Mayor-elect centered affordability and the working people of the city in his speech while emphasizing: ‘Hope is alive’
The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.”
For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands.
Continue reading...Democratic leaders decry ‘unbelievably cruel’ move, saying ‘Trump is using food as a weapon’ during shutdown
Senate Republicans shot down a Democratic-led attempt to fully fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits on Monday during the government shutdown – a move that heightens uncertainty for the 42 million Americans participating in the country’s biggest anti-hunger program.
Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, attempted to pass a resolution via unanimous consent that would have forced the Department of Agriculture to fund Snap benefits for the month of November.
Continue reading...As funding for food aid program is about to be exhausted, Congress fails for 13th time to advance Republican bill
The US government shutdown stretched into its 28th day with no resolution in sight on Tuesday, as the Senate remained deadlocked over spending legislation even as a crucial food aid program teeters on the brink of exhausting its funding.
For the 13th time, Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-backed bill that would have funded federal agencies through 21 November. The minority party has refused to provide the necessary support for the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold for advancement in the Senate because it does not include funding for healthcare programs, or curbs on Donald Trump’s cuts to congressionally approved funding.
Continue reading...Democratic California governor and high-profile Trump critic plans to make decision after 2026 midterms
Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, told CBS News Sunday Morning he plans to make a decision on whether to run for president in 2028 once the 2026 midterm elections are over.
“Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise,” Newsom said in response to a question on whether he would give serious thought to a White House bid after the 2026 elections. “I’d just be lying. And I’m not – I can’t do that.”
Continue reading...Claim that Tren de Aragua planned to attack officers was widely shared – only for FBI to later acknowledge it was mistaken, internal files show
An unverified rumor that Venezuelan gang members were preparing to kill police officers spread like wildfire through US law enforcement agencies last year, internal records reveal, only for federal officials to later quietly acknowledge the claim was mistaken.
The intelligence report, which appears to have first been disseminated by a local New Mexico police department in July 2024, suggested that the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang had directed its members to “fire on or attack” law enforcement. The vague assertion quickly traveled among law enforcement agencies. It even made its way into a formal proclamation by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and was repeated by Republican Congress members as evidence of the dangers of Venezuelan immigrants and Democrats’ border policies.
Continue reading...Exclusive poll: Inflation remains a concern despite president’s pledge to reduce prices on ‘day one’
Nine months after Donald Trump took office, promising to reduce prices on “day one”, a clear majority of Americans say their monthly costs have risen by between $100 and $749, according to an exclusive new poll conducted for the Guardian.
The president has continued to insist that there is “virtually no inflation”. “Prices are ‘WAY DOWN’ in the USA,” Trump wrote on social media in late August.
Continue reading...Lindsey Graham says closure won’t push him to meet Democrats’ demands on Obama-era healthcare subsidies
Republican and Democratic senators Lindsey Graham and Mark Kelly have dug their heels in over the government shutdown – which is now approaching two weeks, with the former saying that the closure won’t push him to meet Democrats’ demands for a restoration of Obama-era healthcare subsidies.
Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he was in favor of the Senate voting to reopen the government and prepared to “have a rational discussion” with Democrats – but not with the government shut down.
Continue reading...Party sticks to its guns on healthcare and says it’s willing to hold out – much to the delight of its progressive supporters
When he sat down to talk about the US government shutdown with reporters from a closely read political newsletter this week, Chuck Schumer sounded as if he was relishing his standoff with the Republicans.
“Every day gets better for us,” he told Punchbowl News. As the shutdown got under way, Schumer explained, the Republicans believed that Democrats would quickly fold and vote to reopen the government, but instead they had stuck to their guns for a week and a half, demanding an array of concessions on healthcare and other issues.
Continue reading...First vote in Congress on military campaign that White House says has hit four vessels and killed at least 21 people
Senate Republicans voted down legislation Wednesday that would have put a check on Donald Trump’s ability to use deadly military force against drug cartels after Democrats tried to counter the administration’s extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers to destroy vessels in the Caribbean.
The vote fell mostly along party lines, 48-51, with two Republicans, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, voting in favor and the Democrat John Fetterman voting against.
Continue reading...Mike Johnson adds Trump does not want permanent job cuts as talks between parties stalled over weekend
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, accused Democrats of being “not serious” in negotiations to end the federal government shutdown, while the Democratic leader accused Republicans of driving the shutdown, now on its fifth day and expected to last at least through next week.
Talks between the opposing political parties stalled over the weekend, with no votes anticipated to end the standoff. A CBS poll found just 28% of Democratic voters and 23% of Republicans consider their party’s positions worth shutting down the government.
Continue reading...First shutdown in nearly seven years as Republicans accused of ‘risking America’s healthcare’ in spending bill
The US government shut down on Wednesday, after congressional Democrats refused to support a Republican plan to extend funding for federal departments unless they won a series of concessions centered on healthcare.
The GOP, which controls the Senate and the House of Representatives, repudiated their demands, setting off a legislative scramble that lasted into the hours before funding lapsed at midnight, when the Senate failed to advance both parties’ bills to keep funding going.
Continue reading...Ruwa Romman is ‘running to build a movement’ and ‘restoring civic ethos of being involved in the government’
Ruwa Romman, the first Palestinian-American elected to state-level office in Georgia, was fighting for a speaking slot a year ago at the Democratic national convention, hoping to draw attention to concerns among progressive voters about the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
On Monday, she announced her candidacy for governor in Georgia – looking for a different kind of attention.
Continue reading...Democrats accuse Trump of intimidation tactics after memo outlines much more aggressive step than previous shutdowns
The White House is telling federal agencies to prepare large-scale firings of workers if the government shuts down next week in a partisan fight over spending plans – prompting the Democrats to accuse Donald Trump of intimidation tactics.
In a memo released on Wednesday night, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said agencies should consider a reduction in force for federal programs whose funding would lapse next week, is not otherwise funded and is “not consistent with the president’s priorities”.
Continue reading...Democrats say Trump allies are using incident for ‘political points’ against the left despite the victims being detainees
A deadly shooting at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Dallas has been met with markedly different reactions from the political right and left.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed shortly after the news broke that detainees were the victims of the sniper attack on the facility and that no federal agents had been injured. The president and his allies, however, were quick to frame the shooting as an attack on Ice and place blame on the “radical left”.
Continue reading...Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro says US stands at ‘inflection point’ after Charlie Kirk killing and urges unity over division
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro has said Americans must “universally condemn political violence, no matter where it is” after the killing of rightwing youth organizer Charlie Kirk as well as a deadly shootout in Shapiro’s state that left three police officers dead and two others injured.
Hours before Kirk’s funeral, Shapiro said that the nation stands at an “inflection point” and urged Americans to choose shared values over division, pointing to the solidarity shown by Pennsylvanians in the aftermath of the officers’ killings in York county last week.
Continue reading...The AP reported several historically Black colleges locked down or canceled classes after receiving threats, a day after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk
Continue reading...President tells Fox News ‘the radicals on the left are the problem’ and refuses to seek common way forward
Donald Trump has declined to call for the US to come together as a way of fixing the country’s divisions in the wake of the assassination of his close associate, the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, preferring to cast “vicious and horrible” radicals on the left of US politics as the sole problem.
In an interview on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, the US president was asked what he intended to do to heal the wounds of Kirk’s shooting in Utah. “How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?” he was asked by the show’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who commented that there were radicals operating on the left and right of US politics.
Continue reading...US lawmakers, in bipartisan rebuke, say violence has no place in America as Trump orders flags lowered
The killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah college on Wednesday afternoon prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans over the latest act of political violence in the United States, with Donald Trump lamenting the loss of a key ally.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” the US president posted on his Truth Social platform.
Continue reading...White House officials seek to discredit note and claim Donald Trump signature is false
Donald Trump now cannot claim presidential immunity to get off the hook from paying $83.3m in damages to the writer E Jean Carroll, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday, upholding a jury’s 2024 award against the president for defamation.
Trump’s lawyers had pointed to the supreme court’s ruling last year saying the president has immunity for official acts to argue that the damages should be overturned. A three-judge panel for the US court of appeals for the second circuit, rejected that argument.
Continue reading...The president has steamrollered the separation of powers but so far his sway over his party has been firm
Democrat Chuck Schumer returned to the Senate floor last week with some urgent questions. “Will Senate Republicans continue to kowtow to a leader they know is dragging the country down?” he demanded. “That they know is a pathological liar? Or will they, as the Founding Fathers intended, stand up to him? Will they help us fight America’s slide into authoritarianism?”
It was a recognition of how Donald Trump has spent eight months seeking to expand presidential power at the expense of Congress and others. He has signed 200 executive orders – more than Joe Biden in four years – unleashed squadrons of national guard troops in Washington, turned investigators on his political foes and sought to bring academic, cultural, financial and legal institutions to heel.
Continue reading...