Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman writes in the New York Times that she considered pulling out from the event for fear of what would happen.
Said Gorman: “I was scared of failing my people, my poetry. But I was also terrified on a physical level.”
She added: “I did know at the inauguration I was going to become highly visible — which is a very dangerous thing to be in America, especially if you’re Black and outspoken and have no Secret Service.”
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was arrested Thursday while participating in a voting-rights protest near the Capitol, the Washington Post reports.
“That is a very good question, and I’ll let you know when we take the majority back.”
— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by Politico, when asked what the GOP agenda would be if Republicans were in charge.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) doesn’t sound ready to move quickly on any narrower spending bill, Politico reports.
He indicated he wanted to “start with clean sheet of paper and start over” with negotiations on the climate and social spending package.
Said Manchin: “We’ll just be starting from scratch whenever we start.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she trusts her members not to do anything improper while trading stocks — but also pledged to “review all the bills that are coming in and see where the support is in our caucus” for banning that practice among sitting members of Congress, Politico reports.
Said Pelosi: “To give a blanket attitude of we can’t do this and we can’t do that because we can’t be trusted, I just don’t buy into that. But if the members want to do that, I’m okay with it.”
A new study finds humanity is currently releasing more chemical and plastic pollution into the environment than Earth can support, EcoWatch reports.
Related from Green That Life:
“House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday joined his Senate counterpart in entertaining potential reform of the 135-year-old law that Donald Trump allies used to fuel their case against certification of the 2020 election,” Politico reports.
Aaron Blake: “President Biden clearly wanted to send a message at Wednesday’s news conference. After the media complained for the better part of a year about their lack of access to him, Biden spoke and answered questions for nearly two hours — and he suggested/joked repeatedly that it might go on for hours more. The message: I’m not hiding from this.”
“But the whole thing also wound up reinforcing why he generally has been kept out of such lengthy back-and-forths.”
“On two extremely important issues, Biden offered comments that the White House has now been forced to clean up.”
“An American Airlines flight to London from Miami turned around about an hour into its journey on Wednesday night because of a passenger who refused to follow coronavirus masking rules,” the New York Times reports.
“President Biden insisted that the United States would not accept even a ‘minor incursion’ of Ukraine by Russia, as the White House continued efforts to clarify Biden’s remarks Wednesday suggesting that it might,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Biden: “I’ve been absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.”
He added: “Let there be no doubt at all: If Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price.”
“The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol sent a letter on Thursday to Ivanka Trump, the daughter of former President Donald J. Trump, seeking her cooperation with its inquiry,” the New York Times reports.
“The letter is the latest step that the committee has taken to obtain information from Mr. Trump’s family about the events that led up to the Capitol riot.”
“This is a reconciliation. So when people say let’s divide up and they don’t understand the process.”
— Speaker Nancy Pelosi, quoted by Punchbowl News, on whether the Build Back Better Act could be broken up as some Democrats, including President Biden, have suggested.
“Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is requesting a special grand jury to aid in her investigation of former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“Special grand juries, which typically have 16 to 23 members, can’t issue indictments. But they can subpoena witnesses, compel the production of documents, inspect and enter into certain offices for the purposes of the investigation.”
New York Times: “The distinction of a special grand jury is that it would focus exclusively on the Trump investigation, whereas regular grand juries handle many cases and cannot spend as much time on a single one.”
This is a remarkable finding from the new AP-NORC poll: When asked if they would like to see President Biden run for re-election, just 28% said yes, while 70% said no.
“Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) promised in November that he would run for attorney general if he could raise $1 million in 10 days,” the Texas Tribune reports.
“And while he eventually entered the race, claiming he met his goal, a new campaign finance report shows he did not come close… His report shows he only got roughly $27,000.”
John Cassidy: “Two years to the week after the first Covid-19 cases in this country were confirmed, it’s increasingly clear who the biggest economic winners have been. The tech giants that benefited from the shift to remote work, such as Amazon and Microsoft, are the most obvious ones, but the list also includes major Wall Street banks and large financial firms.”
“Last Friday, JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the country, announced that it had made a post-tax profit of $48.3 billion in 2021. Nearly fifty billion dollars. That’s about thirty-five per cent more than the thirty-six billion dollars that JPMorgan Chase made in 2019, the year before the pandemic, which was itself a record figure.”
“On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs announced record post-tax profits of $21.6 billion for 2021. The past twelve months have been such a stellar period for the firm that, according to Bloomberg News, it is preparing to give some of its most senior employees two year-end bonuses.”
“It’s hard to exaggerate the extent to which the current Wall Street bonanza is a product of the stimulative policies that the Fed and Congress introduced to lessen the pain of the pandemic.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.