1,186,000 unemployment claims were filed in the week ending on August 1, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
The report came after $600 extra weekly unemployment benefits from the federal government’s first COVID-19 relief package expired last week.
Negotiations over the next stimulus bill have stalled as Democrats propose to extend the $600 weekly payments while Republicans push to reduce the benefits to $200 a week.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance successfully subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, President Donald Trump’s top lender, last year in his criminal investigation into Trump’s business dealings, according to a new report.
Continue reading “Deutsche Bank Provided NY Prosecutors With Trump’s Financial Records”
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) on Wednesday became the third congressman in just over one week to announce he has tested positive for coronavirus.
Davis said in a statement that he was prompted to take a test after an unusual temperature reading Wednesday.
The Illinois congressman said that aside from a higher temperature he is “showing no symptoms at this time” and that he feels “fine.”
The congressman pledged to “serve my constituents virtually from home while I quarantine.”
Davis said that after consulting with the Office of the Attending Physician of Congress and local county health officials, his office is contacting to any constituents he had met in person in the past 48 hours. He also announced that he will postpone his office’s public events in the coming days “until I receive a negative test.”
Davis’ coronavirus announcement follows the diagnoses of two other members of Congress last week, including Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) on Saturday and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) last Wednesday. Communications director for Davis, Aaron DeGroot, told CNN that the congressman had not been in contact with either Gohmert or Grijalva.
Following Gohmert’s announcement last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered a broad mask mandate requiring all House members and staff to wear masks in the House chamber and all House office buildings.
Fifteen other members of Congress had announced positive tests or presumed infections for coronavirus since the pandemic began earlier this year, including eight Republicans and seven Democrats, according to Reuters.
Davis said that his staffers in his office “take COVID-19 very seriously” and “have always followed and will continue to follow CDC guidelines.”
“All of us must do our part,” Davis said, encouraging people to wear masks and practice social distancing. “That’s what it will take to get through this pandemic.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo barely had a sentence to say Wednesday about the departure of his department’s top watchdog after just three months in the role.
Contrary to what the President and his advisors may think, the United States had a government before January 2017.
And yet, to the extent that the Trump administration is involved at all in the response to COVID-19, it keeps trying to reinvent the wheel, delivering new and occasionally bizarre strategies for managing various elements of the response.
Take the decision to have the Pentagon oversee vaccine distribution.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is framing a broadly agreed upon timeline for coming together on a COVID relief package as a hard cutoff.
Continue reading “WH Takes Hard Line, Claiming Self-Imposed Friday Deadline For Unemployment Deal”
Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD) doesn’t seem to be on board with President Donald Trump’s potential plan to give his nomination speech at the White House during the Republican National Convention (RNC).
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called President Donald Trump a “master of diversion” on Wednesday, accusing the President of using GOP acceptance speech discussions to sideline the suffering of millions of Americans who continue to struggle and lose their lives amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“Once again he is diverting attention from the fact that people are dying in our country,” Pelosi said, referring to Trump’s idea to deliver his GOP nomination acceptance speech at the White House. “Children are hungry. Families are fearing eviction. Workers are concerned about getting money into their pockets.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused President Trump on Wednesday of once again "diverting attention" from those suffering amid the coronavirus pandemic by raising discussions about whether he can deliver an acceptance speech for the GOP nomination on White House grounds. pic.twitter.com/dugWgW6GwH
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) August 5, 2020
Pelosi said that “whether it’s legally wrong or ethically out of the question” the suggestion that political events such as an acceptance speech for the GOP presidential nomination on White House grounds should be rejected outright. “He can’t do that,” she added.
“For the President of the United States to degrade, once again, the White House as he has done, over and over again, by saying he’s going to completely politicize it is something that should be rejected right out of hand,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi’s comments follow a report from the Washington Post that the President was considering using the White House’s South Lawn to deliver his convention speech. Trump confirmed during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday that he “probably” would give his speech accepting the Republican nomination from White House property later this month.
The issue became a topic of controversy early Wednesday amid questions about the Hatch Act, which provides notable exemptions to the President and Vice President in federal laws that bar the use of government property by federal employees for certain forms of political activity at work.
The former Trump administration national security official and impeachment witness Fiona Hill is set to publish a book about American politics.
Continue reading “Trump Adviser, Impeachment Witness Who Detailed Ukraine Scheme Gets Book Deal”
A federal judge in New York wants to move quickly in deciding whether the Trump administration can lawfully implement the President’s new anti-immigrant census policy.
Continue reading “Trump’s New Anti-Immigrant Census Move Could Be Halted Before Count Is Done”
