News
January 5, 2022 – 6:00 pm (ET)
January 5, 2022 – 2:30 pm (ET)
Associated Press, January 5, 2022 – 12:15 pm (ET)
https://apnews.com/article/business-russia-ukraine-germany-vladimir-putin-1cf433a5df199b66edb6ff110f685857
Virginia Mercury, – January 5, 2022
A group of congressional Democrats on Tuesday called for preserving the climate portions of President Joe Biden’s stalled domestic spending bill as Democrats in the U.S. Senate rewrite the measure.
U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Tina Smith of Minnesota and John Hickenlooper of Colorado, along with Reps. Kathy Castor of Florida and Donald McEachin of Virginia, said on a press call that the climate crisis demands action. The call was organized by the environmental advocacy group League of Conservation Voters.
The Democrats suggested that the portions of the bill known as Build Back Better that deal with climate should be prioritized as the Senate reworks the House-passed measure amid internal disagreements.
“We are in a code red moment for climate,” said Castor, the chairwoman of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. “This is our moment to deliver. We cannot let it pass us by.”
Associated Press, January 5, 2022 – 11:00 am (ET)
https://apnews.com/article/business-russia-ukraine-germany-vladimir-putin-1cf433a5df199b66edb6ff110f685857
Associated Press, January 5, 2022 – 9:30 am (ET)
https://apnews.com/article/business-russia-ukraine-germany-vladimir-putin-1cf433a5df199b66edb6ff110f685857
In a display of unity, the Biden administration and its European allies are beginning a series of meetings aimed at showing Russia that an invasion of Ukraine would be met with a forceful response.
Using virtually identical language, the U.S. and its European allies have several times in the past month issued joint and individual messages advising Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will face “massive consequences” and “severe costs” if he goes ahead with further military intervention in Ukraine.
Yet the severity of the response hinges largely on Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and a diplomatic heavyweight within the 27-nation European Union. Potential actions — be they economic, diplomatic or political — will top the agenda in talks in Washington on Wednesday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and new German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
Vox, – January 5, 2022
Governments make choices that shape millions of lives. Workers and businesses are taxed to provide health care to the elderly and to the least fortunate. Men and women are incarcerated or even killed for crimes defined by the state. Wars are fought. Refugees are given a place of safety or turned away at the border.
If you believe in democracy, such power is justified only because it flows from the will of the people. “Governments,” the United States declared in its formational document, “are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The premise of any democratic republic is that there are some decisions that must be made collectively, and that these decisions are legitimate because they are made by elected officials.
On Friday, the Supreme Court will hear two sets of cases that test the justices’ commitment to the idea that the right to govern flows from the will of the people, and both involve challenges to President Joe Biden’s efforts to encourage vaccination against Covid-19.
The first bloc of cases, which is likely to be consolidated under the case name Biden v. Missouri, challenges a federal rule requiring nearly all health care workers to become vaccinated. The second bloc, which is likely to be consolidated under the name NFIB v. Department of Labor, challenges a rule requiring workers at companies with 100 or more employees to either get vaccinated or be regularly tested for Covid-19.
MSNBC – January 5, 2022
CNN, – January 5, 2022
The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is cranking up the pace ahead of Thursday’s anniversary of the mob attack, training its sights on ex-Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump’s top Fox News booster Sean Hannity.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson on Tuesday called on Pence to voluntarily speak to the panel about what he knew about the attempt by the then-President and his advisers to convince him to go back on his constitutional duty to certify President Joe Biden’s election win. The Mississippi Democrat also wants Pence’s take on the fraught moments when he was in the Capitol and a pro-Trump mob was chanting for him to be hanged during the mayhem that raged a year ago.
“I would hope that he would do the right thing and come forward and voluntarily talk to the committee,” Thompson told CNN.
The request once again puts Pence on the politically perilous tightrope between incurring the wrath of Trump and his supporters and the rule of law. The idea that the former vice president would voluntarily throw himself back into the controversy by testifying appears far-fetched, however. He has painstakingly spent the last year putting space between himself and the infamy of January 6 as he struggles to keep himself viable for a possible future Republican presidential campaign. Still, various Pence aides have begun engaging with the committee, including his former chief of staff Marc Short, whom CNN reported last month is cooperating.
Sean Hannity repeatedly tried to scale back Donald Trump’s effort to use the Jan. 6 session of Congress to overturn the 2020 election results, according to text messages between the Fox News host and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed publicly Tuesday.
“I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told,” Hannity said of Trump’s efforts in a text on Dec. 31, 2020, to Meadows, obtained by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Instead, Hannity told Meadows that Trump should go to Florida and become a vocal supporter of election reforms.
“Stay engaged,” Hannity wrote, effectively encouraging Trump to accept defeat. “When he speaks people will listen.”
Trump, though a spokesperson, said he disagreed with Hannity’s assessment.
The texts are the latest indication that some of the former president’s closest allies grew increasingly alarmed by his actions in the aftermath of his defeat, despite not saying so publicly. Hannity was one of Trump’s staunchest media allies throughout his candidacy and presidency and he has often relied on Hannity for his counsel and conservative media megaphone.
CNN, – January 4, 2022
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the pivotal Senate swing vote, made clear on Tuesday that he remains deeply skeptical of overhauling the chamber’s rules on a simple majority basis to advance voting legislation, a clear sign that a frantic push by Democrats to win his support to change the filibuster and pass one of the party’s core priorities is likely doomed.
The comments from Manchin come as his party is launching a full-court press to pressure him and fellow moderate Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, to back changes to the filibuster that would allow Democrats to pass voting legislation.
Schumer has set a deadline of January 17 — Martin Luther King Day — for the Senate to vote on a rules change if Republicans continue to block the legislation. But Manchin and Sinema have repeatedly made clear they oppose getting rid of the filibuster, which sets up a 60-vote threshold that requires bipartisan cooperation for most legislation to pass in the current Senate where Democrats control only 50 seats.
Manchin and Sinema have repeatedly voiced concerns over the long-term ramifications for the country if a majority could work its will over the minority party without being reined in by the filibuster.
Asked by CNN if he’s open to using the nuclear option — a process that could be used to override filibuster rules by a simple majority vote — to pass changes to voting laws, Manchin expressed skepticism, saying that would be a “heavy lift.
