US House 37 , CD3 DFL

Phillips Decries Moocher States, Calls for More Investment in Minnesota

Minnesota is one of just eight states to contribute more each year to Washington than it receives in federal aid.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03) engaged in a whole-of-government strategy to call out systemic underinvestment and tax fairness in Minnesota, from advocacy at the White House to the House Transportation & Infrastructure. On balance, Minnesotans currently pays out more than $1.8 billion each year to federal coffers without seeing that money invested locally. Meanwhile states like Kentucky receive $63 billion morefrom D.C. than they share in federal taxes.

In light of this imbalance, Phillips announced his co-sponsorship of the Payer State Transparency Act, a bipartisan bill that would require yearly reports on the disparities in federal spending and taxation across American states. These disparities—which often manifest as higher taxes, higher government debt, and underdevelopment—have only grown more pronounced since the cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction was implemented in 2017.

Women detail drug use, sex and payments after late-night parties with Gaetz and others

ORLANDO, FLORIDA — The first thing some of the women were asked to do when they got to the house parties in the gated community in suburban Orlando was to put away their cellphones, according to two women in attendance who spoke to CNN in recent days. The men inside, a who’s who of local Republican officials that often included Rep. Matt Gaetz, did not want the night’s activities documented.

The partygoers, at times dressed in formal wear from a political event they’d just left, mingled and shared drugs like cocaine and ecstasy. Some had sex.

Gaetz, the brash Republican, liked to discuss politics, said one of the women. He behaved like a “frat type of party boy,” she said, sometimes taking pills she believed were recreational drugs. Continue reading.

‘Everyone thinks that this is going the wrong direction’: Republicans faced with dealing with Matt Gaetz as Congress returns

Republican lawmakers returning to the Capitol after a break are about to be confronted with working with — and questions about — Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) this week, reports CNN.

During Congress’s Spring break, the controversial Florida lawmaker became even more controversial after it was leaked that he is under multiple investigations related to sex trafficking and allegedly paying women for sex. Now as lawmakers return, they can expect to be inundated with questions from the press as to whether the Gaetz should resign.

As CNN notes, to date, most Republicans have been silent on Gaetz’s legal problems. Continue reading.

Is broadband infrastructure? Republicans used to think so

Republicans less sure that providing the service to all Americans is infrastructure, or at least at Biden’s price tag

The debate in Congress over President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan has featured a clean, simple attack line from Republicans: Most of the money wouldn’t really go to infrastructure.

Of course, that depends entirely on how you define infrastructure. For their purposes, Republicans are opting for a classic definition, seeking to limit the scope to things like roads and bridges. Russell Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump, asserted in a recent Fox News appearance that “only 5 to 7 percent” of the plan is actual infrastructure.

And although that assertion was awarded “Three Pinocchios” by a Washington Post fact-checker, one can make an argument that funding in the plan for things like home-care services and electric vehicle purchases isn’t exactly infrastructure. But Republicans’ objection to one piece of the plan, broadband expansion so that households in all parts of the country have access to fast internet service, seems the result of a particularly curious case of political amnesia. Continue reading.

Clyde says he will take magnetometer fine matter to federal court

Georgia Republican says rule is in violation of the Constitution and ‘meritless’

Rep. Andrew Clyde says he will go to federal court to fight $15,000 in fines he incurred for dodging security screening at the entrance to the House floor.

On Monday, the House Ethics Committee announced it upheld both fines the Georgia Republican was assessed for eluding the magnetometers. Under a rule adopted by the chamber in February, a member who fails to complete security screening is fined $5,000 on the first instance and $10,000 for subsequent offenses.

Clyde was cited for “deliberately” avoiding security screening by the Capitol Police on two occasions, the first on Feb. 5 and the second on Feb. 8, according to the Ethics panel. Acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Timothy P. Blodgett was tasked with imposing the fine. Continue reading.

The GOP’s ‘structural welfare’: Why the next 2 years will determine the fate of US democracy

Knowing that they are a shrinking party and that changing demographics do not work in their favor, Republicans all over the United States are aggressively pushing voter suppression bills in state legislatures. Journalist/author Adam Jentleson, in an article published by The Atlantic on April 12, stresses that Republicans enjoy great “structural” advantages despite becoming more and more of a “minority” party.

“President Joe Biden came into office facing four ‘converging crises’: COVID-19, climate change, racial justice and the economy,” Jentleson explains. “But after a few weeks of fast action on a pandemic relief plan, a fifth crisis will determine the fate of the rest of his administration, and perhaps that of American democracy itself: the minority-rule doom loop, by which predominantly White conservatives gain more and more power, even as they represent fewer Americans.”

The GOP has lost the popular vote in seven of the United States’ last eight presidential elections, and Republicans are coping with that reality by making it more difficult to vote. Another GOP tactic is ruthlessly gerrymandering U.S. House of Representatives districts. Continue reading.

Rep. Dean Phillips (CD3): Have You Seen This?

Hi Neighbors,

Yesterday, our community suffered another horrific tragedy when Daunte Wright was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic and bench warrant stop in Brooklyn Center, just next door to Minnesota’s Third Congressional District. If you’re watching the news this week and can barely recognize the Twin Cities you know and love, I ask you to listen to our neighbors who’ve been living in fear, inequity, and insecurity for their entire lives. We’ve mistook quiet for peace for far too long, and the absence of justice for some means insecurity for all. Click here to read my full statement, and please join me in pursuing justice in policing, in education, in housing, and in opportunity for all.

I am saddened by how quickly pundits have retreated to their corners during this tragedy. We’ve lost our way as a nation, but I’m an eternal optimist. Last week I began a series of conversations with members of our community that is already reigniting my hope that it is still possible to work together in pursuit of truth, trust, and common ground. I will have more information to share with you about these conversations soon, so stay-tuned and click here to receive my email updates.

Rep. Phillips Conversation with Neighbors in Bloomington — **I had a wonderful conversation with neighbors in Bloomington about finding common ground this week, and hope to have many more like it soon**

Wake Up, GOP, Warns Liz Cheney: Trump Is Still Waging ‘War On The Constitution’

The Wyoming lawmaker also called the sex trafficking allegations against Matt Gaetz “sickening.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) called on her party Sunday to move on from former President Donald Trump, saying in an interview on “Face The Nation” on CBS that he’s peddling his old lies and continuing to wage “war on the Constitution.”

In an incendiary speech Saturday at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for the Republican National Committee, Trump yet again baselessly claimed the election had been illegally stolen from him. He attacked former Vice President Mike Pence for lacking “the courage” to block voters’ choice of Joe Biden as president. He expressed no regrets about, nor remorse for, the deadly Capitol riot, The Washington Post reported.

“The former president is using the same language that he knows provoked violence on January 6th,” Cheney said of the speech. “As a party, we need to be focused on the future. We need to be focused on embracing the Constitution — not embracing insurrection.” Continue reading.

Texas Attorney General Paxton Won’t Release Texts He Sent During Capitol Riot

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is refusing to release text messages that he either sent or received while attending the pro-Donald Trump rally that devolved into the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan 6, which resulted in five casualties.

Several news outlets are attempting to obtain copies of the attorney general’s work-related email and text communications, despite Paxton’s office being uncooperative. The Texas Public Information Act ensures the public’s right to public officials’ government records.

Lauren Downey, the public information coordinator at the Office of the Attorney General, said, “The Office of the Attorney General is in full compliance with the Public Information Act.” Continue reading.

How the corporate backlash to Georgia’s new voting law is shaping other fights around the country over access to the polls

Behind closed doors, aides to Georgia’s top Republicans and its leading business interests spent the final days of March hashing out new voting legislation in an effort to quell a growing outcry that GOP lawmakers were pushing measures that would severely curtail access to the polls.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and representatives of major corporations, including Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, worked directly with legislative leadersand the office of Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to exclude some of the more controversial proposals, according to people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Republicans agreed to drop, for instance, language barring most Georgians from voting by mail and curtailing early voting on weekends. They even expanded early-voting hours in the final bill.

The hope of Republicans involved, according to a half-dozen people familiar with the process, was to pull off a delicate political balancing act: satisfying voters who believe former president Donald Trump’s false claims that he lost the 2020 election because of rampant fraud — while heading off accusations of voter suppression from the left. Continue reading.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: