House elects McCarthy as speaker after days of defeats and concessions
Source: Washington Post
Today, the House elected Republican Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) as the nation’s 55th speaker after days of defeats and concessions to win over hard-line Republicans. McCarthy claimed the gavel on a majority vote on the 15th ballot, the most since before the Civil War.
McCarthy finally clinched the position after some GOP defectors agreed to vote “present” rather than against him, a move that lowered the threshold for McCarthy to prevail. McCarthy, 57, first elected to the House in 2006, will succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi as speaker. The turmoil over McCarthy’s nomination is a likely preview of the House under narrow GOP control.
Progressive Critics Respond to McCarthy Finally Being Elected Speaker by Jon Queally
January 7, 2023
Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Progressive critics responded to the final vote by noting the price paid to win over the hostage-takers in the Republican conference.
"Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly put his personal ambitions ahead of our democracy," said Sean Eldridge, president of Stand Up America, referencing the GOP leader's membership in the "Sedition Caucus" to whom he said the new speaker had "sold his soul."
"He voted against certifying President Biden's victory and obstructed the investigation into the January 6 attack on our country," Eldridge said.
…
"This week," said Eldridge, "McCarthy made dangerous concessions to the most fringe members of the House in exchange for their support in his effort to become Speaker. The punishment for his political cowardice will be presiding over the GOP's conference of chaos for the next two years. Unfortunately, it's the American people who will pay the price."
GOP Lawmaker Moves to Impeach Mayorkas
Source: Political Wire
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) “has filed impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, delivering on a promise he made last week before the 118th Congress was officially sworn in,” Fox News reports.
McCarthy expected to keep 3 Democrats off House committees
Source: ABC News
Speaker Kevin McCarthy and leading Republicans are expected to soon make good on a vow to keep three Democrats from seats on influential committees in the new House.
McCarthy's focus is Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, two California lawmakers who have served on the House Intelligence Committee.
"Speaker McCarthy confirms that Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar are getting kicked off the Intel and Foreign Affairs Committees. Promises made. Promises kept!" Rep. Troy Nehls, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, tweeted on Tuesday.
McCarthy has long pledged to oust the three, citing objections to their behavior and the precedent of the previous House removing committee assignments for Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona.
Biden 'surprised' government records found at old office
Source: AP
By ZEKE MILLER 51 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said he was surprised when informed that government records were found by his attorneys at his former office space in Washington. He was asked about the issue after the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee requested that the U.S. intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of potentially classified documents.
Speaking to reporters in Mexico City on Tuesday, Biden said his attorneys “did what they should have done” when they immediately called the National Archives about the discovery at the offices of the Penn Biden Center. He kept an office there after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his Democratic presidential campaign in 2019.
The White House confirmed that the Department of Justice was reviewing “a small number of documents with classified markings” found at the office.
“I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said in his first comments since news of the Nov. 2, 2022, document discovery emerged Monday. He added that “I don’t know what’s in the documents” and that his lawyers had suggested he not ask.
Supreme Court allows New York gun law placing restrictions on concealed firearms to remain in effect
Source: CNN Politics
CNN — The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a New York gun law that places restrictions on carrying a concealed firearm to remain in effect while legal challenges play out.
In a brief order, the justices rebuffed an emergency request from challengers to the law who say it violates their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They asked the justices to lift a federal appeals court order that froze a district court decision that invalidated key provisions.
The justices declined to do so. Justice Samuel Alito wrote, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, to say they agreed with their colleagues but stressed they were not ruling on the merits of the law, but simply declining to intervene in the dispute at this juncture. The case is currently before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I understand the court’s denial today to reflect respect for the Second Circuit’s procedures in managing its own docket, rather than expressing any view in the merits of the case,” Alito wrote. He urged the lower court to continue to “expedite” the appeal. The court’s order marks the first Second Amendment case to reach the high court since a major Second Amendment decision last summer that expanded gun rights nationwide.
White House says classified documents were found in Biden's garage in Delaware
Source: NBC News
A "small number" of Obama administration documents with classified marking were found in President Joe Biden's Wilmington home, the White House said Thursday.
In a statement released on Twitter, Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber said the documents were found during a search for documents in Biden's two Delaware homes.
"All but one of these documents were found in storage space in the president's Wilmington residence garage. One document consisting of one page was discovered among stored materials in an adjacent room," Sauber said.
No documents were found in Biden's Rehoboth Beach residence.
U.S. will begin 'extraordinary measures' to stay under debt limit
Source: Washington Post
The Treasury Department on Friday said that it will begin “extraordinary measures” next week to prevent the United States government from defaulting on its payment obligations, as lawmakers in Washington prepare for a potentially devastating fiscal showdown.
In a letter to congressional officials, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said the administration would on Jan. 19 begin repurposing federal funds to extend the date by which the government will run out of money. Congress must pass a law raising the debt limit from its current total of $31.4 trillion or the Treasury can’t borrow any more, even to pay for spending lawmakers have already authorized.
“The use of extraordinary measures enables the government to meet its obligations for only a limited amount of time,” Yellen said in a letter to congressional leaders. “It is therefore critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit. Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability.”
The U.S. has never defaulted on its debt in its history, and economists warn that doing so could trigger a panic on Wall Street and lead to millions of job losses. Many leading Republican lawmakers are demanding that their new House majority use the debt limit as leverage to force the Biden administration to accept sweeping spending cuts that Democrats oppose, creating an impasse with no clear resolution at hand.
America Hit Its Debt Limit, Raising Economic Fears
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — The United States hit its debt limit on Thursday, prompting the Treasury Department to begin using a series of accounting maneuvers to ensure the federal government can keep paying its bills.
In a letter to Congress, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said the government would begin using what’s known as “extraordinary measures” to prevent the nation from breaching its statutory debt limit and asked lawmakers to raise or suspend the cap so that the government can continue meeting its financial obligations.
“The period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty, including the challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. Government months into the future,” Ms. Yellen said. “I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”
The milestone of hitting the country’s $31.4 trillion debt cap is the product of decades of tax cuts and increased government spending by both Republicans and Democrats. But at a moment of heightened partisanship and divided government, it is also a warning of the entrenched partisan battles that are set to dominate Washington in the months to come, and that could end in economic shock.
Ron Klain Expected to Step Down as Biden's White House Chief of Staff
WASHINGTON — Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff who has steered President Biden’s administration through two years of triumphs and setbacks, is expected to step down in coming weeks in the most significant changing of the guard since Mr. Biden took office two years ago.
Mr. Klain has been telling colleagues privately since the November midterm elections that after a grueling, nonstop stretch at Mr. Biden’s side going back to the 2020 campaign, he is ready to move on, according to senior administration officials, and a search for a replacement has been underway.
The officials, who discussed internal matters on condition of anonymity, would not say whether a successor has already been picked or when the decision would be announced, but indicated that it would come at some point after the president outlined his agenda for the coming year in his State of the Union address on Feb. 7. Mr. Klain likely would stay around for a transition period to help the next chief settle into the corner office that has been his command post for many crises and legislative battles.
His resignation would mark a striking moment of turnover at the top of an administration that has been relatively stable through the first half of Mr. Biden’s term, and Mr. Klain takes pride that he has lasted longer than any other Democratic president’s first chief of staff in more than half a century. But with Mr. Biden expected to announce by spring that he is running for re-election, advisers predict more moves as some aides shift from the White House to the campaign.
White House unveils new tenant protections amid soaring rental costs
Source: Washington Post
Under pressure to address the nation’s soaring housing costs, the Biden administration on Wednesday announced significant new actions to protect tenants and make renting more affordable.
The announcement involves multiple federal agencies that will gather information on unfair housing practices. It also includes a “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” that, while not binding, sets clear guidelines to help renters stay in affordable housing. The White House is also launching a call to action, dubbed the “Resident-Centered Housing Challenge,” that aims to get housing providers as well as state and local governments to strengthen policies in their own markets.
After months of deliberation, the moves come as the housing market continues to pose a serious problem for people who don’t own their homes — and for the economy overall. While inflation has fallen for the past six months, average rental prices have continued to increase rapidly, disproportionately hurting vulnerable households that spend the bulk of their budgets on rent. Meanwhile, the country is stuck in a massive housing shortfall, complicating efforts to lower costs or simply find enough places for the 44 million American renter households to go.
“This is something the president identified as being necessary on the campaign trail, and is not necessarily purely a product of the current surge in rents, because this is much more expansive than thinking about this in the context of rent growth,” said Erika Poethig, special assistant to the president for housing and urban policy at the Domestic Policy Council, in an interview with The Washington Post. “It’s about thinking about many other aspects of what contributes to a fair market.”
FACT: Conservatism is Literally Killing Americans.
Captain Frogbert https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/2 ... -Americans
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Thursday January 26, 2023 · 5:56 AM PST
A story in this month’s Scientific American points out that Americans are dying younger and at a greater rate than citizens of other industrially advanced countries. The reason for this is not complex, it’s easy to say exactly why:
Conservative ideology is causing more Americans to die.
The story points out that life expectancy in America is lower now than it has been in any year since 1996. That means that the advances in medical science and social behavior that have led to an almost continual rise in life expectancy for a century and a half stopped in America in the last few years and, in fact, we have gone backwards.
The American taliban is a disease. A cancer on our society!
Ronna McDaniel quells revolt to win reelection as chair of fractured RNC
Source: Washington Post
DANA POINT, Calif. — The Republican National Committee on Friday voted to reelect Ronna McDaniel to a fourth two-year term as party chair, opting not to punish her for the GOP’s recent string of electoral defeats.
McDaniel fended off a challenge from Harmeet Dhillon, a California lawyer who has represented former president Donald Trump and the unsuccessful Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, seizing on grass-roots furor demanding new leadership. McDaniel positioned herself as a steady hand and honest broker who can hold together the party’s factions and continue building out the RNC’s financial and field resources. She prevailed on the first ballot, 111-51.
McDaniel argued that the RNC did its job in the midterms by providing the infrastructure for turning out voters. She acknowledged that the party struggled with its nominees — a problem that many Republicans have attributed to influence of Trump, though McDaniel didn’t address the former president in her remarks on Friday morning.
“The RNC, we don’t get to pick the candidates, the voters do,” McDaniel said. “We don’t get to call the plays, we don’t get to say what the campaigns run on. But we do provide resoureces and we build a critical infrastructure to help candidates win.” McDaniel said Republicans won the popular vote by 4 million, equivalent to 297 Electoral College votes, and made inroads with minority voters.
Biden administration to strengthen Obamacare contraceptive mandate in proposed rule
Source: CNN Politics
CNN — The Biden administration wants to make it easier for women to access birth control at no cost under the Affordable Care Act, reversing Trump-era rules that weakened the law’s contraceptive mandate for employer-provided health insurance plans.
The proposed rule, unveiled Monday by the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury, would remove an exemption to the mandate that allows employers to opt out for moral convictions. It would also create an independent pathway for individuals enrolled in plans offered by employers with religious exemptions to access contraceptive services through a willing provider without charge.
The proposed rule would leave in place the existing religious exemption for employers with objections, as well as the optional accommodation for contraceptive coverage.
The administration crafted the proposed rule keeping in mind the concerns of employers with religious objections and the contraceptive needs of their workers, a senior HHS official told CNN.
Trump in Even More Legal Hot Water After Lying to Judge
Former President Donald Trump appears to have lied in sworn court records, opening him up to severe sanctions by a New York judge who has already lost his patience and threatened to punish him before.
Trump claimed he wasn’t the president of the Trump Organization during his four years at the White House, despite previously testifying that he was an “inactive president.” And he claimed that he didn’t have a financial stake in a partnership with the real estate company Vornado, even though he previously testified that he did.
On Tuesday, the New York Attorney General’s Office asked Justice Arthur F. Engoron to intervene quickly to ensure that the former president still faces a trial later this year that could bankrupt his company.
New York AG Letitia James sued the Trump family and their real estate empire for at least $250 million last year, the end result of a three-year investigation that documented how the Trumps have routinely faked property values to score better bank loans and cheat taxes. The civil lawsuit threatens to yank the company’s credentials, seize its bank accounts, and choke off its access to any banks in New York City—the global finance capital.
