Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy To Address US Congress On Wednesday – Live – The Guardian

The New York Times is reporting that American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC, is filing a complaint with the Federal Election Committee accusing Donald Trump of violating campaign finance law by using campaign funds without formally announcing his 2024 presidential run.

Federal rules state that those who raise or spend more than $5,000 in support of a presidential campaign must register with the FEC. Though Trump has repeatedly teased a 2024 bid, he has not formally filed for re-election – such a filing would restrict how he raises and spends his campaign money, including his existing war chest.

“I know what I’m going to do, but we’re not supposed to be talking about it yet from the standpoint of campaign finance laws,” he said this fall. American Bridge said this quote is proof that he is improperly using his existing political committees to advance a presidential run.

A spokesman for Trump called the complaint frivolous.

The process to approve Joe Biden’s nominees for Federal Reserve board – including the Federal Reserve chair – have all been stalled over one particular nominee: Sarah Bloom Raskin, wife of Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of Congress.

Last month, Republicans refused to attend the meeting to move the nomination process forward. They wanted senator Sherrod Brown, chair of the banking committee reviewing the nominations, to separate Raskin from the other four nominees, but Brown refused – a move the White House supported. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said if Republicans disagreed with the nomination, they should vote that way, but that it was irresponsible to not show up and do their jobs.

This stalemate in political will received a new development today in the form of Joe Manchin, the moderate Democratic senator from West Virginia with a penchant for throwing a wrench into the Biden legislative agenda. Manchin announced today that he will oppose the nomination of Raskin, putting into question the slim 51 to 50 Democratic majority.

The White House said it is “working to line up the bipartisan support” needed to get Raskin confirmed.

Ginni Thomas, longtime conservative activist and wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has denied that that she helped organize the rally that became that 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

“I played no role with those who were planning and leading the January 6 events,” Thomas said in a lengthy interview with the Washington Free Beacon. “There are stories in the press suggesting I paid or arranged for buses. I did not. There are other stories saying I mediated feuding factions of leaders for that day. I did not.”

The interview comes after New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker reported on her links to rally organizers and that she had served on the board of a conservative group that distributed documents about challenging the 2020 election results.

In December 2021, Thomas signed a letter from the Council for National Policy’s political arm condemning the House select committee tasked with investigating 6 January attack. One month later, the supreme court took on Donald Trump’s request to block the committee from getting White House records that were ordered released by Joe Biden and two lower courts – Thomas’s husband, Clarence Thomas, was the only justice who ruled in favor of Trump’s request.

Thomas told the Free Beacon that she was “disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse”.

Martin Pengelly

Doubts about the electability of Black candidates “should have no place in America in 2022”, a contender for the Democratic nomination for governor in Maryland said, after an email from a party official and donor expressing such doubt went public.

The email from Barbara Goldberg Goldman, deputy treasurer of the state Democratic party, was obtained by Axios. The news site noted the disparity between such doubts and Democratic reliance on Black voters in states across the US, not least in the election of Joe Biden as president.

In the email, which Axios said was written “to other party insiders”, Goldberg Goldman explained why she was backing Tom Perez, a former labor secretary and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, for the nomination for governor this year.

“So, my thinking beyond here is the age-old question,” Goldberg Goldman wrote. “Which candidate(s) have a better chance in the general election of beating an attractive female [Larry] Hogan team member for whom both [Democrats] and [Republicans] have expressed genuine likability?”

The possible Republican nominee referred to as a successor to Hogan, who has served two terms, is Kelly Schulz, currently state secretary for commerce.

“Consider this,” Goldberg Goldman wrote. “Three African American males have run statewide for governor and have lost. Maryland is not a blue state. It’s a purple one. This is a fact we must not ignore. In the last 20 years, only eight have been with a Democratic governor. We need a winning team. IMHO.”

Full story:

Last week, the Jewish Insider reported that Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said at a talk for the Women’s National Democratic Club that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state” and that he didn’t believe that the majority of American Jews identified as pro-Israel. “I believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there’s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home,” he said.

O’Brien later said his comments had been misreported and that he had said: “I don’t believe that Israel should be preserved as a state in which on race is legally entitled to oppress another.”

Today, all 25 Jewish Democratic members of Congress issued a statement condemning O’Brien’s remarks.

“As Jewish members of the House of Representatives, we represent diverse views on a number of issues relating to Israel,” the statement reads. “However, we are in full agreement that Mr. O’Brien’s patronizing attempt to speak on behalf of the American Jewish community is alarming and deeply offensive. He has added his name to the list of those who, across centuries, have tried to deny and usurp the Jewish people’s independent agency. We stand united in condemning this and any antisemitic attempt to deny the Jewish people control of their own destiny.”

NBC is reporting that the White House is discussing having Joe Biden travel to Europe for a Ukraine-focused trip.

A major new Biden administration initiative to facilitate access to Covid-19 antivirals will have a limited impact and fail to mitigate certain health inequities, major pharmacist groups argue, because pharmacists are restricted from prescribing the pills.

Announced in Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the “Test to Treat” program is meant to address the maddening difficulty Americans have had in accessing Covid-19 treatments. The administration will channel newly increasing stocks of antiviral pills to major retail pharmacies that have in-house clinics, providing one-stop testing and antivirals access.

The program, which the administration aims to provide for free (in the face of fierce Republican opposition to new Covid-19 spending), is also slated to roll out in Veterans Affairs clinics, community health centers and long-term care facilities.

Major participants include some 250 Walgreens stores, 225 Kroger Little Clinics and 1,200 CVS MinuteClinics. CVS clinics in particular are staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants, authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prescribe the two currently available Covid antivirals, Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ molnupiravir.

In a 9 March letter to Biden calling for pharmacists to be granted authority to prescribe these pills, 14 organizations representing pharmacies and pharmacists insisted Test to Treat’s impact will be compromised by the fact that such in-house clinics are relatively limited in number and largely in urban areas.

“Unfortunately, rural and underserved communities are less likely to benefit from your test to treat approach because of this limitation,” the letter states.

Full story:

Martin Pengelly

The Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson has been widely accused of echoing Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine. According to a report on Sunday, earlier this month the Putin regime in Moscow sent out an instruction to friendly media outlets: use more clips of Carlson.

Mother Jones, a progressive magazine, said it had obtained memos produced by the Russian department of information and telecommunications support.

One document, it said, was entitled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)”, or 3 March. The magazine published pictures of the memo, which it said it was given by “a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified”.

It said the memo included an instruction: “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticises the actions of the United States [and] Nato, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the eastern countries and Nato towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally.”

Full story:

Congresswoman Madeleine Dean has become the latest Democrat to test positive for Covid-19 after attending an annual strategy retreat in Philadelphia with about half of the total 222 House Democrats.

The representative from Pennsylvania joins congresswomen Zoe Lofgren of California and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. All are vaccinated and are experiencing only mild symptoms.

With Donald Trump allies gaining power and influence, conservative influence powerhouse Conservative Political Action Conference – better known as CPAC – and the American Conservative Union are facing criticism that their gatherings have become pay-to-play affairs with corporate lobbyists.

Peter Stone has more here:

Greetings, live blog readers. Happy Monday.

As we move into Day 19 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the Kremlin showing no sign of slowing down, there is news from Washington: Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, will address Congress on Wednesday.

Announcing the address, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said: “The Congress, our country and the world are in awe of the people of Ukraine, who have shown extraordinary courage, resilience and determination in the face of Russia’s unprovoked vicious and illegal war.

“As war rages on in Ukraine, it is with great respect and admiration for the Ukrainian people that we invite all members of the House and Senate to attend a virtual address to the United States Congress, delivered by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine on Wednesday 16 March at 9am.”

The address will only be open to members of Congress, the Democrats said.

Congress, meanwhile, is laying it on heavy on the Biden administration.

Politico Playbook took note this morning on how even though lawmakers typically let the White House take charge on matters of foreign policy, Republicans and Democrats have joined forces to push for the ban on Russian oil imports and an end to Russian trade relations.

Now Congress is amping up the pressure when it comes to the issue of the fighter jets in Poland. Zelenskiy has repeatedly pleaded to his global partners to send aid in the form of fighter jets. Poland has a cache of Soviet-style planes and last week Polish officials said they were available to Ukraine as soon as the US was ready to make the transfer happen.

The US has balked at facilitating this transfer for a number of reasons – they would be coming from a Nato airbase, for one, and over the weekend, Russia warned that it would view any such delivery as an escalation.

But Rob Portman, the Republican senator from Ohio, spoke to CNN from the Ukraine-Poland border on Sunday and pointed out that Vladimir Putin had also called sanctions an “act of war”.

Stay tuned for more.