McConnell signals GOP would block Biden Supreme Court pick in ’24

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled Monday that Republicans, if they win back control of the upper chamber, wouldn’t advance a Supreme Court nominee if a vacancy occurred in 2024, the year of the next presidential election. 

“I think it’s highly unlikely — in fact, no, I don’t think either party, if it were different from the president, would confirm a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election,” McConnell told radio host Hugh Hewitt.

McConnell was asked if a GOP-controlled Senate would take the same tack in 2024 that it did in 2016, when they refused to give Merrick Garland, former President Obama’s final Supreme Court pick, a hearing or a vote on his nomination to fill the vacancy created by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Continue reading.

Meager Rewards for Workers, Exceptionally Rich Pay for C.E.O.s

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The gap between workers and C.E.O.s widened during the pandemic as public companies granted top executives some of the richest pay packages ever.

Even in a gilded age for executive pay, 2020 was a blowout year.

A comprehensive survey of the 200 highest-paid chief executives at public companies conducted for The New York Times by Equilar,an executive compensation consulting firm, revealed some of the biggest pay packages on record, and showed that the gap between C.E.O.s and everybody else widened during the pandemic.

Alexander Karp, the chief executive of Palantir, a data mining company that gets over half its revenue from government contracts, was the highest paid C.E.O. at a publicly traded company, with compensation worth $1.1 billion. Continue reading.

Scathing Pennsylvania paper editorial slams far-right Republicans for pushing ‘disgraceful’ election ‘audit’

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Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, his campaign had no problem with legitimate bipartisan recounts in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and other states that he won — and those recounts confirmed his victory. But the partisan, overtly pro-Trump GOP “audits” now being conducted in Arizona and other states are not legitimate recounts, and the editorial board of the York Dispatch in York, Pennsylvania slams State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican, and his allies for pushing for such an “audit” in the Keystone State.

In a scathing editorial published on June 14, the Dispatch’s editorial board writes, “It will come as small surprise to anyone following the 2020 elections and their sorry aftermath that one of the ringleaders is State Sen. Doug Mastriano. The freshman Republican from Franklin County has worked tirelessly this past year to disenfranchise his own constituents in service to disgraced, disgraceful former President Donald Trump.”

The Dispatch’s editorial board continues, “It was Mastriano, recall, who orchestrated a post-election Gettysburg panel last November to trumpet unfounded allegations of voter fraud from Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others; who called for Pennsylvania’s legislature to overturn Trump’s loss in the state; who plotted with Trump more than a dozen times in the weeks after the president’s overwhelming electoral defeat; who was in the nation’s capital on January 6 along with thousands of other Trump-obsessed insurgents; and who has backed a variety of politically motivated, unnecessary voting restrictions.” Continue reading.

How You — And Congress — Subsidize The Richest Americans

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ProPublica scored a fantastic scoop when it obtained and meticulously analyzed 15 years of raw income tax data on the wealthiest Americans. This leak of Internal Revenue Service records is by far the biggest and most important tax news in the 55 years that I’ve reported on taxes.

Thanks to the leaker, we now know beyond any doubt that the endless claims that America has a progressive income tax system are bunk. A progressive system means that the more you make, the greater the share of your income you pay in taxes. Back in 2005, I got the George W. Bush administration to acknowledge that the system stops becoming progressive near the top.

But, unfortunately, ProPublica shows that it’s even worse than what I reported back then. Continue reading.

CNN reporter targeted by Trump DOJ breaks her silence — and says she wants answers

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CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr on Monday broke her silence about revelations that the United States Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump issued sweeping subpoenas for her phone records.

While talking with hosts Briana Keilar and John Berman, Starr said she was “dumbfounded” by the broad scope of the subpoena issued for her records.

“We have no idea why the Justice Department snuck into my life,” she said. “They went out, in secret court proceedings last year, they went after some 30,000 of my emails and phone records, and not just my work email, my work phone, they went after my personal accounts, my personal email, and my personal phone… they wanted all of it. And I was not allowed to know about it.” Continue reading.

Ransomware’s suspected Russian roots point to a long detente between the Kremlin and hackers

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MOSCOW — The ransomware hackers suspected of targeting Colonial Pipeline and other businesses around the world have a strict set of rules.

First and foremost: Don’t target Russia or friendly states. It’s even hard-wired into the malware, including coding to prevent hacks on Moscow’s ally Syria, according to cybersecurity experts who have analyzed the malware’s digital fingerprints.

They say the reasons appear clear. Continue reading.

‘I didn’t take an oath to defend Donald Trump’: Rep. Tom Rice tests whether Republican voters will support a conservative who crossed Trump

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Republican Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina has been a reliable conservative during his five terms in Congress, and he was a strong supporter of President Donald Trump and his agenda.

As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rice helped draft what became the party’s hallmark 2017 tax cut legislation. He supported building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He supported Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. He defended Trump during his first impeachment, saying “he has been the target of an astounding barrage of lies, deceit, and corruption.” And he objected to certifying the 2020 election results from Pennsylvania and Arizona that Trump falsely said were fraudulent.

But on Jan. 13, Rice shocked Washington and voters here in a district that includes coastal communities that thrive on tourism and rural areas focused on farming: He voted to impeach Trump on charges he incited the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Continue reading.

In the Know: June 16, 2021

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Governor Tim Walz
McFeely: GOP’s attempts to dent Walz keep falling away, Inforum

Minnesota Legislature
MN legislature clashes over governor’s emergency power, KAALTV
Minnesota Legislature’s special session starts…with a proposal to potentially sidestep threat of July 1 shutdown, MinnPost

Minnesota News
Minnesota reports fewer than 100 new single-day COVID-19 cases for 1st time since spring 2020, FOX 9
More cities implement watering bans as drought conditions worsen across Minnesota, FOX 9
2 Minnesota hospitals recognized on list of best children’s hospitals for 2021-22, KSTP

Continue reading “In the Know: June 16, 2021”

Apple Tells Ex-White House Counsel That Trump DOJ Sought His Records In 2018: Reports

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The reported disclosure reveals the Justice Department’s extraordinary move to investigate Don McGahn as he served as Trump’s top lawyer.

Apple informed former White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife last month that their records were sought by the Justice Department in February 2018 while McGahn was still serving as then-President Donald Trump’s top lawyer, The New York Times and CNN reported Sunday.

The U.S. government barred Apple from telling McGahn about the move at the time, two people briefed on the matter told the Times. The Justice Department’s move to subpoena information about McGahn and his wife was under a nondisclosure order until May, CNN reported. 

Apple’s reported disclosure exposes an extraordinary move by the Justice Department to subpoena records of a then-current White House counsel. Continue reading.

Netanyahu is out as new Israeli government survives confidence vote

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Israel has a new prime minister for the first time since 2009 after a power-sharing government led by Naftali Bennett survived a confidence vote on Sunday. Bennett was sworn in as prime minister.

Why it matters: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and the man around whom Israeli politics have revolved for a decade, will now become opposition leader. Bennett, a right-wing former Netanyahu protege, will lead the most ideologically diverse government in Israeli history.

  • The final vote was 60-59 with one abstention, the smallest possible majority for the new government. Continue reading.