AOC says Biden ‘exceeded’ progressive expectations in first 100 days
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighed in on Biden’s first 100 days in office
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave President Biden a progressive thumbs up for his 100 days in office Friday night.
“The Biden Administration and President Biden have definitely exceeded expectations that progressives had,” Democratic Socialist Ocasio-Cortez said during a virtual town hall meeting.
“A lot of us expected a much more conservative administration.”
www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-biden-exceeded-progressive-expectations-first-100-days
Population shifts mean five states that voted for Joe Biden will lose seats in the House when congressional districts are redrawn later this year, new Census numbers released Monday show, but will gain seats in two other states. Only two Trump-voting states will lose a seat.
Why it matters: Apportionment and redistricting — the process of redistributing political power among and within the states— comes as Democrats hold slim majorities in both congressional chambers and Republicans have a strong grip on the process of re-drawing district lines.
By the numbers: California — the nation’s most populous state — is losing a seat for the first time in history.
President Biden is seeking $80 billion to strengthen I.R.S. enforcement, which administration officials believe will raise at least $700 billion over a decade. Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel the country this week to promote the administration’s agenda.
www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/27/us/biden-news-today
The $300 federal weekly jobless payment is currently added to state benefits as part of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act that he signed in March.
As states begin to ease indoor dining restrictions, the food service industry is having a hard time hiring employees, a difficulty owners blame in part on the disincentivizing effects of supercharged federal unemployment benefits, which are paid to individuals on top of their state benefits.
The federal benefit that Congress created in response to the coronavirus pandemic was $600 per week, which amounted to $15 per hour before state benefits were added in.
The number of workers eligible for jobless benefits expanded during the pandemic. For the first time, self-employed workers are also able to collect unemployment benefits.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said recently that the $600 weekly supplemental jobless benefits were “very, very hard for any employer to replicate.”
JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO DECENCY: The White House Responds to Growing Scandal Over Giving Away VP’s Book to Illegal Aliens. “Since the White House, Health and Human Services, and Harris herself remain silent on the issue, it’s unclear who’s paying for the books.”
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Washington Post: How the Biden administration invited the border crisis despite warnings.
The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff has published a timeline of sorts which walks readers through the current border crisis and how we got here. Nearly everything he wrote has been said before but the timeline seeks to clarify how the Biden administration went from cautiously trying to avoid a border crisis they were warned about to denying it was happening despite evidence to the contrary.
The story starts during the transition when President-elect Biden talked about wanting to avoid the kind of surge we now have, saying “guardrails” were needed to avoid seeing “2 million people on our border.” But those notes of caution quickly faded away.