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Joe Biden got some unexpected GOP laughs and applause when he said the country would need oil and gas for “at least another decade.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tag: GOP
Joe Biden got some unexpected GOP laughs and applause when he said the country would need oil and gas for “at least another decade.”
House GOP hauls in former Twitter execs. The larger target: Biden
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Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he was focused on understanding how Twitter identifies misinformation and what role the federal government allegedly played in pressuring the platform to remove content.
“I’m hopeful we can find out a lot of things,” Comer said, before listing a series of questions he wants answered. “What exactly Twitter’s policy was on determining what was disinformation and what wasn’t? Who was in charge of that? What role did the government play in telling Twitter what was disinformation and what wasn’t? What role did the government play in determining who was kicked off a platform? Were any tax dollars spent by the government?”
In promoting the hearing in the weeks leading up to Wednesday, though, Comer has framed it as part of an investigation of the Biden family itself, referring to the “Biden family’s shady business schemes.” The laptop purportedly included Hunter’s promises to arrange meetings between foreign executives and his father, who at the time was vice-president in the Obama administration.
Comer has said the committee’s investigation will “inform legislative solutions” related to protecting Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech and a free press, although his committee lacks the ability to introduce legislation.
When asked for comment on the panel’s investigation into the Biden family, White House spokesperson Ian Sams referred to an earlier tweet that called the House Republicans’ investigation “a political stunt.”
Either way, the hearing is likely to have little impact on the current operations of Twitter— given it’s now run by Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who has been courting Republicans since he bought the company in late October.
Committee members will also focus on information released in Musk’s “Twitter files” — reports purporting to show collusion between the FBI and company executives to quash the New York Post story. However, the files themselves showed no evidence that the FBI asked Twitter to censor the story, and multiple federal officials have denied the allegation.
Across the aisle, Democrats want to use the hearing for something completely different: To remind viewers of Twitter’s role in spreading right-wing extremist content ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the committee’s ranking member and a key leader on the Jan. 6 committee, wants to focus on how social media companies can contribute to violent events offline — and is not concerned about the politics of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
“Twitter is a private company,” Raskin said in an interview. “It’s not Congress’ role to run around second guessing the editorial judgements of private news entities.”
“On the other hand, if social media are being used for the purposes of inciting violent insurrections and coordinating violence against the government, I think that presents a serious problem under the First Amendment because the First Amendment does not allow deliberate incitement of imminent lawless action,” Raskin added.
Raskin has secured former Twitter employee Anika Collier Navaroli to be his Democratic witness. Navaroli appeared before the Jan. 6 committee to discuss Twitter’s failure to stop extremist posts leading up to the insurrectionists takeover of the U.S. Capitol.
Although social-media bias and platform regulation have grown into significant political issues over the past several years, the current House GOP has shown little appetite for serious regulation of the industry. Last week, party leaders passed over one of the industry’s strongest Republican critics, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), in favor of a more industry-friendly figure to run the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.
House leadership has, however, remained laser-focused on the Biden angle of the Twitter story.
Comer sent a letter to Musk last October demanding that he hand over Twitter records pertaining to the laptop story immediately after the billionaire bought the company — and before the GOP had even won the House in the 2022 midterms.
The opening line of the letter read “Committee on Oversight and Reform Republicans are investigating the Biden family’s pattern of influence peddling to enrich themselves and President Biden’s involvement in these schemes.”
Three weeks after the Republicans won office, Musk obliged with what has now become the “Twitter files.” Comer, who has not called Musk to testify, referred to the billionaire as “a great American” last week.
The three former Twitter executives called by Republicans are:
* Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer, who Musk fired last October. She played a central role in blocking and then later reinstating the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop — saying initially that tweets about the reporting violated Twitter’s 2018 policy against publishing hacked materials.
*James Baker, Twitter’s former deputy general counsel who also previously worked as general counsel at the FBI during the investigation of whether Trump colluded with Russia, will also testify. He will likely face many questions from Republicans, especially related his past involvement in the Trump probe and claims Musk fired him in December for allegedly interfering in the publication of additional Twitter files.
* Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former global head of trust and safety, who left in November after Musk’s takeover.
The witnesses are all appearing under an agreement that will allow them to share privileged information from when they worked at Twitter.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Biden urges GOP lawmakers to ‘finish the job’ and takes a few swipes at them too
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It was a speech that underscored the stark dividing lines that have come to define this presidency, in which pleas for partisan differences to be set aside often clash against the realities of modern politics.
“That’s always been my vision for our country: to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class, to unite the country,” Biden said. “We’ve been sent here to finish the job.”
As he spoke, a symbol of the new fault lines in Washington appeared just over Biden’s left shoulder. He delivered last year’s State of the Union, and 2021’s address to Congress, with Nancy Pelosi seated behind him in her role as House speaker. On Tuesday, Republican Kevin McCarthy was in that perch, with his party having vowed to investigate Biden and his family and block much of his agenda.
Despite the looming gridlock, Biden struck an optimistic tone and pointed to his robust slate of accomplishments from his first two years in office. He cited the nation’s “progress and resilience” on its path or recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6 insurrection, declaring that while the nation “was bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken.”
“The story of America is a story of progress and resilience,” Biden said. “We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it. That is what we are doing again.”
He repeatedly urged the GOP lawmakers to help him “finish the job” – he used the phrase 12 times in total – in passing a series of bills popular with the American people.
“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress,” Biden said.
Even before speaking, Biden nodded across the aisle, singling out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and needling McCarthy. “I don’t want to ruin your reputation but I look forward to working with you,” he said to the speaker.
Biden painted himself as the adult in the room, a no-drama president who tried to reach across the aisle and restored a sense of normalcy to a Washington left reeling from four tumultuous years of Donald Trump. He made a renewed push on pieces of legislation — including an assault weapons ban, police reform and protections for abortion rights — that polling suggestions are broadly popular with the American people, including the independent and swing voters who usually decide elections.
And while those are items Republicans are likely to oppose in the months ahead, aides felt confident in the approach. It was, they noted, a “unity agenda” similar to the approach that Biden took during his 2020 campaign, where he tried to avoid the daily political firestorms engulfing Trump, pledged to make politics less omnipresent in everyday life, all while allowing his Republican opponent to self-immolate.
The updated version of that strategy — until the Republicans pick their 2024 standard bearer — is predicated on the ascendance of newly prominent faces in the Republican party, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). Another headline-grabbing Republican, Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who faces a House Ethics probe and has been accused of lying about his entire resume, was seen milling about near the aisle.
A year ago, Taylor Greene and Boebert heckled Biden during his speech, and photographs of their angry shouting went viral. Ahead of the speech, McCarthy urged his caucus to avoid repeating such a spectacle. But after Biden suggested that some Republicans wanted to gut Social Security and Medicare, GOP lawmakers erupted in protest. Taylor Greene was spotted standing and shouting at the president again. Later, other Republicans interrupted Biden to shout about the southern border.
Biden has not yet declared his candidacy for re-election, but the State of the Union doubled as a soft launch for it. McCarthy also looms as a political foil. Though some of his criticisms of the GOP were implicit, Biden made direct calls in his speech for partisan politics to be set aside for two important priorities: lifting the federal debt ceiling and continuing to fund Ukraine in its defense against Russia. The new Speaker has already delivered his objections on both, setting up standoffs on issues that Biden has declared essential to the future of democracy at home and abroad.
Biden spoke quickly and forcefully, though stumbling on occasion, as he delivered the 73-minute speech. He touted the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill and saluted the Republicans who supported it. For those in the GOP who didn’t, he zinged: “We’ll still fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.”
There are challenges on the horizon for Biden, including the war in Europe and a special counsel appointed to investigate his handling of classified documents. And Republicans have spent recent days savaging the Biden administration’s response to the Chinese spy balloon that floated in U.S. airspace and gearing up for a year of partisan investigations.
Biden talked tough on China but made only a passing mention of the spy balloon that has dominated the national political discourse for a week, declaring, “As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”
Any State of the Union is of the moment, reflecting a nation’s internal strife. A year ago, in the wake of a surge of violent crime, Biden emphatically declared, “We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police. Fund them.”
But on Tuesday, in the midst of a homeless crisis and the killing of a Black man at the hands of Memphis police, Biden’s tone shifted, calling for “more resources to reduce violent crime and gun crime; more community intervention programs; more investments in housing, education, and job training.”
Biden vowed to veto any efforts to raise the price of prescription drugs, which his Inflation Reduction Act lowered for Medicare beneficiaries. He presented evidence of progress that’s been made in the last year on combating the opioid epidemic, lowering inflation, prioritizing mental health, aiding veterans and reviving his cancer “moonshot.” He pointed to the overwhelming bipartisan support last year for the PACT Act, which directs more healthcare resources to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits in combat.
He also pledged to utilize new technology to better track fentanyl smuggling at the southern border, singling out a New Hampshire father in the audience who lost his high school daughter to drug addiction. But that brought another uproar from Republicans, including a shout at Biden of “it’s your fault” about the fentanyl death.
The State of the Union has been home to many lines intertwined with the identity of their speakers: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s defense of “four freedoms” ahead of World War II, Bill Clinton declaring “the era of big government is over” and George W. Bush condemning “the axis of evil” after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. It is unclear if Biden will reach those rhetorical heights, as hovering over the address will be something he won’t discuss at all: his possible 2024 re-election bid.
The 80-year-old president has said he intends to stand for another term, though his official decision may still be more than a month away. He’ll hit the road this week for a post-speech barnstorming tour — with stops in Wisconsin and Florida — and will consider his political future by making more rounds of calls to his longtime allies, talking through themes and timing, pushed by a belief that he remains the one Democrat who could defeat Trump.
Most close to Biden believe that, soon enough, an official campaign will begin in earnest.
Eli Stokols contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )The state of Biden’s union with a GOP Congress: It’s tense
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“This is not the House of Parliament. I wish there were more decorum, but it seems like we just keep going further downhill every State of the Union,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who set off a different kind of political storm after telling disgraced Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) that he didn’t “belong” in the chamber for the speech. (Romney later called the serial fabricator’s behavior, including an attempt to shake hands with Biden, “an embarrassment.”)
After McCarthy promised before the speech that his members would avoid “playing childish games,” the State of Union highlighted yet again just how tough it will be for him to corral his fractious Republicans on any given day. And for Biden, the evening demonstrated that his heady days of accomplishment during the last Congress have abruptly come to a close.
The theatrics began midway through Biden’s speech, as he scolded Republicans about their past interest in cutting the nation’s biggest entitlement programs in a bid to set the stakes for the upcoming debt limit battle. As the jeers escalated from the opposition, Biden began battling the GOP in real time — ad-libbing his own prepared remarks to challenge Republicans who were shouting at him from the chamber floor.
“Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” Biden said as the GOP side of the chamber erupted in boos. It was a reference to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) proposal last year to wind down all laws after five years, an agenda that split Scott’s party and that Biden has attacked repeatedly.
Then, veering from his own remarks, Biden attempted to clarify — “I don’t think it is a majority of you” — though he could barely be heard above the GOP outcry on the floor. “So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare, off the books now, right?” Biden said.
Republicans had hoped McCarthy’s Tuesday pledge that the GOP wouldn’t touch the two programs in the debt limit fight would keep the president from hitting them on it, despite the fact that some of them remain broadly interested in changing the popular entitlements. They were livid.
“The president was trying to score political points, despite the fact that Republican leadership has made it clear that Medicare and Social Security benefits are off the table,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.). “Republicans made clear their dissatisfaction with his ploy.”
The tensions only grew from there. Biden’s back-and-forth on the debt battle seemed to embolden his critics — chief among them, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, sitting in the far back row in a stark white, fur-lined jacket. As the Georgia Republican sat, she rarely looked up from her phone except to occasionally shout at Biden.
“Liar!” she shouted at first, in response to Biden’s accusation of GOP cuts to Social Security and Medicare. “Bullshit!” she called later. And when Biden called for action on the deadly drug fentanyl — one of the GOP’s biggest priorities — Greene shouted: “It’s coming from China.”
She was hardly alone: Dozens of other Republicans joined in with chants to “secure our border” as Biden spoke of the need for an immigration overhaul. Several other Republicans called out “liar,” and at least one shouted “it’s your fault” as Biden touted efforts to lower fentanyl deaths.
“That’s just not acceptable in the type of country we are and the leader of the free world,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said of the ruckus. “Might be accepted in a Third World country. But not here.”
But Republicans weren’t done after the speech. Scott fumed of Biden afterward: “He’s been lying about me for a year. He’s a liar.”
The tenor of the speech, at times, clashed with the pomp and circumstance of one of Congress’ biggest nights. Ahead of the address, Capitol hallways were packed with the return of lawmakers’ State of the Union guests — a tradition that got nixed during the height of the pandemic.
Other parts of Biden’s remarks, though, went just as expected.
He received standing ovations on bipartisan issues like support for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving. Republicans cheered when Biden lamented that the U.S. would be “on oil and gas for a while” — a nod to Manchin, who chairs the Energy Committee and hails from a deep-red fossil-fuel state.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as well as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), remained seated when Biden mentioned McCarthy’s name for the first time.
But for Democratic leaders, the speech was just what they were looking for: combative at times, heavily focused on economics and not filled with lofty rhetoric. As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) dipped into an elevator to head home for the night, the back-and-forth between Biden and Republicans did little to dampen his good mood.
Americans thought “he’s talking right to me,” Schumer said of the presidential address. “My needs, my dreams, my hopes. It wasn’t high-falutin’, it wasn’t high up in the stratosphere. It was aimed right at them.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )GOP leaders push bipartisan resolution about China balloon incursion
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House Republicans had previously discussed a resolution aimed squarely at President Joe Biden and his handling of the balloon — which POLITICO first reported — as they aimed to put it to a vote perhaps on Tuesday, the same day as his annual State of the Union.
But several members, including Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), privately lobbied GOP leaders to pivot toward a bipartisan censure of the Chinese spy tactics — a rare issue that both sides unite behind. Since then, the GOP’s draft has changed substantially, according to multiple Democrats, and may now receive agreement from across the aisle.
“My strong recommendation was … This is one of the things you want as a country to appear to be coming together. You don’t want a partisan resolution,” McCaul said. “I think that’s more important than our petty partisan politics.”
The Texas Republican has spoken not just to McCarthy: He’s also in conversations with his counterpart on the Foreign Affairs panel, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.). He planned to review the language with Meeks later in the evening.
Meeks did not rule out possible Democratic cooperation, depending on the language of the measure — as well as its timing. Few Democrats were interested in a high-profile resolution to land the same day as Biden’s biggest address of the year. That now appears unlikely.
“We’re looking at it. They’ve got something, and there’s dialogue going on. So, we’ll see what happens,” Meeks said, adding that the final resolution could go through the House Armed Services Committee, instead of the Foreign Affairs panel. “Depends upon what it says. Depends upon what the timing is.”
McCarthy and his team are also in the process of setting up a briefing for all members on the Chinese balloon, according to three GOP lawmakers. That briefing is likely to be Thursday, the same day the Senate will receive its briefing, according to a leadership aide.
Lawmakers have also received some information to review in advance in the Capitol’s sensitive compartmented information facility.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Koch network looking away from Trump in GOP presidential primary
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Americans for Prosperity, a fundraising organization established by powerful conservatives Charles and David Koch, is not endorsing former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican primary, the organization implied in a memo Sunday.
“The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” a letter from the organization’s CEO, Emily Seidel, said. But the memo didn’t mention Trump by name, leaving open the possibility of an endorsement further down the road.
The move could mark trouble for Trump, if it leads the AFP’s base of wealthy conservative donors away from his campaign. He is the only candidate from a major party to announce a 2024 run so far, though a cast of potential Republican challengers have publicly teased potential campaigns.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Flexing his wins and eyeing a 2nd term, Biden will lay out contrasts with GOP in State of the Union
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Though Biden won’t mention them by name, aides believe the presence of newly prominent House Republicans in the chamber will underscore his arguments. A year ago, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) heckled Biden during his speech, and photographs of their shouting went viral. White House aides privately admit that they wouldn’t mind that happening again this time, creating a contrast between rabble-rousing in the crowd and steady leadership on the dais.
“The theme of a State of the Union is always ‘Who are we, who do want to be? What do we stand for, what do we want to believe?’” said Jen Psaki, Biden’s former press secretary. “That is not to ignore or deny huge problems in the country but to say ‘I will work with people to take them on.’”
But the subtext of the address will not be the lawmakers in the seats but the campaign ahead. Biden has not yet declared his candidacy but the State of the Union could very well double as a soft launch for a 2024 bid. The president has said he intends to stand for re-election, though some of his closest advisers caution that a final decision has not yet been made. In somewhat classic Biden fashion, the timeline for an announcement has shifted, according to four people familiar with the decision.
Originally pegged to March or April, in part for fundraising purposes, there had been talk of moving an announcement up to late February. That now may have slipped again as the White House grapples with the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the discovery of mishandled classified documents at Biden’s Delaware home and former office.
Biden advisers have downplayed the impact of the discovery — pointing to his unchanged approval rating in the face of the controversy. They believe the Democrats’ triumphs in November squelched any talk of an intra-party challenger and bought the 80-year-old president time to make his decision.
Still, Biden faces challenges heading into Tuesday’s address.
A divided Washington and a growing array of challenges could define his presidency in the months ahead. House Republicans are ramping up their investigations. The battle for Ukraine continues to rage. And in just the last fortnight, the nation has been left reeling by video of a brutal deadly assault of a Black man at the hands of police.
Biden is expected to rally Americans on Tuesday with the notion that the nation is at an inflection point as it emerges from the COVID pandemic and the trials put forth by Donald Trump’s time in office.
A year ago, Biden delivered his first State of the Union just days after Vladimir Putin sent his Russian forces over the Ukrainian border. The fate of Kyiv hung in the balance and Biden used a sweeping portion of his speech to argue that the defense of Ukraine was a defense of democracies around the globe.
Now, the case will be different. Ukraine has shown remarkable resilience, repelling much of Russia’s aggression, but the war has settled into a grinding slog with Kyiv clamoring for more weapons to defend itself for months if not years. Biden, aides said, will outline to the public why continued, sustained American involvement is needed. He will urge Republicans to ignore the voices in their own party who want to curtail funding to Ukraine.
Another standoff with Republicans will also be central to Biden’s pitch: the need to lift the nation’s debt ceiling. He will make clear that he will not negotiate on the country’s fiscal future, connecting it to his stewardship of the economy. Though inflation remains high, it has begun to cool, and the president is expected to point to historically low unemployment, strong jobs numbers and a growing feeling among economists that the nation could avoid a recession.
“There should be a focus on tone: be firm without [being] combative,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who was a senior adviser on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “And there has to be an acknowledgment of the pain inflation has caused. It can’t just be ‘happy talk’ about what they’ve done on the economy. You run the risk of looking out of touch.”
Any State of the Union is of the moment, and reflective of the challenges facing the country when it is delivered. In recent days, Biden aides have inserted sections into the speech on the collective traumas suffered by the nation last month.
In the wake of several mass shootings, including two in California just days apart, Biden will again call for a ban on assault weapons, an idea that has little chance of receiving Republican support. And he will likely mourn with the nation over Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died at the hands of Memphis police officers last month, trying to thread the needle of showing support for law enforcement while also advocating for police reform.
Even if some legislation — like the George Floyd Policing Bill and the assault weapons ban — have little chance of becoming law, there is still value in the president proposing something that polls show is popular with most Americans, aides said.
Some of Biden’s speech will be backward-looking, reflecting the political reality of a divided Congress unlikely to pass meaningful legislation against a backdrop of GOP probes into the president’s administration and family. But White House aides believe that could be to their advantage, allowing the president to blame the GOP for gridlock while he can extoll the accomplishments of the last two years.
One example will be infrastructure. Aides plan for Biden to highlight the projects underway thanks to the $1 trillion in federal funding and point to last week’s schedule — the president visited one project in Baltimore and another in New York City — as a preview of the year ahead. Biden will start criss-crossing the country to tout work funded by his administration, beginning with a post-speech barnstorming tour across the Midwest later this week.
The president, always deliberative, will consider his political future by making more rounds of calls to his longtime allies, talking through themes and timing, pushed by a belief that he remains the one Democrat who could defeat Trump. Most close to Biden believe that, soon enough, an official campaign will begin in earnest.
“He should focus attention on … big legislative achievements, the national pandemic emergency ending, the economy stabilizing and still growing, and how the midterms went very well for his party,” said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. “If this was any other president, without the age issues or concerns about what the Republican campaign might look like, this would be a message to launch 2024.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Florida GOP calls for special session to expand controversial migrant flight program
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The memos don’t contain any specifics about how the program would operate, and legislation on immigration is not yet formally been filed.
The moves by DeSantis and GOP legislative leaders signal that the governor has no intention of stopping his controversial program to transport migrants to Blue strongholds like Massachusetts. His first and only set of flights, in mid-September, caused a massive uproar, with Democrats and immigration advocated accusing DeSantis of using migrants as political pawns.
DeSantis received $12 million for the migrant transport program in his current year budget, which he said was needed to highlight what he called the Biden administration’s failed border policies. The money came from funds connected to federal Covid-19 relieve funds.
The current state budget directs the money only to be used to remove migrants “from this state,” meaning Florida. Because the migrants were sent from Texas last fall, that language has become the subject of a lawsuit from state Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Miami Democrat who says DeSantis violated the spending provision because they were moved from Texas not Florida.
DeSantis’ new proposed program would allow the state to fund future migrant flights that originate anywhere in the United States, according to the proposal. DeSantis’ proposed budget, which was unveiled Wednesday, asks for another $12 million for the program.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the DeSantis administration over the migrant flights, including from the Center for Government Accountability, which alleged that the DeSantis administration was withholding public records related to the program. Another, from the Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, accused the governor conducting “premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme” by flying the migrants to Massachusetts.
Documents released in late December showed that DeSantis’ top safety official, Larry Keefe, helped write the language that helped the company responsible for chartering the flights, Vertol Systems, his former law client, secure a state contract to fly the migrants from the San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard. The records also revealed that Keefe used a non-public email address that made it appear that emails were coming from “Clarice Starling,” the main character in “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Those records were not originally released as part of the lawsuit, but instead were dropped days before Christmas with a note from the DeSantis’ public records office that they originally were unaware of Keefe’s private account.
The state has paid Vertol Systems $4.4 million since September, including $950,000 on Jan. 31, state records show, making the total cost of the program nearly $90,000 for each migrant relocated.
In a September email, James Montgomerie, Vertol’s top executive, told Florida Department of Transportation purchasing administrator Paul Baker, that under the contract, they would transfer “unauthorized aliens from Florida.”
The email indicated that the “humanitarian services” would take place from Sept. 19 through Oct. 3, and said the “wrap around private” would be $950,000. The email does not offer further explanation, but four $950,000 state payments have been made to the company, records show.
Though the administration carried out only one set of flights, in late September it signaled that it was chartering another from Texas to near Rehoboth, the summer vacation spot on the Delaware coast where President Joe Biden has a home. Humanitarian organizations in several states scrambled to be in position to offer services for migrants on the flights. A flight took off but it never landed in Delaware and it’s unclear whether migrants were on board.
During a press conference Wednesday, DeSantis doubled down on his support of the plan amid the growing cost and controversy.
“We have had a deterrent effect, and people are sick of having an open border with no rule of law in this country,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Sam Bankman Fried’s co-founder gave GOP govs group $500,000 right before bankruptcy
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The $500,000 donation from Salame was part of a $28.6 million haul that the association brought in over the last three months of 2022, according to filings with the IRS.
That money — coupled with seven-figure donations from GOP mega-donors — fueled its aggressive push to claim the executive branch in a number of states on Nov. 8. Ultimately, however, Democrats flipped three governorships in their favor. And they did so with an atypical cash advantage.
“Democrats were on total defense in 2022 and their incumbents were mired in tough races due to their out-of-touch records,” an RGA spokesperson said, pointing to the defeat of the incumbent Democratic governor in Nevada.
During the fourth quarter of 2022, the Democratic Governors Association raised about $40.2 million, according to filings with the IRS. Veterans of gubernatorial campaigns said it was the rare instance of the party’s donors shifting their focus to the DGA.
“Major donors are very often focused on national issues and presidential politics rather than state issues,” former DGA executive director Colm O’Comartun said of the party’s donor class, adding that gubernatorial races in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania created a persuasive argument for the Democrats’ major donors. “Starry eyed donors have been used to being with Nancy [Pelosi] on Nantucket but are now warming to Democratic governors.”
It could have been even worse for Republicans if not for donors like Salame. Last year, RGA also received $6 million from The Concord Fund, a group associated with the powerful conservative legal activist Leonard Leo. Its project, known as the Judicial Crisis Network, spent millions to support former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees. In 2022, the Concord Fund also gave $2.15 million to the Republican State Leadership Committee, which supports conservative candidates running for state judiciaries and other state-level campaigns.
The influx of cash suggests a growing effort by the group to focus on the states. A spokesperson for the Concord Fund maintained, though, that the group, primarily through its support for the Judicial Crisis Network, has already been involved in state court issues for over a decade.
RGA is free to accept donations of unlimited size, beyond the limits set for federal and many state-level campaigns. Groups like RGA are also free to accept contributions from corporations, unlike federal campaigns.
RGA’s 2022 fundraising haul also included a number of major conservative donor dynasties. The Las Vegas Sands Corporation — whose majority shareholder is Miriam Adelson — gave $3.79 million. The gift is also the latest indication that Adelson has remained a political force since the death of her husband, Sheldon Adelson, in 2021. Another political dynasty also spent big to support the Republican Governors: Suzanne DeVos gave $300,000, as did Richard DeVos Jr., Doug DeVos, and Daniel DeVos.
DGA’s haul also included some of the party’s mega-donors: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker gave a total of $27 million to the group in 2022, and billionaire Stephen Mandel gave $1,000,000 as well. A portion of the haul came as a transfer from an affiliated committee, Democratic Action.
DGA did not report any gifts from FTX in 2022.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Sarah Huckabee Sanders picked for GOP State of the Union response
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The press secretary-turned-governor was a polarizing figure during her tenure behind the White House briefing room podium, from which she sparred often with the Washington press corps as she defended then-President Donald Trump amid his administration’s controversy and scandal.
Sanders herself was eventually caught up in controversy in 2019, when a report released by special counsel Robert Mueller revealed that the press secretary admitted to misleading the reporters during a 2017 briefing where she discussed Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey. Sanders said at that briefing that “the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director” and that the Trump White House had heard from “countless members of the FBI” that they had lost confidence in Comey. In its report, Mueller’s team said Sanders conceded that those “comments were not founded on anything.”
Sanders will deliver her address from Little Rock next Tuesday after Biden wraps his speech before a joint session of Congress. In a statement, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said everyone should listen to the address, “including President Biden.”
“She is a servant-leader of true determination and conviction,” McCarthy said. “I’m thrilled Sarah will share her extraordinary story and bold vision for a better America on Tuesday.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
