El Paso (United States) (AFP) - The Republican governor of Texas on Monday ordered hundreds of National Guard soldiers to the US-Mexico border, in what he said was a bid to stem an expected surge of migration when Covid-era rules lapse this week.
In an illustration of the deep political divisions in the United States over immigration, Greg Abbott lashed out at President Joe Biden for an anticipated spike in illegal immigration.
"With the ending of Title 42 on Thursday, President Biden is laying down the welcome mat to people across the entire world," said Abbott.
"The Texas National Guard is loading Blackhawk helicopters and C-130s and deploying specially trained soldiers for the Texas Tactical Border Force, who will be deployed to hotspots all along the border to help intercept and repel large groups of migrants trying to enter Texas illegally."
Title 42 is the name of a set of rules imposed under then-president Donald Trump ostensibly to prevent people infected with Covid-19 from entering the country.
In practice it became a crude immigration control method that allowed border guards to turn away would-be asylum-seekers without accepting their claims.
After years of to-and-froing, the rules lapse on Thursday night, to be replaced by what the Biden administration says are legal pathways to asylum for those qualified and who do it properly, and strict punishments for those trying to cross the border illegally.
Border towns along the 3,100-kilometer (1,900-mile) frontier are readying for what could be several thousand people trying to cross into the United States every day.
The Texan cities of El Paso, Brownsville and Laredo have declared a state of emergency, as they struggle to cope with the hundreds of people -- most from Latin America, some from China, Russia and Turkey -- who are already there.
In El Paso, hundreds of people including children sleep on the streets, cowering from the sun under sheets, or sleeping on cardboard, some begging for money.
Migration is a wedge issue that Republican Party politicians have repeatedly use to bash their Democratic Party opponents with.
The politicking is expected to intensify as America's electoral cycle spins towards next November's presidential poll.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission will be ordered to reconsider its decision not to sanction the 10 Wisconsin Republicans who cast false Electoral College votes for former President Donald Trump in 2020.
Dane County Judge Frank Remington said on Monday that the involvement in that decision by commissioner Robert Spindell, one of the ten false electors, makes it unenforceable.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, as attempts the Trump campaign sought to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes, a number of Republicans met in secret to cast Electoral College votes at the same time that the duly elected Democratic electors were meeting. The false votes were submitted to Congress, the National Archives, a federal judge and then-Secretary of State Doug La Follette.
The Republican electoral votes cast in Wisconsin and several other states were used by Republicans to argue the results of the election remained in dispute and were cited in the lead-up to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In March of 2022, the WEC unanimously voted not to sanction the 10 Republicans who cast the electoral votes after a complaint was brought by Madison attorney Jeff Mandell.
In court, Remington said he’d issue a written ruling stating that the WEC should reconsider the complaint, this time without Spindell’s involvement. Remington’s order comes in a case in which the progressive legal outfit Law Forward and the Madison arm of the Service Employees International Union argue that the WEC decision should be tossed out because of Spindell’s inclusion in the vote.
“In retrospect, it was inappropriate for Mr. Spindell not to recuse,” Remington said.
Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.
As congressional leaders prepare for a Tuesday meeting at the White House, Congressman Jamie Raskin, a constitutional scholar, affirmed Sunday that if GOP lawmakers won't raise the debt ceiling without major spending cuts, President Joe Biden can invoke the 14th Amendment to keep borrowing and avert a catastrophic first-ever U.S. default.
Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says in part, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law... shall not be questioned."
Asked whether the president could and should use that part of the amendment to combat Republican efforts to hold the global economy hostage, Raskin (D-Md.) told MSNBC's Jen Pskai—Biden's former press secretary—that "I think he has that authority under these circumstances, absolutely, because the Congress has put him in a constitutionally untenable position."
"If he decides to default for the country, he's... violating the Constitution, because the 14th Amendment says you can't do that," Raskin said of Biden, pointing to a New York Times opinion piece by Harvard University professor emeritus Laurence Tribe.
Tribe—whose previous students include Raskin along with former President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Elena Kagan—detailed why he has changed his mind on the debt limit argument.
"The question isn't whether the president can tear up the debt limit statute to ensure that the Treasury Department can continue paying bills submitted by veterans' hospitals or military contractors or even pension funds that purchased government bonds," he wrote Sunday. "The question isn't whether the president can in effect become a one-person Supreme Court, striking down laws passed by Congress."
Tribe continued:
The right question is whether Congress—after passing the spending bills that created these debts in the first place—can invoke an arbitrary dollar limit to force the president and his administration to do its bidding.
There is only one right answer to that question, and it is no.
And there is only one person with the power to give Congress that answer: the president of the United States. As a practical matter, what that means is this: Mr. Biden must tell Congress in no uncertain terms—and as soon as possible, before it's too late to avert a financial crisis—that the United States will pay all its bills as they come due, even if the Treasury Department must borrow more than Congress has said it can.
Praising Tribe's piece for the Times, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) tweeted early Monday: "The Treasury has the [constitutional] obligation to pay our debts and spend the money Congress has already directed it to do. It really is that straightforward."
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last week that "our best estimate is that we will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government's obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1."
Appearing on ABC's "The Week" Sunday, Yellen confirmed the timeline she laid out for the speaker is "still our current thinking" and explained that "we've been using extraordinary measures for several months now, and our ability to do that is running out."
While acknowledging that Biden said Friday he was not yet ready to invoke the 14th Amendment, ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Yellen if it was still a possibility. She would not explicitly address whether the White House is considering the move, instead stressing that "our priority is to make sure that Congress does its job."
"There is no way to protect our financial system and our economy other than Congress doing its job and raising the debt ceiling and enabling us to pay our bills," Yellen said. "And we should not get to the point where we need to consider whether the president can go on issuing debt. This would be a constitutional crisis."
Led by McCarthy, House Republicans last month passed their so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, 2024—whichever comes first—but also impose dramatic cuts that would notably impact lower-income households. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has repeatedly called the bill "dead on arrival."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and fellow Democrats are working on a "discharge petition" effort to force a vote on a clean bill raising the debt limit, but doing so would require support from at least five Republicans, which is unlikely.
In a Monday letter to Schumer, 43 GOP senators made clear that they are "united behind the House Republican conference in support of spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling."
Meanwhile, Schumer, Jeffries, and other Democratic leaders on Monday released an updated version of their recent report warning that Republicans forcing a default would be catastrophic, "but even the threat of breaching the debt ceiling can have serious economic consequences for families."
Biden is set to meet with McCarthy, Jeffries, Schumer, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Tuesday "for what he called a separate negotiation on fiscal policy—even though it is effectively linked to the debt limit drama," the Timesnoted Monday.
The newspaper added:
White House officials said this weekend that Mr. Biden has been publicly and privately adamant that he will not bargain with Republicans over raising the limit. "Let's get it straight: They're trying to hold the debt hostage to get us to agree to some draconian cuts, magnificently difficult and damaging cuts," Mr. Biden told a meeting of cabinet members and other economic officials on Friday.
Citing three unnamed sources with knowledge of internal conversations, The Washington Postreported Monday that White House officials see unilateral actions—from invoking the 14th Amendment to minting a platinum coin worth $1 trillion—as "risky choices that could cause lasting economic damage" but also "do not want to take the proposals completely off the table."
The National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), which represents about 75,000 federal employees, cited the 14th Amendment in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that seeks to have the debt limit law declared unconstitutional.
NAGE's complaint, which names Biden and Yellen as defendants, argues the debt limit statute "is unconstitutional because it puts the president in a quandary to exercise discretion to continue borrowing to pay for the programs which Congress has heretofore duly authorized and for which Congress has appropriated funds or to stop borrowing and to determine which of these programs the president, and not the Congress, will suspend, curtail, or cancel altogether."
The filing adds that NAGE "seeks to protect all its members from additional extraordinary measures as well as major spending-related actions that will necessarily be taken without approval of Congress and that result in layoffs, furloughs, requirements for unpaid work, and loss of funding of the pensions and retirement plans of its members."
The Republican debt ceiling bill would result in the firing of more than 2,000 Border Patrol agents and would “supercharge” the fentanyl crisis, Democrats say, according to a newly obtained memo obtained by Politico.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in the memo assailed the GOP-proposed bill he said calls for cuts to the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI and Customs and Border Protection, and additional cuts to health care spending that would make it more difficult to get treatment for addiction, Politico reports.
The attempt to tie the proposed spending cuts in the Republican debt ceiling bill to the fentanyl crisis comes on the eve of President Joe Biden’s scheduled meeting with party leaders from both chambers including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Politico’s Nancy Vu writes “…it indicates that the Biden team isn't letting up on its insistence that any debt ceiling increase be decoupled from potential federal spending cuts.”
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Republicans appear to be standing their ground ahead of possible negotiations over the debt ceiling limit.
Vu writes that “just this past weekend, 43 Senate Republicans led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sent a letter to Schumer demonstrating their filibuster-strength level of support for spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week notified Congress that the U.S. could default on its debt as soon as June 1 if the government fails to increase its debt limit.
Yellen in a letter to House and Senate leaders urged lawmakers to “to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting as soon as possible” to increase the limit on its legal borrowing authority.
“We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States,” Yellen’s letter said.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of seditious conspiracy last year, and now federal prosecutors are seeking to give him a decades-long prison sentence.
NBC News reports that prosecutors are asking for a 25-year prison sentence for Stewart Rhodes, the militia leader who was convicted for his role in plotting to violently storm Congress on January 6th, 2021 in the name of blocking the certification of President Joe Biden's election victory.
According to a sentencing memo released late last week, prosecutors say that Rhodes deserves more prison time than any of his fellow Oath Keepers given his role in plotting and encouraging a violent takeover of the United States Capitol building for the purposes of spurring former President Donald Trump to declare martial law.
Specifically, prosecutors cited the "scope and scale of Rhodes’ conduct in calling for and conspiring to perpetrate violence against the U.S. government to change the results of a presidential election and retaliate against Congress for certifying those results" warrants getting thrown in jail for more than two decades.
READ MORE: 'He can't deliver': Brutal conservative editorial dumps on Trump's 2024 hopes
"Defendant Rhodes stands out among the conspirators for the frequency and vehemence with which he urged his followers to use intimidation and coercion to influence and affect the conduct of government... and to retaliate against government conduct," they wrote.
Former President Donald Trump has said that he would conduct mass pardons of January 6th defendants should he be elected president again in 2024.
President Joe Biden finds himself in a similar position to the one that President Barack Obama faced in the early 2010s: the threat of a debt ceiling default combined with Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives demanding severe budget cuts. Yet Biden is dealing with a GOP House majority that, under Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California), is even further to the right than the one that Obama faced with then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) believes that McCarthy's caucus is totally unreasonable when it comes to the debt ceiling.
Murphy told the Daily Beast, "These guys are a bad reality show. McCarthy can't negotiate, even amongst a group of ideological lookalikes. How on Earth is he going to negotiate a deal that keeps his gang together and also draws Democratic votes? It's a physical impossibility."
In an article published by the Beast on May 8, reporter Ursula Perano notes that McCarthy's "standing as leader of the House GOP is so fraught, so precarious, that even in the face of a catastrophic economic cliff, Democrats don't trust his ability to negotiate in good faith, nor to actually deliver on his promises."
Murphy is not the only Senate Democrat who is expressing doubts about McCarthy's ability to negotiate a bipartisan budget/debt ceiling deal.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) believes that McCarthy "sold his soul when he got to be speaker." And Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told the Beast, "There's no question in my mind that this speaker is in a much weaker position than John Boehner was not that long ago, and that ought to be a four-alarm concern for everybody who wants to land this economic plane safely."
Having traveled across the United States for a decade to campaign against the ceaseless round of shootings that have claimed thousands of lives, Shannon Watts believes she has heard a very clear message.
"Americans want the gun violence to stop," she said during a recent stop in Washington.
One of the country's most prominent faces in the fight against gun violence, Watts met with AFP journalists in her hotel room in an interview sandwiched between a live Instagram talk and lunch with Hillary Clinton and other influential women.
While the battle to reduce firearm deaths has exacted a price -- amid furious responses from some far-right gun lovers she often travels under an alias -- this 52-year-old mother of five remains undeterred.
And after devoting countless hours to her cause, she insists that "we are winning."
It doesn't always feel that way. On Saturday, a man armed with an assault rifle killed eight people in a shopping center near Dallas, Texas.
"We are not numb," Watts tweeted afterwards. "We are traumatized."
By now, she told AFP, even Republicans, traditionally fierce defenders of the right to own arms, "are scared their kids aren't safe."
It was that sort of fear that prompted Watts to found Moms Demand Action. The galvanizing spark was the Sandy Hook massacre of December 14, 2012 -- when a disturbed young man opened fire in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26 people, including 20 children aged six and seven.
That night, Watts said, she went to bed "devastated," in tears but also "full of rage" and overwhelmed by "this feeling of needing to do something."
The next morning she went to work. Scouring the internet, she found a few anti-gun violence groups, but all were headed by men. That wasn't for her: "I wanted to be part of a badass army of women," she said.
So she set out to create one.
From humble beginnings as a small Facebook group, Moms Demand Action has grown into a powerful organization with chapters in all 50 US states and claiming some 10 million supporters.
The association -- part of the umbrella group Everytown for Gun Safety -- enjoys key financial support from billionaire and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The red T-shirts worn by MDA members have become a familiar sight at demonstrations or outside state capitols, where many legislators have firsthand experience with the group's influence at the ballot box.
A master of social media, Watts claims the group has scored 500 legislative victories on the local or national level, nearly always in opposition to the country's powerful pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.
There have also been setbacks, which can fuel a sense of fatalism: Mass shootings have become so common, so unexceptional, that they no longer prompt big demonstrations across the country.
But according to Watts it takes more than individual protests to "change legislation and culture." What's needed, she said, is "what I call the unglamorous heavy lifting of grassroots activism."
So she keeps pressing for ambitious federal actions -- even if those seem doomed by Republicans' current control of the House of Representatives.
A key goal is a nationwide requirement for potential gun buyers to undergo background checks -- to weed out those with criminal records or serious psychiatric problems.
Watts also wants to see a ban on military-style assault weapons of the type so frequently used in mass shootings. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, shares that goal but has been unable to push a ban through Congress.
But there is one step Moms Demand Action will not take: seeking an outright ban on private gun ownership.
"There are a variety of different reasons you may want or need a gun," she told AFP. Her father owned one, as do many members of her organization, Watts said.
And countries like Israel and Switzerland have "high rates of gun ownership, but low rates of gun violence," she noted. "Those two things can co-exist."
This year, after 10 years heading Moms Demand Action, Watts will pass the reins of leadership to Angela Ferrell-Zabala.
Watts, for her part, would not say what her next act might be -- though she wouldn't rule out a future in politics.
Given the national prominence she has earned through her MDA work, that would seem a logical move.
But her high profile has also made her a target, in a country where love of guns is deeply visceral for many.
From her earliest days of activism she has been marked with threats. Heavily armed men have been expelled from events where she appeared.
She travels with "someone who specializes in security," whose responsibilities include always knowing the location of "the nearest hospital to take me to if there's a shooting."
But Watts insisted she will not be silenced.
"If we lose our children," she said, "we have nothing left to lose."
© Agence France-Presse
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Sunday that unless Congress acts soon to raise the nation's debt ceiling, "financial and economic chaos would ensue."
Republicans have been pressing President Joe Biden to strike a deal to provide spending cuts in exchange for lifting the national borrowing limit, but Yellen insisted the onus remains on US lawmakers.
"It simply is unacceptable for Congress to threaten economic calamity for American households and the global financial system as the cost of raising the debt ceiling," she told ABC talk show "This Week."
Yellen had warned on Monday that the United States could run out of money to pay its financial obligations as early as June 1.
The ceiling on US public debt is legally fixed and can be raised only by passage of congressional legislation signed into law by the president.
The Republican-led House of Representatives, positioning itself for a showdown with Biden, voted in late April to lift the borrowing limit but only with drastic cuts to rein in what that party sees as excessive spending.
The bill has no chance of being adopted in the Senate, with its Democratic majority.
Biden has so far refused to negotiate, noting that the debt ceiling has routinely been raised scores of times over the years -- including under former Republican president Donald Trump.
But Republicans insist Biden's refusal to talk is the principal obstacle.
"The president has refused to negotiate," Senator James Lankford, a Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told ABC. "That has been the most stunning part about this."
Biden is set to meet on Tuesday with the leaders of both parties in Congress.
"I know he wants to set up a process in which spending priorities and levels are discussed," said Yellen, "but these negotiations should not take place with a gun pointed at the head of the American people."
She sidestepped questions about the possibility Biden might use a novel interpretation of the US Constitution to simply keep paying the nation's bills, saying that in the absence of congressional action, "there are simply no good options."
The impasse has raised the possibility of the country's first-ever default, with profound implications for the US and global economies.
Analysts say markets would be shaken and interest rates would lastingly rise, causing households and businesses to pull back on spending.
A default, Biden's economic advisors warn, could cause the loss of eight million jobs and send GDP plunging by six percent.
Since the United States hit its $31.4 trillion borrowing limit in January, the Treasury has taken extraordinary measures to allow it to continue financing the government's activities.
But as Yellen said Monday, those measures will soon be exhausted.
© Agence France-Presse
Even at a time of intense partisan conflict over election policies, it was a strikingly direct charge against a sitting official — and one made not by a Twitter activist or even on the campaign trail, but before Congress. And it comes at a time when election officials are already facing a wave of harassment and threats stemming from false claims about voting.
But a closer look at the facts makes clear the allegation that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson knowingly kept dead people on the rolls to allow for fraud deserves extreme skepticism.
A federal judge has ordered mediation in a lawsuit brought by a conservative voting group alleging Benson, a Democrat, is violating federal law by keeping the voters on the rolls. But the suit stops well short of claiming that Benson deliberately aimed to encourage fraud — in contrast to the claim aired at the congressional hearing.
And in court filings, her office has offered a clear alternative explanation for why it hasn’t removed the voters at issue — essentially, that doing so would risk disenfranchising eligible voters.
The episode offers the latest example of how outlandish claims about voting — often seeking to vilify election officials, poll workers, or ordinary voters — have at times in recent years gone unchallenged, helping to establish a perception of widespread fraud and corruption that’s sharply at odds with reality.
That’s come at a severe cost to U.S. elections. A national survey found last year that nearly a quarter of local election workers endured violence, harassment, or abuse as a result of their job. A separate survey from last month found many are quitting.
“By advancing false conspiracy theories about our elections,” said
Jake Rollow, a spokesman for Benson, “this congressional committee threatens the safety of professional election officials on both sides of the aisle.”
Serving as a witness at an April 27 hearing on voting policy held by the GOP-controlled U.S. House Administration Committee, the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky was asked why a state might refuse to maintain accurate and up-to-date voter rolls.
“There’s currently a lawsuit going on in Michigan, against the Michigan secretary of state, because she refuses to take 27,000 individuals who are dead off the voter rolls,” answered von Spakovsky, a longtime leader of the conservative campaign for tighter voting laws.
Von Spakovsky was referring to an ongoing lawsuit brought by the Public Interest Legal Foundation against Benson, charging that her failure to remove the voters violated federal law. PILF, which was founded by a conservative voting activist, often works to pressure election officials to more aggressively purge voter rolls, citing the threat of illegal voting, which is extremely rare.
“They verified the information themselves, sent it to the secretary of state, and she refuses to take them off,” added von Spakovsky.
Von Spakovsky declined to say why Benson might have kept the voters on the rolls. “You’d have to ask her,” he said.
But another witness, Ken Cucinelli of the Election Transparency Initiative, another group that advocates for stricter voting rules, was less reticent.
“I think the reason for it is the desire to build in problems, to have muddy voter rolls that can be exploited,” said Cuccinelli, a Republican former attorney general of Virginia. “That’s the only rational explanation, and that’s unfortunate.”
A short time later, Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., brought the issue up again during his questioning.
“Mr. Cuccinelli, how do you think the American people would feel that the Michigan secretary of state would allow 27,000 dead people to be on the rolls?” Murphy asked.
“I think they’d be astonished,” Cuccinelli responded, without hesitation. “They couldn’t conceive of a legitimate, clean legal reason to do that.”
After some back and forth, Murphy asked: “What intent other than fraud could there be for wanting to allow such things?”
“I don’t think there is any other intent,” said Cuccinelli.
“Short of fraud, there is also mere confusion,” Cuccinelli added. “The left has a bigger litigation machine, by far, than the right … So muddiness and confusion works to their advantage. It leads into litigation, where they deem themselves to have an advantage.”
Murphy then asked why anyone would be against voter ID laws.
“I’m just trying to figure out what rationale, other than wantingly to commit fraud, would there be for these things,” Murphy asked.
The series of exchanges, which went largely unchallenged, left listeners at the hearing with a clear takeaway: Michigan election officials are knowingly refusing to pare large numbers of deceased voters from the rolls, in order to make it easier for illegitimate voters to cast fraudulent ballots.
But court filings made by lawyers for Benson’s office in the PILF suit make clear that things aren’t nearly that simple.
They say Benson declined to remove the voters because doing so without confirming the accuracy of PILF’s list would have risked removing eligible voters and violating federal voting law, which aims to ensure that voters aren’t wrongly removed.
Asked whether Cuccinelli stood by his claim that Benson sought to encourage fraud, Election Transparency Initiative didn’t back down.
Cuccinelli, the group said in a statement, was referring to “a sliding scale from fraud down into intentional confusion, with the purpose of the intentional confusion being to leverage a litigation advantage in close races. And the purpose of allowing fraud, being obvious, to actually allow fraud, though Benson et al would (never) admit it.”
Rollow, the Benson spokesman, responded: “Michigan’s voter registration rolls are more accurate than ever and maintained in accordance with the law.”
On its website, Benson’s office outlines its process for removing voters from Michigan’s rolls, which contain around 8.2 million names.
It says it removes dead voters “on a weekly basis” after receiving information from the Social Security Administration’s Master Death Index. It also receives information about voters who have died from the Electronic Registration Information Center, an interstate compact for sharing registration data, and from other sources.
A database of election fraud cases maintained by von Spakovsky at the Heritage Foundation lists four criminal convictions for election fraud stemming from Michigan’s 2020 election, in which around 5.5 million votes were cast. None were the result of dead people being left on the rolls. There have been no credible allegations of fraud in the state’s 2022 election, in which around 4.5 million people cast ballots.
In its November 2021 complaint, PILF said it worked with a data-analytics expert to cross-reference a sample of Michigan’s registered voters against death records kept by the Social Security Administration, including matching Social Security numbers. (PILF worked with a federally licensed database vendor who had access to Social Security Administration databases.) The group said it used various safeguards, including checking for evidence of commercial activity, to avoid false positives.
PILF conducted this process three separate times between September 2019 and August 2021. In its final examination, it found just under 26,000 “potentially deceased” registrants.
PILF alleged that it provided Benson’s office with its findings on several occasions, and urged the office to remove the voters from the rolls, but no action was taken.
“For the Foundation to be able to identify more than 25,000 deceased registrants on a conservative sample of the (voter rolls) it examined, and for Defendant to fail to act upon the information provided by the Foundation over the course of many months,” PILF alleged in its complaint, “demonstrates emphatically that Michigan has failed to reasonably implement and/or conduct a systematic list maintenance program that complies with federal law requiring deceased electors to be removed from the voter rolls.”
In response, Benson’s office asked the court to dismiss the case. In addition to challenging PILF’s standing to bring the lawsuit, lawyers for Benson’s office argued that federal voting law only requires states to make a reasonable effort to remove ineligible voters — something they said Michigan has long done.
“It certainly does not require election officials to divert limited public resources from using established protocols to identify and remove deceased voters to, instead, focus on a list of unknown provenance and accuracy,” the lawyers wrote.
PILF didn’t provide enough information with its list, Benson’s lawyers added, to allow the state to confirm that all the voters on it were actually dead. When Benson’s office did a sample review of several of the names on the spreadsheet PILF provided, the lawyers wrote, those names had in fact been canceled as deceased, casting further doubt on the list’s accuracy.
As a result, Benson’s office argued, removing the voters from the list would risk disenfranchising any voters who were wrongly included, as well as potentially violating federal voting law. Election officials in several states have sparked outrage in recent years by conducting flawed purges of the rolls that have removed eligible voters.
Benson’s office might have had an additional reason to view PILF’s findings skeptically.
In 2019, PILF was forced to issue an apology to a group of Virginia voters after wrongly describing them as non-citizens in a report alleging large-scale illegal voting in the state.
Against the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters, Benson’s office also needed to weigh the opposite-side risk of allowing illegal votes to be cast by failing to remove the names.
Still, a federal judge declined to dismiss the PILF case, finding that both sides appear to have reasonable legal arguments.
“The factual allegations, accepted as true, plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief under the [National Voter Registration Act],” U.S. District Court Judge Jane Beckering, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote last August.
But Beckering added that Benson’s position “is perhaps equally plausible.”
Last month, the court appointed a mediator to help reach a settlement in the case.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and Twitter.
A gunman used an AR-15-style weapon to open fire on shoppers on Saturday afternoon, killing eight people and injuring at least seven others in the suburb 25 miles north of Dallas. The massacre ended when a police officer, already at the scene, killed the gunman.
The Texas Department of Public Safety identified the gunman as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia. Investigators have been searching a nearby motel at which the suspect had been staying and a home in the Dallas area connected to the suspect. The city of Allen said Sunday that the Texas Department of Public Safety would lead the investigation into the shooting going forward.
In an interview Sunday, Fox News presented Gov. Greg Abbott with a poll that showed Americans overwhelmingly favored background checks and raising the minimum age to buy firearms. But the governor shunned gun safety options in Texas and instead pointed to the need to increase mental health funding.
“We are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it,” Abbott said. “People want a quick solution. The long-term solution here is to address the mental health issue.”
There has been no public indication from investigators that mental illness played a role in the shooting Saturday, but WFAA reported, citing unnamed sources, that the gunman was removed from the U.S. Army "due to mental health concerns." Abbott attended a vigil at Cottonwood Creek Church Allen on Sunday.
U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a Republican who represents Allen, also emphasized mental health as a solution to gun violence. In an interview with CNN, Self said “many of these situations are based on” the closures of mental health institutions.
Republican leaders in Texas and across the nation often focus on mental illness after mass shootings. But mental health experts argue this lets lawmakers avoid talking about other issues related to gun violence and further stigmatizes people with mental health issues.
The shooting in Allen comes as Texas lawmakers face fresh calls for gun safety legislation. But efforts to restrict access to firearms have been elusive this legislative session. A measure to raise the age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle in the state from 18 to 21 — backed by families of the Uvalde school shooting victims — appears likely to miss a deadline to pass out of a House committee on Monday.
At an intersection near the mall on Sunday, a man carried a sign with a depiction of an AR-style rifle that read, “Well-regulated militia murders 8 people in Allen.” Shoppers who had been trapped at the mall the previous day waited outside to retrieve cars that remained in the parking lot as the law enforcement investigation continued.
As Texas Republicans invoke mental illness after the Allen shooting, lawmakers on the other side of the aisle home in on the weapon the gunman used.
The Texas Democratic Party called on the state Legislature to pass gun safety legislation — such as background checks with no private sale loopholes and raising the minimum age to 21 to purchase firearms — before the Legislature adjourns at the end of this month.
“We support the Second Amendment,” the statement said. “We also believe that the best way to uphold Texas’ strong heritage of responsible gun ownership for self defense, hunting, and recreation is to make sure we’re keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals and others deemed dangerous to themselves and others."
A little after 3:30 p.m. Saturday, a gunman stepped out of a gray car outside Allen Premium Outlets and began shooting at shoppers on the sidewalk. Of the seven injured, three were still in critical condition as of Sunday afternoon, according to Medical City Healthcare. Authorities have not yet released the names of the victims but have asked witnesses or those with information to call 1-800-CALL-FBI and to share photos or video of the incident at fbi.gov/allenmallshooting.
The gunman was wearing tactical gear and used an AR-15-style assault weapon to carry out the shooting, President Joe Biden confirmed in a statement Sunday.
An AR-15-style weapon was used in 2022 when an 18-year-old gunned down 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Police responding to the Uvalde school shooting said they feared the weapon, which is designed to be used in combat.
That type of rifle was also used when a 36-year-old gunman went on a shooting rampage in the Midland-Odessa area in 2019, and when a 26-year-old gunman opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs in 2017.
At the federal level, Biden called for universal background checks and safe storage of firearms. If Congress sent a bill with such measures to his desk, he said Sunday, he would “sign it immediately.” The president also ordered flags across the country to be flown at half-staff through May 11 to honor the victims of the shooting.
For 24/7 mental health support in English or Spanish, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s free help line at 800-662-4357. You can also reach a trained crisis counselor through the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/07/allen-shooting-guns-mental-health/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Qin, in a meeting in Beijing with U.S. ambassador Nicholas Burns, stressed in particular that the United States must correct its handling of the Taiwan issue and stop the hollowing out of the "one China" principle.
The relationship between the world's two biggest economies sank to a low last year when then speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi paid an official visit to democratically governed Taiwan, angering China, which claims the island as its territory.
In response, Beijing severed formal communications channels with the United States including one between their militaries.
The tension between the two superpowers eased in November when U.S. and Chinese leaders, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, met at a G20 summit in Indonesia and pledged more frequent dialogue.
"A series of erroneous words and deeds by the United States since then have undermined the hard-won positive momentum of Sino-U.S. relations," Qin told Burns, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.
"The agenda of dialogue and cooperation agreed by the two sides has been disrupted, and the relationship between the two countries has once again encountered cold ice."
Tensions flared in February when a Chinese high-altitude balloon appeared in U.S. airspace and in response U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled a visit to Beijing.
Last week, Blinken appeared to offer hope of a visit, telling the Washington Post that it was important to re-establish regular lines of communication at all levels.
Also last week, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said China had invited him to visit "in the near term" for talks on averting a global climate crisis, offering hope of resetting one of the world's most important state-to-state relationships.
"Sino-U.S. relations are of great significance not only to China and the United States, but also to the world," Qin said.
"The top priority is to stabilise Sino-U.S. relations, avoid a downward spiral and prevent any accidents between China and the United States."
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
Responders, distressed witnesses and police described scenes of panic and horror in Allen, where video footage shared online showed the shooter exiting a sedan in an outlet mall parking lot Saturday and firing a semi-automatic rifle at people walking nearby.
An officer on an unrelated call nearby quickly responded and "neutralized" the shooter, police said.
Seven people were pronounced dead at the scene, including the shooter, while two others died in the hospital, authorities said.
Three people were in critical condition as of Sunday morning, the Allen Police Department said.
The Texas Department of Public Safety identified the suspected shooter as Mauricio Garcia, a 33-year-old from Dallas, in a statement Sunday evening.
While the statement did not offer further details about Garcia's background or motive, multiple US media outlets said investigators were probing his social media posts, which allegedly showed an interest in radical right-wing ideology, including white supremacy and neo-Nazism.
"Eight Americans -- including children -- were killed yesterday in the latest act of gun violence to devastate our nation," Biden said in a statement Sunday.
He ordered US flags lowered to half-staff "as a mark of respect for the victims" and repeated his call for lawmakers to take action against a gun "epidemic."
"Once again, I ask Congress to send me a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," the 80-year-old Democrat said.
He also demanded lawmakers require universal background checks for gun purchases and end legal immunity for manufacturers' whose weapons are used in attacks.
"I will sign it immediately. We need nothing less to keep our streets safe," Biden said in a statement.
The attack is the latest in an alarming trajectory of deadly US gun violence. Barely a week earlier, a man shot and killed five neighbors in Cleveland, Texas after one of them asked him to stop firing his rifle in his yard at night while a baby slept.
Several other people have also been gunned down in recent weeks over petty disputes or common mistakes, such as knocking on the wrong door or getting into the wrong car.
Awash in firearms, the United States has already endured 199 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-governmental organization that defines a mass shooting as four or more people wounded or killed.
"Too many families have empty chairs at their dinner tables," Biden said, as he berated his political opponents for inaction.
"Republican members of Congress cannot continue to meet this epidemic with a shrug," he said. "Tweeted thoughts and prayers are not enough."
The gunfire at Allen Premium Outlets, 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Dallas, erupted Saturday afternoon when it was busy with weekend shoppers, police said.
The officer in the mall "heard gunshots, went to the gunshots, engaged the suspect and neutralized the suspect," said Chief Brian Harvey of the Allen police department.
Biden joined local officials in hailing the quick actions of police for likely saving lives.
The police chief later said authorities believe the unidentified shooter "acted alone."
CNN showed a cropped photograph of the apparent gunman dead on the ground, wearing tactical gear with extra magazines, and with an AR-15-style rifle at his side.
Governor Greg Abbott, who attended a vigil Sunday evening for the victims, said "the hearts of all Texans are with Allen."
Earlier in the day, the Republican had called the shooting an "unspeakable tragedy," and refused to discuss repeated demands by Democrats for tightened gun restrictions.
"People want a quick solution. The long-term solution is to address the mental health issue" including the increased "anger and violence" in America, Abbott told Fox News.
Steven Spainhouer, a former police officer, said he was confronted with horrific images when he rushed to the scene and performed CPR on victims before emergency responders arrived.
Finding one female victim on the ground, "I felt for her pulse, pulled her head to the side, and she had no face," Spainhouer told CBS News. He found the son of another victim lying alive under his dead mother and "covered head to toe" in her blood.
"It's just unfathomable to see the carnage," he said.
With more firearms than inhabitants, the United States has the highest rate of gun deaths of any developed country -- 49,000 in 2021, up from 45,000 the year before.
Another day, another mass shooting in the United States.
A gunman, who is now dead, opened fire at an outlet mall in the town of Allen, Texas, Saturday afternoon, taking "multiple" peoples' lives and leaving nine people hospitalized.
CNN's Paula Reid interviewed Texas State Rep. Keith Self (R-Allen) on Saturday night to get his reaction to the shooting, zeroing in on what Self believes the next steps should be.
"Now, you know, congressman, that is a common refrain after these incidents, after mass shootings, but many people argue that prayers aren't cutting it, prayers are not preventing the next mass shooting. What is your response to that criticism?" Reid asked.
Self's answer was to double down.
"Well, those are people that don't believe in an almighty God who, who has, who is absolutely in control of our lives.
I'm a Christian. I believe that he is. We have people though, with mental health that we're not taking care of since this nation made the decision that we were gonna close the mental health institutions. Many of these situations are based on that, uh, and the people that say, and, and I really, I would like to stay away from the politics today because I wanna focus on the victims. Today we should be focused on the families," Self said. "Prayer is powerful in the lives of those people that are devastated. I know people want to make this political, but prayers are important and they are powerful in the families who are devastated right now."
The frustration on social media was palpable.
Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts: "Texans own among the most guns per capita of any state. If more guns and fewer gun laws made us safer, Texas would be the safest state. Instead it has high rates of gun suicide and homicide, and is home to four of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the US."
MeidasTouch: "What an absolute disgrace. If you're not willing to actually do the work to stop these senseless killings, then get the hell out of the way for the people who are."
Ford News: "Republicans will lose the House, lose more seats in the Senate, and President Joe Biden will be reelected. They aren't listening to the majority of Americans."
Charles Adler: "So if we are to go with what this Republican pol is saying, God wants disturbed people to have easy access to guns in the US, but not in the rest of the world. Apparently God wants Americans to be sacrificed. Who believes these pig droppings? Apparently, multiple millions do."
Chidi: "If their almighty god demands we live in a society that values guns over lives and lets people kill innocent men, women and children on a daily basis, then their god is cruel. I don't understand the type of Christianity these people are practicing."
Paul Griffiths: "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? - James 2:14"
Machine Pun Kelly Redux: "So it's God's fault children are getting shot?"
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