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President Joe Biden has an election-year message for frustrated voters: At least he’s trying.
For those who think he isn’t doing enough to help Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion, Biden announced $800 million in new military support on Thursday. To ease the pain of high gas prices, he’s tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and reopened onshore sales of oil and natural gas leases on public land. And to address historic inflation, Biden has tried to smooth out supply chain-crimping bottlenecks at the nation’s ports.
NBC news, (01:47)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that limits discussion of LGBTQ issues in primary schools, such as sexual orientation and gender identity. Critics have referred to the legislation as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight weeks into the war, the Biden administration’s decision to dramatically ramp up delivery of artillery guns to Ukraine signals a deepening American commitment at a pivotal stage of fighting for the country’s industrial heartland.
It also brings into stark relief Moscow’s warning that continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine would have “unpredictable” consequences, suggesting that Russia sees the international wave of weaponry as a growing obstacle to its invasion as well as a Western provocation.
“We’re in a critical window” of time now, President Joe Biden said Thursday in announcing he had approved an additional $800 million in battlefield aid that includes 72 of the U.S. Army’s 155mm howitzers, along with 144,000 artillery rounds and more than 120 armed drones that will require training for Ukrainian operators.
In the dwindling days remaining to salvage something from President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, Democratic economists see the flickering of a decades-old dream.
The dream is government action to fundamentally expand opportunity for millions of Americans left behind by shifts in the modern economy. Political tides appear poised to sweep away unified Democratic control of the White House and Congress this fall, and with it the chance to act for the rest of Biden’s term, if not longer.
“That may be five, 10, 20 years,” lamented Jason Furman, once President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser and now a Harvard professor. “It could be a generation.”
New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week in politics, including how conspiracy theories are enabling politicians to drive a new culture war, revelations about Minority Leader McCarthy after Jan. 6
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law new guidelines Friday involving race-based discussions in businesses and schools as part of his campaign against critical race theory, which he called “pernicious” ideology.
Passed by lawmakers earlier this year, the legislation bars instruction that says members of one race are inherently racist, and that they should feel guilt for past actions committed by others of the same race or that a person’s status as privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by their race. It also bars the notion that meritocracy is racist, or that discrimination is acceptable to achieve diversity.
“We believe in education, not indoctrination,” DeSantis said during Friday’s bill signing in South Florida.
Republican members of Congress were heavily involved in calls and meetings with former President Donald Trump and his top aides as they devised a strategy to overturn the election in December 2020, according to new evidence filed in federal court late Friday.
Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee — part of an effort to force former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to appear for an interview — suggest that some of Trump’s top allies in Congress were frequently present in meetings where a handful of strategies to prevent then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office were discussed, including efforts to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with figures who would sow doubts about the legitimacy of the election.
CNN, – April 22, 2022
Congress can exclude residents of Puerto Rico from some federal disability benefits available to those who live in the 50 states, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The 8-1 opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting.
The case concerned Supplemental Security Income that is available to those living in the 50 states who are older than 65, blind or disabled. But residents of Puerto Rico and other US territories are excluded from receiving the funds.
April 22, 2022
