Maryland

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from Trump

      by

      Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from Trump The Maryland Democrat has written an extraordinary memoir of grief, the Capitol attack and the second impeachment

      David Blight: Trump has birthed a new Lost Cause myth
      Unthinkable is the perfect title for this extraordinary book, because it describes a superhuman feat.The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrestRead moreJamie Raskin is a fine writer, a Democratic congressman, a constitutional scholar and a deeply loving father. When 2020 began, he had no inkling that just 12 months later his country and his family would face “two impossible traumas”.On 31 December, his beautiful, brilliant, charismatic 25-year-old son, Tommy, took his own life. Six days later, a vicious mob invaded Raskin’s workplace, the cradle of democracy, leaving several dead and injuring 140 police officers.Raskin suffered “a violent and comprehensive shock to the foundations”. Never had he felt “so equidistant … between the increasingly unrecognizable place called life and the suddenly intimate and expanding jurisdiction called death”.This is where the superhuman part came in. Instead of succumbing to unfathomable grief over the death of his son, Raskin seized a lifeline thrown by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and agreed to lead the effort to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the riot which might have derailed the peaceful transition of power.He found “salvation and sustenance … a pathway back to the land of the living”.“I’m not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021,” he told CNN, less than three weeks after Tommy’s death.Raskin’s astonishing story of tragedy and redemption, of “despair and survival”, depended entirely on all the “good and compassionate people” like Tommy, “the non-narcissists, the feisty, life-size human beings who hate bullying and fascism naturally – people just the right size for a democracy … where we are all created equal”.Tommy Raskin was the fourth generation in a great liberal family. His maternal great grandfather was the first Jew elected to the Minnesota legislature. His father, Marcus Raskin, was one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam war when he worked in the Kennedy White House. In 1968, Marcus Raskin was indicted with William Sloane Coffin, Dr Benjamin Spock and others for conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft. When Raskin was the only one acquitted, he famously demanded a retrial.Jamie Raskin taught constitutional law then ran for the Maryland Senate, with Tommy, then 10, his first campaign aide. In the state legislature, Raskin helped outlaw the death penalty and legalize same-sex marriage.Tommy was a second-year student at Harvard Law School when Covid began. Like so many others with clinical depression, the catastrophe deepened his symptoms. His father described his illness as “a kind of relentless torture in the brain … Despite very fine doctors and a loving family … the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last.”Congressman Jamie Raskin: ‘I’ll never forget the terrible sound of them trying to barrel into the chamber’Read moreThis is also a political memoir, of the Capitol attack and the second impeachment. Driving to the Capitol, Raskin spotted MAGA supporters heckling a young Black driver and a car with a bumper sticker reading: “If Guns Are Outlawed, How Am I Going To Shoot Liberals?”He realizes these “fascist bread crumbs throughout the city” should have activated “some kind of cultural alarm”. More chillingly, he reports the decision of some Democrats to cross their chamber after Congress was invaded, “because they thought a mass shooter who entered would be less likely to aim at the Republican side of the House”.But Raskin was never afraid: “The very worst thing that could ever have happened to us has already happened … and Tommy is with me somehow every step of the way. He is occupying my heart … He is showing me the way to some kind of safety … My wound has now become my shield of defense and my path to escape, and all I can think of is my son propelling me forward to fight.”The most powerful part of Raskin’s book, the heart-shattering part, is his love letter to Tommy, a “dazzling, precious, brilliant … moral visionary, a slam poet, an intellectual giant slayer, the king of Boggle, a natural-born comedian, a friend to all human beings but tyrants and bullies, a freedom fighter, a political essayist, a playwright, a jazz pianist, and a handsome, radical visitor from a distant future where war, mass hunger and the eating of animals are considered barbaric intolerable and absurd”.Raskin realized that for the last week of his life, his son had made an effort to impersonate someone in perfect mental health, so no one would intervene. These were his parting words: “Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”Raskin takes some solace remembering the story of Abraham Lincoln’s son Willie, who died of typhoid fever at the age of 12 in 1862, plunging his parents into depression.It had been a point of pride that Raskin responded to every constituent, but a deluge of condolences made that impossible. There was also a call from Joe Biden, three days after Tommy died. The president-elect promised “the day would come when Tommy’s name would bring a smile to my lip before tears to my eyes”.Congressman Jamie Raskin on the day democracy almost crumbled in the US: Politics Weekly podcastRead moreEventually Raskin was convinced to write one letter for everyone sending condolences, one for everyone who wrote about impeachment and a third for everyone who offered condolences and political solidarity. One actually wrote: “I was looking for a condolence card for the loss of your son which also said ‘and thanks for saving our country too’, but Hallmark apparently doesn’t make those.”Naturally, one of Raskin’s son’s heroes was Wittgenstein, who believed the truth of ethical propositions is determined by the courage with which you act to make them real.“On this standard,” Raskin writes, “there have never been truer ethical claims than the ones made by Tommy Raskin, because he was all courage and engagement with his moral convictions.”May this book and Tommy’s example inspire us all to rescue our gravely beleaguered democracy.
      Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy is published in the US by Harper
      TopicsBooksUS Capitol attackUS politicsDemocratsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesMarylandreviewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Tom Perez, Former DNC Chair, Runs for Governor of Maryland

      by

      Tom Perez, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, on Wednesday began a campaign for governor of Maryland on a platform largely tied to his experience working in President Barack Obama’s administration.“I’m the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, I could have never dreamed the president of the United States would give me the chance to make a difference,” Mr. Perez said in a video announcing his candidacy. “But there’s a lot left to do, and that’s why I’m running for governor.”Mr. Perez, 59, served in the Justice Department and as labor secretary before Mr. Obama backed him to run the D.N.C. in 2017. He has teased a run for governor since his term as party chairman ended in January. The video is heavy on footage of the former president praising Mr. Perez, calling him “one of the best secretaries of labor in our history.”He joins a crowded field of candidates to replace Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who is barred by term limits from seeking a third term in office, that includes eight Democrats and two Republicans.Though Mr. Perez has deep connections to national Democratic officials and donors, others in the race have far more recent experience in Maryland politics, including Peter Franchot, the state comptroller, and Rushern Baker, the former Prince George’s County executive, who placed second in Maryland’s 2018 Democratic primary for governor. Mr. Perez was elected to the Montgomery County Council in 2002 and served as Maryland’s labor secretary from 2007 to 2009.Mr. Perez, in the video announcing his campaign, stood before his home in suburban Washington and promoted his connections to the state. Yet at the end of the video he is shown wearing a Washington Nationals jersey — a rival of Maryland’s baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Troubled Vaccine Maker and Its Founder Gave $2 Million in Political Donations

      by

      Emergent BioSolutions faces scrutiny in Congress for ruining Covid-19 vaccines and securing lucrative federal contracts. Executives will appear before some lawmakers who benefited from the company’s spending.WASHINGTON — When Fuad El-Hibri, founder and executive chairman of Emergent BioSolutions, appears Wednesday before a House subcommittee to explain how the company’s Baltimore plant ruined millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine, he will be questioned by lawmakers he and his employees spent tens of thousands of dollars helping to elect.Since 2018, federal campaign records show, Mr. El-Hibri and his wife, Nancy, have donated at least $150,000 to groups affiliated with the top Republican on the panel, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, as well as Mr. Scalise’s campaigns. At least two other members of the subcommittee received donations during the 2020 election cycle from the company’s political action committee, which has given about $1.4 million over the past 10 years to members of both parties.Mr. El-Hibri and his wife have made additional donations totaling more than $800,000 over the same period, with the majority going to Republican candidates and organizations.Political giving is nothing new in Washington. But with the federal government as Emergent’s prime customer, Mr. El-Hibri and the company he founded have spent years cultivating ties on Capitol Hill, helping Emergent carve out a lucrative niche market as a government contractor under both Democratic and Republican administrations.Now Emergent and its top executives find themselves under scrutiny from some of the very elected officials they have sought to influence.Members of Congress are demanding answers from the company, which was awarded a $628 million contract last year to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines but has yet to produce a single dose deemed usable by federal regulators. Along with Mr. El-Hibri, Emergent’s chief executive, Robert G. Kramer, will testify beginning at 10:30 a.m. before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which has opened a sprawling inquiry.Like nearly everything else about the coronavirus pandemic, the hearing is bound to be colored by politics.Democrats, led by Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the panel’s chairman, are expected to use the session to put a spotlight on the company’s relationship with Trump administration officials, including Robert Kadlec, the former assistant secretary of health and human services for preparedness and response, who had previously consulted for Emergent. Dr. Kadlec has said that he was not involved in negotiating the company’s coronavirus contract but that he did sign off on it.Democrats have also signaled that they will zero in on the executives’ stock trades. Emergent’s stock performed so well in 2020 that Mr. El-Hibri cashed in shares and options worth over $42 million, The New York Times reported in March. Mr. Kramer sold slightly more than $10 million in stock this year, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reported earlier by The Washington Post.“They all made millions in stock transactions while they seem to be hiding stuff from the public,” Mr. Clyburn said in a recent interview with CNN.Republicans, led by Mr. Scalise, who as the No. 2 Republican holds the title of whip, are likely to point out that the company’s contracts date at least to the Obama administration, which designated its Baltimore facility a center for innovation in advanced development and manufacturing — meaning it would be ready to make vaccines and other needed treatments in the event of a crisis.Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana received campaign donations from Mr. El-Hibri and his wife, Nancy.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesA spokeswoman for Mr. Scalise said that Mr. El-Hibri would receive no special treatment at the hearing. “The Democrats invited him as a witness, and Whip Scalise will treat him as he would any other witness that has been invited before the committee,” the spokeswoman said.Until recently, Emergent was an obscure player in Washington, but a dominant force in the highly specialized market for drugs and vaccines aimed at countering a biological attack. The company burst into the limelight earlier this spring after The Times reported that workers at its Bayview plant in Baltimore had accidentally conflated the ingredients of two vaccines that rely on live viruses, forcing Emergent to discard up to 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.Food and Drug Administration inspectors subsequently raised concerns about possible further contamination, and the company has recently submitted a quality improvement plan to regulators. The equivalent of about 70 million more doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, mostly for domestic use, are on hold and may never be cleared for use in the United States.“The collaboration with BARDA was designed to create a higher probability of success but was not without risk,” an Emergent spokesman, Matt Hartwig, said in a statement to The Times, using the acronym for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the federal agency that awarded the contract. “Our motivation in collaborating with BARDA was to help play a role in bringing the pandemic to an end and we are proud of the work of Emergent’s employees.”Mr. Kramer, the chief executive, is likely to use the hearing to outline the company’s corrective action plan and to cast Emergent as a company committed to helping the country in crisis. During a recent earnings call with investors, Mr. Kramer announced a management shake-up and took “full responsibility” for the problems in Baltimore.But he also cast some blame on the government, saying that federal officials had asked Emergent to manufacture the two live-virus vaccines — one developed by Johnson & Johnson and the other by AstraZeneca — despite the risk of contamination. He said that the company had taken precautions but that the contamination had most likely occurred when “one or more of these precautions did not function as anticipated.”Emergent’s chief executive, Robert G. Kramer, sold slightly more than $10 million in stock this year, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Joe Andrucyk/Office of Governor Larry HoganThrough Mr. Hartwig, the Emergent spokesman, the El-Hibris declined to comment.The company is a longtime partner to the federal government. Then known as BioPort, it was founded by Mr. El-Hibri in 1998 after he and some investors paid the state of Michigan $25 million to buy the license for a government-developed anthrax vaccine and an aging manufacturing plant. In the two decades since, the company built its business largely around selling products to the Strategic National Stockpile, the nation’s emergency medical reserve.An investigation by The Times, published in March, found that the company’s anthrax vaccine had in some years accounted for roughly half of the stockpile’s budget and that the company’s aggressive tactics, broad political connections and penchant for undercutting competitors had given it remarkable sway over the government’s purchasing decisions related to the vaccines.The company’s board is stocked with former federal officials, and its lobbyists include former members of Congress and aides from both parties. The company’s government relations shop is similarly stocked with partisans; Chris Frech, its top in-house lobbyist, worked for former President George W. Bush, and Grant Barbosa, a senior director for government affairs, was a legislative assistant to Vice President Kamala Harris when she was a senator.Senate lobbying disclosures show that the company has spent an average of $3 million a year on lobbying over the past decade — much more than similarly sized biotech firms but about the same as two pharmaceutical giants, AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb, whose annual revenues are at least 17 times higher.During the first three months of this year, Emergent reported spending $1.47 million on lobbying, enlisting the services of more than two dozen lobbyists from 10 firms.Federal campaign disclosure records show that donations to the Emergent BioSolutions Inc. Employees PAC run the gamut. Board members and executives like Mr. El-Hibri give as much as $5,000, the maximum allowable amount per year under federal election rules. Some employees have contributed on a biweekly basis in amounts as small as $3.47. Three former employees said the company offered a payroll deduction program to make giving easier.The employee group tends to spend in small dollar amounts, typically $1,000 to $2,500 on incumbents, including lawmakers representing states where it operates, like Maryland and Michigan. Representative Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the No. 2 Democrat in the House, was a top beneficiary in the 2020 election cycle; he and an affiliated organization received a total of $10,000.Two members of the House panel conducting Wednesday’s hearing — Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, and Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland — each received $1,000 contributions over the same election cycle.In an interview, Mr. Raskin said that he had been unaware of the donation until he was contacted by a Times reporter and that he had returned the money. A spokesman for Mr. Jordan said that the congressman had raised more than $18 million during the 2020 election cycle and that contributions had no bearing on his work as a legislator.Mr. Hartwig, the Emergent spokesman, said in an email message that the PAC “supports incumbent Members of Congress of both chambers and from both parties who represent our employees and our facilities, and who are committed to preparedness and response for the next biological, chemical, or public health threat.”Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Tom Perez on Democrats’ Mistakes and Why Iowa Shouldn’t Go First

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTom Perez on Democrats’ Mistakes and Why Iowa Shouldn’t Go FirstIn an interview, the former D.N.C. chairman discussed a possible bid for Maryland governor and said Iowa and New Hampshire starting the presidential nominating process was “unacceptable.”Former D.N.C. chairman Tom Perez  is considering a bid for Maryland governor.Credit…Justin T. Gellerson for The New York TimesFeb. 14, 2021, 8:56 a.m. ETFor the past four years, Tom Perez had perhaps the most thankless job in American politics: chairman of the Democratic National Committee.During that time Mr. Perez, the first Latino to lead the committee, oversaw the rebuilding of the party apparatus from an indebted hollowed-out mess after years of neglect during the Obama administration to a cash-flush organization with more than twice as many employees as it had when he took over in February 2017.But Mr. Perez, who was urged to seek the party chairmanship by former President Barack Obama after serving under him as labor secretary, hardly had a smooth tenure. He faced internal dissent in 2018 for stripping superdelegates of their voting power in presidential contests and took public and private fire throughout 2019 from more than half of the party’s two dozen presidential candidates, who bellyached about, among other things, standards that Mr. Perez had set to qualify for debates.Mr. Perez spoke with The New York Times on Thursday about his experience running the party, the results of last year’s elections and his future political plans. His final day working for the party committee was Friday. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.Do you think that the D.N.C. should have devoted more attention and resources to down-ballot contests given the results in state legislative and congressional races?The thing about this election cycle that is really regrettable is that we had record turnout. And we should be celebrating that on a bipartisan basis, because we did really well. We won the presidency. We have the House. We have the Senate. And Republicans won in a number of critical races. That’s undeniable. They won a number of Senate seats. They won a number of congressional seats. And they won because a lot of their people turned out. And instead, what Donald Trump and the far right chose to do is to invest in this fiction that there was some sort of massive voter fraud, which is inaccurate.The reality is we won a series of really important races. And they won a number of down-ballot races. Those are the facts of 2020. And that’s why we’re absolutely drilling down deeper to answer the question of how did we do well for Mark Kelly and Joe Biden in Arizona and not so well in some of the State House and State Senate races. Really important question. It certainly wasn’t for lack of investment. And that’s why we’re looking to understand what else do we have to do.Why was Latino support for Democrats so much softer in 2020 after four years of Trump than it was in 2016 and elections before that?Do we need to do more with Latino voters? Absolutely. And I am very committed to that. We did more than the party has ever done. But again, every cycle, we need to build on what we did before. And that’s exactly what we will do. The misinformation campaigns in South Florida were very real. And they involved both domestic and foreign actors.And the appeals to socialism in South Florida were more successful. They made those same socialism arguments in Arizona. But they fell flat. And they fell flat, in no small measure, because we had a really aggressive and longstanding organizing infrastructure in Arizona that enabled us to counteract that.Will the 2022 and 2024 elections be a referendum on President Biden’s handling of the pandemic and the economy?What voters are going to ask themselves is the same question they always ask. “Am I better off than I was two years ago? Am I seeing results that are improving my life?” As they are able to return to normalcy, whatever normalcy is going to look like post-Covid, I think that they will appreciate that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris led during this crisis.Should Iowa and New Hampshire keep going first in the presidential nominating process?That will be up to the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee.I’m aware. But what does the private citizen Tom Perez think?A diverse state or states need to be first. The difference between going first and going third is really important. We know the importance of momentum in Democratic primaries.I’ll try one more time. Could you make a case for defending Iowa and New Hampshire going first?The status quo is clearly unacceptable. To simply say, “Let’s just continue doing this because this is how we’ve always done it,” well, Iowa started going as an early caucus state, I believe, in 1972. The world has changed a lot since 1972 to 2020 and 2024. And so the notion that we need to do it because this is how we’ve always done it is a woefully insufficient justification for going first again.This is the Democratic Party of 2020. It’s different from the Democratic Party in how we were in 1972. And we need to reflect that change. And so I am confident that the status quo is not going to survive.How far down the road are you in thinking about running for governor of Maryland?I’m seriously considering a run for governor in Maryland.We need a governor who can really build strong relationships with the Biden administration, will build strong relationships with every one of the jurisdictions in Maryland.Marylanders are just like everybody else. We want an end to this pandemic. We want to put kids back to school. We want to put people back to work. The pandemic has disproportionately touched women and communities of color in Maryland. And I’ve had the fortune of working in local government, and with the nonprofit faith communities and state government there.So I’m currently listening. I’m on a listening tour in Maryland. And I think we need leadership, really, with a bold vision of inclusion and opportunity because ZIP code should never determine destiny in any community across America.Has Larry Hogan been a good governor for Maryland?I appreciate the fact that Larry Hogan has said critical things about Donald Trump. I appreciate that. What we really need, I think, in Maryland is leaders who will sweat the details of governance. The pandemic rollout, the vaccination process has been nothing less than chaotic in Maryland. We’ve had an unemployment insurance crisis, people waiting months and months to get their unemployment benefits. That’s just a failure of leadership at a state level.I didn’t hear a yes or no on Hogan.I applaud that he tried to get some tests from South Korea. But then it turned out that the tests didn’t work. And he covered it up. And there’s always going to be moments where mistakes are made. And good leaders fess up to those mistakes. But he tried to sweep it under the rug.Again, it’s great to see a governor who criticizes Donald Trump. But we need governors who do a hell of a lot more than just criticize.What would you be doing differently to accelerate vaccine distribution and reopen schools faster?I would be on the phone every day with county executives making sure: “What do you need? What do you not have? What do you have? What can we do?” I would be relentlessly reaching out to our colleagues in the federal government to say: “Here’s what we need. Here’s what’s going on.” I would have a war room set up and, again, every single day, say: “You value what you measure. You measure what you value. What are we doing?”Donald Trump is partly to blame for this. He was a disaster. But you look at other states — other states have been able to work around that and are doing better. Our vaccination rates do not compare well. We’re the richest state in the United States — Maryland — but we have way too many people who are on the outside looking in.You said good leaders admit their mistakes. What were the biggest mistakes you made at the D.N.C.?I wish that we could have won more elections. And so I’m looking back at what we did and some of the races we didn’t win. I was really frustrated in January and early February of 2017, because Donald Trump was in power and he was issuing all sorts of executive actions that were turning life upside down for so many people. That was in the middle of the D.N.C. race because the election wasn’t set until the end of February. So we got a late start. And I think that was a mistake.It was frustrating to see Feb. 27, a month into the administration, and I’m just showing up at work for the first time. So I think we have to be very mindful. And if there are periods of time in the future where we’re in a similar situation, where we’ve lost the White House, we better make sure we start early because I had to play a lot of catch-up. And that was a mistake.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump to hold early morning sendoff ceremony on Biden inauguration day

      by

      Donald Trump is planning an early morning sendoff event for himself at a military airfield in Maryland on Wednesday several hours before his successor, Joe Biden, is inaugurated as the 46th US president at the Capitol in Washington DC.For his last presidential ceremony, Trump reportedly wants an ostentatious military parade and an official armed forces farewell as the commander-in-chief, as well as a large crowd of supporters, selected backers and current and former officials in his administration and their guests at a huge red-carpet affair.But latest reports indicate that Trump, who is facing an impeachment trial in the Senate and a number of criminal and civil investigations, will not be afforded a big military sendoff just two weeks after a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol that followed his exhorting supporters to fight to overturn the election.Invitations have been issued from the White House for an event taking place at Joint Base Andrews, the military base in Maryland used by Air Force One, at 8am on Wednesday – four hours before Biden will take his oath.Many details of the ceremony are not yet clear, although attendees will have to make a pre-dawn start and have been told to arrive by 7.15am, when temperatures are forecast to be below freezing.Attendees may not bring items including firearms, ammunition, explosives, laser pointers or toy guns.President Trump is leaving office on Wednesday. Plans are underway for a departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews. This is the invite sent to supporters. It includes a list of prohibited items such as ammunition, explosives, firearms, laser pointers and toy guns. pic.twitter.com/AZNoPUxCWB— Brie Jackson (@PositivelyBrie) January 18, 2021
      In his last few hours as president, Trump will fly to his private Mar-a-Lago resort and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, aboard the Air Force One jumbo jet for the last time in a presidential capacity, ensuring he and his wife Melania are almost 1,000 miles away from the White House and Capitol when Biden takes over.Air Force One will then be at the disposal of Biden. Trump would have had to have permission from the Democrat who defeated him to use it if he had waited to leave Washington until Biden was sworn in.According to some reports, a 21-gun salute has been under consideration for the event at Andrews, and officials are considering an elaborate ceremony that would have the feel of a state visit.Senior Pentagon officials reportedly told the security and intelligence news website Defense One that no military farewell was being planned for the commander-in-chief, unlike ceremonies for Ronald Reagan, George HW and George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.With the sun barely up at the start of an expected-to-be-chilly Wednesday, a minimal group of staff still left in a rapidly emptying White House will see off Trump as he takes one last walk across the lawn to enter Marine One, the presidential helicopter, for the short flight to Andrews just a few miles away.Strict security arrangements in place for the inauguration, following the 6 January violence , have also limited the number of people who can attend the White House departure.Four years ago, Barack and Michelle Obama hosted Donald and Melania Trump for tea at the White House before traveling to the ceremony to watch Trump inaugurated as the 45th US president.But Trump has made it clear he would become the only president in a century and a half not to attend his successor’s inauguration and only the fourth in history not to do so, with the plans for his premature departure unprecedented.Vice-President Mike Pence is attending Biden’s inauguration, but it is not yet known if he will attend Trump’s farewell at either the White House or Joint Base Andrews beforehand.Pence traveled to thank troops in California and New York over the weekend as part of a farewell from the Trump-Pence administration, engagements that would have been expected to be carried out by the president.Trump has not been seen in public since he traveled to the US-Mexico border last Tuesday. In recent weeks he has not visited the US military. And has not visited or spoken of healthcare workers overwhelmed at hospitals and vaccination sites as the US coronavirus death toll approaches 400,000.The Bidens may be able to see and hear Trump departing aboard Marine One as they are staying close to the White House the night before the inauguration.There is no word on whether Trump will call Biden or leave the traditional letter to his successor upon the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.Reports on Monday afternoon said that the Bidens would be greeted by the White House chief usher on Wednesday, whereas traditionally it would be the departing president and first lady.Joe and Jill Biden won’t be greeted by Donald and Melania Trump Wednesday, breaking White House tradition.Instead, they’ll be greeted by the White House chief usher, @KateBennett_DC reports.— Alexis Benveniste (@apbenven) January 18, 2021
      They also said Melania Trump would become the first modern first lady not to invite her successor for a tour of the private living quarters.Melania Trump will become the first modern first lady not to invite the woman who will replace her to the White House for a walk-through of the private living quarters on the second and third floors. https://t.co/a1e9RVzq6l— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 18, 2021
      Workers have already hung bunting that reads “2021 Biden-Harris Inauguration” from temporary stands across from the White House’s north portico, visible from the third-storey residence, CNN reported.The cable network also reported that on the day the White House Military Office will ensure there are several “nuclear footballs” available, the heavy briefcase that is always carried near the president with codes to launch weapons in case of nuclear attack.One such football will reportedly travel with Trump to Florida and his codes will be deactivated by the time Biden is sworn in at noon on Wednesday, when an aide carrying another nuclear football and working codes will then begin to shadow the new president.The invitation for Trump’s sendoff specifies that masks must be worn .Late last year, Trump was criticised for hosting a series of indoor and outdoor events at the White House where social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines were not enforced, leading to several high-profile Covid cases, with the gatherings described as “super-spreader” events. More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      'A bigger tent message': Larry Hogan on Trump and his own White House ambitions

      by

      Whether or not Donald Trump wins re-election in November, Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, predicts the Republican party will finally do some soul searching.That’s the core of the thinking behind Hogan, a popular two-term Republican governor in a reliably Democratic state, strongly floating the idea of running for president himself.“A big part of what I’ve been focusing on for six years is a kind of a bigger tent message and avoiding the divisive rhetoric and avoiding the extremes of either party,” Hogan told the Guardian.“That’s why I’ve been so successful as a Republican in one of the bluest states in the country and have had the ability to reach a lot of swing voters and constituencies that Republicans have had a [hard] time reaching.”Hogan considered a White House run this year, but he would have had to beat a Republican president with an iron grip on the party. In 2024, however, Trump will not be a factor.I’ll be one and maybe I’ll be the only one that’ll be arguing for a Republican party that’s going to be more inclusiveHogan is not the only name being floated. The former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton, Governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis and Vice-President Mike Pence are all in the mix too.But Hogan is the one most eager to highlight his disagreements with the president, openly admitting that Trump’s circle is “not very happy with me at the moment”.As chairman of the bipartisan National Governors Association (NGA), he has issued worried statements about Trump’s handling of coronavirus relief funds. In general, he has criticized Trump’s response to the pandemic.At the same time, he has checked the boxes any statewide politician does ahead of a White House run. He has visited early primary states. He has chaired the NGA. He has reached high approval levels in his state. And he has written a book, laying out his background and knocking the current president. Still Standing comes out on Tuesday. It details how Hogan thought about challenging Trump this year.He does not hesitate to admit that he is open to running in 2024, which is usually as far as any potential candidate goes this far out from an election. But he does keep some distance from other anti-Trump Republicans, such as the increasingly prominent Lincoln Project.Asked about the former Ohio governor John Kasich, a prominent member of the anti-Trump wing of the Republican party who is expected to participate in the Democratic national convention, Hogan demurred.“I’ve got to continue to govern my state in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of the worst economic collapse in our lifetime and I’ve got a job as governor of Maryland until January of 2023,” he said.“So I’m in a different place than John Kasich. I mean, I haven’t spoken to him about it so I don’t know what his position is. But he’s certainly a Republican who’s frustrated with the direction of the party.” More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Maryland obtains 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea

      by

      Move raises questions about governor’s need to circumvent the federal government to obtain critical supplies Coronavirus – latest US updates Coronavirus – latest global updates See all our coronavirus coverage Maryland had nearly 13,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of Monday, resulting in 486 deaths. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images Maryland has obtained 500,000 tests […] More