A bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh just hours before Joe Biden was set to travel to the city to tout the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure law. Biden took a detour to visit the collapse site and made a point to speak about the 45,000 bridges in the US rated in poor condition. “That is simply just unacceptable,” he said.
The New York mayor’s office is asking New Yorkers who came in contact with Sarah Palin to test for Covid-19 after she went out to eat at several Upper East Side restaurants despite her positive status. The former Alaska governor’s positive test delayed her defamation trial against the New York Times earlier this week.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Friday issued subpoenas to lead participants in an audacious scheme to send fake Trump slates of electors to Congress. The development comes as the panel seeks to learn whether the plan was coordinated by the Trump White House. The committee has also subpoenaed former White House spokesperson Judd Deere, per CNN.
Speaking with reporters as he deplaned this evening, Joe Biden said the US will move troops to Eastern Europe in the “near term”.
Per the White House press pool, Biden said: “I’ll be moving US troops to Eastern Europe in the Nato countries in the near term. Not a lot.”
A few days ago, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said it was possible that the US would deploy more than the 8,500 troops in Europe who were already on alert.
“I’m not going to rule out the possibility that there will be more such direction given to additional units at home or even abroad in terms of their readiness posture,” Kirby said.
January 6 panel subpoenas figures in scheme backing fake Trump electors
Hugo Lowell
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Friday issued subpoenas to lead participants in an audacious scheme to send fake Trump slates of electors to Congress.
The development comes as the panel seeks to learn whether the plan was coordinated by the Trump White House.
The fake certificates – which falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election, though the states had officially declared otherwise – are significant as they appear to have been a central tenet of the former president’s effort to return himself to power.
The fake slates of electors were sent to Congress from seven contested states that were in fact won by Joe Biden. Trump and his allies might have hoped to use them as justification for having Biden’s wins in those states rejected.
Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said that he had authorized subpoenas to 14 Republicans who were listed as the chairperson and the secretary of each group of “alternate electors” in order to learn how the scheme was coordinated.
The move by the select committee comes days after the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, confirmed that the justice department had opened an investigation into the scheme, raising the stakes for the fake electors and any Trump White House aides who may have been involved.
Thompson issued subpoenas to the two most senior Republicans who signed onto the fake certificates in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, including several prominent current and former state Republican party leaders.
The subpoena targets included: Nancy Cottle, Loraine Pellegrino, David Shafer, Shawn Still, Kathy Berden, Mayra Rodriguez, Jewll Powdrell, Deborah Maestas, Michael McDonald, James DeGraffenreid, Bill Bachenberg, Lisa Patton, Andrew Hitt and Kelly Ruh.
The House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection has reportedly issued a subpoena for former White House spokesperson Judd Deere, CNN is reporting.
The committee is seeking both documents and a deposition next month from former deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere, who helped with “formulating White House’s response to the January 6 attack as it occurred,” according to the panel’s letter. In its letter to Deere, the committee specifically said it wanted to speak with him about the January 5 staff meeting in the Oval Office with the President.
The committee said it had obtained information that Trump repeatedly asked in the meeting: “What are your ideas for getting the RINOs to do the right thing tomorrow? How do we convince Congress?”
The committee has already subpoenaed and met with former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, as well as others in Trump’s administration and inner circle.
The Biden administration is monitoring the Nor’easter expected to move through mid-Atlantic states this weekend.
“We will be actively monitoring the storm’s projected impacts and working closely with FEMA to ensure that we are prepared to support any needs for Federal assistance that may arise in your community,” said Dr Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, homeland security advisor.
A powerful Nor'easter is expected to develop off the Mid-Atlantic coastline today before impacting eastern parts of the Northeast and New England this weekend. Numerous hazards are likely from heavy snow, with significant accumulations, to gusty winds and coastal issues. pic.twitter.com/FQ3wXSyCYi
Bette Midler had harsh words for the governor of West Virginia after he showed his dog’s backside at the end of his State of the State speech, in a bizarre rejoinder to the actor, singer and activist.
Responding on Thursday to a tweet in which Midler called West Virginia “poor, illiterate and strung out”, the Republican Jim Justice said she could kiss his dog’s “hiney”.
On Friday, Midler retweeted a picture of the stunt with the caption: “Here we can see a dog’s asshole. Right next to it is the butt of Jim Justice’s dog.”
Midler also tweeted: “Here are the state rankings of all the areas and agencies for which the so-called ‘governor’ of West Virginia, Jim Justice, is responsible. Judging from these rankings, I’d say his dog’s ass would make a better governor than him!”
The graphic, from US News and World Report, showed Virginia scoring poorly in healthcare, education, economy and other categories and 47th overall among the 50 US states. The state tends to score poorly in such rankings.
Justice, 70, a coalmining magnate who was elected as a Democrat, is an eccentric figure who often uses his English bulldog, Babydog, as a political prop. His State of the State speech, at the capitol in Charleston, was delayed after he contracted Covid-19.
Midler angered the governor with comments prompted by her own anger towards the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin.
Manchin, a Democrat, recently sank Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan, then stood in the way of Senate reform to facilitate the passage of voting rights protections.
“What Joe Manchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible,” Midler tweeted.
“He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.”
She later apologized to “the good people” of West Virginia.
A bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh, the city with the most bridges in the entire country, just hours before Joe Biden was set to travel to the city to tout the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure law that will fund the improvement of bridges and roadways across the country.
In Pittsburgh, Biden took a detour to visit the collapse site and made a point to speak about the 45,000 bridges in the US rated in poor condition. “That is simply just unacceptable,” he said.
The New York City mayor’s office is asking all New Yorkers who came in contact with Sarah Palin to test for Covid-19 after the unvaccinated former Alaska governor, whose positive test delayed her defamation trial against the New York Times earlier this week, went out to eat at several Upper East Side restaurants despite her positive status.
The Bidens welcomed a pet cat named Willow to the White House.
News of justice Stephen Breyer retiring from the supreme court is having a ripple effect on the Senate:
Senate Judiciary is delaying a Tuesday hearing on the nomination of J. Michelle Childs to serve as an appellate judge now that she's likely on shortlist for SCOTUS pick. Clyburn has been championing Childs for the court. The committee will hear from district court noms on Tuesday
Andrew Hitt, the former chair of the Wisconsin Republican party, has issued a statement saying he is will cooperate with a subpoena issued by the Houseselect committee tasked with investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol:
Joe Biden made a little slip in his Pittsburgh address when it came to Pennsylvania politics:
Freudian slip (??) by President Biden, who refers to Rep. Connor Lamb, currently running for Senate in a competitive Democratic primary, as "Senator Lamb"
