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.
Related: Liz Cheney: McCarthy should testify about Trump’s views on Capitol attack
Continue reading...As Liz Cheney’s defiance turns her into one of the movement’s leaders some insist the party was their home long before Trump while others say it’s time to move on
Sixteen minutes and out. The purging of Liz Cheney from Republican leadership in the House of Representatives did not even go to a secret ballot. Instead a voice vote was all it took to confirm the party’s capitulation to Donald Trump and his “big lie” about a stolen election.
But Cheney went down swinging, vowing to reporters on Capitol Hill: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” then using a high-profile TV interview to say of would-be challengers for her seat in Wyoming: “Bring it on.”
Continue reading...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”.
Related: ‘It’s hard to look at’: Donald Trump makes National Portrait Gallery debut
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...
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.
From KY to VA to NYC and even France, imitators abound.https://t.co/eakjRoSEZn pic.twitter.com/sw9Z6oM0hz
Liz Cheney has refused to rule out running for US president if it would prevent Donald Trump from ever taking charge of the White House again, saying she will do “whatever it takes” to stop her fellow Republican.
Cheney, who on Wednesday was ousted as House Republican conference chair by her colleagues, in a voice vote behind closed doors, was asked three times on NBC’s Today show in an interview aired on Thursday whether she would run to stymie a comeback by the former president.
Continue reading...
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.
Continue reading...After being voted out from her role as House Republican conference chair, Liz Cheney said she planned to ‘lead the fight’ to create a stronger party in the future. The congresswoman said: ‘I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.’ Cheney was one of 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump over the US Capitol breach
The ousting of Cheney snuffs out all doubt – Republicans don’t think they can win next year’s midterm elections without Trump
Lafayette Square, outside the White House, reopened this week to strolling couples, tourists and scampering children. After nearly a year sealed off by eight-foot metal fencing, it was one more sign of life in America getting back to normal.
Then there’s the danger. For more than three months it’s been tempting for many to assume that, with Joe Biden in the White House and Donald Trump off Twitter, democracy survived its near-death experience, recovered and checked out of hospital. But the ousting of Liz Cheney by the Republican party shows that the potential for a relapse is all too real.
Continue reading...The US representative Liz Cheney, speaking in the House a day before her expected ouster from a Republican leadership post, chastised her party colleagues for not standing up to the former president Donald Trump and his false claim that the November election was stolen. ’Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that,’ she said.
Cheney, the No 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, was one of 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump in January after he delivered a fiery 6 January speech to supporters, many of whom then stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to block certification of his election loss to Joe Biden
The Wyoming representative stands by her opposition to Trump’s election lies as she prepares to be removed from No 3 House role
On the eve of a vote almost certain to remove her from a leadership role in the Republican party, a defiant Liz Cheney embraced her fall from party grace and offered a final appeal to her colleagues: “We must speak the truth.”
Republicans are poised to remove Cheney from her House leadership position over her refusal to support Donald Trump’s “big lie” that last year’s election was stolen from him. Cheney, a Wyoming representative who hails from a Republican political dynasty, was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection” following the deadly 6 January attack on the Capitol.
Continue reading...Far from losing influence over the party, critics say, Trump has in fact burrowed far into its DNA so that the two are now all but inseparable
Ron DeSantis was exultant. “The way Florida did it I think inspires confidence; I think that’s how elections should be run,” the state governor told reporters last November. “Rather than us be at the centre of a Bush v Gore in 2020, we’re now being looked at as the state that did it right.”
This boast of a smoothly run election just six months ago makes DeSantis’s actions this week all the more curious. The governor suddenly found it necessary to impose sweeping reforms that limit mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes – and signed the new law live on the Fox News network on Thursday with no other media allowed.
Continue reading...
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 #CAfire https://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.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Continue reading...
Mike Jordan reports for the Guardian:
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.
Related: Idaho governor signs bill to ban critical race theory from being taught in schools
Continue reading...The president said he has never seen internal party conflict like the one Republicans are experiencing at the moment and was in a ‘mini-revolution’.
Earlier on Wednesday Biden said: ‘I don’t understand the Republicans’ in regards to House Republicans’ efforts to oust Liz Cheney from her leadership role over her criticism of Donald Trump
Continue reading...
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’s Starship prototype SN15 sticks the landing! https://t.co/QX9P6d14mt #SpaceX #Starship pic.twitter.com/mO4N0fuzZK
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
Continue reading...
Jack Herrera reports:
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.
Related: LA reports no Covid deaths for two days in a row in major pandemic milestone
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Continue reading...Republican who voted to impeach Trump under increasing fire from members of her own party who are loyal to former president
Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump, is coming under fire from members of her own party after her tweet that the former president did not lose the election unfairly. The spat illustrates the split between Republicans loyal to Trump and those willing to criticize the former president.
“The 2020 presidential election was not stolen,” Cheney tweeted. “Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Only Republican to twice vote to impeach Trump gets hostile reception as censure motion narrowly fails
Mitt Romney was loudly booed at the Utah Republican party convention on Saturday – and called a “traitor” and a “communist” as he tried to speak.
Related: Bush: ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ideals show pro-Trump Republicans ‘want to be extinct’
Continue reading...