Tag: Maxine Waters

Democrats warn Waters censure move opens floodgates

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House Democrats are warning that Republicans are opening a Pandora’s box after forcing a vote on censuring Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) this week. 

Multiple Democrats have introduced resolutions in recent months to censure or even expel Republicans, primarily over inflammatory rhetoric making false claims about election fraud ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

After Republicans forced the party-line vote on Waters this week, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) circulated a letter renewing his effort to expel Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from Congress and urging more fellow Democrats to sign onto his resolution. Continue reading.

Minnesota GOP challenges Democrats over Rep. Maxine Waters’ words

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Democrats counter that GOP was silent on Jan. 6 insurrection at Capitol. 

WASHINGTON – Comments last weekend by Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters at a Twin Cities protest are deeply dividing Minnesota’s political delegation in Washington as Republicans unsuccessfully sought to censure the California lawmaker.

As the nation waited for the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial Tuesday, House Democrats, including four from Minnesota, blocked the GOP’s resolution censuring Waters for urging protesters “to get more confrontational” if the jury acquitted the former police officer.

Minnesota’s four GOP House members pushed for Waters to be censured, saying in a letter that “these comments … are unacceptable, divisive and can only be viewed as a means to incite further violence and destruction.” Continue reading.

‘Clean up your mess, Kevin’: Hakeem Jeffries slams House Minority Leader McCarthy for demanding Maxine Waters’ censure

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been calling for a censure of Rep. Maxine Waters in response to her recent comment that if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is acquitted on the charges he is facing in connection with George Floyd’s death, activists should be “confrontational.” And McCarthy was the target of some scathing comments from Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who found it laughable than he was so offended by Waters’ rhetoric in light of the extremists who are welcome in the GOP in 2021.

Jeffries, on the House floor, declared, “When you think that Kevin McCarthy has the nerve to say something about anyone when he supported the violent insurrection after the mob attacked the Capitol, threatened to assassinate Nancy Pelosi, kill other members of Congress, hang Mike Pence. He then came back to the Capitol, voted to support the Big Lie — which ignited the violent insurrection — and continues to play footsie with Donald Trump. When you’ve got a situation where Lauren Boebert is a mess. Matt Gaetz is a mess. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a mess. Clean up your mess, Kevin.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has defended Waters, saying that the California congressman was advocating peaceful protest, not violence. And she is opposed to censuring Waters. Continue reading.

House rejects GOP resolution to censure Waters

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The House on Tuesday rejected a Republican resolution to censure Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) for saying that “we’ve got to get more confrontational” about police brutality against African Americans.

Lawmakers voted along party lines 216-210, with no defections on either side, to table the resolution from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that would have issued the chamber’s harshest disapproval short of expulsion.

Republicans argued that Waters incited violence with her remarks at a protest over the weekend in Minneapolis, where tensions are spiking over the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who’s charged with the murder of George Floyd, and the recent police killing of Daunte Wright. Continue reading.

Maxine Waters rips GOP criticism: ‘I’m not going to be bullied’

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Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) ripped GOP lawmakers in a Monday interview, saying they were trying to “send a message” to white supremacists with their criticism of her. 

“I am nonviolent,” Waters told The Grio on Monday after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) accused her of condoning political violence by stating supporters of racial justice and Black Lives Matter should be “more confrontational.”  

“Republicans will jump on any word, any line and try to make it fit their message and their cause for denouncing us and denying us, basically calling us violent … any time they see an opportunity to seize on a word, so they do it and they send a message to all of the white supremacists, the KKK, the Oath Keepers, the [Proud] Boys and all of that, how this is a time for [Republicans] to raise money on [Democrats’] backs,” Waters said.  Continue reading.

Maxine Waters: There are L.A. gangsters with ‘more integrity’ than Trump

‘This guy is a street player,’ Waters says of the president on ‘Desus & Mero’

Rep. Maxine Waters made her debut Thursday night on Showtime’s “Desus & Mero” late night show and (characteristically) didn’t hold back as she criticized President Donald Trump.

“This guy is a street player,” Waters said. “He’s a guy that has conned folks. He’s flirted with gangsters.”

Waters, who leads the House Financial Services Committee, was one of the first Democrats to call for Trump’s impeachment and has been a vocal Trump critic throughout his presidency. Continue reading.

Someone is taking Trump’s angry rhetoric very literally

Words matter.

Donald Trump Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images

In the midst of the 2016 campaign, a bit of punditry was born: Take Trump seriously, not literally. Two years later, Trump has done — or tried to do — everything he literally promised on the campaign trail, and on Wednesday morning, there was more chilling evidence that words matter, and that people listening to the president may be taking him very literally.

On Wednesday morning, the Secret Service announced it had intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in New York and President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Not long after, the CNN New York offices were evacuated after a suspected explosive device, addressed to former CIA director and MSNBC contributor John Brennan, was found in the mailroom.

Suspicious packages were also being investigated Wednesday afternoon at the Sunrise, Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — the former chair of the Democratic National Committee — and an office building shared by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and several other businesses, in San Diego, California.

View the complete October 24 article by Addy Baird on the ThinkProgress website here.

The Coincidence of Bomb Recipients, Trump and Far-Right Rhetoric

White House ducks questions about president’s win-at-all-costs polarizing approach

People at a Make America Great Again rally in Tampa. Credit: Joe Raedle, Getty Images

ANALYSIS | The recipients of explosive devices sent this week have so far shared a commonality: harsh criticism by President Donald Trump and far-right followers.

But White House officials were in no mood Wednesday to entertain the notion that the president’s descriptions of Democrats as “evil” and news organizations as the “enemy of the people” might have helped lead a bomber to build devices and mail them to Democratic mega-donor George Soros, former President Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and CNN. A building in Miami that houses an office for former Democratic National Committee head Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was also evacuated Wednesday.

Trump’s aides declined to comment beyond a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemning what she called “attempted violent attacks recently made against President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and other public figures.”

View the compete October 24 article by John T. Bennet on the Roll Call website here.

Before Trump warned that Maxine Waters had ‘called for harm,’ he told supporters he’d like to punch a protester

The following article by Eugene Scott was posted on the Washington Post website June 25, 2018:

Jeers and violence erupted between Donald Trump supporters and protesters at the Republican frontrunner’s rally in Fayetteville, N.C., on March 9. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

President Trump warned a Democratic lawmaker to “be careful” in a tweet accusing her of calling for harm to his supporters. Of course, that tweet ignores Trump’s own history of encouraging violent behavior, including some widely noted incidents during the 2016 campaign and since entering the White House.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) told attendees at a Los Angeles rally Saturday that they should confront Trump Cabinet members whenever they are spotted in public.  That day, headlines were blaring about White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia because she works for the administration. Continue reading “Before Trump warned that Maxine Waters had ‘called for harm,’ he told supporters he’d like to punch a protester”

Trump’s repeat attacks on Maxine Waters’s IQ are familiar

The following article by Eugene Scott was posted on the Washington Post website March 11, 2018:

California congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., continues to call for President Trump’s impeachment, explaining why she thinks he is unfit for the office. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Jabs between President Trump and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) aren’t new. But Trump’s latest comments are a reminder of how often he will go out of his way to personally attack the black women who challenge him.

The liberal lawmaker has been one of the most vocal critics in Congress of the president’s policies and made comments deeming him unfit for office before he entered the White House. Continue reading “Trump’s repeat attacks on Maxine Waters’s IQ are familiar”