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      Proud Boys leader and three others convicted of seditious conspiracy for January 6 attack – as it happened

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      From 6h agoFormer Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio has been convicted of seditious conspiracy.The conviction follows a seven-day jury deliberation on five members of the far-right neo-fascist organizations who have been accused of conspiring against the peaceful power transition between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in January 2021.Three other members of the Proud Boys – Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl – have also been convicted after facing a slew of charges including conspiracy charges, evidence tampering and obstruction of the Electoral College vote.Member Domic Pezzola was also charged but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on his seditious conspiracy charge.Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6, 2021 during the deadly Capitol riots but prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol where 5 people died.Since the riots, Tarrio became a top target of the largest investigation by the justice department in American history.Defense lawyers argued that there was no plan to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. One of Tarrio’s lawyer tried to divert the blame on Trump, saying that the former president incited the attack after he told the mob to “fight like hell,” the Associated Press reports.The seditious conspiracy charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.It’s 4pm in Washington DC today. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      A grandnephew of Clarence Thomas, whom the supreme court justice described as a “son”, had his private school tuition paid for by billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow, according to a new investigation by ProPublica. Financial documents reviewed by ProPublica showed that in July 2009, a payment was made by Crow’s company to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in northern Georgia where tuition ran over $6,00 monthly.
      Former Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio has been convicted of seditious conspiracy. The conviction follows a seven-day jury deliberation on five members of the far-right neo-fascist organizations who have been accused of conspiring against the peaceful power transition between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in January 2021.
      Donald Trump is seeking to move his his criminal case by Manhattan’s district attorney to federal court, his lawyers said on Thursday. Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said that Trump’s defense team is planning to file a motion on Thursday that will transfer the case involving hush-money payments from state court to federal court.
      New York City mayor Eric Adams has criticized representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her remarks that condemned the death of a homeless subway rider. “I don’t think that’s very responsible at the time where we are still investigating the situation,” Adams said on CNN on Wednesday night after Ocasio-Cortez called the death of Jordan Neely a “murder.”
      In the latest behind-the-scenes video of Tucker Carlson published by the progressive watchdog Media Matters for America, the now fired Fox News host asks a makeup artist about what women do in the bathroom and if they ever have pillow fights. The footage of the insinuating comments follows the leak of video of Carlson making coarse remarks about a woman and Fox News viewers in general.
      Following vice president Kamala Harris’s meeting today with CEOs of tech companies including Microsoft and Google, Harris said the private sector has a “legal responsibility” to ensure the safety of AI products. “As I shared today with CEOs of companies at the forefront of American AI innovation, the private sector has an ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products. And every company must comply with existing laws to protect the American people,” said Harris in a statement.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has declined to comment on the recent reports surrounding supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s acceptance of undisclosed luxury gifts. Jean-Pierre told reporters: “Right now…as it relates to the ethics, as it relates to that process, the senate is clearly moving forward with their own senate procedural process. I’m going to leave it there for now,” she said.
      Following the verdict delivered earlier today that found three members and the leader of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys guilty of seditious conspiracy, the White House declined to comment on the case,” saying that it does not want to “interfere.” Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “We have seen the verdict but while the verdict has been reached in this case, we are also mindful that there are other similar cases pending and so we don’t want to interfere with those.”
      Democratic senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the senate finance committee, has announced that he is urging Harlan Crow “for answers” on his luxury gifts to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. “I’m pushing Harlan Crow for answers on his lavish gifts to Clarence Thomas. If he doesn’t comply by May 8, I will absolutely explore other tools at the Finance Committee’s disposal to shed more light on what appears to be blatant corruption,” he said.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Democratic senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the senate finance committee, has announced that he is urging Harlan Crow “for answers” on his luxury gifts to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. On Thursday, following reports that Thomas accepted private school tuition payments made to his grandnephew by the GOP billionaire donor, Wyden tweeted:
      “I’m pushing Harlan Crow for answers on his lavish gifts to Clarence Thomas. If he doesn’t comply by May 8, I will absolutely explore other tools at the Finance Committee’s disposal to shed more light on what appears to be blatant corruption.”
      Following the verdict delivered earlier today that found three members and the leader of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys guilty of seditious conspiracy, the White House declined to comment on the case,” saying that it does not want to “interfere.”Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “We have seen the verdict but while the verdict has been reached in this case, we are also mindful that there are other similar cases pending and so we don’t want to interfere with those.”“I would refer you to the department of justice for comment on this case….but we’re going to be mindful as we know there are other pending issues here,” she added.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has declined to comment on the recent reports surrounding supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s acceptance of undisclosed luxury gifts. When asked by a reporter during Thursday’s press briefing on why she has not commented on any stories related to Thomas and his code of conduct, Jean-Pierre replied:“Right now…as it relates to the ethics, as it relates to that process, the senate is clearly moving forward with their own senate procedural process. I’m going to leave it there for now,” she said.Last month, following reports of Thomas’s acceptance of undisclosed luxury gifts including travel and private school tuition from GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow, senate Democrats urged supreme court chief justice John Roberts to investigate the undisclosed luxury trips.Earlier this week, senate Democrats called for tighter rules on the supreme court justices surrounding ethics standards but met resistance from Republicans who condemned Democrats’ efforts as an “assault.”Republican senator Lindsey Graham condemned Democrats, labeling their efforts as an attempt to “delegitimize a conservative court.”Following vice president Kamala Harris’s meeting today with CEOs of tech companies including Microsoft and Google, Harris said the private sector has a “legal responsibility” to ensure the safety of AI products.
      “As I shared today with CEOs of companies at the forefront of American AI innovation, the private sector has an ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products. And every company must comply with existing laws to protect the American people,” said Harris in a statement.
      She added that she is working alongside president Joe Biden are working on advancing potential new regulations and supporting new legislation “so that everyone can safety benefit from technological innovations.”More lunchtime reading, this time from Poppy Noor, who considers the considerable political challenges facing Republicans over strict abortion bans passed after the downfall of Roe v Wade …In one state, Republican women filibustered to block a near total abortion ban introduced by their own party.In another, the Republican co-sponsor of a six-week abortion ban tanked his own bill. On the federal level, a Republican congresswoman warns that the GOP’s abortion stance could meaning “losing huge” in 2024.As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show.READ ON:Our regular guest columnist, the Vermont senator and former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, would like a word about American workplace culture and particularly the toll of so spending so many hours in the office, factory, shop or other place of gainful employ …In 1938, as a result of a massive grassroots effort by the trade union movement, the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted by Congress to reduce the work week to 40 hours. Back then, the American people were sick and tired of working 80, 90, 100 hours a week with very little time for rest, relaxation or quality time with their families. They demanded change and they won a huge victory. That’s the good news.The bad news is that despite an explosion in technology, major increases in worker productivity, and transformational changes in the workplace and American society, the Fair Labor Standards Act has not been reformed in 80 years. The result: millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, with the average worker making nearly $50 a week less than he or she did 50 years ago, after adjusting for inflation. Further, family life is suffering, as parents don’t have adequate time for their kids, life expectancy for working people is in decline, and increased stress is a major factor in the mental health crisis we are now experiencing.Compared with other countries, our workplace record is not good. In 2021, American employees worked 184 more hours than Japanese workers, 294 more hours than British workers, and 442 more hours than German workers. Unbelievably, in 2023 there are millions of Americans who work at jobs with no vacation time.It’s time to reduce the work week to 32 hours with no loss in pay. It’s time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life. It’s time to make sure that working people benefit from rapidly increasing technology, not just large corporations that are already doing phenomenally well.READ ON:In the latest behind-the-scenes video of Tucker Carlson published by the progressive watchdog Media Matters for America, the now fired Fox News host asks a makeup artist about what women do in the bathroom and if they ever have pillow fights.The footage of the insinuating comments follows the leak of video of Carlson making coarse remarks about a woman and Fox News viewers in general; a discussion of sexual technique with Piers Morgan; disparaging remarks about the Fox Nation streaming service; and comments about a lawyer who deposed Carlson in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit, who the host called a “slimy little motherfucker”.That suit, over Fox News’ broadcast of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 US election, was settled last month for $787.5m. Shortly after that, Carlson was surprisingly fired.Speculation and reporting about why Carlson was fired continues.Earlier this week, the New York Times published a racially inflammatory text message Carlson sent after the Capitol attack. That message was redacted in Dominion filings but other message, including abusive comments, were released. Carlson’s comments about Fox News executives were reportedly linked to his firing, including one in which he is reported to have called a female executive a “cunt”. A former booker on his show also filed suit, alleging a misogynistic working atmosphere.Fox News has not commented on why Carlson was fired. It has called the suit from the former booker, Abby Grossberg, “unmeritorious” and “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees”.Last week, a person close to Carlson told the Guardian the firing was not over abusive messages or crude comments.“An elderly Australian man” – the Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, 92 – “fired his top anchor with no warning because he was so offended by a dirty word? Stupidest explanation ever. Please. A big decision requires a powerful motive. Naughty words in text messages don’t qualify.”In the footage released on Thursday, Carlson is seen on-set, having makeup applied by an unidentified woman.He says: “Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer, it’s personal.”The woman indicates assent.Carlson says: “I’m not speaking of you, but more in general with ladies, when they go to the ladies room and ‘powder their noses’, is there actually nose-powdering going on?The woman says: “Sometimes.”Carlson says: “Oooh. I like the sound of that.”The woman says: “Most of the time, it’s lipstick.”Carlson says: “Do pillow fights ever break out? You don’t have to, you don’t have to –”The woman says: “Not in the bathroom.”Carlson says: “OK. Not in the bathroom. That’d be more a dorm activity.”After an unintelligible remark off camera, Carlson apologises.“I’m sorry,” he says. “You are such a good sport. Such a good person. Thank you. I know you do, but you do not deserve that. And I mean it with great affection.”New York City mayor Eric Adams has criticized representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her remarks that condemned the death of a homeless subway rider.“I don’t think that’s very responsible at the time where we are still investigating the situation,” Adams said on CNN on Wednesday night.“Let’s the DA conduct his investigation with the law enforcement officials. To really interfere with that is not the right thing to do,” he continued.Adams’ remarks comes after Ocasio-Cortez condemned the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year old Black homeless person who died after a 24-year-old former marine placed him in a chokehold on the subway.
      “Jordan Neely was murdered. But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It’s disgusting,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
      “It is appalling how so many take advantage of headlines re: crime for an obsolete ‘tough on crime’ political, media, & budgetary gain, but when a public murder happens that reinforces existing power structures, those same forces rush to exonerate & look the other way. We shouldn’t,” she added.
      Donald Trump is seeking to move his his criminal case by Manhattan’s district attorney to federal court, his lawyers said on Thursday.Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said that Trump’s defense team is planning to file a motion on Thursday that will transfer the case involving hush-money payments from state court to federal court.The announcement comes a month after Trump appeared at a Manhattan courtroom for his arraignment as prosecutors accused him of committing 34 felony counts involving an alleged cover up of an extramarital sex scandal involving adult star Stormy Daniels.Trump has pleaded not guilty.Trump’s attempt to transfer the case to federal court will likely be a “long shot,” the New York Times reports, and will not have any immediate impact on the current state case.A federal judge will decide whether to approve the request or not.Former Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio has been convicted of seditious conspiracy.The conviction follows a seven-day jury deliberation on five members of the far-right neo-fascist organizations who have been accused of conspiring against the peaceful power transition between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in January 2021.Three other members of the Proud Boys – Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl – have also been convicted after facing a slew of charges including conspiracy charges, evidence tampering and obstruction of the Electoral College vote.Member Domic Pezzola was also charged but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on his seditious conspiracy charge.Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6, 2021 during the deadly Capitol riots but prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol where 5 people died.Since the riots, Tarrio became a top target of the largest investigation by the justice department in American history.Defense lawyers argued that there was no plan to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. One of Tarrio’s lawyer tried to divert the blame on Trump, saying that the former president incited the attack after he told the mob to “fight like hell,” the Associated Press reports.The seditious conspiracy charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.Several political advocacy organizations have issued statements condemning Clarence Thomas in light of recent reports surrounding his failure to disclose luxury gifts. Stand Up America, a nonprofit grassroots organization focusing combatting corruption and voter suppression, has called for a “thorough investigation” into Thomas. In a statement to the Guardian, Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs, said:
      “This ethical crisis at the Supreme Court just keeps getting worse… We don’t yet know the full extent of Justice Thomas’ ethical violations, but the existing evidence of a corrupt relationship is overwhelming and should alarm every American.
      Congress must hold this Court in check and restore public trust in our justice system by conducting a thorough investigation into Thomas’ financial dealings with Crow and finally passing a code of ethics for the Supreme Court. The American people should have confidence that their highest court is free from corruption.”
      Similarly, Acccountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog organization that sheds light on special interests and unchecked power, has called for “urgent reform” in the supreme court.In a statement to the Guardian, Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig said:
      “Billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow didn’t just bankroll Thomas’s luxury travel, his mother’s house, and his wife’s job — he also covered his kid’s private school tuition, which he conveniently didn’t disclose.
      Over decades, these two have maintained a highly problematic financial relationship that has facilitated what looks like corruption at the highest levels. Meanwhile, Chief Justice Roberts has completely dodged responsibility by refusing to take action while the Court’s legitimacy crisis grows. We need urgent reform to restore public trust in our Court.”
      A new investigation by ProPublica revealed that billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow paid the tuition of Mark Martin, a grandnephew of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.According to ProPublica, Mark Martin, whom Thomas obtained legal custody over when Martin was 6-years old, attended a private boarding school in northern Georgia called Hidden Lakes Academy for about a year.During his time at the school, his tuition was paid for by Crow, former school administrator Christopher Grimwood told ProPublica. A bank document reviewed by the investigative outlet from 2009 showed a wire transfer of $6,200 to the school from Crow’s company. The transfer was labeled with “Mark Martin.”The investigation also found that before and after Martin’s time at Hidden Lake Academy, he attended Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia, another boarding school. “Harlan said he was paying for the tuition at Randolph-Macon Academy as well,” Grimwood recalled Crow telling him during a visit to the real estate magnate’s estate in the Adirondacks.Despite disclosing a gift of $5,000 for Martin’s education from another friend several years earlier, Thomas did not disclose Crow’s tuition payments, according to ProPublica.Crow’s spokespersons have defended Crow’s payments, telling ProPublica in a statement:
      “Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth… he and his wife have supported many young Americans through scholarship and other programs at a variety of schools…
      Harlan and Kathy have particularly focused on students who are at risk of falling behind or missing out on opportunities to better themselves… Tuition and other financial assistance is given directly to academic institutions, not to students or to their families. These scholarships and other contributions have always been paid solely from personal funds, sometimes held at and paid through the family business.”
      The report follows last month’s bombshell report by ProPublica that revealed Thomas had accepted luxury travel from Crow annually for decades without publicly disclosing them.The revelations have caught the ire of many lawmakers and ethics experts.Earlier this week, Democrats called for tighter rules and ethics standards for the supreme court justices, which Republicans pushed back against, calling Democrats’ efforts an “assault…[and] about trying to delegitimize a conservative court.”Good morning, US politics readers. A great-nephew of Clarence Thomas, whom the supreme court justice described as a “son”, had his private school tuition paid for by billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow, according to a new investigation by ProPublica.Financial documents reviewed by ProPublica showed that in July 2009, a payment was made by Crow’s company to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in northern Georgia where tuition ran over $6,00 monthly. The payment of $6,200 was labeled with the name of Thomas’s great-nephew, Mark Martin.Martin, who was taken into legal custody by Thomas when he was six years old, had his tuition paid for entirely by Crow during his time at Hidden Lake Academy, which was about a year, according to a former school administrator Christopher Grimwood.Thomas did not report Crow’s tuition payments on his annual financial disclosures, ProPublica revealed in its investigation. This investigation follows another ProPublica report last month which revealed that Thomas accepted luxury travel from Crow for decades without disclosing them on his financial reports.Here are other developments in US politics:
      A New York judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit that accused the New York Times of an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records.
      Vice president Kamala Harris will meet with Google and Microsoft CEOs today to discuss AI risks.
      Iowa lawmakers have passed a Republican-led bill that allows teenagers to work longer hours and take previously banned jobs. More

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      Senate Democrats highlight ‘terrible choice’ of Republicans’ debt ceiling plan

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      Senate Democrats held a hearing on Thursday to lambaste House Republicans’ proposal to raise the US government’s borrowing limit in exchange for spending cuts, as economists testified that a federal default would bring disastrous and decades-long consequences.The hearing came a week after House Republicans narrowly passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act to raise the debt ceiling until May 2024. The legislation, championed by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, would also roll back federal discretionary spending to 2022 levels and cap annual increases at 1%.Mocking the bill as the “Default on America Act”, Democrats warned that the legislation would result in devastating cuts to veterans’ benefits, childcare access and infrastructure funding.“Republicans’ dangerous bill proposes a terrible choice: default on our financial obligations, causing widespread pain and wrecking our economy, or gut basic federal programs essential to our economic strength, causing widespread pain and wrecking our economy,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic chair of the Senate budget committee. “It is a false and unnecessary choice.”Republicans on the committee countered that the House bill should be interpreted as an “opening bid” to kickstart negotiations with Joe Biden, who has repeatedly called on Congress to pass a “clean” bill raising the debt ceiling without any strings attached. Biden has invited the top four congressional leaders to a meeting at the White House next week to discuss the debt ceiling.“I hope when the president sits down with the speaker, he will bring an open mind and a serious counteroffer,” said Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican ranking member of the budget committee. “The longer the president spends dragging his feet and putting off negotiations, the closer President Biden brings us to the first ever federal default in US history.”Three economists testified to the committee that a default would prove calamitous for the country and global markets, causing America’s unemployment rate to rise and its gross domestic product (GDP) to tumble.Dr Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, predicted a “severe recession” in the US if lawmakers do not address the debt ceiling. The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, sent a letter to congressional leaders on Monday informing them that the US government would be unable to cover its financial obligations as early as 1 June.Zandi added that this moment is “an especially inopportune time to have a political debate over the debt limit” because the current risk of an American recession is “uncomfortably high”. That risk heightens the danger of enacting House Republicans’ bill, Zandi argued.“It entails significant cuts to government spending … right at the point in time when the economy is going to be most vulnerable to going into recession,” Zandi said.But all three economists also agreed that the “unsustainable” trajectory of America’s debt must be met with urgency by policymakers.“We are sitting on a ticking timebomb,” said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the conservative thinktank Manhattan Institute. “Congress should be working diligently to avert an otherwise inevitable debt crisis, and raising the debt limit has historically been one opportunity to address the underlying debt problem.”Democrats expressed openness to amending the federal budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in October, but they emphasized that such a discussion must be separated from the immediate need to address the debt ceiling.“If we want to have a real discussion about revenues and spending, that’s great,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democratic member of the committee. “Don’t default. But let’s have that debate about what’s fair for the majority of American people.”Biden has similarly invited a bipartisan conversation on budgetary reform, but he has steadfastly rejected Republican efforts to tie the debt ceiling to government spending negotiations.“America is not a deadbeat nation,” Biden said on Monday. “We pay our bills, and we should do so without reckless hostage-taking from some of the [‘Make America Great Again’] Republicans in Congress.”Whitehouse noted Senate Democrats have introduced a two-page bill raising the debt ceiling until December 2024, ensuring the issue would not be revisited until after the next presidential election, but such a bill seems unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House. Democrats in the House have simultaneously launched a long-shot bid to pass a clean debt ceiling bill through the lower chamber, but the odds of five of their Republican colleagues joining that effort seem slim to none.As the clock ticks down, lawmakers are running out of time to avoid catastrophe, Zandi testified.“We are on a certain unsustainable fiscal path. We need both additional tax revenue and we need spending restraint. Both of those things need to happen. But we can’t do that in the current environment,” Zandi told senators. “This is not the time to do it. We need to end this drama as quickly as possible.” More

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

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      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

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      Federal Reserve increases interest rates by a quarter point to 16-year high – as it happened

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      From 6h agoThe Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates this afternoon, with an announcement coming at 2pm ET from the central bank after its most recent board meeting. Analysts expect the Fed will raise rates by a quarter point, which will bring rates up to 5% to 5.25%. This would be the central bank’s 10th interest rate increase since March 2022, when rates were at zero.The interest rate increase will come at what in hindsight may seem like an inflection point for the economy. Inflation is down, consumer spending has flattened and growth in the job market is starting to slow down, but Fed officials, especially Fed chair Jerome Powell, have been stringent on getting inflation down to their target of 2%. Inflation in March was 5%, the lowest it’s been since 2021, but still quite far from 2%.Analysts and economists will be closely watching Powell’s press conference at 2.30pm, where he will discuss the direction Fed staff see the economy going, giving hints as to whether even more interest rate hikes are to come or whether the Fed will end its rate-hike campaign.Here’s a quick summary of everything that’s happened today:
      The Federal Reserve increased interest rates by a quarter point, bringing rates up to 5% to 5.25%. Fed chair Jerome Powell said that Fed officials no longer anticipate more hikes, but will monitor economic data to see if they are necessary in coming months. The stock market dipped slightly after the Fed’s announcement.
      The debate over the debt ceiling continued today, with news that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will keep himself out of the specific of negotiating talks and hints that senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are breaking from Dems and looking to take Senate negotiations seriously.
      2024 is already gearing up: Joe Biden released his second TV ad since launching his campaign last week, while US rep. Colin Allred of Texas announced his bid to unseat Texas senator Ted Cruz. In Nevada, Jim Marchant, an election denier and staunch supporter of Donald Trump, also announced a Senate big.
      We’ll be closing this blog for today. Thanks for reading.Democratic senator Raphael Warnock from Georgia said that his two young kids were on lockdown at school because of the shooting in midtown Atlanta.“They’re there. I’m here, hoping and praying they’re safe,” he said on the Senate floor. “Thoughts and prayers are not enough.”One person has been confirmed dead and at least four injured after a gunman opened fire in a building in midtown around 12.30pm ET. Police said they are still searching for a suspect.The Washington Post just published a cheery report that the White House and lawmakers on Capitol Hill technically have just six working days together before the US government potentially defaults on its debt on 1 June.With the House and Senate in session on different days, and Biden making international trips for the G7 summit in Japan and another “Quad” meeting with Australia, Japan and India in Australia, the legislative and executive branches are scheduled to have just six more days together to figure out the debt ceiling.Of course, negotiations can take place even when a chamber is not in session, but the precariousness of negotiations and the closeness of default makes the timing a tad inconvenient.Talking about the fallout of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said that it seems the worst of the crisis is over.“The severe period of stress, those have now all been resolved and all the depositors have been protected,” he said, adding that JPMorgan’s acquisition of First Republic bank marked the end of the worst of it all.Asked about lessons that he learned from the crisis, he noted that there needs to be stronger regulation and supervision, but declined to offer any specifics as he has tasked Fed vice chair Michael Barr with drafting specific policy proposals.“I am not aware of anybody thinking [the collapse] could happen so quickly,” Powell said. “Now that we know that was possible… it will be up to vice chair Barr to design ways to address that.”Today’s Federal Reserve interest rate hike is its second quarter-point hike in a row, after a series of half- and three-quarter point hikes over the last year. Fed chair Jerome Powell said at his press conference this afternoon that “slowing down was the right move”.“I think it’s enabled us to see more data and it will continue to do so. We have to always balance the risk of not doing enough and not getting inflation under control against the risk of maybe slowing down economic activity too much,” he said. “We thought that this rate hike, along with the meaningful change in our policy statement, was the right way to balance that.Asked about the possibility of a recession, Powell seemed optimistic that the Fed could achieve a “soft landing” – keeping interest rates high without seeing huge impacts on unemployment. He noted that even as rates have hit 5% over the last 14 months, the unemployment rate stands at 3.5%.“It’s possible that we can continue to have a cooling in the labor market without having the big increases in unemployment that have gone with many prior episodes,” he said.Of course, Powell noted earlier in the press conference that the full impacts of the interest rate increases have yet to be seen, acknowledging uncertainty about the full economic impact of rate hikes.Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell emphasized the importance of raising the debt ceiling, though noted that the debt limit is “fiscal policy matters”.“It’s essential that the debt ceiling be raised in a timely way so that the US government can pay all of its bills when they’re due. Failure to do that would be unprecedented,” he said. “We’d be in uncharted territory.Powell noted that the Fed doesn’t “give advice to either side” and also noted that “no one should assume that the Fed can protect the economy from the potential short- and long-term effects” upon default.He also noted that debt limit standoff did not play a role in the Fed’s decision today to increase interest rates.Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is holding a press conference after the central bank announced a quarter-point interest rate increase. Powell’s tone in the press conference has changed since he last addressed the press in March. The Fed is no longer anticipating needing more rate increases, but will monitor the economy in determining future interest rate changes.While Powell is still reiterating the Fed’s inflation target of 2%, he acknowledged that the economy is “seeing the effects of our policy tightening on demand and the most interest-rate-sensitive sectors of the economy, particularly housing and investment”. In other words, the Fed sees its interest rate hikes taking effect in the slowing of the economy.“There are some signs that supply and demand in the labor market are coming back into balance,” Powell said. He added that the “economy is likely to face further headwinds from tighter credit conditions”, meaning the full effects of the interest-rate hikes have yet to be seen.Taking a question from a reporter on whether the Fed’s statement today should be taken as a hint that officials will pause rate hikes, Powell said the officials did not make a decision on a pause, but noted that they intentionally updated their stance in today’s press statement that removed a line suggesting more increases would be appropriate.“Instead, we’re saying that in determining the extent to which [more hikes are needed], the Committee will take into account certain factors,” he said. “That’s a meaningful change that we are no longer saying we anticipate [changes] and we will be driven by incoming data meeting by meeting.”The press statement that came with the Federal Reserve’s announcement of another interest rate hike is nearly identical to the one that was released at its last meeting on 22 March, with one key exception.In its 22 March release, Fed officials in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) hinted that more interest rates are to come, saying: “The Committee anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate” in order to bring inflation down to the target of 2%.In today’s statement, that line was cut.The rest of the statement was in line with FOMC’s March meeting statement. They reiterated their stance that “inflation remains elevated” and the jobs market has been strong, with the unemployment rate low. They emphasized that “the US banking system is sound and resilient” and that they are “highly attentive to inflation risks”.Analysts have been wondering whether this interest rate increase will be the Fed’s last, with pauses to come after as the interest rate is held steady at future meetings.Any more hints about what is next for interest rates after this most recent hike will likely be made at Fed chair Jerome Powell’s press conference at 2.30pm ET.The Federal Reserve just announced a quarter-point interest rate increase. This brings the interest rate to a 16-year high at 5% to 5.25%. The central bank has been on a year-long campaign to temper inflation, though it has had to delicately balance the potential of shaking the economy too much with stringent rate increases.Fed chair Jerome Powell will lead a closely watched press conference, where he will discuss the Fed’s view on the state of the economy.The United Auto Workers (UAW) union said in an internal memo that it is holding off on a Joe Biden endorsement due to the president’s electric vehicle policies.UAW president Shawn Fain said in the memo that union leaders met with Biden last week and discussed “our concerns with the electric vehicle transition”, according to the New York Times. The union is concerned that auto workers will suffer during the transition to EV as less workers are needed to assemble EVs.“The EV transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom,” the memo reads, referring to electric vehicles. “We want to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.”The union has 400,000 members across the country, though members are primarily in auto-industry heavyweight Michigan, a key election battleground state.The FBI arrested a man in Florida on Tuesday for his involvement in the January 6th Capitol riots, specifically for setting off an “explosive device” in the US Capitol tunnel that leads into the building. Daniel Ball, 38, was first arrested last week by the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office for assaulting seven people, including law enforcement officers, in Florida. Ball’s probation officer, upon being shown photos and videos of the Capitol riot, identified Ball as the person throwing an explosive device in the tunnel, where law enforcement was blocking rioters.Ball faces multiple charges related to the riot, including assaulting police officers and entering a restricted area with a deadly weapon.The justice department said in March that at least 1,000 people have been arrested on charges related to the riots, with 518 pleading guilty to federal crimes so far.Election denier Jim Marchant announced that he will be running for US Senate, challenging Democrat incumbent senator Jacky Rosen for the seat she won last year.During his announcement speech on Tuesday, Marchant said that he is running to “protect Nevadans from the overbearing government, from Silicon Valley, from big media, from labor unions, from the radical gender-change advocates,” the Washington Post reported.His election campaign was acknowledged by Rosen on Twitter, who replied to Marchant’s announcement:
      Nevadans deserve a Senator who will fight for them, not a MAGA election denier who opposes abortion rights even in cases of rape and incest…
      While far-right politicians like Jim Marchant spread baseless conspiracy theories, I’ve always focused on solving problems for Nevadans.
      Marchant has described himself as a “MAGA conservative”, the Post reports, and is an avid supporter of Donald Trump. More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ‘not planning’ to run for Senate seat in 2024

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will not run for a seat in the US Senate next year, according to her office, clearing the way for incumbent New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, to run for re-election unopposed by the progressive congresswoman.“She is not planning to run for Senate in 2024. She is not planning to primary Gillibrand,” Lauren Hitt, Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesperson, told Politico.Gillibrand, who launched her re-election campaign in January for a third Senate term, was widely believed to be facing a number of potential challengers in the state primary, including Ocasio-Cortez.The announcement follows indications from other New York progressives, including Mondaire Jones and representatives Jamaal Bowman and Ritchie Torres, that they are not considering a challenge.New York Democrats were hit hard in the midterm elections last year and the loss of four seats to Republican candidates is widely blamed for the party losing control of Congress. Avoiding an acrimonious challenge from the progressive wing of the party, and concentrating on recovering the 2022 losses, is considered to be Democrats’ political priority.“I think it’s divisive. And unless you think you can win, it’s divisive unnecessarily,” Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York Democratic party, told Politico. “It’s using up resources we need to preserve for more coordinated work and the rest.”Camille Rivera, a New York-based progressive strategist, said that an intra-Democrat contest “could be pretty bruising and give a Republican a leg up”.Signs of a deal between Ocasio-Cortez and Gillibrand came after rumors of a Senate seat challenge began to circulate last year. Gillibrand has faced criticism for her part in forcing former senator Al Franken’s resignation, accepting donations from indicted crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried and ties to Wall Street.But Ocasio-Cortez’s staff’s choice of language – “not planning to run” is not the same as “not running”. Bronx representative Jamaal Bowman told the outlet he heard AOC’s name “weeks ago or months ago maybe” as a primary contender but hadn’t heard it since.Ocasio-Cortez’s indication comes as high-profile progressives have said they’ll support Joe Biden’s re-election bid, despite misgivings about parts of his agenda. Ocasio-Cortez has said she “unequivocally” supports the party’s nominees.Since Biden’s re-election soft launch on Tuesday, the sitting president has received endorsements from congressional progressive caucus leader Pramila Jayapal, representative Ro Khanna, and squad members Ilhan Omar, Greg Casar and Delia Ramirez.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe endorsements come despite disquiet about Biden’s recent push to the middle on crime, energy policy and immigration.“I think that people are looking at the incredible accomplishments, particularly the investments in climate change and equity, racial justice, and seeing that this is night and day from what anyone else has been able to do,” Jayapal told the Hill.Senator Elizabeth Warren has said she’s “delighted” about Biden’s decision. “I’m in all the way,” she told the outlet. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democrat nomination against Biden in 2020, told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday: “If you believe in democracy, you want to see more people vote, not fewer people vote, I think the choice is pretty clear, and that choice is Biden.”But Sanders leaned on Biden to be stronger on working-class issues, and urged the president and the party “to make it clear that we believe in a government that represents all, not just the few; take on the greed of the insurance companies, the drug companies, Wall Street, all the big money interests; and start delivering for working-class people.”“You do that, I think Biden is going to win in a landslide,” Sanders added. More

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      US House passes debt ceiling bill in tactical victory for Kevin McCarthy

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      House Republicans narrowly passed sweeping legislation on Wednesday that would raise the government’s legal debt ceiling by $1.5tn in exchange for steep spending restrictions, a tactical victory for the House speaker Kevin McCarthy as he challenges Joe Biden to negotiate and prevent a catastrophic federal default this summer.Biden has threatened to veto the Republican package, which has almost no chance of passing the Senate in the meantime, where Democrats hold a slim majority.The president has so far refused to negotiate over the debt ceiling which the White House insists must be lifted with no strings to ensure America pays its bills.But McCarthy’s ability to swiftly unite his slim majority in the House and bring the measure to passage over opposition from Democrats and even holdouts in his own party gives currency to the Republican speaker’s strategy to use the vote as an opening bid forcing Biden into talks. The two men could hardly be further apart on how to resolve the issue.The bill passed by a razor-thin 217-215 margin.“We’ve done our job,” McCarthy said after the vote.“The president can no longer ignore” the issue of federal spending limits, he said. “Now he should sit down and negotiate.”As the House debated the measure, Biden indicated he was willing to open the door to talks with McCarthy, but not on preventing a first-ever US default that would shake America’s economy and beyond.“Happy to meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended,” Biden said. “That’s not negotiable.”Passage of the sprawling 320-page package in the House is only the start of what is expected to become a weeks-long political slog as the president and Congress try to work out a compromise that would allow the nation’s debt, now at $31tn, to be lifted to allow further borrowing and stave off a fiscal crisis.The nation has never defaulted on its debt, and the House Republican majority hopes to maneuver Biden into a corner with its plan to roll back federal spending to fiscal 2022 levels and cap future spending increases at 1% over the next decade, among other changes.In exchange for raising the debt limit by $1.5 trillion into 2024, the bill would roll back overall federal spending and:
      Claw back unspent Covid-19 funds.
      Impose tougher work requirements for recipients of food stamps and other government aid.
      Halt Biden’s plans to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans.
      End many of the landmark renewable energy tax breaks Biden signed into law last year. It would tack on a sweeping Republican bill to boost oil, gas and coal production.
      Democrats derided the Republican plan as a “ransom note”, a “shakedown” and “an unserious bill” that was courting financial danger.It’s a first big test for the president and the Republican speaker, coming at a time of increased political anxiety about the ability of Washington to solve big problems amid the need to raise the federal debt limit in a matter of weeks.The treasury department is taking “extraordinary measures” to pay the bills, but funding is expected to run out this summer. Economists warn that even the serious threat of a federal debt default would send shockwaves through the economy.A nonpartisan congressional budget office analysis estimated the Republican plan would reduce federal deficits by $4.8tn over the decade if the proposed changes were enacted into law.In the Senate, leaders were watching and waiting.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said House passage of the legislation would be a “wasted effort” and that McCarthy should come to the table with Democrats to pass a straightforward debt-limit bill without GOP priorities and avoid default.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who stepped aside to give McCarthy the lead, said the speaker has been able to unite the House Republicans.Now, he said, Biden and McCarthy must come to agreement. Otherwise, he said, “We’ll be at a standoff. And we shouldn’t do that to the country.” More

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      Trump committed treason and will try again. He must be barred from running | Robert Reich

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      The most obvious question in American politics today should be: why is the guy who committed treason just over two years ago allowed to run for president?Answer: he shouldn’t be.Remember? Donald Trump lost re-election but refused to concede and instead claimed without basis that the election was stolen from him, then pushed state officials to change their tallies, hatched a plot to name fake electors, tried to persuade the vice-president to refuse to certify electoral college votes, sought access to voting-machine data and software, got his allies in Congress to agree to question the electoral votes and thereby shift the decision to the House of Representatives, and summoned his supporters to Washington on the day electoral votes were to be counted and urged them to march on the US Capitol, where they rioted.This, my friends, is treason.But Trump is running for re-election, despite the explicit language of section three of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which prohibits anyone who has held public office and who has engaged in insurrection against the United States from ever again serving in public office.The reason for the disqualification clause is that someone who has engaged in an insurrection against the United States cannot be trusted to use constitutional methods to regain office. (Notably, all three branches of the federal government have described the January 6 attack on the US Capitol as an “insurrection”.)Can any of us who saw (or have learned through the painstaking work of the January 6 committee) what Trump tried to do to overturn the results of the 2020 election have any doubt he will once again try to do whatever necessary to regain power, even if illegal and unconstitutional?Sure, the newly enacted Electoral Count Reform Act (amending the Electoral Count Act of 1887) filled some of the legal holes, creating a new threshold for members to object to a slate of electors (one-fifth of the members of both the House and the Senate), clarifying that the role of the vice-president is “solely ministerial” and requiring that Congress defer to slates of electors as determined by the states.But what if Trump gets secretaries of state and governors who are loyal to him to alter the election machinery to ensure he wins? What if he gets them to prevent people likely to vote for Joe Biden from voting at all?What if he gets them to appoint electors who will vote for him regardless of the outcome of the popular vote?What if, despite all of this, Biden still wins the election but Trump gets more than 20% of Republican senators and House members to object to slates of electors pledged to Biden, and pushes the election into the House where Trump has a majority of votes?Does anyone doubt the possibility – no, the probability – of any or all of this happening?Trump tried these tactics once. The likelihood of him trying again is greater now because his loyalists are now in much stronger positions throughout state and federal government.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionYes, they were held back in the 2020 midterms. But in state after state, and in Congress, Republicans who stood up to Trump have now been purged from the party. And lawmakers in what remains of the Republican party have made it clear that they will bend or disregard any rule that gets in their way.In many cases, the groundwork has been laid. As recently reported in the New York Times, for example, the Trump allies who traveled to Coffee county, Georgia, on 7 January 2021 gained access to sensitive election data. They copied election software used across Georgia and uploaded it on the internet – an open invitation to election manipulation by Trump allies in 2024.If anything, Trump is less constrained than he was in 2020.“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a line he repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally, in Waco, Texas, a few weeks later. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”Filing deadlines for 2024 presidential candidates will come in the next six months, in most states.Secretaries of state – who in most cases are in charge of deciding who gets on the ballot – must refuse to place Donald Trump’s name on the 2024 ballot, based on the clear meaning of section three of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. More