Election-year politics threaten Senate border deal as Trump and his allies rally opposition
A politically treacherous dynamic is taking hold in Congress as negotiators work to strike a bipartisan deal on the border and immigration, with vocal opposition from the hard right and former President Donald Trump threatening to topple the carefully negotiated compromise.
Utah's multibillion dollar oil train proposal chugs along amid environment and derailment concerns
One of the United States' biggest rail investments in more than a century could be an 88-mile line in Utah that would run through tribal lands and national forest to move oil and gas to the national rail network.
Child tax credit tussle reflects debate over work incentives
President Joe Biden and leading Democratic lawmakers, including Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, have been fighting to make permanent a child tax credit that would give families at least $300 a month per child.
Biden plan would spend $16B to clean up old mines, oil wells
Hundreds of thousands of โorphanedโ oil and gas wells and abandoned coal and hardrock mines pose serious safety hazards, while causing ongoing environmental damage. Biden's plan would not only create jobs, but help reduce methane and brine leaks that pollute the air and groundwater. Biden's plan, which needs approval by Congress, would jump-start the well-capping effort and expand it dramatically. About $8 billion has been disbursed to states for mine-reclamation projects in the past four decades, but Biden's plan would ramp up spending sharply. AdEnvironmental groups hailed the announcement, saying unplugged wells and abandoned mines pose a significant environmental threat.
Inspector general reviews Trump relocation of Space Command
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)DENVER โ The Department of Defense's inspector general announced Friday that it was reviewing the Trump administration's last-minute decision to relocate U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama. โMoving Space Command will disrupt the mission while risking our national security and economic vitality,โ the senators said in a joint statement. We fully support the investigation.โAmong other duties, the Space Command enables satellite-based navigation and troop communication and provides warning of missile launches. The Space Command differs from the U.S. Space Force, launched in December 2019 as the first new military service since the Air Force was created in 1947. The Space Command is not an individual military service but a central command for militarywide space operations.
Trial highlights: Trump grievances, angry outbursts and more
"The Senate cannot ignore the First Amendment," said van der Veen. In a letter signed last week they wrote that โthe First Amendment does not apply in impeachment proceedings, so it cannot provide a defense for President Trump." van der Veen bristled and inquired who had asked. Sanders responded, โI did.โ van der Veen retorted: โirrelevant.โโNo, it isnt!โ Sanders angrily shot back from his desk, adding: โYou represent the president of the United States!โHe scoffed audibly when van der Veen avoided answering the question. โThis is not whataboutism," said Michael van der Veen.
Biden hails transportation nominee Buttigieg as 'new voice'
Mayor Pete Buttigieg, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to be transportation secretary reacts to his nomination as Biden looks on during a news conference at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. โ President-elect Joe Biden has introduced his one-time Democratic primary rival Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary, saying the 38-year-old can be โa new voice" in the fight against economic inequality, institutional racism and climate change. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would be the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a Cabinet position. Emanuel was mentioned as a potential candidate for several Biden Cabinet posts but drew strong backlash from progressives. Bidenโs selection of Buttigieg for transportation secretary drew praise from LGBTQ rights groups.
Biden calls transportation nominee Buttigieg 'a new voice'
Mayor Pete Buttigieg, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to be transportation secretary, speaks after Biden announced his nomination during a news conference at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. โ President-elect Joe Biden introduced onetime Democratic primary rival Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday as his nominee for transportation secretary, saying the 38-year-old can be โa new voice" in the fight against economic inequality, institutional racism and climate change. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would be the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a Cabinet position. Emanuel was mentioned as a potential candidate for several Biden Cabinet posts but drew strong backlash from progressives. Bidenโs selection of Buttigieg for transportation secretary drew praise from LGBTQ rights groups.
New political group tries to rescue Hickenlooper in primary
Hickenlooper was supposed to be Democrats' worry-free solution to the Colorado Senate race, but he's stumbled badly in the weeks leading up to the party's June 30 primary. John Hickenlooper's standing in the Colorado Democratic Senate primary, a new political group is spending at least $1 million on a scathing attack ad against Hickenlooper's rival in the race. Romanoff is the underdog in the June 30 primary, running as a populist insurgent against the establishment's choice, Hickenlooper, who has raised significantly more money. Privately, Colorado Democrats have been concerned about how Hickenlooper will perform in the primary. Hours later, the attack ad against Romanoff, which Let's Turn Colorado Blue described as a seven-figure buy, began to circulate.
'A hot mess': Hickenlooper stumbles into Democratic primary
Hickenlooper defied a subpoena from the Colorado Ethics Commission, only testifying after the nonpartisan panel found him in contempt. Then the commission found he'd violated state ethics laws by accepting free travel while governor. This guy they put on a pedestal, he's a hot mess, said Democratic former state Rep. Joe Salazar, who often clashed with Hickenlooper in the statehouse. On Tuesday, both Gardner and the National Republican Senatorial Committee released ads bashing Hickenlooper, an unusual move during a Democratic primary. Then Senate Democrats, alarmed at an unwieldy primary for the party's nomination to challenge Gardner, recruited Hickenlooper to run for the Senate instead.
Trump admin opposes extending enhanced unemployment benefit
The payments are set to expire July 31, and Democrats have pushed a plan that would extend the enhanced benefit through January. Unemployment benefits will still be needed in August and beyond, but the circumstances that originally called for the $600 plus-up will have changed,'' Scalia said. Democrats challenged that view, saying the unemployment rate is likely to remain at historically high levels through the summer at least. Grassley said he hears from Iowans every day who wonder why they are earning less than others they know who are getting unemployment benefits. With the unemployment rate expected to remain in the mid-teens through July, lawmakers will face pressure to compromise on some form of renewed benefits for the jobless.
Out of pandemic crisis, what could a new New Deal look like?
The New Deal was a try-anything moment during the Great Depression that remade the role of the federal government in American life. And as the U.S. confronts its most profound financial crisis since the Depression, brought on by the most deadly pandemic in a century, there are early soundings of a larger question: What would a โnewโ New Deal look like? โResponding to the crisis without also making our economy more resilient against future shocks would be a mistake,โ she said. Even New Deal programs that improved lives did not insulate the American people. And at the end of 2019, no major economist forecasting this year envisioned that a pandemic would throw the world into turmoil.
Dem: Officials who ignore subpoenas do so 'at their peril'
So subpoenas will be received by all of the people that the Congress wants to talk to. They will ignore those subpoenas at their peril," Himes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day." On Tuesday, House Democrats issued a subpoena to US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland after the State Department directed him not to testify before Congress shortly before a scheduled hearing. The move scrambled Democrats' impeachment investigation, raising questions about whether they will be able to obtain testimony from other witnesses. "I mean Donald Trump has believed from the day he walked into the White House that he's above the law.
Ad spending surges as Dems race to make debate cut
In the last week, Steyer spent nearly $400,000 on Facebook ads to lead all candidates in advertising spending on the platform. A recent Facebook ad from Gillibrand deployed her young son Henry to ask for donations as small as $1. He's spent more than $571,000 on Facebook ads during the course of the campaign, the company's data shows. In one ad, Bullock's campaign writes: "First: The DNC BLOCKED Governor Steve Bullock from the first debate. In all, Democratic candidates have spent more than $38 million on Facebook and Google advertising so far during the 2020 campaign.