Tag: Senate Republicans

As virus cases surge, Republicans let Walz keep powers without a fight

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA. (FOX 9) – As the coronavirus surges in Minnesota, Republican lawmakers let Gov. Tim Walz keep his emergency powers without a fight during Thursday’s unprecedented sixth special session of 2020.

More than 60 percent of senators decided to vote from home Thursday. Republican Sen. Dave Senjem told FOX 9 he tested positive over the weekend after developing a slight cough, and was isolating at home in Rochester but feeling better. 

Senjem said he attended Senate Republicans’ leadership election last Thursday before feeling symptoms. He said he likely got the virus before that, while campaigning in his district last week. Continue reading.

Amy Coney Barrett faced the questions. But Trump hovered over her confirmation hearings.

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On Tuesday, Amy Coney Barrett spent much of her Supreme Court confirmation hearing trying to rise above the stench of the self-serving politics and skulduggery that President Trump has injected into the process. She did it without notes. Without raising her voice. And without really answering a single question of substance.

The full day of endless verbiage was not so much about Barrett as it was about how fetid the exercise has become.

Trump has devoted significant energy to blustering and tweeting about the sorts of judges he would nominate as president, and he has been forceful in his certainty that his choices would abide by his will. His desires include dismantling the Affordable Care Act, defending gun ownership as a right essentially without limits and overturning Roe v. Wade. Just recently, he has added another job to his wish list, one that helps to explain the urgency of these hearings: having a ninth justice on the bench in time to rule in Trump’s favor on any lawsuits that might arise from an election in which polls have him trailing and in which people have already begun voting. Continue reading.

Covid talks going nowhere as deadline nears

Negotiators met for more than three hours but remain far apart on an agreement.

Negotiations between the White House and Democratic congressional leaders on a new coronavirus relief package were on the brink of failure Thursday night, both sides said after a fruitless three-hour meeting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.

The apparent deadlock in the high-level talks now shifts the focus back to President Donald Trump, who warned earlier in the day that he will issue a series of executive orders to address the economic crisis facing millions of Americans if no deal can be reached with Congress. Trump could issue these orders as early as Friday, senior administration officials said.

After their 10th face-to-face session with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blamed the White House for failing to reach a bipartisan agreement that would allow the resumption of federal unemployment payments or provide hundreds of billions of dollars in new aid to state and local governments. Democrats are pushing a relief package costing more than $3 trillion, while the White House and Senate Republicans want to keep the price tag closer to $1 trillion. Continue reading.

Congress set for brawl as unemployment cliff looms

The Hill logoCongress is barreling toward a showdown over federal unemployment benefits, with millions of Americans hanging in the balance.

As part of the March $2.2 trillion coronavirus bill, Congress agreed to a $600-per week boost of unemployment benefits, but those are set to start expiring in a matter of days.

What to replace it with is shaping up to be a clash as lawmakers and the White House prepare to negotiate the fifth coronavirus bill. Continue reading.

Republicans start bracing for shutdown fight in run-up to election

The Hill logoSenate Republicans are growing concerned that rising tensions between President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could lead to a shutdown fight just weeks before the election and threaten their slim majority in the chamber. 

There is widespread anxiety among GOP senators that Trump’s penchant for picking fights is a political liability as his response to nationwide protests against police brutality appears to be the cause of his declining approval ratings.

Republicans are now worried that he’s likely to pick a fight with Pelosi in September over government funding for the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. Continue reading.

Republicans fear Trump may cost them Senate

The Hill logoSenate Republicans are feeling high anxiety over President Trump’s aggressive response to nationwide civil unrest, which they fear is alienating middle-of-the-road voters who are crucial to keeping their majority after Nov. 3.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared at the beginning of the election cycle that winning over college graduates and women in the suburbs would be key to retaining the Senate majority in 2020.

With the election five months away, Senate Republicans worry that Trump is blowing up that strategy with his laser-like focus on his base instead of swing voters. Continue reading.

Congress to bail out firms that avoided taxes, safety regulations and spent billions boosting their stock

Washington Post logoLess than a dozen years after the bailouts of the Great Recession, airlines, hotels and a long list of others come calling.

When airline executives realized a few years ago that they could charge passengers extra fees for just about anything — meals, checking bags, even choosing seats — their businesses seemed bulletproof.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to lose money again,” American Airlines chief executive Doug Parker told giddy investors in 2017. As such companies continued to thrive, they also undertook share buybacks, boosting investor value. President Trump and congressional Republicans sweetened the outlook for big businesses further when they passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut that slashed the corporate rate beginning in 2018.

That seems so long ago. Now airlines, hotels, cruise lines, coal-mining companies and others strangled by coronavirus shutdowns are lining up to receive slices of a $2 trillion aid package funded by taxpayers. Continue reading.

House GOP wants Senate Republicans to do more on impeachment

The Hill logoHouse Republicans say their counterparts in the Senate need to do more to help President Trump on impeachment.

The House GOP lawmakers note their power is limited on impeachment hearings, but Senate Republicans have the authority to call witnesses and issue subpoenas. Republicans in the lower chamber have expressed frustration that little attention has been paid to allegations that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 presidential election and that former Vice President Joe Biden may have had a serious conflict of interest with regard to Ukraine because of his son Hunter Biden.

Major media outlets, with the exception of Fox News, have given little credibility to these allegations pushed by Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and their allies.   

View the complete November 21 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Nervous Republicans focus energy on protecting Senate ‘firewall’

The Hill logoThe GOP majority in the Senate is shaping up as a firewall for Republicans who are worried that President Trump might falter and lose the White House next year.

Republicans see winning back the House majority as a tough climb in 2020, and head-to-head matchups between Trump and various Democratic presidential contenders show the president behind his potential challengers.

Though Republicans overall are optimistic about Trump’s reelection prospects, they see holding the Senate, where they have a 53-47 edge, as crucial given the shape of races for the White House and lower chamber. And they’re playing their cards accordingly.

View the complete August 27 article by Jordain Carney and Max Greenwood on The Hill website here.

Senate GOP plans to raid health and education funds to pay for Trump’s wall

Instead of Mexico paying for Trump’s wall, Senate Republicans plan to use health and education funding.

The signature promise of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was that he would build a massive wall along the nation’s southern border and that not a penny of it would be charged to the American taxpayer. He repeatedly boasted that he would get Mexico to pay for it.

But now that this lie has been all but abandoned, Senate Republicans reportedly plan to divert billions of dollars from health and education to make up the difference.

Roll Call reported on Thursday that Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) has written a Fiscal Year 2020 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill allocation “that is about $5 billion lower than it would have been to provide funding for the wall.” If this proposal gets the 60 votes required for passage in the Senate, it would still need to be negotiated with the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

View the complete August 9 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.