“Let them take you to court”: Biden dares GOP to obstruct him
And while the carefully calibrated policy rollout can’t, on its own, juice the economy or ramp up the Covid-19 response on the scale that’s needed, White House aides believe it has helped build momentum for the president as he tries to sell a historic $1.9 trillion “rescue” package.
Their belief in that is so strong, in fact, that Biden officials and allies are now practically daring Republicans to fight them, convinced that the public is firmly on the side of quick action.
“It will save our majority if he takes that approach with everything that he does,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), one of Biden’s closest allies in the House. “Don’t try to go around them. But if they refuse to do it, use his executive powers and do it. And let them take you to court.”
Former state Sen. Erica Smith is mounting another campaign for the open seat, and at least three other Black women are said to be possible contenders: former state Supreme Court judge and 2020 congressional candidate Pat Timmons-Goodson, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley and state Sen. Sydney Batch.
State Sen. Jeff Jackson, a white man, entered the race at the end of January, and state Rep. Rachel Hunt, a white woman and political scion who won a Trump district in 2018, did not close the door to a Senate run.
Some Democrats in the state hope party officials in Washington will stay out of the nominating process this time after the DSCC’s chosen candidate came up short in 2020.
President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in
1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
Then 2021 arrived with an attack on the U.S. Capitol six days in by “patriots” bent on murder and destruction largely because the November election – of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black person and first woman to hold that office – didn’t go their way.
But as House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn notes in an exclusive essay for USA TODAY, this historical moment of chaos and confusion is not unfamiliar terrain. Last year was not without some victories, and 2021 is not without hope.
For years I believed Black History Month, which begins Feb. 1, would have become extinct by now.
As an African American who benefited greatly from hard-fought gains won by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights warriors during the 1960s and 1970s, I believed the pace of racial progress would accelerate. Surely, I surmised during my younger years, by the 21st century no longer would the “first black” this or “first black that make headlines.
Obviously, I was wrong.
There is as much need for a celebration of Black contributions to America today as back in 1926 when historian Carter G. Woodson launched the precursor to Black History Month with Negro History Week.