Question Time chaos as dozens of pharmacists dressed in white storm out of Parliament and heckle the government as ‘liars’

By Brittany Chain, Political Correspondent For Daily Mail Australia

Updated: 03:22 EDT, 4 September 2023

AOC dodges question about why she hasn’t visited border since Biden took over despite constantly complaining about migrant issues there while Trump was president

By Claudia Aoraha, Senior Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Updated: 07:47 EDT, 31 August 2023

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President Joe Biden laughed off a question Thursday about whether he would share his bank records with Congressional Republicans who are probing his son Hunter’s business deals and threatening with opening an impeachment inquiry. 

Biden made a surprise visit to FEMA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. amid the agency’s Hurricane Idalia response and in the aftermath of the deadly wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui. 

There the 80-year-old president answered several questions from reporters after bringing pizzas and addressing FEMA’s workforce. 

After answering questions about overdose awareness day, a potential government shutdown and if he’d spoken to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who suffered from another health scare earlier this week, he laughed when asked if he’d hand over his bank records to the House GOP. 

‘Let’s talk about why I’m here,’ he said, and then answered an addition question on whether he wanted Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend next week’s G20 summit in India and revealed he would travel to Florida on Saturday to survey storm damage.

Biden has continually blown off questions about House Republicans’ investigations into son Hunter’s business deals in Ukraine and China but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy raised the stakes Sunday by saying an impeachment inquiry ‘is a natural step forward.’ 

‘That provides Congress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need,’ the California Republican said in an interview on Fox News. 

Despite there being no solid evidence linking the president to his son’s business deals, which were taking place at the height of Hunter’s crack cocaine addiction, McCarthy insisted there was a ‘culture of corruption that’s been happening within the entire Biden family.’ 

On Friday, NBC News reported that the White House had stood up a ‘war room’ of two dozen lawyers, legislative aides and communications staff to aggressively respond to a Republican impeachment inquiry, which comes as Biden is running for reelection. 

Sources told the network that the ‘war room’ team plans a vigorous response and will characterize the GOP’s efforts as a fact-free partisan sham that shows the party’s ‘penchant for chaos,’ NBC said. 

‘Comparing this to past impeachments isn’t apples to apples or even apples to oranges; it’s apples to elephants,’ one White House aide told NBC. ‘Never in modern history has an impeachment been based on no evidence whatsoever.’ 

It’s no surprise that some of the loudest voices backing impeachment are also top surrogates for former President Donald Trump. 

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told constituents Thursday night that she wouldn’t vote to fund the government unless House Republicans opened up an impeachment inquiry on Biden. 

‘I’ve already decided that I will not vote to fund the government unless we pass an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden,’ Greene said at a Floyd County, Georgia town hall. 

She also pushed to have Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has now twice indicted Trump, defunded and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss fired. 

Weiss, a Trump appointee, was elevated to special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland last month. 

He’s overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax and gun case in Delaware federal court. 

Greene announcement received cheers and applause from the conservative crowd. 

In a statement on Thursday night, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: ‘The last thing the American people deserve is for extreme House members to trigger a government shutdown that hurts our economy, undermines our disaster preparedness, and forces our troops to work without guaranteed pay.’ 

‘The House Republicans responsible for keeping the government open already made a promise to the American public about government funding, and it would be a shame for them to break their word and fail the country because they caved to the hardcore fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high stakes needs Americans care about deeply – like fighting fentanyl trafficking, protecting our national security, and funding FEMA,’ he added.  

There’s a leak in parliament! Stormy weather stops MPs during question time as rain starts seeping through the roof of the House of Representatives chamber

• Australian MPs were forced to deal with a leak at parliament house
• Speaker Bronwyn Bishop called for a mop and bucket
• The nation’s capital was pelted with rain, hail and lightning as a severe thunderstorm passed through Wednesday afternoon 

By Amy Ziniak for Daily Mail Australia

Updated: 08:33 EDT, 3 December 2014

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dodged a question in a Wednesday interview about where he would stand on the prospect of primary challenges against moderate Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. 

The centrists have fueled frustration within party leadership and among fellow Democrats in Congress after their opposition in a 50-50 split Senate served to derail key parts of President Joe Biden‘s agenda. 

Their role in tanking federal voting rights legislation last month has sparked a progressive outcry for primary challengers to unseat both senators. Backlash against Sinema included a formal censure from the Arizona Democratic Party. 

Both Manchin and Sinema’s seats are up for re-election in 2024.

Schumer would not say when asked by CNN whether he’d support or oppose such challenges, shifting focus to the much nearer November midterm elections.

‘I am focused on 2022, getting things done, and winning the election on 2022,’ Schumer said.

‘I’m not at all focused on 2024 right now, and neither should anyone else be. That’s just how you lose in 2022.’

He defended forcing a floor vote on Democrats’ Freedom To Vote: John R. Lewis Act and a subsequent vote on whether to scuttle the filibuster to pass the package with a simple majority — both of which predictably failed.

Schumer reasoned that ‘when it comes to something as crucial as voting rights, can’t just push it off the table.’  

‘Senators are there to vote. We had to vote. And I think it was the right decision. And it had virtually, it had broad, wide, and deep support in our caucus,’ he said.

He claimed that ‘talks are continuing’ to pass some form of Build Back Better in a portion of his remarks to CNN from last week but published Wednesday. However on Tuesday Manchin declared Biden’s sweeping social reform and climate bill is ‘dead.’

When asked whether he was frustrated by Manchin, Schumer again neglected to give a clear answer.

‘Joe Manchin and I go back a long way, and obviously, I let him know my point of view and (we will) try to persuade him, as does the whole caucus, that our point of view is the correct point of view,’ he said. 

The New York Democrat, who’s served in the Senate since 1999, also shrugged off concerns of a primary challenge to his own seat — up for re-election this year. 

‘When it comes to reelection, I work really hard for New York and it always works out fine,’ Schumer said. ‘I always am looking forward, not over my shoulder.’

Schumer is sure to face more questions about his primary odds as the election nears, with months old rumors trailing him that rising progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would mount her own Senate bid.

Ocasio-Cortez has not ruled out taking on Schumer in past interviews but has not signaled that she was so inclined, either. 

High-profile progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders have said they’d support liberal primary challenges to Manchin in West Virginia or Sinema in Arizona. 

Last week Ocasio-Cortez said Sinema hasn’t ‘given a compelling case’ for why she should keep her seat and suggested she would support a primary challenge from Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego. 

But talk of scouting primary challenges for Manchin and Sinema has died down in the Senate in the weeks since the voting bill failed. 

Progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who earlier suggested she’d be open to supporting challenges to the moderates, told Politico earlier this week: ‘We need to get work done. Right now. We’ve got Build Back Better still hanging in the balance. I want to work with all 50 Democrats and get something passed now.’

Democrat Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii told the outlet he wouldn’t support Sanders’ bid to unseat Manchin and Sinema.

‘It’s a free country. I wouldn’t recommend it,’ he said.

Sinema’s fellow Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly opposed her censure.

‘We’ve got people talking about an election in ‘24? So, I don’t get it,’ the retired astronaut said. 

Manchin DODGES question on whether he’ll back Biden in 2024: Democrat says ‘we’ll just have to wait and see’ when asked if he will support president in Chris Cuomo interview

• Moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin played coy when asked if he would support President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election 
• ‘You know, we’ll just have to wait and see, I’m not predicting anything,’ Manchin told fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo in a podcast interview 
• Manchin said it would be the voters’ decision, and also pointed out how a ‘national Democratic figure’ likely wouldn’t win his red state, West Virginia  

By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Published: 18:31 EDT, 28 July 2022 | Updated: 07:26 EDT, 29 July 2022

WILDLIFE

GHOSTS IN THE HEDGEROW 

by Tom Moorhouse (Doubleday £16.99, 263pp)

When did you last see a hedgehog? Unless you’re very lucky, you probably haven’t set eyes on one for years, possibly decades.

Once a familiar sight meandering down country lanes at dusk, or snuffling through gardens in search of food, hedgehogs are now classed as vulnerable to extinction in the UK. Children who have grown up reading Beatrix Potter’s The Tale Of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle may never see a live hedgehog.

How did it come to this? After all, we are a nation of hedgehog lovers; a 2016 survey of Britain’s favourite mammals put the hedgehog in first place.

They are tranquil, easy-going creatures who feel quite comfortable living close to humans, they don’t dig up your lawn or eat your plants and there can be few people who wouldn’t be delighted to have one ambling around their garden.

It’s commonly accepted that hedgehog numbers have fallen from 36 million in the 1950s to 550,000 today, although author Tom Moorhouse, a conservation research scientist, points out that these figures are pretty unreliable.

Hedgehogs are notoriously difficult to count because they roam far and wide, and attaching a tracking device to them is tricky. Whatever the actual numbers, though, no one is in any doubt that there has been a calamitous collapse in the hedgehog population.

So who is to blame? Moorhouse’s first suspect is the motor car. During the period when hedgehogs have declined most sharply, the number of cars went up sixfold. Male hedgehogs are particularly active on summer evenings in their search for a mate and as they’re slow movers, many of them get squashed by cars.

Suspect number two is the badger. Badgers not only eat the same kinds of beetles, worms and caterpillars as hedgehogs do, depleting their food supply, they also eat hedgehogs.

Next, Moorhouse points the finger at agriculture. As the name suggests, the hedgehog is very partial to hedges, which are safe spots for nesting and hibernation, as well as being a good place to find food. In 1940, when hedgehogs were still a common sight, there were about a million kilometres of hedgerows in Britain.

Within 40 years, 60 per cent had been removed as part of a huge drive to increase field sizes, while the use of pesticides soared. The result was disastrous for birds, as well as hedgehogs.

In other words, Moorhouse says, ‘Modern life has ganged up on a beloved animal’.

Yet there is a glimmer of hope, and it comes from Britain’s 22 million gardeners. Surveys suggest the hedgehog population is gently increasing in urban areas. A quarter of the average village or town is made up of gardens, and by making small changes to our own plots we can make them hedgehog-friendly.

To ensure hedgehogs can travel between gardens, cut a hole the size of a CD case at the bottom of the fence. Put food down for them (meat-based cat and dog food does nicely); supplementary food results in bigger litters and increases their survival prospects. And pick up your postman’s discarded rubber bands, as hedgehogs eat them, thinking they’re worms, and avoid using chemicals. Above all, Moorhouse writes, we should stop being so tidy. A messy garden, with log piles and long grass to attract insects, plus water, is just what wildlife needs.

Behind Moorhouse’s relentlessly jaunty tone, you sense his despair. Despite his best efforts, he admits, he hasn’t managed to attract a hedgehog into his own garden.

Yet this inspiring book points out that plants and insects have the ability to bounce back quickly and if that happened, the hedgehogs would follow, with a little help from us.

It doesn’t seem a lot to ask in return for the possibility of one day seeing a spiny rump disappearing into the undergrowth.

Scott Morrison has walked out of Question Time early as speculation mounts that he will soon quit politics for the private sector.

The former prime minister was censured by the House of Representatives on November 30 over the ‘minister for everything’ scandal. 

Parliament condemned him on a vote of 86 to 50 for secretly swearing himself in to five extra ministries in 2020 and 2021.

Other than a defiant speech defending himself against the censure, Mr Morrison has not spoken in parliament since losing the May 22 election.

The Member for Cook left the chamber on Tuesday a little before 3pm, well before Question Time concluded at 3.21pm.

Mr Morrison is believed to have left to prepare for an interview with the Australian Associated Press, which did not begin until after Question Time was completed.

He receives $217,060 a year, the basic backbencher salary, while in parliament. 

Sky News reported that ‘informed sources’ believed he would quit politics by the end of the year for a lucrative overseas consulting job.

Mr Morrison in response said if he had anything to say about his political future, he would make it.

For now, he insisted he was ‘dutifully doing his job as a local MP and had returned home to The [Sutherland] Shire seeking to live quietly with his family’, Sky reported.

The Liberal Party stalwart in another interview on the weekend said he was enjoying his time as a backbencher.

‘It’s quite liberating,’ he said when asked what it was like to be a backbencher, pointing out that holding ministries and then being PM for a decade was ‘exhausting’.

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley said she had been friends with Mr Morrison for ‘many years’ but hadn’t heard anything about his retirement plans.

‘He will make a decision in the best interests of himself and family and the people of Cook,’ she said.

Speculation over Mr Morrison’s job started almost immediately after his crushing defeat by Anthony Albanese, and intensified when the ministries scandal broke.

He had himself secretly sworn in as treasurer and minister for home affairs; finance; health; and industry, science, energy and resources.

None of the ministers for these portfolios, other than Greg Hunt for health, were aware he had secretly doubled up on their jobs.

Labor claimed his actions undermined, rejected, attacked, and abused the standards expected of parliamentarians, and struck at the heart of Australia’s democracy.

Other than acknowledging some (but not all) of the appointments were unnecessary, Mr Morrison gave a spirited defence of his actions during the censure motion, and offered no apology.

‘For those who wish to add their judgement today on my actions in supporting this censure motion, I simply suggest that they stop and consider the following – have you ever had to deal with a crisis where the outlook was completely unknown?’ he said.

‘In such circumstances, were you able to get all the decisions perfectly right? And where you may have made errors, were you fortunate enough for them to have had no material impact on the result and the result itself proved to be world-leading?

‘Once you have considered your own experience, or what happens when you have had more in government, then you may wish to cast the first stone in this place.’

Mr Morrison’s speech had such an air of finality that Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek predicted he wouldn’t even see out 2022.

‘Scott Morrison says sorry not sorry. My prediction – he pulls the pin over Christmas. This is his last week,’ she wrote on Twitter. 

However, the man once mocked as ‘Squat Morrison’ for taking 13 days to move out of Kirribilli House after losing the election has so far stuck around.