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First GOP member of Congress calls on Matt Gaetz to resign
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger became the first congressional Republican to call on his colleague from Florida, Rep. Matt Gaetz, to resign in the face of a federal investigation into sex trafficking allegations.
The CEO job now includes political activism
America’s CEOs need policies on the coming verdict in the Minneapolis police trial; the human rights dimensions of next year’s World Cup in Qatar and Winter Olympics in Beijing; and voting-access bills — all different — moving through statehouses around the country.
Biden Creates Commission to Study Supreme Court Reforms, Expansion
The 36-member commission will have six months to study potential changes to the high court like adding seats to the bench and imposing term limits for justices.
How a Defeated Trump Is Making a Muddle of the G.O.P.
The former president’s instincts for red-meat political fights over governing and policymaking have left party leaders in a state of confusion over what they stand for.
Republican lawmakers are passing voting restrictions to pacify right-wing activists still gripped by former President Donald J. Trump’s lie that a largely favorable election was rigged against them. G.O.P. leaders are lashing out in Trumpian fashion at businesses, baseball and the news media to appeal to many of the same conservatives and voters. And debates over the size and scope of government have been overshadowed by the sort of culture war clashes that the tabloid king relished.
EPA replaces Trump-era chemical guidance, calling it ‘compromised’ by politics
The Biden-led Environmental Protection Agency says Trump administration political officials “compromised” an assessment of chemical dangers and has replaced it with a new one they say “upholds the tenants of scientific integrity.”
Matt Gaetz associate likely to strike plea deal, attorneys say
Joel Greenberg, a central figure in the ongoing investigation into Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, is likely to strike a plea deal with federal prosecutors, his attorney and prosecutors said in court Thursday, potentially putting additional legal pressure on the congressman.
Greenberg’s possible cooperation with the Justice Department could provide investigators with key details as they work to determine whether Gaetz broke sex trafficking or prostitution laws himself.
Biden Lays Out Aggressive Agenda on Gun-Control
CALLING GUN VIOLENCE IN American an “international embarrassment,” President Joe Biden on Thursday outlined a series of executive actions and a legislative wish list he said would save lives and have the support of rank-and-file Americans.
Texas lawmakers advance restrictive election bill
Texas lawmakers advanced a restrictive election bill out of a House committee Thursday morning despite major criticism from Democrats, corporations and voting rights advocates.
The legislation would impose criminal penalties for errors during the election process, such as making it a felony for an official to give a voter an absentee ballot application or solicit the submission of an application if the voter does not request it first.
Mitch McConnell retracts his demand that corporations ‘stay out of politics’ amid outrage over Georgia’s voting law
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday retracted his demand that corporations “stay out of politics,” with the exception of political donations, as major companies protest Georgia’s recently-passed voting rights restrictions.
“I didn’t say that very artfully yesterday,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters of his comments earlier this week. “They’re certainly entitled to be involved in politics.”
GOP Politicians & Pundits Lie About Colorado’s Voting Laws In Attempt To Embarrass MLB
Last week, the MLB announced it would be pulling its All-Star Game out of Georgia in response to the state’s restrictive new voting law, and moving it to far more voter-friendly Colorado.
The bill was passed by Georgia’s Republican-dominated legislature and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp (R) at the end of last month. Now, the GOP machine is scrambling to defend the action the prompted the move — and its mouthpieces have chosen to lie, loudly and repeatedly, about Colorado’s voting system.
I-Team: ‘I’m done with politics,’ accused Capitol rioter arrested in Las Vegas tells judge; prosecutors say he tried to sell story
A man accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot told a federal judge he was ashamed of what happened and hoped to move on with his life during a detention hearing Tuesday.
Gaetz to speak at Save America summit amid sex trafficking investigation
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is scheduled to speak Friday at a conservative summit at a Trump-owned Miami resort as the GOP congressman faces an ongoing Justice Department probe into allegations of sex with a minor and child sex trafficking.
Here’s the cynical political reality behind Mitch McConnell bashing big business
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was blunt in his reaction to Major League Baseball’s decision to move its All-Star Game out of Atlanta this summer following the passage of a series of new election measures by Georgia elected officials.
“Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order,” warned McConnell, adding: “Businesses must not use economic blackmail to spread disinformation and push bad ideas that citizens reject at the ballot box.”
Trump Org CFO’s ex-daughter-in-law has ‘several boxes of documents’ left to give prosecutors, her lawyer says
Jennifer Weisselberg, a cooperating witness in investigations into former President Donald Trump’s finances, still has “several boxes of materials” she has yet to give prosecutors, her lawyer told Insider.
The attorney, Duncan Levin, said in an interview that he was hired to conduct an analysis of the reams of documents Weisselberg has, which include Trump Organization financial records and show how intertwined the company is with the Weisselberg family’s finances.
McConnell: ‘Stupid’ for corporations to speak out on politics
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday blasted U.S. corporations for getting involved in national political debates, saying such decisions are alienating to consumers.
The Associated Press reported that McConnell made the remarks at a press conference, referring to criticism of Georgia’s new voting law by Coca-Cola and other companies.
“It’s quite stupid to jump in the middle of a highly controversial issue,” McConnell told reporters.
Former Trump HUD official fined and barred from federal work over Hatch Act violation
A former Housing and Urban Development official and Trump family associate has been fined and barred from federal work for violating the Hatch Act’s prohibition of use of official authority after she blurred the lines between official business and politics by producing a video for the 2020 Republican convention.
Florida has never seen a tax collector like Joel Greenberg.
Florida has never seen a tax collector like Joel Greenberg.
His Seminole County tax office was the only one in the state where employees were armed with pistols and body armor. He wore his own law enforcement badge and carried a sidearm at tax collector conferences. He let people pay property taxes with Bitcoin. He tweeted Islamophobic comments, installed a remote-controlled sprinkler system to spray petition gatherers he didn’t like and doled out fat contracts to his groomsmen shortly after winning the usually humdrum Orlando-area office with a campaign to stop “crony capitalism.”
Trump spotted with what looks like a Coke after calling for boycott
Former presidential adviser Stephen Miller just offered a new glimpse at former President Donald Trump’s post-presidency office — and Twitter detectives have naturally gotten to work analyzing every inch of it.
Miller on Monday tweeted out a photo of himself with Trump in the former president’s office at his Mar-a-Lago resort, which The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher took note of as the “first picture that I’ve seen of the new office set up.” One bit that immediately jumped out? Just behind Miller was what seemed to be a small statue of Trump.
The GOP, America’s most selfless political party
Republican politicians have proven themselves an admirably selfless bunch. Time and again, they’ve handed over credit to Democrats — and Democrats alone — for all sorts of popular policy initiatives.
Trump Decries “Cancel Culture,” Calls On Republicans to Boycott More Companies
Former President Donald Trump said “cancel culture” has run amok, so Republicans better start making their own cancelations. Trump issued a bitter message Saturday in which he stoked divisions over Georgia’s restrictive new voting law. It came a day after he urged a boycott of “woke companies,” including Major League Baseball for moving its All-Star Game out of Georgia. He later expanded the list of companies that he says supporters should boycott for opposing Georgia’s voting restrictions.
Trump expands boycott calls to JP Morgan, ViacomCBS, Cisco, UPS and Merck over their stance against Georgia’s new election laws as he warns the ‘radical left’ will destroy US
Donald Trump has expanded the list of companies he is calling on his supporters to boycott over their opposition to a new Georgia law placing tougher restrictions on absentee voting.
Trump calls for boycotts in response to boycotts over Georgia voter law
Former President Donald Trump joined the battle over Georgia’s recently-passed voting law and the reaction against it by Major League Baseball and major corporations Saturday, while also repeating his unfounded claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. Trump urged supporters to fight “WOKE CANCEL CULTURE” by boycotting the entities.
Obama congratulates MLB for ‘taking a stand’ against Georgia election law as Trump calls for boycott
Former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump have weighed in on Major League Baseball’s decision to move its All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to Georgia’s new sweeping election law that imposes significant new obstacles to voting.
Obama on Saturday congratulated the league “for taking a stand on behalf of voting rights for all citizens,” following MLB’s Friday announcement. The Democrat’s tweeted support of the move struck a starkly different tone from his Republican successor’s statement late Friday that called for a boycott of baseball and all of the “woke companies that are interfering with Free and Fair Elections.”
Trump Calls for Major League Baseball Boycott After It Moves All-Star Game Out of Georgia
Former President Donald Trump thinks it’s time to boycott baseball. Trump called late Friday for a boycott of Major League Baseball after it announced it would be pulling the All-Star Game from Georgia as a protest to the state’s new restrictive voting law. “Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans, and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the Radical Left Democrats who do not want voter I.D., which is desperately needed, to have anything to do with our elections,” Trump said in a statement. “Boycott baseball.”
Why Donald Trump is fighting Republicans over his name
While Donald Trump has long championed himself as a master real estate tycoon, talk to anyone familiar with how he built his fortune and they will tell you that the key to his success wasn’t buying buildings. It was in agreeing to license his name — literally — to a variety of buildings, reality TV shows and other ventures that wanted to benefit from being associated with a brand that, for many Americans, exuded over-the-top opulence.
“Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life,” wrote The New York Times in September 2020 after a detailed examination of 15 years of the former President’s tax returns.
RNC brushes back Trump on ‘cease-and-desist’ demand
The Republican National Committee is denying a cease-and-desist demand from Donald Trump’s attorneys, who asked the party organization to stop using the former president’s name and likeness in fundraising appeals.
Riding Weed, Weapons and Water to the Florida Governor’s Mansion
While Fried may not yet be a household name like the former South Carolina governor and presumptive 2024 GOP presidential candidate, she still has her eyes on an office higher than her current one as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture. And she is using her post to needle the man who currently holds the job many think she wants, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Supreme Court rejects final Trump bid to nullify 2020 election results
The Supreme Court on Monday denied a bid by former President Trump to nullify his electoral loss in Wisconsin, rejecting the former president’s final pending appeal over the results of the 2020 election.
In an unsigned order without noted dissent, the justices declined to take up Trump’s lawsuit alleging Wisconsin election officials violated the Constitution by expanding absentee voting amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
The justices’ move brought an end to Trump’s scattershot and ineffective legal campaign to overturn President Biden’s victory and added to the abysmal post-election court record of Trump and his allies, which included more than 60 losses and just one narrow win.
Lindsey Graham points to GOP’s reality under Trump: It’s a hostage situation
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham’s relationship with former president Donald Trump has contained multitudes. He was arguably Trump’s biggest critic on the 2016 debate stage, saying that nominating Trump would deservedly destroy the party, but he later became one of Trump’s biggest Senate allies. All the while, he seemed to want to make clear that this was a marriage of convenience rather than true conviction — the price to pay for getting things done.
On Sunday, though, Graham (R-S.C.) described the relationship between Trump and the GOP in starker terms: as something akin to a hostage situation.
Meet Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization CFO prosecutors are reportedly trying to flip
During the past several years of criminal investigations, Congressional inquiries, and political battles over Donald Trump’s taxes and business dealings, the one man most intimately familiar with them has remained out of the spotlight.
The mustachioed, press-shy Allen Weisselberg has served as the Trump Organization’s Chief Financial Officer for decades, as well as Trump’s personal bookkeeper. Now, he’s reportedly the subject of a wide-ranging inquiry from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
Prosecutors are looking into “flipping” Weisselberg into cooperating with an investigation into Trump’s finances, according to the Washington Post. Weisselberg, 73, has loyally served the Trump family since the 1970s and is the only person not a member of Trump’s family to oversee his trust while he was president. Prosecutors are reportedly zeroing in on Weisselberg’s two sons, both of whom also have close ties to the company.
Claimed value of sleepy NY estate could come to haunt Trump
It’s sleepy by Donald Trump’s standards, but the former president’s century-old estate in New York’s Westchester County could end up being one of his bigger legal nightmares.
Seven Springs, a 213-acre swath of nature surrounding a Georgian-style mansion, is a subject of two state investigations: a criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and a civil inquiry by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Vaccine-skeptical Trump country poses challenge to immunization push
The expansion in vaccine supply marks a critical time to confront deep skepticism among large numbers of rural whites and Republicans.
Biden signs executive order expanding voting access
President Joe Biden signed an executive order Sunday expanding voting access in what the White House calls “an initial step” in its efforts to “protect the right to vote and ensure all eligible citizens can freely participate in the electoral process.”
The move comes as Republicans in statehouses around the country work to advance voter suppression legislation, including a bill in Georgia that voting rights groups say targets Black voters. Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed measures in recent days to increase voting rights, including HR1 — a sweeping ethics and election package that contains provisions expanding early and mail-in voting, restoring voting rights to former felons, and easing voter registration for eligible Americans.
A Mexican restaurant in Houston is keeping its mask rule. People threatened to call ICE on the staff.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift the statewide mask mandate has not come easily for many businesses that are navigating enforcement of mask rules while facing backlash. “It was just horrific,” said Monica Richards, co-owner of Picos.
Biden Endorses Female Generals Whose Promotions Were Delayed Over Fears of Trump’s Reaction
The unusual strategy to slow the promotions until after the election — intended to protect the officers’ accomplished careers — was devised by top Pentagon leaders.
The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Gov. Greg Abbott rejects aid from Biden administration in dispute over coronavirus testing for migrants
Gov. Greg Abbott appeared this week to rebuff help from the federal government to give coronavirus testing to migrants before they are released from federal custody, saying it’s a federal responsibility to screen immigrants coming into Texas.
Prosecutors just got millions of pages of Trump documents. His taxes are only the beginning.
The criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s financial dealings is entering a new and potentially perilous phase for the former president.
Trump had fought for more than a year to keep his records out of the hands of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. But after a Supreme Court decision this week cleared the way for the documents’ release, they have been given to Vance’s investigators.
How to Keep Extremists Out of Power
American democracy faces alarming risks from extremist forces that have rapidly gained ground in our politics. The most urgent focus of political reform must be to marginalize, to the extent possible, these destabilizing forces.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Friend Anthony Aguero Was Among Capitol Rioters: Report
Anthony Aguero, identified by the network as a right-wing livestreamer and close ally of Greene, confirmed that he entered the Capitol and said he did so as a “journalist.” (He has since deleted a video in which he bragged of breaching “the chambers,” CNN noted.)
Pentagon wades into political minefield in hunt for extremists
The Pentagon is launching an unprecedented campaign to root out extremists in the ranks after dozens of military veterans took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
But confronting white nationalism and other far-right ideologies is proving to be a political minefield for an institution that prides itself on staying out of the nation’s partisan wars. There’s a growing sense of anxiety within the Pentagon that this push could feed the perception that it is policing political thought, favoring one political party over another or muzzling free speech.
Biden administration to deliver more than 25 million masks to health centers, food pantries
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it would distribute more than 25 million masks to over 1,300 community health centers and 60,000 food pantries and soup kitchens in an effort to reach underserved communities and as part of the president’s promise to make the pandemic response more equitable.
‘It’s a Minefield’: Biden’s Pick For Health Secretary Faces Abortion Politics
As President Joe Biden works to overhaul U.S. health care policy, few challenges will loom larger for his health secretary than restoring access to family planning while parrying legal challenges to abortion proliferating across the country.
Emails: GOP group under fire repeatedly contacted Missouri attorney general’s office
Emails show the leader of a group that sent a robocall urging “patriots” to march to the U.S. Capitol ahead of violent clashes there on Jan. 6 contacted the Missouri attorney general’s office several times before and after the Nov. 3 election.
Pence speaks highly of Trump in meeting and plans to launch a political group
Former Vice President Mike Pence told a group of conservative lawmakers on Tuesday that he maintains a close personal friendship with former President Donald Trump, while noting that he plans to launch a political organization that will defend their administration’s record over the past four years.
Economists Say $11 vs. $15 Minimum Wage Weighs Politics Against Worker Benefits
As Democrats scramble to keep their minimum wage hike in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package, a new option has been put on the table by Senator Joe Manchin.
U.S. Capitol riot: Top officials say they did not see FBI warning of calls for violence
Top Capitol law enforcement officials on Tuesday said they did not see intelligence from the FBI the night before the U.S. Capitol riot that warned of calls for violence online and said groups were “preparing for war.”
Security officials testify Capitol rioters ‘came prepared for war’
Testifying to a Senate committee, the officials said that the rioters “came prepared for war” with weapons, radios and climbing gear.
Ex-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said he prepared for a protest, not “a military-style coordinated assault”.
Four people died after pro-Trump protesters stormed the US Capitol.
What The Trump Era Taught Me About Covering Politics
In the fall of 2015, I was having drinks in Washington with a colleague at the time, now-MSNBC host Joy Reid. (I was working at NBC News.) Donald Trump was leading in the polls of the 2016 Republican presidential primary. But I was confident he would not win the nomination.
Very confident.
Fauci says U.S. political divisions contributed to 500,000 dead from COVID-19
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said political divisiveness contributed significantly to the “stunning” U.S. COVID-19 death toll, which on Monday surpassed 500,000 lives lost.
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