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      It’s OK to be Angry about Capitalism review: Bernie Sanders, by the book

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      ReviewIt’s OK to be Angry about Capitalism review: Bernie Sanders, by the bookThe Vermont senator and former presidential candidate offers a clarion call against the American oligarchsThe Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has a predictably unsparing view of the effects of “unfettered capitalism”: it “destroys anything that gets in its way in the pursuit of profits. It destroys the environment. It destroys our democracy. It discards human beings without a second thought. It will never provide workers with the fulfillment that Americans have a right to expect from their careers. [And it is] propelled by uncontrollable greed and contempt for human decency.”Has Bernie Sanders really helped Joe Biden move further left?Read moreThe two-time presidential candidate makes his case with the usual horrifying numbers about the acceleration of inequality in America: 90% of our wealth is owned by one-tenth of 1% of the population; the wealth of 725 US billionaires increased 70% during the pandemic to more than $5tn; BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street now control assets of $20tn and are major shareholders in 96% of S&P 500 companies.Sanders recites these statistics with religious fervor, and poses fundamental questions for our time: “Do we believe in the Golden Rule? [or] do we accept … that gold rules – and that lying, cheating, and stealing are OK if you’re powerful enough to get away with it?”Bernie believes (and I strongly agree) that it’s long past the time when we should be paying at least as much attention to American oligarchs as we do to those surrounding Vladimir Putin. Our homegrown plutocrats “own” our democracy.“They spend tens of billions … on campaign contributions … to buy politicians who will do their bidding. They spend billions more on lobbying firms to influence governmental decisions” at every level. And “to a significant degree”, the oligarchs “own” the media. That is why our prominent pundits “rarely raise issues that will undermine the privileged positions of their employers” and “there is little public discussion about the power of corporate America and how oligarchs wield that power to benefit their interests at the expense of working families”.We were reminded this week of how this system works. Joe Biden released a budget with perfectly modest proposals for tax increases, like a 25% minimum tax on the wealthiest Americans and a seven-percentage-point raise in the corporate tax rate to 28%, which would still leave it seven points lower than it was before Donald Trump gutted it with his gigantic tax giveaways.Instantly, experts owned and operated by the billionaires started spewing their familiar bilge, like these moving words from the Cato Institute: “Higher tax rates on the wages of a narrow segment of the United States’ most productive executives and business leaders will have strong disincentives against their continued work and other negative behavioral effects that translate into a less dynamic, slower growing economy.“Higher taxes on investment income target the financial rewards to successful entrepreneurs who undertake risks and persevere through failure to build high return businesses that provide welfare enhancing goods and services to people around the world.”Sanders quotes one of the most prescient Americans of the mid-20th century, from 1944: “As our industrial economy expanded [our] political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness. We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.”The name of that dangerous revolutionary: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.Several decades before that, Theodore Roosevelt similarly bemoaned the “absence of effective state, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting” which “has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power”.There is something extremely refreshing about an author who assumes it should be obvious that billionaires should not be allowed to exist – and has perfectly reasonable proposals about how they should be eliminated. At the height of the pandemic, Sanders proposed the Make Billionaires Pay Act, which would have imposed a 60% tax on all the wealth gained by 467 billionaires between 18 March 2020 and January 2021.“But why stop at one year?” he now asks. After all, the 1950s were economic boom times in America – and under a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, “the top tax rate for the wealthiest Americans was around 92%. America thrived. Unions were strong. Working-class Americans could afford to support themselves and buy homes on a single income.” And the richest 20% controlled a measly (by current standards) 42.8% of the wealth.Bernie Sanders: ‘Oligarchs run Russia. But guess what? They run the US as well’Read moreSanders’ 99.5 Percent Act would only touch the top 0.5% of Americans. “But the families of billionaires in America, who have a combined net worth of over $5tn, would owe up to $3tn in estate taxes.” He would accomplish this with a 45% tax rate on estates worth $3.5m and a 65% rate on those worth more than $1bn.There is much more here, including a convincing case for Medicare for All and an excoriation of a for-profit healthcare system which spends twice as much per citizen as France or Germany and still manages to leaves tens of millions of Americans un- or underinsured, all while nourishing an obscene pharmaceuticals business in which profits jumped by 90% in 2021.I first toured the castles of the Loire Valley as a teenager in the company of the family of my uncle, Jerry Kaiser, a 60s radical and a very early opponent of the war in Vietnam. As we absorbed the opulence of one chateau after another, Jerry had only one question: “What took them so long to have a revolution?”The noble purpose of Bernie Sander’s powerful new book is to get millions of Americans to ask that question of themselves – right now.
      It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism is published in the US by Crown
      TopicsBooksBernie SandersUS politicsDemocratsUS SenateUS CongressUS economyreviewsReuse this content More

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      Ron DeSantis visits Iowa as Republican 2024 race heats up – as it happened

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      Ron DeSantis has been wooing the Republican faithful in Iowa on Friday, ahead of a widely expected campaign for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.At a casino in Davenport, in the east of the state whose caucuses will kick off next year’s nomination season, the hard right Florida governor wasted little time in reaching for the cultural messaging popular with his supporters back home.“We will never surrender to the woke mob,” he in a speech alongside Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s Republican governor.“Our state is where the woke mob goes to die.”Today’s visit is being seen as the unofficial launch of his presidential campaign, and a formal declaration is not expected until after the current session of the Florida legislature concludes its business in May.DeSantis won reelection in Florida in November, and is building his second term on even more restrictive legislation. He has seized significant control of the state’s biggest employer, Disney; fired an elected state attorney he disagreed with; and engineered a “hostile takeover” of a historically liberal arts college to turn it into a model of conservative higher education.New laws in Florida proposed this week would introduce a six-week abortion ban, allow the carry of firearms without a need for training or permits; and further curb freedoms in education and for the LBGTQ+ community.It’s a message he hopes will resonate on a national scale as prepares to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. Trump will visit Iowa on Monday.DeSantis was heading to the capital city of Des Moines later in the day to meet with a small contingent of Republican lawmakers, and to promote his newly released book, The Courage to be Free.In Davenport, he was keen to brag about the margin of his reelection, according to the Des Moines Register, which reported he “railed against the ‘woke ideology’ that he said infected American education, health care and business.“There’s certain little enclaves in our country that may be popular,” he told a crowd of several hundred.“But it’s not popular with the vast majority of people. And I think it showed. From what we showed in Florida, not only can you have a good agenda and deliver, you can make big inroads with the electorate. And that’s exactly what we did. To go from a 32,000 to 1.5m margin, it doesn’t happen by accident.”That’s it for the US politics blog for today, and indeed for the week. Thanks for joining us.Here’s what we’ve been following:
      Ron DeSantis has been in Iowa, railing against what he calls “woke ideology”, and signing books, as he prepares to launch his likely run for the Republican party’s 2024 presidential nomination. Please read my colleague Joan E Greve’s account of his visit here.
      Republican support for Donald Trump in Iowa, meanwhile, has taken a nose dive. A Des Moines Register poll found that while 69% said they would “definitely” vote for Trump in the 2024 election when last asked in June 2021, only 47% say now that they will.
      Trump’s legal peril worsened (again) on three fronts. The former president is “likely” to be charged in New York over a illegal pay-off to an adult movie actress; federal prosecutors want his attorneys to testify again over his mishandling of classified documents; and a judge says an infamous video of him bragging about grabbing women inappropriately can be used in a lawsuit by a woman who accused him of raping her.
      Joe Biden urged “extremist Maga Republicans” to join him in rebuilding the US economy. In remarks from the White House, the president hailed a better than expected economic report that showed 311,000 jobs were added in February.
      Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corp chief exec, said a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by the voting machine company Dominion, related to the network pushing lies about the 2020 presidential election, is “noise”.
      Biden met EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen at the White House to try to resolve a spat over electric vehicle tax credits. The leaders were expected to agree to open talks on a deal to open the US market to EU components eligible for the credits.
      The White House has confirmed Joe Biden will meet prime ministers Rishi Sunak of the UK and Anthony Albanese of Australia in California on Monday for a conference to discuss areas of partnership between the countries.The president will also meet the leaders bilaterally, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced at her Friday afternoon briefing.Jean-Pierre did not reveal any other details of the summit that will take place in San Diego, but Sunak is known to be keen to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol with Biden.The war in Ukraine, and western support for the country’s battles against the Russian invasion, are also likely to be high on the agenda.Biden last met with Sunak in Bali, Indonesia, in November. The president’s first efforts at pronouncing the prime minister’s name, at a Diwali event at the White House in November shortly after Sunak took office, caused mirth when he called his fellow leader “Rashi Sanook”.Sunak will sit down with NBC News anchor Lester Holt for an interview to be aired in the US on Monday night, the network announced. More

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      Will Joe Biden run again? Politics Weekly America podcast

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      Reports suggest Joe Biden will announce his intention to run for a second term in the White House in 2024. Jonathan Freedland and Robert Reich discuss whether or not he is the best candidate the Democrats can put forward

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      Archive: PBS, CSPAN, MSNBC Listen to Today in Focus episode on the lawsuit plaguing Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel. Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts. More

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      Biden vows to protect social security and Medicare in speech outlining budget plan – as it happened

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      President Joe Biden is delivering remarks at a union hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania about his fiscal year 2024 budget proposal.It is now 4pm in Washington DC. As we wrap up the blog, here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      Biden unveiled his budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year at a union hall in Philadelphia that would slash the federal deficit by nearly $3tn. He also pledged to increase taxes for the rich while promising to safeguard social security and Medicare. He also called for increased funding for training programs within law enforcement.
      Hundreds of gun safety advocates gathered at the Florida capitol today to protest a Republican bill that would remove the requirement to obtain a permit before carrying a concealed firearm. The Florida senate held a committee hearing on the bill today.
      Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesperson David Popp said the Kentucky senator, 81, suffered a concussion and would remain in hospital “a few days” for observation and treatment. “The leader is grateful to the medical professionals for their care and to his colleagues for their warm wishes,” Popp said.
      Ken Cuccinelli, once a homeland security official and immigration hawk in Donald Trump’s administration, has launched a political action committee in support of his preferred candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024: Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor has not yet declared a run but is Trump’s only serious challenger in polling. Launching his Never Back Down Pac, Cuccinelli said: “I have been speaking to many grassroots conservative activists around the country who are very enthusiastic for Governor DeSantis to run for president in 2024.
      During Thursday’s hearing, South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham asked Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw and EPA whether he would live in East Palestine which has been environmentally affected by the derailment. Shaw replied, “Yes sir, I believe that the air is safe, I believe that the water is safe, there are hundreds of tests … billions of data points …”
      Shaw appeared to avoid Oregon’s Democratic senator Jeff Merkley’s question on whether his team would lobby for safety improvements rather than lobby against them. “We will continue to follow data. There are actually a number of areas in which we’ve invested in safety systems well above government regulation,” Shaw said. In response, Merkley said: “I’m sorry you can’t tell this crowd here today that would like to hear that is the case.”
      Vermont Democratic senator Bernie Sanders grilled Shaw about more paid days off and better treatment for the company’s workers. “Will you make that commitment right now? To guarantee paid sick days to all of your workers? That’s not a radical demand. It really is not,” Sanders said. Shaw proceeded to deliver a non-answer, saying: “I will commit to continuing to discuss with them important quality of life issues.” Sanders replied, “With all due respect, you sound like a politician here.”
      Shaw said, “We are committed to the legislative intent to make rail safer,” without specifically indicating whether he would commit to supporting the bipartisan Railway Safety Act. “We can always get better and that is my intent to continue to invest and continue to improve” in industry safety standards, he added.
      The Environmental Protection Agency has “not detected any volatile organic compounds above levels of health concerns” since the derailment fire was extinguished on 8 February, the agency’s regional administrator, Debra Shore, said in her testimony on Thursday. Shore added that the EPA is currently conducting 24/7 air monitoring and a voluntary program set up by the agency has seen approximately 600 homes screened for toxic chemicals including vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride – no detections of the chemicals have been identified.
      Shaw has acknowledged the safety deficits that led to the disastrous derailment, saying, “It is clear the safety mechanisms in place were not enough.” Shaw added that the company has launched a series of initiatives to ensure industry-wide safety improvements and better training measures for its employees.
      During his testimony, Ohio Republican JD Vance called on the Environmental Protection Agency to swiftly and safely remove the “toxic dirt” that has been filled with chemicals since the derailment. He said, “We need leadership. We need the EPA to get on the ground and aggressively get this stuff out of Palestine into properly licensed facilities. It’s maybe the most important and pressing thing …”
      Ohio Democratic senator Sherrod Brown who testified at the hearing has issued harsh criticism against Norfolk Southern. “If Norfolk Southern had paid a little more attention to safety and a little less attention to its profits, if it cared a little more about the Ohioans along its tracks and a little less about its executives and shareholders, these accidents would not have been as bad or maybe not happened at all,” he said.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for joining us.Hundreds of gun safety advocates gathered at the Florida capitol today to protest a Republican bill that would remove the requirement to obtain a permit before carrying a concealed firearm. The Florida senate held a committee hearing on the bill today.In recent years, permitless carry, known as “constitutional carry” to its supporters, has been embraced by gun rights activists who view any firearm-related regulation as a violation of their second amendment right to bear arms. Twenty-five states have already enacted laws allowing residents to carry concealed guns without a permit.But gun safety advocates warn that the policy will only make gun violence more common, endangering the lives of Floridians. Research does appear to substantiate those concerns; one study released in 2019 found that states saw an increase of 13% to 15% increase in violent crime rates in the years after they loosened regulations on carrying concealed firearms..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“We’re turning out in force today to make sure Florida lawmakers know that permitless carry puts communities in danger,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action.
      “Allowing more guns in more places with no questions asked only leads to more gun violence and more senseless and preventable tragedy.”The debate over the permitless carry bill comes as Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, is widely expected to launch a presidential campaign..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“While Governor DeSantis puts his political ambitions over the public safety of his constituents,” Watts said, “we won’t stop fighting for the majority of Floridians who oppose this reckless legislation.”Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has criticized Biden’s budget proposal, calling it “reckless”.In a statement released on Friday, McDaniel said:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Paychecks are worth less, the cost for everything is up, and Biden’s tax-and-spending spree will only worsen the economic burden on American families. Biden’s reckless budget proves how out of touch his administration is with reality.”“No one making less than $400,000 will see a penny in federal taxes go up. Not a single penny,” Biden promised as he called for increased taxes on the rich.“No billionaire should be paying a lower tax than somebody working as a school teacher or a firefighter,” Biden said.“My plan is to make sure the corporations begin to pay their fair share. It used to be 35%, we cut it down to 21%,” referring to the corporate tax rate. “I think we should be paying 28%. It’s going to be a real fight in that but we should be paying more than 21%” he added.Biden promised to protect social security and Medicare, to which the crowd responded with whoops and cheers.“I won’t allow it to be gutted or eliminated as Maga Republicans threaten to do … My budget will not cut benefits and it definitely won’t sunset programs like some of my Maga Republican friends want to do,” he said.Biden added that his budget will ensure that the “vital program keeps going strong for generations without cutting a single penny and benefits”.Biden said his budget includes funding for more training and “more support for law enforcement.”“They need more help… We don’t expect a cop [to be] everything from a psychologist to a counselor. These departments need more investment in this kind of help and we’re going to fund proven strategies for accountable, effective community policing.”“We’ve got to get cops back on the streets and the communities they know.”“It’s going to lower prices for seniors,” Biden said about his budget, adding that it is “not just going to save people’s lives and save people money so they don’t have to go bankrupt. It’s going to save the government.”He added that his budget will “invest in critical issues that matter to families…lower rental costs and make it easier to buy a home…all of which will generate economic growth and prosperity.”Describing his budget which would slash the federal deficit by nearly $3tn in the next 10 years, Biden said his plan will help those who “hold the country together, who have been basically invisible for a long time”.The proposal also seeks to raise taxes for corporations and the rich, as well as lower healthcare and prescription care costs, along with housing and education costs.Biden added that his budget also seeks to “restore the child tax credit,” saying, “We can reduce child poverty, increase child opportunity.”As Biden revealed his $6.8tn budget proposal, saying, “Show me your budget, I’ll tell you what’s your value,” the president called upon House speaker Kevin McCarthy to lay out his plan.“I’m ready to meet with the speaker anytime,” Biden said, adding that he would like to go “line by line” with McCarthy to see which aspects of the proposals’ the two can agree on.President Joe Biden is delivering remarks at a union hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania about his fiscal year 2024 budget proposal.We have an update on the health of the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, who was taken to hospital in Washington on Wednesday night after he fell at a hotel during a private dinner.On Thursday, the spokesperson David Popp said the Kentucky senator, 81, suffered a concussion and would remain in hospital “a few days” for observation and treatment.“The leader is grateful to the medical professionals for their care and to his colleagues for their warm wishes,” Popp said.McConnell is a survivor of polio. In 2019, he tripped and fell at his home, suffering a shoulder fracture. In 2020, he dismissed speculation over his health prompted by pictures of his bruised and bandaged hands and bruising around his mouth.On the Senate floor on Thursday, the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said he had called McConnell and spoken with his staff “to extend my prayers and well wishes”.“I joined every single one of my colleagues in wishing Leader McConnell a speedy and full recovery,” Schumer said.The number two Republican, John Thune of South Dakota, was at the dinner on Wednesday, in support of a conservative Super Pac, the Washington Post reported. Thune told reporters McConnell delivered remarks “as usual”.“Evidently it happened later in the evening,” he said of McConnell’s fall.McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1984. He was majority leader from 2015 to 2021. He is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history but only the fourth-oldest member of the current chamber. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, is the oldest senator, three months senior to her fellow 89-year-old Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, is 81.Amid concern about the advanced age of many US political leaders, proposals for age and term limits for public officials have featured in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old former governor of South Carolina, says candidates older than 75 should be subject to mental competency tests.03:30The candidate who dominates polling, former president Donald Trump, is 76.More lunchtime reading, in this case an important survey by a Guardian US team – Alice Herman, Carlisa N Johnson, Rachel Leingang, Kira Lerner, Sam Levine and Ed Pilkington – who have worked with our graphics desk to produce a guide to all the election-denying Republicans who remain in positions of influence in federal and state government…Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election brought the US to the brink of a democratic crisis. Refusing to concede his loss to Joe Biden, he attempted to use every lever available to try and throw out the results of the election, pressuring state lawmakers, Congress and the courts to declare him the winner.Those efforts didn’t succeed. But Trump nonetheless created a new poison that seeped deep in the Republican party – a belief that the results of US elections cannot be trusted. The belief quickly became Republican orthodoxy: it was embraced by Republican officeholders across the country as well as local activists who began to bombard and harass local election officials, forcing many of them to retire. The January 6 attack on the US Capitol – in which thousands stormed the building, and five people died – was the starkest reminder of the potential violent consequences of this rhetoric.In 2022, several Republicans who embraced election denialism lost their races to be the top election official in their state. But at the same time, many Republicans who unabashedly embraced the idea and aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were re-elected and, in some cases, elevated to higher office.Here’s a look at how some of those who tried to overturn the 2020 election have since been promoted into positions of power:The election-denying Republicans who aided Trump’s ‘big lie’ and got promotedRead moreAhead of Joe Biden’s speech in Philadelphia this afternoon, in which the president is due to introduce his budget proposal, here’s our columnist Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary, on the cards Republicans might play in return – and why when it comes to threats to default on the national debt, they’re bluffing.Joe Biden is proposing to trim the federal budget deficit by close to $3tn over the next 10 years. He was an FDR-like spender in the first two years of his presidency. Has he now turned into a Calvin Coolidge skinflint?Neither. He’s a cunning political operator.Biden knows that he – along with his three immediate predecessors (Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W Bush) – have spent gobs of money. In addition, Bush and Trump cut taxes on the rich and on corporations.Not surprisingly, the national debt has soared. It’s not so much an economic problem as a political one. The huge debt is giving Republicans a big, fat target.House Republicans are planning to stage theater-of-the-absurd pyrotechnics – refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Which means that at some point this summer, Biden’s treasury department will say that the nation is within days (or hours) of defaulting on its bills. A default would be catastrophic.To counter this, Biden is planning his own pyrotechnics…Read on…Republicans are threatening to default on the US national debt. Don’t believe them | Robert ReichRead moreKen Cuccinelli, once a homeland security official and immigration hawk in Donald Trump’s administration, has launched a political action committee in support of his preferred candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024: Ron DeSantis.The Florida governor has not yet declared a run but is Trump’s only serious challenger in polling.Launching his Never Back Down pac, Cuccinelli said: “I have been speaking to many grassroots conservative activists around the country who are very enthusiastic for Governor DeSantis to run for president in 2024.“The energy is there, grassroots conservatives see the governor as a leader and a fighter with a winning conservative track record who will lead the Republican party to victory in 2024.“Based on those conversations, I am most confident that we will build an unmatched grassroots political army for Governor DeSantis to help carry him to the White House.”Trump did not immediately comment.Here, meanwhile, is a story about some of what Cuccinelli got up to while working for Trump – presiding over hardline immigration policies including family separations at the southern border.In particular, about what the former Maryland governor and Democratic presidential contender Martin O’Malley did when he saw Cuccinelli, a fellow graduate of Gonzaga high school, in a Washington bar one Thanksgiving evening…O’Malley slams acting DHS deputy: ‘You cage children for a fascist president’Read moreIt is slightly past 1pm on Capitol Hill. The first Senate hearing on the East Palestine train derailment has concluded. Here are some of the hearing highlights:
      During Thursday’s hearing, South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham asked Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw and EPA whether he would live in East Palestine which has been environmentally affected by the derailment. Shaw replied, “Yes sir, I believe that the air is safe, I believe that the water is safe, there are hundreds of tests…billions of data points…”
      Shaw appeared to avoid Oregon’s Democratic senator Jeff Merkley’s question on whether his team would lobby for safety improvements rather than lobby against them. “We will continue to follow data. There are actually a number of areas in which we’ve invested in safety systems well above government regulation,” Shaw said. In response, Merkley said: “I’m sorry you can’t tell this crowd here today that would like to hear that is the case.”
      Vermont Democratic senator Bernie Sanders grilled Shaw about more paid days off and better treatment for the company’s workers. “Will you make that commitment right now? To guarantee paid sick days to all of your workers? That’s not a radical demand. It really is not,” Sanders said. Shaw proceeded to deliver a non-answer, saying: “I will commit to continuing to discuss with them important quality of life issues.” Sanders replied, “With all due respect, you sound like a politician here.”
      Shaw said, “We are committed to the legislative intent to make rail safer,” without specifically indicating whether he would commit to supporting the bipartisan Railway Safety Act. “We can always get better and that is my intent to continue to invest and continue to improve” in industry safety standards, he added.
      The Environmental Protection Agency has “not detected any volatile organic compounds above levels of health concerns” since the derailment fire was extinguished on 8 February, the agency’s regional administrator, Debra Shore, said in her testimony on Thursday. Shore added that the EPA is currently conducting 24/7 air monitoring and a voluntary program set up by the agency has seen approximately 600 homes screened for toxic chemicals including vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride – no detections of the chemicals have been identified.
      Shaw has acknowledged the safety deficits that led to the disastrous derailment, saying, “It is clear the safety mechanisms in place were not enough.” Shaw added that the company has launched a series of initiatives to ensure industry-wide safety improvements and better training measures for its employees.
      During his testimony, Ohio Republican JD Vance called on the Environmental Protection Agency to swiftly and safely remove the “toxic dirt” that has been filled with chemicals since the derailment. He said, “We need leadership. We need the EPA to get on the ground and aggressively get this stuff out of Palestine into properly licensed facilities. It’s maybe the most important and pressing thing…”
      Ohio Democratic senator Sherrod Brown who testified at the hearing has issued harsh criticism against Norfolk Southern. “If Norfolk Southern had paid a little more attention to safety and a little less attention to its profits, if it cared a little more about the Ohioans along its tracks and a little less about its executives and shareholders, these accidents would not have been as bad or maybe not happened at all,” he said.
      Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw said that he would live in East Palestine, Ohio, given what he has seen.During Thursday’s hearing, South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham asked Shaw and EPA regional administrator Debra Shore whether they would live in East Palestine which has been environmentally affected by the derailment..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Yes sir, I believe that the air is safe, I believe that the water is safe, there are hundreds of tests…billions of data points. They all point to the same thing and I generally enjoy my conversations with the folks of East Palestine.”Shore echoed Shaw’s comments, saying:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“We follow science and I drank the water there, I drink it every time I go to down because the scientific data says it’s safe, as does the air.”Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw appeared to avoid Oregon’s Democratic senator Jeff Merkley’s question on whether his team would lobby for safety improvements rather than lobby against them..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“We will continue to follow data. There are actually a number of areas in which we’ve invested in safety systems well above government regulation,” Shaw said.In response, Merkley said:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“I just really thought when you said ‘turn over a new leaf’ that…you were saying you were going to now support safety regulations. I’m sorry you can’t tell this crowd here today that would like to hear that is the case.”Merkley went on to ask Shaw if his company – which announced $10bn in stock buybacks earlier this year – would pledge to do no more stock buybacks until a series of safety measures have been completed.Merkley once again avoided answering the question, saying, “I will commit to continuing to invest in safety. We invest in over a billion dollars a year.”“I am committed to having the best safety culture in the industry,” he added, to which Merkley responded:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“You’re coming here with three derailments within three months and the average in the industry is one per month for the entire industry so congratulations on maybe some good luck over a few years but at this moment, your team is the team that has the most derailments in the last three months.”Vermont Democratic senator Bernie Sanders grilled Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw about more paid days off and better treatment for the company’s workers..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Given that Norfolk Southern provided $10 billion in stock buybacks recently, can you tell the American people and your employees right now that in order to improve morale in your workforce, that you will guarantee at least seven paid sick days to the 15,000 workers you employ?” Sanders asked.
      “Will you make that commitment right now? To guarantee paid sick days to all of your workers? That’s not a radical demand. It really is not,” he added.Shaw proceeded to deliver a non-answer, saying:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“I will commit to continuing to discuss with them important quality of life issues.”In response, Sanders said:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“With all due respect, you sound like a politician here… Paid sick days is not a radical concept in the year 2023. I’m not hearing you make that commitment to guarantee that to all of your workers… Will you make that commitment, sir?”Shaw echoed his earlier response, saying:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“I’m committed to continuing to speak to our employees about quality of life issues that are important to them.”Sanders proceeded to ask Shaw if he would pay for all of the healthcare needs of East Palestine residents.“We’re going to do what’s right for the citizens,” said Shaw, adding: “Everything is on the table.” More

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      Biden unveils ‘blue-collar’ budget plan with tax hikes for America’s wealthiest

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      Biden unveils ‘blue-collar’ budget plan with tax hikes for America’s wealthiestBlueprint – unlikely to pass given Republicans’ control of House of Representatives – frames president’s aspirations for re-electionJoe Biden on Thursday unveiled his budget, a sprawling plan that the White House says reflects the president’s commitment to creating a fairer economy while challenging Republicans who are demanding steep cuts to federal spending programs.The $6.8tn budget request, the third such request of Biden’s presidency and the first to a divided Congress, is effectively dead on arrival with Republicans in control of the House, and sets the stage for a high-stakes showdown over the nation’s finances. Even so, it frames the president’s policy aspirations ahead of his expected campaign for re-election in 2024.Biden’s budget blueprint would cut the federal deficit by nearly $3tn over the next decade, largely by raising taxes on corporations and high earners. It also includes proposals aimed at lowering the cost of healthcare, prescription drugs, childcare, housing and education while making new investments in domestic manufacturing, cancer research and a paid family leave program.It calls for restoring the child tax credit that helped reduce child poverty by half when Congress temporarily expanded the benefit during the pandemic. Under Biden’s plan, families could claim as much as $3,600 a child, compared with the current level of $2,000.Amid Republican claims that the Democrats are weak on crime and border security, Biden’s plan includes funding for more police officers and border patrol agents. Additional funding would support new technology at points of entry along the border and for cracking down on fentanyl trafficking, according to a factsheet provided by the White House.As tensions rise with Russia and China, Biden proposed a more than 3% increase to defense spending, an $886bn request that includes support for Ukraine and increased funding to allies in the Indo-Pacific region.Biden will formally introduce his spending plan, which he has described as a “blue-collar blueprint”, on Thursday afternoon in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that helped lift him to the White House in 2020. It is an unusually high-profile rollout for a budget proposal that is often greeted with a resounding thud on Capitol Hill.But Biden and the White House believe the suite of popular tax-and-spend proposals will be difficult for Republicans to attack. ​Emphasizing the point, White House officials released polling alongside the budget plan that they say shows overwhelming public support for their policies.“When you look at this president’s view of the world and what this budget puts forward, it shows you what he values,” Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters on Thursday. “And that’s what this is going to be about that. And we’re happy to have that debate with anybody: who are you for?”Republicans swiftly dismissed the plan as inadequate to address the nation’s debt, which the government projects will rise by $19tn over the next decade.In a joint statement, top House Republicans accused Biden of “shrugging and ignoring” the national debt, which they called one of the “greatest threats to America”.”President Joe Biden’s budget is a reckless proposal doubling down on the same far left spending policies that have led to record inflation and our current debt crisis,” the statement said.Underwriting his plans, the president calls for new tax hikes on the wealthy, including a repeal of the tax cuts that Donald Trump signed into law in 2017 – cuts that disproportionately benefited wealthy Americans. Biden also proposes quadrupling a tax on stock buybacks and raising the corporate income tax rate to 28%.At the heart of his budget is a plan that the White House says would help avert a Medicare funding crisis and extend the program’s solvency for at least 25 years. The plan would raise Medicare taxes from 3.8% to 5% for those who earn more than $400,000 per year to protect the government health insurance program for adults over 65, which is at the heart of a brewing policy debate poised to play a central role in the 2024 presidential election.Republicans have so far refused to put forward a counter-proposal, despite promises to put the US on a path to a balanced budget. Yet by rejecting tax increases and denying charges that they would cut social security or Medicare programs, it is unclear how Republicans would achieve that goal.“Republicans keep saying they want to reduce the deficit, but they haven’t put out a comprehensive plan showing what they’ll cut,” Young said. “We’re looking forward to seeing their budget so the American people can compare it to what we’re putting out today, this president’s vision.”TopicsJoe BidenUS taxationUS politicsUS domestic policyRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Shut your mouth’: Republican senator and Teamsters leader in fiery clash

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      01:22‘Shut your mouth’: Republican senator and Teamsters leader in fiery clashMarkwayne Mullin, a former MMA fighter, argues with union’s Sean O’Brien as Bernie Sanders seeks order in Senate hearingA Republican senator who once had to reassure voters he didn’t think he was “Rambo” and was a mixed martial arts fighter before entering politics got into a vocal brawl with a union boss during a public congressional hearing, saying: “You need to shut your mouth.”Mitch McConnell in hospital after fall in Washington DCRead moreMarkwayne Mullin of Oklahoma exchanged verbal fire with Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, during a hearing staged on Wednesday by the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee.The chair, the Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, was seeking support for his Protecting the Right to Organise Act. But Mullin made headlines of his own.The 45-year-old, who owns a plumbing business, said he was “not against unions …some of my very good friends work for unions. They work hard, and they do a good job.”But he said he did not like “intimidation” by union leaders trying to unionise businesses including his own.“I’m not afraid of a physical confrontation,” Mullin continued. “In fact, sometimes I look forward to it. That’s not my problem.”In late 2021, Mullin memorably said “I’m not Rambo”, in reference to a character played by Sylvester Stallone in a violent film series, amid controversy over an attempt to enter Afghanistan with a private security team. He also said he had not tried to be “a cowboy or anything like that”.Mullin is a state wrestling hall of fame member whose website says he is “a former Mixed Martial Arts fighter with a professional record of 5-0”.Addressing O’Brien, he said: “But when you’re [confronting] my employees? For what? Because we were paying higher wages? Because we had better benefits and we wasn’t requiring them to pay your guys’ exorbitant salaries?”The website of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters describes O’Brien, 51, as a fourth-generation teamster who started out in “the rigging industry as a heavy-equipment driver in the Greater Boston area”.Mullin asked O’Brien about his salary and accused him of forcing members to pay union dues.“You’re out of line,” O’Brien said.“Don’t tell me I’m out of line,” Mullin said. “You need to shut your mouth.”O’Brien mocked Mullin’s “tough guy” act.Sanders tried to gavel the two men to order, saying: “Senator, hold it, hold it.”O’Brien told Mullin: “I bet you I work more hours than you do. Twice as many hours.”Mullin said: “Sir, you don’t know what hard work is.”O’Brien said unions “create opportunity because we hold … greedy CEOs like yourself accountable”.Mullin said: “You calling me a greedy CEO?”O’Brien said: “Oh yeah, you are. You want to attack my salary, I’ll attack yours … What did you make when you owned your company?”Mullin said he made “about $50,000 a year because I invested every penny”.“OK, all right,” O’Brien said. “You mean you hid money?”Pointing at O’Brien, Mullin said: “Hold on a second.”“All right, we’re even,” said O’Brien, smiling. “We’re even.”Mullin said: “We’re not even. We’re not even close to being even. You think you’re smart? You think you’re funny?”“You think you’re funny,” O’Brien said. “You framed your opening statement saying you’re a tough guy.”Sanders said: “Senator, please continue your statement.”Mullin said: “I think it’s great you’re doing this because this shows their behavior and how they try to come in and organise a shop.”Sanders said: “They see your behavior here. Stay on the issue.”After the hearing, the spat continued on social media.TopicsUS unionsUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressBernie SandersRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans are threatening to default on the US national debt. Don’t believe them | Robert Reich

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      Republicans are threatening to default on the US national debt. Don’t believe themRobert ReichHere’s a dirty secret: both Republicans’ debt hysteria and Biden’s proposed tax hikes are pure theater. Neither will happenPresident Biden is proposing to trim the federal budget deficit by close to $3tn over the next 10 years. He was an FDR-like spender in the first two years of his presidency. Has he now turned into a Calvin Coolidge skinflint?Neither. He’s a cunning political operator.The US central bank is poised to cause untold hardship to millions of Americans | Robert ReichRead moreBiden knows that he – along with his three immediate predecessors (Trump, Obama and George W Bush) – have spent gobs of money. In addition, Bush and Trump cut taxes on the rich and on corporations.Not surprisingly, the national debt has soared. It’s not so much an economic problem as a political one. The huge debt is giving Republicans a big, fat target.House Republicans are planning to stage theater-of-the-absurd pyrotechnics – refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Which means that at some point this summer, Biden’s treasury department will say that the nation is within days (or hours) of defaulting on its bills. A default would be catastrophic.To counter this, Biden is planning his own pyrotechnics.In the budget released this week, he’s proposing a “billionaire minimum tax” that would require wealthy American households worth more than $100m to pay at least 20% of their incomes in taxes (most middle-class Americans pay about 30%). Plus, they’d have to pay 20% a year on unrealized gains in the value of their liquid assets, such as stocks, which can accumulate value for years but are taxed only when they are sold (and not even then, if left to their heirs).Here’s the important thing: the tax would apply only to the top one-100th of 1% of American households. Over half of the revenue would come from those worth more than $1bn.Biden is proposing additional tax hikes on the wealthy: reversing the Trump tax cut by raising the top tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, increasing the corporate tax to 28% from 21%, and raising the tax on stock buybacks from 1% to 4%.All told, Biden’s new tax proposals would amount to an almost $3tn tax increase over a decade – on the richest of the rich. Oh, and did I say? Taxing the rich is enormously popular.Biden also wants to let Medicare officials negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices and cap the costs of drugs for seniors – a proposal that is also hugely popular.But here’s the dirty little secret. Neither of these two theatrical productions – neither the Republicans’ refusal to raise the debt ceiling nor Biden’s big tax hike on the super-rich – will ever happen. They’re both fantasies.A default on the nation’s obligations would bring on an economic calamity that Republicans don’t want to be responsible for. And a giant tax increase on the super-rich would be a miracle, given their political clout.These two productions are being staged for the public – two competing performances, each intended to score political points against the other.Biden’s performance is rational, and the Republicans’ is irrational and unserious, but that doesn’t really matter.They will both end in a dramatic flurry of last-minute negotiations, seemingly death-defying moves and countermoves, and breathtaking cliffhangers.Exciting? Of course. Important? Meh.The denouement? The debt ceiling will be raised. The national debt will be lowered a bit. Social Security and Medicare will be left alone. And Biden and the Democrats will have leeway to do one or two more things before the gravitational pull of the 2024 election pulls them in – perhaps expand childcare or pre-K or enable more students to attend community college.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      This article was amended on 9 March 2023 to correct an editor’s error in the standfirst. Biden has proposed tax hikes for wealthy Americans, not tax cuts.
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS CongressJoe BidenBiden administrationEconomic policyDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      White House calls Tucker Carlson ‘shameful’ for misrepresenting January 6 footage – as it happened

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      The White House has just slammed Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, calling the right-wing television star “shameful” for the way he is misrepresenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as extremist supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, criticized the security footage of the riot at the Capitol that Carlson has played on his show for the last two nights heavily edited so that it gives the impression of depicting what he described as “peaceful chaos”.Many hours of footage was handed over to him by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.“To have said what he said when we saw police officers lose their lives is just shameful,” Jean-Pierre just said at the daily briefing in the west wing, when asked about Carlson’s latest actions.00:47She said that the White House agrees with the chief of the Capitol police, Tom Manger (who said in an internal memo Carlson’s broadcast was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions) and the “rage of bipartisan lawmakers”.“We have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our constitution and the rule of law, which cost police officers their lives…on a very dark day in our democracy,” Jean-Pierre said.She added that in various legal battles, the White House agrees with Fox’s own attorneys and executives who “have repeatedly stressed in courts of law that Tucker Carlson is not credible when it comes to this issue in particular”.She cited this September 2020 piece from National Public Radio (NPR) on which the headline was: “You literally can’t believe the facts Tucker Carlson tells you. So say Fox’s lawyers.”This blog is wrapping up for the day but will be back with all the US politics news tomorrow, covering developments as they happen.Here’s how the day went:
      Top US intelligence official Avril Haines said that American intelligence does not believe Russia can make “major territorial gains” in Ukraine this year because of heavy casualties and the Kremlin’s inability to replenish weapons and ammunition.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just slammed Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, calling the right-wing television star “shameful” for the way he is misrepresenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as extremist supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.
      House Republicans convened their first hearing on what the committee chairman called the Biden’s administration’s “disastrous” withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
      Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice (DoJ) will conduct a federal review of the Memphis police department after the killing of Tyre Nichols earlier this year and also look into the use of specialized police units nationwide.
      The Department of Justice has issued its review, concluding that it found racist and unlawful conduct by police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, following their investigation into the city’s law enforcement after the killing of Breonna Taylor during a botched police raid in 2020.
      Fox News has been broadsided by the latest court motions revealing that people from top executives down to reporters knew that Donald Trump’s claims that victory in the 2020 election had been stolen from him because of fraud were bogus – but star commentary hosts boosted those claims anyway.
      The top intelligence official in the US said earlier today that American intelligence does not believe Russia can make “major territorial gains” in Ukraine this year because of heavy casualties and the Kremlin’s inability to replenish weapons and ammunition.Speaking to a Senate committee, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines also cited other constraints on the Russian military, including dysfunction in leadership and declining troop morale, the Associated Press reports.Meanwhile, despite recent sharp criticism of the US by Chinese president Xi Jinping, Haines said: “We assess that Beijing still believes it benefits most by preventing a spiraling of tensions and by preserving stability in its relationship with the United States.”China is challenging the US around the world economically, technologically, politically and militarily around the world and “remains our unparalleled priority,” Haines said and NBC reported.Georgia extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took the gavel today as the temporary speaker of the House of Representatives.For a long time, the hard-right Republican prone to conspiracy theories could be kept at arm’s length as a fringe character but her influence has grown since she shimmied up to Kevin McCarthy as a crucial ally during his extraordinary multi-round effort to finally get voted into the speakership in January, after the GOP scraped into control of the House during the 2022 midterm elections.McCarthy not only sold his soul for the speakership, he sold the House, too.Shameful day: Today, Kevin McCarthy appointed Marjorie Taylor Greene to act as speaker pro tempore https://t.co/Wa5utLYuXq— Linus Fan 💉💉💉💉💉 (@LinusAlso) March 8, 2023
      She’s very pleased about it.The House will be in order. pic.twitter.com/8154CGMQqQ— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) March 8, 2023
      Others less so.Kevin McCarthy has announced Marjorie Taylor Greene as Speaker Pro Tempore….meaning she will fill the role of presiding officer of the House in the absence of the Speaker of the House. Absolutely insane.— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) March 8, 2023
      As my colleague Adam Gabbatt reminds us, Greene has suggested Jewish space lasers are responsible for wildfires, speculated whether 9/11 was a hoax and supported the QAnon conspiracy theory, was part of a new wave of Trumpian Republicans and was mocked, ridiculed and reviled in equal measure – including by some in her own party.The Atlantic’s “Why is Marjorie Taylor Greene like this?” is also an illuminating read, describing how prosperous but aimless suburbanites can fall down the rabbit hole.Last month, Greene again proposed a “national divorce” so that states can secede along political lines, something that is unequivocally unconstitutional in the United States.The testimony in today’s House hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal has brought witnesses, lawmakers and audience members to tears.In another gripping account, Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a US Marines sergeant grievously injured in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, was asked to tell the panel about the girl he saved during the evacuation.Stationed at the airport, Vargas-Andrews said he was helping to push back the crowds outside of the airport, he noticed a little girl, roughly about 7 or 8 years old, who had managed to squeeze past, holding the hand of her younger brother and a baby in her arms.“In this chaos, I had tunnel-vision and saw her and I was like, I need to help them,” Vargas-Andrews said, recalling that their faces were “dirty and bruised” and streaked with tears.When he reached the children, he noticed that the baby’s face was blue and didn’t appear to be breathing. He took the youngest children in his arms and together they fought their way through the crush of people. Not knowing if the baby was alive, they searched frantically for a medic who could perform CPR on the baby.They found one, administered aid, and the baby’s face “flushed pink” and the infant began to breathe, as the little girl sobbed. She tugged on his uniform and begged for abba, father.He climbed onto an SUV overlooking the razor wire fence erected around the airport and hoisted the girl into the air to survey the scene below. After a few minutes, amid the hundreds of people desperately waving documents and flinging luggage, she pointed to a man with his hands on his head staring back at her, tears streaming down his face.“I was like that is her dad,” Vargas-Andrews said. He quickly reunited the family and together they were able to leave the country.“For me, that was a moment that my personal injury was worth it,” said Vargas-Andrews, who has since undergone 44 surgeries for the extensive injuries he suffered during the bombing. “I know those three little kids will have a life of freedom and opportunity now because of that.”The former Maryland governor Larry Hogan has ruled out a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 – but not ruled out a third-party tilt.Hogan told ABC on Tuesday: “I haven’t ruled that out. But it’s not something I’m really working toward or thinking about” even though “the question keeps popping up more and more”.Hogan flirted with a run for the nomination as a moderate but pulled back on Sunday, saying: “To once again be a successful governing party, we must move on from Donald Trump.“There are several competent Republican leaders who have the potential to step up and lead. But the stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multi-car pile-up that could potentially help Mr Trump recapture the nomination.”Polling has shown the potential for opponents to Trump (including the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and most likely the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis) to divide the vote and give him the nomination without needing a majority, as happened in 2016.Polling has also shown vanishingly small interest in Hogan among voters in a party dominated by Trump and DeSantis.Hogan told ABC: “Trump has to stumble, which is hard. And he’s been diminishing. But still, he’s the 800lb gorilla. And then if he doesn’t make it, it goes to DeSantis, and then DeSantis has to stumble. And then you have to consolidate everyone else and overcome that.”He said No Labels, a centrist group of which he is an honorary co-chair, had “raised about $50m to get [ballot] access in all 50 states as kind of an insurance policy” for an “in case of emergency break glass” scenario.“They’re not trying to start a third party,” he said. “They’re not committed to doing that. But in case the country is burning down, you may have to have an alternative.”Hogan said a Biden-Trump matchup would be such a scenario.“I think that would be the trigger. I think that’s what they’re talking about. I’m not sure we’re gonna get to that point … Frankly, I’m hopeful that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee. And I’m going to work toward that goal. And I’m assuming Joe Biden may be the nominee, but who knows? I mean, he’s 80 years old. And we got a long ways to go.”Biden, who would be 86 a the end of a second term, has not confirmed a run for re-election. All signs, however, suggest he will soon take the plunge.Hogan said he was “not sure if it’s feasible” he could be a No Labels candidate.“And it’s also just not something I’m working toward. But, I mean, look, if you got to an election when the nominees were Biden and Trump and 70% of America didn’t want that, you wouldn’t rule it out, right?”The White House chimed in on the Department of Justice finding racist, unlawful conduct by the Memphis Police Department as a result of its investigation following the police killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman shot dead almost three years ago during a botched raid.First noting that the DoJ is independent from the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added that: “The president has said repeatedly that a key part of building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve is ensuring there is accountability when we see an officer violate the law.”Jean-Pierre noted Joe Biden’s executive order last spring that sought to rein in police excesses and improve safety and trust, and once again lamented that Congress has failed to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.“The president has said himself, Breonna Taylor’s death was a tragedy, a blow to her family, to her community and also to America more broadly.”She added that Biden notes that “Black women experience a disproportionate share of violence in this country and he will continue to fight for legislation that advances police reform and makes sure that we keep the Black community safe.”KJP, who is the first Black woman to be White House press secretary, was wearing white in a nod to the battle for women’s suffrage, pointing out to the assembled journalists that it is International Women’s Day. She is also the first openly gay White House press sec.She also spent quality minutes at the briefing today excoriating Tucker Carlson.00:47In his forthcoming budget proposal, Joe Biden will propose to cut the US deficit by nearly $3tn, the Associated Press reports.The AP adds:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}That deficit reduction goal is significantly higher than the $2tn Biden had promised in his State of the Union address last month. It also is a sharp contrast with House Republicans, who have called for a path to a balanced budget but have yet to offer a blueprint.White House officials have been briefing on the proposal, which Biden is due to discuss in Philadelphia tomorrow, Thursday.A proposal it will almost certainly remain, of course, given Congress has the power of the purse, and given that control of Congress is shared between Democrats who hold the Senate and Republicans who hold the House.It’s been a lively day in US politics so far and there is much more to come. The White House has just called Fox’s Tucker Carlson shameful and the Department of Justice is looking into special police divisions across the country, especially in the wake of high-profile killings of Black Americans amid accusations of racial bias in incidents of brutality and misconduct.Here where things stand:
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just slammed Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, calling the right-wing television star “shameful” for the way he is misrepresenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as extremist supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.
      House Republicans convened their first hearing on what the committee chairman called the Biden’s administration’s “disastrous” withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
      Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice (DoJ) will conduct a federal review of the Memphis police department after the killing of Tyre Nichols earlier this year and also look into the use of specialized police units nationwide.
      The Department of Justice has issued its review, concluding that it found racist and unlawful conduct by police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, following their investigation into the city’s law enforcement after the killing of Breonna Taylor during a botched police raid in 2020.
      Fox News has been broadsided by the latest court motions revealing that people from top executives down to reporters knew that Donald Trump’s claims that victory in the 2020 election had been stolen from him because of fraud were bogus – but star commentary hosts boosted those claims anyway.
      The White House has just slammed Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, calling the right-wing television star “shameful” for the way he is misrepresenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as extremist supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, criticized the security footage of the riot at the Capitol that Carlson has played on his show for the last two nights heavily edited so that it gives the impression of depicting what he described as “peaceful chaos”.Many hours of footage was handed over to him by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.“To have said what he said when we saw police officers lose their lives is just shameful,” Jean-Pierre just said at the daily briefing in the west wing, when asked about Carlson’s latest actions.00:47She said that the White House agrees with the chief of the Capitol police, Tom Manger (who said in an internal memo Carlson’s broadcast was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions) and the “rage of bipartisan lawmakers”.“We have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our constitution and the rule of law, which cost police officers their lives…on a very dark day in our democracy,” Jean-Pierre said.She added that in various legal battles, the White House agrees with Fox’s own attorneys and executives who “have repeatedly stressed in courts of law that Tucker Carlson is not credible when it comes to this issue in particular”.She cited this September 2020 piece from National Public Radio (NPR) on which the headline was: “You literally can’t believe the facts Tucker Carlson tells you. So say Fox’s lawyers.”In emotional testimony to the House foreign affairs committee this morning, two US service members recounted harrowing scenes at the Kabul airport, where they were stationed when a suicide bomber attacked on 26 August 2021.“It was complete chaos,” said Aidan Gunderson, a former army specialist who left active duty in July.Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a US Marines sergeant who lost an organ and two limbs in the attack, offered some of the most startling testimony of the morning, recalling mothers desperately handing over children while some Afghans chose to take their own lives rather than face the brutality of the Taliban.Speaking under oath, Vargas-Andrews told the panel he identified the suicide bomber among the crush trying to enter the airport but was not given approval to shoot the suspect dead.The attack killed 13 US service members and injured at least 20.“My body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings,” Vargas-Andrews said, pausing to fight tears. “Almost immediately we started taking fire from the neighborhood and I saw how injured I was with my right arm completely shredded and unusable. I saw my lower abdomen soaked in blood.”“The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion and there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence,” said Vargas-Andrews, who has undergone 44 surgeries.Vargas-Andrews stated that he was appearing in his personal capacity. His account, detailed in the Washington Post, disputes aspects of the Pentagon’s account of the incident.“This is not the story of a Biden failure or a Trump failure. This is the story of an American failure and the effect it has had and continues to have on Afghans who served alongside myself and so many others,” Peter Lucier, a veteran of the Afghanistan war who helped evacuate allied Afghans with Team America Relief, told the panel.“The failures that led to this point are owned and shared by four administrations, by Congress and by 320,000,000 Americans. This was our war.” More