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      'Set the standard': Cuomo allegations test Democrats' commitment to #MeToo

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      [embedded content]
      Flannery Amdahl’s memories of working for Andrew Cuomo are sharply at odds with the rock-star status the New York governor enjoyed last year.
      “People talked all the time about how he would yell and berate and belittle people,” says Amdahl, 37, who describes the governor’s office as the most toxic and abusive place she has ever worked.
      “His staff members copied that behaviour and so I felt like I was treated that way by my supervisor. I think it was rampant and well-known: everybody in Albany talks about how nasty the chamber is.”
      As Cuomo goes from hero to zero, such complaints are just the tip of the iceberg. He stands accused of covering up the number of coronavirus deaths in state nursing homes. Amdahl, a former labour policy adviser, believes he should resign for this alone. But it is the other scandal consuming the three-term governor that offers particularly treacherous ground for national Democrats.
      Four women have come forward to accuse Cuomo, 63, of sexual harassment. Charlotte Bennett, 25, a former aide, told CBS that during a one-on-one meeting last June, Cuomo’s questions led her to conclude that “the governor’s trying to sleep with me”.
      Another former aide, 35-year-old Ana Liss, made allegations on Saturday night, telling the Wall Street Journal Cuomo “asked her if she had a boyfriend, called her sweetheart, touched her on her lower back … and once kissed her hand when she rose from her desk”.
      Before Liss came forward, Cuomo apologised for comments that made any of the women uncomfortable while denying inappropriate touching. Although an independent investigation is under way, he is facing calls to resign from the congresswomen Kathleen Rice, a Democrat, and Elise Stefanik, a Republican, as well as Democratic state officials.
      But no other national Democrats have joined the chorus. The Axios website branded it the party’s “hypocrisy moment”, arguing: “Governor Andrew Cuomo should be facing explicit calls to resign from President Biden on down, if you apply the standard that Democrats set for similar allegations against Republicans. And it’s not a close call.”
      The charge of double standards points to a steep learning curve for a party that has struggled to keep pace with shifting public attitudes towards gender roles, power dynamics and sexual boundaries.
      Its hierarchy defendedBill Clinton over his inappropriate relationship with the young intern Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s. But in 2017, as the #MeToo movement held powerful men accountable, Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator who holds Hillary Clinton’s former seat in New York, argued that the former president should have resigned over the affair. More

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      Biden hails 'giant step' as Senate passes $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill

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      Joe Biden hailed “one more giant step forward on delivering on that promise that help is on the way”, after Democrats took a critical step towards a first major legislative victory since assuming control of Congress and the White House, with a party-line vote in the Senate to approve a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill.After a marathon voting session through the night on Friday and into Saturday afternoon, Democrats overcame unified Republican opposition to approve the sweeping stimulus package. The final tally was 50-49, with one Republican senator absent.One of the largest emergency aid packages in US history now returns to the House for final approval before being signed into law by Biden. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, has said she expects to approve the measure before 14 March, when tens of millions of Americans risk losing unemployment benefits if no action is taken.The House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said the Senate version of the American Rescue Plan would be considered “on Tuesday … so that we can send this bill to President Biden for his signature early next week”.Biden and Democrats will look to move on to other priorities, including voting rights reform and an ambitious infrastructure package.The bill aimed at combating the Covid-19 pandemic and reviving the US economy will provide direct payments of up to $1,400 to most Americans; extend federal unemployment benefits; rush money to state, local and tribal governments; and allot significant funding to vaccine distribution and testing.Republicans attacked the bill as a “liberal wishlist” mismatched with an improving economic and public health outlook as more are vaccinated and infections plateau.“Our country is already set for a roaring recovery,” said Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, on Friday, citing a jobs report that showed 379,000 jobs added in February. “Democrats inherited a tide that was already turning.”But Democrats and the White House were quick to push back, pointing to more than 9 million Americans out of work and millions more struggling to pay for rent and food.On Saturday, with Vice-President Kamala Harris looking on, Biden spoke to reporters at the White House.“I want to thank all of the senators who worked so hard to do the right thing for the American people during this crisis and voting to pass the American rescue plan,” he said. “It obviously wasn’t easy, wasn’t always pretty, but it was so desperately needed. Urgently needed.”Biden has been criticised for not holding a press conference since taking office. On Saturday he attempted to leave without taking questions. To shouted questions, he avoided direct criticism of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Republicans.The marathon “vote-a-rama” session on amendments that preceded the final vote featured the longest vote in Senate history, just shy of 12 hours, on Friday, as Democrats scrambled to strike a deal with Manchin, a moderate who mounted a last-minute push to scale back unemployment benefits.Bowing to Manchin, a compromise kept benefits at $300 a week instead of $400, as proposed by Biden and approved by the House. However, the benefits will be extended until October rather than August, and Democrats added a provision to provide up to $10,200 in tax relief for unemployed Americans.Speaking to reporters on Saturday, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, repeatedly hailed his caucus and deflected invitations to criticise Manchin, the target of anger among House progressives.“People have new differences all the time,” he said, when asked why Manchin had not levelled his demand earlier, adding: “Unity, unity, unity. That’s how we got this done.”Schumer was asked if another bill might be needed.“It’s a very strong bill,” he said, “part of it will depend on Covid. How long will it last, will there be a new strain.”Experts have warned of a potential fourth surge as variants emerge and predominantly Republican states reopen their economies and abandon basic public health measures.“Part of it will depend on the economy,” said Schumer. “It has some underlying weaknesses that need bolstering. How deep and weak are those. Our No 1 lodestar is going to be helping the American people and if they need more help, we’ll do another bill. If this bill is sufficient, and I think it’s going to help in a big way, then we won’t.”At the White House, Biden praised Schumer: “When the country needed you most you lead, Chuck, and you delivered.”Despite deep political polarization and staunch Republican opposition, the legislation has broad public appeal. A poll by Monmouth University found that 62% of Americans approve of the stimulus package, including more than three in 10 Republicans.In tweets on Saturday, former president Barack Obama said: “Elections matter … this is the kind of progress that’s possible when we elect leaders across government who are devoted to making people’s lives better.”Yet the endeavor tested the fragile alliance between progressives and moderates as Democrats attempt to wield their power with only the barest control of Congress.Early on Friday, the Senate rejected a proposal by the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders to include a $15-an-hour minimum wage increase, a top liberal priority and a key plank of Biden’s economic agenda. The Senate parliamentarian had deemed the provision inadmissible under the rules of a special budget process Democrats are using to bypass Republican opposition.Despite widespread public support for raising the federal minimum wage, Democrats remain divided. On Friday, eight joined Republicans in blocking the amendment, which would have required 60 votes to pass.“Let me be very clear: we are not giving up on this,” Sanders said. “We are going to come back with vote after vote. And one way or the other we are going to pass a $15 minimum wage. That is what the American people want and that is what the American people need.”The approval of the bill in the Senate came after hours upon hours of voting on a torrent of amendments, most offered by Republicans with the goal of forcing Democrats to take a position on measures designed to be politically troublesome.Proceedings had already been much delayed on Thursday, when the Republican Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, forced Senate clerks to read the 628-page bill in its entirety – a task that took nearly 11 hours.At the White House, Biden quoted Sanders as he hailed the bill as “progressive” and delivered a familiar appeal for national – and party – unity, if with a shot at his predecessor, Donald Trump.“When I was elected,” Biden said, “I said we’re going to get the government out of the business of battling on Twitter and back in the business of delivering for the American people, of making a difference in their lives, giving everyone a fighting chance, of showing the American people that their government can work for them, and passing the American Rescue Plan, we’ll do that.“You know it may sound strange but … I really want to thank the American people … quite frankly, without the overwhelming bipartisan support of the American people this would not have happened.“… Every public opinion poll shows that people want this, they believe it is needed. And they believe it’s urgent.” More

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      Biden's FDR moment? President in New Deal-like push that could cement his legacy

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      Joe Biden came to power promising a New Deal-like economic agenda that would not only combat the Covid-19 pandemic, which has now claimed more than half a million lives in the US and caused unemployment not seen since the Great Depression, but also confront the deep-rooted disparities it has exposed.After a blitz of executive orders in the opening days of his presidency, Biden is on the verge of achieving the first major piece of his multi-pronged relief and recovery plan, a $1.9tn coronavirus stimulus package expected to reach his desk by the end of next week.But the partisan tightrope Biden has walked to advance the sweeping pandemic relief bill – which enjoys broad public support – likely foreshadows even greater challenges that lie ahead as he pivots from “rescue” mode to his next and possibly biggest legislative act: a multi-trillion dollar plan to rebuild the country’s ailing infrastructure.“The American Rescue Plan is largely about relief – for the millions of people unemployed, for distributing vaccines, for opening schools safely,” said Virginia congressman Don Beyers, the Democratic vice-chairman of the joint economic committee.“This next bill can be almost completely characterized as investment in the future.”Even more so than the stimulus plan, a wide-ranging jobs and infrastructure bill would weigh the president’s desire for bipartisanship against his promise to enact progressive economic policies that could forge his legacy. With the barest of majorities in Congress, Biden has little room for error if he hopes to succeed in a policy quest that bedeviled his predecessors.In theory, infrastructure is an area where Democrats and Republicans can find common ground. Fixing bridges, roads and broadband networks has long unified Americans and elected leaders. Yet there is little bipartisan agreement over the size and scale of such a package.“He wants to move as quickly as possible,” Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat and the chairman of the House transportation and infrastructure committee, said after a bipartisan meeting with Biden on Thursday. “He wants it to be very big and he feels that this is the key to the recovery package.”Emerging from the same meeting, Missouri congressman Sam Graves, the top Republican on the transportation committee, tempered expectations of a deal.“A highway bill cannot grow into a multi-trillion dollar catch-all bill, or it will lose Republican support,” he warned in a statement. “Republicans won’t support another Green New Deal disguising itself as a transportation bill.”During his presidential campaign, Biden cast the infrastructure effort as an economic road map to create jobs and revitalize industry, saying it would be the “largest mobilization of public investment since” the second world war.As proposed, his “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan would spend trillions of dollars to make the US economy more sustainable, more equitable and more competitive, particularly with China, with ambitious investment in public transportation, sustainable housing, electric vehicles and upgrading the power grid to be carbon pollution-free by 2035. Funded by a mix of tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, his agenda promises to create millions of union jobs and direct significant resources to communities of color disproportionately affected by the consequences of climate change.As talks intensify between the White House and Congress, progressives and environmental groups are contemplating even bigger proposals, pointing to the recent crisis in Texas that left millions without water and electricity during a severe winter storm, as a reason to act urgently – and unilaterally, if necessary. Some moderate Democrats are angling for a more cautious, bipartisan approach, while Republicans and business groups are setting conditions for their cooperation, as fights brew over how to pay.The White House has said it is premature to talk about the shape of an infrastructure package, at least until Congress passes the relief bill. But this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats were already proceeding with the “recovery” part of Biden’s agenda.“Its’ an exciting time,” she said.Haunted by the slow-paced recovery that followed the financial collapse of 2008, when the Obama administration enacted a slimmed-down stimulus package amid fears of inflation and Republican objections to rising national debt, only to suffer major defeats in midterm elections, Democrats are eager to act boldly while they have unified control of Congress.“If you have an opportunity to go big, go big,” Beyer said. “You’re going to pay a political cost one way or the other, so you might as well get as much as you possibly can when you get the opportunity to do it.”Sean McElwee, co-founder and head of the progressive polling firm, Data for Progress, said it was good policy and good politics to pursue an ambitious economic agenda. Voters prioritize results over bipartisanship, he said, arguing that Democrats could defy political history in the 2022 congressional midterms if they act boldly on the economy.“Joe Biden understands that Democrats will be judged in 2022 by how he has handled the economy and the pandemic,” McElwee said, citing broad public support for the president’s relief plan and the enduring appeal of infrastructure spending. “The political benefits of going small just aren’t there any more.”Biden has held several high-profile meetings to build support for a bipartisan package, including with top officials, labor leaders and lawmakers involved in drafting infrastructure legislation.Ahead of his meeting with lawmakers on Thursday, Biden said the group, which included transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, planned to discuss “what we’re going to do to make sure we, once again, lead the world across the board on infrastructure”.After spending decades in the Senate and eight years as vice-president to Barack Obama, Biden is plainly aware of the complex matrix of political and ideological considerations that have felled previous attempts to pass a major infrastructure bill.Yet since the onset of the pandemic, and the ensuing economic crisis, Biden has embraced a far more aspirational agenda that intentionally echoes the vision of Franklin Roosevelt, whose New Deal programs helped lift the country out of the Great Depression and transformed the role of government in American life.Despite his reputation for compromise and preference for bipartisanship, Biden largely rejected appeals from Republicans to dramatically shrink his $1.9tn stimulus package, which includes $1,400 payments to tens of millions of families, extended unemployment benefits as well as tens of billions of dollars for vaccine distribution and coronavirus testing.In pitching his relief plan, Biden has insisted that now is time to “go big,” and that the greater risk is doing too little, not too much. But as he looks beyond the immediate crisis, it remains unclear how the president will choose to proceed with the rest of his agenda.Progressives, largely encouraged by the opening weeks of his presidency, are now pressuring Biden to adopt the same go-it-alone approach for the rest of his agenda. Attempting to forge a consensus with Republicans, they warn, would almost certainly result in a bill that falls short of his campaign promises to address the deep-seated, structural inequalities in the economy exacerbated by the pandemic.“I think Biden understands that there is a real opportunity here to deliver lasting, legacy-defining improvements to America that otherwise would never get done,” said Faiz Shakir, who was the campaign manager for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential run. “He wanted an FDR-modeled presidency and this would be a huge, huge investment in working people on a scale that we have not seen since FDR.”The urgency of the pandemic has helped fuse public opinion – and a factious Democratic caucus – around the need for a massive stimulus bill. But spending trillions more on infrastructure with initiatives that reach far beyond the present emergency is a different battle entirely, said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.Biden campaigned on his plans to control the pandemic – and a promise to end hyper-partisanship in Washington. A plan that achieves neither goal could risk a “huge political backlash” beginning with the midterms next year, Galston said.“History is full of administrations who came to power, over-read their mandate and then went too far and evoked a reaction,” he said. More

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      Millions in the US still don't feel seen by either political party. My dad is one of them | Jessa Crispin

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      A few days after the insurrection at the Capitol, my father Jack started sending emails from his Lincoln, Kansas, home to his representative and senators in Congress. For some reason, he was also cc-ing me on these exchanges.There was a new email almost every day, and the tone swung between pleading, angry, bewildered and frustrated. There were emails asking his senators to vote to impeach Trump, emails demanding proof supporting the allegations that the election had been stolen, emails trying to untangle their twisted logic.One such email read, in part: “Your actions, and the actions of other Republicans like you, are destroying the Republican party. As I have been a lifelong Republican, I hate what has happened to the party of Lincoln and Reagan and the ideals of the past, to see it reduced to a personality cult.”The politicians’ responses made it absolutely clear no one was taking my father’s criticisms seriously. Kansas representative Tracey Mann sent a form letter response, saying “we must unify as a nation”, which presumably meant moving on, forgetting the extravagant misdeeds of the Trump administration and voting against impeachment. When I asked my father if he had any expectation that his representatives would take responsibility for their involvement in the insurrection (Kansas junior senator Roger Marshall joined with those who claimed there was fraud during the election), he said, “No. Well … no.”My father’s frustration with the Republican party had been building for years, but something seemed to break with him after the insurrection. The riot at the Capitol was, he believed, stoked by unscrupulous politicians who for four years cared more about power than rule of law and who, when that power slipped, would rather let the country continue to fall apart than work to rebuild.The Republican party is in the midst of an identity crisis, brought on by a big shift in voting demographics and a new generation of more radical and paranoid politicians. As Democrats move away from their historically working-class constituency to become instead the party of the urban, college-educated liberal, Republicans find themselves attracting the loyalty of the religious, those not formally educated and the rural. The institutions which previously cultivated Republican voters – the university system and white-collar employment – now lead Americans to the political left, leaving conservative leaders and thinktanks scrambling to figure out how to accommodate their new, more blue-collar base. Many Republican politicians clearly find it easier to appeal to their base’s fears and resentments than to provide working-class Americans with stability and resources. This has led to some strange pageantry, like the Yale Law graduate and Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley cosplaying as a man-of-the-people populist.The Bulwark podcast, which is one of the few conservative media outlets my father still listens to, and which prides itself on its “civil” discourse, has been monitoring this identity crisis daily. In its episode “Post-Impeachment GOP”, host Charlie Sykes described the slow decline that seemed to accelerate once Republican voters believed the lie that the Trump’s re-election had been stolen and their politicians refused to deny or disavow it. “The Republican party has been willing to look the other way over lies, racism, all the corruption and xenophobia, but now it’s willing to look the other way [on] violence, extremism and anti-democratic authoritarianism.”My father Jack likens his estrangement from the Republican party to the rise of the recently deceased Rush Limbaugh. He had listened to him in the 80s for about a year, at first finding funny his jokes about the hypocrisy of Democrats. But soon Rush’s tone changed. “He had been saying outrageous things about people and then laughing – but then he started to sound like he was really believing it. He wasn’t entertaining any more; he was vicious.” He was further turned off from Limbaugh, who exploded in popularity during the Clinton administration, by his reliance on cheap misogynist and homophobic jokes.The Republican party as a whole was going down a similar path – choosing culture war battles over ideological integrity, and warmongering over supporting the institutions of family, religious freedom, strong communities, and small business the party professed to value. This was particularly visible in the politics of our home state of Kansas, which is often portrayed as hardline conservative, but whose local politics are far more nuanced than outsiders perceive. It’s worth remembering that the state has a strong local Democratic party, a history of far-left progressive politics, and that the current governor is Democrat Laura Kelly.But back in 2011, Sam Brownback was elected governor and decided to make the most radical tax slashes the state had ever seen. This decimated the budgets of hospitals, schools, and other agencies, and they began to fall apart. Politicians ran against Brownback promising to raise taxes, something almost unheard of. The “Kansas experiment”, as it was called, revealed the emptiness of Republican rhetoric and their lack of new ideas beyond “cut taxes”.He was further turned off from Limbaugh by his reliance on cheap misogynist and homophobic jokesClearly my father is not the only conservative feeling estranged from the Republican party. Gerald Russello, editor of the conservative cultural journal the University Bookman, echoed the feeling. “The political conservatives you see on TV or in Congress are either Trump clowns or Reagan-era old guys who believe the free market solves everything,” he told me recently. “Who speaks for me? I can’t associate myself with clownish racists.”It’s not yet clear how extensive the fallout from Trumpism will be, but a larger number of Republicans are changing their official political affiliation than Democrats, and there is talk of the possibility of forming a splinter political party, called the Integrity party. (The Lincoln Project founders were involved in this idea before the organization was racked by sexual harassment accusations and larger questions about its financial and political purpose.) Building a new political party into something that can attain power and influence is a long-term goal, but it would strive to give a voice to fiscal conservatives and social moderates, occupying a center-right position, left of where the Republicans currently sit.When I asked my father if he could ever be persuaded to vote Democratic, he thought for a while. “I doubt it. I get this feeling from the Democrats of ‘We’re from the government and we’re here to help you’ that I don’t like. I want to know how can we best solve [a] problem instead of just throwing money at it.” What he considers problems – things like the national debt and overspending on military – the Democrats don’t seem to acknowledge, nor do the Republicans acknowledge what my father believes are looming disasters, like climate change and the broken healthcare system. But my father has no faith in the ideas Democrats have put forth to solve these issues.Both my father and Russello expressed frustration with Republicans claiming to be a pro-family party while allowing families to suffer on their own through a pandemic.“Give the people money!” Russello said. “It’s not socialism – that’s an argument from the 80s.” And he’s worried about the future if the party continues to abandon what should be its primary concern. “There’s a strain of conservatism with men and women in their 20s and 30s who have given up on politics. They say, you don’t know how bad things are for us.” The Republicans have little to offer them, as small towns and the middle of the country are allowed to decay into unemployment, de-industrialization and addiction, but these places are also Republicans’ strongholds.For now, change looks unlikely to come from the top. Conservatives are still intellectually reliant on thinktanks in Washington, which have been spitting out the same ideas about the free market for decades. There are writers and intellectuals on the right who are trying to plot a course forward, but they are frequently drowned out by media personalities on Fox News and alt-right podcasts. Russello pointed out that after the media was so surprised by the election of Donald Trump in 2016, many publications pledged to go into these neglected regions and give coverage to their concerns. Very little of that coverage materialized; there have been few big splashy books on so-called “Trump country” apart from, say, Strangers in Their Own Land or Hillbilly Elegy. The focus has mostly remained on the more sensational side of Trumpism, like the QAnon conspiracy and insurrectionists, and less the outlook of the average conservative voter.As for my father’s plans, he is still involved in local government, where he has served for decades now. He recently fought off an attempt by a committee to invite a Robert E Lee impersonator to the Lincoln Days festivities in honor of the town’s namesake, pointing out the general was a traitor who was lucky he wasn’t hanged. And despite the lack of results, he’s still sending those emails. Another one went out this morning. More

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      Andrew Cuomo says he will not quit over sexual harassment allegations

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      Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday he would not resign as New York governor following the emergence of sexual harassment allegations.Cuomo, who achieved national and global prominence because of his direct briefings last year on the Covid-19 pandemic, spoke at his first public appearance since three women accused him of misconduct, including inappropriate remarks and unwanted touching.The Democratic governor apologized and said he had “learned an important lesson” on his behaviour around women.“I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable,” he said. “It was unintentional and I truly and deeply apologize for it.”Cuomo said he would “fully cooperate” with an inquiry into the accusations, which is being overseen by the state attorney general, Letitia James. The attorney general, also a Democrat, is in the process of choosing a law firm to conduct the investigation. The firm would present its findings in a public report.When the third-term governor was asked about calls for his resignation, Cuomo said: “I wasn’t elected by politicians. I was elected by the people of the state of New York. I’m not going to resign.”Cuomo discussed their claims during a press conference that otherwise concentrated on New York’s coronavirus response. Before this briefing, Cuomo last spoke with journalists during a 22 February conference call. His last on-camera briefing was on 19 February.Shortly after his remarks, one of his accusers questioned his effort to apologize.“How can New Yorkers trust you @NYGovCuomo to lead our state if you ‘don’t know’ when you’ve been inappropriate with your own staff?” said former aide Lindsey Boylan on Twitter.How can New Yorkers trust you @NYGovCuomo to lead our state if you “don’t know” when you’ve been inappropriate with your own staff?— Lindsey Boylan (@LindseyBoylan) March 3, 2021
      Boylan has claimed that Cuomo made comments about her appearance and kissed her without consent after a meeting. Boylan also alleged that Cuomo once suggested that they play a game of strip poker while onboard a New York state-owned airplane. Cuomo has denied these claims.The governor’s apology and comments on Wednesday were also criticized by an attorney for a second aide who has made allegations, Charlotte Bennett. Bennett has alleged Cuomo asked her about her sex life and whether she would consider a relationship with an older man. Bennett, 25, reportedly said she thought Cuomo was testing her interest in a possible affair.Debra Katz, the attorney who represents Bennett, said Cuomo’s press conference was “full of falsehoods and inaccurate information”. Katz maintained Cuomo’s claim that he didn’t realize he had made women uncomfortable was duplicitous, as Bennett had notified both her supervisor about Cuomo’s alleged behavior and one of his attorneys.“We are confident that they made him aware of her complaint and we fully expect that the attorney general’s investigation will demonstrate that Cuomo administration officials failed to act on Ms Bennett’s serious allegations or to ensure that corrective measures were taken, in violation of their legal requirements,” Katz remarked.The third accuser, Anna Ruch, was a guest at a wedding Cuomo officiated. In an interview with the New York Times, Ruch said that Cuomo placed his hands on her face, and asked if he could kiss her, moments after they met during a September 2019 wedding. More

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      Scramble on to replace Neera Tanden after nomination met perfect storm

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterNeera Tanden’s decision to withdraw from consideration to serve as Joe Biden’s budget director marks the first major loss for the still young Biden administration, and sets off a scramble between various political factions to push through a new nominee.Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress thinktank, decided to withdraw her candidacy on Tuesday, in the face of a lack of support among senators needed to advance her through the confirmation process.“Unfortunately, it now seems clear that there is no path forward to gain confirmation, and I do not want continued consideration of my nomination to be a distraction from your other priorities,” Tanden wrote in a letter to Biden released by the White House. Tanden added that she appreciated “how hard you and your team at the White House has worked to win my confirmation”.Tanden was the first of Biden’s cabinet nominees to fail to make it through the confirmation process. New presidents don’t usually see all of their cabinet picks confirmed.But Tanden’s path was always more precarious than the rest. She is well known throughout the Democratic party as a combative figure who often engaged in Twitter fights and criticized both Republicans and Democrats. After her nomination she deleted over 1,000 tweets and in her hearings she said she regretted those criticisms, which included calling Senator Susan Collins of Maine “the worst” and tweeting that “vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz”, the Republican senator from Texas.But Tanden, a staunch Hillary Clinton ally, had also warred with prominent members of the progressive wing of the Democratic party and once allegedly punched Faiz Shakir, who would eventually become Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign manager. Tanden has said she “pushed” him.Sanders, the chairman of one of the committees charged with handling Tanden’s nomination, also questioned large corporate and foreign donations to the Center for American Progress.But the lion’s share of critical questioning by senators was about Tanden’s various attacks.“Of course, your attacks were not just made against Republicans. There were vicious attacks against progressives, people who I have worked with, me personally,” Sanders said during the hearings.Tanden did have her fair share of support. Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, said the White House was “fighting our guts out” to get Tanden confirmed and the US Chamber of Commerce backed her as well. Behind the scenes, Democratic officials continued to lobby senators to support her, even after Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat, announced his opposition to Tanden, citing her tweets and past conduct.Manchin has emerged during the Biden administration as, at times, the deciding figure on matters before the Senate. Other conservative Democrats, like Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, held back from announcing how she would vote. That decision did not inspire confidence in Tanden’s chances and illustrated the influence any senator – especially a conservative one – has in a Senate split 50-50 with Vice-President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaker.Republicans at moments seemed to revel in highlighting Tanden’s past tweets. Tanden’s allies argued that they were motivated by a mix of extreme hypocritical partisanship (where were they, Tanden’s allies grumbled, when Trump was tweeting?) and racism. Tanden was born to immigrant parents from India.But those senators also expressed eagerness to support one of the potential replacements – Shalanda Young, a veteran Hill staffer who is Black.“You know I’m going to vote for you,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the ranking Republican on the Senate budget committee, said on Tuesday during Young’s hearing to serve as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. “You’re highly qualified and I’m going to support you,” Graham added before pressing her on immigration policy.Similarly John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of the Senate’s more bombastic members, said at one point “you may be more than deputy. You may be the sheriff. I don’t expect you to comment on that.”Democratic senators stuck to their support of Tanden during Young’s hearing but after her nomination was pulled lawmakers began lobbying for Young.“We have worked closely with her for several years and highly recommend her for her intellect, her deep expertise on the federal budget and her determination to ensure that our budget reflects our values as a nation,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, majority whip, Jim Clyburn, and majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Her leadership at the OMB would be historic and would send a strong message that this administration is eager to work in close coordination with members of Congress to craft budgets that meet the challenges of our time and can secure broad, bipartisan support.”Other names have been floated as possible OMB nominees and the Senate budget committee is now waiting for the White House to pick someone else. The names floated include Sarah Bianchi, a former director of policy for Biden; Gene Sperling, a former director of the council of economic advisers; Ann O’Leary, the former chief of staff to Governor Gavin Newsom of California.Whoever the White House nominates is poised to have an easier confirmation process than Tanden. More

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      Texas governor lifts mask mandate and declares: 'It's time to open 100%'

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      With less than 7% of Texans fully vaccinated and another Covid-19 surge potentially imminent, Texas is flinging open businesses to full capacity while simultaneously ending its highly politicized mask mandate, the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, announced on Tuesday.“It is now time to open Texas 100%,” a maskless Abbott declared to cheers at a crowded restaurant in the city of Lubbock.When Abbott’s policy changes go into effect next week, Texas will be the most populous state in the country that does not require residents to wear masks. Restaurants and other businesses can choose to maintain their own mask policies, but without government backing to do so.“We had a chance maybe by the end of the summer of getting a handle on this pandemic. This governor is just going to throw all of that out and put us back to the stone ages,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic party. “This is crazy.”Other states and cities have likewise started rolling back precautions. In Mississippi – another Republican stronghold – Governor Tate Reeves also announced on Tuesday that the state was lifting rules for businesses and doing away with county mask mandates.In other states and cities, including Michigan, Louisiana, and the city of San Francisco, California, officials are also lifting some restrictions, albeit not with the sweeping approach of Mississippi or Texas.Abbott’s announcement – which comes after about 43,000 Texans have died from the virus, and while many Texans are still ineligible for the vaccine – sparked immediate and vehement backlash, from Democratic mayors to workers’ advocates infuriated that Texans of color will once again be the hardest hit.“I think this is a slap in the face of working people, especially frontline workers, who have been risking their lives,” said Emily Timm, the co-executive director of Workers Defense Action Fund.Local leaders in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin – Texas’s biggest cities – called on Abbott “not to create any ambiguity or uncertainty about the importance of wearing a mask by changing the rules at this time”, Austin’s mayor, Steve Adler, said in a statement.“We as a state should be guided by science and data, which says we should keep the mask mandate. Too much is at stake to compromise the positive outcomes we have seen with over-confidence,” Adler said.The policy changes also follow a devastating winter storm that pummeled Texas mere weeks ago, in a crisis made worse because of the state’s bungled emergency management.Some critics say Abbott is using this moment to distract from that catastrophic failure, while also playing politics with lives to curry favor with a far-right Republican base that turned against him after he implemented coronavirus restrictions last summer.“He’s made a decision based upon politics,” Hinojosa said.As most meaningful coronavirus-related restrictions disappear from Texas, the state is simultaneously staring down what could easily be a series of super-spreader events over spring break.South Texas beach towns in Corpus Christi and the already hard-hit Rio Grande Valley have long been popular destinations among party-going college students from around the country, and as tourists pack into bars and restaurants, none of them will have to wear masks or socially distance.“You think we had a horrible spike on Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July, and during the holidays?” Hinojosa said. “The spike that this state will experience in coronavirus cases will be extremely high – and will cause many, many more deaths than any responsible governor should have allowed.” More

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      Republicans push 'blue-collar comeback' – but is the party a true friend of the worker?

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      Amid the resurrection of “the big lie” about an election stolen from Donald Trump, another deceptive theme has emerged at this weekend’s rightwing gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference: Republicans as the true party of the blue-collar worker.
      It was a concept promoted variously over CPAC’s first two days by, among others, a multimillionaire former governor who made a fortune in healthcare; the son of Donald Trump, who lives in his own exclusive Florida club; and two firebrand US senators with law degrees from Ivy League universities who oppose a universal hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
      One of them, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, earlier this month flew his family to a sunshine vacation at a five-star resort in Mexico to escape the deadly winter blast back in his home state. At CPAC he asserted his alignment with America’s working men and women.
      “The Republican party is not the party just of the country clubs; the Republican party is the party of steel workers and construction workers, and pipeline workers and taxi cab drivers, and cops and firefighters, and waiters and waitresses, and the men and women with calluses on their hands who are working for this country,” Cruz told the nation’s biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives, just days after cutting short his Cancun holiday when the scandal came to light.
      “That is our party, and these deplorables are here to stay.”
      The CPAC positioning to try to represent the Republican party as a champion of the working class comes as Democratic president Joe Biden’s effort to raise the minimum wage faces significant congressional roadblocks, including opposition from many senior Republican figures.
      Cruz, a Harvard-educated lawyer and the beneficiary of substantial corporate campaign donations, at least until many halted contributions in the wake of the 6 January Capitol riots, is a long-time opponent of what he has called the “bad policy” concept of a minimum wage, and has said legislation to enforce it would “kill American jobs”.
      Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who last month joined his fellow Trump loyalist Cruz in attempting to block the certification of Biden’s victory, was another prominent CPAC speaker espousing working-class roots while opposing the new president’s wage proposals.
      “Where I come from in Missouri, I grew up in rural Missouri, [a] small town right in the middle of Missouri, it’s a working-class town full of good folks, working hard to make it every day,” said Hawley, a Yale law school graduate.
      “And I can just tell you, where I grew up, we believe in citizenship because we’re proud of it. We’re proud to be Americans,” he added in an address condemning “powerful corporations” and “oligarchs” he accused of imposing a “radical left agenda” on the United States.
      Hawley, considered a possible candidate in the race for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination if Trump does not run again, has also suffered corporate backlash for his support of the former president’s election lies. He proposed legislation this month that would exempt small businesses from paying their employees a “burdensome” minimum wage.
      On Saturday at CPAC, the fealty continued to Trump, who was honored at the conference venue this week by the installation of a large, gaudy statue that sparked the Twitter hashtag #goldencalf.
      “The blue-collar comeback was the theme of our administration,” the Republican Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty said in a panel discussion on industry during which he praised “President Trump’s leadership” for job growth.
      KT McFarland, a conservative commentator who was briefly Trump’s deputy national security adviser at the start of his administration, said she had a telephone call with the former president on Friday night in which he allegedly outlined the theme of his scheduled CPAC speech on Sunday.
      “I think that Donald Trump is not finished with this revolution,” she said, describing how she called his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and claiming Trump himself picked up the phone.
      “He said: ‘I’m going to talk about the future. I’m going to talk about how we win in 2022, how we take the White House back in 2024.’”
      Trump’s son, Donald Jr, told CPAC attendees earlier in the gathering that Biden’s relaxation of Trump-era immigration measures and reopening of camps for migrant youth would affect the very blue-collar workers Republicans are attempting to covet.
      “Where is the outrage about an asinine immigration policy that is encouraging people to bring children unaccompanied and otherwise into a country?” he said. More