Republican Congressman Clay Higgins yanked and shoved an activist who he claimed was mentally disturbed during a press conference outside the US Capitol. Jake Burdett, an activist with leftist political views, was filming and asking questions of the GOP lawmakers present when a man in a suit approached him, later to be revealed as Higgins. The footage of the altercation was shared widely on social media, prompting a Change.org petition calling for Higgins' arrest. Mr Higgins claims Mr Burdett was "threatening" and "a police code referring to mentally disturbed individuals".
Senator Dianne Feinstein recently returned to work in Washington following severe health complications caused by her shingles diagnosis, which reportedly triggered inflammation of the brain and facial paralysis. The eight-term Democratic senator experienced visible effects from her condition upon her return, including difficulties with balance and vision, and missing some votes. Feinstein's return to work has been a relief to Democrats, who are known for benefiting from the senator's vote push priorities through despite narrow numbers. However, there have also been long-standing and repeated calls for her resignation over the years due to memory lapses in public appearances as well as cognitive decline.
White House negotiators have had two days of talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his emissaries over finding a budget-cutting deal that Democrats and Republicans can agree on to raise the US debt limit of $31tn, with a deadline as soon as 1 June drawing closer. In exchange for the limit rise, Republicans want steep spending reductions, devastating cuts inflicting hardships on many Americans, Democrats argued. The parties are racing to devise a budget-cutting deal to avert a looming economic crisis. The contours of a deal that includes some budget cuts, rescinding COVID-19 money that went unused, and a way to discuss new permitting rules for swift energy project developments are taking shape. Republicans want to roll back spending to fiscal 2022 levels and cap annual increases at just 1% over the next decade, leaving out Defense and Veterans accounts. One area both sides agree on is to claw back some $30bn in unspent COVID-19 funds, while Republicans want to attach policy priorities to any deal.
Dianne Feinstein, the oldest member of the US Senate, has developed Ramsay Hunt syndrome and brain inflammation after contracting shingles, her office has said. The 89-year-old California Democrat developed encephalitis and returned to Washington last month after nearly three months of absence. Members of her own party have called for her to resign, citing her health as reasons she is no longer fit to serve. She is not seeking re-election in 2024 and several Democratic members of Congress have already entered the race to replace her.
Three former FBI employees have testified to a special House committee investigating claims of government “weaponization” against conservatives. The individuals claimed there had been overreach and retaliation by the FBI, but testimony from Jennifer Leigh Moore, an executive assistant director of human resources at the agency, has shown that only 32 of almost 80,000 staff at the body currently have suspended security clearance. The testimony followed Wednesday’s announcement that the security clearance of former employees Marcus Allen and Steve Friend had been revoked amid concerns over the trio’s views of the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021. Friend was accused of espousing alternative theories about the attack, while Allen was said to have done the same and to have disregarded supervisoral requests that he stop. A third employee received a revocation for having entered the restricted Capitol area and having provided misleading information to investigators.
Louisiana lawmakers have been informed that they have additional surplus funds available to spend on this year’s budget, after the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference recognised an additional $323m for the current budget and a further $400m, which can be spent on next year's budget. The Senators want to breach the state’s expenditure cap to spend money primarily on infrastructure, whereas the House are more conservative, wishing to reduce debt burdens. With just three weeks left of Louisiana’s 2023 legislative session, lawmakers must reach an agreement and pass a budget before adjourning on 8 June.
The House GOP held a hearing focusing on a claim of FBI abuse of power, featuring several witnesses who claimed to be whistleblowers. However, it was discovered that the FBI stripped two of the witnesses of their security clearances, and Democrats have pointed to conspiratorial comments by the witnesses and their ties to a key ally of Donald Trump, Kash Patel, to cast doubt on their status. Former FBI agent Stephen Friend also called for the FBI to be "eradicated". The testimony given by the witnesses was considered controversial.
Representative Jamaal Bowman has accused Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of using violent rhetoric against Black men. After Bowman confronted Greene over a vote, the Georgia congresswoman accused the New Yorker of being aggressive. Bowman criticised this remark for perpetuating the stereotype of Black men. Greene has been accused of promoting a series of conspiracy theories including denying the result of the 2020 election. In the past, Democrats have ejected her from two committees over extremist comments she made and Republican leaders reinstated her following their victory in January.
Ginni Thomas, wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has become the focus of a number of ethical controversies, which has renewed interest in her 34-year-long career as a right-wing political lobbyist and Washington DC operator, and exposed gaps in disclosure obligations for justices’ families. New questions have emerged about her business dealings, including payments to one of her companies from a group that had business before the Supreme Court, according to investigative outlet ProPublica. Legal ethics experts call the payments “eye-popping.” Last year, she was investigated by law enforcement for a politically motivated “hit list.”
Law professor and originalist Michael Stokes Paulsen has given a speech claiming that something is wrong with the US Supreme Court’s approach to section one of the Fourteenth Amendment, which he feels goes beyond decisions he feels are wrong. Paulsen believes that the current Supreme Court only enforces the last two clauses of section one - addressing the rights of all persons - rather than the first three clauses, which address the status and rights of citizens, and that the Court’s approach is resulting in a jurisprudence that lacks any relationship to the original meaning of the amendment’s ‘Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.’ Paulsen suggests that “An increasing number of scholars now believe that the “Equal Protection of the Laws Clause” guarantees nothing more than the equal protection of the natural rights of life, liberty, and property—natural rights that belong to all persons regardless of citizenship,” and claims the current Supreme Court “leaves those three opening clauses unexamined and unenforced.”
Paulsen concludes by suggesting that the overall approach to the Fourteenth Amendment, focusing only on the last two clauses, has created an entity resembling “the terrible truth [that] is unavoidable when you and your grandson try to set the space shuttle upright on the table…. [A] terribly shaped creation that most likely will not work as originally intended.” Protest, civil disobedience, and appeals to the Constitutional amendment process are the only ways to redress the Supreme Court’s current trend, Paulsen advises.
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has grounded US outbound flights for the first time since 9/11, due to the failure of the Notice to Air Mission System. The FAA is part of the Department of Transport, headed by Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Critics argue that Buttigieg has failed to solve the aviation crisis quickly and has been preoccupied with staff leave in the face of ongoing issues. The president has directed an investigation into the cause of the failure, with the FAA set to provide regular updates.
Democrats in Congress are trying to take control of the US Supreme Court by showcasing politically oriented judges and vilifying older conservative justices in their attempt to push a staunchly liberal agenda, suggests The Washington Times. The goal is to alter the court to support a new, leftist interpretation of the Constitution that subverts "separation of powers, federalism, a written Constitution, and a judiciary that will follow - rather than control," the US Constitution, says the editorial. Recent tactics include impugning the ethical standards of some Supreme Court judges, attacking individual justices and positioning them as politically motivated. Despite such squabbles, SCOTUS has begun hearing arguably its most significant docket in years, with decisions due over the legality of the Texas abortion ban, gun rights, healthcare, and voting laws in the mid-term elections.
The US Federal Reserve's trillions of dollars of money printing has devalued the dollar and created the highest inflation rate in four decades, pushing the average American family's expenses up $7,100 per year, according to Kevin McCarthy, the US House Speaker. Since President Biden took office, consumer prices have risen 14.9%, while average weekly earnings are up just 9%, with the average US family losing $5,600 in purchasing power as a result of rampant inflation, according to this report from Fortune. McCarthy is hoping to force some fiscal sanity back into the Capitol building by fighting against the raising of the debt ceiling.
China is to allow tour groups from Taiwan to visit, in a move aimed at increasing exchange with the island. The proposal was given a cautious welcome, with tourism associations in Taiwan planning to open up discussions about the possibility of reciprocal measures. The move comes before a crucial Taiwanese presidential election next year, with the Kuomintang party being more China friendly and the Communist Party keen to woo them. The ban on Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan remains in place.
Thousands of US women are to stage a sit-in outside the Capitol building in Colorado, demanding stronger gun control laws, specifically a ban on assault weapons in addition to a gun buy-back scheme. Gun-related deaths, and potential threats posed by guns, form a pervasive trauma for many children, with 4 million American children having endured at least one lockdown in the 2017-2018 school year. While the sit-in could last for days, campaigners for Here 4 the Kids insist that the major point is to question the “sanity” of a culture which seeks to live with mass murder instead of trying to introduce effective gun controls.
Negotiators from the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's office are attempting to forge a budget deal to avoid a looming economic crisis. With a deadline as soon as 1 June, negotiators are racing to develop a budget-cutting arrangement that Republicans and Democrats can agree on, as McCarthy's newly empowered House Republicans try to introduce steep spending reductions in exchange for GOP votes to raise the debt limit, which currently stands at $31tn, to keep paying the USA's already-due bills. President Biden has cut short the rest of his trip to Papua New Guinea and Australia to return to Washington in an effort to make them agree on the deal.
US President Joe Biden left a working dinner with G7 leaders in Japan early to receive an update on debt ceiling negotiations from his team in Washington. The US risks defaulting on its debts if the ceiling is not raised by 1 June. The issue has caused a standoff between Republicans and Democrats, with a group of senators led by Bernie Sanders urging the President to invoke the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned of the catastrophic consequences of a default, while negotiators are thrashing out terms of the deal between the parties.
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott has filed an official statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission to run for the Republican nomination for president. Scott, the only Black Republican member of the Senate, has designated his official campaign committee as “Tim Scott for America.” He has served as South Carolina’s junior senator since 2013 and is considered a rising star in the Republican Party. Scott joins a GOP primary field that includes former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
New York Representative Jamaal Bowman has been gaining notice in Congress due to his confrontational style, publicly speaking out against Republicans and moderate Democrats. This approach has assured the public of his passion and mission. Despite his left-wing political mission, Mr. Bowman’s approach has caught the eye of a wider section of the Democrat party and there has been speculation about his ambition. Videos of him arguing with House Republicans and being told to “calm down” by an AR-15-owning representative from Kentucky circulated on social media. Alongside the success of his confrontational tactics, his approach causes risk to his personal safety as a Black man. Last week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene accused him of called her a white supremacist which she criticised as her being treated "equal to” someone “calling a person of color the N-word.” Scholars of political rhetoric suggested that his aggressive approach will stand as a departure from how Black politicians have engaged with politics before. Mr. Bowman is an educator and often engages with politics differently than the institution is used to.
A police lieutenant has been indicted on a charge of obstruction of justice and three charges of making false statements. Shane Lamond, then the head of intelligence at the Washington DC police department, is accused of telling the leader of far-right nationalist group the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, that he would be arrested for his actions regarding a pro-Trump rally in December 2020, thus obstructing the investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Three other Proud Boys leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the riot earlier this month.
