Politics Now - USA

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...