Cincunri Sakia

Rabu, 06 Januari 2021

US election 2020: Can Mike Pence reject Joe Biden's win? - BBC News

US President Donald Trump says his vice-president, Mike Pence, has the power to reject the formal confirmation of Joe Biden as the next president.

But this isn't the case. The vice-president has no legal authority to declare Mr Biden's election victory invalid.

What does President Trump want?

In the US, electors - based on the results in each state - officially decide who is to be the next president.

Congress is meeting to count the electoral votes and confirm the nomination of president-elect Biden.

This process usually takes place without controversy, but the president and his supporters are continuing to dispute the election results, citing unfounded claims of fraud.

Once the electoral votes are counted, it will be up to Mr Pence to formally announce Mr Biden as the next US president.

Mr Trump wants the vice-president to step in and reject the results of the election, declaring the vote fraudulent.

What is Mr Pence's role?

The vice-president's role is largely procedural, as the president of the Senate.

The 12th Amendment of the US Constitution says: "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."

Mr Pence will be tasked with reading out the final presidential result as approved by Congress.

It is not within his powers for him to reject the result.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 gives Congress the power to review the results, not the vice-president.

Members of Congress can raise disputes. If a challenge is supported by a member in both the Senate and House (the upper and lower chambers of Congress), then counting is paused and the challenge is debated.

Despite some significant support among Republicans in Congress, the president is not expected to have enough backers to overturn the results.

This would require a majority of both chambers of Congress to vote in favour of nullifying the disputed results.

Donald Trump among supporters in Georgia

Mr Pence has said he "welcomes" the Republican lawmakers' plan to raise objections.

But once disputes are debated and settled, it's over to Mr Pence to announce the final confirmation that Mr Biden won the 2020 election.

This is something Mr Biden did to officially confirm Mr Trump as the winner of the 2016 election.

Could the vice-president just not turn up?

This is an option for Mr Pence.

He could choose not to show up to Congress, or step out of the room before he's required to announce the final result.

This has happened before. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey declined to preside over the counting of electoral votes in 1969, after he lost to Richard Nixon.

In this scenario, the role falls to the second most senior member of the US Senate, currently Republican Chuck Grassley.

Mike Pence: a loyal vice-president at breaking point - Financial Times

As Donald Trump has desperately tried to overturn November’s election results during the past two months, his vice-president Mike Pence has performed a delicate balancing act.

Mr Pence has publicly backed his boss while also declining to repeat some of the wild and erroneous claims of widespread voter fraud perpetuated by Mr Trump and others in the president’s inner circle.

It is a role that Mr Pence has played throughout his time in office: he never contradicts the president, but has nonetheless managed to distance himself from some of Mr Trump’s most divisive positions.

The strategy has served Mr Pence well. Until now.

On Wednesday, Mr Pence will preside over a messy joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The traditionally ceremonial role has become politically explosive, after more than a dozen Republican senators announced they would object to what should be a rubber-stamping exercise.

Mr Trump has pressured Mr Pence to block the certification, falsely claiming on Tuesday that the vice-president had the “power to reject fraudulently chosen electors”.

At a rally in Georgia this week, the president said he hoped Mr Pence “comes through for us, because, if he doesn’t . . . I won’t like him quite as much.”

David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth and a friend of the vice-president, predicted Mr Pence would resist the pressure on Wednesday and perform his duties as required under the US constitution.

“He’s a constitutionalist at heart. He’s going to look at this and say ‘what’s my role as vice-president?’,” said Mr McIntosh.

“And it ends up being president of the Senate, of the proceedings. That doesn’t mean he has the power to make decisions himself.”

Mr Pence has given no indication that he will bow to Mr Trump’s last-gasp effort to nullify the election, and US media reported on Tuesday that he told the president he lacks the power to do so.

Mr Trump denied those reports in a statement late on Tuesday night. “He never said that. The vice-president and I are in total agreement that [he] has the power to act.”

Mr Pence recently objected to a lawsuit from a Republican lawmaker — since thrown out by a federal court — that sought to force him to tamper with the vote count in favour of the outgoing president.

But the high-stakes drama encapsulates a bigger dilemma for Mr Pence, who has tried to tout his loyalty to Mr Trump while maintaining his image as a squeaky clean, conservative evangelical Christian from Indiana with a claim to the party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

In many ways, Mr Pence would be a natural standard bearer for the party in three years, winning support from the religious right, “country club” Republicans and Mr Trump’s base. But that theory only holds if he is still seen as loyal to the outgoing president — and if Mr Trump decides not to run again himself.

Michael Steele, a former Republican official who worked with Mr Pence when he was House Republican Conference chairman, said the outgoing vice-president was in “the strongest position . . . to unite the most fervent supporters of the president with more traditional conservatives”.

But Mr Steele said Mr Pence’s future was “largely in the hands of President Trump”.

“That starts with whether the president chooses to run again himself, and also whether he acknowledges the years of loyalty and leadership from the vice-president in the administration and how critical he was to his successes,” Mr Steel added.

During Mr Trump’s four years in office, Mr Pence has been lampooned for his obsequiousness to Mr Trump and his contentedness to stay in his boss’s shadow.

“After you see the debate tonight, you’ll forget I was even here,” Mr Pence said at one of his rallies last September, which took place on the eve of one of Mr Trump’s pre-election debates with Mr Biden.

It has been reported that Mr Pence wavered over whether to stay on the presidential ticket with Mr Trump in 2016, following the emergence of the Access Hollywood tape. Mr Pence’s wife, Karen, in particular was apparently livid at the revelations.

But Mr Pence’s staff have denied there was ever any friction.

Mr McIntosh said: “Mike has been incredibly loyal and has told me — and said publicly — his role as vice-president is to support President Trump and make him successful.”

He said both Pences saw their roles as vice-president and second lady as “servant leaders”.

“I think if Mike had a disagreement with President Trump, he’d tell it to him in private and then respect his decision [in public],” Mr McIntosh added.

David Tamasi, a founder of Chartwell Strategy Group and donor to Mr Trump, said Mr Pence had benefited over the past four years from being “a very disciplined” communicator and politician.

“That discipline helps him and enables him to navigate trickier terrain that less disciplined politicians would be unable to do,” Mr Tamasi said.

That tricky terrain threatens to become impassable on Wednesday, given that Mr Pence has few options other than to certify Mr Biden’s win, according to Edward Foley, an elections expert and law professor at Ohio State University.

While Mr Pence could try to disqualify the electoral votes for Mr Biden from one or more states, he would only be delaying the inevitable: there is expected to be a majority in both the House and Senate who would override any such attempt.

“There isn’t really anything for Pence to do other than to let the process unfold,” Mr Foley said.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2NhZjRkNDEyLTA2ZDgtNGRkYS1hNzQ4LWIwYTBmYjU1ZjI5NtIBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2NhZjRkNDEyLTA2ZDgtNGRkYS1hNzQ4LWIwYTBmYjU1ZjI5Ng?oc=5

2021-01-06 11:00:00Z
52781288526337

US 10-year Treasury yields hit 1% for first time in more than 9 months - Financial Times

US 10-year Treasury yields hit 1 per cent for the first time in more than nine months as investors bet that Democrats were poised to capture the Senate, improving Joe Biden’s prospects of pushing his agenda through Congress.

The yield on the 10-year note rose 0.06 percentage points to 1.02 per cent in Asia trading on Wednesday as Democrat Raphael Warnock won one of two US Senate run-off elections in Georgia. Yields rise when a bond’s price falls.

Victories in both Georgia Senate races would give Democrats and senators who caucus with the party 50 seats in the upper chamber, which along with the tiebreaking vote held by the vice-president would put them in control of both houses of Congress and the White House.

The back-up in yields extended a five-month-long sell-off in US government debt that accelerated in early November on the BioNTech/Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough.

$42tn Size of the US equity market

The pace quickened in December after Congress agreed a $900bn stimulus programme after months of stalemate. Democrats have repeatedly called for more generous aid to individuals and direct support to state and local governments, while Republicans have advocated for less spending.

The possibility of additional stimulus under a Biden administration has buoyed investor sentiment even as the US confronts a wave of coronavirus cases and continuing economic malaise before a vaccine is available to most Americans.

Fund managers have positioned for an economic revival later in 2021 that they believe will help rekindle inflationary pressures.

One market measure of inflation expectations over the next decade has risen accordingly. The 10-year break-even rate, which is derived from prices of US inflation-protected government securities, breached 2 per cent this week — a level last reached in late 2018.

Low rates have helped support rising valuations in the $42tn US equity market and a reversal could weigh on share prices. Futures trading pointed to a slide in the value of tech stocks — which have been propelled by rock-bottom rates — when markets open on Wednesday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell below 1 per cent for the first time in history in March amid a pandemic-induced market sell-off.

The Federal Reserve responded by slashing interest rates to zero and intervening heavily in short-term funding markets. It also pledged to buy an unlimited quantity of US government debt and rolled out 13 lending facilities to support debt markets, including those for junk bonds and municipal bonds.

Those actions, coupled with the unprecedented economic contraction caused by coronavirus-related lockdowns, suppressed yields and drastically cut the government’s borrowing costs even as it sold a record amount of new Treasuries to fund stimulus packages passed by Congress.

Many strategists foresee the benchmark Treasury yield rising as high as 1.25 per cent by next year, but it is likely to struggle to sustainably trade above that level. They cite the Fed as a potential impediment to dramatically higher yields, given the central bank’s focus on keeping financial conditions accommodative to support the nascent economic recovery.

Video: Will tech stocks end their bull run in 2021? | Charts that Count

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50LzgwYTRjNmFjLTQ4OTktNDE4Mi1iYjRjLTBhMWQ2M2U3ZWJhY9IBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50LzgwYTRjNmFjLTQ4OTktNDE4Mi1iYjRjLTBhMWQ2M2U3ZWJhYw?oc=5

2021-01-06 07:51:00Z
CAIiEKZbLO32I8Ud-g77DgKmq7UqGAgEKg8IACoHCAow-4fWBzD4z0gw_fCpBg

Georgia run-offs: Democrats on brink of taking Senate as preacher projected to unseat Republican - Sky News

Democrat Raphael Warnock has unseated Kelly Loeffler in the Georgia Senate election, NBC news projects.

The final votes are being counted in two key Senate runoff elections that will determine control of the US Senate and the fate of Joe Biden's presidency.

Mr Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff need to win both races to seize the Senate majority - and control of the new Congress when president-elect Joe Biden takes over.

A pastor who spent the past 15 years leading the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr preached, Mr Warnock is projected to defeat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler by NBC news.

The 51-year-old will become the first black senator in Georgia's history and his victory will be a symbol of a striking shift in the state's politics.

Black voters made up approximately 30% of the electorate and almost all of them - 94% - backed Mr Ossoff and Mr Warnock, according to a survey of 3,792 voters.

Voters under 45 and those earning less than $50,000 (£36,000) also voted for the Democrats, as well as around 60% of recent arrivals - the force behind Atlanta's sprawling growth, the AP VoteCast found.

It follows Mr Biden's victory in November, when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Georgia since 1992.

Mr Warnock's win will also be a stinging rebuke of outgoing President Donald Trump, who made one of his final trips in office to Georgia to rally his loyal base behind Ms Loeffler fellow Republican Mr Perdue.

The focus is now shifting to the second race between Mr Perdue and Democrat Mr Ossoff - with it still too early to call as votes were still being counted.

Mr Ossoff would be the Senate's youngest member at just 33, and the Democrats would have complete control of Congress, ultimately strengthening incoming president Mr Biden's standing as he prepares to take office in two weeks.

In a message to his supporters on Wednesday, Mr Warnock referenced his family's experience with poverty, saying his mother used to pick "somebody else's cotton" as a teenager.

"The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton picked her youngest son to be a United States senator," he said. "Tonight, we proved with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible."

Meanwhile, former businesswoman Ms Loeffler, 50, refused to concede in a brief message to supporters.

She said: "We've got some work to do here. This is a game of inches. We're going to win this election."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMigwFodHRwczovL25ld3Muc2t5LmNvbS9zdG9yeS9nZW9yZ2lhLXJ1bi1vZmZzLWRlbW9jcmF0cy1vbi1icmluay1vZi10YWtpbmctc2VuYXRlLWFzLXByZWFjaGVyLXByb2plY3RlZC10by11bnNlYXQtcmVwdWJsaWNhbi0xMjE4MDMzMdIBhwFodHRwczovL25ld3Muc2t5LmNvbS9zdG9yeS9hbXAvZ2VvcmdpYS1ydW4tb2Zmcy1kZW1vY3JhdHMtb24tYnJpbmstb2YtdGFraW5nLXNlbmF0ZS1hcy1wcmVhY2hlci1wcm9qZWN0ZWQtdG8tdW5zZWF0LXJlcHVibGljYW4tMTIxODAzMzE?oc=5

2021-01-06 07:41:15Z
52781284799700

Selasa, 05 Januari 2021

Hong Kong: Dozens of arrests look more like a purge than law enforcement - Sky News

Critics of the National Security Law (NSL) imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong have described its powers as sweeping - and today authorities swept wide.

More than 50 pro-democracy figures have been arrested under the law.

It is the largest, most high profile, most significant crackdown since the NSL came into force in June last year.

Politicians, lawyers, journalists, academics and pollsters have been detained, their legal offices and newsrooms raided. They all potentially face life in prison.

For those worried about Hong Kong's deteriorating freedoms, it will look less like a law enforcement action than a purge.

If the scale of the crackdown is astounding, the apparent justification is even more so.

Reports from Hong Kong media said that most of those arrested were accused of "subverting state power".

Their alleged offence was to hold unofficial primaries in July before elections to the Legislative Council, Hong Kong's parliament - elections since postponed. Almost all those arrested were involved in the primaries in some way.

Pro-democrats had been aiming to win 35 seats, a majority in the 70 strong LegCo.

At the time, Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam warned that holding the primaries could constitute an act of subversion.

It was certainly a novel definition of subverting state power: aiming to win seats in an election.

Some candidates had vowed, if they won a majority, to block government bills, including vetoing the budget.

Most in the West would assume that is precisely the job of a political opposition. And legal scholars in Hong Kong have argued these rights are enshrined in Hong Kong's mini constitution, the Basic Law.

But subversion is drawn widely under the NSL. Anyone "seriously interfering in, disrupting, or undermining the performance of duties and functions in accordance with the law by the body of central power of the People's Republic of China or the body of power of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" can be found guilty.

If that is the basis for today's arrests, disrupting the performance of the government apparently includes the opposition voting against it. Not even that: it includes political candidates, not yet elected or even sure to be elected, saying they might vote against the government.

The arrests are the start of the process. Prosecutors will decide who to charge and then it is up to the courts.

Those arrested may have some hope there. Hong Kong's courts have dismissed many of the charges brought against protesters under older laws and Hong Kong's outgoing chief justice - the territory's top judge - reaffirmed the commitment to the rule of law.

It may not be enough, though. Those charged under the NSL can also face trial on the Chinese mainland. And China's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office has loudly proclaimed the need for "judicial reform" in Hong Kong itself.

Chinese Communist Party officials described the NSL as "a sword". It's starting to look more like a hammer. This is its latest, heaviest blow. It is unlikely to be the last.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMia2h0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy5za3kuY29tL3N0b3J5L2hvbmcta29uZy1kb3plbnMtb2YtYXJyZXN0cy1sb29rLW1vcmUtbGlrZS1hLXB1cmdlLXRoYW4tbGF3LWVuZm9yY2VtZW50LTEyMTgwMjk40gFvaHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLnNreS5jb20vc3RvcnkvYW1wL2hvbmcta29uZy1kb3plbnMtb2YtYXJyZXN0cy1sb29rLW1vcmUtbGlrZS1hLXB1cmdlLXRoYW4tbGF3LWVuZm9yY2VtZW50LTEyMTgwMjk4?oc=5

2021-01-06 04:39:27Z
52781288359099

US agencies say Russia was likely behind massive cyber attack - Financial Times

US security agencies have said that Russia was likely behind a massive cyber espionage campaign uncovered at the end of last year, contradicting earlier statements from President Donald Trump, who downplayed the possibility of Moscow’s involvement.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence described the motivation for the attacks as “an intelligence gathering effort”, rather than for the purpose of data manipulation or other more destructive efforts.

“This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate,” they said, adding that the perpetrators were “likely Russian in origin”.

The hackers gained access to systems by hijacking software in March from SolarWinds, a Texas-based IT company, which has said that some 18,000 of its government and private sector clients globally may have been exposed.

The agencies said on Tuesday that “a much smaller number have been compromised by follow-on activity on their systems”. It identified “fewer than 10” US federal agencies falling into this category, and said it was “working to identify and notify the nongovernment entities who also may be impacted”.

So far, only the US commerce, energy and Treasury departments have acknowledged publicly that they were breached, together with a handful of companies, including Microsoft and FireEye.

The NSA has said previously that the hackers in some instances posed as legitimate employees to move around undetected and tap sensitive information stored in the cloud.

The latest statement marks the first official attribution of the hack to a nation state, although the intelligence community and several politicians have said that the attack bears the hallmarks of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service.

However, Mr Trump has previously claimed that the hack was being overhyped “in the fake news media”, adding in a tweet: “Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).”

Russia has denied any involvement.

The agencies described the hack as “ongoing”, as investigators try to identify victims and eject the hackers from their systems once detected, which experts say could take months if not years.

“We are taking all necessary steps to understand the full scope of this campaign and respond accordingly,” the agencies said.

Video: US foreign policy: Joe Biden's priorities in 2021

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2U2MTMyNWRhLWEwYWUtNDdmZS05OWJmLWIxMGY2MWIyNjU4ZtIBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2U2MTMyNWRhLWEwYWUtNDdmZS05OWJmLWIxMGY2MWIyNjU4Zg?oc=5

2021-01-05 22:22:00Z
52781287704432

Donald Trump pressures Mike Pence to overturn election result - Financial Times

Donald Trump ratcheted up his desperate campaign to cling to power by pressuring vice-president Mike Pence to overturn the result of the presidential election when Congress meets to certify the vote on Wednesday.

The certification of the vote at a joint session of Congress is normally a ceremonial occasion presided over by the vice-president, and Mr Pence’s role requires him to declare that Joe Biden was the victor in November’s general election.

However, on Tuesday, Mr Trump falsely suggested that Mr Pence could use the occasion to nullify the result. “The vice-president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.

Mr Trump’s intervention echoed remarks made at a rally in Georgia on Monday night, on the eve of two US Senate elections that will decide which party controls the upper chamber.

“I hope that our great vice-president . . . comes through for us,” Mr Trump told the rally. “Because if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.”

The pressure campaign on Mr Pence is the latest instalment in a so-far fruitless effort by Mr Trump to reverse the outcome of the election and follows a number of failed attempts to overturn the result in the courts.

The outgoing president has repeatedly sought to sow doubt over the result, falsely claiming that Mr Biden only won due to mass voter fraud. Several high-profile Republicans have supported his baseless claims, and 13 Republican senators have said they would object to the vote certification on Wednesday.

Mr Trump has also put pressure on several other Republican officials to assist his efforts to overturn the result, most recently at the weekend, when he phoned Georgia’s top election official and urged him to change the vote tally in the state, which Mr Biden won.

On Tuesday, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who joined Mr Trump on the call to Georgia’s secretary of state, announced she would be resigning “effectively immediately” from Foley & Lardner, the US law firm that employs her. Her resignation came after the firm said it was “concerned” by her participation in the call.

Electoral law experts have rejected Mr Trump’s claim that Mr Pence can block the certification, noting that any objections would fail if they are blocked by one of Congress’s two chambers.

Video: Joe Biden faces multiple domestic crises

The House of Representatives is controlled by Democrats, while most Senate Republicans have not joined the effort to block the certification, which is being led by Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

On Tuesday afternoon, several Republican senators said they would certify Mr Biden as the election’s winner.

“Our Constitution is a magnificent document — and this is coming from a man who was not even fully counted as a man in the original version,” said Tim Scott, the Republican South Carolina senator, who is black.

“As I read the Constitution, there is no constitutionally viable means for the congress to overturn an election wherein the states have certified and sent their electors,” he added.

Jim Inhofe, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, said refusing to certify the results would be “a violation of my oath of office”, while Jerry Moran, Republican senator from Kansas, warned that not certifying the results would risk “undermining our democracy”.

The fracturing of the party over whether to support Mr Trump’s last-gasp effort to stay in the White House has put Mr Pence in an awkward position as he navigates his own political future, which could include a 2024 presidential run.

Mr Pence’s office has said he “welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people”.

However, last week, Mr Pence asked a federal court to reject a lawsuit filed against him by Louie Gohmert, a Republican member of the House of Representatives. If successful, the suit would have forced the vice-president to interfere with the electoral vote count by only counting the electoral votes he deemed valid, potentially allowing the vice-president to alter the election in favour of Mr Trump.

In a filing, Mr Pence called the lawsuit “a walking legal contradiction”. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals threw the suit out on Saturday.

The vice-president’s staff has given no indication that he would buck his ceremonial duty as presiding officer of the senate and refuse to certify the vote.

On Tuesday, Chuck Grassley, the eldest Senate Republican who is the chamber’s president pro-tempore, announced that he would preside over the session on Wednesday because “we don’t expect [Mr Pence] to be there”.

However, Mr Grassley’s office later walked back his comments, saying the senator had only been speaking in a hypothetical sense and that he had “no indication” the vice-president would not be present.

Mr Trump’s final effort to block the vote-certification comes at a crucial moment for the Republican party, which is fighting to hold on to the two Georgia Senate seats in the run-off elections on Tuesday.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50LzZmZjRhNjc3LWViMmUtNDM4ZS1hYzQ4LWJiNWRhNWEwZTU4ONIBAA?oc=5

2021-01-05 22:14:00Z
52781285508430

Rabu, 06 Januari 2021

What does President Trump want?

What is Mr Pence's role?

Could the vice-president just not turn up?

More from Georgia

Selasa, 05 Januari 2021

More from China