Author: PolitCens

President Joe Biden is facing a fresh challenge to his oft-repeated  commitment to diversity in his administration: assembling a diplomatic corps that gives a nod to key political allies and donors while staying true to a campaign pledge to appoint ambassadors who look like America.
More than three months into his administration, Biden has put forward just 11 ambassador nominations and has more than 80 such slots to fill around the globe. Administration officials this week signaled that Biden is ready to ramp up ambassador nominations as the president prepares for foreign travel and turns greater attention to global efforts to fight the coronavirus.  
Lobbying has intensified for more sought-after ambassadorial postings — including dozens of assignments that past presidents often dispensed as rewards to political allies and top donors. Those appointments often come with an expectation that the appointees can foot the bill for entertaining on behalf of the United States in pricey, high-profile capitals.  
But as he did with the assembling of his Cabinet and hiring top advisers, Biden is putting a premium on broadening representation in what historically has been one of the least diverse areas of government, White House officials say.
“The president looks to ensuring that the people representing him — not just in the United States, but around the world — represent the diversity of the country,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters this week.
Presidents on both sides of the aisle have rewarded donors and key supporters with a significant slice of sought-after ambassadorships. About 44% of Donald Trump’s ambassadorial appointments were political appointees, compared with 31% for Barack Obama and 32% for George W. Bush, according to the American Foreign Service Association. Biden hopes to keep political appointments to about 30% of ambassador picks, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about internal discussions.
Most political appointees from the donor class, a small population that’s made up of predominantly white men, have little impact on foreign policy. Occasionally, they have been the source of presidential headaches.
Trump’s appointees included hotelier and $1 million inaugural contributor Gordon Sondland, who served as chief envoy to the European Union. Sondland provided unflattering testimony about Trump during his first impeachment, which centered on allegations Trump sought help from Ukrainian authorities to undermine Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Sondland was later fired by Trump.
Trump donor-turned-envoy Jeffrey Ross Gunter left locals in relatively crime-free Reykjavik, Iceland, aghast over his request to hire armed bodyguards. In Britain, Ambassador Robert “Woody” Johnson faced accusations  he tried to steer golf’s British Open toward a Trump resort in Scotland and made racist and sexist comments.
In 2014, the American Foreign Service Association called for new guidelines to ensure that ambassadors meet certain qualifications for top diplomatic posts after a series of embarrassing confirmation hearings involving top Obama fundraisers. At least three of Obama’s nominees — for Norway, Argentina and Iceland — acknowledged during confirmation hearings that they had never been to the nations where they would serve.  
Another big Obama donor, Cynthia Stroum, had a one-year tour in Luxembourg that was fraught with personality conflicts, verbal abuse and questionable expenditures on travel, wine and liquor, according to an internal State Department report.
So far, Biden has made two political appointments — retired career foreign service officer Linda Thomas-Greenfield for U.N. ambassador and Obama-era Deputy Labor Secretary Christopher Lu for another ambassadorial-ranked position at the U.N. Thomas-Greenfield is Black, and Lu, who is awaiting Senate confirmation, is Asian American.  
His other nine nominees are all longtime career foreign service officers, picked to head up diplomatic missions in Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Cameroon, Lesotho, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Somalia and Vietnam.
Jockeying for ambassadorial positions started soon after Biden was elected and has only heated up as administration officials have signaled that the president is looking to begin filling vacancies ahead of his first overseas travel next month.
Cindy McCain, the widow of Republican Sen. John McCain and a longtime friend of the president and first lady Jill Biden, is under consideration for an ambassadorial position, including leading the U.N. World Food Program. Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor, Illinois congressman and Obama chief of staff, is in contention to serve as ambassador to Japan after being  passed up for the role of transportation secretary, according to people familiar with the ongoing deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Biden is also giving close consideration to former career foreign service officer Nicholas Burns, who served as undersecretary of state under George W. Bush and as U.S. envoy to Greece and NATO, to become ambassador to China. Thomas Nides, a former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, and Robert Wexler, a former Democratic congressman from Florida, are under consideration for ambassador to Israel.  
The White House declined to comment about any of the potential picks.
Of the 104 diplomats currently serving or nominated for ambassador-level positions, 39 are women and 10 are people of color, according to the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, a bipartisan group of national security experts.
A group of more than 30 former female U.S. ambassadors, in an open letter organized by the Leadership Council and Women Ambassadors Serving America, urged Biden to prioritize gender parity in his selections for ambassadorships and other high-level national security positions.
“As you build out your diplomatic leadership, we hope you will pay attention to growing allies within the U.S. government who will also focus upon the diversity America’s representatives to the world should demonstrate,” the former ambassadors told Biden.  
During the transition, Reps. Veronica Escobar and Joaquin Castro, both Texas Democrats, wrote a joint letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the administration to address the “persistence of grave disparities in racial and ethnic minority representation in the Foreign Service.”  
To that end, the State Department last month appointed veteran diplomat Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as its first chief diversity and inclusion officer. Abercrombie-Winstanley will be the point person in a department-wide effort to bolster recruitment, retention and promotion of minority foreign service officers.
Blinken, in announcing her appointment, noted “the alarming lack of diversity at the highest levels of the State Department” during the Trump administration, but said the issue runs much deeper.
“The truth is this problem is as old as the department itself,” he said.
As a candidate, Biden declined to rule out appointing political donors to ambassadorships or other posts if he was elected. But he pledged his nominees would be the “best people” for their posts.
“Nobody, in fact, will be appointed by me based on anything they contributed,” Biden promised.
Ronald Neumann, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, Algeria and Bahrain, said Biden’s team has made progress in the early going in diversifying the upper ranks of the State Department.  
He pointed to the nomination of Donald Lu, a career foreign service officer, as the next assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia and Brian A. Nichols  to be the top envoy for Latin America. Nichols would be the first Black assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs since the late 1970s; Lu is Asian American.
In addition, the State Department’s chief spokesperson, Ned Price, is the first openly gay man to serve in that role. His principal deputy, Jalina Porter, is the first Black woman in that job.
“I think the administration is finding a good balance of experienced, accomplished career foreign service officers coming from diverse backgrounds,” said Neumann, who heads the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Finding good picks from Biden’s donor class, however, might be trickier, Neumann said, adding, “I don’t know how you go about finding competent, big donors from a pool that might be limited in diversity.”
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Twitter confirmed Thursday that it pulled the plug on several accounts trying to skirt its ban on former President Donald Trump by promoting his blog posts. The ex-president launched a page on his website earlier this week promising comment “straight from the desk of Donald J Trump.” The page was made public just before Facebook’s independent oversight board on Wednesday upheld the platform’s ban on Trump. Twitter accounts with names playing on Trump themes and seeking to amplify the Trump website posts were taken offline, according to the platform. “As stated in our ban evasion policy, we’ll take enforcement action on accounts whose apparent intent is to replace or promote content affiliated with a suspended account,” a Twitter spokesperson told AFP. Twitter said it permanently suspended Trump’s account after the deadly January 6 Capitol riot because there was a risk he would further incite violence, following months of tweets disputing Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. 
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Politicians usually prefer to pose and smile in front of public works projects of pride. U.S. President Joe Biden did the opposite on Thursday — holding photo opportunities with a poorly maintained bridge as the backdrop and then touring a decrepit water treatment plant, with cameras in tow.“We’re standing here in the shadow of the I-10 bridge, which I’ve gone over several times myself in the past. And it’s a perfect example how we’ve neglected as a nation to invest in the future of our economy and the future of our people,” said Biden in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after he was introduced by the city’s Republican mayor.“Mr. President, any members of Congress out there who might be listening — Lake Charles needs help right now, and we’re asking for it,” Mayor Nic Hunter said.Biden proposes spending $2.3 trillion on infrastructure and jobs across the country. His visit, in part, was a challenge to Louisiana’s congressional delegation, which at the moment is exclusively Republican — until Representative-elect Troy Carter takes his House seat May 11 to represent the majority Black 2nd District.Narrower approachRepublicans insist on a narrower approach to infrastructure — repairing roads and bridges, modernizing transit and expanding broadband internet access, rather than spending money on renewable energy and care for the elderly.Biden’s American Jobs Plan is a “budget-busting tax hike spending boondoggle masquerading as an infrastructure bill,” said Republican Steve Scalise, who represents portions of Louisiana in the House. “Raising taxes that will force middle-class jobs overseas is not infrastructure.”Former President Donald Trump beat Biden in the state by nearly 20% in the 2020 presidential election.President Joe Biden is welcomed by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Louisiana Rep.-elect Troy Carter at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, La., May 6, 2021.Despite the loss in Louisiana, Biden “is the president for everyone,” Karine Jean-Pierre, White House deputy press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One during Thursday’s flight to the state.Republican lawmakers oppose Biden’s plan to fund projects with higher corporate taxes. The president contends such a tax hike would fund $115 billion for roads and bridges, and hundreds of billions of dollars more to modernize the electrical grid, provide better-quality drinking water, rebuild homes and accelerate the manufacturing of electric vehicles.The attempt to sell his package beyond his Democratic base is why Biden was pictured on Thursday at the Calcasieu River Bridge on Interstate 10 in Lake Charles. The bridge opened to vehicular traffic in 1952 and currently carries 80,000 cars and trucks daily. It is considered by structural engineers to be one of the most dangerous bridges in the United States.Operating the bridge beyond its anticipated 50-year life span is “a recipe for disaster,” Biden said.President Joe Biden tours a pumping room at the Sewerage & Water Board’s Carrollton water plant, May 6, 2021, in New Orleans, as New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell listens at right.Later in the afternoon, the president visited the Carrollton Water Plant in New Orleans, which provides drinking water to the country’s 50th-largest city.New Orleans is a major port city on the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast, sitting in bowl-shaped terrain that frequently floods.About half of the century-old plant’s turbines have failed in the past year. One of them exploded in 2019. Many of its pipes for water purification are crumbling.“The whole system could fail,” Ghassan Korban, executive director of the sewerage and water board of New Orleans, warned the president.Biden commented that water infrastructure, frequently overlooked, is a key element for “making life livable for ordinary people.”’Blue-collar blueprint’Biden said his “blue-collar blueprint” would help fix the bridge, the water facility and thousands more like them across the United States.On top of their long-existing infrastructure woes, the areas Biden toured, with quickly vanishing coastlines and wetlands, are fighting a losing battle — one that scientists say is exacerbated by a changing climate.Two devastating hurricanes ripped through southwestern Louisiana last year, and the region is bracing for the start of this year’s hurricane season, which officially begins in less than a month.”I know times have been tough here, and the damage from the hurricanes has been devastating,” Biden said during his remarks in Lake Charles, calling for hardened standards for new infrastructure projects as they “have to be built to withstand heavy winds and hurricanes.”
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World leaders welcomed the Biden administration’s announced support for waiving patent restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines, the so-called TRIPS waiver, at the World Trade Organization. While this could be a breakthrough in the global fight against the pandemic, as White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, it’s just the first step in a long and complicated process. 
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed into law a voter restriction bill, making it the latest election battleground state in the south to adopt Republican-backed restrictions since the November presidential election.
 
DeSantis and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature said the law was necessary to prevent voter fraud, despite the lack of voting irregularities last November.  
 
The new law restricts when ballot drop boxes can be used during an early voting period, who can retrieve ballots, and the number of ballots that can be collected.
 
Voters requesting absentee ballots now face new identification requirements, and those making changes to their registration information are now required to provide an identification number, possibly from a driver’s license or some other type of acceptable identification.
 
The law also requires voters to submit new applications for absentee ballots in each general election cycle, instead of once every two cycles as required under the old law.
 
In addition, the law grants partisan election observers more authority to raise objections, and it requires people assisting voters to remain about 45 meters from polling stations, an increase from about a 30 meters radius.
 
The bill was approved by both houses of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. Democrats, voting rights groups and state elections officials said there was no need for the new restrictions.
 
Despite claims of voter fraud by state Republican politicians, they previously said they were unaware of such problems in Florida.  Election supervisors throughout the state did not request any of the changes and cautioned that some of the new requirements may be expensive to implement and difficult to manage.
 
The NAACP, Common Cause and other rights groups said they would file a lawsuit in federal court arguing the new law would disproportionately affect disabled voters and those in predominantly Black and Latino communities.
 
The Democratic Party urged voters to cast ballots early by mail in last year’s November presidential election due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
 
Florida Democrats cast 680,000 more mail-in ballots than Republicans, the first time in years they outvoted Republicans by mail.
 
Lawmakers in Republican-controlled states such as Georgia, Arizona and Texas have sought to explain a series of proposed voting restrictions by citing former president Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from him.
 
Judges have discredited such claims in more than 60 lawsuits across the U.S. that failed to overturn election results.
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A federal judge has ordered the release of a legal memorandum the Trump-era Justice Department prepared for then-Attorney General William Barr before he announced his conclusion that President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice during the Russia investigation.
The Justice Department had refused to give the March 24, 2019, memorandum to a government transparency group that requested it under the Freedom of Information Act, saying the document represented the private advice of lawyers and was produced before any formal decision had been made and was therefore exempt from disclosure under public records law.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, in a sharp rebuke of Barr, said the Justice Department had obscured “the true purpose of the memorandum” when it withheld the document.  
She said the memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel contained “strategic, as opposed to legal advice” and that both the writers and the recipients already understood that Trump would not be prosecuted. Though government agencies may withhold from disclosure documents that reflect internal deliberations before a decision is made, that protection does not apply in this case since a conclusion had already been reached, the judge wrote.
“In other words, the review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given,” Jackson said in an order dated Monday.
The decision by Barr and senior Justice Department leaders to clear Trump of obstruction, even though special counsel Robert Mueller and his team pointedly did not reach that conclusion, was a significant moment for the president that he touted as vindication.
Barr issued a summary of Mueller’s report a full month before the entire 448-page document was released, helping shape the public perception of the investigation’s conclusions in a way that was favorable to Trump. Mueller subsequently complained to Barr that his summary had not fully captured the investigation’s findings and had caused “public confusion.”
In her order this week, Jackson chastised Barr for his general handling of the Mueller report, saying his “characterization of what he’d hardly had time to skim, much less, study closely, prompted an immediate reaction, as politicians and pundits took to their microphones and Twitter feeds to decry what they feared was an attempt to hide the ball.”  
She also noted that another judge had rebuked Barr last year for what he said were misleading public statements that spun Mueller’s findings in the president’s favor.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a public records request seeking communications about the obstruction decision after Barr said that he and other senior officials had reached that conclusion in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal opinions to executive branch agencies.  
At issue in a lawsuit pending before the judge were two particular documents the group wanted.
Jackson ruled that one of the documents, described by a Justice Department official as an “untitled, undated draft legal analysis” that was submitted to the attorney general as part of his decision-making, was properly withheld from the group.  
But she ordered the release of the other memo, which concludes that the evidence assembled by Mueller’s team would not support an obstruction prosecution of Trump.
In her order, Jackson noted that the legal memo prepared for Barr, and the letter from Barr to Congress that describes the special counsel’s report, were “being written by the very same people at the very same time.
“The emails show not only that the authors and the recipients of the memorandum are working hand in hand to craft the advice that is supposedly being delivered by OLC, but that the letter to Congress is the priority, and it is getting completed first,” the judge wrote.
The judge said the Justice Department has until May 17 to file any motion to stay the order.
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U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday there is growing concern among Republican lawmakers about the ability of Congresswoman Liz Cheney to lead the party’s caucus in the chamber while she continues to assail former President Donald Trump for inciting his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6. “I have heard from members concerned about her ability to carry out her job as conference chair, to carry out the message” supporting Republicans trying to win control of the House from Democrats in next year’s congressional elections, McCarthy told the Fox News Channel. FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., responds during his weekly news conference at the Capitol in Washington, March 18, 2021.”We all need to be working as one if we’re able to win the majority,” he said. “Remember, majorities are not given. They are earned.” McCarthy’s comments came as Cheney, the No. 3 Republican leader in the House and the daughter of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, continued her barrage of attacks on Trump for his role in the deadly assault on the Capitol as lawmakers were certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. On Monday, Cheney told the annual retreat of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Sea Island, Georgia, that Trump’s false claim that he was cheated out of a second term in the White House was “poison in the bloodstream of our democracy.” The 54-year-old lawmaker accused Trump of encouraging hundreds of his supporters to confront lawmakers as they were ratifying Biden’s victory, which she described as an attack on the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another. “We can’t whitewash what happened on January 6 or perpetuate Trump’s big lie,” she said. “It is a threat to democracy. What he did on January 6 is a line that cannot be crossed.” FILE – Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., center, speaks with President Donald Trump during a bill-signing ceremony for the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act in the Oval Office of the White House, Nov. 25, 2019.Earlier Monday, six months to the day he lost the election, Trump said in a statement, “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” But Cheney, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the insurrection at the Capitol, responded quickly on Twitter, saying, “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.” Cheney has said she has no intention of quitting her Republican leadership position. In February, she easily defeated an attempt by Republican critics to oust her, but dismay about her attacks on Trump seems to have grown since then. Another Republican Trump critic, Senator Mitt Romney, who voted twice to convict Trump at the former president’s two Senate impeachment trials, voiced support for Cheney’s stance. “Every person of conscience draws a line beyond which they will not go: Liz Cheney refuses to lie,” Romney said on Twitter. “As one of my Republican Senate colleagues said to me following my impeachment vote: ‘I wouldn’t want to be a member of a group that punished someone for following their conscience.'” But other Republican lawmakers have remained beholden to Trump or muted themselves in assessing his role in the attack on the Capitol. Several leading Republican lawmakers, including McCarthy, have traveled to Florida to visit with Trump at his oceanfront mansion and talk politics. Trump has suggested he might run for the presidency again in 2024 but said he won’t decide until after the 2022 congressional elections. 
 
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With the first one hundred days of his presidency now behind him, Joe Biden faces formidable battles to pass the rest of his legislative agenda on Capitol Hill. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on the obstacles Democrats face to pass nearly $4 trillion in legislation.Producer: Katherine Gypson
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U.S. President Joe Biden, who initially decided to keep intact his predecessor’s historically low number of annual refugee admissions, Monday announced he is quadrupling this year’s total.  “I am revising the United States’ annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for this fiscal year,” the president said in a statement Monday afternoon. “This erases the historically low number set by the previous administration of 15,000, which did not reflect America’s values as a nation that welcomes and supports refugees. The new admissions cap will also reinforce efforts that are already under way to expand the United States’ capacity to admit refugees, so that we can reach the goal of 125,000 refugee admissions that I intend to set for the coming fiscal year.”  President Joe Biden speaks at Tidewater Community College, in Portsmouth, Va., May 3, 2021.Two weeks ago, the White House announced that the cap for the current fiscal year would be kept at 15,000, the level set by former President Donald Trump. That announcement came despite Biden’s promise that after his inauguration in January he would significantly expand the program. The move prompted a backlash from some of his fellow Democrats in Congress, as well as refugee advocates.   White House officials have acknowledged that the previous announcement, issued when opposition Republicans were criticizing Biden for an influx of migrants at the U.S. southern border, did not send the right message. Monday’s announcement, they say, reinforces that admitting refugees is critical to America’s place in the world.  “It is important to take this action today to remove any lingering doubt in the minds of refugees around the world who have suffered so much, and who are anxiously waiting for their new lives to begin,” said Biden in his statement. “The sad truth is that we will not achieve 62,500 admissions this year. We are working quickly to undo the damage of the last four years. It will take some time, but that work is already under way.”  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a joint news conference in London, May 3, 2021.Shortly after the president’s announcement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated: “It is in our DNA as a nation to open our door to those seeking refuge, and it remains in our national interest to treat individuals applying for these programs fairly and with dignity and respect.”  Refugees International President Eric P. Schwartz called it “a proud and historic moment.” He added, “At a time of great humanitarian need, welcoming refugees is not only a moral imperative, but also promotes U.S. national security, bolsters our economy, enriches our communities, and demonstrates that we’re willing to work together with other governments on some of the world’s most complex problems.” While raising the refugee cap is welcome, “the reality is that this is coming too late in the year to make a real impact,” according to Alex Nowrasteh, Cato Institute director of immigration studies. “Refugee agencies are so overburdened that we’ll be lucky if one-quarter of the new 62,500 cap is filled this year.”FILE – People are detained by a U.S. Border Patrol agent after crossing the Rio Bravo River to turn themselves in to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, March 29, 2021.There is a “need for systematic reform, expansion and privatization of the refugee system so that a future administration like Trump’s won’t have the ability to kill such an important program at the stroke of a pen,” Nowrasteh told VOA.  Republican lawmaker Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, noting Biden had committed last month to keeping Trump’s cap in place, calls the president’s decision to increase the number of refugees “a direct threat to our national security and public health safety.”  The Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House of Representatives, objected to the move.”During the highest influx of illegal immigration our country has seen in 20 years, @JoeBiden just raised the refugee cap over 400%. Let’s be clear: this self-inflicted crisis is absolutely intentional,” it posted on Twitter. Trump, during his four years as president, had pared the size of the refugee program, which is distinct from the asylum system for migrants.  “The most powerful thing we can do as a country is to lead by example,” said Andrew Albertson, executive director of Foreign Policy for America. “Today’s announcement from President Biden makes it clear that the United States is ready to lead again.” The chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, said Biden’s announcement is “an important step in continuing our proud, bipartisan tradition of providing refugees protection through resettlement.”  
 
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump lost his reelection contest to Democrat Joe Biden six months ago Monday, but he is still claiming he was cheated out of another term in the White House, leaving some Republican officials at odds with one another and Trump over the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.”The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” Trump said in a new statement.The former president’s commentary from his Atlantic Ocean mansion in Florida appropriated the “big lie” sentiment his political opponents have used to describe his claims that he won. Trump decisively lost the election by a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College, which determines the outcome of U.S. presidential contests, and by more than 7 million votes in the popular vote count.After Trump made his claim Monday, one of his staunchest critics among Republicans, Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said on Twitter, “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the House Republican Conference chair, speaks with reporters following a GOP strategy session on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 20, 2021.Cheney was one of 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Trump for inciting a mob of hundreds of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol January 6 as Congress was certifying Biden’s Electoral College victory. Five people were left dead.Trump has vowed to endorse any Republican candidate who runs against Cheney in next year’s congressional elections. He has also voiced support for other Republican candidates who are opposing the 10 Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach him in the waning days of his administration or the seven senators who voted to convict him in the Senate impeachment trial in which Trump was acquitted.Shortly after Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump, Wyoming Republicans voted to censure her, and several vocal Trump allies in the House called for her to be ousted as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. But other Republicans supported her, and she retained the position.In Utah, another Western state, some Republicans on Saturday booed one of the state’s U.S. senators, Mitt Romney, as he spoke at a party convention. Romney was the party’s losing 2012 presidential nominee and voted to convict Trump at both of his Senate impeachment trials. An attempt to censure him failed. Other Republicans have muted their criticism of Trump’s continued unfounded claims that he was cheated out of reelection, and several have traveled to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida mansion, to visit with him and talk politics.Trump lost dozens of court challenges to the election outcome but never formally conceded defeat to Biden, leaving Washington just hours ahead of Biden’s January 20 inauguration.Trump has suggested he might run again for the presidency in 2024 but has also said he would not decide until after the November 2022 congressional elections, in which control of both houses of Congress will be at stake. Democrats currently narrowly control both chambers. 
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President Joe Biden traveled Monday to coastal Virginia to promote his plans to increase spending on education and children, part of his $1.8 trillion families proposal announced last week. Visiting Tidewater Community College with first lady Jill Biden, the president discussed his $109 billion proposal to provide Americans with two years of tuition-free community college. He’s also seeking more than $80 billion for Pell Grants to help college affordability and $62 billion for programs that could improve completion rates at community colleges and institutions that predominantly serve disadvantaged students. The president said that education was the key to the country’s dominance and that people needed classes beyond high school for the nation to be globally competitive. “When America made 12 years of public education universal in America in the early 1900s, it made us the best educated nation in the world,” Biden said. “The rest of the world has caught up to us. They’re not waiting. And 12 years is no longer enough to compete with the world in the 21st century and lead the 21st century.” Community college is an issue of personal importance to the Bidens. The first lady is an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria.  “My students, like all the students here, I’m sure, come from every walk of life,” she said. “They show up, they don’t complain, and all they ask is for one thing in return: the chance to work hard and build a good life for themselves and their families.” Biden joked that advocacy for community colleges was crucial for his own marital happiness. “I have to admit if I didn’t have these positions, I’d be sleeping on Lincoln bedroom,” the president teased. There is uncertainty about Biden getting an ambitious set of spending programs through narrow Democratic majorities in Congress. He has proposed a combined $4.1 trillion to be spent on infrastructure, broadband, new school buildings, electric vehicle charging stations, the power grid, child tax credits and child care, among other programs.  All of that would be mostly financed by higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, an idea that has met immediate opposition from Republicans.  The Bidens began their trip by touring a fifth-grade class at Yorktown Elementary School. The president went around asking the students, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  “A fashion designer,” one student responded. “A chef,” another said, to which Biden replied, “Holy mackerel, I’ll be darned!”  “A hairdresser,” one student said. Biden quipped: “I could use some, some hair, I mean.” 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken leaves for Europe on Sunday, where he will hold meetings in London and Kyiv.Blinken’s first stop will be London, where he will meet with the foreign secretaries from the Group of Seven countries. Later in the week, he will travel to Kyiv to show U.S. support for Ukraine’s government as it faces threats to its sovereignty from Russia.The meetings in London with the G-7 ministers are in preparation for the meeting of the G-7 leaders in June in Cornwall.The ministers are also expected to discuss their handling of challenges they are all facing, including the coronavirus outbreak and climate change.Blinken is also scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.In Kyiv, Blinken will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior government officials. His appearance is designed to show Washington’s support for Ukraine’s government against Russian threats.While Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Russia has most recently engaged in a military buildup along its border with Ukraine.State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement that Blinken will “reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.”
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President Joe Biden, once a regular Amtrak rider, helped the nation’s passenger rail system celebrate 50 years of service Friday.As a U.S. senator, Biden was a fixture on Amtrak trains between his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and Washington when the Senate was in session. He continued riding Amtrak as vice president. He has sometimes been referred to as “Amtrak Joe.”But with a presidential train trip challenging because of security concerns, Biden instead flew to Philadelphia for Amtrak’s celebration at its busy 30th Street Station. He was introduced by a conductor who worked the route when Biden was a regular passenger. The next generation of Amtrak’s high-speed Acela train, scheduled to enter service next year, was on display.”I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” said Biden, who recalled his years of racing to catch the 7:28 p.m. train to head home to Wilmington and, on a few occasions, falling asleep and missing his stop.”He knew just about everybody that worked in the station and the conductors and other people and Amtrak folks who were on the train for those many, many years that he rode the rail,” said Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn.Devoted riderFlynn described Biden as one of the rail service’s “most loyal customers.” Biden held annual Christmas parties for Amtrak employees and attended funeral services for some of the workers he came to know over the years.”He regularly engaged with them and knew quite a bit about them, and I think that’s why he was anxious or willing to be part of our 50th anniversary,” Flynn said of the president.Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia, his third visit to Pennsylvania while in office, came as he marked his first 100 days as president. It also followed his speech to Congress on Wednesday, when he outlined his $2.3 trillion jobs-and-infrastructure plan and previewed $1.8 trillion in proposed spending on education, child care and other family needs.The Amtrak party was Biden’s latest stop in a post-speech tour to sell the infrastructure, jobs and families plans. He campaigned in Atlanta on Thursday and plans a stop in Yorktown, Virginia, on Monday.President Joe Biden arrives to speak at an event to mark Amtrak’s 50th anniversary at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, April 30, 2021.The infrastructure proposal would devote $621 billion to improving roads, bridges, public transit and other fixed transportation installations. Of that, $80 billion would go toward tackling Amtrak’s repair backlog, improving service along the Northeast Corridor and expanding service across the U.S. Biden has said Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is a critical part of the U.S. economy.Amtrak said after Biden announced the plan that the corporation would upgrade and expand service, including by adding 30 new routes and adding trains on 20 existing routes across the U.S. by 2035. New service would begin in portions of northeast Pennsylvania including Scranton, where Biden was born, as well as Nashville, Tennessee; Columbus, Ohio; Phoenix; Las Vegas; Houston; Dallas; and Austin, Texas, if approved by Congress.Repair backlogBut while the $80 billion represents a significant investment, the money would not go far in terms of funding high-speed rail. Amtrak has estimated that it has a $31 billion repair backlog for its trains in the Northeast Corridor alone, and transportation analysts say adding new lines in that region could easily use up the funds that remain.Biden also noted that the U.S. badly trails China, which has 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers) of high-speed rail, in modernizing railways. Biden, in pitching his call for the massive infrastructure investment, has repeatedly said the plan is necessary, in part, to keep up with Beijing as an economic competitor.”We’re way behind the rest of the world now,” Biden said.A Senate Republican counteroffer to Biden’s plan, totaling $568 billion, would devote a much slimmer $20 billion to U.S. rail service.Amtrak President Stephen Gardner said earlier financial assistance from Biden’s pandemic relief plan has allowed the rail service to recall 1,200 employees who had been furloughed to compensate for revenue lost after travelers began avoiding public transportation.Ridership is returning to pre-COVID-19 levels, including reservations for summer travel, Flynn said. He attributed the rebound to the availability of vaccines and people’s desire to travel.Biden’s lifelong association with Amtrak began soon after rail service began in May 1971. Amtrak was formed after President Richard Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act in 1970.
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Marking his first 100 days in office, U.S. President Joe Biden traveled Thursday to Georgia, a state where Democratic victories in the Senate allowed him to pursue a far more ambitious legislative agenda. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Florida’s Legislature on Thursday passed a bill that makes it harder to access drop boxes and mail-in ballots, the latest Republican-led state to push for what activists say is voter suppression.Republicans cite former President Donald Trump’s claims that President Joe Biden stole the November election as reasons for the sweeping measures. Judges discredited such claims, made without evidence, in more than 60 lawsuits that failed to overturn the election result.Democrats say the Republican measures are designed to lessen the impact of Black voters, whose heavy turnout helped propel Biden to victory and delivered Democrats two U.S. Senate victories in Georgia in January. Georgia passed major new voting restrictions in March.The bill in neighboring Florida, also a political battleground, includes stricter requirements about drop box staffing and requires voters to apply more frequently for mail-in ballots.The bill also stipulates a widening of the “no-solicitation” area around polling places and expands the definition of solicitations to include “the giving, or attempting to give, any item to a voter by certain persons.” Rights groups warn that will dissuade activists from handing out water and food to voters standing in long lines in the often-sweltering state.Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law.Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who is representing a coalition of civil rights groups suing Georgia over its voting restrictions, tweeted that the Florida business community should have stood up against the bill.”These voter suppression laws are targeted at Black, Brown and young voters,” Elias tweeted. “Bill now heads to Governor’s desk. Watch this space for more news once it is signed.”A record 158 million people voted in the November elections, in part thanks to new rules that made voting easier during COVID-19 pandemic. New York University’s nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found 29 states and the District of Columbia passed laws and changed procedures to expand voting access during the health crisis.
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Marking his 100th day as president of the United States, Joe Biden said Thursday that he had never been more optimistic about the future of America, because the country “is on the move again. We’re choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness.”Biden spoke at a drive-in political rally near Atlanta, funded by the Democratic National Committee.”You’re proving democracy can deliver for the people,” the president said to the approval of the honking horns of the 315 vehicles in attendance on the grounds of the Infinite Energy Center in Duluth, northeast of Atlanta.The U.S. Senate runoffs in January in the state of Georgia, with victories by Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, gave Biden’s Democrats unified control of the federal government.The president last month used the 50 Democratic seats in the Senate to get approval for his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, although no Republicans voted for it. The legislation also won approval in the House, also controlled by the Democrats.Response to protestersEarly in the president’s remarks on Thursday, he paused when a few demonstrators voiced concerns about detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, shouting, “Our families are dying!””I agree with you. I’m working on it, man. Give me another five days,” responded Biden. “Folks, you all know what they’re talking about. There should be no private prisons, none, period. That’s what they’re talking about — private detention centers. They should not exist, and we are working to close all of them.”The president then returned to reminding the audience he had kept his promise to get coronavirus vaccines into American arms and to deliver relief to millions of citizens.Biden’s victory lap came less than 24 hours after he delivered his first speech to a joint session of Congress in which he promoted proposals to promote job growth, modernize infrastructure, and assist families with child care and education that would cost trillions of dollars.A U.S. president’s first 100 days has become a notable milestone since Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression.”American aspiration has defined these first 100 days,” Vice President Kamala Harris said earlier Thursday at a mass vaccination site inside a stadium in Baltimore.The vice president said that when she and Biden took office, “More than 10 million Americans were out of work. Schools were closed. Businesses were closed. And beyond the pandemic, our democracy was under assault. And our Capitol had just been attacked by insurgents.”Republican responseLittle of what the Biden-Harris team has achieved in its first 100 days has impressed the Republicans’ leader in the Senate.The Democrats’ agenda is “an attempt to continue dragging a divided country farther and faster to the left,” according to Senator Mitch McConnell.”Our president will not secure a lasting legacy through go-it-alone radicalism,” added McConnell in a statement to mark Biden’s 100th day in office. “He won’t get much done that way. It won’t be good for the country. And whatever the Democrats do get done through partisan brute force will be fragile.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden is touting a range of accomplishments as he hits the milestone of 100 days in office. But has he made any impact in the African continent? VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg.Camera: Zaheer Cassim.
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