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US Doesn’t Want a Trade ‘Divorce’ From China

The United States is trying to be strategic about how it “realigns” its trade relationship with China, but is not interested in a large-scale “decoupling” or a trade “divorce,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in an interview this week.

Tai made the remarks in Singapore, where she had traveled to discuss the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. The purpose of the framework, she said, “is to allow for the United States and our most like-minded partners in this region to be able to collaborate on key economic issues and emerging global challenges. And those include working together to promote resilience and sustainability for our own economies, and also through partnership with each other’s economies.”

Tai made her comments in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

New approach

Tai’s trip to Singapore came just days after she told Congress, in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, that it is time for the United States to reassess how it deals with China as a trading partner.

Measures undertaken in the past, including the regime of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, have failed to get China to open its markets to U.S. goods and to avoid anti-competitive behavior, she told lawmakers.

In the interview Tuesday, Tai said the United States may need to use “other tools” in order to adjust its relationship with China.

Pressed on what those other tools might look like, she said, “I think that it’s less about what more we can do to China. I think it is more about how we can shape the U.S.-China trade relationship and again, to realign it to create incentives for our economic actors to ensure that this relationship is one that feels balanced, that is fair, and also, importantly, that is contributing to a sense of security and resilience for not just our economies, but for the global economy.”

Recognizing reality

Tai’s explicit ruling out of a trade divorce between the U.S. and China may reflect the simple reality on the ground in the Indo-Pacific region, said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“All these countries have more trade with China than they have with the U.S.,” he told VOA. “And further, the trade with China is growing faster than with the U.S. So, they don’t have any real commercial interest in any kind of decoupling or divorce.”

Leaders in the region have repeatedly expressed concern about being put in a position in which they are forced to choose between partnering with the U.S. and partnering with China. Their concern has been sharpened by rhetoric coming from U.S. lawmakers, some of whom have pressed for trade arrangements that isolate China.

“That notion faded in her rhetoric,” Hufbauer said, placing Tai and the Biden administration closer to what he called the “realist camp.”

“Trade flows, the magnitude of them, and also now, investment flows — they do not favor a division into two camps,” he said. “Because too many countries have very strong interests in maintaining good commercial relations and good diplomatic relations with both China and the U.S.”

End to tariffs

“It’s encouraging that a senior member of the administration is stating that economic decoupling is not a goal of the administration,” Doug Barry, a senior director at the U.S.-China Business Council, told VOA in an email exchange.

“Whatever Ambassador Tai has in mind in terms of a new trade policy toward China must include preserving and increasing the benefits of the current relationship,” Barry said. “This would include ditching the Trump-era tariffs, which have not changed China’s behavior and have instead hurt American workers, farmers and families.”

Barry said his organization would like to see more high-level trade discussion between U.S. and Chinese leaders, but said, “due to internal politics in both countries, such talks seem unrealistic until late this year at the earliest.”

Reestablishing a U.S. presence

Tai’s trip to Singapore is, in part, an effort to reestablish a U.S. presence in the region on trade issues.

In 2017, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive regional trade agreement that had taken years to negotiate. The agreement was resurrected without U.S. participation as the 11-country Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPATPP), one of the largest free trade organizations in the world.

Some of the CPATPP participants have expressed hope that the U.S. would rejoin the trade bloc, but the Biden administration has said it will not, preferring to work within the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. China has said it would be interested in joining CPATPP. However, existing members, including Japan and Australia, have said they believe Beijing’s extensive interference in free markets disqualifies China from membership.

Singapore as key partner

Experts say Tai’s trip to Singapore highlighted the role the city-state might play in the Biden administration’s proposed future.

“Singapore is a natural Southeast Asian partner for developing an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework,” Brian Harding, a senior expert on Southeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told VOA.

“Singapore welcomes Chinese economic activity in Southeast Asia but is clear-eyed about China’s strategic intentions,” Harding said. “While Singapore can be a staunch defender of the United States’ importance to regional stability, it is also concerned that U.S.-China competition can be destabilizing in and of itself.”

VOA Mandarin Service reporter Jessie Jiang contributed to this story.
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Scavino, Navarro Held in Contempt of Congress in Jan. 6 Inquiry

Former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino were held in contempt of Congress on Wednesday for their monthslong refusal to comply with subpoenas rendered by the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The two men became the latest members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle to face legal jeopardy as the select committee continues its more than nine-month-long probe into the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years.

The near-party-line 220-203 vote will send the criminal referrals for Navarro and Scavino to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

The contempt action followed hours of raw debate on the House floor as Republicans stood by Trump and charged that Democrats were trying to politicize the attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy accused the Jan. 6 committee of “criminalizing dissent,” defended Scavino as a “good man” and lobbed harsh criticism at members of the committee, some by name. “Let’s be honest — this is a political show trial,” McCarthy said.

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, among the nine members of the Jan. 6 panel, noted that the committee has two Republicans, including Liz Cheney. He added that the purpose of the floor vote was to make clear that “open contempt and mockery for this process, and for the rule of law” will not be allowed by the chamber.

“I mean, it is just amazing that they think they can get away with this,” the three-term lawmaker told reporters about Scavino and Navarro as the debate raged Wednesday.

Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger, who is also on the select committee, were the only Republicans who voted in favor of the contempt charges.

While pursuing contempt charges may not yield any new information for the Jan. 6 committee — any prosecutions could drag on for months or years — the vote Wednesday was the latest attempt to show that witnesses will suffer consequences if they don’t cooperate or at least appear for questioning. It’s all part of an effort to claw back legislative authority that eroded during the Trump era when congressional subpoenas were often flouted and ignored.

“This vote will reveal to us who is willing to show tolerance for the intolerable,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said on the floor, directing his comments to Republicans across the aisle.

Raskin and other Democrats made their case that Scavino and Navarro are among just a handful of individuals who have rebuffed the committee’s requests and subpoenas for information. The panel has interviewed more than 800 witnesses so far.

Scavino has “refused to testify before Congress about what he knows about the most dangerous and sweeping assault on the United States Congress since the War of 1812,” Raskin said.

The committee says Scavino helped promote Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and was with him the day of the attack on the Capitol. As a result, he may have “materials relevant to his videotaping and tweeting” messages that day.

A lawyer for Scavino did not return multiple messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. 

Navarro, 72, a former White House trade adviser, was subpoenaed in early February over his promotion of false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election that the committee believes contributed to the attack.

Navarro cited executive privilege when declining to testify, saying the committee “should negotiate this matter with President Trump.” He added, “If he waived the privilege, I will be happy to comply.”

But the Biden administration has already waived executive privilege for Navarro, Scavino and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying it was not justified or in the national interest for them to withhold their testimony.

Executive privilege was developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure, but it has limits. Courts have traditionally left questions of whether to invoke executive privilege up to the current White House occupant. The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected a bid by Trump to withhold documents from the committee.

The vote Wednesday will be the third time the panel has sent contempt charges to the House floor. The first two referrals, sent late last year, were for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump ally Steve Bannon.

The contempt referral against Bannon resulted in an indictment, with a trial set to start in July. The Justice Department has been slower to decide whether to prosecute Meadows, much to the frustration of the committee.

“It’s the committee’s hope that they will present it to a grand jury,” Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, told reporters Tuesday. “Obviously, the Meadows case is still outstanding. We don’t really know where that is, other than we’ve done our work.”

He added, “The firewall goes up from our standpoint, and DOJ uses its systems to take it from there.”

Lawmakers are interviewing dozens of individuals a week as they inch closer to public hearings in late spring. In the last week alone, the committee interviewed Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. Both were key White House advisers who had substantial access to the former president.

Thompson suggested more witnesses could still be held in contempt in the weeks ahead even as the committee looks to wrap up the investigative portion of their work in the next two months.

A conviction for contempt of Congress carries a fine of up to $100,000 and up to a year in prison.
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GOP Blocks Senate COVID Bill, Demands Votes on Immigration

Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt Tuesday to begin Senate debate on a $10 billion COVID-19 compromise, pressing to entangle the bipartisan package with an election-year showdown over immigration restrictions that poses a politically uncomfortable fight for Democrats. 

A day after Democratic and GOP bargainers reached agreement on providing the money for treatments, vaccines and testing, a Democratic move to push the measure past a procedural hurdle failed 52-47. All 50 Republicans opposed the move, leaving Democrats 13 votes short of the 60 they needed to prevail. 

Hours earlier, Republicans said they’d withhold crucial support for the measure unless Democrats agreed to votes on an amendment preventing President Joe Biden from lifting Trump-era curbs on migrants entering the U.S. With Biden polling poorly on his handling of immigration and Democrats divided on the issue, Republicans see a focus on migrants as a fertile line of attack. 

“I think there will have to be” an amendment preserving the immigration restrictions “in order to move the bill” bolstering federal pandemic efforts, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters. 

At least 10 GOP votes will be needed in the 50-50 Senate for the measure to reach the 60 votes it must have for approval. Republicans could withhold that support until Democrats permit a vote on an immigration amendment. 

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, want Congress to approve the pandemic bill before lawmakers leave in days for a two-week recess. Tuesday’s vote suggested that could be hard. 

“This is a potentially devastating vote for every single American who was worried about the possibility of a new variant rearing its nasty head within a few months,” Schumer said after the vote. 

The new omicron variant, BA.2, is expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. COVID-19 cases. Around 980,000 Americans and more than 6 million people worldwide have died from the disease. 

The $10 billion pandemic package is far less than the $22.5 billion Biden initially sought. It also lacks $5 billion Biden wanted to battle the pandemic overseas after the two sides couldn’t agree on budget savings to pay for it, as Republicans demanded. 

At least half the bill would finance research and production of therapeutics to treat COVID-19. Money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests and to research new variants. 

The measure is paid for by pulling back unspent pandemic funds provided earlier for protecting aviation manufacturing jobs, closed entertainment venues and other programs. 

Administration officials have said the government has run out of money to finance COVID-19 testing and treatments for people without insurance, and is running low on money for boosters, free monoclonal antibody treatments and care for people with immune system weaknesses. 

At the 2020 height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump imposed immigration curbs letting authorities immediately expel asylum-seekers and migrants for public health reasons. The ban is set to expire May 23, triggering what by all accounts will be a massive increase in people trying to cross the Mexican border into the U.S. 

That confronts Democrats with messy choices ahead of fall elections when they’re expected to struggle to retain their slim House and Senate majorities. 

Many of the party’s lawmakers and their liberal supporters want the U.S. to open its doors to more immigrants. But moderates and some Democrats confronting tight November reelections worry about lifting the restrictions and alienating centrist voters. 

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, who faces a competitive reelection this fall, declined to say whether she would support retaining the Trump-era ban but said more needs to be done. 

“I need a plan, we need a plan,” she said in a brief interview. “There’s going to be a surge at the border. There should be a plan and I’ve been calling for it all along.” 

Shortly before Tuesday’s vote, Schumer showed no taste for exposing his party to a divisive immigration vote. 

“This is a bipartisan agreement that does a whole lot of important good for the American people. Vaccines, testing, therapeutics,” he said. “It should not be held hostage for an extraneous issue.” 

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which initiated the move two years ago, said earlier this month that it would lift the ban next month. The restrictions, known as Title 42, have been harder to justify as pandemic restrictions have eased. 

Trump administration officials cast the curb as a way to keep COVID-19 from spreading further in the U.S. Democrats considered that an excuse for Trump, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric was a hallmark of his presidency, to keep migrants from entering the country. 

Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said she supported terminating Trump’s curb and questioned GOP motives for seeking to reinstate it. 

“I find it very ironic for those who haven’t wanted to have a vaccination mandate, for those who did not want to have masks in the classroom, for them to suddenly be very interested in protecting the public,” she said. 

 
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Biden Proposal Would Expand Health Care Access

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced plans to expand access to health care by proposing changes to the Affordable Care Act to allow millions of additional families to purchase health insurance and obtain tax credits to offset the cost. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Biden Supreme Court Nominee Advances to Full Senate Vote Later This Week

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson advanced one step closer to serving on the U.S. Supreme Court with a key U.S. Senate committee Monday advancing her nomination for a full floor vote later this week.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve on the highest court in the country also won the support of two more Republicans Monday, as Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney announced they plan to vote to confirm Jackson. Republican Senator Susan Collins said last week she would support Jackson.  

Their votes, along with those of the 48 Democrats and two independents in the Senate, would be more than enough to confirm Jackson and make her the first African American female Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. 

Senate Democrats praised Jackson’s breadth of experience ahead of the vote on her nomination, calling her one of the most qualified nominees in the history of the Supreme Court.

“Justice Jackson will bring to the Supreme Court, the highest level of skill, integrity, civility and grace,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin said Monday. “She has impeccable qualifications. We don’t agree on much in the Senate but not one senator on this committee has questioned that she is well qualified.”

The 51-year-old Jackson served as a judge for almost a decade and has experience clerking at every level of the federal system, including in the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she is nominated to replace. Jackson would be the first justice to have experience as a federal public defender.

“These critical experiences bring a missing perspective to the court,” Durbin noted. “It is truly unfortunate that some are trying to use them as reasons to vote against her. These baseless attacks are belied by the broad support for Judge Jackson’s nomination from across the political spectrum. Law enforcement, former federal prosecutors, Republican-appointed judges, and even more have vouched for her intellect, her intelligence, her ability to build consensus and her evenhandedness.”

Jackson garnered no Republican votes in an 11-11 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Democrats were still able to advance her vote to the floor using Senate procedures.

There was widespread Republican criticism of Jackson for her past sentencing of child pornographers. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has previously voted for Biden judicial nominees, said Monday, “I’m inclined to vote for judges of the other side, but this choice of Judge Jackson was really embraced by the most radical people in the Democratic movement to the exclusion of everybody else.”

Other Senate Republicans have argued Jackson did not adequately define her judicial philosophy.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the committee, said Monday, “She and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government. Because of those disagreements, I can’t support her nomination.”

The Senate is expected to begin debate and to hold a final vote on her nomination before leaving for the Easter holiday recess later this week.
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US Senate Bargainers Reach Agreement on $10 Billion COVID Package

Senate bargainers have reached agreement on a slimmed-down $10 billion package for countering COVID-19, the top Democratic and Republican negotiators said Monday, but the measure dropped all funding to help nations abroad combat the pandemic. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said the deal would give the government “the tools we need” to continue battling the disease. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, trumpeted budget savings in the measure that he said meant it “will not cost the American people a single additional dollar.” 

At least half the measure would have to be used to research and produce therapeutics to treat the disease, according to fact sheets distributed by Schumer and Romney, the two top bargainers. 

The money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests. At least $750 million would be used to research new COVID-19 variants and to expand vaccine production, the descriptions said. 

The agreement comes with party leaders hoping to move the legislation through Congress this week, before lawmakers leave for a two-week spring recess. It also comes with BA.2, the new omicron variant, expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. cases. Around 980,000 Americans and over 6 million people worldwide have died from COVID-19. 

Schumer blamed the GOP for the lack of global assistance, saying he is “disappointed that our Republican colleagues could not agree to include the $5 billion” from an earlier version of the measure. He said members of both parties want to craft a second spending measure this spring that could include funds to battle COVID-19 and hunger overseas and more assistance for Ukraine as it continues battling the Russian invasion. 

Romney suggested an openness to considering future COVID-19 money. “While this agreement does not include funding for the U.S. global vaccination program, I am willing to explore a fiscally responsible solution to support global efforts in the weeks ahead,” he said. 

The accord represents a deep cut from the $22.5 billion President Joe Biden initially requested, and from a $15 billion version that both parties’ leaders had negotiated last month. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, abandoned that plan after Democratic lawmakers rejected proposed cuts in state pandemic aid to help pay for the package. 

The $15 billion plan had included about $5 billion for the global effort to fight COVID-19, which has run rampant in many countries, especially poorer ones. The overall price tag has shrunk, and the global money has fallen off, as the two parties have been unable to agree on more than $10 billion in budget savings to pay for it. 

 
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Palin Files Paperwork to Run in Alaska US House Race

Sarah Palin on Friday shook up an already unpredictable race for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat, filing paperwork to join a field of at least 40 candidates seeking to fill the seat that had been held for 49 years by the late-U.S. Rep. Don Young, who died last month.

Palin filed paperwork Friday with a Division of Elections office in Wasilla, said Tiffany Montemayor, a division spokesperson. The paperwork was being processed by the division, she said.

The field includes current and former state legislators and a North Pole city council member named Santa Claus. The deadline to file was 5 p.m. Friday. A final list of official candidates was not yet available.

“Public service is a calling, and I would be honored to represent the men and women of Alaska in Congress, just as Rep. Young did for 49 years,” Palin said in a statement on social media. “I realize that I have very big shoes to fill, and I plan to honor Rep. Young’s legacy by offering myself up in the name of service to the state he loved and fought for, because I share that passion for Alaska and the United States of America.”

Palin is a former Alaska governor and was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. She has kept a low profile in Alaska politics since leaving office in 2009, before her term as governor ended.

Young, a Republican, had held Alaska’s House seat since 1973 and was seeking reelection at the time of his death last month at age 88.

A special primary is set for June 11. The top four vote-getters will advance to an Aug. 16 special election in which ranked choice voting will be used, a process in line with a new elections system approved by voters in 2020.

The winner will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which expires in January. The division is targeting Sept. 2 to certify the special election.

Others who filed Friday include Republican state Sen. Josh Revak; Democratic state Rep. Adam Wool; independent Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2020; and Andrew Halcro, a former Republican state lawmaker who is running as an independent. They join a field that includes Republican Nick Begich, who had positioned himself as a challenger to Young; Democrat Christopher Constant, an Anchorage Assembly member; and John Coghill, a Republican former state lawmaker.

Revak, who previously worked for Young’s office and was a statewide co-chair for Young’s reelection bid, said he felt a “strong calling and a duty” to step forward.

He said he was “heartbroken” by the filing timeline, coinciding with a period he said should be focused on remembering Young.

Young lay in state at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. A public memorial was held in the Washington, D.C., area on Wednesday and a public memorial is planned in Anchorage on Saturday.

Revak said he also plans to run in the regular primary for U.S. House. Palin filed paperwork to run in the special and regular primaries as well, Montemayor said.

The August special election will coincide with the regular primary. The regular primary and November general election will determine who represents Alaska in the House for a two-year term starting in January.

Gross also plans to run in both the special and regular elections. His campaign announced a leadership team that includes several Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats, including former Gov. Tony Knowles.

“We are building a campaign that embodies all of Alaska,” Gross said in a statement.

Wool said he has privately discussed a run for years. He said he looked at the candidates running in the special primary and “wasn’t that impressed. Many of them have never won an election, don’t have any statewide recognition and politically aren’t aligned certainly not with me or what I would think the majority of Alaskans are looking for.”

Wool, from Fairbanks, said he considers himself moderate. He said he has yet to decide whether to run in the regular primary.

Halcro, who has a podcast on which he talks politics, said during the campaign he plans to play up his intent to only run to fill the remainder of the term. He said if the person who wins the special election also is in the November general election, he expects they would spend a fair amount of time campaigning. He said if elected, he would be focused on congressional work.

Meanwhile, a man who years ago legally changed his name to Santa Claus and serves on the North Pole city council also filed with the state Division of Elections for the special primary. Claus, who said he has a “strong affinity” for Bernie Sanders, is running as an independent.

He said he is not soliciting or raising money. He said the new elections process “gives people like me an opportunity, without having to deal with parties, to throw our hat in the ring.”

“I do have name recognition,” he said with a laugh.
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Biden Proposes Raising Taxes on Super Wealthy Americans

In his new budget, U.S. President Joe Biden has proposed a 20 percent minimum tax on households with a net worth of more than $100 million. The proposal highlights the debate over what the government should do about the soaring fortunes of the wealthiest Americans. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports.
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Trump Son-in-Law Kushner Testifies in Capitol Riot Probe

Former White House aide Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump, answered questions Thursday from the House panel investigating last year’s assault on the Capitol. 

Kushner, the highest-ranking Trump adviser and the first family member to testify so far, appeared in private by video link voluntarily and was not subpoenaed. 

The House of Representatives committee is piecing together a detailed account of the events of the January 6 insurrection itself, but also of efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the misinformation campaign falsely claiming widespread fraud that led to the violence.  

Kushner was returning from Saudi Arabia on the day of January 6 and did not spend the night at the White House upon his return to the United States.  

Committee member Elaine Luria told MSNBC after Kushner’s appearance that he “was able to voluntarily provide information to us, to verify and substantiate his own take” on the election. 

“It was really valuable to have the opportunity to speak to him,” she said. 

Texts from justice’s wife

Kushner’s testimony caps an intense period of almost daily revelations from the investigation. 

It was revealed last week that conservative political activist Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent more than two dozen texts pushing wild conspiracy theories and urging then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the 2020 election. 

Kushner’s name appeared in a message from Thomas dated November 13, 2020, when she told Meadows, “Just forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am … improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.” 

It also emerged that White House logs given to investigators from the day of the insurrection show a gap of nearly eight hours in Trump’s records of calls, including the period covering the violence. 

The committee is investigating whether it has the full record and if Trump communicated that day through phones of aides or personal disposable “burner” phones. 

The select committee has also asked for testimony from Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, who was in the White House on January 6 and pleaded with her father to speak out against the violence, according to reports.  

No executive privilege

The White House said on Tuesday it would reject any assertion of executive privilege, which allows presidents to keep certain work-related conversations with aides private — from Kushner or Ivanka Trump.   

The committee is approaching the end of its investigative phase and is planning public hearings this spring.   

The parallel but separate Department of Justice probe “has expanded to examine the preparations for the rally that preceded the riot,” including those who “assisted in planning, funding and executing” the event, The Washington Post reported.
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Trump Asks Putin for Dirt on Biden Family, in Echo of 2016

In an interview Tuesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump specifically asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to release information that Trump believes would implicate the family of U.S. President Joe Biden in financial wrongdoing.

In the interview with the “Just the News” television program on the network Real America’s Voice, Trump suggested that Putin might want to provide the information because he thinks it would harm the United States.

“As long as Putin now is not exactly a fan of our country,” Trump said, the Russian leader might be willing to explain why in 2014 Russian businesswoman Elena Baturina, the wife of the deceased former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, made a $3.5 million payment to a firm Trump supporters have claimed is associated with Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

“I would think Putin would know the answer to that,” Trump said. “I think he should release it.”

Trump characterized the payment as having been made to the “Biden family,” but it was actually made to an entity called Rosemont Seneca Thornton. Hunter Biden was an original founder of the investment fund Rosemont Seneca, but his attorney said that he had no connection with or interest in Rosemont Seneca Thornton.

“Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a ‘co-founder’ of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false,” the attorney, George Mesires, told PolitiFact in September 2020.

While Hunter Biden’s business dealings have been under investigation by federal prosecutors since at least 2018, the information about the payment from Baturina was revealed in a Republican-led Senate inquiry. The report provided no evidence that the payment was corrupt or associated with Hunter Biden’s investment fund in any way.

‘No parallels’

Experts in American politics struggled to find another instance in which a former U.S. president had solicited damaging information about a sitting president’s family from the leader of one of the country’s most significant geostrategic rivals.

“Don’t bother to look for parallels because it’s completely unparalleled,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told VOA. “This is an example of complete self-absorption and elevation of personal interest over the country’s interests.”

Sabato added, “That is something that, it goes without saying, should be beneath the dignity of any former president. But it’s not beneath Donald Trump’s dignity.”

It was difficult to find Republicans in Washington defending the former president’s comments on Wednesday. Utah Senator Mitt Romney told reporters, “I don’t think Vladimir Putin ought to be one of the people we go to for favors right now.”

Echoes of 2016 campaign

Trump’s public call for Putin to release information about Biden’s son echoed his request, during the 2016 presidential campaign, for Moscow to release emails belonging to his then-opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said in July 2016. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Whether by coincidence or not, a special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election later determined that Russian hackers made their first attempt to break into computers in Clinton’s personal office on the same day as Trump’s request.

Also on Tuesday, Evgeny Popov, a member of the Russian Duma and the host of a program on state-run television, said during a broadcast that it was time for Russian citizens to call on U.S. citizens to end Biden’s term early, “and to again help our partner Trump to become president.”

Hunter Biden investigation

Hunter Biden’s business dealings have been a target of intense interest among Trump and his political allies. In 2018, the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, David Weiss, opened an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities in several foreign countries.

When Joe Biden took office in 2021, he left the Trump-appointed Weiss in office, in order to avoid the appearance of interfering in the investigation into his son.

Media reports indicate that the investigation into Hunter Biden has not only continued but has picked up pace.

Trump’s efforts to dig up dirt on the younger Biden related to his seat on the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma led to his first impeachment. In a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019, Trump appeared to condition the sale of military equipment to Ukraine on Zelenskyy’s willingness to do him a “favor” by announcing an investigation into the Bidens.

Biden’s membership on the Burisma board had raised eyebrows for a number of reasons. He was paid a generous $50,000 per month, despite having no apparent expertise in the energy business. Also, his father was in charge of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy at the time.

No evidence has been made public suggesting that any decisions Joe Biden made while vice president were meant to aid his son’s business ventures.

Chinese energy firm

On Tuesday, The Washington Post published an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China. The report relied on data from a laptop computer that Biden was purported to have left at a computer repair store and that was later turned over to the FBI.

Allies of Trump tried to get journalists to investigate the laptop during the 2020 election campaign, but many balked because of the circumstances under which the data from the machine was obtained. The owner of the store copied the computer’s hard drive before turning the device over to the FBI. The copied hard drive then found its way into the hands of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, who had actively worked to have Ukrainian officials announce an investigation into the Bidens.

The Post said it was able to independently verify the accuracy of some of the data on the machine.

Among other things, the Post story revealed that over 14 months, beginning in 2017, Hunter Biden’s company received $4.8 billion in payments from a Chinese energy conglomerate called CEFC China Energy. None of the energy projects that Biden discussed with the firm ever took shape, the paper reported, and one of the executives of CEFC was arrested by U.S. authorities for bribery.
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US Congress Moves Closer to Passing Major China Legislation

The U.S. Congress is one step closer this week to passing major legislation addressing competitiveness with China. The America Competes Act passed the U.S. Senate on Monday on a vote of 68-28, setting the stage for the legislation to be reconciled in the U.S. House of Representatives for final passage. A significantly different version of that legislation passed the U.S. House in February on a vote of 222-210. 

The White House welcomed progress on the legislation in a statement Monday night, saying “there is clear bipartisan support for the sorts of investments the president has long championed — like boosting domestic manufacturing, supporting our innovators and helping them take their ideas from the lab to the factory floor, as well as addressing supply chain bottlenecks like semiconductors that are raising prices on the middle class.” 

The multibillion-dollar legislation addresses the U.S. supply chain and research, as well as development issues, to lessen dependence on Chinese-manufactured products by providing $52 billion for the U.S. manufacture of semiconductors, and $2 billion for the manufacture of critical electronics, defense and automobile components. 

The legislation also addresses human rights and democracy issues by providing funding for U.S.-Taiwan cultural exchanges, recognizing Taiwan as part of the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy, and ending a prohibition of displaying the Taiwanese flag during official visits to the U.S. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner tweeted Tuesday, “Passing the America COMPETES Act would mean taking real action towards addressing long-term inflation and making a targeted investment in American manufacturing. I’ve been working on this bill from the beginning, and I’m ready to get it done.” 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the process of reconciling the Senate and House versions would begin by the end of this week. 

“I believe this bill will go down as one of the most important steps Congress can take toward creating more American jobs, fixing our supply chains, and refueling another generation of American ingenuity that will strengthen our economy for a long, long time,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. 

While the legislation has some bipartisan support, one top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees said it did not do enough. 

In a speech about the threat posed by Communist China at the conservative research group Heritage Foundation, Senator Marco Rubio referred to the America Competes Act as “this so-called China bill.” 

Rubio said “it takes meaningful steps toward reinvesting in our nation’s capabilities. So, there’s good things in that bill, but it doesn’t build sufficient safeguards to protect taxpayer-funded research and industrial investment. And it’s because of pressure from universities and industry, support of billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars into activities that the Chinese are stealing now, except with less money. Now they’ll just have access to more to steal.” 

Rubio went on to argue that the problem cannot truly be solved until China stops lobbying American companies to protect its interest. Rubio said his legislation blocking imports made with slave labor has received opposition from American companies. 

“They were more interested in appeasing the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping because that allows them to maximize their profit margins, are interested in that, than doing what is both morally right and good for their country,” Rubio said Tuesday.  

In response to passage of the bill, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told reporters, “The China-related content of the relevant bills disregards the facts, exaggerates the theory of the China threat, advocates strategic competition with China, and is full of Cold War zero-sum thinking, which runs counter to the common desire of all walks of life in China and the United States to strengthen exchanges and cooperation. China firmly opposes this and will firmly defend its own interests.” 
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Biden Defiant, Cites ‘Moral Outrage’ as Reason for Putin Comments

U.S. President Joe Biden’s whirlwind diplomatic tour of Europe might be most remembered by his words about Russian President Vladimir Putin: “This man cannot remain in power.” Two days after his utterance, Biden clarified that although he won’t back down from the sentiment, the U.S. did not plan to take Putin out of office. VOA’s Anita Powell reports, from the White House, on what this means as this Ukraine conflict enters a second month.
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Democrats Push Toward Vote on Jackson for Supreme Court

The Senate Judiciary Committee is pushing Ketanji Brown Jackson closer to confirmation, setting up a vote next week to recommend her nomination to the full Senate and seat her as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. 

Jackson appears to be on a glidepath to confirmation by mid-April, even if she doesn’t receive the bipartisan votes that President Joe Biden has sought. Democrats can confirm her without one Republican vote in the 50-50 Senate, as long as every Democrat supports her. Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie. 

At a brief meeting Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin set the committee vote for April 4 and praised Jackson’s answers during four days of hearings last week that often grew contentious. Republicans on the committee — led by several senators who are eyeing presidential runs — spent much of the hearings focused on her sentencing decisions in a handful of child pornography cases during her nine years as a federal judge in an effort to paint her as too lenient on the criminals. 

Durbin criticized the Republican focus on the issue, saying the GOP senators asked “the toughest, meanest questions and then race to Twitter to see if somebody is tweeting.” In a Senate floor speech shortly afterward, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, one of the Republicans who asked Jackson repeatedly about the pornography cases, defended her colleagues, saying the questioning was “not an attack.” 

The partisan spat threatened to divide Jackson’s confirmation down party lines as Republicans drew her nomination into a midterm campaign push to paint Democrats as soft on crime. Durbin, who like Biden wants a bipartisan vote, said he hopes other Republicans “will not be discouraged” by the back-and-forth when considering whether to support the historic nomination. 

So far, no Republicans have said they will vote for her. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader, cited the Republicans’ concerns about her sentencing history, along with her support from liberal advocacy groups, in announcing Thursday that he “cannot and will not” back her. 

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who met with Jackson for more than an hour and a half earlier this month, is the most likely GOP senator to vote for her. After their meeting, Collins said she believes Jackson takes “a very thorough, careful approach in applying the law to the facts of the case, and that is what I want to see in a judge.” 

Jackson would be the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would also be the first former public defender on the court, and the first justice with experience representing indigent criminal defendants since Marshall. 

Pushing back on the Republicans’ questions about her sentencing in child pornography crimes, Jackson said during the hearings that sentencing is not a “numbers game.” She noted that there are no mandatory sentences for sex offenders and that there has been significant debate on the subject. Some of those cases have given her nightmares, Jackson said, and were “among the worst that I have seen.” 

White House spokesman Andrew Bates on Monday said the questioning was in “bad faith,” and that many of the Republicans had voted for GOP-nominated judges who had also sentenced defendants beneath federal guidelines, as Jackson did. 

The April 4 vote will set up a week of procedural maneuvers on the Senate floor aimed at securing Jackson’s confirmation by the end of the week. Durbin said he still has hope for some Republican votes by then. 

“I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take a look at this woman and what she will bring to the Court,” Durbin said. “She is the best and deserves our support.” 

 
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‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Signed by Florida Governor DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law on Monday that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, a policy that has drawn intense national scrutiny from critics who argue it marginalizes LGBTQ people. 

The legislation has pushed Florida and DeSantis, an ascending Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, to the forefront of the country’s culture wars. LGBTQ advocates, students, Democrats, the entertainment industry and the White House have dubbed the measure the “Don’t Say Gay” law. 

DeSantis and other Republicans have repeatedly said the measure was reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children. The law went into effect just days after DeSantis signed a separate bill that potentially restricts what books elementary schools can keep in their libraries or use for instruction. 

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said to applause before he signed the sexual orientation and gender identity measure during a ceremony at a preparatory school outside Tampa. 

The law states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Parents would be able to sue districts over violations. 

Swift condemnation 

Public backlash began almost immediately after the bill was introduced, with early criticism lobbed by Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and condemnation from LGBTQ advocacy groups. Democratic President Joe Biden called it “hateful.” 

As the bill moved through the Florida Legislature, celebrities mobilized against it on social media and criticized it at this year’s Academy Awards. Florida students staged walkouts and packed into committee rooms and statehouse halls to protest the measure, often with booming chants of “We say gay!” 

The Walt Disney Company, a powerful player in Florida politics, suspended its political donations in the state, and LGBTQ advocates who work for the company criticized CEO Bob Chapek for what they said was his slow response in speaking out against the bill. Some walked off the job in protest. 

After DeSantis signed the measure, Disney released a statement saying, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.” 

Throughout debate in the GOP-controlled statehouse, Democrats have said the law’s language, particularly the phrases “classroom instruction” and “age appropriate,” could be interpreted so broadly that discussion in any grade could trigger lawsuits and create a classroom atmosphere where teachers would avoid the subjects entirely. 

“The bill’s intentionally vague language leaves teachers afraid to talk to their students and opens up school districts to costly and frivolous litigation from those seeking to exclude LGBTQ people from any grade level,” said state Representative Carlos G. Smith, a Democrat who is gay. “Even worse, #DontSayGay sends a hateful message to our most vulnerable youth who simply need our support.” 

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said the law amounts to a political wedge issue for Republicans because elementary schools, especially in kindergarten through third grade, do not teach about these subjects and have state curriculum standards guiding classroom lessons. 

“This bill is based on a falsehood, and that falsehood is that somehow we’re teaching kids inappropriate topics at an early age, and clearly we’re not,” Spar said. 

‘Empowers parents’ 

The law’s sponsor, Republican state Representative Joe Harding, has said it would not bar spontaneous discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity in schools but would prevent districts from integrating the subjects into official curriculum. During the bill’s early stages, Harding sought to require schools to inform parents if a student came out as LGBTQ to a teacher. He withdrew the amendment after it picked up attention online. 

“Nothing in the amendment was about outing a student. Rather than battle misinformation related to the amendment, I decided to focus on the primary bill that empowers parents to be engaged in their children’s lives,” he said in a statement. 

DeSantis signed the bill after a news conference held at the Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill, about 74 kilometers north of Tampa. At the ceremony, several young children accompanied DeSantis and other politicians near the podium, with some holding signs bearing the governor’s “Protect Children/Support Parents” slogan. DeSantis gave the children the pens he used to sign the bill. 

The White House, which has sparred with the DeSantis administration over a range of policies, has issued statements against the law. “My Administration will continue to fight for dignity and opportunity for every student and family — in Florida and around the country,” Biden tweeted Monday. 

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona recently held a call with LGBTQ students in Florida and said in a statement issued Monday that his agency “will be monitoring this law upon implementation to evaluate whether it violates federal civil rights law.” 

For teachers in Florida, the law has caused some confusion over what is allowed in the classroom as well as concerns over frivolous lawsuits, said Michael Woods, a special education teacher in Palm Beach County with about three decades of experience. 

“From the start, I thought it was a solution in search of a problem, and the sad part about it is, I think it’s going to have a chilling effect on making sure that young people, students have a safe learning environment,” he said. 

 
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Black Representation at Heart of Louisiana Redistricting Battle

“In a democracy, the number of voters you have should determine the number of representatives you can elect,” James Gilmore, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told VOA. “But that’s not the case in Louisiana and many other U.S. states. The latest redistricting maps are proof of that.”

Redistricting is the decennial process in which congressional districts are redrawn to reflect changes in the population as determined by the U.S. census.

“The strength of the system is that it balances the size of districts so that they all have roughly equal populations,” explained Robert Collins, professor of urban studies and public policy at Dillard University in New Orleans. “That, in theory, means everyone has equal influence with their vote.”

But how those maps are drawn can benefit or disadvantage certain groups and the political parties they support. Manipulating the contours of congressional districts to give a political party an advantage at the ballot box — and, ultimately, greater numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives — is known as gerrymandering, a practice almost as old as America itself.

Louisiana’s Republican-led Legislature devised new congressional maps that sparked an outcry from Democrats and voting rights groups. Republicans insist they balanced multiple considerations fairly.

“I took our population, I took our geography of the state, I took our communities of interest, I took the will of the public, the will of the Legislature, and I balanced all of that with the law,” said Representative John Stefanski, the lead Republican in the Louisiana House’s redistricting efforts.

But opponents insist the resulting maps don’t accurately reflect changes in the state’s demographics, particularly the growth of its minority population.

“Louisiana is now made up of one-third Black residents, and the Black population has been a principal driver of the state’s overall growth,” said Liza Weisberg, voting rights staff attorney at Southern Poverty Law Center. “But the new redistricting maps don’t meaningfully increase opportunities for Black voters to elect candidates of their choosing. That’s a broken system.”

The system

How political maps are drawn also has important implications for residents other than representation in Washington. The delineation of state and local government districts can bring consequences.

“African Americans make up more than 50% of the population of Baton Rouge, but the way the maps are drawn, we’re still outnumbered by white Republicans on the school board, on City Council and throughout local government,” said Gilmore, who is African American. “So it’s no wonder those boards and councils keep voting to have the new schools, new hospitals, new housing, new public transportation — I can go on forever — put in the part of town that happens to be white and Republican. Meanwhile, when my mother had a stroke, I had to drive her 26 minutes to the nearest hospital and carry her inside myself. If redistricting was done fairly, we’d have fair representation and we couldn’t be treated like this.”

Redistricting became a requirement in 1967, with the passage of the Uniform Congressional District Act. The law required states to use the U.S. census, conducted every 10 years, to ensure voting districts consisted of approximately the same number of residents.

“Before the 1960s, you might have had one state senator representing a district of 10,000 residents, while another senator in the same state represented 100,000 residents,” said Robert Hogan, professor and chair of the political science department at Louisiana State University.

This ensures every resident’s vote can have the same strength. But redistricting has also been used to both consolidate and dilute political power.

That’s because it often falls to a state’s legislature to draw redistricting maps. Though the legislature can pass that responsibility to a less partisan committee, the majority party typically chooses to do this consequential work itself.

“Historically, the process has been used by the majority party as a way to further consolidate power,” Weisberg told VOA.

That power is on full display in Louisiana, where even though nearly 4 out of 10 voters cast their ballots for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Democrats hold only one of the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“It’s a weakness of the redistricting system,” Hogan said. “The minority party suffers at the hand of the majority party that draws districts in a way that ultimately reduces the number of seats their opponent can win. Republicans want to keep their five incumbent seats rather than having to give another to Democrats.”

Hogan says while the strategy is meant to help the majority party at the expense of the opposition party, it’s not just the minority party that feels its effects.

“The redistricting process can also be harmful to racial and ethnic minority populations as well,” he said.

Majority-minority districts

In a majority-minority district, Black Americans and other minority groups make up the majority of a district’s electorate. Louisiana currently has only one majority-minority district, but when the 2020 census revealed that the African American population in Louisiana had risen to one-third of the state’s total population, there was hope that redistricting would add a second.

This, supporters of a second majority-minority district said, would allow Black voters to choose representatives to both the Louisiana State Legislature and the U.S. Congress who more fairly represented their growing numbers in the state.

The idea had the backing of Louisiana’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, but not that of key Republican state lawmakers.

Democrats, voting rights advocates and many African Americans were infuriated with what emerged.

“More than two dozen versions of maps that included a second majority-minority district were presented to the Legislature, and Republicans rejected all of them,” Nora Ahmed, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, told VOA.

Republicans have defended the maps they ultimately selected, saying Louisiana’s African American population is spread out across rural parts of the state. If they had created a second majority-minority district, they said, it could have weakened the influence Black voters currently have at the ballot box.

During a special redistricting session last month, Republican state Senator Sharon Hewitt called the desire for a second majority-Black district “a great risk,” alleging it would reduce the percentage of minority voters in Louisiana’s only current majority-minority district from 61% to 53%.

Some dispute Hewitt’s assertions.

“At the time of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black majority congressional districts had to consist of 80% to 90% Black voters,” Dillard University’s Collins explained. “That’s no longer the case. With modern voting patterns, if a district is between 48% to 50% Black, it gives a fair opportunity to elect an African American candidate because getting some crossover votes from white voters is now more possible.”

At a standoff

Last month, the Louisiana State Legislature concluded its special redistricting session by passing a set of maps that left opponents unhappy with the projected level of minority representation.

“They could have passed a map that, after decades, finally gave fair representation to African American voters,” Gilmore said. “But they didn’t, and we’ll have to pay the price while those who are represented in government get the benefits.”

But the battle isn’t over. Earlier this month, Edwards vetoed the map creating the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives on the ground that it did not include a second majority-minority district.

“This map is simply not fair to the people of Louisiana and does not meet the standards set forth in the federal Voting Rights Act,” Edwards said in a statement.

Similar maps creating voting districts to determine representatives to the state Legislature were not vetoed, however. Edwards said that even though he felt those maps were not sufficiently representative, he didn’t think the Legislature had the time to redraw them during a busy legislative session.

Advocacy groups have already filed lawsuits against the maps, saying they dilute the voting strength of minorities.

Hewitt disagreed.

“Nothing in the [Voting Rights Act] establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population,” she said during last month’s redistricting debate.

While Republicans attempt to get the votes to overturn Edwards’ veto, opponents hope the courts will intervene to ensure fairly drawn district maps ahead of midterm elections in November, when all seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be decided.

Whether drawn by the Legislature or the court system, Gilmore says the consequences for minority voters will be substantial.

“Our ability to vote for officials who represent us hangs in how these maps are drawn. I hope they do the right thing here, because it will affect a whole lot of people.”
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Biden Budget to Trim $1 Trillion from Deficits Over Next Decade 

President Joe Biden intends to propose a spending plan for the 2023 budget year that would cut projected deficits by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, according to a fact sheet released Saturday by the White House budget office. 

In his proposal, expected Monday, the lower deficits reflect the economy’s resurgence as the United States emerges from the pandemic, as well as likely tax law changes that would raise more than enough revenue to offset additional investments planned by the Biden administration. It’s a sign that the government’s balance sheet will improve after a historic burst of spending to combat the coronavirus. 

The fading of the pandemic and the growth has enabled the deficit to fall from $3.1 trillion in fiscal 2020 to $2.8 trillion last year and a projected $1.4 trillion this year. That deficit spending paid off in the form of the economy expanding at a 5.7% pace last year, the strongest growth since 1984. But inflation at a 40-year high also accompanied those robust gains as high prices have weighed on Biden’s popularity. 

For the Biden administration, the proposal for the budget year that begins October 1 shows that the burst of spending helped to fuel growth and put government finances in a more stable place for years to come as a result. One White House official, insisting on anonymity because the budget has yet to be released, said the proposal shows that Democrats can deliver on what Republicans have often promised without much success: faster growth and falling deficits. 

Republicans focus on inflation

But Republican lawmakers contend that the Biden administration’s spending has led to greater economic pain in the form of higher prices. The inflation that came with reopening the U.S. economy as the closures from the pandemic began to end has been amplified by supply chain issues, low interest rates and, now, disruptions in the oil and natural gas markets because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky pinned the blame on Biden’s coronavirus relief as well as his push to move away from fossil fuels. 

“Washington Democrats’ response to these hardships has been as misguided as the war on American energy and runaway spending that helped create them,” McConnell said last week. “The Biden administration seems to be willing to try anything but walking back their own disastrous economic policies.” 

Biden inherited from the Trump administration a budget deficit that was equal in size to 14.9% of the entire U.S. economy. But the deficit starting in the upcoming budget year will be below 5% of the economy, putting the country on a more sustainable path, according to people familiar with the budget proposal who insisted on anonymity to discuss forthcoming details. 

The planned deficit reduction is relative to current law, which assumes that some of the 2017 tax cuts signed into law by former President Donald Trump will expire after 2025. The lower deficit totals will also be easier to manage even if interest rates rise. Still, Biden’s is offering a blueprint for spending and taxes that will eventually be decided by Congress and could vary from the president’s intentions. 

Economy expands

The expected deficit decrease for fiscal 2022 reflects the solid recovery in hiring that occurred in large part because of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The added jobs mean additional tax revenue, with the government likely collecting $300 billion more in revenues compared to fiscal 2021, a 10% increase. 

Still, the country will face several uncertainties that could reshape Biden’s proposed budget, which will have figures that don’t include the spending in the omnibus bill recently signed into law. Biden and U.S. allies are also providing aid to Ukrainians who are fighting against Russian forces, a war that could possibly reshape spending priorities and the broader economic outlook. 
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Reports: Justice Thomas’ Wife Urged Overturning 2020 Election

Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. 

The 29 messages the pair exchanged came in the weeks after the vote in November 2020, when Trump and his top allies were still saying they planned to go to the Supreme Court to have its results voided. 

The Post reported that on November 10, three days after the election and after The Associated Press and other news outlets declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner, Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist, texted to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! … You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” 

Copies of the texts — 21 sent by her, eight sent in reply by Meadows — were provided to the House select committee investigating the deadly insurrection that saw a mob of mostly Trump supporters overrun the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The AP attempted to get the same information from the committee, but it declined to comment. 

The texts do not directly reference Thomas’ husband or the Supreme Court. But she has previously admitted to attending the Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol riot. Virginia Thomas also has previously denied conflicts of interest between her activism and her husband’s place on the high court. 

Still, the messages show she was urging the top levels of the Trump administration to try to throw out the 2020 election results, and even offering coaching to Meadows on how best to do so. Thomas urged lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted false claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of the Trump legal team. 

Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger III, told the Post and CBS that neither he nor Meadows would comment on individual texts, adding, “nothing about the text messages presents any legal issues.” 

Justice Thomas, 73, has been hospitalized for treatment from an infection. He and his wife did not respond to the news outlets’ request for comment. 

In February 2021, the Supreme Court rejected challenges to the election. Justice Thomas dissented, calling the ruling not to hear arguments in the case “befuddling” and “inexplicable.” 

In a November 5 message to Meadows, Virginia Thomas quoted material that had appeared on right-wing fringe websites: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.” 

In a subsequent text the next day, Thomas wrote to Meadows, “Do not concede.” 

The messages also suggest that Meadows was willing to continue pursuing ways to overturn the election. He replied to one message from Thomas: “I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left. Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do.” 

The texts between Thomas and Meadows stop after Nov. 24, 2020. But the committee received another message sent on Jan. 10, 2021, four days after the mob attack on the Capitol, according to the Post and CBS. 

“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows in it. 

 
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Idaho Governor Signs Abortion Ban Modeled on Texas Law

Idaho on Wednesday became the first state to enact a law modeled after a Texas statute that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and that can be enforced through lawsuits to avoid constitutional court challenges.

Republican Governor Brad Little signed into law the measure that allows people who would have been family members to sue a doctor who performed an abortion after cardiac activity had been detected in an embryo. Still, he said he had concerns about whether the law was constitutional.

“I stand in solidarity with all Idahoans who seek to protect the lives of preborn babies,” Little wrote in a letter to Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin, who is also president of the Senate.

Yet he also noted: “While I support the pro-life policy in this legislation, I fear the novel civil enforcement mechanism will in short order be proven both unconstitutional and unwise.”

The law in the conservative state is scheduled to take effect 30 days after the signing, but court challenges are expected. Opponents call it unconstitutional, noting six weeks is before many women know they’re pregnant.

Advanced technology can detect the first flutter of electric activity within an embryo’s cells as early as six weeks. This flutter isn’t a beating heart; it’s cardiac activity that will eventually become a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus after the eighth week of pregnancy, and the actual heart begins to form between the ninth and 12th weeks of pregnancy.

The law allows the father, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of a “preborn child” to each sue an abortion provider for a minimum of $20,000 in damages within four years after the abortion. Rapists can’t file a lawsuit under the law, but a rapist’s relatives could.

‘Vigilante aspect’

“The vigilante aspect of this bill is absurd,” said Idaho Democratic Representative Lauren Necochea. “Its impacts are cruel, and it is blatantly unconstitutional.”

A Planned Parenthood official called the law unconstitutional and said the group was “committed to going to every length and exploring all our options to restore Idahoans’ right to abortion.”

“I want to emphasize to everyone in Idaho that our doors remain open. We remain committed to helping our patients access the health care they need, including abortion,” said Rebecca Gibron of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky, which operates Idaho’s three abortion clinics.

Backers have said the law was Idaho’s best opportunity to severely restrict abortions in the state after years of trying. Most recently, the state last year passed a six-week abortion ban law, but it required a favorable federal court ruling in a similar case to take effect, and that hasn’t happened.

The law is modeled after a Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place until a court challenge is decided on its merits. The Texas law allows people to enforce the law in place of the state officials who normally would do so. The Texas law authorizes lawsuits against clinics, doctors and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion that is not permitted by law.

Other states are pursuing similar laws, including Tennessee, which introduced a Texas-styled abortion bill last week.

The Biden administration knew the Texas law would lead to other states passing similar laws, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, and called on Congress to send the president a bill to “shut down these radical steps.”

“This development is devastating for women in Idaho, as it will further impede women’s access to health care, especially those on low incomes and living in rural communities,” Psaki said in a statement Wednesday.

Republicans in Idaho have supermajorities in both the House and Senate. The measure passed the Senate 28-6 and the House 51-14 with no Democratic support. Three House Republicans voted against the measure.

Governor’s concerns

Little on Wednesday noted his concerns with the legislation.

“Deputizing private citizens to levy hefty monetary fines on the exercise of a disfavored but judicially recognized constitutional right for the purpose of evading court review undermines our constitutional form of government and weakens our collective liberties,” he wrote.

He said that he worried some states might use the same approach to limit gun rights.

He also noted his concern with the part of the law allowing a rapist’s relatives to sue.

“Ultimately, this legislation risks retraumatizing victims by affording monetary incentives to wrongdoers and family members of rapists,” he wrote.

He concluded the letter by encouraging lawmakers to fix those problems to avoid unintended consequences “to ensure the state sufficiently protects the interests of victims of sexual assault.”

Little is facing a primary challenge from the far-right in McGeachin, the lieutenant governor, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Republican state Representative Steven Harris, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement after the vote on March 14: “This bill makes sure that the people of Idaho can stand up for our values and do everything in our power to prevent the wanton destruction of innocent human life.”
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New Mexico Elected Official Guilty of Illegally Entering Capitol on Jan. 6

An elected official from New Mexico has been found guilty of two misdemeanor charges for his role in the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol that allegedly attempted to disrupt certification of the 2020 election results.

Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was found guilty of illegally entering the U.S. Capitol but was acquitted of engaging in disorderly conduct.

The trial, presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, lasted one day without a jury.

McFadden, who was appointed by former president Donald Trump, said Griffin, who crossed over three barricades, knew he was in a restricted part of the building but stayed.

“All of this would suggest to a normal person that perhaps you should not be entering the area,” McFadden said from the bench.

When acquitting Griffin, a founder of the group “Cowboys for Trump,” of a more serious disorderly conduct charge, McFadden said Griffin was “trying to calm people down, not rile them up.”

Griffin could face up to two years in jail. Sentencing is scheduled for June 17.

Griffin’s trial was the second of hundreds of federal cases resulting from the January 6 riots.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Judiciary Committee to Question Supreme Court Nominee Jackson

Confirmation hearings opened with Democrats largely praising nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, while Republicans telegraphed tough questioning ahead 
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Supreme Court Confirmation Process

The U.S. Supreme Court is made up of nine justices. Like all federal judges, they are appointed for life. When a justice chooses to step down, or dies in office, the process begins to select a replacement.
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Jackson Weathers First Day of Senate Confirmation Hearings for Supreme Court

In the first of four days of scheduled hearings to discuss the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that their treatment of Jackson would break along partisan lines, with Democrats highlighting her qualifications and Republicans raising questions about her record.

Currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Jackson is the first Black woman, and only the third Black person overall, to be tapped for a seat on the nation’s highest court.

The first day of hearings consisted of the roughly twenty members of the committee delivering opening statements, as did Jackson herself. Some lawmakers used those statements to praise Jackson or to make broad statements about their feelings about the role of the Supreme Court in U.S. society. Others used their time to telegraph the sort of questions they will ask Jackson during the second and third days of hearings.

The hearing Monday, which lasted nearly five hours, was merely a warm-up. On Tuesday, each member will get 30 minutes to question the nominee, in a process expected to last from morning until evening.

Democratic leaders

The most senior members on the committee, on both sides of the aisle, made sure to praise Jackson’s service as a judge, which began with her confirmation in 2013 to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She has also served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission; worked as a public defender; clerked for more senior judges, including current Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she has been designated to replace; and worked in private practice.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat, used his opening statement to point out the historic nature of her nomination.

“In its more than 230 years, the Court has had 115 justices,” he said. “One hundred and eight have been white men. Just two justices have been men of color. Only five women have served on the Court — and just one woman of color. Not a single justice has been a Black woman. You, Judge Jackson, can be the first.”

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s longest-serving member, noted that he has participated in the confirmation of 20 other Supreme Court justices in his tenure, saying, “In Judge Jackson, I have found a distinguished nominee with an unassailable record that merits our respect, regardless of party.”

Leahy added, “Despite all the darkness in the world and the political brinksmanship that has unfortunately become a hallmark of Congress in recent years, your nomination fills me with hope — hope for the Court, hope for the rule of law, hope for the country.”

Republican leaders

Senator Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the panel, pledged to “conduct a thorough, exhaustive examination of Judge Jackson’s record and views.”

Members of his party, he said, will “ask tough questions about Judge Jackson’s judicial philosophy. In any Supreme Court nomination, the most important thing we look for is the nominee’s view of the law, judicial philosophy and view on the role of a judge. I’ll be looking to see whether Judge Jackson is committed to the Constitution as originally understood.”

Republican Senator Lindsay Graham promised that the hearings would be “challenging” for Jackson. However, he spent much of his time criticizing Democrats’ treatment of recent Supreme Court justices nominated by Republicans, specifically current Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose hearing in 2018 was marked by allegations of sexual assault decades in the past.

Pledging that members of his party would not personalize the hearings, he added, “You’re the beneficiary of Republican nominees having their lives turned upside down.”

Likely topics of questioning

Through their opening statements, Republicans on the panel signaled some of the areas of questioning that Jackson will likely face. Some were fairly general promises to probe her view of the proper role of the judiciary in the formation of public policy. Others were more specific.

Republican Senator John Cornyn said that he would raise the issue of Jackson’s work defending terrorism suspects who were, at the time, detained at the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Jackson’s representation of defendants there was part of her work as a federal public defender.

“As someone who has deep respect for the adversarial system of justice, I understand the importance of zealous advocacy,” Cornyn said. “But it appears that sometimes this zealous advocacy has gone beyond the pale. And in some instances, it appears that your advocacy has bled over into your decision-making process as a judge.”

Jackson and her supporters have pointed out that not all of the four Guantanamo detainees she was assigned to represent while serving as a federal public defender were even charged with crimes. Those who were charged eventually had those charges dropped. All four were eventually released.

Child pornography decisions

In the days leading up to the hearing, Republican Senator Josh Hawley had tweeted out accusations that in her judicial decisions, Jackson had a record of being “soft” on child pornography defendants.

Hawley’s claims faced serious pushback in the media, even from opponents of Jackson’s nomination. Many, including conservative attorney and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, claimed that he was misrepresenting Jackson’s record. Writing in The National Review, McCarthy called the claims “meritless to the point of demagoguery.”

Nevertheless, Hawley on Monday raised the issue in his opening remarks, saying he would address seven separate cases in which Jackson issued rulings. “What concerns me is that in every case, in each of these seven, Judge Jackson handed down a lenient sentence that was below what the federal guidelines recommended and below what the prosecutors requested.”

In remarks last week meant to blunt Hawley’s criticism, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “In the vast majority of cases involving child sex crimes broadly, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. probation recommended.”

Jackson’s remarks

After several hours of opening statements by senators, Jackson was allowed to deliver her own remarks, which she prefaced by noting that her nomination was a great honor and by introducing her extended family, who were in attendance at the hearing.

“If I am confirmed, I commit to you that I will work productively to support and defend the Constitution and the grand experiment of American democracy that has endured over these past 246 years,” Jackson said.

“During this hearing, I hope that you will see how much I love our country and the Constitution, and the rights that make us free,” she continued.

Jackson invoked the name of Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship.

“Like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building — ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ — are a reality and not just an ideal,” Jackson said. “Thank you for this historic chance to join the highest Court, to work with brilliant colleagues, to inspire future generations, and to ensure liberty and justice for all.”
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Jackson, 1st Black female High Court Pick, Faces Senators

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee is beginning historic confirmation hearings Monday for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.

Barring a significant misstep by the 51-year-old Jackson, a federal judge for the past nine years, Democrats who control the Senate by the slimmest of margins intend to wrap up her confirmation before Easter.

Jackson is expected to present an opening statement Monday afternoon, then answer questions from the committee’s 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans over the next two days. She will be introduced by Thomas B. Griffith, a retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Lisa M. Fairfax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Jackson appeared before the same committee last year, after President Joe Biden chose her to fill an opening on the federal appeals court in Washington, just down the hill from the Supreme Court.

Her testimony will give most Americans, as well as the Senate, their most extensive look yet at the Harvard-trained lawyer with a resume that includes two years as a federal public defender. That makes her the first nominee with significant criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American to serve on the nation’s highest court.

In addition to being the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, Jackson would be the third Black justice, after Marshall and his successor, Justice Clarence Thomas.

The American Bar Association, which evaluates judicial nominees, on Friday gave Jackson’s its highest rating, unanimously “well qualified.”

Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel of the NAACP, said she is excited to see a Black woman on the verge of a high court seat.

“Representation matters,” Wallace said. “It’s critical to have diverse experience on the bench. It should reflect the rich cultural diversity of this country.”

It’s not yet clear how aggressively Republicans will go after Jackson, given that her confirmation would not alter the court’s 6-3 conservative majority.

Still, some Republicans have signaled they could use Jackson’s nomination to try to brand Democrats as soft on crime, an emerging theme in GOP midterm election campaigns. Biden has chosen several former public defenders for life-tenured judicial posts. In addition, Jackson served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency created by Congress to reduce disparity in federal prison sentences.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., highlighted one potential line of attack. “I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children,” Hawley wrote on Twitter last week in a thread that was echoed by the Republican National Committee. Hawley did not raise the issue when he questioned Jackson last year before voting against her appeals court confirmation.

The White House pushed back forcefully against the criticism as “toxic and weakly presented misinformation.” Sentencing expert Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor, wrote on his blog that Jackson’s record shows she is skeptical of the range of prison terms recommended for child pornography cases, “but so too were prosecutors in the majority of her cases and so too are district judges nationwide.”

Hawley is one of several committee Republicans, along with Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who are potential 2024 presidential candidates, and their aspirations may collide with other Republicans who would just as soon not pursue a scorched-earth approach to Jackson’s nomination.

Biden chose Jackson in February, fulfilling a campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time in American history. She would take the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced in January that he would retire this summer after 28 years on the court.

Jackson once worked as a high court law clerk to Breyer early in her legal career.

Democrats are moving quickly to confirm Jackson, even though Breyer’s seat will not officially open until the summer. They have no votes to spare in a 50-50 Senate that they run by virtue of the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But they are not moving as fast as Republicans did when they installed Amy Coney Barrett on the court little more than a month after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and days before the 2020 presidential election.

Barrett, the third of President Donald Trump’s high court picks, entrenched the court’s conservative majority when she took the place of the liberal Ginsburg.

Last year, Jackson won Senate confirmation by a 53-44 vote, with three Republicans supporting her. It’s not clear how many Republicans might vote for her this time.

Jackson is married to Patrick Johnson, a surgeon in Washington. They have two daughters, one in college and the other in high school. She is related by marriage to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who also was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012. Ryan has voiced support for Jackson’s nomination.

Jackson has spoken about how her children have kept her in touch with reality, even as she has held a judge’s gavel since 2013. In the courtroom, she told an audience in Athens, Georgia, in 2017, “people listen and generally do what I tell them to do.”

At home, though, her daughters “make it very clear I know nothing, I should not tell them anything, much less give them any orders, that is, if they talk to me at all,” Jackson said.
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Rep. Don Young, Longtime Alaska Congressman, Dies at 88

Alaska Rep. Don Young, who was the longest-serving Republican in the history of the U.S. House, has died. He was 88.

His office announced Young’s death in a statement Friday night.

“It’s with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we announce Congressman Don Young (R-AK), the Dean of the House and revered champion for Alaska, passed away today while traveling home to Alaska to be with the state and people that he loved. His beloved wife Anne was by his side,” said the statement from Young’s congressional office.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that Young lost consciousness on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle and couldn’t be resuscitated.

A cause of death was not provided. Young’s office said details about plans for a celebration of Young’s life were expected in the coming days.

Young, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 1973, was known for his brusque style. In his later years in office, his off-color comments and gaffes sometimes overshadowed his work. During his 2014 reelection bid, he described himself as intense and less-than-perfect but said he wouldn’t stop fighting for Alaska. Alaska has just one House member.

Born on June 9, 1933, in Meridian, California, Young grew up on a family farm. He earned a bachelor’s degree in teaching at Chico State College, now known as California State University, Chico, in 1958. He also served in the U.S. Army, according to his official biography.

Young came to Alaska in 1959, the same year Alaska became a state, and credited Jack London’s Call of the Wild, which his father used to read to him, for drawing him north.

“I can’t stand heat, and I was working on a ranch and I used to dream of someplace cold, and no snakes and no poison oak,” Young told The Associated Press in 2016. After leaving the military and after his father’s death, he told his mother he was going to Alaska. She questioned his decision.

“I said, ‘I’m going up (to) drive dogs, catch fur and I want to mine gold.’ And I did that,” he said. In Alaska, he met his first wife, Lu, who convinced him to enter politics, which he said was unfortunate in one sense – it sent him to Washington, D.C., “a place that’s hotter than hell in the summer. And there’s lots of snakes here, two-legged snakes.”

In Alaska, Young settled in Fort Yukon, a small community accessible primarily by air at the confluence of the Yukon and Porcupine rivers in the state’s rugged, harsh interior. He held jobs in areas like construction, trapping and commercial fishing. He was a tug and barge operator who delivered supplies to villages along the Yukon River, and he taught fifth grade at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school, according to his biography. With Lu, he had two daughters, Joni and Dawn.

He was elected mayor of Fort Yukon in 1964 and elected to the state House two years later. He served two terms before winning election to the state Senate, where, he said, he was miserable. Lu said he needed to get out of the job, which he resisted, saying he didn’t quit. He recalled that she encouraged him instead to run for U.S. House, saying he’d never win.

In 1972, Young was the Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Begich. Three weeks before the election, Begich’s plane disappeared on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. Alaskans reelected Begich anyway.

Begich was declared dead in December 1972, and Young won a close special election in March 1973. Young held the seat until his death. He was running for reelection this year against a field that included one of Begich’s grandsons, Republican Nicholas Begich III.

In 2013, Young became the longest-serving member of Alaska’s congressional delegation, surpassing the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who served for 40 years.

In 2015, nearly six years after Lu Young’s death, and on his 82nd birthday, Young married Anne Garland Walton in a private ceremony in the U.S. Capitol chapel.

“Everybody knows Don Young,” he told the AP in 2016. “They may not like Don Young; they may love Don Young. But they all know Don Young.”

The often gruff Young had a sense of humor and a camaraderie with colleagues from both sides of the aisle.

As the House member with the longest service, Young swore in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, when the 117th Congress convened on Jan. 3, 2021 — three days before the deadly attack on the Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump. Before administering the oath of office, Young expressed dismay about the period’s intense partisanship.

“When you do have a problem or if there’s something so contentious, let’s sit down and have a drink, and solve those problems,” he said, drawing laughter and applause.

Pelosi, in a statement, said Young’s “reverence and devotion to the House shone through in everything that he did.” She called him “an institution in the hallowed halls of Congress.”

She said photos of him with 10 presidents, Republicans and Democrats, signing his bills into law “are a testament to his longevity and his legislative mastery.”

Young, known for decades of steering federal spending to his home state, won $23.7 million for Alaska for water, road and other projects in the government-wide $1.5 trillion spending bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week, according to an analysis of that bill by The Associated Press. It is one of the highest amounts for home-district projects that any House member had in the legislation.

Young said he wanted his legacy to be one of working for the people. He counted among his career highlights passage of legislation his first year in office that allowed for construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline system, which became the state’s economic lifeline. With that successful pipeline fight, “I found a niche in my life where I enjoy working for the people of Alaska and this nation – primarily the people of Alaska,” Young said in 2016, adding later: “I like the House.”

During his career, he unapologetically supported earmarks as a way to bring home projects and build up infrastructure in a geographically huge state where communities range from big cities to tiny villages; critics deemed earmarks pork.

Young branded himself a conservative and won support with voters for his stances on gun and hunting rights and a strong military. He made a career out of railing against “extreme environmentalists” and a federal bureaucracy that he saw as locking up Alaska’s mineral, timber and petroleum resources. He said his word was a “gold bond.”

He said he was happy every time he could help a constituent. “And I try to do that every day, and I’m very good at that,” he told AP in 2016.

His career was marred by investigations and criticism about his off-the-cuff and often abrasive style.

In 2008, Congress asked the Justice Department to investigate Young’s role in securing a $10 million earmark to widen a Florida highway; the matter was dropped in 2010, and Young denied any wrongdoing.

In December 2011, the U.S. House Ethics Committee said it was revising its rules to impose new contribution limits on owners who run multiple companies following questions raised by the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics about donations made to Young’s legal expense fund.

In 2014, the ethics committee found that Young had violated House rules by using campaign funds for personal trips and accepting improper gifts. Young was told to repay the value of the trips and gifts, totaling about $59,000, and amend financial disclosure statements to include gifts he hadn’t reported. The committee also issued a “letter of reproval,” or rebuke. Young said he regretted the “oversights” and apologized for failing to exercise “due care” in complying with the House’s Code of Conduct.

Fresh off a reelection win in 2020, Young announced he had tested positive for COVID-19, months after he had referred to the coronavirus as the “beer virus” before an audience that included older Alaskans and said the media had contributed to hysteria over COVID-19.

He later called COVID-19, for which he had been hospitalized, serious and encouraged Alaskans to follow guidelines meant to guard against the illness.

Voters kept sending Young back to Washington, something Young said he didn’t take for granted.

“Alaskans have been generous with their support for me because they know I get the job done,” he said in 2016. “I’ll defend my state to the dying breath, and I will always do that and they know that.”
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Zelenskyy Pleads With US Congress for No-Fly Zone, Military Aid

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, thanking President Joe Biden and the U.S. for their support while calling for more sanctions on Russian officials and additional military aid. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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US Senate Approves Bill to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent

The Senate unanimously approved a measure Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent across the United States next year.

The bipartisan bill, named the Sunshine Protection Act, would ensure Americans would no longer have to change their clocks twice a year. But the bill still needs approval from the House, and the signature of President Joe Biden, to become law.

“No more switching clocks, more daylight hours to spend outside after school and after work, and more smiles — that is what we get with permanent Daylight Saving Time,” Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the original co-sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement.

Markey was joined on the chamber floor by senators from both parties as they made the case for how making daylight saving time permanent would have positive effects on public health and the economy and even cut energy consumption.

“Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida said.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Americans want more sunshine and less depression — people in this country, all the way from Seattle to Miami, want the Sunshine Protection Act,” Senator Patty Murray of Washington added.

Nearly a dozen states across the U.S. have already standardized daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time is defined as a period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the country are set one hour ahead of standard time. Americans last changed their clocks on Sunday. Standard time lasts for roughly four months in most of the country.

Members of Congress have long been interested in the potential benefits and costs of daylight saving time since it was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. The proposal will now go to the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee had a hearing to discuss possible legislation last week.

Representative Frank Pallone Jr., the chairman of the committee, agreed in his opening statement at the hearing that it was “time we stop changing our clocks.” But he said he was undecided about whether daylight saving time or standard time is the way to go.

Markey said Tuesday, “Now, I call on my colleagues in the House of Representatives to lighten up and swiftly pass the Sunshine Protection Act.”
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