The Texas Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would prevent local governments from cutting their law enforcement budgets without voter approval. It was the Legislature’s most substantial move yet in a political war over police funding in Texas that was sparked last summer. The in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and fatal police shooting of Mike Ramos in Austin prompted Read More…
President Joe Biden unveiled a $2.25 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan last month and has promised to seek input from Republican lawmakers on its ultimate design. That courtship begins Monday when Biden and Vice President Harris meet with a bipartisan group of House and Senate members to discuss the proposal. But his administration has already signaled its willingness to push a Read More…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Thom Tillis announced Monday that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and he’ll undergo surgery in North Carolina this week to treat it. The Republican lawmaker said in a statement that his cancer was detected “relatively early” and his “prognosis is good.” Tillis, 60, says his doctors caught the cancer during his Read More…
Kelly Tshibaka, an Alaska official who on Monday launched a challenge against Sen. Lisa Murkowski, is backed by former aides to President Donald Trump in a race that could prove a test of his appeal agaist the GOP establishment. Tim Murtaugh, the former communication director for Trump’s reelection campaign, Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign manager, Justin Clark, Trump’s former deputy Read More…
The Texas Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would prevent local governments from cutting their law enforcement budgets without voter approval. It was the Legislature’s most substantial move yet in a political war over police funding in Texas that was sparked last summer. The in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and fatal police shooting of Mike Ramos in Austin prompted Read More…
President Joe Biden unveiled a $2.25 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan last month and has promised to seek input from Republican lawmakers on its ultimate design. That courtship begins Monday when Biden and Vice President Harris meet with a bipartisan group of House and Senate members to discuss the proposal. But his administration has already signaled its willingness to push a Read More…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Thom Tillis announced Monday that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and he’ll undergo surgery in North Carolina this week to treat it. The Republican lawmaker said in a statement that his cancer was detected “relatively early” and his “prognosis is good.” Tillis, 60, says his doctors caught the cancer during his Read More…
Kelly Tshibaka, an Alaska official who on Monday launched a challenge against Sen. Lisa Murkowski, is backed by former aides to President Donald Trump in a race that could prove a test of his appeal agaist the GOP establishment. Tim Murtaugh, the former communication director for Trump’s reelection campaign, Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign manager, Justin Clark, Trump’s former deputy Read More…
President Joe Biden announced his first slate of judicial nominees Tuesday, tapping a diverse pool of 11 candidates for the federal bench. Perhaps the most high-profile name on the White House’s list was Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — a potential Supreme Court pick — whom Read More…
The prospect of a floor vote to overturn a contested congressional race in Iowa has suddenly become a real dilemma for House Democrats’ most vulnerable members. Moderate Democrats are privately squirming over the possibility that they could be forced to choose a winner in the race for Iowa’s 2nd district, where the GOP candidate, now-Rep. Read More…
With backing from Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Florida Senate committee on Wednesday approved a wide-ranging proposal to revamp vote-by-mail laws, including banning the use of drop boxes and taking aim at a practice known as “ballot harvesting.” The bill comes amid efforts in various parts of the country by Republicans to place new restrictions on Read More…
President Biden hasn’t held a solo press conference 54 days into office. The president addressed the nation last Thursday after signing the $1.9 trillion spending package and spoke about the country’s progress in defeating the coronavirus. However, he has gone more than seven weeks without holding a press conference, the longest for a president in nearly 100 years. Every president Read More…
Mayor Bill de Blasio called Monday for an investigation into phone calls that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s vaccine czar made to county executives across the state — describing them as “the definition of corruption.” “If vaccine supply is being given out for political reasons, that, in many ways, is the single worst thing we’ve heard in all of Read More…
Leaders of the effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday they’ve collected 1.95 million signatures a little more than a week before the deadline, a number they believe will be more than enough to trigger a special recall election. County and state elections officials still need to verify that nearly 1.5 million are Read More…
JEFFERSON CITY — In an announcement that instantly shook Missouri’s political landscape, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt said Monday morning he would not run for reelection in 2022. “After 14 general election victories — three to county office, seven to the United States House of Representatives and four statewide elections — I won’t be a candidate for Read More…
Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., announced Thursday that he and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., formed three screening conferences that will recommend candidates to fill federal judicial openings as well as vacant U.S. Attorney and U.S. Marshal positions in their state. The panels, one for each of Florida‘s judicial districts, will interview and vet candidates and then report their Read More…
Just moments before the filing deadline Wednesday, a 6-foot-7-inch former pro wrestler from Las Vegas unexpectedly appeared at the Texas secretary of state’s office to file for a vacant congressional seat. He said Ted Cruz and the Trump family sent him. READ FULL STORY
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was fighting for his political life on Tuesday after a third woman accused him of sexual harassment. The Democrat has suffered a spectacular fall from grace since he became a national star last year for his handling of the state’s coronavirus pandemic. Many commentators had tipped him for a role Read More…
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has seen his star rise over the past year as Republicans look to him as a potential successor to former President Trump. DeSantis’s profile grew early on after he took his cue from Trump by not shutting down his state in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Though Florida has suffered heavy losses from Read More…
California Governor Gavin Newsom posted a video to his TikTok account with celebrity George Lopez on Saturday. The pair were shown inside a restaurant in an area of California that currently doesn’t allow indoor dining. In the video, Newsom and Lopez talk about where to find information about coronavirus vaccine eligibility in California. At the beginning of Read More…
ALBANY – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday agreed to cede control of an investigation into sexual harassment allegations lodged against him by two former aides, granting Attorney General Letitia James the ability to select a lead investigator after previously resisting calls to do so. Cuomo, a Democrat, had faced increasing calls from elected officials of Read More…
The brutal winter storm that turned Texas roads to ice, burst pipes across the state and left millions of residents shivering and without power has also damaged the reputations of three of the state’s leading Republicans. Sen. Ted Cruz was discovered to have slipped off to Mexico on Wednesday night, only to announce his return when he was caught Read More…
The Lincoln Project hired a legal team to investigate allegations of sexual abuse against co-founder John Weaver, the anti-Trump group announced on Monday as it struggles to manage inner turmoil, including high-profile resignations and finger-pointing, that has barreled into the public’s view. “The Lincoln Project has retained the law firm of Paul Hastings to investigate Read More…
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday blasted state lawmakers who have threatened to rescind his emergency powers and open investigations into his administration’s coverup of its mishandling of nursing home coronavirus deaths. “You can’t use a subpoena or the threat of investigation to leverage a person,” Cuomo said in a briefing on Monday. “That’s a crime, Read More…
The crown teachers once put on William Shakespeare now lies uneasy upon his head as the English playwright comes under assault from teachers who fault his unwoke attitudes regarding race, sexuality, gender and class. For the new breed of teachers, Shakespeare is seen less as an icon of literature and more as a tool of Read More…
Congressional Democrats and Joe Biden made the $15 minimum wage a key part of their 2020 platform. But it’s now at risk of exclusion or being watered down in Biden’s coronavirus package, a potential letdown for progressives who have fought for years to raise wages. Democrats’ first obstacle: The plan to include it in their Read More…
White House climate czar John Kerry traveled to Iceland by private jet in 2019 to accept an environmental award and defended his transportation choice to a reporter at the time by calling it, “the only choice for somebody like me.” Kerry flew to Iceland in October, 2019 to receive the Arctic Circle award, an iceberg sculpture, for Read More…
(Bloomberg) — Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez detailed the moment she feared for her life during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, disclosing that she’s the survivor of a past sexual assault to drive home her accusation that some Republicans have been dismissive of her trauma. The New York Democrat described on Monday her growing Read More…
Backers of an effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom are still collecting signatures, but rivals are already announcing their intention to run. Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer plans to challenge the governor if the recall qualifies for the ballot this year, or in 2022 if it does not. In an interview with The Times, Read More…
Former Republican President George W. Bush waded into the escalating GOP civil war over Donald Trump‘s impeachment on Friday, after Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz rallied to defeat Congresswoman Liz Cheney in her home state of Wyoming. As the Republican party grapples with its future under President Joe Biden, the civil war has intensified after 10 House members voted in favor of Read More…
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took credit Wednesday for President Biden’s newly unveiled $2 trillion set of environmental policies, which include eliminating coal, oil and natural gas as electricity sources by 2035. “It’s almost as if we helped shape the platform,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wrote in a tweet, followed by a winking face emoji. The tweet was in response to Read More…
White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Thursday defended the flurry of executive actions President Joe Biden has taken in his first week in office, pushing back against a New York Times editorial urging the administration to enact more policy through congressional legislation. In a tweet Thursday morning, Klain wrote that the White House was Read More…
The Biden administration has imposed a temporary freeze on U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and is scrutinizing purchases by the United Arab Emirates as it reviews billions of dollars in weapons transactions approved by former President Donald Trump, according to U.S. officials. The review, the officials said, includes the sale of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh, as Read More…
There could soon be another Huckabee in the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former President Donald Trump’s second White House press secretary, is expected to announced on Monday that she will run for governor of Arkansas, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News. Her father, Mike Huckabee, served as Arkansas’ governor from 1996 to Read More…
Former President Donald Trump’s supporters are mobilizing to exact revenge on the 10 House Republicans who supported impeachment last week, thrusting the GOP into a civil war just as party leaders are trying to move on from the Trump era. Pro-Trump Republicans are racing to launch primary challenges. The former president’s donors are cutting off Read More…
Washington, D.C., was quiet and state capitals across the country reported a few small protests Sunday as cities beefed up security and locked down capitol buildings for fear of widespread and violent protests. Small groups of demonstrators, some holding guns and rifles, gathered at several of the state capitol buildings that had been fortified and surrounded by Read More…
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed without evidence during an hour-long Instagram post Tuesday that Southern states are not “red states,” but rather “suppressed states” that need to be liberated to “heal” America. “That’s what we got to do. We got to organize. And I think what we saw in Georgia is a really good example Read More…
In times of social crises in America, big tech billionaires are often amongst the first to speak up—though how they do so varies. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, unlike many of his peers, didn’t directly speak about the riot that erupted in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday afternoon. But the second-richest man in the world Read More…
CARSON CITY — A Las Vegas assemblyman investigated by police over allegations of misused campaign funds has resigned from his seat in the state Legislature. Gov. Steve Sisolak’s spokeswoman confirmed in an email Tuesday that Sisolak’s office had received a letter of resignation from Democratic Assemblyman Alexander Assefa, who represents District 42 in the Spring Read More…
President Donald Trump tweeted that he will not be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. This announcement was made on Twitter, and the president did not use Biden’s name. “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” the president tweeted. The president released Read More…
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, found his Louisville home vandalized Saturday a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, suffered a similar fate. Messages were sprayed painted overnight on the exterior of Mr. McConnell‘s home, including “Mitch kills poor” and another seemingly referencing a larger stimulus relief package he just rejected. READ FULL STORY
Republican Senator and Florida man Marco Rubio went on a Twitter rant Sunday to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, of lying about coronavirus in general and masks in particular. “Dr. Fauci lied about masks in March,” Rubio tweeted Sunday morning. “Dr. Fauci has been distorting the level of vaccination needed Read More…
Georgia’s election administrators are fighting bizarre conspiracy theories, ballooning costs and coronavirus-related staffing problems as they prepare for the state’s contentious, nationally watched Senate runoffs next week. In interviews, eight Georgia election officials — including a top aide in the secretary of state’s office and county administrators around the state — said they were confident Read More…
President-elect Joe Biden will invoke the Defense Production Act after he’s sworn into office to help increase production on the coronavirus vaccine, a member of his COVID-19 advisory team announced on Monday. Celine Gounder, an expert in infectious diseases at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “you will see him Read More…