Upholds California ban

9th Circuit upholds California ban on high-capacity ammo magazines

By JEREMY B. WHITE

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld California’s ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines, reversing a lower court decision and handing a victory to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The divided en banc ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals backed the constitutionality of two California laws banning magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. The majority opinion bolstered the public safety rationale for the restrictions by noting large-capacity magazines are often used in mass casualty shootings.

“Accordingly, the ban on legal possession of large-capacity magazines reasonably supported California’s effort to reduce the devastating damage wrought by mass shootings,” the majority wrote, adding that the laws do not constitute an illegal government taking because “the government acquires nothing by virtue of the limitation on the capacity of magazines.”

That stance drew the dissent of a trio of judges appointed by former President Donald Trump: Lawrence VanDyke, Ryan Nelson and Patrick Bumatay. They underscored the national stakes by arguing “these magazines are lawfully owned by millions of people nationwide” and warning California’s law applying across America would “require confiscating half of all existing firearms magazines in this country.”

Newsom response: "Weapons of war don’t belong on our streets," Newsom tweeted. "This is a huge victory for the health and safety of all Californians."

The background: A 2016 law and a ballot initiative championed by Newsom, then California’s lieutenant governor, banned large-capacity magazines in an effort to reduce gun violence. Voters overwhelmingly backed the initiative, passing it by a nearly 30-point margin.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez overrode those statutes in a pair of rulings. He gained notoriety in a subsequent ruling striking down California's assault weapons ban that equated AR-15s to a “Swiss Army Knife” and claimed coronavirus vaccines were more lethal than mass shootings, drawing outrage. Newsom condemned Benitez as a “wholly-owned subsidiary of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association."

California’s appeal gained a national dimension as numerous prosecutors in other blue states signed on in support, while those in Texas and other red states backed the plaintiffs.

What’s next: The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling, attorney C.D. Michel said in an email, citing dissenting opinions suggesting a challenge would be "appropriate." That could put the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservative justices wield a 6-3 majority.

Cannot train

Pentagon chief says Guard who refuse vaccine cannot train

“Vaccination is essential to the health and readiness of the force,” Lloyd Austin wrote.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has decided that National Guard members who refuse Covid-19 vaccination will be barred from federally funded drills and training required to maintain their Guard status.

Austin spelled out the policy in an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. In the memo, he instructed leaders of the military services Tuesday to publish guidance by next week on dealing with Guard members who fail to meet military medical readiness requirements by refusing the vaccine.

“Vaccination is essential to the health and readiness of the force,” he wrote.

All members of the military are required to be vaccinated unless they obtain an official waiver for medical or other reasons.

The military services have set varying deadlines that apply to active and reserve forces. Members of the Air Guard must be vaccinated by December; Army Guard members have until June. Austin’s policy will affect Guard members only when the vaccination deadline set by their service has been reached.

Under federal law, members of the National Guard must assemble for drills and participate in training a specific number of days per year.

Austin said those Guard members who are not allowed to participate in drills due to their refusal to be vaccinated will not be paid by the Defense Department. And they will not receive credit that would count toward retirement and other federal benefits. Austin told the service leaders to implement that policy in coordination with the chief of the National Guard Bureau and the Pentagon’s top personnel officer.

When Guard troops are on state active duty, such as responding to local emergencies like flooding, they report to their governor and are paid by their state. But during monthly or annual training or when they are responding to larger emergencies in the state, they are controlled by the governor but funded by the federal government. This is known as Title 32 status, which is distinct from situations in which Guard members may be called to active duty for federal service, known as Title 10 status.

In spelling out the consequences of refusing the vaccine, Austin applied to the entire National Guard the same policy he established in response to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s request that his Guard members be exempt from the vaccine mandate. Stitt has argued that as governor he has the authority to allow members of the Oklahoma Guard to avoid the vaccine while they are under state control.

In a Nov. 2 letter to Austin, Stitt wrote that the mandate “violates the personal freedoms of many Oklahomans, as it asks them to potentially sacrifice their personal beliefs in order to not lose their jobs.”

In his response Monday, Austin denied Stitt’s request and said the governor’s concerns “do not negate the need” to be vaccinated. Oklahoma so far is the only state to assert that it can sidestep Austin’s mandate.

The Pentagon considers the Covid-19 vaccines critical to maintaining a ready force — active and reserve — that can deploy when needed to protect the nation, and National Guard members are part of that force.

According to figures provided by the National Guard Bureau, 70% of Guard members had received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine as of Nov. 22 and 62.6% had been fully vaccinated. Those numbers may undercount vaccinations since some Guard members may have been vaccinated outside of the military system, with their records not yet fully updated.

Voting rights push stalls

Anger sets in among Dems as voting rights push stalls

The party told its base voting rights was a top priority and ballot access was under attack. Then it ran into the realities of a 50-50 Senate.

By ZACH MONTELLARO

President Joe Biden has repeatedly called access to the ballot box a “sacred” right from which other rights flow. Democrats in Congress designated voting rights as one of their top issues to address this year.

Now, the year is winding to a close — and no legislation has made its way to Biden’s desk, sparking complaints from activists and reform advocates who say the president is not putting enough muscle into the fight. Some warn that the lack of action is frustrating the Democratic base at a key moment in his presidency, potentially depressing voters who have been told constantly that the right to vote is under attack.

“We started this wave of protests, because we feared that President Biden misunderstood history,” said Ben Jealous, the president of People For the American Way. “He said you just can’t stop voters from voting. It’s just not true.”

“We feel like he has moved on that,” he continued. “The question is does he have the courage to actually stand up for the voters who had his back? Does he have the courage to stand up for our democracy, even as he convenes other nations for his democracy summit?”

Other issues have continued to bump elections and voting rights out of the public consciousness — from grappling with the pandemic to Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law and a sweeping expansion of the social safety net via the reconciliation bill, which is still moving through negotiations in the Senate.

But that means potentially missing the opportunity to strengthen guardrails around reporting and certifying election results that former President Donald Trump tried to break down to hold power after the 2020 election. And it also means the Democratic Party could miss the moment to push other election priorities like expanding early and mail-in voting.

“From Covid to rebuilding the economy, he’s done some important, good work,” Adam Bozzi, an executive vice president at the liberal government-reform group End Citizens United, said of Biden. “But he hasn’t shown the same leadership confronting the crisis of our democracy.”

“That includes having the full force of the administration working on passing this bill,” Bozzi continued, referring to the Freedom to Vote Act, Democrats’ latest proposal on voting rights.

It has been a meandering year of inaction for voting rights activists since Jan. 6 — a day that started with Democrats securing control of the Senate after Georgia’s runoff elections and, hours later, saw supporters of Trump storm the Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential results.

The day crystallized both the opportunity for reform and urgent need for action, activists say. But the push for new federal voting legislation has repeatedly rammed into the reality of a 50-50 Senate and the filibuster rule. Activists have long said that Democrats must choose between the filibuster and passing voting rights legislation, and have increasingly agitated for Biden to speak out more regularly and forcefully on protecting voting rights.

Biden has alluded to the fact that his expansive policy agenda has delayed talks on changing the filibuster for voting rights legislation. At a late October CNN town hall, Biden noted that if he got into a “debate on the filibuster, I lose at least three votes, right now, to get what I have to get done on the economic side of the equation, on the foreign policy side of the equation” — though the president did allow that he was open to “fundamentally altering” it.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have repeatedly said they are unwilling to ax the filibuster, a seemingly insurmountable barrier for election-related legislation that has failed to garner bipartisan backing.

“Everyone knows where I stand on the filibuster, that hasn't changed,” Sinema said in a mid-November interview with POLITICO, when asked about the filibuster and voting rights.

She also was cool on any filibuster carve-outs for specific subjects. The Arizona senator noted that she was a co-sponsor of Democrats’ marquee election legislation. “I’m open to co-sponsoring lots of other types of legislation around ensuring that we're protecting Arizonans’ rights and access to the ballot,” she added. “I think the best way to do that is through regular order.”

Some hope that a more sustained and public pressure campaign from the president would move the pair. “President Biden has deep relationships in the United State Senate,” said Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.). “And we need him to lean on those relationships to make sure that we’re not continuing to allow an archaic procedural rule to get in between Americans and their right to access the ballot.”

Senior White House aides have previously defended the president’s engagement on voting rights, highlighting executive orders he issued directing agencies to find ways to promote voting access. They've also cited speeches that he and Vice President Kamala Harris — who was tapped as the administration’s point person on voting rights — gave calling for federal legislative action. And the Department of Justice has put an increased focus on voting rights, suing to block some new state voting laws this year.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement that "protecting and advancing the sacred right to vote has been a core priority for the president ever since he was first elected to public office," and that the president and Harris "are incensed by these anti-voter laws that trample on our constitutional principles based on the Big Lie."

"He has highlighted voting rights legislation as a must-pass priority and dozens of White House staff across multiple teams work on this issue every single day," Bates concluded.

Even so, some activists are calling for Biden to more directly confront holdouts who would sustain the filibuster for voting rights. “They are the president and vice president of the country. They have to go to West Virginia … they have to go to Arizona, you have to talk to people in that state,” said Rev. William Barber II, the leader of the Poor People’s Campaign.

“Talk about Donald Trump … I’m not suggesting he ought to be the model for much of anything, but the one thing he would do is put pressure on people that were standing against his agenda publicly,” Barber continued.

Barber said his organization will also lead a “Moral Monday” march on Dec. 13 in Washington, D.C., to call for the passage for voting rights and Biden’s expansive social agenda, and urged the White House to center the voices of voters who will be harmed if legislation is not passed.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a “dear colleague” letter in mid-November that he intended to re-raise voting rights before the end of the year, alluding to Republicans’ previous filibusters of a pair of bills and saying his members were discussing alternative paths for the stalled legislation.

“Just because Republicans will not join us doesn’t mean Democrats should stop fighting,” he wrote. “This is too important. Even if it means going at it alone, we will continue to fight for voting rights and work to find an alternative path forward to defend the most fundamental liberty we have as citizens.”

But Schumer also listed several other marquee legislative items that need attention as well: negotiations over Biden’s social spending agenda, funding the government, raising the debt ceiling and passing the National Defense Authorization Act.

“I ask that you please keep your schedule flexible for the remainder of the calendar year,” Schumer wrote in his letter. “I am confident we can get each of these important items done this year, but it will likely take some long nights and weekends.”

Williams, who is also the Georgia Democratic Party chair, said that voting rights should have been among the first things Congress took up, matching its symbolic numbering of the legislation with where it actually fell on the agenda.

“We needed this done when this Congress first started, and that should have been priority number one in this administration,” she said. “Because regardless of the other policy ideas that you care about in this country,” she continued, ticking off climate change and reproductive rights, “you care about free and fair access to the ballot.”

Kendra Cotton, the chief operating officer of the New Georgia Project Action Fund, said that the damage from Congress not doing so was apparent in her home state, citing a law passed earlier this year that added new restrictions to voting and a proposed congressional map that will squeeze Democrats out of a House seat in a state Biden narrowly won in 2020.

“The lack of passage [of federal legislation] is effectively a tax, if you will, on the people that are actually fighting on the front lines,” she said. “Because what's occurring is it's forcing us to expend resources that we could use to actually educate voters [or] run our [get out the vote] programs, and we're actually having to expend those resources on trying to keep these issues in front of our electorate.”

She added that not passing legislation could also demotivate voters of color. “This idea that you can just tell people of color and come to them and say, ‘Hey, we just need more of you to get out,’ … but say that ‘these laws are on the back burner, and we’ll get to it when we can’ — that’s unacceptable.”

General warns country

Top Sudan general warns country could be source of refugee influx to Europe

General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo says the government will stabilize its refugee situation — for now.

BY MATEI ROSCA

Europe and the U.S. may face a refugee surge from Sudan if they don’t support the country’s regime under the new military-led government, according to a top Sudanese general.

Senior General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo told POLITICO that Europe and the U.S have little choice but to support the latest government to avert a refugee crisis — and he noted that Sudan’s borders are kept in check by the military, which is coming under criticism from the West for staging a coup.

He made his comments as his country is buffeted by political turmoil. In October, military leaders took control of the Sudanese government and placed civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok under house arrest, drawing international condemnation.

Last week, however, Hamdok was restored to his post under an agreement between the military and civilian government — a deal that failed to quell pro-democracy protests in Sudan and left western allies uneasy.

“Because of our commitment to the international community and the law, we are keeping these people together,” he said, speaking via video-call from Khartoum, the country’s capital. “If Sudan will open the border, a big problem will happen worldwide.”

The remarks play on the international community’s increasing wariness toward refugees. The EU in recent years has become loath to take in many migrants, unable to agree on how to distribute them throughout the bloc. And the U.S. dramatically slashed its annual refugee intake under the Trump administration, before raising it earlier this year.

Dagalo said his message for Europe and the U.S. is to set aside their suspicions and regard him and Burhan as sources of stability, pointing to Sudan’s large refugee population. According to the United Nations, Sudan hosts over 1 million refugees from other countries. The international agency also notes that nearly 7 million Sudanese and South Sudanese people have been forcibly displaced, either within their own country or throughout the region.

Dagalo, who serves as the deputy to Sudan’s top general Fattah al-Burhan, isn’t a trusted figure in international circles. As commander of the country’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Dagalo has long been linked by human rights groups to war crimes and other atrocities, especially in Sudan’s Darfur province.

In the interview through a translator, Dagalo denied such allegations, saying he was the target of “fake news” campaigns.

More broadly, western allies are skeptical of the Sudanese Army, which has yet to fulfill its promise to step away from politics and allow the country’s fledgling democratic movement to take root following the ouster of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. 

A neighborly solution?

The EU and U.S. have both strongly condemned the military’s October coup. The U.S. and World Bank swiftly paused their financial support to the country, while the EU threatened to follow suit. More recently, a spokesperson for the EU’s high representative in the Horn of Africa told POLITICO the bloc has registered its displeasure with Dagalo directly.  

“The EU has been engaging with [Dagalo] bilaterally in this capacity at several instances, messaging our support for the people of Sudan demanding a civilian government,” the spokesperson said.

In response, Dagalo is making public overtures to assuage international concerns. 

He recently vowed to hand Bashir over to the International Criminal Court, where the former leader faces charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. And during his interview with POLITICO, Dagalo insisted the military will allow free elections in July 2023, describing the recent takeover as a “corrective action” in that transition. 

“We need elections. The country needs an elected president,” he said, justifying the military’s recent actions as part of their “duty” to prevent Sudan’s “collapse.”

Moreover, Sudan’s army can help end conflict in neighboring countries such as Libya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Eritrea, Dagalo claimed, arguing that Sudan — and its army — should be included in international discussions about the region’s future.

“These are our neighbors, we understand each other so we can contribute to the solution,” he said. “We can play a big part in solving all this conflict around Sudan, because Sudan is in the center [of the region].”

“Sadly the international community does not give Sudan the right attention in such big matters,” he added. “Their efforts are well appreciated, but I don’t think they will solve the problem.”

Ongoing unrest

Beyond his military activities, Dagalo, also known as “Hemedti,” has also come under scrutiny for his business connections. Reuters reported in 2019 that a company owned by Hemedti’s family was flying gold bars worth millions of dollars to Dubai, despite criticizing Bashir for lining his own pockets at the people’s expense. His office denied any link between the commander and the company.

Now he is vowing to remain on the side of the Sudanese people, even as thousands of protesters take to the street to oppose his military’s ongoing involvement in the government.

That pledge has been tested in recent weeks amid numerous reports of violence at pro-democracy protests. Earlier this month, the civilian-allied Sudanese Central Doctors Committee said 10 people were shot dead by security forces during protests against the military coup. 

Dagalo has pledged to conduct “a real investigation” into the matter and denied any military involvement in the violence, instead blaming “a third party.” The military, he argued, would have nothing to gain from such behavior.

“In 2019, when we took the people’s side, we protected the peaceful protesters, otherwise millions would have been killed,” he said.

Human rights groups, however, disagree. They argue military leaders bear responsibility for violence that has occurred against protesters and in the country more widely in recent years. 

“Over the last two years, only low-ranking officials have been prosecuted in a handful of cases of protesters killings,” Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “The last two months offer a dismal reflection of justice delayed. If this legacy is to end, those most responsible for these cycles of abuses can no longer get away scot-free.”

For Western allies, the situation is likely to only grow more complicated. While Hamdok, the civilian prime minister, has signed off on the political power-sharing agreement with the military, pro-democracy protesters continue to take to the streets in opposition. That has left the international community without an obvious leader to back. 

“If Europe is to maintain this stance, it will have to urgently find ways to square the circle of maintaining fidelity to democracy and healing the split between the prime minister and protest movement,” wrote Theodore Murphy, director of the Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Europeans should bring pressure to bear to wring the maximum out of the military and treat the Political Agreement as a positive start to expand upon, rather than an end in itself.”

Scared...

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker won't seek reelection

Baker is one of the country's most popular governors, but he's also been at odds with former President Donald Trump.

By LISA KASHINSKY

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker won’t seek reelection next year, he announced Wednesday, in a move that surprised some in the state’s political class and will ripple down the 2022 ballot in Massachusetts.

And, in perhaps an even more shocking move, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito won't run for governor in his place.

"After several months of discussion with our families, we have decided not to seek reelection in 2022," Baker and Polito said in a statement sent to friends and colleagues. "This was an extremely difficult decision for us. We love the work, and we especially respect and admire the people of this wonderful Commonwealth. Serving as Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts has been the most challenging and fulfilling jobs we’ve ever had. We will forever be grateful to the people of this state for giving us this great honor."

One of the most popular governors in the country, Baker was the GOP’s best hope of holding onto the governor’s office in a solidly blue state.

But Baker’s been increasingly at odds with his own party. And he faced significant political headwinds if he chose to run for a third term, including a conservative primary challenger backed by former President Donald Trump and attacks from across the political spectrum on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.

Those close to Baker had recently described a two-term governor torn over whether to seek what in Massachusetts would be an unprecedented third consecutive term. He kept operatives, donors and observers guessing late into the year even as he ramped up fundraising throughout the fall after pausing those activities for most of the pandemic.

Baker said in a Boston-area radio interview earlier this week his calculus wasn’t about “can I win or not” but whether he has “the will, the desire and the agenda that I believe would be in the state’s best interest, and the energy and commitment to follow through and deliver on it.”

But the math didn’t look so good for a governor who’s claimed to be a “data guy.”

The stratospheric approval ratings Baker enjoyed throughout most of his seven years in office took a dip during Covid-19, and he faced some of the worst criticism of his gubernatorial career over the state’s initially rocky vaccine rollout. One recent survey showed Baker with higher job approval ratings among Democrats and independents than among members of his own party. Other recent surveys from Democrat-aligned firms showed him trailing Trump-endorsed former state Rep. Geoff Diehl in a Republican primary and suggested the incumbent had a better path forward as an independent rather than continuing with his own party — though Baker repeatedly rejected the idea he’d desert his party.

He said he blanked his ballot for president in 2016 and 2020 so as not to vote for Trump, and emerged as a persistent critic of the president’s handling of the pandemic. Baker also supported Trump’s second impeachment and rejected the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was rife with fraud — prompting direct attacks from Trump and the endorsement of Diehl for governor. Baker has increasingly and publicly clashed with the pro-Trump chair of his state party as well.

Still, the Republican Governors Association wanted Baker on its team. RGA officials said they hoped Baker would run again as a Republican during the group’s meeting in Phoenix last month. At the event, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan mentioned himself and Baker as examples of effective Republican leaders in Democratic states. Baker featured prominently in the RGA’s latest video touting GOP governors — right after the party’s star du jour, Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin. And the RGA posted a local news clip of Baker supporting small businesses on its YouTube page just last week.

Baker’s long-awaited decision energizes the Massachusetts governor’s race. State Attorney General Maura Healey, widely considered the Democrats’ best chance to reclaim the corner office, will now be expected to say whether she'll join a field that already includes state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, former state Sen. Ben Downing and Harvard professor Danielle Allen. Healey's decision is likely to spur movement within the state’s deep Democratic bench for down-ballot races as well.

The bad thing is CNN has morals, Fux has none..

CNN suspends Chris Cuomo

The move came after documents shed new light on his involvement in defending his brother, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, against sexual harassment allegations.

By KELLY HOOPER

CNN has “indefinitely” suspended anchor Chris Cuomo after new documents emerged this week detailing assistance he provided to his older brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, amid the sexual harassment allegations that eventually led to the governor’s resignation.

“The New York Attorney General’s office released transcripts and exhibits Monday that shed new light on Chris Cuomo’s involvements in his brother’s defense,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday evening. “The documents, which we were not privy to before their public release, raise serious questions.”

The documents and transcripts, which were released Monday by the office of state Attorney General Tish James, suggest that Chris Cuomo, who served as an informal adviser to his brother, was more intimately involved with the former governor’s defense than was previously disclosed. Testimony from mid-July showed the TV anchor was in touch with the governor’s top aides and advisers at the height of the sexual harassment scandal — assisting his brother’s office with crafting official statements and researching potential news coverage.

When it was reported earlier this year that the younger Cuomo had participated in strategy sessions with his brother and top aides, CNN said although “it was inappropriate” to engage in these conversations, Chris Cuomo would not be disciplined for his involvement.

“When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother’s staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly,” the spokesperson said on Tuesday. “But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second.”

“However, these documents point to a greater level of involvement in his brother’s efforts than we previously knew. As a result, we have suspended Chris indefinitely, pending further evaluation,” the network said.

Chris Cuomo hasn’t directly addressed the newly released documents or his suspension. But he did allude to the situation on his SiriusXM radio show earlier Tuesday without addressing his role in assisting the former governor.

“I did not want [Andrew] to resign in the beginning, because I believed him, and I thought that you don’t resign, you ask for due process,” Chris Cuomo said on his radio show. “... But eventually, when there wasn’t gonna be due process, and his party was against him, then he had no choice because he couldn’t do the work of the state anymore.”

Silk Road

EU makes late bid to rival China on the Silk Road

Ursula von der Leyen will unveil €300 billion spending plan on Wednesday.

BY STUART LAU, PAOLA TAMMA AND JOSHUA POSANER

More than 3,000 days after President Xi Jinping came up with a plan in 2013 to invest massively in critical infrastructure like railways and harbors that connect China to the rest of the world, EU officials have finally come up with an alternative scheme.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will on Wednesday unveil the European counterblast to Xi's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and explain how the EU will attempt to exert influence along the 21st century version of the Silk Road.

The big idea behind Europe's Global Gateway strategy is to mobilize up to €300 billion in public and private funds by 2027 to finance EU infrastructure projects abroad. That means building next-generation infrastructure such as fiber optic cables, 5G networks and green energy plants in the developing world, while also trying to compete with China on transport facilities, such as highways and airports.

Even if private investors join in, the EU's spending plan languishes way beneath what it is estimated China is coughing up, and Beijing has bought its way to influence with first-mover advantage in countries from Greece to Sri Lanka. The EU boasts its main selling point is more transparency and higher environmental standards than China, although that doesn't always go down well in many of the potential partners, which prefer opaque Chinese deals.

The Commission's plan, a draft of which was seen by POLITICO's Brussels Playbook, will not include a list of projects to be undertaken immediately, sparking criticism from some officials from the EU and member countries, who are calling for a more concretely defined response to China's initiative of more than 13,000 projects across 165 countries.

"It's nothing more than a letter of intent, a political statement," said one EU official. "It sends a strong message to China by emphasizing democracy and values, but more needs to be done to actually implement them."

Investments in infrastructure, or connectivity, have become a key battlefield for geopolitical influence, as China has expanded its strategic reach into parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America — and Europe. Critics, however, say Beijing has created debt dependency in nations ranging from Pakistan to Montenegro, with many projects also falling short in terms of sustainability. Intelligence experts, such as British MI6 chief Richard Moore, are warning that Belt and Road also creates "data traps" by collecting critical data from societies around the world.

The EU's latest action is part of a wider international pushback. U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders from the G7 group of leading economies this year committed to another vision for big infrastructure projects called Build Back Better World.

Von der Leyen's plan involves €135 billion worth of investments under an existing sustainable development fund, as well as up to €18 billion in grants under other EU external assistance programs. She will also announce €145 billion of "planned investment volumes” by other European development finance institutions.

Taking a dig at Beijing, the EU's draft plan says: "Without proper transparency, good governance and high standards projects can be badly chosen or designed, left incomplete or be used to fuel corruption."

EU values in the value chain

Europe's new strategic vision is still dwarfed by Chinese spending. Beijing's overall expenses for the BRI could extend to $1.2 trillion-$1.3 trillion by 2027, according to Morgan Stanley, even though there have been recent suggestions that the Chinese scheme could be losing momentum owing to fears about corruption and overpricing.

For the EU, the crux of the matter is whether politicians can persuade private businesses to join in and invest strategically in as effective a manner as Chinese officials have done, backed with the largesse and power of a state-run model.

Beijing's success with BRI lies partly in the fact that the state-owned commercial banks are part of the game, enabling companies to undertake even politically or commercially risky investments.

Reinhard Bütikofer, the leading EU lawmaker on Chinese affairs, said the EU would need to engage the business community. "Unlike China, we are not ordering businesses; we are partnering with them," he said. "By the end of next year, projects in different regions of the world should well be underway."

The EU is going to stress the need for partner countries to abide by rules such as good governance and transparency — the same requirements that drove many of these developing countries to China's no-strings-attached investments in the first place.

Some are hopeful of a different result this time, as the Belt and Road's debt-trap model is now better understood. "Instead of making countries an offer they can't refuse, the EU will make them an offer they won't want to refuse. That is the biggest difference between Global Gateway and the Belt and Road," said Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's international trade committee.

Insisting Europe's €300 billion pledge was not to be sniffed at, Jonathan Hillman, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of two books on the Belt and Road Initiative, said the EU spending could be "comparable" to Beijing's financial commitment. He added that the EU plan could be attractive for ecological reasons.

"Some of the comparative advantages here for Global Gateway include having higher environmental standards," Hillman said. "We have seen cases where local groups, like in Kenya ... have mobilized against Chinese projects because they don't have the same environmental standards."

In the meantime, business lobbies insist the EU plan shouldn't mean pushing China away. Responding to the draft strategy of Global Gateway, the BusinessEurope lobby group said the EU should continue to "cooperate with China to determine priority corridors to prevent possible bottlenecks and transport constraints."

"The political EU-China context is not the best at the moment, but we must keep the dialogue and cooperation in areas where it makes sense from an economic but also geopolitical point of view," said Luisa Santos, the group's deputy director general.

Divisions within

You don't need to travel too far to find supporters of China's investment initiative. In fact, there are some diehard fans within the EU.

Greece's Piraeus port, one of the busiest container terminals in the Mediterranean, has China's state-owned COSCO as its major shareholder, and is constantly hailed by Beijing as the poster child of Belt and Road.

In a call with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Tuesday, China's Xi said: "Economically, [China and Cyprus] have had effective cooperation in energy and telecommunications, and are partners in Belt and Road." The country has partnered with Beijing for a €290 million contract to build a liquefied natural gas terminal project.

Meanwhile, the EU's Global Gateway initiative also contains a reference to “space-based secure communication systems,” an embryonic scheme promoted by Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton that would see the EU back a telecoms satellite constellation to rival SpaceX’s Starlink and the U.K.’s OneWeb.

The idea is that such a network could be used to cut out internet blackspots across Europe while doing the same for parts of Africa, Breton has previously explained. 

The satellite scheme is popular with France's hulking aerospace giants, but some countries — including Germany — are skeptical about the plan.

“There’s a strategy missing,” said Thomas Jarzombek, a German lawmaker who runs space policy for the current outgoing government in Berlin. “Do we want to go to the commercial markets and be cost effective, or do we need a communication tool for governments which is maximum secure?

“You cannot achieve everything, you have to make a decision,” said Jarzombek.

Such criticism, and the absence of allocated funding to push that satellite project forward, makes it unlikely that a big Brussels space scheme will take off anytime soon.

Leaving aside such headaches about divided loyalties and unclear priorities, German Ambassador to the EU Michael Clauß insisted that Europe had to make the investments to hold its own on the international stage.

“Global Gateway has the potential to turn the EU into a more effective geopolitical player," Clauß said. "For many partner countries, the offer of a rules — and values — based cooperation ... will be an attractive alternative to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative."

Keep feuding

Mace and Greene keep feuding, despite McCarthy’s effort to intervene

The two first-term House Republicans have been attacking each other.

By OLIVIA BEAVERS

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried — without success — Tuesday night to end an ugly battle between two of his GOP freshmen.

The California Republican implored Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), in separate private meetings, to stop attacking one another after their back-and-forth online spat dragged on for hours earlier Tuesday.

After speaking with the GOP leader, Greene said she told McCarthy that she would quit attacking Mace. But as she was leaving the meeting, Greene suggested to CNN that she was interested in seeing Mace get a Republican primary challenger, something former President Donald Trump has called for.

Mace, after meeting with McCarthy, also didn’t back down after being asked about Greene’s primary challenger comments.

“All I can say about Marjorie Taylor Greene is bless her fucking heart,” Mace told reporters.

Greene, for her part, dismissed the idea that her comments were an escalation of their feud, arguing that she reiterated a position she has previously taken.

“After my meeting with Kevin McCarthy … I agreed that I’d quit attacking her, and I haven't attacked her,” Greene told POLITICO in an interview Tuesday night, describing it as a good meeting with the top Republican. “I don’t think I said anything different after the meeting.”

“I wasn't announcing anything about President Trump because he already emailed that out,” she added. “I didn't go out making announcements about Nancy Mace. If I was gonna make an announcement about Nancy Mace, she'd see me tweeting it.”

Still, Greene’s remarks didn’t dial down the temperature or stop the public infighting.

And Mace didn’t put down her boxing gloves, either. Mace later called Greene a “a No. 1 grifter,” someone who has “nothing going on in her life,” someone who “takes advantage of vulnerable Americans and vulnerable conservatives,“ among other digs, to a group of reporters on the Capitol steps.

Mace and Greene have thrown public punches at one another before, but this latest melee erupted after Mace condemned fellow freshman Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) over her anti-Muslim remarks, including calling Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) a member of the “Jihad squad.”

When asked about Boebert’s comments, Mace told CNN on Sunday that she has previously condemned colleagues on “both sides of the aisle for racist tropes and remarks that I find disgusting — and this is no different than any others.” Greene then took to Twitter telling Mace to “back up off” Boebert and suggesting that she can go hang with the “Jihad squad.” After that, the two women issued various tweets going after one another.

This latest internal brouhaha comes after McCarthy has already faced a series of controversies with his GOP members, each time distracting from GOP efforts turn up the heat on Democrats and the Biden administration as they seek to reclaim the majority next year.

It also further illustrates McCarthy’s balancing act as he seeks to also win the speaker’s gavel: trying to keep the pro-Trump wing of the party and the faction of Republicans who want to head in a new direction — two incompatible wings of the party — unified.

Elected mayor of Atlanta

Council member Andre Dickens elected mayor of Atlanta

He won a campaign dominated by concern over rising violent crime in the city.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

City Council member Andre Dickens won a runoff election Tuesday to become Atlanta’s next mayor, riding a surge of support that powered him past the council’s current president, Felicia Moore, after finishing second to her in November.

Dickens won a campaign dominated by concern over rising violent crime in the city, arguing he would be more effective than Moore, who had often been a sometimes-lonely critic of previous mayors in her 20 years on the City Council. Moore had been the leading candidate by a wide margin in the first round of voting on Nov. 2 among 14 candidates in a nonpartisan race.

Incumbent Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms didn’t seek a second term.

The 47-year-old Dickens, an Atlanta native and engineer by training, joined the council in 2013. He argued that his broad range of experience would allow him to address crime and other city issues, including affordable housing and improving opportunity for lower-income residents. Other issues in the race included bolstering struggling city services and keeping the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood from seceding.

Dickens went from trailing the pack to taking second on Nov. 2 and make the runoff, ending the comeback attempt of two-term former Mayor Kasim Reed, who finished third. That snowballing support continued in the runoff, with endorsements by Bottoms, U.S. Rep. and Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Nikema Williams, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Sharon Gay, an attorney who finished fourth in Nov. 2 voting.

Like many cities across the country, Atlanta has been dealing with a spike in killings. As of Nov. 7, homicides were up 10 percent over the same period last year and 59 percent compared with 2019, Atlanta police data shows. Several of those killings captured widespread attention.

Dickens has pledged to increase the number of police officers, arrest gang leaders and implement community policing. He says he may keep current Police Chief Rodney Bryant, who came out of retirement in 2020 after a previous chief stepped down following a fatal police shooting of a Black man that led to unrest.

He also aims to increase affordable housing, improve infrastructure and ensure current residents qualify for high-paying jobs.

Moore touted her record to appeal to voters hungry for change and position herself as someone who would bring accountability and transparency to City Hall. But Dickens portrayed Moore as a naysayer and someone who has been unable to work with others.

Some opponents of Moore attacked her as the favorite of white voters, a frequent tactic in a city where white and Black voters are often divided by income and geography. Both Moore and Dickens are Black.

Dickens currently works for TechBridge, a nonprofit that tries to use technology to aid other charitable groups. Dickens also founded a program to train people for technology work, trying to broaden access to high-paying jobs in Atlanta. He earlier ran a family-owned furniture store chain that collapsed in bankruptcy a decade ago, something that Dickens blamed on the effects of the Great Recession.

Calls bullshit

Marietje Schaake calls bullshit on Silicon Valley’s self-regulation mantra

Self-regulation and big fines have failed. It’s time for principled laws and empowered regulators, says the Stanford educator training Silicon Valley’s next generation.

By RYAN HEATH, OLIVIA REINGOLD and IRENE NOGUCHI

It seems like there’s bipartisan compromise for once in Washington, D.C., and it’s over one commitment: It’s time to reel in Big Tech. But Marietje Schaake has been sounding that alarm for years. Once one of the youngest members of the European Parliament, Schaake now helps lead the academic discussion around how to regulate some of the biggest companies in the world, like Facebook and Apple, as a policy fellow at Stanford University. She tells POLITICO’s Ryan Heath how she aims to reform Silicon Valley from within, and what it’s like when some of her students take jobs at tech giants.

On her advice for Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission

“Enforcement is going to be a big challenge. The U.S. is now politically so divided that it's going to be really hard to realize any bold moves on virtually any topic. So, I can only wish her luck and hope that she will think about sanctions that will actually impact the bottom line for these companies. And that will not just be absorbed as the cost of doing business because billion euro or billion dollar fines were very rare for a long time. Now we've seen a couple of them handed down to Big Tech companies. But even if these are staggering numbers, it is not really hurting these businesses.” — Marietje Schaake, international policy director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center.

On what revelations from whistleblowers like Frances Haugen, formerly of Facebook, reveal but also conceal

“I think that these big scandals are crucial for understanding but they also tend to overshadow that there's really a systemic problem that we have to address — and that is that digitization pretty much always means privatization and that anything from national security to rights protections to the building and protecting of critical infrastructure to our information society are all governed by commercial companies because everything has become digitized.”

On Silicon Valley’s claim that regulation stifles innovation

“That's probably the most successful lobbying slogan that has ever been rolled out by Silicon Valley companies. And I've seen especially Europeans who felt like their tech sector was not evolving as quickly as those in the United States and increasingly Asia, really worrying that any intervention might lead to decreased innovative capacity and success for Europe. It has led to such a loss of time ... we are really playing catch up. We are essentially regulating yesterday's problems today while tomorrow's challenges and lack of accountability are already at our doorstep.”