Joe Biden 8 , CD3 DFL

‘Final straw’: Priest warns Catholic bishops their parishioners are furious church is choosing Trump over faithful Biden

Father Edward Beck spoke to CNN on Sunday to explain that the idea by Catholic bishops to punish pro-choice Democrats isn’t going over very well with people who are for or against a woman’s right to choose.

“I had mass this morning, a few of them actually, and unsolicited, I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and were really upset about this,” said Father Beck. “I mean, across the political spectrum. And basically what they were saying was, you had a former president who checked none of the ‘life issue’ boxes for the Catholic church except that he said he would appoint Supreme Court justices that could overturn Roe v. Wade. And that’s all that seemed to matter.”

He also recalled Trump’s photo-op he did with the Bible after peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters were tear-gassed in Lafayette Square. He also recalled the times in which Trump appeared to make fun of Pope Francis. Continue reading. Continue reading.

Biden’s First Task at Housing Agency: Rebuilding Trump-Depleted Ranks

An exodus of top-level officials during the previous administration has left the Department of Housing and Urban Development short of expertise even as its role expands.

WASHINGTON — During the 2020 campaign, President Biden pledged to transform the Department of Housing and Urban Development into a frontline weapon in the fight against racial and economic inequality.

But when his transition team took over last fall, it found a department in crisis.

The agency’s community planning and development division, the unit responsible for a wide array of federal disaster relief and homelessness programs, had been so weakened by an exodus of career officials that it was faltering under the responsibility of managing tens of billions of dollars in pandemic aid, according to members of the team. Continue reading.

Opinion: How Democrats are hoping to unmask the latest Trump-DOJ scandal

It had long been expected that the Biden administration might be reluctant to launch a full fumigation of the epic corruption of the Trump years. The refrain that would justify this foot-dragging, many feared, would be the wretched notion that we must look forward, not back.

Yet what we’ve seen has actually defied negative expectations. The Justice Department has taken multiple active steps that are keeping the true scope of former president Donald Trump’s misdeeds buried. While the department has understandable reasons for defending its institutional prerogatives, this lack of transparency simply isn’t tenable.

This week, Democrats made a new move toward opening the books in a key area where the Justice Department has been unduly secretive: the scandal involving the department’s subpoenaing of the phone and communication records of prominent critics of Trump. Continue reading.

Rep. Phillips (CD3) Update: Can Our Economy Work for Everyone?

Hi Neighbors,

On Monday we celebrated Flag Day, commemorating the 244th anniversary of the day when the Stars and Stripes became the official symbol of the United States of America.

Our flag is older than the House of Representatives, it’s older than our two political parties, and it even predates our Constitution. On this Flag Day, I reflected on our nation’s founding values – the values that transcend politics and inspired the great American experiment. Those include the freedom of speech (and the freedom to criticize speech), the rejection of tyranny and oppression in all of its forms, and the notion that a diverse yet like-minded group of people can be united around those principles.

A Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan

Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all agree that we need to invest in our infrastructure. Yet partisan gridlock continues to prevent progress, frustrate principled members of Congress, and further erode the American people’s faith in their government.

The quest for a pill to fight viruses gets a $3.2 billion boost

Antiviral drugs could help bring this pandemic to a close — and prepare for the next one

Before this pandemic is over, scientists are preparing to fight the next one.

Borrowing from the model used to create drugs that transformed HIV from a death sentence into a manageable disease, the Biden administration announced Thursday a $3.2 billion plan to stock the medicine cabinet with drugs that would be ready to treat future viral threats — whether a hemorrhagic fever, influenza or another coronavirus.

Anthony S. Fauci, chief medical adviser to the administration, and David Kessler, chief science officer for the covid-19 response, began brainstorming the idea late last year. With remarkably effective vaccines rolling out, their initial focus was on drugs that could make the next pandemic less devastating. But as virus variants emerged and it became clear that even a historic vaccination campaign wasn’t likely to eradicate the coronavirus, they accelerated the deadline. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. Ends Criminal Inquiry and Lawsuit on John Bolton’s Book

President Donald J. Trump had pressured the department to use its legal powers to stop his former national security adviser from publishing embarrassing details about him.

The Justice Department closed a criminal investigation into whether a disparaging memoir by President Donald J. Trump’s national security adviser John R. Bolton illegally disclosed classified information and dropped a lawsuit aimed at recouping profits from the book, according to Mr. Bolton and a court document filed on Wednesday.

The agreement ends an effort that began under the Trump administration to silence Mr. Bolton after Mr. Trump waged a campaign pressuring investigators to prosecute him. Dropping the legal action against him is a rebuke by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland of the previous administration’s use of government power to suppress former Trump officials who became critics of Mr. Trump.

“We argued from the outset that neither action was justifiable because they were initiated only as a result of President Trump’s politically motivated order to prevent publication of the ambassador’s book before the 2020 election,” said Mr. Bolton’s lawyer, Charles J. Cooper. Continue reading.

Khan sworn in as chairwoman of FTC in surprise White House move

Chopra’s nomination to lead CFPB awaits Senate action

Antitrust scholar and Big Tech critic Lina Khan was sworn in as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission Wednesday after President Joe Biden unexpectedly elevated her to the agency’s top post.

Khan, 32, was confirmed by the Senate to serve as a commissioner Tuesday. She’ll take the agency’s reins from acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democrat appointed by former President Donald Trump.

With the addition of Khan the commission now has a 3-2 Democratic majority. Democrat Rohit Chopra is expected to leave the commission soon. He has been nominated by Biden to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Biden could have used his departure to nominate a chairperson for the FTC, making Khan’s elevation a surprise. Continue reading.

U.S. Ends Trump Policy Limiting Asylum for Gang and Domestic Violence Survivors

The decision will affect tens of thousands of cases moving through backlogged immigration courts.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick B. Garland reversed on Wednesday Trump-era immigration rulings that had made it all but impossible for people to seek asylum in the United States over credible fears of domestic abuse or gang violence, marking one of the Justice Department’s most significant breaks with the previous administration.

His decisions came in closely watched cases where his predecessors, the former attorneys general Jeff Sessions and William P. Barr, broke with precedent to overturn decisions by immigration appeals judges that would have allowed such asylum claims.

The decisions — applicable to all cases in the system, including appeals — will affect tens of thousands of migrants. Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans fleeing gang extortion and recruitment and women fleeing domestic abuse have arrived in the United States since 2013, and many cases are still being adjudicated, given an enormous backlog in immigration courts. Continue reading.

Title IX Protections Extend to Transgender Students, Education Dept. Says

The department said that discrimination against transgender students was prohibited under the law, a reversal of its Trump-era position.

WASHINGTON — The Education Department said on Wednesday that transgender students were protected under Title IX, a law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools, reversing a Trump-era policy that effectively had said the opposite.

“We just want to double down on our expectations,” Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, said in an interview. “Students cannot be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity.”

The decision was rooted in a Supreme Court ruling last year that determined that protections in the Civil Rights Act against discrimination in the workplace extended to gay and transgender people, and similar interpretations of the ruling have appeared in agencies throughout President Biden’s government. His administration has conducted a sweeping effort to rescind, revise or revoke a number of Trump-era policies that rolled back transgender rights. Continue reading.

Biden warns Putin of ‘significant’ US cyber capabilities

President says meeting was about mutual self-interest

“There were no threats, just simple assertions made,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday in Geneva when asked if he made any threats to Russia during the bilateral summit with President Vladimir Putin.

“I looked at him; I said how would you feel if ransomware took on the pipelines from your oil fields? He said it would matter,” Biden said. “This is not about just our self-interest; it’s about a mutual self-interest.”

Cybersecurity challenges and recent ransomware attacks originating from Russia against U.S. infrastructure were a significant topic of conversation for the U.S. side during Wednesday’s summit, which ran roughly three hours. Continue reading.

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A Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan

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