Month: January 2024

The U.S. Defense Department has acknowledged that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been hospitalized since Monday due to complications following a minor elective medical procedure. According to a statement from his press secretary, Austin had been admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Austin, 70, spent 41 years in the military, retiring as a four-star Army general in 2016.

Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Sunday that Austin is “still in the hospital and recovering well” and “resumed his full duties Friday evening,” , adding that he did not have details on when Austin would be discharged.  However, officials from the White House said that the National Security Council, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, was not informed Austin was in the hospital until Thursday morning. Similarly, the Senate Armed Services Committee was not notified about Austin’s hospitalization until Friday evening, saying: “the committee was notified before the press notification went out” about Austin.

Austin wrote in a press release on Saturday that he is “on the mend” and looks “forward to returning to the Pentagon soon.”  Austin said: “I also understand the media concerns about transparency and I recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better. But this is important to say: this was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure.”

The Pentagon’s failure to disclose Austin’s hospitalization to the President and other senior White House officials and Cabinet members is not typical practice. The Pentagon Press Association, which represents media members who cover the Defense Department, sent a letter of protest which read: “The fact that he has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for four days and the Pentagon is only now alerting the public late on a Friday evening is an outrage. At a time when there are growing threats to U.S. military service members in the Middle East and the U.S. is playing key national security roles in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defense leader.”

The Biden administration said that the President spoke with Austin on Saturday evening, calling it a “warm conversation,” and adding that the president “absolutely has full confidence in Secretary Austin.”

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House and Senate leaders announced on Sunday a $1.59 trillion spending deal for government funding in 2024, tentatively averting a potential shutdown later this month. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer shared that the agreement includes $886 billion in defense spending and $704 billion in non-defense spending.

Johnson’s and Schumer’s agreement reduces the chances of a shutdown, however, there are still major hurdles facing Congress ahead of two funding deadlines (January 19 and February 2).  Conservatives are still demanding to use the funding bill as leverage to impose more stringent immigration and border security demands, and congress will still have to approve funding bills to avoid a shutdown by the deadlines.

President Joe Biden said Sunday, “The bipartisan funding framework congressional leaders have reached moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities. It reflects the funding levels that I negotiated with both parties and signed into law last spring.”

In a letter to his Republican colleagues Sunday, Johnson wrote: “We have secured hard-fought concessions to unlock the FY 24 topline numbers and allow the Appropriations Committee to finally begin negotiating and completing the twelve annual appropriations bills.” Concessions from Democrats include “an additional $10 billion in cuts to the IRS mandatory funding (for a total of $20 billion), which was a key part of the Democrats’ ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’ In addition, we will cut $6.1 billion from the Biden’s Administration’s continued COVID-era slush funds, which we achieved despite fierce opposition.”

Schumer’s statement with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that the agreement on non-defense discretionary spending will allow Democrats to “protect key domestic priorities like veterans benefits, health care and nutrition assistance from the draconian cuts sought by right-wing extremists. It will also allow us to keep the investments for hardworking American families secured by the legislative achievements of President Biden and Congressional Democrats. We have made clear to Speaker Mike Johnson that Democrats will not support including poison pill policy changes in any of the twelve appropriations bills put before the Congress.”

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A transgender woman said she was disqualified from running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives because she did not disclose her former name, or ‘deadname’ (the name a trans person was given at birth and no longer uses after their gender transition.)

Former real estate photographer Vanessa Joy, 42, hoped to run as a Democrat and represent Ohio House District 50, but was disqualified when she failed to include her deadname. Ohio law requires people running for political office who have changed their name within the last five years to include their former names on candidacy petitions. While the law exempts people who have changed their name because of marriage, it does not mention exemptions for trans people who have changed their names.

Joy said she filed a petition Thursday to contest her disqualification, adding that she was unaware of the law. She told NBC News: “It’s a barrier to entry for many trans and gender-nonconforming people. Where I personally would have just bit the bullet and allowed my deadname to be on the petitions and likely on the ballot, for a lot of trans people, they don’t want their deadnames printed. It’s a safety concern for many … I wanted to give millennials, Gen X and Gen Z the courage to get out and vote and to run for office themselves. Because if they see a trans girl from very red Ohio running for public office, in a chamber full of people who despise me for my existence, they might have more courage to get out and vote and see that ‘maybe my vote will make a difference.’” 

Joy’s disqualification comes shortly after Ohio made national headlines over transgender issues, with Republican Gov. Mike DeWine vetoing a GOP-backed bill last week that would have restricted both transition-related care for minors and transgender girls’ participation on school sports teams.  DeWine’s veto was criticized by some Republicans, as well as former President Donald Trump, who wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social:  “DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left. No wonder he gets loudly booed in Ohio every time I introduce him at Rallies, but I won’t be introducing him any more. I’m finished with this ‘stiff.’ What was he thinking. The bill would have stopped child mutilation, and prevented men from playing in women’s sports. Legislature will hopefully overturn. Do it FAST!!!”   The veto is expected to be challenged by Ohio lawmakers in coming weeks.

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A sixth grade student was killed, with four students and a school administrator injured, in a shooting on Thursday morning at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa. The shooter, a teenage student, appears to have acted alone and was also found dead at the scene with a self-inflicted gunshot wound after opening fire, officials said.

Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations, said police received an alert of an active shooter inside the high school about 7:37 a.m. Mortvedt confirmed during a press briefing that the shooter, 17-year-old Dylan Butler, opened fire in the school Thursday morning, the beginning of the second semester for the Perry Community School District following winter break. Butler was armed with a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun, and a “rudimentary” explosive device was also found. It was rendered safe by the state fire marshal and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mortvedt added that Butler made posts on social media shortly before the shooting, but his motivation is unknown and the shooting remains under investigation.

The high school and middle school in Perry are connected with a cafeteria near the hallway, and Mortvedt said there may have been students from different grades in the cafeteria at the time of the shooting. Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said fewer students and faculty members were in the building at the time than would have been after classes had begun: “It’s still unclear how many are inured or the extent of injuries. There is no further danger to the public. We are working backwards trying to figure out everything that happened and make notifications.” Infante said all students were reunified with their parents within the first two hours of the incident.

The first officer arrived on the scene about 7 minutes after the alert, with about 150 officers responded within the hour. Infante said. Law enforcement agencies that respond included the Perry Police Department, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, Polk County Sheriff’s Department, Des Moines Police Department and the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations.

Perry, situated about 40 miles northwest of Des Moines in central Iowa, has a population of 7,800. The high school was named a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education last month.

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