Politics Now - USA

When Greg Abbott signed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country into Texas law on Wednesday, he commemorated the occasion with a photo-op signing ceremony where seven women beamed in the front row ahead of dozens of grinning men who will never be pregnant celebrating a new law regulating pregnancy. Even if I hadn’t seen it, I could have drawn it from the many photo ops of other governors signing so-called “heartbeat bills” banning abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat (which in many pregnancies can be as early as six weeks, or before many women know that they’re pregnant): A white man old enough to qualify for the Denny’s Senior Discount behind a desk flanked by a few sanctimonious church ladies in turn surrounded by lots of other white men. Ohio, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, it’s the same shit, different state. And the same question runs through my mind: Do these people think pregnancy is easy? Do they think childbirth is no big deal? Do they know ...

The Biden administration is proposing hiring 87,000 new workers for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), effectively doubling the agency’s size, as part of a plan to beef up enforcement efforts and find billions of dollars in tax revenues that go uncollected each year. Enforcement efforts would primarily target individuals and corporations with higher incomes and profits, the administration has suggested. The hiring, which would be part of President Joe Biden’s overall $80 billion spending plan to increase enforcement efforts at the IRS, would not happen all at once. Instead, it would be carried out in phases, with a 15 percent growth in employment at the agency per year until that 87,000 hiring benchmark is reached. The move would help recoup (and go beyond) some of the employment losses the agency has seen over the past decade, as the IRS has lost more than 33,000 workers over the past decade. The drop in employment at the agency has resulted in fewer audits, particularly for filers w...

President Biden Joe BidenTrump slams 'weak' Republicans who don't want to talk about Arizona audit FDA advises against Chinese-made syringes citing safety issues On The Money: Biden tries to navigate bumpy recovery | Jobless claims hit another post-pandemic low | Treasury calls for 15 percent minimum global tax MORE on Friday vowed that his administration would never seize the phone records of journalists after it was disclosed that the Trump administration secretly obtained the records of CNN and Washington Post reporters. Biden, following a press conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told reporters at the White House it was "absolutely, positively" wrong to seize reporters' communications. "I won’t let that happen," he said during a brief Q&A with journalists after the official press conference ended. ADVERTISEMENT CNN reported Thursday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) informed its Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, that p...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland faces a Monday deadline to decide whether to appeal a court order criticizing his predecessor William Barr, an early test of his willingness to defend the Justice Department’s acts during Donald Trump’s presidency. FILE PHOTO: Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a hearing on "Domestic Violent Extremism in America." before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 12, 2021. Bill O'Leary/Pool via REUTERS U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave the Justice Department until May 24 to appeal a decision she issued earlier this month that faulted Barr for how he publicly summarized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report and ordered the release of a related internal memo. A group of U.S. Senate Democrats on May 14 urged Garland not to appeal Jackson’s decision, saying in a letter that Barr’s actions need to be exposed quickly. “To be clear, these misrepresentations...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, then-personal attorney to U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 7, 2020. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz U.S. prosecutors urged a federal judge to allow a review of evidence seized from Rudolph Giuliani's phones, saying the former New York City mayor was not above the law and could not block the review because he had been Donald Trump's lawyer. The recommendation came in a Thursday night court filing, three days after Giuliani opposed the government's request for a "special master" to review records seized from 18 electronic devices, including cellphones and computers, taken during April 28 raids on his home and office. Prosecutors have been examining Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, including whether he violated lobbying laws by acting as an unregistered foreign agent while working for then-U.S. President Trump. Giuliani's lawyers have demanded that prosecutors turn over documents ...

Six in ten voters approve of the job President Biden Joe BidenTrump slams 'weak' Republicans who don't want to talk about Arizona audit FDA advises against Chinese-made syringes citing safety issues On The Money: Biden tries to navigate bumpy recovery | Jobless claims hit another post-pandemic low | Treasury calls for 15 percent minimum global tax MORE is doing in the White House, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds. Sixty percent of registered voters in the May 17-19 survey said they approve of Biden as president, steady from an April 26-28 poll. The survey found Biden's highest support remains on the issue of the coronavirus pandemic while his lowest marks are on the issue of immigration, at 68 percent and 49 percent, respectively. Fifty-nine percent of voters approve of the job Biden is doing on administering the government. Fifty-seven percent of respondents approve of him on the issues of the economy and stimulating jobs while he sees 56 percent support on his handling o...

A Texas Republican senator is taking heat after slamming the U.S. military as being "emasculated" in light of a new recruiting ad. "Holy crap," Sen. Ted Cruz said on Twitter. "Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea ..." He shared a TikTok video comparing what appears to be Russian military propaganda, showing hypermasculine soldiers in ground combat training and jumping out of planes, and an animated U.S. Army ad featuring Cpl. Emma Malonelord, a soldier who was raised by two mothers in California, telling her story of advocating for LGBT freedoms and then enlisting in the service. Cruz's comments were met with scorn from many in the military and veteran community. Some bashed him for seeming to attack a female soldier even as the Defense Department faces a pervasive sexual assault crisis and tries to make the military more welcoming to women. "I think it's incredibly disturbing to see a sitting U.S. senator publicly push Ru...

Kentucky State Rep. Charles Booker addresses the media following the return of a grand jury investigation into the death of Breonna Taylor at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky. Many believe he can defeat Rand Paul in the Senate midterms. | Timothy D. Easley/AP “Kentucky is not a ‘red state,’” a recent fund-raising email from CharlesBooker.org starts off. We called that a “grabber lede” when I was a daily newspaper reporter. The claim is based on voter registration totals. Democrats outnumber Republicans by 82,250, according to the email. Even so, a slew of registered Democrats regularly vote Republican. Last November, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and all five of the state’s GOP congressmen won big again. Republicans added to their super-majorities in the state House and Senate, to boot. The Republican Red tide in the Bluegrass State shows no signs of ebbing. That’s probably why Booker, a former state representative from Louisville, is the only Democrat who is publicly mullin...

Republicans in the Senate are "ready to mount a filibuster" of legislation creating an independent panel to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as GOP opposition to it is "hardening by the day," Politico reports. Citing interviews with Republicans, Politico writes that there is "almost no path to even opening up debate" on the bill to create the bipartisan commission, let alone a path to actually passing it. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told the outlet that "I don't think there will be 10 votes on our side for it" and that he'd "be surprised" if there's "even a handful." Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has repeatedly expressed opposition to eliminating the filibuster, in an interview "seemed aghast" that Republicans are set to block the commission, Politico wrote. "So disheartening," he said. "It makes you really concerned about our country." Manchin added, when asked if the GOP was abusi...

National Politics Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman’s ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said. News of the woman’s willingness to talk, which has not been previously reported, comes just days after the Justice Department formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz whose entanglement with young women first drew the congressman onto investigators’ radar. CNN reported last week that investigators were pressing for the woman’s co...

Cpl. Emma Malonelord poses with her two mothers in this screenshot from an Army recruiting video. Army leaders praised Malonelord after a mashup of the soldier's video was criticized by Sen. Ted Cruz on Twitter. This story has been updated with a response from Sen. Cruz's office. U.S. Army leaders rallied around a soldier featured in a recruitment video clip that Sen. Ted Cruz mocked as representative of an “emasculated military.” Cruz, a Texas Republican, retweeted a video Thursday that featured Cpl. Emma Malonelord, an air defense system operator stationed in South Korea. The original video, part of a five-part series called “The Calling,” showed an animated depiction of Malonelord’s life and the reasons why she joined the military. The Army was “a way to prove my inner strength and maybe shatter some stereotypes along the way,” Malonelord said in the video, adding that by enlisting, “I answered my calling.” Cruz retweeted a shorter version of the ad that was juxtaposed with ...

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters. During his time in the White House, Donald Trump rewarded many of his loyalists with plum jobs. One of the most egregious of those appointments was radio host Michael Savage, whom Trump put on the board of the Presidio Trust. My former colleague Dave Gilson got hold via FOIA of a trove of emails from Savage’s time on the board of the trust, which runs a 1,200-acre park near the Golden Gate Bridge. The emails detail how the shock jock, sputtering and bombastic as always, used his position to try to downplay the park’s role in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and to push other right-wing causes. As Dave put it, “Savage’s first months as a Presidio Trust board member were marked by prickly outbursts, culminating in a sudden push to inject his toxic politics into park business.” But a year into his appointment Savage may be out ...

Washington (CNN) Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman's ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said. News of the woman's willingness to talk, which has not been previously reported, comes just days after the Justice Department formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz whose entanglement with young women first drew the congressman onto investigators' radar. CNN reported last week that investigators were pressing for the...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she still thinks about the “extraordinarily traumatizing event” that took place at the Capitol four months ago, when hundreds of rioters stormed into the building and came dangerously close to then-Vice President Mike Pence. “Pence was taken out of the Senate chamber something like 60 seconds before these terrorists, insurrectionists got into the Senate chamber,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a conversation with the journalist Maria Hinojosa, airing Friday on the weekly public radio show "Latino USA" and shared in advance with NBC News. “Pence was the one person, arguably, that had one of the most important roles in making sure that procedurally the Electoral College counts went on as proceeded. Sixty seconds could have meant potentially the difference between what we have right now and a martial state,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “This was an all-out attempted coup.” “If 60 seconds went differently, if a different door was opened, if a chair wasn...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she is in therapy following the "all-out, attempted coup" at the Capitol on 6 January. Speaking to the weekly public radio show Latino USA on Friday, Ms Ocasio-Cortez said members of Congress effectively "served in war" during the traumatising event that had "deeply affected lawmaking" and impacted the legislative process. "After the 6th I took some time and it was really Ayanna Pressley when I explained to her what happened to me, like the day of, because I ran to her office and she was like, ‘you need to recognise trauma’," Ms Ocasio-Cortez said. "And I feel like I learned this the hard way after my father had passed away when I was a teenager… That happened at a young age and I locked it away. You have to live with it for years." Asked if she was in therapy, she replied: "Oh yeah, I’m doing therapy but also I’ve just slowed down. I think the Trump administration had a lot of us, especially Latino co...

Wyoming state Sen. Anthony Bouchard has disclosed that he impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18 CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Wyoming state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, a Republican trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney next year, revealed that he impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, describing the relationship as “like the Romeo and Juliet” story in a description that drew a rebuke from a sexual assault prevention group. Bouchard vowed not to drop out of the race and blamed "dirty politics” for bringing the story to light. Bouchard, 55, initially disclosed what he described as a typical teenage relationship in a Facebook Live video to supporters on Thursday. He later confirmed the girl's age to the Casper Star-Tribune. “It’s a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant,” he said in the video. “You’ve heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it’s like the Romeo and Juliet story.” Bouchard married the girl when she was 15 and he was 19, wh...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria Ocasio-CortezOn The Money: Biden tries to navigate bumpy recovery | Jobless claims hit another post-pandemic low | Treasury calls for 15 percent minimum global tax Will the Squad break away from the Democrats over Israel? Omar says Facebook refusing to take down 'hate speech' ad MORE (D-N.Y.) said that a 60-second difference during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack could have ended in “a martial state.” During an interview with Latino USA published Friday, the progressive firebrand described the ways in which former Vice President Mike Pence Michael (Mike) Richard PencePence's brother says Pelosi wanted to bail after Jan. 6 attack The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - Senate path uncertain after House approves Jan. 6 panel GOP turns against Jan. 6 probe as midterm distraction MORE's safety was jeopardized and the implications the attack could have had on the election certification process. “Pence was taken out of the Se...

Something you may have picked up on during the four years Donald Trump was in office was that he loathed the free press and, if he’d gotten a second term, probably would have made it illegal for news organizations to publish anything less than the glowiest of glowing stories about him and how he was the greatest president to ever live. He regularly attacked reporters, called the media “the enemy of the people,” and in 2019 got so angry about journalists putting out stories based on facts that he ordered federal agencies not to renew their subscriptions to The Washington Post and The New York Times. So while it’s not entirely surprising to learn that his administration spied on reporters, it is deeply chilling nevertheless. On Thursday night, it emerged that Trump’s Justice Department had obtained CNN reporter Barbara Starr’s email and phone records covering a period of two months between June and July 2017. In a letter informing her of the secret surveillance, Joe Biden’s DOJ listed ph...

If Trump has a political philosophy, one of its main tenets is toxic masculinity — the use of menace and swagger to cover his mental and moral impotence. And the mini-Trumps have taken their master’s lead. When Trump operative Stephen K. Bannon proposed that Anthony S. Fauci should be beheaded, when Trump ally Joseph diGenova said a federal cybersecurity official should be “taken out at dawn and shot,” when Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani urged Trump supporters to engage in “trial by combat,” all of this was more than paunchy, pathetic, aging White men talking smack they could never back up. It exemplified a type of politics where cruelty is the evidence of commitment, brutality is the measure of loyalty and violence is equated with power.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Wyoming state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, a Republican trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney next year, disclosed that he impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, describing the relationship as “like the Romeo and Juliet” story and saying it was coming to light because of “dirty politics.” “So, bottom line, it’s a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant,” he said in the video. “You’ve heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it’s like the Romeo and Juliet story.” Bouchard married the girl when she was 15 and he was 19, when both were living in Florida. They divorced three years later, he told the newspaper. Bouchard’s ex-wife killed herself when she was 20, he said. Online records list a woman with her name as being buried at a Jacksonville, Florida, cemetery in 1990. The newspaper chose not to identify the woman. Bouchard is among at least eight Republicans running against Cheney in 2022 after her vote to impeach former Presi...

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer/Getty Images Last February, the uncontroversial position of Trump-friendly Republicans was that Congress needed to establish a commission to investigate the insurrection that had stormed the Capitol the month before. “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again,” said Lindsey Graham. “I agree w/Speaker Pelosi – a 911-type investigation is called for to help prevent this from happening again,” tweeted John Cornyn. The two parties set out to create such a commission. The rules they devised literally copied the rules of the 9/11 Commission. But the party’s leaders — Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Kevin McCarthy — have turned swiftly against it. The most interesting thing about this reversal is the unconcealed cynicism of its rationale. Republicans seem to have hoped to bog down the negotiations over the commission in some inscrutable point of committee architecture. Instead, Democrats satisfied the Republic...

Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzHillicon Valley: Amazon facing lawsuits alleging racial, gender bias | Senate Commerce panel advances Biden's top science nominee | Colonial Pipeline CEO to testify on Capitol Hill in June McAuliffe ties Youngkin to Trump's objections to 2020 results in new ad Senate Commerce advances Biden's top science nominee MORE (R-Texas) is facing backlash from veterans groups and former service members after he claimed that new promotional videos are pushing a “woke, emasculated military.” Cruz made the remark on Twitter on Thursday, sharing a video displaying an apparent Russian military advertisement showing images of men with shaved heads doing push-ups and jumping out of a plane. The video then cuts to an animated story of U.S. Army Cpl. Emma Malonelord discussing her mothers’ wedding, marching for LGBTQ rights and joining the military. ADVERTISEMENT “I like to think I’ve been defending freedom from an early age,” Malonelord said in the ad. H...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the U.S. military "pansies" because a Russian military ad was more masculine in his opinion. Photo: Composite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the U.S. military "pansies" because a Russian military ad was more masculine in his opinion. Photo: Composite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is getting roasted online after he tweeted that the American military was turning “into pansies” and was becoming “woke” and “emasculated.” Cruz ran against former President Donald Trump in the 2018 primary election and lost. During the campaign, Trump made derogatory comments about Cruz’s wife, Heidi, but the senator still cozied up to Trump and became one of his staunchest supporters. Related: Ted Cruz tried to defend gender reveal parties by mocking liberals. It didn’t go well. Trump also accused Cruz’s father of assassinating former President John F. Kennedy. The senator tweeted a TikTok video that contrasts a Russian military propaganda video with an American Army ad. T...