Category: Uncategorized

McConnell’s office desperately tries to rewrite history on Merrick Garland

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) kept Garland from getting a vote, but now says he’d confirm a Trump nominee just before the 2020 election.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016, reaffirmed on Tuesday that he would happily ram through confirmation of one of President Donald Trump’s nominees if a vacancy occurred in the final months of Trump’s term.

Now, his office is defending that statement, claiming it was not a reversal of McConnell’s previous comments on the matter.

McConnell claimed in 2016 that Garland’s nomination by President Barack Obama, following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, should not be brought to a vote because “the American people should have a say in the Court’s direction.” In February of that year, he released a statement vowing to keep the seat open so that the next president would be able to fill it.

View the complete May 29 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Federal judge partially blocks Trump’s $1 billion border wall plan

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Friday, partially blocking President Trump‘s plan to fund a border wall with Mexico using money from the Defense Department.

California U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam, who was appointed by former President Obama, issued the order, which does not fully halt construction but would limit additional border fencing to specific areas. It would also block the transfer of about $1 billion in Pentagon funds from various projects to pay for the construction of a wall.

Trump made an emergency declaration earlier this year to circumvent Congress and reallocate funding from the Defense Department to begin work on the wall.

View the complete May 24 article by Brooke Seipel and Rachel Frazin on The Hill website here.

Congress reaches deal on disaster aid

Congress has reached a deal on a “clean” disaster aid bill, after President Trump told lawmakers he would sign legislation even if money tied to the U.S.-Mexico border was dropped from the package.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said on Thursday afternoon that they had reached an agreement on the long-stalled legislation to respond to a recent spate of wildfires, hurricanes and storms.
“We’ve proposed … that we come forth with a clean disaster package, a lot of things off including border security stuff, just disaster, basically. And the president said OK,” Shelby told reporters after a closed-door GOP lunch.

View the complete May 23 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Minnesota House Approves Final State Government Budget

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — Today, the Minnesota House approved the State Government, Elections, and Veterans & Military Affairs budget bill. The bill keeps voters’ political party private when voting in primaries, invests in Minnesota’s cyber security, and appropriates the full $6.6 million in federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funding to secure Minnesota’s elections.

“Minnesotans have set the bar high when it comes to civic engagement. This budget lives up to that high standard, investing in election accessibility and security to make sure that every voice is counted, and that Minnesotans’ privacy is preserved,” said State Government Chair Michael Nelson (DFL – Brooklyn Park).

Minnesota is increasingly likely to experience cyber security threats. In addition to $20 million over four years for state cyber security improvements, the budget includes Chair Nelson’s provision to unlock $6.6 million in federal funding to support state efforts in securing election infrastructure against cyber threats. Though all 49 other states appropriated the funding right away and it passed off the Minnesota House floor with a major bipartisan vote of 105-23, Senate Republicans did not agree to appropriate the full funding until the special session. Continue reading “Minnesota House Approves Final State Government Budget”

ICYMI: Phillips Responds to President Trump’s Cancelled Infrastructure Meeting, Decries “Woeful Lack of Leadership”

Phillips: “Whatever prompted his change of heart today in the Rose Garden. I’m not sure. But if that’s all it took, that’s a woeful lack of leadership, I’m afraid.”

WASHINGTON, DC – Earlier today, Congressman Dean Phillips (MN-03) joined Jake Tapper on CNN to discuss the cancelled infrastructure meeting at the White House, decrying President Trump’s “woeful lack of leadership.”This morning, Phillips announced his completed 36-city tour where infrastructure was raised as a top concern for every city in Minnesota’s 3rd District.

Below is a transcript of the interview:

TAPPER: Joining me now from Capitol Hill is Minnesota Democrat Congressman Dean Phillips. He’s a freshman. He’s on both the House Foreign Affairs and Financial Services Committees. Continue reading “ICYMI: Phillips Responds to President Trump’s Cancelled Infrastructure Meeting, Decries “Woeful Lack of Leadership””

‘Mistake’ in Republican tax plan taxes 1.3 million scholarship students more than millionaires

High costs for college not only means misery for graduates, it harms American companies at every level by depriving them both of workers and consumers.

From Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren to Kirsten Gillibrand to … lots of others, Democratic candidates in 2020 seem to have plans to lower the cost of education and make it possible for more Americans to attend college without drowning under a mountain of debt. Democrats recognize that education is critical to obtaining a good job, and that the cost of education in 2019 means that students are often saddled with loans that can not only erase the benefits of that education for years, but take those new college graduates out of the market for homes, or restrict their ability to move. In short, high costs for college not only means misery for graduates, it harms American companies at every level by depriving them both of workers and consumers.

So, naturally, Donald Trump is making it worse.

While Trump’s tax break for billionaires is just that—a plan that awards Trump himself tens of millions in tax breaks and means that some of the largest, most profitable companies in the country pay no tax at all—it punishes working class and middle class students. As The New York Times reports, students attending college on scholarships or financial aid packages are being taxed at a rate higher than Trump pays on his eight-figure income, with rates going up to 37%. That means that some of the students who most needed the money the most, but who made it into college on academic or athletic scholarships, or those who assembled an aid package that let them barely climb over the cost hurdle … are finding their mailboxes full with bills from the IRS. And, unlike Trump, they can’t get away with ignoring tax law.

View the complete May 19 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Bolton emerges as flashpoint in GOP debate on Iran

White House national security adviser John Bolton is becoming a flashpoint in the internal Republican debate over how to respond to Iran amid a fast-developing military buildup in the Middle East that has stoked war fears on Capitol Hill.

Bolton’s hawkish stance on the Islamic republic is stirring up concerns among GOP lawmakers who are scrambling to make sense of confusing signals coming from the Trump administration.

Republican senators who have seen sensitive intelligence warn that a military conflict with Iran may break out within days, while others who have yet to be briefed on classified information are left guessing what President Trump’s next move might be.

View the complete May 18 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Here’s how Trump’s legal team is ‘taking cues’ from Freedom Caucus extremist Jim Jordan to fight Democratic oversight: report

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio has been an influential figure on the far right. The Ohio Republican is popular with the Tea Party, he was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, and his influence on the far right is so strong that, according to a report by Melanie Zanona and Andrew Desiderio for Politico, President Donald Trump’s legal team is “taking cues from Jordan, adopting many of his arguments and even asking a federal judge to obtain documents from Jordan in order to build their legal case against Democrats’ myriad investigations targeting the president.”

The 55-year-old congressman, in an interview with Politico, emphasized that he isn’t actually coordinating with the White House. Yet as Zanona and Desiderio point out, he is having a strong impact on Trump’s legal strategy.

Jordan has encouraged Donald Trump, Jr. to defy a subpoena from the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Zanona and Desiderio note that Trump’s legal team — including William Consovoy — has been “picking up on the same lines of attack” encouraged by Jordan and Rep. Mark Meadows, who “have teamed up to highlight what they say is a coordinated Democratic effort to politically damage the president ahead of his reelection bid.”

View the complete May 16 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Former Bush economic policy adviser to GOP: I enlisted 2 psychiatrists to evaluate Trump and he’s a ‘10-out-of-10 narcissist’ with the decision-making ability of an ‘empty chair’

On Tuesday, May 14, veteran economist Larry B. Lindsey, who served as economic policy adviser under President George W. Bush, discussed China and trade policy when he spoke to Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate. And the veteran Republican, according to Politico, had some unflattering things to say about President Donald Trump.

The 64-year-old Lindsey, who was a guest of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said he enlisted two psychiatrists to evaluate Trump from far away — and Lindsey, Politico reports, told Congress members that in China, Trump is viewed as a “total narcissist” and a “10-out-of-10 narcissist.” Lindsey attributed Trump’s narcissism to not receiving enough attention from his mother during childhood.

Lindsey also told fellow Republicans that Trump is seriously limited when it comes  to his ability to make long-term decisions — an ability he equated with that of an “empty chair.”

View the complete May 15 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Here are 4 ways Trump’s GOP is seriously screwing rural voters

With President Donald Trump escalating his trade war with China, farmers in the United States are worried about how hard they will be hit by retaliatory tariffs from Beijing. Many American farmers have already faced the effects of a 25% tariff that the Chinese government imposed in 2018. And farmers are not a group of Americans that Republicans can afford to alienate, as Trump’s base is largely white and rural.

Agriculture, however, is hardly the only area in which Trump and other Republicans are bad for the GOP’s base. Trump paints himself as a staunch defender of Rural America, but when Republicans attack everything from the U.S. Postal Service to health care, they aren’t doing rural voters a favor.

Here are some ways in which Trump and other Republicans are bad news for Rural America.

View the complete May 14 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.