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FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans from Texas’ congressional delegation are urging their Senate counterparts to push for stricter border security measures, implying they don’t believe the Senate GOP’s recent proposal to stem illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border goes far enough.
The lawmakers sent a letter addressed to their Senate Republican colleagues on Thursday along with a 13-page "Texas Border Plan" put out late last year by Republicans representing the Lone Star State. It's signed by all but one Texas Republican in the House.
"In May 2023, the House of Representatives embraced the Texas Border Plan in passing H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023. H.R. 2 is by far the strongest border security legislation to ever pass Congress, but – to date – Chuck Schumer’s Senate has failed to act on this critical legislation," the letter said.
"Of course, there are other ideas that could be added to aid the effort. However, the fundamentals of H.R. 2 represent the engine of policy reforms necessary to stop the disastrous flow to the border."
A Senate GOP working group rolled out a proposal to help solve the southern border crisis earlier this week. They are pushing for the plan to be attached to President Biden’s supplemental aid request for Ukraine and Israel in exchange for Republican support.
The plan includes elements that overlap with H.R. 2 – like resuming construction of former President Trump’s border wall and curbing the Biden administration’s ability to parole undocumented migrants – but Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who is leading the Thursday letter, criticized it for falling short of the House bill.
"The [Senate GOP] talking about watered down border security & amnesty… hmmm… where have I heard that before? Thanks, but no," Roy wrote on X Wednesday.
House lawmakers’ letter also pointed out that a majority of the Senate Republican Conference voted for H.R. 2 before, when it was offered as an amendment to the June 2022 bill raising the debt ceiling.
"Thus, we implore our Senate colleagues to embrace the critical policy changes included in H.R. 2 and the Texas Border Plan in any serious attempt to offer and negotiate solutions to this crisis," they wrote.
"We urge you, our Senate Republican colleagues, to continue to fight for the policy changes in the Texas Border Plan and leverage every opportunity to ensure they pass the Senate."
Senate Republicans’ plan has been hammered by both the left and the right, threatening to put the proposal even lower down the path of an uphill climb to get considered.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the proposal "a total non-starter" during a Wednesday press conference.
"Making Ukraine funding conditional on the hard-right border policies that can’t ever pass Congress is a huge mistake by our Republican colleagues," Schumer said, comparing the plan to H.R. 2.
There’s likely enough appetite among Senate Republicans to pass a strong Ukraine aid bill, but its chances would be virtually nonexistent in the House without serious conservative concessions.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has already passed a decoupled Israel aid bill through the House, and signaled that border security measures would need to be attached to any Ukraine aid in his chamber. | US Federal Policies |
ATLANTA -- Georgia’s State Election Board won’t take over running elections in the state’s most populous county, ending an investigation that had sparked fears of partisan meddling.
The board voted unanimously on Tuesday to end its performance review of Fulton County nearly two years after it had begun.
Multiple board members said that they want the county to continue to work on improvements before the 2024 election and not to backslide on work already done.
“The question is, are we going to draw a line in the sand and say let us go, be done with this, and leave us alone, which is a little bit of what I’m hearing... or are we going to say it’s time to change?” said State Election Board Chair Bill Duffey.
Fulton County officials noted that the review panel found no violations of state law or rules across nine elections that it monitored.
"I’m proud of the work of Fulton County and what we’ve achieved in the last few years and feel fully confident moving into the future that we’ll be setting the standard for how elections need to be run here and across the country," said Cathy Woolard, the outgoing chair of the Fulton County election board.
A takeover legally required state officials to find the county violated state election law or rules three times in the previous two election cycles and hadn’t fixed violations, or to find county officials had shown “nonfeasance, malfeasance, or gross negligence” in two elections over two years.
If the county board had been removed, the state board would have appointed a temporary administrator.
The State Election Board appointed a three-person panel in August 2021 after Republican lawmakers used a provision of a sweeping election law passed earlier that year to request a review of Fulton County’s handling of elections.
The bipartisan review panel found Fulton County had a history of election problems but has also shown considerable improvement, with the panel recommending in January that the state should not take over.
Former President Donald Trump had zeroed in on the county after he lost Georgia by a slim margin in the November 2020 general election. In phone calls to state election officials and in public comments, Trump made unfounded claims of widespread election fraud in Fulton.
Actions he took as he tried to overturn his election loss, including a phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, led Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to open an ongoing investigation into whether Trump and others illegally meddled in the state’s election.
Fulton County includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to about 11% of the state’s electorate. A Democratic stronghold, it has long been targeted by Republicans, and Democrats said they feared the 2021 law would be used by Republicans to tamper with how elections were run in Democratic-controlled counties across the state.
That hasn't yet happened, with one State Election Board member, Republican appointee Matt Mashburn, saying Tuesday that “the talking heads were wrong.”
“I think the process has been very good and thorough and everybody took their time,” Mashburn said.
However, most state board members and Fulton County officials said they believed the amount of time that unpaid volunteer review board members donated was unsustainable, and that changes to the process will be needed going forward to make it practical.
“A two-year process is really not sustainable," said board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, a Democratic appointee. "We do need something else.”
Duffey asked Fulton County to help develop a more collaborative review process, where counties could advise each other. | US Local Elections |
Will of the voters? Ohio Republicans pledge to push back on abortion, marijuana
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman said voters could see abortion issues on the ballot again in the future
A majority of Ohio voters on Tuesday chose to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and legalize recreational marijuana.
Almost immediately, the state's top Republican leaders promised they would try to unravel what voters approved.
Unofficial results show about 56% of voters backed Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that codifies the right to abortion access and other reproductive health care. Issue 2, which also passed with 56% of the vote, is a state law that will allow adults 21 and older to buy, possess and grow marijuana. Both take effect in 30 days.
"I can't believe in 2023 we're actually talking about elected officials not respecting the will of the voters and not respecting the outcome of an election," said Tom Haren, a spokesman for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. "I expect, I think that every single voter in Ohio has a right to expect, that elected officials will implement and respect the will of voters."
Since Issue 2 is an initiated statute, lawmakers can easily change it − and were promising to do so even before the election. House Speaker Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill, said Tuesday night that the Legislature should reallocate tax revenue from the adult-use program to invest more in jail construction and law enforcement training.
Stephens' home Lawrence County voted in favor of Issue 2, as did several other reliably Republican counties.
Meanwhile, Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, has a full list of changes he wants to make.
"This statute was written by the marijuana industry and should not be treated as a cash grab for their cash crop at the expense of a state trying to emerge from the opioid epidemic," Huffman said. "The General Assembly may consider amending the statute to clarify the questionable language regarding limits for THC and tax rates as well as other parts of the statute."
What Ohio Republicans are saying about Issue 1
The two GOP leaders issued similar warnings about the abortion amendment, even though it's difficult to repeal a constitutional amendment once it's on the books. Both Huffman and Stephens supported a failed effort in August to make it harder to change the constitution, which aimed to thwart the abortion amendment.
Stephens said Tuesday's vote isn't the end of the conversation: "The legislature has multiple paths that we will explore to continue to protect innocent life."
Huffman echoed that sentiment, suggesting voters could see abortion issues on the ballot again in the future.
"Life is worth fighting for. As a grandparent of eight, the life of a baby is always worth the fight," Huffman said. "The national abortion industry funded by wealthy out-of-state special interests spent millions to pass this radical language that goes far past abortion on demand. This isn't the end. It is really just the beginning of a revolving door of ballot campaigns to repeal or replace Issue 1."
A spokesman for Gov. Mike DeWine declined to comment Tuesday night.
Democrats, for their part, said the election proved Ohioans support abortion access and don't want the GOP-controlled Legislature restricting it.
"I never underestimate with this Republican supermajority that is drunk on power, what they will plan to do," House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, said. "But at the end of the day, the people of Ohio have spoken very loudly and clearly on this issue − not (just) tonight, but also in August − that they want abortion rights and they want personal freedom."
USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau reporter Jessie Balmert contributed.
Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio. | US Local Elections |
PHILADELPHIA -- A former Philadelphia police officer has been sentenced to 15 to 40 years in state prison after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting women and girls — often while in uniform and in the back of his police vehicle.
Patrick Heron, 54, entered the pleas Friday after reaching an agreement with prosecutors in advance of a trial on more than 200 counts that included child sex assault, child pornography, kidnapping and related offenses, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Jane Roh, spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, said victims who are now spared the trauma of a trial welcomed the guilty plea. Defense attorney Anthony List also said he hoped the plea would spare the victims the anguish of having to testify, and added “hopefully everyone can move on.”
Heron, who retired from the force in 2019, was initially accused last year of posing as an active officer to lure girls. Investigators said they later found photos and videos indicating predatory behavior spanning years and including dozens of often vulnerable young women and girls including those who had run away, been arrested or struggled with addiction.
Lyandra Retacco, chief of the prosecutors' special investigations unit, said the crimes occurred from 2005 through last year, and Heron met many victims while on the force. She said investigators have identified 48 victims, though many of their identities remain unknown, and more likely haven't come forward. | US Police Misconduct |
For the past week, just about everybody in Washington politics has been asking the same question: will Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema vote for her party’s plan to fight climate change and lower health care costs?The Arizona lawmaker is known for her opposition to changing the tax code, as the bill - known was the Inflation Reduction Act - does to fund its programs. In the end, she did demand changes to how the legislation is paid for, but they weren’t especially big.With her support, Democrats have all 50 votes they need to get the bill through the evenly divided Senate. There’s not much Republicans themselves can do to stop them, so, instead, they’re hoping that Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough intervenes. The Democrats hope to pass the legislation via the reconciliation procedure, which requires only a simple majority of votes, but there are only certain types of changes to the law they can make that way. MacDonough is to decide whether they followed proper procedure, and as Politico reports, Republicans hope she’ll strike certain provisions from the bill - which could upend the delicate compromise Democrats have forged among themselves, and jeopardize the bill entirely.Key events25m agoDemocrats reach deal to pass major plan to fight climate changeShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureDominic RusheIt’s official: the US job market has returned to where it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new data released by the government this morning that showed employment increased far more than expected in July. Dominic Rushe has the full report:The US added 528,000 jobs in July as the jobs market returned to pre-pandemic levels.The US has now added 22m jobs since reaching a low in April 2020. The unemployment rate dipped to 3.5% in July, equal to its rate in February 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the US.The far stronger than expected report comes a month after the labor department announced the economy added 398,000 jobs in June, 26,000 more than its first estimate.Economists had been expecting jobs growth to slow in July and the latest figures from the labor department were far stronger than the average 388,000 jobs gained over the last four months.For the past week, just about everybody in Washington politics has been asking the same question: will Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema vote for her party’s plan to fight climate change and lower health care costs?The Arizona lawmaker is known for her opposition to changing the tax code, as the bill - known was the Inflation Reduction Act - does to fund its programs. In the end, she did demand changes to how the legislation is paid for, but they weren’t especially big.With her support, Democrats have all 50 votes they need to get the bill through the evenly divided Senate. There’s not much Republicans themselves can do to stop them, so, instead, they’re hoping that Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough intervenes. The Democrats hope to pass the legislation via the reconciliation procedure, which requires only a simple majority of votes, but there are only certain types of changes to the law they can make that way. MacDonough is to decide whether they followed proper procedure, and as Politico reports, Republicans hope she’ll strike certain provisions from the bill - which could upend the delicate compromise Democrats have forged among themselves, and jeopardize the bill entirely.Democrats reach deal to pass major plan to fight climate changeGood morning, US politics blog readers. It took more than a year of negotiations, but Democrats appear to finally have the votes to pass a major plan to fight climate change and lower healthcare costs, after a holdout senator announced yesterday evening she would support the measure. It’s Congress, so anything can happen, but if Democrats manage to get it done when they convene on Saturday, it would mark a major victory for the beleaguered presidency of Joe Biden, and cut America’s greenhouse gas emissions. We’ll certainly be hearing more about this today.Here’s what else is on the agenda: The Conservative Political Action Conference continues in Texas, with senator Ted Cruz, representative Marjorie Taylor Green and other rightwing politicians among today’s speakers. Donald Trump is holding a “Save America Rally” in Waukesha, Wisconsin. China has sanctioned US House speaker Nancy Pelosi after she visited Taiwan, which it responded to by launching military exercises near the island it views as a breakaway province. The Guardian has a live blog covering the ongoing tensions. | US Congress |
Rep. Jim Jordan said Monday he feels "really good" going into Tuesday's floor vote in the race to be the next speaker of the House.
"When I left Friday, I told our colleagues, 'Look, we'll visit over the weekend. We'll talk about any concerns and listen to concerns you may have,'" Jordan exclusively told CBS News. "I think none of those concerns are anything that we can't, we can't address so I feel good about where we're at."
The Ohio Republican stayed in Washington over the weekend to meet with GOP lawmakers and make calls to shore up support. When the Republican conference went into recess Friday afternoon, Jordan had won the votes of 152 Republicans members by secret ballot, and 55 said they would not vote for him on the House floor. At the end of the weekend, there were still, CBS News' Robert Costa reported.
Monday morning, his candidacy received a boost from House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, Republican of Alabama, who tweeted his endorsement on X. He said he had "two cordial, thoughtful, and productive conversations" with Jordan and said they agreed on the need to pass a strong defense bill, appropriations measures and the farm bill, which must be renewed every five years.
Asked if Rogers' backing could deliver more votes, Jordan called Rogers an "expert" and said he's been picking up support since Friday. Jordan said he's "visiting" with more GOP members Monday.
Jordan also picked up the endorsement of Rep. Ann Wagner, of Missouri, who previously vowed to voted against him.
"Jim Jordan and I spoke at length again this morning, and he has allayed my concerns about keeping the government open with conservative funding, the need for strong border security, our need for consistent international support in times of war and unrest, as well as the need for stronger protections against the scourge of human trafficking and child exploitation," Wagner said.
Jordan sent a "dear colleagues" letter to convince any remaining holdouts that it would be far better to support him than to be forced to compromise with Democrats.
"[T]he differences between us and our Democrat colleagues vastly outweigh our internal divisions," he wrote.
He also noted that "frustrations with the treatment of Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and the events of the past month" have been raised. "You've been honest and open, and I appreciate the candid conversations," Jordan said.
He also promised that he would make sure that there are "more Republican voices involved in our major decisions beyond the Five Families." This was a reference to the five groups in the GOP that hold the most power: The House Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, the Republican Main Street Caucus, the Republican Governance Group and the Problem Solvers Caucus, the Washington Post has noted. (And yes, the phrase "Five Families" alludes to the five mafia families in "The Godfather.")
Jordan needs 217 votes to secure the gavel. Asked if he could reach that threshold, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters "yes."
Jaala Brown contributed to this report.
for more features. | US Congress |
, Republican of Louisiana, has won the nomination of his party to be the next House speaker, but must win an election on the House floor to win the office.
If all lawmakers are present and all vote, Scalise can only afford to lose four Republicans out of the 217 in the conference. Democrats are expected to vote against Scalise.
In the secret ballot election held in the GOP conference Wednesday, Scalise won 113, while his opponent, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, won 99. Many of those who supported Jordan have agreed to vote for Scalise on the House floor, but the number who oppose him exceeds the number he can lose.
The vote by the full House was originally scheduled to take place at 3 p.m. Wednesday but has been postponed.
Here are the Republicans who say they will not vote for Scalise:
- Rep. Lauren Boebert, of Colorado, tweeted, "I will be voting for Jim Jordan to be Speaker of the House on the floor when the vote is called."
- Rep. Michael Cloud, of Texas, tweeted, "While I respect Steve Scalise, the underhanded efforts to rush this vote to the floor without getting full buy-in from the conference is extremely ill-advised and I will not be supporting the nomination on the floor, absent a further discussion."
- Rep. Carlos Gimenez, of Florida, said, "I've always said I'm a McCarthy guy so until he says, hey, don't vote for anybody else... 'til he comes to me and says that, I'm voting for McCarthy."
- Rep. Bob Good, of Virginia, tweeted: "I am still supporting Jordan. The country cannot afford the status quo."
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia tweeted, "Jim Jordan is the fighter we need to be Speaker of the House in this time of national crisis."
- Rep. Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, told CNN, "I plan on voting for Jim Jordan on the floor. I've been very vocal about this over the last couple of days." She also explained, "I personally cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke. I would be doing an enormous disservice to the voters I represent in South Carolina if I were to do that."
- Rep. Max Miller Max Miller, of Ohio, told reporters, "I'm still putting my support behind Jim Jordan for Speaker. I'm not going to change my vote now or anytime soon on the House floor."
- Rep. Chip Roy, of Texas, took issue with the attempt to schedule a speedy vote shortly after the conference nominated Scalise. "I will not be voting for @SteveScalise on the floor this afternoon," he tweeted. "The House GOP should NOT have called a vote at 300pm after finishing the vote at 130pm in Conference. That is unacceptable & purposeful."
- Rep. Lloyd Smucker, of Pennsylvania, tweeted, "The House GOP Conference is broken. So we oust Kevin McCarthy and all other leaders are rewarded with promotions?... We need to chart a different path forward. In the meantime, I plan to vote for Jim Jordan on the floor."
There are also a couple of lawmakers who have not committed to supporting Scalise yet:
- Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, told CBS News, "I'm still very reluctant."
- Rep. Mike Turner, of Ohio, told CNN, "He came out with 110 votes; he needs 217. He's going to have to give us a message or understanding of how he's going to bridge that gap."
Alan He, Alejandro Alvarez and Jack Turman contributed to this report.
for more features. | US Congress |
Trump made a pointed show of strength in his adopted home state, doing his best to embarrass the Florida governor whose 2024 presidential campaign has floundered.
“We’re going to win the Florida primary for the third straight time, and we’re going to win the state by a landslide next November,” Trump told the crowd in Kissimmee, according to the Associated Press.
He and the legislators who flipped allegiance stood under a sign that read “Florida is Trump Country.” The latest slate of endorsements was announced horse before DeSantis himself took the stage at the event. It also comes days after Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced his own endorsement of Trump.
During his speech, Trump mocked DeSantis for begging for his endorsement back in 2018.
"I endorsed him and he became a rocket ship in 24 hours,” said Trump. “Now he's like a wounded falling bird from the sky."
Trump’s popularity in the Sunshine State was laid bare when former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another 2024 candidate, was booed when he said the former president was the wrong choice for 2024.
The Florida event comes days before the third Republican debate in Miami. Trump will skip the event, much like he did the first two, and instead hold an counter-programming in nearby Hialeah.
DeSantis was expected to launch a serious challenge to Trump in the 2024 race, but his campaign has suffered a series of miscues, and in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, he only stands at 13.4 per cent, compared to Trump, who is at 59.3 per cent. | US Federal Elections |
Hackers have been able to gain access to personal information from about 6.9 million users of genetic testing company 23andMe, using customers' old passwords.
In some cases this included family trees, birth years and geographic locations, the company said.
After weeks of speculation the firm has put a number on the breach, with more than half of its customers affected.
The stolen data does not include DNA records.
23andMe is a giant of the growing ancestor-tracing industry. It offers genetic testing from DNA, with ancestry breakdown and personalised health insights.
The biotechnology company, which is based in South San Francisco, was not hacked itself but cyber-criminals logged into about 14,000 individual accounts, or 0.1% of customers, by using email and password details previously exposed in other hacks.
The company said that by accessing those accounts, hackers were able to access "a significant number of files containing profile information about other users' ancestry".
The criminals downloaded not just the data from those accounts but the private information of all other users they had links to across the sprawling family trees on the website.
The stolen data includes information like names, how each person is linked and in some cases birth years, locations, pictures, addresses and the percentage of DNA shared with relatives.
Also, hackers were able to access the family tree profile information of about 1.4 million other customers participating in the DNA relatives feature, including display names and relationship labels.
One batch of data was advertised on a hacking forum as a list of people with Jewish ancestry, sparking concerns of targeted attacks.
But there is currently no evidence that any of the datasets being advertised have had any buyers or that they have been used by criminals.
Oz Alashe, CEO of CybSafe, a risk management platform, said that the data breach at 23andMe "emphasises the importance of improving cyber-security behaviours in the general population".
"Poorly secured accounts, with weak passwords and no two-factor authentication, put all those sharing their sensitive data at risk," he said.
23andMe said it was now telling all affected customers, as required by law. The firm will be forcing customers to change their passwords and improve their account security. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Two North Carolina county election offices named to receive grants from a nonprofit tied to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will not accept any direct funding, opting instead to leverage the affiliation for networking and training.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life recently announced 10 county and municipal election offices slated to receive grant funding from the center’s U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, which bills itself as “a five-year, $80 million strategy to envision, support, and celebrate excellence in U.S. election administration.”
Brunswick and Forsyth counties join other 2023 grant recipients on the list from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan and Nevada.
The announcement follows more than $400 million distributed by the nonprofit during the 2020 presidential election – the vast majority donated by Zuckerberg – that Republicans have argued was unfairly distributed to Democrat-leaning districts. The money is often called Zuckerbucks.
More than 20 states responded by banning private funds for elections. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, however, vetoed similar legislation in December 2021 saying outside money is needed because the Legislature does not properly fund local election boards.
Sara Lavere, director of the Brunswick County Board of Elections, told The Center Square she joined the alliance through a $4,000 premium membership that will be offset by a scholarship of the same amount, but currently does not “have any plans to outright take money from the alliance” to administer elections.
The alliance membership agreement stipulates that the nonprofit’s “commitment to nonpartisanship is total. We will never attempt to influence the outcome of any election. Period.”
Brunswick County – in the far southeastern corner of the state bordering South Carolina and across the Cape Fear River from Wilmington – received $67,291 from CTCL in 2020, and used money to hire a temporary employee, she said.
“I don’t know if I would consider (the alliance grants) similar funds” as the 2020 CTCL grant, Lavere said.
“They have a scholarship that would pay for the membership. And they’d have funds available to reimburse me for travel to meetings,” she said. “I don’t plan to have any money given to me to help run the elections.”
Lavere said she applied for an alliance membership as “an opportunity to network with others on elections.”
“It’s really helpful to see how other people do things,” she said.
“If there’s opportunity to visit other counties across the country, and they will cover travel expenses, that might be something I’d take advantage of,” Lavere said, adding that she gained approval from her bipartisan county board before joining the alliance.
Lavere agreed to consult with her county board before implementing any initiatives inspired by the alliance.
Forsyth County Elections Director Tim Tsujii, a member of CTCL’s advisory committee, also cited the opportunity to network for joining the alliance, and promised to reject any direct elections funding.
“We have no intent or plans to apply for or to even accept any grant funds,” he said. “We’re purely participating in this program for professional development purposes, and the certification and educational piece.
“So we’re not anticipating receiving any grants, because we had no intent for applying for or receiving any of that grant funding,” Tsujii said.
Forsyth County – home to Winston-Salem in the northwestern Piedmont region of the state – did not apply for or receive any CTCL funding in 2020, he said. | US Local Elections |
Firebrand Rep., the face of the , is now , as the lower chamber enters its third week without a permanent speaker.
House Republicans on Friday formally selected Jordan to be their nominee after their first nominee, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, withdrew his name from consideration. The House has been without a speaker since Oct. 3, whenfrom the role in a 216-210 vote.
Since Jordan joined the House in 2007, he has gained a reputation as an outspoken critic of Democratic White Houses whose flamethrowing tactics have singed Republicans as well.
Jordan was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative members of the party that was established to oust then-House Speaker John Boehner, which was ultimately successful. During former President Donald Trump's presidency, Trump found in Jordan an ally who, like Trump, rarely held back.
So, who is Jim Jordan?
How Jordan got to where he is in politics
Jordan, a 59-year-old native of Troy, Ohio, has spent most of his adult life as a politician, becoming an Ohio state representative in 1995.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Jordan received his law degree from Capital University Law School in Ohio in 2001, the same year he went from being a state representative to a state senator.
Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006, and took office in 2007, during former President George W. Bush's second term.
Role in the House Freedom Caucus
Jordan was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus in 2015, and served as its first chairman from 2015 to 2017. Led by Jordan, the conservative members of the caucus pushed for a motion to "vacate the chair" against then-Speaker, the same move that ultimately ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his speakership. Before any vote could take place, Boehner announced his resignation in September 2015.
Since then, the caucus has become known for its take-it-or-leave-it, conservative stances on policy and the debt limit, often forcing more moderate Republicans to compromise. And its members were some of the most vocal supporters of Trump during his presidency.
The Trump years
Jordan was one of Trump's most ardent supporters in the House, and continues to be even after Trump left office.
Jordan lambasted the congressional and federal investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also sought to prevent the impeachment inquiry hearing over Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from proceeding.
After the 2020 election, Jordan was also a staunch supporter of challenges to Trump's loss, and he was among the more than 100 House Republicans who signed onto an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court to challenge the election results. The highest court declined to hear the case.
for speaker.
Committees
Jordan was a member of the Select Committee on Benghazi, investigating the deaths of four American soldiers at the U.S. embassy in Libya in 2012 when Barack Obama was president and Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Jordan accused Clinton of failing to lead when the crisis happened.
He was also the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee when Democrats controlled the House in 2019 and 2020.
Now, Jordan is the chairman of both the House Judiciary Committee and one of its subcommittees, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
In those roles during the Biden administration, Jordan, along with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, has launched hearings and issued subpoenas in an effort to uncover information about the Biden family's business dealings, with a particular interest in Hunter Biden. The president's son faces felony gun charges after a tentative plea agreement between his lawyers and federal prosecutors fell apart in court.
Ohio State University accusations
A controversy that has reemerged with Jordan vying for the speakership dates back to his time as a wrestling coach at The Ohio State University before he became a state legislator.
Jordan, a two-time NCAA Division I wrestling champion and four-time state champion in high school, worked as an assistant wrestling coach from 1986 to 1994.
Two former university wrestlers, Mike DiSabato and Dunyasha Yetts,of allegations that a now-dead team doctor was abusing athletes. Jordan has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the abuse, and Jordan himself has never been accused of sexual misconduct.
"We knew of no abuse. Never heard of abuse. If we had, we would have reported it," Jordan said in 2018 when the ex-wrestlers claimed he was aware.
The abuse sprang into focus decades after it happened, when former students accused physician Richard Strauss of abusing wrestlers and other athletes. Strauss died by suicide in 2005. An independent investigation conducted by law firm Perkins Coie on behalf of The Ohio State University and released in 2019 alleged Strauss abused at least 177 students while he was a school doctor, including at least 48 wrestlers. The report claimed the late doctor's behavior was an "open secret" in the athletics department.
for more features. | US Congress |
The GOP needs to win only one of the ten House races that have not been called to get a majority – and it’s possible Lauren Boebert will deliver them that victory.A rightwing lawmaker known for her extreme rhetoric – she’s decried the constitutional separation of church and state and made Islamophobic remarks – Boebert has faced an unexpectedly tight challenge from Democrat Adam Frisch in her right-leaning district. She currently leads him by more than 1,000 votes, after a lengthy counting process in which Frisch has occasionally taken the lead. There are between 4,000 to 6,000 votes left to count, and with the margins so narrow, Colorado Public Radio reports both campaigns are scrambling to contact voters to fix problems with their ballots, in hopes the outreach will give them a crucial edge. But even if Boebert loses, the Republicans have other opportunities to clinch victory in Congress’s lower chamber. As this New York Times table makes clear, their candidates are currently leading in three California districts that could also deliver them the majority.Key events39m agoSenate set for vote on same-sex marriage bill2h agoDemocratic congressman proposes using 14th amendment to keep Trump out of office4h agoHouse balance of power up in the air as America digests return of TrumpShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureHow exactly would the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) work? Slate has the answers in this illuminating piece.The bill is a two-pronged attempt to preserve existing same-sex marriages and allow new couples of the same gender to continue to marry, even if the supreme court overturns Obergefell v Hodges. The proposal first does that by getting rid of a federal law targeting same-sex couples, according to Slate:What the RFMA does not do is “codify” Obergefell, as many media outlets have inaccurately reported. So it’s worth delving into the details to understand precisely how this landmark legislation operates. Keep in mind that its central provisions will only become relevant if the Supreme Court overturns its marriage equality decisions. The RFMA will benefit same-sex couples if, and only if, SCOTUS overrules the right to equal marriage. Start with the easy part: The RFMA repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 law that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. It replaces DOMA with a requirement that the federal government recognize any marriage that was “valid in the place where entered into.” So if a same-sex couple obtains a valid marriage license from any state, the federal government must recognize their union.The second part of the bill requires states to recognize same-sex marriage licenses even if they – in a post-Obergefell world – decide not to issue them:Turn now to the second prong of the bill: Its requirement that every state recognize a valid same-sex marriage. It’s this provision that has upset some progressives, because it does not go as far as Obergefell. In that decision, the Supreme Court directed every state to license same-sex marriages—that is, to issue a marriage certificate to same-sex couples. The RFMA does not codify this component of Obergefell. Instead, it directs every state to recognize every same-sex marriage that “is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into.” So the RFMA does not force Texas to issue a marriage certificate to a same-sex couple. But it does force Texas to recognize a marriage certificate issued to a same-sex couple by New Mexico. In a post-Obergefell world, a same-sex couple in Texas could drive to New Mexico, obtain a certificate, and force Texas to respect their marriage like any other.This legislation doesn’t just address same-sex couples, but also interracial marriages, which were prohibited in parts of the United States before a 1967 supreme court decision. The RFMA would ensure those continue to be allowed as well:Finally, the bill applies equally to same-sex marriages and interracial marriages. Since no states have expressed interest in reviving anti-miscegenation laws, this component is also largely symbolic. But it does protect interracial couples if the Supreme Court were to overturn Loving v. Virginia, which was rooted in the same constitutional principles as Obergefell.Senate set for vote on same-sex marriage billThe Senate is expected to vote today on the Respect for Marriage Act codifying the right of same-sex couples to marry, after the legislation appeared to receive enough Republican support to overcome a filibuster.The bill already passed the Democratic-controlled house with the votes of 47 Republicans, but it’s been an open question whether enough GOP lawmakers would vote for the measure in the Senate. Axios reports that North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis is optimistic about its passage:The ability for same-sex couples to marry was created by the 2015 supreme court case Obergefell v Hodges. In June, rightwing justice Clarence Thomas suggested that precedent could be revisited by the court, which is now firmly in the grips of conservative justices. That lead to the push to enact a law that would ensure people of the same gender are allowed to marry, even if Obergefell is overturned.Donald Trump’s presidential announcement may have fueled talk of 2024, but keep in mind that the 2022 election season isn’t over yet.Ballots are still being counted in House races, while Georgia still needs to vote in the runoff for its Senate seat. The election won’t decide the control of the chamber – that’s already guaranteed to Democrats – but the 6 December polls will give Joe Biden’s allies an opportunity to boost their margins in the Senate, should Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock win another term. If he’s ousted by Republican challenger Herschel Walker, the GOP will have an even better shot at taking back control in 2024, when several Democratic senators considered vulnerable are up for reelection.University of Virginia polling guru Larry Sabato has released a new analysis of the race, moving it into the “toss-up” column from its previous “leans Republican” rating given before last week’s elections. Beyond just helping Democrats with their task of keeping the chamber in 2024, Sabato notes that having an extra seat will allow them to run the Senate more smoothly, since they’ll have an outright majority, rather than a 50-50 split with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking ties. That has implications for committee business, as well as approving judges and other executive nominees – which will likely become even more of a priority for the Senate’s Democratic leadership if the GOP takes the House.If you want to read more of Sabato’s thoughts, the link is here.Mike Pence was once Donald Trump’s sidekick in the White House, but in an appearance on Fox News today, he made clear he doesn’t think much of the former president’s latest attempt to win office:Former Vice President Mike Pence: "I honestly believe that we'll have better choices come 2024."Fox News' Steve Doocy: "Better choices than Donald Trump?"Pence: "I do." pic.twitter.com/qZ3BY3IIDy— The Recount (@therecount) November 16, 2022
This isn’t exactly a new position for the former vice-president. The two fell out over Pence’s refusal to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and he has since joined the apparently growing ranks of Republicans casting doubt on Trump’s ability to continue leading the party.The investigation into the January 6 insurrection is far from the only legal trouble Donald Trump faces. Martin Pengelly has a rundown of the many inquiries into the former president’s actions:Donald Trump has announced his third run for president, a move likely to be as norm-shattering as his successful 2016 campaign.But a new twist is the sheer size and scale of the legal jeopardy that now surrounds him. Federal and state authorities are investigating Trump’s personal, political and financial conduct, and that of his business empire.How any indictment would affect Trump’s run remains unclear – he is experienced in fighting delaying actions in the courts and in using political or investigatory moves against him as fuel to fire up his base.Democratic congressman proposes using 14th amendment to keep Trump out of officeA Democratic congressman is proposing legislation that would keep Donald Trump from returning to the White House on the grounds that he violated the 14th amendment by inciting insurrection against the United States.In a letter to colleagues obtained by the Guardian, Rhode Island’s David Cicilline pointed to the amendment’s language barring people from serving as public officials in the United States who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”“This language in our Constitution clearly intended to bar insurrectionists from holding high office in the United States,” Cicilline writes in the letter released before Trump’s announcement last night that he’d stand for president again in the 2024 election.“Given the proof – demonstrated through the January 6th Committee Hearings, the 2021 impeachment trial, and other reporting – that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection on January 6th with the intention of overturning the lawful 2020 election results, I have drafted legislation that would prevent Donald Trump from holding public office again under the Fourteenth Amendment.”In the letter, Cicilline invites lawmakers to cosponsor the legislation. The congressman does not appear to have introduced the bill yet.He might be returning to the campaign trail, but Donald Trump is still the subject of a number of investigations into events that occurred before, during and after his time in the White House.One of them is a Georgia special grand jury’s inquiry into attempts by the former president and his allies to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win in the state. The jurors empaneled in Fulton county, where Atlanta is located, have interviewed a number of ex-Trump White House officials, and CNN reports that former aide Cassidy Hutchinson was seen going into the court this morning:CNN's @JMOCNN saw former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson arriving at Fulton County Superior Court this morning for her scheduled appearance before the special purpose grand jury investigating efforts by Trump & his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) November 16, 2022
Hutchinson was the source of several explosive revelations when she testified before the January 6 committee in June, including that Trump got into a physical altercation with the Secret Service when they denied his request to go to the Capitol on the day of the insurrection.The Guardian’s Joanie Greve reports that Donald Trump’s speech announcing another White House run was typical for the former president – in that it was full of misleading statements and outright falsehoods:Donald Trump’s announcement that he will run for president again in 2024 was met with joy, dismay and mockery across the political spectrum.Making the widely anticipated announcement at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, Trump delivered remarks that would feel quite familiar to anyone who has watched one of his many campaign rallies. Looking back on America as he left the presidency in early 2021, Trump painted a rosy and often misleading picture of a nation that had established secure borders, a strong economy and global peace.Trump largely ignored the global pandemic that defined his final year as president and killed more than 400,000 Americans before he stepped down. He made the bizarre claim that the country had gone decades without a war while he was president, even though the war in Afghanistan was still unfolding at the end of his term. And Trump delivered the baseless declaration that the US-Mexican border had been “erased” since Joe Biden was sworn in.Trump used these consistently exaggerated and frequently false talking points to make his case for a third presidential bid.“Two years ago, we were a great nation, and soon we will be a great nation again,” Trump said. “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”Ivanka Trump served as an adviser to her father during his time in the White House, but said she’s staying out of his latest campaign.That’s according to ABC News, which obtained a statement from Ivanka:Quite the statement from Ivanka Trump tonight who did not attend Trump’s announcement. Says she doesn’t plan to be involved in politics and will support her father outside the political arena. @Santucci pic.twitter.com/A6i6iR74B4— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) November 16, 2022
Add the Murdoch family to the list of one-time Donald Trump supporters who have soured on his brand.The Murdoch-owned New York Post is known for its eyebrow-raising headlines, and gave an absolutely brutal treatment to Trump’s announcement of his presidential run last night: Over the past week, evidence has emerged that the conservative media moguls are not in favor of Trump returning to the campaign trail, with some Murdoch family members backing Florida governor Ron DeSantis instead. Donald Trump’s announcement of another presidential run is proving to be about as divisive as expected – including for Republicans. Here’s what one former White House chief of staff thought of Trump’s announcement, as reported by Martin Pengelly:Donald Trump’s announcement of a third consecutive run for the presidency is bad for the Republican party because he is the only Republican who could lose in 2024, Trump’s own former White House chief of staff said on Tuesday night.Asked on CNN if he thought Trump’s announcement at Mar-a-Lago was good for the Republican party, Mick Mulvaney said: “No I don’t. I think he’s the only Republican who could lose.”The former South Carolina congressman was Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and then his third chief of staff, in an acting capacity between 2018 and 2020. He then became the US special envoy for Northern Ireland.The GOP needs to win only one of the ten House races that have not been called to get a majority – and it’s possible Lauren Boebert will deliver them that victory.A rightwing lawmaker known for her extreme rhetoric – she’s decried the constitutional separation of church and state and made Islamophobic remarks – Boebert has faced an unexpectedly tight challenge from Democrat Adam Frisch in her right-leaning district. She currently leads him by more than 1,000 votes, after a lengthy counting process in which Frisch has occasionally taken the lead. There are between 4,000 to 6,000 votes left to count, and with the margins so narrow, Colorado Public Radio reports both campaigns are scrambling to contact voters to fix problems with their ballots, in hopes the outreach will give them a crucial edge. But even if Boebert loses, the Republicans have other opportunities to clinch victory in Congress’s lower chamber. As this New York Times table makes clear, their candidates are currently leading in three California districts that could also deliver them the majority.House balance of power up in the air as America digests return of TrumpGood morning, US politics blog readers. Believe it or not, we still don’t know which party will lead the House of Representatives for the next two years, but odds are, it’ll be the Republicans. They’re one seat away from taking back the majority in the chamber, and it’s possible ballot counting could wrap up today in one of the outstanding races trending their direction. We’ll let you know as soon as that happens. Meanwhile, expect to hear even more than usual about Donald Trump – last night he made his long-expected announcement of another run for the White House in 2024.Here’s what else is happening today: The Senate is set to vote to advance a bill codifying the ability for same-sex couple to marry, in response to signals from the conservative-led supreme court that they could revisit their precedent establishing the right. Mike Pence will appear at a CNN event this evening at 9pm eastern time, where he’ll no doubt face questions about his fraught relationship with Trump and whether the former vice-president plans to run for the White House in 2024. George W Bush was expected to interview Volodymyr Zelenskiy at 9am eastern time, but the Ukrainian president’s participation is now tentative due to Russia’s missile assault on the country on Tuesday. | US Federal Elections |
Jason Miller, one of Donald Trump’s longest-serving and closest political aides, is one again in the broiler.
The long and salacious saga of his extramarital affair with former Trump political aide A.J. Delgado took a sudden dark turn on Wednesday, when she sued her ex-boss in an explosive lawsuit that now describes his predatory relationship as rape.
The Cuban-American lawyer has spent years publicly attacking Miller for using his position of power during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to prey on her—then turning into a deadbeat dad who’s even been publicly skewered by CNN’s Jake Tapper for refusing to pay child support.
But on Wednesday, Delgado turned up the heat with a lawsuit against the Trump 2024 campaign, Miller, and the prominent Republican consulting firm where he worked during the ordeal, Jamestown Associates. Court documents describe “a cycle of sexual coercion, rape, sexual assault, abuse, battery, sexual harassment, and sex trafficking.”
In an interview with The Atlantic, Delgado previously referred to her brief affair with Miller as “a really nice, sweet relationship.” Trump’s right hand political man says the shifting story is part of a nonstop mission for revenge.
“History has shown a pattern of conduct by Delgado simply intended to harass my family while wasting the judiciary’s time and resources,” he said in a statement to The Daily Beast on Thanksgiving evening.
The lawsuit claims that Miller specifically hired Delgado for her looks after having an assistant comb through her social media, where Miller gawked at a photo of her in a bikini. Delgado asserts that she tried to dismiss flirtations remarks from her direct supervisor, but things went horribly wrong on the night before Trump’s presidential debate against Hillary Clinton on Oct. 19, 2016 at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.
The lawsuit claims that Miller plied her with alcohol at Las Vegas’ TAO restaurant and a strip club one night with fellow staffers, then directed her and a female staffer back to Delgado’s hotel room for a debate prep session—only to have the other woman “abruptly” disappear from the suite “at Miller’s behest.”
“Delgado, who had had an extremely busy day and had had very little to eat, was inebriated, nauseated, and felt unwell,” the lawsuit states. “The next morning, Delgado awoke in the bedroom portion of the suite, partially dressed, with her jumpsuit hanging around her ankle, what appeared to be vomit on the side of her pillow, and one of her high heels on the bed. There was evidence that Miller had had penetrative sex with her in her hotel suite, relations that were not consented to by Delgado, and Delgado was fully unable to consent to any sexual relations.”
The lawsuit claims it happened again and again for two months: at the Las Vegas Trump Hotel, at the Trump golf resort in Doral (where she believes she got pregnant), and at his apartment in Manhattan. And Delgado asserts that Miller was always “refusing to use protection, despite her protests,” and that she “had no choice but to feign interest, out of fear that rejecting Miller would have disastrous repercussions for her White House job and even for any position at all within the general Trump orbit.”
Delgado did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday afternoon. Neither did the Trump campaign.
Miller is still very close to the former president, accompanying him during the opening days of the billionaire’s ongoing bank fraud trial in New York City. Miller, who is now Trump’s senior adviser, sat on the sidelines just a few feet away from Trump, always close at hand to deal with political strategizing as Trump fights to win the Republican nomination—and stay out of prison.
Delgado previously sued Trump and his campaign for pregnancy and sex discrimination in 2019. In the midst of the simmering fight, Miller suddenly left the Trump White House team early on. But he’s back. And this newest lawsuit vastly ups the stakes. | US Political Corruption |
It’s election day in Georgia, and both Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker have brought out some of the biggest names in the state to campaign for them.Atlanta hip-hop institution Jermaine Dupri is in Warnock’s corner, as he makes clear in this video:Walker, meanwhile, has the support of the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who just won re-election himself. A note about Kemp: he’s famous for defying Donald Trump’s attempts to meddle in the 2020 election results in the state, while Walker was endorsed by the former president, but whatever tension might exist there hasn’t prevented the governor from endorsing his Republican counterpart.Trump is all in for Walker, writing on his Truth social account, “VOTE TODAY FOR HERSCHEL, he will never let you down!”Meanwhile, Barack Obama returned to the state last week to make a closing argument in favor of Warnock:Key events2h agoPolls open in Georgia as Senate showdown between Warnock and Walker goes to votersShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureAnother major piece of outstanding business House Democrats must wrap up before the end of the year: the January 6 committee.The bipartisan panel looking into the attack on the Capitol is expected to make criminal referrals to the justice department based on the results of its investigation, and Axios reports chair Bennie Thompson said lawmakers know who they intend to name:Jan. 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson to reporters: “We have made decisions on criminal referrals.”Doesn’t offer any more details.— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) December 6, 2022
The panel’s authorization expires at the end of the year, and it’s almost certain the incoming Republican House majority won’t reinstate it. The biggest name the January 6 committee could refer for charges is, of course, Donald Trump.The Guardian’s politics live blog is now in the hands of Gloria Oladipo, who will keep you informed on the latest news throughout the day.Congress truly is going all out on lawmaking as the year draws to a close, with a pair of senators reportedly trying to reach a compromise on immigration reform.Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are said to be working on the deal, which Politico reports could address a host of immigration-related issues:Tillis on state of immigration talks:"we're still trying to work out the border protections, title 42, expedited removal, a number of the underpinnings we need so that we can honestly say that we're going to reduce future flows and then deal with the population that's here ...— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) December 6, 2022
... if we're able to do that, we've got the potential of getting something done but it has to start with a strong foundation on border security this year."this year?"Either this year or four years from now"— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) December 6, 2022
It would be a major accomplishment is Sinema and Tillis can pull of an immigration reform deal, since Congress has tried and failed to do so under multiple presidents for years.Georgia’s Senate run-off election is one of several massively expensive races that have taken place this year, but despite all the dollars spent, many Republicans have come out behind, as Tom Perkins reports:With the power balance in Congress at stake in this year’s midterm elections, the GOP money machine kicked into high gear. Spending on advertisements and drumming up votes was fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars from the party’s mega-donors and Super Pacs. Many donors’ spending figures marked new records.Their return on investment, however, is probably not what they had hoped: some donors who spent eight figures notched zero wins in the Senate, while others spent far more money on losing candidates than winners. In the midterms, some of the biggest losers were Republican donors.Among the clearest of those losers is Mehmet Oz, who self-funded much of his own failed run for office – loaning his Pennsylvania US Senate campaign about $22m, or about 55% of the roughly $40m he raised.The Georgia Senate race is the last major outstanding election left from last month’s midterms, in which Democratic candidates made a surprisingly strong showing nationwide, but nonetheless narrowly lost control of the House. While they are assured control of the Senate for the next two years, both parties are fighting hard for a win in Georgia. Here’s more from the Guardian as to why:The winner of Tuesday’s midterm election runoff for one of Georgia’s two seats in the US Senate will make history.Raphael Warnock became the first Black senator from Georgia when he won the 2020 presidential election runoff that helped tip the upper chamber into Democratic control, boosting the party in its capture of the House, the Senate and the White House.Now, as Georgia heads for the last day of voting in the latest runoff, Warnock hopes to add another distinction – winning a full six-year term in the Senate.Standing in the way is another Black man, Republican challenger Herschel Walker. And whoever wins will be the first Black person elected from Georgia to a full Senate term.The Hill reports that the House will delay its vote on a bill to protect same-sex and interracial marriage rights to Thursday:NEW: A spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi tells me the Respect for Marriage Act will come up on THURSDAY.Comes after Pelosi last week said the bill would come to the floor today, but it’s not on the schedule.— Mychael Schnell (@mychaelschnell) December 6, 2022
The Respect for Marriage Act is one of several pieces of legislation Congress is trying to get through in the final weeks of the year with Democrats still in charge of both the House and Senate. Yesterday, Punchbowl News reported the House’s vote on the bill – on of the last steps necessary before it heads to Joe Biden’s desk – would probably be delayed due to a dispute over a defense funding bill, which both parties consider to be an end-of-the-year priority.It’s election day in Georgia, and both Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker have brought out some of the biggest names in the state to campaign for them.Atlanta hip-hop institution Jermaine Dupri is in Warnock’s corner, as he makes clear in this video:Walker, meanwhile, has the support of the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who just won re-election himself. A note about Kemp: he’s famous for defying Donald Trump’s attempts to meddle in the 2020 election results in the state, while Walker was endorsed by the former president, but whatever tension might exist there hasn’t prevented the governor from endorsing his Republican counterpart.Trump is all in for Walker, writing on his Truth social account, “VOTE TODAY FOR HERSCHEL, he will never let you down!”Meanwhile, Barack Obama returned to the state last week to make a closing argument in favor of Warnock:Polls open in Georgia as Senate showdown between Warnock and Walker goes to votersGood morning, US politics blog readers. Polls have opened in Georgia’s runoff election, where voters will decide whether to send Democrat Raphael Warnock back to the Senate for another six years, or replace him with Republican opponent Herschel Walker. A victory by Warnock – who opinion polls say has the edge – would help Democrats pad their majority in the Senate, but if Walker triumphs, it would reassure the GOP that Georgia remains a red state, and put them closer to retaking the chamber in 2024. Whoever wins will make history by becoming the first Black senator elected to a full term from Georgia. Polls close at 7pm eastern time.Here’s what else is happening today: Joe Biden is heading to Arizona to promote the Chips act, which is intended to boost American technological prowess. He tours a semiconductor manufacturer in Phoenix, then makes remarks at 4 pm eastern time. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other lawmakers will at 11am eastern time hold a ceremony honoring police who defended the Capitol on January 6. The legislative gears may have ground to a halt in Congress due to a dispute over a defense funding bill. It remains to be seen whether the House of Representatives will vote, as planned, today on a bill to protect same-sex and interracial marriage rights, one of a heaping pile of legislation both chambers are trying to get through before the end of the year. | US Federal Elections |
An off-duty pilot is charged with 83 counts of attempted murder after he allegedly tried to pull the fire extinguisher handles on the engines of an Alaska Airlines flight, according to officials.
The plane was scheduled to fly from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco before it diverted late Sunday to Portland after a "credible security threat related to an authorized occupant in the flight deck jump seat," the airline confirmed to ABC News.
The suspect allegedly tried to pull the fire extinguisher handles on the engines, preliminary information obtained by investigators indicated, according to a federal official briefed on the probe. The suspect was overwhelmed by flight crew and subdued and then handcuffed to a seat, the federal official told ABC News.
The suspect, Joseph David Emerson, was taken into custody, the Port of Portland confirmed. Emerson is charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office. He is also facing 83 counts of reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, and one felony count of endangering an aircraft.
The suspect was en route to San Francisco, where he was scheduled to be on a flight crew of a 737, the official said.
There were 80 passengers and four crew members on the flight, according to Alaska. The event is being investigated by law enforcement, the airline said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Alex Brandon/AP file photo
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The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, home of the FBI's headquarters, is seen on June 9, 2023, in Washington, D.C. The General Services Administration's inspector general is investigating the decision to build a new HQ in Maryland.
Alex Brandon/AP file photo
The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, home of the FBI's headquarters, is seen on June 9, 2023, in Washington, D.C. The General Services Administration's inspector general is investigating the decision to build a new HQ in Maryland.
Alex Brandon/AP file photo
WASHINGTON — A federal watchdog is investigating how the Biden administration chose a site for a new FBI headquarters following a contentious competition marked by allegations of conflict of interest from the bureau's director.
The inspector general for the General Services Administration is probing the decision to replace the FBI's crumbling headquarters in Washington, D.C., with a facility in Greenbelt, Md., rather than a site in Virginia, according to a letter released Thursday by Virginia lawmakers.
The GSA, for its part, said it chose the site due to lower costs and easy access to transit. It stands behind the process.
Consideration for a new headquarters has been discussed for more than a decade, and the nearby states of Virginia and Maryland competed fiercely for the project. The announcement earlier this month choosing Maryland brought sharp criticism from Virginia. The state's senators and representatives said in a joint statement Thursday there was "overwhelming evidence" suggesting the process was influenced by politics. They called on the GSA to pause anything related to the relocation until the review is complete.
"We applaud the inspector general for moving quickly and encourage him to move forward to complete a careful and thorough review," Virginia's delegation said in a joint statement.
Maryland lawmakers, on the other hand, said their state was chosen simply because it has the best site and the project would be moving forward.
"Any objective evaluation will find that the GSA arrived at this decision after a thorough and transparent process," its leaders said in their own joint statement.
The evaluation of the agency's process and procedures for selecting the site will begin immediately, the acting inspector general said in his letter to Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia.
The GSA, which manages the government's real estate portfolio, said it welcomes the review and pointed out that it had already released decision-making materials and a legal review of concerns raised by FBI Director Christopher Wray.
"We carefully followed the requirements and process and stand behind GSA's final site selection decision," an agency spokesperson said in a statement.
The review comes after Wray told staff in an internal message earlier this month that he was concerned about a "potential conflict of interest" in a GSA executive choosing a site owned by a previous employer, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
Wray said his objections were about the process rather than the site itself.
GSA denied any conflict, saying the site about 13 miles (20 kilometers) northeast of Washington was less expensive, had better access to transit and could be completed quickly. | US Federal Policies |
It was a pretty big deal on Tuesday night, at the State of the Union, when President Joe Biden got Republicans to promise they wouldn’t cut Medicare or Social Security.
It’s not clear how binding that promise is or whether it even means what it sounds like. Republicans have a long history of proposing “reforms” to Medicare and Social Security that, as my fellow HuffPoster Arthur Delaney noted afterward, are actually benefit reductions of one sort or another.
And at least a few Republicans don’t seem to have gotten the memo. During a Thursday radio interview, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) reiterated his belief that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and his support for requiring the program to get new authorization every few years — a plan that Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) laid out in plain language last year.
But assume, for the moment, that GOP leaders are true to their word and manage to keep their party away from Medicare and Social Security. Assume, also, that Republicans carry out their threat to block an increase in the federal government’s borrowing authority, jeopardizing America’s and maybe the world’s economy, until Democrats agree to major spending cuts.
Medicaid, of course, is the government health insurance program for low-income Americans. The federal government puts up most of the money and sets broad guidelines for how it works, leaving program details and management to the states, which contribute a share of the funds as well.
In fiscal year 2021, total Medicaid spending was more than $700 billion and enrollment was more than 80 million. That’s roughly one-quarter of the U.S. population, and more beneficiaries than you’ll find in any other health insurance program that the federal government runs or administers.
Yes, Medicaid now covers more people than Medicare, the beloved Great Society-era program that provides basic insurance to the nation’s elderly.
This growth in Medicaid is a problem, as most Republicans and their conservative allies see it. They think the program covers way too many people and costs way too much money — especially because, they insist, it doesn’t even serve its population well.
Are they right? What would big Medicaid cuts mean in practice?
And would the American people find that any more palatable than going after Medicare or Social Security?
Medicaid has gotten big because the need is big.
Medicaid traces its history back to the same 1965 law that created Medicare. And just like Medicare, the statutory language authorizing and governing Medicaid lives inside the Social Security Act as an amendment.
But unlike either Medicare or Social Security, Medicaid isn’t something everybody pays into during their working years, then draws upon when they reach retirement. It is a program for low-income Americans specifically, at whatever stage in life they meet its eligibility requirements.
Initially, those requirements were linked to the rules for the old “welfare” system so that Medicaid was open mainly to poor Americans who were either pregnant women, young children, seniors or people with disabilities. Over the years, the program became available to more and more people, thanks to a combination of federal and state actions.
One of the biggest increases was through the Affordable Care Act, which gave states extra funding if they’d open their Medicaid programs to all people in households with incomes below or just above the poverty line. Most states have now done that. The exceptions are 11 states where Republican officials in charge have refused, as part of their ongoing resistance to Obamacare.
(You can read about one of those states, Florida, and one of those Republican state officials, Gov. Ron DeSantis, here.)
“It was a lifeline during the pandemic.”
Medicaid meets a very clear need. The vast majority of people on the program would not be able to pay for insurance or cover their medical expenses on their own because they don’t have nearly enough money. And Medicaid is making a very clear difference in these people’s lives.
There’s a lengthy and constantly growing pile of studies demonstrating that Medicaid has, for example, improved access to care and reduced medical debt. There’s also evidence of better health outcomes, especially for pregnant women and young children, although the direct link and relationship to life expectancy is more ambiguous.
Never was this more true than when COVID-19 hit, when the need for medical care was at its greatest and job losses threatened health care access for millions.
As Allison Orris, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told me in an email, Medicaid “was a lifeline during the pandemic.”
GOP designs on Medicaid date to the Reagan era.
Over the years, conservative critics have pointed to some very real problems with Medicaid ― most obvious among them, poor specialist access. Medicaid beneficiaries routinely have trouble finding specialists who will see them and, even when they can, they frequently have to wait many months for appointments. But a big factor in that problem is Medicaid’s notoriously low payment rate, which makes physicians less eager to see Medicaid patients.
A bump in payments could remedy that problem, or at least make it less severe. That hasn’t happened, which isn’t exactly surprising. Historically, means-tested programs have not commanded the broad, popular support of universal programs because their constituencies are less powerful ― and, in a country that routinely distinguishes between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor, less politically sympathetic, too.
“The assumption that there is lots of easy money to save is wrong, something I learned running a state Medicaid program.”
There’s a saying in politics that poor programs remain poor, and there’s a lot of truth to that. It also helps explain why Medicaid has been an object of Republican budget attacks so many times in the past, going back to the Reagan era.
Big Medicaid cuts were part of the agenda former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tried to force on President Bill Clinton, leading to the infamous shutdown of 1995 and 1996, and they were a staple of the budgets former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) kept proposing a decade ago.
Most recently, Medicaid cuts were part of the legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act that House Republicans passed and Senate Republicans came close to passing as well.
The details of these proposals were different, but they all had two main components. They envisioned ending the existing, open-ended guarantee of federal funding sufficient to cover however many people became eligible for the program. And they all envisioned substantial funding reductions relative to projections.
Medicaid beneficiaries would feel the pain of cuts.
If Republicans really do turn their attention to Medicaid, whether as a part of the new debt ceiling threat or in some future legislation, chances are good they’ll propose another version of these changes ― and that they will promote them as a way to increase state flexibility while wringing waste out of the program.
State officials would undoubtedly like more discretion over the program (they almost always do), and Medicaid, like any large program, undoubtedly has waste. But the idea that efficiency alone could generate huge savings without affecting beneficiaries sounds far-fetched to Drew Altman, who today is president of KFF but earlier in his career oversaw Medicaid for the state of New Jersey.
“The assumption that there is lots of easy money to save is wrong, something I learned running a state Medicaid program,” Altman said. “Faced with less money, states can throw people off the program, cut their benefits, or cut provider payment rates, which in most states are already too low. There is no magic, and in the end, low-income, disabled and elderly people get hurt.”
That last part is important, and a piece of the Medicaid picture that’s easy to miss. Seniors and people with disabilities represent a minority of enrollees, but they account for the majority of program spending because the services and supports they need are frequently so expensive. Think about the cost of major heart surgery, the kind that gets a lot more common with age, or the cost of round-the-clock aides for somebody with paralysis.
As a result, state Medicaid officials running out of money have “no easy options,” according to Robin Rudowitz, director of KFF’s program on Medicaid and the uninsured.
“States would need to cut a lot of less expensive low-income children or adults from Medicaid or cut elderly and people with disabilities with high health care needs who may need long term care in nursing homes or the community,” Rudowtiz said.
Medicaid has political strengths, too.
Just how vulnerable Medicaid is to cuts now is the big, open question.
During the mid-’90s shutdown, Clinton cited Medicaid (as well as Medicare) as a reason to resist Gingrich’s budget cuts. In 2017, protests from people with disabilities were a key factor in turning public opinion against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
And with so many people on the program now, inevitably, more Americans are aware of the role it plays. In a 2020 KFF survey, roughly 40% said they had either been on Medicaid once or had a child who had been, while another 26% said they had a friend or family who had once used Medicaid.
Add it up, and you have two-thirds of Americans with either direct knowledge of the program or some a direct connection to it. That’s a big swath of the population, more than enough to produce a serious political backlash.
In the past, Altman notes, that possibility has made plenty of state officials flinch at cuts, even when those officials desperately wanted the savings. If Medicaid does end up on the GOP agenda, the same thing could happen again. | US Federal Policies |
Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has missed nearly 83% of Senate roll call votes since checking himself into a hospital to receive treatment for clinical depression last month.
According to government watchdog GovTrack, Fetterman has missed 53 of the 64 Senate roll call votes held during February and March. His average falls well beyond the lifetime record for missed votes for all current senators, which stands at 2.3%.
Wednesday will mark six weeks since Fetterman first checked into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the night of February 15, and there is still no clear indication as to when he might return to work. His office has provided periodic updates, including that he is making progress towards his recovery, as well as that he has been able to continue doing some work from the hospital.
On March 6, Fetterman's chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, posted on Twitter that the senator "will be back soon," and included pictures of the two sitting together working from a table at the hospital.
Last week, Fetterman's communications director, Joe Calvello, also said the senator would be back "soon," but did not provide any further details on the time frame beyond that it would be "at least over a week."
Fetterman's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital specifically about the day-to-day operation of the office in his absence, however his staff has reportedly been filling gaps wherever needed in order to keep the office going.
Jentleson told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star earlier this month that staff would likely be doing the same amount of work even if Fetterman were physically present in the office, and touted that between a third and half of the staff were policy experts.
He also noted in the report that Fetterman "certainly will miss votes" considering his condition, but that this was a "pretty good time" out of any other time during the calendar year to miss because of the lack of significant legislation.
The votes Fetterman missed include a number of judicial and other nominations, as well as a bipartisan bill that sought to strike down a new Labor Department rule encouraging retirement fiduciaries to consider environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues in their investments.
Fox News' Houston Keene contributed to this report. | US Congress |
Twitter podcaster Tucker Carlson is pounding home the theory that Democrats and the D.C. establishment are plotting to kill Donald Trump, this time claiming that we’re “speeding toward assassination” because “permanent Washington” has decided they “just can’t have” Trump as president again.
Appearing on anti-woke comedian Adam Carolla’s YouTube show this week, Carlson weighed in on his sitdown with Trump that aired on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, last week. That interview was planned by both Carlson and Trump—both of whom have their own grievances with Fox News—as counter-programming to the right-wing network’s GOP presidential primary debate that Trump skipped.
At one point, Carolla asked the former Fox News star what “the future holds” and whether “they are going to let Trump be president,” prompting Carlson to begin raging about the impeachments and criminal indictments the ex-president has faced. And, of course, Carlson also tossed in some Jan. 6 trutherism for good measure.
“They protested him, they called him names. He won anyway. They impeached him twice on ridiculous pretenses,” the far-right nationalist pundit exclaimed. “They fabricated a lot about what happened on January 6 in order to impeach him again. It didn’t work. He came back. Then they indicted him. It didn’t work. He became more popular. Then they indicted him three more times. And every single time his popularity rose.”
According to Carlson, the only thing left for the so-called ruling class to do is kill Trump.
“If you begin with criticism, then you go to protest. Then you go to impeachment. Now you go to indictment and none of them work. What’s next?” Carlson said, purely just asking questions. “I mean, you know, graph it out, man! We’re speeding toward assassination, obviously, and no one will say that!”
He added: “I don’t know how you can’t reach that conclusion. You know what it’s been like. They have decided—permanent Washington. Both parties have decided that there’s something about Trump that’s so threatening to them, they just can’t have it.” Carlson’s assertion that Washington elites are conspiring to murder the current GOP presidential frontrunner comes after he posed that very same question to Trump during their friendly Twitter chat.
“They started with protests against you, massive protests, organized protests by the left, and then it moved to impeachment twice,” Carlson proclaimed to Trump. “And now indictment. I mean, the next stage is violence. Are you worried that they’re going to try and kill you? Why wouldn’t they try and kill you? Honestly.”
Since his abrupt ouster from Fox News, the one-time most-watched host on cable news has at times struggled to retain his cultural relevancy as he’s been shunted off to the hinterlands of Elon Musk’s social media platform. For instance, a gushing biography of him barely made a whimper on the best-seller charts, selling a mere 3,000 copies in its first week.
At the same time, though, Carlson has already pulled in investors to his new media venture, and nabbed seven-figure ad deals. And besides his chummy interview with Trump, Carlson has leaned further into controversy while posting obsequious sitdowns with Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán and accused human trafficker Andrew Tate. | US Political Corruption |
The Department of Justice is trying to bolster its case for keeping a federal gag order on Donald Trump in the run-up to his election fraud trial in Washington, and prosecutors just got an extra helping of evidence from New York.
Three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reconsidering that gag order this week asked for fresh examples of Trump’s threatening behavior, now that the former president’s defense lawyers are trying to carve out First Amendment exceptions. So Thursday afternoon, federal prosecutors pointed them to the heaping pile of hate that Trump has recently directed his MAGA battalion to dish out on the state judge currently presiding over the billionaire’s bank fraud trial.
Prosecutors have argued that giving the politician free reign to direct his simmering anger is a recipe for disaster. Cecil W. VanDevender, an attorney on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team, directed their attention to a fiery list compiled on Tuesday by the New York captain in charge of protecting state judges.
Captain Charles Hollon Captain noted that, after the former president started attacking Justice Arthur F. Engoron and his law clerk, the two received “hundreds of threatening and harassing voicemail messages that have been transcribed into over 275 single spaced pages.”
The judge’s law clerk, attorney Allison Greenfield, has gotten the worst of it after Trump spread vicious lies about her—“resulting in daily doxing” that led to dozens of daily calls, voicemails, and messages from Trump loyalists.
On Thanksgiving, federal prosecutors packaged up the evidence with a singular message in mind: If you remove Trump’s muzzle, he will turn up the heat.
The lesson in New York is stark. The MAGA flock gobbles up anything Trump says and follows his lead. New York court cops assert that the flood of hate spiked when Trump personally attacked the state judge and his right hand legal adviser, diminished when the judge ordered Trump to shut up, then spiked again when Trump violated that gag order.
New York court documents, now filed in federal court too, show the kinds of recorded voicemails that have been left by Trumpists calling the New York judge’s chambers.
“I mean, honestly, you should be assassinated. You should be killed,” said one.
“Trust me. Trust me when I say this. I will come for you. I don’t care. Ain’t nobody gonna stop me either,” said another.
One caller swore to “hunt down… you and your family,” warning that “for every action there’s a reaction.”
Another called Justice Engoron a “treasonous piece of trash snake,” and threatened that “we are coming to remove you permanently.”
During a court hearing on Monday, federal appellate judges seemed reticent to keep caging the Republican presidential candidate ahead of his upcoming trial before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, but the new batch of evidence is meant to convince them otherwise. A similar fight is underway in Manhattan, where the New York Attorney General is fighting to have an appellate court reinstate four gag orders on Trump that were recently in place until a lone appellate judge roasted them. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
WASHINGTON -- Before Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman checked himself in to the hospital for clinical depression in February, he walked the halls of the Senate stone-faced and dressed in formal suits. These days, he’s back to wearing the hoodies and gym shorts he was known for before he became a senator.
Male senators are expected to wear a jacket and tie on the Senate floor, but Fetterman has a workaround. He votes from the doorway of the Democratic cloakroom or the side entrance, making sure his “yay” or “nay” is recorded before ducking back out. In between votes this past week, Fetterman's hoodie stayed on for a news conference with four Democratic colleagues in suits, the 6-foot-8 Fetterman towering over his colleagues.
People close to Fetterman say his relaxed, comfortable style is a sign that the senator is making a robust recovery after six weeks of inpatient treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where his clinical depression was treated with medication and he was fitted for hearing aids for hearing loss that had made it harder for him to communicate. His hospitalization came less than a year after he had a stroke during his Senate campaign that he has said nearly killed him, and from which he continues to recover.
“He’s setting a new dress code,” jokes Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, who is the only other first-term Democrat in the Senate and spent a lot of time with Fetterman during their orientation at the beginning of the year. “He was struggling. And now he’s a joyful person to be around.”
Senators do occasionally vote in casual clothing — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, is known for sometimes arriving in gym clothes. But Fetterman’s regular attire is redefining fashion in the stuffy Senate. He’s turning heads on a daily basis as he walks the halls in his signature baggy Carhartt sweatshirts and saggy gym shorts, his hulking figure surrounded by much more formally dressed Washington types buzzing around the Capitol.
The senator’s staff had originally asked him to always wear suits, which he famously hates. But after a check with the Senate parliamentarian upon his return, it became clear that he could continue wearing the casual clothes that were often his uniform back at home in Pennsylvania, as long as he didn’t walk on to the Senate floor.
Welch said Fetterman was quiet and withdrawn when he first came to Washington, and often sat in the back of closed-door caucus meetings. Now he’s standing up and talking, sometimes joking and ribbing Pennsylvania’s senior senator, Democrat Bob Casey.
Fetterman, Welch and Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama became friends at the orientation, and those two colleagues stayed close with him through his recovery. Britt says that in those early days, Fetterman would only really engage if she started the conversation, but they bonded over having children of a similar age and the fact that Britt’s former football player husband, Wesley, is the same height as the Pennsylvania senator. When Fetterman checked into the hospital, Britt’s staff brought food to his office next door.
Britt later visited him at Walter Reed, at his request, and found Fetterman to be totally changed. “When I walked in that day, his energy and demeanor was totally different,” Britt said in an interview.
Now, he’s loud and outgoing, she says -– even yelling “Alabama!” at her down a hallway when he caught sight of her last week, giving her fist bumps and asking about her husband and family.
“That shows you the difference that treatment can make,” Britt says. “It’s just incredible to see.”
Fetterman's decision to seek treatment won bipartisan praise from his colleagues, a sharp turn from his bruising Senate race against Republican Mehmet Oz that was the most expensive in the country.
Joe Calvello, a spokesman for Fetterman who has worked for him since the beginning of his campaign and before the stroke, said his boss is more back to his old self after a difficult year. Fetterman is getting to know all his staff after his return to the Senate on April 17, making friends with his Senate colleagues and speaking out on progressive issues on which he campaigned.
“It’s good to be on the other side of that,” Calvello said.
Last week, Fetterman stood alongside the other senators in suits to urge President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling on his own under a clause in the 14th Amendment instead of negotiating with Republicans. He also questioned bank executives at a hearing — dressed in a suit, as he does for committee meetings — and asked whether they should be subject to work requirements like those Republicans have proposed for food aid recipients in the debt ceiling negotiations.
Fetterman’s words are still halting and sometimes hard to understand, due to his stroke. He has auditory processing disorder, which makes it harder to speak fluidly and quickly process spoken conversation into meaning. He uses iPads in conversations, meetings and congressional hearings that transcribe spoken words in real time, and when he speaks publicly he often appears to be reading closely off a sheet of paper. He rarely speaks with reporters in the hallways.
While questioning the bank executives his words were occasionally jumbled, due to his auditory processing difficulties. “Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we sail your bank, put billions in your bank?” Fetterman asked.
The senator’s conservative critics have frequently jumped on his stumbles, mocking them in television spots.
But his chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, tweeted that the moment at the banking hearing was unscripted -– and a surprise to even him.
“John Fetterman just asked the Silicon Valley Bank CEO if there should be work requirements for CEOs who crash banks and dear reader, I almost fell out of my chair,” Jentleson wrote.
Constituents he has met with say it can take a moment to get used to his speaking difficulties.
The president of the Pennsylvania Farmers Union, Michael Kovach, said Fetterman unexpectedly popped into a meeting when Kovach was meeting with the senator's staff in Washington. It was only Fetterman's second day back, but he stayed for a half hour, using a transcription device to read Kovach’s responses in their discussion about helping farmers who keep good conservation practices on their land.
Kovach said Fetterman asked thoughtful questions, made thoughtful comments and joked about beard envy with Kovach, who sports a long graying goatee.
“It’s the same Fetterman that I recall as lieutenant governor, it’s just difficult for him to communicate, so the elephant in the room obviously is the screen that he’s reading from,” Kovach said. “It’s a bit of a distraction, but something I got quickly used to.”
Fetterman is also back to social media, which was a staple of his campaign before the stroke. This past week he posted a photo of himself and Welch on Twitter sitting in a Senate courtyard and wearing hoodies.
Welch is hosting Fetterman and Britt at his house for dinner soon. Fetterman is "on his game" these days, Welch said.
Another Democratic colleague, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, said she noticed that Fetterman was “inwardly focused” when he arrived in Washington. But he's now gregarious and cracking jokes.
“It’s really, really great to see, it’s a good message to send to people to seek help," Duckworth said. “It makes a difference.”
___
Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. | US Congress |
House Republicans issued subpoenas Wednesday to members of President Joe Biden's family, taking their most aggressive step yet in an impeachment inquiry bitterly opposed by Democrats that is testing the reach of congressional oversight powers.
The long-awaited move by Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to subpoena the president's son Hunter and his brother James comes as Republicans look to gain ground in their nearly yearlong investigation. So far, they have failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in any wrongdoing.
But Republicans say the evidence trail they have uncovered paints a troubling picture of "influence peddling" by Biden's family in their business dealings, particularly with clients overseas.
"Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence," Comer, of Kentucky, said in a statement.
The stakes are exceedingly high, as the inquiry could result in Republicans bringing impeachment charges against Biden, the ultimate penalty for what the U.S. Constitution describes as "high crimes and misdemeanors."
The subpoenas demand that Hunter Biden and James Biden as well as former business associate Rob Walker appear before the Oversight Committee for a deposition. Lawmakers also requested that James Biden's wife, Sara Biden, and Hallie Biden, the wife of the president's deceased son Beau, appear voluntarily for transcribed interviews.
Requests for comment from Hunter Biden, who lives in California, and James Biden, who's from Royal Oak, Maryland, were not immediately returned.
Both the White House and the Biden family's personal lawyers have dismissed the investigation as a political ploy aimed at hurting the Democratic president. They say the probe is a blatant attempt to help former President Donald Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, as he runs again for the White House.
Hunter Biden's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said the investigation has been full of "worn-out, false, baseless, or debunked claims." In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday morning, Lowell urged the new speaker to rein in the "partisan political games."
Johnson, now settling into the speakership after replacing Kevin McCarthy as the top Republican in the House, has given his blessing to the inquiry and has hinted that a decision could come soon on whether to pursue articles of impeachment against Biden.
"I think we have a constitutional responsibility to follow this truth where it leads," Johnson told Fox News Channel recently. He also said in a separate Fox interview that he would support Comer's decision to subpoena the president's son, saying "desperate times call for desperate measures, and that perhaps is overdue."
Since January, Republicans have been investigating the Biden family for what they claim is a pattern of "influence peddling" spanning back to when Biden was Barack Obama's vice president. Comer claims the committee had "uncovered a mountain of evidence" that he said would show how Biden abused his power and repeatedly lied about the separation between his political position and his son's private business dealings.
While questions have arisen about the ethics surrounding the Biden family's international business, no evidence has emerged to prove that Joe Biden, in his current or previous office, abused his role or accepted bribes. | US Political Corruption |
For some of the 2.4 million New Yorkers hampered by federal student loan debt, the late-summer news seemed like a miracle: President Biden planned to forgive huge chunks of the money they owed.
On Aug. 24, Biden declared his administration would cancel as much as $10,000 in debt for Americans making up to $125,000 a year, and $20,000 for low-income borrowers who received Pell Grants, fulfilling a promise he had made as a candidate.
But now, after six Republican-led states sued over the plan and the Supreme Court signaled openness to striking it down, anxious New York debtors are wondering if the miracle was a mirage.
Shari Seraneau, 36, a City University of New York recruitment coordinator who works at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, said Biden’s program would knock her debt from $36,000 to a more manageable $16,000.
When she first learned of the plan, Seraneau was thrilled and stunned. “Am I really reading this?” she recalled thinking.
“It filled me with a sense of hope,” said Seraneau, who lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and supports her 71-year-old mother.
“I’m close to 40,” she said, “and I have not even entertained the idea of getting married or having children because I don’t know how I would afford it.”
Her flash of new dreams has since faded to anxiety.
Seraneau, who studied at Seton Hall University but transferred to lower-cost Long Island University before graduating in 2009, has tried to stop herself from focusing on the Supreme Court battle.
“I’ve kind of removed myself from it,” she said, describing jitters about the ruling, which is expected to be delivered at the start of the summer. “I don’t want to be abreast.”
On Tuesday, the court heard two challenges to Biden’s $400 billion plan to erase debt for some 43 million American borrowers.
The lead suit in the case, from the governments of Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina, argues the president lacked clear authorization from Congress to wipe out debt on such a sweeping scale.
The administration has said the relief program properly employed a 2003 law called the HEROES Act, which allows the Education Department to waive or tweak financial aid programs in times of national emergency.
COVID posed such an emergency, according to the administration. The White House planned to culminate a long-running pandemic-era loan payment reprieve by permanently wiping away some of the crushing debt facing borrowers.
Judging from the concerns voiced by key Supreme Court justices at oral arguments last Tuesday, the Biden administration’s position is not likely to sway the court, which has a 6-to-3 conservative supermajority after former President Donald Trump installed three jurists.
“Some of the finest moments in the court’s history were pushing back against presidential assertions of emergency power,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the conservatives appointed by Trump, said during oral arguments.
Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, another conservative, are typically seen as the two justices most likely to join with the three liberals on politically charged cases. Roberts sounded unconvinced by the administration’s case, too.
“We like to usually leave situations of that sort, when you’re talking about spending the government’s money, which is the taxpayers’ money, to the people in charge of the money, which is Congress,” Roberts said Tuesday.
If there is any hope for Biden’s blueprint, it may lie in a procedural question: Whether the six GOP-led states — and two borrowers who joined a secondary suit, suggesting they were unfairly blocked from full access to the plan — had legal standing to challenge the program in the first place.
Democrats appear pessimistic about the chances that the issue of standing will save the plan.
“I’m confident we’re on the right side of the law,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday. “But I’m not confident about the outcome of the decision.”
Biden moved cautiously before announcing the program, to the frustration of Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer of Brooklyn, who long argued for the president to forgive up to $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower.
Schumer described the Supreme Court’s oral arguments as “very concerning,” but added that Democrats would not give up if the decision goes against them.
“I’ve seen so many young people who have just been crushed by this debt,” Schumer, the Senate majority leader, told the Daily News on Friday. “And it’s not just financially — it’s emotionally, it’s psychologically.”
Such debt hits hard in New York, a state whose per capita student loan balance was about $6,200 in 2021, the 11th-highest rate in the nation, according to a state comptroller report.
Louna Leon, 33, said she and her husband have both been hobbled by student loans as they raise three young children in central Brooklyn.
Leon, a daughter of immigrants from Haiti, said her parents viewed education as the cornerstone of the American dream, but did not fully grasp the implications of student loan debt when she headed off to Empire Beauty School.
Leon described her decision to take out student loans as a damaging mistake that has cast a long shadow over her adulthood. “We can’t move,” she said. “We can’t do anything.”
She owes about $13,000 in loans, her husband around $14,000.
She said she was “full of joy” when she learned of Biden’s plan. “When I heard that the opportunity may be taken away,” she added, “it hurt.”
In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Vivian Hopper said the president’s plan had promised a sense of security after years of payments toward her loan.
Hopper, a 62-year-old retired grandmother and former medical worker, owes a growing $7,200 loan from her studies at City College of Technology. Biden’s plan would extinguish her entire balance.
“It’s stressful having a student loan over your head,” she said. “It’s not a good life to live.” | US Federal Policies |
Trump mocks Pelosi family as he rallies conservative support in California
As he ran through attacks of various California Democrats, he notably left out Dianne Feinstein, who died this week.
Seeking to nail down the support of California Republicans in the GOP primary, former President Donald Trump on Friday mocked Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her husband, who an assailant brutally attacked in the family’s San Francisco home last October.
“We’ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco — how’s her husband doing, anybody know?” Trump said to a raucous crowd of California Republicans at a state party convention. “And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”
The comments amount to some of Trump’s most brazen yet regarding the attack on Paul Pelosi, whose skull was fractured after an attack in which authorities said an assailant beat him with a hammer. Trump had previously stoked far-right conspiracies that surrounded the event, while also once calling the attack a “sad situation.”
Hundreds of conservatives listening Friday cheered Trump as he rattled off criticisms of several of the state’s most prominent Democrats, putting a California spin on his typical campaign message.
“Together we will reverse the decline of America and we will end the desecration of your once great state California,” Trump told the crowd. “This is not a great state anymore. This is a dumping ground. You’re a dumping ground.”
While Trump has no real chance of winning the state in a general election, California still holds the biggest pot of delegates in the Republican primary — all up for grabs on March 5, which the former president noted as a date he will likely sit in court as he faces charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Notably missing from the former president’s remarks was any comment about former Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died on Thursday night after trailblazing a path as one of the state’s most prominent politicians. On his hitlist Friday, though, were Vice President Kamala Harris; Rep. Adam Schiff, who led Trump’s first impeachment in the House; Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Maxine Waters, whose words Trump said would garner him “an electric chair times fifteen” if he spoke them.
Trump gave a somewhat mixed appraisal of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, saying that he “got along” with the Californian while president despite not liking his positions.
“Gavin has become crooked Joe Biden’s top surrogate,” Trump said, suggesting without evidence that the governor’s support for the president came under the pretext that Biden would not “make it.”
At this weekend’s meeting of the state’s Republican Party in Anaheim, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessperson Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) also all had speaking slots on the schedule.
All three of them, among other candidates, had slung it out on a debate stage in Southern California earlier this week, an event Trump skipped.
The Republican competitors will have a tough task to match Trump’s level of excitement from members of the state party. As he is elsewhere, Trump is dominating in Republican primary polling in the state. | US Federal Elections |
Nations and political systems differ greatly but it is difficult not to see parallels between what is happening now in the US Republican party and the recent history of the UK Conservative party.There is a brutal tussle under way over the direction which should be taken by Anglophone conservatism, as embodied a generation past by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
Last year, the turmoil in Britain's ruling party resulted in three prime ministers in a matter of months, as Tory MPs failed to agree on leaders capable of governing the nation reliably.The Republican party actually "won" the mid-term elections for the lower House of Congress, taking control from the Democrats.But as the 118th Congress met for the first time this week, the new majority party failed to agree on their first order of business, who should be their leader, for the first time since 1923, 100 years ago.
Although they share the same title, and preside over proceedings in their house, the US Speaker does not have the same role as the Speaker in the House of Commons.Like his predecessors, Sir Lindsay Hoyle is expected to be neutral and has abandoned his ties to Labour. By convention the UK Speaker is effectively an incumbent, irrespective of general elections when he or she stands without opposition from the main political parties. More on Congress What next for the deadlocked US House Speaker race? TikTok banned on all US House of Representatives-issued mobile devices Girl who covered herself in classmate's blood to play dead during Uvalde shooting gives evidence to US gun hearing The Speaker of the House of Representatives is an entirely partisan figure. In practice they are the leader of the majority party, which makes them the equivalent of prime minister in UK terms.In the US Constitution the Speaker is second in the line of succession to the Presidency, after the vice president. (Confusingly the Veep is also the presiding officer in the upper house, with the casting vote in the US Senate.) Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player US Midterms: What's at stake? The likes of Speakers Tip O'Neill, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi have made much of their role as major national political figures.When there is no Speaker in place, the House of Representatives is what one frustrated congressman this week called "a useless entity". Its members cannot be sworn in, so they cannot legislate or hold the executive to account. They don't even have security clearance.When, as now, the Presidency and the Senate are controlled by the other party, the Speaker of the House is more important than ever as the equivalent to the Leader of the Opposition.When Kevin McCarthy, an eight-term congressman from California, led his party to victory over the Democrats in the mid-terms by 222 seats to 212, the Republicans might have been expected to stick with his leadership and to install him in the top job.But no. In 11 painful roll call votes McCarthy failed to get the required overall majority of representatives because 20 members of his own Republican party resolutely refused to back him, including five US Representatives elected for the first time. Image: Kevin McCarthy Meanwhile the Democrats settled immediately and unanimously on Hakeem Jeffries of New York as their minority leader, replacing Pelosi who has retired. Jeffries is the first African-American to lead a party in the US Congress.The overwhelming majority of House Republicans - 201 out of 222 - back McCarthy but without most of the 20 holdouts they did not have enough votes to put him over the top on 218.Nineteen of those blocking McCarthy belong to the right-wing Freedom Caucus. Their motivation is best summed up by the controversial congressman from Florida, Mike Gaetz, who declared "If you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge"."The swamp" is the fetid American version of what British populists like to write-off as the "Westminster bubble".Gaetz's extremist language carries echoes of Jacob Rees-Mogg's pronouncement that Rishi Sunak's policies are "socialist".McCarthy is not a centrist member of the establishment. He courted and promoted candidates belonging to the Tea Party. He hesitated briefly after the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, but within days voted against impeachment and flew to Mar-a-Lago to seek Donald Trump's endorsement. McCarthy embraced the "big lie" that Trump won in 2020, and voted to challenge the official electors in key states. Image: McCarthy embraced the 'big lie' that Trump won in 2020, and voted to challenge the official electors in key states If he becomes speaker, McCarthy says his first priority will be to cancel the hiring of 87,000 tax inspectors. He will also block the crucial bipartisan budget measures already agreed in the Senate.He has promised to change the rules to make it easier to sack a speaker (a bit like the 1922 Committee and votes of no confidence). This eventually won "MY Martin" the backing of Trump on his own Truth Social platform: "He will do a good job and maybe even a GREAT JOB".Politically he is not much different from those refusing to back him but they still don't trust him. Instead they deliberately plunged US politics into chaos, at one stage proposing an alternative candidate, Jim Jordan, who had himself nominated McCarthy.Read More:Why the Republicans are struggling to pick a new House speakerThe midterms were a referendum on the extreme, right-wing politics of the 'Make America Great Again'Partisan Democrats relished their opponents' plight and tweeted out images of the popcorn they were munching as the drama unfolded.A critical columnist in The New York Times found it "grimly amusing to see that the party of insurrection can't even manage the orderly transfer of power to itself".But the progressive newspaper took a more serious tone assessing the consequences of the refusenik's behaviour: "They simply will not relent and join their colleagues even if it is for the greater good of their party, and perhaps the nation. They consider themselves conservative purists who cannot be placated unless all their demands are met - and maybe not even then. Their agenda is mostly to defund, disrupt and dismantle government, not to participate in it." Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Chaos in US House speaker vote The UK's Conservatives have not disappeared down this rabbit hole. It is difficult to imagine Tory MPs celebrating the removal of metal detector arches, as symbols of oppression rather than security, as some Republicans did this week. Nor do they celebrate the right to bear arms.Yet such groups as the European Research Group have been willing to use obstructionism and their position as de facto swing voters to force the bulk of their party in a more right-wing direction in policy and personnel matters.They too have abandoned party loyalty in favour of ideology, allegedly supported by unelected and energised party activists.On both sides of the Atlantic they have endorsed purges of those they disagree with in what was a "broad church" type of party. Their energy is focussed on fighting within their own party for control. Provided their party can eke out election wins, they disregard those who don't vote for it.Whether they call it the swamp or the bubble their suspicion of government and its agencies comes with demands for a smaller state, welfare cutbacks, scepticism about climate change measures, less regulation of business, and curtailed civil rights. Spreaker Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcastsThe essential difference is that a significant minority of Republican representatives think that the best way to achieve their goals is to disrupt and overturn the system while the overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs still want to work within it.Many Tory MPs disagree profoundly with the right's atavism but, for self-preservation, they look over their shoulders anxiously before speaking up for One Nation values.So far those most effective in forcing the Conservatives in a rightward direction have been outsiders. Significantly, in praising the Brexit negotiator Lord Frost this week, Nigel Farage bellowed "now is the time for all good men to leave the Conservative Party". Farage's sidekick Richard Tice relaunched their Reform Party.Last year, the British public suffered the consequences of the unquiet soul of the right. This year the Republicans are already offering another lesson in real time. | US Congress |
George Santos is emblematic of Congress’s reality television era—where fame for its own sake, rather than legislative accomplishments, earns you endless feature roles in the daily news cycle. It would hardly be surprising if, after his career in the House of Representatives comes to an end (and, perhaps, after a stint in prison), Santos washes up on Bravo with a show of his own. He is cartoonishly, transparently villainous and endlessly fun. We’re all in on the joke.
During his brief tenure in Congress, he has been an unceasing font of drama, feuding with his colleagues and lying (often needlessly) about anything and everything. Case in point: Earlier this year, Santos appeared in a Fox News interview claiming to have only heard of OnlyFans, the internet subscription service favored by sex workers, “three weeks ago,” when he had in fact been using campaign funds on the service for months. This is classic Santos: A small lie—his claim to have only recently become aware of this cultural phenomenon—takes attention from the big deception: the suspicious line items on his campaign finance filings. Oh, and then there’s this whole new thing: He has recently taken to holding random babies of unknown provenance, giving him a distinctly Baba Yaga–ish vibe. He is an incompetent legislator and can’t seem to stop doing crimes.
He is also fun as hell. The sheer brazenness—and haplessness—with which Santos lies, cheats, and steals is part of his appeal. Sadly, we may not have him to kick around for much longer. On Thursday, he announced he would not seek reelection following the release of a damning report from the House Ethics Committee that found “substantial evidence” that Santos had spent campaign funds on numerous personal expenses, including luxury handbags, casino vacations, and Botox injections. Among the sad details: Santos is still going to Atlantic City, America’s most depressing resort town.
Given that Santos is already facing numerous fraud charges, was unlikely to be reelected, and had already faced one expulsion vote, his decision to not seek reelection was hardly surprising. It’s honestly an open question as to whether he ever really intended to win a seat in Congress in the first place. While there’s still a chance that he’ll survive an expulsion vote (Republicans can truly not afford to lose too many members at this point), it’s safe to say that Santos’s congressional career is in any meaningful sense already basically over. He’ll soon be moving on to his next one—whether that’s prisoner or reality TV star or prisoner then reality TV star. At this point, who’s to say he won’t jump into the presidential primary?
What have we learned from this experience? Well, aside from knowing that we still love a good story about a funny idiot doing cartoon crimes, Santos’s short political career has many lessons. It serves as a reminder of the profound failure of New York state’s disastrously managed Democratic Party, which was principally responsible for giving the GOP its thin House majority in the first place. It is also a black mark for the political media, which failed to adequately vet a man who has nakedly and openly lied about pretty much everything about himself. But with Santos’s sudden fall unfolding at the same time that New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez experiences his latest, greatest scandal—his arrest on similarly comical bribery charges earlier this fall—a stark light has been shone on just how much corruption a politician can get away with if they apply themselves and play the Washington game, and just how ridiculously over-the-top a lawmaker’s conduct must be for them to face any consequences whatsoever.
Here’s a fun fact: A New York Times investigation from September 2022 found that between 2019 and 2021, 183 members of Congress reported stock trades. Of those 183, “more than half … sat on congressional committees that potentially gave them insight into the companies whose shares they reported buying or selling.” One could make the case that the only place where insider trading is legal is Congress, where it is arguably as popular a pastime in the legislature as golf.
Everywhere we see powerful people, safely ensconced in positions from which they won’t soon be ousted, cashing in where Santos is cashing out. The erosion of campaign finance laws has blurred numerous ethical lines: Do politicians adopt positions because of lucrative relationships with donors and Super PACS or do these relationships flow from preexisting positions? It’s a gray area, but the money flows all the same. The Supreme Court has, over the last 20 or so years, done everything it can to destroy the boundaries meant to keep money out of politics and, in doing so, has basically legalized corruption. It’s hardly surprising to see its members lavished with gifts from billionaires. Somehow, Clarence Thomas essentially being awarded his own plutocratic patron isn’t deemed to be a sin on the level of those of Santos or Menendez.
Santos is at once a symptom of this larger culture and a distraction from it. His conduct is obviously appalling, but he might yet live to fight another day because he’s so integral to the GOP keeping control of the House. They need anyone they can get—even if that person is a congenital liar and criminal. But let no one say he isn’t useful: The heights of absurdity he so regularly hits provide cover for the many ways, big and small, that Congress itself is corrupted.
If Santos had stuck around Congress long enough, he may have actually figured out how to play the game. You can do very well for yourself as a legislator. You can rake in campaign contributions and speaking fees and book deals. You can sit on important committees and trade stocks based on what you learn from them. Possibly because he knew he wouldn’t be in Congress for a long time (he was instead there for a good time), Santos just ran wild. His biggest mistake was getting elected. His second-biggest was doing corruption the wrong way. | US Congress |
Interest on federal student loans will resume on 1 September, the US Department of Education has announced.
In a statement released to Politico, the department wrote: “Student loan interest will resume starting on September 1, 2023, and payments will be due starting in October. We will notify borrowers well before payments restart.”
The news does not come as a surprise since a key point of negotiation by Republican lawmakers in raising the debt ceiling was ending the pause on student loan payments, which have been in place since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 due to economic uncertainty.
The payment and interest pause was fated to end eventually since the news of litigation against Biden’s loan forgiveness program, which has advanced all the way up to the supreme court. A decision on the two cases against the program – Department of Education v Brown and Biden v Nebraska – is expected this month as the court’s term is soon ending.
The Biden administration previously announced payments will resume 60 days after the litigation is resolved or 30 June 2023, but this statement from the education department makes clear the exact date of repayment for tens of millions of borrowers.
In a scathing retort to those challenging what would be a historic loan forgiveness program, the US secretary of education, Miguel Cardona, said: “Callous efforts to block student debt relief in the courts have caused tremendous financial uncertainty for millions of borrowers who cannot set their family budgets or even plan for the holidays without a clear picture of their student debt obligations, and it’s just plain wrong.
“I want borrowers to know that the Biden-Harris administration has their backs and we’re as committed as ever to fighting to deliver essential student debt relief to tens of millions of Americans.”
President Joe Biden first announced his loan forgiveness plan in August 2020. He promised his administration would cancel up to $20,000 of federal student debt for Pell grant recipients and up to $10,000 for other borrowers. In order to qualify for student debt cancellation, borrowers could not earn more than $125,000 annually, or $250,000 for married couples filing taxes jointly. | US Federal Policies |
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., walks on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He says he will continue to wear a suit on the Senate floor in compliance with the newly codified dress code.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., walks on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He says he will continue to wear a suit on the Senate floor in compliance with the newly codified dress code.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
The Senate's move to relax its unofficial dress code has led to a surprising development: an official dress code.
Lawmakers voted unanimously on Wednesday to codify a business casual dress code for the Senate floor, just days after one of its leaders sought to do away with it altogether.
Last week Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer directed the Senate's sergeant-at-arms to stop enforcing the unwritten rule, allowing members to wear whatever they wanted. Senators have traditionally voted from the doorway of the nearby cloakroom if they happen to be dressed casually.
The change seemed primarily aimed at accommodating Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, who regularly wears hoodies and gym shorts to work (but not on the Senate floor) since his hospitalization for depression earlier this year.
But it galled many senators — especially Republicans — who argued that allowing casual clothing on the floor would disrespect the institution and constituents they serve. Some Democrats also voiced concerns, including Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2-ranking Senate Democrat.
Forty-six Republican senators (all but three) sent a letter to Schumer demanding he reverse the change, writing, "The world watches us on that floor and we must protect the sanctity of that place at all costs."
That prompted West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Utah Republican Mitt Romney to introduce a resolution earlier this week that would formally instate an enforceable dress code for the Senate floor.
The SHORTS Act ("SHow Our Respect To the Senate," according to Politico) requires business attire, specifying "a coat, tie, and slacks or other long pants" for men. It doesn't say anything about women.
Manchin said on the Senate floor that for 234 years, senators had assumed there were some "basic written rules of decorum, conduct and civility, one of which was a dress code." And last week, they learned there were not.
"We drafted this simple two-page resolution that'll put all of this to bed once and for all, by codifying the long-standing practice into a Senate Rule and making it very clear for the sergeant of arms to enforce," he added.
Shortly before the vote, Schumer expressed his support for the resolution and thanked the lawmakers, including Fetterman, for their cooperation in working towards an agreement.
"Though we've never had an official dress code, the events over the past week have made us all feel as though formalizing one is the right path forward," Schumer said.
Fetterman says he'll comply (and offers up a meme)
Manchin described the resolution as a team effort and also credited Fetterman for his support. He said they'd had "many conversations" about the issue.
Fetterman — who presided over the Senate wearing a short-sleeved shirt last week — said on Wednesday that he would wear a suit while on the floor, and continue voting from the door while wearing casual clothing.
He has been poking fun at the dress code discourse, trolling naysayers on X (formerly known as Twitter) and even dropping custom merch (tees and hoodies, of course) in response to the criticism.
And he repeatedly called on his colleagues to channel their energy into more important issues, like the impending government shutdown or the corruption charges against Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez.
"The whole silly dress code thing was discussed," he told Insider. "We have so many other things that we could be addressing right now."
After the resolution's passage, Fetterman released a statement (and a tweet) with no words, just a photo of flannel-clad King of Queens actor Kevin James, smirking, with his hands in his jean pockets — a meme that's taken over the internet in recent days.
Meanwhile, a government shutdown looms
The dress code debate played out on Capitol Hill in the days ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline for avoiding a government shutdown.
Critics argue it's been a distraction, and have slammed lawmakers for using their energy to codify business casual rather than pass a critical spending bill.
Romney nodded to that in his remarks on the Senate floor after the resolution passed.
"This is not the biggest thing going on in Washington today," he said with a chuckle. "It's not even one of the biggest things going on in Washington today."
Still, he argued, a rare bipartisan victory shouldn't be overlooked:
"It's another example of Republicans and Democrats being able to work together and to solve — in this case — what may not be a real big problem, but it's an important thing and makes a difference to a lot of people." | US Congress |
Boeing Says Its Services Division Was Hit By Cyberattack
Flight safety isn’t affected, Boeing said in an emailed statement Wednesday.
(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. confirmed it is dealing with a “cyber incident” that targeted elements of the parts and distribution business run by its global services division.
Flight safety isn’t affected, Boeing said in an emailed statement Wednesday, adding, “We are actively investigating the incident and coordinating with law enforcement and regulatory authorities.”
A cyber gang with Russian ties, known as Lockbit, claimed in a post on the dark web last week that it would start releasing “sensitive data” if the aerospace and defense giant didn’t meet a ransom demand by Nov. 2. But on Wednesday evening, there was no mention of Boeing on Lockbit’s leak website.
“When organizations are removed from leak sites, it often means either that the organization has paid the ransom or that it’s agreed to negotiate,” said Brett Callow, threat analyst at Emsisoft. “The former is usually permanent whereas the latter may only be temporary.”
A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the US planemaker paid any ransom. The company is notifying customers and suppliers of the cyberattack.
Lockbit is among the most notorious hacking gangs, often deploying ransom ware to lock up victim’s files and then demanding a payment to unlock them. More recently, hacking gangs have been stealing documents and demanding payment to not release them publicly.
Boeing shares were little changed in extended trading.
See more: Boeing Says It’s Assessing Data Dump Threat From Cyber Gang
(Updates with details of ransom demand, analyst’s comment)
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Arizona candidates will step onto a different debate platform in 2024 than in previous cycles. The state saw a breakdown in order during the midterm elections after the gubernatorial candidates raised objections to the format.
The Citizens Clean Elections Commission has revamped the debate process following a flurry of debates last year that caused controversy and chaos during a tense election cycle. The commission, which oversees and plans the debate, did not have a firm grasp on the format during the 2022 midterm elections.
During the midterm elections, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) and Republican Kari Lake objected to the debate format, causing confusion between the commission and Arizona PBS.
Lake bowed out of a Republican primary debate after learning that an Arizona Republic journalist would serve as a co-moderator. The commission did not know about the journalist's participation, as it was arranged by Arizona PBS.
During the general election, Hobbs declined a commission-sponsored debate and accepted a one-on-one interview with Arizona PBS. Because of this, the commission canceled its one-on-one with Lake, who did not object to the general election debate format.
After those debates caused a slew of headaches, the debate stage will look vastly different.
Now, local journalists will serve as moderators of the candidate debates, with their selections known well ahead of time so candidates can be prepared, said Gina Roberts, the commission's voter education director, according to AZ Central.
Before the changes, candidates from one district were thrown together on a single debate stage, regardless if they were running for a state House or state Senate seat. Because of this, sometimes a Republican candidate for a House seat would be battling a Senate Democratic candidate despite the fact that they would not be on a ballot together.
Now, the debates will pair candidates who are running for the same seat.
"That way, only the true opponents are debating each other," Roberts said, adding that the change will hopefully prompt more candidates to participate.
Candidates who use the state's publicly funded campaign finance program, which the commission handles, are obligated to participate in debates. However, privately funded candidates typically participate as well.
Republicans fear they will see a repeat of 2022 if Lake decides to run for the Senate seat, which she is considering. Former Senate Republican candidate Blake Masters, who lost to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), is reportedly considering another run.
Masters and Lake were endorsed by former President Donald Trump and, as with many of his other endorsed candidates, lost in the midterm elections. | US Local Elections |
Washington — Americans over 60 are increasingly falling victim to crimes of fraud perpetrated online and over the phone at rates that add up to billions in losses each year, and federal investigators are warning that the scammers are becoming more sophisticated in the ploys they use to get their victims to hand over large sums of money.
An estimated $28.3 billion is lost to elder fraud scams each year, according to a recent AARP Study. It found that 72% — or more than $20 billion — is taken by individuals who are known to the victims, like family members, friends or advisers. The study says many of the scams that account for the nearly $30 billion lost go unreported, and the FBI is now urging anyone who encounters suspicious activity online to disengage and report the conduct to law enforcement.
Rich Brune — a 75-year-old retiree living in Virginia — told CBS News he fell for an online scam last year that cost him nearly $800,000. Sophisticated criminals posing as Microsoft workers contacted him online and told Brune his computer had been hacked, his financial accounts were compromised, and he needed to take urgent remedial action.
Over a five-month period, the Navy veteran said he was instructed to transfer much of his life savings into a cryptocurrency account that the scammers told him was safe from the purported hackers. Instead, they were robbing him of his nest egg.
After his money vanished, according to Brune, the Internal Revenue Service informed him that he owed approximately $200,000 in taxes because the money stolen from him had been withdrawn from his retirement accounts.
"I will probably be forced to take out a reverse mortgage," Brune said, "As soon as I pay off the IRS, I will be virtually penniless."
The IRS does not comment on specific taxpayer situations due to federal privacy laws, but said in a statement it has made it an "ongoing priority" to warn taxpayers about scams. "The IRS helps wherever we can for people trapped in these heartbreaking situations; ultimately, our work is limited by what is allowed under the law."
The federal tax code does not currently offer exceptions for individuals who, like Brune, unwittingly withdrew retirement funds as part of a scam.
"Older adults are losing the most money," Rebecca Keithly, a supervisory special agent in the FBI's economic crimes unit told CBS News. "Last year, we saw a 350% increase in cryptocurrency-related investment scams attributed to older adults alone. That was the biggest increase among all age demographics and all scams."
The FBI interviewed Brune about the fraud, and he contacted his local congressman — Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia — for assistance. He said in a statement, "I am constantly working on improvements to the tax code, with a particular focus on fairness and helping those who need it most. Even small changes in the tax code can have huge ramifications for individuals, we have to do all we can to get that right."
Microsoft confirmed to CBS News the scammer who contacted Brune and pretended to be a Microsoftemployee is not associated with the company or its customer support team.
"Microsoft will never proactively send unsolicited messages or make unsolicited phone calls to request personal or financial information, or to provide technical support to fix your computer. Any communication must be initiated by the customer. Any error message initiated by your device will never have a number to call," a spokesperson said.
While troubling, Brune's story is not unique to investigators who work to both prosecute elder fraud scammers and educate the public about the dangers online.
"The FBI has seen a notable increase in what we're calling the Phantom Hacker scams," Supervisory Special Agent Keithly said. "It starts with the tech support scam, and the tech support scammer informs the victim that their accounts are at risk for being hacked. And the next player in the scam is somebody purporting to be from a financial institution. And then they tell the victim, 'Your [financial] accounts have been hacked.'"
The fraudulent messages from these bad actors — pretending to work for tech companies and financial institutions alike — scare the victims into transferring their money into separate accounts for "safety" and then draining those accounts of their contents, according to a recent public safety announcement from the FBI. This often leaves the unsuspecting victims broke.
According to the FBI, the criminal schemes generally begin in call centers in India and South Asia, requiring partnership with international law enforcement. In 2022, with the help of U.S. investigators, Indian officials carried out numerous raids on call centers and arrested individuals tied to elder fraud scams.
The scammers work first to gain the trust of their victims, AARP director of fraud victim support Amy Nofzinger told CBS News, and then go after personal information and money.
Nofzinger and AARP advisers tell seniors that calls or texts seeking Social Security and Medicare numbers are always a scam. Stop, she says, and immediately contact someone you trust for help.
AARP has hundreds of volunteers who work with victims of elder fraud.
Still, reported crime rates targeting older Americans and the elderly continue to climb, up 84% in 2022 over 2021, according to federal numbers. Investigators urge individuals to avoid unsolicited pop-ups or messages in texts and emails and decline to download unknown software or give others remote access to personal computers.
The FBI warns that the U.S. government will never ask an individual to transfer money to a government-run account or into a cryptocurrency exchange, and any requests to do so might point to an attempted scam.
for more features. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
The US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down President Biden’s student debt relief would claw back more than $300 billion in costs associated with the program that were recognized last year, marking a major reduction in this year’s deficit — at least on paper.
The court ruled 6-3 on Friday that Biden’s unilateral decision to offer up to $10,000 to $20,000 in one-time student debt forgiveness to couples earning up to $250,000 had circumvented Congress’ constitutional right to make laws on spending.
The debt relief program had been blocked by the legal challenges that led to the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Department of Education had estimated that the debt relief would cost taxpayers about $30 billion annually over the next decade through foregone loan repayments — about $2.5 billion per month — or about $305 billion in total.
The Department estimated the net present value of the loan forgiveness at $379 billion over a decade.
The US Treasury last year took a $430 billion charge against fiscal 2022 budget results to cover these costs as well as an extension of the general COVID-19 moratorium on payments through the end of 2022.
The move had the effect of limiting a dramatic reduction in the fiscal 2022 deficit to $1.375 trillion from $2.775 trillion the prior year.
Without the advance recognition, the deficit would have fallen below $1 trillion as COVID relief programs ended and revenues surged.
Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group, estimated that about $320 billion of the pre-emptive costs would be reversed during fiscal 2023 after the Supreme Court ruling.
The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting an increased deficit of $1.539 trillion this year due to falling revenues and higher spending and healthcare costs. A reversal of more than $300 billion would make it appear that this year’s fiscal deficit fell slightly from 2022.
“It’s deficit reduction relative to a deficit increase that never really went into effect,” Goldwein said. Biden “announced the policy and they weirdly recorded it as having increased the deficit before they implemented the policy in any meaningful way.”
The smaller reversal relative to the $380 billion initial cost estimate is due to a recent expansion of income-driven repayment relief, which will cut undergraduate loan repayments by half for many borrowers and drop them to zero for those in a family of four earning less than $62,400.
Many borrowers who would have seen loans forgiven under Biden’s plan will now benefit from the more generous income-driven repayment scheme instead, Goldwein said.
The cash flow impact of the Supreme Court ruling will be minimal, perhaps adding back about $2 billion in receipts per month that would have been lost had the forgiveness plan been upheld.
Shai Akabas, economic policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said another reason the deficit reduction resulting from the ruling would be lower than the initial cost recognition was because the general student loan repayment moratorium was extended well into calendar 2023 by the Biden administration.
The debt ceiling legislation earlier this month prohibited any further extensions, and the Department of Education has said that repayments will resume in October.
This will take hundreds of dollars a month out of millions of consumers’ pockets and create new headwinds for the US economy, economists say. | SCOTUS |
A 33-year-old Peruvian man has been arrested for allegedly sending more than 150 fake bomb threats to U.S. schools, airports, synagogues, hospitals and a mall, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Eddie Manuel Nunez Santos "allegedly engaged in this reprehensible and socially destructive conduct in a twisted attempt to retaliate against teenage girls who refused his requests for nude and sexually explicit photographs," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. Nunez Santos was arrested in Peru on Tuesday.
Investigators said Nunez Santos posed as a teenage boy online and asked multiple minors to send him sexually explicit photos. When the girls refused his alleged requests or cut off communications, Nunez Santos allegedly threatened to bomb their schools or kill them.
Several of the emailed threats included the phone numbers of the underage victims, along with instructions for the targeted institutions to contact the girls.
The threats, made in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Arizona and Alaska, triggered school evacuations, a hospital lockdown and flight delays. The majority of the threats, which began in mid-September, were sent to schools.
In Pennsylvania, more than 1,100 schoolchildren across several school districts were evacuated in response to one threat.
"I'll gladly smile when your families are crying because of your deaths," Nunez Santos allegedly wrote in an email to 24 school districts.
Two synagogues in Westchester County, New York, also received threat emails, according to the criminal complaint.
"The bombs I placed in the building will blow up in a few hours," Nunez Santos allegedly wrote to one of the synagogues. "Many people will lay in a pool of blood."
Nunez Santos was charged with several federal crimes, including transmitting threatening interstate communications, conveying false information and hoaxes, attempting to sexually exploit a child, attempting to coerce and entice a minor and attempting to receive child pornography. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if he's convicted.
for more features. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
The over three-year-long moratorium on federal student-loan repayment has long been hailed as a godsend for student loan borrowers. While announcing yet another extension of the moratorium in December 2021, President Biden praised it as "badly needed breathing room during the economic upheaval caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic."
However, a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that borrowers whose loans were frozen by the moratorium actually ended up in a worse position than they started in—and have even accrued more student loan debt.
In March 2020, the Trump administration announced a moratorium on federal student loan payments for 60 days, citing the financial hardship faced by borrowers in the early days of the pandemic. In the three years since, the pause has been extended eight times with a variety of legal justifications. Payments are still currently paused, though the recently signed debt ceiling bill sets a hard expiration date for the moratorium on August 30.
The total cost of the pause is estimated to be as high as $5 billion per month, or almost $200 billion by the time repayment starts in September. And all that spending might not have even helped those whom the moratorium was supposed to benefit. According to the paper, those whose loans were frozen by the moratorium actually took on more debt—borrowing more on credit cards and mortgages and even accruing more student loan debt rather than working to pay off other debt they owe.
The paper compared those whose student loans were frozen by the moratorium because their loans were held federally to those whose student loans were not frozen because their loans were private. There were stark differences between the two groups. For those whose loan payments were paused, they did reap some benefits, like increased credit scores and a decrease in delinquency on student loan debt. However, by other metrics, they actually became worse off. By the end of 2021, borrowers who saw their student loan payments paused increased their credit card, mortgage, and car-loan debt by $1,800 on average and even took on an additional $1,500 in student loan debt compared to those whose loan payments were not paused by the moratorium. Rather than being the "badly needed breathing room" that Biden suggested, the student loan payment pause has actually resulted in borrowers ending up financially worse off than they were before.
"Perhaps paradoxically, temporary student debt relief leads to higher overall household debt levels and larger future debt burdens," the paper reads. "The results indicate that debt payment pauses can increase consumption in the short term, but that overall debt increases, as borrowers use increased liquidity to service new debt."
Not only did the student loan payment pause cost taxpayers billions, but it also didn't even help decrease the debt owed by those whom the pause was supposed to benefit. Like many expensive government interventions, the student loan moratorium made everyone—including those the program was meant to help—worse off. | US Federal Policies |
The House GOP is expected to vote on a new speaker as early as Tuesday at noon but House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is far from a lock to win the seat despite a pressure campaign to win over holdout Republicans.
Jordan managed to flip several Republicans who vowed to vote against his nomination but he remains "at least 10" votes short of the 217 he needs to win and some members say "his support is very soft and there are likely more than two dozen people inclined to vote against him," according to CBS News' Robert Costa. Jordan has signaled that the House may hold multiple votes in hopes of pressuring the holdouts to come onboard. It took former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., 15 ballots to win the job.
Jordan signaled confidence Monday night after a weekend pressure campaign successfully flipped several lawmakers in his favor: Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo.; Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.; Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif.; and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala.
"Look, I felt good walking into the conference," Jordan said on Monday night. "I feel even better now. We’ve got a few more people we want to talk to, listen to. And then we’ll have a vote tomorrow."
Axios reporter Juliegrace Brufke, on Sunday shared an email she was given that showed how a representative from Fox News host Sean Hannity's show asked officials to explain why they weren't in favor of Jordan.
"Sources tell Hannity that Rep xxxx is not supporting Rep Jim Jordan for speaker," the email reads. "Can you please let me know if this is accurate? And, if true, Hannity would like to know why during a war breaking out between Israel and Hamas, with the war in Ukraine, with the wide open borders, with a budget that's unfinished why would Rep. xxxx be against Jim Jordan for speaker? Please let us know when Rep xxx plans on opening the People's House so work can be done. Lastly, are there any conditions Rep xxxx will work with Democrats on the process of electing a new speaker? The deadline for comment is 11 AM tomorrow 10/16. Thank you."
Conservative Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis, criticized Jordan's "bullying" tactic on Monday.
"'Several of Mr. Jordan’s supporters have posted the phone numbers of mainstream G.O.P. lawmakers they count as holdouts,' according to The New York Times," wrote Lewis. "Meanwhile, a producer for Fox News’s Sean Hannity reportedly began a thinly veiled pressure campaign by querying GOP House members about their refusal to support Jordan ... Not since a Tucker Carlson questionnaire scared Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis into throwing Ukraine under the bus has 'just asking questions' been so effective."
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"If Jordan wins," Lewis continued, "it means Republicans will have elected a speaker who opposes Ukraine funding and wanted then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject Joe Biden's electoral votes. What is more, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s insurgent strategy will have been successful, as a small group (just four percent) of House Republicans will have unilaterally ousted a House speaker — and replaced him with their chosen successor."
"Sincere or not, Team Jordan’s 'good cop/bad cop' routine is smart," he added. "It provides normal Republicans with an off-ramp to support Jordan, while also saving face. It is, after all, more honorable to be sweet-talked than to be intimidated," concluded Lewis. Or at least, "If Jim Jordan becomes Speaker Jordan, that’s what they will tell themselves, anyway."
But Jordan holdouts still abound, though, as The Hill observes, many of his critics have not rallied in solidarity around an alternate option.
“I’m gonna vote the way I voted the first time, the first election we had,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa. “I’m voting for Steve Scalise.”
“They don’t need to lecture me on the way things work," he added. "I’m 75 years old. I’ve watched it my entire life how things work. This is what tears teams apart. This doesn’t make them closer."
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Other lawmakers — including Reps. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.— indicated they would offer support for recently ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who was recently booted from the position by a far-right coup largely orchestrated by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., said she will “have an objection” if Jordan does not garner the 217 votes needed to clinch the win, telling reporters, “I truly believe if he doesn’t, we need to go back and have … meeting and try to reconcile our differences privately versus going to floor and have a show that will only benefit the other side."
“No ma’am, I think we still need conversations,” said Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, when asked if she would vote to nominate Jordan. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., indicated that he is against Jordan for the time being, but noted that he would be speaking to the House Judiciary Chairman in a meeting that night; chiefly, Buck wanted to discuss the Capitol insurrection.
“If he’s gonna lead this conference during a presidential election cycle, particularly a presidential election year with primaries and caucuses around the country, he’s gonna have to be strong and say Donald Trump didn’t win the election,” Buck said.
Democrats have also been up in arms over the prospect of a Jordan speakership. Former Sen.Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told MSNBC's Nicole Wallace that it was "astounding" that House Republicans are seeking to nominate Jordan.
“I don’t know how long he’ll be speaker,” McCaskill said.
“You know, we may be back here again in another month, or two months, and talking about him being removed,” she continued. “They have a huge schism in their party and it is between people who have the same foundational values the Republican Party has always had and the Trump people and never the two are going to mix well.”
“They may paper over it tomorrow but I can’t imagine this is going to bode well for our country over the next six months."
On a recent episode of Fox and Friends, host Brian Kilmeade referred to House GOP members as a "carnival of idiots," while anchors Lawrence Jones and Ainsley Earhardt concurred that the situation has become "ridiculous."
"Don’t forget this if you live in an area where your congresswoman or congressman if they’re the ones that are holding out,” Earhardt said. “Don’t forget this when it comes time to vote. Republicans need to unite and stick together. The Democrats do it beautifully, and Republicans, for some reason, can’t seem to.”
“What a carnival of idiots," Kilmeade said. "It’s unbelievable.”
“The land of misfit toys,” Earhardt agreed. | US Congress |
Share Share Article on Facebook Share Article on Twitter Share Article via Email The son of a notable Alabama civil rights activist was indicted on charges related to voter fraud on Wednesday, undercutting claims by leftist organizations and corporate media that legitimate concerns about the issue are unfounded. According to Advance Local, an Alabama news outlet, Perry County Commission Chairman Albert Turner Jr. has been charged by Fourth Judicial Circuit District Attorney Michael Jackson and Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill “with voting more than once, which is a misdemeanor, and harvesting ballots, a felony.” The alleged incidents occurred during two separate elections in May and November of last year. As noted in the report, Jackson revealed how several witnesses claimed they saw Turner “stuffing filled out ballots in favor of the candidates he was supporting” into a voting machine during the county’s May 2022 Democrat primary election. Regarding the November contest, Jackson said Turner has been, as Advance Local described, “accused of mailing an undisclosed number of absentee ballots.” “Since January 19, 2015, we have worked extraordinarily hard to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat in Alabama,” Merrill said. “While the accused is innocent until proven guilty, it is important to know that this incident … will receive the full attention of this office as we confirm for the people for the State of Alabama that we are the gold standard for election administration in the United States.” Merrill and Jackson did not indicate which particular races Turner has been accused of meddling in nor whether those alleged actions could have affected any election’s outcome. While Turner’s alleged crimes present a striking example of problems with the integrity of U.S. elections, the story will almost assuredly be ignored by Democrat-friendly nonprofits and corporate media. For years, such entities have worked overtime to dismiss concerns related to fraud and ballot harvesting. In 2018, for instance, The Washington Post ran a lengthy article lamenting Republican-backed voter ID laws as a form of voter suppression and castigating voter fraud as “extremely rare in recent elections.” “The real problem with American elections is not voter fraud but abysmally low turnout that ranks the United States near the bottom of peer democracies,” the diatribe reads. “The many forms of voter suppression now in place could have an effect on the outcome of the [2018] midterm elections, with many House, Senate and gubernatorial races decided by a handful of votes.” Left-wing nonprofits such as The Center for American Progress have also gone to war against Americans concerned about election integrity issues. In 2016, the group published an article titled, “Voter Fraud Isn’t Real—But Voter Suppression Is a Grave Danger,” in which the authors bemoan how the “toxic myth of voter fraud is used to justify real voter suppression that costs citizens their voices in democracy.” While there’s been ample evidence of fraud, irregularities, and other rigging in recent elections, there’s also been historic numbers of people voting, putting to bed false narratives that so-called rampant voter suppression is killing democracy. Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood Alabamaballot drop boxesballotselection integrityElectionsJohn MerrillMichael Jacksonvoter fraudvoter suppressionvotingWashington Post | US Federal Elections |
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz were among several Republicans who bolted from a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday to protest subpoenaing Dallas-based conservative donor Harlan Crow.
The committee’s Democrats are seeking records over payments, gifts and travel Crow reportedly provided Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, some of which were not initially listed on financial disclosures. The committee’s GOP members cast the subpoena authorization as a partisan attack against one of the most conservative members of the court and a private citizen.
"This is an outrageous attempt to target private citizens without any legitimate legislative purpose," Cornyn told reporters after the meeting. "If you can go after a private citizen … for a non-legislative prupose, you essentially can target for political reasons any American citizen at any time in the future. And that is a dangerous, dangerous place to go."
The Republicans left the committee room as the roll call vote was taking place. Committee rules require a quorum of nine members including at least two members of the minority. But since the Republicans left during the vote, it’s unclear whether they counted toward a quorum.
All 11 Democrats voted to authorize the subpoena and declared the move adopted. Cornyn said Republicans would "absolutely" contest the vote, arguing there was not a quorum present and that Senate rules require committees to have permission to go for more than two hours when the Senate is in session. The Republicans left the committee just around the two-hour mark.
If the vote holds, it gives the committee the power to issue subpoenas without the approval of the full Senate. Still, if Crow refuses to comply, enforcing any subpoenas will require a full Senate vote — which the committee’s top Republican, Lindsey Graham, said would never pass the required 60-vote threshold.
The move to subpoena comes as the Supreme Court faces calls for ethics reforms over lavish donations from partisan figures. Crow reportedly showered Thomas, one of the most influential figures in modern conservatism, with luxury vacations and paid for Thomas’ close relative to attend private school. Thomas originally did not list any of the gifts on his annual financial disclosures.
The committee also authorized to subpoena Leonard Leo, chair of the board of the Federalist Society. The group is one of the most active organizations in getting conservative judges appointed to federal courts.
“Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats have been destroying the Supreme Court; now they are destroying the Senate. I will not cooperate with this unlawful campaign of political retribution," Leo said in a statement.
Crow's office said in a statement that he "offered extensive information responsive to the Committee’s requests despite his strong objections to its necessity and legality" and was open to continued dialogue with the committee. His office added the committee never explained how the requested records was relevant to legislating.
"The Judiciary Committee Democrats’ violation of the Committee’s own rules to issue an invalid subpoena further demonstrates the unlawful and partisan nature of this investigation. Despite the unenforceability of the subpoena, Mr. Crow remains willing to engage with the Committee in good faith, just as he has consistently done throughout this process," the statement said.
Graham derided the move to subpoena as “garbage” and a “jihad” against the court. Republicans filed 177 amendments to the subpoena resolution in an attempt to slow or block the measure.
During an earlier meeting of the Judiciary Committee, Chair Dick Durbin, D-Illinois pushed back at the idea that Democrats were targeting individuals in a partisan manner, saying their inquiry was part of Congress’ constitutional oversight duty.
“This committee is not engaged in a vendetta against conservatives,” Durbin said. “We are not seeking a subpoena authorization for political points.”
Durbin pointed out that oversight and ethics reforms in the court were bipartisan priorities for years. Cornyn introduced in 2021 the Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, and Cruz cosponsored. The bill required judges to disclose more financial transactions and created a searchable database of the disclosures. President Joe Biden signed it into law in May 2022.
Crow made his billions as a real estate developer and has donated handsomely to conservative causes and candidates, including Cornyn and Cruz. He has asserted that he never leveraged his gifts to sway Thomas in any way.
Still, the scale of the gifts has made Democrats uneasy and led to calls for stricter ethics rules for the court that would be more in line with those for members of Congress.
Democrats on the committee have already asked Crow for more information about his gifts. Durbin said in a statement “Crow claimed he was willing to cooperate, but ultimately made only a limited and insufficient offer.” Crow's office said in its Thursday statement that the committee's requests were "intrusive demands of a private citizen that far exceed any reasonable standard."
The Judiciary Committee advanced legislation to the full Senate in July that would require the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct. The bill, dubbed the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, would also amp up disclosure requirements for when justices have ties to anyone going before the court and require justices to explain any recusals.
Every Republican on the committee voted against the bill. The full Senate has not yet voted on the bill.
The Supreme Court introduced its own code of conduct on Nov. 13. The justices said in a statement when they unveiled the code of conduct that “The Court has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules.”
“The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” the statement said.
But the guidelines left enforcement up to the justices themselves. Durbin said Thursday that it “falls far short of what we expect for the highest court of the land.” | SCOTUS |
On Sunday, a CBS-YouGov poll reported something stunning about the effect of Donald Trump's disinformation on his committed voters: They trust him more as a source of truth than they believe their families or religious leaders.
For the American majority living in the fact-based world, that polling merely reinforces something we've long known about Trump's followers: They are like a cult, and cult members are largely impervious to truth.
But more importantly, the resolute credulity of Trump's MAGA core reminds us of the importance of speaking, publishing and posting accurate and reliable information accessible to the rest of the country. "[T]he whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life . . . is always in danger of being . . . torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes…" Arendt, her biographer, Samantha Rose Hill has written, called facts and events
"factual truth," which "serves as common ground to stand on."
Continuing to expose "factual truth" keeps the American majority in the world of reality where democracy lives and breathes. In this realm, engaged citizens, the fourth estate, and the justice system are aligned in the goal of preserving our constitutional republic. People with their feet on the ground can distinguish fact from fiction, witch hunts from legitimate prosecutions of a former president determined, in his own words, to "terminate the constitution."
In dictatorships, autocrats first seize control of the sources of information, particularly newspapers, television stations, and channels of social media. This is a worldwide strategy. But in the U.S., not only do we have a rigorous First Amendment guarantee of free press, but data show that there are ample sources of accurate information to counter Trump's drumbeat of "big lies." This is particularly important for the prospects of enabling the American voters to make an informed choice in 2024 based upon access to truthful information about the character and behavior of the competing candidates – to the extent that the voters care about such matters, as the Framers of the Constitution expected that they would.
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One key test is the source of information that voters can consider when they go into the voting booth to cast their ballots. Here there is a terra firma for reassurance: Despite the intensity and frequency of phony assertions that Donald Trump is the innocent victim of a "witch hunt" and that the Justice Department has been "weaponized" — along with, in their wild view, the Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury — most Americans have ready access to accurate information about the charges and the underlying basis for the charges.
It may surprise many Americans thathe "mainstream media," which are not in Trump's thrall, provide the vast bulk of news reporting to which voters have access.
A right-leaning survey asserts that the news coverage of all four of the four national newspapers are "leaning left" (NY Times, Washington Post, and USA Today) or "center" (Wall Street Journal). In reality, that means that they are mainly focused on the center or, in the case of the Journal, the rational right. That the far-right views the three national television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) plus NPR as "left leaning" also translates as them focusing on the moderate middle audience. The national news magazines (Time and Newsweek) are similarly evaluated as leaning left or center, as are major streaming services such as AP, Axios, Politico, Bloomberg, The Hill, and Yahoo News. Not surprisingly, two of the major cable news outlets are identified as leaning left (CNN) and or just plain left (MSNBC).
Only Fox News, Fox Business, the New York Post and such extremist streaming services as Breitbart and Newsmax are seen as "right" or "leaning right," and those are the Trump-friendly sources.
While fewer and fewer voters are reading newspapers or news magazines, it is nevertheless reassuring that far more Americans are getting their news from the "mainstream media" – including the national television networks – than from pro-Trump cable outlets such as FOX. For example, the majority of cable viewers are in the 65+ demographic. In prime time, Fox in 2023 averages about 2.2 million nightly viewers in all age groups, including just under 300,000 in the key voting demographic of 25-54. The combined viewership of CNN and MSNBC is only slightly smaller (about 1.7 million and 240,000) What is more significant than this rough equivalence between Trump-friendly and Trump-skeptical cable outlets is that their viewership pales beside the reach of the far more objective national television network news shows. The numbers are stark and compelling. Compared with Fox's primetime viewership of barely two million, the nightly news programs of the three national networks averaged about 18 million viewers during the first week of this month. ABC had 7.4 million pairs of ears and eyeballs tuned in, and even the smallest of the nightly news shows, at CBS, averaged twice as many viewers (4.3 million) as FOX. In every demographic, more Americans watched network news than cable news. In two significant cohorts, 45-64 and 65+, network news viewership outstripped cable by margins of 28/25 and 43/32 respectively.
A similar story is told when one checks on the online sources of news that Americans consult. The top two news sites visited by Americans seeking information are two sites that, unlike Fox, are not completely in the tank for Trump — the NY Times with 418 million average monthly visits and CNN with 400 million. Americans also understand that the business model of many cable news outlets induces them to cater to one political perspective or another. Unsurprisingly, therefore, most Americans have more trust in what they read in their newspapers or see on network news shows than they do in cable news. In the same vein, one needs only to be paying a bit of attention to place the least trust in what we read on algorithm-driven social media feeds, despite their popularity. Thus, there is a basis for optimism that accuracy about facts informs most Americans' perceptions.
Even before the most recent federal and the Georgia indictments alleging Trump's criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, 84% of independents thought Trump had behaved illegally or unethically. hose realities are sinking in, even on Trump's Republican competitors. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, not one inclined to risk antagonizing Trump's base, has suddenly acknowledged that the 2020 election was not stolen. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who also has been careful not to offend the MAGA base, has opined that the January 6 indictment shows why Trump should never be president again.
This advance in truth occurs because we have honest journalism, print and electronic, that regular citizens read and watch. Ferocious but objective mainstream journalists' commitment to reporting factual truth, as in bomb-shell pieces like this or this, brings real knowledge into the majority's public consciousness.
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To borrow Justice Louis Brandeis' words before he joined the Supreme Court, more sunlight is "the best of disinfectants." That applies with force to a would-be autocrat like Trump who spreads disinformation like fresh fertilizer on fertile MAGA-base fundraising soil. Fortunately, our judicial institutions have long-protected access to candid and hard-hitting information about political figures, recognizing that facts matter, and the public is entitled to evaluate competing views.
Fifty years ago, one of us (Lacovara), argued U.S. v. Nixon, the White House Tapes case, against the only other modern-day president who sought – less persistently than Trump to be sure – to derail our constitution. Nixon's lawyer argued to the Court that his taped conversations were protected from the independent prosecutor's office by executive privilege. In the hearing, the Court raised questions about the potential for abuse, because the president had been named as a co-conspirator in the Watergate cover-up indictment. The answer given to that question remains relevant today: "As this Court regularly holds in first amendment cases dealing with public officials, . . . we have a resilient society where people can be trusted to sort out truth from falsehoods."
When the Court rejected Nixon's claim, the tapes turned out to uncover the smoking gun evidence of criminal conspiracy inside the White House. The public sorted it out, and our system ultimately returned itself to constitutionalism in the executive branch for more than four decades. Today's court has followed the executive privilege precedent of its predecessors. In January 2022, for example, the court rejected Trump's claim to privilege and ordered disclosure to the House January 6 committee of White House documents relating to its investigation. The special counsel's parallel investigation led this month to a D.C. grand jury indictment of the former president for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. He faces three other indictments that also have been widely reported and detailed. While Trump's extraordinary distortion of facts has co-opted a faithful coterie, the MAGA core is relatively small.
We have every reason to keep our faith in the good judgment of the American people – if we have access to enough factual information "to sort out truth from falsehoods. We do. The antidote to would-be autocrats is the "mainstream media," protected by the First Amendment. More truth is the remedy for falsity. Broad access to the facts is what enables informed voters to ensure that we keep a government of, by, and for the people.
Read more
about Trump's polling | US Federal Elections |
A New York appellate court on Thursday reinstated the gag orders prohibiting Donald Trump and his lawyers from making public statements about the principal law clerk of the judge overseeing the former president's ongoing civil fraud trial, The Messenger reports. The partial gag orders bar all parties at the trial from commenting on Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron's staff. The orders, however, do not prohibit comment on the judge himself or New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case, both of whom Trump has repeatedly derided online.
"I intend to enforce the gag orders rigorously and vigorously, and I want to make sure counsel inform their clients," Engoron said of the ruling in open court Thursday. "We’re aware, your honor," Trump's lead attorney Christopher Kise responded, adding: "It’s a tragic day for the rule of law." In a subsequent statement to the press, Kise further lamented the ruling. "In a country where the First Amendment is sacrosanct, President Trump may not even comment on why he thinks he cannot get a fair trial," Kise said. "Hard to imagine a more unfair process and hard to believe this is happening in America."
The appellate court's ruling comes after attorneys for the New York state court system revealed last week via court filing that Engoron and his principal law clerk have been bombarded with hundreds of threatening, harassing and disparaging telephone and social media messages, including death threats, in the wake of Trump's online attacks. A federal appellate court in Washington, D.C. is also weighing whether to reinstate a separate order imposed on the former president that prevents him from attacking witnesses in his federal election subversion case. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
Could the former House Speaker be the future House Speaker?
Watch to see an effort this week by some allies of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to draft him for the Speakership again.
Fox is told it’s likely a challenge for either House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) or Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to secure the votes to become Speaker.
At least quickly.
HOW THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS COULD EXPEDITE THE ELECTION OF A HOUSE SPEAKER
Both Scalise and Jordan come with baggage and that will divide the House Republican Conference. It is unclear how long it could take either candidate – or any candidate – to earn the necessary votes on the floor to win.
"Pack your lunch," said one Republican to Fox about how long the Speaker’s race may take. The earliest a floor vote could happen is Thursday.
That’s why some McCarthy loyalists believe that the former Speaker should run again.
It’s notable that McCarthy made a point of telling reporters Friday that he would not resign. Some McCarthy acolytes believe that McCarthy may not be out yet – pointing to his remarks on Fox Saturday that the House is paralyzed and cannot respond to the war in the Middle East.
Some close to McCarthy suggested that even if McCarthy doesn’t return to the Speakership immediately, he may remain in the House, raise money for GOP candidates and hope to recapture the Speakership if Republicans retain control of the House in 2025.
McCarthy may be able to raise money and campaign for the members he wants in the party - and work against those who helped oust him.
MCCARTHY’S KISMET: HOW HIS REMOVAL AS SPEAKER WAS FORESHADOWED IN 2015
The same scenario helps for McCarthy if Republicans are in the minority. McCarthy could return as Minority Leader if Republicans lose the House. The threshold to win the leadership role in the conference is a lot easier than the Speakership on the floor. So that could work to McCarthy’s favor.
Rank and file Republicans are torn over Scalise and Jordan. Some linked to McCarthy believe Scalise has tried to undercut the former Speaker during his time in office. But they aren’t necessarily enamored either with Jordan. Some Republicans believe a vote for Jordan is in essence a vote for ultra-conservatives. One GOPer characterized supporting Jordan as voting for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and validating his effort to unseat McCarthy.
ABSENCE OF HOUSE SPEAKER COULD HAVE SERIOUS IMPACT ON US HANDLING OF TERROR ATTACKS IN ISRAEL
So Republicans are torn. And this is exactly why the Speaker election may take a while.
And if Republicans are unable to arrive at a consensus candidate, some GOPers believe the party could return to the Speakership the very man they evicted last week.
Here’s the calendar:
House Republicans meet Monday night behind closed doors to hash out their differences.
GOPers conduct a candidate forum on Tuesday, hearing the pros and cons of those running for Speaker.
On Wednesday, the conference takes a secret vote on who it wants to nominate for Speaker on the floor. Keep in mind that the nomination only goes to whichever candidate secures a majority of the conference. So that figure could be as low as 113 (if they include the three non-voting GOP delegates to the House).
However, the full House votes for Speaker
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A successful Speaker candidate needs an outright majority of all House members voting for someone by name on the floor. So that figure is 217 if all 433 House members participate.
"This is going to be a grind," said one GOP member to Fox. | US Congress |
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis responded this week to demands from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who called for the prosecutor to hand over documents and communications relating to her investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Willis sent a letter on Wednesday rejecting Jordan’s demands for the documents, which he requested in the days after Willis’s office indicted Trump over the summer. A number of political observers have suggested that Jordan’s demands were motivated solely by a desire to intimidate Willis and aid Trump.
Willis’s letter makes the same observation, suggesting that Jordan is unaware of how the law works — or worse, is aware and doesn’t care, so long as it is helpful to the former president’s cause.
Per federal law, committee leaders in Congress cannot issue such demands without a compelling reason. Jordan maintained in his last correspondence to Willis that he has a “strong legislative interest in ensuring that popularly elected local prosecutors do not misuse their law-enforcement authority.” In rejecting his first demand for documents, Jordan claimed that Willis is “actively and aggressively engaged in such a scheme,” a hearsay argument that lacks substance.
The evidence that Willis has presented in her case against the former president has been deemed sound by many legal experts, who have noted that Trump, in a recorded phone call in early January 2021, demanded that a state election official “find” him additional votes in order to win the state’s 16 Electoral College votes, in apparent violation of Georgia law.
In a letter sent to Jordan on Wednesday, Willis forcefully rejected the congressman’s demands once more.
“A charitable explanation of your correspondence is that you are ignorant of the United States and Georgia Constitutions and codes,” Willis said. “A more troubling explanation is that you are abusing your authority as Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary to attempt to obstruct and interfere with a Georgia criminal prosecution.”
Willis noted that Jordan’s pursuit of her office’s records appeared to be wholly political, as he “boasted” on Fox News that he was making the demand in part “to stop this stuff,” referring to investigations and charges against Trump.
“While you may enjoy immunity under the United States Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, that does not make your behavior any less offensive to the rule of law,” Willis reminded the GOP lawmaker.
Jordan also maintains — without evidence — that Willis’s charges happened in part due to coordination with the Department of Justice (DOJ), which has indicted Trump in two separate investigations.
“To the extent you have specific questions about the Department of Justice’s communications, we refer you to the Department of Justice,” Willis told Jordan in her letter.
Willis issued 13 indictments against Trump relating to his efforts to persuade Georgia state officials to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state to President Joe Biden. The charges against Trump include attempting to solicit a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public official, conspiracy to commit forgery (through the coordination of fake electors in the state), and racketeering.
Jordan, a Trump loyalist who voted against certifying the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021, recently sought the endorsement of his party’s House conference to become speaker of the House. Although he lost that endorsement by a narrow margin, Jordan’s loyalty to Trump paid off, as the former president publicly stated last week that Republicans should select Jordan to fill the position.
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Democrat senators on the Rules Committee advanced a resolution Tuesday to confirm more than 350 military promotions that have been held up for months due to Sen. Tommy Tuberville's, R-Ala., protest of the Pentagon's abortion policy. The resolution will now head to a full floor vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday that once the resolution was approved, he would bring it to a full vote "as soon as possible." Nine Republicans will have to vote with Democrats in the upper chamber to codify the proposal.
"What Sen. Tuberville has done is truly an anomaly that does much harm and requires a response," Schumer said before the vote on Tuesday. "There's been a lot of negativity and dysfunction in the Senate these days, but Sen. Tuberville has single-handedly brought the Senate to a new low for months."
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., chairwoman of the committee, said military families – a handful were present at the markup – have been suffering due to the holds, leaving positions vacant.
"We are here today because one of our colleagues has used the Senate's rules to hold the entire military chain of command hostage," Klobuchar said.
Every Republican member on the committee – including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a critic of the holds – voted against the resolution, but Sen. Ted Cruz's, R-Texas, vote by proxy did not count in the final tally.
The DOD's abortion policy – which pays for some expenses incurred by an abortion procedure for service members – was implemented after the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year.
Tuberville, a retired college football coach, previously told Fox News Digital he doesn't think the Senate will approve a rule change. It would need 60 votes to pass. Republicans currently hold 49 seats in the Senate while Democrats hold the majority at 51.
"I think that we'll be able to hold her in the line and force them to eventually vote on this," Tuberville said.
Earlier this month, several GOP lawmakers – Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska – took turns on the floor urging Tuberville to rescind his opposition before selecting nominees one by one to be confirmed. Tuberville objected to each one.
In September, Tuberville followed a Senate rule enabling a minority member to bring a cloture vote with 16 signatures. However, once Schumer received the petition on Wednesday, he changed course and opted to sidestep Tuberville, proceeding directly to the floor votes for those promotions.
As such, the Senate confirmed Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, Democrats remained unwavering on teeing up votes one-by-one for each member. | US Congress |
The nationwide attack on Black voters
During the 2022 election, one trend was certain: Through ballot measures, voters across the country delivered on critical issues directly affecting our communities. Voters cast ballots in support of reproductive rights, addressing gun violence, the abolition of slavery, increased wages and enhanced voting access — all issues that significantly impact communities of color.
Now, on the heels of these wins, some state politicians and special interests are looking for ways to undermine the will of the people and disenfranchise communities of color.
In a brazen power grab, these politicians are trying to delay — or completely prevent — the implementation of ballot measures that defined November’s midterm elections, and they are taking steps to restrict the use of ballot measures to preemptively reject or void future policy wins. These attacks on ballot measures have been especially prevalent in places where people of color, and Black voters specifically, have used the power of direct democracy to affect change in their communities.
Amendment 4 in Florida is a prime example. In 2018, over 64 percent of Floridians passed Amendment 4 by ballot initiative, effectively approving the restoration of voting rights of 1.4 million formerly incarcerated individuals — predominantly Black voters — who finished their terms of sentence, including parole and probation. Despite sweeping approval at the ballot box, the Florida Legislature responded by introducing new legislative hurdles to delay the implementation of Amendment 4. After years of litigation, confusion remains. Florida officials have no central database to determine who is eligible to vote, and “election police” continue to arrest Florida residents previously deemed eligible to vote by the state.
The racially motivated fallout of Florida’s Amendment 4 is not an isolated incident. In fact, Mississippi, which has the largest Black population of any state in the country, has been a testing ground for restrictions meant to marginalize Black voters and suppress the policy interests of the state’s Black communities.
Mississippians had their right to direct democracy taken away in May of 2021 when the Supreme Court struck down the state’s ballot initiative process based on a technicality over the number of congressional districts in Mississippi, which changed from five to four following the 2000 Census.
During the 2023 session, the Mississippi House and Senate introduced various versions of legislation to restore the state’s ballot initiative process, but many of these proposals were extremely restrictive and failed to live up to their promise of restoring the original process that was struck down in 2021.
This year, Mississippi legislators moved forward with one bill to restore Mississippi’s ballot initiative process, SCR 533 — an extremist, anti-democracy bill that included restrictions to prohibit voters from introducing any amendments related to abortion or reproductive freedom, as well as prohibit voters from introducing initiatives that “appropriate money from the State Treasury.”
This particularly sweeping restriction would have made it impossible for Mississippi residents to use their voting power to adopt new measures that would appropriate any money from the state, which would most notably prohibit the expansion of Medicaid coverage. Mississippi is one of only 10 states that have yet to adopt Medicaid expansion, which has proven to be a powerful tool for reducing racial inequity in health care, according to research conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and BMC Public Health. Under SCR 533, lawmakers could also use a simple majority to change or repeal an initiative that was already approved by voters — a clear effort to undermine voters’ power at the ballot box.
While SCR 533 ultimately failed to pass, the early political momentum behind the legislation still indicates Mississippi legislators’ attempts to curb the power of their constituents. And even though SCR 533 didn’t survive the 2023 legislative session, the Mississippi Legislature pulled all available levers of power to unleash flagrant legislative attacks on the livelihoods of Black Mississippians. HB 1020 and SB 2343 — which both passed through the majority-white State House and Senate and were signed into law by the governor on April 21 — attempt to reimpose Jim Crow-era laws on the majority-Black city of Jackson.
Put simply: Attacks on statewide ballot initiative processes are systemically racist, as it is one of the most powerful tools voters can use to enact policies that often benefit and protect communities of color — like raising the minimum wage, protecting and expanding reproductive freedom, restoring voting rights to people who were formerly incarcerated, abolishing slavery and expanding health care to those who need it the most. The impact of the harmful, anti-democratic legislation introduced this session would fall on the Black community in Jackson and across Mississippi.
Mississippi and Florida are not the only states where elected officials are undermining and manipulating the ballot initiative process.
In 2020, Missouri voters approved a ballot initiative to expand Medicaid — a policy that Missouri’s Republican lawmakers adamantly opposed. In response, Missouri lawmakers tried to subvert the will of the people by reversing course on the policy win altogether. When those efforts failed, they slow-rolled implementation so much so that the federal government intervened. At the time, the applicant backlog was so severe that wait times exceeded 100 days.
Nearly three years later, issues with the program persist. It’s no coincidence that twice as many Black Missourians as white Missourians are covered under Medicaid and that Medicaid expansion is explicitly tied to fostering more racially equitable healthcare systems by helping end the health care coverage gap for people of color, and for Black Americans specifically.
For years Missouri state lawmakers have worked to erode the ballot measure process, and after voters approved Medicaid expansion in 2020, lawmakers doubled down on their efforts. Simultaneously, grassroots advocates are discussing ways to use the ballot measure to raise the minimum wage, guarantee paid sick leave and possibly roll back the state’s abortion ban come 2024 — all policies that would uplift Missouri’s communities of color, particularly Black Missourians who continue to carry the weight of the state’s regressive policies.
Florida, Mississippi and Missouri state legislatures are not standing alone. From Arkansas to North Dakota, and Arizona to Ohio, 42 state legislatures have introduced at least 142 measures during 2023 legislative sessions that would directly affect the laws governing ballot measures — many of which will serve to further stamp out Black voters’ power. It’s no coincidence that two Black lawmakers in Tennessee were recently expelled from their seats after protesting a local mass shooting.
Emboldened attempts to deliberately strip Black communities of representation and power, including through attacks on the ballot initiative process — the people’s tool — must be stopped. Otherwise, these efforts will continue to serve as a blueprint for more coordinated attacks on the livelihood of Black Americans.
As we move forward, our goal is clear: We must defend democracy by ensuring the will of the people always prevails.
Chris Melody Fields Figueredo is the executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. She has devoted her career to social justice and ensuring our democracy works for “We the People.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | Civil Rights Activism |
Instead of, say, commemorating American soldiers in his Veterans Day speech, the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential race spent nearly two hours attacking his political foes as verminous beasts who pose more of a danger to the US than its foreign adversaries. “If you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us,” Donald Trump said during his Saturday address in New Hampshire. “Our threat is from within,” he continued, vowing to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”
“They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream,” Trump added.
The comments—which mark new territory in the autocratic rhetoric Trump has used to fuel his campaign—were condemned by several historians. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, told The Washington Post that Trump, in describing his domestic rivals as “vermin,” has co-opted language used by “Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”
In a rather self-defeating denial, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung both disputed that accusation as “ridiculous” and warned that those who liken Trump to the 20th-century dictators will have “their entire existence…crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” (Cheung, who provided the statement to the Post, has since tried to backtrack, telling the paper that he meant to threaten their “sad, miserable existence,” as opposed to threatening to blot out their “entire existence.”)
The White House, for its part, condemned the sentiment behind Trump’s speech without naming him directly. “Using terms like [vermin] about dissent would be unrecognizable to our founders, but horrifyingly recognizable to American veterans who put on their country’s uniform in the 1940s,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to Vanity Fair. “President Biden believes in his oath to our Constitution, and in American democracy. He works to protect both every day.”
Should he regain the presidency, Trump has said he would use the Justice Department to thwart his political opponents, purge the government of bureaucrats whom he perceives as insufficiently loyal, round up undocumented immigrants, and build sprawling detention camps near the US-Mexico border. Last month, he even touted an age-old white supremacist talking point, claiming that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Much of his authoritarian rhetoric has been directed toward the Justice Department, judges, and state and federal prosecutors in apparent retaliation for the 91 charges he currently faces in two federal and two state cases. Trump’s vengeful fantasy for the Justice Department is particularly telling: At the start of his second term, he would quash the federal cases against him and “completely [overhaul]” the branch, transforming it from his supposed persecutor to a personal political attack dog, he suggested at a rally last week. The same goes for the FBI and the various intelligence agencies he believes have conspired against him, per Axios.
Conservative organizations, under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation, have already begun assembling thousands of loyalists that Trump—or potentially Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, in the unlikely event that either takes the presidency—could call on, according to Axios. The groups plan to assemble a roster of 20,000 and are screening the ideologies and social media use of applicants to ensure they align with Trump’s plan to expand his executive powers.
In an interview with Univision last week, Trump made it abundantly clear how far he’d be willing to go if he retakes the White House. “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ Mostly what that would be, they’d be out of business. They’d be out. They’d be out of the election,” he said. But Trump’s list of targets is not limited to political threats, according to the Post. He also has privately discussed using the Justice Department to target old subordinates he feels betrayed him, including his former chief of staff, John Kelly; his former attorney general William Barr; his former attorney Ty Cobb; and Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs during Trump’s time in office. | US Federal Elections |
After he left the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly shared sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire who is a member of his Mar-a-Lago club, according to a pair of reports published on Thursday.
Trump shared the information with Anthony Pratt during an April 2021 conversation at the Palm Beach, Fla., golf club, according to ABC News, which first reported the development. citing sources familiar with the matter. The New York Times also confirmed the former president shared the information with Pratt, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The revelation was reported to special counsel Jack Smith's office, which charged Trump this year with mishandling classified documents, and prosecutors and FBI agents have twice interviewed Pratt this year about the discussion, ABC reported.
Trump's 2024 presidential campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in response to questions about the report, "These illegal leaks are coming from sources which totally lack proper context and relevant information. The Department of Justice should investigate the criminal leaking, instead of perpetrating their baseless witch-hunts while knowing that President Trump did nothing wrong, has always insisted on truth and transparency, and acted in a proper manner, according to the law."
NBC News has also reached out to Pratt's company for comment.
Pratt recounted that he told Trump during their conversation that Australia should buy submarines from the U.S., and an excited Trump "leaning" toward Pratt as if to be discreet, told him two pieces of information about American submarines, ABC reported, citing the anonymous sources. Trump shared the number of warheads that U.S. submarines typically carry and how close they can get to Russian submarines without being detected, according to both ABC and the New York Times.
Trump didn't show any government documents to him during the meeting or any other time at Mar-a-Lago, sources told ABC News.
Read more from NBC News
Pratt, executive global chairman of cardboard company Pratt Industries, then shared Trump's remarks with at least 45 other people through emails and conversations, reported ABC, including journalists, Australian officials, three former Australian prime ministers and employees at his company.
According to the Times, Pratt is among more than 80 people whom prosecutors from Smith's office have identified as potential witnesses who could testify at Trump's trial that's slated to begin in May in Fort Pierce, Fla.
The special counsel's office declined to comment on the reports.
In late July, the Department of Justice filed a superseding indictment, adding new charges to those originally brought by Smith's office in June regarding Trump's mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House. Prosecutors allege that Trump was part of a scheme to try to delete security video showing an effort to cover up the boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Pratt's account was not included in the indictments, which described other instances in which Trump, after he left office, shared classified information and documents with people unauthorized to view them. | US Political Corruption |
As an ever-greater portion of the nation’s total wealth goes to the top, it’s hardly surprising that ever more of that wealth is corrupting US politics.
In the 2020 presidential election cycle, more than $14bn went to federal candidates, party committees, and Super Pacs – double the $7bn doled out in the 2016 cycle. Total giving in 2024 is bound to be much higher.
That money is not supporting US democracy. If anything, that money is contributing to rising Trumpism and neofascism.
There is a certain logic to this.
As more and more wealth concentrates at the top, the moneyed interests rationally fear that democratic majorities will take it away through higher taxes, stricter regulations (on everything from trade to climate change), enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, pro-union initiatives and price controls.
So they’re sinking ever more of their wealth into anti-democracy candidates.
Donald Trump is going full fascist these days and gaining the backing of prominent billionaires.
Earlier this month, on Veterans Day, Trump pledged to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country”, whom he accused of doing anything “to destroy America and to destroy the American dream”. (Notably, he read these words from a teleprompter, meaning that they were intentional rather than part of another impromptu Trump rant.)
Days before, Trump claimed that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”. The New York Times reported that he’s planning to round up millions of undocumented immigrants and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.
Trump has publicly vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Joe Biden and his family, and has told advisers and friends that he wants the justice department to investigate officials who have criticized his time in office.
This is, quite simply, full-throated neofascism.
Who’s bankrolling all this? While Trump’s base is making small contributions, the big money is coming from some of the richest people in the US.
During the first half of the year, multiple billionaires donated to the Trump-aligned Make America Great Again, Inc Super Pac.
Phil Ruffin (net worth of $3.4bn), the 88-year-old casino and hotel mogul, has given multiple $1m donations.
Charles Kushner (family net worth of $1.8bn), the real estate mogul and father of Jared, who received a late-term pardon from Trump in December 2020, contributed $1m in June.
Robert “Woody” Johnson (net worth of $3.7bn), Trump’s former ambassador to the United Kingdom and co-owner of the New York Jets, donated $1m to the MAGA PAC in April.
And so on.
But Trump is not the only extremist pulling in big dollars.
Nikki Haley – who appears moderate only relative to Trump’s blatant neofascism – claimed in her campaign launch that Biden is promoting a “socialist” agenda.
During her two years as UN ambassador under Trump, Haley was a strong proponent of his so-called “zero tolerance” policy under which thousands of migrant children were separated from their parents and guardians.
She supported Trump’s decision to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council and to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
Though she briefly criticized Trump for inciting the mob that attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, Haley soon defended Trump and called on Democratic lawmakers to “give the man a break” when they impeached him for a second time.
Haley recently told Kristen Welker of NBC’s Meet the Press that while Trump’s floating the idea of executing retired Gen Mark Milley might be “irresponsible”, it is not enough to disqualify Trump from running for the White House again.
Haley’s billionaire supporters include Stanley Druckenmiller, Eric LeVine and Republican megadonor Ken Griffin.
Notably, Haley has also gained the support of JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive Jamie Dimon, who’s about as close as anyone in the US comes to being a spokesperson for the business establishment. Dimon admires Haley’s recognition of the role that “business and government can play in driving growth by working together”.
The moneyed interests have been placing big bets on other Trumpist Republicans.
Peter Thiel, the multibillionaire tech financier who once wrote that “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” contributed more than $35m to 16 federal-level Republican candidates in the 2022 campaign cycle, making him the 10th largest individual donor to either party.
Twelve of Thiel’s candidates won, including Ohio’s now-senator JD Vance, who alleged that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy has meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country”.
Republican House majority leader Steve Scalise is creating a new fundraising committee which will be soliciting contributions of up to $586,200 a pop.
Elon Musk is not a major financial contributor to Trump nor other anti-democracy candidates, but his power over one of the most influential megaphones in the US gives him inordinate clout – which he is using to further the neofascist cause.
Witness Musk’s solicitude of Trump, his seeming endorsement of antisemitic posts, his embrace of Tucker Carlson and “great replacement” theory, and his avowed skepticism towards democracy.
Democracy is compatible with capitalism only if democracy is in the driver’s seat, so it can rein in capitalism’s excesses.
But if capitalism and its moneyed interests are in charge, those excesses inevitably grow to the point where they are able to extinguish democracy and ride roughshod over the common good.
That’s why Trump’s neofascism – and the complicity of today’s Republican party with it – are attracting the backing of some of the richest people in the US.
What’s the alternative? A loud pro-democracy movement that fights against concentrated wealth at the top, humongous CEO pay packages, a politically powerful financial sector, and tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations.
And fights for higher taxes on the top (including a wealth tax) to finance Medicare for all, affordable housing, and accessible childcare and eldercare.
The willingness to make this a fight – to name the moneyed interests backing neofascism, explain why they’re doing this, and mobilize and energize the US against their agenda and in favor of democracy – is critical to winning the 2024 election and preserving and rebuilding US democracy.
Biden and the Democrats must take this on, loudly and clearly.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley | US Federal Elections |
In addition, US District Judge Beryl Howell on Friday ordered the former New York mayor to pay an additional $104,000 to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter he defamed, for additional legal fees they’ve incurred because of his failure to respond to parts of their lawsuit.
This is the latest difficulty for Giuliani as he faces fallout from his work for Donald Trump after the 2020 election.
Giuliani has struggled to pay legal bills in recent months, including related to the lawsuit from Freeman and Moss.
The bill of $132,856 is only a small chunk of the financial burden Giuliani is currently under, largely because of his ongoing legal troubles, and it’s one he’s known of for several weeks.
But a court filing on Thursday confirmed Giuliani has not paid the amount to Moss and Freeman, which a judge ordered to offset some of their attorneys’ fees.
“As of the date of this filing, Defendant Giuliani has failed to take any of the actions, or to cause the Giuliani Businesses to take any of the actions, so-ordered in the Sanctions Order,” Moss and Freeman’s lawyers wrote on Thursday, according to the filing. “Plaintiffs are considering what further relief may be appropriate.”
Giuliani’s failure to respond to subpoenas for records in Moss and Freeman’s lawsuit led to the sanctioned amount, which is now accruing interest as he continues to not pay. Yet it isn’t the end of the bills for Giuliani in the case. He will face a damages trial in the case before a jury in December.
Just days ago, he also faced a new lawsuit from his former attorney for $1.3 million in unpaid legal fees, and other lawsuits against him are ongoing.
Giuliani lost the defamation lawsuit in August from the two Georgia election workers against him after he failed to provide information sought in subpoenas.
In court in recent weeks, Giuliani said he could no longer contest that he made false and defamatory statements about Freeman and Moss.
The two are asking for unspecified damages after they say they suffered emotional and reputational harm, as well as having their safety put in danger, after Giuliani singled them out when he made false claims of ballot tampering in Georgia after the 2020 election.
Giuliani’s statements about them, which Freeman and Moss say are false, included calling them ballot-stuffing criminal conspirators. Giuliani also drew attention to a video of them after the election, which was first posted by the Trump campaign and showed part of a security tape of ballot counting in Atlanta. On social media, his podcast and other broadcasts, Giuliani said the video showed suitcases filled with ballots, when it did not capture anything but normal ballot processing, according to the defamation lawsuit and a state investigation.
Georgia election officials have debunked Giuliani’s accusations of fraud during the ballot counting. | US Political Corruption |
As Republicans attempt to once again elect a speaker of the House, Donald Trump is putting himself right in the middle of the process -- endorsing Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and suggesting he'd be open to taking the job himself on a temporary basis.
In reporting for my upcoming book, "Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party," I learned that Trump had secretly plotted to be elected speaker back in January, when he was publicly supporting Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was struggling to get the votes he needed.
The idea of Donald Trump serving as speaker was first proposed on the day he left the White House -- Jan. 20, 2021 -- by a pro-Trump activist named Rogan O'Handley, who went by the name "@DC_Draino" on social media. The idea was soon aggressively pushed by Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist in the White House. At first Trump had no interest in the job, but that all changed as he watched McCarthy fail in vote after vote on the House floor in early January of this year.
What follows is an exclusive excerpt from "Tired of Winning,' which will be published on Nov. 14.
Watch Jonathan Karl discuss his exclusive reporting on ABC News Live at 12 p.m. ET
The prime-time drama surrounding the seemingly endless voting for House speaker in January caught the attention of the former president, who was soaking up every minute of coverage from his perch in Mar‑a‑Lago. The must-see television spectacle briefly revived an idea Trump had dismissed long ago: that he could become speaker of the House, the only congressional leadership post you can be elected to even if you are not a member of Congress.
"He saw the power of television," a close Trump adviser told me. "[He saw] how galvanizing it was, how mesmerizing it was -- everybody was watching it, right? That's when Trump realizes it's the biggest reality show in America. He could sit up there like The Celebrity Apprentice. It'd be 'The Apprentice' with him with a big-ass gavel."
Although the idea of Trump as speaker of the House had been kicking around for months, Trump had previously expressed no interest in it.
He considered the role to be beneath him. Why would he want to leave Palm Beach to spend his days in Congress? The only time anybody paid attention to what was going on in the House, he figured, was during the State of the Union address -- and even then, all eyes are on the president, not the speaker. "It never got any traction," a Trump adviser said of the idea. "He had literally no interest."
But with the nation's attention focused on the McCarthy drama on the House floor, Trump began to have second thoughts. And when, on the seventh ballot, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz stood up and announced his vote for speaker -- "Donald John Trump" -- the former president was mildly amused. Until, that is, he saw the final vote tally being broadcast on all the news networks:
- 212 votes for Hakeem Jeffries
- 201 votes for Kevin McCarthy
- 19 votes for Byron Donalds
- 1 vote for Donald Trump
Gaetz called Trump after the balloting concluded, congratulating him on becoming the first former president since John Quincy Adams to receive a vote for speaker. But Trump wasn't pleased -- he was embarrassed. When the House clerk read off the vote totals at the end of the round -- "the Honorable Donald J. Trump of Florida has received one" -- laughter could be heard in the House chamber. Democratic lawmakers and progressive commentators were mercilessly mocking his lackluster support.
The ridicule only grew louder when Gaetz pulled the same stunt in the next round and the result was the same. "One vote," tweeted Don Lemon, who was then a CNN anchor. "That's it. That's all #Trump got for speaker of the House. #onevote."
Gaetz eventually realized his stunt was upsetting the former president and switched his vote to GOP Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma for the next two rounds of balloting. But during that time, Trump, still stewing, told at least two people the real problem was that Gaetz had not formally nominated him for speaker. If Republicans realized he was a real candidate for speaker, Trump thought, they would have overwhelmingly voted for him.
Word of Trump's thinking quickly reached Gaetz, and the Florida Republican acted accordingly.
"For what purpose does the gentleman from Florida rise?" the House clerk asked Gaetz before the eleventh round of balloting kicked off.
"To place a name in nomination for the position of speaker of the House," he replied.
And with that, Trump was officially nominated as a candidate for speaker. One Republican close to both Gaetz and Trump later told me Gaetz ran the idea by the former president and got his approval before making the move. Another said Trump had proactively asked Gaetz to do it. Either way, the former president's name was formally placed in contention -- with Trump's blessing.
With that all sorted out, Gaetz had a speech to give. "My friends, when Donald Trump was president, taxes were cut, regulations were slashed, energy was abundant, wages were rising, capital was returning from overseas to fund the dreams and ambitions of our fellow Americans, and the economy was roaring," Gaetz began. As he spoke, the murmuring and heckling -- mostly from Democrats -- grew so loud the clerk had to bring down her gavel and demand the House be in order.
But Gaetz kept going: "I nominate President Trump because we must make our country great again. And he can start by making the House of Representatives great again."
When Gaetz finished his speech, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was the only person in the entire chamber to applaud.
The result was exactly the same. Donald Trump received just one vote -- from Matt Gaetz -- for speaker of the House. And once again, the cable networks rubbed it in, plastering a measly "1" next to Trump's name as commentators mocked the former president's pathetic vote total.
That was the final straw. "Once CNN and MSNBC started mocking him, that he had the lowest vote count in history," a Trump confidant -- who was in touch with the former president throughout the process -- old me, "all of a sudden, he was like, 'Get me out of there!' "
--Jonathan Karl, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent, is the author of two previous books on Donald Trump, "Betrayal" and "Front Row at the Trump Show." | US Congress |
Newly inaugurated Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is off to a rocky start, following a giggling bout at her swearing-in, questions surrounding inauguration donations, and a walkout during her first speech to the state Legislature by lawmakers who are planning to sue her.
Hobbs was sworn in on Jan. 2 in a brief ceremony off-limits to reporters, according to the Arizona Republic. A media pool photographer was present, and the ceremony was livestreamed. A public ceremony was later held on Thursday last week.
As Hobbs took her oath of office, she laughed with her mother, saying, "Stop it, Mom," just before reciting, "that I will support the Constitution."
Kari Lake's campaign Twitter account tweeted a clipped video recording of the livestream of Hobbs' ill-timed laughter, captioning it with: "This is one of the darkest moments in the history of Arizona. An illegitimate 'Governor' laughing in the face of our constitution. But it's always darkest before the dawn. We will expose this fraud for the world to see. Justice is coming. @katiehobbs won't be laughing then." Goldwater Institute Vice President Timothy Sandefur pushed back on a similar characterization of the incident when he retweeted a post by former Gov. Doug Ducey staffer Brian Anderson. Hobbs "was unable to take the oath of office this morning without stammering and laughing through it," Anderson had tweeted.
"This is not a fair characterization," Sandefur responded. "If you watch the whole video you can see that Gov. Hobbs was feeling emotional & made a little joke to her mother (holding the Bible) about how they were both getting choked up."
Meanwhile, Arizona's Family reported, the funding for Hobbs' inaugural events has not been fully disclosed, except for the fact that she and her campaign each requested as much as $250,000 from donors. While the government website for the inauguration lists the donors, it does not disclose the amounts that each donated.
Ducey, by contrast, disclosed both donor names and their donation amounts for his 2019 inaugural events, the Arizona Republic reported.
Hobbs was asked by ABC15 about the donation amounts not being disclosed. "All of the donors are on the website," she replied. "I don't even know why this is an issue. They're all on the website."
The donations go to the Katie Hobbs Inauguration Fund, the Republic reported. The fund is a 501(c)4 nonprofit that Hobbs' campaign manager Nicole DeMont incorporated in December, according to records filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission.
A spokesperson for Hobbs' inaugural events told the Republic the fund was a social welfare group and the donations were funding the public ceremony and inaugural ball. The spokesperson didn't respond to questions about how much was raised for the fund or how the fund aligns with Hobbs' campaign promises of transparency, the Republic reported.
Arizona state Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope told Arizona's Family that Hobbs' inaugural fund "might be something we would look into."
Citing state disclosure laws, the Republican lawmaker said, "We should have the right to know as a citizen what kind of contributions they're getting."
Hobbs' administration responded to Shope's comments in a statement to Arizona's Family: "No taxpayer funds have been used for either (yesterday's) inaugural ceremony or the inaugural gala. The inaugural committee has made the names of all donors public and available on the website ... The governor maintains her commitment to transparency and accountability in her administration."
Meanwhile, on Monday, the Arizona Freedom Caucus, which consists of Republican state legislators, announced they will file a lawsuit challenging Hobbs' first executive order, which purports to strengthen anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ state employees and contractors.
Hobbs "believes that she has the ability to legislate with the power of the pen, attempting to create law that simply does not exist," the caucus leader, state Sen. Jake Hoffman, said during a press conference Monday, according to the Arizona Sun Times.
Executive orders furthering "legislative intent" in laws are acceptable, but her first executive order goes beyond that, he added.
"Legislative intent was never to include extra provisions within protected classes," Hoffman said, announcing that a lawsuit would be filed soon.
Later that day, as Hobbs delivered her State of the State address to the Legislature, several GOP lawmakers from the Arizona Freedom Caucus either walked out or turned their backs to Hobbs.
"It took 5 seconds for Katie Hobbs to begin legislating from the 9th floor, so I will not listen to her rhetoric for even 5 seconds," state Rep. Rachel Jones tweeted on Monday. "There are too many questions left unanswered, litigation still moving through the courts, and many concerns about the border, not pronouns.
"This is why I immediately left the House Floor after the start of the State of the State. I promised to be the voice of the people, and I will never break that promise."
Sens. Anthony Kern and Justine Wadsack also stood facing the back wall of the state House of Representatives for several minutes during the address. Some lawmakers left after Hobbs mentioned vetoing bills restricting abortion, the Arizona Republic reported.
Hobbs also claimed in her speech that expanding the state's school choice program would "likely bankrupt" the state.
"Funding this expansion is poised to cost Arizona taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion over the next 10 years if left unaddressed," she said.
Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account program allows applicants to spend some taxpayer dollars on private school costs. Public school enrollment has dropped by 31,000 students since 2019, while charter school enrollment has increased by 20,000. An additional 20,000 students are expected to use funds from the program for their nonpublic school education, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Common Sense Institute.
“Based on current data, the increase in annual ESA program costs attributable to universal eligibility is $197.9 million," the study found. "Existing program costs add another approximately $179 million, for a total cost of about $377 million. While the cost of the ESA's program under universal eligibility exceeds the additional $33 million initially appropriated by the Legislature, the Arizona Department of Education likely has sufficient excess funding to more than cover the difference, due to continued post-pandemic enrollment declines."
The report by the nonprofit estimates as of the first quarter of the year an $8 million end-of-year surplus as a result of the system-wide enrollment trends.
In addition to facing an upcoming lawsuit by state lawmakers, Hobbs is a defendant in Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake's appeal of a county judge's ruling against her lawsuit challenging certification of the November election for governor. The appeal demands the election result be set aside due to alleged "massive violations of law and maladministration by Maricopa County."
Hobbs' office didn't respond to a request for comment Wednesday. | US Local Elections |
WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Hardline conservative Republican Jim Jordan was falling short in a third attempt to lead the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, as his Republican opponents held fast against him in a vote to fill the vacant speaker's chair.
As voting got under way, at least six of his fellow Republicans cast ballots for other candidates. That would likely leave Jordan short of the 214 votes he would need to win the speaker's job, as all Democrats are expected to vote against him.
Republicans control the chamber by a narrow 221-212 majority.
Republicans appear no closer to resolving a leadership battle that has paralyzed the House for more than two weeks. Their infighting has left Congress unable to act on President Joe Biden's request for aid to Ukraine and Israel.
At a news conference ahead of the vote, Jordan said the House needed to install a speaker so it could take up aid for Israel and other matters, but he did not predict victory.
"Our plan this weekend is to get a speaker elected to the House of Representatives as soon as possible," he said.
A close ally of Donald Trump, Jordan was a "significant player" in the former president's attempts to overturn Biden's 2020 election win, according to a congressional investigation.
"I think there were all kinds of problems with the 2020 election, and I've been clear about that," he said.
The narrow and fractious Republican majority has failed to unite behind Jordan or any other candidate to replace Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted by a handful of party members on Oct. 3. They also have been unable to agree on a fallback plan that would let the chamber take up legislation.
McCarthy said Jordan would be an effective leader.
"He is straightforward, honest and reliable. That is who Jim Jordan is. That's what being a speaker is all about," he said as he nominated Jordan on the House floor.
DEATH THREATS
Jordan has failed to win the votes needed to claim the speaker's gavel in votes on Tuesday and Wednesday. He has made little headway with the 22 Republicans who voted against him, some of whom say they have received death threats.
Jordan's allies say that should not matter. "All of us in Congress receive death threats. I don't know if that's a newsflash for anybody here," Republican Representative Scott Perry said.
Democrats describe Jordan as a dangerous extremist and have unanimously voted against him.
"Their nominee's vision is a direct attack on the freedom and the rights of the American people, and he's got the record to prove it," Democratic Representative Katherine Clark said on the House floor.
Jordan has not gotten more than 200 votes so far.
A third failed vote might prompt Jordan to drop out, which would clear the way for other candidates. But it is unclear whether Republicans will be able to unite behind any of them.
Republican Representative Jodey Arrington, who has been floated as an alternative, said he was backing Jordan for now. "As long as he's in the race, we're going to get him there," he told reporters.
Republicans also are divided on a backup option that could allow the chamber to address pressing matters, like spending legislation that would allow the U.S. government to keep functioning beyond a Nov. 17 deadline, and a foreign aid package that could amount to $100 billion.
That plan would give more authority to Republican Representative Patrick McHenry, who is filling the speaker's chair on a temporary basis. House Democrats and the White House have said they are open to the idea, but Republicans rejected that approach in a closed-door meeting on Thursday.
'PETTY, PARTISAN, ANGRY POLITICS'
Biden urged Republicans to resolve their differences in a televised speech on Thursday. "You can't let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation," he said.
Jordan said the House needed to elect him speaker so it could approve aid to Israel. "The sooner we can get this accomplished, the better for the American people, who expect us to work for them, and for our friends and allies like the great state of Israel," he said.
Investors say the turmoil on Capitol Hill is also contributing to market volatility.
Jordan has built his reputation as a leader of that uncompromising right flank. His backers say that would make him an effective fighter for conservative policies in a town where Democrats control the Senate and the White House.
He helped to engineer government shutdowns in 2013 and 2018 and helped to push Republican Speaker John Boehner into retirement in 2015.
Read Next
Reporting by David Morgan, Katharine Jackson and Gram Slattery; writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Grant McCool, Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | US Congress |
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is expected to make a forceful pitch at a Thursday special conference meeting on investigations among House Republicans, that opening an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is the next logical step, sources familiar tell CNN.
The development comes as the California Republican has been signaling all recess, as CNN has previously reported, that he’s moving closer to moving forward with such an investigation, related to the President’s son Hunter’s business dealings.
In recent weeks, McCarthy has privately told Republicans he plans to pursue an impeachment inquiry into Biden and hopes to start the process by the end of September, according to multiple GOP sources familiar with the conversations. While McCarthy has already publicly threatened to launch an inquiry, sources say that McCarthy has sent even stronger signals about his intentions behind closed doors.
Punchbowl first reported McCarthy’s expected message on an impeachment inquiry.
The expected next step also comes as McCarthy is laying the groundwork to argue to Republican House members that they need to keep the government funded so they can pursue all of these investigative threads. The government faces a funding deadline by the end of this month in order to avert a government shutdown.
But Tuesday’s news will mark a real effort by McCarthy to start moving ahead and get House Republican skeptics on board with proceeding. A source familiar says McCarthy will not put anything on floor until they know what the numbers are. House Republican leadership will need to formally whip votes at some point which they have not yet done.
The House-led GOP investigations have yet to provide any direct evidence that the president financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. | US Congress |
The Social Security Administration notified roughly 170,000 Americans in December about the status of their disability benefits applications. The average wait time for a decision was seven months, the longest it's been in 14 years, according to a recent report from USA Facts.
Jeff Nesbit, deputy communications commissioner for Social Security, said years of inadequate funding means the agency "cannot keep up with the demand for service and our annual fixed cost increases."
Disability Determination Services, which assesses disability claims, has been hit particularly hard, Nesbit wrote in a September 2022 memo, "due to historically high attrition as workloads become less reasonable with fewer staff."
How long does it take to process my disability claim?
Close to 8 million Americans receive monthly Social Security disability benefits each month. To qualify, you must have a condition that prevents you from working for at least a year or that is likely to result in your death.
Funds are issued primarily via Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI. Another program, Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, targets older individuals with limited financial resources. (SSI is funded by the Treasury but administered through the SSA.)
The earliest you can receive an SSDI payment is five months after Social Security determines you are eligible. So, the longer it takes to process a claim the longer it takes to start getting benefits.
The average wait for an initial decision is now seven months, according to USA Facts, three months longer than it was in 2019.
"These are folks who can't work, so not accessing funds for that amount of time is a real hardship -- especially during high inflation," Joel Eskovitz, director of Social Security and savings at AARP's Public Policy Institute, told CNET. "You can't be gainfully employed while you apply -- selling things online or driving for Uber could put you over the line."
An estimated two out of three applicants are denied their initial request, according to USA Facts, which also found the appeals process has less than a 50-50 success rate (47%) and can take years to complete.
Each year, roughly 8,000 disability applicants file for bankruptcy and 10,000 people die still waiting to hear about their claim, according to a 2020 report from the Government Accounting Office.
Why does it take so long to process a disability claim?
Nesbit said a shortage of employees has helped create a lag in evaluating claims. A hiring freeze instituted in March 2022 has been lifted, he added, but staffing levels are still at a 25-year low.
"As we lose employees, our service deteriorates," Nesbit said. "As a result, the public is experiencing delays in service and long waits for disability decisions," he said. A continued shortfall, "will make it even harder to dig out of our current backlogs and will increase the public's wait for service."
In August, the backlog of claims reached 929,000, over 25% more than there were in September 2021.
While Republican lawmakers have floated proposals to cut Social Security spending, President Joe Biden requested $14.8 billion for the agency, a $1.4 billion increase from last year.
Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the funding increase was critical for the agency to replace thousands of departed employees and to modernize an "antiquated technological infrastructure."
Andrew Biggs was deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration under President George W. Bush. He said, in many ways, the system is complex by design.
When monthly disability insurance benefits were established in 1956, Congress wanted to prevent fraud while still giving people every chance to make their case, he told CNET.
"People have tried to streamline it, but they face roadblocks from Congress and the disability community," said Biggs, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "It's a very sensitive topic for obvious reasons."
Most people associate Social Security with retirement, he added. "But disability is much more labor-intensive. There are so many cases that aren't clear cut," he said.
The pandemic saw more delays, even though there were fewer applications. In part, Eskovitz said, that's because field offices closed and agents couldn't access sensitive information from home.
"A disability claim, in general, is a laborious process, with a lot of documentation to go through," he said.
Read on: How to Apply for Social Security Disability Benefits
Can Social Security fast-track my disability claim?
Although the wait can be long for most applicants, the agency automatically advances some claim categories.
Compassionate Allowances List (CAL): Social Security earmarks hundreds of conditions that can qualify a claim for expediting, including aggressive cancers, neurodegenerative and immune system diseases and rare disorders that affect children. (If your condition isn't on the list, you can submit it for consideration.)
Presumptive disability: If you are applying for SSI and have a severe physical or intellectual impairment, the agency may determine you have a "presumptive disability." That can allow you to receive up to six months of benefits while you wait for Disability Determination Services to make a determination.
Qualifying conditions include complete vision or hearing loss, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries, end-stage renal disease and terminal illnesses with a life expectancy of six months or less.
Service members: If you're a veteran whom the Department of Veterans Affairs has rated as "100% P&T" -- having a permanent and total disability -- Social Security will treat your claim "as a high priority workload," according to the agency website.
Fast-tracking is available for veterans who received a disabling injury while on active duty on or after Oct. 1, 2001. (The injury need not to have occurred during combat.)
Are there other ways to expedite my disability claim?
Social Security may also fast-track your application if you're in extreme financial straits. The agency considers a claimant a Dire Need Case, or DRND, if you are unable to get food, housing or medical care because of a lack of resources.
If you believe you have a DRND, let the administration know by phone or with a dire-need letter that includes details about your situation.
How long does a disability appeal take?
If your initial claim is denied, you typically have four chances to appeal the decision.
- Reconsideration at the Disability Determination Services
- A hearing by an administrative law judge
- A review by the Social Security Administration's appeals council
- Filing an action in federal district court
Each step must be completed in order. The first, reconsideration by Disability Determination Services, is subject to the backlog affecting processing times and the average wait is now nearly five months.
How can I speed up an appeal for disability benefits?
If you're appealing a decision about your disability claim, Social Security must notify you at least 75 days before any scheduled hearing.
You can waive that advance notice, though, by filing a Waiver of Timely Written Notice of Hearing. While that could get you an earlier date, it also means you'll have less time to prepare your case.
You can also request an on-the-record (OTR) decision by an administrative law judge, indicating you think the evidence supports "a fully favorable decision."
You'll need to submit a brief before the scheduled hearing that addresses relevant evidence of your disability, and you can also include a completed OTR checklist.
You can start the process of applying for SSDI here and SSI here. For more details on appeals, contact your local Hearing Office. | US Federal Policies |
10 questions answered on the debt limit
As Congress battles over how to keep the nation from defaulting on its debt ahead of a looming deadline, Americans are getting a primer on the country’s borrowing limit.
This week, the Treasury Department warned it could run out of “extraordinary measures” to stave off a federal default as soon as June 1. If the U.S. runs out of cash to pay its bills, experts fear the global economy and financial system could face a catastrophe.
Here’s ten questions and answers about the debt limit, what’s at stake and what Washington is doing about it.
What is the debt ceiling?
The debt limit — also referred to as the debt ceiling or the country’s borrowing limit — is a cap on how much money the Treasury can owe to cover the country’s bills.
Raising or suspending the debt limit doesn’t authorize new spending. Doing so simply allows the government to keep borrowing money to pay expenses that were already approved by Congress and the White House.
How high is the debt ceiling?
The debt ceiling was last raised to roughly $31.4 trillion in late 2021 after a tumultuous showdown between the White House and Senate Republicans.
The national debt hit that threshold in January, prompting the Treasury to take emergency measures to buy time for congressional action. Those measures involve suspending investments of certain funds that count against the debt limit, the department explained at the time.
House Republicans introduced a bill — the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 — last month that would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or through March 2024, whichever occurs first. But they attache a host of partisan spending proposals to the plan that most Democrats will not support.
What happens if the U.S. defaults on its debt?
Experts and lawmakers have warned of disastrous effects to the economy if the federal government defaults.
While experts expect the nation could see a recession sometime later this year, they warn a federal default would likely speed up that timeline, raising the threat of a drastic slowdown.
“It would affect lending and borrowing and financial markets,” New York University economics professor Mark Gertler told The Hill, adding that the combination of less borrowing and less spending would trigger recession.
The nation would also likely see higher interest rates on its debt in the event of a default, as the U.S. would be seen as a less trustworthy borrower. Higher borrowing would not slow the economy and make it difficult for the U.S. to power through a potential recession
U.S. Treasury bonds are currently regarded as among the world’s safest assets, affording the government a reputation as a reliable borrower on the global stage. That standing allows the government to borrow more money to fulfill its financial obligations.
Why does the U.S. have a debt ceiling?
The debt ceiling was created through the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, which gave the Treasury Department the authority to issue bonds and borrow money to fund spending approved by Congress and the president, according to a 2015 report from the CRS.
Before the Second Liberty Bond Act, the Treasury Department could only borrow money and issue bonds according to specific instructions from Congress. As the size of the U.S. economy and federal budget exploded during World War I, lawmakers were unable to keep up with the volume and complexity of federal spending.
To keep the the nation’s finances in check, the Second Liberty Bond Act imposed a cap on how much debt the Treasury could take on to fund spending, thus creating the debt limit.
In subsequent years, changes were made to allow the Treasury “more flexibility in debt management and to allow modernization of federal financing,” CRS noted.
How many times has the debt ceiling been raised?
Lawmakers have acted to “permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit” on 78 different occasions in the past 63 years, the Treasury Department says on its website.
Forty-nine of those instances occurred under Republican administrations, and 29 happened under Democratic administrations.
Has the U.S. ever defaulted on its debt?
A deliberate default by Congress would be unprecedented in recent history, experts say.
There is debate around whether the nation technically experienced a brief default in 1979, after the federal government missed some payments to investors. The incident was chalked up to technical issues at the time, but not without some added costs, research in the years that followed showed.
“Because of severe technical difficulties, the U.S. government was unable to repay investors in Treasury bills (T-bills) in late April through early May, 1979. This incident led to a 60 basis point increase in T-bill rates at the initial occurrence of the default,” finance professors Terry L. Zivney and Richard D. Marcus wrote in their 1989 piece, “The Day the United States Defaulted on Treasury Bills.”
“The default apparently warned investors that Treasury issues were not completely riskless,” they also wrote.
What happens to Social Security payments and other benefits if the US defaults?
Experts warn anyone relying on a check from the government could be a bind if the nation defaults.
In a recent piece, Brookings Institution senior fellows Wendy Edelberg and Louise Sheiner said Social Security beneficiaries, agencies and contractors could see their payments delayed if the U.S. runs out of cash.
While federal agencies would still possess “legal authority, provided by Congress, to obligate funds,” they warn federal workers could also have to worry about delayed paychecks.
The Treasury would still be obligated to pay federal workers if they U.S. defaults, but experts say they may be unable to do so until the debt limit is raised.
What happens to my investments if the U.S. defaults?
A federal default would likely cause a meltdown in financial markets as trillions of dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds — a linchpin of the global financial system — plummet in value.
Edelberg told The Hill in an interview that the stock market could go into a free-fall if the U.S. defaults., with firms “laying off workers en masse because now they are worried about what the economy is going to look like over the next few years.”
“Even the brinkmanship we saw in 2011 imposed costs on the economy. During that crisis, consumer confidence and the stock market plummeted. It also harmed the international reputation of the US,” said John Buhl, a researcher at the Urban Institute, said.
“A repeat of that, let alone an actual default, would make the Fed’s attempt at a ‘soft landing’ a lot more difficult,” Buhl said.
What is Washington doing to address the debt limit?
Republicans are lining up behind the House GOP bill, which they have called a good starting place in bipartisan debt limit talks. But Democrats, who oppose tying any spending cuts to raising the debt limit, have come out in strong opposition against the plan.
House Republicans have proposed capping government spending at fiscal 2022 levels and limiting spending growth to 1 percent every year for the next decade.
Other proposals featured in the bill would impose tougher work requirements for programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, put an end to popular student loan actions implemented under the Biden administration, and target parts of a signature economic bill passed by Democrats last year without GOP support.
Democrats have instead pushed for raising the debt limit in a “clean” bill without conditions after Republicans approved three debt limit increases under former President Trump without reducing the debt.
But Republicans have drawn red lines against raising the limit without fiscal reforms.
Members expect more information about next steps following Biden’s scheduled meeting with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other congressional leaders on May 9.
How much higher will the debt limit rise?
The national debt subject to the borrowing limit is on track to potentially reach $52 trillion in 2033, according to a February report from Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO also projected the federal budget deficit would reach $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2023 and warned that future annual deficits would average $2 trillion over roughly the next decade.
Republicans and Democrats have offered ideas on how to address the nation’s deficits, but both sides have been far apart in their approaches.
Republicans have pushed for defense spending increases with sharp reductions in nondefense spending to tackle future deficits. Democrats have instead pressed for tax hikes on the wealthy to bring in more revenue to go toward deficit reduction and help cover boosts to nondefense spending.
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | US Federal Policies |
The Founder and President of Restoration PAC discusses the need for the Republican Party to move into the 21st century, modernize its approach to voting, and ultimately decided on what kind of party it is going to be. Doug Truax comments on the last two elections, which saw Democrats out-hustling Republicans on early voting says, that the mainstream of the Republican Party all believes that voters should be voting “as close to Election Day as possible, ballots in the mail are a bad idea. We all think that, and that’s where we need to go to, but we can’t get there if we don’t win. And if we just keep losing elections, because we're not good at this new playing field that we're on, we're never going to make any change.” Truax says that the GOP needs “to have this conversation about this and say, look, we are going to have to chase ballots, we're going to have to make sure all of our people vote.” Using the example that, “if Aunt Sally can vote on a day, that's, a month and a half from the election, that's not ideal for us long term, but we got to make sure she goes and does it on that day. And then we got that box checked, she's voted.” Saying, “because you can see, even what happened in Maricopa County is, lo and behold, the system wasn't working great on election day, and people had to wait three hours and how many people do we lose?” Truax says that GOP only wanting to narrow itself to voting on Election Day and not trying to expand to mail-in-ballots, “is just asking for trouble.” Commenting, “if we narrow ourselves down to just this game that we currently want to play, and play that game. Well, that's not the real game that's being played, the real game is chase the ballots, get the votes in, everything is so quick, it's clearly divided, a lot of our elections are very close. So if we don't get this figured out, we are just going to keep losing.” | US Federal Elections |
Anchorage Assembly leaders this week issued subpoenas to four people — including two former top officials in Mayor Dave Bronson’s administration — in a continuing investigation into the circumstances behind a challenge to the April city election.
Assembly leaders demanded that they appear at a meeting Friday to answer questions and to turn over documents and communications related to the incident, and also any communications discussing the 2022 municipal election.
Those issued subpoenas include former Office of Information Technology director Marc Dahl, who resigned last week, and Sami Graham, a former chief of staff to Bronson who quit working for the city in 2021. Since May, Dahl and Graham have been at the center of investigations by the ombudsman and Assembly into allegations that they tried to interfere with results of April’s municipal election.
Dahl resigned following the August conclusion of an investigation into the election challenge by the city ombudsman, who called for the mayor to fire Dahl.
Assembly leaders also called for the attendance of two other election observers who brought the challenge alongside Graham, John Henry and Daniel Smith.
“The Assembly is taking seriously threats — allegations and threats — to our election system,” Assembly Chair Christopher Constant said during a Tuesday meeting. The Assembly earlier this month voted to pursue subpoenas and potential legal action if subpoenas are not followed and documents are not turned over.
In the subpoenas, leaders called for Dahl, Graham and the other election observers to turn over any communications, such as text or emails, to or from Bronson and several of his current and former top executives.
If they refuse to obey the subpoenas, the Assembly chair can ask the Superior Court to make them comply with contempt proceedings, as would occur for a court subpoena, according to city code.
Ombudsman Darrel Hess, in an investigation released last month, concluded that he “reasonably believes that there may have been a violation of state election statutes,” and referred the investigation to the state Office of Special Prosecutions.
The report detailed evidence that, on April 11, Dahl instructed IT staff to revise an improperly created security policy and then publish it to an internal webpage accessible only to city staff. Dahl then emailed that policy to Graham, who was at the time an election observer. Later that day, Graham and the two other observers quoted the policy verbatim in a challenge to the city election. They questioned the validity of the election results and claimed that election workers had violated the policy. For a policy to apply citywide, it must undergo a rigorous review process and be signed into effect by the mayor.
At the time, it was clear that Bronson-supported candidates for Assembly were losing by wide margins. A report by the Daily News in May made the incident public. The ombudsman in his report said it appears likely that Dahl coordinated with the observers and added the policy to support their challenge.
The mayor remained largely silent on the matter until the Assembly activated subpoena powers earlier this month. The following day, Bronson released a statement saying that he’d asked for Dahl’s resignation and called the Assembly’s action “an extreme measure” and “completely unnecessary.”
Bronson also defended Dahl’s actions, saying he saw no evidence that Dahl’s actions were illegal and that he firmly believes Dahl “thought he had identified a potential security risk to our servers and used poor judgment in an attempt to resolve it.”
Assembly leaders have questioned what role the mayor played in the incident, including whether Bronson knew about the policy or the challenge.
The mayor has said that he knew nothing of the policy’s development or the situation until it became public in May.
Assembly Vice Chair Meg Zaletel on Tuesday questioned why Bronson did not fire Dahl. The mayor responded that it’s a human resources issue, and referred the question to the HR director, who was not present.
Many questions about the incident remain unanswered, Assembly members say. It’s not clear exactly what motivated Dahl to send Graham the policy, or to post it to the internal webpage. It’s not clear whether Graham knew it had just been posted and that it was not, in fact, a citywide policy as she and the observers claimed in their appeal.
The city’s election code must be updated before January in order to implement any necessary changes and protections ahead of the spring election, Assembly leaders say.
“The Assembly has a Charter commanded duty to steward our elections. Annually, we review the elections processes and update the code to ensure we run the best election possible,” Constant said in a Wednesday statement. “There are a number of questions raised by the ombudsman’s report. The Assembly has a duty to understand what happened and ensure nothing like it happens again.”
Dahl and Graham turned down previous requests from Assembly leaders to attend a meeting about the matter held earlier this month.
Dahl’s attorney, Jeffrey Robinson, on Wednesday declined to comment.
In a letter sent to Constant earlier this month, Robinson said that “Mr. Dahl vehemently denies the Ombudsman’s allegations of civil and/or criminal misconduct.”
Graham, Henry and Smith did not immediately return phone calls Wednesday. | US Local Elections |
Republicans rejected Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker on Tuesday on the first ballot, as holdouts denied the hard-charging ally of Donald Trump the majority needed to seize the gavel.
More voting is expected as Jordan works to shore up support to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy for the job and the leader of the GOP's hard-right flank moves to take a central seat of U.S. power.
But after two weeks of angry Republican infighting since McCarthy was removed by hard-liners, the House vote quickly has become a showdown for the gavel. Some 20 reluctant Republicans are refusing to give Jordan their votes, viewing the Ohio congressman as too extreme for the powerful position of House speaker, second in line to the presidency.
The holdouts are a mix of pragmatists, ranging from seasoned legislators and committee chairs worried about governing to newer lawmakers from districts where their voters back home prefer President Joe Biden to Trump.
But with public pressure bearing down on lawmakers from Trump's allies including Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, it's unclear how long the holdouts can last. Jordan swiftly flipped dozens of detractors in a matter of days, shoring up Republicans who have few options left.
“Jim Jordan will be a great speaker,” the former president said outside the courthouse in Manhattan, where he is facing business fraud charges. "I think he’s going to have the votes soon, if not today, over the next day or two."
The political climb has been steep for Jordan, the combative Judiciary Committee chairman and a founding member of the right-flank Freedom Caucus. He is known more as a chaos agent than a skilled legislator, raising questions about how he would lead. Congress faces daunting challenges, risking a federal shutdown if it fails to fund the government and fielding President Joe Biden's requests for aid to help Ukraine and Israel in the wars abroad.
To seize the gavel, Jordan will need almost the full majority of his colleagues behind him in a House floor vote, as Democrats are certain to back their own nominee, Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
With the House Republican majority narrowly held at 221-212, Jordan can afford to lose only a few votes to reach the 217 majority threshold, if there are no further absences.
As the somber roll call was underway, each lawmaker verbally announcing their choice, the holdouts quickly surfaced.
One, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a leader of the centrists, voted McCarthy, the ousted former speaker. Murmurs rippled through the chamber. Others voted for Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was the party's first nominee to replace McCarthy before he, too, was rejected by hardl-iners last week.
Making the official nominating speech was another top Trump ally, GOP conference chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who drew from the lessons of the Old Testament before declaring Jordan will be “We the People’s speaker.”
On the other side of the aisle, Democratic caucus chairman Rep. Pete Aguilar of California nominated Jeffries and warned that handing the speaker’s gavel to a “vocal election denier” would be “a terrible message” at home and abroad.
Aguilar recited all the times Jordan voted against various measures -- abortion access, government aid and others, Democrats chanting “He said no!”
Upset that a small band of hard-liners have upended the House by ousting McCarthy, Republicans have watched their majority control of the chamber descend into public infighting. All House business has ground to a halt.
After a late-evening meeting Monday at the Capitol turned into a venting session of angry Republicans, Jordan acknowledged: “We’ve got a few more people to talk to, listen to.”
One holdout, Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, said Jordan’s role in the runup to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and his refusal to admit that Biden, a Democrat, won the 2020 election remained an issue.
“Jim, at some point, if he’s going to lead this conference during the presidential election cycle and particularly in a presidential election year ... is going to have to be strong and say Donald Trump didn’t win the election and we need to move forward,” Buck said.
But Jordan can rely on Trump's support as well as pressure on colleagues from an army of grassroots activists who recognize him from cable news and fiery performances at committee hearings. Republicans say it will be hard for rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose him in a public floor vote.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who engineered McCarthy's ouster by a handful of hard-liners, publicly praised each lawmaker who has flipped to Jordan's column — and berated those who have not.
“Thank you Rep. Ann Wagner!” Gaetz posted on social media, after the Missouri Republican announced her support.
One by one, others also announced their support. Still, it could take multiple rounds during House floor voting, not unlike in January when it took McCarthy 15 ballots to win the gavel.
Democrats have decried the far-right shift, calling Jordan the leader of the chaos wing of the GOP.
Jordan has been a top Trump ally, particularly during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by the former president's backers who were trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden. Days later, Trump awarded Jordan a Medal of Freedom.
“Jim Jordan is an insurrectionist who has no place being second in line to the presidency,” said Michael Fanone, a former District of Columbia police officer who was wounded fighting the mob on Jan. 6.
Now the Republican Party’s front-runner to challenge Biden in the 2024 election, Trump backed Jordan to replace McCarthy early on and was working against the nomination of Scalise, who withdrew last week after colleagues rejected their own rules and failed to coalesce around him.
Tensions remained high among Republicans ahead of voting. Rank-and-file Republicans are exhausted by the internal party infighting with no other work being done in Congress.
Some Republicans resent being pressured by Jordan's allies and say they are being threatened with primary opponents if they don’t support him as speaker. One aide said their office received an email from Hannity's team pushing Jordan.
Others are simply upset at the way the whole process has dragged out. One, Scalise backer Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., began circulating an option to give Rep Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the interim speaker pro-tempore, more authority to lead.
First elected in 2006, Jordan has few bills to his name from his time in office. He also faces questions about his past. Some years ago, Jordan denied allegations from former wrestlers during his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University who accused him of knowing about claims they were inappropriately groped by an Ohio doctor. Jordan has said he was never aware of any abuse. | US Congress |
Headlines blaring warnings about how a second Trump presidency could slip toward dictatorship on Monday prompted a stiff pushback from allies of the ex-president, who is topping GOP primary polls just weeks before the Iowa caucuses.
The Washington Post, The Atlantic and The New York Times each published stories referencing a “Trump dictatorship” in recent days, arguing a new Trump presidency posed a threat to democracy. The Times wrote a second Trump term likely would be more radical than his first.
“All of these articles calling Trump a dictator are about one thing: legitimizing illegal and violent conduct as we get closer to the election,” Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), a Trump ally, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Everyone needs to take a chill pill.”
“It’s August 2016 all over again. Skyrocketing cost of health care has millions worried. President Trump’s Dem. opponent off the campaign trail & hiding from the press,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller wrote on X.
“Dems & their media allies have given up on debating issues & have shifted to name-calling & rhetorical fearmongering,” he added.
The Atlantic announced Monday the magazine’s January/February issue would be dedicated to what a second Trump term would mean for immigration, civil rights, the Justice Department, climate and more. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote an editor’s note titled, “A Warning,” to introduce the series.
The New York Times on Monday published its latest piece in a series focused on what a second Trump term might mean for the country. In it, the reporters noted Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail “has attracted growing alarm and comparisons to historical fascist dictators and contemporary populist strongmen.”
And a Washington Post opinion column penned by editor-at-large Robert Kagan headlined, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” made an extensive case that Trump’s reelection could feasibly set the U.S. on a path to becoming a dictatorship.
Trump allies dismissed the pileup as the latest instance of media outlets opposing the former president, who routinely derides the press as “fake news” and previously called some journalists the “enemy of the people.”
“This is nothing more than another version of the media’s failed and false Russia collusion hoax,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said of The Atlantic project, claiming the magazine “will be out of business soon because nobody will read that trash.”
Several Trump allies in Congress also took aim at the recent spate of headlines suggesting Trump could rule like a dictator.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), addressing The Atlantic piece, accused the left of using “the same hysterical scare tactics from 2016 & 2020 to attack Trump.”
Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), referencing The Washington Post column, claimed the left had gone into “FULL PANIC Mode” and suggested another Trump term would mean “the end of dictators in America, NOT the beginning.”
But news outlets and opinion columnists are not alone in suggesting another Trump presidency could have catastrophic consequences for American democracy.
“I think it’s a very, very real threat and concern,” former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), an outspoken Trump critic, told NBC’s “Today” on Monday when asked about the risk of the U.S. becoming a dictatorship under Trump.
“And I don’t say any of that lightly and frankly, it’s painful for me as someone who has spent her whole life in Republican politics, who grew up as a Republican to watch what’s happening to my party and to watch the extent to which Donald Trump himself has basically determined that the only thing that matters is him, his power and his success,” she added.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who, like Cheney, served on the House panel that investigated the Jan. 6 riots, told MSNBC last month a second Trump term “would look a lot like Viktor Orban in Hungary — illiberal democracy, meaning democracy without rights, or liberties, or respect for the due process, the system, the rule of law.”
The increased warnings about the consequences of another Trump presidency come as the former president has ratcheted up the intensity of his rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Trump last month described his political opponents as “vermin” who posed a threat to the country from within, comments that drew backlash and comparisons to rhetoric from the likes of Hitler and Mussolini. He has repeatedly signaled he would look to take revenge on his enemies if reelected, telling supporters he would be there “retribution” and suggesting it would be fair game to investigate President Biden and his family because of Trump’s legal troubles.
And Trump last week suggested the government should punish MSNBC “and make them pay for their illegal activity.”
On Saturday, Trump tried out a new line of attack when he described Biden as a “destroyer of American democracy.”
“They’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy,” Trump said. “If you put me back in the White House, that reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.”
The comments were an inversion of a common argument from Biden and his allies that Trump poses a singular threat to U.S. democracy, something Biden sought to elevate in the closing weeks of the 2022 midterm campaign. Democrats ultimately held control of the Senate and performed better than expected in the House even as Republicans won the majority.
Democrats see those arguments as a winner against Trump in 2024, but Trump’s counterattacks suggested he thinks it can be made into a rallying cry for his supporters.
Biden and other Democrats have repeatedly emphasized the election denialism that has become commonplace among Trump and his supporters. False claims of voter fraud culminated in the violent Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, when Trump supporters stormed the complex to try and halt the certification of the 2020 election results.
Some Biden allies have suggested the White House would welcome it if Trump wanted to make the 2024 election a battle over the fate of democracy.
“If I’m in the Biden campaign, I would say, bring it on,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s former communications director, said Sunday on CNN. “This is bringing the fight to a place that is good for Joe Biden, that is about who’s protecting your freedoms, who’s protecting your rights.”
This story was updated at 5:06 p.m. | US Federal Elections |
Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony Friday just as jury selection was getting underway in his trial on charges accusing him of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.
Chesebro, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state's anti-racketeering law, pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents in a last-minute deal. His plea came a day after fellow attorney Sidney Powell, who had been scheduled to go to trial alongside him, entered her own guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts.
In Chesebro's case, he was sentenced to five years' probation and 100 hours of community service and was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution, write an apology letter to Georgia's residents and testify truthfully at any related future trial.
The two guilty pleas — along with a third for a bail bondsman last month — are major victories for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who obtained the indictment in August. They allow her to avoid a lengthy trial for two defendants — which would have given those remaining a peek at her trial strategy — and to whittle down an unwieldy pool of defendants.
Chesebro, who lives in Puerto Rico, was initially charged with felony racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. The indictment alleges Chesebro coordinated and executed a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won the state and declaring themselves the state's "duly elected and qualified" electors.
For prosecutors, the plea deal assures that Chesebro publicly accepts responsibility for his conduct in the case and removes the uncertainty of a trial by a jury of his peers. It also compels him to testify about communications he had with Trump's campaign lawyers and close associates, including co-defendant Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a Trump attorney.
Jury selection had been set to start Friday for the trial of Powell and Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Once Powell pleaded guilty, Chesebro had been set to continue to trial on his own.
As part of Powell's deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also recorded a statement for prosecutors and agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.
A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, pleaded guilty last month to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.
All the other defendants, including Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege that Chesebro unlawfully conspired with Trump and lawyers associated with his campaign to have a group of Georgia Republicans sign the false elector certificate and to submit it to various federal authorities. He also communicated with Trump campaign lawyers and Republican leaders in other swing states won by Biden to get those states to submit false slates of electors as well, prosecutors alleged.
That included writing memos advocating for Republicans in those states to meet and cast electoral votes for Trump and providing detailed instructions for how the process should be carried out. In an email to Giuliani, he outlined strategies to disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, during which electoral votes were to be certified. He wrote that those strategies were "preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its terms." | US Political Corruption |
A county commissioner in far southeast Oklahoma who was identified by a local newspaper as one of several officialsdiscussing killing reporters and lynching Black people has resigned from office, Gov. Kevin Stitt's office confirmed Wednesday.
Stitt spokesperson Carly Atchison said the office received a handwritten resignation letter from McCurtain County Commissioner Mark Jennings. In it, Jennings says he is resigning immediately and that he plans to release a formal statement "in the near future regarding the recent events in our county."
The threatening comments by Jennings and officials with the McCurtain County Sheriff's Office were obtained following a March 6 meeting and reported by the McCurtain Gazette-News earlier this week in its weekend edition. They have sparked outrage and protests in the city of Idabel, the county seat.
In a post on the sheriff's office Facebook page on Tuesday, officials did not address the recorded discussion but claimed the recording was illegally obtained.
Also on Wednesday, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation confirmed it has launched an investigation into the matter at the request of the governor.
The recorded conversation included Sheriff Kevin Clardy, sheriff's Capt. Alicia Manning, Jennings and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix. During that conversation, Clardy, Manning and Jennings appear to discuss Bruce Willingham — the longtime publisher of the Gazette-News — and his son Chris Willingham, a reporter.
Jennings tells Clardy and Manning "I know where two deep holes are dug if you ever need them," and the sheriff responds, "I've got an excavator."
Jennings also says he's known "two or three hit men" in Louisiana, adding "they're very quiet guys."
In the recording, Jennings also appears to complain about not being able to hang Black people, saying: "They got more rights than we got."
The Associated Press is working to verify the authenticity of the recording. None of the four officials returned telephone calls or emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Bruce Willingham told the AP the recording was made when he left a voice-activated recorder inside the room after a county commissioner's meeting because he suspected the group was continuing to conduct county business after the meeting had ended, in violation of the state's Open Meeting Act.
Willingham said he twice spoke with his attorneys to be sure he was doing nothing illegal.
Joey Senat, a journalism professor at Oklahoma State University, said under Oklahoma law, the recording would be legal if it were obtained in a place where the officials being recorded did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Bruce Willingham said he believes the local officials were upset about "stories we've run that cast the sheriff's office in an unfavorable light," including the death of Bobby Barrick — a Broken Bow, Oklahoma, man who died at a hospital in March 2022 after McCurtain County deputies shot him with a stun gun. The newspaper has filed a lawsuit against the sheriff's office seeking body camera footage and other records connected to Barrick's death.
Separately, Chris Willingham has filed a federal lawsuit against the sheriff's office, Clardy, Manning and the Board of County Commissioners alleging Manning slandered him after he wrote an eight-part series of articles detailing problems inside the sheriff's office. The lawsuit claims after the first few articles were published, Clardy and Manning began investigating which office employees were speaking to the newspaper and were attempting to get a search warrant for Willingham's phone.
The lawsuit, which was filed on the same day the recording was made, alleges that after the series was published, Manning told a third party during a teleconference that Chris Willingham exchanged marijuana for sexually explicit images of children from a man who had been arrested on child sex abuse image charges.
"Manning made these (and other) false statements about Willingham in retaliation for articles he wrote about the (sheriff's office) as a reporter for the McCurtain Gazette and to destroy his credibility as a reporter and journalist," the lawsuit states.
More than 100 people gathered outside the McCurtain County Courthouse in Idabel earlier this week, with many of them calling for the sheriff and other county officials to resign.
On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Sheriff's Association, a voluntary membership organization and not a regulatory agency, held an emergency meeting of its board. It voted unanimously to suspend Clardy, Manning and Hendrix from the association.
for more features. | US Political Corruption |
President Joe Biden has signed a bill to fund the U.S. government through mid-November and avoid a shutdown, less than an hour before money for federal agencies was set to run out.
Biden posted a picture of himself signing the bill on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, late Saturday night. In the message, he urged Congress to get to work immediately to pass funding bills for the full fiscal year.
The U.S. Senate, in a rare weekend meeting, approved a funding bill Saturday night, sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature and averting a widely dreaded shutdown of the federal government.
The bill, which passed the Senate 88-9 after winning approval in the House of Representatives, would fund the federal government through Nov. 17. The bill contains $16 billion in disaster aid sought by Biden but did not include money to help Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion.
After the vote, Biden released a statement saying the bill’s passage prevented "an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans."
"We will have avoided a shutdown," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement after the vote. "Bipartisanship, which has been the trademark of the Senate, has prevailed. And the American people can breathe a sigh of relief."
Had the bill not been approved by Congress and signed by the president by midnight Saturday, the federal government would have shut down.
More than 4 million U.S. military service personnel and government workers would not be paid, although essential services, such as air traffic control and official border entry points would still be staffed. Pensioners might not get their monthly government payments in time to pay bills and buy groceries, and national parks could be closed.
For days all of that seemed inevitable.
The abrupt turn of events began Saturday when Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy changed tactics and put forward the funding bill that hard-line members of his Republican caucus opposed.
The House passed the bill, 335-91. More Democrats supported it than Republicans, even though it does not contain aid for Ukraine, a priority for Biden, Democrats and many Senate Republicans.
"Extreme MAGA Republicans have lost, the American people have won," top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries told reporters ahead of the vote.
Republican Representative Lauren Boebert criticized the passage of the short-term stopgap bill.
"We should have forced the Senate to take up the four appropriations bills that the House has passed. That should have been our play," she told CNN. "We should have forced them to come to the negotiating table, to come to conference, to hash out our differences."
McCarthy is likely to face a motion from the right-wing members of his party to remove him as speaker.
"If somebody wants to remove me because I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try," McCarthy said of the threat to oust him. "But I think this country is too important."
Ukraine aid still likely
In his statement, Biden noted the lack of funding for Ukraine in the bill and said, "We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted."
Support for Ukraine remains strong in Congress and late Saturday night, a bipartisan group of Senate leadership members, led by Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, released a statement vowing to ensure the United States continues “to provide critical and sustained security and economic support for Ukraine.”
NBC News quoted an unnamed U.S. official as saying Biden and the Defense Department have funds to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs "for a bit longer," but it is "imperative" that Congress pass a Ukraine funding bill soon.
In the House, the lone Democrat to vote against the funding bill was Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois, the co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus. "Protecting Ukraine is in our national interest," he said.
"This does look very chaotic, but this is not the first time it's happened," Todd Belt, director of the school of political management at The George Washington University, told VOA. "There is a price that has to be paid here. But that is the price of democracy. It does seem very messy sometimes. But eventually, usually you get some compromise."
Such shutdowns have occurred four times in the last decade in the U.S., but often have lasted just a day or two until lawmakers reach a compromise to fully restart government operations. However, one shutdown that occurred during the administration of former President Donald Trump lasted 35 days, as he unsuccessfully sought funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. | US Federal Policies |
Republican efforts to impeach President Joe Biden suffered a blow after fresh evidence emerged showing his bid to remove Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in 2015 represented U.S. government policy.
Then-Vice President Biden met Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president at the time, in December 2015, after which he claimed he'd threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Kyiv, unless Shokin was removed from his post, which he subsequently was.
Some conservatives have suggested Biden was attempting to protect Ukrainian energy company Burisma, the board of which his son, Hunter Biden, had joined in 2014, by moving against Shokin. However a pre-meeting memo prepared for Biden by the State Department, dated November 25, 2015, made it clear that removing Shokin was the Obama administration's policy.
The document called for Shokin's "removal," claiming he was "widely regarded as an obstacle to fighting corruption, if not a source of the problem." This document was published by John Solomon, a conservative commentator who has argued Biden did call for Shokin's removal to advance his son's business activities, on his Just The News website.
He said: "The Biden White House knew that this Shokin investigation posed a political threat to the family, a personal threat to Joe Biden's son's company, the company paying him a million dollars a year.
"And it's in that moment when all this is happening that Joe Biden flips the switch and goes from the recommendation giving the billion dollars to you're not getting the billion dollars until you fire Shokin and son of a b, they fire Shokin."
Biden later recalled his meeting with Poroshenko, stating: "I said, you're not getting the billion. I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.
"Well, son of a b****. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."
Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of Burisma, one of Ukraine's biggest oil and gas companies, in May 2014, holding the position until his resignation in April 2019.
Shokin would later tell Fox News he was removed from office "at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma."
There are, however, no records showing the prosecutor general was actively investigating Burisma at the time with Devon Archer, one of Hunter's business partners, recently telling a congressional committee it wasn't in the company's interest for him to be fired. In August, Biden insisted he "never talked business" with his son.
House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced he is initiating an impeachment inquiry into President Biden on September 12, after coming under intense pressure from the right-wing of his own party.
Any impeachment effort is highly likely to fail, as it requires a two-thirds Senate majority despite Democratic-aligned lawmakers currently having a narrow majority in the chamber.
Donald Trump was impeached twice, over claims he abused his power by pushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Biden family and that he incited insurrection, but he was acquitted both times as the two-thirds Senate requirement wasn't reached.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment by email. | US Political Corruption |
In a 4-1 Sunday evening vote, the North Carolina Board of Elections moved to recognize the group as a political party. It will be able to appear on the 2024 ballot, and voters in the state will be able to affiliate with No Labels — if it chooses to run a third-party candidate.
North Carolina is just the latest state in which the group has broken down the barrier of ballot access, collecting almost 14,000 signatures from North Carolinians before the vote solidified its place on the 2024 ballot. It joins a group of states in which the party has already established its spot on 2024 ballots. So far, No Labels has gained access to ballots in Arizona, Colorado, Alaska, Utah, Oregon, and now North Carolina.
According to Alaska's Division of Elections, the No Labels Party is a limited political party. This means if the party's "presidential candidate receives at least three percent of the votes," it will maintain limited political party status.
In January, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold's office announced that No Labels was recognized as a minor political party in the state. According to a press release, the party's proponents submitted the required 10,000 valid signatures of registered Colorado electors to achieve the status.
The party also gained access to Arizona ballots as of March, with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes acknowledging that the group satisfied signature requirements and assuring counties he would assist with the addition.
Shortly thereafter, in March, then-Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan also announced that No Labels obtained enough signatures to form a minor political party. According to her, it submitted 29,294 signatures from Oregonians.
The group's chief strategist told the Washington Post last month that it also gained access to ballots in Utah. The state's Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson's office confirmed this to the Washington Examiner, explaining the No Labels Party is a registered political party in the state and, according to Utah's code, "has complied with the petition and organizing procedures of this chapter to become a registered political party."
No Labels has emerged as a frustration for Democrats who fear that it could split the Democratic and independent votes and tip the scale toward former President Donald Trump, who is the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
According to the group, its goal is "to provide an option to nominate an independent presidential candidate in 2024." The budding political party explained that this may become necessary in 2024 "in the event both major parties nominate presidential candidates that the vast majority of Americans don’t want."
"If this happens, No Labels itself will not run a candidate, but we will have the launching pad, specifically in the form of ballot access across the country," it said.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a centrist Democrat who has said he is considering becoming an independent, which his colleague Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) did last year, is being speculated as a third-party presidential candidate on the No Labels ticket.
He hasn't ruled out the possibility. He also hasn't announced a reelection bid for his Senate seat in West Virginia, despite two prominent Republican challengers.
Last month, he fueled further concerns over a 2024 run when he headlined a No Labels town hall event in New Hampshire. | US Federal Elections |
Fetterman photographed at Walter Reed amid clinical depression recovery
A top aide to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said that he is “well on his way to recovery” as he remains hospitalized to receive treatment for clinical depression and will return to work in the Senate “soon.”
Adam Jentleson, Fetterman’s chief of staff, tweeted three pictures of the freshman senator during a meeting on Monday with him at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where they discussed a number of items Fetterman is expected to work on in the coming months
“Productive morning with Senator Fetterman at Walter Reed discussing the rail safety legislation, Farm Bill and other Senate business,” Jentleson wrote in a tweet. “John is well on his way to recovery and wanted me to say how grateful he is for all the well wishes. He’s laser focused on PA & will be back soon.”
Fetterman’s office revealed that he was hospitalized on Feb. 15 for treatment. Jentleson said at the time that the Pennsylvania Democrat has experienced depression “off and on throughout his life,” but that it had become “severe” in the weeks before checking into the hospital.
The senator last week was one of the co-sponsors of rail safety legislation that was unveiled by Sens. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in the wake of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
“Our team is moving full speed ahead and working tirelessly for the people of Pennsylvania. Just last week we opened a new office in Erie and will be opening several more offices in the coming weeks,” Joe Calvello, a Fetterman spokesman, said in a statement early last week.
Calvello added that the ongoing situation is a “weeks-long process.”
Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed only a week after he was hospitalized for feeling lightheaded during the Senate Democratic retreat.
The Pennsylvania senator underwent surgery shortly after his stroke in May to implant a pacemaker. He also continues to struggle with auditory processing issues stemming from the stroke that has forced him to rely on closed captioning in order to communicate with his fellow lawmakers | US Congress |
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday morning said that federal authorities are probing whether the shooting of three Palestinian students over the weekend in Vermont was a hate crime.
Garland shared the brief public remarks at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York City, where he met with other federal, state and local law enforcement leaders to discuss issues in their community, ranging from the fentanyl crisis to extremism in the U.S. that may be influenced by the Israel-Hamas war.
"There is understandable fear in communities across the country," Garland said. "Even as we speak, the ATF and the FBI are investigating the tragic shooting of three men of Palestinian descent in Vermont. That investigation, including whether this is a hate crime, is ongoing."
Jason J. Eaton, 48, was arrested as a suspect in that shooting on Sunday. On Monday morning, Eaton was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted second-degree murder. He was being held without bail.
Two of the victims were wearing keffiyehs, traditional scarves worn by some in the Middle East. The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee said they were speaking Arabic when the shooting occurred.
"No person and no community in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fueled violence. Fulfilling that promise motivates us every day," Garland said.
Garland said investigative updates out of Vermont would be "coming soon."
"While we are confronting this elevated global threat environment, we also know we cannot lose sight of many other challenges and includes working closely with our law enforcement partners to combat violent crime," the attorney general said.
Fox News' Lawrence Richard contributed to this report. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
To hear Republicans tell it, Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker of the House on Tuesday was all the fault of their Democratic colleagues. “I think today was a political decision by the Democrats,” McCarthy himself said, arguing that the party had hurt “the institution” in a number of ways in recent years. Mike Pence, working hard to move above four percentage points in the ongoing Republican presidential primary, gamely attempted to chime in. “Chaos is never America’s friend,” he said at Georgetown University. “I’m deeply disappointed that a handful of Republicans would partner with all the Democrats in the House to oust the speaker.” Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer concurred, tweeting, “Unbelievable. The Democrats, with the help of Matt Gaetz and a handful of GOP Members, just ousted the Republican Speaker of the House. What a mess.”
This is, I suppose, correct in a mathematical sense. Eight Republicans voted to oust McCarthy. An additional 208 Democrats, for what they would argue were pretty good reasons, similarly withheld their support for the beleaguered speaker. All told, that adds up to a margin of 200, if you are not good at math, or 25 times as many Democratic votes as Republican ones. Sure, that’s a lot! But it’s the eight Republican votes that actually matter here—without them (specifically, without five of them), McCarthy would still be speaker of the House. He didn’t get those votes; he isn’t speaker anymore.
Still, the outpouring of scorn for the Democrats is illuminating. It reveals both a political class and a commentariat that believes that governance is the sole responsibility of the Democrats. It also reveals a near-total ignorance of the politics that led to McCarthy’s ouster.
The biggest problem with the argument that McCarthy’s ouster was the fault of Democrats was that McCarthy never actually tried to get them to save him—in fact, he made a number of eleventh-hour gestures that seemed intended to antagonize his would-be saviors. Dealmaking is a central responsibility of being speaker of the House. It is arguably the central responsibility. But McCarthy never tried to bargain with Democrats. Instead, he treated the opposition party the same way he treated the renegades in his own, by essentially daring them to remove him. It’s possible that McCarthy thought this would work—and it had at various points in the past—allowing him to simply Leroy Jenkins his way into another couple of months with the gavel. It was a preposterous miscalculation.
McCarthy may be more of an institutionalist than whoever replaces him—that may be marginally true if Steve Scalise replaces him and wholly the case if Jim Jordan does. But the institution that McCarthy was presiding over was hardly worth preserving, and there were zero indications that, should he have prevailed, he would have done anything to help strengthen it. Democrats providing the votes necessary to protect him would have essentially been endorsing a ridiculous impeachment inquiry, the stonewalling of the January 6 investigation, the use of the House of Representatives to politically protect Donald Trump, the continued existence of the debt ceiling, and a host of other ills.
Some of the arguments that McCarthy’s downfall was the fault of Democrats seem to have been lodged from Cloudcuckooland. “Instead of siding with sanity, Democrats have decided to side with Gaetz. It’s not a good look,” wrote The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis. His piece concludes:
There was a “W” waiting for the Dems—a “hanging curveball,” as they say. Had they done the right thing on Tuesday, then going forward, they would have been positioned to basically say, “We’re above culture war bullshit, and would not abide a coup by Matt Gaetz. Nobody asked us to rescue McCarthy, but we did. That’s what responsible leadership does. Remember that the next time the GOP says we’re the problem.” Now they can’t.
The idea that this was an obvious decision to make is absurd, whether you view it from the perspective of raw political wrangling or responsible governance. The notion that this was a looming win for Democrats is pure fantasy. It’s hard to follow the logic here: Voters would reward Democrats for rescuing McCarthy? That is a dubious proposal, one more likely to backfire on Democrats and McCarthy, whose status as a dead man walking wouldn’t have been resolved. Perhaps Lewis missed the part where the proximate cause of the Republican hardliners’ complaint was that McCarthy reached a deal with Democrats on the stopgap funding bill.
But if Democrats were to bail out McCarthy a second time without receiving any concessions in return, that would simply be political malpractice—especially so given that Democrats would have every reason to believe that he would continue to set the House on the same path it has been on since he took over: toward extremism and obstruction. Yes, McCarthy has kept the government open twice. But that is the responsibility of the leader of the majority party. Whoever takes McCarthy’s place will have to clear that bar, regardless of whether they ride into power with the blessing of the Freedom Caucus. At any rate, McCarthy—who voted against certifying the 2020 election and who has done everything in his power to protect Donald Trump—was hardly a defender of “the institution.” Quite the contrary.
What these arguments assume is that the Democratic Party only exists to bail out Republicans from their mistakes and provide a bulwark against their own worst instincts; never to ask for conditions or make demands or participate meaningfully in the policymaking process. They also suggest, absurdly, that Democrats should provide the votes to seat a speaker of a Republican Party that has shown itself to be incapable of governance. This is not how politics works, nor should it be. The House of Representatives is a mess, and two parties have to live there. But it’s a mess of one party’s making. If five institution-minded Republicans want to seat Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries as speaker, let them come forward and claim what I’m sure will be a big political win for themselves. | US Congress |
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., previewed the next steps for the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden Wednesday, announcing plans to hold a hearing this month.
Comer spoke at the weekly House GOP leadership news conference Wednesday, telling reporters House investigators will seek additional emails dating back to the Obama era, when Biden served as vice president, and witness testimony from people who allege the Biden family made millions of dollars in corrupt business deals with foreign nationals.
"We plan on having a hearing in September that will kind of evaluate some of the things that we believe have happened from the Biden family that are in violation with our law," Comer said at the weekly House GOP leadership news conference.
Comer's spokesman said specifics on the time and location of the hearing would be forthcoming.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Tuesday directed Comer to lead the inquiry in coordination with House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo.
The effort to impeach Biden follows months of GOP-led investigations into the Biden family's foreign business dealings. Republicans have accused the president's son, Hunter Biden, of selling access to his father's influence in exchange for payments, some of which were allegedly reserved for Joe Biden.
The White House has denied any wrongdoing and called the GOP accusations baseless and politically motivated.
Comer defended the GOP impeachment drive Wednesday and claimed Republicans have shown that Biden lied repeatedly about his involvement with his son Hunter's business arrangements.
"I just want to kind of go back to where we were in January when we started this investigation," Comer said. "The narrative was that the laptop, [Hunter Biden's] laptop was Russian disinformation. Hunter Biden was a legitimate business guy, just like Jared Kushner.
"No Biden ever took from China because that's what Joe Biden said. No money ever changed hands while Joe Biden was vice president, and I actually believe that. Joe knew nothing about his son's dealings. And Joe never met with or spoke with any of the foreign nationals who had wired the family money. All of those things have been proven wrong because of the Republican majority and our investigation."
As House Republicans move forward with impeachment, several of their Senate counterparts have voiced skepticism about the effort.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said House Republicans must "not waste time" and deliver an "ironclad" case to impeach President Biden for the effort to succeed in the Senate.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said last week she does not believe there is enough evidence to impeach Biden. Senators Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., similarly questioned whether their House counterparts have alleged high crimes or misdemeanors against Biden specifically, Axios reported. | US Political Corruption |
Senate Democrats blocked a stand-alone Israel aid package led by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Tuesday after a lengthy debate on the chamber floor.
Marshall sought unanimous consent for the House's version of the package, which passed the lower chamber with bipartisan support Nov. 2 and would earmark $14.3 billion reallocated from funds meant for the IRS in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Senators Marshall, Ted Cruz, JD Vance and Mike Lee introduced the Senate version last month.
But Democrats shot down the effort because the package does not include aid to Ukraine. A handful of Republican senators argued the two emergency aid packages should be split up and voted on separately.
"Though they spend three-fourths of the time telling us why we should fund Ukraine, no one will stand up and say we should not fund Israel now," Marshall said Tuesday in a press conference. "No one has an argument for that. They seem to be allergic to the word ‘Israel.’
"Bring the Ukraine funding to the floor. Let's vote on that."
Marshall has been leading the charge against President Biden's supplemental request to fund Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and border security in one package. Instead, he's urging senators to rescind their support for the package and focus on each issue individually.
A majority of the GOP conference favors Israeli aid but remains divided on Ukraine support. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has previously voiced his support for a combined aid package.
During Marshall's remarks on the Senate floor requesting unanimous consent for the stand-alone legislation, he called the Ukraine conflict "a separate, unrelated conflict with no end in sight."
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, a Marshall ally, argued lawmakers don't have to agree on Ukraine aid to push the Israel package on its own.
"What I find interesting about the folks who are here today is they represent a cross-section of opinion on the Ukraine question," Vance said Tuesday. "Even Sen. Schmitt and Sen. Lee, as much as we agree, we don't agree on every single permutation of how we address the Ukraine situation. What we do all agree on, though, is that the American people deserve a separate debate."
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., called the combined aid package "putting on a bunch of unrelated issues to try to bootstrap Ukraine aid" amid a less controversial stance on supporting Israel.
Vance also said there are other ways to allot the $14 billion to Israel, "which is a very small amount of money in the United States federal budget."
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, echoed Vance and Marshall and said the two regions are distinct with clear differences.
"We have to take into account that there are differences here," he said. "When you do evaluate each funding request on the basis of the individual merits of the conflict and question the needs of Israel and Ukraine, and for that matter, other areas in the world that have been beset by some conflicts, they're distinct and they're separate."
But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, was the first among several Democrats who objected to Marshall's motion and rallied continued support for both Ukraine and Israel.
"The global challenges we face are all connected, and they're all urgent," Murray said.
The bipartisan Israel aid bill passed the House in early November before being shot down by eight Senate Democrats as the bill made its way through.
Senate Democrats sunk the bill last week, citing a lack of Ukraine aid, as well as humanitarian aid, money to combat China's influence in the Indo-Pacific and border security funding.
Senate Democrats also attacked Republicans over the bill slashing IRS funding to pay for the Israeli aid, accusing them of slow-walking the aid by tying the IRS cuts to it.
Additionally, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said during a press briefing that President Biden would veto an Israel-only supplemental package if passed by Congress.
Fox News Digital's Adam Sabes and Houston Keene contributed reporting. | US Congress |
Lori Vallow Daybell’s only surviving son took the stand Tuesday at his mother’s trial over the murders of his younger siblings — where jurors heard a phone call where he accused her of lying to him and posing as his dead sister in text messages.
Colby Ryan delivered emotional testimony Tuesday morning in the case against his 49-year-old mother, who is accused of killing 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old JJ Vallow with her newest husband, Chad Daybell, according to East Idaho News reporter Nate Eaton, who reported from inside the courtroom.
The pair, prosecutors allege, espoused beliefs about zombies and said they were called upon by God to shepherd the 144,000 followers into the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. Vallow Daybell allegedly believed people either represented light or dark – the latter of which were those who had signed contracts with the devil.
According to her alleged beliefs, the only way for some people to lose their “dark” spiritual attachments was through spiritual castings, or their deaths.
Ryan — Vallow Daybell’s oldest and only surviving son — sat on the witness stand as the jury of 10 men and eight women heard a jail call from Aug. 3, 2020 between the pair.
“Can you hear me? Do you want to talk to me?” Vallow Daybell can be heard asking, according to the report. The call took place just months after investigators discovered the remains of both children on Chad Daybell’s Rexburg, Idaho, property.
“Do you think you can hide to me?” Ryan reportedly responds.
When his mother says Ryan didn’t want to speak to her, he responds: “Probably because you murdered my siblings.
“I have prayed for you in my worst moments, I have prayed for my siblings who you swore to me were ok. I thought I could trust you. I thought that you were a completely different person.”
When Vallow Daybell tells Ryan he has known her his whole life, he retorts, “I don’t know a murderous mother.”
“It kills me to watch you take the victim’s route and say this shouldn’t have happened to you when you are telling me that Chad Daybell came into your life and all of a sudden everything changes,” he says, according to the report.
“You lied to me specifically to me more times than I can count about this. To know that they’re gone and you knew and my phone’s being texted by my little sister who is not even alive. My little brother, who is the sweetest little kid ever…”
Vallow Daybell reportedly laughs as her son says Jesus would judge her. She goes on to say Ryan and the world can judge her.
JJ and Tylee, she says, “love me and they are fine and they know the truth and we are the only people that do.”
Ryan allegedly begins to shout in the jail call as he describes how the kids were “found buried in your new husband’s backyard.”
Vallow Daybell goes on to tell her son that the truth will ultimately be revealed.
“My own mom, my siblings, my whole family, my dad – everyone is gone except my mom and you’re in jail because of it,” Ryan says, according to the report. “Why are you following Chad down the rabbit hole? Why would you follow anyone who is not good? … You can’t lie to me anymore. You can’t hide anymore.”
He reportedly adds: “I pray every day. No matter how mad I am at you, no matter how bad I want to hit your husband in the face with a shovel, I pray for you, I pray for him.”
Earlier in his testimony, Ryan began crying Tuesday as he identified his siblings in photos shown by prosecutor Rob Wood. He told the court he could not locate or contact his phone after police notified him in November 2019 about their search for his younger siblings.
“She just told me she was moving somewhere cold and it was dangerous for her to tell anybody,” Ryan testified, according to the report
Vallow Daybell appeared to wipe her eyes during portions of her son’s testimony.
The accused killer is being tried separately from her now-husband, Daybell, who is accused of similar charges.
In addition to Tylee’s and JJ’s murders, prosecutors have linked the couple to the October 2019 death of Daybell’s former wife, Tammy Daybell, 49. The couple then collected social security benefits and life insurance money related to the three deaths, prosecutors said.
Vallow-Daybell is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and grand theft. She has also been indicted in the Arizona death of her estranged husband, Charles Vallow.
Defense attorneys have appeared to try to pin the blame for Charles’ death on Daybell or Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, who has since died.
Vallow Daybell was arrested in May 2021 and later spent nine months in a mental health hospital before she was deemed fit for trial in April 2022.
The trial, is curerntly in its second week and is expected to last several more. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
The suspect in thethat killed in Lewiston, Maine, has been found dead, multiple law enforcement sources confirmed to CBS News Friday.
The body of 40-year-old Robert Card was found by law enforcement near a recycling plant, sources said, but it was unclear exactly where. His cause of death was not immediately known. A news conference was scheduled for 10 p.m. ET Friday night.
Hundreds of state and local police and federal agents have been involved in thesince the shootings Wednesday night. There was an arrest warrant out for Card on murder charges, police said.
For several hours Thursday night, heavily armed police had surrounded a house in Bowdoin, a small college town where Card is from, about 35 minutes from Lewiston, but they completed their search there without finding him.
On Friday, police announced divers were conductingnear a location where Card's vehicle, a white Subaru Outback, was by a boat launch on the Androscoggin River.
Authorities had recovered a weapon from the suspect's abandoned vehicle, law enforcement sources told CBS News' Pat Milton and Robert Legare earlier Friday. The firearm was legally purchased, a law enforcement source confirmed. It wasn't clear if the recovered weapon was used in the shooting.
CBS News had also learned that investigators had located Card's cellphone and were trying to crack it and pore over his online activity, including text messages and emails, hoping to find clues as to his motive in the shootings.
The deadly rampage began a little before 7 p.m. Wednesday night, when police received a 911 call about a shooting at Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston. Police later said six males and one female there died of apparent gunshot wounds.
Just over 10 minutes later, at 7:08 p.m., police were called to the scene of another shooting a few miles away, at. Eight people there were killed, police said. Three other people died at area hospitals.
Police said the gunman fled in the aftermath of the shootings and they warned that he "should be considered armed and dangerous."
Card, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, had recently reported experiencing mental health issues, including hearing voices, and threatened to shoot up a military base in Saco, a law enforcement bulletin seen by CBS News said. In July, Card started "behaving erratically," a New York Army National Guard spokesperson told CBS News, and he was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks.
About 80 FBI agents were working with state and local law enforcement in the search, Senator Susan Collins said at a news conference Thursday evening.
Several communities in the area have spent the days since the shooting under shelter-in-place warnings, with schools canceled and residents urged to stay indoors.
"For me it was incomprehensible that this can happen in Lewiston, Maine," Mayor Carl Sheline.
"Our city is facing this incredible loss and I am completely broken for our city, and my heart really goes out to the victims and their families right now," Sheline said.
Investigators were looking into whether the suspect may have been targeting a specific individual, who is believed to be a current or former girlfriend, two U.S. officials and a former high-ranking official told CBS News. It wasn't clear if she was at either of the two locations that were attacked.
Theranged in age from 14 to 76, the medical examiner said. They included a bar manager who ; a who was teaching kids; a beloved ; a 14-year-old and his dad; and several people taking part in a cornhole tournament for deaf athletes.
— Jeff Pegues, Andres Triay, Robert Legare and Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.
for more features. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
- Political consequences for Democrats. A historic rise in delinquencies.
- Here's what experts predict will happen if the Supreme Court rules against Biden's student loan forgiveness plan and the relief never materializes.
It's possible that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan, leading to a reversal for the millions of Americans who had been expecting the debt cancellation.
President Joe Biden in August announced that he'd forgive at least $10,000, and up to $20,000, for tens of millions of federal student loan borrowers. Within months, however, Republicans and conservative groups had brought at least six legal challenges against his plan.
The justices have agreed to hear oral arguments over two of those lawsuits at the end of February.
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What if the Supreme Court rules against the president and the promised debt relief never materializes? Here's what experts predict.
U.S. Department of Education Undersecretary James Kvaal said in a recent court filing that if the government isn't allowed to provide debt relief, there could be a "historically large increase in the amount of federal student loan delinquency and defaults as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic."
Despite student loan borrowers being offered forbearances during previous natural disasters, Kvaal wrote, default rates still skyrocketed when payments resumed.
The pandemic-era relief policy pausing federal student loan payments has been in effect since March 2020, and payments aren't scheduled to resume until after the litigation over the president's plan is resolved or at the end of August — whichever comes sooner.
″[T]he one-time student loan debt relief program was intended to avoid" skyrocketing default rates, Kvaal added.
The borrowers most in jeopardy of defaulting are those for whom Biden's student loan forgiveness plan would have wiped out their balance entirely, Kvaal said.
The administration estimated its policy would do so for around 18 million people.
"These student loan borrowers had the reasonable expectation and belief that they would not have to make additional payments on their federal student loans," Kvaal said. "This belief may well stop them from making payments even if the Department is prevented from effectuating debt relief."
Restarting federal student loan payments without delivering forgiveness would lead to "severe" political consequences for Democrats, said Astra Taylor, co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union for debtors.
"[Biden] will be launching his 2024 reelection campaign as America's debt collector," she said.
If the "ultra-conservative U.S. Supreme Court" blocks the president's plan, Taylor said, Biden must explore other legal ways to deliver relief to borrowers.
She pointed to the possibility of the president using a different law to justify his plan, such as the Higher Education Act of 1965, which states that the Education Department can "enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien" related to federal student loans.
Currently, the Biden administration is using the Heroes Act of 2003 to argue that it has the authority to cancel student debt.
That law allows the Education Department to make modifications to federal student loan programs during national emergencies. Critics accuse the administration of using the coronavirus pandemic to fulfill a campaign promise and say the relief is not targeted to those who have suffered financially because of Covid.
Another path the president could take would be to try to indefinitely extend the pandemic-era pause on federal student loan payments, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
That move, Kantrowitz said, is "more likely to survive legal challenge."
The country's $1.7 trillion student loan crisis has hit Black Americans especially hard.
Black student loan borrowers owe $7,400 more, on average, at graduation than their white peers, a Brookings Institution report found.
That inequity only gets worse with time: Black college students owe, on average, more than $52,000 four years after graduation, compared with around $28,000 for the average white graduate.
If Biden's student loan forgiveness fell through, it would be a "disastrous blow to Black Americans," said Wisdom Cole, national director of the youth and college division at the NAACP.
"The racial wealth gap will widen, and the vicious cycle of economic inequality will continue," Cole said. "If our leaders truly believe that Black lives matter, they should understand that failure is not an option." | SCOTUS |
Through the marvel that is modern air travel, a candidate for public office is no longer confined to living in the state they hope to serve in. This relatively new phenomenon appears to be a godsend for David McCormick, a Republican who reportedly now lives in a Connecticut mansion but is poised to run for US Senate in Pennsylvania, where he appears to have chartered a number of private planes to promote his political bid.
Federal Aviation Administration records list McCormick as a co-owner of four Pilatus PC-12s operated by PlaneSense, a fractional aircraft ownership program. According to Flightradar24, on Monday morning, one of those planes flew from Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where McCormick visited the state capitol. There, he was reportedly spotted talking with Doug Mastriano, the Capitol riot participant who was defeated in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial election last year. After a few hours of glad-handing, the same plane took off from Harrisburg back to Bridgeport. Per Flightradar24 data provided to Vanity Fair, on August 9, another plane operated by PlaneSense flew from Bridgeport to Allegheny County, where McCormick attended a local Republican function the following day. Three days later, another PlaneSense plane flew from Allegheny County to Bridgeport, and McCormick proceeded to tear into Pittsburgh, the city he publicly claims as his place of residence. “It’s just devastating to see how our city has declined under the Democrats’ one party rule,” he wrote in a post later that day on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
Maddy McDaniel, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, told me that McCormick is “lying about living in Pennsylvania,” and that he, “won’t be able to fool Pennsylvanians about where he really lives or his record of enriching himself and his Wall Street friends at their expense.”
Be that as it may, the 58-year-old former chief executive of Bridgewater Associates—one of the largest hedge funds in the world—has sought to prove his Pennsylvania roots ahead of the launch of his campaign, which is expected Thursday, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. McCormick’s spokesperson told the Associated Press last month that three of McCormick’s daughters were born there, that he wrote to a Pennsylvania address while serving in Iraq, and that he owns a home in Pittsburgh, as well as a “working farm” in rural Pennsylvania that is something of a family heirloom. So while David McCormick may or may not be an active resident of the commonwealth, spiritually, he seems to believe he’s about as Pennsylvanian as the Liberty Bell.
A McCormick spokesperson did not respond to Vanity Fair’s requests for comment, though he has previously pinned his Connecticut residence on his children’s education. “While he maintains a residence in Connecticut as his daughters finish high school,” his spokesperson told the AP, “Dave’s home is in Pittsburgh.”
That, of course, conflicts with the AP’s reporting that McCormick lives in a $16 million mansion he rents in Westport, Connecticut, an exquisitely affluent town along the Gold Coast. From there, McCormick has seemingly utilized PlaneSense, a kind of timeshare but for private planes. The company’s other customers include onetime Bear Sterns copresident Warren Spector and former Goldman Sachs vice chairman John Weinberg, whose names are listed on the FAA registration records for two separate PC-12s co-owned by McCormick.
McCormick is expected to be the favored Republican in the primary once he announces, having been encouraged to run by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. On the Democratic side is Senator Bob Casey, the 63-year-old incumbent who is seeking his fourth term. McCormick ran for Pennsylvania’s other US Senate seat last year, hoping to replace retiring Republican Pat Toomey. But he faltered in the primary to talk show host Mehmet Oz, who was also knocked for not living in Pennsylvania, including by McCormick. “People want to know that the person that they’re voting for gets it,” McCormick, discussing Oz’s general election loss to Democrat John Fetterman, said in March. “And part of ‘getting it’ is understanding that you just didn’t come in yesterday.”
While McCormick may not have “come in yesterday,” it’s still not clear that his Pittsburgh home is anything more than a political pied-à-terre. J.J. Abbott, a Pennsylvania political strategist, says McCormick had numerous chances throughout his professional life to make the state his permanent residence, including in 2009, when he left the Bush administration. Instead, he joined the Connecticut-based Bridgewater Associates as its president. “He only decided to live in Pennsylvania when there was an opportunity to try and buy our Senate seat,” says Abbott, who previously worked for Tom Wolf, the state’s former Democratic governor. “Sure, there’s no doubt that he was born here, but he never considered moving back until there was an opportunity for him to run for higher office.” | US Federal Elections |
Tensions were flaring on Capitol Hill Tuesday, with two separate incidents involving Republican lawmakers playing out as a government shutdown could be nearing.
In one, a Senate hearing got tense when Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, stood up in a move to fight Teamsters President Sean O’Brien.
“You’re a United States senator, sit down!” ordered Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent running the hearing.
In another incident, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who until recently was House speaker, is being accused of shoving fellow GOP lawmaker Rep. Tim Burchett. Burchett, of Tennessee, is alleging that McCarthy came up and took a “cheap shot from behind.” It should be noted that Burchett helped oust McCarthy as speaker.
Burchett was speaking with NPR reporter Claudia Grisales, who documented what happened in posts on X. McCarthy later told CNN he did not “shove or elbow” Burchett. “It’s a tight hallway.”
O’Brien had challenged Mullin to a fight in June, calling him a “clown” and a “fraud” in posts on X.
The federal government is slated to partially shut down after midnight Friday if lawmakers can’t agree on a short-term funding bill.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson sounded upbeat early Tuesday about securing passage of a stopgap funding measure that would prevent a partial government shutdown. | US Congress |
In a Shyamalanian twist no one – by which I mean everyone – could have predicted, the CBO estimated Wednesday that House Republicans taking an ax to the IRS would both add to the deficit and decrease revenue.
House Republicans’ Israeli aid bill, which includes what some credulous reporters faithfully parroted as “offsets” to the spending in the form of the IRS cuts, would cause the government to lose out on $26.8 billion in revenue and add $12.5 billion to the deficit over the next decade.
The House bill — and new Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) first legislative test — was all but doomed from the first, as Democrats are strongly opposed to linking aid to Israel with Republicans’ decades-long quest to hobble the IRS. They made the bill’s inevitable death official in the last few hours.
“Israel has suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “It needs help. But House Republicans are asking a price for helping them by cutting off funding that holds rich tax cheats accountable. That ain’t happening.”
“It’s dead almost before it’s born,” he added.
Schumer’s statement comes on the heels of President Joe Biden’s veto threat, sent out Tuesday night.
“The egregiousness of this particular offset is it adds to the deficit and would help some wealthy individuals and large corporations cheat on their taxes,” the statement said, ending with an underlined sentence: “If the President were presented with this bill, he would veto it.”
This IRS cut, seemingly incongruous in a bill nominally focused on Israeli aid, is just the latest episode in Republicans’ never-ending thirst to defang the tax regulator.
In the late ‘90s and again in the mid-2010s, Republicans ginned up scandals within the agency to justify massive cuts that left the agency hollowed out of personnel and bogged down by outdated technology.
A weakened IRS then struggled to go after the very wealthy and corporations, both of whom have the resources and legal might to make their money hard to find and tax. A 2021 Treasury Department report revealed that the wealthiest one percent of Americans are avoiding paying as much as $163 billion in taxes each year.
This age-old Republican animosity flared up again when the Inflation Reduction Act was moving through Congress last year, as it funneled some much-needed funding to the beleaguered agency. This time, Republicans cloaked their intent to keep paying taxes optional for the rich in a fantastical conspiracy theory.
By their lights, the new funding would enable the hiring of 87,000 new armed IRS agents, who would break down the doors of middle America and shoot to kill. None of that, obviously, is true.
It all drives in the same direction. This time, by linking the IRS cuts to Israeli aid — about as universal a cause as you can find in Congress these days — they tried to give it another shot at life.
Additional complicating factors, including much of the Senate’s desire for Ukraine funding, a lack of humanitarian aid in the bill and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) push to loop in money for U.S.-Mexico border security made this legislation unlikely to go anywhere anyway.
But now, Democrats can add Republicans’ newest attempts to enable tax cheats to their arsenal as they seek to win back the House. | US Federal Policies |
Delaware County District Attorney's Office
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Gretchen Harrington (left) disappeared on Aug. 15, 1975, as she was walking to summer bible camp in a Philadelphia suburb. Former pastor David Zandstra (right), 83, has been charged with her murder.
Delaware County District Attorney's Office
Gretchen Harrington (left) disappeared on Aug. 15, 1975, as she was walking to summer bible camp in a Philadelphia suburb. Former pastor David Zandstra (right), 83, has been charged with her murder.
Delaware County District Attorney's Office
On the morning of Aug. 15, 1975, Gretchen Harrington, 8, left her home in Marple Township, Penn., to walk to summer bible camp and disappeared.
About two months later, her skeletal remains were found in nearby Ridley Creek State Park, but her killer was never apprehended — until this month.
The Delaware County District Attorney's Office announced on Monday that it had arrested former pastor David Zandstra, 83, for Harrington's murder.
Zandstra admitted to killing Harrington and is currently being held in jail in Cobb County, Ga., according to authorities.
"We are gonna bring him here to Delaware County. We're gonna try him. We're gonna convict him. And he's gonna die in jail," District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said at a press conference on Monday.
"Then he's gonna have to find out what the God he professes to believe in holds for those who are this evil to our children," Stollsteimer added.
Zandstra has been charged with criminal homicide, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, third-degree murder, kidnapping of a minor and possession of an instrument of crime.
Delaware County District Attorney's Office
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A newspaper clipping from 1975 describes the search for Gretchen Harrington.
Delaware County District Attorney's Office
The killing nearly 48 years ago stumped investigators for decades and cast a pall over the small-town community in suburban Philadelphia.
In a statement, the Harrington family thanked law enforcement officials for their continued work on the case and said they were hopeful that the person responsible for Gretchen's murder would be held accountable.
"If you met Gretchen, you were instantly her friend. She exuded kindness to all and was sweet and gentle. Even now, when people share their memories of her, the first thing they talk about is how amazing she was and still is...at just 8 years old, she had a lifelong impact on those around her," the family said.
"The abduction and murder of Gretchen has forever altered our family and we miss her every single day."
A breakthrough in the case came from a witness
In January of this year, investigators said they interviewed a source who was best friends with Zandstra's daughter and who would often sleep over at the family's home.
She told investigators that, during a sleepover when she was 10, she woke up to Zandstra groping her groin area. The source said she told Zandstra's daughter, who replied that her father sometimes did that.
The source also said she remembered that a girl in her class was nearly kidnapped twice and wrote in her diary in 1975 that she suspected Zandstra was the likely kidnapper.
The summer bible camp Harrington was attending took place on the grounds of two nearby churches. Harrington's father was the pastor of one church, and Zandstra was the pastor of the other.
Delaware County District Attorney's Office
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Investigators say Zandstra was the pastor of Trinity Church Chapel Christian Reform Church, where some of the summer bible camp took place.
Delaware County District Attorney's Office
In July of this year, investigators traveled to Marietta, Ga. — where Zandstra now lives with his wife — to interview him.
At first Zandstra denied knowing what happened to Harrington, but investigators say he later admitted to offering her a ride and taking her to a nearby wooded area.
Zandstra said he asked Harrington to take off her clothes and she refused, and then he punched her in the head, causing her to bleed. He left her body in the woods and fled the scene.
Police also interviewed Zandstra in 1975, but the then-pastor denied seeing Harrington on the day she was abducted.
"Justice does not have an expiration date," Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Jonathan Sunderlin said in a statement. "Whether a crime happened fifty years ago or five minutes ago, the residents of the Commonwealth can have confidence that law enforcement will not rest until justice is served."
The investigation enters a new phase
Zandstra apparently refused to waive extradition to Pennsylvania, so prosecutors must send a petition for requisition to Gov. Josh Shapiro, who will then forward it to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
If approved, authorities can transport Zandstra from Georgia to Pennsylvania, where he is expected to stand trial.
Stollsteimer also said authorities are concerned Zandstra may have sexually assaulted other victims. After Harrington's death, Zandstra moved to Plano, Texas, and later to Marietta, Ga.
Investigators took a DNA sample from Zandstra and will compare it to open cases in Pennsylvania and across the country, and they are asking anyone with additional information about Zandstra's activities to contact the Pennsylvania State Police. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Washington — Embattled Republican Rep. George Santos of New York is set to address the public Thursday as the House prepares to take up a third resolution to expel him from Congress, two weeks after the House Ethics Committee said it foundthat he violated federal law.
It's unclear what Santos will say during the press conference, which he said would take place at 8 a.m. outside the Capitol. He has repeatedly resisted pressure to step down from Congress amid allegations he stole from donors, used campaign contributions for personal expenses and fraudulently collected unemployment benefits, among other accusations by the Justice Department.
Santos has remained defiant amid his ongoing legal and professional troubles, even as the ranks of his Republican colleagues supporting his ouster have grown. Still, the freshman congressman said last week thatfrom the House, though he chastised his fellow House members for smearing him and accused them of engaging in their own misconduct.
A vote on, and the effort poses the biggest threat yet to his congressional career.
The Santos expulsion resolutions
Two lawmakers moved Tuesday to force action on separate resolutions seeking to remove Santos from Congress, setting up votes in the House before the week's end.
One of the measures, from GOP Rep. Michael Guest, the chair of the Ethics Committee, wasshortly after the panel's findings were published. Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, Santos' GOP colleague in the New York congressional delegation, moved to fast-track it under House rules. The other, a privileged resolution from Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California, was introduced Tuesday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday thatabout expelling Santos, but GOP leaders are not urging their members to vote a certain way.
"We're going to allow people to vote their conscience," Johnson said during the Republican leadership's weekly news conference. "I think it's the only appropriate thing we can do. We've not whipped the vote, and we wouldn't. I trust that people will make that decision thoughtfully and in good faith."
Santosfor a second term in the House. After the Ethics Committee released its report, he announced that he would not seek to hold on to his seat, though he had that he would mount a reelection bid.
Calls for Santos to resign have followed him throughout his more than 11 months in the House, starting after heparts of his resume and background in his 2022 bid for Congress. Pressure for him to step down grew after he was by on nearly two dozen federal charges, and reached a fever pitch after the Ethics panel released its report.
Santos has pleaded not guilty to all the federal charges and has accused those seeking to expel him of acting as "judge, jury and executioner."
The Ethics Committee's report
The Ethics Committeethat it had opened a formal investigation into Santos to examine a host of alleged wrongdoing, including whether he engaged in unlawful activity regarding his 2022 congressional campaign, failed to disclose required information on House reports, violated federal conflict of interest laws and engaged in sexual misconduct toward a prospective congressional aide.
During the course of its seven-month probe, the committee amassed "substantial evidence" that Santos broke the law and accused him of engaging in a "complex web" of illegal activity involving his campaign, personal and business finances, according to its report. Congressional investigators found that Santos misused campaign contributions to cover his personal expenses, including at; reported fictitious loans to his political committees; and filed false reports to the Federal Election Commission.
They also said that while Santos pledged to cooperate with the committee's probe, he engaged in "obfuscation and delay" with the panel. Though the congressman has blamed his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, for campaign finance violations, House investigators said Santos was "a knowing and active participant in the misconduct."
The GOP congressman slammed the committee's report as politically motivated, claimed it poisoned the jury pool in his federal case and set a "dangerous" precedent.
"Because this precedent sets a new era of due process, which means you are guilty until proven innocent, we will take your accusations and use it to smear, to mangle, to destroy you and remove you from society. That is what they are doing with this," he said last week.
Santos survived two earlier efforts to expel him from Congress, when lawmakers voted not to punish him because of his ongoing criminal case and the Ethics Committee probe. But many of his colleagues reversed their positions after congressional investigators completed their review.
for more features. | US Congress |
A cyber-security researcher has exploited a glitch on the CIA's official Twitter account, to hijack a channel used for recruiting spies.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) account on X, formerly known as Twitter, displays a link to a Telegram channel for informants.
But Kevin McSheehan was able to redirect potential CIA contacts to his own Telegram channel.
"The CIA really dropped the ball here," the ethical hacker said.
The CIA is a US government organisation known for gathering secret intelligence information, often over the internet, from a vast network of spies and tipsters around the world
Its official X account, with nearly 3.5 million followers, is used to promote the agency and encourage people to get in touch to protect US national security.
Biggest fear
Mr McSheehan, 37, who lives in Maine, in the US, said he had discovered the security mistake earlier on Tuesday.
"My immediate thought was panic," he said.
"I saw that the official Telegram link they were sharing could be hijacked - and my biggest fear was that a country like Russia, China or North Korea could easily intercept Western intelligence."
At some point after 27 September, the CIA had added to its X profile page a link - https://t.me/securelycontactingcia - to its Telegram channel containing information about contacting the organisation on the dark net and through other secretive means.
The channel said, in Russian: "Our global mission demands that individuals be able to reach out to CIA securely from anywhere," while warning potential recruits to "be wary of any channels that claim to represent the CIA".
But a flaw in how X displays some links meant the full web address had been truncated to https://t.me/securelycont - an unused Telegram username.
As soon as Mr McSheehan noticed the issue, he registered the username so anyone clicking on the link was directed to his own channel, which warned them not to share any secret or sensitive information.
"I did it as a security precaution," he said.
"It's a problem with the X site that I've seen before - but I was amazed to see the CIA hadn't noticed."
The CIA did not reply to a BBC News request for comment - but within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
President Biden on his birthday Monday cracked numerous jokes about his age during the annual White House turkey pardon before confusing Taylor Swift and Beyonce when talking about the origin of the massive birds.
The now 81-year-old Biden, who told a crowd gathered in Washington that it is "difficult turning 60," spared the lives of Liberty and Bell, two turkeys from Minnesota.
"Now, just to get here, Liberty and Bell had to beat some tough odds, a competition. They had to work hard to show patience and be willing to travel over a thousand miles," Biden said. "You could say even this is harder than getting a ticket to the Renaissance tour, or, or Britney's tour she's down in – it's kind of warm in Brazil right now."
Biden apparently was referring to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour -- which was notorious for difficulty in getting tickets, and which has a performance scheduled for tonight in Rio De Janeiro – and Beyonce’s Renaissance tour, which recently wrapped up at the start of October.
The president said today’s event was the "unofficial start of the holiday season" and was a time to "share joy and gratitude and a little bit of fun."
"This is the 76th anniversary of this event. And I want you to know, I wasn't there, the first one," Biden said in another joke about his age.
Biden said that this week Americans will "gather with the people we love and the traditions that each of us have built up in our own families.
"We'll also think about the loved ones we lost, including just yesterday. We lost former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who walked her own path, inspiring the nation and the world along the way," he said.
"Let's remind ourselves that we're blessed to live in the greatest nation on this face of the earth. That's what I see when I travel America," Biden also said after pardoning the turkeys, mentioning how he helped serve food to service members yesterday at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.
"Let's remember we are the United States of America. And there is nothing, nothing, nothing – I mean this sincerely – nothing beyond our capacity when we work together. We've never come out of a situation in a bad circumstance, not without being better off when we come through it," he concluded. "And this is always who we are as Americans. So happy Thanksgiving. God bless you all. And may God protect our troops." | US Federal Policies |
McCarthy said the investigation was the "logical next step" as the House GOP has delved further into the actions of the Biden family business dealings during his Tuesday announcement. However, the Biden campaign was not swayed by McCarthy's comments.
"As Donald Trump ramped up his demands for a baseless impeachment inquiry, Kevin McCarthy cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign," said Ammar Moussa, Joe Biden's reelection spokesman, in a statement. "11 days ago, McCarthy unequivocally said he would not move forward with an impeachment inquiry without holding a vote on the House floor. What has changed since then? Several members of the Speaker’s own conference have come out and publicly panned impeachment as a political stunt, pointing out there is no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden as Republicans litigate the same debunked conspiracy theories they’ve investigated for over four years."
Moussa referenced a Sept. 1 interview with Breitbart in which McCarthy claimed there would be a vote before launching an investigation. "If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person," McCarthy said at the time. It doesn't appear likely there will be a floor vote on impeachment or that McCarthy has enough votes for the measure to pass.
House Republicans and Trump have repeatedly pressured McCarthy to launch an impeachment against Joe Biden and his family as Trump has faced his own legal problems. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced David Weiss as special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, allowing him to bring charges against the younger Biden. A plea deal in which Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and entered into a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid a felony gun charge fell apart in July after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika raised questions about the details of the deal.
Although the inquiry is a win for conservative hard-liners, it could jeopardize centrist Republicans, particularly those who represent districts Joe Biden won. If impeachment were to progress to the Democratic-led Senate, it would be unlikely to lead to a dismissal. Neither Senate Democrats nor Senate Republicans appear to have the fervor as House Republicans to impeach Joe Biden.
The Biden campaign is attempting to redirect focus on his actions on the economy and everyday issues that are likely to attract the attention of the average American.
"While MAGA Republicans spend all of their time attacking President Biden and his family, the president is working every day to make life better for American families across the country," Moussa continued. "President Biden will remain focused on the issues that matter to everyday Americans—lowering costs, growing the economy, making our communities safe, and protecting Social Security and Medicare—while he tries to bring the country together, not divide us even further.” | US Congress |
Kotaku reports: A newly unsealed FBI indictment accuses a former analyst at Goldman Sachs of insider trading, including allegedly using an Xbox to pass tips onto his close friends. The friend group earned over $400,000 in ill-gotten gains as a result, federal prosecutors claim. "There's no tracing [Xbox 360 chat]," the analyst allegedly told his friend who was worried they might be discovered.
He appears to have made a grave miscalculation.
The FBI arrested Anthony Viggiano and alleged co-conspirator Christopher Salamone, charging them with securities fraud on September 28. Viggiano is accused of using his previous position at Goldman Sachs to share trading tips with Salamone and others. Salamone has already pleaded guilty. Bloomberg reports that this is the fifth incident in recent years of a person associated with the investment bank allegedly using their position to do crimes...
Probably best to keep the crime talk on Xbox to a minimum either way, especially now that Microsoft is using AI to monitor communications for illicit and toxic activities.
In a statement an FBI official said "This indictment is yet another example of individuals believing they can get away with benefiting from trading on material non-public information.
He appears to have made a grave miscalculation.
The FBI arrested Anthony Viggiano and alleged co-conspirator Christopher Salamone, charging them with securities fraud on September 28. Viggiano is accused of using his previous position at Goldman Sachs to share trading tips with Salamone and others. Salamone has already pleaded guilty. Bloomberg reports that this is the fifth incident in recent years of a person associated with the investment bank allegedly using their position to do crimes...
Probably best to keep the crime talk on Xbox to a minimum either way, especially now that Microsoft is using AI to monitor communications for illicit and toxic activities.
In a statement an FBI official said "This indictment is yet another example of individuals believing they can get away with benefiting from trading on material non-public information. | US Political Corruption |
Minneapolis ex-police officer Derek Chauvin, convicted in the murder of George Floyd, has been stabbed at an Arizona prison, US media reports say.
A source told AP the 47-year-old was seriously injured by another inmate.
The New York Times, citing two people with knowledge of the situation, also reported that he was attacked.
Chauvin, who is white, is serving multiple sentences for the black man's death, which triggered huge protests against police brutality and racism.
The Bureau of Prisons confirmed in a statement that an inmate at a federal prison in the city of Tucson was stabbed at 12:30 local time (19:30 GMT) on Friday.
The agency said employees contained the incident and "life-saving measures" were performed on the inmate, who was then taken to hospital. The name of the prisoner was not given.
Nobody else is thought to have been injured and Chauvin is reported to have survived the attack.
The reported incident comes days after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal, in which it was argued that he had not received a fair trial for the killing of Mr Floyd - who died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes in 2020.
The killing - captured on a bystander's phone camera - sparked global outrage and a wave of demonstrations against racial injustice and police use of force.
Chauvin was later found guilty of Mr Floyd's murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison. He was given a further 20-year sentence in July 2022 for violating Mr Floyd's civil rights. | US Police Misconduct |
Ramaswamy embraces populist playbook in 2024 bid
Vivek Ramaswamy is leaning into economic populist messaging as he looks to distinguish himself from the other Republican primary contenders in the presidential contest.
He’s talking about “revolution” and labels his opponents “super PAC puppets.” He applauds small-dollar donations and calls his campaign a “grassroots uprising.” He criticizes the mainstream media and praises anti-establishment figures on both the right and left.
Parts of Ramaswamy’s rhetoric echoes that of insurgent figures across the political spectrum, including former President Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), raising questions about whether this playbook will equate to a similar rise in popularity for the Republican upstart.
As the young tech investor aims to shake up the GOP primary, progressives want no association with him. They see him as Trumpian in style and substance and denounce any crossover between his campaign and their favorite figures on the left.
“Revolution over reform,” Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, this week, one of many musings meant to inspire a groundswell of support from the outside.
Many say he’s offensive and view his campaign as a grift, taking parts of both parties’ populist streaks as he sees fit.
“He’s a fake populist using revolutionary language to cover for a largely billionaire friendly agenda,” Krystal Ball, host of the leftist podcast “Breaking Points” and author of “The Populist’s Guide to 2020,” told The Hill. “He does not want to get money out of politics.”
“He does want to protect fossil fuel profits. And he would keep the war machine churning in China and Mexico,” she added.
As Ball suggests, Ramaswamy shares essentially nothing ideologically with Democrats from either wing of the party. He came under fire for using the word “hoax” in the same sentence as climate change during the Fox News debate in August and is socially conservative on issues like transgender rights and affirmative action. He most recently caught the ire of civil rights leaders for characterizing Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), a Black congresswoman and Squad member, as a “modern grand wizard” of the KKK — a comment he did not retract.
While his policy positions and personal gripes about “woke” identity politics are indeed objectionable to Democrats, Ramaswamy does overlap with the left when it comes to certain areas of campaign strategy, such as his broad critique about the country’s establishment class.
“He is a shape-shifter with no conviction whatsoever,” said Nina Turner, a top surrogate and former co-chairwoman of Sanders’s 2020 campaign. “The type of revolution he is calling for is one towards … bigotry and hatred.”
Sanders, whose presidential campaigns are synonymous with the word revolution, effectively criticized decades of centrism by pointing out politicians’ ties to corporations. The senator’s embrace of small contributions was part of a larger rejection of super PACs spending millions of dollars to influence policy in Washington. Many progressives have won down ballot with that approach.
“People like myself or Sen. Sanders or anybody else that’s considered a leader on the progressive left, members of the Squad and others, are really just calling for wholesale systemic changes that will help lift material conditions,” said Turner. “Even for people who may not even believe in the change we’re calling for.”
As it became a powerful mobilizing tool on the left, progressives say it was Trump who, in their eyes, cynically was able to rally enough people around those grievances to make it worth replicating on the right. Liberals see Ramaswamy’s use of grassroots messaging as equally brazen and prefer to link him to the former president than the progressive movement’s parallel appeal.
“Trump is really the one who first rolled out this rhetorical style on the right, and I see Vivek as taking his inspiration from Trump and trying to copy his political formula,” said Ball.
Peter Daou, a prominent activist and critic who has been outspoken against President Biden and centrist Democrats, said that Ramaswamy’s language is not particularly innovative. But it does come with a very specific warning for the party in power looking to remain in the White House.
“I see it as typical populist language, but from the right,” he said.
Free-flowing talk about a revolution and emphasis on the need to form a “multiethnic working-class” coalition come with their own challenges for Democrats, especially when the Trump wing also uses such tactics effectively for their side, progressives say.
The fact that Biden doesn’t speak that way, and is not offering a similar rhetorical counter, could be problematic if faced with another populist opponent, some on the left argue.
Biden’s administration is filled with Democrats who are less outspoken about political uprisings, insurgencies and movement politics and govern in a more traditional way. Some Democrats have expressed concerns about that when faced with rivals like Trump and Ramaswamy as a newer face.
“It’s going to cost Democrats not being willing to shake up the system. Or even talking about it,” said Daou. “‘More of the same’ or ‘let’s finish the job’ is weak,” he said in a not-so-subtle reference to Biden’s plea to voters for a second term in office.
Trump and Ramaswamy have praised each other at various junctures of the campaign. On Tuesday, Trump said he’d be open to considering the millennial businessman as a running mate should he win the nomination for the third time. “I tell you, I think he’d be very good,” Trump told host Glenn Beck, who had referred to him tongue-in-cheek as “Vice President Ramaswamy.”
There is no such admiration on the left. Progressives have not so much as even hinted that he’s brought needed attention to their long-standing crusade against money in politics and the power of grassroots movements. They’re careful not to prop up a figure that they see as ideologically similar to Trump, but without an existing base.
“Ramaswamy is a slick politician posing as an outsider, but I’ll always take yes for an answer,” said Cenk Uygur, host of “The Young Turks.” “If he is running with no corporate PAC money, then that’s commendable. If he actually wants to end the private financing of elections, which is just legalized bribery, then great.”
“But I don’t trust him at all because everything else he says is contradictory, and the rest of his policies support corporate rule.”
For all the initial intrigue around Ramaswamy’s campaign, for now, his support seems to be malleable. Democrats were delighted when, after his center-stage debate performance where he was targeted by his fellow rivals, he dropped in standing with voters. A poll from Morning Consult depicted a higher unfavorability number after the Fox News debate aired.
Ramaswamy did not respond to a request for comment over text message.
“He is the antithesis to the type of revolution that the progressive left is calling for,” said Turner. “He can try and use the words of the progressive left, but he’s a phony.”
“I do believe that ultimately his tactics are going to backfire on him because he has no conviction,” she said.
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | US Federal Elections |
EXCLUSIVE: The White House is blasting House Republicans for setting an "unprecedented bar" in their new bill that gives $14.3 billion in aid to Israel.
House Republicans rolled out the 13-page bill Monday, which would completely offset the foreign aid by rescinding the $14.3 billion in funds from the Inflation Reduction Act passed last year. Specifically, the bill targets some of the $80 billion the package allocated toward the Internal Revenue Service.
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a White House memo penned by Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser Andrew Bates titled: "House Republicans set an unprecedented bar for helping Israel defend itself - and other critical national security needs."
"Despite strong bipartisan agreement that the United States must support Israel as it defends itself after the worst terrorist attack in its history, House Republicans are engaging in a dangerous political stunt that for the first time in American history demands emergency national security funding be fully offset," Bates wrote in the memo. "Though the United States has delivered urgent defense funding to a wide range of allies over many years, this has never been a requirement."
He adds: "Why should Israel be singled out in this way? Why should it be treated differently, especially when they were just subjected to the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust?"
Bates goes on to write that Republicans are "politicizing our national security interests" in such a way that would "set an unacceptable precedent that jeopardizes the United States’ ability to reliably support Israel’s self-defense into the future."
The White House memo also says the bill "endangers other critical, bipartisan national security priorities, like humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza who are also the victims of Hamas terrorists. And helping Ukraine stop Putin from butchering their citizens with Iranian weapons."
"This is a time for all of us to come together – as the American people have – and not undermine our national security with political stunts that prioritize internal points-scoring over our safety in the world," Bates wrote. "The American people have had enough of the House Republican Conference insisting on being a chaotic outlier."
Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is expected to hold a vote on the Israel aid bill on Thursday. The bill is expected to put Democrats in a delicate position, as they also are pushing for Israel aid but will likely reject the bill's removal of funds from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
However, the cuts to IRS funding is likely to please conservatives – Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Hill Country Patriot Radio on Monday that he would support Israel aid if it was offset with budget cuts.
"The American people must see that it's going to cost something if we're going to give another $14 billion to Israel. So I'm for it. But it should be paid for…with real money, not budgetary gimmicks," Roy said.
The Inflation Reduction Act granted an $80 billion boost to the IRS over a 10-year period, with more than half of those funds approved with the intention of helping the agency to crack down on tax evasion. The funding would have gone toward filling 87,000 IRS positions.
Just two Republican lawmakers have come out against the Israel funding so far, GOP hardliner Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky.
Earlier this month, Biden asked Congress to approve a $106 billion supplemental funding request with $14.3 billion for Israel, more than $60 billion for Ukraine, just over $13 billion for U.S. border security and an additional $10 billion in humanitarian assistance.
Johnson made clear over the weekend that he would not put the entire package together on the House floor, something a significant number of conservatives also opposed.
"We are going to move a standalone Israel funding bill this week in the House. I know our colleagues, our Republican colleagues in the Senate, have a similar measure," Johnson told "Sunday Morning Futures."
"There are lots of things going on around the world that we have to address, and we will. But right now, what's happening in Israel takes the immediate attention. And I think we've got to separate that and get it through. I believe there will be bipartisan support for that, and I'm going to push very hard for it," Johnson said.
Johnson's first act on the House floor as speaker was to pass a bipartisan resolution condemning Hamas.
Fox News' Liz Elkind contributed to this report. | US Federal Policies |
Court rejects Kari Lake’s appeal of loss in Arizona governor’s race
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona appeals court has rejected Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, denying her request to throw out election results in the state’s most populous county and hold the election again.
In a ruling on Thursday, the Arizona Court of Appeals wrote Lake, who claimed problems with ballot printers at some police places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct, presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by tabulators at polling places were not able to vote. The court said that even a witness called by Lake to testify had confirmed that ballots that couldn’t initially be read could at polling places still ultimately have their vote counted.
And while a pollster who testified on behalf of Lake claimed the polling place problems had disenfranchised enough voters to change the outcome in Lake’s favor, the court said his conclusion were baseless.
The appeals court wrote Lake’s appeal failed because the evidence supports the conclusion that “voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results.”
Shortly after the ruling, Lake tweeted: “I told you we would take this case all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. Buckle up, America!”
Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake did not.
Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.
County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters.
Lake’s attorneys also claim the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing. They claim workers at the facility put their own mail ballots into the pile, rather than returning them through normal channels, and also that paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots was missing. The county disputes the claim.
Hobbs’ attorneys said Lake was trying to sow distrust in Arizona’s election results and offered no proof to back up her allegations of election misconduct.
Lake faced extremely long odds in her challenge, needing to prove not only that misconduct occurred, but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did in fact result in the wrong woman being declared the winner. In her appeal, her lawyers argued a trial court judge applied the wrong standard of proof in deciding the case.
Hobbs took office as governor on Jan. 2. | US Local Elections |
Near the middle of the rambling video, Trump told viewers, “Remember, Republicans eat their young. They really do, they eat their young. Terrible statement. But it’s true.”
While some on the web speculated the teleprompter probably said “eat their own,” the front-runner for Republican presidential candidacy seemed to be parroting a Tuesday Truth Social post attacking Barr, Romney and Paul almost word-for-word.
“If [Romney] and RINO Paul fought as hard against Obama as they do against President Donald J. Trump, they would never have lost,” he wrote last week. “But remember, Republicans ‘Eat Their Young.’”
“That’s the problem with so many in our Party, they go after the people who are on their side, rather than the Radical Left Democrats that are DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY.”
Trump’s modest proposals come after a slew of stranger-than-average moments from the embattled real estate developer.
Last month, he incorrectly claimed Barack Obama is the current president, that Americans need voter ID to buy bread and that President Biden was on the brink of bringing about World War II.
Cannibalism seems to accidentally become a theme for Trump, who appeared to confuse fictitious human-eater Hannibal Lecter with a real person during a rally in Iowa last weekend.
“Hannibal Lecter, how great an actor was he?” Trump asked supporters. “You know why I like him? Because he said on television ... ‘I love Donald Trump.’”
He seemed to be referring to Mads Mikkelsen, who starred as Lecter in NBC’s “Hannibal” TV series from 2013 to 2015.
During then-candidate Trump’s 2016 race against Hilary Clinton, Mikkelsen told CBS the New Yorker was “not a classic politician,” but he felt like “a fresh wind for some people.” | US Federal Elections |
Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., and one of his former campaign aides, Samuel Miele, appear to be discussing plea deals with federal prosecutors.
In a filing Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York and Santos jointly asked the court to delay a status conference hearing scheduled for Thursday until Oct. 27 "to allow defense counsel additional time to review discovery materials and for the parties to continue discussing paths forward in this matter."
Since the last hearing on June 30, the defendant "has continued to review the voluminous discoverable material previously produced by the government and requires additional time to continue reviewing that material," the filing says, and the government "anticipates making another substantial production of discoverable material" this week.
"Defense counsel has indicated that he will need additional time to review that material as well," prosecutors wrote. "Further, the parties have continued to discuss possible paths forward in this matter. The parties wish to have additional time to continue those discussions."
Later Tuesday, Judge Joanna Seybert granted the government’s request, which Santos had joined, delaying the hearing.
In Miele's case, prosecutors told the court on Tuesday that they needed to delay a meeting "to accommodate ongoing discovery review and plea negotiations," adding in the filing that "negotiations concerning a potential resolution of this case without the need for a trial are active and ongoing," according to Politico.
Miele, a former fundraiser, had been fired from the Santos campaign after he was caught soliciting donations under the alias Dan Meyer, then the chief of staff to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who at the time was the Republican minority leader. The 27-year-old was arrested on federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for his alleged scheme to trick donors into giving money to Santos under Meyer's name. He pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say Miele went to significant lengths to assume the false identity, setting up a dummy email address resembling Meyer’s name as he reached out to more than a dozen donors between August and December 2021. Santos said he was informed of the impersonation in late 2021 by the real Meyer, who has since retired, and he promptly fired Miele.
Santos, infamous for fabricating major parts of his life story during his run for office, is facing his own federal charges accusing him of duping donors, stealing from his campaign, lying to Congress about being a millionaire and collecting fraudulent unemployment benefits. He has pleaded not guilty. The charges could carry up to 20 years in prison.
Santos, who says he is seeking re-election, has not articulated a clear decision on whether he'd consider a pela deal in recent TV news appearances.
"Word of the day: Speculation Meaning: The forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence," Santos wrote in a vague Tuesday post on X, formerly Twitter.
"I’m going to fight the witch hunt," he told reporters in the hours following his arraignment in May, according to Politico. "I’m going to take care of clearing my name."
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | US Political Corruption |
- The House of Representatives on Tuesday ousted the Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker, the first time in history that the chamber has dethroned its leader in a no-confidence vote.
- The vote was triggered when Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., formally launched the process of trying to remove the California Republican McCarthy on Monday evening.
- Gaetz claims McCarthy no longer represents the interests of the Republican caucus after he worked with Democrats to pass a stopgap funding bill to avoid a government shutdown.
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives on Tuesday ousted the Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker, the first time in history that the chamber has dethroned its leader in a no-confidence vote.
McCarthy was voted out as speaker when a small band of hardline conservative Republicans joined Democrats to approve a "motion to vacate" introduced by Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, a longtime foe of McCarthy's.
It was not clear who will replace McCarthy, who was elected speaker in January after Republicans won majority control of the House in the 2022 mid-term elections.
McCarthy's ouster was effectively set in quick motion on Saturday when he pulled off a surprising legislative victory, getting Democrats to join Republicans in approving a short-term funding bill that avoided a government shutdown.
While McCarthy pleased the White House with that move, it fueled already simmering resentments over his leadership among far-right members of the GOP caucus.
Several of McCarthy's supporters have said they plan to offer his name for the next round of speaker votes.
But other members of GOP leadership have also been floated as potential replacements, including Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both of them are popular among the rank-and-file Republicans.
The last time a motion to vacate vote on the House floor occurred was in 1910, when then-Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon survived it.
McCarthy's hold on the speakership had been tenuous since he was elected in January, due to a small clique led by Gaetz who are unhappy with the Californian.
One source told NBC News on Tuesday that some McCarthy allies were "begging" a number of Democratic House members to vote with them to save his speakership.
"We need Kevin McCarthy to remain as our speaker," said Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Ind., during the debate. "We're going to stay focused on our mission of delivering common sense wins for the American people."
Gaetz said, "The one thing that the White House, Democrats and many of us on the conservative side of the Republican caucus have in common is McCarthy said something to all of us at one point that he didn't really mean and never intended to live up to."
"There's nothing selfish about wanting a speaker of the House who tells the truth," he said.
Gaetz claims that McCarthy no longer represents the interests of the GOP caucus after the speaker worked with Democrats to pass a stopgap funding bill to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend.
"Look, I'm an optimist because I think there's no point in being anything else," McCarthy said on his way to the House floor before his backers lost a motion seeking to delay debate on Gaetz's motion to vacate.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in a statement said he and other Democratic leaders in the chamber "will vote yes" on Gaetz's motion to oust McCarthy.
"It is now the responsibility of the GOP members to end the House Republican Civil War," Jeffries said.
Gaetz has been threatening McCarthy with a motion to vacate since he worked with Democrats on a debt ceiling deal in the spring.
McCarthy told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday morning that Gaetz has "personal things in his life that he has challenges with."
In January, as a condition to secure enough votes to become speaker, McCarthy agreed to change the rules to lower the threshold needed to bring a motion to oust a speaker from five votes to just one. | US Congress |
Banks on the payment app Zelle have begun refunding victims of imposter scams to address consumer protection concerns raised by US lawmakers and the federal consumer watchdog, in a major policy change.
The 2,100 financial firms on Zelle, a peer-to-peer network owned by seven banks including JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N), began reversing transfers as of June 30 for customers duped into sending money to scammers claiming to be from a government agency, bank or existing service provider, said Early Warning Services (EWS), the banks’ company that owns Zelle.
That’s “well above existing legal and regulatory requirements,” Ben Chance, chief fraud risk officer at EWS, told Reuters.
Federal rules require banks to reimburse customers for payments made without their authorization, such as by hackers, but not when customers themselves make the transfer.
While Zelle disclosed Aug. 30 that it had introduced a new reimbursement benefit for “specific scam types,” it has not previously provided details on its new imposter scam refund policy due to worries doing so might encourage criminals to make false scam claims, a spokesperson said.
The new policy marks a major shift from last year when bankers, including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, told lawmakers worried about rising scams that it was unreasonable to require banks to refund transfers that customers were tricked into approving.
Following its launch in 2017, Zelle grew to become one of the largest US peer-to-peer payments networks by total payments. A March 2022 New York Times report that scams were flourishing on Zelle caught the attention of lawmakers frequently critical of big banks, including Senator Elizabeth Warren.
She and other lawmakers started an investigation, estimating that Zelle users had lost $440 million to all types of fraud in 2021 alone. During a Senate hearing last year, Warren told Dimon and other bank CEOs that they had created a “perfect weapon” for criminals but had not stood by their customers. More than 100 million people, all with U.S. bank accounts, have access to Zelle, according to EWS.
Impersonator fraud was the most reported scam in 2022 across all payment methods in the US, accounting for $2.6 billion in losses, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Banks worry that covering the cost of authorized transactions will encourage more fraud and put them on the hook for potentially billions of dollars. Instead of requiring lenders to reimburse customers, EWS has implemented a mechanism that allows banks to claw back funds from the recipient’s account and return them to the sender, said Chance.
Lenders on Zelle are also now required to implement a tool that flags transfers with risky attributes, such as a payment to an account that has never transacted on the Zelle network, said Chance. He said Zelle has seen “a step-change reduction” in fraud and scam rates this year but declined to provide details.
“We have had a strong set of controls since the launch of the network, and as part of our journey we have continued to evolve those controls… to keep pace with what we see is going on in the marketplace,” he said.
Chance said EWS has been engaging with policymakers on the need for a “holistic approach” to combating scams, including advocating for more dedicated law enforcement resources.
Under pressure from Warren and other lawmakers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) considered compelling lenders to reimburse scams, but Zelle’s changes have so far satisfied the agency, said a person familiar with the matter.
A CFPB spokesperson declined to comment on Zelle or potential rule changes, but said the agency is working to protect customers “including by ensuring that financial institutions are living up to their investigation and error-resolution obligations.”
JPMorgan, Bank of America and Zelle’s five other owner banks declined to comment.
“Zelle’s platform changes are long overdue,” said Warren in a statement to Reuters. “The CFPB is standing with consumers, and I urge the agency to keep the pressure on Zelle to protect consumers from bad actors.”
MARKET PRESSURE
Zelle has long argued its fraud and scam rates are low.
It processed $629 billion worth of payments in 2022, according to the network, with 99.9% of transfers made without a fraud or scam report.
It competes with other peer-to-peer payment platforms like PayPal (PYPL.O) and Venmo that review situations case-by-case and have a purchase-protection program for eligible transactions that covers scams. Experts note that it is difficult to compare fraud and scam rates across platforms because classifications vary.
Zelle’s u-turn shows how banks are feeling competitive pressure to step up the “market standard of care”, said Trace Fooshee, a strategic advisor at Datos Insights.
Still, regulations mandating imposter fraud protections would be better for customers since lenders’ policies may be unclear or they may not follow them as promised, said Carla Sanchez-Adams, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.
“The one thing that I think is problematic is that the consumer really wouldn’t know that they have that option, and if they do know, and if the bank fails to reimburse them, there is no private remedy,” she said, noting Zelle’s policy change was nevertheless a “good first step.”
Payment fraud is expected to come up again when bank CEOs appear before the Senate next month, according to industry experts. This time, they believe they have a good story to tell.
“The banks through Zelle – without regulation, without legislation – have actually proactively gone and said, we’re going to make sure that we are… trying to address any kind of consumer issue or harm,” said Lindsey Johnson, CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association. | US Federal Policies |
Wenstrup said in a video on Thursday that he will retire from Congress, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. He was elected to the House in 2012 and serves Ohio's 2nd Congressional District.
"I work in a place where a lot of people want to be somebody, but a surgeon mentor of mine once said, ‘You don’t have to be somebody somewhere else as long as you’re somebody at home,’” Wenstrup said. "Sadly, all too often, the frantic pace of Washington has kept me away from our home. I'm ready to change that."
Wenstrup has been in headlines recently for his role as chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is leading an inquiry into COVID-19's origins and the response from the federal government. The committee recently subpoenaed acting National Institutes of Health Director Lawrence Tabak as part of its investigation into David Morens, a top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The Ohio congressman is the latest lawmaker to announce they will not run again in 2024. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said on Thursday he will not seek reelection, ending months of speculation about the Senate's leading swing vote. The West Virginia senator has been viewed as the most vulnerable incumbent heading into 2024, with some speculating that he would run for reelection, launch a presidential bid, or retire altogether.
Manchin said he would continue his fight to unite the divided political wings, traveling around the country to create a "movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together."
Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA), who has served as Washington's 6th District representative for 10 years, also announced on Thursday that he will not run for reelection next November. Like Wenstrup, Kilmer tied his decision to the job pulling him away from his loved ones.
"As nourishing as this job has been, it has come with profound costs to my family,” Kilmer wrote in a statement. “Every theatrical performance and musical recital I missed. Every family dinner that I wasn’t there for. The distance I felt from my family for months after the events of January 6th." | US Congress |
Washington — House Republicans will make public most of the security footage captured on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, following through on their pledge to give Americans access to the video, they announced Friday.
Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that 40,000 of the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill taken on Jan. 6 will be posted online on a rolling basis. The faces of private citizens captured on video will be blurred to protect them from retaliation, and roughly 5% of the footage will be withheld because it contains sensitive security information, Johnson said.
"This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials," Johnson said.
The speaker said that "truth and transparency are critical."
The first tranche of video, which is roughly 90 hours long, was made public Friday by the House Administration Committee. In addition to hosting the footage on a public website, there will also be a viewing room where people can watch the footage themselves.
Most of the video from the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol has not been released to the public, though portions were played by the House select committee that investigated the attack. The panel was disbanded in December at the end of the last Congress.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had vowed to release the security footage,to the trove of 41,000 hours of police and surveillance video from Jan. 6 to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson first.
Carlson broadcast selected snippets of the footage from the Capitol and claimed it showed "mostly peaceful chaos." His characterization of the events on Jan. 6from Republicans on Capitol Hill, who said his portrayal was at odds with what they experienced when the mob of former President Donald Trump's supporters breached the Capitol building.
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Al Goldis/AP
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Then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder delivers his State of the State address at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Jan. 23, 2018.
Al Goldis/AP
Then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder delivers his State of the State address at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Jan. 23, 2018.
Al Goldis/AP
LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan attorney general's office said Tuesday that the state prosecution of former Gov. Rick Snyder and other officials for their roles in the Flint water scandal has ended.
A decision Tuesday by the state Supreme Court to decline to hear appeals of a lower court's dismissal of misdemeanor charges against Snyder "effectively closes the door on the criminal prosecutions of the government officials," prosecutors said in a release.
"At this time the court has left us with no option but to consider the Flint water prosecutions closed," the prosecution team said.
The Michigan Supreme Court in September rejected a last-chance effort by prosecutors to revive criminal charges. The attorney general's office used an uncommon tool — a one-judge grand jury — to hear evidence and return indictments against nine people, including Snyder. But the Supreme Court last year said the process was unconstitutional, and it struck down the charges as invalid.
Snyder was charged with willful neglect of duty. The indictment against him also was dismissed, though the Supreme Court did not address an appeal by prosecutors in September only because that case was on a different timetable.
The Associated Press left a text message Tuesday seeking comment from Snyder's attorney.
Managers appointed by Snyder turned the Flint River into a source for Flint water in 2014, but the water wasn't treated to reduce its corrosive impact on old pipes. As a result, lead contaminated the system for 18 months. Some experts have attributed a fatal Legionnaires' disease outbreak in 2014-15 to the water switch.
Flint was reconnected to a regional water system in 2015 and has been compliant with lead standards for seven years, regulators said.
Snyder, a Republican, acknowledged that state government botched the water switch, especially regulators who didn't require certain treatments. But his lawyers deny his conduct rose to the level of a crime.
"Our disappointment in the Michigan Supreme Court is exceeded only by our sorrow for the people of Flint," the prosecution team said.
The prosecution team said Tuesday that it expects next year to release "a full and thorough report" detailing its efforts and decisions.
Separately, the state agreed to pay $600 million as part of a $626 million settlement with residents and property owners who were harmed by lead-tainted water. Most of the money is going to children. | US Political Corruption |
Gisele Barreto Fetterman pushes back on ‘power hungry wife’ description
Gisele Barreto Fetterman is speaking out against critics who’ve dubbed her a “power hungry wife,” saying she’s faced the “vast majority” of “harassment” after her husband, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), was hospitalized for treatment of clinical depression.
“As soon as John’s political profile began to grow, I started receiving hate mail — ten times more than John ever got himself,” Barreto Fetterman wrote in an op-ed published in Elle on Thursday.
“I hadn’t sought an office of any kind, and I had never wanted to be in the public eye; in fact, that’s the last thing I’d want,” the 41-year-old founder of Free Store 15104, an organization in Pennsylvania that distributes donated goods at no cost, wrote.
“I’ve always preferred serving others as a private citizen and have no interest in the politicking of policy.”
Nonetheless, Barreto Fetterman said, she was on the receiving end of “politically-motivated attacks” that continue to “flood” her life.
“I’ve been called a ‘mail-order bride,’ and some have even asked John: ‘Where did you buy her?’ They told me to go back to my country and criticized my immigration journey from Brazil, even after receiving my green card in 2004 and official U.S. citizenship in 2009,” Barreto Fetterman said.
“They have even criticized my appearance, often going after my eyebrows and hair.”
“They’re the same attacks leveled at Meghan Markle, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Jill Biden — my apparent competitors for ‘worst wife in America,’” Barreto Fetterman said, referencing a Twitter poll last month from conservative writer Matt Walsh. “They echo the dehumanizing bullying that women like Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have faced for decades.”
“And they leave women shouldering a heavier side of the blame, no matter what we do,” Barreto Fetterman wrote in the magazine.
Fetterman is poised to return to the Senate on April 17, after checking himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in February to be treated for clinical depression. The 53-year-old lawmaker had suffered a stroke last May, shortly before the Senate Democratic primary.
In her Elle piece, Barreto Fetterman said that political opponents cast blame on her for virtually anything involving her husband.
“To hear my critics tell it, it’s my fault that John ran for Senate. It’s my fault that he won. It’s my fault that he had a stroke, and it’s my fault that he’s depressed. And somehow, at the same time, I’m just a wife who should stay at home and out of the public eye,” she said.
“On social media, people accused me of kidnapping the kids and running away to Canada. They promoted conspiracy theories claiming I was an ambitious, power hungry wife, secretly plotting to fill his Senate seat,” she added. “It was all so wildly preposterous.”
“I am not my husband’s career,” Barreto Fetterman said.
“A healthy, loving relationship is about supporting your partner’s dreams, not controlling them,” the mom of three said.
Calling attacks against her “exhausting,” Barreto Fetterman said she worries “about the millions of women who hear these attacks on TV and social media and then internalize these myths in their own lives.”
“When we demand that women steel themselves in the face of unending attacks, we teach the next generation to normalize and accept harassment. In the end, it only puts the blame on women once again; telling us to toughen up or ignore it reasserts the idea that we need to accept when we’re treated poorly, instead of questioning why society permits abusive behavior,” she said.
“It makes us feel like we’re the problem for feeling pain when we’re held over a live fire.”
But rather than “fight fire with fire,” Barreto Fetterman said, she’s chosen to “continue to live with love every day.”
“To reject their venom wholesale, and be wholly, independently who we’re meant to and want to be.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | US Congress |
As the debt ceiling fight heats up on Capitol Hill, House Democrats are eyeing an end-around strategy to bypass Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — and the conservative hawks driving his agenda — to avoid a federal default later in the year.
Democratic leaders have already begun talks about tapping a procedural tool, known as a discharge petition, to force a debt-limit hike to the floor without the accompanying cuts McCarthy is demanding, according to sources familiar with the closed-door discussions. That would align House Democrats with President Biden, who is insisting on a “clean” debt-ceiling increase absent any other budget changes.
“We’ve had some preliminary conversations about that, and we’ll do what we have to do to prevent economic catastrophe,” said a member of Democratic leadership, who spoke anonymously to discuss private talks.
The timing is crucial — and complicated — since the archaic rules governing discharge petitions dictate they can be considered only on certain days of the month, and only after the underlying legislation has sat in committee for at least 30 legislative days. Those eyeing that calendar expect they’ll have to launch the process sometime in March to avoid a default over the summer.
“The question is, if we were to have somebody file something, what’s the best timing to do that in order for it to get ripe at the moment when we need [it]?”
The discharge petition — an obscure mechanism empowering 218 lawmakers to pass bills the Speaker refuses to consider — is almost never successful, because it requires members of the ruling party to defy their own leadership. But this year may be different.
Already, some moderate Republicans are signaling a willingness to join Democrats to force a debt-limit vote if McCarthy, pressured by his right flank, refuses to do so.
“A discharge petition would only take myself and four of my colleagues on the GOP side to sign with Democrats, if that’s necessary,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, told CNN.
Congress is not expected to vote on the debt-ceiling until the summer, when the Treasury Department is slated to exhaust its debt-paying options and the country faces an unprecedented federal default. But the debate launches in earnest this week, with a high-stakes meeting on Wednesday between Biden and McCarthy at the White House.
The president has insisted he won’t negotiate on the issue, noting that raising the debt limit merely allows the government to make good on past obligations. And his House allies are backing him up, particularly when it comes to their defense of the major entitlement programs.
“They have said there are cuts they want to make to Social Security and Medicare,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.). “Democrats will never agree to that.”
Heading into the meeting, McCarthy is insisting Republicans are focused elsewhere — “We take Social Security and Medicare off the table,” he said Sunday — but is also amplifying demands for steep cuts to unspecified programs.
“We cannot continue just to spend more money and leverage the debt of the future of America,” he said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” program. “We’ve got to get to a balanced budget.”
The debate highlights an early consequence of the concessions McCarthy made to his conservative detractors in order to win the Speaker’s gavel in January, which included a vow to keep the debt ceiling off the floor unless it came with efforts to slash federal spending. McCarthy also agreed to empower a single lawmaker to launch the process of ousting the Speaker — a change that’s now looming over the debt ceiling debate.
“Our obligation, to me, is first and foremost: hold in check this bloated, woke, weaponized, wasteful government,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who was among the McCarthy holdouts who forced the changes to weaken the Speakership. “Shrink Washington; grow America.”
The resulting partisan impasse has heightened the fears of a default and elevated the notion that a discharge petition may eventually be the best chance of avoiding one.
“They’re the majority party, they ought to have a bill on the floor that raises the debt ceiling and meets our obligations, period,” Cicilline said. “If they don’t do that, we have to be prepared to do whatever we can to protect the country and the economy of this country.”
Others were even more emphatic. Asked if he’d endorse a discharge petition, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) didn’t hesitate.
“If it’s a clean debt ceiling — in a heartbeat,” he said.
Washington compiles deficits when incoming revenues — largely from tax receipts — fall short of the costs to run the federal government. The current debt, at roughly $31.4 trillion, represents the accumulation of annual deficits registered by administrations of both parties over the course of decades.
Raising the debt limit does not authorize or allocate new federal spending, but simply allows the Treasury to borrow additional funds to cover expenditures already approved by Congress. The vote was once routine — President Reagan raised the limit almost 20 times — but has become controversial more recently as conservatives have sought to leverage their votes to rein in federal spending.
“The people who are in control here make me nostalgic for Newt Gingrich,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).
Not all Democrats are ready to endorse the discharge petition strategy. Some are demanding that Republicans release a specific budget plan, confident that, once revealed, the proposed cuts would spark such a public backlash that GOP leaders would be forced to abandon them before the debt ceiling vote hits the floor.
“We have to show the American people what they really are about. And hopefully that’s enough,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Both sides are guilty of some degree of hypocrisy when it comes to the debt limit debate.
While serving as a senator in 2006, Biden had opposed a debt ceiling hike to protest the policies of then-President Bush, which included a series of tax cuts that piled trillions of dollars onto federal deficits.
“My vote against the debt limit increase cannot change the fact that we have incurred this debt already, and will no doubt incur more,” Biden said at the time. “It is a statement that I refuse to be associated with the policies that brought us to this point.”
More recently, GOP leaders raised little protest when President Trump raised the debt limit three times in four years, while adding almost $7.8 trillion to the debt. And in 2021, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) supported the concept of the debt-limit hike, but said he’d vote against it. The responsibility, he said at the time, was that of the party in power.
“The debt ceiling will need to be raised,” he said. “But who does that depends on who the American people elect.”
This year, the minority Democrats are promising a different approach. While Democrats acknowledge that endorsing a discharge petition might bail out McCarthy, the more important consideration, they say, is preventing an economy-shaking default.
“We’re preventing economic failure, and Kevin McCarthy will have been on the side of catastrophe,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.). “So if we bail him out it’s because the country needs us to take action.”
Rep. Bill Pascrell (N.J.) echoed that message.
“It’d be a good time to show him,” Pascrell said, “that there’s something more important than him.”
–Updated at 7:01 a.m. | US Congress |
Willis, a Democrat, has become a central political figure tied to Trump after she launched an investigation into alleged election interference waged by the former president and his allies. Trump and 18 others were indicted last month by a grand jury, prompting some within the GOP to push for Willis' ouster and garner support from Republican Governor Brian Kemp.
Jordan, one of the former president's most loyal allies in Congress, penned a letter to Willis in late August, telling her that the House Oversight Committee that he chairs is looking into "whether any legislative reforms are appropriate or necessary" as a response to her investigation into Trump and his associates.
"Such reforms could include changes to the federal officer removal statute, immunities for federal officials, the permissible use of federal funds, the authorities of special counsels, and the delineation of prosecutorial authority between federal and local officials," Jordan wrote.
"Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous misrepresentations," Willis wrote. "As I make clear below, there is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do."
Willis also says Jordan's attempt "to Interfere with and Obstruct This Office's Prosecution of State Criminal Cases is Unconstitutional." She continued to Jordan, writing, "Your letter makes allegations that I have somehow used the investigation and prosecution about which you have inquired in a political manner. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Legal analyst Harry Litman took to X, formerly Twitter, to comment on Willis' letter, saying, "Really extremely aggressive pushback from Fani Willis to Jim Jordan. Letter tells him he's transgressing state sovereignty, separation of powers, administration of criminal justice, & the deliberative process privilege; then provides "voluntary" answers that shred his arguments."
Victor Shi, a delegate for President Joe Biden, also said, "DA**. DA Fani Willis just sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, saying Republicans are "obstructing a Georgia criminal proceeding" & tells Jim Jordan directly he should buy a copy of the RICO book for the "non-bar member price." Bravo, DA Willis. THIS is how it's done."
Newsweek reached out to Jordan's Washington, D.C., office via phone on Thursday for comment. | US Political Corruption |
Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday invalidated President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, ruling that federal law does not allow the program to wipe out nearly half-a-trillion dollars in debt.
The 6-3 decision by the court's conservative majority derails a major campaign pledge from the president, denying relief to 40 million Americans who stood to have up to $20,000 in student debt wiped away under the plan.
Before striking it down, the Supreme Court first said Missouri, one of the six states that challenged the lawfulness of the plan, had the right to sue, known as legal standing. That finding allowed the court to consider whether the secretary of education had the power to forgive student loan debt under a law known as the HEROES Act.
In a separate opinion, the Supreme Court unanimously said a pair of borrowers who also challenged the program lacked standing, and tossed out their challenge.
The decision from the high court is a major defeat for Mr. Biden as he pursues reelection. He pledged during his 2020 campaign that his administration would forgive at least $10,000 of federal student loan debt.
The student loan relief plan
Mr. Biden moved to fulfill that promise last August, when heto forgive up to $10,000 in student debt for earning less than $125,000 annually. Qualifying Pell Grant recipients, who are students with the greatest financial need, can have up to an additional $10,000 in relief.
Roughly 40 million Americans wereannounced by the president last August, 20 million of whom would have had their loan balances erased altogether, according to White House estimates. More than 26.2 million people , and over 16 million of those applications were approved before the Department of Education was forced to stop accepting applications due to the legal challenges.
The Trump and Biden administrations paused federal student-loan payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, though borrowers willthis summer.
The Department of Education relied on the 2003 HEROES Act as its legal justification forroughly $430 billion in debt. The law authorizes the education secretary to "waive or modify" student financial assistance programs for borrowers "in connection" with a national emergency, such as the pandemic.
Legal challenges
A group of six red states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and South Carolina — as well as two borrowers from Texas filed two separate lawsuits, arguing the debt relief exceeded the administration's authority.
In the challenge from the states, a federal district court in St. Louis dismissed the case, finding they did not have the legal standing to bring the suit. But an appeals court blocked the loan forgiveness program, finding that Missouri was harmed from the financial losses the debt cancellation inflicts.
The appeals court focused its decision on the Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri, or MOHELA, a state-created entity that services federal student loans, finding that the financial impact on the loan servicer due to the debt discharge threatened financial harm to Missouri.
For the second case from Texas brought by borrowers Myra Brown and Alexander Taylor, dubbed Dept. of Education v. Brown, a federal district court found the borrowers satisfied the requirements for standing and ruled the plan is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress's legislative power. A federal appeals court declined to reinstate the program.
Brown does not qualify for debt relief, as her loans are held by commercial entities, and Taylor is eligible for $10,000 in loan forgiveness.
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American media billed it as a “slugfest” and the “Vendetta in Alpharetta”. Ron DeSantis’s campaign hyped it with a “tale of the tape”. In the era of politics as entertainment, everyone had an interest in turning a debate between two state governors with presidential aspirations into something resembling fight night in Las Vegas.
After all, it seems the Elon Musk v Mark Zuckerberg cage match is not going to happen, so the showdown between Florida governor DeSantis and his California counterpart Gavin Newsom on prime time television on Thursday would just have to do.
For Fox News, there was the promise for ratings for a White House race that might have been or might still be. DeSantis is desperate to be president but losing badly to Donald Trump in Republican primary opinion polls. Newsom equally aches with ambition but dare not say so while fellow Democrat Joe Biden has the big chair. Consider this Newsom’s audition for 2024 should the current president bow to old age or bad polling or both.
There were plenty of low blows, blood on the canvas and less than impartial refereeing from Hannity. DeSantis, in the red corner, failed to land the big punch that could turn his fortunes around. Newsom, in the blue corner, floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, ensuring that he will live to fight another day – quite possibly in 2028.
So this remained effectively the undercard for the expected rematch between Biden and Trump next year. Newsom turned both presidents into a one-two punch, promoting Biden’s economic record while relishing Trump’s dominance of the Republican primary.
He goaded DeSantis: “You’re trolling folks and trying to find migrants to play political games, to try to get some news and attention, so you can out-Trump Trump. And by the way, how’s that going for you, Ron? You’re down 41 points in your own home state.” DeSantis stared into the middle distance, his face contorted in a rictus like an overripe pumpkin.
The governors represent two of the three biggest states in the US. DeSantis, 45, is a culture warrior who wages war on Covid science, gun control and pronouns. Newsom, 56, is a progressive peacock seen by his foes as part of the hypocritical liberal elite. The debate put two Americas on the same stage: hunter v hipster, heartland v Hollywood, Duck Dynasty v Modern Family, Cracker Barrel v Whole Foods, beer v wine.
The gulf often appeared unbridgeable, a snapshot of a nation at odds with itself. Differences on policy soon descended into the governors talking over one another. DeSantis snapped: “You’re a liberal bully!” Newsom answered: “You’re nothing but a bully.” DeSantis retorted: “You’re a bully!” Repetitive it was, Socratic it was not. Over the past eight years Trump has coarsened the discourse so that no disagreement is complete without a personal insult or viral-friendly barb.
After months of trash talking each other’s records from afar, DeSantis and Newsom finally came face to face in a studio in Alpharetta in swing state Georgia. The lack of audience and other participants made this feel less chaotic and raucous than the debates that have taken place so far as part of the Republican primary contest. The men stood at lecterns about eight feet apart with red and blue images from their states behind them, as well as their state flags. It was “not a cheap set that we’ve built for you all”, Hannity said.
From the opening bell, both men were on brand. DeSantis, wearing the standard issue Trump uniform of dark suit, white shirt and red tie, was bleak and saturnine, like a graveyard at night, going on the offensive against Newsom in his opening statement: “He led the country in school closures locking kids out of school while he had his own kids in private school in person. Now he’s very good at spinning these tales. He’s good at being slick and slippery. He’ll tell a blizzard of lies to be able to try to mask the failures.”
Newsom, by contrast, began with sunshine and charm like a sommelier at an overpriced restaurant. He smiled and complimented Hannity for wearing a tie. But then he responded in kind: “You want to bring us back to the pre-1960s or older, America in reverse … You want to weaponise grievance; you are focused on false separateness. You in particular run on a banning binge, a cultural purge, intimidating and humiliating people you disagree with. You and President Trump are really trying to light democracy on fire.”
Over 90 minutes, the pair clashed on jobs, taxes, coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, immigration, crime, homelessness, abortion and more. Hannity often had to intervene to stop them talking over one another. Statistics flew back and forth on everything from murder rates to Covid deaths. So did allegations of lying, leaving Democrats to cheer Newsom, Republicans to cheer DeSantis and viewers none the wiser.
DeSantis claimed that Newsom’s own father-in-law had moved to Florida because it was better governed and wielded a map of what he said showed the quantity of human faeces found on the streets of San Francisco. He called Newsom “a slick, slippery politician whose state is failing”.
The California governor responded to the tirades with a raised eyebrow and wry smile. He accused DeSantis of “smirking” and was withering about his incorrect pronunciation of Kamala Harris’s first name, saying he should show more respect for the vice-president. He scored points by hammering home the threat a President DeSantis would pose to abortion rights.
For a while, Hannity, who is friendly with both men, played the part of affable and even-handed host. But he showed his true colours when he stated as fact that Biden, 81, is experiencing “significant cognitive decline”. DeSantis claimed that Newsom agrees and that is why he is running a “shadow campaign” for president. Newsom had a response ready: “I will take Joe Biden at 100 versus Ron DeSantis any day of the week at any age.”
Such lines ensured that the charismatic Newsom will avoid the charge of disloyalty and continue his ascent. DeSantis is still in his 40s but resembled an ageing, over-the-hill fighter throwing punches at a phantom opponent. He did nothing to stall rival Nikki Haley’s momentum or close the gap on Trump. Newsom observed that what the men have in common “is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024”.
The debate was also a chilling reminder that America is heading into another election torn between different realities. Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary, said on Fox News afterwards: “Democrats are from Mars and Republicans are from Venus.”
DeSantis’s campaign sent out a statement with the wildly improbable headline: “DeSantis crushes Newsom and Biden, unites Republicans in debate win.” The governor dashed to a hotel press conference where he sought to justify taking part: “To have 90 minutes on national TV where I’m able to go and box somebody who is on the far left – that is good exposure for me.”
The pugilistic metaphor was at least consistent. But it may be time to throw in the towel. Stuart Stevens, a veteran political consultant, tweeted: “In the history of American politics, @RonDeSantis will go down as the chump who not only lost every debate in his race, but lost to a guy who isn’t even in the race. That’s talent.” | US Federal Elections |
- Former Vice President Mike Pence has suspended his presidential run.
- Trump called on Pence to endorse him and complained about "disloyal" people in politics.
- Trump previously defended January 6 rioters who chanted "hang Mike Pence."
Former President Donald Trump complained about "disloyal" people in politics, as he called on his former Vice President Mike Pence to endorse him.
"People are leaving now, and they're all endorsing me. I don't know about Mike Pence. He should endorse me," Trump said at an event in Las Vegas on Saturday, CNN reported.
"Because I had a great, successful presidency, and he was the vice president, he should endorse me. I chose him, made him vice president. But people in politics can be very disloyal. I've never seen anything like it."
Pence was Trump's loyal ally throughout his presidency, but their relationship soured when the vice president refused to help overturn the results of the 2020 election.
During the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, some rioters chanted "hang Mike Pence," and Trump later defended them.
A former White House aide also testified that Trump told former White House Chief of Staff Mike Meadows that Pence "deserves it."
Pence has long contended that he had no right to overturn the election and later said that Trump's "reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day."
Pence on Saturday said that he had suspended his presidential campaign after he struggled to gain traction in the 2024 Republican primary.
Trump continues to be the GOP frontrunner. | US Federal Elections |
In the heat of the Republican primary of 2016, then-White House hopeful Donald Trump called Iowa evangelical supporters of Senator Ted Cruz "so-called Christians" and began to believe there was a "conspiracy among powerful evangelicals," a new book says.
The Guardian published excerpts from Atlantic reporter Tim Alberta's upcoming book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in a Time of Extremism, on Thursday that provided a behind-the-scenes look at Trump's response to the criticism he received nearly eight years ago when he named "Two Corinthians" as his favorite Bible verse instead of "Second Corinthians."
"The laughter and ridicule were embarrassing enough for Trump," Alberta wrote in the book, which will be published on December 5. "But the news of [Family Research Council President Tony] Perkins endorsing Ted Cruz, just a few days later, sent him into a spiral. He began to speculate that there was a conspiracy among powerful evangelicals to deny him the GOP nomination."
Newsweek reached out to Trump via email for comment.
Trump, who is currently the front-runner in the 2024 Republican primaries, is jockeying for support from evangelicals, a powerful bloc for Republican candidates, especially in Iowa, where the Republican Party is holding its first caucus in January. Evangelicals are a dominant voting group in the Hawkeye State, where 55 percent identify as "devoutly religious," an NBC News/Des Moines Register poll from August shows.
The news of Trump's alleged 2016 comments comes days after powerful evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats handed Trump's rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a major endorsement in Iowa on Tuesday. Two weeks earlier, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds also endorsed DeSantis.
In his upcoming book, Alberta recalls that "When Cruz's allies began using the 'Two Corinthians' line to attack him in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump told one Iowa Republican official, 'You know, these so-called Christians hanging around with Ted are some real pieces of s---.'"
The journalist goes on to say that "in private conversations," Trump "would use even more colourful language to describe the evangelical community."
Cruz would outperform Trump by 12 percentage points among evangelical voters in Iowa, according to an NBC News entrance poll that year. But Trump would take the second primary contest in New Hampshire and eventually win the Republican nomination with ease.
Vander Plaats is widely considered a kingmaker in Iowa, where he worked on the winning GOP campaign in the 2008 caucus and endorsed the winner of the first-in-the-nation contest in both 2012 and 2016.
Despite Vander Plaats' strong endorsement record, Trump has polled ahead of his Republican challengers among Iowa evangelicals, of whom 44 percent plan to make Trump their first choice, according to a Des Moines Register poll from last month. Comparably, 22 percent said DeSantis would be their first choice.
Vander Plaats and Trump have been at odds since the 2016 primaries, and it doesn't appear things have changed much since then. Last week, Trump declined to attend a Thanksgiving Family Forum in Des Moines hosted by Vander Plaats.
When the evangelical leader endorsed DeSantis this week, he told Fox News, "I don't think America is going to elect [Trump] president again. I think America would be well served to have a choice, and I really believe Ron DeSantis should be that guy. And I think Iowa is tailor-made for him to win this."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. She has covered the Republican primary elections and the American education system extensively. Katherine joined Newsweek in 2020 and had previously worked at Good Housekeeping and Marie Claire. She is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and obtained her Master's degree from New York University. You can get in touch with Katherine by emailing [email protected]. Languages: English.
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics.... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here. | US Federal Elections |
Could former President Donald Trump become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives?
The short answer is, yes, almost all experts agree that it’s technically possible. And a rising chorus of ring-wing voices are calling for exactly that.
There’s no rule specifying that the Speaker—a position so important it’s third in line for the presidency—needs to be a sitting member of the House.
And now, after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s historic leadership implosion following an unprecedented vote for his ouster led by right-wing firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, some in the right-wing political system are saying Trump is the man for the job.
“The only candidate for Speaker I am currently supporting is President Donald J. Trump,” MAGA bomb-thrower Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia tweeted.
Greene isn’t the only sitting member who is publicly backing Trump. Rep. Troy Nehls, Republican of Texas, also posted enthusiastic support for the idea. Conservative outlet Newsmax teased the prospect, when a presenter said the next speaker could be someone “whose name rhymes with… ‘Trump.’”
Electing Trump as Speaker would be historically unprecedented. While non-members have earned votes to become Speaker, none has ever won the post. And while the majority of experts hold that a non-member of Congress can become Speaker, the view is not completely unanimous among Congressional experts. Diana Schaub, a political science professor at Loyola University Maryland, has argued that the framers of the Constitution probably didn’t think anyone would ever try to elect a non-member. So there is at least a chance the Supreme Court might weigh in and rule the move illegitimate, if Trump actually went for it.
Trump didn’t immediately reject the idea when asked about it on Wednesday morning. He said he’s “focused” on his presidential campaign. But added, vaguely: “I’ll do whatever it is to help.”
In the past, when his name was raised in the spring of 2022 by a few isolated voices to become Speaker, he said flatly that he wasn’t interested.
Fox News personality Sean Hannity chimed in Tuesday night, saying “sources” told him some House Republicans have been in contact with Trump about the idea, and that Trump “might be open to helping the Republican Party, at least in the short term if necessary.”
Meanwhile, it’s not like Trump has nothing else to do.
Trump is currently facing 91 felony counts in four districts, in criminal cases brought by three different sets of prosecutors. He’s in the middle of a $250 million civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who accused him and his family business of rampant fraud. He’s pleaded not guilty in all the criminal cases, and denied all wrong-doing in the civil trial. None of his current legal troubles make him technically ineligible to be Speaker.
And he’s still dominating the battle for the GOP presidential nomination.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said Trump should be put forward for the job as a “litmus test on these Republicans” in the House—to see who will stand with him.
“You can nominate someone that’s not in Congress,” said Jones. “With all the fake charges and all the fake trials, how awesome would it be to make Donald Trump Speaker of the House!” | US Congress |
US hits debt limit, Treasury saysThe US government has hit the legal limit on how much money it can borrow, and Congress must approve an increase to avoid a debt default in the coming months, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said this morning.In a letter to congressional leaders, Yellen announced the Treasury would begin taking “extraordinary measures” to make the government’s cash on hand last until Congress acts. These include a “debt issuance suspension period” lasting from today till 5 June, as well as suspending investments into two government employee retirement funds.“As I stated in my January 13 letter, the period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty, including the challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the US government months into the future. I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Yellen wrote.Key events5m agoThe day so far3h agoUS hits debt limit, Treasury says4h agoDemocrats and Republicans prepared for battle as US hits debt ceilingShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureThe day so farSo it begins. The US government has hit its legal borrowing limit, and the clock is now ticking for Congress to reach an agreement to raise it, or for the country to default for the first time in its history, sometime in the coming months. The White House is demanding Republicans controlling the House agree to raise the debt ceiling without conditions, but several moderate GOP lawmakers say the Biden administration needs to compromise at the bargaining table. Meanwhile, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell thinks everyone needs to chill out.Here’s what else has happened today so far: Joe Biden is still pretty unpopular, a new poll finds. Donald Trump plans to speak in response to comments that his latest presidential campaign just doesn’t have that 2016 vigor. The debt ceiling gets the New Yorker treatment, for better or worse. There are many factors dragging down Joe Biden’s popularity, and the recent discovery of classified documents in his possession has probably not helped matters.The president is now facing a scandal similar to the one that Donald Trump was caught up in starting in August of last year, but there are importance differences between the two men’s situations. Here’s a breakdown:Two presidents, many classified documents.Joe Biden remains an unpopular president, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released today finds, though voters don’t seem to like other Washington power players much either.Biden’s approval rating was 40% in the poll conducted over three days till Sunday, just a smidgen higher than the 39% reported a month ago and remaining near the lowest level ever recorded of his presidency.However, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s approval was a dismal 20% in the poll, while only 35% said they had a positive view of the House and 38% said the same of the Senate.Moderate House Republicans who represent districts Joe Biden won are frustrated with the White House’s refusal to negotiate over the debt ceiling, CNN reports.The Biden administration is currently pushing Congress to agree to a “clean” debt limit increase, without the conditions sought by the GOP leadership in the House. These moderate lawmakers could be crucial to bridging the narrow gap with Democrats in the lower chamber to make that happen, but several have told CNN that some kind of agreement needs to be reached on addressing America’s budget deficit.“I don’t think that a clean debt ceiling is in order, and I certainly don’t think that a default is in order,” Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick said.Don Bacon of Nebraska said, “I’m not in favor of Biden’s no-negotiating strategy, and I’m not inclined to help,” adding, “The GOP can’t demand the moon, and Biden can’t refuse to negotiate. There needs to be give-and-take on both sides.”Mike Lawler, a New York Republican newly arrived in the House, said the Biden administration can’t ignore the GOP’s demands. “They need to come to a realization pretty quickly they are no longer in a one-party controlled government, and it requires negotiation.”The debt ceiling is the talk of the town in Washington DC, but in New York, it is merely a cartoon:It is not even a particularly scrutable New Yorker cartoon, as this Washington Post reporter notes:Brian Riedl is an economist who has advised a number of Republican politicians in the past, and shared some thoughts on Twitter about why the GOP is so eager to throw down over raising the debt ceiling:Democrats assert that the debt limit is the wrong place/time to address soaring deficits. Fine. But with 70% of spending and nearly all taxes on autopilot - untouchable in the annual budget process - perhaps they can tell us when they *would* be willing to address the issue?— Brian Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 (@Brian_Riedl) January 17, 2023
Deficit hawks would be happy to move the negotiations out of the debt limit debate. Just give us an alternative time and place and we'll be there. If the answer is "never," well, this is why - rightly or wrongly - critics will grab the only (admittedly bad) tool they have.— Brian Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 (@Brian_Riedl) January 17, 2023
Urban Institute economist Len Burman has a reality check for those in Congress flirting with not raising the debt ceiling.A default could undermine the America’s pre-eminence in global markets, where the dollar is used as many countries’ dominant reserve currency. But more immediately, it would actually force Washington to spend even more, because a default would drive up interest rates, forcing the government to shell out more money to owners of its trillions of dollars in debt:Dear Congress: It'd be best not to procrastinate on the debt limit. Here are some talking points from @WilliamGale2 and me. Key point: failing to raise the debt limit can ultimately lead to much more debt by pushing up interest rates. Also, it could wreck the economy. https://t.co/DAHrZFPODr— Len Burman (@lenburman) January 19, 2023
Over in the Senate, top Republican Mitch McConnell is sanguine about the possibility that the US could default on its debt, CNN reports:"No, I would not be concerned about a financial crisis," Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell says confidently in Kentucky when asked about the debt ceiling being reached and the prospects of a first-ever default— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 19, 2023
While the House GOP has made the loudest fuss about raising the debt ceiling, Republicans in the Senate may, at some point, come out with their own demands for signing on to any deal.The below, from rightwing lawmaker Matt Rosendale on the debt ceiling, is about as specific as it gets at the moment when it comes to the House Republicans’ demands:Raising the debt limit will only hurt future generations and weaken our national security.We must put a stop to the reckless spending in Washington. https://t.co/dXl4WxypAI— Matt Rosendale (@RepRosendale) January 18, 2023
The US government has for decades run a budget deficit, meaning it has to borrow to cover its costs. Achieving the type of “balanced budget” Rosendale seems to be endorsing would require massive revenue increases – likely through more taxes – major cuts to government programs, or some combination of both.White House chief of staff Ron Klain is over on Twitter, taking a dig at Republicans’ lack of specifics about what they want in exchange for raising the debt ceiling:House GOP leadership has made clear they want spending cuts in some form, but haven’t yet said more than that.US hits debt limit, Treasury saysThe US government has hit the legal limit on how much money it can borrow, and Congress must approve an increase to avoid a debt default in the coming months, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said this morning.In a letter to congressional leaders, Yellen announced the Treasury would begin taking “extraordinary measures” to make the government’s cash on hand last until Congress acts. These include a “debt issuance suspension period” lasting from today till 5 June, as well as suspending investments into two government employee retirement funds.“As I stated in my January 13 letter, the period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty, including the challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the US government months into the future. I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Yellen wrote.Another day, another Trump scandal. Martin Pengelly has details of the latest:Donald Trump mistook E Jean Carroll, the writer who accuses him of rape, for his ex-wife Marla Maples during a deposition in the case last year, excerpts released in US district court on Wednesday showed.“That’s Marla, yeah,” Trump said, when shown a photograph. “That’s my wife.”The mistake was corrected by a lawyer for the 76-year-old former president. But observers said it could undermine Trump’s claim he could not have attacked Carroll because she is not his “type”.It was not the first release of excerpts from Trump’s deposition, which happened in October. Last week, Trump was shown to have claimed Carroll “said it was very sexy to be raped”.Carroll says Trump raped her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s. Trump denies it.Another thing that’s going to be in the news for months is Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and the former president has today announced what he’s billing as a “big political speech” at one of his Florida resorts.“Making a big political speech today at TRUMP DORAL, in Miami. The Fake News says I am not campaigning very hard. I say they are stupid and corrupt, with the Election still a long time away,” he wrote on his Truth social account.Trump does not name the outlets he believes are deserving of “the Fake News” moniker, but several publications, including the Guardian, have noted that his latest presidential bid has been uncharacteristically quiet since its November debut.“But do not fear, MANY GIANT RALLIES and other events coming up soon,” Trump continues on Truth. “It will all be wild and exciting. We will save our Country from DOOM and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” So there you have it.The debt limit is going to be in the news for months, and the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani has the answers to all your questions about what would happen if it isn’t increased, and what the two parties want:The US government will hit its borrowing limit – or the debt ceiling – on 19 January, the beginning of what looks to be a vicious fight over the government’s budget and one that threatens to worsen an already precarious economic outlook.The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, sent an ominous letter of warning to Congress last Friday that “certain extraordinary measures” will have to be put in place to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations” – essentially moving some money around so the government does not default just yet. Those measures will last a few months, but if the limit is ultimately not raised, the federal government will run out of funds.Here is more on the debt ceiling and what it means for the federal government.For Kevin McCarthy and the Republican majority he leads in the House, the debt limit is all about leverage.In exchange for their votes in the November midterms, the party made big promises to their supporters, but the Democrats’ continued control of the Senate and Joe Biden’s presence in the White House means much of the legislation House Republicans pass will go nowhere. Increasing the government’s borrowing limit is one area where the two parties must work together, and while they have been vague on the details, McCarthy’s team says they will only agree to an increase if the Democrats reduce government spending.Using the debt ceiling as leverage has been done repeatedly in the past, but the circumstances today harken back to the standoff of 2011. Then, Barack Obama was in the White House and had a Democratic majority in the Senate, while the GOP had just retaken the House. As is the case today, the Republicans demanded spending cuts, and negotiations dragged on for so long that S&P Global Ratings downgraded American’s debt from its highest grade. The deal that resolved the standoff ultimately did lead to some spending cuts – but the country’s debt has only increased in the years since.Democrats and Republicans prepared for battle as US hits debt ceilingGood morning, US politics blog readers. The US government is expected to today hit the legal limit on how much debt it can accrue to pay its bills, but the immediate consequences will be more political than economic. The treasury says it should have enough cash on hand to settle bills for everything from interest payments to government workers’ salaries till about June, but Congress will need to agree on increasing the limit if the world’s largest economy is to avoid defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history. Joe Biden and the Democrats want to raise the limit without conditions, but Republicans controlling the House of Representatives say they’ll only agree to do so if spending is cut, to some degree. This will be one of the major political battles of the year, and you can consider today its informal start date.Here’s what else is happening: Joe Biden is heading to California’s Santa Cruz county to tour damage done by a series of winter storms, with a speech scheduled for 6pm eastern time. The House and Senate have no business scheduled, but expect to hear from both parties about the debt limit. As the cliche goes, all politics is local, even in Washington DC, where city leaders nationwide are gathering for the annual US Conference of Mayors winter meeting. | US Federal Policies |
Microsoft Vows To Revamp Security Products After Repeated Hacks
Microsoft Corp., battered for its role in several major hacks, said it’s revamping the way it provides cybersecurity protection, using artificial intelligence and other methods to speed the company’s response to vulnerabilities and better protect customers.
(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., battered for its role in several major hacks, said it’s revamping the way it provides cybersecurity protection, using artificial intelligence and other methods to speed the company’s response to vulnerabilities and better protect customers.
In a blog post, three Microsoft executives said they “have put significant thought into how we should anticipate and adapt to the increasingly more sophisticated cyberthreats.” The result is a commitment to three areas of engineering advancement: “transforming” software development, implementing new identity protections and driving faster vulnerability response, they wrote.
“In recent months, we’ve concluded within Microsoft that the increasing speed, scale, and sophistication of cyberattacks call for a new response,” President Brad Smith wrote in a separate posting. “This new initiative will bring together every part of Microsoft to advance cybersecurity protection.”
While Microsoft is primarily known for its software products for corporations and consumers, the Redmond, Washington-based company has emerged as the biggest provider of cybersecurity products in recent years, a business that has grown to about $20 billion a year. At the same time, Microsoft remains a frequent target of critics, who complain that its software is prone to flaws, making it a frequent target for criminal and nation-state hackers.
Those problems resurfaced earlier this year, when hackers used a stolen consumer signing key to forge authentication tokens, which are meant to verify a user’s identity. They then accessed user email from about 25 organizations, including US government agencies. Among the victims was US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and State Department officials, whose emails were accessed just ahead of a meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Microsoft tied the hackers to China.
Read More: Commerce Chief Raimondo’s Email Hacked in Breach Tied to China
US Senator Ron Wyden wrote a blistering letter on July 27 about the lapse, calling for an investigation, and shortly thereafter, a government-led cybersecurity advisory panel opened a probe into the risks of cloud computing, which includes a look into Microsoft’s role in the email hack.
“Government emails were stolen because Microsoft committed another error,” Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said in his letter. “Microsoft should not have had a single skeleton key that, when inevitably stolen, could be used to forge access to different customers’ private communications.”
Amit Yoran, the chief executive officer of the cybersecurity company Tenable Holdings Inc., also criticized Microsoft, saying on LinkedIn in August that the company’s “lack of transparency applies to breaches, irresponsible security practices and to vulnerabilities, all of which expose their customers to risks they are deliberately kept in the dark about.”
Microsoft’s announcement, called the Secure Future Initiative, comes after the federal government has indicated that it expects software makers to take more responsibility for securing their products. In February, for instance, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said bad software and unsafe practices are facilitating ransomware attacks, and she said the adoption of some of Microsoft’s and Twitter’s security protocols such as two-factor authentication was disappointing.
Read More: US Cyber Leader Urges Microsoft, Twitter to Up User Security
And, on Monday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Texas-based SolarWinds Corp., alleging the company defrauded investors by downplaying security risks ahead of a hack of its software. In that cyberattack, which became public in December 2020, Russian state-sponsored hackers inserted malware into an update for a popular SolarWinds software product, creating a digital backdoor when customers downloaded it.
The hackers used that backdoor to further infiltrate about 100 organizations, including US government agencies, according to the SEC. The lesson of the SEC suit was that security professionals shouldn’t sugarcoat problems that they are seeing and be more transparent about them, Michael Coates, chief information security officer at CoinList and a former security head at Twitter, told Bloomberg News.
Microsoft’s Smith said the company is committed to building an AI-based cyber shield to protect customers and countries around the world.
“One reason these AI advances are so important is because of their ability to address one of the world’s most pressing cybersecurity challenges,” he wrote. “Ubiquitous devices and constant internet connections have created a vast sea of digital data.”
“But AI is a game changer,” he said.
In addition, Microsoft said it will use AI-powered analysis and other measures to audit and secure code against advanced threats, and it vowed to strengthen identity protection at a time when password attacks have increased and hackers have developed more sophisticated methods to steal and use login credentials. As part of the latter initiative, Microsoft said it would migrate to a “new and fully automated consumer and enterprise key management system with an architecture designed to ensure that keys remain inaccessible even when underlying processes may be corrupted.”
In her criticism of Microsoft earlier this year, Easterly said that Microsoft needs to “recapture the ethos” of what company co-founder Bill Gates called “trustworthy computing” in 2002. At that time, Microsoft was reeling from computer worms, and Gates wrote a memo ordering software developers to prioritize security. “We can and must do better,” he wrote.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Federal Policies |
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