The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rachel Levine as assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Why it matters: Levine is the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The vote was 52-48.
Background: Levine, who is a graduate of Harvard and Tulane Medical School, has helped lead Pennsylvania’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She previously served as the state’s physician general. Continue reading.
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Shalanda Young as the White House’s deputy budget director, even as plans to fill the top spot remain on hold.
Young, a former staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, was confirmed by a vote of 63-37.
Many Republicans who initially supported Young’s confirmation as the No. 2 at the Office of Management and Budget withdrew their support after an initial round of confirmation hearings, citing objections to her support for repealing the Hyde Amendment in her written responses. Continue reading.
The accolade comes after recent research showing Phillips as the MN delegations’ most productive member.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03) thanked the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) for presenting him with the 2021 Legislative Action Award, in honor of Phillips’ leadership and demonstrated commitment to crossing the partisan divide.
The BPC established the Legislative Action Award to acknowledge creative and courageous members who foster bipartisanship when it is needed most. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Phillips worked tirelessly to break through partisan gridlock and deliver relief for small businesses and families. He authored a law to make PPP loans widely accessible to struggling businesses, and his leadership on the Problem Solvers Caucus was the inspiration for the bipartisan COVID-19 relief package passed last December. For these successes and more, Phillips was rated the most productive Representative in the Minnesota delegation by the non-partisan Center for Effective Lawmaking.
“Throughout my 30-year career in business and philanthropy, I witnessed hundreds of organizations throughout the world—but none were so utterly dysfunctional as our Congress,” said Phillips. “I recognize that the best policy ideas are the result of principled debate and thoughtful compromise and I am honored to receive the BPC’s Legislative Action Award. I will continue to pursue common sense ideas for the common good, inspire a new era of collaboration Congress, and restore Americans’ faith in government – especially as we emerge from a once-in-a-generation crisis.”
Congressman Phillips is the only member of the Minnesota delegation to win a Legislative Action Award from the Bipartisan Policy Center and a Jefferson-Hamilton Award for Bipartisanship from the Chamber of Commerce. According to the Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index, Phillips is Minnesota’s most bipartisan member of the House of Representatives.
Trump officials didn’t increase capacity for child migrants despite warnings, Biden transition officials say. “They were sitting on their hands,” one said.
WASHINGTON — In early December, the Biden transition team and career government officials began sounding an alarm on the need to increase shelter space for the large number of migrant children expected to soon be crossing the border, but the Trump administration didn’t take action until just days before the inauguration, according to two Biden transition officials and a U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions.
“They were sitting on their hands,” said one of the transition officials, who does not currently work for the Biden administration and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It was incredibly frustrating.”
The Biden transition team made its concerns about the lack of shelter space known to Trump officials both at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, laying out the need to open an influx shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas, and to issue what’s known as a “request for assistance” that would start the process of surveying new sites for expanded shelters, according to the transition officials. Continue reading.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) came under withering criticism on Twitter late Monday for her tweets about the mass shooting at a Colorado grocery store, with many pointing out her avid support for more guns on the streets of the United States.
As reporting on the shooting was breaking, the gun-toting lawmaker was busy tweeting, “The White House just called a lid at 1:13pm today. Biden is back in the basement, figuratively at least. Meanwhile, the country is in chaos and the border is coming apart at the seams.”
An hour later she finally addressed the shooting, with a tweet offering the usual “prayers” for victims — a pro forma message usually delivered by conservative lawmakers every time there is a mass gun-related act of violence. Continue reading.
President Biden on Tuesday called on Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and to close loopholes in the background check system after a gunman killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo.
“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps that will save lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act,” Biden said in remarks at the White House following Monday’s shooting. “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. … We should do it again.”
Biden called on the Senate to “immediately pass” two House-passed bills that would expand background checks for firearm sales, noting that both passed the Democratic-controlled lower chamber with some Republican support. One of the bills would close the so-called Charleston loophole by extending the initial background check review period from three to 10 days. The bill is linked to the 2015 shooting in Charleston, S.C., in which a white supremacist killed nine Black Americans at the Mother Emanuel AME Church. Continue reading.
Fox News host Harris Faulkner on Tuesday completely ignored a mass shooting in Colorado and instead asked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) about Vice President Kamala Harris’s laugh.
Just minutes after officials in Boulder named the 10 victims of Monday’s mass shooting, Harris began her Faulkner Focus program by interviewing Cruz about the border.
At one point during the interview, Faulkner noted that Harris had recently let out a laugh while answering a question about the border. Continue reading.
The suspect is accused of stopping three National Guard vans, identifying himself as a detective, ordering the guardsmen out of their vehicles and demanding to search their vans.
National Guardsmen transporting Covid-19 vaccines through Texas on Monday were held at gunpoint, police said.
Larry Harris is accused of following a convoy of National Guard soldiers before attempting to run them off the highway with his truck several times in Lubbock County, according to Idalou police Chief Eric C. Williams.
Harris, 66, of Willcox, Arizona, eventually turned his truck into oncoming traffic, stopping three National Guard vans near Idalou, Williams said. He then pointed a gun at a soldier, identified himself as a detective, ordered the guardsmen out of their vehicles and demanded to search their vans, according to police.
The guardsmen were uniformed and transporting vaccines to Matador, Texas. Continue reading.
U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn is once again under fire, this time for lying that President Joe Biden’s COVID relief bill doesn’t include any funds to help homeless veterans. In a xenophobic tweet Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina who voted against the legislation, slammed Democrats for allocating $86 million for hotels for unaccompanied children crossing the border seeking asylum.
The Biden Admin just dropped $86 Million dollars to get hotel rooms for ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS yet we have zero dollars going to our homeless veterans who are at a high risk of suicide.
— Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) March 21, 2021
UNACCEPTABLE. UNAMERICAN.
Many noted in response that the American Rescue Plan allocates billions for homeless vets, in addition to spending $1.6 billion via the Veterans’ Administration’s budget for homeless veterans. Continue reading.
Why are Latino men moving away from Democrats? And how can liberals win them back? For me, it’s a topic that hits close to home.
In 2016, my dad, Charlie Garcia — a third-generation Mexican American and lifelong Republican — supported Sen. Ted Cruz in the GOP presidential nomination contest. Recently, he recalled that, of the 17 candidates who ran for the Republican nomination in 2016, “Trump was my 17th.” Toward the end of the election, I remember him saying that he would “hold my nose and vote for Trump.”
But by this past November, something had changed. As far as I can tell, my dad voted while breathing through his nose as clearly as somebody could when wearing a face mask. Not only did he enthusiastically support Donald Trump, he gave money to the Republican National Committee. Though he has supported every GOP presidential candidate since 1980, he now contrasts them all unfavorably with Trump. “They can’t compare with what Trump has done,” he told me recently. “And some of the things that he came up with I said, ‘Oh man, why did you do that, Trump? That’s not going to go over well.’ And it turns out, my God, what a brilliant move! I had no idea. He’s just a master.”
A native of San Antonio, my dad spent much of his career working in sales; these days, he runs residential care facilities for the elderly in Orange County, Calif. His mother and father were born in the United States. My grandfather’s mother was likely born in France, but his father was Mexican while my grandmother’s parents were likely from Monterrey, Mexico. That mix of Mexican and American is why he calls me both “son” and its Spanish equivalent, “mijo.” Continue reading.
