US domestic policy

Subterms

    More stories

    • 213 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      A debt default would be catastrophic for the US – and Biden’s re-election chances | Walter Shapiro

      by

      The favored metaphor on the left is to compare the trumped-up debt-ceiling crisis to hostage-taking by the House Republicans.But in a true hostage situation, both sides have something major to lose. The perpetrators risk not getting a payoff or, worse, spending decades in prison. For the families of the victims and the police, the danger is that the hostages will be killed during the negotiations or in the midst of a botched rescue mission.For Kevin McCarthy and the defaulters (which, incidentally, is a promising name for a band), there is no downside. If Joe Biden ultimately hands over his sword in surrender, the Republican incendiaries will be lionized as conquering heroes from the Fox News green room to the dining room at Mar-a-Lago.Sure, the reviled liberal media will grumble if Republican intransigence forces America into default, guaranteeing higher interest for years to come, and jeopardizing the world economy. But that crazed toughness would prove that the House speaker is not a “Republican In Name Only” (Rino) squish like his deal-making predecessor John Boehner, who at the last minute helped avert default in 2011.Marching off the fiscal cliff like lemmings will also inoculate House Republicans against a rightwing primary challenge – which, in Republican circles, is a fate worse than death. And since members of Congress can trade stocks, every smart Republican can personally prosper during the coming cataclysmic economic downturn by adroitly shorting the Dow Jones Average.In contrast, the consequences of debt-ceiling brinkmanship are dire for Joe Biden. In the best conceivable case – one that will prompt dismay among liberals – the president would reluctantly agree to tight spending caps that will limit his domestic agenda and penalize the poor. But, at least, that option would avert default.At the end of his Sunday press conference in Hiroshima, Biden publicly acknowledged the devastating political consequences for him if America were unable to pay its bills. Channeling the thought process of House Republican zealots as they head towards the abyss, Biden said: “Because I am president, and presidents are responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame. And that’s one way to make sure Biden is not re-elected.”Sad, but true.A default might well mean that Biden would be running for reelection with the economy in a Republican-created tailspin. And it wouldn’t matter politically that, as Biden said, “On the merits, based on what I’ve offered, I would be blameless.”But if Democrats believe that they can win the messaging wars about a default, they’re deluding themselves.An Associated Press/NORC poll, released last week, found that only 20% of Americans say that they understand the debate over the debt ceiling “extremely” or “very well.” That number is significant because it is often hard for political insiders to remember that most Americans do not watch cable TV news or obsessively follow political machinations in Washington. The danger for Democrats is that many of these low-information voters will be persuaded by the implicit one-sentence Republican message: America defaulted because Biden wouldn’t agree to cut government spending to deal with the national debt.In order to appreciate the folly of that glib Republican argument, a voter both has to understand the draconian nature of the Republican budget proposals and to grasp that raising the debt ceiling merely authorizes borrowing rather than new spending. Good luck making that complex case to anyone who doesn’t devotedly read the New York Times or listen to National Public Radio.In an era of streaming and thousands of channels, Biden does not have the option of commanding national attention with an old-fashioned Oval Office address. Moreover, there is no guarantee that Biden, with his rambling asides and workmanlike delivery, would convince anyone with a televised speech. To illustrate that point, here is the awkward way Biden highlighted the dangers of the Republican budget plan in his Sunday press conference: “I’m not going to agree to a deal that protects, for example, a $30bn tax break for the oil industry, which made $200bn last year – they don’t need an incentive of another $30bn – while putting healthcare of 21 million Americans at risk by going after Medicaid.”The harsh reality is that Biden has little choice but to grub for the best deal he can. While there is a strong legal argument that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional under the 14th amendment, no one at the treasury department or anywhere else knows how the global markets would react if Biden thumbed his nose at Kevin McCarthy and his wingnut caucus.With the continuing danger that Donald Trump’s comeback tour will end in the Oval Office, there are more important matters on the table than punishing Kevin McCarthy for his hostage-taking. In fact, the best revenge would be a sweeping Biden reelection that brings with it a Democratic House majority. Then, in 2025, without a presidential election on the horizon, Biden would be free to blow up the dangerously irrational debt-ceiling law.
      Walter Shapiro is a staff writer for the New Republic and a lecturer in political science at Yale More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Debt ceiling talks suspended as US lurches towards default deadline

      by

      Negotiations for a deal to raise the US debt ceiling and thereby avoid a default with potentially catastrophic consequences for the world economy reached a worrying impasse on Friday.“We’re not there,” Garret Graves of Louisiana, the lead negotiator for House Republicans in talks with the Biden White House, told reporters at the Capitol.“We’ve decided to press pause, because it’s just not productive.”The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has said that without action the US government will cease to be able to pay its debts on or around 1 June.Joe Biden is away at the G7 summit in Japan. White House officials were leading talks for Democrats.One told the Guardian: “There are real differences between the parties on budget issues and talks will be difficult. The president’s team is working hard towards a reasonable bipartisan solution that can pass the House and the Senate.”For decades after 1917, when the federal debt was capped, raising that limit, or ceiling, was usually a routine procedure, if subject to political grandstanding.In 2006, the Illinois Democratic senator Barack Obama voted against a raise under a Republican president, George W Bush.But Republicans have increasingly and effectively employed threats to refuse to raise the ceiling as a bargaining tool and in 2011, as president, Obama was forced to say he regretted his vote of five years before.In the 2011 standoff, the House GOP extracted trillions of dollars in spending cuts which Obama was forced to sell to his party. Now, under Biden, the same dynamic is in play.With the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, beholden to far-right members who made him endure 15 votes before gaining the position, the GOP is demanding hefty cuts to spending, on Democratic priorities including healthcare and climate, in return for a debt ceiling raise.Democrats say Republicans should agree a clean raise – meaning without preconditions – as they did repeatedly under Donald Trump. Democrats also demand that Biden does not blink.At the Capitol on Friday, Graves said: “Until people are willing to have reasonable conversations about how you can actually move forward and do the right thing, then we’re not going to sit here and talk to ourselves.”Republican leaders outside the talks sought to apply pressure. Not long before Graves spoke to reporters, Trump said his party should not give ground.Republicans, the presidential frontrunner wrote on his Truth Social platform, “should not make a deal on the debt ceiling unless they get everything they want (including the ‘kitchen sink’). That’s the way the Democrats have always dealt with us. Do not fold!”Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, aimed fire at Biden, accusing the president of “wait[ing] months before agreeing to negotiate with Speaker McCarthy on a spending deal.“They are the only two who can reach an agreement,” McConnell said. “It is past time for the White House to get serious. Time is of the essence.”Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, countered: “We are in a crisis, for ONE REASON – House Republicans threat to burn down the entire economy if they don’t get their way.”In a recent column for the New York Times, the Harvard law professor Laurence A Tribe, an expert in constitutional law, accused Republicans of playing “chicken or, maybe more accurately, Russian roulette” with the US debt.Tribe went on to outline his theory of how Biden has the authority to raise the ceiling on his own, under the 14th amendment, which says the US national debt “shall not be questioned”.Tribe wrote: “Mr Biden must tell Congress in no uncertain terms – and as soon as possible, before it’s too late to avert a financial crisis – that the United States will pay all its bills as they come due, even if the treasury department must borrow more than Congress has said it can.”Such a step has support from prominent Democrats.In a letter earlier this week, a group of senators including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders (an independent who caucuses with the party), said: “Using this authority would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on-time, without delay, preventing a global economic catastrophe.”But Biden has resisted so far.On Friday, an unnamed official told the Washington Post the Biden White House still believed “a path to a reasonable bipartisan budget agreement” was possible, “as long as both sides recognise that they won’t get everything they want and compromise is necessary”.The Post also said the two sides had not agreed when to meet again. More

    • 213 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      The US debt ceiling crisis is more proof of Republicans’ cynicism and bad faith | Jill Filipovic

      by

      The shamelessness and recklessness of today’s Republican party seems to know no bounds. As the deadline for raising the debt ceiling or defaulting rapidly approaches, the party continues to hold the country hostage, telling Democrats: give us what we want – things we cannot get by going through normal democratic processes – or we will pitch the global economy off a cliff.Democrats in Congress are doing their best to get their Republican colleagues to behave rationally, but it’s notoriously difficult to negotiate with terrorists. The Republicans want major spending cuts, but they want to force those cuts through by threat instead of having to legislate normally. And the cuts they’re asking for are appalling: they include slashing funds to things like cancer research, rental assistance for the poor, support for schools with large numbers of low-income students, and pay for Americans in uniform. The Republican bill would end Biden’s attempt at student loan debt relief, repeal tax breaks for renewables and clean energy while increasing reliance on fossil fuels, raise already-onerous work requirements to receive food stamps and welfare benefits, and decrease the efficiency and abilities of the IRS.The Republican proposal would leave a great many Americans worse off – but it would be a boon for oil executives and wealthy tax avoiders.It’s also an unconscionable display of bad faith and manipulation. This is not the first time that Congress has needed to raise the debt ceiling, and the stakes are so high that, traditionally, it’s been a bipartisan effort, with Democrats and Republicans alike largely agreeing that it would be wildly irresponsible and disgustingly devious to use such a vulnerable moment to strong-arm the opposing party. The big exception came during the Tea Party takeover of the Republican party in 2011, when Republicans also used raising the debt ceiling to start a fight. Those Tea Party radicals seemed crazy then – but they had nothing on the absolutely unhinged lunatics of the Maga Republicans.In a sane Congress operating in a functional country, everyone in Congress would agree that the US cannot default, and would behave accordingly. But this is not a sane Congress operating in a functional country, and that’s 100% because of the far-right takeover of the Republican party.Today’s Republicans are a party of destruction. As much as they claim to want to make America great again, they seem much more intent on sowing division, fomenting chaos and embracing an ethos of nihilism. There is no school shooting brutal enough to make them reconsider America’s extreme gun laws; no pregnant woman who suffers enough to make them take a step back on criminalizing abortion; and virtually nothing their unelected leader Donald Trump can to do make them reject him – allowing a deadly attack on the Capitol, being deemed a sexual abuser by a New York jury, and undermining America’s tradition of free and fair elections have not been enough to end the Republican party’s love affair with Trump. As the party has not only embraced Trump but molded itself in his image, it has become all the more dangerous to the nation.It was clear on 6 January 2021 that a dangerous number of Republicans had gone off the deep end, and were willing to take America down with them. Even after a rightwing mob attacked the Capitol complex in an attempt to overthrow the results of the presidential election, 147 congressional Republicans stood behind them, and voted to overturn the election results. These 147 elected officials voted against American democracy that day; they showed that they were willing to override the will of American voters in order to install their man in office. This is nothing short of fascistic, and it was a sign of dangers to come.Now, that same party is pushing an unpopular agenda, but is filled with elected officials who either don’t care or are totally delusional ideologues. Which is how we wound up watching the days tick down until a default. Democrats, and clear-thinking people, understand just how disastrous this would be: it would likely mean a global economic crash, a downgraded credit rating for the United States, and huge financial repercussions, including significant job losses, for Americans – and for lots of people outside of our borders.Too many Republicans, unfortunately, seem to be fine with that, perhaps because they also seem to enjoy burning things down – and they seem bizarrely confident that they’ll be able to blame the fallout on Biden.They shouldn’t be so sure. It’s obvious what is happening here: Republicans want to get their way, and are willing to use any means to do so. The blame won’t fall on Biden for failing to adequately negotiate with the extremists willing to threaten global financial stability to get their much-wanted cuts to cancer research and help for the poor. Blame will fall on the people who deserve blame: the Republicans acting like cartoon supervillains.Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Hopefully, Republicans come to their senses, allow the US to raise the debt ceiling without major concessions, and avoid torpedoing the world economy. But even if this immediate crisis is averted – a big if – the fact that we’re here in the first place signals just how dangerous Republicans have become. Many members of the Republican party have already made clear that they have no respect for American democracy, and no desire to maintain it. Now, even more members of the party are making clear that they have no respect for America’s role as a stabilizing global economic force.This isn’t playing hardball. It’s hostage-taking. And unless Republicans manage to pull their party back from the brink, it’s only going to be one more sad example of Republicans’ attempt to make America into an untrustworthy, undemocratic shambles.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden ‘confident’ of reaching deal with McCarthy to avoid US debt default

      by

      Joe Biden and the Republican speaker of the US House, Kevin McCarthy, said on Wednesday they thought a deal to avoid a US debt default was in reach.Speaking at the White House, Biden said: “I’m confident that we’ll get the agreement on the budget, that America will not default.“We’re going to come together because there’s no alternative way to do the right thing for the country. We have to move on.”On Tuesday, Biden and McCarthy met for an hour at the White House, a meeting the president called productive.Biden, who has faced some criticism for his handling of the issue, is due to travel to the G7 summit in Japan but has cut the trip short to pursue a debt ceiling deal. Plans to visit Papua New Guinea and Australia were postponed.On Wednesday, the president said: “I’ll be in constant contact with my team while I’m at the G7 and be in close touch with speaker McCarthy and other leaders as well.“What I have done in anticipation that we won’t get it all done till I get back is, I’ve cut my trip short in order to be [here] for the final negotiations and sign the deal with the majority leader.”Biden said he expected to return to Washington on Sunday and hold a press conference. Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told CNN that Biden’s decision to cut short his Asia trip sent “the message that … America does not default on its debt”.Also on Wednesday, McCarthy spoke to CNBC.He said: “I think at the end of the day we do not have a debt default. The thing I’m confident about is now we have a structure to find a way to come to a conclusion. The timeline is very tight. But we’re going to make sure we’re in the room and get this done.”A failure to honour US debts could have catastrophic impacts on the US and world economies. The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has indicated that without agreement, default could come as early as 1 June.Republicans want sharp spending cuts. Democrats say Republicans should agree to a “clean” debt bill, the sort they repeatedly passed under Donald Trump. But Biden also seemed ready to make some compromises, including some work requirements on federal programs, though not on healthcare programs.Financial markets appeared to be buoyed as McCarthy joined the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, and the White House in pledging the US would not fail to pay its debt obligations. US stock indexes opened higher on Wednesday.Biden was widely reported to have agreed to a key demand from McCarthy: that negotiations be carried out by a small group of aides, removing, for now, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.Politico said Biden was now represented by the White House counselor Steve Richetti, budget director Shalanda Young and legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell. Garret Graves, a Louisiana Republican and McCarthy ally, was leading the Republican team.McCarthy, who controls the House by just five seats, is widely seen to be at the mercy of the far right of the Republican caucus. But according to Politico, Graves “isn’t a bomb-thrower or grandstander, and Democrats told us they’ve seen him as a steady hand in other bipartisan policy negotiations”.Politico reported that the new negotiators “huddled on Capitol Hill last night to start negotiations, reflecting the time crunch as the clock ticks toward a possible 1 June default”. Punchbowl News said “full-scale negotiations [were] set to kick off” on Wednesday.It will not be a simple process. The negotiators, Punchbowl said, had “a very difficult task ahead of them. They need to find a deal that can pass Congress in the next 15 days. To do that, they’ll have to come up with a framework over the next few days.“This is a massive lift that will require deft negotiating, cooperation from all sides and incredible flexibility on behalf of our national political leadership. Basically everything that Congress hasn’t done at all this year and traditionally isn’t very good at.”House Republicans are demanding $4.8tn in spending cuts, mostly to Democratic priorities including welfare and environment spending. Demonstrating the political vice in which Biden finds himself, progressives have warned him not to give in.“It’s really important we don’t give ground,” Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Axios. “We have made it clear … that if they give on these core Democratic values, there will be a huge backlash.”Jean-Pierre told CNN that Republicans “want to cut healthcare, they want to increase poverty, and it’s not going to save much money”.Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, also spoke to CNBC.“It creates uncertainty that’s bad for the American people. It’s bad for the economy. That’s bad for business,” he said. “And so our view has consistently been that any resolution of this matter has to be at least two years in nature. And that was a position that was once again made clear in the meeting yesterday.”Punchbowl said: “If Democrats want to hike the debt limit until 2025, McCarthy is going to demand a lot in return.”Jeffries insisted: “Our view is that if we’re going to have a thoughtful conversation about deficit reduction, that conversation can’t simply be one-sided, based on the rightwing ideological perspective of a handful of extreme Maga Republicans.“That’s not how you make public policy.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Bernie Sanders unveils plan for $17-an-hour US minimum wage

      by

      Bernie Sanders on Thursday announced a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour, saying the potent inflation Americans have faced over the past two years makes it necessary for the government to institute higher wages for workers.Sanders intends to next month formally introduce legislation raising the minimum wage over a five-year period to a level $2 higher than the $15 an hour Joe Biden and many Democrats have pushed for in recent years. But there is no sign of Republicans wavering in their opposition to the proposal.“As a result of inflation, $15 an hour back in 2021 would be over $17 an hour today,” said Sanders, an independent senator who caucuses with the Democrats. “In the year 2023, in the richest country in the history of the world, nobody should be forced to work for starvation wages. That’s not a radical idea. If you work 40-50 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty. It is time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.”Congress has not approved a minimum wage increase since raising the level to $7.25 an hour in 2009, where it remains for workers in 20 states. Voters in several states and cities across the country have approved raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour, but progress on a national increase has remained elusive.In 2021, Democrats attempted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of a large spending bill intended to help the US economy recover from the Covid pandemic, but the effort failed, in part due to the defections of eight Democratic lawmakers.Biden later that year signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors, which affected as many as 390,000 workers, but the president has not said if he supports the increase to $17 an hour. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.In the two years since, Americans have faced the highest inflation since the 1980s, with consumer price increases hitting an annualized peak of more than 9% in June 2022, though they have moderated in recent months. While workers’ wages also increased over that period in part because of a tight labor market, the pace has not kept up with inflation.“As a home healthcare worker, I make just $12 an hour. I worked in fast food for over 30 years and I never, never made $15 an hour. And now $15 isn’t even enough for what we’re going through today,” said Cookie Bradley, a founding member of the Union of Southern Service Workers, who joined Sanders in the announcement.Although Sanders was supported by the heads of major labor groups the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), he said little about how he planned to overcome objections both from Republicans and reluctant Democrats.He said: “This is a popular issue. I don’t think there’s a state in the country where people do not believe we should raise the minimum wage. I would hope that every member of Congress understands that and there will be political consequences if they don’t.”Republicans, who took control of the House of Representatives this year, have shown at best lukewarm enthusiasm for a minimum wage rise, and have instead focused on trying to convince Americans that Biden is to blame for the rapid inflation. In 2021, Republican senators introduce two proposals, one that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, and another that would give a tax credit for workers who make less than $16.50 an hour. Neither went far in the Senate, which Democrats currently control.The SEIU president, Mary Kay Henry, said her millions of members would be keeping an eye on which lawmakers support Sanders’s proposal.“We are going to be watching any congressperson, senator or in the House, that dares to say that they are not going to vote yes for Senator Sanders’ bill, because they need to be held accountable at the ballot box,” Henry said. More

    • 200 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden says banking system is ‘safe and sound’ despite First Republic collapse – as it happened

      by

      From 5h agoJoe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of First Republic Bank, insisting that the “safety and security” of the US banking system was paramount.JP Morgan stepped in quickly to snap up the “deposits and substantially all assets” of the California bank, the third US lender to fail this year.Biden praised the swiftness of the takeover by the nation’s largest bank:
      I’m pleased to say that regulators have taken action to facilitate the sale of First Republic bank, making sure that all depositors are protected, and the taxpayers are not on the hook.
      These actions are going to make sure that the banking system is safe and sound. And that includes protecting small businesses across the country who need to make payroll for workers and their small businesses.
      Touting the economic successes of his administration during an address for small business week, Biden used the crisis to pivot to an attack on so-called make America great again (Maga) Republicans he said were threatening the economy by presenting proposals over raising the national debt limit that were unacceptable:
      The most immediate thing we can do is ensure the continued reliance of our economy and the financial system. The most important thing we have to do in that regard is to make sure the threat by the speaker of the House to default on the national debt is off the table.
      For over 200 years, America has never, ever ever failed with a debt. America is not a deadbeat nation. We have never, ever failed to meet the debt.
      As a result, one of the most respected nations of the world, we pay our bills and we should do so without reckless hostage taking from some of the Maga Republicans in Congress.
      Read more:We’re closing the US politics blog now, thanks for joining us.It’s been an eventful day, with Joe Biden attempting to reassure the public the US banking system was “safe and sound” following the collapse of First Republic bank.The president praised regulators and JP Morgan bank, the nation’s largest, that stepped in to pick up First Republic’s deposits and assets, safeguarding money invested in the failed California institution.Here’s what else we followed:
      Kevin McCarthy launched a robust defense of his stance on Ukraine in a testy exchange with a Russian reporter in Jerusalem. The speaker, with a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary, challenged the reporter’s assertion that Republican rightwingers weakened his position by calling for an end to US aid.
      The Democratic governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee, announced he would not seek a fourth term in elections next year.
      It followed an announcement by Democratic Maryland senator Ben Cardin that he was standing down after three terms in office, creating a primary battle for a seat crucial to his party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber in the 2024 election.
      Ron DeSantis’s war on Disney escalated with a decision by his hand-picked board overseeing the theme park giant to sue the company. Disney sued the board last week saying the Republican Florida governor’s seizure of power over the company was a retaliatory move for opposing his “don’t say gay” law.
      Dominion Voting Systems executives insisted its $787.5m settlement with Fox News over the media company’s lies about the 2020 election did not include a requirement that rightwing TV celebrity Tucker Carlson be dismissed. Fox fired Carlson last week.
      Attorneys for Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr filed a lawsuit seeking her return to the House floor, a week after Republicans banished the transgender Democrat for her opposition to a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for trans children.
      Donald Trump will appear next week in a town hall debate hosted by CNN. The surprise announcement said the former president will participate in the 10 May event for Republican and undecided voters at St Anselm college, a liberal arts campus in Manchester, New Hampshire.
      Please join us again tomorrow for more live US politics.The US military is tracking a mysterious balloon that flew over American soil, NBC News is reporting. It is not clear what it is or who it belongs to, according to three US officials cited by the network.The object flew across portions of Hawaii but did not go over any sensitive areas, the officials said.NBC reported the military had been tracking the object since late last week and has not determined if posed a threat to aerial traffic or national security. It was not communicating signals, one official said.It is also not clear if it is a weather balloon or something else, the official said, adding that the US military could shoot it down if it nears land.It was revealed last month that a Chinese spy balloon that flew over parts of the US earlier this year, and was shot down in February, had sent sensitive intelligence from US military sites back to Beijing.Donald Trump will appear next week in a town hall debate hosted by CNN, the cable news channel he has frequently and loudly derided as “fake news”.The network made the surprise announcement on Monday afternoon, saying the former president will participate in the 10 May event for Republican and undecided voters at St Anselm college, a liberal arts campus in Manchester, New Hampshire.The event will be hosted by Kaitlan Collins, host of CNN This Morning.Trump attacked the network frequently during his single term in office, at one stage revoking the press credentials of White House correspondent Jim Acosta, a particular bête noire. Acosta was reinstated after a legal challenge.It is not yet known who else might be appearing at the event.Attorneys for Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr are asking a court to allow for her return to the House floor, a week after Republicans banished the transgender Democrat for her opposition to a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for trans children.A lawsuit was filed Monday in state district court in Helena on behalf of Zephyr and several constituents who say they are being denied their right to adequate representation, the Associated Press reported.Zephyr was removed from the chamber last week after telling Republicans they would have “blood on your hands” if they voted for the measure.The controlling party said her actions “violated decorum” and that she had incited protests at the statehouse.The legal challenge against House speaker Matt Regier and statehouse sergeant-at-arms Bradley Murfitt comes with just days left in the legislature’s biennial session. Neither has commented on the lawsuit.Another prominent Democrat, the governor of Washington state Jay Inslee, has announced he won’t be seeking re-election. It follows the declaration earlier Monday by Maryland senator Ben Cardin that he was standing down.Inslee won election to a third term in 2020, but said in a statement: “I’m ready to pass the torch”.He didn’t say what he intended to do after his retirement next year, but said: “Now is the time to intensely focus on all we can accomplish in the next year and a half”.Inslee, who ran for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2020, added: “Serving the people as governor of Washington state has been my greatest honor”.Senior Democrat Jamie Raskin – the Maryland congressman – has paid tribute to his friend Ben Cardin, his state’s US senator who has announced he’s standing down after three terms in office:
      After 58 years of integrity-filled public service, where he showed his prodigious work ethic from Annapolis to Washington, senator Ben Cardin has assembled a remarkable record of advancing the needs and priorities of Maryland.
      I salute him and have congratulated him on a truly amazing and inspiring career devoted to service of our people and the old-fashioned public values of honesty and decency. I want to thank him, his beloved wife Myrna and their whole family for their outstanding and continuing contributions to our state.
      In his own statement saying he had given his “heart and soul” to the state, Cardin said he would remain in office until the 2024 election:
      There is still much work to be done. During the next two years, I will continue to travel around the state, listening to Marylanders and responding to their needs.
      My top priorities include continuing our progress for the Chesapeake Bay, helping the people of Baltimore city deal with the challenges they face, and permanently expanding opportunities for telehealth, mental and behavioral health.
      Kevin McCarthy had a testy exchange with a Russian reporter over the war in Ukraine after his speech to the Israeli Knesset this afternoon.Asked if Ukraine was losing the support of Republicans, following comments by rightwingers such as McCarthy ally Marjorie Taylor-Greene that the US “had done enough” to help the country against the Russian invasion, the speaker of the American House of Representatives was firm:
      I vote for aid for Ukraine. I support aid for Ukraine. I do not support what your country has done to Ukraine. I do not support your killing of the children either.
      And I think for one standpoint, you [Russia] should pull out and I don’t think it’s right, and we will continue to support because the rest of the world sees it just as it is.
      Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of California’s First Republic bank, the third US lender to fail this year. He said the swift action of regulators, and JP Morgan bank, the nation’s largest, to take on First Republic’s deposits and most assets, helped ensure the US banking system was “safe and secure”.Here’s what else we’ve been following:
      Kevin McCarthy, the first speaker to address the Knesset for 25 years, talked up US-Israel relations in Jerusalem, and pledged full financial support for the country’s security. He promised US support for ensuring Iran never obtains nuclear weapons.
      Ron DeSantis’s war on Disney stepped up a notch with a decision by his hand-picked board overseeing the theme park giant to file its own lawsuit against the company. Disney sued the board last week saying the Florida governor’s seizure of power over the company was a retaliatory move for its opposition to his “don’t say gay” law.
      Democratic Maryland senator Ben Cardin announced he was standing down after three terms in office, opening the prospect of a furious primary battle for a seat crucial to his party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber in the 2024 election.
      Dominion Voting Systems executives have been insisting that its $787.5m settlement with Fox News over the media company’s lies about the 2020 election did not include a requirement that rightwing TV celebrity Tucker Carlson be dismissed. Fox fired Carlson last week.
      We’ve plenty more coming up this afternoon. Please stick with us.Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of First Republic Bank, insisting that the “safety and security” of the US banking system was paramount.JP Morgan stepped in quickly to snap up the “deposits and substantially all assets” of the California bank, the third US lender to fail this year.Biden praised the swiftness of the takeover by the nation’s largest bank:
      I’m pleased to say that regulators have taken action to facilitate the sale of First Republic bank, making sure that all depositors are protected, and the taxpayers are not on the hook.
      These actions are going to make sure that the banking system is safe and sound. And that includes protecting small businesses across the country who need to make payroll for workers and their small businesses.
      Touting the economic successes of his administration during an address for small business week, Biden used the crisis to pivot to an attack on so-called make America great again (Maga) Republicans he said were threatening the economy by presenting proposals over raising the national debt limit that were unacceptable:
      The most immediate thing we can do is ensure the continued reliance of our economy and the financial system. The most important thing we have to do in that regard is to make sure the threat by the speaker of the House to default on the national debt is off the table.
      For over 200 years, America has never, ever ever failed with a debt. America is not a deadbeat nation. We have never, ever failed to meet the debt.
      As a result, one of the most respected nations of the world, we pay our bills and we should do so without reckless hostage taking from some of the Maga Republicans in Congress.
      Read more:Long-serving Democratic senator Ben Cardin of Maryland is expected to announce his retirement Monday after serving three terms, opening a rare vacancy in the chamber ahead of the 2024 election, according to the Associated Press, citing his spokesperson.The 79-year-old plans to release a statement saying he will not seek reelection. His retirement is likely to create a highly competitive Democratic primary to replace him as the party faces a tough electoral map to maintain its slim majority next year.Cardin has served in the Senate since 2006, when he won a seat to replace retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes. Before that, he was a congressman who represented a large part of Baltimore and several nearby suburbs, winning his first House race in 1986.During his tenure in the Senate, Cardin has been a leader on health care, retirement security, the environment and fiscal issues. The senator has been a leading advocate for clean water and the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary, which flows in his home state.No reason for his decision was given. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Unlikely Heroes review: the advisers who helped FDR shape America

      by

      No modern American political era has been the subject of more books than the 12 years in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. But Derek Leebaert’s personality-driven account of the life and times of our greatest president quickly convinces us there is a place for one more compelling volume.Leebaert’s formal focus is on the four people many agree were the most important deputies to FDR:
      Harry Hopkins, the “son of an itinerant harness maker from Iowa” who became the president’s number one adviser and as secretary of commerce the nation’s “largest employer”, as the New Deal fought to end the massive unemployment of the Great Depression.
      Harold Ickes, who Roosevelt “appointed out of nowhere” to be secretary of the interior, an early advocate for African Americans and Native Americans, the “first American official to be denounced by Hitler” and a “formidable war administrator” who became central to the allies’ victory in the second world war.
      Frances Perkins, secretary of labor and the first woman in the US cabinet, who made the creation of social security a condition of her employment during her job interview on the second floor of Roosevelt’s house on East 65th Street in Manhattan.
      Henry Wallace, the “foremost agronomist” in the western hemisphere who was secretary of agriculture and whose fabled intellectual strength was eventually matched by an extreme naivety about the failings of Joseph Stalin.
      Leebaert’s admirable strategy is to tell us as much about the personal struggles of these four giants as he does about their extraordinary achievements in the greatest administration of all. Part of his thesis is that they were so successful because their boss was as good at exploiting their weaknesses as he was at cultivating their strengths.Leebaert is also masterful at making his history relevant by reminding us of similarities between the challenges Roosevelt faced and issues that bedevil us today.It was during the re-election campaign in 1936 that FDR first talked about how a “concentration of wealth” had generated an “inequality of opportunity”. His more enlightened contemporaries were shocked that chief executive salaries of $100,000 towered over “the $1,200 that barely half of all families could hope for”.Leebaert immediately reminds us how much worse that problem has become in our time, when a “CEO’s job comes at a ratio of 320 to 1 for a worker’s”.There are many other echoes of our own time. We learn about Perkins’ foresight in trying to convince a young New York company, IBM, to invent a way of keeping track of state unemployment records. We are reminded that the original promoters of the America First slogan were the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, a publisher whose greediness and contempt for democracy have been perfectly replicated by Rupert Murdoch.Ickes’ personal struggles provide some of the book’s liveliest passages. First we learn that his “long wretched marriage to a rich divorcée only turned worse after he seduced his stepdaughter”. Almost as soon as he moved into his new office as secretary of the interior, Ickes began an affair with one Marguerite Moser. He dispatched Moser’s fiance to a job in the midwest, then hired his mistress at his own office as well as her female roommate. When the fiance complained that he wanted to come back to Washington, he got a job at headquarters as well.When Ickes started receiving blackmail letters about his affair, at the advice of a White House aide he used “the cruder methods of thuggish interior department investigators”. They persuaded a property manager to open the apartment of the jealous fiance, from which “carbon paper and an incriminating typewriter were removed”. The letters stopped and the fiance lost his government job – but eventually did marry Ickes’ mistress.Ickes’ defiance of convention had much more beneficial effects, as when he began his tenure by ending the segregation of Black and white employees at his department, then hired Black architects and engineers to work on some of thousands of New Deal public works projects.The scope of such efforts is suggested by the fact that in two days, Ickes authorized two of the biggest New York City transportation initiatives: the Lincoln tunnel under the Hudson river, connecting Manhattan and New Jersey, and the Triborough bridge that links three Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis was truly the era when the government worked for its citizens. The Works Progress Administration would eventually employ 9 million Americans over eight years. Between 1933 and 1940, “federal spending would double as tax revenue tripled, which included a Wealth Tax Act in 1935, which raised the top federal rate to 75%”.Also in 1935, the president signed into law his labor secretary’s signature project, the Social Security Act. The year before that, Ickes shepherded the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which ended 50 years of forced assimilation of Native Americans.The struggle to get the US into the second world war is covered with equal thoroughness in the second half of the book, including Ickes’ vital role as one of the first to identify the mortal danger posed by Hitler.Leebaert has written a panoramic history of one of the most successful eras of the US. By the end of his 432 pages, the author has made a convincing case that Roosevelt’s “fractious team of four” may well have been “the single most important to ever have shaped their country’s history”.
      Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made is published in the US by St Martin’s Press More