April 18, 2024

Thursday, April 18, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

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Kamala is always busy.

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Tax Day for the Biden-Harris Team.

The President and Vice President release their 2023 tax returns, setting new record for transparency.

Today, the President and First Lady released their 2023 federal income tax return. After restoring the bipartisan tradition of sharing presidential tax returns with the public, President Biden has now shared a total of 26 years of tax returns with the country. Once again demonstrating his commitment to being transparent with the American people, President Biden has released the most tax returns of any commander-in-chief while in office.
 
President Biden believes that all occupants of the Oval Office should be open and honest with the American people, and that the longstanding tradition of annually releasing presidential tax returns should continue unbroken.
 
The President and First Lady filed their income tax return jointly and reported federal adjusted gross income of $619,976. They paid $146,629 in federal income tax, and their 2023 effective federal income tax rate is 23.7 percent.
 
The President and First Lady also reported contributions of $20,477 to 17 different charities. Among those gifts to charity was a $5,000 contribution to the Beau Biden Foundation, a public charity dedicated to ensuring that all children are free from the threat of abuse. They also donated to St. Joseph on the Brandywine, their home parish, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), and the National Fraternal Order of Police Foundation, among other charities.
 
The President and First Lady also released their Delaware income tax return and reported paying $30,908 in Delaware income tax. The First Lady also released her Virginia income tax return and reported paying $3,549 in Virginia income tax.
 
View the President and First Lady’s tax returns here.

The Vice President and the Second Gentleman also released their 2023 federal income tax return, as well as state income tax returns for California and the District of Columbia. Including today’s release, the Vice President has published 20 years of tax returns. 
 
The Vice President and the Second Gentleman reported federal adjusted gross income of $450,299. They paid $88,570 in federal income tax, amounting to a 2023 effective federal income tax rate of 19.7 percent. They also paid $15,167 in California income tax, and Mr. Emhoff paid $11,599 in District of Columbia income tax. They contributed $23,026 to charity in 2023.
 
View the Vice President and Second Gentleman’s tax returns here.(Source. The White House)

You may recall that Trump never released his tax returns as a presidential candidate or while he occupied the White House.

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The Polls are far from binding but how is Joe doing?

With women.

General population.

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A Look at Select States.

Update on Arizona.

Far-right US Senate candidate tells crowd to ‘strap on a Glock’ before elections.

Kari Lake of Arizona warned supporters of ‘intense’ election year in which Democrats will come after them ‘with everything.’

In a campaign speech made to a crowd in Arizona’s Mohave county on Sunday, Lake echoed Trump-like terms in calling Washington DC a “swamp” – and used a reference to carrying guns when she told people to prepare for an “intense” election year.

Lake hopes to represent Arizona in the seat to be vacated by Democrat turned independent Kyrsten Sinema.

Lake told the crowd: “We need to send people to Washington DC that the swamp does not want there. And I can think of a couple people they don’t want there. First on that list is Donald J Trump; second is Kari Lake.

“He’s willing to sacrifice everything I am. That’s why they’re coming after us with ‘lawfare’,” Lake said, referencing the ex-president’s many legal troubles as he stands trial in New York.

“They’re going to come after us with everything. That’s why the next six months is going to be intense. And we need to strap on our … ”

Lake briefly paused before deciding on the item her supporters should strap on. After suggesting a “seatbelt”, a “helmet” and “the armor of God”, she said: “And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.” (To read the whole article in the Guardian, click on the article title colored blue above).

Arizona Republicans Splinter Over Repeal of 1864 Abortion Ban.

The State Senate introduced a bill to repeal a near-total abortion ban dating back to the Civil War, while the House blocked an effort to do so.

The two chambers of Arizona’s State Legislature diverged sharply on Wednesday over whether to repeal the state’s 1864 law banning abortion, capping a chaotic day as legislators and activists sparred over the fate of the Civil War-era ban.

Only hours after Republicans in the State House scuttled another effort to repeal the ban, which was upheld by a State Supreme Court ruling last week, a handful of Republicans in the State Senate sided with Democrats and allowed them to introduce a bill to repeal it.

It will be at least a week before the Senate can vote on the bill, but the matter could be a moot point unless Democrats in the House find a way to get a bill passed there.

The House Republican leadership shows no signs of relenting, despite pressure from prominent Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, to toss the ban that many voters viewed as extreme and archaic. (To read the whole article by the New York Times, click on the article title colored blue above 👆).

Update on Michigan.

What a great Governor Gretchen Whitmer is.

Michigan Democrats win special elections to regain full control of state government.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Democrats won back a majority in the Michigan House and restored their party’s full control of state government Tuesday thanks to victories in two special elections.

Mai Xiong won the special election in the 13th District, which covers Warren and part of Detroit, while Peter Herzberg won in the 25th District, which contains the cities of Wayne and Westland. Both candidates were favorites in the heavily Democratic districts.

The lower chamber has been tied 54-54 between Democratic and Republican lawmakers since November, when two Democratic representatives vacated their seats after winning mayoral races in their hometowns.

Democrats flipped both chambers in the 2022 midterms while maintaining control of the governor’s office to win a trifecta for the first time in 40 years. They moved quickly to roll back decades of Republican measures and implement the party’s agenda in their first year, including overhauling the state’s gun laws.

Since the House deadlocked, Republicans have pushed to pass legislation they say is bipartisan, such as a government transparency package, which would open the Legislature and governor’s office up to public record requests.

With each Democratic candidate winning Tuesday, the party will regain control through the end of the year, with every seat in the House up for reelection in November.

Xiong is a Macomb County commissioner who was endorsed in the primary by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Herzberg is a Westland City Council member who defeated a Whitmer-endorsed candidate in the primary earlier this year.

Lawmakers are now expected to turn their focus to a state budget with a self-imposed July 1 deadline.

Whitmer in her annual State of the State speech in January called on lawmakers to pass a $80 billion budget that would provide free community college for all high school graduates and free preschool for 4-year-olds.

In recent months, Democrats have also deliberated on expanding the state’s hate crime law and enacting a comprehensive school safety package of bills in the wake of the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School.

Lawmakers will be working against the clock. They are set to take a summer break at the end of June and representatives will soon begin campaigning in their districts.

In recent months, Democrats have also deliberated on expanding the state’s hate crime law and enacting a comprehensive school safety package of bills in the wake of the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School. (Associated Press).

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A Look at the Congress.

The Senate yesterday.

Following the House impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, this 👇 happened. . .

Senate Dismisses Impeachment Charges Against Mayorkas Without a Trial.

Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas

Democrats quickly swept aside the articles of impeachment accusing the homeland security secretary of refusing to enforce immigration laws and breach of public trust, calling them unconstitutional.

The Senate on Wednesday dismissed the impeachment case against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, voting along party lines before his trial got underway to sweep aside two charges accusing him of failing to enforce immigration laws and breaching the public trust.

By a vote of 51 to 48, with one senator voting “present,” the Senate ruled that the first charge was unconstitutional because it failed to meet the constitutional bar of a high crime or misdemeanor. Republicans united in opposition except for Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the lone “present” vote, while Democrats were unanimous in favor.

Ms. Murkowski joined her party in voting against dismissal of the second count on the same grounds; it fell along party lines on a 51-to-49 vote.

Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, moved to dismiss each charge, arguing that a cabinet member cannot be impeached and removed merely for carrying out the policies of the administration he serves.

“To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” Mr. Schumer said.

It took only about three hours for the Senate to dispense with the matter.

Republicans, for their part, warned that the dangerous precedent was the one that Democrats set by moving to skip an impeachment trial altogether, which they argued was a shirking of the Senate’s constitutional duty. They tried several times to delay the dismissal, failing on a series of party-line votes.

“Tabling articles of impeachment would be unprecedented in the history of the Senate — it’s as simple as that,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader.

Mr. McConnell did not mention that he voted in favor of an unsuccessful Republican effort in 2021 to dismiss a second impeachment case against former President Donald J. Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol before the Senate held a trial.

Republican senators were outraged at Mr. Schumer’s maneuvering. Some accused him of degrading the institution of the Senate and the Constitution itself. Others beat their desks as they called for a delay of the trial for two weeks, until next month or even until after the November election. They accused Mr. Mayorkas of lying to Congress and impeding Republican investigations.

Senator Mike Lee of Utah, visibly frustrated, rushed around the chamber trying to strategize with his fellow Republicans.

“The Mayorkas-Biden policies have led to the worst border crisis in U.S. history,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber.

Mr. Mayorkas is the first sitting cabinet member in United States history to be impeached. William Belknap, the secretary of war, was impeached in 1876, but he resigned just minutes before the scheduled vote.

Unlike Belknap, Mr. Mayorkas was never accused of corruption or of any crime other than carrying out immigration policies that Republicans oppose.

Democrats denounced the impeachment of Mr. Mayorkas as illegitimate and politicized. Legal experts have called the case against him groundless, arguing that the accusations against him do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. But Republicans pushed forward anyway in what was essentially a bid to blame the secretary for President Biden’s immigration policies, which they contend have fueled a wave of illegal migration.

The votes came after Republicans spent much of the day railing against chaos at the U.S. border with Mexico and blaming the Biden administration for it. Under Mr. Biden, crossings at the southern border have reached record highs. Republicans insisted Mr. Schumer hold a trial in which House impeachment managers would lay out their accusations.

Failing to do so, Mr. McConnell said, “would mean running both from our fundamental responsibility and from the glaring truth of the record-breaking crisis at our southern border.”

On Wednesday, the Senate prepared to transform itself into a court of impeachment, with senators sworn in on the floor and required to sit at their desks to begin the proceeding. But they spent much of the afternoon haggling over whether to have the trial at all, and ultimately Democrats, who control the chamber, prevailed in their bid to shut down the proceeding before it got going.

After the first charge was dismissed, Mr. Lee rose on the floor and angrily demanded, “If this is not a high crime and misdemeanor, what is?”

After the impeachment articles were killed, Mr. Lee and fellow Republican senators took turns laying out the accusations against the cabinet secretary, but speaking to a nearly empty Senate floor.

In a news conference after the votes, Mr. Schumer said he had no regrets about setting a precedent that impeachment allegations could be dismissed without a trial. If future secretaries or presidents are impeached over policy disagreements, those accusations, too, should be dismissed, he said.

“The dangerous precedent is not the one that Republicans are talking about, but the one of letting impeachment take the place of policy disagreements,” Mr. Schumer said.

Mr. Mayorkas has spent months essentially ignoring the case and continuing to work. He negotiated a border security deal with both Senate Republicans and Democrats that fell apart after former Mr. Trump opposed it.

Mr. Mayorkas spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill talking about his agency’s budget request and calling on Congress to provide the department with more resources to enforce border laws, hire more personnel and pass the legislation he negotiated.

“Today’s decision by the Senate to reject House Republicans’ baseless attacks on Secretary Mayorkas proves definitively that there was no evidence or constitutional grounds to justify impeachment,” said Mia Ehrenberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. (New York Times).

The House yesterday.

Columbia’s president rebuts claims she has allowed the university to become a hotbed of antisemitism.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — Columbia University’s president took a firm stance against antisemitism in a congressional hearing on Wednesday, but she faced bruising criticism from Republicans who say her actions haven’t supported her words, especially when it comes to disciplining faculty and students accused of bias.

Nemat [Minouche] Shafik’s visit to Capitol Hill was a reprise of a December hearing that led to the resignations of presidents at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. It’s part of a Republican campaign to investigate antisemitism at America’s most prestigious universities since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

After the other Ivy League presidents’ equivocation led to weeks of backlash, Shafik focused her message on fighting antisemitism rather than protecting free speech.

“Antisemitism has no place on our campus, and I am personally committed to doing everything I can to confront it directly,” Shafik said in her opening comments. (To read the whole article by the Associated Press, click on the article title colored blue above 👆).

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Record interest in women’s basketball isn’t raising pay for players—yet.

Incoming Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark wears Prada at the WNBA draft.

– Payday. This year’s college basketball season and its No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark have been defined by some big numbers: 18.7 million TV viewers for the NCAA women’s final. 3,951 career points. As much as $52.3 million contributed to the state of Iowa’s economy. 

Now, a smaller number is defining the next chapter of the Iowa star’s career: $76,535, her starting salary in the WNBA. Clark was chosen by the Indiana Fever in the WNBA draft on Monday night with a four-year salary total of $338,056.

For the woman who set scoring and viewership records, reinvigorated college basketball, and was dressed by Prada for the sold-out draft in New York, that’s an astoundingly low number. (The median household income in Indiana, where Clark will be playing, is $67,173, according to the Census Bureau.) 

But it’s nothing new. 

The last time conversations around professional women’s players’ salaries reached a fever pitch was when Brittney Griner was detained in Russia in 2022. Griner played in Russia because of the WNBA’s low salaries; players often supplement their income overseas in the off-season. The highest-paid veteran players earn around $250,000 a year, according to Bloomberg. 

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert often reminds salary critics that the league is only 28 years old, compared to the 78-year-old NBA and 104-year-old NFL. (The starting salary for the No. 1 NBA draft pick? $10 million in year one and $55 million for four years.) The WNBA still has only 12 teams, although Engelbert says she’s working towards an expansion to 16 teams by the 2028 season. 

Some of this could change soon. The league’s collective bargaining agreement runs through 2027, but has an option for renegotiation at the end of 2024, Bloomberg reports. 

For now, Clark’s salary shows how long it takes for a surge of interest in women’s sports and women’s basketball in particular to make its way to players directly. Millions of viewers and ad dollars don’t immediately translate to more money in all players’ pockets. Until the league catches up, there will be a disconnect between the stature of these record-breaking players in the national consciousness and their earning potential on the court.

Clark is expected to supplement her on-court income with around $3 million in endorsement deals in her first year with partners like Nike and State Farm, the sameas what she earned from name image likeness deals in college. (Not a pay cut from the NCAA to the WNBA, another misconception Engelbert has pushed backagainst.) Other stars like Angel Reese have also inked lucrative endorsements with brands like Beats by Dre and PepsiCo’s Starry. Not to mention the WNBA’s own brand partnerships ranging from Glossier (which did Clark’s draft-night makeup and shared the product lineup on Instagram) to haircare brand Mielle Organics and new over-the-counter birth control Opill. 

Not every player, however, has million-dollar deals to make up for low pay on the court. For all the money women’s basketball players are earning for brands, networks, and, yes, even the league, the top priority should be to make sure they see some of those profits—and soon. (Emma Hinchliffe, Broadsheet)

The President weighed in on this too.

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Barbra fights the good fight against antisemitism.

Barbra Streisand Records New Song, ‘Love Will Survive,’ for Peacock’s ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ to ‘Remember the 6 Million Souls Who Were Lost.’

Barbra Streisand has recorded a new song, “Love Will Survive,” to serve as the end-title theme for “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” a six-part, Holocaust-themed series that premieres on Peacock in the U.S. and Sky in other territories on May 2.

The song will come out globally via her longtime label, Columbia Records, on April 25.

It’s Streisand’s first-ever song pegged for a television series. Although she has released a series of archival recordings in recent years, “Love Will Survive” marks her first release of new and original material since her “Walls” album in 2018.

Said Streisand in a statement: “Because of the rise in antisemitism around the world today, I wanted to sing ‘Love Will Survive’ in the context of this series, as a way of remembering the 6 million souls who were lost less than 80 years ago. And also to say that even in the darkest of times, the power of love can triumph and endure.” (Variety)

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