NYC-MYR: Yang hits donation requirements to get city funds in NYC mayor's race

Andrew Yang hit the donation requirements in order to obtain matching city funding in the New York City mayor’s race, the former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate confirmed on Sunday.

Yang, a technology entrepreneur, announced in a Sunday tweet that his campaign had passed the threshold of receiving $250,000 from at least 1,000 donors in the city.

Now, each dollar from New York City residents in small contributions, with a maximum of $250, can be matched by up to $8 in public funds, reaching a maximum of $2,000 per contributor.

“Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen - the fastest campaign to hit the matching threshold with the most grassroots donors!” he posted. “Every small donation from NYCers now gets matched 8 to 1! We are on our way.”




https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/538836-yang-hits-donation-requirements-to-get-city-funds-in-nyc-mayors-race

IA-SEN: Iowa Republican announces Senate bid with Grassley's 2022 plans unclear

Iowa Republican state Sen. Jim Carlin launched his campaign to replace Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose plans for the 2022 election remain unclear.

Carlin, a trial lawyer and Army veteran, became the first candidate from either party to announce his bid for the seat, without waiting for Grassley, 87, to make a decision about his future in the Senate, the Des Moines Register reported.

"I appreciate (Grassley's) service, as anybody does," Carlin told the newspaper. "But I didn't get in the race to drop out."

The 54-year-old presented himself as an ally to former President Trump during his first speech and targeted “the political class” for not looking into and holding hearings on the unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

"Right now, we face mammoth challenges from China, the disintegration of families, the decline of rural Iowa and the threat to free speech from big tech monopolies," he said, according to the Register. "... I see some of these things as an assault on our freedom."




https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/538908-iowa-republican-announces-senate-bid-while-grassleys-2022-plans-unclear

Nevada Democrats move to end presidential caucuses

Nevada Democrats moved Monday to end the use of caucuses in presidential nominating contests, part of a concerted effort to push the state to the front of the primary calendar.

The bill, which was introduced in the Assembly, would convert the nominating system in the state to a primary election instead of caucuses, a move former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threw his support behind immediately following last year’s caucuses.

The jockeying over the primary calendar follows a turbulent Democratic primary last year, in which the caucus system and the order of nominating contests came under intense scrutiny. The Iowa caucuses ended in disarray after technological issues delayed the reporting results, and calculation errors resulted in the Associated Press never calling a winner of the contest.

Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that have historically kicked off the primary calendar, also came under fire among Democrats for not being demographically representative of the country. The populations of both states are predominately white, unlike Nevada which is more diverse.




https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/15/nevada-democrats-presidential-caucuses-469069

Jaguar to be fully electric by 2025

Jaguar announced Monday that 100 percent of its new vehicle sales will be electric vehicles by 2025, becoming the latest company to embrace the trend away from fossil fuel use in the face of growing concerns about climate change.

Jaguar CEO Thierry Bolloré made the announcement, according to Forbes and USA Today, while adding that electric vehicles would make up 60 percent of new vehicles sold under the company's Land Rover SUV brand by 2030 as well.

“The purity of electric is the next natural step. At the heart of Reimagine will be the electrification of both the Jaguar and Land Rover brands," said Bolloré, according to Forbes.

“By the middle of the decade, Jaguar will have undergone a renaissance to emerge as a pure electric luxury brand with a dramatically beautiful new portfolio of emotionally engaging designs and pioneering next-generation technologies," Bolloré added.

Within two decades, the company plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across the board, he continued.




https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/automobiles/538883-jaguar-to-be-fully-electric-by-2025

Earmarks Are Back

Punchbowl News reports that Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) will announce shortly the reintroduction of earmarks into the appropriations process.

Jake Sherman: “Earmarks help the leadership govern. People who don’t listen to leadership don’t get them. People who do, do. Whether you like them or not, that’s true.”



https://politicalwire.com/2021/02/15/earmarks-are-back/

Inside the new President's routine: Oval Office fires and early bedtimes

(CNN)When President Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force One for the first time this month, he did not spend much time soaking in the moment.

The flight, after all, was only 25 minutes long. He was headed home to Delaware for the weekend, in part to have his foot X-rayed at his orthopedist. And unlike his most recent predecessors, Biden was already familiar with the unique combination of executive swank and military rigor aboard the presidential jet, having flown more than a million miles aboard Air Force Two.

So, like a weary passenger on a commuter shuttle, he spent most of the flight reading the newspaper.

As Biden settles into a job he has been seeking on-and-off for three decades, the daily routine of being president -- with a phalanx of Secret Service agents, regular updates on the nation's top secrets and an ever-present press corps -- has come more naturally for him than for his more recent predecessors.

He has established a regular schedule, including coffee in the mornings with the first lady, meetings and phone calls from the Oval Office starting just after 9 a.m. and a return to his residence by 7 p.m. As he walks home along the Colonnade, he's often seen carrying a stack of binders or manila folders under one arm. He still brings a brown leather briefcase into the office.

Unlike his most recent predecessors -- night owls who spent the dark hours reading briefing materials (President Barack Obama) or watching television (President Donald Trump) -- Biden is more of an early-to-bed type. He has continued a tradition of reading letters from Americans, a handful of which are tucked into the briefing materials he brings home in the evenings. Recently they have focused on the pandemic; Biden has also spoken by video conference with business owners and laid-off workers weathering the economic crisis.





https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/15/politics/joe-biden-presidential-routine/index.html

GA-SEN: David Perdue Exploring Senate Bid In 2022

Pennsylvania G.O.P.'s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises Alarms

When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election results in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. effort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.”

“It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Justice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”

Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way.

G.O.P. legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are selected in Pennsylvania, in a gambit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges.




https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/us/politics/pennsylvania-republicans.html

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