Month: April 2022

The Senate voted on Thursday to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson, making her the first Black woman to serve as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Senators voted 53-47 in favor of her confirmation. Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted with Democrats to approve President Biden’s first nomination to the country’s highest court.

Jackson was with President Biden in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to watch the historic Senate vote. The White House also said Biden, Jackson and Vice President Kamala Harris will speak about the confirmation on Friday. The 51-year-old Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was nominated in February; last month, she underwent questioning for two days before the Senate judiciary committee. While some Republicans grilled Jackson on her track record and accused her of being soft on crime as a judge, the committee ultimately passed Jackson’s nomination on to the full Senate.

Jackson’s confirmation maintains the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative edge. The last justice nominated and confirmed to the high court was Amy Coney Barrett in 2020. She was appointed by former President Donald Trump to succeed liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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On Thursday, the House passed a $55 billion bill to aid restaurants and small businesses impacted by COVID-19.
The bill includes $42 billion for restaurants and $13 billion for other small businesses. The Senate still must vote to pass the bill for it to become law.

The money in this bill replenishes the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, created by the Biden American Rescue Plan that became law in 2021, which provided $28.6 billion for restaurants hit by the pandemic.

In addition to the $42 billion for restaurants in the House bill, it provides another $13 billion for small businesses ineligible for other pandemic relief programs.

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On Wednesday, a jury of 12 found Lawrence Ray guilty of 15 counts related to his decade-long reign of abuse over students at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. The 62-year-old Ray, who is the father of a daughter who attended the small Westchester County liberal arts college, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison with a mandatory minimum of 15 years. Sentencing is set for Sept. 16.

Ray, an ex-convict, faced charges including sex trafficking, forced labor, tax evasion and racketeering. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan argued that Ray’s psychological abuse and physical torment of his victims started out by charming them, then by using his power over the victims to extort sex, money and other favors from them.  Ray posed as a ‘father figure’ to his daughter’s fellow students, and moved into his child’s on-campus dorm in 2010 following a prison stint for securities fraud. He shared the dorm with her male and female roommates, and the group later relocated to a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment.

Ray has maintained his innocence, claiming he was falsely accused of the crimes; however he did not testify at his trial.. Ray has been incarcerated in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest in 2020.

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The U.S. House of Representatives approved “contempt of Congress” charges on Wednesday against two former aides to Donald Trump — Peter Navarro and Daniel Scavino — for failing to cooperate with the probe into the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Navarro, who was a top trade adviser to the former president, and Scavino, who was a deputy chief of staff, did not comply with subpoenas to appear before the House Select Committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. House members backed the charges against the two men with a 220-203 vote; it now refers the matter to the Department of Justice for a decision on whether to press criminal charges.

Scavino and Navarro have argued that their communications are protected by executive privilege, although many legal experts have said that principle does not apply to former presidents. Contempt of Congress bears a penalty of up to a year’s imprisonment and a fine up to $100,000.

The Democratic-led Select Committee has been investigating events leading to the Capitol attack by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, when Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers gathered to certify Democrat Biden’s victory in the November 2020 election.

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On Tuesday, Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill that would make it illegal to perform an abortion in the state except in medical emergencies, penalizing those who do with up to $100,000 in fines and 10 years in prison.

The state House of Representatives brought the bill to a vote this week, after it was passed last year by the state’s Senate. It now heads to the desk of Governor Kevin Stitt for signing, who has stated his support for anti-abortion legislation. The bill would then take effect this summer, unless blocked by courts.

Several other anti-abortion bills are making its way through Oklahoma’s legislature. Separate legislation introduced this year proposes banning almost all abortions and relying on private citizens to sue any person who “aids or abets” abortions, similar to Texas’ six-week abortion ban. The measure approved on Tuesday states, “a person shall not purposely perform or attempt to perform an abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.”

Oklahoma has become a destination for Texas women seeking abortions, since Texas in September banned abortions for pregnancies of six weeks or less.

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Matt Mowers — a former Trump administration official, and leading Republican primary candidate running for Congress in New Hampshire — voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, possibly violating federal voting law.

Mowers cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire’s 2016 presidential primary, voting records show. At the time, Mowers served as the director of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state. Four months later, Mowers cast another ballot in New Jersey’s Republican presidential primary, using his parents’ address to re-register in his home state, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

Legal experts say Mowers’ actions could violate a federal law that prohibits “voting more than once” in “any general, special, or primary election”. That includes casting a ballot in separate jurisdictions “for an election to the same candidacy or office”.

Mowers’ campaign declined to make him available for an interview. In a brief statement, campaign spokesperson John Corbett said: “Matt was proud to work for President Trump as the GOP establishment was working to undermine his nomination. Matt moved for work and was able to participate in the primary in support of President Trump and serve as a delegate at a critical time for the Republican Party and country.”

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