House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused President Trump of fast-tracking the confirmation of his pending Supreme Court nominee in order to repeal the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.
“Why the president is in such a rush is because he’s in a hurry to overturn the Affordable Care Act. And he wants to do that,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday night at The Atlantic Festival. “The oral arguments start Nov. 10, a week after the election, and he wants to get a justice in there in time for that so they can hear the arguments and vote on it.”
Trump and other Republican leaders indicated after Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s death on Friday they intended to move forward with filling the court’s vacancy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appears to have secured enough votes to confirm Trump’s nominee, although it’s still unclear whether the vote could come before the November presidential election, or in the lame-duck session that takes place after the election but before the new Congress starts.
It marks a reversal from 2016 when McConnell refused to hold a Senate vote on Merrick Garland, who was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. McConnell held the seat open until after the election and inauguration of Trump in 2017. Justice Neil Gorsuch was nominated and later confirmed in April 2017.
The president said he will announce his nominee on Saturday.
Pelosi suggested that Republicans were rushing to fill the vacancy so that the new justice would be confirmed before Nov. 10, when the high court will hear arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law also known as ObamaCare.
“People have to know what this means to them,” Pelosi said. “Yeah, they know that the Republicans are hypocritical – they said one thing and another – who cares? What they care about is what it means to them. And what it means to 150 million families in America is that no longer will they have the protection of the Affordable Care Act when it comes to a pre-existing medical condition.”
Ginsburg voted to uphold the Obama-era law in 2012 alongside the court’s three other liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts. She was widely expected to do so again when the high court reviews ObamaCare for the third time.
The case was brought by a group of Republican attorneys general, spearheaded by Texas, who are arguing that the individual mandate – the provision that requires Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a financial penalty – was made unconstitutional when the GOP-passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the penalty to zero.
The suit contends that if that part of ObamaCare is invalid, so is the rest of the law.
The ultimate outcome of the lawsuit will affect millions of Americans, and the repeal of the decade-old law could leave up to 32 million people without health insurance by 2026, according to a Congressional Budget Office report from 2017 about the effects of repealing ObamaCare.
A pair of Senate Republican committee chairmen released a report Wednesday arguing that Hunter Biden’s board position with a Ukrainian energy company was “awkward,” “problematic” and interfered with “efficient execution of policy” for the Obama administration, but failed to demonstrate that it changed the administration’s policy toward Ukraine.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) co-authored the report, which comes just weeks before the Nov. 3 election between President Trump and Joe Biden.
The GOP report concludes that “Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board was problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine,” while charging that he and other Biden relatives “cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency.”
But at the same time, the report states that “the extent to which Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine is not clear.”
Hunter Biden held a lucrative job on the board of the company while Joe Biden was vice president. At the time, Joe Biden and the Obama administration were seeking to root out corruption in Ukraine.
In a statement issued before the report’s release, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates accused Johnson of trying “to subsidize a foreign attack against the sovereignty of our elections with taxpayer dollars — an attack founded on a long-disproven, hardcore right-wing conspiracy theory that hinges on Sen. Johnson himself being corrupt and that the senator has now explicitly stated he is attempting to exploit to bail out Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.”
The release of the report comes less than a week before Trump faces Joe Biden in the first of three presidential debates, a forum in which Trump is expected to invoke allegations against his rival’s son.
The investigation, which was launched last year, has been mired in controversy since the start, as Democrats accused Johnson and Grassley of running the probe to try to counter the House’s impeachment of Trump, who pressured Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens.
Johnson and Grassley have defended the investigation as a legitimate probe into potential abuses of access to power. But the standoff took a darker turn this summer, when Democrats accused Johnson of laundering Russian disinformation through his probe — a charge Johnson and Grassley have vehemently rejected.
The accusation stems in part from public statements made by Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker who previously belonged to a pro-Russian party, claiming to have sent documents to Johnson and Grassley to aid in their probe. Johnson and Grassley have stated repeatedly that they have had no contact with Derkach, who was sanctioned by the Treasury Department earlier this month as an “active Russian agent.”
But Johnson has had contact with another Ukrainian national, former diplomat Andriy Telizhenko, who once worked as a consultant for Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm that worked on behalf of Burisma. Telizhenko has advanced the theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election to boost Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump. Recently, he also has been publishing unverified transcripts of tapes reflecting conversations between Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko — tapes that Derkach has been publicizing as well.
Democrats have suggested that Telizhenko may be functioning as a conduit for others to funnel Kremlin-backed conspiracies to congressional investigators. Johnson and Grassley have said that they vetted all of Telizhenko’s information through other sources. Both Ukrainians have a relationship with the president’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, though Telizhenko told The Post earlier this month that he barely knows Derkach and has taken pains to stay away from him.
The senior Democrat on the Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) called the report authored by Grassley and Johnson a “sham investigation” that relied in part on Kremlin disinformation.
Wyden said the inquiry “was an attempted political hit job facilitated by the State Department, and rooted in the disinformation pushed by a pro-Russian operative and Russian asset who is under U.S. sanction. Throughout this effort I have been deeply disturbed by Senate Republicans’ willingness to disregard national security concerns and push Russian disinformation. The Senate must never again be abused in this way.”
The panel interviewed about a dozen witnesses in the investigation, including from Blue Star. The panel also interviewed two close Biden advisers, former deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former international energy envoy Amos Hochstein, as well as two current ambassadors, Geoffrey Pyatt, who previously was the top diplomat in Ukraine, and Bridget Brink, who was previously the deputy assistant secretary of State with responsibility for Ukraine. Current deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, former National Security Council Eastern Europe director Liz Zentos, former assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs Victoria Nuland, and David Wade, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, also spoke to investigators in the probe.
Last week, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmenal Affairs Committee voted to release the transcript of all interviews alongside the report, but the transcripts were not provided to the media early Wednesday morning. Late Tuesday night, panel ranking member Sen. Gary Peters (Mich.) protested the decision in a letter to Johnson, saying his “violation of the unanimous vote of this Committee … would further weaken the Committee’s ability to effectively carry out its responsibilities on behalf of the public in the future.”
Two Senate Republicans released a report on Wednesday detailing Joseph R. Biden’s alleged conflicts of interest tied to his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings in countries where the former vice president was wielding considerable influence at the time.
Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa released the anticipated report with less than a week to go until the first presidential debate between President Trump and Mr. Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.
“What the Chairmen discovered during the course of this investigation is that the Obama administration knew that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board was problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine,” the report said.
Hunter Biden held a lucrative position on board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father was vice president and running point for the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
George Kent, the former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, had raised concerns about perceptions of conflicts of interest with Hunter Biden’s position on the board but they went unheeded, according to the senators’ report.
“Furthermore, the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine,” Mr. Kent wrote in an email to colleagues in 2016.
Mr. Kent delivered similar testimony during last year’s Trump impeachment probe, when he also said he didn’t think Mr. Biden, the candidate, did anything wrong.
In 2016, Mr. Biden had threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees unless the country’s leaders fired Ukraine’s top prosecutor, who had also reportedly been looking into Burisma.
The candidate has said he didn’t do anything wrong with respect to his son’s work and that the two of them never discussed business deals.
Democrats have cried foul on the probe, saying Mr. Johnson is leveraging information from sources who are actively trying to undermine Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign.
The Biden campaign said that Mr. Johnson is helping subsidize “a foreign attack against the sovereignty of our elections with taxpayer dollars.”
“The senator has now explicitly stated he is attempting to exploit [it] to bail out Donald Trump’s reelection campaign,” said Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates.
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Grassley have defended their investigation, saying that if there’s no wrongdoing, then Democrats shouldn’t have an issue with their asking questions.
“Many in the media, in an ongoing attempt to provide cover for former Vice President Biden, continue to repeat the mantra that there is ‘no evidence of wrongdoing or illegal activity’ related to Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board,” Mr. Johnson said last month. “I could not disagree more.”
The Democratic-led House impeached Mr. Trump last year, accusing him of strong-arming Ukraine into digging up dirt on the Bidens. The GOP-led Senate voted to acquit him earlier this year.
People walk on Stranvagen in Stockholm on September 19, 2020.
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND | AFP | Getty Images
Sweden’s chief epidemiologist has partly blamed the country’s high coronavirus death toll on mild flu outbreaks in recent winters.
“When many people die of the flu in the winter, fewer die in heat waves the following summer. In this case, it was Covid-19 that caused many to die,” Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter earlier this week.
‘What has now been seen is that the countries that have had a fairly low mortality for influenza in the last two, three years, such as Sweden, [also] have a very high excess mortality in Covid-19,” he said, according to a translation provided in The Times newspaper.
“Those which had a high flu mortality rate, such as Norway, during the last two winters, have fairly low Covid mortality. The same trend has been seen in several countries. This may not be the whole explanation but part of it.”
Much attention has been paid to Sweden during the coronavirus pandemic because of its decision to not completely lock down its public life and economy. Most of Europe did so as coronavirus cases surged in spring.
Tegnell’s public health agency instead recommended mostly voluntary measures, such as good hygiene, social distancing guidelines and working from home if possible.
Bars, restaurants, most schools and businesses remained opened, however, and face masks are not widely worn. Sweden did ban mass gatherings and visits to elderly care homes, however, although this latter restriction is due to be lifted soon despite a high death toll from Covid-19 being seen in such institutions.
Sweden’s no-lockdown policy was seen by Tegnell as a way to achieve a degree of herd immunity in the population, he told CNBC in April.
Herd immunity among a population, usually achieved through vaccination, is reached when around 60% of citizens are deemed immune. With no vaccine available, however, scientists have been looking closely at whether exposure to and recovery from Covid-19 leads to long-term immunity.
Pursuing herd immunity has proved controversial in Sweden because allowing the virus to spread (albeit with some measures in place), has put vulnerable groups such as the elderly and people with existing health conditions at a greater risk of becoming seriously ill and dying. In July, WHO officials warned that patients who recover from the virus may be able to get it again, saying that some studies suggest immunity may wane after a few months.
Sweden has reported a higher number of infections and deaths than its neighbors, although, with around 10 million people, it has roughly double the population of its neighbors Denmark, Finland and Norway. To date, Sweden has recorded almost 90,000 cases and 5,870 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Denmark, by contrast, has recorded under 25,000 cases and 641 deaths.
Unlike major European economies France, Spain and the U.K., which are seeing coronavirus cases rise again in what is being described as a second wave of the pandemic, Sweden was initially thought to be avoiding a resurgence. However, outbreaks among sports teams have emerged in recent weeks, and rising cases in the capital Stockholm mean the city could now be headed for more restrictions.
“Stockholm has seen a clear increase recently, across all age groups,” Tegnell said in a press conference, Dagens Nyheter reported Tuesday. “We are discussing with Stockholm whether we need some additional possibility to take measures to reduce transmission.”
What possible measures could be introduced was not discussed, but Stockholm’sHealth and Medical director Bjorn Eriksson, said an uptrend in the Stockholm region could lead to a “very serious situation again.”
A new study in mice adds to the evidence suggesting that the immune system not only attacks invading pathogens but can also influence mood.
Share on PinterestA new study finds further evidence of the link between the immune system and behavior.
Over the past few years, scientists have discovered some intriguing links between immunity and the mind.
One of the immune signaling molecules, or cytokines, that mediates these links is called interleukin-17a (IL-17a).
IL-17a plays a role in psoriasis, which is an autoimmune skin condition, but it may also contribute to the depression that many people experience. Indeed, a study involving a mouse model of psoriasis found that IL-17a caused depression-like symptoms.
In humans, researchers have also linked the molecule to treatment resistant depression.
Research in mice has even implicated IL-17a in the development of autism.
“The brain and the body are not as separate as people think,” says Prof. Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, MO.
While working at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Prof. Kipnis and colleagues found that IL-17a causes anxiety-like behavior in mice.
“We are now looking into whether too much or too little of IL-17a could be linked to anxiety in people,” says Prof. Kipnis.
The scientists have published the results of their mouse study in the journal Nature Immunology. Kalil Alves de Lima, a postdoctoral researcher who is also now at the University of Washington, led the research.
Immune cells called gamma-delta T cells produce IL-17a. The cells are present in the meninges, which are the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
To determine what effect IL-17a might have on behavior, the scientists studied mice whose gamma-delta T cells did not produce any IL-17a and mice who lacked the cells completely.
They put the mice through standard tests of memory, social behavior, foraging, and anxiety. The mice performed just as well as normal mice on all tests apart from two that measure anxiety levels.
In those tests, the mice who lacked gamma-delta T cells or did not produce any IL-17a were more likely to explore open areas. In the wild, this kind of behavior would put them at greater risk of being eaten by predators.
The researchers interpreted this as a sign of reduced anxiety in animals without IL-17a signaling in their central nervous system.
Next, the scientists investigated how the signal affects neurons in their brains. They found receptors for IL-17a on a type of stimulatory nerve cell called a glutamatergic neuron.
When they genetically manipulated the neurons to prevent them from making these receptors, the mice exhibited less anxiety-like behavior.
Previous animal research has revealed a multitude of possible links between bacteria living in the gut and behavior, including anxiety-like behaviors.
This connection is known as the gut-brain axis, and scientists have proposed the immune system as one possible way that messages pass between them.
To investigate the role of IL-17a in the gut-brain axis, Alves de Lima and colleagues injected the mice with lipopolysaccharide. This is a toxin that bacteria produce. It provokes a strong immune reaction.
In response to the injection, gamma-delta T cells in the meninges surrounding the animals’ brains produced more IL-17a.
In another experiment, when the researchers treated the mice with antibiotics to kill the bacteria in their guts, the animals produced less IL-17a.
Together, the results of these experiments suggest that the immune system has evolved not only to fight infection but also to adjust behavior to keep animals safe while they are in a weakened state.
“Selecting special molecules to protect us immunologically and behaviorally at the same time is a smart way to protect against infection. This is a good example of how cytokines, which basically evolved to fight against pathogens, also are acting on the brain and modulating behavior.”
– Kalil Alves de Lima
The team is now investigating how gamma-delta T cells in the meninges surrounding the brain can detect the presence of bacteria elsewhere in the body.
The researchers are also looking into exactly how IL-17a signaling in the brain changes behavior.
In their paper, they conclude:
“Our findings provide new insights into the neuroimmune interactions at the meningeal–brain interface and support further research into new therapies for neuropsychiatric conditions.”
Although the physiology of mice and humans is very similar, scientists need to carry out much more research to explore the possible links between the human immune system and mood.
President Trump faces pressure to sign his name to a bipartisan election security bill known as the Defending the Integrity of Voting Systems Act after Congress gave the legislation its final go-ahead Monday.
The House of Representatives easily passed the proposal by voice vote held on the heels of fellow lawmakers across Capitol Hill in the Senate having similarly approved the effort roughly two months earlier.
Passed with weeks left in the White House race, the bill would update the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — the government’s main anti-hacking statute — to clearly apply to systems used in federal elections.
While existing law already prohibits accessing protected computers without authorization, the president’s signature would ensure it covers voting machines and related federal election infrastructure.
“We are on the verge of a significant, historic and really life-or-death presidential or federal elections,” Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, California Democratic, said on the House floor before the vote was held.
Calling it “an important legislative initiative,” Ms. Lee said the bill would expand the existing law, known as the CFAA, to enhance the ability for authorities to bring charges when voting systems are hacked.
“This bill will protect our nation’s sacred most democratic process by making it a federal crime to hack any voting system used in a federal election,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Republican.
“Protecting our nation’s election process from bad actors must be a top priority of Congress,” Mr. Armstrong said in support of the bill. “It’s narrow and it does what we need it to do.”
The bill was originally introduced last year by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, and it was followed by companion legislation offered in the House by then-Rep. John Ratcliffe, Texas Republican.
Mr. Blumenthal reacted to the House vote Monday by urging Mr. Trump to sign the bill into law so the Department of Justice can “vigorously prosecute” and stop malicious hackers meddling in the race.
The White House did not immediately return a message requesting comment.
Millions of Americans are expected to cast ballots this fall in the White House race primarily between Republican incumbent Mr. Trump and Democratic challenger Joseph R. Biden before Election Day ends Nov. 3.
The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence — led by Mr. Ratcliffe since May — assessed hackers targeted election infrastructure during the last presidential race and will do the same this fall.
Foreign hackers may try to compromise election infrastructure for a range of possible purposes, the ODNI warned last month, such as interfering with the voting process or stealing sensitive data, among others.
“However, it would be difficult for our adversaries to interfere with or manipulate voting results at scale,” the ODNI warned last month.
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg returns for the final time to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, an army of more than a hundred of her former clerks will meet the casket and accompany it up the stone s… Read More
The Trump administration’s bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent efforts to meddle with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are taking a substantial toll on the nation’s foremost public health institution.
In interviews with half a dozen current and former CDC officials, they described a workforce that has seen its expertise questioned, its findings overturned for political purposes and its effectiveness in combating the pandemic undermined by partisan actors in Washington.
“I have never seen morale this low. It’s just, people are beaten down. People are beaten down partially by a public who not only distrusts us but who actually think we want to infringe on their civil liberties,” said one current CDC employee. “The other factor is the active undermining by senior members of our own administration.”
Those who still work at the agency requested anonymity to describe conversations among their colleagues, for fear of retribution from an administration that has punished officials who speak out.
They expressed frustration that the CDC, long an independent voice of dispassionate science, has bent to the whims of an administration that does not acknowledge the severity of a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S. They have seen guidance revised or removed — most recently this week, when the CDC took down language that acknowledged the virus mainly spreads through aerosol droplets, something the World Health Organization said months ago.
In the early months of the pandemic, senior CDC officials including Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat and Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, were sidelined after sounding the alarms over the dangers posed by the novel coronavirus.
“As I talk to former colleagues at CDC, the feeling I get is just an overwhelming sense of despair. People are working incredibly hard to reduce the impact of the pandemic and the sense that they’re being blocked by people at the political level, and that the work that they’re doing is not being appreciated by the American public,” said Rich Besser, a former CDC director who now runs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“The feeling right now is that public health is not being allowed to lead and to demonstrate the path forward to reduce transmission and increase economic activity,” he said.
CDC spokespeople did not return calls and emails seeking comment.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have publicly questioned the CDC’s conclusions, published in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Those reports are sacrosanct documents meant to highlight the agency’s best work and research.
House Democrats have launched an inquiry into potential political interference in the CDC’s publications.
The HHS officials who sought changes to those reports included Michael Caputo, who worked on Trump’s campaign and who arrived at the health agency in April, and his top science adviser, Paul Alexander. Alexander has left HHS, and Caputo has taken medical leave after a bizarre rant on Facebook in which he accused CDC officials of trying to harm Trump’s political standing.
Some current CDC employees pointed to a directive from HHS in August, when guidance recommending that those who came into contact with someone infected by the virus be tested even if they were asymptomatic was quietly removed from the agency’s website. That recommendation was reinstated, after public outcry.
“It’s horrifying. I don’t know of any other situation like this, when things have been dictated to be put on the CDC website that aren’t defensible science. The idea that you shouldn’t test contacts is just indefensible,” said Tom Frieden, who led the CDC during the Obama administration.
The political interference in guidance, and Trump’s pledges that a vaccine will be ready soon — a promise that stands in contrast with CDC Director Robert Redfield’s testimony to Congress last week that a vaccine would not be widely available until next year — is raising concerns over whether the public will accept a vaccine once it becomes available.
“It’s incredibly sad to all of us that the recent guidance is causing a loss of trust for CDC in general. I’m very nervous about what is going to happen when a vaccine is available, especially if the phase three trials are cut short for political reasons,” said a current CDC employee. “Public health messaging is so important and it’s been disregarded since the early days of the pandemic.”
Others at the CDC said political interference has been taking place from the first days of the pandemic. On one incident management call, an official who listened in said Redfield talked about how he had been instructed by Vice President Pence to change CDC guidelines on the size of public gatherings to come in line with the White House coronavirus task force recommendations.
A spokesperson for Pence’s office denied that he instructed Redfield to change any guidance. But in March, the CDC changed its guidance from a limit on public gatherings from 50 people to 10 people — three days after the White House’s task force set the limit at 10.
The current CDC employees said their faith in Redfield’s leadership had been shaken, both by his inability to prevent changes to recommendations handed down from Washington and for his unwillingness to defend the agency more vociferously. Those employees called Redfield, a prominent AIDS researcher at the University of Maryland before he was tapped to head CDC, both humble and approachable.
“It’s become quite obvious that Dr. Redfield is a meek and gentle guy in a context where a fighter was needed,” the first CDC employee said. “He is not seen by anybody at CDC as somebody who will stand up and fight for us, as an agency.”
Even Redfield’s predecessors have been critical of his defense of their agency.
“What does concern me is that we’re not seeing strong support for the agency from the top, and that can be demoralizing. One role of the CDC director is to have the backs of the scientists and all of the people working hard across the agency, and we’re not seeing that,” Besser said. “I don’t know what Dr. Redfield is doing behind closed doors, but we haven’t been hearing from him out front condemning interference in CDC publications.”
CDC sources said there had been no talk of mass resignations to protest the administration’s handling of the pandemic, or its meddling in public health science. Some have joked of moving to New Zealand or Australia, but most say they will continue their work to promote public health.
“People in public health by and large are people who just see suffering and want there to be less of it. That’s what drives you into public health. I mean, God knows you don’t do it for the money,” the first CDC employee said. But, the employee added: “The overall tenor of things, the drumbeat is just too disheartening.”
