USA News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Senate passes $1T bipartisan infrastructure bill in major victory for Biden
Source: The Hill
The Senate on Tuesday passed a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal, a significant win for President Biden and the first step on his top legislative priority.

Senators voted 69-30 on the bill, which was spearheaded by a bipartisan group of senators led by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

The bill is now heading to the House, where it faces an uncertain future and skepticism from progressives. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has vowed she won't take it up until the Senate passes the second part of its infrastructure two step, a sweeping $3.5 trillion spending package that includes Democrats' top priorities.

But the Senate's passage of the bipartisan measure on Tuesday gives a victory for Biden and the centrist-minded group that led the legislation, and placed big bets and months of time on the ability to get a bipartisan deal on infrastructure, one of Washington's long-running legislative white whales.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/567 ... -for-biden
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will resign

Source: CNN
(CNN) New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday he will resign, one week after the release of a report by the state attorney general that found he sexually harassed 11 women, ending his decade leading the state and heading off a potential impeachment by New York's Democratic-led legislature.

"The best way I can help is if I step aside and let government get back to the governing," the Democratic governor said.

Cuomo, the son of another three-term governor, said his announcement would take effect in two weeks, when he will hand over the reins to his deputy, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul.

In the seven days since New York state Attorney General Letitia James made her report public, Cuomo faced new and more adamant calls to step down from state and national Democrats alike. He initially pushed back, seeking more time, but ultimately relented and decided to resign before state lawmakers could begin a process that would likely have led to his impeachment and removal from office.
Read more: Link https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/ ... d7b2f415to source
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caltrek
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Without Single GOP Vote, Senate Approves $3.5 Trillion Budget Blueprint
by Jake Johnson
August 11, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... -blueprint

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) The U.S. Senate approved a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint with a party-line vote in the early hours of Wednesday morning, a key step toward passage of sprawling legislation that would expand Medicare, establish paid family and medical leave, and make substantial investments in green energy.

The chamber's approval of the budget framework came after the hours-long spectacle known as "vote-a-rama," a process during which senators are allowed to offer an unlimited number of largely meaningless, non-binding amendments to the resolution.

Republican senators, who are unanimously opposed to Democrats' $3.5 trillion proposal, seized the opportunity to put forth dozens of messaging amendments denouncing tax hikes on the wealthy, supporting a ban on the teaching of "critical race theory in prekindergarten programs and elementary and secondary schools," and pushing a $50 billion increase to the already-bloated Pentagon budget.

Democratic senators also introduced amendments to the resolution. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, offered an amendment expressing support for tax increases on the nation's richest 0.1%. The measure failed after Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) joined every Republican in voting no.
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Biden Administration Approves Largest Permanent Increase in Food Stamps
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history, a move that will give poor people more power to fill their grocery carts but add billions of dollars to the cost of a program that feeds one in eight Americans.Under rules to be announced on Monday and put in place in October, average benefits will rise more than 25 percent from prepandemic levels. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid.

The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last. For at least a decade, critics of the benefits have said they were too low to provide an adequate diet. More than three-quarters of households exhaust their benefits in the first half of the monthly cycle, and researchers have linked subsequent food shortages to problems as diverse as increased hospital admissions, more school suspensions and lower SAT scores. Under the new rules, average monthly benefits, $121 per person before the pandemic, will rise by $36.

Although the increase may seem modest to middle-class families, proponents say it will reduce hunger, improve nutrition and lead to better health. In an interview last week, the agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, simultaneously described the work as a technical exercise in nutrition science and a reflection of the forces reshaping the politics of the safety net. In the middle of disease, hardship and racial disparities, he said, the $79 billion annual cost of the program helps “stabilize our democracy.” “We may have a Constitution and a Declaration of Independence, but if we had 42 million Americans who were going hungry, really hungry, they wouldn’t be happy and there would be political instability,” Mr. Vilsack said.

Coinciding with a large new child tax credit — which temporarily offers families with children an income guarantee — the growth food aid comes as part of an enormous pandemic-era expansion of government assistance. Critics say that the costs are unsustainable and that the aid erodes Americans’ willingness to work. The new plan will raise the program’s costs by about $20 billion a year from prepandemic levels. In technical terms, the Agriculture Department has revised the Thrifty Food Plan, a list of two dozen food groups the government uses to estimate the cost of an economical, nutritious diet. Its value was first set in 1962 and, other than being adjusted for inflation, had not grown since then, despite a revolution in what Americans eat.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/15/us/p ... tamps.html
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caltrek
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Internal Investigation Clears Capitol Police Officer Who Killed Ashli Babbitt
by Shawna Chen
August 23, 2021

https://www.axios.com/capitol-insurrect ... 3ae4b.html

Introduction:
(Axios) The Capitol Police officer who killed Ashli Babbitt during the Capitol insurrection has been cleared of any wrongdoing, the department announced Monday.

Why it matters: Babbitt, an Air Force veteran from California, was among a mob of rioters who used a flagpole against the barricaded doors. The officer shot Babbitt as she attempted to force her way through a broken window into the Speaker's Lobby just off the House chamber floor.
  • The officer was placed on administrative leave within days.
Driving the news: An internal investigation found that the officer followed department policy, which allows use of deadly force only when an officer reasonably expects serious physical harm to themselves or others.
  • USCP is withholding the officer's name because he and his family "have been the subject of numerous credible and specific threats for actions that were taken as part of the job of all our officers: defending the Congress, members, staff and the democratic process," the department said. He will not face internal discipline.
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caltrek
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Proud Boys Leader Now Says He’s Not Proud of His Crimes
by Mark Follman
August 24, 2021

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... -jail-blm/

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Enrique Tarrio, the swaggering “chairman” of the violent far-right group known as the Proud Boys, says he’s no longer proud of leading a mob that destroyed the property of a historic Black church in Washington, DC, late last year.

On Monday, Tarrio was sentenced to more than five months in jail on two misdemeanor charges, after admitting guilt in a plea deal in July. Following a pro-Trump rally in Washington on December 12, Tarrio led the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen by a group of Proud Boys from the Asbury United Methodist Church, located near the White House. Several weeks later, Tarrio was arrested by DC police, who found him to be carrying two high-capacity rifle magazines emblazoned with the Proud Boys logo into the nation’s capital just ahead of the January 6 insurrection.

A leader since 2018 of a group known for antagonistic rallies on behalf of President Donald Trump and street brawls targeting “antifa,” Tarrio expressed remorse during his sentencing hearing on Monday as he faced the prospect of doing time in a DC jail—a conspicuous shift from his previous gloating about attacks against BLM, and later Congress.
Conclusion:
The tough-talking Tarrio proved to have another side as well: In late January, as federal prosecutors investigated a possible Proud Boys conspiracy in the Capitol siege, news emerged that Tarrio had a long record of working as an undercover snitch for the FBI, connected to his personal history of committing fraud.
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Yuli Ban
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And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
weatheriscool
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Supreme Court throws out Biden administration eviction moratorium
Source: CNN

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration's Covid-related eviction moratorium.

"If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it," the court wrote in an unsigned, eight-page opinion.

The three liberal justices dissented.

This latest round of litigation was prompted by the version of the moratorium rolled out by the US Centers for Disease and Prevention on August 3, days after the last iteration of the moratorium had expired.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/26/politics ... index.html
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Yuli Ban
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He’d Waited Decades to Argue His Innocence.
She Was a Judge Who Believed in Second Chances.
Nobody Knew She Suffered from Alzheimer’s.
Nelson Cruz’s family was so sure Judge ShawnDya Simpson would free him, they brought a change of clothes to his hearing. Then everything took an unexpected turn.
Can justice ever be sorted out?
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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wjfox
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Today in Texas –

A new "Heartbeat Act" banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy comes into force:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58406496

Residents are allowed to carry handguns without a license or training:

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/16 ... eg-abbott/
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