By
Today’s edition of quick hits.
* On Capitol Hill: “The Senate is working to pass the debt ceiling deal negotiated by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy by the end of the week. There is an effort underway to pass the bill as soon as Thursday night, multiple sources said, but it could push into Friday.”
* On student loans, members won’t be able to override a veto: “A joint resolution to block President Joe Biden’s student loan relief proposal cleared the Senate Thursday, but that’s likely the end of legislative efforts to scrap the initiative. That’s because the White House has said Biden will veto the measure, which cleared the Senate by a vote of 52 to 46. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, along with independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, supported the measure, as did every Republican.”
* Roberto Minuta’s Jan. 6 sentence: “A member of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group who was part of a security detail for former President Donald Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone before storming the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Thursday to more than four years in prison.”
* On a related note, what makes this Jan. 6 indictment notable is that Jared Wise worked as a special agent and a supervisory special agent at the FBI from 2004 until 2017: "A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment today against an Oregon man on charges related to his actions before and during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021."
* Sanctions on Sudan: “The White House announced Thursday that it will impose sanctions against key defense companies and people who ‘perpetuate violence’ in Sudan as the warring sides failed to abide by a cease-fire agreement in the northeastern African nation.”
* SCOTUS news: “In a loss for organized labor, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of a concrete company in Washington state seeking to revive a lawsuit against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters alleging that a strike damaged its product.”
* At the IRS: House Republicans are seeking to make good on their campaign promise to rein in the IRS with cutbacks built into the debt ceiling and budget cuts package moving through Congress. ... [But] Biden administration officials are offering assurances that the spending cuts secured by Republican negotiators will have minimal impact on the agency’s operations over the next few years.”
* Reproductive rights are popular in Nevada: “Nevada’s Joe Lombardo on Tuesday became one of the first Republican governors to enshrine protections for out-of-state abortion patients and in-state providers, adding the western swing state to the list of those passing new laws to solidify their status as safe havens for abortion patients.”
* Sometimes people trip on unnoticed sandbags, and I’d recommend not making too much of a fuss about it: “President Joe Biden fell on stage at the graduation ceremony on Thursday for the U.S. Air Force Academy and is ‘fine,’ a White House aide said. After Biden shook the hands of more than 900 graduates, the president turned to head back to his seat and started to motion as if he was going to jog. He then appeared to trip and fell down on the stage.”
See you tomorrow.