Washington (AFP) – The Senate Banking Committee on Thursday approved Janet Yellen to chair the U.S. Federal Reserve, setting up a likely confirmation by the full chamber next month.
President Barack Obama’s pick to replace outgoing Fed chairman Ben Bernanke passed the committee 14-8, and if approved by the overall Senate would be the first woman to run the world’s most important central bank.
AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski
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Arizona House Rep. David Livingston celebrating defeat of abortion ban repeal on April 17, 2024
Republicans in the Arizona legislature weren't afraid to do an endzone dance after voting to keep a Civil War-era law on the books that effectively bans all abortions in the Grand Canyon State.
According to Talking Points Memo reporter Kate Riga, Rep. David Livingston (R) "applauded his supporters" in the gallery overlooking the House of Representatives and raised his fists in a celebratory fashion after the vote to repeal the law failed on party lines. House Majority Whip Teresa Martinez (R) reportedly mouthed the words "we got you" to others in the gallery who were advocating for repeal, and even gave them a mocking thumbs-up gesture.
"They were posing for their far-right base," Assistant House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos (D) told Talking Points Memo.
Wednesday marked Democrats' fourth unsuccessful attempt in two weeks to repeal the law, which was passed when Arizona was still a territory that had not yet officially joined the U.S. and before women had the right to vote. The state already had a strict 15-week abortion ban in place before the Arizona Supreme Court recently ruled to uphold the far more stringent law from 1864.
"In light of this Opinion, physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal, and that additional criminal and regulatory sanctions may apply to abortions performed after fifteen weeks’ gestation," Justice John Lopez wrote on behalf of the GOP-aligned majority.
The 1864 law, which remains on the books, allows for the punishment of abortion providers who help individuals terminate their pregnancies. Any provider who performs the procedure faces a prison sentence of anywhere from two to five years under the 19th century legislation. Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) clarified her office would not prosecute abortion providers under that law.
"Make no mistake, by effectively striking down a law passed this century and replacing it with one from 160 years ago, the Court has risked the health and lives of Arizonans," Mayes stated, adding that the "decision to reimpose a law from a time when Arizona wasn't a state, the Civil War was raging, and women couldn't even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state."
That 1864 law is likely to mobilize large amounts of Democratic voters to turn out in the 2024 election in the Grand Canyon State, which may end up deciding partisan control of the House, Senate and White House in November. Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake — who ran a failed campaign for governor in 2022 — previously praised the anti-abortion law as "great," before eventually condemning it as "out of step with Arizonans." She has called on Governor Katie Hobbs (D) and the GOP-controlled legislature to pass a work-around.
If Republicans aim to recapture the U.S. Senate, they'll need a net gain of two seats in November. This will require flipping seats like Arizona's, where outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) declined to seek another term in office. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the likely Democratic nominee, is currently leading in polls with RealClearPolitics showing him ahead of Lake by an average of six points.
Arizona narrowly went blue in 2020, with President Joe Biden taking the state's Electoral College votes with less than 11,000 total votes. That margin could widen with abortion rights on the ballot, as that issue has led to stunning Republican losses even in red states like Kansas, Kentucky and Montana in 2022, and Ohio in 2023.
Click here to read Talking Points Memo's full report.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
President Vladimir Putin, left, and former President Donald Trump
"Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base." That acknowledgement from Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was echoed a few days later by Ohio Rep. Michael Turner, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. "To the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle."
It has been two months since the Senate passed, by 70-29 (including 22 Republicans), a $95 billion foreign aid bill that included $60 billion for Ukraine. The Republican-controlled House, by contrast, has been paralyzed. This week, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Ukraine will lose the war if the aid is not approved.
The Republican party is now poised to let a brave, democratic ally be defeated by the power that the last GOP presidential nominee save one called "without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe." One member of Congress has sworn to introduce a resolution to vacate the chair if the House speaker puts aid for Ukraine on the floor, and the entertainment wing of conservatism — most egregiously Tucker Carlson — has gone into full truckling mode toward the ex-KGB colonel in the Kremlin.
It's worth exploring how the Republican party, the party of "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," became the party that now credulously traffics in blatant Russian disinformation while it flirts with betraying an important ally — along with all of its principles.
Trump's particular preferences and ego needs play a starring role in the GOP's devolution. Cast your minds back to 2016 and the revelation that the Russians had hacked the Democratic National Committee. To rebut this damaging development, Fox News conjurers got busy inventing a tale about CrowdStrike, the company that documented the hack, alleging that the servers had been mysteriously moved to Ukraine so that the FBI could not examine them. Trump raised the CrowdStrike issue in his infamous call with Zelenskyy.
This was bonkers. As the Mueller report made clear, the FBI did get all the data regarding the DNC hack. There was never a shred of evidence that the servers were moved to Ukraine, and in any case physical control of the servers was unnecessary. But what was Zelensky supposed to say? He promised to look into it just as a courtier to a mad king will say, "Yes, your majesty, we will look into why your slippers are turning into marshmallows when the sun goes down."
Because Trump regarded any implication that he had received assistance from Russia as impugning his victory, he latched onto the idea (perhaps whispered by Putin himself in one of their many private conversations) that, yes, there had indeed been foreign interference in the election, but it was Ukraine boosting Hillary Clinton, not Russia aiding Trump. Now, it's true that Ukraine's friends reached out to Clinton, but why wouldn't they? Trump's campaign manager was Paul Manafort, a paid agent of Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted pro-Putin Ukrainian leader.
Trump nurtured his misplaced grudge for years. Recall that when Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Trump's initial response was that it was a "genius" move. "You gotta say, that's pretty savvy."
A non-sociopath would say it was raw aggression of the worst kind. A normal Republican of the pre-Trump mold would have been outraged at the attempted rape of a peaceful, democratic neighbor.
Most Republican officeholders are not sociopaths, but they take their marching orders from one and have adjusted their consciences accordingly. The talking point Sen. J.D. Vance and his ilk favor is that they cannot be concerned about Ukraine's border when our southern border is also being invaded. Of course it's absurd to compare immigrants looking for work or safety to tanks, bombs and missiles, but that's what passes for Republican reasoning these days. In any case, it was revealed to be hollow when Biden and the Democrats offered an extremely strict border bill to sweeten aid for Ukraine, and the GOP turned it down flat.
Russia's fingerprints are all over the Republicans' failed attempt to impeach (in all senses of the word) Joe Biden. Their star witness, Alexander Smirnov — who alleged that Hunter and Joe Biden had been paid $5 million in bribes by Burisma — was indicted in February for making false statements. High-ranking Russians appear to be his sources.
Whether the subject is Ukraine, Biden's so-called corruption, or NATO, Putin seems to have pulled off the most successful foreign influence operation in American history. If Trump were being blackmailed by Putin, it's hard to imagine how he would behave any differently. And though it started with Trump, it has not ended there. Putin now wields more power over the GOP than anyone other than Trump. GOP propagandists indulge fictions that even many Russians can see through: Ukraine is governed by Nazis; Russia is a religious, Christian nation; Russia is fighting "wokeness."
Republicans are not so much isolationist as pro-authoritarian. They've made Hungary's Viktor Orban a pin-up, and they mouth Russian disinformation without shame. Putin must be pinching himself.
Reprinted with permission from Creators.
