Tag: Senate GOP

Senate GOP crafts outlines for infrastructure counter proposal

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Senate Republicans on Tuesday discussed the outlines of a scaled-down infrastructure bill they say could pass the Democratic-led Congress with strong bipartisan support. 

The entire Senate GOP conference during its weekly lunch meeting discussed the emerging proposal after getting a briefing from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Capito is leading negotiations among a smaller group of GOP moderates who met with President Biden earlier this year. The group held a meeting late afternoon Monday to narrow Biden’s proposed $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan into something in the range of $600 billion to $800 billion. Continue reading.

Texas Republican’s Complaint: Biden Doesn’t Tweet Enough

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Monday attacked President Joe Biden for his restraint on social media, suggesting Biden isn’t “in control” because he’s not tweeting all day long.

Cornyn tweeted a quote from a Politico article that pointed out the difference between Biden and Donald Trump’s communication strategies:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews. Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional. The public comments are largely scripted. Biden has opted for fewer sit down interviews with mainstream outlets and reporters,” Cornyn tweeted, a word-for-word paragraph from the Politico article. Continue reading.

Senate GOP Memo On Biden Jobs Plan Is Replete With Lies

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A new messaging memo from the Senate Republican Conference to its members’ communications teams frames President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan as a “job-crushing slush fund.”

According to Politico, the memo, dated April 11, dismisses the $2.25 trillion infrastructure package as a “partisan plan to kill jobs and create slush funds on the taxpayer dime.”

The memo is the latest in a series of attempts by Congressional Republicans to dent the bipartisan popularity of Biden’s plan. Recent polling has shown that the vast majority of likely American voters, including 57 percent of Republicans, back the plan to invest trillions of dollars in roads, bridges, broadband, transit, water systems, clean energy, and human infrastructure like child care. Continue reading.

In a Bipartisan Meeting, Biden Makes the Case for His Infrastructure Plan

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The president met with lawmakers from both parties in an effort to show some flexibility on the size of his $2 trillion proposal and how to pay for it.

WASHINGTON — Facing opposition from Republicans and some centrist Democrats to parts of his $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, President Biden on Monday convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House, hoping to make progress toward a deal that can pass a bitterly divided Congress.

Sitting in the Oval Office with the group, Mr. Biden said he was “prepared to negotiate as to the extent of the infrastructure project, as well as how we pay for it.”

The meeting was an effort by the White House to show that it was willing to at least consider proposals to scale back or reshape the package and listen to alternatives to its own plan to pay for it by raising taxes on corporations. Continue reading.

Exclusive: GOP senators seek FBI investigation into Biden Pentagon nominee

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A group of 18 Republican senators on Tuesday wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking an investigation into President Biden‘s nominee for a top role in the Pentagon over whether he disclosed or solicited classified information after leaving his government job in the Obama administration.

The senators requested Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) not advance the nomination of Colin Kahl for under secretary of Defense policy for a full vote until the FBI has completed an investigation, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by The Hill.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who led the letter-writing effort, accused Kahl of using social media to disclose classified information. Continue reading.

Biden warns GOP he could back gutting filibuster

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President Biden on Thursday signaled he is open to making significant changes to the legislative filibuster in the Senate if it continues to be a roadblock to passing legislation on key agenda items like voting rights.

Biden, in his first formal press conference since taking office, reiterated his belief that the Senate should go back to the talking filibuster, which requires senators to hold the floor in order to block legislation.

He acknowledged the current system is being “abused in a gigantic way,” and indicated he may be willing to support exceptions to the filibuster or changing the rule entirely.  Continue reading.

Senate GOP ready to turn page on Trump

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Senate Republicans are warning that they no longer view former President Trump as the leader of the party amid growing signs that they are ready to turn the page after a chaotic four years. 

Though only seven of the 50 GOP senators voted to find Trump “guilty” at the end of his second impeachment trial, Republicans, including those who voted to acquit, are plotting a future where Trump is no longer their center of gravity after years of dominating their day-to-day lives. 

Trump is showing no signs of going away, saying in a statement after the trial concluded that the MAGA movement was just getting started. But Republicans say he has a diminished following and competition for the party’s top spot.  Continue reading.

Opinion: Will Senate Republicans allow their louts to rule the party?

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The first of this century’s national traumas is denoted by two numbers: 9/11. One purpose of, and a sufficient justification for, the second impeachment of the 45th president was to inscribe this century’s second trauma in the nation’s memory as: 1/6.

Although not nearly as tragic as 9/11 in lives lost and radiating policy consequences, 1/6 should become, as its implications percolate into the national consciousness, even more unsettling. Long before 9/11, Americans knew that foreign fanaticisms were perennial dangers. After 1/6, Americans know what their Constitution’s Framers knew: In any democracy, domestic fanaticisms always are, potentially, rank weeds that flourish when fertilized by persons who are as unscrupulous as they are prominent.

The Framers are, to the 45th president, mere rumors. They, however, knew him, as a type — a practitioner of what Alexander Hamilton (in Federalist 68) disdainfully called “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity.” Post-1/6 America has a quickened appreciation of how those “little arts,” when magnified by modern modes of mass communication as wielded by occupants of the swollen modern presidency, make civilization’s brittle crust crumble. Continue reading.

‘Shameful’: Fox News cuts away from Senate trial as shocking footage emerges

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As other networks airing Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday showed chilling new video footage of the deadly January 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol incited by the former president, Fox Newsopted to cut away to cover different stories. 

Even the fiercely pro-Trump One America Network aired Trump’s trial. Fox, however, decided to run segments on stories including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s decision to forego the national anthem at his NBA team’s home games, and the viral video of a Texas attorney’s “I’m not a cat” Zoom courtroom filter fail.

Fox‘s decision to cut away from the trial was lambasted as “f*cking shameful.” Continue reading.

DFL Party Statement on GOP “Vote A Rama”


ST PAUL, MINNESOTA – As Republicans in the Senate play partisan games with COVID relief, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement: 

“Over 460,000 Minnesotans have tested positive for COVID-19 and thousands more have struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic; relief cannot come soon enough. But rather than fight to help small businesses, reopen schools, and invest in vaccine distribution, Republicans in the Senate are creating a circus. This ‘vote a rama’ is nothing more than political theater when the American people are demanding action. Minnesotans won’t forget which party had their backs in a time of crisis.”