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    DeSantis inches closer to presidential run announcement with California speech – as it happened

    That’s it from our live blog today. Here’s how the day unfolded in US politics:
    Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis appears to be moving toward announcing his presidential campaign after delivering a speech yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. In the speech, DeSantis’ condemned other states’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic and celebrated Florida as a “citadel of freedom”. DeSantis is expected to formally enter the GOP primary in the next couple of months.
    The DC city council will withdraw its bill revising the local criminal code from congressional consideration, the panel’s chairperson announced. The news comes after Joe Biden said he would not veto a Republican measure to overturn the DC bill. Despite the council’s move to withdraw the bill, the Senate still plans to vote on the matter this week, according to CNN.
    Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won the vice-presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend. Lake defeated other contenders with 20% of the vote, while DeSantis came in second place at 14% and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley trailed with 10%. Lake is best known for losing the Arizona gubernatorial race last year and peddling the lie that her election was tainted by widespread fraud.
    Biden reportedly plans to travel to the west coast next week to fundraise, as the president is widely expected to formally launch his reelection campaign in the next several weeks. Biden is expected to make stops in California and Nevada as he meets with donors.
    Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, is “well on his way to recovery” after being hospitalized to receive treatment for depression, his top adviser said. Fetterman’s chair of staff, Adam Jentleson, shared photos of a morning meeting with the senator and said he continues to weigh in on legislation as he recovers.
    The live blog will be back tomorrow morning with more updates and analysis of US politics. See you then.Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, is “well on his way to recovery” after being hospitalized to receive treatment for depression, his top adviser said.Fetterman’s chair of staff, Adam Jentleson, shared photos of a meeting this morning with the senator and said he continues to weigh in on legislation as he recovers.“Productive morning with Senator Fetterman at Walter Reed discussing the rail safety legislation, Farm Bill and other Senate business,” Jentleson said on Twitter. “John is well on his way to recovery and wanted me to say how grateful he is for all the well wishes. He’s laser focused on PA & will be back soon.”Productive morning with Senator Fetterman at Walter Reed discussing the rail safety legislation, Farm Bill and other Senate business. John is well on his way to recovery and wanted me to say how grateful he is for all the well wishes. He’s laser focused on PA & will be back soon. pic.twitter.com/143uAhoQRx— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) March 6, 2023
    Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed last month, following an evaluation by Dr Brian P Monahan, the attending physician of the US Congress. Fetterman’s office said he has “experienced depression off and on throughout his life,” and his symptoms had becaome severe in the weeks leading up to his hospitalization.Fetterman has received praise for publicly acknowledging his mental health struggles, as advocates have expressed hope that it will encourage others to seek help.“Asking for help is important, but it’s not always easy,” said Dr Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general. “I hope Senator Fetterman’s courage will serve as an example for others.”Joe Biden reportedly plans to travel to the west coast next week to fundraise, as the president is widely expected to formally launch his reelection campaign in the next several weeks.Politico reports:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Biden’s trip west will take him to Rancho Santa Fe, a wealthy enclave of sprawling estates north of San Diego, two of the people told POLITICO. He also will have likely stops in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nev. The trip is planned for Monday and Tuesday, though the two people stressed Biden’s itinerary is still being finalized and specifics remain fluid.
    Biden and Democrats are gearing up an expected reelection campaign, including by dispatching Vice President Kamala Harris to fundraisers of her own in her home state. On Friday, she headlined a midday event in the San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough at the home of longtime fundraiser Stefanie Roumeliotes and her husband, John Costouros.
    Despite feeling no pressure to formally announce his re-election campaign, Biden has already held a handful of fundraisers out east to benefit the Democratic National Committee. Earlier this year, he gave a speech to DNC members in Philadelphia that aides described as a soft launch of sorts.The news comes as the Republican presidential primary is already in full swing, with Donald Trump and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley having both launched their campaigns. Other Republican candidates, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, are expected to announce in the next few months.As of now, Democratic leaders appear to be rather unified around Biden’s candidacy. No Democratic lawmaker has yet stepped forward to challenge Biden, indicating that the president will likely have a smooth path to the nomination.When asked about self-help author Marianne Williamson announcing she will challenge Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House is “not tracking that”.Jean-Pierre joked that she would perhaps have more to say on Williamson “if I could feel her aura,” eliciting laughter from reporters in the briefing room.The comment appeared to be a dig at Williamson, a self-described spiritual leader who ran for president in 2020 and said that she struggled to push back against the perception that she was a “crystal woo-woo lady”.The White House will be represented at King Charles III’s coronation in May, but Karine Jean-Pierre would not commit to Joe Biden himself attending the event.Reports indicate that Biden does not plan to attend the coronation, but other senior members of the administration may travel to the UK for the event.Jean-Pierre rejected any suggestion that Biden’s lack of attendance should be interpreted as a snub of the British monarchy if the president does decide to skip the coronation.Karine Jean-Pierre would not comment on Donald Trump’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, in which the former president vowed “retribution” against his political enemies.Jean-Pierre said she could not speak to Trump’s remarks because of the Hatch Act, which prohibits employees of the federal government from engaging in some political activities.A reporter asked Karine Jean-Pierre why Joe Biden believes DC should be a state if he disagrees with the city council’s judgment on altering the local criminal code.Despite his refusal to veto the proposal overturning DC’s crime bill, Biden still believes that Congress should pass a bill granting DC statehood, and he would sign that legislation, Jean-Pierre said.“He believes that cities and states should be able to govern for themselves,” Jean-Pierre said.Karine Jean-Pierre sidestepped questions about the news that the DC city council is withdrawing its crime bill after Joe Biden said he would not veto a Republican motion to overturn the policy.“The president expressed concerns on certain provisions of the DC crime bill,” Jean-Pierre said. “As we can see, the DC council’s process is still ongoing, so we won’t comment on that any further.”A reporter noted that the White House has cited DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s opposition to the crime bill to justify Biden’s stance, but Bowser herself has said that Congress should not be “meddling” in local policy matters.Jean-Pierre deflected that question, instead saying the White House has been in “constant communication” with Bowser’s team.“This is not something that we put forward,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is a decision that was brought to [Biden], and he wants to be very clear and communicate with the people of DC and with all of you.”According to reports, the Senate plans to move forward with its vote to overturn the crime bill, even after the council announced it was withdrawing the proposal from congressional consideration.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is now holding her daily briefing with reporters, and she kicked off her comments by discussing “junk fees”.The Biden administration has pushed airlines to limit fees for customers, and Jean-Pierre said several airlines are now working toward fee-free family seating to “guarantee that parents can sit with their young children without getting nickeled and dimed”.The Department of Transportation is also launching a new family seating dashboard to help customers compare fees across airlines, Jean-Pierre noted.In his State of the Union address last month, Joe Biden pledged to crack down on junk fees, saying, “Junk fees may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter to most folks in homes like the one I grew up in. … I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and gets away with it. Not anymore.”The Guardian’s Chris McGreal reports on Evangelical Christians flocking to the Republican party over support for Israel:When Israel’s former ambassador to the US said his country should worry less about what American Jews think and concentrate on Christian evangelicals as the “backbone” of support for the Jewish state, he had in mind the Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee.Hagee founded Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a group that claims 11 million members, who have had a significant influence on Republican party politics and in hardening Washington’s already strong support for Israel.Donald Trump, while president, made no secret of his desire to keep Hagee and Christian Zionist voters happy as a key part of his base by abandoning even the pretense that the US was a neutral player in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Former South Carolina governor and current White House hopeful Nikki Haley recognised Hagee’s power within the most important religious bloc of Republican voters and their influence over political priorities, from anti-abortion laws to Israel policy, when she invited him to give the invocation at her presidential campaign launch last month.“Pastor Hagee, I still say I want to be you when I grow up,” she enthused.Left largely unmentioned by Haley and Hagee’s Israeli allies were his antisemitic views, including calling Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler a “half-breed Jew” who was sent by God to drive the Jewish people to Israel. He has also suggested that Jews brought centuries of persecution on themselves by disobeying God.Read Chris’ full report:Evangelical Christians flock to Republicans over support for Israel Read moreHere’s where the day stands so far:
    Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis appears to be moving toward announcing his presidential campaign after delivering a speech yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. In the speech, DeSantis’ condemned other states’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic and celebrated Florida as a “citadel of freedom”. DeSantis is expected to formally enter the GOP primary in the next couple of months.
    The DC city council will withdraw its bill revising the local criminal code from congressional consideration, the panel’s chairperson announced. The news comes after Joe Biden said he would not veto a Republican measure to overturn the DC bill. Despite the council’s move to withdraw the bill, the Senate still plans to vote on the matter this week, according to CNN.
    Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won the vice-presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend. Lake defeated other contenders with 20% of the vote, while DeSantis came in second place at 14% and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley trailed with 10%. Lake is best known for losing the Arizona gubernatorial race last year and peddling the lie that her election was tainted by widespread fraud.
    The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.The Senate still plans to vote on overturning the DC bill revising the local criminal code, even after the council announced it would withdraw the proposal from congressional consideration.Two Senate aides told CNN’s Manu Raju that they still expect the vote to occur:Senate will STILL vote this week to halt DC criminal code rewrite despite the last-ditch attempt by the DC Council’s chairman to withdraw the legislation from Hill review, two aides said— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 6, 2023
    Now that Joe Biden has said he would not veto the proposal to overturn the DC bill, more Senate Democrats are expected to join Republicans in supporting the motion.The chair of the DC Council, Phil Mendelson, said this morning, “If the Republicans want to proceed with a vote … it will be a hollow vote because the bill isn’t there before them.”Carlisa N Johnson reports on how Republican legislators are attempting to restrict voting access:In the final few days of this year’s Georgia assembly legislative session, Republican lawmakers raced to propose laws seeking to restrict voting access, and make it easier for citizens to challenge and subvert normal election processes.Senate bill 221, house bill 422 and house bill 426 are just a few of the newly proposed election laws, which come after state Republicans, including the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, praised election officials for smooth elections in the past two years.They include measures to eradicate absentee ballot drop boxes, allow citizens to more easily challenge voter registrations – which Republican conspiracy theorists had already done with little backing evidence during the midterms – and even unseal ballots for review.While some of the elements of these proposed laws offer expanded flexibility and resources for elections, including the popular bipartisan effort to eradicate runoff elections in the state, other aspects are grounded in unfounded claims and conspiracy theories surrounding mass election fraud stemming from the 2020 election.Read Carlisa’s full report:Georgia Republicans race to pass laws to restrict and challenge votesRead moreBefore the DC Council announced it would withdraw the crime bill, Joe Biden faced criticism from a number of Democrats for saying that he would sign a Republican measure to reverse the policy.“It’s disappointing to all of us who believe in home rule,” Congressman Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic caucus, said Thursday.“I’m deeply disappointed to see the President announce he will allow Congress to overturn a DC law for the first time in decades,” Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said. “This is simple: The District of Columbia must be allowed to govern itself.”Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi added Friday, “If he was going to do it, I wish he would’ve told us first because this was a hard vote for the House members.”The Guardian’s Chris Stein has more details on the DC Council’s decision to withdraw a bill revising the local criminal code:The chair of the DC council, Democrat Phil Mendelson, criticized the Republican opponents of the crime bill, saying Congress was more focused on winning political points rather than carefully considering the policy.“It’s quite clear to me that the headwinds that have prevailed in Congress are about the politics of next year’s election and not about what’s the substance in this criminal code,” Mendelson said at a press conference this morning.“The fact is is that the criminal code has hit these headwinds, which is why I pulled it back.”Mendelson acknowledged that Senate Republicans may still push for a vote to overturn the bill, but he said such a maneuver would be “hollow” because the council has withdrawn the proposal from congressional consideration.Mendelson blamed the criticism of the crime bill on misinformation about the content of the proposal, saying, “What people were hearing was we were decriminalizing or that we were reducing sentences and the messaging just got out of our control.”Asked why he believed Joe Biden indicated he would sign the Republican reversal measure, Mendelson said he thought the president was trying to protect Democratic lawmakers.“The reality is that if we’re to get statehood, it’s going to be the Democrats who help us with it,” Mendelson said. “So if we have any hope for statehood, we have to want to protect our Democratic friends in Congress. And that’s where I think the president is.” More

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    CPAC: Nikki Haley calls out Republicans’ failure to win voters’ confidence – live

    Many, many things have changed in American politics since 2016, but one thing has stayed the same – Donald Trump’s position as the most popular man in the Republican party.He’s been in a commanding position among Republicans ever since clinching its presidential nomination more than six years ago, and that dynamic hasn’t meaningfully changed in the years since. Case in point: the latest batch of opinion polls show him essentially blowing all the other potential contenders for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination out of the water.As Sebastian Gorka made clear at the start of today’s events, CPAC is very much a convention of the “hardcore Maga”. Trump speaks tomorrow, but his most powerful presumed challenger next year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, isn’t showing up at all. Instead, CPAC attendees will today hear from Nikki Haley, who is running next year, and Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of state who is expected to launch a campaign.CPAC attracts conservatives from across the country. We’ll try to let you know what they think of Trump’s challengers, and whether they agree that – after all that’s happened – he remains the best man to lead the GOP.Steve Bannon just got off stage after an enthusiastic, 15-minute defense of Donald Trump that was the best received speech of the day.Bannon, a former White House adviser who is appealing a federal prison sentence for ignoring a subpoena from the January 6 committee, won more applause than any speaker before him by singing the former president’s praises and attacking Fox News for ignoring Trump.“Donald J. Trump, let me repeat, in a very volatile time in American history, it was four years of peace and prosperity,” he said, to loud applause, “You know why? He puts you in the room to make decisions.”“And that’s why they hate him,” Bannon continued. “They don’t hate him because he’s Trump. They hate him because he represents you.”He then attacked Fox News for not giving the former president enough coverage. “Note to Fox senior management: when Donald J. Trump talks it’s newsworthy,” Bannon declared.“Maga, Maga, Maga. Remember, Murdoch, you deem Trump’s not going to be president, well we deem that you’re not going to have a network,” Bannon declared as he wrapped up his speech.Conservatives at CPAC today heard from one Republican presidential contender, Nikki Haley, and another potential contender, Mike Pompeo. But the convention remains very much Donald Trump’s show.“I’m still sticking with Trump,” said Gary Wolcott, a 69-year-old retiree from the Virginia suburbs near Washington DC. He acknowledged that Haley’s speech “was definitely impressive, and Pompeo’s, too”. But neither dissuaded him from the support he’s maintained for Trump since his first days as a candidate in 2015.“I just believe he’s the person who is most for America, and he gave up a lot to run for president. He’s not a career politician, and I know he’s always going to try to do what he thinks is best for America,” Wolcott said.Karen and Donald Ruthig’s sentiments were much the same.“He gets things done,” Karen, 77, said of Trump. As for the other candidates, “Maybe they’re wanting to run for vice? I don’t know, but I don’t think they can make it as president.”Her husband, Donald, called Pompeo’s speech “fabulous”, but Haley’s “predictable”. He didn’t think either could win. “I don’t think Nikki Haley is electable. I don’t think Mike Pompeo is electable, and I’m not even sure that Ron DeSantis is at this point,” he said, referring to the Florida governor who is seen as probably the second strongest contender to Trump among Republicans.Donald, a 73 year old who was attending the convention along with his wife from Virginia’s rural eastern shore, worried that if the GOP nominates anyone but Trump, many voters will stay home. “Without Trump’s complete base, we haven’t got a prayer,” he said. “So while there may be some very good candidates in the field, the electability issue (makes) him front and center.”As enduring as his support was for Trump, Wolcott called on the former president to change tactics as he navigates his second GOP primary.“His liability is, he’s got to stop bashing Republicans. He needs to explain why he’s good, not why they’re bad. So long as he can do that he will easily win the presidency. I’m not sure he can do it,” he said.The White House this afternoon decried Tennessee’s aggressive move to limit drag shows in the state.The state’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, yesterday signed a bill passed by the legislature that restricts public drag show performances – the first state to do that this year, CNN reported.The law limits “adult cabaret performances” on public property, defining such as a show “that features topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers.”At the White House press briefing on Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “American people are focussed on so many issues..the economy..healthcare..safety in schools” and lamented Republicans’ targeting activities like drag shows as their priority instead.“Going after drag shows, how is that going to help people’s lives?” she asked. KJP is the first out gay White House press secretary.She added that these “ridiculous policies” are “dangerous. They vilify our fellow Americans at a time when LGBTQ Americans are facing heightened violence.”Joe Biden has the backs of LGBTQ Americans, she noted, “and will continue to be there for the community.”Earlier this month, famous Tennessee drag queens, including Eureka and Jaidynn Diore Fierce spoke up to Entertainment Weekly, with Eureka calling the bill “blatantly unconstitutional.”They talked to a competitor on this season’s Ru Paul’s Drag Race, and now fellow Tennessean, Aura Mayari, who said she was deeply upset and saddened by the push and said the law was nothing more than “a mask used to hide discrimination toward the LGBTQ+ community and the desire to erase drag.”Jaidynn Diore Fierce for all stars / lipsync assassin when? pic.twitter.com/H8XnYY7qTQ— ᴅʀᴀɢᴍᴇᴛᴏꜰɪʟᴛʜ ◡̈ (@dragmetofilth) February 8, 2023
    This feels like the year when CPAC’s centre of gravity shifted from Fox News to Newsmax – more extreme, more fringey and less relevant.Fox News personnel are thin on the ground as the network, embroiled in crisis over its part in pushing Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, tilts away from him towards rival Ron DeSantis.Meanwhile Chris Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax, was fawningly interviewed on stage by CPAC co-organiser Mercedes Schlapp. Adverts for Newsmax are running regularly on screens here.CPAC is teeming with Trump loyalists. Donald Trump Jr, Steve Bannon, Mike Lindell and Sebastian Gorka are causing crowd congestion as the live stream and podcast loudly cluster outside the main ballroom.Such scenes might symbolise how Trump has lost Fox News but dominates the likes of Newsmax, One America News Network and far right social media. Fox no longer carries his rallies live whereas those channels do – with smaller audiences.It could be good news for DeSantis, a regular on Fox, as he seeks to command the Republican base and banish Trump to the margins.Fox News reportedly imposes ‘soft ban’ on Donald TrumpRead moreHere are some more bits and pieces from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s interaction with reporters at CPAC.She called on everyone in the Republican party to support the eventual nominee for president in 2024 – something that former president Donald Trump seems unlikely to do.But Greene confirmed that she is endorsing Trump, saying she talks to him “every week” and “I absolutely adore him”.The Guardian asked: “Would you be his running mate?” Greene replied: “We haven’t really engaged. That’s up to President Trump who he chooses.”Questioned about her message to former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and other potential candidates, she added: “Well, it’s nice that they’re running but they’re not going to win. President Trump is going to be the primary. I don’t know what they’re doing it for in the first place.”And Greene said of Ron DeSantis: “I think he is a fantastic governor for the state of Florida and, at the snail’s pace things get done here in Washington, if I were Florida, I’d give him a third term and beg him to stay as governor.”Rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene just held an impromptu question and answer session with a group of reporters at CPAC – who therefore paid little attention to Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech from the nearby stage.The Guardian asked the first couple of questions. Greene, an influential figure in the House of Representative, said: “I think the US should be pushing for peace in Ukraine instead of funding and continuing a war that seems to be escalating and putting the entire world at risk of world war three.”The Republican from Georgia called for US funding to cease immediately. “Look, I voted for the resolution to support the Ukrainian people and against what Russia has done invading their country. But what the United States is doing is we are actually accelerating a war there and this war should be over.“We should be promoting peace. Europe should have peace and the United States should do their part. Ukraine is not a Nato member nation and Joe Biden said in the beginning he would not defend Ukraine because they’re not a Nato member nation. It doesn’t make sense and the American people do not support it.”Later Greene added that Biden is more interested in Ukraine’s border than America’s own or the victims of a toxic rail disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. She also floated an unfounded conspiracy theory that Biden’s son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine is likely underpinning the president’s motivations there.“Does that play a role in Joe Biden’s commitment to Zelenskiy as if Zelinskiy and Ukraine is the 51st state of the United States of America?… Is that why we’re all going to be dragged into World War three? And I’m sorry, I’m not going on that train and most Americans – pretty much everyone I talk to – is not interested in that either.”In the final days of the Trump administration, after he had lost the 2020 election, then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo declared that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”Pompeo seems to have acknowledged reality in the years since, and stated the grim truth about the GOP’s recent election record in his speech at CPAC today. Here’s a clip:Potential GOP presidential candidate Mike Pompeo, who declared in November 2020 that there would be a “second Trump administration” even after the election was called for Biden, seems to acknowledge Trump’s loss at CPAC:“We lost three elections in a row.” pic.twitter.com/C2AixiOdXf— The Recount (@therecount) March 3, 2023
    He later appeared to throw some shade at his former boss:Potential GOP presidential candidate Mike Pompeo signals some new distance from Donald Trump:“We can’t become the left, following celebrity leaders with their own brand of identity politics; those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality.” pic.twitter.com/maZP39yVyE— The Recount (@therecount) March 3, 2023
    Still no word yet from Pompeo on whether he plans to run for the GOP nomination next year.At the Conservative Political Action Conference today, Republicans who are not Donald Trump are trying their best to convince the audience to give them a shot in 2024. Up first was his former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who argued that the GOP’s struggle to win the popular vote in recent elections is a sign the party needs a change in leadership. And then she walked out of the speech venue to crowds of conservatives chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump!” That’s how it goes when you’re not on his side at a conference were Maga rules supreme. We’ll see if candidate Vivek Ramaswamy or Mike Pompeo, who hasn’t announced a run for president yet but is seen as a potential candidate, have better luck with the crowd.Here’s a recap of the day’s events:
    A call to defund the police was a surprise applause line at CPAC.
    Rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to make providing gender-affirming care to minors a felony.
    Democrats remain behind Joe Biden, if the statements of House lawmakers are any indication.
    CPAC is a tough place for Republicans who are not on Donald Trump’s side.Following her speech, Nikki Haley stepped outside the venue to greet conservative attendees – who made their preference for next year’s GOP presidential nomination clear, as this video from Bloomberg News shows:Crowd chanting “Trump!” as Nikki Haley take photos with supporters after her CPAC speech. pic.twitter.com/iI7WSKSwT9— Christian Hall (@christianjhall) March 3, 2023
    The parade of speeches by former Trump officials continues with Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state from 2018 to 2021.He’s thought to be considering a run for the White House next year, but hasn’t yet said one way or the other. Let’s hear what he has to say.Nikki Haley has a tall order in overcoming the former president’s popularity among Republicans.The latest polls have shown her support well below that of Trump’s. Here’s one from Yahoo News/YouGov, which shows Trump in the lead with 45% support, against Haley’s 4%.Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, is surely aware of where she would end up if the Republican primary were held today. As she closed out her speech, she appealed to the audience to consider an alternative to the former president.“We’ve lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans. That ends now. If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win – not just as a party, but as a country – then stand with me,” Haley said.Nikki Haley is now on stage at CPAC, and started her stump speech off by reiterating her call for politicians over the age of 75 to take a mental competency test.“When I launched my campaign, I said every politician over 75 years old should be required to take a mental competency test. Have you seen DC lately? We should start with Joe Biden – and we shouldn’t stop there,” she said. The last part seemed to stir a murmur of disapproval from the audience, considering that Donald Trump is 76, and would also be subject to one of these tests.Many seats noticeably empty.At CPAC at National Harbor in Maryland. Nikki Haley enters to standing ovation but also many empty seats. “The liberal media’s head are exploding about me running for president… Liberals are the most sexist by far.” pic.twitter.com/u7SZOZUCqu— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 3, 2023
    At their retreat in Baltimore this week, House Democrats voiced enthusiasm about Joe Biden‘s likely reelection campaign, with the president expected to formally announce his 2024 bid in the next several weeks.“I think he will win. I think he’s our strongest candidate,” congressman Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic caucus chair, said Thursday at an event with Punchbowl News. Aguilar added, “I think that he can and should run, and he’s going to have the support of the House Democratic caucus.”Even House progressives, who have previously clashed with Biden over policy concerns, appear to be rallying behind the president. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Thursday that she hopes Biden will announce his reelection campaign sooner rather than later.“Nobody is surprised that Biden was not my choice in the first election for the primary,” Jayapal said. “But the CPC and the President and his administration have formed an incredibly strong partnership.”The mayor of a Maryland city has resigned after authorities arrested him on charges of possessing and distributing images of child sexual abuse, according to multiple reports.Patrick Wojahn, 47, had been the mayor of College Park since 2015 and, before that, a member of the city council there for eight years when he was arrested Thursday. He had submitted his resignation later the previous night, as the local news outlet WBAL reported, but that did little to head off the scandal that his arrest ignited, drawing headlines nationally.Charging documents cited by the local news station WTOP accused Wojahn of using an anonymous account to upload child abuse imagery to the mobile messaging application Kik in January. Kik officials then alerted the federal missing and exploited children center, which prompted police to subpoena internet service providers’ records that linked the uploads to Wojahn.Local county investigators searched Wojahn’s home in February, and they seized cell phones, a tablet, a computer and a storage device before Thursday’s arrest.Wojahn faces 40 counts of possessing child abuse imagery and 16 of distributing it.College Park has a population of about 35,000 and is just northeast of Washington DC. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wojahn’s arrest shocked the city’s residents.Local resident Drake Allen said he feared the scandal showed that College Park was “headed in the wrong direction”.“I don’t know if this is going to wake anybody up. It should, but it probably won’t,” Allen said, before describing how he wishes Wojahn’s successor is “just a regular mayor who does his job.”On stage at CPAC now is Donald Trump Jr, who came bearing gifts.“There’s a little surprise for all of you,” he told the audience. “Check under your seats. If there happens to be a gold chocolate bar underneath there … that’s a VIP ticket to my father’s reception tomorrow at CPAC,” the former president’s son said.Wonder what Roald Dahl would think of that. More

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    House ethics committee opens investigation into George Santos – as it happened

    The House ethics committee has opened an investigation into George Santos, the Republican lawmaker who admitted to lying about his résumé in his campaign to represent part of New York City’s suburbs in Congress’s lower chamber.A statement from the committee’s GOP chair Michael Guest and Democratic ranking member Susan Wild said the panel voted to create a subcommittee to look into alleged misconduct by Santos. They specified it would investigate “whether Representative George Santos may have: engaged in unlawful activity with respect to his 2022 congressional campaign; failed to properly disclose required information on statements filed with the House; violated federal conflict of interest laws in connection with his role in a firm providing fiduciary services; and/or engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.”Republican Dave Joyce will chair the subcommittee, alongside Democratic ranking member Susan Wild. They’ll be joined by Republican John Rutherford and Democrat Glenn Ivey.In his defense against civil lawsuits connected to the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump is getting no help from Joe Biden’s justice department, which told an appeals court it thinks cases against the former president over the violent attack should be allowed to go ahead. Meanwhile, the House ethics committee began its widely expected investigation into George Santos, the New York Republican who lied and lied and lied.Here’s what else happened today:
    Ron DeSantis outlined how he could take policies implemented in Florida national, and cause “a complete upheaval of the deep state,” as he put it.
    Matt Schlapp, organizer of the Conservative Political Action Conference, does not want to talk about allegations he groped a Republican campaign staffer.
    Mike Pence is among Republicans giving CPAC a miss, and his (mutual) dislike for Trump is probably a big reason why.
    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is also in trouble with Congress’s ethics watchdog, though not yet as much as Santos.
    Biden supports statehood for Washington DC – to an extent.
    Joe Biden and most Democrats in Congress support turning the majority of Washington DC – America’s only federal district – into the 51st state. But that’s not stopping the president and some Democratic senators from joining with the GOP to stop Washington’s city council from implementing a new criminal code:I support D.C. Statehood and home-rule – but I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections – such as lowering penalties for carjackings.If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did – I’ll sign it.— President Biden (@POTUS) March 2, 2023
    Washington DC has a unique relationship with Congress, which can vote to override decisions made by its 13-member city council – currently composed of 11 Democratic members and two independents.Late last year, the council approved a new criminal code that advocates say represents a long-overdue modernization of its penalties and procedures for lawbreaking. But Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser opposed it, while Republicans in Congress pounced on the law to claim it is indicative of Democrats’ weakness on crime.The city council overrode Bowser’s veto of the measure earlier this year, but the Republicans controlling the House last month voted to block its implementation, and there appears to be enough Democratic votes in the Senate for Republicans to stop its implementation there. Now that Biden has made clear he’ll sign legislation to block the new code, the council’s effort seems dead, at least for now.Today in the Capitol, Joe Biden pulled a Joe Manchin when asked when he planned to run for a second term:Reporter: “When will you announce your reelection, sir?”President Biden: “When I announce it.” pic.twitter.com/UgrsUfjRTj— The Recount (@therecount) March 2, 2023
    But unlike with Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat and frustrater of progressives who has remained coy on if he’d like to remain in the Senate, all signs point to Biden running again.Nina Jankowicz, who resigned last year as director of the homeland security department’s disinformation governance board amid a flurry of threats and conspiracy theories that led to a pause in its operations, is raising money for a lawsuit against Fox News:Fox News lied about me hundreds of times to tens of millions of people. Help me hold them accountable for the harm they do.https://t.co/m7O8m50OPmhttps://t.co/4K7RgedI90— Nina Jankowicz (@wiczipedia) March 2, 2023
    She accuses the network of spreading inaccurate information about her job, which led to threats against herself and her family, and her decision to resign from the government.“I became the young, female, easy-to-attack public face of what Fox pundits were recklessly spinning as ‘men with guns [telling] you to shut up.’ Congressional Republicans and the right-wing media characterized me as an unhinged, partisan, unserious, dangerous fascist, despite my track record of measured, bipartisan work, including testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018 at the GOP chair’s invitation,” Jankowicz wrote on the GoFundMe she set up for the legal effort.“My life has been irrevocably altered because Fox News repeatedly force-fed lies about me to tens of millions of their viewers. Tens of thousands have harassed me online. Hundreds have violently threatened me. I am far from the only American to experience this type of Fox-led hate campaign, and it must stop.”As of the time of this post, Jankowicz had raised $4,435 of the $100,000 she is seeking to cover the cost of the lawsuit she wants to file against Fox News, as well as expenses related to other lawsuits filed against her, a protective order she sought against someone who was harassing her and a subpoena she expects from a Republican-led congressional panel.George Santos is not alone in running afoul of Congress’s ethics watchdogs.Fox News reports the House Office of Congressional Ethics has concluded Democratic lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have broke the rules by accepting tickets to New York’s Met Gala two years ago:1) The House Ethics Committee has released a report by the quasi-official “Office of Congressional Ethics” (OCE) on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) March 2, 2023
    2) The OCE (which is NOT the Ethics Committee, but can refer issues to that panel), said it discovered “substantial reason to believe” that Ocasio-Cortez improperly accepted gifts in the form of tickets, et al, in connection with her appearance at the Met Gala in NYC in 2021— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) March 2, 2023
    3) The formal Ethics Committee has NOT launched a formal inquiry into Ocasio-Cortez like it did today with Rep. George Santos (R-NY). But the Ethics Committee is still reviewing Ocasio-Cortez’s actions.— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) March 2, 2023
    Established in 2008, the House Office of Congressional Ethics reviews allegations against lawmakers and forwards their conclusions to the chamber’s ethics committee, which is composed of lawmakers. It’s up to that body to decide whether to act on the report.The House ethics committee has opened an investigation into George Santos, the Republican lawmaker who admitted to lying about his résumé in his campaign to represent part of New York City’s suburbs in Congress’s lower chamber.A statement from the committee’s GOP chair Michael Guest and Democratic ranking member Susan Wild said the panel voted to create a subcommittee to look into alleged misconduct by Santos. They specified it would investigate “whether Representative George Santos may have: engaged in unlawful activity with respect to his 2022 congressional campaign; failed to properly disclose required information on statements filed with the House; violated federal conflict of interest laws in connection with his role in a firm providing fiduciary services; and/or engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.”Republican Dave Joyce will chair the subcommittee, alongside Democratic ranking member Susan Wild. They’ll be joined by Republican John Rutherford and Democrat Glenn Ivey.A showdown is brewing between Bernie Sanders and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has been accused of frustrating efforts by the company’s employees to unionize. Here’s the latest on the dispute, from the Guardian’s Michael Sainato:Starbucks is under fire over the company’s response to unionization efforts as senator Bernie Sanders threatens to call its chief executive before his committee on alleged labor violations and staff petition for it to end “intimidation” of organizers.Sanders, chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee, announced on Wednesday that the committee will be voting on whether to issue a subpoena to compel Starbucks chief Howard Schultz to testify about Starbuck’s federal labor law violations, and to authorize a committee investigation into labor-law violations committed by major corporations.“For nearly a year, I and many of my colleagues in the Senate have repeatedly asked Mr Schultz to respect the constitutional right of workers at Starbucks to form a union and to stop violating federal labor laws,” Sanders said in a press release confirming the 8 March vote.“Mr Schultz has failed to respond to those requests. He has denied meeting and document requests, skirted congressional oversight attempts, and refused to answer any of the serious questions we have asked. Unfortunately, Mr Schultz has given us no choice but to subpoena him.”The move came after 44 employees at Starbucks headquarters in Seattle and 22 additional anonymous employees signed on to a petition calling on the company to reverse a return-to-office mandate and “to commit to a policy of neutrality and respect federal labor laws by agreeing to follow fair election principles, and allow store partners, whether pro- or anti-union, to decide for themselves, free from fear, coercion, and intimidation.”Starbucks condemned for ‘intimidation’ of US union organizersRead moreA Republican US congressman from Texas reportedly faces censure from his state party this weekend, because he:
    Voted in support of same-sex marriage.
    Voted for a gun safety measure introduced in response to the Uvalde elementary school shooting, in which 19 children and two adults were killed.
    Voted against the Republican House majority’s rules package.
    The San Antonio Report details proceedings against Tony Gonzales, who won the 23rd congressional district in 2020. It said he did not immediately comment.For the San Antonio Report (tagline, “Nonprofit Journalism for an Informed Community”), Andrea Drusch describes other points on which Gonzales has angered his own party, including “numerous complaints about [his] approach to border security, such as repeating ‘the Democratic canard that supporters of border security are anti-immigrant’”.A censure vote is expected on Saturday, Drusch reports, adding: “If the resolution is successful, members of the [State Republican Executive Committee] would be able to choose between several options to punish Gonzales, according to party rules.“They could simply discourage Gonzales from running for reelection as a Republican, or they could lift the restriction on party officials campaigning against him, as is required for current GOP officeholders.“Perhaps of greater consequence, they also could prohibit Gonzales from receiving financial help from the party.”Among expert reactions to the news that the Department of Justice says Donald Trump does not have immunity in civil cases relating to January 6, this from Norm Eisen, a Brookings fellow, CNN analyst and former ethics tsar in the Obama White House, is interesting:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}DoJ has just filed a brief rejecting Trump’s claim (in a civil case) that he is absolutely immune from legal accountability [over his] attempted coup … [The brief is] important in its own right – and because signals weakness of his likely defense in the coming criminal case in Georgia.The case in Georgia concerns Trump’s attempted election subversion there. Indictments are believed to be imminent, not least because the foreperson of the grand jury which considered the case dropped very large hints last week.‘A big freaking deal’: the grand jury that investigated Trump election pressureRead moreDana Nessel, the Democratic attorney general of Michigan, said earlier she was among targets of a man charged with threatening to kill state officials who are Jewish.“The FBI has confirmed I was a target of the heavily armed defendant in this matter,” Nessel wrote. “It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my Hate Crimes and Domestic Terrorism Unit takes plots to murder elected officials.”The Associated Press reports that Jack Carpenter III, of Tipton, Michigan, tweeted on 17 February that he was returning to his home state to “carry out the punishment of death to anyone” who is Jewish in Michigan government “if they don’t leave, or confess, and now that kind of problem. Because I can legally do that, right?”According to the criminal complaint against Carpenter, he also declared a new country – “New Israel” – around his home.He was arrested in Texas four days later. According to prosecutors, when Carpenter was “arrested in his vehicle, [officers] found approximately a half-dozen firearms and ammunition”.The complaint against Carpenter did not name any alleged targets.The US justice department has said Donald Trump is not entitled to absolute immunity in civil lawsuits related to the US Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, which he incited in an attempt to stop certification of his election loss to Joe Biden and which is now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.Trump faces civil cases brought by congressional Democrats and US Capitol police officers who fought his supporters on January 6. His lawyers have urged dismissal. A Washington DC appeals court asked the Department of Justice for its opinion.Trump argued that he could not be sued for statements made before the riot, when he was still president, because presidents enjoy wide-ranging protections when performing their official duties.Government lawyers disagreed, saying in a new court filing: “Speaking to the public on matters of public concern is a traditional function of the presidency, and the outer perimeter of the President’s Office includes a vast realm of such speech.“But that traditional function is one of public communication. It does not include incitement of imminent private violence.“In the United States’ view, such incitement of imminent private violence would not be within the outer perimeter of the Office of the President of the United States.”Trump is the subject of an ongoing Department of Justice investigation, led by the special counsel Jack Smith. The House January 6 committee, which disbanded when Republicans took control after the midterms, made four criminal referrals of Trump to the DoJ.Lawyers for Trump have until 16 March to respond to the DoJ brief about civil cases.Gisele Barreto Fetterman, wife of the Pennsylvania Democratic senator John Fetterman, who remains hospitalised for treatment for depression, has responded to attacks from rightwing figures including the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who claim she has pushed her husband too far.Barreto Fetterman tweeted: “In the worst moments of our lives, women are told it’s their fault. In case you need to hear it today: It’s. Not. Your. Fault. I will keep living and fighting with love. We all need more of it.”She accompanied her message with a link to a Washington Post column by Monica Hesse, under the headline “How Gisele Fetterman became the right wing’s favorite super villain”.Hesse’s column highlights Carlson’s segment on John Fetterman and Joe Biden on Tuesday, in which he said the senator was too ill and the president too old to fill their respective offices.Saying “a woman, a spouse, who loved her husband” would keep him away from campaigns, Carlson called Dr Jill Biden “a ghoulish, power-seeking creep”.His guest, Candace Owens, said: “Absolutely. These women are monsters.”Hesse cited comments from another Fox News host, Laura Ingraham (“Jill Biden and Gisele Fetterman should be ashamed of themselves”), radio host Jesse Kelly (“Who’s the bigger elder abuser, Jill Biden or Gisele Fetterman?”) and the rightwing Washington Examiner, which ran a column under the headline “Jill Biden and Gisele Fetterman are failing their husbands”, in which the writer said the two men were “arguably victims of terrible women”.Hesse wrote: “It’s not hard to guess why pundits are going after Jill and Gisele instead of Joe and John. Attacking someone who is ill or elderly simply because they are ill or elderly is beyond the pale in our culture (for now, at least), even for those pundits whose flexible morals usually find a way to drain-snake around any barricades of decency.“But by placing blame on the wives, these commentators get to spread harmful messages against the president and senator while having plausible deniability against charges of ableism. The commentators are not – heavens, no – throwing mud at these poor men. They are merely scolding the women who should know better. It’s ableism, with a little sexism, as a treat.”Read the whole column here.The annual Conservative Political Action Conference is happening outside Washington DC, but while Donald Trump will make an appearance just before it wraps up Saturday, many top Republicans are avoiding the event. These include the party’s leaders in Congress, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is seen as the strongest challenger against the former president for the GOP’s presidential nomination next year. Up the road in Baltimore, House Democrats are plotting their strategies for the months to come, while awaiting word of whether Joe Biden plans to run for office again.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
    DeSantis outlined how he could take policies implemented in Florida national, and cause “a complete upheaval of the deep state,” as he put it.
    CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp does not want to talk about allegations he groped a Republican campaign staffer.
    Mike Pence is among Republicans giving CPAC a miss, and his (mutual) dislike for Trump is probably a big reason why.
    In more lighthearted news about Democratic presidents, the Associated Press reports Barack Obama is honoring the retirement of the woman behind one the most popular chants from his first presidential campaign:Marking the retirement of the woman credited with popularizing the chant “Fired up, ready to go!” that epitomized his campaigns, Barack Obama said her energy played a key role in lifting his spirits and his candidacy for president first time round.“It was early in my campaign, and I wasn’t doing that good,” Obama recalled in a video provided by the Obama Foundation, harking back to a 2007 campaign stop in Greenwood, South Carolina, on a dreary, rainy day.But the small crowd, Obama said, was transformed as Edith Childs led them in the rousing back-and-forth chant: “Fired up, ready to go!”“Leadership and power and inspiration can come from anywhere,” Obama said in the video to mark Childs’ retirement after 24 years on the Greenwood county council.“It just has to do with spirit, and nobody embodied that better than Edith.”Obama praises woman who popularized ‘fired up’ chant during 2008 campaignRead more More

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    Deal reached with Republicans to repeal Iraq war authorizations, says Schumer – as it happened

    The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a deal has been reached with the GOP to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, which provided the congressional authority for America’s strikes against Saddam Hussein’s government, and the invasion that ultimately toppled him from power.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the foreign affairs committee would begin considering the measure next week.“There’s support on both sides of the aisle for this proposal. Because both Democrats and Republicans have come to the same conclusion: we need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all. And doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that initiated the war to begin with,” the New York lawmaker said.Lawmakers from both parties have sought to repeal the authorizations for years, but never managed to do so. Punchbowl News reports that in the House, two of its most conservative Republican members are leading the charge to approve the repeals.The mystery of “Havana syndrome” continued, with US intelligence agencies concluding no foreign adversary was behind the debilitating attacks on its government officials overseas, but otherwise coming up with no answers for what so harmed their health. Meanwhile at the White House, Joe Biden introduced Julie Su, who he has nominated for a promotion to the labor department’s top post. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Asian American cabinet secretary to serve since he took office two years ago.Here’s what else happened today:
    The Senate will consider legislation to revoke the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, its Democratic leader said.
    FBI agents in Washington tried to slow down the investigation into Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
    Top Democrats want Fox News to stop promoting Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
    Attorney general Merrick Garland got into it with rightwing senator Ted Cruz over security for supreme court justices.
    The mute people in straitjackets wandering around the Capitol? Adam Kinzinger sent them.
    Elsewhere in the Capitol, things have gotten a bit weird:The House offices are filled with people silently walking the halls in straitjackets and light-up glasses.I asked if it’s a protest but they indicated they’re not allowed to speak. pic.twitter.com/Q6Lb7NQDh9— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) February 28, 2023
    That was from yesterday. Today, the white-clad performers were back, this time displaying a QR code that Axios used to figure out who was behind them: Adam Kinzinger. The retired House lawmaker was one of two Republicans to serve on the January 6 committee, but ultimately decided not to run for another term and left Congress at the end of last year.Now, he’s helming a campaign against political extremism, and told the website the performers’ uniforms and straitjackets were meant to send a message. “We call them ‘drones’ … They’re just kind of droning around, they really don’t have a purpose at the moment… because they just feel unrepresented. They feel like government is just kind of going along.” The whole point of their presence in the halls of the Capitol offices were to grab attention, he said, and satirize the “desperate need of every lawmaker and staffer there” to go viral on social media or appear on TV.Thus far, Kinzinger has spent $250,000 on the campaign’s launch, which also includes advertising on billboards and television. “I’m sure it’ll end up probably building to be even more,” Kinzinger told Axios.The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a deal has been reached with the GOP to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, which provided the congressional authority for America’s strikes against Saddam Hussein’s government, and the invasion that ultimately toppled him from power.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the foreign affairs committee would begin considering the measure next week.“There’s support on both sides of the aisle for this proposal. Because both Democrats and Republicans have come to the same conclusion: we need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all. And doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that initiated the war to begin with,” the New York lawmaker said.Lawmakers from both parties have sought to repeal the authorizations for years, but never managed to do so. Punchbowl News reports that in the House, two of its most conservative Republican members are leading the charge to approve the repeals.Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator whose hostility to aggressively fighting climate change and some social aid programs infuriated progressives, remains coy about whether he will stand for another term in 2024, Punchbowl News reports.Try and decode this:Asked if he’ll run for re-election, Manchin says “I will be involved.”— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 1, 2023
    Love him or hate him, the truth is that Manchin’s presence has allowed Democrats to control the Senate since January 2021 – and few in the party believe that voters in red-state West Virginia would replace him with another Democrat if he does not run again.As he testifies before the Senate judiciary committee, it’s become clear what Republicans are using as their attack line of the day against attorney general Merrick Garland.GOP senators at the hearing are accusing him of ignoring the security concerns of conservative supreme court justices, who were the target of protests outside their homes, particularly around the time of their decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Case in point, here’s Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas’s exchange with Garland:Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asks Attorney General Merrick Garland why the DoJ wouldn’t arrest protesters outside Supreme Court justices’ houses when the department devoted time to prosecuting January 6th insurrectionists.Garland: “Our priority is violence and threats of violence.” pic.twitter.com/Oqksj0TbaQ— The Recount (@therecount) March 1, 2023
    Last year, Congress agreed to pay for more security for supreme court justices and their families in a measure approved by bipartisan votes.Our world affairs editor, Julian Borger, considers the state of US-China relations, and views about US-China relations from both sides of the aisle in DC, a day after the first hearing of the House China committee…The Biden administration has settled on the ambiguous phrase “pacing challenge” to characterise Beijing’s place in its global outlook, but the newly formulated House China committee expressed impatience with such delicacy at its first hearing on Tuesday.“We may call this a ‘strategic competition’,” said Mike Gallagher, the committee’s Republican chairman. “But this is not a polite tennis match. This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century, and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake.”The ranking Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi, said both Republican and Democratic administrations had underestimated the threat posed by China and called for a policy built around deterrence.“We do not want a war with the PRC [People’s Republic of China], not a cold war, not a hot war, we don’t want a ‘clash of civilizations’. But, we seek a durable peace. And that is why we have to deter aggression,” Krishnamoorthi said.Here’s Lauren Gambino’s report on that first committee hearing:‘Time is not on our side’: Congress panel says tackling China defines next centuryRead moreSpeaking of Trump’s election subversion and the events of January 6, Politico is first to report a new move by Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican and member of GOP royalty who stood up to Trump, vice-chaired the House January 6 committee and lost her seat in Congress to a Trump loyalist as a result.Cheney is joining the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia as a professor of practice, Politico reports, a move due to be announced today. The daughter of the former congressman, defense secretary and vice-president Dick Cheney will “offer guest lectures in classes and public events as well as participate in research”.Liz Cheney said: “There are many threats facing our system of government and I hope my work with the Center for Politics and the broader community at the University of Virginia will contribute to finding lasting solutions that not only preserve but strengthen our democracy.”The other Republican who sat on the January 6 committee, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, retired from Congress rather than face losing his seat to a Trumper.Politico now reports that he is launching “a nationwide campaign urging voters to reject extreme candidates on both sides of the aisle ahead of the 2024 election”..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The centerpiece of the campaign is a nearly six-minute-long video titled Break Free, inspired by Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad about escaping the conformity of non-Apple computers. In the political ad’s twist, people are forced to wear blue- and red-tinted goggles showing them divisive images and broadcasts from a Big Brother-type character until they take them off and escape. A monologue from Kinzinger urges Americans to reject political extremes.”Here’s more about the 1984 Apple ad:The Apple Super Bowl ad that announced the future was hereRead moreAnd here’s an interesting nugget about Cheney: her defiance of Trump was in part informed and inspired by her reading of Lincoln on the Verge, a 2020 book by the historian and sometime Guardian contributor Ted Widmer which you should definitely read. Here’s some lunchtime reading on that:‘What it means to be an American’: Abraham Lincoln and a nation dividedRead moreDonald Trump has responded to news of Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary deposition in Dominion Voter Systems’ billion-dollar defamation suit against Fox News.The deposition concerns the repetition by Fox News hosts of the lie spread by Trump and his advisers and allies that Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was the result of voter fraud, specifically voter fraud supposedly carried out using Dominion machines in extraordinarily outlandish ways.The Trump response is, predictably, furious and filled with a characteristic disregard for the truth:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the Presidential Election of 2020, despite MASSIVE amounts of proof to the contrary, was not Rigged & Stolen, then he & his group of MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS should get out of the News Business as soon as possible, because they are aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA with FAKE NEWS. Certain BRAVE & PATRIOTIC Fox News Hosts, who he scorns and ridicules, got it right. He got it wrong. THEY SHOULD BE ADMIRED & PRAISED, NOT REBUKED & FORSAKEN!!!That was delivered, of course, via Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform which he set up after being booted off Twitter for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.For some further and rather more temperate reading, here’s Charles Kaiser’s look at why the Dominion suit is such a serious problem for Murdoch and Fox News:How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying’Read moreAnd here’s Ed Pilkington’s look at the Murdoch deposition … and why it is such a serious problem too:Stunning Rupert Murdoch deposition leaves Fox News in a world of troubleRead moreThe mystery of “Havana syndrome” continues, with US intelligence agencies concluding no foreign adversary was behind the debilitating attacks on its government officials overseas, but otherwise coming up with no answers for what so harmed their health. Meanwhile at the White House, Joe Biden introduced Julie Su, who he nominated for a promotion to lead the labor department. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Asian American cabinet secretary to serve since he took office two years ago.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
    FBI agents in Washington tried to slow down the investigation into Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
    Top Democrats want Fox News to stop promoting Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
    Attorney general Merrick Garland got into it with rightwing senator Ted Cruz over security for supreme court justices.
    Joe Biden is cheering news that drugmaker Eli Lilly will drop the price of insulin:Huge news.Last year, we capped insulin prices for seniors on Medicare, but there was more work to do.I called on Congress – and manufacturers – to lower insulin prices for everyone else.Today, Eli Lilly is heeding my call. Others should follow. https://t.co/Kv57KFATe9— President Biden (@POTUS) March 1, 2023
    As is Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Thanks to the leadership of President Joe Biden, Americans across the country will no longer be forced to pay astronomical prices for the life-saving insulin they need. Make no mistake: Eli Lilly’s decision to cap its insulin prices at $35 a month is a direct result of President Biden calling on drug manufacturers to lower insulin prices for everyone else, after Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act to cap insulin costs for seniors on Medicare, which every single Republican in Congress voted against. While Democrats’ fight to bring down costs for American families, MAGA Republicans have threatened to try and repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and raise drug prices for millions of Americans.”Attorney general Merrick Garland usually presents a placid facade in public, but in today’s Senate judiciary committee oversight hearing, Republican Ted Cruz managed to get the top prosecutor’s back up.The Texas lawmaker hammered Garland about why US Marshals did not stop protesters outside the homes of supreme court justices who voted last year to overturn Roe v Wade. Republicans have used the arrest of California man who allegedly plotted to murder conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh to argue that the demonstrators presented a threat to justices, and that the Biden administration did little to stop it.Here’s the exchange:Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and AG Garland go back and forth over protesters outside SCOTUS justices’ homes.Cruz: “How did you choose not to enforce this statute?”Garland: “The marshals on scene …”Cruz: “Marshals don’t make that decision.”Garland: “They do make the decision!” pic.twitter.com/FlPLy8etU3— The Recount (@therecount) March 1, 2023 More

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    First lady signals Joe Biden will seek second presidential term – as it happened

    First lady Jill Biden has given one of the clearest indications yet that Joe Biden will run for a second term, telling The Associated Press in an exclusive interview today that there’s “pretty much” nothing left to do but figure out the time and place for the announcement.Although Biden has long said that it’s his intention to seek reelection, he has yet to make it official, and he’s struggled to dispel questions about whether he’s too old to continue serving as president. Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term.“He says he’s not done,” the first lady said in Nairobi, the second and final stop of her five-day trip to Africa. “He’s not finished what he’s started. And that’s what’s important.”She added: “How many times does he have to say it for you to believe it?”Biden aides have said an announcement is likely to come in April, after the first fundraising quarter ends, which is around the time that Barack Obama officially launched his reelection campaign.First lady Jill Biden made clear she thinks her husband, Joe Biden, will stand for a second term – though we are still waiting for an announcement from the man himself. Otherwise, top American officials spent most of the day restating their support for Ukraine on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion. Speaking before the UN security council, secretary of state Antony Blinken warned that anything less than Russia’s full withdrawal from the territory it seized will weaken the global body’s charter, while Biden highlighted the bipartisan nature of Washington’s support for Kyiv. Many Republicans do indeed support Ukraine’s cause – but others in the party argue it is a distraction from more pressing issues. This divide could prove crucial to the course of the war in the months to come.Here’s what else happened today:
    Blinken warned China against getting involved in the conflict by providing Russia with weapons.
    Kamala Harris condemned conservative efforts to block access to medication abortion nationwide.
    The American public is divided over how long to support Kyiv, with more Republicans preferring limits on US aid, and more Democrats in favor of helping them fight against Russia until the job is done.
    The Treasury announced new sanctions against Russian individuals and companies involved in the war effort, but such measures haven’t proven as successful as Washington has hoped.
    It turns out that Democrats in Congress have access to the 40,000 hours of footage Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Tucker Carlson earlier this week.
    The White House has released a photo from earlier today, when Joe Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine with its president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the leaders of the G7, as America’s top allies are known.The group includes Canada, Germany, the European Union, Japan, Britain, France and Italy:Today, President Biden met with G7 Leaders and President Zelenskyy to continue coordinating our efforts to support Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its war. pic.twitter.com/JDs4Z3geY4— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 24, 2023
    As Biden inches closer to announcing what is widely expected (most importantly, by his wife) to be his re-election campaign, a poll released earlier this week brought good news for his standing among Democrats.The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll shows an even half of Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents believe the party has a better chance with Biden as the nominee, against 45% who think they’d be better off backing someone else. That’s an improvement for the president from November of last year, when it was roughly flipped: then, 54% wanted someone else, while a mere 38% backed Biden.The survey also had bad news for Donald Trump in his quest to be renominated for the presidency by the GOP. Among Republicans and independents who lean towards the party, 54% believe the GOP is best off with someone other than Trump as the nominee, while 42% thought the ex-president remained the best man for the job.Joe Biden will meet with congressional Democrats next week, Punchbowl News reports.His allies hold the majority in the Senate but lost control of the House following last November’s midterm elections, though only by a handful of seats. Punchbowl reports he will first meet with House Democrats during their annual retreat in Baltimore:Biden will speak to House Dems on Wednesday in Baltimore, @PeteAguilar announces https://t.co/qKpRM94FZe— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) February 24, 2023
    Then with senators:Schumer’s office says Biden will speak at a special Senate Dem caucus lunch next Thursday— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) February 24, 2023
    Earlier this week, Democrats erupted in fury when they found out that Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy handed over to Tucker Carlson 40,000 hours of video footage surveillance and other cameras in the Capitol picked up on January 6.The concern was not only that it could reveal details of the building’s security, but also that Carlson, a conservative firebrand who has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the insurrection before his audience of millions, would use the footage to distort what happened that day.As it turns out, Democratic leaders in Congress have access to that footage as well. Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent confirmed as much from the Capitol police. In his column today, he argues that Democrats should fight fire with fire, and release the footage to news organizations in an attempt to counter whatever Carlson has planned for what he’s been given.Let’s take a quick dip into Trumpworld, where the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has an exclusive on the ongoing mess that is Donald Trump’s possession of classified materials:Donald Trump’s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in December because a junior aide to the former president had transported it from another office in Florida after the FBI completed its search of the property.The former president does not appear to have played a direct role in the mishandling of the box, though he remains under investigation for the possible improper retention of national security documents and obstruction of justice. This previously unreported account of the retrieval was revealed by two sources familiar with the matter.Known internally as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States, the junior aide initially kept the box at a converted guest bungalow at Mar-a-Lago called the “tennis cottage” after Trump left office, and she soon took it with her to a government-leased office in the Palm Beach area.The box remained at the government-leased office from where the junior aide worked through most of 2022, explaining why neither Trump’s lawyer who searched Mar-a-Lago in June for any classified-marked papers nor the FBI agents who searched the property in August found the documents.Around the time that Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago from his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey at the end of the summer, the junior aide was told that she was being relocated to a desk in the anteroom of Trump’s own office at Mar-a-Lago that was previously assigned to top aide Molly Michael.The junior aide retrieved her work belongings – including the box – from the government-leased office and took them to her new Mar-a-Lago workspace around September. At that time, the justice department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of national security documents was intensifying.Several weeks after the junior aide moved into her new workspace, federal prosecutors told Trump’s lawyers in October that they suspected the former president was still in possession of additional documents with classified markings despite the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago on 8 August.Vice president Kamala Harris condemned the “partisan and political attacks” on reproductive rights that have put the fate of medication abortion in the hands of a single, conservative judge in Texas.Convening a White House meeting with reproductive rights advocates and providers on Friday, Harris addressed the pending lawsuit, brought by abortion opponents, that threatens the access to the abortion drug mifepristone.“This is not just an attack on women’s fundamental freedoms. It is an attack on the very foundation of our public health system,” Harris said.Medication abortion now accounts for the majority of abortions in the US. It is also used as a miscarriage treatment. Abortion rights advocates have warned that a decision to reverse a decades-old approval of the drug by the Federal Drug Administration would have “devastating” consequences for women’s reproductive health.Harris said the legal challenge, as well as legislative efforts in Republican-led states that would restrict access to medication abortion, amounted to an attempt by political activists to undermine the FDA’s authority, accusing them of trying to “question the legitimacy of a group of scientists and doctors who have studied the significance of this drug.”The vice president said supporters of the lawsuit should “look in their own medicine cabinets” and question whether they would be willing to do away with any FDA-approved medication that they use to alleviate pain and improve their quality of life. “Mifepristone is no exception to that process,” Harris said.The FDA approved mifepristone, in combination with a second drug, in 2000, deeming it a safe and effective way to terminate a pregnancy up to 10-weeks.During the pandemic, the FDA expanded access to the pills by allowing patients to obtain them by mail through telehealth rather than requiring in-person hospital or clinic visits. The agency further broadened the availability of the medication when it announced in January it would allow certified retail pharmacies to dispense mifepristone, known under the brand name Mifeprex.US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk has not indicated when he will rule, but advocates are preparing for a possible decision as soon as today.Since the supreme court decision to end the Constitutional right to abortion, Harris has led the administration’s public response.During Friday’s roundtable, she said the participants would discuss ways to ensure Americans are aware of the lawsuit and its possible ramifications as well as what policymakers and providers could to ensure patients “have access to the medication that they need.”Last weekend, Joe Biden clandestinely traveled to Ukraine via a mode of travel he personally prefers, but which is unusual for a modern American president: a passenger train. The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont spoke to the man who made it happen:Alexander Kamyshin, the head of Ukraine’s railway company Ukrzaliznytsia, doesn’t get much sleep at the best of times. On Sunday night, as Joe Biden was being ferried into Ukraine in a 10-hour night journey from Poland – in a carriage now known as “Rail Force One”, he got almost none.Along with others involved in the secret operation to bring the US president to his meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Kamyshin watched the progress of the train in a command centre.A handsome bearded man sporting a hipster-ish braid of hair that falls over the shaved sides of his head, Kamyshin is deliberately vague about many of the details.But in the past year, his dedicated team has brought in world leaders, VIPs and diplomatic missions on an almost daily basis as part of a programme called “Iron Diplomacy”.Security is everything, he told the Guardian in an interview at Kyiv’s main railway station. “We have not had one leak. There have been no photographs from train attendants. We respect the confidence of the delegations.“It’s not a challenge. It’s our job that we do every day. Imagine,” he says with smile, “the president of the United States coming to a war-torn country by train.‘Rail Force One’: how Ukraine railways got Joe Biden safely to KyivRead moreHere’s a video that’s worth watching of Jill Biden describing her husband’s willingness to continue serving as president for a second term:— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) February 24, 2023
    First lady Jill Biden has long been described as a key figure in US president Joe Biden’s orbit as he plans his future – after today revealing to the Associated Press that he’s close to confirming he’ll seek a second term in the White House..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Because I’m his wife,” she laughed, AP writes.But she brushed off the question about whether she has the deciding vote on whether the president runs for reelection..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Of course he’ll listen to me, because we’re a married couple,” she said. But, she added later, “he makes up his own mind, believe me.”Biden did the interview in Kenya, during the second leg of her trip to Africa this week. Earlier she was in Namibia.First lady Jill Biden has given one of the clearest indications yet that Joe Biden will run for a second term, telling The Associated Press in an exclusive interview today that there’s “pretty much” nothing left to do but figure out the time and place for the announcement.Although Biden has long said that it’s his intention to seek reelection, he has yet to make it official, and he’s struggled to dispel questions about whether he’s too old to continue serving as president. Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term.“He says he’s not done,” the first lady said in Nairobi, the second and final stop of her five-day trip to Africa. “He’s not finished what he’s started. And that’s what’s important.”She added: “How many times does he have to say it for you to believe it?”Biden aides have said an announcement is likely to come in April, after the first fundraising quarter ends, which is around the time that Barack Obama officially launched his reelection campaign.Top US officials have restated their support for Ukraine on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion. Speaking before the UN security council, secretary of state Antony Blinken warned that anything less than Russia’s full withdrawal from territory it seized will weaken the global body’s charter, while Joe Biden highlighted the bipartisan nature of Washington’s support for Kyiv. And indeed, many Republicans support Ukraine’s cause – but others in the party argue it is a distraction from more pressing issues. This divide could prove crucial to the outcome of the war in the months to come.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
    Blinken warned China against getting involved in the conflict by providing Russia with weapons.
    The American public is divided over how long to support Kyiv, with more Republicans preferring limits on US aid, and more Democrats in favor of helping them fight against Russia until the job is done.
    The Treasury announced new sanctions against Russian individuals and companies involved in the war effort, but such measures haven’t proven as successful as Washington has hoped.
    But the bipartisan comity over Ukraine has its limits. There’s been a definite increase over the past year in the number of lawmakers who have questioned Washington’s support to Ukraine, particularly among Republicans.Their argument is that Joe Biden cares more about Ukraine than various issues at home, especially those they’ve turned into cudgels against the administration such as border security, or the recent derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.This tweet from GOP senator Josh Hawley captures the dynamic well:The Republican Party can be the party of Ukraine and globalists or the party of East Palestine and working Americans. Not both— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) February 24, 2023
    But it’s in the House where some of Ukraine’s biggest congressional foes can be found. “We can’t care more about Ukraine than we do our own country. President Biden has failed to lead on the train derailment, the border, inflation, crime, and so much more,” House Republican Jake LaTurner said in a statement released today.“The White House continues to prioritize Ukraine while leaving American communities behind. It’s unacceptable.”And while the Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell issued a statement of strong support for Ukraine today, his counterpart in the House, speaker Kevin McCarthy, has made no public statement that this blog is aware of.Back in Washington, Mitt Romney was one of several Republican lawmakers who tweeted strong statements of support for Ukraine on the war’s one-year anniversary – which caught the eye of Democratic president Joe Biden.Biden has been eager to play up the bipartisan nature of US support for Ukraine. Here’s what Romney, who represents Utah in the Senate and was the GOP’s nominee for president in 2012, had to say:It is in America’s interest to support Ukraine. If Russia can invade, subjugate, and pillage Ukraine with impunity, it will do the same again to others, and a world at war diminishes the security of Americans.— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 23, 2023
    And here is Biden’s response:I think Senator Romney would be the first to tell you that we don’t always agree.But he knows what I know: that standing with Ukraine — and standing up for freedom — advances our national security. https://t.co/X67SkDIL6W— President Biden (@POTUS) February 24, 2023 More

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    Democrats condemn McCarthy for handing Capitol attack footage to Tucker Carlson – as it happened

    Kevin McCarthy’s protracted battle to win election as speaker of the House had far-reaching consequences. His decision to release a massive trove of surveillance footage from January 6 to Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson is one of them.It was lawmakers on the GOP’s right wing who held up McCarthy’s election as speaker for days last month, resulting in an unheard-of 15 rounds of balloting. McCarthy only won their support by making a number of promises – and releasing the January 6 footage was apparently among them.“I promised,” McCarthy told the New York Times, when asked why he gave Carlson the footage. “I was asked in the press about these tapes, and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment.”The speaker said he wanted to ensure Carlson, who has claimed the insurrection was a “false flag” attack and generally tried to downplay it, without evidence, “exclusive” access to the footage, but could release it to other outlets later. As for Carlson, he told the Times he was taking the footage “very seriously” and had a large team reviewing it.Democrats cried foul after Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy sent about 40,000 hours of footage of the January 6 insurrection to Tucker Carlson – Fox News’s best-known conservative commentator, who has repeatedly downplayed the attack. Meanwhile, special prosecutor Jack Smith moved to pre-empt former vice-president Mike Pence’s attempt to get out of testifying before a grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Expect to hear more about that in weeks and days to come.Here’s what else happened today:
    Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the Ohio village where a train derailment sparked fears of toxic contamination, and expressed regret for not stopping by sooner.
    Trump and FBI director Christopher Wray could be deposed as part of a lawsuit by two former bureau employees – unless Joe Biden stops it.
    The United States has seen a disturbing streak of extremist-driven mass killings, a new report found.
    The latest Twitter feud is between New York mayor Eric Adams and congressman and fabulist George Santos.
    Did you know? Jon Tester has only seven fingers.
    Two former FBI agents will be allowed to depose Donald Trump and the bureau’s director Christopher Wray as part of a lawsuit against the government, Politico reports.But in an unusual twist, Joe Biden could put a stop to the deposition by asserting executive privilege. The lawsuit stems from the FBI’s firing of Peter Strzok, an agent who it was revealed exchanged text messages disparaging Trump with Lisa Page, an attorney for the bureau who resigned. Strzok was involved in the investigation into ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, and the then-president attacked the pair repeatedly once the exchanges were revealed.According to Politico, the pair are suing the FBI alleging breach of privacy for releasing their messages, while Strzok is contesting his firing. Here’s more from the report:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the suits, Strzok and Page contend that Trump and his Justice Department appointees were carrying out a political vendetta.
    The Justice Department and the FBI have both denied that Trump’s public attacks played any role in the bureau’s decision to fire Strzok, saying it was a decision arrived at by career officials and carried out without political pressure. They’ve argued that deposing Trump or Wray would shed little light on decisions that were made by others at the FBI.
    But Jackson’s ruling suggests there might be evidence that she thinks only Trump and Wray can provide. She noted that her decision was rooted in an analysis of the “apex doctrine,” which requires litigants to first seek information from figures at lower rungs of an organization before pursuing testimony of more senior officials.
    Jackson also indicated that the depositions would be limited to a “narrow set of topics” that were defined in a sealed hearing on Thursday.Joe Biden today nominated a Wall Street insider to take over as president of the World Bank from David Malpass, a Trump nominee who drew fire for comments questioning climate change, and will be leaving the post early. But as Phillip Inman reports, Ajay Banga may not get a warm welcome from anti-poverty groups:Joe Biden has nominated a former boss of Mastercard with decades of experience on Wall Street to lead the World Bank and oversee a shake-up at the development organisation to shift its focus to the climate crisis.The US president’s choice of Ajay Banga, an American citizen born in India, comes a week after David Malpass, a Donald Trump appointee, quit the role.The World Bank’s governing body is expected to make a decision in May, but the US is the Washington-based organisation’s largest shareholder and has traditionally been allowed to nominate without challenge its preferred candidate for the post.Malpass, who is due to step down on 30 June, was nominated by Trump in February 2019 and took up the post officially that April. He is known to have lost the confidence of Biden’s head of the US Treasury, Janet Yellen, who with other shareholders wanted to expand the bank’s development remit to include the climate crisis and other global challenges.Joe Biden nominates former Mastercard boss Ajay Banga to lead World BankRead moreOne of the best known progressive voices currently on television is Mehdi Hasan of MSNBC. He sat down with the Guardian’s David Smith to discuss everything from being British to how to report the news in these hyper-partisan times: One evening this month on cable television, Mehdi Hasan interviewed Ilhan Omar, who had just been ousted from a House of Representatives panel by Republicans still worshipping at Donald Trump’s altar of intolerance.The significance of the moment was not lost on Hasan.“When I was growing up, I never imagined I’d see, on primetime, a Muslim host interviewing a Muslim politician. Tonight, I did the interview,” the 43-year-old tweeted afterwards. “I also never thought I’d see double standards on terrorism bluntly addressed on primetime, but tonight I got to address it. Thanks @MSNBC.”For those who criticise the American news media as too white, too Christian, too complacent, too inward looking, too pompous (“democracy dies in darkness”), too prone to herd mentality and too deferential to authority, Hasan has come along in the nick of time.He is a British-born Muslim of Indian descent, anti-establishment muckraker and unabashed lefty with a bias towards democracy. As a former columnist and podcaster at the Intercept, and ex-presenter on Al Jazeera English, he used to worry that MSNBC would find him too edgy, too iconoclastic. But he says the network has been entirely supportive: he hosts weekly shows on MSNBC and NBC’s streaming channel Peacock.One explanation is that, unlike shock jocks, bomb throwers and social media stars on the right, his show undeniably does substance. During the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, it featured the Afghan perspective at length. When the war in Ukraine erupted, Hasan offered a 10-minute monologue about the fascist philosopher who informs Vladimir Putin’s worldview. After the police killing of Tyre Nichols, an African American man in Memphis, he discussed critical race theory and policing with two leading academics.Clearly, Hasan is not afraid to be an outlier. For one thing, he is personally opposed to abortion, though he condemned last year’s overturning of Roe v Wade and believes the law should uphold a woman’s right to choose. For another, he is still fastidious about taking precautions to avoid the coronavirus even as nearly everyone else seems to have thrown caution to the winds.‘Biden’s the most impressive president of my lifetime’: Mehdi Hasan on Fox News, tough questions and post-Trump politicsRead moreA day after he confirmed he would seek another term next year in what is sure to be a closely fought contest, Montana’s Democratic senator Jon Tester had a new message for Americans: I only have seven fingers.Don’t take it from us, take it from him:RT if you’re ready to send a seven-fingered dirt farmer from Montana back to the Senate. pic.twitter.com/1zE95IRsSQ— Jon Tester (@jontester) February 23, 2023
    The culprit was a meat ginder. And no, this is not the first time he brought the childhood accident up on the campaign trail.At her daily briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg from those who say he waited too long to visit East Palestine, Ohio.Republicans have argued Buttigieg shirked his duties by not visiting the village that’s been grappling with the aftermath of a chemical spill sooner. Here’s what Jean-Pierre had to say about that:WH Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre condemns “bad faith attacks” on Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg amid growing scrutiny of his handling of the Ohio derailment:“If you remember Elaine Chao…when there was these types of chemical spills, nobody was calling for her to be fired.” pic.twitter.com/sEpNLr2jA6— The Recount (@therecount) February 23, 2023
    Hugo Lowell reports on the latest developments in the saga over Mike Pence’s testimony, or otherwise, in the US justice department investigation of January 6 and related election subversion…The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election issued a motion to compel testimony from Mike Pence in recent days – after the Trump legal team sought to block his appearance on executive privilege grounds, sources familiar with the matter said.The compulsion motion against Pence marks a pre-emptive move by the special counsel to rebut the executive privilege arguments before Pence had even made an appearance before the federal grand jury in Washington DC pursuant to a subpoena issued last month, the sources said.While Pence has suggested he would contest the subpoena, the Guardian has previously reported that is understood to involve him at least appearing before the grand jury and asserting the so-called speech or debate protection for congressional officials to specific questions.The Trump special counsel, Jack Smith, appears to have issued the motion to compel – earlier reported by CBS News – not in response to Pence’s expected actions, but in response to a recent executive privilege motion filed in the case by Trump’s legal team seeking to stop Pence testifying in the investigation.Full story:Motion to compel Pence’s January 6 testimony is rebuttal to Trump team, sources sayRead moreAdam Gabbatt takes a look at what Tucker Carlson has said about the January 6 attack, and what he might say next now Kevin McCarthy has given the Fox News host 44,000 hours of Capitol security footage…In the two years since the US Capitol attack, Tucker Carlson has described the violent assault on American democracy connected to the deaths of nine people as “vandalism” and a “forgettably minor” outbreak of “mob violence”.The Fox News host has said the attack on Congress by supporters of Donald Trump, which has prompted more than 900 arrests, was a “false flag” operation, part of alleged persecution of conservatives by shady government forces. Carlson even devoted much of a conspiracy-laden TV series to undermining the severity of the attack.It is not difficult to imagine, then, what Carlson might do with the 44,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from January 6 handed to him exclusively by Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker. In fact Carlson gave an indication on his show on Monday night.“Our producers, some of our smartest producers, have been looking at this stuff and trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts or not the story we’ve been told for more than two years,” Carlson said.He added: “We think already in some ways that it does contradict that story.”Read on:The January 6 insurrection has proved an obsession for Tucker CarlsonRead moreA Texas man who assaulted a police officer during the US Capitol riot and also threatened the New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was sentenced on Wednesday to 38 months in prison.Garret Miller, 36 and from Richardson, Texas, was “at the forefront of every barrier overturned, police line overrun, and entryway breached within his proximity” on January 6 and was twice detained outside the building, prosecutors said.On the night after the riot, he tweeted: “Assassinate AOC.”As the Associated Press reports, when Miller was arrested at his home near Dallas two weeks after the riot, he “was wearing a shirt that read ‘I Was There, Washington DC, January 6, 2021’, with a picture of President Donald Trump on it.“… Miller has already spent more than two years behind bars since his arrest, and with credit for good behavior he’s expected to serve another eight months, according to his lawyer, F Clinton Broden”.More than 1,000 people have been charged over the Capitol attack. Slightly under half have, like Miller, pleaded guilty.Miller has also expressed remorse. His lawyer, Broden, told the AP: “It should be always be remembered that although Garret is fully responsible for his individual actions that day, his actions and the actions of many others were a product of rhetoric from a cult leader that has yet to be brought to justice.“Garret Miller was not the name on the flag carried by those who invaded our Capitol on this dark day in our nation’s history.”That, of course, was Trump. The former president was impeached for inciting the insurrection but acquitted as enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal. He is still under investigation by the US justice department, to which the House January 6 committee made four criminal referrals.Regardless, Trump remains the favourite to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.David DePape, the suspect in the attack last year on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the then House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is due to appear in state court on 12 April, his public defender said earlier.DePape faces state and federal charges over the attack, in which Pelosi was attacked with a hammer and seriously wounded.Here’s some reading about the case – and how politicians and pundits on the right sought to capitalise on it, and then retreated:Paul Pelosi attack: rightwing pundits backtrack after release of police videoRead moreDemocrats are crying foul after Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy sent about 40,000 hours of footage of the January 6 insurrection to Tucker Carlson – Fox News’s best-known conservative commentator, who has repeatedly downplayed the attack. Meanwhile in court, former vice-president Mike Pence is planning his strategy to quash a subpoena from the special prosecutor investigating the insurrection, among other things, while Republican lawmaker Scott Perry is trying to stop the justice department from accessing his cellphone.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
    Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the Ohio village where a train derailment has sparked fears of toxic contamination, and expressed regret for not stopping by sooner.
    The United States has seen a disturbing streak of extremism-driven mass killings, a new report found.
    The latest Twitter feud is between New York mayor Eric Adams and congressman and fabulist George Santos.
    In Florida, authorities have released the name of a journalist who was one of two people shot dead near the scene of a murder earlier that same day, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:A Florida journalist killed near Orlando on Wednesday was identified as 24-year-old Dylan Lyons.Lyons, a reporter for Spectrum News 13, was fatally shot on Wednesday afternoon while at the scene of a murder. Officials said Keith Melvin Moses, 19, shot Lyons and a colleague before walking into a nearby home and shooting a woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The girl died.Lyons’ colleague, Jesse Walden, a photographer, was in critical condition but able to speak with investigators, according to Greg Angel, a station news anchor.John Mina, the Orange county sheriff, said Moses ambushed Lyons and Walden as they were at the scene of a murder Moses is accused of committing. It was not clear if Moses knew Lyons and Walden were members of the media.Officials identify Florida journalist killed while reporting at scene of murderRead moreMass killings linked to extremism in the United States are on the rise, as are the number of victims of these incidences, according to a new report. Here’s the latest on that, from the Associated Press:The number of US mass killings linked to extremism over the past decade was at least three times higher than the total from any other 10-year period since the 1970s, according to the Anti-Defamation League.The ADL report also found that all extremist killings identified in 2022 were linked to rightwing extremism, with an especially high number linked to white supremacy.They include a racist mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 Black people and a mass shooting that killed five people at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs.“It is not an exaggeration to say that we live in an age of extremist mass killings,” the report from the ADL Center on Extremism says.Between two and seven extremism-related mass killings occurred every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s but in the 2010s that number rocketed to 21, the report found.The trend has continued with five extremist mass killings in 2021 and 2022, as many as there were during the 2000s.The number of victims has risen too. Between 2010 and 2020, 164 people died in ideological extremist-related mass killings, according to the report. That was much more than in any other decade except the 1990s, when the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168.US mass killings linked to extremism at highest level in decades, report findsRead moreIn his visit to the Ohio community where a freight train’s derailment earlier this month sparked fears of severe pollution, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg expressed regret for not speaking out about the disaster sooner:Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg admits he waited too long to address the train derailment disaster in East Palestine, Ohio:“I felt strongly about this and could’ve expressed that sooner.” pic.twitter.com/i3DD12VV62— The Recount (@therecount) February 23, 2023
    The stop in the village of East Palestine by Buttigieg, who is considered a rising star in the Democratic party and was a candidate in the 2020 presidential election, came less than a day after an appearance by Donald Trump, where the former president criticized the Biden administration:“Get over here.”— Donald Trump’s message to President Biden during his visit to East Palestine, Ohio after the train derailment disaster pic.twitter.com/eRiWy9vurW— The Recount (@therecount) February 22, 2023
    Democrats have hit back at Trump, saying he rolled back safety regulations on the railroad and chemical industries during his time in the White House:Trump’s environmental rollbacks in focus on visit to Ohio toxic train siteRead moreNot 24 hours after Donald Trump came and went from East Palestine, Ohio, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg paid a visit to the scene of the freight train derailment that spilled toxic chemicals in the community.Here’s a clip of his visit, from CNN:This morning, Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg is on the scene of the Norfolk Southern train derailment disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. pic.twitter.com/fHiHXmKT13— The Recount (@therecount) February 23, 2023 More

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    Georgia grand jury foreperson’s remarks on Trump investigation could fuel legal challenges – as it happened

    Lawyer for Republican officials who a special grand jury in Georgia may have recommended for indictment over their effort to meddle in the 2020 election could use the grand jury foreperson’s public statements to challenge any charges, CBS News reports:News: CBS News has learned that lawyers close to several GOP witnesses in Fulton Co. investigation are preparing to move to quash any possible indictments by DA based on the public statements by the forewoman of the special grand jury, per two people familiar with the discussions— Robert Costa (@costareports) February 22, 2023
    Emily Kohrs, the foreperson of the special grand jury empaneled in the Atlanta area to investigate the effort by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia, has in recent days spoken publicly about the panel’s work. While she hasn’t named names, she confirmed that the panel did recommend indictments, and when it comes to the former president, “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.”Donald Trump traveled to East Palestine, Ohio, where he took the opportunity to criticize the Biden administration’s response to the derailment and toxic waste spill earlier this month. Two can play at that game, however, and Democrats have seized on his trip to remind voters of his administration’s friendliness to the rail industry, and argue it set the stage for the derailment. We may hear more about that tomorrow, when transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg pays his own visit to the village.Here’s what else happened today:
    The foreperson of the special grand jury investigating Trump’s election meddling campaign in Georgia has been making the rounds of news outlets, and that might not be helpful for prosecutors.
    Democrats got some good news in their quest to hold the Senate after next year, when Montana’s Jon Tester announced he’d stand for re-election. However, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin remains non-committal on another term.
    House Republicans want to learn everything they can about American support to Ukraine.
    Joe Biden is taking a page out of Trump’s book with new restrictions meant to dramatically crack down on asylum seekers arriving at the border with Mexico.
    “Serious vulnerabilities” in Arizona’s election systems? Apparently not.
    One of the most under-the-radar political stories of the year is happening in Wisconsin, where voters yesterday cast ballots in a primary election that could set the stage for a change in the ideological balance on the state supreme court. That won’t just affect Wisconsinites, but particularly all Americans, since the Badger state is crucial to any victorious presidential campaign. Here’s more on that from the Guardian’s Sam Levine:Wisconsin voters on Tuesday chose one liberal and one conservative candidate to face off in a race to determine control of the state supreme court in what is likely the most important election of 2023.Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee circuit court judge, will be on the ballot against Daniel Kelly, a conservative former supreme court justice, in the state’s 4 April general election. Protasiewicz, who received 46% of the statewide vote, and Kelly, who received 24% of the statewide vote, advanced from a four-member field that included Everett Mitchell, a liberal judge in Dane county, and Jennifer Dorow, a conservative judge in Waukesha county.Conservatives currently have a 4-3 majority on the court, but if Protasiewicz wins, the balance of the court would flip.That would have enormous impact in Wisconsin, one of the most politically competitive states in America that often determines the outcome of the presidential election. The court is expected to have a say in the near future on a range of major voting rights and abortion decisions.Wisconsin judicial race: contenders chosen in pivotal election for 2023Read moreAmong the news outlets Emily Kohrs, foreperson of the Georgia special grand jury investigating the 2020 election meddling campaign, spoke to was CNN.Their legal analyst Elie Honig, a former assistant US attorney, was not impressed by her disclosures. Here’s what he had to say:Emily Kohrs (and other jurors in Trump investigations, or any investigations for that matter), if you’re listening:“It’s a prosecutor’s nightmare.”Former federal and state prosecutor @eliehonig with @andersoncooper discussing effects of grand jury members speaking publicly. pic.twitter.com/s11guYp3Ef— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) February 22, 2023
    Legal experts who spoke to the Washington Post say the Georgia special grand jury foreperson’s media blitz won’t be helpful to prosecutors looking to hold Donald Trump’s allies to account, but aren’t necessarily fatal to their case.“What the forewoman said in this case was nothing more than hearsay, and in theory isn’t damaging. But her statements could allow for stalling and delaying on the part of those facing indictment who might question the impartiality of the proceedings,” Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University, told the Post.Washington University in St. Louis law professor Peter A. Joy said her comments could be fodder for future investigations.“It could lead to an investigation into the grand jury itself and the possibility that anyone indicted may be able to obtain a copy of the transcript of the grand jury proceedings, which would be helpful to the defense,” he said.Clark D. Cunningham of Georgia State University summed it up best: It is “speculative and maybe alarmist to say that her media appearances will be a problem for the prosecution. But the adverse effect on public confidence, I think, is clear.”Lawyer for Republican officials who a special grand jury in Georgia may have recommended for indictment over their effort to meddle in the 2020 election could use the grand jury foreperson’s public statements to challenge any charges, CBS News reports:News: CBS News has learned that lawyers close to several GOP witnesses in Fulton Co. investigation are preparing to move to quash any possible indictments by DA based on the public statements by the forewoman of the special grand jury, per two people familiar with the discussions— Robert Costa (@costareports) February 22, 2023
    Emily Kohrs, the foreperson of the special grand jury empaneled in the Atlanta area to investigate the effort by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia, has in recent days spoken publicly about the panel’s work. While she hasn’t named names, she confirmed that the panel did recommend indictments, and when it comes to the former president, “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.”Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, marked Ash Wednesday in Warsaw today.This is Facebook’s translation from the Polish of what the attending priest, Wieslaw Dawidowski, had to say:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Today is Ash Wednesday. Also the greats of this world accept the ashes – if they belong to the Catholic tradition. I had the honor to put ashes on the head of the President of the United States himself Mr Joe Biden.
    Everything happened in great secret but now I can say: in an improvised house chapel just next to the president’s apartment, we held a Holy Mass with the intention of peace, the conversion of Russia and the light of the Holy Spirit for the president.Dawidowski’s post included pictures of presidential challenge coins and of the priest and president together, ash on the president’s forehead.Democrats and immigration advocates have harshly criticized Joe Biden over a new proposal that could stop migrants claiming asylum at the US-Mexico border. One advocate said the move would cause “unnecessary human suffering”.The pushback came after the Biden administration unveiled the proposal that would deny asylum to migrants who arrive without first seeking it in one of the countries they pass through.There are exceptions for children, people with medical emergencies and those facing imminent threats but if enacted the proposal could stop tens of thousands of people claiming asylum in the US.The move prompted comparisons to Donald Trump’s attempts to limit asylum, attempts repeatedly struck down by federal courts. As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to reverse those policies.The proposal “represents a blatant embrace of hateful and illegal anti-asylum policies, which will lead to unnecessary human suffering”, said Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.“Time after time, President Biden has broken his campaign promises to end restrictions on asylum seekers traveling through other countries.“These are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and thousands of children who are simply looking for a fair chance for their case to be heard. We urge the Biden administration to abandon policy initiatives that further the inhumane and ineffective agenda of the Trump administration.”The proposed rule was posted in the Federal Register this week, with 30 days for public comment.Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Justice Immigration Center, said the brief comment period “suggests that the president already knows that this policy is a betrayal of his campaign promises”.Full story:Biden’s proposal denying asylum at border would cause ‘unnecessary suffering’, say criticsRead moreJon Tester has announced a run for re-election – good news for Democrats facing a tough map in their quest to hold the Senate in 2024.In a statement earlier today, the Montanan, for three terms an increasingly rare blue (Democratic) senator from a very red (Republican) state, said: “I know that people in Washington don’t understand what a hard day’s work looks like or the challenges working families are facing in Montana.“I am running for re-election so I can keep fighting for Montanans and demand that Washington stand up for our veterans and lower costs.”Politico reports an unusually cross Republican response, in the form of a statement from Steve Daines, the other Montana senator.“Jon Tester just made the same mistake Steve Bullock did in 2020. Both should have ended their political careers on their terms. Instead, they each will have their careers ended by Montana voters.”Bullock, a former Montana governor, ran against Daines in 2020 … and was soundly beaten.As Politico puts it, “it’s rare for an intra-state senator … to hammer someone on the record like this. Part of the history here is that Tester helped recruit Bullock to run against Daines”.An interesting report from Politico says Joe Biden’s failure to say whether he will run for re-election or not has created a creeping “sense of doubt” among Democratic operatives.Most expect Biden to announce a run for a second term in April and thereby answer those who say he is too old for the office, the report says, “but even that target is less than definitive”.Politico adds: “According to four people familiar with the president’s thinking, a final call has been pushed aside as real-world events intervene.”One such event, of course, was the president’s visit to Ukraine and Poland this week.Nonetheless, “some potential presidential aspirants and scores of major donors” are reportedly “strategising and even developing a Plan B while trying to remain respectful and publicly supportive of the 80-year-old president”.Among possible candidates should Biden not run, the site names three governors – JB Pritzker (Illinois), Gavin Newsom (California) and Phil Murphy (New Jersey) – and some of the usual suspects in Congress, including senators Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont), who it says are keeping the door open, just in case.Sanders, of course, is a year older than Biden. Here’s what he says about those who say 80, or indeed 81, is too old to run for president: Bernie Sanders: Nikki Haley’s demand for mental tests is ageist and ‘absurd’Read moreA former Arizona attorney general omitted key context from investigators when he publicly said his office had discovered “serious vulnerabilities” in state election systems, according to new documents obtained by the Washington Post.The documents provide new insight into how Mark Brnovich, a Republican who left office last year, investigated allegations of fraud in his state. The investigation took 10,000 hours and had the participation of all of the office’s 60 investigators at one point or another.In April last year, Brnovich released an interim report saying there were issues with the handling and verification of mail-in ballots. The documents obtained by the Post show that in a draft report, Brnovich’s staff wrote: “We did not uncover any criminality or fraud having been committed in this area during the 2020 general election.”Brnovich’s interim report also suggested that Maricopa county, the largest in the state, had not turned over information, making the investigation more difficult. In a draft report, staff wrote that investigators collectively believed the county “was cooperative and responsive to our requests”.The Post documents also show that top Arizona Republicans who claimed widespread fraud in the 2020 election could not substantiate their claims when they met investigators and were subject to criminal penalties if they lied.When Mark Finchem, a prominent election denier who unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state last year, met investigators, he did not have much to show, “specifically stating he did not have any evidence of fraud and that he did not wish to take up our time”. He offered four ballots that had not been opened nor counted, the Post said.Sonny Borrelli, another GOP lawmaker, only provided the name of one voter he believed to be deceased. The voter turned out to be alive.The Department of Transportation has sent out a statement, from “a spokesperson”, about why Pete Buttigieg has announced his own visit to East Palestine, Ohio, site of the toxic Norfolk Southern rail spill, tomorrow.It’s basically an outline of the how and why of the federal response, which crosses jurisdictions and departments, in answer to Republican attacks on Buttigieg (and Joe Biden) for not visiting the disaster site sooner.The statement says: “As the secretary said, he would go when it is appropriate and wouldn’t detract from the emergency response efforts. The secretary is going now that the Environmental Protection Agency has said it is moving out of the emergency response phase and transitioning to the long-term remediation phase.“His visit also coincides with the National Transportation Safety Board issuing its factual findings of the investigation into the cause of the derailment and will allow the secretary to hear from [department] investigators who were on the ground within hours of the derailment to support the NTSB’s investigation.”The statement says the EPA is leading federal efforts to hold Norfolk Southern accountable “and make the company clean up its mess”, because “that is how it works in response to a chemical spill”.The statement also takes a veiled shot at Republicans, including Donald Trump, due in East Palestine today, for weakening federal safety regulations applicable to companies like Norfolk Southern and businesses like transporting dangerous chemicals.“The [department] will continue to do its part by helping get to the bottom of what caused the derailment and implementing rail safety measures, and we hope this sudden bipartisan support for rail safety will result in meaningful changes in Congress.”Donald Trump is expected in East Palestine, Ohio later today, where he’ll undoubtedly take every opportunity to criticize the Biden administration’s response to the derailment and toxic waste spill in the community earlier this month. Two can play at that game, however, and Democrats have seized on his trip to remind voters of his administration’s friendliness to the rail industry, and argue it set the stage for the derailment. We may hear more about that tomorrow, when transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg pays his own visit to the community.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
    Democrats got some good news in their quest to hold the Senate after next year, when Montana’s Jon Tester announced he’d stand for re-election. However, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin remains non-committal on another term.
    House Republicans want to learn everything they can about American support to Ukraine.
    Joe Biden is taking a page out of Trump’s book with new restrictions meant to dramatically crack down on asylum seekers arriving at the border with Mexico. More

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    Gerontocracy: the exceptionally old political class that governs the US

    Gerontocracy: the exceptionally old political class that governs the USJoe Biden and members of Congress are increasingly long in the tooth – and more and more out of step with a much younger US public It is the year of the octogenarian. American TV viewers can find Patrick Stewart, 82, boldly going in a new series of Star Trek: Picard and 80-year-old Harrison Ford starring in two shows plus a trailer for the fifth installment of Indiana Jones.And a switch to the news is likely to serve up Joe Biden, at 80 the oldest president in US history, or Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, who turns 81 on Monday. But while action heroes are evergreen, the political class is facing demands for generational change.California senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, announces she will not seek re-electionRead more“America is not past our prime – it’s just that our politicians are past theirs,” Nikki Haley, 51, told a crowd of several hundred people in Charleston, South Carolina, as she launched her candidacy for president in 2024.It was a shot across the bow of not only Biden but former US president Donald Trump, who leads most opinion polls for the Republican nomination but is 76 years old. Haley, notably, mentioned Trump’s name only once and avoided criticisms of him or his administration, in which she served as UN ambassador.Instead, the former South Carolina governor called for a “new generation” of leaders and said she would support a “mandatory mental competency test for politicians over 75 years old”. It was a clue that in a party long shaped in Trump’s image, where ideological differences are likely to be slight, his senior status could offer primary election rivals a line of attack.Lanhee Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution thinktank at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, said: “She said what a lot of people are thinking, or are maybe afraid to say, and for that she deserves a lot of credit. The basic foundation of her argument, which is that we need to turn the page and find a new generation of leadership, is 100% right.”Gerontocracy crept up on Washington slowly but inexorably. Biden, elected to the Senate in 1972, has been a public figure for half a century and, if re-elected as president, would be 86 at the end of his second term. At a recent commemorative event at the White House he hosted Bill Clinton, who was president three decades ago – but is four years his junior.The octogenarian McConnell is the longest-serving leader in the history of the Senate and has offered no hint of retirement. Chuck Schumer, Democratic majority leader in the same chamber, is 72. Senator Bernie Sanders, standard bearer of the left in the past two Democratic primaries, is 81.But there are finally signs of erosion in the grey wall. Last month Patrick Leahy, 82, a Democrat from Vermont, stepped down after 48 years in the Senate. Last week Senator Dianne Feinstein of California announced her retirement at 89 after months of difficult debate about her mental fitness.Most profoundly, last month saw Democrats’ top three leaders in the House – Nancy Pelosi, 82, Steny Hoyer, 83, and 82-year-old Jim Clyburn – make way for a new generation in Hakeem Jeffries, 52, Katherine Clark, 59, and 43-year-old Peter Aguilar, as well as the arrival of Maxwell Frost, now 26, hailed as the first Gen Z congressman.Presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle may now seek to harness this hunger for change in the contest for the world’s most stressful job in 2024. A CNBC All-America Economic Survey in December found that 70% of Americans do not want Biden to run for re-election, giving his age as the principal reason.Chen, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for California state controller last year, commented: “He has exhibited some of the manifestations of somebody who probably has seen better days and that’s hard to hide on the campaign trail. There’s a big difference between running for president at 70 or 75 – and what was possible in the 2020 election when Covid was still raging and a lot of the interactions were different – than running in 2024. I do think his age is going to be an issue.”Biden typically brushes off such talk with the simple refrain: “Watch me.” The president underwent a routine medical checkup this week and Dr Kevin O’Connor, his personal physician since 2009, concluded that Biden “remains a healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency”.Karine Jean-Pierre, 48, the White House press secretary, said: “If you watch him, you’ll see that he has a grueling schedule that he keeps up with, that sometimes some of us are not able to keep up with.”Noting Biden’s string of legislative achievements, she added: “It is surprising that we get this question when you look at this record of this president and what he has been able to do and deliver for the American people.”After a strong performance in the midterm elections, a serious challenge to Biden from within the Democratic party still looks unlikely. Defenders say the obsession with his age merely illustrates his lack of other vulnerabilities after two years in which he has done much to win over moderates and progressives.Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, asked: “Did anybody watch the State of the Union? Joe Biden is fully capable of executing his job as president of the United States. He’s in better shape in some people half of his age. So they need to start focusing on the positives because repetition creates reality: perception is reality in politics.“It’s a distraction and it undercuts the successes that Joe Biden actually has as president of the United States. There is much more concern over Donald Trump’s mental acuity and physical presence than Joe Biden. Joe Biden can run circles around Donald Trump.”A White House doctor once memorably proclaimed that Trump has “incredible genes” and could have lived to 200 years old if only he had been on a better diet. But on the Republican side he could face challenges not only from Haley but Florida governor Ron DeSantis, 44, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, 59, former vice-president Mike Pence, 63, and 57-year-old Senator Tim Scott.Each has previously endorsed Trump’s “Make America great again” mantra and may now struggle to disavow it. No-holds-barred attacks on Trump himself risk alienating his fervent base. But as Haley showed this week, the promise of generational change might serve as a coded rebuke in party that is no stranger to dog whistles.Drexel Heard, 36, who was the youngest executive director of the biggest Democratic party in the country (Los Angeles county), said: “Hypocrisy is a weird thing in American politics. It’s going to be interesting to see if Nikki Haley only talks about Joe Biden’s age and doesn’t talk about Donald Trump’s age and how the media calls her out on that. She’s going to say things like: ‘Well, you know, I’m just saying that we need generational change.’ She’s never going to call Donald Trump out.”Trump will not be the first Republican candidate to face questions over his age. At a debate in 1984, the moderator reminded Ronald Reagan that he was already the oldest president in history at that time. Reagan, 73, replied: “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Even his Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, laughed at the line. Reagan won re-election in a landslide.Trump, for his part, will have an opportunity to silence Republican doubters at his raucous campaign rallies. Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to Clinton, said: “If he can’t do that, if he seems older and less energetic, then I can imagine the generational appeal sticking. But if his juices start flowing and he is able to do what he did seven years ago, then the generational appeal will be likely to fall somewhat flat.”Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, and a 77-year-old grandfather, added that it is not the “consensus view” among Republicans than Trump is too old to move back into the White House. “There’s a lot more support inside the Democratic party for the proposition that Biden is too old than there is inside the Republican party for the parallel proposition that Trump is too old,” he said.Of all the Congresses since 1789, the current one has the second oldest Senate (average age 63.9) and third oldest House of Representatives (average age 57.5). Critics say the backup of talent puts it out of step with the American public, whose average age is 38. One example is around the tech sector and social media as members of Congress have often struggled to keep pace with rapid change and its implications for society.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “I’m 70, so I have great sympathy for these people: 80 is looking a lot younger than it used to, as far as I’m concerned. But no, it’s ridiculous. We’ve got to get back to electing people in their 50s and early 60s.”“That’s the right time for president. You have a good chance of remaining reasonably healthy for eight years if you get a second term. Everybody knows that makes more sense but here we are. What can you say? This was the option we were given in 2020 and we’re going to get essentially the same one in 2024.”TopicsUS newsUS politicsAgeingUS CongressUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More