Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
A US Capitol police officer was suspended after antisemitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Monday.
A) USCP: Monday, U.S. Capitol Police Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman ordered an officer to be suspended after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday.
B) USCP: The officer will remain suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
C) USCP: “We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously. Once this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the officer to be suspended until the Office of Professional Responsibility can thoroughly investigate,” said Acting Chief Pittman.
Analysis: Biden is riding high in polls and his American Rescue Plan is popular with Americans – he must build momentum to avoid the fate of Obama
In the White House Rose Garden, where for four years Donald Trump raucously celebrated political wins with his allies, it was now the turn of Democrats to take a victory lap – masked and physically distanced, of course.
Kamala Harris, the vice-president, heaped praise on Joe Biden for signing a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill, the biggest expansion of the American welfare state in decades. “Your empathy has become a trademark of your presidency and can be found on each and every page of the American Rescue Plan,” Harris said.
Analysis: critics say the US Senate has become a firewall for a shrinking minority of white conservatives to block policies – could a breakthrough be ahead?
In the first 50 days of the Biden administration, the US House of Representatives has passed major legislation to strengthen voting rights, reform police departments, empower labor unions and tighten gun laws.
The public strongly supports each measure, and Biden is poised, pen in hand, to sign each bill into law. It could seem like the dawn of a new progressive era.
The issues driving families and children to the border in the past decade remain: the climate crisis, violence, unemployment and poverty. Two devastating hurricanes in Honduras in November and the coronavirus pandemic have added to the desperate conditions. And each year migration increases when the weather warms up.
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, to pay out his coronavirus relief package, president Joe Biden must spend an average of $3.7 billion every day for the rest of this year. That’s $43,000 every second of every day until midnight chimes on 2022.
Josh Boak at the Associated Press reports that the president signed the aid package into law yesterday without a comprehensive plan in place to distribute all of the funds, which will be a core focus of the administration in coming weeks.
President warns Americans ‘this is not the time to let up’ in first prime-time address on pandemic anniversary
Joe Biden has directed states to make all American adults eligible for coronavirus vaccines by 1 May and set an audacious goal of 4 July for gatherings to celebrate “independence” from the deadly pandemic.
But in his first prime-time address, which marked the anniversary of America’s shutdown, the president warned that restrictions could be reinstated if the nation lets down its guard against the virus.
It’s been a busy day in Washington ahead of Biden’s prime-time address this evening. Before we hand over the reigns to Maanvi Singh in California, here’s a look back at what happened on this unusually warm spring day in the nation’s capital.
In an astonishing piece of attempted backside-covering,former acting defense secretary under the outgoing Donald Trump, Chris Miller, tried to explain in an interview with Vice that the delay in National Guard troops deploying to the US Capitol on the afternoon of 6 January to help overwhelmed police was basically because “it’s complicated”.
Miller said: “It’s not like a video game” ie going up and down the chains of government and command to deploy troops is a complex process.
Chris Miller translator: " Hey, I had to take orders from the White House on this." https://t.co/ihRrvlvjGc
Analysis: Reagan’s presidency undermined faith in government. The stimulus package helps restore FDR’s legacy
Joe Biden reflected recently on the last time a Democratic administration had to rescue an economy left in tatters by a Republican president.
“The economists told us we literally saved America from a depression,” Biden told the House Democratic Caucus last week. “But we didn’t adequately explain what we had done. Barack was so modest; he didn’t want to take, as he said, a ‘victory lap’. I kept saying, ‘Tell people what we did.’ He said, ‘We don’t have time. I’m not going to take a victory lap.’ And we paid a price for it, ironically, for that humility.”
The House has passed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, delivering Joe Biden his first major legislative victory as president.
The final vote was 220 to 211, and it fell almost exactly along party lines. Only one Democrat, Jared Golden of Maine, voted against the bill. Applause broke out among Democrats on the House floor after the bill passed.
The House voted 220-211 to concur in the Senate amendment to H.R. 1319 - American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
The House now has enough votes to pass the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, although the vote remains open.
As of now, the vote stands at 220 to 211, meaning more than half of House members have voted for the passage of the relief bill.
Progressive congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman said she will vote for the coronavirus relief bill, despite serious concerns about the changes made by the Senate.
“While I will continue to pressure my party to live up to its banner as the party of the people, I cannot ignore the immediate need for relief,” Watson Coleman said in a statement.
Okay, now it’s official: the House will hold its final vote on the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package tomorrow, not today.
House majority leader Steny Hoyer said moments ago that the House will take up the bill at 9 am ET tomorrow morning, per C-SPAN.
Hoyer this morning in his weekly pen and pad announced the potential timing of House vote on final $1.9T COVID-19 relief bill: “Our expectation is, maybe late this afternoon we would adopt the rule...We will then tomorrow at 9am consider the American Rescue Plan and pass that.”
Sara Fearrington, a North Carolina waitress, joined the Fight for $15 campaign two years ago. A server at a Durham Waffle House, her take-home pay fluctuates between $350 and $450 a week, leaving her struggling to pay bills every month. She voted for Joe Biden, who had pledged to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. It was the first time Fearrington, who is 44, had ever voted in a presidential election.
Joe Biden pledged to combat sexual assault in the US military as he announced the nomination of two female officers, Gen Jacqueline Van Ovost and Lt Gen Laura Richardson, to become four-star commanders. The president, who spoke on International Women's Day, said: "Sexual assault is abhorrent and wrong at any time. And in our military, so much of unit cohesion is built on trusting your fellow service members to have your back – there's nothing less than a threat to our national security"
Georgia lawmakers in the state senate are beginning to debate a controversial bill that would impose sweeping new restrictions on voting rights in the state, including getting rid of no-excuse absentee voting.
Barring a shock, the Georgia Senate has the votes to pass the elections restrictions measure that would severely limit who could vote by mail this afternoon. #gapolhttps://t.co/MxXaYyUUeQ
Security at the US Capitol badly needs a boost, a task force said today after reviewing the situation at the seat of the US Congress, in Washington, DC, in the aftermath of the deadly insurrection of January 6.
The task force recommends creating a new quick-reaction force in Washington and also said that the Capitol Police force was poorly prepared for January 6.
The 15-page report, compiled by a group headed by retired US Army Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, also recommended an upgrade to Capitol Police intelligence capabilities and training.
The report was requested by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the aftermath of the rampage by a mob of former president Donald Trump’s supporters that left five people dead including a police officer.
Top diplomat warns US forces could be withdrawn by 1 May
Proposes UN conference and Kabul-Taliban talks in Turkey
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has proposed a series of steps to help restart stalled peace talks between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, according to a letter from Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani published on Sunday by Afghanistan‘s TOLONews.
Republican opposition holds through marathon ‘vote-a-rama’
Speaker Pelosi has said measure should be law by 14 March
Joe Biden hailed “one more giant step forward on delivering on that promise that help is on the way”, after Democrats took a critical step towards a first major legislative victory since assuming control of Congress and the White House, with a party-line vote in the Senate to approve a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill.
Biden’s $1.9tn relief package struggles through Senate but majority leaders vows passage ‘however long it takes’
A fiery speech and last-ditch effort by Bernie Sanders to secure a place for a federal minimum wage hike in the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package appeared as good as doomed on Friday, following a day that saw the flagship legislation hit grinding delays in the Senate.
Senate leaders and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin struck a deal late on Friday over emergency jobless benefits, breaking a nine-hour logjam.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki rejected the notion that Joe Biden was “snubbing” lawmakers by delaying his first address to a joint session of Congress.
“It’s not a snubbing happening here,” Psaki said. “We are in the middle of a global pandemic.”
"It's not a snubbing," press sec. Psaki says when asked about Pres. Biden addressing Congress.
"We are in the middle of a global pandemic...We intend on the president delivering a joint session... but we don't have a date for that." pic.twitter.com/R89HWMj6Jp
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about whether Joe Biden would soon speak to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Psaki said the two leaders would speak “at some point,” but she did not give a clear sense of when that might happen.
US president has chosen to ‘recalibrate’ relations with Saudi Arabia, but some say a rupture is required
In late 2019, as Joe Biden stood on a debate stage and boldly vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah if he was elected president, a little-known former aide and Middle East expert was examining what exactly a “progressive” post-Trump stance towards the oil-rich kingdom might look like.
Daniel Benaim, a policy wonk who had worked for Biden as a speechwriter, and for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry before that, first travelled to Saudi Arabia and then began interviewing dozens of Democratic and progressive policy experts to come up with a blueprint.
Joe Biden’s nominee for budget director faced Republican opposition over old tweets but had also clashed with progressives
Neera Tanden’s decision to withdraw from consideration to serve as Joe Biden’s budget director marks the first major loss for the still young Biden administration, and sets off a scramble between various political factions to push through a new nominee.
The startling truth is that signing up for even basic utilities in this country has turned into a gamble for many people, particularly undocumented immigrants. Last week, the Washington Post revealed that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has paid tens of millions of dollars since 2017 for access to a private database that contains more than “400m names, addresses and service records from more than 80 utility companies covering all the staples of modern life, including water, gas and electricity, and phone, internet and cable TV”. The information has been mined by Ice, the Post reported, for immigration surveillance and enforcement operations.
Overnight, Giovanni Russonello’s On Politics newsletter for the New York Times had a focus on voting rights restrictions that Republicans are attempting to impose across the US in the wake of their November election defeat.
There are over 250 bills pending in 43 states that would restrict access to voting. He spoke to Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s law school, and she had this to say about the efforts:
[There are] seven times the number of restrictive voting bills we saw at the same time last year. So it is a dramatic spike in the push to restrict access to voting. It’s not brand-new this year, it wasn’t invented by Donald Trump, but it was certainly supercharged by his regressive attack on our voting systems.
Many of these bills are fueled by the same rhetoric and grievances that were driving the challenges to the 2020 election. In addition to expressly referencing the big lie about widespread voter fraud and that Trump actually won the election, they’re targeting the methods of voting that the Trump campaign was complaining about. So, for example, the single biggest subject of regressive voter legislation in this session — roughly half the bills — is mail voting.
It would create a baseline level of voter access rules that every American could rely on for federal elections. So, for example, in many states we’re seeing attempts to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting. This would require all states to offer no-excuse absentee voting. Every state would then offer that best practice of voting access, and it would no longer be manipulated, election by election, by state legislators to target voters they don’t like.
Tanden’s letter to Biden requesting her withdrawal said:
Dear President Biden,
I am writing to you to withdraw my nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. It has been an honor of a lifetime to be considered for this role and for the faith placed in me.
The withdrawal marks the first cabinet nominee by Biden to fail to get confirmation.
“I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said in a statement. “I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience and her counsel, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my Administration. She will bring valuable perspective and insight to our work.”