franken resigned last year amid sexual harassment accusations.

Primaries in two House districts representing regions affected by Trump’s trade policies could play a key role in determining control of Congress.

Former state representative Joe Radinovich outlasted a bevy of Democrats in an open-seat race in the state’s northeastern mining region called the Iron Range, which has seen some benefit from the administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs.

Trump has campaigned in the district for the Republican favorite, Pete Stauber.

In the state’s south, Republican Jim Hagedorn defeated Carla Nelson in a district the party hopes to seize after the Democratic incumbent, Tim Walz, ran for governor. Farmers there have complained over harm from retaliatory tariffs by China and elsewhere.

Walz won the Democratic nomination for governor, while former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty lost to Republican Jeff Johnson, ending Pawlenty’s political comeback bid.

Beyond the Upper Midwest, Connecticut and Vermont also held primaries on Tuesday.

In Vermont, unofficial results showed Christine Hallquist as the first openly transgender person to win a major U.S. party nomination for statewide office in the Democratic governor’s primary.

Senator Bernie Sanders, the former presidential candidate, easily won that state’s Democratic Senate primary. But Sanders, as before, is expected to decline the nomination and run as an independent.

Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and James Oliphant in Washington; Additional reporting by David Gaffen in NEW YORK; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez

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newsintodays-blog · 6 years

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Wisconsin, Minnesota primaries to gauge strength of opposition to Trump

New Post has been published on http://newsintoday.info/2018/08/14/wisconsin-minnesota-primaries-to-gauge-strength-of-opposition-to-trump/

Wisconsin, Minnesota primaries to gauge strength of opposition to Trump

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – States such as Wisconsin helped drive Donald Trump’s surprising presidential win two years ago, and Tuesday’s primaries there and in neighboring Minnesota could serve as a barometer of opposition strength headed into the November midterm elections.

FILE PHOTO: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker waves after speaking during the third day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

Voters were going to the polls in those states for party primaries, and Democrats will have a chance to show they can mobilize voters for Nov. 6’s congressional elections and perhaps the 2020 presidential race as well.

Both states have shown signs of drifting rightward in recent years. Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win Wisconsin in 32 years, and he narrowly lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton in Minnesota.

Trump’s consistently low approval ratings and his trade policies, however, may have given Democrats renewed life.

Foreign tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods in retaliation for Trump’s policies have become a central issue in the region, while Trump’s feud with iconic Wisconsin motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson Inc has placed Republicans there in an awkward position. That company’s stock has lost 19 percent so far this year.

Wisconsin voters signaled their unrest by turning out in large numbers and electing Democrats in a series of special state elections earlier this year, including a pair of wins in districts that had supported Trump in 2016 by wide margins.

Democratic turnout has surged in congressional primary contests across the nation this year compared with the last midterm elections in 2014.

In November, all 435 U.S. House members and one-third of the Senate are running for re-election. Democrats need to add a net total of two Senate seats to seize control of that chamber from Republicans. In the House, Democrats need to win 23 seats to assume control, which would derail or stall much of Trump’s policy agenda and increase congressional oversight and investigation of the administration.

To that end, Democrats hope the number of party voters who participate in Wisconsin primaries on Tuesday approaches the 1 million who voted in the primary in 2016, a presidential year, compared with 300,000 votes for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 2014.

More than 104,000 people had returned absentee ballots in the state through Tuesday, according to the state elections commission’s Twitter account. That is roughly a 20 percent increase from the primaries held two years ago.

Democrats would love to capture the Milwaukee suburban House district of Republican U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who is leaving office. Ryan supports former aide Bryan Steil to replace him, but Steil must fend off a primary challenge from avowed white supremacist Paul Nehlen.

Among Democrats, ironworker Randy Bryce was facing Cathy Myers, a local school board member.

Democrats will also choose a nominee to battle Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a former presidential candidate seeking a third term. That race will be another indicator of whether state voters have soured on Republican leadership.

“For Walker, it’s going to be a tougher run for him than in 2010 and 2014,” said Kenneth Mayer, professor of political science and an affiliate of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wisconsin Republicans will choose between Kevin Nicholson and Leah Vukmir to take on incumbent Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin in November.

While Trump has endorsed neither candidate, Nicholson was originally backed by former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon and conservative Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

Vukmir has support from party establishment figures such as Walker and Ryan. Congressional analysts say Baldwin remains favored to keep her seat in November.

TRADE FACTORS INTO MINNESOTA RACES

In Minnesota, notable primaries in two House districts could help determine control of Congress, representing regions affected by Trump’s trade policies.

A bevy of Democrats are running in an open-seat race in the northeastern part of the state known as the Iron Range, so-called because of mining there. That region has seen some benefit from the administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs.

Trump has already campaigned in the district on behalf of the Republican favorite, Pete Stauber.

In the south, two Republicans, Jim Hagedorn and Carla Nelson, square off in a House district that Republicans hope to seize after the Democratic incumbent, Tim Walz, ran for governor. Farmers there have complained about harm from retaliatory tariffs from China and other countries.

Minnesota’s governor race features former Republican governor and 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, who is trying to get his old job back. He is running against Jeff Johnson, who lost to departing Democratic Governor Mark Dayton four years ago.

Three Democrats are competing to succeed Dayton, including Walz, Erin Murphy, former majority leader of the state’s lower house, and State Attorney General Lori Swanson.

“There’s a sense among some that Walz may be more electable in the general and that may swing some more voters toward him,” said Kathryn Pearson, associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Beyond the Upper Midwest, Connecticut and Vermont also were holding primaries on Tuesday. In Vermont, Christine Hallquist would become the first openly transgender person to win a major U.S. party nomination for statewide office if she wins the Democratic governor’s primary.

Reporting by James Oliphant; additional reporting by David Gaffen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Jonathan Oatis

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jscottscales · 6 years

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Overnight Health Care: Four cities sue Trump claiming ObamaCare 'sabotage'

Welcome to another soggy Thursday edition of Overnight Health Care.

Today, the Trump administration said it would continue a program that gives funding to Planned Parenthood, cities are suing the Trump administration over its "sabotage" of the health law, and we take a look at the liberal group bankrolling Medicaid expansion ballot measures in red states.

But we'll start with a lawsuit...

Four cities sue Trump saying ObamaCare 'sabotage' violates Constitution

Four cities (Columbus, Cincinnati, Chicago and Baltimore) are opening up a new front in the Democratic fight against President TrumpDonald John TrumpPro-Trump pastor: Trump is 'the most pro-black' president I've ever seenTrump renews calls for interview with Mueller: reportCNN's Acosta: Hannity is 'injecting poison into the nation's political bloodstream'MORE's "sabotage" of ObamaCare.

Democrats have already made this a key part of their message for the midterms, but now there is a legal front too.

Details of the case: The cities say Trump's actions violate the Constitution's provision that the president "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

Trump's actions that the lawsuit point to include expanding insurance options that do not comply with the health-care law's rules, cutting funding for outreach to help people sign up for coverage, and shortening the sign-up period for ObamaCare.

Word of caution: Cases on this constitutional provision face a tough road because the president has considerable discretion.

Read more here.

Senate Dems will force vote to block non-ObamaCare plans

Top Senate Democrats said they are planning to force a vote on a measure that would overturn the Trump administration's rule expanding access to cheap, controversial insurance plans.

The resolution of disapproval will be introduced by Sen. Tammy BaldwinTammy Suzanne BaldwinElection Countdown: Trump jumps into Ohio special election fight | What to watch in Tennessee primaries | Koch network freezes out Republicans who crossed them | Dead heat in Texas, Nevada Senate races | How celebs are getting into the midtermsGOP Senate candidate backs Trump tariffs: Status quo 'is not free trade'Labor wish list bills bring progressive platform into viewMORE (D-Wis.). Senate Minority Leader Charles SchumerCharles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerOvernight Health Care: Trump officials move to expand non-ObamaCare plans | GOP fails to block DC individual mandate | Ebola returns to CongoAnti-Israel, pro-BDS candidates are the future in a radicalized Democratic PartyIs Trump colluding with Democrats?MORE (D-N.Y.) said he thinks there will be unanimous support among Democrats once the resolution is introduced.

The resolution aims to overturn the Trump administration's new rule that expands access to non-ObamaCare insurance plans.

The details: The administration touts these plans because they offer lower premiums for healthy people, but the plans don't need to follow ObamaCare rules, meaning they can charge people with preexisting conditions higher premiums and leave out coverage of certain health services.

The politics: The idea is pure messaging; Schumer wants to get Republicans on the record of voting against protecting pre-existing conditions. But the maneuver is one they had relative success with earlier this year involving net neutrality.

Express Scripts pushes back on criticism of pharmacy benefit managers

Express Scripts, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which negotiate with drug companies over prices, is trying to get its side of the story out as it faces attacks from the administration and pharmaceutical companies who deride them as "middlemen."

Dr. Steve Miller, Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer at Express Scripts, told reporters Thursday that the drug pricing problem lies with drug companies themselves.

"If they want to lower the price of a drug that's fully within their power; they can do it anytime they want," he said.

He pushed back on the idea the Trump administration has explored of eliminating rebates -- discounts that drug companies give to PBMs -- in favor of a simpler system.

Miller said rebates keep drug prices down. "If rebates just go away it's probably a big gift to pharma," he said.

Trump calls for food stamp work requirements in farm bill

President Trump on Thursday urged House and Senate lawmakers to adopt strict work requirements for food stamps when they craft a merged farm bill.

"When the House and Senate meet on the very important Farm Bill – we love our farmers - hopefully they will be able to leave the WORK REQUIREMENTS FOR FOOD STAMPS PROVISION that the House approved," Trump tweeted. "Senate should go to 51 votes!"

State of play: Both the House and Senate passed their respective farm bills in June. However, the House bill imposes new work requirements on the food stamp program and tightens overall eligibility on who can qualify for the federal assistance.

Trump factor: House Republicans have insisted they will fight for their version of the legislation, and Trump's explicit support for work requirements could complicate an already fraught process when the two chambers formally meet in the fall to merge their respective bills. Read more here.

Thursday roundup:

A new study reveals that the rate of opioid prescriptions in the country has not significantly declined for many patients over the past decade.

Another study, from the Brookings Institute, found ObamaCare premiums would likely be decreasing next year if the Trump administration and congressional Republicans had left the law alone.

The Washington Post reports that Maryland state Speaker of the House Michael E. Busch will push to have abortion rights enshrined in the state's constitution.

What we're reading

Allergan sues Pfizer over costs of opioid litigation (Reuters)

FDA did not intervene to curb risky fentanyl prescriptions (The New York Times)

Lack of dental coverage hampers Medicaid recipients, suit says (The New York Times)

State by state

Nevada GOP senator's health care views heat up tough race (AP)

Overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn't end abortion fight in California (Sacramento Bee)

Tennessee Dem gubernatorial candidate: Failure to expand Medicaid is state's 'greatest moral failure' (Jackson Sun)

From The Hill's opinion page

Palliative care for the living -- more education is needed

Comprehensive health care must include mental substance abuse treatments

Source

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/overnights/400164-overnight-health-care-four-cities-sue-trump-saying-obamacare

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alamante · 6 years

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The Seminar Network / Handout

Multibillionaire Charles Koch addresses donors to the libertarian Koch Network at its annual summer gathering in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on July 28.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. ― Charles Koch, the libertarian megadonor who leads a network that has spent tens of millions helping Republicans win races over the past several election cycles, suggested in a rare on-the-record briefing with reporters Sunday that his groups may spend less cash backing the GOP in the future.

“What I regret is some of the ones we have supported,” Koch told reporters at The Broadmoor resort, where more than 500 donors to the Koch Network had gathered for its annual summer summit. “We’re going to be stricter, when they say they’re going to be for these principles.”

Koch did not specify which candidates he was referring to.

He promised to “hold people accountable for their commitments” and said the donor network would “engage in politics to the degree it’s really moving our overall agenda.” The group also spends heavily on lobbying, and on backing nonprofits and educational institutions.

While money from the Koch Network played a major role in Republicans winning countless gubernatorial, congressional and Senate races during the presidency of Barack Obama, the network declined to endorse President Donald Trump’s run in 2016. While the network has had success in stocking the Trump administration with its allies and is immensely pleased with the GOP’s tax cuts, it’s also been sharply critical of his handling of immigration and trade and has slammed a $1.3 trillion spending bill Congress passed earlier this year.

Brian Hooks, a top official at the network, slammed the legislation as “the most fiscally irresponsible budget in the history of our country” during a briefing for donors earlier in the day.

HuffPost, along with other news organizations, was invited to attend the event after accepting ground rules set by the Koch Network, including not identifying donors unless they agree to an interview.

The network has been inviting reporters to its winter and summer gatherings ― what it calls seminars ― since 2014, but this is the first time Charles Koch has spoken to reporters on the record.

Asked if he could work with Democrats if they win control of the House, he responded: “I don’t care what initials are in front of or after somebody’s name.”

Despite Koch’s comments, the network isn’t a strictly bipartisan entity: So far this year, it has spent around $10 million attacking vulnerable Senate Democrats like Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, mostly for opposing the GOP tax law.

But the group has also spent money attacking GOP Rep. Lou Barletta, the Trump-endorsed candidate in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, and praising Democratic North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp for voting for a law rolling back Dodd-Frank regulations.

Asked if Trump was responsible for increasing political divisiveness in the country, Koch declined to echo some of his top network leaders.

“We’ve had divisiveness long before the president, we’ll have divisiveness long after,” he said. “I’m into hating the sin, not the sinner.”

He also warned that the Trump administration’s push for a trade war could lead the country into recession “if it’s severe enough.”

Standing up to the Trump administration’s moves toward protectionism have been a major theme of the network’s message at the seminar.

“The urge to protect ourselves from change has doomed many countries throughout history,” Koch said in a video shown to donors on Sunday morning. “This protectionist mindset has destroyed countless businesses.”

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party-hard-or-die · 6 years

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Senators ask billionaire Icahn for refinery waiver details

(Reuters) – Six Democratic U.S. senators have asked billionaire investor Carl Icahn and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to explain how an Icahn-owned refinery secured a valuable EPA exemption from the nation’s biofuels law.

FILE PHOTO: Billionaire activist-investor Carl Icahn gives an interview on FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto show in New York, U.S. on February 11, 2014. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

The request, made in letters sent late on Tuesday and reviewed by Reuters, adds pressure on the embattled EPA chief over his pro-business policies, as well as on Icahn, whose dual role last year as an investor and presidential adviser is being investigated by the Justice Department.

Reuters reported last week that EPA granted a small refinery hardship waiver from the nation’s biofuel laws to an Oklahoma refinery operated by Icahn’s CVR Energy Inc (CVI.N), allowing it to avoid tens of millions of dollars worth of costs related to the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard.

“We … are troubled that a company that is owned by a billionaire former ‘special adviser’ to the President who is currently under investigation by federal prosecutors … has now received an ‘economic hardship waiver’,” the senators wrote in the letters to Icahn and Pruitt.

Icahn did not respond to a request for comment. His attorney, Jesse Lynn, declined to comment.

The senators asked Icahn and Pruitt for details on the waiver, including records of discussions between both men in the months before it was granted.

The letters were signed by Democrats Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

The RFS requires refiners to add biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into their gasoline and diesel, or to buy blending credits from rival companies that do – a policy intended to help farmers, cut petroleum imports, and reduce air pollution.

EPA has the authority to exempt small refineries of less than 75,000 barrels per day of capacity if they can prove they are struggling financially with these regulations.

The agency has said it has granted more than two dozen such waivers in recent months, but has refused to confirm the recipients, saying the information is business sensitive. The EPA has in the past tended to grant less than ten per year, according to a former official.

Reuters has reported that Andeavor (ANDV.N), one of America’s biggest refining companies, was among the other companies that have received hardship waivers from Trump’s EPA for its small refineries.

An early supporter of Trump’s 2016 presidential run and a key supporter on Wall Street, Icahn had met with Pruitt when Pruitt was being vetted in late 2016 for the EPA administrator job, and later served as a special regulatory adviser to the Republican president.

Icahn stepped down from his advisory role last August after lawmakers cited potential ethical problems.

Currently, Icahn is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for his role in influencing biofuels policy while serving as Trump’s adviser. Some U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that Icahn may have used his presidential access to benefit his investments, a charge Icahn has rejected.

Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Susan Thomas

The post Senators ask billionaire Icahn for refinery waiver details appeared first on World The News.

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dragnews · 6 years

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Senators ask billionaire Icahn for refinery waiver details

FILE PHOTO: Billionaire activist-investor Carl Icahn gives an interview on FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto show in New York, U.S. on February 11, 2014. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

Icahn did not respond to a request for comment. His attorney, Jesse Lynn, declined to comment.

The senators asked Icahn and Pruitt for details on the waiver, including records of discussions between both men in the months before it was granted.

EPA has the authority to exempt small refineries of less than 75,000 barrels per day of capacity if they can prove they are struggling financially with these regulations.

Icahn stepped down from his advisory role last August after lawmakers cited potential ethical problems.

Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Susan Thomas

The post Senators ask billionaire Icahn for refinery waiver details appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2KMGh3m via Today News

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dani-qrt · 6 years

Text

Senators ask billionaire Icahn for refinery waiver details

FILE PHOTO: Billionaire activist-investor Carl Icahn gives an interview on FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto show in New York, U.S. on February 11, 2014. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

Icahn did not respond to a request for comment. His attorney, Jesse Lynn, declined to comment.

The senators asked Icahn and Pruitt for details on the waiver, including records of discussions between both men in the months before it was granted.

EPA has the authority to exempt small refineries of less than 75,000 barrels per day of capacity if they can prove they are struggling financially with these regulations.

Icahn stepped down from his advisory role last August after lawmakers cited potential ethical problems.

Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Susan Thomas

The post Senators ask billionaire Icahn for refinery waiver details appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2KMGh3m via Online News

#World News #Today News #Daily News #Breaking News #News Headline #Entertainment News #Sports news #Sci-Tech

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cleopatrarps · 6 years

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Trump push for conservative judges intensifies, to Democrats

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As President Donald Trump pursues his goal of making the federal judiciary more conservative, his fellow Republicans who control the Senate are poised to confirm another batch of his picks for influential U.S. appeals courts to the dismay of some Democrats.

FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, U.S., January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Eric Thayer/File Photo

The Senate this week is set to take up six of Trump’s nominees to the regional appeals courts, including four from states that have at least one Democratic senator.

A long-standing Senate tradition that gave senators clout over judicial nominees from their home states has been fraying for years, meaning Democrats have less of a chance of blocking appointees they oppose, as they did with some success during Republican former President George W. Bush’s administration.

One of those due for consideration on the Senate floor this week is Milwaukee lawyer Michael Brennan, who Trump has nominated for a vacant seat on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over a region that includes Wisconsin. One of Wisconsin’s two senators, Democrat Tammy Baldwin, opposes Brennan’s confirmation.

Another important test will come at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Wednesday for Ryan Bounds, a federal prosecutor from Oregon nominated by Trump to fill a seat on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Oregon’s two senators, both Democrats, oppose the nomination.

Brennan, Bounds and other Trump nominees who may be opposed by home-state Democratic senators are likely to win confirmation because of the Republicans’ 51-49 Senate majority.

Trump has made quick progress in reshaping federal appeals courts, winning Senate confirmation of 15 nominees to fill vacancies on federal appeals courts. Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama won confirmation of nine appeals court judges by the same point in his first term.

Trump also has been picking a raft of conservative jurists for lower federal courts and won Senate confirmation last year of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The regional appeals courts play a major role in shaping U.S. law. The judges hear appeals from federal district courts and usually have the final say, as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up only a tiny proportion of cases.

The appeals courts can set binding precedents on a broad array of issues, including voting rights, gun rights and other divisive social issues.

WORTHWHILE PRICE

For Trump and his party, setting aside a long-standing Senate tradition may be a worthwhile price to pay to achieve what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a top goal: shifting the ideological composition of the federal judiciary to the right.

For Trump, nine of the 15 appeals court vacancies he has filled have been on regional courts that already leaned conservative. His administration now aims to fill vacancies in regional courts from states represented by Democratic senators.

Leonard Leo, an outside advisor to Trump who has been instrumental on judicial nominations including Gorsuch’s, said the White House has the same criteria for picking conservative nominees no matter the state.

But Leo said, “You’ve got to engage a little more – in a more intense degree of consultation – with Democrats than with Republicans, so that takes a little time.”

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Some nominations have been less contentious, with the White House and Democratic senators able to agree.

Michael Scudder and Amy St. Eve, two Trump nominees for the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, are backed by the two Illinois senators, both Democrats. They are among the nominees up for Senate confirmation votes this week.

Hawaii’s two Democratic senators back a Trump nominee to the 9th Circuit. The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, has so far held fire on Richard Sullivan, Trump’s nominee to the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Michigan’s two Democratic senators voted in November to confirm Joan Larsen to the 7th Circuit.

Liberal activists doubt the White House is serious about compromise on judicial nominations.

“Those few examples show that when Democratic home state senators are consulted in good faith, they are not looking for progressive judges,” said Christopher Kang, who worked on judicial nominations in Obama’s White House.

“They understand that President Trump is going to appoint conservative judges but they are willing to work in good faith to find consensus nominees,” Kang added.

There are 148 vacancies in the federal judiciary, with 68 pending nominees. Trump inherited a large number of vacancies in part because McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans refused to confirm Obama’s nominees to fill some of the jobs before he left office in January 2017, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Will Dunham

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theliberaltony · 6 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Today I’m coming to you from the future. Or maybe I’m not. The rest of you will have to figure out whether I’m really coming from the future or just pulling your leg. But for now, I’ve timeported myself back from Nov. 7, and I’m going to tell you what happened on Election Day. Tell me whether you believe me or not.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): There’s approximately a 0 in 1 chance that Nate is coming to us from the future.

natesilver: Here’s what happened: Democrats picked up only 16 House seats, short of the 23 they needed to take control of the House. They might win another one or two once California finishes counting its returns, but they’re not going to get to 23.

And in the Senate — oh, boy.

Democratic incumbents lost in North Dakota, Missouri and Indiana. And they didn’t gain any Republican seats, although there’s a chance that Kyrsten Sinema could win Arizona if it goes to a recount (don’t get your hopes up, Democrats — she’d need almost everything to go right). So it looks like we’ll end up with a 54-46 Republican-controlled Senate.

There were a few bright spots for Democrats. Andrew Gillum won the Florida gubernatorial election. Republican Gov. Scott Walker lost by 2 points in Wisconsin. But overall, Republicans beat their polls by an average of 2 to 3 points — a lot like 2016, to be honest.

Democratic turnout was high. But GOP turnout was high too, and the election was fought in very red places.

OK, so that’s what happened.

Why don’t you guys ask me some questions so that you can verify I’m telling the truth?

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I’m not sure what kinds of questions. I think I don’t understand the rules of this game.

But this scenario seems plausible to me.

What was wrong with the polls in Arizona?

natesilver: Not sure you could say much was wrong with them — Sinema was up only 2 points in our forecast, and she’s down by 0.3 points based on votes counted so far.

That’s the thing — the polls weren’t really that far off. Just almost all of them were off in the same direction.

nrakich: That scenario is unlikely in the House, but it’s believable in the Senate. A Democratic gain of 16 House seats falls outside the 80-percent interval of the most likely possible outcomes in our model. That would mean Democrats basically just won the seats that are clearly in their favor right now — e.g., the Iowa 1st, the Virginia 10th, a handful in Pennsylvania — but not much else.

There’s about a 20 percent chance that Republicans pick up three or more seats in the Senate. Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Claire McCaskill of Missouri would probably be two of the first Democratic incumbents to fall in that scenario.

natesilver: I think pollsters are still sorting it out, but there’s a sense that wavering Republican voters came home to Trump at the end. We’re in an era where everything is very polarized along presidential lines, and that little uptick in Trump’s approval rating at the end may have helped, even though we were dismissive about it beforehand.

julia_azari: This is my sense about 2016 and politics in general: Predictability is making things, weirdly, slightly harder to predict.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): I think there’s something fishy in Future Nate’s count of House seats that Democrats picked up.

What can you tell us about those House seats?

natesilver: They didn’t necessarily fit any one pattern. GOP incumbents were a bit stronger than expected in some places. And Democrats were disappointed with the results in Texas and Florida, where they didn’t get much of a Hispanic turnout. There were some impressive Democratic victories — Richard Ojeda somehow won in the West Virginia 3rd, for example, which just doesn’t make a ton of sense given how the rest of the night went, but that’s what happened. There just weren’t enough of them.

nrakich: Here’s a question for you, Nate: What was Trump’s approval rating on Election Day?

natesilver: The national exit poll had it at 45 percent.

But, again — Democrats actually had a fairly good night, in some ways! They won the popular vote for the House by 6 points. They just lost nine battleground races by 2 percentage points or less.

julia_azari: What were the implications of this for the “shy Trump voter” phenomenon? Does this result debunk it, since it happened when Trump wasn’t actually on the ballot? Is the problem with the sampling or the likely voter screen? Or just unavoidable error? I want to know what this means for the nationalization of politics.

Also, were there any purple states where voters split the ticket on governor and Senate races?

natesilver: Sure. Ohio split, for example.

Plus some of the obvious ones, like Massachusetts and Maryland.

julia_azari: Right, Massachusetts is weird.

nrakich: Hey.

julia_azari: Did any of the top-shelf competitive races split? Did Sen. Tammy Baldwin win?

natesilver: Of course Baldwin won — it was always a Republican pipe dream to beat her.

julia_azari: I’ve seen a lot of yard signs for Leah Vukmir, her Republican opponent … (Please note that I am trolling Nate and this is not a factual statement.)

What about Bill Nelson? Democrats held on to his Florida Senate seat?

And wait … none of the competitive states that had both a governor and Senate race split? Just blue states with popular red governors?

natesilver: Yeah, Nelson held on.

And yet again, yard signs weren’t that predictive. But to your earlier question, Julia — there is some question about a “shy Trump” effect. The random digit dial polls tended to show better results for Democrats than the list-based sampling polls, and they may have been more affected by Democrats’ superior enthusiasm.

nrakich: So both Nelson and Gillum won in Florida, but Democrats were disappointed with low Hispanic turnout?

The thing about Florida is that it’s a state where Hispanic voters might help Republicans. Those southern Florida districts are heavily Cuban-American, a GOP-leaning group.

But honestly, that’s the only thing that seems inconsistent to me about your narrative. I buy that you’re from the future.

natesilver: Nathaniel, I think you’re neglecting that Nelson and Gillum both went into the election up several points. They were up by 4 points and 6 points, respectively, in our final polling average, and they each won by about 2 points.

nrakich: But why would Democrats be disappointed? They still won.

natesilver: Because they lost almost all the toss-up House races there, other than the Florida 27th (which maybe shouldn’t have been thought of as a toss-up to begin with). In the 26th, Republican Carlos Curbelo hung on — by 9 points, in fact.

julia_azari: So what we’re doing here is looking at a lot of small shifts in our expectations — no major upsets?

natesilver: What we’re doing here is that I’m coming back from the future and telling you what happened.

In the House, we had nine candidates (seven Republicans and two Democrats) win in races where they had less than a 20 percent chance of doing so. So there were some surprises there. Not as much in the Senate, really.

nrakich: Who was the other Democrat (other than Ojeda)?

natesilver: Ammar Campa-Najjar, of all people — bad night for Duncan Hunter in the California 50th.

Although, I should note that technically it’s still possible for Hunter to win — it’s just that the late mail ballots are expected to be Democratic.

sarahf: And what can you tell us about the seven Republicans? Any trends there?

natesilver: Yeah, there were several races where the Republicans were only slightly behind in the polls, but our model was very bullish on Democrats based on their fundraising.

The fundraising was a good sign of Democratic enthusiasm. But Republicans were enthusiastic too, even though they didn’t donate much money. Big-time donations from donors like Sheldon Adelson helped a lot. Republican efforts to triage basically worked.

nrakich: A lot of the fundraising was inefficiently distributed (*cough* Beto *cough*), so I certainly believe that the fundraising could fall flat.

julia_azari: I find how seemingly mundane the surprise is compelling, but my objection on the Senate side is that if things go badly for the Democrats, there will be at least one more incumbent loss — in Florida, or in Montana, or a true upset in Wisconsin, where underpolling of rural voters may be a real thing.

natesilver: Jon Tester won by 9 points in Montana. That was sort of a surprise in the opposite direction.

nrakich: Small state, popular incumbent. That checks out.

natesilver: But wait. Something’s happening. Something strange.

I have to go back into the timeporter.

[several hours pass]

julia_azari: I call BS on multi-directional surprises.

natesilver: Well, folks. I just got back from the future. It turns out that Democrats had a really, really good night. They’re going to win somewhere between 53 and 55 House seats, depending on a couple of California districts. And they somehow won the Senate, thanks to Texas! I guess Beto O’Rourke is going to be our next president now.

You guys should probably ask me a few questions about what happened, since it’s not too often you get to talk to someone from the future.

nrakich: Did Heidi Heitkamp win in North Dakota, or did Democrats have to make up for that loss elsewhere?

natesilver: She lost by 8.

But Beto O’Rourke won, and Democrats won all the toss-ups.

julia_azari: Where else did the Democrats pick up in the Senate?

What was the national House popular vote?

natesilver: Democrats won Arizona by 7 (!) and Nevada by 5 (!). Pollsters really underestimated Democratic performance in the Southwest.

The Democrats made huge gains in California, and it’s not out of the question that Republican Rep. Devin Nunes could lose once all the mail ballots are counted (although I wouldn’t bet on it).

nrakich: Eh, I don’t know about that. I’d say Democrats’ best path to a Senate majority lies with the incumbent in an underpolled, small state winning, not with a pro-impeachment Democrat who’s trailing in about a bazillion polls defeating Ted Cruz.

natesilver: But, Nathaniel, the polls weren’t that great.

For some reason, people don’t blame the polls unless Republicans beat their polls.

Democrats are going to win the popular vote for the House by something like 11 or 12 points, though.

sarahf: Was turnout lower among Republicans, too?

natesilver: It’s not that turnout was lower among Republicans. It’s just that all cylinders were firing for Democrats: There was very high turnout among suburban women and baby boomers and relatively high turnout among black/Hispanic/Asian voters. And independent voters went Democratic in the House by 14 points in the national exit poll.

julia_azari: To go back to an earlier question, what was Trump’s approval rating on Election Day?

natesilver: 44 percent.

But the small fraction of voters who had no opinion of Trump overwhelmingly backed Democrats.

nrakich: I’d bet more money on the polls in North Dakota being off than the polls in Texas. We have multiple high-quality pollsters in Texas. In North Dakota, it’s Fox News (a very good pollster) and then a handful of outlets without long track records of success.

natesilver: You can bet as much money as you want — but I’m from the future, and I know what happened.

Pollsters were baking in too many assumptions about a 2010- or 2014-type turnout — if they’d relied on self-reported voting intention, they would have come a lot closer to predicting the Democratic surge.

nrakich: That’s a narrative I would believe if Nate’s scenario came to pass.

julia_azari: What happened in the governors races?

natesilver: Democrats won all the highly competitive races, except in Kansas and Alaska.

Scott Walker actually almost held on in Wisconsin, losing by just 1 point, but a loss is still a loss.

nrakich: So Walker did better in your “Democratic surge” scenario than your “revenge of the Republicans” scenario?

Partisanship is much weaker in gubernatorial races, but with that kind of swing nationally, that would be a surprise.

julia_azari: Abrams won in Georgia?

natesilver: I mean, Kemp hasn’t conceded yet, and the AP hasn’t called the race — but, yeah, Abrams is going to win.

And, Nathaniel, these aren’t scenarios. These are incontrovertible news accounts from the future.

nrakich: So did Democrats only do decently in the Midwest, but really, really well in the Sun Belt?

It wouldn’t take much of a polling error for Democrats to win all the gubernatorial seats Nate mentioned. Our forecast already favors them to win Wisconsin, Florida, Connecticut, Iowa and several others. Picking up the toss-ups — Ohio, Georgia and Nevada — could happen, too.

And you’re right, Nate. I apologize — how indelicate of me.

natesilver: That’s a good summary, Nathaniel. In the West, it looks like Democrats will beat their polls by about 5 points on average. In the rest of the country, only 1 to 2 points.

nrakich: Did Democrats hold onto Minnesota’s 1st and 8th districts?

natesilver: Yeah.

I don’t want to toot our model’s horn too much, but a lot of the underpolled races where Democrats had a big fundraising advantage indeed proved to be big problems for the GOP.

Take Republican incumbent Scott Tipton in the Colorado 3rd, for instance.

The GOP efforts to triage went badly — they lost a lot of the toss-ups anyway, and it seemed to open up opportunities for Democrats to really expand the map.

nrakich: Did Doug Ducey win the gubernatorial race in Arizona? He’d be in real danger in a scenario — er, reality — like the one you’re describing, IMO.

natesilver: Yeah, he’ll hold on — just gonna be a lot closer than expected.

julia_azari: Can I point out some implications of this scenario? Democrats have made campaign finance an issue, but research shows that campaign money is more valuable to challengers than incumbents in congressional campaigns — it lets newcomers “even the playing field” when the incumbent has stronger name recognition.

In retrospect, I think the media actually paid too little attention to the Democrats’ grassroots fundraising. And were too dismissive of Beto O’Rourke, obviously!

nrakich: I’m laughing at the idea of the media dismissing Beto.

natesilver: Turnout in midterms isn’t that high. If voters are willing to part with their hard-earned cash, they’re going to turn out in big numbers.

And, Nathaniel, maybe dismissed is the wrong word? But there was a lot of smugness at the end about Beto O’Rourke being out of the running — he actually had a 20 percent chance, which isn’t nothing.

nrakich: What was the most Democratic district that Republicans held onto, in this timeline?

natesilver: Curbelo’s in Florida.

In some ways, voters differentiated the stronger GOP incumbents from the weak GOP incumbents quite a bit.

Curbelo won, but Chris Collins lost by 9 points (!!) in New York, and Duncan Hunter went down, too.

That said, Republican Will Hurd held on in Texas, despite O’Rourke’s victory.

It was the scandal-plagued districts and the off-the-radar races that collectively got Republicans in major, major trouble.

julia_azari: Is this a unique House effect? Were Senate seats more uniformly part of a national wave?

nrakich: I’m not sure that jibes with the “Democrats firing on all cylinders” claim.

natesilver: I think you’re underestimating the importance of local factors.

You can have both a pretty strong overall blue wave and a few places where GOP incumbents overperform relative to that blue wave.

sarahf: So the Texas 23rd, where Hurd held on, is a Romney-Clinton district that voted for the Republican candidate … Is that true of other Romney-Clinton districts? Or was it an anomaly?

natesilver: Yeah, the Romney-Clinton districts weren’t bad for Democrats as a group. But that’s not where they beat expectations. It was in the Southwest, plus a fair number of Obama-Trump districts, actually.

Hell, Barbara Comstock in the Virginia 10th only lost by 2 points, which isn’t bad under the circumstances.

nrakich: Overall, I think this timeline has more internal inconsistencies, but the topline numbers are more likely than under the Republican surge scenario. Democrats gaining 50 seats in the House is well within our confidence interval, and the gubernatorial outcome you describe is extremely plausible.

But Nate would probably say that the internal inconsistencies are a feature, not a bug.

Which is an argument.

julia_azari: I’m not suggesting that GOP incumbents can’t overperform. I want to know if local factors were stronger in the House beyond what we would already expect.

Like, were Senate races more nationalized?

natesilver: Julia, I’m not sure how to put it, other than that our picture of the House is always fuzzy. The GOP incumbency advantage was small overall by historical standards — but maybe a bit larger than you’d have gathered from polls ahead of time.

So if you take three or four crosscurrents — 1) overall Democratic turnout higher than expected, 2) controlling for No. 1, incumbents slightly outperform expectations on average in both parties, 3) the story was more about reversion to the mean in Obama-Trump districts, rather than continued gains for Democrats in Romney-Clinton districts, 4) particularly strong Democratic performance in the West and Southwest — and put all of those together, that basically explains the map.

And (to break character for a moment) that’s the thing about congressional elections.

They typically have 2 or 3 or 4 crosscurrents and not just one.

Uh oh. Receiving another transmission.

It seems I’ll need to end this chat and head to the office to meet with my superiors.

They were NOT happy that I’ve shared all this information with you.

sarahf: Not at all.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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malte1mj-blog · 7 years

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2006 Movie Awards

Best Picture: Babel Children of Men Dreamgirls The Lives of Others Shortbus HONORABLE MENTION: Pan’s Labyrinth, The History Boys, Notes on a Scandal, Little Miss Sunshine, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Children, Sherrybaby, The Prestige, Shut Up & Sing, Casino Royale, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Children of Men Guillermo del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, The Lives of Others Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel John Cameron Mitchell, Shortbus HONORABLE MENTION: Pedro Almodovar, Volver; Martin Campbell, Casino Royale; Bill Condon, Dreamgirls; Laurie Collyer, Sherrybaby; Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine; Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima; Richard Eyre, Notes on a Scandal; Todd Field, Little Children; Paul Greengrass, United 93; Nicholas Hytner, The History Boys; Christopher Nolan, The Prestige Best Actor: Gael Garcia Bernal, The Science of Sleep Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed Toby Jones, Infamous Ulrich Muhe, The Lives of Others Clive Owen, Children of Men HONORABLE MENTION: Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat; Daniel Craig, Casino Royale; Matt Damon, The Good Shepherd; Paul Dawson, Shortbus; Aaron Eckhart, Thank You for Smoking; Ion Fiscuteanu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brick; Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson; Hugh Jackman, The Fountain; Sebastian Koch, The Lives of Others; Kazunari Ninomiya, Letters From Iwo Jima; Peter O’Toole, Venus; Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness; Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland; Patrick Wilson, Little Children Best Actress: Penelope Cruz, Volver Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sherrybaby Sook-Yin Lee, Shortbus Helen Mirren, The Queen HONORABLE MENTION: Ivana Baquero, Pan’s Labyrinth; Kirsten Dunst, Marie Antoinette; Shareeka Epps, Half Nelson; Anne Hathaway, The Devil Wears Prada; Beyonce Knowles, Dreamgirls; Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada; Naomi Watts, The Painted Veil; Rachel Weisz, The Fountain; Kate Winslet, Little Children Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Craig, Infamous Paul Dano, Little Miss Sunshine Richard Griffiths, The History Boys Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls Jack Nicholson, The Departed HONORABLE MENTION: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine; Samuel Barnett, The History Boys; Michael Caine, The Prestige; Steve Carell, Little Miss Sunshine; Robert Downey Jr., A Scanner Darkly; Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children; Ryo Kase, Letters From Iwo Jima; Sergi Lopez, Pan’s Labyrinth; Brad Pitt, Babel; Christopher Plummer, Inside Man; Keith Robinson, Dreamgirls; Jason Schwartzman, Marie Antoinette; Channing Tatum, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints; Ulrich Tukur, The Lives of Others Best Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza, Babel Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada Frances de la Tour, The History Boys Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls Meryl Streep, A Prairie Home Companion HONORABLE MENTION: Cate Blanchett, Babel; Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal; Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine; Jill Clayburgh, Running with Scissors; Vera Farmiga, The Departed; Martina Gedeck, The Lives of Others; Luminita Gheorghiu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu; Rinko Kikuchi, Babel; Mia Kirshner, The Black Dahlia; Carmen Maura, Volver; Frances McDormand, Friends with Money; Catherine O’Hara, For Your Consideration; Anika Noni Rose, Dreamgirls; Emma Thompson, Stranger Than Fiction; Maribel Verdu, Pan’s Labyrinth Best Original Screenplay: Babel - Guillermo Arriaga Little Miss Sunshine - Michael Arndt The Lives of Others - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Pan's Labyrinth - Guillermo del Toro Shortbus - John Cameron Mitchell HONORABLE MENTION: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The Descent, Half Nelson, Inside Man, A Prairie Home Companion, The Queen, The Science of Sleep, Sherrybaby, Volver Best Adapted Screenplay: Children of Men - David Arata, Alfonso Cuaron, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby & Timothy J. Sexton The History Boys - Alan Bennett Letters From Iwo Jima - Paul Haggis & Iris Yamashita Little Children - Todd Field & Tom Perrotta Notes on a Scandal - Patrick Marber HONORABLE MENTION: Art School Confidential, Borat, Casino Royale, The Departed, The Devil Wears Prada, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Infamous, Marie Antoinette, The Prestige, A Scanner Darkly, Thank You for Smoking Best Ensemble: Babel The Departed Dreamgirls The History Boys Shortbus HONORABLE MENTION: Art School Confidential, Bobby, Flags of Our Fathers, The Good Shepherd, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Infamous, Inside Man, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, Notes on a Scandal, A Prairie Home Companion, The Queen, Thank You for Smoking, United 93, Volver Best Limited Performance - Male: Adam Brody, Thank You for Smoking Alan Mandell, Shortbus Bill Nighy, Notes on a Scandal Joe Pesci, The Good Shepherd Martin Sheen, The Departed HONORABLE MENTION: Alec Baldwin, The Departed; Justin Bond, Shortbus; Bobby Cannavale, Fast Food Nation; James Cromwell, The Queen; Sam Elliott, Thank You for Smoking; Michael Gambon, The Good Shepherd; Danny Glover, Dreamgirls; Tony Hale, Stranger Than Fiction; Mark Margolis, The Fountain; Neal McDonough, Flags of Our Fathers; Hinnerk Schonemann, The Lives of Others; Koji Yakusho, Babel Best Limited Performance - Female: Viola Davis, World Trade Center Rosario Dawson, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints Loretta Devine, Dreamgirls Julianne Moore, Children of Men Fiona Shaw, The Black Dahlia HONORABLE MENTION: Gillian Anderson, The Last King of Scotland; Tammy Blanchard, The Good Shepherd; Meagan Good, Brick; Judith Ivey, Flags of Our Fathers; Julie Kavner, Click; Sharon Leal, Dreamgirls; Gwyneth Paltrow, Infamous; Diana Rigg, The Painted Veil; Phyllis Somerville, Little Children; Sylvia Sims, The Queen; Robin Weigert, The Good German Breakthrough Performance: Ivana Baquero, Pan's Labyrinth Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine Paul Dawson, Shortbus Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls Rinko Kikuchi, Babel HONORABLE MENTION: Claire-Hope Ashitey, Children of Men; Samuel Barnett, The History Boys; Jay Brannan, Shortbus; Presley Chweneyagae, Tsotsi; Melonie Diaz, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints; Debbie Doebereiner, Bubble; Mark Duplass, The Puffy Chair; Shareeka Epps, Half Nelson; Max Minghella, Art School Confidential; Emily Rios, Quinceanera; Jaden Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness; Jodie Whitaker, Venus Best Film Editing: Babel - Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione Children of Men - Alfonso Cuaron & Alex Rodriguez The Lives of Others - Patricia Rommel Shortbus - Brian A. Kates United 93 - Clare Douglas, Richard Pearson & Christopher Rouse HONORABLE MENTION: Bubble, Casino Royale, The Departed, The Descent, Dreamgirls, The Good Shepherd, Infamous, Inside Man, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Children, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Prestige, Shut Up & Sing, Volver Best Cinematography: Babel - Rodrigo Prieto Children of Men - Emmanuel Lubezski The Good Shepherd - Robert Richardson Letters From Iwo Jima - Tom Stern The Lives of Others - Hagen Bodanski HONORABLE MENTION: The Black Dahlia, Bubble, Casino Royale, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The Descent, Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers, The Fountain, Inside Man, Marie Antoinette, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Prestige, Shortbus, United 93, Volver Best Original Score: The Fountain - Clint Mansell The Lives of Others - Stephane Moucha & Gabriel Yared Notes on a Scandal - Phillip Glass The Queen - Alexandre Desplat Volver - Alberto Iglesias HONORABLE MENTION: Babel, Brick, The DaVinci Code, The Departed, The Good German, The Illusionist, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Children, The Painted Veil, Pan’s Labyrinth, United 93 Best Original Song: Dreamgirls - "Listen" - Scott Cutler, Beyonce Knowles, Henry Krieger & Anne Preven Dreamgirls - "Love You I Do" - Siedah Garrett & Henry Krieger Dreamgirls - "Patience" - Henry Krieger & Willie Reale Shortbus - "In the End" - Scott Matthew Shut Up & Sing - "The Neighbor" - Gary Louris, Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines, Emily Robison & Pete Yorn HONORABLE MENTION: Bobby - “Never Gonna Break My Faith��; Cars - “Our Town”; Casino Royale - “You Know My Name”; Happy Feet - “The Song of the Heart”; Shortbus - “Soda Shop”; Stranger Than Fiction - “The Book I Write” Best Art Direction: The Black Dahlia - Dante Ferretti & Elli Griff Dreamgirls - Nancy Haigh & John Myhre Marie Antoinette - K.K. Barrett & Veronique Melery Pan's Labyrinth - Eugenio Caballero & Pilar Revuelta The Prestige - Nathan Crowley & Julie Ochipinti HONORABLE MENTION: Bobby, Casino Royale, Children of Men, The Devil Wears Prada, Flags of Our Fathers, The Good Shepherd, The Illusionist, Infamous, Letters From Iwo Jima, The Lives of Others, The Painted Veil, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Queen, The Science of Sleep, Volver Best Costume Design: The Devil Wears Prada - Patricia Field Dreamgirls - Sharen Davis Marie Antoinette - Milena Canonero The Painted Veil - Ruth Myers Pan's Labyrinth - Lala Huete HONORABLE MENTION: The Black Dahlia, Bobby, Flags of Our Fathers, The Good Shepherd, The Illusionist, Infamous, Letters From Iwo Jima, The Lives of Others, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, A Prairie Home Companion, The Prestige, The Queen, Volver Best Makeup: The Descent Marie Antoinette Pan's Labyrinth Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest The Queen HONORABLE MENTION: The Black Dahlia, Children of Men, Dreamgirls, The Fountain, The Good Shepherd, The Illusionist, Infamous, Letters From Iwo Jima, The Prestige, Saw III, Volver, X-Men: The Last Stand Best Sound Mixing: Casino Royale Children of Men Dreamgirls Letters From Iwo Jima The Lives of Others HONORABLE MENTION: Babel, The Departed, The Descent, Flags of Our Fathers, The Good Shepherd, Inside Man, Little Miss Sunshine, Marie Antoinette, Mission: Impossible III, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, A Prairie Home Companion, The Prestige, Shortbus, United 93 Best Sound Editing: Casino Royale Children of Men Letters From Iwo Jima Pan's Labyrinth The Prestige HONORABLE MENTION: Babel, Blood Diamond, The Departed, The Descent, Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers, Inside Man, The Lives of Others, Mission: Impossible III, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Saw III, Superman Returns, United 93, X-Men: The Last Stand Best Visual Effects: Casino Royale Flags of Our Fathers Letters From Iwo Jima Mission: Impossible III Pan's Labyrinth HONORABLE MENTION: Children of Men, The Fountain, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Poseidon, The Science of Sleep, Superman Returns, X-Men: The Last Stand Best Foreign-Language Film: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu - Cristi Puiu The Lives of Others - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Pan's Labyrinth - Guillermo del Toro Tsotsi - Gavin Hood Volver - Pedro Almodovar HONORABLE MENTION: Duck Season Best Documentary: Deliver Us From Evil - Amy Berg The Heart of the Game - Ward Serrill Shut Up & Sing - Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck Street Fight - Marshall Curry Wordplay - Patrick Creadon HONORABLE MENTION: An Inconvenient Truth, Jackass: Number Two, Jesus Camp, Stagedoor, This Film Is Not Yet Rated Best Animated Film: Flushed Away - David Bowers & Sam Fell Happy Feet - George Miller Monster House - Gil Kenan Over the Hedge - Tim Johnson & Karey Kirkpatrick A Scanner Darkly - Richard Linklater HONORABLE MENTION: Cars Every 2006 Film I've Seen: Ranked

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