Biden casts vaccinations as a patriotic duty, urges Americans to protect themselves, others

Vice President Harris cast her fourth tiebreaking vote in the Senate and her first on a nomination Wednesday night to advance Colin Kahl to be the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy.

The Senate split 50-50 along party lines on a vote to discharge Kahl’s stalled nomination from the Armed Services Committee, which was deadlocked last month on moving him to the Senate floor for confirmation. Harris came in to make it 51.

Kahl served in the Obama administration as then-Vice President Biden’s national security adviser. Kahl was publicly critical of the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions, especially pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, which Kahl helped negotiate.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday signaled they might oppose any future increase to the debt ceiling unless Congress also couples it with comparable federal spending cuts, raising the specter of a political showdown between GOP leaders and the White House this summer.

Republican lawmakers staked their position after a private gathering to consider the conference’s operating rules this session, issuing what GOP leaders described later as an important yet symbolic statement in response to the large-scale spending increases proposed by President Biden in recent months.

Senate Republicans chose to keep their decade-long ban on earmark spending, even as House Republicans moved to join Democrats in a return to doling out funds to specific member-directed projects.

The GOP Senate conference didn’t even hold a vote when it met Wednesday afternoon, choosing to maintain the ban for now rather than divide members over the contentious issue. Some Republicans see a return to earmarks as a reversion to a time of wasteful and corrupt spending. Others see it as a way to ensure their districts and states are getting money carved out for specific priorities.

The chairwoman of the House Committee on Administration suggested Thursday that Capitol Police investigators are looking into whether outside units responding to the Jan. 6 riot were told to target any anti-Trump figure “who wants to start a fight” instead of the pro-Trump demonstrators who made up the vast majority of the crowd.

The allegation is one of several being investigated by the force’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) revealed, as she questioned the Capitol Police inspector general during a hearing.

“Each job created in Biden’s ‘infrastructure plan’ will cost the American people $850,000.”

— Republican National Committee, in a tweet, April 19

President Biden’s $2.2 trillion infrastructure plan has come under attack from Republicans as being too expensive for the amount of jobs it creates. The tweet above puts the complaint in raw numbers — almost $1 million a job.

The figure has also come up in the White House briefing room, with a reporter asking April 6: “I think that works out to something like $850,000 per job. Given that, are you open to ideas about a more targeted way — a cheaper way of achieving the same goal in terms of number of jobs created?” (Press secretary Jen Psaki did not address the figure.)

Just days after the launch of a federal program to pay up to $9,000 to cover funeral costs for covid-19 victims, more than 120,000 people have applied for the money in the program that will cost billions.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency began the massive program on April 12. On that first day, the toll-free hotline was swamped with more than a million calls, overloading the system and frustrating many trying to get through. The hotline is still receiving between 20,000 to 25,000 calls every day from across the country.

As of next week, people with “official business” may visit the Capitol and the House office buildings, but the complex will remain closed to tourists.

Even with this first sign of a return to normalcy on Capitol Hill, the attending physician continues to recommend teleworking and that meetings be held virtually rather than in person, the sergeant-at-arms wrote in a memo Wednesday.

But beginning April 26 for the Capitol and April 29 for House offices, a congressional office can host official visitors between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. for the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) is reigniting his effort to garner more support for a resolution that would expel Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from Congress after Republicans tried to censure a Democrat for inciting violence but stayed silent on a member of their own party.

In a Dear Colleague letter to all congressional offices Wednesday, Gomez said that Greene continues to represent “a threat” given her past “documented acts of sedition and advocacy for lethal violence against the United States Government.” He also cited the reported attempt by a group of Republicans to create an “America First Caucus” that, according to a document published by Punchbowl News, would promote “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” as a reason to remove Greene. She has denied having any knowledge of that document.