Not funny..

 

National Eat-Your-Young tour.....

Gaetz, Greene plan national tour to call out RINOs

The two lightning rod members of Congress aim to attack both Democrats and Republicans.

By MARC CAPUTO

Matt Gaetz is going on tour. With Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Rocked by a steady stream of leaks about a federal investigation into alleged sex crimes, the Florida congressman is planning to take his case on the road by holding rallies across the nation with Greene, another lightning rod member of Congress.

Their targets? So-called RINOs and “the radical left.“

Together, they plan to attack Democrats and call out Republicans they deem as insufficiently loyal to former President Donald Trump, such as the 10 GOP House members who voted for his second impeachment after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Gaetz and Greene will kick off their barnstorming “America First Tour” on May 7 in the mega-conservative Florida retirement community known as The Villages, a must-stop for any Republican candidate hoping to win the state or generate grassroots excitement. The idea is to send a message from the two controversial Republicans: They’re not canceled, they’re not going to be quiet and the infamy their critics attribute to them is translatable as fame and power in the conservative movement.

“The radical left is coming for you. And they know I'm in the way. Come stand with me as we fight back together against this radical president and his far left agenda,” Gaetz says in a new radio ad rallying conservatives to The Villages event.

Gaetz’s decision to step forward comes after weeks of national headlines and top-of-the-news-hour TV coverage related to the revelation that he is the subject of a federal sex-crimes investigation.

Gaetz, who has not been charged, has consistently denied the two anonymous claims against him: that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and paid for prostitutes. The accusations are linked to former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, a former friend who is thought to be trying to cut a deal with federal prosecutors on a 33-count indictment.

Greene, a first-term Republican from Georgia, in February was stripped of her House committee assignments due to her promotion of conspiracy theories and incendiary rhetoric preceding the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Normally voluble and ever-present on cable news as a Trump loyalist, Gaetz was off air for weeks recently as the news cycle took its toll on him.

Now, one of his biggest allies in the conservative news media, Fox’s Tucker Carlson, has begun publicly questioning whether Gaetz is the target of overzealous prosecutors under a Democratic administration that wants to silence conservative voices by smearing Republicans like Gaetz with allegations of sexual impropriety.

“That story essentially destroyed Gaetz, took him off the map completely as a rhetorical force,” Carlson said on his eponymous show. “Whatever his flaws, Gaetz is smart, articulate and brave. Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members of Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents. Now he’s a sex trafficker. So the question is, who exactly did Matt Gaetz sex traffic? We can’t answer that question because no charges have been filed. All that remains is the stigma.”

Gaetz is planning to reemerge publicly on television soon and is likely to appear on Carlson’s show, according to an adviser, who couldn’t give more information on what other cities Gaetz and Greene plan to visit as part of their tour.

One fellow Republican is sure to get a visit from Gaetz: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Cheney was a leading voice who criticized Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and voted for his impeachment. Gaetz responded by flying from Florida to Wyoming for an anti-Cheney rally.

"Defeat Liz Cheney in this upcoming election, and Wyoming will bring Washington to its knees," Gaetz said on Jan. 28. The Wyoming GOP later censured her.

Two months later, the news of the investigation into Gaetz dropped like a bomb. Cheney got a measure of revenge by calling the allegations against him “sickening” but refused to call on him to resign.

In batting the allegations against him, Gaetz said he was being targeted for his decision “to take on the most powerful institutions in the Beltway: the establishment; the FBI; the Biden Justice Department; the Cheney political dynasty; even the Justice Department under Trump.”

Gaetz refrained from calling out any Republicans in his initial announcement for “The America First Tour.”

“There are millions of Americans who need to know they still have advocates in Washington D.C., and the America First movement is consistently growing and fighting,” Gaetz said in a written statement provided to POLITICO. “The issues that motivate us include ending America's forever-wars, fixing the border Joe Biden broke on day one, prioritizing Americans, not illegal migrants, reshoring industries sold to foreign adversaries, ensuring real election integrity, and taking on the threat of the Chinese Communist Party. These issues are bigger than any one election and we remain ready to take our party and our country back.”

Alex Andrade, a Republican state representative who holds Gaetz’s old seat in the Florida House, said he’s not surprised with the congressman’s reemergence.

“Of course Congressman Gaetz is going about business as usual,” Andrade said. “He committed to fighting entrenched corruption when he first ran for Congress, and he’s not going to be deterred by anything we’ve seen to date. I know I wouldn’t have expected anything else from him.”

Umpa Lumpa...

Trump crashes final days of Texas special election

The former president weighed in with a final-week endorsement of Susan Wright, widow of late Rep. Ron Wright.

By ALLY MUTNICK

The first competitive special election of the new election cycle has quickly turned into a 2020 redux: It's the Donald Trump show all over again.

Trump made a late foray in the 23-candidate scramble for a vacant congressional seat in North Texas, transforming a once-quiet race into a major test of his post-presidency king-making power. After endorsing Susan Wright, a Republican activist and widow of the late incumbent, Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas), Trump joined her and the anti-tax Club for Growth at a tele-town hall on Thursday night to rail against his rival, President Joe Biden, and remind listeners of the stakes.

"It's just my honor to also get involved and be involved in this race," Trump said, touting his partnership with the Club for Growth. "We've worked together. We've never had a loss together. Every time we've gone after someone and, you know, supported and worked for someone, we've had victory. So I hope everybody can get out on Saturday, May 1, and vote for Susan Wright."

Though several Republican candidates were openly running in the MAGA lane, Trump and his legacy didn't dominate the race until the final weeks. There was a behind-the-scenes jockeying for his endorsement by allies of some leading GOP candidates, and on Monday he made his allegiance known and endorsed Wright, a clear power play that comes with some risk.

Saturday's voting almost certainly won't be the final word on the race — in Texas special elections, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to a runoff if no candidate wins a majority. Prior to receiving Trump's endorsement, Wright had high name recognition but less campaign cash than her GOP opponents.

The Club for Growth lured Trump off the sidelines after spending some $150,000 on ads painting Wright's main opponent, state Rep. Jake Ellzey, as an "anti-Trump" Republican, citing a donation from Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator and Trump critic.

"He wants to be with winners, but he also wants to show that he's still the leader of the party," said David McIntosh, the Club president and former Indiana congressman who encouraged Trump to back Wright. "That was our goal — to make it a race where Trump's endorsement really mattered."

Neither Ellzey nor Wright has discussed the former president much on the trail or made him a central theme of their campaign. Trump also bypassed endorsing another top candidate, Brian Harrison, a former health official in his administration who has constantly linked himself to the former president.

The Club for Growth said it invited tens of thousands of Republican voters in the district to the virtual event on Thursday, including "low-propensity Trump voters."

Though Trump's appearance on the town hall was brief, he breezed through a large number of topics, blaming Biden for everything from high gas prices to the border crisis. He also predicted Republicans would retake the House and celebrated his 2020 victory there.

"I appreciate the big win we had in Texas," he said.

Yet Trump's entrance onto the special election stage adds an additional wrinkle. Even before his endorsement, there was some uncertainty over how helpful a presence he would be in a district that has a fair number of Biden Republicans. Trump only won it by 3 points in 2020, even as the late Ron Wright won by 9 points.

“The reality with Trump is that Trump had tons of supporters. But he also has a lot of people that were not as heavy supporters from both parties,” Rick Barnes, the Tarrant County GOP chair who is backing Wright, said in an interview last week. “A lot of people have moved on, beyond all of that, realizing that that future may or may not include Trump. And so we can't continue to sit around and let that be the lead conversation.”

Most polling from both parties shows a four-way race to make it into the yet-to-be-scheduled runoff with three Republicans — Wright, Ellzey and Harrison — and Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez, who ran for the seat in 2018, all in the running.

The larger field of Republicans includes some interesting characters, including Dan Rodimer, a former pro wrestler who ran for Congress last year in Nevada; Sery Kim, a former Trump administration official whose nativist rhetoric disparaging Chinese immigrants lost her key endorsements; and Michael Wood, who is running as an explicit anti-Trump Republican with the backing of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). But none has gained much traction.

While Wright enjoys high name ID in the district, Harrison, a former chief of staff at the Health and Human Services department, has raised the most money and is the only one running broadcast TV ads. Ellzey, meanwhile, has a strong base in Ellis County, which includes a sizable swath of GOP voters, but he has had to weather a barrage of negative ads against him. (He also has outside groups supporting him.)

Ellzey has largely avoided mentioning Trump on the trail, instead touting a forward-looking message. He's spending the final day of campaigning on Friday touring the district with former Gov. Rick Perry, who also served in Trump's cabinet.

"I think he did a lot of good things for our country," Ellzey said of Trump in an interview last month. At the time, Ellzey said he would have appreciated Trump's endorsement, but added: "I run my own campaign, right? I am not responsible for anybody else's words, actions or deeds."

In much of the early campaign, Wright also treaded carefully around Trump, stressing her support for his policies and her long career in local Republican politics. Before he passed away following a battle with Covid-19, Ron Wright was a reliable Trump supporter, including voting to reject the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

McIntosh, who said he speaks with Trump about downballot races from time to time, encouraged him to back Wright and made him aware of their attacks to cast Ellzey as anti-Trump. It was Trump, he said, that suggested the tele-town hall.

This district, which includes the Fort Worth-centered Tarrant County and its southwest suburbs, is one of nine Republican-held seats in Texas where Trump got less than 51 percent of the vote. Because Ron Wright carried the district easily, even as Trump’s support cratered, this race could reveal more about whether surbuban voters were just souring on Trump or on the Republican Party more broadly.

Democrats in the race are hoping for the latter and are eager to make a play for traditional Republicans who punched their ballots for Biden in 2020 — but first, one of them has to advance on Saturday.

“Nothing could be a worse omen for the Democratic Party than to have a winnable district like this with two Republicans in the runoff,” Sanchez said in an interview, warning about a splintered Democratic electorate. "That would be very embarrassing and very disheartening."

In fact, deprived of their chief villain, who juiced fundraising and especially turnout, Democrats are staring down the possibility of a shutout because of Texas’ top-two rule to make the runoff.

Their struggles in the district stand in stark contrast to the blockbuster special elections of the last four years, when their party's candidates were buoyed by small-dollar donors eager to send a message to Trump. With Democrats now in control of Congress and the White House, the party's candidates have to work harder to illustrate the stakes of electing a Republican to Congress.

"People are still trying to win using the Trump playbook," Bean said. "And we can't rest until we really show them that that doesn't pay, that they're gonna lose."

National Republicans are eager for a Democratic shutout — though they concede that's, ironically, less likely now that Trump has weighed in. Regardless, the GOP will be favored in a runoff against a Democrat.

And Wright's supporters say she would enter the runoff in strong position. She hasn't run as an unabashed MAGA supporter, but she now carries Trump's endorsement.

"We look for candidates that are the combination of two things," McIntosh said of the Club. "They really have a grounding and understanding of limited government principles, and can appeal to those Trump primary voters so they can unite all the different elements of the Republican Party."

Embassy

U.S. Embassy limits consular services after Russia hiring ban

The embassy noted that non-immigrant visa processing for non-diplomatic travel will cease.

From Politico

The U.S. Embassy said Friday it will sharply limit its consular activities due to a Russian ban on hiring local staff.

The Embassy said in a statement that starting from May 12, it will reduce consular services offered to include only emergency U.S. citizen services and a very limited number of immigrant visas such as life-or-death emergencies.

It noted that non-immigrant visa processing for non-diplomatic travel will cease and it will stop offering routine notarial services, consular reports of birth abroad or passport renewal services for the foreseeable future.

Moscow has moved to ban the U.S. Embassy and consular offices from hiring Russian and third-country nationals as part of its retaliation to a set of new U.S. sanctions imposed over Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and involvement in the SolarWind hack of federal agencies — activities Moscow has denied.

The U.S. ordered 10 Russian diplomats out, targeted dozens of companies and people and imposed new curbs on Russia’s ability to borrow money. Russia quickly retaliated by ordering 10 U.S. diplomats to leave, blacklisting eight current and former U.S. officials and tightening requirements for U.S. Embassy operations.

The U.S. Embassy warned that provision of emergency services to U.S. citizens in Russia may also be “delayed or limited due to staff’s constrained ability to travel outside of Moscow.”

It warned that it’s unable to answer any specific questions about Russian residency or Russian visas and strongly urged any U.S. citizen present in Russia who has an expired visa to depart Russia before the June 15 deadline set by the Russian government.

“We regret that the actions of the Russian government have forced us to reduce our consular workforce by 75%, and will endeavor to offer to U.S. citizens as many services as possible,” the embassy said.

Spotify case

Vestager zeroes in on Apple’s App Store with antitrust charges in Spotify case

Brussels says tech giant’s rules for app developers give Apple Music an unfair advantage over rival music streaming services.

BY SIMON VAN DORPE

EU digital and competition chief Margrethe Vestager is homing in on one of Apple's growing sources of revenue: the App Store.

The European Commission on Friday denounced how Apple's rules for app developers give Apple Music an unfair advantage over rival music streaming services, in an assault on the iPhone maker's business model. The case started after a complaint from Spotify.

Apple "abused its dominant position for the distribution of music streaming apps through its App Store," the Commission concluded in its preliminary view after its 10-month investigation.

"Our preliminary finding is that Apple is a gatekeeper to users of iPhones and iPads via the App Store," Vestager said. "Apple deprives users of cheaper music-streaming choices and distorts competition."

It is Vestager’s second big battle with the Silicon Valley giant. In a landmark state-aid case, the EU General Court last year overruled an EU order for Ireland to recover over €13 billion in unpaid taxes from Apple. Vestager has appealed that ruling to Europe’s highest court.

Apple's disputed practices include charging high commission fees on each transaction of rivals in the App Store and preventing rivals from informing customers of alternative subscription options.

"Apple's devices and software form a 'closed ecosystem' in which Apple controls every aspect of the user experience for iPhones and iPads," the commission said. The App Store is "the sole gateway" to iPhone or iPad users, it said.

The "statement of objections" from the Commission is the next procedural step in a case that started with a 2019 complaint from music streaming service Spotify. Apple now has the opportunity to respond to the charges, which could lead to settlement negotiations or the Commission pushing ahead with a fine and an order to change practices.

There is a lot at stake for Apple as the case could impact what it earns on thousands of other apps. Apple this week announced record services revenue, a category that includes App Store fees and has in the past decade become the company’s No. 2 source of income, after iPhones.

Apple denies any wrongdoing and argues that Spotify’s claim that it was harmed by the App Store policies is hard to square with its success. "At the core of this case is Spotify’s demand they should be able to advertise alternative deals on their iOS app, a practice that no store in the world allows," an Apple spokesperson said.

Spotify Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez called the Commission's charges "a critical step toward holding Apple accountable for its anticompetitive behavior, ensuring meaningful choice for all consumers and a level playing field for app developers."

Vestager's proposed fixes will be under particular scrutiny, after previous cases against Google failed to bring back competition in the markets, despite more than €8 billion in penalties. Spotify's success suggests a bigger chance to maintain some competition in the music streaming market, but the case also applies to more vulnerable rivals such as Deezer and Soundcloud.

If Apple ends up using the playbook Google used in its response to the Commission's decision about its shopping service, it will be careful not to make any concessions beyond the narrow market of music streaming services.

The Commission last year simultaneously started two other investigations into Apple’s App Store, one concerning e-books and audiobooks, and the other on competing apps in Games and iCloud. It also opened a separate investigation into Apple Pay.

“This is not the last case that we will have when it comes to the App Store," Vestager told reporters on Friday.

EU lawmakers criticized the slow pace of the Apple investigation, saying it demonstrated the need to push ahead with new rules on gatekeepers.

"It took years for EU competition authorities to get their act together in the first place," MEP Markus Ferber said in a statement. "Apple’s competitors have had to take the hit in the meantime."

The Commission's proposal for a Digital Markets Act is currently being reviewed by the European Parliament and EU countries. Evidence gathered in probes like the one on Apple could inform the EU on how exactly to word the new rules and how to enforce them.

Mandatory Covid vaccines

‘A tough call’: Biden considering mandatory Covid vaccines for U.S. troops

The comments from the commander in chief come as the Pentagon has sounded the alarm about service members refusing the shots in large numbers.

By QUINT FORGEY

President Joe Biden said he has not ruled out requiring all U.S. troops to get the coronavirus vaccine after the shots win final clearance from federal regulators, but cautioned that such a decision would be a “tough call.”

“I don’t know. I’m going to leave that to the military,” Biden told NBC News’ Craig Melvin in an interview that aired Friday, in response to a question on whether he would mandate the vaccine for U.S. service members once it is fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“I’m not saying I won’t. I think you’re going to see more and more of them getting it,” Biden said. “And I think it’s going to be a tough call as to whether or not they should be required to have to get it in the military, because you’re in such close proximity with other military personnel — whether you’re in a quarters, where you’re all sleeping, or whether you’re out in maneuvers.”

The comments from the commander in chief come as the Pentagon has sounded the alarm about service members refusing the vaccine in large numbers, with roughly one-third of troops declining to take the shot as of February, according to congressional testimony from military officials. Earlier this month, the Pentagon reported that nearly 40 percent of Marines who had been offered the vaccine turned it down.

In March, a group of Democratic lawmakers demanded Biden make the vaccine a requirement for service members, while Pentagon press secretary John Kirby confirmed the military’s top brass was weighing a mandatory vaccination order.

“Obviously, we’re thinking about what happens when they become FDA-approved,” Kirby told reporters. “It would change the character of the decision-making process, about whether they could be mandatory or voluntary. But I don’t want to get ahead of that process right now.”

The skepticism of the vaccine within the military’s ranks mirrors the hesitancy the White House is trying to combat among a broad segment of the civilian population, as U.S. vaccine supply begins to outpace demand and shots have become available to all American adults 16 and older.

Although Biden announced last week that his administration had achieved its target of 200 million shots during his first 100 days in office, Republicans and younger, white Americans in rural communities remain particularly averse to the vaccine. According to a CNN poll released Thursday, roughly a quarter of American adults surveyed said they will not try to get the shot.

Three vaccines — from drugmakers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — are currently in use in the U.S. under emergency authorizations from the FDA. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and Biden’s chief medical adviser, told CNN on Wednesday that he hopes the agency grants the shots full approval “very soon.”

10 years in prison

Brendan Hunt found guilty of threatening to assault or murder members of Congress

By Lauren del Valle and Caroline Kelly

Brendan Hunt -- whose father is a retired judge and who allegedly threatened the lives of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, now-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- was found guilty of one count of threatening to assault or murder US officials by a jury in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday, according to the Eastern District of New York.

Federal prosecutors charged and tried Hunt, the son of retired New York City family court judge John Hunt. Brendan Hunt will be sentenced in June and faces up to 10 years in prison, the Eastern District said in a statement.

Hunt took the stand in his own defense on Tuesday, telling the court that he didn't really mean what he said in videos and messaging apps about killing elected officials. Hunt testified that he didn't think his rhetoric about killing elected officials could bear real penal consequences because he'd seen the prevalence of "kill Trump" rhetoric, especially from celebrities.

Mark Lesko, the acting US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, praised the trial's outcome on Wednesday.

"With today's verdict, the defendant is now a convicted felon, not for his repugnant, racist rants, but because he threatened to attack and kill members of Congress to prevent them from carrying out their constitutional duties, and that is a federal crime," Lesko said in a statement. "This Office will not tolerate threats of violence against public officials who are entrusted with upholding the Constitution."

Prosecutors argued that Hunt had posted videos of himself at his Queens home in January discussing the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, threatening to kill senators and encouraging others to go back to the Capitol on Inauguration Day and take their guns.

In a Facebook account registered to HuntBrendan, prosecutors said, Hunt posted his praise in December for people who have fought back against Covid-19 mitigation protocols -- and praised violence against police but also said people should instead "go after a high value target" like Pelosi, Schumer or Ocasio-Cortez.

The prosecution posed questions during the cross-examination about his academic history and intelligence, repeatedly establishing his adulthood. Hunt said he's a "pretty immature 37-year-old" and after reflection during his stint in prison since his January arrest, he regrets the language he used.

"I had a lot of time to think in prison. I've been in prison for three months. A lot of that in solitary confinement," Hunt said. "And I had to come to grips with the fact that a lot of my language was very inappropriate, it was irresponsible, careless and immature in a lot of ways."

He blamed his behavior partly on marijuana and excessive drinking while being increasingly isolated in his apartment.

"I had made that video one night when I had been having a bunch of beers, smoking a little weed, taken a few bong rips, and I kind of did this spur of the moment video, just spewing out some rhetoric, and I didn't think anything was wrong at the time," Hunt said. "I thought it was sort of amusing in a way. And then a day later I checked back into it with a bit of a sober mind and saw that it wasn't really sparking the dialogue that I had hoped to get going."

Prosecutors previously showed the jury text messages that Hunt allegedly sent to his father last November, around the time of the presidential election. In the string of messages, Hunt allegedly mentioned Adolf Hitler and said the American people would support then-President Donald Trump if he overrode the democratic process like Hitler did to remain president despite the election looking like it was leaning in now-President Joe Biden's favor.

When asked about discriminatory rants to his father in private text messages, Hunt testified that he purposely said extreme statements to anger his dad but doesn't actually hold racist beliefs.

"I might have said a racial slur once or twice other times in my life. But that's not something that I believe," Hunt said in court. "That's not something that I ascribe to. And it was said to kind of get a rise out of him and get him mad at me almost to see if he would even criticize me in any way."

The defense and prosecution gave their closing arguments Tuesday afternoon. The entire trial process took eight full days in court.

Absurd... That is normal for GOPers.... Stupid also...

Climate Nothingburger Shows Republicans Need “a New PR Agency”

Absurd rhetoric and a muddled crisis response project a lack of seriousness.

OLIVER MILMAN

At a major summit hosted by Joe Biden last week, a procession of world leaders fretted over the spiraling dangers of the climate crisis, with some pledging further cuts to planet-heating emissions, others touting their embrace of electric cars and a few vowing the end of coal.

In the US, however, Biden’s political opponents were focused on one pressing matter: meat.

“Bye, bye burgers” was an on-screen graphic on Fox News, which ran the false claim that Biden would, tyrannically, allow Americans just one burger a month. Larry Kudlow, a former economic adviser to Donald Trump and now Fox Business host, baselessly envisioned Fourth of July celebrations where people would only be allowed to “throw back a plant-based beer (For the record, Beer is plant based...) with your grilled Brussels sprouts” on the barbecue.

Prominent Republicans seized upon the supposed Biden climate diktat—which does not exist. The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, retweeted a claim of a four-pound-a-year meat allocation with the comment: “Not gonna happen in Texas!” The far-right conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican representative, called Biden the “Hamburglar” while Garret Graves, ostensibly a more moderate House Republican, said the president’s plan amounted to “dictatorship.”

The unfounded claims, which appear to have somehow sprouted from a University of Michigan study on the impact of meat eating, do not reflect Biden’s actual proposals to tackle global heating, which make no mention of personal meat consumption. But they have dealt a hefty blow to Republicans’ latest efforts to present themselves as committed to taking on the climate crisis.

A week prior to the White House climate summit, Republicans released what they framed as a sensible, market-based alternative to Biden’s climate plan. “Democrats often dismiss Republicans as disinterested in address global climate change—this is just false,” said Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader.

McCarthy said Republicans have been “working for years to develop thoughtful, targeted legislation” to reduce emissions that, unlike Democratic proposals, “won’t kill American jobs”.

Aware of growing voter alarm over the climate crisis—a majority of Republican voters now support the regulation of carbon dioxide—McCarthy has brushed aside the objections of some colleagues to recast the party’s beleaguered environmental reputation by promoting tax breaks for renewable energy, making it easier to import minerals for clean technology, and supporting a push to plant a trillion trees around the world.

Critics, however, say the proposals are wildly inadequate to avoid disastrous global heating, which scientists say must involve sharply cutting emissions this decade before reaching net zero by the middle of the century. In lieu of any mention of phasing out fossil fuels—the primary cause of the climate crisis—the Republican plan instead calls for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, an oil project halted by Biden.

“Getting to net zero requires extraordinary and sustained effort across all of society, not just the federal government, so you can’t just take a piecemeal approach like this, clap your hands and say, ‘We’re done here’,” said Nate Hultman, an expert in public policy at University of Maryland who helped draw up emissions reduction targets for Barack Obama’s administration. “This is a sort of mishmash of proposals, not a comprehensive strategy. I just don’t see how you get to a 50% cut by 2030 or to net zero with this.”

Neither McCarthy’s office nor Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a conservative group that created a website for the plan, responded to questions on what emissions reductions the assorted proposals would achieve. Last week, Heather Reams, executive director of CRES, accused Biden of “radically impacting our already battered economy” by promising to cut US emissions in half by the end of the decade.

During Trump’s presidency, Republicans laid siege to various climate regulations, largely backed his decision to remove the US from the Paris climate accords, and acquiesced as the president repeatedly mocked climate science. Despite moves by some younger, more moderate conservatives to prod the party to respond to the increasingly severe wildfires, storms and heatwaves strafing the US, the party’s rhetoric has barely shifted following Trump’s election loss, according to Robert Brulle, a visiting professor of the environment and society at Brown University.

“These guys need to get a new PR agency, it’s like they are talking about climate change in the 1990s,” said Brulle. “It’s just recycled arguments from the past or, on the meat thing, just outright lies. These arguments may have worked in the past to delay climate action but it’s so exhausted now. It’s different day, same old shit.”

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, said it was pleasing to see most Republicans shift away from outright denial of climate science but that a “new climate war” was opening up involving “reassuring sounding but empty rhetoric” to stymie regulations to reduce emissions.

“They have the same intent as outright denial—to keep us addicted to fossil fuels as long as possible so that fossil fuel interests, who now have such great influence over the Republican party, can continue to make trillions of dollar profits, at our collective expense,” Mann said.

Last week’s climate summit, which featured more than 40 world leaders, offered a stark illustration of the extreme position Republicans now find themselves in the global political landscape.

During the virtual gathering, even leaders considered climate villains by environmentalists called for greater action on global heating, with Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, warning the “fate of our entire planet, the development prospects of each country, the well-being and quality of life of people largely depend on the success of these efforts” to reduce emissions.

“The GOP is an extraordinary outlier in the political spectrum around the world, they have backed themselves into a political and rhetorical cul de sac,” said Brulle.

“They are stuck in a really bad position that no other major political party in the world is in. Climate obstructionism is now a core part of Republican creed, much like opposition to abortion and gun control. As long as they remain competitive in elections I don’t see that changing.”

Leave India

U.S. tells citizens to leave India as covid crisis deepens

Angus Whitley

The U.S. told its citizens to get out of India as soon as possible as the country's covid-19 crisis worsens at an astonishing pace.

In a Level 4 travel advisory --- the highest of its kind issued by the State Department -- U.S. citizens were told "not to travel to India or to leave as soon as it is safe to do so." There are 14 direct daily flights between India and the U.S. and other services that connect through Europe, the department said.

Indian authorities and hospitals are struggling to cope with unprecedented covid infections and deaths. Official data on Thursday showed new cases rose by a staggering 379,257 over the prior 24 hours, another record, while 3,645 additional lives were lost. More than 204,800 people have died.

"U.S. citizens are reporting being denied admittance to hospitals in some cities due to a lack of space," the website of the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in India said in a health alert. "U.S. citizens who wish to depart India should take advantage of available commercial transportation options now." All routine U.S. citizen services and visa services at the U.S. Consulate General Chennai have been canceled.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anyone returning to the U.S. from overseas must have a viral Covid-19 test between three and five days after travel. Individuals who haven't been vaccinated should also stay at home and self-quarantine for a week.

The South Asian nation now has the world's fastest-growing caseload with 18.4 million confirmed instances. The virus has gripped India's populace with a severity not seen in its first wave. Mass funeral pyres, lines of ambulances outside overcrowded hospitals and desperate pleas on social media for oxygen underscore how unprepared India's federal and state governments are to tackle the latest outbreak.

The unfolding tragedy is prompting some of the world's biggest corporations to organize aid. Amazon.com is harnessing its global logistics supply chain to airlift 100 ICU ventilator units from the U.S., and the equipment will reach India in the next two weeks. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said he was "heartbroken" by the situation and the tech behemoth is using its voice, resources and technology to aid relief efforts and help buy oxygen concentrators.

Blackstone Group Chairman Stephen Schwarzman said his private equity firm is committing $5 million to support India's covid relief and vaccination services to "marginalized communities." Local companies, too, are wading in, with the philanthropic arm of India's most valuable company -- Reliance Industries Ltd., controlled by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani -- pledging to create, commission and manage 100 ICU beds that will become operational mid next month.

As thousands of doctors, nurses and non-medical professionals work around-the-clock to save what patients they can, countries around the rest of the world are drawing up their bridges.

Within Asia, Hong Kong banned flights from India, as well as Pakistan and the Philippines, for 14 days from April 20. Singapore has barred long-term pass holders and short-term visitors who have recently been in India from entering. Indonesia is also denying entry to people traveling from India.

Further afield, the U.K. has added India to its travel ban list, and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have halted passenger flights from India. Canada last week banned flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days. Australia banned flights from India this week.

Apollo 17: The Crescent Earth

Our fair planet sports a curved, sunlit crescent against the black backdrop of space in this stunning photograph. From the unfamiliar perspective, the Earth is small and, like a telescopic image of a distant planet, the entire horizon is completely within the field of view. Enjoyed by crews on board the International Space Station, only much closer views of the planet are possible from low Earth orbit. Orbiting the planet once every 90 minutes, a spectacle of clouds, oceans, and continents scrolls beneath them with the partial arc of the planet's edge in the distance. But this digitally restored image presents a view so far only achieved by 24 humans, Apollo astronauts who traveled to the Moon and back again between 1968 and 1972. The original photograph, AS17-152-23420, was taken by the homeward bound crew of Apollo 17, on December 17, 1972. For now it's the last picture of Earth from this planetary perspective taken by human hands.

Push Envelope....

With Goals Met, NASA to Push Envelope with Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

Now that NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has accomplished the goal of achieving powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on the Red Planet, and with data from its most recent flight test, on April 25, the technology demonstration project has met or surpassed all of its technical objectives. The Ingenuity team now will push its performance envelope on Mars.

The fourth Ingenuity flight from Wright Brothers Field, the name for the Martian airfield on which the flight took place, is scheduled to take off Thursday, April 29, at 10:12 a.m. EDT (7:12 a.m. PDT, 12:30 p.m. local Mars time), with the first data expected back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 1:21 p.m. EDT (10:21 a.m. PDT).

“From millions of miles away, Ingenuity checked all the technical boxes we had at NASA about the possibility of powered, controlled flight at the Red Planet,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “Future Mars exploration missions can now confidently consider the added capability an aerial exploration may bring to a science mission.”

The Ingenuity team had three objectives to accomplish to declare the technology demo a complete success: They completed the first objective about six years ago when the team demonstrated in the 25-foot-diameter space simulator chamber of JPL that powered, controlled flight in the thin atmosphere of Mars was more than a theoretical exercise. The second objective – to fly on Mars – was met when Ingenuity flew for the first time on April 19. The team surpassed the last major objective with the third flight, when Ingenuity rose 16 feet (5 meters), flying downrange 164 feet (50 meters) and back at a top speed of 6.6 feet per second (2 meters per second), augmenting the rich collection of knowledge the team has gained during its test flight campaign.

“When Ingenuity’s landing legs touched down after that third flight, we knew we had accumulated more than enough data to help engineers design future generations of Mars helicopters,” said J. “Bob” Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer at JPL. “Now we plan to extend our range, speed, and duration to gain further performance insight.”

Flight Four sets out to demonstrate the potential value of that aerial perspective. The flight test will begin with Ingenuity climbing to an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and then heading south, flying over rocks, sand ripples, and small impact craters for 276 feet (84 meters). As it flies, the rotorcraft will use its downward-looking navigation camera to collect images of the surface every 4 feet (1.2 meters) from that point until it travels a total of 436 feet (133 meters) downrange. Then, Ingenuity will go into a hover and take images with its color camera before heading back to Wright Brothers Field.

“To achieve the distance necessary for this scouting flight, we’re going to break our own Mars records set during flight three,” said Johnny Lam, backup pilot for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at JPL. “We’re upping the time airborne from 80 seconds to 117, increasing our max airspeed from 2 meters per second to 3.5 (4.5 mph to 8), and more than doubling our total range.”

After receiving the data from the fourth flight, the Ingenuity team will consider its plan for the fifth flight.

“We have been kicking around several options regarding what a flight five could look like,” said Balaram. “But ask me about what they entail after a successful flight four. The team remains committed to building our flight experience one step at a time.”

Still cleaning up the mess....

Biden’s first 100 days in foreign policy are hamstrung by Trump’s last 100

From Iran negotiations to Cuba policy to refugee admissions, the Biden administration is grappling with the detritus Trump left behind.

By NAHAL TOOSI

It was just a week before he’d be out of the job, but former President Donald Trump managed to construct yet another political hurdle for his successor.

Cuba, the Trump administration announced, was being relabeled a state sponsor of terrorism after having been taken off that list more than five years earlier. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the decision was rooted partly in Cuba’s unwillingness to extradite some fugitives, including members of Colombia’s National Liberation Army.

Critics retorted that the legal basis was highly questionable. Either way, one thing was for sure: re-listing Cuba would make it even harder for incoming President Joe Biden and his aides to salvage once-promising ties between Washington and Havana.

As Biden marks his first 100 days as president later this week, some of his foreign policy goals are proving trickier to reach in part due to moves by Trump, many of which took place in the waning days of the outgoing administration. As a result, Trump has managed to hamstring the new president on multiple fronts, from Cuba policy to refugee admissions to negotiations with Iran.

Trump is hardly the first president to try to cement his legacy with a flurry of last-minute actions. Still, when a president tries to handcuff his successor, that can feed into the notion that U.S. foreign policy is inherently unstable, damaging America’s global reputation in the long run, former U.S. officials and analysts say.

“This perceived instability or changeability of American foreign policy from one administration to the next means that foreign countries, including allies, feel like they need to discount American policies and promises and hedge their bets on the United States,” said Michael Singh, a former George W. Bush administration official now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “And the more politically polarized we are at home, the more this tendency grows overseas, and it’s tough and costly to reverse.”

Many of the decisions made by the Trump administration, such as ramping up pressure on Iran or China, were done so publicly, with Trump aides insisting that the reasons were purely in the national interest. As a result, Biden administration officials prepared themselves for a difficult obstacle course.

Yet, many of those same officials privately say they have been surprised by the number and spread of political landmines Trump left behind. The Trump moves have made it much harder for Biden and his team to, as they put it, “build back better.”

Earlier this month, the Biden administration took a public relations hit as it see-sawed over how many refugees it would admit to the United States. The administration, which earlier promised to admit up to 62,500 refugees through this fiscal year — with the goal of eventually reaching an annual cap of 125,000 — said it would stick to the Trump-era goal of 15,000, before a backlash from progressives forced it to reverse itself and promise a yet-to-be-unveiled higher figure.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki blamed the confusion in part on “the decimated refugee admissions program we inherited” from Trump.

Activists question whether Trump is directly to blame for what refugee ceiling the Biden administration chooses. The White House, after all, also was concerned about the political optics of letting in refugees as it struggles to deal with a growing number of asylum seekers at the U.S. border with Mexico, even though the refugee and asylum programs are different.

But none doubt that the refugee admissions system was essentially leveled under Trump, leaving Biden aides with a Herculean rebuilding task. It’s a mission that will cover everything from hiring new staff to finding new locations for offices closed under Trump to addressing the root causes of migration from places like Central America.

The reality, many activists acknowledge, is that no matter the target figure of refugee admissions, it will be a long time before the Biden administration can actually admit that many people.

“It’s definitely going to take more than 100 days,” said Becca Heller, executive director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. She added that rebuilding America’s reputation as a “beacon for other countries on what meaningful refugee protection looks like” could be the most challenging task of all for Biden given the often-false claims Trump made about dangers that refugees posed.

Progressive activists in particular have been unhappy with Biden’s failure to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal within these first three months. To some extent, however, the Trump administration complicated Biden’s plans.

Trump campaigned on the idea that the nuclear deal with Iran was bad news, and he abandoned it in 2018. In doing so, he reimposed nuclear-related sanctions on Iran that had been lifted by the deal. But he also added numerous new economic sanctions on Iran, many of which were categorized as targeting Iran over issues not related to its nuclear program, such as its support for terrorism or abuse of human rights. In his final months on the job, Pompeo seemed to delight in announcing new penalties directed at Iran’s Islamist regime.

As Biden administration negotiators are looking at ways to rejoin the deal, unwinding that thicket of sanctions is proving a major stumbling block.

Iranian officials have argued that all of the Trump-era sanctions must be lifted. U.S. officials say that’s not going to happen because many were legitimately imposed over concerns unrelated to Iran’s nuclear program.

The Biden team, however, suspects that Trump aides misleadingly labeled some sanctions to make it harder to lift them and thus prevent a return to the deal. (Some former Trump administration officials have taken to Twitter and other forums to deny any of the sanctions were inappropriately categorized.)

A senior State Department official recently told reporters that trying to nail down the origin and intent of each sanction imposed during the Trump years is “difficult work.”

“It’s not as if when the former administration reimposed sanctions, they labeled them: ‘These are sanctions that are consistent with the [Iran deal], and these are the kind of sanctions that are not consistent with the [deal],’” the official said.

The Florida factor

People who have worked with Biden say he’s always been attuned to the politics of the decisions he makes and that that hasn’t changed since he’s become president. Many of the decisions he’s made, or not made, partly reflect his awareness of how they would play politically and his sense that other issues need to be prioritized.

Given that he’s dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic damage and the challenge posed by a rising China — itself a major and highly complicated foreign policy inheritance — other issues may not seem worth the immediate expenditure of political capital. The fact that the Senate is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats also stays his hand to some extent.

Combine those factors with the political hurdles left behind by the Trump team, and Biden appears nowhere near ready to make any major moves on issues like Cuba.

It was during Barack Obama’s presidency, when Biden was vice president, that the U.S. re-established diplomatic ties with Cuba after a break of more than 50 years. Obama removed Cuba from the terrorism sponsors list and took numerous other steps to increase trade and travel with the Communist-led country.

Trump reversed nearly everything Obama did, and in several ways went even further than many of his White House predecessors in cracking down on Cuba, although he did not sever diplomatic relations. One decision Trump made in the run-up to the November 2020 presidential election severely restricted the ability of people in the Cuban diaspora to send money to relatives on the island — what are known as remittances.

Advocates of engaging the regime in Havana said Trump’s moves, including post-election ones such as returning Cuba to the state sponsors of terrorism list, were really about U.S. politics, not foreign policy. Issues related to Cuba resonate in particular in Florida, a swing state that is home to many Cuban exiles with hardline views on the Cuban regime. Trump won Florida in 2020, and Republicans hope to turn it solidly red in the coming years.

“There was no factual basis to merit the (terrorism) designation that the public is aware of,” said Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group. “It was designed to hamstring the Biden administration and set the stage for the next election in Florida.”

Cuba watchers in touch with the Biden administration say they’ve been told that the Cuba policy is under review but that other issues are simply more important right now. Wait too long to make major moves related to Cuba, however, and the Biden team will run into the campaign season for the 2022 midterms, with Republicans eager to paint the president and other Democrats as soft on communism and socialism.

“I don’t know when they’re going to have a good moment on Cuba,” John Kavulich, president of the nonpartisan U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said of Biden and his aides. “I don’t think they know, and I don’t think anyone knows. And anyone who says they know, doesn’t know.”

If the GOP complains, then you know you are doing good...

'America is rising anew': Biden lays out ambitious, expensive plan to emerge from pandemic

The president is pushing for two major spending packages as the nation still reels from coronavirus and a racial reckoning.

By NICK NIEDZWIADEK

President Joe Biden on Wednesday night outlined an optimistic vision after a year wracked by a deadly virus and incalculable struggles in America and abroad.

Biden said he “inherited a nation in crisis,” one that is now "on the move again,” and “turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength.”

"America is rising anew, choosing hope over fear, truth over lies and light over darkness," Biden continued.

The speech marked an early victory lap for a White House fashioning itself as having one of the most consequential starts to a presidency in American history. It is also an opportunity to build momentum for two proposals — the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan — that, if enacted, would alter the course of the country for decades to come.

Biden is framing the spending blueprints, which carry a combined price tag of about $4 trillion over the next decade, as a necessary corrective in order to rebuild the foundation of the middle class and society writ large at a time when trust in government is on the wane.

“We have to prove democracy still works — that our government still works and can deliver for the people,” he said.

The president’s speech focused on his first 100 days in office, including the progress the country has made in vaccinating residents against the coronavirus, and it will outline his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and social welfare proposals.

Biden is attempting to enact a generation-defining agenda at a time when Democrats hold all the levers of power in Washington, albeit by the narrowest of margins.

"In our first 100 days together, we have acted to restore the people’s faith in our democracy to deliver," Biden said.

Biden has courted bipartisan support from congressional Republicans, but has also shown a willingness to push ahead with solely Democratic votes if need be as part of a gamble, with the House and Senate majorities on the line next year, that flies in the face of Washington orthodoxy.

Wednesday night’s speech, which is not technically considered a State of the Union address, was a departure from the typical pomp associated with the event due to pandemic-related restrictions. Biden spoke before just a fraction of the congressional representatives, government dignitaries and guests who typically attend such an address, due to the restrictions imposed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed roughly 575,000 Americans to date.

"While the setting tonight is familiar, this gathering is just a little bit different, and it’s a reminder of the extraordinary times were in,” he said.

Only about 200 tickets were parceled out, and even mainstays like most of the Supreme Court and the president’s Cabinet were not in attendance. (As such, it obviated the need for an off-site “designated survivor” in the event of a disaster at the event.)

The clapping, standing ovations and — most notably — jeering were somewhat subdued, an inevitable consequence of the limited in-person audience. And the event stood in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s final State of the Union address in February 2020, which was remembered for Trump’s not shaking Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand and the Democratic leader performatively ripping up a printed copy of his speech.

That event took place at a time when few — in America and on Capitol Hill — understood the true gravity of the threat posed by Covid-19, and Washington's attention was on Trump's first impeachment trial.

The public health crisis has defined Biden’s first 100 days in office and will continue to be a concern for the foreseeable future, though the White House has begun to look over the horizon as it contemplates the next leg of the president’s term.

More than 200 million vaccines have been administered since Biden took office, twice the number he and his team set at the outset of their arrival for the administration’s first 100 days.

However, tens of millions of people across the country still have yet to receive a dose, and many Americans either remain ineligible — as all but the oldest children are — or are among those averse to taking the vaccine.

The Biden administration is also grappling with the growing issue of how and when to share the nation’s vaccine supply with other countries, a decision that global health experts say will be crucial to bringing the pandemic to a close and warding off the risk of additional viral variants.

The issue has become one of the first major fissures within the White House, in part because of ongoing snafus that have bedeviled the single-shot vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson.

And while Biden has largely steered clear of major pitfalls early in his term, his administration continues to grapple with an influx of migrants arriving along the country’s border with Mexico, a situation that is taxing valuable energy and attention at several agencies.

In his speech  Biden also focused on adversaries China and Russia and called out their leaders — Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, respectively — by naming them multiple times and linking his domestic policy agenda to the United States' ability to counter them.

"We're in competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century," Biden said. "That's why I proposed the American Jobs Plan, a once-in-a-generation investment in America itself."

Biden’s approval rating to date has steadily hovered a notch above 50 percent in public surveys, besting Trump’s numbers in his first months, though lower than those of Biden’s Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama, at the beginning of his eight years in office.

Biden had attended dozens of these joint addresses, first as a senator and then as vice president, but Wednesday’s speech was the first time he was at the lectern emblazoned with the presidential seal he long envisioned himself behind.

“It’s good to be almost home,” he said after walking down the aisle and fist-bumping the scattered members of Congress lining the way to greet him.

It was also the first time that a president giving a joint address to Congress has shared the dais with two women: Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Madam Speaker. Madam Vice President. No president has ever said those words from this podium. No president has ever said those words, and it's about time," he said.

After Wednesday night, the focus will again shift back to Congress as it mulls what, if anything, in Biden’s sweeping infrastructure and social welfare proposals will make it into law.

Republicans have already balked at several of the items in Biden’s Jobs Plan, and a band of prospective dealmakers has offered an alternative that totals about one-third of Biden’s more than $2 trillion infrastructure package.

The American Families Plan also includes hundreds of billions for things likely to raise conservative hackles, such as free universal preschool, Obamacare premium subsidies and an extension of the enhanced child tax credit enacted as part of this year’s coronavirus relief package. All of it will be paid for by raising taxes on high earners and capital gains, as well as bolstering tax enforcement.

The Biden administration has been stepping up outreach to GOP members of Congress in hopes of garnering some support for the efforts. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that the president was planning to invite some Republicans to the White House next week to discuss his proposals.

The White House made similar entreaties earlier this year during negotiations over the $1.9 trillion relief package, which ultimately passed under budget reconciliation rules along partisan lines.

But Biden’s designs also face headwinds from members of his own party for what was left out — big-ticket health care reforms such as drug-pricing controls or expansions of programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Doing so allows Biden to sidestep surefire opposition from the powerful pharmaceutical and health insurance industries, but risks infuriating progressives who remain key to his agenda, given Democrats’ hair-thin congressional majorities.

And while it's not a part of his two wide-ranging proposals, Biden did raise the issue during his address. And it garnered the only reference to Trump in the more than 6,000-word speech as a way to signal the widespread support for lowering drug prices, though Biden did not mention the former president by name and the line was not in his prepared remarks.

"Let's lower prescription drug costs," he said. "The last president has this as an objective. We all know how outrageously expensive drugs are in America."

Biden also reiterated his support for major policing reform and enhanced gun control legislation, two issues that have long been bottled up in Congress in large part due to Republican opposition.

"We have a giant opportunity to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, real justice," Biden said of a bill named in honor of George Floyd, the Black Minnesota man who was murdered last year by a Minneapolis police officer. "And with the plans outlined tonight, we have a real chance to root out systemic racism that plagues America."

During his speech, which lasted a little over an hour, Biden was careful to not demonize Republicans and rarely even criticized them, with gun control being the major exception. And the president offered occasional glimpses of humility, a noticeable stylistic departure from his braggadocios predecessor, including closing with an acknowledgment of the length of his address.

"Thank you for your patience."

Who is tucker and why should I give a fuck what he says???

Has Tucker Deposed Trump as the Troller in Chief?

Measured in liberal outrage, he’s been unbeatable of late.

By JACK SHAFER

Nobody is more adept at rolling the liberal nerve between his thumb and forefinger than Tucker Carlson. The Fox News Channel proved his skill at extracting pained howls from the blue faction this week with a defiant monologue in which he urged viewers to call authorities if they saw a child wearing a mask outside. “That should be illegal,” Carlson said. “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately. Contact child protective services.”

The Carlson tirade produced the precise reaction he intended as the news gang covered it, and members of the commentariat sent an avalanche of protest his way. The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan laid into him. “Is Tucker Carlson losing his mind?” the POLITICO Playbookers asked. “This is really, really dangerous,” CNN analyst Asha Rangappa tweeted. “Tragic and dangerous,” agreed Strongman author Ruth Ben-Ghiat. “The right wing cancel culture is out of control,” wrote Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) on Twitter.

For the better part of a day, Carlson’s mask thing was Topic A, something that had to make him and his Fox bosses happy no matter how inconsistent his approach was. Putting aside completely the wisdom of masks for a moment, Carlson’s natural position on the issue of masked children would seem to be that it’s not the state’s business—or the business of a passer-by—how you parent your child as long as you’re not damaging them, which the Atlantic’s David A. Graham just pointed out. But in Carlson’s world, ideological consistency doesn’t pay the sort of emotional rewards that damning a symbol of liberal overreach does. This isn’t conservatism that Carlson is practicing, it’s Trumpism without Trump, as CNN’s Brian Stelter and others have recognized. With Trump retired from the stage, Carlson has now replaced him. As Graham put it, Carlson has become “the most visible face of the new conservative movement.”

That’s just about right. But what’s truer is that with Trump gone, Carlson has become the most audible mouth in the agitation-provocation space.

Like Trump, he labors to produce the incendiary and infuriating to attract attention and the very commendations he found himself buried neck-high in after his monologue. He lives to generate outrage from Democrats and the hall monitors at Media Matters for America. Has the #firetuckercarlson hashtag started to trend on Twitter? From Carlson’s point of view, nothing could be better. Has Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple, who has become Tucker’s Inspector Javert, started making calls to child protective services to see whether people are actually phoning in reports of children being abused because their parents have forced masks on them? Bait taken. The Anti-Defamation League has called for his sacking for his “replacement theory“ segment? All the better! The indictments against him, the hashtags, all of those Wemple pieces attacking him, and Media Matters’ saturation coverage of Carlson’s show work better to connect him to potentially new audiences and seal his appeal with regulars than a billboard in Times Square or on the Sunset Strip might. Like Trump before him, the fact that certain people hate Carlson only endears him to others. Like Trump before him, Carlson’s premeditated lunacy serves as a promise that newer, even more lunatic lunacy is forthcoming. And like Trump, Carlson has mastered the art of putting his audience on the edge of its seat in anticipation of what he’s going to say next.

Saying wild things to own the libs is not something Carlson just stumbled on. He’s been mining the outré vein for at least 15 years as this Media Matters chronology of his wildest comments on air shows (see also these roundups at Insider and the Independent). If Carlson’s comments grate liberal ears more today than they previously did, perhaps it’s because he’s no longer competing with Trump for honors. It’s almost as if the kayfabe of news requires somebody like Carlson or Trump or Steve Bannon or Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck or Pat Buchanan to wave the flag of nuttism for the amusement of the red-staters and the protestations of the blues. If Carlson were to retire tomorrow, a new villain (or hero, depending on your political temperament) of discourse would rise to take his place.

Was podcaster Joe Rogan channeling Carlson this week when he recently advised young, healthy people to avoid the Covid-19 vaccine? It’s almost a miracle that Rogan beat Carlson to the half-logic of his formulation, which was guaranteed to produce howls from all the usual places. If you want to see liberals squirm—and what non-liberal doesn’t—then the media response to Rogan’s take was better than paid advertising. Even Trump nemesis Anthony Fauci reprimanded Rogan, which will work as a kind of counter-endorsement for the podcaster.

Half-baked ideas like those offered by Carlson and Rogan only stand to attract a minority audience, but in today’s media world, you can make a lot of money serving the correct minority. After all, we elected a minority president in 2016 and gave him the run of the country.

What do you do with a problem like Tucker Carlson? Well, to begin with, avoid framing your relationship with Carlson’s utterances as a problem. He depends on blue-state counteraction to his actions every bit as much as Trump did for his, and he’s no more likely to surrender his nightly revilements than our former president was to surrender his. Fox isn’t going to fire him for his effrontery, which was argued in this space last week. As long as Carlson can cause liberals pain and give his supporters a little pleasure by rolling his forefinger and thumb together, he will continue apace. Feel free to chart his outrages and publicize them, as we all must be accountable for what we say and do. Even call for his firing if that makes you feel good. But if you continue to give him access to your nerve tissue to do that thing that he does so well, then the onus is on you.

Obama climate rule

Republicans join Senate Dems in restoring Obama climate rule

The measure is now expected to move to the House for a vote, which would then send it to Biden's desk upon passage. A vote in that chamber has not yet been scheduled.

By ANTHONY ADRAGNA

The Senate on Wednesday voted to reverse the Trump administration's rollback of a crucial Obama-era climate regulation, delivering a bipartisan victory for President Joe Biden’s lofty goals of curbing heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The 52-42 vote, including three yeas from Republicans, would restore the Obama administration's 2016 restrictions on the potent greenhouse gas methane. Democrats passed it using a legislative maneuver that allows them to get around the Senate's filibuster rules — and had unusually robust support from many oil and gas industry companies, which now support direct methane regulations amid mounting international pressure for cleaner production.

The measure is now expected to move to the House for a vote, which would then send it to Biden's desk upon passage. A vote in that chamber has not yet been scheduled.

With this first climate change vote of the session, the Democrats aim to send a powerful signal that they are serious about delivering on Biden’s aggressive agenda on the issue and can bring tangible victories to a global summit later this year in Glasgow, Scotland. It builds on a bipartisan agreement at the end of 2020 to phase down hydrofluorocarbons, another extremely potent greenhouse gas frequently used in air conditioners and refrigeration.

“I hope that the Biden administration will look at this progress — plus the progress we were able to make on hydrofluorocarbons and hopefully the progress we're going to make on infrastructure — and take those things to Glasgow and say, ‘hey, it's not just talk. We are back. We're leading. We're getting things done and we are ready to join the international community,’” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who led the resolution, told POLITICO ahead of the vote.

The Biden administration voiced support for the move in a statement late Tuesday and noted passage of the resolution would “clear the pathway for EPA to evaluate opportunities to promulgate even stronger standards.” The push also enjoys unusually robust support from the oil and gas sector itself, much of which has come out in favor of direct regulation in recent weeks.

Methane is about 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas for its first 20 years in the atmosphere. A study published this week found swift action to curb methane emissions using existing technologies could slow global warming by up to 30 percent.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), another lead sponsor of the resolution, called it “a repeal of the repeal which leaves the original” Obama-era 2016 EPA methane standards in place. He said it would have an “immediate impact” in abating the effects from greenhouse gas pollution.

“This isn’t an industry versus regulation,” King said. “This is common sense in favor of our ability to save the planet. It really comes down to that.”

Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) joined Democrats in voting for the resolution.

Passage of the methane CRA would be the second significant climate change victory for Congress in recent memory. Lawmakers added a provision in December to an omnibus package phasing down hydrofluorocarbons, another highly potent greenhouse gas, in a move that helps align the U.S. with an international treaty projected to head off global temperature increases by 0.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette (Colo.), Scott Peters (Calif.) and Conor Lamb (Pa.) led a companion resolution H.J. Res. 34 (117) on methane in the House. A spokesperson for Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he supports the measure and is “closely watching Senate action and will continue working alongside the Biden Administration to advance this important measure.”

It's unclear how the CRA will play with House Republicans, though their support won't be needed for passage. Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), ranking member of the Climate Crisis Committee, told POLITICO he's generally supportive of direct methane regulation but would not support the resolution by itself.

What’s unusual about this resolution is its degree of support among the oil and gas industry. Major companies, including Shell, BP, Devon, Cheniere, Equinor, Total and EQT, as well as the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America have all come out in support for the move. The American Petroleum Institute hasn’t been advocating for or against the measure but said it is “working with the administration in support of the direct regulation of methane for new and existing sources through a new rulemaking process.”

“We support the direct regulation of methane,” Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub said on Tuesday before the Senate Energy Committee. “It is very potent [as a greenhouse gas] and we need regulations in place to ensure we have adequate controls throughout the industry. We support that.”

With such hefty support from the fossil fuel sector, many expected more GOP lawmakers would support the measure. But some Democrats said they were not surprised, noting many of them voted in favor of a 2017 resolution — ultimately unsuccessful — to ax an Obama-era methane rule from the Bureau of Land Management.

“When you get invested in the dogma of a given argument, it's hard to change your position,” Heinrich said. “So, in Washington, if you voted one way one time, it's hard to say, ‘oh you know what, things have changed. I'm not flip flopping. I'm actually incorporating new information.’ Overcoming that is always a challenge.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the vote on the methane resolution "one of the most important votes" cast in the fight against global warming in the last decade.

“It is one of the first things we have done to fight global warming," he said at a press conference Wednesday. "It will certainly not be the last.”

Scared of what they found...

‘It’s, like, so unfair’: Trump defends Giuliani after FBI raid

The former president called his personal attorney “a great patriot.”

By QUINT FORGEY

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday denounced the raids by federal investigators on the Manhattan home and office of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, defending the former New York mayor as the victim of a politically biased Justice Department.

“Rudy Giuliani is a great patriot. He does these things — he just loves this country, and they raid his apartment,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo in an interview. “It’s, like, so unfair and such a double — it’s like a double standard like I don’t think anybody’s ever seen before.”

FBI agents executed search warrants at the properties on Wednesday in relation to a long-running probe into Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine during Trump’s presidency. An attorney for Giuliani said the raids focused on a single incident in which his client allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent.

“I don’t know what they’re looking for, what they’re doing. They say it had to do with filings of various papers, lobbying filings,” Trump said, going on to allege — without offering evidence — illegal foreign lobbying by President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

“It’s a very, very unfair situation,” Trump said. “You have to understand Rudy. Rudy loves this country so much. It is so terrible when you see things that are going on in our country, with the corruption and the problems. And then they go after Rudy Giuliani. It’s very sad, actually.”

Giuliani’s pressuring of Ukrainian officials to announce investigations into unsubstantiated accusations of wrongdoing by then-candidate Biden and his family ahead of the 2020 election played a crucial role in Trump’s first impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Giuliani went on to lead the Trump campaign’s election-related legal challenges, parroting the president’s claims that the White House race had been stolen on a national tour of 2020 battlegrounds and state legislatures.

Those appearances by Giuliani memorably included a news conference outside a Philadelphia landscaping business adjacent to an adult bookstore and a crematorium, as well as remarks at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., where what appeared to be dark hair dye dripped down his face.

Giuliani also addressed the rally outside the White House on Jan. 6 that preceded the attack on the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters. In his speech to the crowd, Giuliani advocated “trial by combat” to litigate Trump’s false election claims — remarks which have exposed him to additional legal scrutiny for potentially helping incite the insurrection.

Along with Giuliani’s home and office, FBI agents on Wednesday also seized the cell phone of Victoria Toensing, another lawyer who has ties to the Ukrainians and remains close to Giuliani and Trump. Together, the Justice Department’s actions against Giuliani and Toensing represented unusually aggressive law enforcement tactics against attorneys and an extraordinary breach of a former president’s inner circle.

It's about time... History..

Biden says 'it's about time' 2 women are behind him at joint address to Congress

The vice president and speaker of the House of Representatives typically sit behind the president for speeches to Congress. This year, for the first time, that's two women.

By JASMINE HILTON

President Joe Biden used his first line in his first joint address to Congress to acknowledge a historical moment sitting behind him.

“Thank you, Madame Speaker and Madame Vice President," Biden said, greeting Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "No other President has ever said those words from this podium… and it’s about time."

All eyes are on Biden as he delivers his joint address to Congress, but directly behind him is a sight seen for the first time — two women leaders sitting behind the president.

Historically, the vice president — also the president of the Senate — and House speaker share the dais directly behind the president during the joint address to Congress. Tonight, for the first time, two women hold both positions. Harris is the first woman of color to sit in either position.

Before the speech, in her bright colored peach suit, Harris chatted amicably with Pelosi, dressed in a light blue patterned suit, through masks.

The two women remained standing at their seats, flipping through their notes in preparation for the historical address.

Minutes before the address began, they bumped elbows in unison, illustrating some of the oddities of this particular presidential address to Congress due to its occurring during a pandemic.

Doing good..

Newsom gets strong ratings on schools, economy despite recall attacks

By JEREMY B. WHITE and MACKENZIE MAYS 

Gov. Gavin Newsom just got the most concrete evidence to date showing why he’s positioned to survive a recall vote.

Recall proponents have made a simple pitch: The Democratic governor’s pandemic mismanagement has devastated California’s economy and failed schoolchildren. They said they were vindicated this week when election officials validated enough signatures to force a fall election.

But a new statewide poll suggests those two pillars of anti-Newsom sentiment aren’t as sturdy as his foes think. The Public Policy Institute of California found 59 percent of likely voters approve of how Newsom has managed school reopening — and 59 percent approve how he has handled jobs and the economy. That figure is a few points higher than the share of likely voters who told PPIC in March they would vote to keep Newsom in office.

“To me, the significance around schools and the economy can’t be overstated,”said PPIC president and CEO Mark Baldassare. “These are really two central challenges, big problems the governor has faced, and today most people are with him in terms of how he’s handled these issues.”

By comparison, in a June 2003 PPIC poll, only 21 percent of likely voters approved of then-Gov. Gray Davis' job performance. The same survey found 51 percent of likely voters supported a recall, presaging his ouster four months later. The latest PPIC poll did not ask voters whether they would support removing Newsom.

Pervasive parental frustration over school closures has spilled across party lines and fueled attempts to recall school board members. Sensing vulnerability, Newsom’s opponents have hammered him on the education issue. Republican former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer launched his campaign in front of a closed school.

But the PPIC poll shows that anger may not be as deep and enduring as Newsom’s foes believe. More than 60 percent of California’s public school parents approve of Newsom’s handling of the K-12 education system, the poll showed. A plurality of voters believe schools are reopening at the right pace, and nearly two-thirds approve of how their school districts have acted.

That support comes even after the vast majority of California school campuses were closed for most of the 2020-21 academic year and 83 percent of parents polled said that children are falling behind academically during the pandemic.

“I was really surprised, because the narrative for months has been about angry parents, and people upset with everyone from their local school districts to their teachers to the governor,” Baldassare said, but the poll belies those claims and suggests "Californians recognize these are extraordinary times and that leaders have had to weigh the risks of Covid alongside their desire to keep the schools open and functioning.”

The support for Newsom among public school parents could form a critical bulwark against a recall vote. California has the lowest in-person instruction rate of any state in the U.S., according to the Burbio schools tracker. The governor has faced criticism for overplaying his family’s distance learning experience, with Newsom’s children receiving in-person instruction at a Sacramento private school since the fall even as California families remained home.

Unlike governors in other states, Newsom has resisted calls to mandate statewide school reopening and left the decisions up to local districts, who have bargained the details with teachers unions. Newsom has had to toe a fine line between outraged parents and the powerful California Teachers Association, a vital political ally.

But he has taken a firmer stance in recent months, making it clear he wants schools open — though he stopped short of forcing them to do so. Voters got a glimpse of a candid, frustrated Newsom in January, as unions were demanding increased prioritization for vaccinations, which the governor later delivered.

“If we wait for the perfect, we might as well just pack it up and just be honest with folks that we’re not going to open for in-person instruction this school year,” Newsom said during what was intended to be a private discussion with the Association of California School Administrators. “You find whatever you look for. If we want to find reasons not to open, we’ll find plenty of reasons.”

Most districts in California, home to more than 6 million K-12 students, have begun reopening classrooms at least part-time after hard-fought negotiations with teachers unions over safety protocols, and Newsom signed legislation last month that provided up to $2 billion in incentives. A majority told PPIC they currently support a partial reopening right now rather than a full return to school.

Assembly Budget Chair Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) said in a budget briefing on Wednesday that the lower house is unlikely to support distance learning as an option for the next academic year. Reopen Schools California, a vocal parents group pushing for a full return to classrooms, launched a campaign on Tuesday urging voters to ask their lawmakers to ensure in-person, five-day instruction in the fall.

The PPIC trends and positive poll numbers do not put Newsom beyond political peril. Two-thirds of likely voters remain concerned about whether kids can get back to classrooms in the fall. Newsom has repeatedly said he expects conditions will allow for a full return but has not said he would order it, underscoring his limited authority.

The same logic applies to the economy. Newsom has trumpeted a plan to discard tiered restrictions and broadly reopen the economy on June 15 as long as coronavirus numbers remain low and Californians continue to get vaccinated. California voters share his optimism, with a clear majority expecting good economic times in the next 12 months. But a viral resurgence could still prompt Newsom to reimpose restrictions.

“I think a lot depends on what the fall’s going to look like,” Baldassare said. “Parents are anxious to get things back to normal, and if it doesn’t get back to normal there are going to be a lot of disappointed people.”