Democrats

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      US House passes temporary funding bill to avert government shutdown

      by

      The House has passed a short-term funding bill, narrowly averting a partial government shutdown that would have taken place this weekend.The bill passed with a 320-99 vote on Thursday afternoon. Among Republicans, 113 voted yes and 97 voted no. Meanwhile, 207 Democrats voted yes and 2 voted against it.The two Democrats who voted against the bill were Mike Quigley of Illinois and Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts.The bill’s passage comes after congressional leaders from both parties, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson; the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries; the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer; the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell; as well as leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees, announced the agreement on Wednesday.“To give the House and Senate appropriations committees adequate time to execute on this deal in principle, including drafting, preparing report language, scoring and other technical matters and to allow members 72 hours to review, a short-term continuing resolution to fund agencies through March 8 and the 22 will be necessary, and voted on by the House and Senate this week,” the statement said.With the House passing the temporary funding bill on Thursday, a congressional vote is now expected next week for six full-year appropriations bills that will extend funding for agencies under the departments of agriculture-FDA, commerce-justice and science, energy and water development, interior, military construction-veterans affairs and transportation-housing and urban development.“These bills will adhere to the Fiscal Responsibility Act discretionary spending limits and January’s topline spending agreement,” congressional leaders said on Wednesday.The remaining six appropriations bills set to be finalized and voted on by 22 March revolve around the departments of defense, financial services and general government, homeland security, labor-health and human services, as well as legislative branch and state and foreign operations.Following Thursday’s vote, Virginia’s Democratic representative Abigail Spanberger said that despite voting alongside colleagues who “understand our fundamental responsibility to keep our government functioning … Speaker Johnson’s leadership has our country yet again one week away from a partial government shutdown and within a month of the whole of the federal government shutting its doors.”“As our country remains on a collision course with a completely preventable potential shutdown, I will continue to press Speaker Johnson to bring bipartisan bills forward that would pass in the US House, pass in the US Senate, and get to the president’s desk,” she added.Before Thursday’s vote, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris met with congressional leaders in attempts to help avert a partial government shutdown, which Biden said would “significantly” damage the economy.The bill will now head to the Senate, where the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the chamber could vote as early as Thursday evening.“Once the House acts, I hope the Senate can pass the short-term CR [continuing resolution] as soon as tonight, but that will require all of us working together. There’s certainly no reason this should take a very long time. So, let’s cooperate and get it done quickly,” Schumer said. More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      She’s famous for taking on CEOs. Can Katie Porter win the California senate race?

      by

      In 2018, a political newcomer named Katie Porter defeated a two-term incumbent Republican to represent California’s 45th district in the US House of Representatives, turning the famously conservative Orange county blue.Porter, a 44-year-old law professor and Elizabeth Warren protege, had a refreshing message, vowing to stay laser-focused on addressing the ways America’s financial institutions prey on ordinary people.Over six years as the representative of Nixon’s birthplace and Reagan’s political stronghold, Porter has built a national political profile with viral videos of her confronting bank CEOs and Republican appointees with basic financial calculations, illustrating her numbers on a quickly iconic whiteboard.Now, she’s hoping her image as a fierce fighter, a savvy communicator and a champion of ordinary people against big corporations will propel her to the US Senate.Porter is one of three prominent Democrats running to fill the seat of the late US senator Dianne Feinstein come November.This time, Porter is not running as the most progressive candidate in the race. She is competing against Barbara Lee, a longtime Black congresswoman from Oakland whose sterling progressive record includes being the sole member of Congress to vote against authorizing George W Bush’s war in Afghanistan, and one of the first Democrats to call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza last year.The campaign Porter wants to run for US Senate is one focused on her economic policy record, her willingness to break with the national Democratic establishment, and her comparative youth. At age 50, Porter is 13 years younger than the Democratic frontrunner in the race, Adam Schiff, and 27 years younger than Lee – a representative of a completely different generation than most of Washington’s bipartisan gerontocracy.View image in fullscreenBut the US Senate race Porter wants to run is looking very different from the race she’s actually competing in.As the civilian death toll of Israel’s war in Gaza divides Democrats and alienates younger and more progressive voters, Porter has become the centrist candidate in a three-Democrat race with an unexpected focus on foreign policy. While Schiff has maintained a staunchly pro-Israel stance, and Lee called for a ceasefire in Gaza on 8 October, Porter initially cast blame for the conflict on the US’s foreign policy towards Iran, and then, in mid-December, belatedly broke with the Biden administration and called for a “bilateral ceasefire”, in what was seen by some progressives as a much slower and less principled response than Lee’s.Current polling for the race shows Schiff in the lead, Porter coming in second among Democrats and Lee trailing relatively far behind. But Porter is also polling neck-and-neck with a late Republican entrant to California’s non-partisan Senate primary: Steve Garvey, an ageing LA Dodgers baseball star.Garvey – a 1970s pinup-boy candidate with a widely panned debate performance and a troubled family life – has no chance of winning the general election as a Republican in California. But the state’s Republican base is large enough that Garvey does have a chance of beating Porter and advancing to the runoff, and ensuring that Schiff, the most centrist of the California Democratic candidates, can cruise to victory in November.A Pac backed by cryptocurrency investors is already hammering Porter with millions of dollars in attack ads to push her out of the race.Some California progressives say that at another moment, it might have been easy for supporters of Lee to take the pragmatic stance and vote for Porter, to ensure that California voters at least get a choice between a progressive and a centrist Democrat in the general election. But this moment is different, they say, with widespread grief and outrage over the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza making many want to cast a moral vote for Lee – whether it’s strategic or not.Then there are the Democrats who are furious with Porter for entering the Senate race at all. Her purple House district, which she held on to with a margin of only 9,000 votes in a fiercely fought 2022 election, is now one of the closely contested races that will determine whether Democrats can win control of the House of Representatives.Porter’s campaign argues that her House district is less vulnerable than it appears: “This district was carried by President Biden by over 10 points in 2020,” campaign spokesperson Lindsay Reilly said. “It was particularly competitive last November because of redistricting, which meant Katie had to introduce herself to 70% new voters during a tough election year for Democrats. But in a presidential year, Democrats in CA-47 [the 47th congressional district] have a clear path to victory.”But with Porter and Schiff, both prodigious Democratic fundraisers, focused on competing against each other, they’re taking up attention and cash that might otherwise be devoted to helping vulnerable candidates in races that will not inevitably be won by a Democrat, some California Democrats argue.A San Francisco Chronicle analysis found that in recent years, Porter, Schiff and Lee have voted the exact same way at least 94% of the time. With control of the House of Representatives up for grabs during a potential second Trump presidency, how much does the variety of Democratic senator that California elects even matter?For Porter’s staunch supporters, her battle to win a US Senate seat is a fight worth fighting, even in a troubled political landscape.In a more global context, the current California Senate race might not even be considered a fight between three members of the exact same party, said Alex Lee, a young progressive Democrat who represents the Bay Area in the state assembly.The US’s two-party system has made the Democratic party “so big of a tent” that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Biden are members of one party, even though, “In Europe, they’d be two political parties apart,” he said.California has the world’s fifth-largest economy, and is home to some of the biggest and most influential corporations on earth. If the state had a truly progressive senator who was able to challenge billionaire CEOs and hold Wall Street accountable it would mean a lot, Lee said, which is why he has endorsed Porter.View image in fullscreenLee said he had been impressed to hear Porter talk about housing affordability and the problems it caused for younger people and lower-income workers in every campaign speech, before every audience.That subject – not a typical one for a national candidate – seemed to resonate, he said: even people secure in their own housing situation, like wealthy Orange county homeowners, “are concerned about their kids, their grandkids. Are they going to be able to afford this?”One of Porter’s central pledges to voters is that she “doesn’t take a cent of corporate Pac or federal lobbyist money”, as her campaign website puts it. Though she has touted in some fundraising emails that she does not take donations from executives at big oil, big pharma or Wall Street banks, the Daily Beast found that some people with high-level jobs on Wall Street had donated to her, though it found that “overall she has relatively paltry support from corporate or special-interest linked entities”, compared with other members of Congress. (Nearly 200 corporate Pacs contributed $2m to Schiff between 1999 and 2022, CalMatters reported.)Schiff attacked Porter in the last debate for taking money from “Wall Street bankers”, but his campaign received donations from two of the same Wall Street donors highlighted in the Daily Beast’s report.While Schiff has channeled his professional expertise as a prosecutor into managing Trump’s first impeachment, and becoming a national spokesperson and bestselling author on America’s crisis of democracy, Porter’s backers say she attracts a different, and more fervent, kind of political support.Kari Helgeson, a 58-year-old healthcare worker and Porter “superfan”, said she owns socks with one of Porter’s favorite slogans, “No time for bullshit”, and a whiteboard autographed by the congresswoman herself.Though she lives in Eureka, at the north-west edge of California, Helgeson has been donating “for years” to Porter’s congressional campaigns nearly 700 miles to the south.“She really is for the people, she truly is,” Helgeson said. “She is a huge advocate for the working class and unions.”Helgeson praised Porter’s brilliance in grilling people like JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, her willingness to actually show up on union picket lines, and her relatable persona.“She really is a single mom that drives a minivan and is managing two households, somehow, across the country,” Helgeson said. “She’s not fancy with her dress, she is who she is, and she’ll speak her mind, and she’s not afraid.”The fact that Porter still drives a minivan is important because it means “she’s not bought,” Helgeson said. Though Porter holds a powerful position and is known for her confrontational moments, “She’s not a bully. She is powerful with facts.”Helgeson said she was excited, but not surprised, when a strong majority of her fellow members of the National United Healthcare Workers voted to endorse Porter in the Senate primary last fall.While Helgeson said she respected Lee’s record and thought she still seemed sharp, “I don’t want to put the age thing in here, but it does kind of matter. It is a six year term.”If Porter makes it to a two-person race against Schiff, being a woman may be an advantage in a state that used to have two female senators and that, if Schiff wins, may end up having two men.“Do we need more white men, more white straight men in politics? I would say, as a progressive, we don’t,” said Fatima Iqbal-Zubair, the chair of the Progressive Caucus of California’s Democratic Party.But the experience that Porter would bring to the senate as a white woman from Orange county, Iqbal-Zubair said, is very different from the experience Lee would bring, as a Black single mom from Oakland who has spoken publicly about experiencing homelessness and domestic violence.For progressives, the chance to elect a Black woman with that life experience and an uncompromising progressive record is “so unique” and a “once in a lifetime” opportunity, Iqbal-Zubair said.But arguments that Porter should not have run for senate to protect her House district reeked of misogyny. “Women are always told to ‘wait your turn’,” she said.“I think she saw Schiff, and she thought Schiff wasn’t it.” More

    • 188 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Michigan Democrats have sent Biden a flashing warning sign about the election | Ben Davis

      by

      The Michigan Democratic primary was the first test of the electoral strength of the movement for a ceasefire in Gaza. It exhibited strength beyond what any observer expected, showing the size and enthusiasm of the peace movement and the danger to President Biden of continuing his current policy of full support for Israel. Organizers of the Listen to Michigan campaign to vote uncommitted in the Michigan primary set the bar at 10,000 votes – the margin of victory in Michigan’s 2016 general election. “Uncommitted” had blown past that number before even 10% of the vote had been counted. Biden needs to heed this flashing warning sign and drastically change course: call for a ceasefire, halt arms shipments to Israel and exert maximal diplomatic pressure now. The call for a ceasefire now can no longer be written off as a demand of only leftwing activists or Arab and Muslim communities. A large swathe of the Democratic base demands it.Biden can win uncommitted voters in the general election. These are consistent Democratic voters who turn out to Democratic primaries and powered Biden’s win in the swing state in 2020. The uncommitted vote showed strength far beyond what both organizers and the Biden campaign expected. “Uncommitted” won outright on college campuses like the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, dominating predominantly Arab east Dearborn with over 80% of the vote. But the strength wasn’t limited to progressive and Arab areas. “Uncommitted” captured 10% or more of the vote across the state, from affluent suburban areas to rural areas, and did even better in the working-class Black-majority core of the Michigan Democratic electorate of Detroit, winning 23% of the election day votes in the city.The results are clear: the movement for a ceasefire and the dissatisfaction with Biden’s policies among the Democratic base have real electoral strength and can’t be dismissed. Massive supermajorities of Democratic voters support a ceasefire, and the results in Michigan show this isn’t just a passive policy preference but a deeply felt moral stance among the core voters Biden needs to win the election. Rather than stay home, huge numbers of voters took time out of their day to cast a vote for no one just to register their protest and hopefully do their part to stop the killing. There were no other statewide elections on the ballot to drive turnout and no viable candidate against Biden. Yet enthusiasm for “uncommitted” was so high that precincts in Dearborn ran out of their usual allotment of registration sign-up sheets trying to keep up with demand.This campaign was announced only three weeks ago, a disadvantage in a state where most Democrats vote by mail well before the election. It was powered through organizing through Muslim and Arab community groups, on-the-ground voter contact from organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, and remarkable enthusiasm from volunteers. With almost no money, the message caught on like wildfire because it spoke to the deeply held feelings of Michigan Democrats, winning the endorsement of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and a handful of members of the state legislature and local elected officials. By election day, there was “panic” in the White House.Michigan Democratic politicians have warned of the strength of the ceasefire movement for months and been ignored by the White House. While Michigan Democratic politicians, even moderate ones, have felt the anger and disappointment on the ground and try to use empathic language to communicate with young, progressive, Arab and Muslim voters, the White House and the national Democratic party have been aloof and haranguing. The message that Donald Trump is worse and expressing concern or registering disapproval helps him does not work and is actively alienating voters. What would bring people back into the fold is, first, actually listening and expressing empathy and, second and most importantly, actually taking action to halt the bloodshed and stand up for Palestinian lives. This isn’t a niche issue. All people of conscience feel it.Biden can still win this election, but not with discontent with his base in crucial swing states. If morality will not push him to take action to halt Israel’s war crimes, perhaps politics will. The numbers don’t lie. We need a ceasefire now. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      House and Senate negotiators reach agreement to prevent shutdown – report

      by

      With government funding set to partially expire on Friday, House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement to prevent a shutdown, Politico reported.Funding for some federal departments was previously set to expire after Friday, while the rest faced an 8 March deadline. Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress met with Joe Biden yesterday at the White House, where all sides expressed their desire to avoid a shutdown that the president warned would damage the economy.More details soon … More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Senate Democrats to force vote on protecting IVF access across the US

      by

      Senate Democrats are moving to push through a bill that would protect Americans’ access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, after an Alabama supreme court ruling that frozen embryos are children led to the closure of a number of infertility clinics in the state.The Democratic Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth said she would try to force a vote on the legislation on Wednesday which would establish a federal right to IVF and other fertility treatments that are at risk in the post-Roe era. Duckworth’s two children were conceived through IVF.“I’m headed to the Senate floor to call on my colleagues to pass via unanimous consent my Access to Family Building Act, which would ensure that every American’s right to become a parent via treatments like IVF is fully protected, regardless of what state they live in – guaranteeing that no hopeful parent or doctor is punished,” Duckworth said at a news conference on Tuesday.Duckworth’s move comes as Democrats vow to make IVF a campaign issue as they look to squeeze Republicans and highlight the continuing fallout of the overturning of Roe v Wade.“I warned that red states would come for IVF. Now they have. But they aren’t going to stop in Alabama. Mark my words: if we don’t act now, it will only get worse,” Duckworth added.The bill would require unanimous consent in order for it to pass, meaning that any one senator can block its passage. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said it was unlikely to receive unanimous consent from the chamber to rush the bill through.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile many Republican lawmakers registered disappointment over the Alabama ruling, at least one conservative senator was expected to object.Blumenthal said Democrats would not be deterred. He would not say what the next legislative steps would be, but he said Democrats, who control the Senate, would look for other ways to protect IVF and reproductive healthcare.“The IVF dilemma for Republicans is they are down a path that is not only unpopular, it’s untenable as a matter of constitutional law and basic moral imperative, and we’re going to pursue it vigorously,” Blumenthal said.“Today’s vote, the effort to seek a unanimous consent, we know is unlikely to be successful. Failing today is only the prelude to a fight ahead on women’s reproductive care centered on IVF and other steps that have to be taken to protect basic rights.” More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Marianne Williamson ‘un-suspends’ campaign after Michigan primary

      by

      The self-help author Marianne Williamson “un-suspended” her quixotic, all-but-certainly doomed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying she did so because Joe Biden could not defeat Donald Trump, who she called a “fascist” and a “juggernaut of dark, dark vision”.“I am un-suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States,” Williamson said, in a social media video the morning after a Michigan primary in which despite having suspended her campaign she finished third, way behind Biden and “uncommitted” but slightly ahead of the Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, another rank outsider.“I had suspended it because I was losing the horse race,” Williamson said, though she is still clearly losing the horse race. “But something so much more important than the horse race is at stake here. And we must respond.“Right now we have a fascist standing at the door. Everybody’s all upset about it. Well, we should be upset about it. But we’re not going to defeat the fascist by, well, by what? What is President Biden offering? He says, ‘Let’s finish the job.’ Well, I hope you realise we’re talking about millions of voters [who] can’t even survive unless they work two or three jobs.”Williamson, who also ran in 2020, had suspended her campaign on 7 February, after failing to make an impact in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.“I hope future candidates will take what works for them, drinking from the well of information we prepared,” she said. “My team and I brought to the table some great ideas, and I will take pleasure when I see them live on in campaigns and candidates yet to be created.”She changed her mind after Michigan. Citing economic difficulties faced by many Americans including medical debt and an insufficient minimum wage, she also quoted a bygone Republican president Abraham Lincoln.“We the people basically don’t own this country right now. Abraham Lincoln said that people who died in the civil war for the union had died so that a government of the people, by the people and for the people would not perish from the earth. It’s perishing now on our watch.”Promising to end “government of the corporations by the corporations”, and to achieve an “economic U-turn”, Williamson said America needed a response to Trump’s “dark vision” better than that offered by Biden.“We need to say to the American people, ‘We see your pain.’ And we need to say to Donald Trump, ‘We see your BS.’ Let’s do this. Thanks so much. Spread the word.”The campaign now moves on to 5 March, Super Tuesday, when 16 states and one territory will vote. The territory, American Samoa, may offer Williamson hope, given that in 2020 it was the sole prize claimed by Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor whose campaign also went nowhere fast.Still, in national polling averages, Williamson lags about 70 points behind Biden. More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Uncommitted’ vote in Michigan a warning shot over Biden’s support of Israel

      by

      Standing before shimmering gold curtains on Tuesday evening, the mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, spoke with pride about his city.“We had the audacity to choose people over political party,” he said. “We had the damn audacity to put people over president.”For many gathered at this sprawling banquet hall in the heart of America’s most concentrated Muslim population, the outcome of last night’s Democratic primary in Michigan was beyond even the boldest of predictions.Although Joe Biden took the state, it was the hastily organized but committed grassroots campaign against the president’s support for the Israeli government’s war with Gaza that took the night. Organizers with Listen to Michigan, a group that urged voters to withdraw support for Biden and instead vote uncommitted, had hoped for a showing of 10,000 votes. They returned more than 100,000 – a clear demonstration of the growing fractures among the diverse coalition that brought Biden to power in 2020.It is a warning shot to the Democratic party, and shows more signs of expanding than diminishing as the primary season wears on.In just four weeks, the uncommitted campaign mobilized a cohort of progressives concentrated in the suburbs of Detroit, a region that saw a significant rise in Democratic turnout four years ago.“This is a humanitarian vote,” said the campaign’s manager, Layla Elabed, a 34-year-old lifelong Democrat, as she sipped coffee at a Yemeni cafe on a frigid Sunday morning, two days before the vote. “Right now, Joe Biden sits in a place of power where he can actually change course and save lives.”Elabed, the sister of the US representative Rashida Tlaib – the first Palestinian American to serve in Congress – met Biden last year at the White House during Eid celebrations. The president has heard personal stories of their grandmother’s struggles living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, she said. “But it feels a lot like it’s falling on deaf ears.”Her next stop was a rally in the city of Hamtramck, where those assembled underlined not only the movement’s diverse collective of ages and race, but also the divergent outlooks on how the campaign could or should affect the general election in November.“I’m very focused on the moment,” said Dima Hassan, a Palestinian American who would be voting in her first presidential election in 2024. “What is happening right now is an active genocide so thinking about November honestly feels silly.”Yet Tuesday’s result should send alarm bells ringing for that vote, given the thin margin of Trump’s victory in 2016, which saw him swing the state red by just more than 10,000 votes. Organizers say the group is also representative of the large Democratic disapproval ratings of Biden’s handling of the war, the death toll in which is likely to surpass 30,000 in Gaza by this week.Although hastily convened, Listen to Michigan is well organized, with an effective phone banking operation making more than 500,000 calls in just a matter of weeks, according to the campaign. But with no official headquarters, meetings are held in cafes and living rooms. Elabed’s car is laden with boxes of flyers that she hauls alone, darting between locations.Although Biden sent campaign representatives to meet with members of the Arab-American community here earlier this month and on Monday expressed hope of a ceasefire, recent comments from the state’s Democratic governor that equated an uncommitted vote to effective support for Donald Trump were met with scorn.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMuslim communities in Dearborn and elsewhere endured rising rates of hate crimes during the Trump presidency, following a campaign laced with Islamophobia. Trump implemented a travel ban for several Muslim majority countries, which he has pledged to reinstate if he wins in 2024.With just a few hours left to vote on Tuesday afternoon, polling stations in Dearborn were still welcoming a steady flow of primary voters. At an intersection by the McDonald elementary school, Linda Sarsour, the New York-based organizer, was handing out flyers to those who trickled through. Most had already decided to cast their ballot uncommitted.Sarsour, who co-chaired the Women’s March in 2017 and became a prominent activist during the Trump era, expressed contempt at those within the party making the Trump equation.“Shame on them for gaslighting this community,” she said. “This is a presidential primary, this is democracy and people should be able to vote for whoever they want. Donald Trump is not part of the Democratic primary.”She continued: “But also the ball is in Joe Biden’s court. Why start pointing fingers at the voters when they should be pointing fingers at Joe Biden. They should be demanding that Joe Biden do better in order to keep these voters within the Democratic party.”Sarsour was one of a handful of volunteers from outside Michigan who had come to support the campaign on Tuesday. Others had arrived from Florida, Illinois and Washington, as the grassroots effort looks to expand beyond Michigan.Efforts are already under way for an uncommitted vote in Minnesota and also in Washington, while other states that do not offer an uncommitted ballot option may see new write-in campaigns.“This is becoming an opportunity to translate protest in the street to protest at the ballot,” Sarsour said. More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      McConnell upbeat on avoiding government shutdown after White House talks – as it happened

      by

      In remarks at the Capitol, the Senate’s Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell signaled he was ready to work with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown.While he noted that the government would probably get close to hitting its shutdown deadline, he expected lawmakers would be able to find an agreement on keeping the government open beyond Friday:Joe Biden met with Congress’s leaders in the Oval Office to find a way to avoid a government shutdown that is set to start on Saturday and would “damage the economy significantly”, in the president’s words. The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the negotiations were “making good progress”, and noted that the group pressed Republican House speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on Ukraine aid, leading to “intense” discussions. Johnson was noncommittal after the meeting on if or when he’d do that.Here’s what else happened today:
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized Johnson’s demands for tougher border security, saying, “I don’t even think he knows what he wants.”
      Senate Democrats will tomorrow try to pass a bill to protect IVF care, following the Alabama supreme court’s ruling against the procedure.
      Rightwing House Republicans accused Johnson and his deputies of having “NO PLAN TO FIGHT” the Democrats over government spending.
      Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature has pulled a “fetal personhood” bill after the Alabama ruling on IVF.
      Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, said she was voting “uncommitted” in her state’s primary tonight in protest of Biden’s policy towards Israel.
      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has long pressed the Biden administration to take actions to crack down on undocumented migrants crossing the southern border. Yet he also helped kill a bipartisan compromise that would have tightened border security while also approving aid to Ukraine and Israel.Nonetheless, Johnson reiterated his demand that Biden get tougher on immigration today after meeting at the White House with the president. At her press briefing later in the day, Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre was asked what exactly Johnson wants.“I appreciate the question. I don’t even think he knows what he wants,” Jean-Pierre replied.The press secretary continued:
      You had a bipartisan group of senators coming out of the Senate, working for four months with the White House to put forward a bipartisan piece of legislation that dealt with a … important challenge that we see at the border in immigration. And then so we did that, we’ve moved that forward, we presented it. And we were told no no, we don’t want the border security, we want just the national security supplemental without border security.
      Then, the Senate goes back and they pass the national security supplemental without border security, 70-29 … and the speaker refuses to put that to the floor. So what is it that he really wants here? If you look at the border security deal, that proposal, it has components of what the speaker has been talking about for years. So the question is really for him.
      The Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell also told reporters he supports holding a trial for Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary who House Republicans impeached earlier this month.Convicting Mayorkas requires approval by a two-thirds majority of senators, which is probably impossible, since Democrats, who have a majority, have rejected the charges against him. They also have not said if they will even bother holding a trial of Mayorkas, or find a way to dismiss the charges without considering them.McConnell was asked for his thoughts on the matter, and here’s what he had to say:In remarks at the Capitol, the Senate’s Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell signaled he was ready to work with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown.While he noted that the government would probably get close to hitting its shutdown deadline, he expected lawmakers would be able to find an agreement on keeping the government open beyond Friday:Americans consider immigration to be the most important issue facing the US, according to a new Gallup poll.The survey found that 28% of respondents cited immigration as the top issue facing the country, up from 20% who said the same a month ago.It marks the first time immigration has been the most cited problem since 2019, and come as Joe Biden and Donald Trump are set to make separate visits to the US-Mexico border on Thursday.A separate question in the survey found that a record-high 55% of respondents said that “large numbers of immigrants entering the United States illegally” is a critical threat to US vital interests, up eight points from last year.Here’s a clip of Republican House speaker Mike Johnson speaking to reporters after meeting with Joe Biden and top congressional leaders at the White House.Johnson called the talks “frank and honest” and said his primary concern is addressing migration along the US-Mexico border.A top Republican in Virginia has apologized for misgendering a state senate Democrat in a row that caused legislative activity in the chamber to be temporarily suspended.“We are all equal under the law. And so I apologize, I apologize, I apologize, and I would hope that everyone would understand there is no intent to offend but that we would also give each other the ability to forgive each other,” the lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, said in an address to the state senate on Monday.It all started when Danica Roem, 39, a state senator from Prince William county and the US’s first openly transgender person to serve in any state legislature, had asked Earle-Sears, 59, how many votes were needed to pass a bill on prescription drug prices with an emergency clause.“Madame President, how many votes would it take to pass this bill with the emergency clause?” Roem asked Earle-Sears, who was presiding over a legislative session at the time.Earle-Sears responded: “Yes, sir, that would be 32.”Roem walked out of the room after being misgendered. Earle-Sears initially refused to apologize for the mistake but finally did so after two separate recesses.Congressman Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democrat of Michigan, said she was “proud” to cast a ballot for “uncommitted” in her state’s Democratic primary today.Progressive Democrats in Michigan have urged supporters to vote “uncommitted” as a means of protesting against the war in Gaza, calling on Joe Biden to do more to bring about a ceasefire.“We must protect our democracy. We must make sure that our government is about us, about the people,” Tlaib said in a video shared to social media.Tlaib noted that a recent poll showed 74% of self-identified Democrats in Michigan support a ceasefire in Gaza, and she accused Biden of “not hearing us”.“This is the way we can use our democracy to say: listen. Listen to Michigan. Listen to the families right now that have been directly impacted, but also listen to the majority of Americans who are saying enough. No more wars, no more using our dollars to fund a genocide. No more,” Tlaib said.“So please, take your family members. Use our democratic process to speak up about your core values [and] where you want to see our country go.”Joe Biden met with Congress’s leaders in the Oval Office to find a way to avoid a government shutdown that is set to start on Saturday and would “damage the economy significantly”, in the president’s words. The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the negotiations were “making good progress”, and noted that the group pressed Republican House speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on Ukraine aid, leading to “intense” discussions. Johnson was reportedly noncommittal after the meeting on whether he’d do that.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Senate Democrats will tomorrow try to pass a bill to protect IVF care, following the Alabama supreme court’s ruling against the procedure.
      Rightwing House Republicans accused Johnson and his deputies of having “NO PLAN TO FIGHT” the Democrats over government spending.
      Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature has pulled a “fetal personhood” bill after the Alabama ruling on IVF care.
      CNN reports that Republican House speaker Mike Johnson gave a similar recounting of his meeting with Joe Biden, Congress’s top Democrats and the Senate’s Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell.The biggest question, which Johnson still has not answered, is if and when he will allow a vote on new aid for Ukraine, and what House Republicans might want in return. Here’s more, from CNN:The congressional leaders who met with Joe Biden at the White House made “good progress” on avoiding a government shutdown, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the meeting.The group, which also included Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, also pressed the House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, to support further aid to Ukraine, a discussion Schumer noted was particularly “intense”.“We’re making good progress and we’re hopeful we can get this done quickly,” Schumer said, adding that Johnson “said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown”.McConnell along with Biden and Congress’s top Democrats are all supporters of aid to Ukraine, but Johnson has waffled, even turning down a package of hardline immigration policy changes Democrats had agreed to in order to win Republican support for Kyiv.“The meeting on Ukraine was one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office,” Schumer said. “We said to the speaker, ‘get it done.’”While the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is at the White House to negotiate with Joe Biden, a member of his party is trying to get Joe Biden declared too old to serve, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:A Colorado Republican introduced a congressional resolution calling for Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th amendment to the US constitution and remove Joe Biden because he is too old.The resolution from the US House member Ken Buck has little chance of success.John Dean, who was White House counsel under Richard Nixon, the president who resigned under pressure from his own party, said: “Just when you think there may be a few normal Republicans, you discover they are all crazy.“This man [Buck] is leaving public office. He is the person with the cognitive problem not Joe Biden.”Section four of the 25th amendment provides for the replacement, by the vice-president, of a president deemed incapable. It has never been used. Calls for its use intensified in 2021, after the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, which Donald Trump incited in an attempt to stay in the Oval Office. More