Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Republicans killed effort to set up a 9/11-style inquiry into the 6 January attack despite broad support for such an investigation
Senate Republicans have blocked the creation of a special commission to study the deadly 6 January attack on the Capitol, dashing hopes for a bipartisan panel amid a Republican push to put the violent insurrection by Donald Trump’s supporters behind them.
Republicans killed the effort to set up a 9/11-style inquiry into the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob despite broad popular support for such an investigation and pleas from the family of a Capitol police officer who collapsed and died after the siege and other officers who battled the rioters.
Democratic Senator Bob Casey signaled this morning that it may be time to move on from negotiating with Republicans and instead pass an infrastructure bill using reconciliation, allowing Democrats to circumvent the Senate filibuster.
Asked whether it was time to focus on setting up a reconciliation pathway for the infrastructure bill, Casey told CNN anchor Jim Sciutto, “I think we’re getting to that point, Jim. It’s an old expression, fish or cut bait.”
Me: “IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON TO RECONCILIATION (on infrastructure)?”@SenBobCasey: “I THINK WE'RE GETTING TO THAT POINT, JIM. IT'S AN OLD EXPRESSION, FISH OR CUT BAIT” pic.twitter.com/T0HLUKygrL
The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Daniel Strauss report:
After six months of aggressive Republican efforts to restrict voting access, Democrats are facing new questions about how they will actually pass voting rights reforms through Congress.
Democrats have yet to convince their entire Senate caucus to back the House-passed For the People Act – let alone beat the filibuster
After six months of aggressive Republican efforts to restrict voting access, Democrats are facing new questions about how they will actually pass voting rights reforms through Congress.
The most recent hand-wringing comes as Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democratic senator, made clear earlier this month he still is not on board with the For the People Act, which would require early voting, automatic and same-day registration, and prevent the severe manipulation of district boundaries for partisan gain.
In his remarks before signing the anti-Asian American hate crimes bill, Joe Biden denounced racism as an “ugly poison” that has tarnished the country.
“I believe with every fiber of my being that there are simple core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans,” the president said of the bill.
President Biden: "I believe with every fiber of my being that there are simple core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans. One of them is standing together against hate, against racism — the ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation." pic.twitter.com/DB1gsTNoen
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell applauded Joe Biden for signing the anti-Asian American hate crimes bill into law moments ago.
“Recent increases in anti-Asian hate crimes are alarming,” the Republican leader said on Twitter. “I’m proud the Senate took bipartisan action — and, as the proud husband of a remarkable Asian-American woman, I am especially glad this effort is now law.”
I applaud @POTUS for signing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law. Recent increases in anti-Asian hate crimes are alarming. I’m proud the Senate took bipartisan action — and, as the proud husband of a remarkable Asian-American woman, I am especially glad this effort is now law.
The House voted 252-175 to establish a commission investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Among those who voted in favor of establishing the commission were 35 Republicans.
John Katko, the Republican ranking member of the House homeland security committee helped write the bill to establish the commission, had urged his fellow Republicansto support the proposal.
Republicans in Congress are rebelling against the mask requirement on the House chamber, which remains in place due to Covid-19 safety concerns from Democrats, who hold the majority.
During votes on Tuesday, several Republican lawmakers refused to wear masks as they stood in the chamber and encouraged other members to join them.
Lawmakers faced with choice between embarrassing Trump and ignoring insurrection
House Democrats are poised to adopt legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, in a move that will force Republicans to either embrace an inquiry that could embarrass Donald Trump – or turn a blind eye to a deadly insurrection.
President has held one-on-one meetings with members of both parties – but will Republicans torpedo his proposals?
Joe Biden has vowed to make every effort to work with Republicans until progress is impossible. Right now, he and conservative lawmakers see an infrastructure bill as still within the realm of possibility.
If so, it would mark a significant step forwards for Biden in passing a large part of his legislative agenda aimed at sparking the recovery of the pandemic-hit US economy. Biden’s team has consciously drawn comparisons to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s effort to lift America out of the Great Depression through government programs and big public works projects.
Lawmakers agree to create bipartisan commission to investigate breach but questions remain over GOP support
The Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, should testify before the commission to investigate the 6 January Capitol attack, the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney said on Friday, because he has “said publicly that he’s got information about the president’s state of mind that day”.
The progressive representative says the Republican extremist’s behavior has ‘raised concerns’ among Democrats
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said the Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene has a “fixation” on progressive members of Congress, and warned that Greene’s behavior has “raised concerns” among Democrats.
Greene, a Trump loyalist and a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, was elected to the House in 2020, and has spent her first months in office harassing Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats.
Members of Congress agree to establish 10-person commission
Pro-Trump Elise Stefanik replaces Cheney as GOP conference chair
Here’s a quick summary of what’s happened so far today:
A new New York Times story points out just how influential Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s logo, with its bold, slanted text, was to future progressive candidates who emulated her poster’s style. It’s now seen all over the country in races big and small and was even used by a communist candidate in France.
Gavan Fitzsimons, a business professor at Duke University, told the Times that copycat posters are likely trying to get potential voters to subconsciously associate the candidate with Ocasio-Cortez.
NEW: The iconography of @AOC — my dive into how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s logo has formed a new graphical language for progressivism.
Taking over the White House briefing, Jen Psaki was asked for Joe Biden’s reaction to the ouster of Liz Cheney as House Republican conference chair for her criticism of Donald Trump and the “big lie” that there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.
The White House press secretary noted that more than 80 judges threw out lawsuits challenging the results of the election, confirming the legitimacy of Biden’s victory. She criticized Republicans for punishing Cheney and ignoring the violent fallout from Trump’s false claims, specifically citing the six deaths from the January 6 insurrection.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing with reporters, and she was joined by transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and EPA administrator Michael Regan.
Buttigieg and Regan provided updates on fallout from the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline over the weekend, which has caused gasoline supply issues in some east coast states.
Treasury secretary says US has made ‘remarkable progress’
Biden insists country is ‘moving in the direction’ on economy
Republicans look to oust Cheney as Trump allies push election lie
Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong picking up the blog from the San Francisco bay area, where we’re bracing for unusually early fire weather amid another climate crisis-fueled drought.
Suffice it to say that it's very unusual that NorCal has seen Red Flag Warnings straight through calendar this year. Vegetation is very rarely dry enough to trigger in spring, even with strong winds, but vegetation remains at/near record dry levels in many places. #CAwx#CAfirehttps://t.co/97rlEVhytM
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Julia Carrie Wong, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Idaho’s governor, Brad Little, has a bill signed into law that aims to restrict critical race theory from being taught as a subject in schools and universities.
The bill, H377, prevents teachers from “indoctrinating” students into belief systems that claim that members of any race, sex, religion, ethnicity or national origin are inferior or superior to other groups. Signed into law last week, H377 also makes it illegal to make students “affirm, adopt or adhere to” beliefs that members of these groups are today responsible for past actions of the groups to which they claim to belong.
We’re wrapping up today’s live US politics coverage for the evening. It’s been a day of major developments with global reach here in the United States, as well as sustained infighting within the Republican party over Republicans’ allegiance to Donald Trump and his lies. Here’s an updated summary:
This time, Elon Musk’s SpaceX prototype did not explode
SpaceX makes a statement with SN15 Starship landing, coming amid the bid protests on the NASA lunar lander contract. https://t.co/PQ4nrRtqU6
For Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship program more smoke, fire and shrapnel. But at least "the crater is in the right place." Next up: SN15. https://t.co/50DX5ONogF
Just months after ICU capacities were at zero in Los Angeles, the county has made a turnaround. But officials advise caution, and warn that vaccine hesitancy is catching up.
The US president, Joe Biden, has said it is time for corporations and the richest Americans to ‘start paying their fair share’ as he pitched his $4tn infrastructure and welfare plans at an event in Virginia.
Speaking at a community college in Norfolk, Biden made the case for increasing taxes on the wealthiest in the US to fund his $1.8tn American families plan and $2tn infrastructure plan. The packages would provide funds for childcare, invest in free universal pre-schooling and rebuild America’s transport and public housing.
‘I think it’s about time we started giving tax breaks and tax benefits to working class families and middle class families, instead of just the very wealthy,’ Biden said.
American stage and screen actor who won an Oscar for her role in the 1987 film Moonstruck
After more than two decades of distinguished work in the US theatre as an actor, director and teacher, and appearances in a dozen or so films, Olympia Dukakis, who has died aged 89, became hugely famous overnight by winning the best supporting actress Oscar in 1988 for her performance as Cher’s mother in the romantic film Moonstruck (1987).
The course of her career suggests that her ambitions never lay in the direction of Hollywood. Her theatrical credits read like the canon of classic and modern plays: she had roles in plays by Euripides, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, Lorca, Pirandello, Brecht, Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams, on and off Broadway, as well as in various regional theatres across the country. In films, she took on several character roles, making an impression in scores of pictures for more than half a century.
The president has sought bipartisan support but not at the cost of delay and dilution of his bold policies
Joe Biden started his presidential campaign with promises to be a unifying force in Washington who would help lawmakers come together to achieve bipartisan reform. But over his first 100 days in office, Biden’s message to Republicans in Congress has been closer to this: get on board or get out of my way.
This willingness to go it alone if necessary appears to be a hard-won lesson from the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, when Democrats negotiated with Republicans on major bills only to have them vote against the final proposals.
Joe Biden will also speak about gun violence during tonight’s speech, according to USAToday. On the presidential campaign trail, Biden pledged to reinstate the assault weapons ban and create a voluntary gun buyback program.
A White House official told the newspaper that Biden will talk about gun violence as an epidemic, which he has done in the past, and urge Congress to reinstate a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines.
The president’s plea appears to echo a similar one made by Obama at the State of the Union in 2013, two months after Sandy Hook, in which he told Congress victims of gun violence — many of whom were seated in the room — “deserve a vote.” Biden presided over the Senate chamber when a gun safety package failed to pass two months later.
Despite the uphill battle, Democrats are heeding the president’s call. Last week Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., reintroduced a bill to remove protections for manufacturers and sellers from consumer negligence lawsuits and allow victims of gun violence to pursue legal recourse. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a key Democrat leading gun control efforts, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper last week that he’s made calls to almost half the Republican caucus “asking them to keep an open mind.”
The Guardian’s voting rights reporter, Sam Levine, has an alarming story this morning on Republican efforts to make it harder to vote in Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office:
Even as attacks on voting rights have escalated in recent years, the Republican effort since January marks a new, more dangerous phase for American democracy, experts say.
For Democrats it has been a hundred days of sweeping legislation, barrier-breaking appointments and daring to dream big. For Republicans, a hundred days in the political wilderness.
The party that just four years ago controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress now finds itself shut out of power and struggling to find its feet. As Joe Biden forges ahead with ambitions to shift the political paradigm, Republicans still have a Donald Trump problem.
Senate Democrats are pushing Biden to admit more refugees into the US.
Biden’s announcement earlier this month that he would not increase refugee admissions from the record low cap of 15,000 that Donald Trump set before leaving office. After intense pushback from advocates and Democratic lawmakers, Biden said he’d increase the cap by 15 May.