White House hits House GOP for 'bizarre political stunt' with Hunter Biden Twitter hearing

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The White House on Wednesday bashed House Republicans for engaging in what it called a “bizarre political stunt” as the Oversight Committee held its first hearing related to an investigation of the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

 “The morning after President Biden delivered a State of the Union Address emphasizing the significant progress we’ve made as a nation to generate historic job and economic growth and the work still to be done to address Americans’ top priorities like tackling inflation, raising wages, and investing in manufacturing and infrastructure jobs, House Republicans are making it their top priority to stage a bizarre political stunt,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.

Wednesday’s hearing is focusing on the platform’s decision to limit the spread of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. The hearing will feature testimony from former Twitter executives Yoel Roth, Vijaya Gadde and James Baker. 

“This appears to be the latest effort by the House Republican majority’s most extreme MAGA members to question and relitigate the outcome of the 2020 election,” Sams said. “This is not what the American people want their leaders to work on.”

After Elon Musk took over control of Twitter as CEO at the end of October, closing his deal to purchase the company for $44 billion, he released some internal communications from Twitter staff about the decision to censor the New York Post story through a Twitter thread posted by journalist Matt Taibbi.

The thread, though, largely showed internal debates among employees over high-profile decisions and lacked details of influence from Democrats.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement last week that “Americans deserve answers about this attack on the First Amendment and why Big Tech and the Swamp colluded to censor this information about the Biden family selling access for profit. Accountability is coming.” 

Comer has pledged investigations into Hunter Biden with Republicans now in the majority in the House, a move the White House has brushed off as out of touch with what the public is interested in.

Source: TEST FEED1

Donalds on Biden saying some Republicans want to 'sunset' Medicare, Social Security: 'I am telling you, not true'

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Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) denied on Wednesday President Biden’s claims that Republicans are considering pushing for cuts to Social Security and Medicare as part of negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. 

Donalds responded to Biden’s State of the Union address in an interview on “CNN This Morning,” saying “I am telling you, not true” about the president’s accusation. 

“No Republican on the Hill has said, ‘Hey, for debt ceiling, we’re going to look at Social Security and Medicare.’ It is not true. I’m one of the most vocal members of our conference,” he said. “I am telling you, not true.”

Biden had an intense exchange with some Republicans during his Tuesday night speech after he said some members of the GOP want Social Security and Medicare to sunset every five years — meaning Congress would have to pass legislation to renew them. 

Some Republicans yelled backed at Biden, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) shouting “liar” and others yelling “no” or booing at him.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who shook his head as Biden spoke before shushing his conference, has said cuts to Social Security and Medicare as part of negotiations over raising the debt ceiling are “off the table.” 

Biden was referencing a plan that Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) proposed for all federal legislation to sunset after five years, saying Congress should pass a law again if it is worth keeping. 

Donalds said Biden created a “fallacy” that Republicans planned to cut Social Security and Medicare, saying that Scott’s plan is not regarding the debt ceiling. 

“The delineation is regarding the debt ceiling, no Republican has said ‘We’re going to look at Social Security and Medicare.’ No Republican. The president has tried to conflate the two to make a political argument,” Donalds said. “He is wrong.”

Biden improvised during the speech after the Republican “no” calls in saying, “So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare are off the books now, right? All right. We got unanimity.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Jeffries suggests Republicans who heckled Biden are unfit to serve in Congress

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) suggested that Republicans who heckled President Biden during the State of the Union address Tuesday evening are unfit to serve in Congress. 

“President Biden delivered a compelling speech outlining a vision to make life better for everyday Americans,” Jeffries tweeted following the speech. 

“And his dignity presented a stark contrast with the right-wing extremists who are unfit to serve,” he added.

Despite Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) saying in advance of the speech that Republicans would act in line with the congressional “code of ethics,” several GOP members yelled at Biden during different parts of the speech. 

One notable outburst came when Biden said some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare in five years, requiring Congress to pass the legislation that established those programs again if it wants them to continue. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) stood up and shouted “liar” at Biden, while many others yelled “no.” McCarthy shook his head as this happened. McCarthy was also seen shushing congressional Republicans on multiple occasions.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) last year called for sunsetting all federal legislation after five years as part of his “Rescue America” agenda, saying that Congress can pass a law again if it is worth keeping.

McCarthy has said cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” as part of negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. 

Biden responded to the heckles Tuesday evening by calling on Congress to protect the two social programs, saying, “So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?” 

Other interruptions to Biden’s speech happened when he mentioned immigration and fentanyl.

“It’s your fault!” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) yelled to Biden when he mentioned the opioid crisis. 

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — Biden to GOP: ‘Let's finish the job’

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.


President Biden on Tuesday night said the next two years under his leadership, and by implication a second term, can deliver on big promises, bold ideas and a better world.

During a lively 73 minutes in the Capitol, Biden credited bipartisan problem-solving for economic strides and told Americans that other benefits — lower costs for insulin under Medicare and investments in clean energy, for instance — happened on his watch “when Democrats had to go it alone.”

Appearing relaxed and in command, the president’s refrain was “let’s finish the job.” In hushed tones speaking directly into the camera, Biden allied himself with working families who worry about medical bills, teachers who deserve raises, seniors who are trying to afford home health services, and “Black and brown families” who worry about losing their children “at the hands of the law.”

The foes he described included “Big Pharma,” “Big Oil,” the “Big Lie” of the 2020 election, big corporations that pay no taxes, and big banks that “play us for suckers” with exorbitant fees.

The president began the evening by politely recognizing Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and referring to “my Republican friends.” Minutes later he asserted that “some” in the other party “want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years,” assuring Americans, “I won’t let that happen.”

McCarthy, seated behind the president, shook his head in disagreement, saying, “Come on,” amid a crescendo of heckling from GOP lawmakers, which forced Biden to pause. Seated in the House chamber, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) repeatedly yelled “liar.”

SF Gate: McCarthy shushed Greene.

Politico: The state of Biden’s union with a GOP Congress: It’s tense.

The president responded to the rebukes, repeating in a mild tone that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “being proposed by some of you.” He seized on Republican denials he heard in the chamber to cast the reactions as bipartisan commitments, negotiated live in front of millions of viewers.


So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare are off the books now, right? Biden said. “All right. We got unanimity.”


The president will visit a union training center in DeForest, Wis., today to reinforce the economic themes of his speech. He’ll be in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday to describe Democrats’ defenses of Social Security and Medicare.

Roll Call: Biden attracts GOP jeers over debt limit while pushing unity.

CNN: Transcript of the president’s speech, annotated.

In a speech heavy on explanations about the innards of new laws that polls suggest most Americans don’t fully understand, the president offered few new proposals and bookended his talk of collaboration between “Democrats and Republicans” with veto threats. House GOP proposals, in fact, are unlikely to reach his desk under the Democrat-controlled Senate. Nevertheless, Biden vowed to block any efforts by Republicans to “raise the costs of prescription drugs” or pass a national abortion ban.

Biden has been engaged for weeks in a simmering faceoff with McCarthy and House conservatives over federal spending and the debt ceiling. While asserting that inflation is easing and that Republicans have been hypocritical about this year’s discomfort with debt, he pledged to “sit down together” to discuss GOP ideas to cut spending after he sends his budget blueprint to Congress on March 9.

McCarthy stood and applauded the president’s pledge to resume discussions the two began this month in the Oval Office.

The Hill: Biden, GOP battle at raucous State of the Union.

The Hill’s Niall Stanage: Five big takeaways from the State of the Union speech. 

Politico: The debt moment when Biden’s State of the Union turned spicy.

Biden boasted that his budget lowers the federal deficit by $2 trillion over a decade, would not raise taxes on individuals earning less than $400,000 per year and would extend the Medicare Trust Fund “by at least two decades.”

Americans believe federal spending cuts and the partisan wrangling over the nation’s debt ceiling should be separate debates in Washington, as Biden argues. But Republican lawmakers are lining up behind linking the two for potential leverage. Public disapproval of the GOP’s strategy poses a significant challenge for McCarthy and McConnell, explains The Hill’s Alexander Bolton

Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday repeated his warning that the central bank cannot rescue Congress from its legislative need to raise the $31.4 trillion debt limit, now nearly depleted under law, to pay bills and stave off potential default. “This really can only end one way, and that is with Congress raising the debt ceiling in a timely fashion,” he said.

The Hill: Fact-checking Biden’s claims on the economy in the State of the Union.

Vox: Five winners and two losers from Biden’s 2023 State of the Union.

Axios: Biden urges Congress to “do something” on police reform.

The Washington Post: Three takeaways from Biden’s State of the Union address.

Biden made brief mentions of foreign affairs, turning to an unsettled world late in his remarks. 

The president referred only indirectly to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the coast of South Carolina over the weekend, saying “if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”

Biden during his speech noted that his last State of the Union address occurred days after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, which presented a “test for the ages” for the U.S. and the world. 

“Would we stand for the defense of democracy?” Biden asked. “Yes, we would. And yes, we did. Together, we did what America always does at our best. We led. We united NATO, we built a global coalition. We stood against Putin’s aggression. We stood with the Ukrainian people.”

Addressing Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, a guest in the first lady’s box who put her hand over her heart, Biden pledged to stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes.”The White House is expected to announce more than $2 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine that will likely include longer-range rockets as well as other munitions and weapons (Reuters).

The Hill: Congress unites behind Ukraine as Biden calls war “test for the ages.”

The New York Times: For a president who spends his days confronting Russia and China, a domestic focus.


Related Articles

The Hill: State of the Union shouting: What lawmakers yelled out.

The Hill: U2’s Bono, founder of the ONE campaign, joined a rich tradition on Tuesday night as one of the president’s State of the Union guests to mark 20 years and 25 million lives saved thanks to PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, established under former President George W. Bush. 

Bloomberg Law: Retired Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy attended the State of the Union speech (and chatted amiably with Biden afterward).

The Hill: What messages are Congress members sending with their buttons?

Reuters: The Biden economy: waning inflation, record jobs, lingering uncertainty.

The Hill: In order for the Fed to achieve its goal of “price stability” at 2 percent inflation, continued Fed interest rate hikes are likely through this year and into 2024, Powell said.

Axios: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called for a “new generation of Republican leadership” during the GOP response to Biden’s speech.

The Hill: Former President Trump tears into Biden in pre-taped State of the Union response.


LEADING THE DAY

MORE POLITICS

New Hampshire’s nickname is the Granite State, and not just because of its quarries. Democrats in the state are so displeased with the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) decision last week to move the state’s traditional first-in-the-nation primary behind South Carolina’s — and schedule it on the same day as Nevada’s primary on Feb. 3 — that mutiny looms.

The state’s Democrats, citing a New Hampshire law, say they will continue to go first despite Biden’s view (and the DNC’s vote) that South Carolina is a more representative starting point for Democratic primary candidates, despite South Carolina’s Republican leanings and the fact that the state has rarely been predictive of eventual Democratic presidential nominees, reports The Hill’s Julia Manchester. The risks: Some non-New Hampshire Democratic party stalwarts, otherwise eager to display party unity to contrast with the GOP heading into 2024, have called for penalties if the Granite State flouts the new primary calendar. 

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the coming weeks will hold events in Iowa and his home state as part of a listening tour that is expected to springboard him into the 2024 Republican presidential primary, making him the first senator to seek the presidency this cycle from either party. 

There’s also a chance he could be the last during this cycle, The Hill’s Al Weaver reports. Over decades, the Senate has nurtured many who harbored presidential aspirations. But in contemporary politics, just two men succeeded in making the direct leap from the upper chamber to the Oval Office: former Sens. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Scott’s early status as the lone senator in 2024 who may run is a measure of the upcoming presidential contest and Trump’s candidacy. Scott is the only Republican senator who is Black and he could also gain traction as a vice presidential pick. 

“There’s a lane out there, and it’ll start probably getting occupied more as time goes on,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told The Hill, acknowledging that the power dynamic in the Republican Party is forcing senators who would otherwise dive into the presidential waters to recalibrate. “With Trump in, that affects, probably, some folks’ decisions.” 

🍊Tampa Bay Times: Disney’s Reedy Creek special taxing district in central Florida would be renamed within two years and get a new board of directors selected by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as part of a legislative change pending in a special spring session called by the governor. The legislation is the latest twist in DeSantis’s clash with The Walt Disney Co. after the company opposed Florida’s Parental Rights in Education legislation last year, called the “don’t say gay” bill by critics. Initially, the governor, who is buffing up his conservative bona fides for an expected 2024 presidential bid, had wanted to dissolve the board, according to the Times.

The Hill: Democratic centrist Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is weighing a White House bid in 2024 as a third-party candidate. “I don’t like the direction we’re going,” he said Tuesday.

The Hill: Trump is upset. He ripped the conservative Club for Growth on Tuesday after he was not invited to its annual donor retreat. The former president also groused that the group initially opposed his candidacy in 2016. 

JOBS & ECONOMY

When a president’s Labor secretary elects to leave for a new job in professional sports (The Boston Globe), it says something about Bostonians’ love of hockey (and compensation reported to be in the neighborhood of $3 million a year). Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, a former mayor of Beantown, will soon depart Biden’s Cabinet to become executive director of the National Hockey League Players’ Association, news first reported last week by TSN’s Hockey Insider. Walsh introduced himself to the union’s search committee last week via Zoom while still serving in the Cabinet (Daily Faceoff). It’s an unusual sequence for a top federal official while he’s still employed by the taxpayers.

Walsh was Tuesday night’s “designated survivor,” the Cabinet member not in attendance for the president’s speech. It’s a holdover tradition that began in the 1950s (CNN). 

And speaking of Zoom, despite current data indicating a strong U.S. labor market, headline-leading layoffs in the tech sector continue. Zoom, which experienced a huge boost during the pandemic lockdown, announced on Tuesday that it plans to jettison 1,300 employees, or about 15 percent of its workforce (CNBC).

USA Today, explaining why tech layoffs might not be as dire as they look, reports that 297 tech companies have laid off nearly 95,000 workers since the year began, according to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, a website that’s been tracking tech layoffs since March 2020. If that rate continues, the industry could cut more than 900,000 jobs in 2023. That’s nearly six times the total for the industry in 2022, according to the site.

Dell Technologies announced 6,650 layoffs on Monday, or 5 percent of a 133,000-employee workforce, in a memo to employees filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission titled “Preparing for the Road Ahead” (CRN TV).

Tech hiring trends are shifting geographically — just ask Washington, D.C., and New York City. Those metro areas now have more job openings for software developers than do California markets. Nontechnology companies are loading up on engineering talent while startups and tech behemoths cut back (The Wall Street Journal). Here’s a Journal graphic published last month illustrating the downshifting in tech.

If you’ve lost track of major tech behemoths stampeding to purge employees, Forbes rounded up the publicly disclosed reasoning (plus analyses from independent experts) for recent announcements by Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce, Spotify and Coinbase, to name a few.


IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Rescue teams in Turkey and Syria are racing to save people still trapped in the rubble amid freezing temperatures after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake ripped through the region in the early morning hours on Monday, killing more than 9,600. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces Tuesday as residents in some cities dug for loved ones with their bare hands. In neighboring Syria, the disaster is compounding an already dire humanitarian crisis made worse by more than a decade of sanctions and war (The Washington Post, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg News). Many of the nearly 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey live in areas devastated by the quake (CBS News).

The Washington Post: See the earthquake’s total devastation through before and after images.

The New York Times: How Turkey’s Anatolian fault system causes devastating earthquakes.

Slate: The grim reality about saving people trapped by an earthquake.

The Washington Post: Want to donate to help earthquake victims? Here’s what to know.

Ukraine will join dozens of countries in sending aid to fellow NATO member Turkey in the aftermath of the deadly earthquakes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed off on an executive order ordering humanitarian assistance to be sent on Tuesday “to help overcome the consequences of the emergency situation” (The Wall Street Journal).

The Department of Defense on Monday revealed the size of the suspected Chinese spy balloon that the U.S. shot down over the Atlantic Ocean this weekend — and it turns out it was bigger than the Statue of Liberty. The balloon is believed to have been up to 200 feet tall, officials said, and was carrying surveillance equipment the size of two to three school buses (CBS News). The U.S. intelligence community, meanwhile, has linked the balloon to a vast surveillance program run by the People’s Liberation Army, and U.S. officials have begun to brief allies and partners who have been similarly targeted.

The surveillance balloon effort, which has operated for several years partly out of Hainan province off China’s south coast, has collected information on military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest — including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines (The Washington Post).

The Hill: Spy balloon offers a worrying trial run for a bigger U.S.-China crisis.

CNN: “Total miscalculation”: China goes into crisis management mode on balloon fallout.

CNBC: New photos show the Navy recovering a downed Chinese spy balloon off the U.S. coast.

Axios: The Chinese spy balloon drama from inside China.

Zelensky will make a surprise visit to London today, officials said, at a time when Kyiv is urging the West to send more weapons and military support to counter Russian advances. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said Zelenskiy would visit troops training in Britain and address the British parliament (CNN and Reuters).

“President Zelensky’s visit to the U.K. is a testament to his country’s courage, determination and fight, and a testament to the unbreakable friendship between our two countries,” Sunak said.

Meanwhile, Tanks are arriving in Ukraine ahead of a predicted surge in attacks from Russia. The first of the Leopard 2 tanks Canada is donating to Ukrainian forces arrived in Poland late last week, which Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand announced in a Sunday tweet, accompanied by a photo of a tank rolling out of the belly of a plane (CTV News).

“Alongside our allies, we’ll soon be training the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the use of this equipment,” she said.

Ukraine is set to receive at least 100 restored Leopard 1 tanks from industry stocks using pooled funds from Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, according to a joint statement published on Tuesday. The countries said Ukraine would receive the tanks as well as training, logistical support, spare parts and an ammunition package. Dutch Defense Minister Kasja Ollongren said despite being an older model, the Leopard 1 was “definitely still suitable” for combat use (Reuters).

“It’s really a tested tank,” she said on Dutch television. “They’re being fixed up and made battle-ready, so they will definitely be useful for the Ukrainians, and also better than a number of Russian tanks.”

German arms maker Rheinmetall, meanwhile, expects to supply 20 to 25 Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine this year, CEO Armin Papperger said Tuesday (Yahoo Finance).

Time: Why Russia is so determined to capture Bakhmut.

Forbes: A brigade of Ukrainian moms, dads, bloggers and retirees is resisting Russia’s human wave attacks in Bakhmut.

CNBC: Biden expected to visit Poland near the end of this month; Moscow seen moving troops into east Ukraine ahead of expected offensive.

Coal power plants are a major contributor to climate disruption — but current policies give just a 1 in 20 chance of phasing them out by 2050. Growing calls for an end to the use of coal — and widespread global agreements to stop burning the fuel for electricity — won’t be enough to keep the world from burning coal through the midcentury, according to a study in Nature Climate Change. As The Hill’s Saul Elbein reports, doing so will require more hands-on regulation and policies, the scientists found. The study sheds light on why exiting coal — an agreed-upon goal of the international community since the 2021 United Nations climate change conference — is such a heavy lift. 

CONGRESS 

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told embattled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) he shouldn’t have attended the State of the Union address, much less positioned himself near the center of the House aisle to shake hands with the president. Romney, who appeared to have a heated encounter with the disgraced freshman lawmaker as he walked down the aisle to take his seat, told reporters “he’s a sick puppy. He shouldn’t have been there” (The Hill).

“I don’t think he ought to be in Congress and he certainly shouldn’t be in the aisle trying to shake the hand of the president of the United States and dignitaries coming in,” he continued. “It’s an embarrassment.”

NBC News: Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) after the State of the Union: Santos showing up was “questionable.”

Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee traded barbs Tuesday at a hearing over the Biden administration’s policies at the southern border, as Democrats accused their Republican colleagues of fueling inflammatory rhetoric against migrants. Two U.S. Border Patrol chiefs from sectors in Texas and Arizona testified, the second House hearing on the border this month.

Comer, the chairman of the committee, said the aim of the hearing was “to gather facts about the border crisis from career law enforcement officials.” But congressional Democrats on the committee argued again that the new GOP House majority held the hearing as a political opportunity to hammer the administration on high migration levels (Roll Call).

The Hill: Partisan rift widens on immigration policy, as seen in two House hearings.

CNN: White House looks to undercut GOP arguments ahead of border security hearing.

The New York Times: Caught in the GOP’s crosshairs, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faces a political showdown over the border crisis.

🛬 Congress is digging into the recent air travel mess following high-profile meltdowns from the Federal Aviation Administration and Southwest Airlines, writes The Hill’s Karl Evers-Hillstrom. Lawmakers on Tuesday held their first hearing on aviation safety since last month’s FAA system outage that forced the U.S. to ground all flights for the first time in decades. The hearing kicks off a series of investigations into recent disruptions as the FAA seeks a five-year funding package from Congress this year. 

“Our aviation system is clearly in need of some urgent attention,” said Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The Washington Post: As Southwest, FAA probes begin, fallout could shape flying for years.

ABC News: United Airlines faces a possible $1.15 million fine from the FAA over pre-flight system check.


OPINION

■ The state of the union could be a lot worse, by The Washington Post Editorial Board. https://wapo.st/40FoTEH 

■ Why China doesn’t need balloons to spy on U.S. companies, by Jeremy Hurewitz, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3I7J4Uy


WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will convene at 10 a.m. and consider legislation that would end a federal order last year that requires most foreign travelers arriving by air to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The administration opposes the bill (Reuters). The House Oversight and Accountability Committee will hear testimony beginning at 10 a.m. from former Twitter executives about the platform’s handling of a 2020 article published by the New York Post about Hunter Biden’s laptop (USA Today). The House Intelligence Committee will hear from former national security officials at 10 a.m. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, along with Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health officials, will testify about the COVID-19 pandemic response at 10 a.m. before the House Energy and Commerce Committee (The Hill).   

The Senate meets at 10 a.m. and will resume consideration of DeAndrea Benjamin to be a U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the 4th Circuit.

The president will travel to DeForest, Wis., to discuss jobs and the economy at a union training center at 1 p.m. Biden will return to the White House tonight.

Vice President Harris will appear live on “CBS Mornings” between 7 and 9 a.m. ET to discuss the administration’s agenda and Biden’s Tuesday night speech. She will fly to Atlanta to join a moderated conversation about climate change at the Georgia Institute of Technology at 1:10 p.m. She will return to Washington this evening. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken participates virtually in the COVID-19 Global Action Plan Ministerial at 8 a.m. from the State Department. He will speak at 11:15 a.m. during the Gender Champion Award ceremony at the department. Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will share a working lunch at noon and hold a joint press conference at 1:20 p.m. The secretary, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet at 5 p.m. with Stoltenberg.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Spring Hill, Tenn., to visit the Ultium Cells battery plant to discuss clean energy manufacturing. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will travel to Dallas for events at Baylor, Scott and White Health and Wellness Center (Juanita J. Craft Recreation Center)and at Friendship-West Baptist Church for a roundtable discussion, in both locations to tout the administration’s efforts to lower health care costs.



ELSEWHERE

  HEALTH & PANDEMIC 

😷 Respiratory viruses — including the flu, respiratory syncytial virus and COVID-19 – are not a serious concern for most of the U.S. public, even though they’re still affecting many, new survey data from the Kaiser Family Foundation found. Nearly 4 out of 10 households reported a recent case of one of the three viruses but most are not worried about getting seriously ill, according to the survey conducted in mid-January. About half of adults surveyed said they took some precautionary measures to avoid getting sick amid the winter cold season, including nearly a third who said they were more likely to wear a mask in public (CNN).

The Los Angeles Times: The loneliness of being immunocompromised in the age of COVID-19.

The Washington Post: Charles Silverstein, who helped declassify homosexuality as an illness, dies at 87. An activist and psychologist, he helped achieve “the single most important event in the history of gay liberation after the Stonewall riots.”

The New York Times: “Miracle” cystic fibrosis drug kept out of reach in developing countries.

The New York Times: Do gel manicures (and the ultraviolet lamps used with customers) pose a cancer risk? What to know.

💵 Advances in science and immense investments by the federal government and drug companies have completely altered prospects for people with conditions that seemed untreatable in almost every area of medicine — cancers, allergies, skin diseases, genetic afflictions, neurological disorders, obesity. But, as The New York Times reports, when the costs are too much, even for the insured, patients hunt for other ways to pay.

“This is the golden age of drug discovery,” said Daniel Skovronsky, chief scientific and medical officer of Eli Lilly and Company. But the prices reflect the inherently costly and fundamentally different way drugs are developed and tested today. Skovronsky said the burden on patients who cannot afford life-changing new drugs weighs heavily on him and others who work for drug companies.

Information about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots can be found at Vaccines.gov.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,112,152. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 3,452 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)


THE CLOSER

And finally … 💗 It’s almost Valentine’s Day, which means supermarket shelves are stocked with boxes of chocolate, teddy bears and red roses — and pastel-colored conversation hearts. But the chalky seasonal treat requires annual tending. Months before each Valentine’s Day, candy companies begin pondering new messages and editing out the dated ones. The fresh sayings have to be current and inoffensive, charming and clever. Most importantly, they can’t overshadow classic expressions of romantic love, such as “Kiss Me,” which have been mainstays on such candy hearts for more than a century.

As The New York Times reports, for 2023, the Spangler Candy Company — one of two major manufacturers — has chosen an animal theme for its Sweethearts line, with a nod to all the people who acquired pets during the pandemic. Sweet new phrases include “Big Dog,” “Love Birds” and “Purr Fect.” According to Helen Fisher, a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute and the author of six books on love, sex and the brain, the less amorous messages mark a cultural turning point.

“These candy hearts are yet another expression of this huge societal change since the pandemic,” she said. “It’s this theme of attachment. Much of the world is going to settle down and along with that, they’re looking not only for romantic love but also for deep, long-term attachment.”


Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!


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Congress v. Ticketmaster: How we got here

Last week, a congressional committee used the shrill megaphone of Twitter to issue a Clint Eastwood-style threat against a company selling Beyoncé tickets: “We’re watching, @Ticketmaster.” 

How did we get here? 

Batches of tickets to Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour went on sale this week. Congress is watching closely because of the spectacular Ticketmaster meltdown when Taylor Swift tickets hit the market last fall. Millions of fans went ticketless. 

But congressional concerns go beyond Beyoncé.  

Ticketmaster controls “a vast share” of the concert ticket market, “60 to 80 percent, depending on who you listen to,” said Bob Lefsetz, a music-industry analyst.  

The ticket broker’s 2010 merger with Live Nation wedded its ticketing business to a concert promoter with more than 200 top-drawer acts, dozens of venues and exclusive ticket-selling deals at thousands of concert halls. 

Now, “you have a company that is running the shows, that owns and operates venues, that manages artists and that handles the ticket sales,” said Dean Budnick, co-author of “Ticket Masters,” an industry history. “And I think that rubs Congress the wrong way.” 

The Justice Department is said to have opened an antitrust investigation. In a rare flourish of bipartisanship, Congress seems united behind the idea that Ticketmaster and Live Nation add up to a monopoly.  

Ticketmaster leaders disagree. 

“Since the merger, Ticketmaster’s market share has gone down, due to increasing competition within the ticketing industry,” Joe Berchtold, Live Nation president, told The Hill. 

America’s capitalist system depends on competition: Multiple companies vying for the customer’s business, a contest that drives prices down and customer service up.  

“Consolidation and power in the hands of the few can create problems for the many,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last month

President Biden himself weighed in, urging Congress to “lower the huge service fees that companies like Ticketmaster slap onto tickets for concerts or sporting events that can easily add hundreds of bucks to a family’s night out.” 

The Live Nation merger has endured for 13 years. Why all the fuss now?  

Two reasons: $5,000 Springsteen tickets, and the day Swift broke the internet. 

When Springsteen fans queued up online in July 2022 for tickets to a historic tour, they found that “face value” surpassed $5,000 in some instances.  

The culprit was “dynamic pricing,” a system that sets prices based on demand. The idea is to sell each ticket at full market value. Price it too low, and scalpers will snatch it up and pocket the profits. Dynamic pricing redirects the money to the artist. 

Fans pounced on Ticketmaster. But Springsteen had chosen dynamic pricing. “I mean, he acknowledged it a few days later,” Budnick said. 

Jon Landau, Springsteen’s manager, told The New York Times “our true average ticket price has been in the mid-$200 range,” not $5,000.  

Tempers cooled — until tickets went on sale for the next Swift tour. 

In November, Astone Jackson went online with a special code meant to guarantee him access to a presale of Swift tickets for “verified fans.” This was another Ticketmaster program, also designed to steer tickets into the hands of fans. 

Jackson, a verified Swift fan from Columbus, Ohio, endured a day of heartbreak. 

“I’m waiting in the queue,” he said. “It says you’re sitting in maybe 2,000th place. And by the time you get to number one, it crashes, or you freeze.” 

Jackson patiently rejoined the queue, again and again. After hours of patience, he reached the front of the line. He selected two tickets and hit the checkout button. The tickets were gone. 

After many more tries, he gave up. 

“I am a ticketless, sad, heartbroken man,” he said. 

As it turned out, even mighty Ticketmaster could not handle demand for Swift’s Eras Tour, scheduled for spring. Company leaders blamed an unprecedented cyberattack from hackers and bots. 

“We invited a million and a half on that day to come and buy those tickets, but it’s kind of like having a party. Everybody crashed that door at the same time with 3.5 billion requests,” said Michael Rapino, chief executive of Live Nation.  

Swift, like Springsteen, bears some blame for the breakdown. She approved the verified fans effort to protect fans from scalpers. She also agreed with Ticketmaster to have millions of tickets go on sale on the same day.  

“She did want to blow up the internet, and she literally did,” Budnick said. “Ticketmaster should have said no.” 

Swift later said of Ticketmaster, “we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” 

And why would Swift want to break the internet?  

“She wanted to be able to say she sold out stadiums around the country” in a single day, Lefsetz said.  

Another Swift fan who tried and failed to procure a ticket to the Eras Tour is Carolyn Sloane, an economist at the University of California, Riverside.  

“I tried to register for the presale, and I don’t think it even verified me as a real person,” she said. 

Swift and her team probably regret trying to break the Ticketmaster single-day sales record, which they did, Sloane said. “But I think it’s unfair to direct all that ire at Taylor.” 

Fans come to Ticketmaster with unrealistic expectations. By one estimate, Swift would have had to perform 900 stadium shows to meet demand for tickets to her tour. 

That imbalance of supply and demand seeds chaos when an artist of Swift’s stature announces a tour. It drives ticket prices into the stratosphere.  

“And it gets back to what makes people think it’s worth it to pay $500 to see Taylor Swift or Beyoncé. And there’s nothing rational there,” said Steve Waksman, a music professor at Smith College and author of “Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé.” 

Beyoncé and Swift are wealthy beyond imagining. Yet, to build on that income, they and most of their millennial peers need concert revenues. The advent of music file-sharing with Napster in 1999 triggered the decline of lucrative album sales. 

“Pre-Napster, they would tour to promote an album they were trying to sell,” Sloane said. “Now, they release an album to tour.” 

All of a three-figure ticket price goes to the artist. Service fees, often totaling 20 percent of face value, mostly go to the venue, with smaller shares earmarked for credit card fees and Ticketmaster itself.  

When fans complain, Ticketmaster takes the heat. 

“Ticketmaster is a cover for the acts,” Lefsetz said. “Ticketmaster does nothing that the acts don’t approve of. The acts are the ones that set the price.” 

Springsteen and Swift have publicly complained about Ticketmaster, but such outbursts are rare. Ticketmaster’s market dominance leaves artists few alternatives, analysts say. 

“If you don’t choose to use Ticketmaster as your ticketer, as an artist, you can potentially get locked out of every good room in the country,” Sloane said. 

Congress and the Biden administration could try any of several reforms to solve the concert ticket problem. They could crack down on the scalper market that drives up prices. They could restrict the resale of tickets for profit. They could print the buyer’s name on every ticket, as airlines do. They could break up Live Nation.  

They could. But industry analysts don’t think they will. 

“This is a business that nobody in Congress understands,” Lefsetz said. “They want to grandstand to the public, which is irrational and doesn’t understand, either.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Public support soft on GOP debt limit demands

Republican lawmakers are lining up behind attaching spending cuts to legislation to raise the debt limit, but an overwhelming majority of Americans say the two issues should be handled separately — including 4 in 10 Republicans. 

The lack of public support for insisting on spending cuts to raise the debt limit presents a challenge to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

McCarthy in his prebuttal remarks ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union address was careful not to talk about spending “cuts” and only mentioned the C-word to pledge that Republicans would not push for cuts to Medicare and Social Security. 

House Republicans have yet to lay out what specific reforms they want to enact in exchange for lifting the nation’s borrowing authority, a notable difference from 12 years ago when then-House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) already had his “Road Map for America’s Future” in hand. 

That plan called for freezing nondefense discretionary spending for 10 years, reducing Social Security benefits for future retirees who at the time were 55 and younger and raising the Medicare eligibility age.

While some Republicans remain interested in deep budget cuts, there’s now growing resistance from GOP lawmakers concerned about how that would impact defense funding.

“No, because that would gut defense,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said when asked if he’d accept the spending caps like the ones enacted a decade ago. “If they could control spending, without counting us backward on defense, then count me in.”

That task is easier said than done.

Polling shows a very different political context from when President Obama agreed to spending caps as part of a debt limit deal in 2011.

“The deficit is a lot less of a salient concern to voters and you didn’t see any advertising on it in the last cycle, or a miniscule amount,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who argued that the debt doesn’t even rank as a top-tier priority for Republican voters. 

“You didn’t see candidates beat over it or elected because of it,” she said. “It’s significantly less important to voters.”

But Lake said “what you do about” the deficit “can be a very salient issue.”

“If you cut Social Security, that’s extremely salient and a little-known fact is at the end of 2022, Social Security was emerging as a top issue and a top priority, including about 40 percent of Republicans who said it was a top issue,” she added. “Voters are extremely nervous about the economy … they’re much more sensitive to cuts and how what you do about the deficit may hurt the economy.” 

McCarthy on Monday emphasized that Republicans would stay away from Social Security cuts.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate Republican leadership team, said Republicans have learned from the last debt standoff that Democrats can use proposed spending cuts as political ammunition.

“Unfortunately I think our politics seem to be more characterized by using these [proposals] as a political opportunity to attack opposing points of view rather than to solve problems, and that’s a problem,” he said. 

A Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,003 adults found that 65 percent of Americans think the issues of debt payment and federal spending should be handled separately. Seventy-three percent of independents and 41 percent of Republicans said any debate over spending cuts and fiscal reforms should be handled apart from the debt limit discussion. 

By contrast, Republicans felt more emboldened to push for specific spending reforms after the 2010 midterm elections, when they picked up 63 House seats and a big political mandate amid public anger over a recession and spending by Washington in the wake of a new health care bill and stimulus measure.

Even many Democrats such as Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) and then-Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.) agreed that deficit reduction should be a top priority. 

Obama ultimately agreed to the Budget Control Act that then-Vice President Joe Biden negotiated McConnell within days of a possible federal default. It raised the debt ceiling but put in place spending caps and across-the-board cuts for programs important to both parties.

But Democratic and Republican lawmakers soon chafed under the strict caps and began lifting them almost immediately. Congressional leaders agreed to reduce the amount of proposed cuts in 2012 and then raised defense and nondefense discretionary spending limits in 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2019. 

Warner said Tuesday “the debt doom we all predicted” 12 years ago was based on concerns that a huge federal debt would drive up interest rates significantly. 

“We have not seen that happen,” he said, although he warned that federal interest payments could become a problem in the years ahead, as the federal debt now stands at nearly $32 trillion and the Federal Reserve plans to continue raising interest rates. 

The federal debt stood at $14 trillion in 2011.  

McCarthy has dropped some hints about what he wants in deficit reduction talks with the White House.

“A responsible debt limit increase that begins to eliminate wasteful Washington spending and puts us on a path towards a balanced budget is not only the right place to start — it’s the only place to start, my fellow Americans,” McCarthy said in a speech on Monday.

Some House Republicans hope to balance the budget in the next decade, pressing for steep spending cuts to be attached to any debt ceiling bill. Budget watchdog groups and lawmakers in both parties, however, say the chances of balancing the budget in 10 years without steep cuts to defense programs or reforms to Social Security and Medicare are small. 

An analysis released by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found last month that Congress would need to reduce all spending by roughly 25 percent to do so.

“There are some areas of discretionary you’re going to have to make investments, those are always tough decisions,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who chairs the House Rules Committee, told reporters recently.

“But we can’t just go blindly on the same path that we’re on, which is basically what the administration is recommending,” he said, adding: “I’ll make you a prediction. We’ll spend less money in the next two years than we did the last two years.”

Source: TEST FEED1

How the House GOP blew up at Biden's State of the Union 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had said that Republicans would not play “childish games” during President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. While it started as a cordial event, by the end, the speech had some of the rowdiest pushback from an opposing party in recent memory.

House Republicans started the day with a reminder that there would be hot mics and cameras all over the House floor leading up to and during the address, according to a person in the room.

McCarthy told CNN that Republicans would portray themselves in line with the congressional “code of ethics,” and that he would not play “childish games like tearing up a speech” – a reference to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripping in half a copy of a State of the Union from former President Trump.

McCarthy and other Republicans shook Biden’s hand as he entered the room. And at the start of the address, Republicans kept decorum on par with years of State of the Unions past.

That changed around the halfway point.

Interruptions abounded in response to Biden saying that some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare. A highly unusual back-and-forth on policy ensued as Biden ad-libbed through his speech, ending with apparent agreement to keep the entitlement programs intact.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) could be heard calling Biden a “liar,” along with other Republicans.

At a later point, cries of “secure the border” rang out.

When Biden mentioned fentanyl and the border, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) yelled: “It’s your fault!”

“That was a very visceral moment for me,” Ogles later told The Hill, mentioning his former involvement in the human trafficking space. “He could close that border with the stroke of a pen, and he hasn’t had the courage to do it.”

McCarthy – who is eager to strike a spending cuts deal with Biden as a condition of raising the debt ceiling – could be seen appearing to shush his conference at multiple points during the speech.

Ahead of the speech, Greene defended the idea of Republicans vocally opposing Biden.

“People stand up and clap for the President. I think we can stand up and oppose things he’s saying,” Greene said. “Just like a sports team, right?”

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said that the Republicans responded appropriately in some areas, such as to Biden’s Social Security comments. But he said that Greene, who stood and pointed at Biden during her jeers, went too far.

“It’s inappropriate because it then can hurt,” Cramer said. “Our brand is moral authority.”

Sen. Amy Kobuchar (D-Minn.) said she was not surprised by the outbursts, calling House Republicans a “volatile, sort of scrappy” group, and praised Biden for how he handled the outbursts.

“He didn’t let it get to him. He’s with this twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face, and he owned the room,” Klobuchar said.

McCarthy did not answer reporter questions about the outcries as he left the chamber.

State of the Union addresses have included boos and outbursts in the past. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouting “You lie!” at former President Obama in 2009. Last year, Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) stood to shout at Biden during his address. 

But the extent and frequency of heckles amped up to a new level on Tuesday.

“I’m not one that’s into cat calls, but I understand the emotion that’s involved in that when you hear the President of the United States saying something that he knows is simply not true,” said Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the vice chair of the House Republican Conference. “There is no Republican that I know of, and certainly not one on Capitol Hill, who has ever suggested sunsetting Social Security and Medicare.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) independently released a lengthy policy plan in 2022 that called to either sunset or re-authorize all federal legislation in five years. Democrats quickly pointed out that could include Social Security and Medicare.

But Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), sharply pushed back on Scott and on the idea of sunsetting Social Security and Medicare.

“Rick Scott’s plan is not the House Republicans’,” Johnson said. “I can tell you that is not the party’s position.”

Though some Republicans have floated entitlement reform ideas like raising the Social Security retirement age, McCarthy has repeatedly said that changes to entitlements are not on the table during debt limit negotiations. Republicans have called for discretionary spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt limit, with an expected early June deadline.

“He tries to keep spreading this false narrative about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare. And I think by the end finally acknowledged, it’s not true,” said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). “At the end of the day, we’ve got to have honest negotiations about how to get spending under control in Washington, how to strengthen Social Security and Medicare.”

Ahead of the State of the Union, House Republicans organized a “media row” filled with conservative news outlets like Fox News, the Washington Examiner, Breitbart, One America News Network and more. The setup took place in a room that had been recently named after Pelosi.

Greene entered the media row Tuesday afternoon with a large white helium balloon, in reference to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that floated across the U.S. last week before being shot down – using the prop to criticize Biden for not shooting down the balloon earlier. She did not try to take the balloon into the chamber. 

As House Republicans escalated their pushback to Biden this year, one firebrand took a lower-key track than in the past.

“Well, I won’t be bringing a white helium balloon, if that’s what you’re asking,” Boebert said earlier in the day when asked if she had any protest planned for the State of the Union, before Greene had emerged with her own balloon.

She wore a dress that said “Drill Baby Drill” during last year’s State of the Union, and covered her lap with a silver “space blanket” during his address in 2021. But this year, Boebert’s protests did not stand out from those of her House GOP colleagues.

Al Weaver contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Five big takeaways from President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union Address

President Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday amid the customary pomp and circumstance — and to loud acclaim from Democrats.

But the speech also came as Biden struggles with mediocre approval ratings, the realities of a divided Congress and the looming start of the 2024 election campaign.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave the official GOP response.

Here are the main takeaways from the night.  

Pitched battle between Biden and GOP

The high point of bipartisanship came in the first few sentences of Biden’s speech. 

He congratulated Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on his new role, turning around to shake the hand of the smiling Californian.

“I don’t want to ruin your reputation, but I look forward to working with you,” Biden joked.

To judge from the rest of the speech — and the Republican reaction to it — there won’t be much unity to come.

Despite pledges from McCarthy to uphold decorum, Republicans made their dismay vocally obvious at several points. It was a far more aggressive display of dissent than the simple silence the opposition party has traditionally deployed during past State of the Union addresses.

Biden offered some areas where there might be hope for bipartisan agreement, such as fighting the opioid epidemic and bolstering mental health care. But he also leaned hard into a Democratic wish-list.

He proposed an assault weapons ban, the codification of abortion rights, a new tax on billionaires and labor union protections — none of which has any realistic chance of passage while the GOP holds the House majority.

There may have been promises of unity and propriety, but Tuesday night was all about underscoring battlelines.

Biden will likely draw them even more starkly if he announces a bid for second term, as he’s expected to do soon. 

In many ways, Tuesday’s speech was his opening salvo.

A raucous chamber

Fourteen years ago, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) received widespread criticism after he shouted, “You lie!” at then-President Obama during an address to a joint session of Congress.

American politics is in a different era now, as Tuesday made clear.

Biden was heckled repeatedly by Republicans during his address. One of the louder examples came when Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) accused him of being to blame for the estimated 70,000-plus American deaths per year from fentanyl.

“It’s your fault,” Ogles shouted. He confirmed his shouted remark at Biden to The Hill after the address.

At another point, Biden stared out into the crowd of lawmakers, clearly dismayed, after something — inaudible to television viewers — was shouted as he spoke about immigration.

The new GOP House majority takes pride in its staunch opposition to Biden and the party has been amplifying firebrand voices for some time.

Perhaps the most prominent such voice in the House, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), was among Biden’s hecklers on Tuesday.

High emotion over Tyre Nichols

A very different moment came in the midst of the partisan back-and-forth. 

Biden’s comments about the death of Tyre Nichols, made as Nichols’ mother and stepfather looked on from the gallery, resonated in an appropriately somber chamber.

Biden recalled how he had never had to have “the talk” with his children— commonplace among Black Americans, in particular — about how to minimize the dangers if they were to be stopped by police.

The president recounted some of the advice often given in such conversations, such as keeping hands on the steering wheel and turning on the vehicle’s interior lighting immediately.

Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, died Jan. 10 after being severely beaten by Memphis police officers three days previously. Five officers, all of whom are also Black, have been charged with second-degree murder and fired from the city’s police department.

Biden’s remarks on Nichols had a political point — he called on Congress to “finish the job” on police reform.

But the moment was extraordinary for its visceral emotional force rather than its politics.

Biden snares GOP in a trap on Medicare and Social Security

Biden’s boosters insist that the president’s political skills are repeatedly underestimated.

Another example came Tuesday when Biden appeared to set a trap for the GOP — and have them walk right into it.

The issue was the possibility of cutting Social Security and Medicare. Both are highly expensive but highly popular.

Biden laid out his case that some Republicans wanted to “sunset” the programs — Congress-speak for allowing legislation to lapse.

The president was clearly alluding to a plan from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), released last year, which did indeed call for all federal legislation to either be reauthorized every five years or lapse. 

Biden’s mention of the Scott plan caused a near-uproar from Republicans — perhaps because Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had disavowed Scott’s proposal virtually as soon as it was issued.

But Biden then used the GOP’s reaction to emphasize his point that no cuts at all should be made to the programs. He said he would protect the programs but added wryly, “apparently it’s not going to be a problem.”

There are, in fact, Republicans who argue that the programs should be reformed or amended.

But Biden’s wily move boxed them in, at least for now, in dramatic fashion.

Giving GOP response, Sarah Huckabee Sanders hits hot-button issues

Sanders, newly inaugurated as Arkansas’ governor but better known to many Americans as former President Trump’s White House press secretary, delivered a fiery response for the GOP.

Sanders let rip on hot-button cultural issues and other sensitive topics — including Biden’s age. She noted pointedly that she is the youngest governor in the nation whereas Biden, at 80, is “the oldest president in American history.”

Huckabee went on to allege that the president is, for several reasons, “unfit to serve as commander-in-chief.”

She also accused the administration of being in thrall to “woke fantasies” and having been “completely hijacked by the radical left.”

The choice between Republicans and Democrats “is between normal or crazy,” she said.

The GOP base is sure to love Sanders’ no-holds-barred approach. Whether it will persuade any moderate voters is a more open question.

One line from Sanders was interesting in a different way.

“It’s time for a new generation of Republican leadership,” she said.

Presumably her 76-year-old former boss, seeking to become the GOP presidential nominee for the third time, would disagree.

Emily Brooks contributed to this story.

Source: TEST FEED1

Six progressive takeaways from Biden's State of the Union speech

Progressives have kept President Biden close during his first term in office, pushing him to embrace their preferred policies, while pulling him in just enough to create a genuine alliance. 

On Tuesday night, those efforts were on full display. During Biden’s State of the Union speech, progressives heard the president reference their loftiest priorities, from income inequality and higher taxes for the mega-wealthy, to health care and increased spending for social causes and education.  

Biden’s reverence for the left — delivered from the bully pulpit in front of a divided Congress — was a full-circle moment for progressives who gave him their votes of confidence two years ago. 

Here are the six biggest progressive takeaways from the SOTU: 

Biden wants to tax the rich 

Biden has spent a lifetime in politics as a moderate Democrat, newly adopting much of the left wing’s ideology while maintaining some of his more innate centrist leanings. That’s been especially the case when it comes to financial concerns.  

During his formal address, however, the president gave one of the clearest indications that he has been listening to liberals on the country’s economic imbalances.  

He talked at length about taxing the wealthy and corporate greed, music to the ears of hopeful progressives, who have made tax reform for the ultra-rich central parts of their platform.   

“I’m a capitalist. But just pay your fair share,” Biden said, putting his position in simple terms for Americans who often grimace at progressives’ use of the phrase “socialist.” 

“The idea that in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes? That’s simply not fair. But now, because of the law I signed, billion-dollar companies have to pay a minimum of 15 percent – God love them!” Biden said. 

Wanting to levy more taxes on extremely wealthy individuals is not new to Biden. During and following the 2020 election, he took on a reformist agenda popularized by progressive Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and has been calling for tax restructuring during much of his first term in office.  

“Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in taxes. Nobody. Not one penny,” Biden said. “Let’s finish the job. We have to reward work, not just wealth. Pass my proposal for a billionaire minimum tax,” he went on, “no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a schoolteacher or a firefighter.” 

Corporations are put on warning 

In case any Republicans were unclear on his stance on the issue, Biden went to great lengths to underscore his position on holding corporations accountable.  

He specifically criticized several industries, such as pharmaceutical and oil companies, that he believes are in need of reform, and sketched out a rough roadmap for making realistic headway from Capitol Hill and the White House.  

“They aren’t just taking advantage of the tax code. They’re taking advantage of you, the American consumer,” he said about large corporations. “Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It’s extortion. It’s exploitation.” 

Biden also urged companies themselves to take action. 

“Corporations ought to do the right thing,” he said emphatically at another point in his speech. “That’s why I propose that we quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks to encourage long term investments instead. They will still make a considerable profit. Let’s finish the job and close the loopholes that allow the very wealthy to avoid paying their taxes.”  

Big Pharma draws Biden’s ire  

No two words rile up progressives like “Big Pharma.” 

And it seems Biden is now feeling their anger. Tackling corruption and high prices in the pharmaceutical industry has been one of liberals’ biggest targets for years, with progressive lawmakers and activists often pushing for more focus and attention to the issue across Pennsylvania Avenue.  

“Some members here are threatening to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act,” Biden said, teeing off what became an ad hoc version of his prepared remarks about drug prices. “As my football coach used to say, lots of luck in your senior year,” he joked, adding a line that wasn’t pre-planned. 

“Make no mistake, if you try to do anything to raise the cost of prescription drugs, I will veto it,” he declared.  

Biden then criticized what he and progressives agree are major flaws in the industry’s current system, which causes patients to pay high prices to get their medication filled, often at the cost of their health and overall wellbeing.  

“We pay more for prescription drugs than any major country on Earth,” Biden said, driving home the point. “Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars – and making record profits,” he said. “Not anymore.” 

Medicare gets a sharper mention 

Biden didn’t just limit his sweeping critiques to drug makers, but also addressed Medicare, another top priority for progressives like Sanders and several prominent House progressives who believe the program should be extended to all Americans cost-free.  

While the president didn’t go as far as to adopt the left’s universal health care platform, he did mention a series of tweaks that would theoretically help improve the country’s overall economic standing.  

“We capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare,” he said, listing a key accomplishment and making an appeal to older residents, a large and loyal voting bloc who bear the brunt of expensive medications.  

“We’re finally giving Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices. Bringing down prescription drug costs doesn’t just save seniors money,” he explained, “it will cut the federal deficit, saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars on the prescription drugs the government buys for Medicare. Why wouldn’t we want to do that?” 

Importance of climate change is addressed 

Progressives in and out of Congress have been proudly touting Biden’s work on climate change – an area that no prior administration has taken on so robustly.  

One of the president’s biggest accomplishments so far, signing the Inflation Reduction Act, was widely considered by climate hawks and other advocates to be a solid first step in working to chip away at one of the biggest problems facing his and future generations.  

“The Inflation Reduction Act is also the most significant investment ever to tackle the climate crisis,” he said. “We have an obligation to our children and grandchildren to confront it. I’m proud of how America is at last stepping up to the challenge. 

A point of contention, still, is the issue of oil. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was in attendance during the address, likely paying special attention to how the president would contend with the reality that, at least for the time being, the country is still largely reliant on fossil fuels.  

“We’re still going to need oil and gas for a while,” Biden said casually, inserting a line that wasn’t in the speech transcript released by the White House. “But there’s so much left to do.” 

Unions still a priority 

Biden got some flak from union leaders and labor activists recently when he worked to temporarily stop what would have been a massive strike within the rail industry that could have put millions of Americans in a tough position and caused significant economic carnage.  

Earlier Tuesday, the news that Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, the Cabinet secretary who many progressives consider a critical ally, is leaving the administration added a new element of unpredictability to the labor community who have come to rely on Biden to fulfill his campaign pledge to stand up for workers’ rights.  

With that backdrop, the president used a portion of his time to reiterate his commitment to workers and employees trying to unionize.  

“I’m so sick and tired of companies breaking the law by preventing workers from organizing,” he fumed.  “Pass the PRO Act,” he urged Congress. “Let’s guarantee all workers a living wage.” 

The PRO Act has been a main agenda item for liberal lawmakers working alongside the labor community and the White House. And he didn’t stop there. Biden also made a point to address related concerns when workers aren’t able to bargain collectively for rights, including families.  

“Let’s also make sure working parents can afford to raise a family with sick days, paid family and medical leave, and affordable child care that will enable millions more people to go to work,” he said. “Let’s also restore the full Child Tax Credit, which gave tens of millions of parents some breathing room and cut child poverty in half, to the lowest level in history.  

“And by the way, when we do all of these things, we increase productivity. We increase economic growth.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Romney on Santos: ‘He’s a sick puppy. He shouldn’t have been there’

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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told embattled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) he shouldn’t have attended the State of the Union address, much less positioned himself near the center of the House aisle to shake hands, slamming the New York Republican as “an embarrassment.”

Romney appeared to have a heated encounter with the disgraced freshman lawmaker as he walked down the aisle to take his seat for Biden’s address.

“I don’t know the exact words I said. He shouldn’t have been there. Look, he’s a sick puppy. He shouldn’t have been there,” Romney told reporters after the speech.

“I don’t think he ought to be in Congress and he certainly shouldn’t be in the aisle trying to shake the hand of the president of the United States and dignitaries coming in. It’s an embarrassment,” he added.

“He says that he embellished his record. Look, embellishing is saying you get an A when you get an A-minus. Lying is saying you graduated from a college you didn’t even attend,” Romney said, knocking down Santos’s attempt to characterize his conduct. 

“He shouldn’t be in Congress and they’re going to go through the process and hopefully get him out,” he added. “If he had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be there.”

Romney said he didn’t hear Santos’s reply but Santos later punched back on Twitter.

“Hey @MittRomney just a reminder that you will NEVER be PRESIDENT!” he tweeted. 

Romney said he didn’t intend to confront Santos but couldn’t avoid him. 

“He was standing right there in the aisle shaking hands with everybody,” he said. 

Asked if he was disappointed that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has yet to call on Santos to resign, Romney responded: “Yes.”

— Emily Brooks contributed. 

Source: TEST FEED1