WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden approached the dais for his his first address to a joint session of a socially distant Congress on Wednesday evening, he stopped for a fist bump with an unlikely partner: Rep. Liz Cheney
Cheney, R-Wyo., serves as the No. 3 Republican in House leadership and has been critical of the Democratic president. She is the daughter of staunch Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney. But she also has drawn the ire of her own caucus for her condemnation of former President Donald Trump’s comments after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Here are some other moments you may have missed from Biden’s first address to Congress:
Chief Justice Roberts applauds Jill Biden
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was among those who clapped for first lady Jill Biden when she received a standing ovation as the president spoke about education and community college. The first lady is a community college professor.
Roberts’ applause was notable because Supreme Court justices typically abstain from reacting during presidential addresses as a symbol of the Judiciary Branch’s nonpartisanship.
Viewers at home also likely caught a glimpse of what appeared to be Sen. Ted Cruz dozing off in the well-spaced audience of the House chamber.
As Biden discussed immigration, a camera panned to Cruz, R-Texas, just as his eyes were drooping.
“I can summarize his speech in three words for you: boring, but radical,” Cruz said.
Harris, Pelosi on the dais
In his opening remarks, Biden gave a nod to Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who were standing behind him. Harris is the first woman to be elected vice president and Pelosi became the first woman speaker in 2007.
“Madam speaker, madam vice president,” Biden said when he arrived at the podium. “No president has ever said those words from this podium, and it’s about time.”
Iowa 2nd’s winner tweaks her opponent
And Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, offered a not-so-subtle jab to her Democratic counterparts. The first-term congresswoman wore a mask with the number “6” emblazoned on the front – her margin of victory over Democrat Rita Hart.
The tight race in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District dragged out for weeks and made its way to a House panel when Hart appealed her loss. The appeal was later dropped before the panel had an opportunity to weigh in.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden declared that “America is rising anew” as he called for an expansion of federal programs to drive the economy past the coronavirus pandemic and broadly extend the social safety net on a scale not seen in decades.
Biden’s nationally televised address to Congress, his first, raised the stakes for his ability to sell his plans to voters of both parties, even if Republican lawmakers prove resistant. The Democratic president is following Wednesday night’s speech by pushing his plans in person, beginning in Georgia on Thursday and then on to Pennsylvania and Virginia in the days ahead.
In the address, Biden pointed optimistically to the nation’s emergence from the coronavirus scourge as a moment for America to prove that its democracy can still work and maintain primacy in the world.
Speaking in highly personal terms while demanding massive structural changes, the president marked his first 100 days in office by proposing a $1.8 trillion investment in children, families and education to help rebuild an economy devastated by the virus and compete with rising global competitors.
His speech represented both an audacious vision and a considerable gamble. He is governing with the most slender of majorities in Congress, and even some in his own party have blanched at the price tag of his proposals.
At the same time, the speech highlighted Biden’s fundamental belief in the power of government as a force for good, even at a time when it is so often the object of scorn.
“I can report to the nation: America is on the move again,” he said. “Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength.”
While the ceremonial setting of the Capitol was the same as usual, the visual images were unlike any previous presidential address. Members of Congress wore masks and were seated apart because of pandemic restrictions. Outside the grounds were still surrounded by fencing after insurrectionists in January protesting Biden’s election stormed to the doors of the House chamber where he gave his address.
“America is ready for takeoff. We are working again. Dreaming again. Discovering again. Leading the world again. We have shown each other and the world: There is no quit in America,” Biden said.
This year’s scene at the front of the House chamber also had a historic look: For the first time, a female vice president, Kamala Harris, was seated behind the chief executive. And she was next to another woman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The first ovation came as Biden greeted “Madam Vice President.” He added, “No president has ever said those words from this podium, and it’s about time.”
The chamber was so sparsely populated that individual claps could be heard echoing off the walls.
Yet Biden said, “I have never been more confident or more optimistic about America. We have stared into an abyss of insurrection and autocracy — of pandemic and pain — and ‘We the People’ did not flinch.”
At times, the president plainly made his case for democracy itself.
Biden demanded that the government take care of its own as a powerful symbol to the world of an America willing to forcefully follow its ideals and people. He confronted an issue rarely faced by an American president, namely that in order to compete with autocracies like China, the nation needs “to prove that democracy still works” after his predecessor’s baseless claims of election fraud and the ensuing attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate and fears that have pulled us apart?” he asked. “America’s adversaries – the autocrats of the world – are betting it can’t. They believe we are too full of anger and division and rage. They look at the images of the mob that assaulted this Capitol as proof that the sun is setting on American democracy. They are wrong. And we have to prove them wrong.”
Biden repeatedly hammered home that his plans would put Americans back to work, restoring the millions of jobs lost to the virus. He laid out an extensive proposal for universal preschool, two years of free community college, $225 billion for child care and monthly payments of at least $250 to parents. His ideas target frailties that were uncovered by the pandemic, and he argues that economic growth will best come from taxing the rich to help the middle class and the poor.
Biden’s speech also provided an update on combating the COVID-19 crisis he was elected to tame, showcasing hundreds of millions of vaccinations and relief checks delivered to help offset the devastation wrought by a virus that has killed more than 573,000 people in the United States. He also championed his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, a staggering figure to be financed by higher taxes on corporations.
His appeals were often emotive and personal, talking about Americans needing food and rental assistance. He also spoke to members of Congress as a peer as much as a president, singling out Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republicans’ leader, to praise him and speaking as one at a professional homecoming.
The GOP members in the chamber largely stayed silent, even refusing to clap for seemingly universal goals like reducing childhood poverty. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said, in the Republicans’ designated response, that Biden was more rhetoric than action.
“Our president seems like a good man,” Scott said. “But our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes.”
President Donald Trump criticized Biden on Fox Business on Thursday, saying he failed to adequately address the steep increase in immigration at the border.
“It’s like the subject they’re not discussing, and that will be ruinous to this country,” Trump, who aggressively limited legal and illegal immigration during his tenure.
Biden spoke against a backdrop of the weakening but still lethal pandemic, staggering unemployment and a roiling debate about police violence against Blacks. He also used his address to touch on the broader national reckoning over race in America, urging legislation be passed by the anniversary of George Floyd’s death next month, and to call on Congress to act on the thorny issues of prescription drug pricing, gun control and modernizing the nation’s immigration system.
In his first three months in office, Biden has signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill — passed without a single GOP vote — and has shepherded direct payments of $1,400 per person to more than 160 million households. Hundreds of billions of dollars in aid will soon arrive for state and local governments, enough money that overall U.S. growth this year could eclipse 6% — a level not seen since 1984. Administration officials are betting that it will be enough to bring back all 8.4 million jobs lost to the pandemic by next year.
A significant amount proposed just Wednesday would ensure that eligible families receive at least $250 monthly per child through 2025, extending the enhanced tax credit that was part of Biden’s COVID-19 aid. There would be more than $400 billion for subsidized child care and free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
Another combined $425 billion would go to permanently reduce health insurance premiums for people who receive coverage through the Affordable Care Act, as well a national paid family and medical leave program. Further spending would be directed toward Pell Grants, historically Black and tribal institutions and to allow people to attend community college tuition-free for two years.
Funding all of this would be a series of tax increases on the wealthy that would raise about $1.5 trillion over a decade. Republican lawmakers in Congress so far have balked at the price tags of Biden’s plans, complicating the chances of passage in a deeply divided Washington.
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Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
Most of all, I’m saddened that millions of kids have lost a year of learning when they could not afford to lose a single day. Locking vulnerable kids out of the classroom is locking adults out of their future. Our public schools should have reopened months ago. Other countries’ did. Private and religious schools did.
Science has shown for months that schools are safe. But too often, powerful grown-ups set science aside. And kids like me were left behind. The clearest case I’ve seen for school choice in our lifetime is because we know that education is the closest thing to magic in America.
Last year, under Republican leadership, we passed five bipartisan Covid packages. Congress supported our schools, out hospitals, saved our economy, and funded Operation Warp Speed, delivering vaccines in record time. All five bills got 90 — 90 votes in the Senate. Common sense found common ground.
In February, Republicans told President Biden we wanted to keep working together to finish this fight. But Democrats wanted to go it alone. They spent almost $2 trillion on a partisan bill that the White House bragged was the most liberal bill in American history. Only 1 percent went to vaccinations. No requirement to reopen schools promptly.
Covid brought Congress together five times. This administration pushed us apart.
Another issue should — that should unite us is infrastructure. Republicans support everything you think of when you think of infrastructure. Roads, bridges, ports, airports, waterways, high-speed broadband — we’re in for all of that. But again, Democrats want a partisan wish list. They won’t even build bridges to build bridges.
Less than 6 percent of the president’s plan goes to roads and bridges. It’s a liberal wish list of big-government waste, plus the biggest job-killing tax hikes in a generation. Experts say, when all is said and done, it would lower wages of the average American worker and shrink our economy.
Tonight, we also heard about a so-called family plan. Even more taxing, even more spending, to put Washington even more in the middle of your life — from the cradle to college. The beauty of the American dream is that families get to define it for themselves.
House Speaker Pelosi says salon owner owes her an apology; reaction on ‘The Greg Gutfeld Show.’
With the world watching, a fully-vaccinated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wore a mask during the entirety of President Joe Biden‘s first joint address to Congress on Wednesday. Pelosi did not, however, wear a mask when she evaded state-imposed coronavirus restrictions and CDC guidance to get her hair styled in the middle of a global pandemic when she had not yet been inoculated.
In September, Fox News obtained surveillance footage from a San Francisco hair salon that opened to provide a blow-out to Pelosi, who was seen on camera without a mask and in violation of CDC guidelines. The COVID-19 vaccine was not available at the time.
Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that while indoors, unvaccinated Americans should wear masks. However, it states that those who have been vaccinated, like Pelosi, “can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart.”
Despite this guidance, Pelosi sat masked, next to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is vaccinated, while Harris was also masked.
Rep. Thomas Massie pointed out that President Joe Biden went unmasked while giving his speech to a socially-distanced chamber, despite Pelosi’s rule that everyone on the House floor must wear a mask or pay a fine.
WASHINGTON – In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Joe Biden both looked back on his first 100 days in office and laid out a vision for the future of his administration, from talking about increasing taxes on the rich, to urging Congress to take action on gun violence and police reform.
“I can report to the nation: America is on the move again. Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength. Life can knock us down,” Biden said. “But in America, we never stay down.”
The president focused on goals he achieved during his first 100 days in office, a milestone he will pass on Friday. The benchmark, while arbitrary, has been a standard by which presidents have held themselves accountable for delivering on policy priorities since Franklin D. Roosevelt first coined the phrase.
Here are some of the top takeaways from Biden’s address Wednesday:
A call for police reform after conviction of Derek Chauvin
The week after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man whose death sparked waves of protest against racism and police brutality across the nation, Biden pushed for police reform.
He urged Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which aims to bolster police accountability and ban certain maneuvers that have led to the deaths of Black Americans.
“Let’s get it done next month, by the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death,” Biden said. Floyd died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020.
To applause, Biden said he believes the vast majority of law enforcement officials are good people who “serve their communities honorably,” but said systemic racism in the criminal justice system needs to be addressed.
He recalled speaking with Floyd’s young daughter Gianna after his death.
“As I knelt down to talk to her so we could talk eye to eye, she said to me, ‘Daddy changed the world,’” he said. “After the conviction of George Floyd’s murderer, we can see how right she was – if – if we have the courage to act.”
A historic evening for women in politics
For the first time in history, two women stood behind the president as he delivered a joint address to Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman to be elected to that position, stood alongside Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the first woman elected as speaker in 2007.
“Madam speaker, madam vice president,” Biden said when he arrived at the podium. “No president has ever said those words from this podium, and it’s about time.”
The two women greeted each other with an elbow bump when they arrived, a standard greeting during the coronavirus pandemic. They each wore a mask during Biden’s address.
Women serving in Congress told USA TODAY that having Harris and Pelosi in those seats is a historic moment and an important example of representation of women in leadership roles.
“It’s critical that girls across the country see women at the highest levels of government and know that they too can serve as Vice President and Speaker of the House,” said Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, the first woman from Wyoming elected to the Senate.
Biden urges reinstatement of assault weapons ban, reauthorization of VAWA
Biden pressed lawmakers to take urgent action on gun violence in the country, which he called an “epidemic,” in the wake of multiple deadly shootings this year. He asked Congress to reinstate a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, recalling his efforts to do so in 1994 as a senator from Delaware.
He called for the passage of two House bills, aimed at strengthening background checks on gun purchases, that don’t have enough support from Republicans in the Senate to pass in the evenly divided chamber.
He also urged the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act aimed at reducing domestic and sexual violence. The law includes a provision preventing people convicted of abusing dating partners from buying or owning guns.
“It’s estimated that more than 50 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner – every month in America,” Biden said. “Pass it and save lives.”
The president recognized the victims of recent mass shootings, and promised that he would do everything in his power to “protect the American people from this epidemic of gun violence.” He urged Republicans and Democrats to work together on passing gun control legislation.
“Our flag at the White House was still flying at half staff for the eight victims of the mass shooting in Georgia when 10 more lives were taken in a mass shooting in Colorado,” Biden said. “In the week between those mass shootings, more than 250 other Americans were shot dead.”
Biden calls tax hikes on rich ‘fiscally responsible’
Biden urged Congress to raise taxes on the rich and corporations, saying they need to pay their fair share.
“I’m not looking to punish anyone,” he said. “What I’ve proposed is fair. It’s fiscally responsible.”
In his plea to lawmakers, Biden has said that raising the taxes on the wealthy would pay for his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, a sweeping package that includes paid family leave, free community college, subsidized child care and other proposals to expand the nation’s social safety net.
Biden again said that he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year.
“They’re already paying enough,” he said.
‘Let’s end our exhausting war over immigration’
Immigration has shrouded Biden’s first 100 days, as his administration has struggled to deal with a dramatic increase of migrant children, families and single adults at the U.S.-Mexico border.
But the president didn’t focus on the border challenges his administration faced Wednesday night. Instead, he focused on urging Congress to pass his comprehensive immigration legislation, which would create a pathway to citizenship for the nearly 11 million people living in the United States without citizenship.
“If you actually want to solve the problem – I have sent you a bill, take a close look at it,” Biden said of his immigration bill.
Biden also noted that if Congress doesn’t pass his bill, he would like to see them pass some sort of immigration legislation that would create a pathway for at least Dreamers, farm workers and protections for those with temporary protected status.
“The country supports immigration reform. Let’s act,” Biden said
Biden also highlighted Vice President Harris’ role in addressing the root causes of why migrants from Central America are coming to the United States.
“We also have to get at the root of the problem of why people are fleeing to our southern border from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,” Biden said, adding that they restarted a program that would give aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. “When I was Vice President, I focused on providing the help needed to address these root causes of migration. It helped keep people in their own countries instead of being forced to leave.”
Biden celebrates vaccine milestones: ‘Go get vaccinated, America’
Biden celebrated his administration passing its goal of delivering 200 million COVID-19 vaccines in his first 100 days in office, calling the ongoing vaccination effort one of the greatest “logistical achievements this country has ever seen. He urged all Americans to get a vaccine, noting everyone over the age of 16 is now eligible to receive one.
“Go get vaccinated, America, go and get the vaccination. They’re available,” he said.
Biden said that over 90% of Americans now live within 5 miles of a vaccination site.
He took credit for the increase in availability of vaccines and the vaccinations given to the most vulnerable, noting that 1% of seniors had been vaccinated when he took office and now over 70% are “fully protected.”
“Senior deaths from COVID-19 are down 80% since January,” he said, adding that over half of all American adults have received at least one dose.
The coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 32 million and caused the deaths of nearly 575,000 people in the U.S.
“There was no attempt to delay the deployment of the National Guard, I mean that’s just false,” Milley said in the clip.
Pelosi pushed back immediately after the clip ended.
“That isn’t false and I was there and I can attest to what happened,” she said. “But let’s hear people talk about it in a commission to find the truth about January 6.”
“I have the highest regard for Gen. Milley, but he doesn’t know the full picture if he presenting the characterization that he just presented,” Pelosi continued. “The fact is that they could’ve been there very much sooner and it would’ve been much less destruction.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi contradicts Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who says there was no attempt to delay National Guard on Jan. 6:
“I have the highest regard for General Milley, but he doesn’t know the full picture …” pic.twitter.com/o21wQg6RNI
Police officials and politicians have slammed the Pentagon for what they claimed was a delayed response as law enforcement was being quickly overrun by rioters.
Milley has previously said the response to the rioting was “super fast,” insisting the approval occurred within an hour and that the deployment itself took several hours.
House sergeant-at-arms Maj. General William Walker, who was commander of D.C.’s National Guard at the time, testified last month that Pentagon officials approved deploying the Guard three hours after the Capitol Police Chief placed a “frantic call.”
An undisclosed document obtained by The Associated Press earlier the moth reveled that former President Trump approved activating the Guard three days prior to the rally, but the Guard’s role was restricted to traffic sections and checkpoints across the city.
The news outlet reported that there was hesitancy to display a strong military presence due to criticism of the response to civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd last May.
In a case drawing comparisons to the killing of George Floyd, authorities in the Bay Area city of Alameda are facing growing outrage after a body-camera video showed a police officer appearing to put a knee on the back of a 26-year-old Latino man for more than four minutes as he gasped for breath and eventually died.
The incident has drawn scrutiny in part because the man who died, Mario Gonzalez, appeared to pose no imminent threat to the officers when they arrived at a local park on April 19 after calls about an intoxicated man and a possible theft.
One of the 911 callers told a dispatcher: “He seems like he’s tweaking. But he’s not doing anything wrong, he’s just scaring my wife.”
A second caller told a dispatcher about a man with a Walgreens basket with alcohol and “it looks like he is breaking off the security tags.” That caller added that the man had been loitering for half an hour.
Some law enforcement experts said the video raises serious questions about police tactics.
“There is going to be a very intensive inquiry on this,” said Ed Obayashi, a Northern California sheriff’s deputy, legal advisor and veteran police trainer. “It is rare that a non-threatening, non-belligerent person ends up dying like this. … What was the officers’ justification for detaining him? This individual was not a threat to the officers.”
The nearly hourlong video from two officers’ body cameras shows police talking to Gonzalez in a park. In the video, Gonzalez seems dazed and struggles to answer officers’ questions.
Gonzalez wouldn’t produce any identification, so the officers try to force his hands behind his back to handcuff him, but he does not let his arms go limp. The officers determine that he is resisting, then push him to the ground, the video shows.
The officers, as they seek to restrain him, repeatedly ask Gonzalez for his full name and birth date.
“I think you just had too much to drink today, OK? That’s all,” an officer says. After learning his name, the officer adds, “Mario, just please stop fighting us.”
Gonzalez, who weighed about 250 pounds, by that point is lying facedown on some wood chips and can be heard shouting and grunting as the officers use their body weight to control him. One officer appears to put an elbow on his neck and a knee on his shoulder.
“He’s lifting my whole body weight up,” an officer tells his colleague.
One officer puts his knee on Gonzalez’s back for four minutes or more.
Gonzalez is heard in the video telling officers, “I didn’t do nothing, OK?”
Shortly before Gonzalez stops breathing, one officer asks the other, “Think we can roll him on his side?” but the other answers, “I don’t want to lose what I got, man.”
Another officer then asks, “We got no weight on his chest?” then repeats, “No! No weight … no weight.”
“He’s going unresponsive,” one officer says.
The officers roll Gonzalez over and perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but he was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
The Alameda County coroner’s office is conducting an autopsy to determine a cause of death. Gonzalez’s death is under investigation by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and the county district attorney’s office.
The city of Alameda on Wednesday identified the three officers placed on leave during the investigation into Gonzalez’s death as James Fisher, Cameron Leahy and Eric McKinley.
Fisher has been with the department since 2010. Leahy joined the force in 2017, and McKinley in 2018.
The city did not describe each officer’s role in the incident captured on video.
Civilian parking enforcement employee Charlie Clemmens was also involved in the incident, the city said.
Julia Sherwin, an attorney for Gonzalez’s family, said the young man’s death was “completely avoidable.”
She said officers should never have laid hands on him, let alone put him prone on the ground and push down on him — something that law enforcement officers should know creates “a very high risk of death by restraint asphyxiation.”
“It was a complete violation of all generally accepted law enforcement policies and training,” said Sherwin, who has 20 years of experience handling wrongful death cases. “And these horrible tactics employed by the officers on the scene don’t come out of nowhere. They grow out of bad training and supervision.”
The family wanted all the body camera footage released, as well as any surveillance footage that captured the incident, she said. They were in favor of “full transparency” and wanted Mario’s face shown, but authorities obscured his face in the video anyway, she said.
Based on the footage, she said it appeared Mario Gonzalez may have been intoxicated — but, she said, the price he paid was completely disproportionate to that minor offense.
“We don’t kill people for being drunk in a park in the United States,” she said. “We don’t kill people for being suspected of having possibly stolen two bottles of alcohol, and we don’t kill people for passively resisting law enforcement when they’re unarmed and no threat whatsoever. And yet Mario’s dead.”
Gonzalez’s family says it was a clear case of excessive force on a man who had no idea why officers were detaining him.
“The police killed my brother, in the same manner they killed George Floyd,” his brother Gerardo Gonzalez told reporters Tuesday.
“He’s a lovely guy. He’s respectful, all the time,” said Mario’s mother, Edith Arenales. “They broke my family for no reason.”
While a cause of death has not been established, law enforcement training experts said Gonzalez could have been asphyxiated by the officer’s knee.
“This is another tragic incident of compression asphyxia,” Obayashi said. “Officers have to be able to recognize compression asphyxia. We have had too many deadly incidents like this one.”
Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina law professor and a former Florida police officer, said “the dangers of positional asphyxia” have been well known in policing and incorporated into training since the early 1990s.
The technique should especially be avoided when there are risk factors like obesity and drug or alcohol use, as was true in this case, he said.
He likened the situation to a boa constrictor killing its prey by depriving it of oxygen.
Stoughton, who has written about police training and force extensively, said it is acceptable for officers to place someone prone on the ground for a short period of time to put on handcuffs.
There was no need to pile on Gonzalez to arrest him, Stoughton said.
But Charles “Sid” Heal, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s commander and use-of-force expert, said he did not see a problem with the officers’ actions.
“The suspect is in a continual state of resistance and defiance,” Heal said. “The officers actually plead with him not to resist. I suspect he is under the influence of some drug and is going to die from either the drug or excited delirium.”
Last summer, then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes as Floyd gasped, “I can’t breathe.” Chauvin was convicted of murder last week — a day after Gonzalez’s death.
After watching the video, George Galvis, executive director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, said he wants the officers to be criminally prosecuted.
Gonzalez’s younger brother, Jerry, receives mentoring from the organization, which is serving as an advocate for the family, Galvis said.
Gonzalez had a four-year-old son, also named Mario, and was the main caretaker for his mother and an autistic brother, Efrain, according to a GoFundMe.
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice was involved with the successful effort to change the state standard of police use of lethal force from reasonable to necessary, Galvin said.
On Saturday, the organization will hold a rally to demand that Alameda Dist. Atty. Nancy O’Malley bring murder charges against the officers.
“The fact that he was not combative, the fact that he was not violent, the fact that he had not committed a crime, proves that this was not necessary,” Galvis said.
Residents who evacuated and needed assistance finding lodging were told to contact the Red Cross, and Castaic Animal Shelter was taking all animals that were being evacuated.
West Hills Drive was also closed between Copper Hill and Iron Village drives until further notice.
Evacuation warnings had earlier been issued for the areas of Rye Canyon Loop, Sterling Court and Iron Village Drive.
There were at least 120 firefighters at the scene, working to put the flames out.
No injuries have been reported.
The city of Santa Clarita asked residents to avoid the area.
President Joe Biden speaks to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi watch.
Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP
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Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP
President Joe Biden speaks to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi watch.
Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP
President Biden addressed Congress on Wednesday night, in a speech where he told the body that his administration’s work to fight the pandemic shows that “America is on the move again.” He also stressed that he and Congress must work to prove “that our government still works — and can deliver” for the American people.
“As I stand here tonight, we are just one day shy of the 100th day of my administration,” Biden said in remarks to lawmakers that ran just over an hour.
“Now, after just 100 days, I can report to the nation: America is on the move again. Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength.”
Biden used his addresson the eve of his 100th day in office to make the case for huge new investments and tax reforms to overhaul the U.S. economy and rebuild the middle class. Administration officials on Tuesday previewed the latest tier to the president’s economic recovery pitch — the American Families Plan (AFP) — which would dedicate $1.8 trillion to family care and education.
“We guarantee that low- to middle-income families will pay no more than 7% of their income for high-quality care for children up to the age of five. The most hard-pressed working families won’t have to spend a dime,” Biden said, touting the AFP, which would also provide up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
“No one should have to choose between a job and paycheck or taking care of themselves and a loved one – a parent, spouse, or child.”
Biden said this plan would be funded by increasing taxes on the nation’s top earners and corporations, who he said do not contribute a fair share of their earnings as compared to working-class families.
The White House said that Biden would host a meeting of leaders from the Senate and House on May 12, the first time he will host the four top Democratic and Republican leaders together since he has taken office. He and his staff have met at the White House with 130 members of Congress during his first 100 days in office, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Twitter.
Coronavirus response
The administration’s work in vaccinating more than 140 million people in the U.S. with at least one dose, as well as distributing financial relief to households, are among what Biden views as his biggest achievements during his first 100 days in office.
In excerpts released prior to the address, the White House said the president will say, “we have acted to restore the people’s faith in our democracy to deliver.”
“We’re vaccinating the nation. We’re creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. We’re delivering real results people can see and feel in their own lives. Opening the doors of opportunity. Guaranteeing fairness and justice,” Biden plans to tell the joint session.
Biden faces a deeply divided Congress to press his agenda. Issues of taxation and government spending are some of the biggest stumbling blocks he’ll face, particularly in the Senate, where the parties are divided 50 Republicans to 50 Democrats, with Democrats holding a slim, technical majority in the chamber.
Republican response
Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, has been tapped to give his party’s response to Biden’s speech this evening.He plans to criticize the president on his response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he and other Republicans view as overly restrictive and unhelpful.
“Locking vulnerable kids out of the classroom is locking adults out of their future. Our public schools should have reopened months ago. Other countries’ did. Private and religious schools did. Science has shown for months that schools are safe,”Scott, who was raised in a single-parent, working-class household, will say, according to excerpts released ahead of the speech.
“But too often, powerful grownups set science aside. And kids like me were left behind.”
The issue of reopening schools amid the pandemic has been one of the most divisive issues across party lines. Republicans have pushed for students to return to the classroom in order to help ease the strain on the economy, while Democrats largely have been more cautious, stressing public health concerns.
“This administration inherited a tide that had already turned. The coronavirus is on the run,” Scott is expected to say.
“Thanks to Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration, our country is flooded with safe and effective vaccines. Thanks to our bipartisan work last year, job openings are rebounding. … So why do we feel so divided and anxious?”
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday accused federal agents of ignoring copies of Hunter Biden’s computer hard drives when they raided his apartment — and blamed the investigation into his dealings in Ukraine on “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
In a statement released by his lawyer, Giuliani said the FBI “steadfastly declined” to take the hard drives when he “offered them on several occasions.”
“Keep in mind that the agents could not read the physical hard drives without plugging them in, but they took Mr. Giuliani’s word that the hard drives were copies of Hunter Biden’s hard drive and did not contain anything pertaining to Mr. Giuliani,” the statement said.
“Their reliance on Mr. Giuliani’s credibility tells you everything you need to know about this case.”
Federal agents raided Rudy Giuliani’s NYC apartment Wednesday.Matthew McDermott
The raid was reportedly tied to an investigation into whether Giuliani illegally lobbied former Trump on behalf of officials and oligarchs in Ukraine — where the former mayor went to dig up dirt against then-candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
The probe grew out of the pending prosecution of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two business associates who allegedly helped introduce him to Ukrainian officials, and who are awaiting trial on unrelated campaign-finance charges, the New York Times reported.
The statement from lawyer Robert Costello described Wednesday’s action against Giuliani as an example of how the Justice Department is “running rough shod over the constitutional rights of anyone involved in, or legally defending, former President Donald J. Trump.”
“It is outrageous that the Trump Derangement Syndrome has gone so far that hatred has driven this unjustified and unethical attack on the United States Attorney and Mayor who did more to reduce crime than virtually any other in American history,” the statement said.
Rudy Giuliani accused federal agents of ignoring copies of Hunter Biden’s computer hard drives when they raided his Manhattan apartment.AP Photo/Nick Wass, File
“Mr. Giuliani respects the law, and he can demonstrate that his conduct as a lawyer and a citizen was absolutely legal and ethical.”
The statement also said that the electronic devices seized from Giuliani are “replete with material covered by the attorney client privilege and other constitutional privileges.”
“The search warrants involve only one indication of an an alleged incident of failure to register as a foreign agent. Mayor Giuliani has not only denied this allegation, but offered twice in the past two years through his attorney Bob Costello to demonstrate that it is entirely untrue,” the statement says.
“Twice the offer was rejected by the SDNY by stating that while they were willing to listen to anything Mr. Costello had to say, they would not tell Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Costello, the subject matter they wanted him to address.”
The Manhattan US Attorney’s Office, which is conducting the probe, declined to comment on Wednesday’s raids of Giuliani’s apartment and law office.
The Department of Justice released on Wednesday a group of videos depicting the alleged assault on Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and other members of law enforcement during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The videos have been cited as evidence in the assault and conspiracy cases against two men – Julian Khater, 32, of State College, Penn., and George Tanios, 39, of Morgantown, W. Va.
The videos have been described by prosecutors and played in court, but have not previously been made widely available. The government made the footage available after a coalition of 14 media organizations, including NPR, filed a legal motion in federal court, arguing that the public had a “powerful interest” in seeing the evidence cited in the government’s prosecution of violent crimes committed on Jan. 6. After initially rejecting the media coalition’s requests, citing potential security concerns regarding surveillance footage from the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice decided to release the videos.
Khater and Tanios have not been charged in Sicknick’s death.
Sicknick died the day after the attack on the Capitol, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Washington, D.C., ruled that the death was “natural” and the result of two strokes. In an interview with The Washington Post, the medical examiner, Dr. Francisco J. Diaz, said Sicknick did not suffer an allergic reaction from being sprayed with chemicals, but “all that transpired [on Jan. 6] played a role in his condition.”
Federal prosecutors say that on Jan. 6, Khater and Tanios moved toward a police line that included Sicknick on the Lower West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol building.
“Khater is wearing a beanie with a pom-pom on top, a dark jacket, and has a beard,” prosecutors state. “Tanios is wearing a red hat, black backpack, dark hooded sweatshirt, and has a beard.”
Just after 2:14 pm, according to prosecutors, “Khater reaches his hand towards Tanios’s backpack and then stands behind Tanios, appearing to reach inside the backpack and retrieve something.”
In one video, as described by the government, Khater tells Tanios “Give me that bear s***,” and Tanios responds, “Hold on, hold on, not yet, not yet… it’s still early.” Later, Khater can allegedly be seen holding a white can of chemical spray in his hand.
The government has cited this conversation in court as evidence that “the two were working in concert and had a plan to use the toxic spray against law enforcement.”
Later, just after 2:23 pm, prosecutors say Khater is seen at the police line “holding a canister in his right hand and aiming it in the officers’ direction while moving his right arm from side to side.”
Multiple police officers, including Sicknick, “immediately retreat from the line, bring their hands to their faces and rush to find water to wash out their eyes,” prosecutors say. “Officer Sicknick can be seen bending over and washing his eyes out away from the line.”
The government claims that it has obtained copies of receipts, showing Tanios purchased four canisters of chemical spray on the evening of Jan. 5, the night before the attack on the Capitol.
Neither Khater nor Tanios are accused of breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Khater’s defense has argued that the evidence he deliberately aimed a chemical spray at police is “at best equivocal.” Given the use of chemical sprays by law enforcement, Khater’s attorneys argued, it’s possible that the police officers may have been sprayed by their own side.
Tanios’ attorneys have stated that he “emphatically denies each charge” brought by the government.
“Mr. Tanios did not spray any officer with O.C. spray, ‘bear spray’ or any other chemicals,” Tanios’ attorney stated in a court filing. “Other than Mr. Tanios being present, the video clips fail to show much at all in terms of the criminal acts allegedly committed by Mr. Tanios.”
Both men are seeking to be released from federal custody pending their trial on the charges related to the Capitol Riot. The Department of Justice is arguing against their release, saying that the serious nature of the alleged crimes and the potential danger both men pose to the public, weighs in favor of their detention.
A federal judge is set to hear additional arguments on those issues on May 6.
Police in Northern California released body-camera footage showing an officer kneeling on a man and pinning him to the ground for several minutes before he went unconscious and later died, a death that the man’s family says largely mirrors how George Floyd died last summer.
The footage released by the Alameda Police Department shows officers struggling to restrain Mario Gonzalez before pinning him to the ground for more than five minutes. After Gonzalez, 26, lost consciousness, the video shows officers and first responders attempting to resuscitate him.
The hourlong video, which includes 911 calls reporting that Gonzalez was loitering in the area and possibly under the influence of some type of substance, came days after the department said the man died after a medical emergency amid a struggle with officers attempting to detain him.
Officers last week responded to a suburb in the city after getting a pair of 911 calls, one saying the man appeared to be breaking tags off alcohol bottles and another that said the man wasn’t doing anything wrong, but loitering in the area and “scaring my wife.”
When police found Gonzalez, he appeared dazed and struggled to answer questions about his name and birth date. Officers tried to put his hands behind his back and handcuff him after he didn’t offer any identification, but Gonzalez appears to resist. The video shows officers are struggling to keep Gonzalez’ hands behind his back and are having a difficult time getting him to the ground. Once he is there, Gonzalez looks like he’s trying to get up and trying to get out of the officers’ control, the video shows.
The officers pleaded for Gonzalez not to fight them, the video shows.
“I think you just had too much to drink today, OK? That’s all,” one officer is heard saying on the video. He added later, “Mario, just please stop fighting us.”
Gonzalez, who weighed about 250 pounds, is heard grunting and shouting as he’s wrestled to the ground and placed facedown. One officer is seen putting an elbow on his neck and a knee on his shoulder.
An officer at one point notes Gonzalez was “lifting my whole body weight up” during the struggle. One officer appears to put a knee on his back and leaves it there for about four minutes as Gonzalez gasps for air, saying “I didn’t do nothing, OK?”
But after five minutes, Gonzalez appeared to grow weak and goes silent.
Around that time, one of the officers asked the other whether they should “roll him on his side” but the other officer noted the difficulty in restraining Gonzalez and says, “I don’t want to lose what I got, man.”
The first officer then asks, “we got no weight on his chest?” then repeats “No! No weight … no weight.”
“He’s going unresponsive,” one officer says.
The officers then rolled Gonzalez over and tried to resuscitate him, doing chest compressions.
“Wake up, wake up,” one officer says repeatedly to Gonzalez.
Gonzalez was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. He left a 4-year-old son and also was the main caretaker of his 22-year-old brother, who has autism, his family said during a news conference Tuesday.
“Everything we saw in that video was unnecessary and unprofessional,” brother Gerardo Gonzalez said, according to the local NBC affiliate TV station. “The police killed my brother in the same manner that they killed George Floyd.”
His mother, Edith Gonzalez, described the heartbreak having to talk to her grandson about his death and said his death was due to excessive force by police
“They lying to me, they say my son, he fighting with the officers. I say, ‘No, come on! You guys made a mistake!'” she said. “My grandson, right here, he asked me, ‘Mami, mami, my papi passed away? My papi died? My papi died?’ How can I say that? Somebody kill him?”
Authorities have not released Gonzalez’s cause of death. The three officers who responded to the call have been placed on administrative leave as the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office investigates Gonzalez’s death.
The department told the local NBC affiliate that investigators have been interviewing witnesses and the officers but are still waiting on autopsy and a toxicology reports.
The Alameda Police Department’s policies allow for trained officers to employ “pain compliance techniques” in certain arrests, according to the news station. The outlet also reported the department’s policies allow officers to use carotid control in arrests, a controversial maneuver similar to a chokehold. The policy states it can be used when a person is “violent or physically resisting.”
The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and the F.B.I. hadsought for months to secure a search warrant for Mr. Giuliani’s phones.
Under Mr. Trump, senior political appointees in the Justice Department repeatedly sought to block such a warrant, The New York Times reported, slowing the investigation as it was gaining momentum last year. After Merrick B. Garland was confirmed as Mr. Biden’s attorney general, the Justice Department lifted its objection to the search.
While the warrants are not an explicit accusation of wrongdoing against Mr. Giuliani, their execution shows that the investigation has entered an aggressive new phase. To obtain a search warrant, investigators must persuade a judge they have sufficient reason to believe that a crime was committed and that the search would turn up evidence of the crime.
Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
The investigation of Mr. Giuliani grew out of a case against two Soviet-born men who aided his mission in Ukraine to unearth damaging information about Mr. Biden and his son Hunter, who was on the board of an energy company there. Prosecutors charged the men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, with unrelated crimes in 2019 and a trial is scheduled for October.
While investigating Mr. Giuliani, prosecutors have examined, among other things, his potential business dealings in Ukraine and his role in pushing the Trump administration to oust the American ambassador to the country, a subject of testimony at Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.
As he was pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens, Mr. Giuliani became fixated on removing the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, whom he saw as an obstacle to those efforts. At the urging of Mr. Giuliani and other Republicans, Mr. Trump ultimately ousted Ms. Yovanovitch.
As part of the investigation into Mr. Giuliani, the prosecutors have explored whether he was working not only for Mr. Trump, but also for Ukrainian officials or businesses who wanted the ambassador to be dismissed for their own reasons, according to people briefed on the matter.
President Biden is set to call for universal preschool when he delivers his first joint address to Congress on Wednesday. With the unveiling of the American Families Plan, Mr. Biden is seeking an “investment in our kids,” and will lay out how his proposal will help families with basic expenses so many struggle with now, according to a White House official familiar with the plan.
A source familiar with the meeting confirmed to CBS News that over the last day, the White House held briefings with key senators to discuss the details of the proposal.
Mr. Biden’s child care proposal comes as parents have been grappling to make ends meet as the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated a child care crisis across the country.
In an effort to provide free, high-quality, accessible preschool care to all 3 and 4 year old children, the president will call for a national partnership with states. The move is expected to benefit 5 million children and save the average family $13,000, when fully implemented, according to the White House.
This historic $200 billion investment will prioritizehigh-need areas. The goal is to enable communities and families to choose the settings that work best for them. The Biden plan also seeks to ensure that all publicly-funded preschools are high-quality, with low student-to-teacher ratios, high-quality and developmentally appropriate curriculum, and supportive classroom environments that are inclusive for all students.
President Biden takes off his sunglasses before speaking on the North Lawn of the White House on Tuesday, April 27, 2021.
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
As part of the proposal, the president is seeking to leverage tuition-free community college and teacher scholarships to support those who wish to earn a bachelor’s degree or another credential that supports their work as an educator, or to become an early childhood educator. Educators will also receive job-embedded coaching, professional development, and wages that reflect the importance of their work.
As part of the American Families Plan, all employees participating in pre-k programs and Head Start will earn at least $15 per hour. Those with comparable qualifications will receive compensation commensurate with that of kindergarten teachers.
The inclusion of such provisions come as child care workers are struggling to get by. The median wage for child care workers in 2019 was $11.65 an hour, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. With the pandemic, thousands of child care workers have left the labor force.
These investments will give American children a head start and pave the way for the best-educated generation in U.S. history, according to the White House.
Research shows kids who attend pre-K are more likely to take honors classes and less likely to repeat a grade one study found. Another study shows low-income children who attend universal programs do better in math and reading as late as eighth grade. But many children across the country do not have access to high quality preschool programs. The challenges are even greater for children of color and in low-income communities. A White House official told CBS that part of the reason behind the effort was to “invest” in future generations and to help compete with rivals like China.
“Together, these plans reinvest in the future of the American economy and American workers, and will help us out-compete China and other countries around the world,” a White House official said in a statement. In a separate call, a senior administration official said the U.S. would not “shy away” from countering China.
At the same time, the American Rescue Plan will also continue to build the American Rescue Plan‘s historic reductions in child poverty.
In pitching both the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan plans, White House officials have argued that the proposals will be fully paid for. Their proposals include a tax hike to push big corporations and the wealthiest 1% of Americans to pay more, claiming it’s time for them to pay “their fair share.” If enacted as they propose, they claim the legislation will add no addition to the debt. Mr. Biden has previously said he is willing to hear other proposals for how to pay for the investments but has vowed there will be no tax increase on any Americans earning less than $400,000.
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