Category: US House

GOP senator warns his party must decide between ‘conservatism and madness’

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Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who’s said he may vote this month to convict former President Trump on an article of impeachment, is pushing back against possible retaliation from the Nebraska Republican State Central Committee by warning that his party must choose between “conservatism and madness.”

Sasse on Thursday released a five-minute video responding to Republican officials back home who want to censure him at a Republican State Central Committee meeting on Feb. 13 because of his criticism of Trump.

He warned that purging Trump skeptics from the GOP is “not only civic cancer for the nation [but] just terrible for our party.”  Continue reading.

In Viral House Floor Speech, Rep. Phillips Appeals to the Better Angels of His Colleagues and Country

Phillips: “I’m not here this evening seeking sympathy – rather to make a public apology.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) joined a special order hour organized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to share their experiences of January 6, 2021, when Congress was subject to an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that led to the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and the first breach of the institution since the War of 1812.

WATCH: 

Continue reading “In Viral House Floor Speech, Rep. Phillips Appeals to the Better Angels of His Colleagues and Country”

House votes to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee assignments

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The House voted 230-199 on Thursday to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from her committee assignments over her past endorsement of baseless conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric against Democrats.

Why it matters: It’s a drastic step that comes after Republican leadership declined to take action against the controversial congresswoman, prompting Democrats to take the matter into their own hands. 11 Republicans joined 219Democrats in voting to remove Greene from the Education and Budget committees.

Republicans who voted to strip Greene’s committee assignments: Continue reading.

DFL Party Statement on Minnesota Republicans’ Votes to Keep a Dangerous Bigot on Key House Committees


SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA  – Today, the Minnesota DFL Party condemned Representatives Hagedorn, Emmer, Fischbach, and Stauber for voting to keep Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on several key House Committees after her dangerous, extremist, and cruel behaviors and beliefs came to light.

Despite the Minnesota Republican delegation’s “no” votes, the House removed Representative Greene from the Budget Committee and the Committee on Education and Labor after it came to light that Greene:

Continue reading “DFL Party Statement on Minnesota Republicans’ Votes to Keep a Dangerous Bigot on Key House Committees”

Trump lawyers decline impeachment managers’ request for him to testify

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Former President Trump’s lawyers on Thursday declinedlead House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)’s request that he testify under oath before or during his Senate trial next week, calling the invitation a “public relations stunt.” 

Why it matters: Trump has been charged by the House with inciting the insurrection at the Capitol, but has disputed “many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment,” Raskin notes. Testimony under oath would allow the former president to clarify “critical facts” about his role in the events of Jan. 6.

Details: “We would propose that you provide your testimony (of course including cross-examination) as early as Monday, February 8, 2021, and not later than Thursday, February 11, 2021. We would be pleased to arrange such testimony at a mutually convenient time and place,” Raskin wrote in the letter. Continue reading.

Despite denouncing QAnon months ago, Kevin McCarthy now says, ‘I don’t even know what it is’

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After a private meeting Wednesday night of the House Republican conference meant to hold together an increasingly divided party, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) defended controversial freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). But as he lauded Greene’s apology to Republicans for her history of outrageous rhetoric on social media, McCarthy also claimed that the extremist ideology she supports was foreign to him.

“I think it would be helpful if you could hear exactly what she told all of us — denouncing Q-on, I don’t know if I say it right, I don’t even know what it is,” said McCarthy, referring to QAnon, a radicalized movement based on false claims that the FBI has deemed a domestic terrorism threat.

McCarthy’s comment set off immediate backlash, with critics pointing out that the minority leader has addressed QAnon before in TV interviews and at news conferences. Continue reading.

Congress risks losing ‘bridle’ on the executive in Trump impeachment trial

An acquittal on the grounds Trump is no longer president could weaken a uniquely congressional power

Senators will determine not only the political fate of Donald Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial next week but also whether or not to weaken their own congressional power to rein in presidential misconduct.

If that happens, it could undermine the reason the founders gave Congress the impeachment power in the first place: as one of the checks and balances in the Constitution to keep a president from becoming a tyrant, members of Congress, historians and constitutional scholars say.

“The fact that we can’t come together, both as a political body and as a nation, around the notion that an incumbent commander in chief cannot stage a coup against his own government in order to overturn the will of the people speaks to how far we have strayed from our ideals as a nation, without question,” said Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian for ABC News who is president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation. Continue reading.

Greene apologizes to GOP colleagues — and gets standing ovation

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) apologized for her past controversial remarks and embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theory during a heated closed-door House GOP conference meeting — and received a standing ovation at one point from a number of her colleagues.

Greene told her colleagues that she made a mistake by being curious about “Q” and said she told her children she learned a lesson about what to put on social media, according to two sources in the room.

She also denied that she knew what Jewish space lasers were and defended her comments that past school shootings were staged by stating that she had personal experience with a school shooting. Continue reading.

Harvard Law Professor Explains Why Donald Trump’s Free Speech Defense May Not Stick

Laurence Tribe likened the former president to a fire chief “urging a mob to burn the theater down.”

Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe has poured cold water on the free speech defense being put forward by former President Donald Trump’s legal team ahead of his Senate impeachment trial for inciting the deadly U.S. Capitol riot.

Trump impeachment counsel David Schoen argued in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday that the former president’s provocative comments to his supporters before they ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, for which the House impeached Trump for a second time last month, was actually protected by the First Amendment.

“We can’t control the reaction of the audience,” Schoen was quoted as saying. Continue reading.

Democrats demand repeal of ‘obscene’ tax cut for millionaires that GOP buried in previous COVID relief bill

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A group of 120 Democratic members of Congress is calling on their party’s leadership to ensure that a tax break for millionaires that Republicans quietly buried in an earlier coronavirus relief package is repealed in upcoming aid legislation, arguing the rollback would free up hundreds of billions in revenue which could be used to help struggling families.

Led by Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) in the House and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in the Senate, the coalition of lawmakers sent a letter to Democratic leaders on Tuesday demanding the reversal of “costly tax breaks for so-called ‘net operating losses’ that Republicans tucked into the CARES Act,” a $2 trillion relief measure that former President Donald Trump signed into law last March.

“These special-interest giveaways will confer over 80 percent of the benefits to just 43,000 taxpayers, each earning at least $1 million per year,” reads the letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “We urge you to repeal these unwarranted tax cuts, as HEROES and HEROES 2.0 proposed and President Biden has recommended. This would save over $250 billion, which should be repurposed to help Americans who have lost income due to the pandemic and its economic fallout.” Continue reading.