Republicans’ 2024 Magical Thinking

Press them hard enough, and most Republican officials—even the ones with MAGA hats in their closets and Mar-a-Lago selfies in their Twitter avatar—will privately admit that Donald Trump has become a problem. He’s presided over three abysmal election cycles since he took office, he is more unstable than ever, and yet he returned to the campaign trail this past weekend, declaring that he is “angry” and determined to win the  GOP presidential nomination again in 2024. Aside from his most blinkered loyalists, virtually everyone in the party agrees: It’s time…

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Encounters of Chinese Nationals at Southern Border Outpace Past 2 Years Combined

Chinese nationals are arriving at America’s southern border in growing numbers. In January 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says, it encountered 89 illegal aliens from the People’s Republic of China on the southern border. That number grew over tenfold last month, to 1,084. A similar increase has occurred in encounters with illegal immigrants from Russia, with CBP reporting 1,030 in January 2022, but over four times that—4,509—last month. It is a “source of concern” when an influx of migrants attempts to enter America illegally from a country “that we…

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MoveOn: Biden’s State of the Union a “Bold, People-First Playbook to Finish the Job and Deliver for the American People”

Washington, D.C. – Statement from MoveOn Executive Director Rahna Epting on tonight’s State of the Union address by President Biden: “Tonight, the American people heard President Biden detail the hard-fought progress of the last two years to build an economy that works for everyone, defend our democracy,  lower unemployment, and rebuild our nation from the pandemic. On everything from making health care more affordable to fighting climate change and protecting Social Security and Medicare, the president shared a bold, people-first playbook to finish the job and deliver for the American…

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‘OPM sent a signal’: Still no final regulations on 2017 administrative leave law

After six years, agencies are still missing the final regulations they need to make significant changes to federal administrative leave policy. Congress gave the Office of Personnel Management 270 days to implement new federal leave regulations under the Administrative Leave Act, a provision included in the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. But OPM has missed that deadline by far — at least for some of the more complicated changes to the leave policy. Congress passed the Administrative Leave Act to create three categories of administrative leave, or paid leave…

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Feisty Joe Biden Is Back

It was a raucous, interactive, and argumentative State of the Union like no other. And when it was over, President Joe Biden had provided a clear signal of how he plans to contest the 2024 presidential election. Leaning hard into his populist “Scranton Joe” persona, an energetic and feisty Biden sparred with congressional Republicans heckling him from the audience as he previewed what will likely be key themes of the reelection campaign that he’s expected to announce within months, if not weeks. Biden’s speech showed him continuing to formulate an…

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