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    Biden urges Congress to pass Covid relief quickly amid 'enormous pain'

    Joe Biden urged Congress to swiftly pass a $1.9tn relief package, emphasizing the collective financial and emotional stress millions of Americans face as the pandemic that has claimed more than 450,000 lives continues into its second year.“I know some in Congress think we’ve already done enough to deal with the crisis in the country,” he said. “Others think that things are getting better and we can afford to sit back and either do little or do nothing at all. That’s not what I see. I see enormous pain in this country. A lot of folks out of work. A lot of folks going hungry.”By a party-line vote of 219-209, the House of Representatives passed a budget plan, after the Senate approved it in a pre-dawn vote. Vice-President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate for the first time.Congress can now work to write a bill that can be passed by a simple majority in both houses, which are controlled by Democrats. Mid-March has been suggested as a likely date by which the measure could be passed, a point at which enhanced unemployment benefits will expire if Congress does not act.“The simple truth is, if we make these investments now with interest rates at historic lows, it will generate more growth, higher incomes, a stronger economy, and our nation’s finances will be in a stronger position,” Biden said.Biden’s speech today marked an important shift in his tone about bipartisanship when it comes to providing coronavirus relief at a time when thousands of Americans are still dying from the virus every day and hospitals struggle to handle patient loads.Earlier this week, the president met with a group of Republican senators who had proposed a $600bn relief bill, much smaller than Biden’s plan. Biden said he was open to the senators’ ideas, but the White House acknowledged the president made clear in the meeting that he considered the Republican package to be too small to address the country’s financial needs right now.Biden, a longtime senator who based his presidential campaign around the idea that he could work with Republicans to achieve bipartisan compromise, is now saying Democrats are willing to go it alone on coronavirus relief.[embedded content]“What Republicans have proposed is either to do nothing or not enough,” Biden said. “All of the sudden, many of them have rediscovered fiscal restraint and concern for the deficits. Don’t kid yourself, this approach will come with a cost: more pain for more people for longer than it has to be.”Larry Summers, a former economic adviser to Barack Obama, has warned that Biden might be spending too much. The Republican representative Michael Burgess said Congress should wait until all of the previous $4tn in pandemic relief had been spent. He said $1tn had yet to go out the door.“Why is it suddenly so urgent that we pass another $2tn bill?” Burgess demanded.But Nancy Pelosi predicted the final Covid-19 relief legislation could pass Congress before 15 March, when special unemployment benefits that were added during the pandemic expire. In a letter to her fellow Democratic caucus members, the House speaker celebrated the Senate’s passage of the budget resolution early on Friday morning.“As we all know, a budget is a statement of our values. Our work to crush the coronavirus and deliver relief to the American people is urgent and of the highest priority. With this budget resolution, we have taken a giant step to save lives and livelihoods,” Pelosi said in the letter.Biden’s announcement comes amid more worrying signs about the jobs market. On Friday the labor department announced the US had added an anemic 49,000 new jobs in December. The US added an average of 176,000 jobs a month in 2019, before the pandemic hit the US.The latest numbers did show growth after job losses in December. The revised figures for the last month of 2020 showed 227,000 jobs had been lost, up from an initial estimate of 140,000.Officially, about 10 million people are now out of work but the Economics Policy Institute calculates that, in fact, 25.5 million workers – 15% of the workforce – are “either unemployed, otherwise out of work due to the pandemic, or employed but experiencing a drop in hours and pay”, according to a report released on Friday.The head of the International Monetary Fund on Friday warned that the US faced a possible “dangerous wave” of bankruptcies and unemployment if it did not maintain fiscal support until the coronavirus health crisis ended.“There is still that danger that if support is not sustained until we have a durable exit from the health crisis, there could be a dangerous wave of bankruptcies and unemployment,” said the IMF’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva.Biden’s proposed budget also brought test votes on several Democratic priorities, including a $15 minimum wage. The Senate by voice vote adopted an amendment from Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, opposed to raising the wage during the pandemic. Ernst said a wage hike at this time would be “devastating” for small businesses.None of the amendments to the budget are binding on Democrats as they draft their Covid plan, but passage of a wage increase could prove difficult. Even if a $15 wage can get past procedural challenges in the final bill, passage will require the support from every Democrat in the 50-50 Senate, which could be a tall order.Senator Bernie Sanders, a vocal proponent of the wage increase, vowed to press ahead. “We need to end the crisis of starvation wages,” he said. More

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    US economy adds 49,000 jobs as Biden aims for further Covid relief

    The US economy added back 49,000 jobs last month as coronavirus restrictions eased and fiscal stimulus from Washington goosed up the economy, the labor department announced on Friday.The unemployment rate dropped to 6.3%, down significantly from its pandemic high of 14.7% in April. While January’s figure marked a return to growth after job losses in December, the number was weak and big problems remain.On Thursday, the labor department said 779,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, down from the week before but still close to four times pre-pandemic levels. The latest figures showed some 17.8 million Americans are still claiming unemployment benefits.In December the US lost 140,000 jobs as the latest wave of Covid-19 infections led to more shutdowns across the country and a slowdown in economic activity. That figure was revised to a loss of 227,000 jobs on Friday.Professional and business services (up 97,000 jobs) and local government (up 49,000) saw the largest gains over the month. The US is still losing huge numbers of jobs in leisure and hospitality (down 61,000) and retail (down 38,000) and the stark gap in racial unemployment rates remains.The unemployment rate for white Americans was 6% while for Black Americans it was 9.2% and for Latinos it was 8.6%.The jobs figure come as the Biden administration is trying to push through a $1.9tn stimulus package which would send $1,400 cheques to many Americans and provide fresh aid for struggling businesses. It would also increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 – the first increase since 2009.The plan has widespread support from voters, with a Quinnipiac survey showing more than two-thirds of respondents in favor of the plan. But it has met with opposition from Republicans in Congress, who have balked at the size of the stimulus and proposed a far smaller package. Biden’s plan was approved in the Senate early Friday by a 51 to 50 vote, with the vice-president casting the tie-breaking vote, but still faces hurdles and is not expected to become law before mid March.The recovery in the jobs market may embolden opponents but some economists warned that the economic toll of the virus is far from over.Jason Reed, assistant chair of finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said: “We shouldn’t forget that the economy is still down about 10m jobs since the start of the pandemic. We aren’t anywhere close to where we were this time last year.“The rollout of the vaccine will surely help Americans get back to work, but we shouldn’t expect a return to normal until late 2021 or early 2022.” More

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    Kamala Harris uses casting vote to pass Covid relief budget resolution

    The US Senate has passed a budget resolution that allows for the passage of Joe Biden’s $1.9tn (£1.4tn) Covid-19 relief package in the coming weeks without Republican support.
    The vice-president, Kamala Harris, broke a 50/50 tie by casting a vote in favour of the Democratic measure, which sends it to the House of Representatives for final approval. It marked the first time Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, cast a tie-breaking vote after being sworn in as the first female vice-president on 20 January.
    The House passed its own budget measure on Wednesday. Congress can now work to write a bill that can be passed by a simple majority in both houses, which are controlled by Democrats. Mid-March has been suggested as a likely date by which the measure could be passed, a point at which enhanced unemployment benefits will expire if Congress does not act.
    The vote came at 5.30am on Friday at the end of a marathon Senate debate session, known among senators as a “vote-a-rama”, a procedure whereby they can theoretically offer unlimited amendments.
    US cases
    Biden is scheduled to meet with Democratic House leaders and committee chairs early on Friday morning to discuss the Covid economic stimulus, and is expected to make public remarks on the progress at an 11.45am EST (1645 GMT) briefing.
    There was dissent from Republicans in the Senate overnight, particularly over plans for a $15 federal minimum wage. Iowa’s Republican senator, Joni Ernst, raised an amendment to “prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic”, which was carried by a voice vote.
    The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said he still intended to support bringing the measure through: “We need to end the crisis of starvation wages in Iowa and around the United States.”
    He outlined plans to get a wage increase, phased in over five years, included in a budget reconciliation bill. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, and has not been raised since 2009.
    In a tweet after the vote, Sanders said: “Today, with the passage of this budget resolution to provide relief to our working families, we have the opportunity not only to address the pandemic and the economic collapse – we have the opportunity to give hope to the American people and restore faith in our government.”
    During the debate Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said “This is not the time for trillions more dollars to make perpetual lockdowns and economic decline a little more palatable. Notwithstanding the actual needs, notwithstanding all the talk about bipartisan unity, Democrats in Congress are plowing ahead. They’re using this phony budget to set the table to ram through their $1.9 trillion rough draft.”
    The $1.9 trillion relief package proposed would be used to speed Covid-19 vaccines throughout the nation. Other funds would extend special unemployment benefits that will expire at the end of March and make direct payments to people to help them pay bills and stimulate the economy. Democrats also want to send money to state and local governments dealing with the worst health crisis in decades. More

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    Biden declares 'diplomacy is back' as he outlines foreign policy agenda at state department – live

    Key events

    Show

    3.52pm EST15:52
    Trump’s legal team signals he will not testify in impeachment trial

    3.07pm EST15:07
    Biden to sign executive order raising US refugee admissions to 125,000

    3.02pm EST15:02
    Biden says defense secretary will launch global posture review

    2.50pm EST14:50
    Biden at state department: ‘Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy’

    2.47pm EST14:47
    Senate vote-a-rama on budget resolution begins

    1.54pm EST13:54
    Biden sends message to global leaders: ‘America is back’

    1.50pm EST13:50
    Democrats criticize Greene’s remarks ahead of vote on committee assignments

    Live feed

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    4.52pm EST16:52

    House minority leader Kevin McCarthy denounced the resolution to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments over her extremist views.
    McCarthy argued the resolution, if approved, would set a dangerous precedent that would only intensify partisan divisions in the House.
    The Republican leader condemned Greene’s past racist and anti-Semitic comments, but McCarthy has refused to remove the congresswoman from her committee assignments.
    McCarthy accused Democrats of being “blinded by partisanship and politics”.

    4.47pm EST16:47

    The House floor debate over whether Marjorie Taylor Greene should be removed from her committee assignments over her past racist, anti-Semitic and extremist comments is underway.
    Ted Deutch, the Democratic chairman of the House ethics committee, denounced Greene for supporting conspiracy theories suggesting that school shootings, like the Parkland shooting that took place in Deutch, were staged.
    “The 17 people who never came home from school on Feb. 14, 2018 were my constituents. Their families’ pain is real. And it is felt every single day,” Deutch said.
    Greene said in a speech today that school shootings were real, but she did not apologize for her past comments.

    4.25pm EST16:25

    The House voted along partly lines, 205-218, to reject Republican congressman Chip Roy’s motion to adjourn for the day.

    House Press Gallery
    (@HouseDailyPress)
    The motion to adjourn was rejected 205-218.The House is debating H.Res. 72 – Removing a certain Member from certain standing committees of the House of Representatives.

    February 4, 2021

    The House is now debating the resolution to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments over her racist, anti-Semitic and extremist rhetoric.

    4.12pm EST16:12

    The Guardian’s Kari Paul reports:
    Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, announced last week the platform will no longer algorithmically recommend political groups to users in an attempt to “turn down the temperature” on online divisiveness.
    But experts say such policies are difficult to enforce, much less quantify, and the toxic legacy of the Groups feature and the algorithmic incentives promoting it will be difficult to erase.
    “This is like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” said Jessica J González, the co-founder of the anti-hate speech group Change the Terms. “It doesn’t do enough to combat the long history of abuse that’s been allowed to fester on Facebook.”
    Read Kari’s full report:

    3.52pm EST15:52

    Trump’s legal team signals he will not testify in impeachment trial

    Donald Trump’s legal team has signaled that he will not testify in the Senate impeachment trial, despite the impeachment managers’ request for him to do so.
    One of Trump’s senior advisers, Jason Miller, shared a letter to lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin describing the congressman’s request for the former president to testify as a “public relations stunt”.

    Jason Miller
    (@JasonMillerinDC)
    🚨Response to Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin🚨 pic.twitter.com/I13JBvbkmD

    February 4, 2021

    The letter to Raskin is signed by two of Trump’s lawyers, Bruce Castor and David Schoen.
    “Your letter only confirms what is known to everyone: you cannot prove your allegations against the 45th President of the United States, who is now a private citizen,” Castor and Schoen wrote.
    Castor also told NBC News that the former president did not intend to testify in the impeachment trial.

    Carol Lee
    (@carolelee)
    Trump impeachment lawyer Bruce Castor tells @NBCNews the former president won’t testify, per House Dems request. “It’s a publicity stunt in order to make up for the weakness of the House managers’ case,” Castor says, calling the case “a winner” for Trump.

    February 4, 2021

    3.33pm EST15:33

    The House has adopted the rule for the resolution to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments, clearing another procedural hurdle.

    House Press Gallery
    (@HouseDailyPress)
    The rule for H.Res. 72 – Removing a certain Member from certain standing committees of the House of Representatives was adopted by a vote of 218-210.The House is voting on a motion to adjourn.

    February 4, 2021

    But Republican congressman Chip Roy has now introduced a motion to adjourn the chamber, which is expected to be defeated by the Democratic majority.
    Roy’s motion will delay the final vote on Greene, who has been widely denounced for her racist and anti-Semitic views, until about 5:30 pm ET.

    3.19pm EST15:19

    Joe Biden also used his state department speech to emphasize the importance of an independent press in a healthy democracy.
    “We believe a free press isn’t an adversary, rather it’s essential,” the president said. “The free press is essential to the health of a democracy.”
    The comments represented a stark contrast to Donald Trump, who repeatedly attacked the press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people” for revealing unflattering facts about him and his administration.
    Biden’s speech at the state department has now concluded.

    3.15pm EST15:15

    Over his four years in office, Donald Trump brought down the cap on annual US refugee admissions to historic lows.

    John Gramlich
    (@johngramlich)
    Here’s how the refugee cap (ie, the maximum number of refugees allowed into the US) has changed in recent fiscal years: 2017: 110,0002018: 45,0002019: 30,0002020: 18,000https://t.co/zpvLZi0p9B https://t.co/Ypspv3rEGj

    February 4, 2021

    Joe Biden said in his state department speech today that he would sign an executive order to raise annual refugee admissions back up to 125,000.
    But the new president acknowledged it would take time to “rebuild what has been so badly damaged” after four years of Trump’s leadership.

    3.07pm EST15:07

    Biden to sign executive order raising US refugee admissions to 125,000

    Joe Biden said he will sign an executive order to raise annual US refugee admissions to 125,000, after the Trump administration repeatedly slashed the refugee cap.
    The president pledged that his administration would “begin the hard work of restoring our refugee admissions program to help meet the unprecedented global need”.
    But Biden acknowledged it would take time to increase the US refugee capacity, after the Trump administration targeted some of the infrastructure that supports refugee admissions.
    “It’s going to take time to rebuild what has been so badly damaged,” Biden said.

    3.02pm EST15:02

    Biden says defense secretary will launch global posture review

    Joe Biden said his newly confirmed secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, will lead a global posture review to assess US military operations.
    In the meantime, any US troop redeployments from Germany that were approved by Donald Trump will be frozen, Biden said.
    The president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, announced the global posture review at the White House earlier today.
    Biden also confirmed Sullivan’s announcement that the US is ending support for offensive operations and relevant arms sales in Yemen.
    “We’re going to continue to help and support Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty,” the US president added.

    2.57pm EST14:57

    Joe Biden criticized the Vladimir Putin’s government, after a Russian court ruled that opposition leader Alexei Navalny should be jailed for two years and eight months.
    Biden said Navalny “should be released immediately and without condition,” as protests rage over the opposition leader’s detainment.
    “We will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia and defend our vital interests and our people,” Biden said at the state department.

    2.50pm EST14:50

    Biden at state department: ‘Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy’

    Joe Biden is delivering a speech at the state department, outlining his vision for America’s foreign policy agenda.
    “America is back,” Biden said, echoing his comments to state department staffers earlier this afternoon. “Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.”
    The president also reiterated the need for America to strengthen its global alliances, after four years of Donald Trump belittling those relationships.
    “We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again — not to meet yesterday’s challenges but today’s and tomorrow’s,” Biden said. “We can’t do it alone.”

    2.47pm EST14:47

    Senate vote-a-rama on budget resolution begins

    The Senate’s “vote-a-rama” on the Democratic budget resolution is now underway, and it will likely continue for hours.

    Senate Cloakroom
    (@SenateCloakroom)
    NOW VOTING: Adoption of Wicker Amendment #261 in relation to S.Con.Res.5, Sanders Budget Resolution.

    February 4, 2021

    Republicans have prepared hundreds of amendments to the budget resolution, meaning the vote-a-rama could stretch well into the night.
    With the Democrats in the majority, most of the Republican proposals will likely fail, but the amendments will force Democratic senators to take some painful votes on issues like abortion and immigration.
    Once the budget resolution is approved, it paves the way for congressional Democrats to pass Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief package using reconciliation, meaning they will not need any Republican support to get the legislation to the president’s desk.

    Updated
    at 3.24pm EST

    2.31pm EST14:31

    The House has voted to move forward with the resolution to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments over her racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
    The House voted 218-209, exactly along party lines, to approve the procedural motion in connection to the resolution. A second procedural vote is now underway.

    House Press Gallery
    (@HouseDailyPress)
    The previous question on the rule for H.Res. 72 – Removing a certain Member from certain standing committees of the House of Representatives was ordered by a vote of 218-209.The House is voting on the rule for H.Res. 72.

    February 4, 2021

    Updated
    at 2.42pm EST

    2.26pm EST14:26

    Congressman Don Beyer, a Democrat of Virginia, said Marjorie Taylor Greene’s floor speech was “filled with whataboutism that concluded with comparing American journalists to violent QAnon conspiracy theories”.
    “She continued claiming to be a victim. She took no responsibility for advocating violence. She did not apologize,” Beyer said.

    Rep. Don Beyer
    (@RepDonBeyer)
    Greene just took the House Floor to give a speech filled with whataboutism that concluded with comparing American journalists to violent QAnon conspiracy theories.She continued claiming to be a victim.She took no responsibility for advocating violence.She did not apologize.

    February 4, 2021

    The House’s procedural vote on removing Greene from her committee assignments over her racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric is still underway.
    As of now, the vote has fallen exactly along party lines.

    2.01pm EST14:01

    A procedural vote on the motion to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments is now underway in the House.
    Earlier this afternoon, Greene delivered a floor speech to defend herself amid widespread condemnation over her racist and extremist rhetoric.
    In the speech, Greene claimed that she has not promoted the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory QAnon since she was elected to Congress.
    But as a Daily Beast reported noted, that is not true. In December, Greene sent a now-deleted tweet promoting QAnon.

    Will Sommer
    (@willsommer)
    Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed today that she hasn’t promoted QAnon since being elected. But on Dec. 4, she praised an article promoting Q in a now-deleted tweet. The story Greene praised as “accurate” calls QAnon an “objective flow of information” that’s “uniting Christians.” pic.twitter.com/nN3bnTCyPa

    February 4, 2021

    1.54pm EST13:54

    Biden sends message to global leaders: ‘America is back’

    Joe Biden is speaking at the state department, thanking its staffers for their service to the country at home and abroad.
    The president praised the state department employees as “an incredible group of individuals,” after four years of decreasing morale among diplomats due to Donald Trump’s attacks on them.
    Biden said he would later go up to the eighth floor of the state department to deliver a message to world leaders about the direction of his foreign policy agenda.
    “America is back,” Biden said. “Diplomacy is back.” More

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    House to vote on removing rightwing extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene from committees – live

    Key events

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    4.49pm EST16:49
    McCarthy defends refusal to remove extremist Greene from committees

    4.30pm EST16:30
    House Republicans meet to discuss Greene and Cheney

    3.59pm EST15:59
    Pelosi mocks McCarthy as a member of the ‘Q’ party

    3.22pm EST15:22
    House rules committee holds hearing on punishing extremist Greene

    2.20pm EST14:20
    White House walks back CDC director’s comments about vaccinating teachers

    1.48pm EST13:48
    White House warns against ‘cost of inaction’ on coronavirus relief

    1.29pm EST13:29
    DoJ drops discrimination case against Yale

    Live feed

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    4.49pm EST16:49

    McCarthy defends refusal to remove extremist Greene from committees

    House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has released a statement defending his refusal to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments over her racist, anti-Semitic and violent rhetoric.

    Kevin McCarthy
    (@GOPLeader)
    My full statement on Rep. Taylor Greene: https://t.co/BBjlftVdUn

    February 3, 2021

    “Past comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference,” McCarthy said.
    “I condemn those comments unequivocally. I condemned them in the past. I continue to condemn them today. This House condemned QAnon last Congress and continues to do so today.”
    McCarthy went on to accuse House Democratic leadership of “choosing to raise the temperature by taking the unprecedented step to further their partisan power grab regarding the committee assignments of the other party”.
    “I understand that Marjorie’s comments have caused deep wounds to many and as a result, I offered Majority Leader Hoyer a path to lower the temperature and address these concerns,” McCarthy said.
    Steny Hoyer released a statement earlier today saying that McCarthy made it clear there was “no alternative” to moving forward with a full House vote to remove Greene from her committee assignments. The vote will take place tomorrow.

    4.42pm EST16:42

    House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has been telling allies that he plans to defend Liz Cheney during this afternoon’s meeting, according to Politico.

    Melanie Zanona
    (@MZanona)
    House @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy has been telling ppl he plans to DEFEND Liz Cheney during closed-door meeting and make the case for her to stay in leadership, per sources.

    February 3, 2021

    Some Republicans have called on Cheney to step down as House Republican conference chairwoman over her vote to impeach Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection.

    4.30pm EST16:30

    House Republicans meet to discuss Greene and Cheney

    House Republicans are now holding a caucus meeting to discuss two of their members, Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
    Both congresswomen have faced criticism from fellow Republicans in recent days, but they are each in the hot seat for very, very different reasons.

    Craig Caplan
    (@CraigCaplan)
    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) heads to House GOP Conference meeting. pic.twitter.com/nU9al3GhAe

    February 3, 2021

    Greene has been denounced by members of both parties for supporting the antisemitic conspiracy theory QAnon and for spouting many racist and extremist beliefs. The House is expected to hold a vote tomorrow on removing Greene from her committee assignments.
    Cheney, on the other hand, has been criticized by Trump loyalists for voting to impeach the former president over inciting the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol. Some Republicans have said Cheney should step down as the House Republican conference chairwoman.
    The action that House Republicans pursue in connection to the two congresswomen could provide clues as to how the caucus will conduct itself now that Trump has left office.
    Stay tuned for updates from the meeting.

    Updated
    at 4.38pm EST

    4.23pm EST16:23

    Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman who has been one of Donald Trump’s fiercest advocates in the House, suggested he would give up his seat to defend the former president in the impeachment trial.
    Gaetz made the comment in an interview today with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist.
    “I love my district,” Gaetz told Bannon. “I love representing them. But I view this cancellation of the Trump presidency and the Trump movement as one of the major risks to my people, both in my district and all throughout this great country.”
    Gaetz added, “Absolutely, if the president called me and wanted me to go defend him on the floor of the Senate, that would be the top priority in my life. I would leave my House seat, I would leave my home, I would do anything I had to do to ensure that the greatest president in my lifetime … got a full-throated defense.”
    The House approved an article of impeachment against Trump last month, charging the then-president of incitement of insurrection in connection to the 6 January attack on the Capitol.
    Ten House Republicans supported the article of impeachment, making it the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in US history.

    Updated
    at 4.34pm EST

    4.08pm EST16:08

    More Senate Republicans are coming out to denounce the racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric of congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
    Thom Tillis, a Republican of North Carolina, said in a new tweet, “It’s beyond reprehensible for any elected official, especially a member of Congress, to parrot violent QAnon rhetoric and promote deranged conspiracies like the Pentagon wasn’t really hit by a plane on 9/11. It’s not conservative, it’s insane.”

    Senator Thom Tillis
    (@SenThomTillis)
    It’s beyond reprehensible for any elected official, especially a member of Congress, to parrot violent QAnon rhetoric and promote deranged conspiracies like the Pentagon wasn’t really hit by a plane on 9/11. It’s not conservative, it’s insane.

    February 3, 2021

    Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota also said this afternoon that it would be “very hard” for him to support Greene staying on the House education committee, given that she has suggested school shootings were hoaxes. (Those suggestions, of course, have absolutely no basis in reality.)

    Julie Tsirkin
    (@JulieNBCNews)
    CRAMER on House vote to strip @mtgreenee of committee assignments: “It would be very hard for me if I was over there and going to cast a vote… that I could support somebody be on the education committee that doesn’t believe that school shootings are really school shootings.” pic.twitter.com/fSk7f7tDHU

    February 3, 2021

    The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, has refused to remove Greene from her committee assignments, so the Democratic leadership is moving forward with a full chamber vote to do so.

    Updated
    at 4.40pm EST

    3.59pm EST15:59

    Pelosi mocks McCarthy as a member of the ‘Q’ party

    Nancy Pelosi has just released a scathing statement about minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s refusal to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments over her racist, antisemitic and fringe beliefs.
    The Democratic speaker’s press release identifies the Republican leader’s party and state affiliation as “Q-CA,” rather than “R-CA”.

    Kadia Goba
    (@kadiagoba)
    Another example Dems are making QAnon the center of their strategy against Republicans. McCarthy’s party designation is now a “Q” in Pelosi’s latest note. pic.twitter.com/2YqgMIitvo

    February 3, 2021

    “After several conversations and literally running away from reporters, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Q-CA) made clear that he is refusing to take action against conspiracy theorist Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Pelosi said in the statement.
    “As a result, the House will continue with a vote to strip Greene of her seat on the esteemed House Committee on Education & Labor and House Committee on Budget. McCarthy’s failure to lead his party effectively hands the keys over to Greene – an antisemite, QAnon adherent and 9/11 truther.”
    Pelosi noted that several Republicans, including No 2 Senate Republican John Thune, have outlined the need to denounce Greene’s racist and antisemitic rhetoric.
    Quoting Thune, Pelosi said, “McCarthy has chosen to make House Republicans ‘the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon’ and Rep Greene is in the driver’s seat.”

    Updated
    at 4.15pm EST

    3.46pm EST15:46

    Jim McGovern, the Democratic chairman of the House rules committee, said he believed removing Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments was “the minimum” that the House should do.
    “I personally think she should resign,” McGovern said. “I don’t think she’s fit to serve in this institution.”
    Other Democrats have also called on Greene to resign, but she has refused to do so, instead sending fundraising pitches linked to the outcry over her racist and anti-Semitic beliefs.

    3.41pm EST15:41

    Congressman Ted Deutch, a Democratic member of the House rules committee, got choked up as he discussed the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school during today’s hearing.
    Marjorie Taylor Greene has suggested the shooting was a hoax. That is of course not true. The shooting was real, and 17 people were killed in the attack.
    The shooting took place in Deutch’s district, and the congressman started his comments by reading off the names of the Parkland victims.
    “There are not words in the English language to properly describe how the remarks of Ms Greene makes these communities feel,” Deutch said. “This makes it so much worse.”

    Updated
    at 3.45pm EST

    3.29pm EST15:29

    Tom Cole, the top Republican on the House rules committee, said he considered today’s hearing to be “premature”.
    Cole described Marjorie Taylor Green’s racist, antisemitic and violent comments as “deeply offensive,” but he suggested the matter should be referred to the House ethics committee before she is removed from her committee assignments.
    The House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, has already said the full House will vote on removing Greene from her committee assignments tomorrow.

    Updated
    at 4.15pm EST

    3.22pm EST15:22

    House rules committee holds hearing on punishing extremist Greene

    The House rules committee is now holding a hearing on removing Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who has voiced support for the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory QAnon, from her committee assignments.
    Jim McGovern, the Democratic chairman of the committee, opened the proceedings by noting, “We have never had a hearing like this before.” McGovern said of Greene’s racist and fringe beliefs, “This is sick stuff.”
    McGovern argued that serving on House committees should be seen as a privilege rather than a right and the chamber was required to hold its members to a certain standard.
    “It is not about canceling anybody with different political beliefs,” McGovern said. “It is about accountability and about upholding the integrity and the decency of this institution. If this isn’t the bottom line, I don’t know where the hell the bottom line is.”

    3.07pm EST15:07

    The Biden administration has said it cannot release the visitor logs from the Trump White House.
    “We cannot [release them],” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said this afternoon. “That is under the purview of the National Archives, so I’d certainly point you to there.”

    CBS News
    (@CBSNews)
    Psaki says Biden administration cannot release Trump White House visitor logs, which are controlled by the National Archives. The Trump White House cut off public access to the logs in April 2017.Psaki says Biden visitor logs will be released quarterly https://t.co/Nj065CIsxp pic.twitter.com/RNPmUHhPzR

    February 3, 2021

    Reporters have asked the new administration about the visitor logs amid questions over whether Donald Trump hosted anyone who participated in the January 6 insurrection in the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol.
    The Biden White House has pledged to release its own visitor logs every quarter, as Barack Obama’s administration did.

    2.50pm EST14:50

    Leyland Cecco reports for the Guardian from Toronto:
    Canada has designated the far-right Proud Boys group as a terrorist organization alongside Isis and al-Qaida, amid growing concerns over the spread of white supremacist groups in the country.
    On Wednesday Bill Blair, public safety minister, also announced the federal government would designate the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups the Atomwaffen Division, the Base and the Russian Imperial Movement as terrorist entities. The federal government also added offshoots of al-Qaida, Isis and Hizbul Mujahedin to its list.
    “Canada will not tolerate ideological, religious or politically motivated acts of violence,” Blair said.
    The move by the federal government follows allegations that the Proud Boys played a role in the mob attack on the US Capitol in January. During the 2020 presidential debates, when Donald Trump was asked to condemn white supremacist groups, he instead told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”.
    In late January, Canada’s parliament unanimously passed a motion calling on the federal government to designate the rightwing Proud Boys as a terrorist group. The motion had no practical legal impact, but spoke to a growing worry over rightwing extremism in Canada.
    Ahead of the announcement, Canadian officials told reporters that they had been monitoring the Proud Boys before the Capitol Hill attack, but the event helped with the decision to list the organization. More

  • in

    Biden and Yellen urge Democrats to go big and bold on Covid relief package

    Joe Biden and his new treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, are encouraging Democrats in Congress to go big and bold on the Covid-19 relief package and have effectively panned a Republican alternative that is less than a third the size of the president’s $1.9tn rescue plan.Senate Democrats took steps on Tuesday to push ahead with the huge bill, with or without Republican support, despite the ostensibly amicable bipartisan talks at the White House the day before.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, warned that the coronavirus crisis could drag on for several years unless maximum effort for large-scale relief is made on Capitol Hill.Democrats voted to launch a process that could approve the sweeping rescue package on their own if necessary.On Tuesday, Biden and Yellen joined the Democratic senators for a private virtual meeting and both declared the Republicans’ $618bn relief offer too small.They urged ambitious and fast action to stem the coronavirus pandemic crisis and its economic fallout.Biden on Wednesday was meeting with congressional Democrats. In a call-in to the weekly meeting of Democratic representatives he said he was willing to consider tighter limits on who gets $1,400 direct payments under his Covid-19 relief plan but not the size of the checks, CNN reported.The president invited incoming Democratic chairs of some key Senate committees to the Oval Office.“This is their new home for a while anyway,” Biden said. “And with a little bit of luck, the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbors, and the crick not rising, it’s going to be longer than just four years.”Asked whether he believed any Republican lawmakers would support his relief proposal, Biden replied: “I think we’ll get some Republicans.”“I think we’ll get some Republicans,” Biden told us in Oval, referring to GOP votes on latest coronavirus stimulus spending plan. pic.twitter.com/VrZXudKJQh— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 3, 2021
    Earlier, Senators Chris Coons and Tom Carper of Delaware emerged from an hour-long meeting with Biden at the White House.Carper said the trio discussed the need to confirm Biden’s cabinet nominees, as well as president’s coronavirus relief proposal.Coons pushed for financing global vaccine relief. He noted to reporters after that it is in Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal but not in the counter proposal from 10 Republicans, and is how US can restore its global leadership.As the White House reaches for a bipartisan bill, Democrats marshaled their slim Senate majority, voting 50-49, to start a lengthy process for approving Biden’s bill with a simple majority.The goal is to have Covid-19 relief approved by March, when extra unemployment assistance and other pandemic aid expires.“President Biden spoke about the need for Congress to respond boldly and quickly,” Schumer said after the lunch meeting, and, referring to the GOP counter offer, he added: “If we did a package that small, we’d be mired in the Covid crisis for years.”Biden framed his views during the virtual lunch meeting with Democrats by talking about the need not to forget working- and middle-class families – even those like nurses and pipe-fitters making $150,000 for a family of four – who are straining during the crisis, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private call.The night before, Biden met with 10 Republican senators pitching their $618bn alternative, and let them know it was insufficient to meet the country’s needs. The president made it clear that he will not delay aid in hopes of winning GOP support.While no compromise was reached during the late Monday session, White House talks with Republicans are privately under way.The outcome will test the new president striving to unify the country but confronting a rising Covid-19 death toll and stubbornly high jobless numbers, with political risks for all sides.Vaccine distributions, direct $1,400 payments to households, school reopenings and business aid are all on the line.The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, criticized the Democrats for pressing ahead on their own. He said he had spoken to Biden ahead of his meeting with the 10 GOP senators.“They’ve chosen a totally partisan path,” McConnell said. “That’s unfortunate.”White House officials have previously cited the US Chamber of Commerce as evidence of broad support for their plan, but the nation’s most prominent business group issued a letter on Tuesday that urged a bipartisan compromise.“There ought to be common ground for a bipartisan proposal that can become law,” Neil Bradley, executive vice-president and chief policy officer, said in an interview.The cornerstone of the GOP plan is $160bn for the healthcare response and vaccine distribution, a “massive expansion” of testing, protective gear and funds for rural hospitals, similar to what Biden has proposed.But from there, the two plans drastically diverge. The vote on Tuesday opens 50 hours of debate on a budget resolution, with amendment votes expected later this week. More

  • in

    Tech Exodus: Is Silicon Valley in Trouble?

    On January 7, the news media announced that Elon Musk had surpassed Jeff Bezos as “the richest person on Earth.” I have a personal interest in the story. Two of my neighbors just bought a Tesla, and this morning, on the highway between Geneva and Lausanne, an angry Tesla driver flashed me several times, demanding that I let him pass. His license plate was from Geneva. Apparently, these days, driving a Tesla automatically gives you privileges, including speeding, particularly if you sport a Geneva or Zurich license plate. In the old days, at least in Germany, bullying others on the highway was a privilege reserved for Mercedes and BMW drivers, who, as the saying went, had an “inbuilt right-of-way.” Oh my, how times have changed.

    Texas: The End of Authentic America?

    READ MORE

    Elon Musk is one of these success stories that only America can write. He is the postmodern equivalent of Howard Hughes, a visionary, if slightly unhinged, genius, who loved to flout conventions and later on in his life became a recluse. And yet, had you bought 100 shares of Tesla a year ago, your initial investment would be worth more than eight times as much today (from $98 to $850). Tough shit, as they like to say in Texas.

    The Lone Star

    Why Texas? At the end of last year, Elon Musk announced that he was going to leave Silicon Valley to find greener pastures in Texas. To be more precise, Austin, Texas. Austin is not only the capital of the Lone Star State. It also happens to be an oasis of liberalism in a predominantly red state. When I was a student at the University of Texas in the late 1970s, we would go to the Barton Springs pool, one of the few places where women could go topless. For a German, this was hardly noteworthy; for the average Texan, it probably bordered on revolutionary — and obscene.

    In the 2020 presidential election, in Travis County, which includes Austin and adjacent areas, Donald Trump garnered a mere 26% of the vote, compared to 52% for the whole state. Austin is also home to the University of Texas, one of America’s premier public universities, which “has spent decades investing in science and engineering programs.”

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    Musk is hardly alone in relocating to Texas. Recently, both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle announced they would move operations there, the first one to Houston, the second to Austin, where it will join relatively long-time resident tech heavyweights such as recently reinvigorated Advanced Micro Devices and Dell. It is not clear, however, whether Oracle will feel more comfortable in Austin than Silicon Valley. After all, Oracle was very close to the Trump administration.

    Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the “tech exodus” from Silicon Valley. Michael Lind, the influential social analyst and pundit who also happens to teach at UT, has preferred to speak of a “Texodus,” as local patriotism obligates. Never short of hyperbole, Lind went so far as to boldly predict that the “flight of terrified techies from California to Texas marks the end of one era, and the beginning of a new one.” Up in Seattle and over in Miami, questions were raised whether or not and how they might benefit from the “Texit.”

    Lind’s argument is that over the past decade or so, Silicon Valley has gone off track. In the past, tech startups in the Bay Area succeeded because they produced something. As he puts it, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos “are building and testing rockets in rural Texas.” Musk produces cars and batteries. Against that, Silicon Valley’s new “tech” darlings come up with clever ideas, such as allowing “grandmothers to upload videos of their kittens for free, and then sell the advertising rights to the videos and pocket the cash.”

    The models are Uber and Lyft, which Lind dismisses as nothing more than hyped-up telephone companies. Apparently, Lind does not quite appreciate the significance of the gig economy and particularly the importance of big data, which is the real capital of these companies and makes them “tech.” This is hardly surprising, given Austin’s history of hostility to the sharing economy — at least as long as it associated with its industry giants. As early as 2016, Austin held a referendum on whether or not the local government should be allowed to regulate Uber and Lyft. The companies lost, and subsequently fired 10,000 drivers, leaving Austinites stranded.

    In the months that followed, underground ride-sharing schemes started to spring up, seeking to fill the void. In the meantime, Uber and Lyft lobbied the state legislature, which ultimately passed a ride-hailing law, which established licensing on the state level, circumventing local attempts at regulation, which allowed Uber and Lyft to resume operations.

    Unfortunately for Lind, he also has it in for Twitter and Facebook for their “regular and repeated censorship of Republicans and conservatives” — an unusual failure of foresight in light of recent events at the Capitol. Ironically enough, Facebook has a large presence in Austin. Business sources from the city reported that Facebook is in the market for an additional 1 million square feet of office space in Austin. So is Google, which in recent years has significantly expanded its presence in the city and elsewhere in Texas.

    Colonial Transplant

    Does that mean Austin is likely to be able to rival Silicon Valley as America’s top innovation center for the high-tech industry? Not necessarily. As Margaret O’Mara has pointed out in the pages of The New York Times, this is not the first time that Silicon Valley has faced this kind of losses. And yet, “Silicon Valley always roared back, each time greater than the last. One secret to its resilience: money. The wealth created by each boom — flowing chiefly to an elite circle of venture investors and lucky founders — outlasted each bust. No other tech region has generated such wealth and industry-specific expertise, which is why it has had such resilience.”

    Industry insiders concur. In their view, Austin is less a competitor than a “colony.” Or, to put it slightly differently, Austin is nothing more than an outpost for tech giants such as Google and Facebook, while their main operations stay in Silicon Valley. It is anyone’s guess whether this time, things will pan out the same or somewhat differently. This depends both on the push and pull factors that inform the most recent tech exodus — in other words, on what motivates Silicon Valley denizens to abandon the Bay Area for the hills surrounding Austin.

    A recent Berkeley IGS poll provides some answers. According to the poll, around half of Californians thought about leaving the state in 2019. Among the most important reasons were the high cost of housing, the state’s high taxes and, last but not least, the state’s “political culture.” More detailed analysis suggests that the latter is a very significant factor: Those identifying themselves as conservatives or Republicans were three times as likely than liberals and Democrats to say they were seriously considering leaving the state.

    Embed from Getty Images

    The fact that 85% of Republicans who thought about leaving did so for reasons of political culture is a strong indication of the impact of partisanship. Among Democrats, only around 10% mentioned political culture as a reason for thinking about leaving the state. Partisanship was also reflected in the response to the question of whether California is a “land of opportunity.” Among Democrats, 80% thought so; among Republicans, only about 40% did.

    Until recently, thinking about leaving hardly ever translated into actually going. COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the equation. The pandemic introduced the notion of working from home, of remote work via “old” technologies such as Skype and new ones like Zoom. In late February 2020, Zoom’s stock was at around $100; in mid-October, it was traded at more than $550. In the meantime, it has lost some $200, largely the result of the prospect of a “post-pandemic world” thanks to the availability of vaccines.

    At least for the moment, remote work has fundamentally changed the rationale behind being tied to a certain locality. Before COVID-19, as Katherine Bindley has noted in The Wall Street Journal, “leaving the area meant walking away from some of the best-paying and most prestigious jobs in America.” In the wake of the pandemic, this is no longer the case. In fact, major Silicon Valley tech companies, such as Google, Facebook and Lyft, have told their workforce that they won’t be returning to their offices until sometime late summer. Given that California has been one of the states most affected by the virus, and given its relatively large population heavily concentrated in two metropolitan areas, even these projections might be overly optimistic.

    Distributed Employment

    And it is not at all clear whether or not, once the pandemic has run its course, things will return to “normal.” Even before the pandemic, remote work was on the rise. In 2016, according to Gallup data, more than 40% of employees “worked remotely in some capacity, meaning they spent at least some of their time working away from their coworkers.” Tech firms have been particularly accommodating to employee wishes to work remotely, even on a permanent basis. In May, The Washington Post reported that Twitter had unveiled plans to offer their employees the option to work from home “forever.” In an internal survey in July, some 70% of Twitter employees said they wanted to continue working from home at least three days a week.

    Other tech companies are likely to follow suit, in line with the new buzzword in management thinking, “distributed employment,” itself a Silicon Valley product. Its most prominent promoter has been Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University. Bloom has shown that work from home tends to increase productivity, for at least two reasons. First, people working from home actually work their full shift. Second, they tend to concentrate better than in an office environment full of noise and distractions.

    Additional support for distributed employment has come from Gallup research. The results indicate that “remote workers are more productive than on-site workers.” Gallup claims that remote work boosts employee morale and their engagement with the company, which leads to the conclusion that “off-site workers offer leaders the greatest gains in business outcomes.”

    It is for these reasons that this time, Silicon Valley might be in real trouble. Distributed employment fundamentally challenges the rationale behind the Valley’s success. As The Washington Post expose put it, in the past, “great ideas at work were born out of daily in-person interactions.” Creativity came from “serendipitous run-ins with colleagues,” as Steve Jobs would put it, “’from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions.’” Distributed employment is the antithesis of this kind of thinking. With the potential end of this model, Silicon Valley loses much of its raison d’être — unless it manages to reinvent itself, as it has done so many times in the past.

    A few years ago, Berkeley Professor AnnaLee Saxenian, who wrote a highly influential comparative study of how Silicon Valley outstripped Boston’s Route 128, has noted that Silicon Valley was “a set of human beings, and a set of institutions around them, that happen to be very well adapted to the world that we live in.” The question is whether or not this is still the case. After all, at one point, Route 128 was a hotspot of creativity and innovation, a serious rival of Silicon Valley. A couple of decades later, Route 128 was completely eclipsed by the Valley, a victim of an outdated industrial system, based on companies that kept largely to themselves.

    Against that, in the Valley, there emerged a new network-based system that promoted mutual learning, entrepreneurship and experimentation. The question is to what degree this kind of system will be capable to deal with the new challenges posed by the impact of COVID-19, which has fundamentally disrupted the fundamentals of the system.

    Embed from Getty Images

    In the meantime, locations such as Austin look particularly attractive. This is when the pull factors come in. Unlike California, Texas has no state income tax. In California, state income tax is more than 13%, the highest in the United States. To make things worse, late last year, California legislators considered raising taxes on the wealthy to bring in money to alleviate the plight of the homeless who have flocked in particular to San Francisco. Earlier on, state legislators had sought to raise the state income tax rate to almost 17%. It failed to pass.

    At the same time, they also came up with a piece of legislation “that would have created a first-in-the-nation wealth tax that included a feature to tax former residents for 10 years after they left the Golden State.” This one failed too, but it left a sour taste in the mouth of many a tech millionaire and certainly did little to counteract the flight from the state.

    No wonder Austin looks so much better, and not only because of Texas’s generally more business-friendly atmosphere. Austin offers California’s tech expats a lifestyle similar to that in the Bay Area, but at a considerably more reasonable cost. Add to that the absence of one of the most distressing assaults on hygiene: Between 2011 and 2018, the number of officially recorded incidences of human feces on the streets of San Francisco quintupled, from 5,500 cases to over 28,000 cases — largely the result of the city’s substantial homeless population. The fact is that California is one of the most unequal states in the nation. As Farhad Manjoo has recently put it in The New York Times, “the cost of living is taken into account, billionaire-brimming California ranks as the most poverty-stricken state, with a fifth of the population struggling to get by.”

    Homelessness is one result. And California’s wealthy liberals have done little to make things better. On the contrary, more often than not, they have used their considerable clout to block any attempt to change restrictive zoning laws and increase the supply of affordable housing, what Manjoo characterizes as “exclusionary urban restrictionism.”

    To be sure, restrictive zoning laws have a long history in San Francisco, going all the way back to the second half of the 19th century. At the time, San Francisco was home to a significant Chinese population, largely living in boarding houses. In the early 1870s, the city came up with new ordinances, designed “to criminalize Chinese renters and landlords so their jobs and living space could be reclaimed for San Francisco’s white residents.” Ever since, zoning laws have been informed by “efforts to appease the city’s wealthy, well-connected homeowners.” And this in a city that considers itself among the most progressive in the nation.

    None of these factors in isolation explains the current tech exodus from the Bay Area. Taken together, however, they make up a rather convincing case for why this time, Silicon Valley might be in real trouble. Unfortunately enough, the exodus might contribute to the “big sort” that has occurred in the US over the past few decades, meaning the “self-segregation of Americans into like-minded communities” that has been a major factor behind the dramatic polarization of the American political landscape. The signs are there, the consequences known — at least since the assault on the US Capitol.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More