Category Archives: US Congress

Biden signs measure to avert shutdown but Ukraine aid remains frozen

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Hard-right Republicans ensure chances of more money and weapons for Kyiv hinge on immigration reform negotiations

Joe Biden signed a measure to keep the US government funded on Friday but as Washington shivered under its second major snowfall in a week, the bill did not unfreeze funding for Ukraine.

Hard-right House Republicans, led by the speaker, Mike Johnson, are ensuring the chances of more money and weapons for Kyiv in its fight with Moscow hinge on negotiations for immigration reform.

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Republicans’ bid to hold Hunter Biden in contempt appears to be suspended

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New discussions with president’s son’s attorneys could lead to him testifying in the near future

Efforts by House Republicans to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress appear to be in suspension following new discussions with his attorneys that could lead to the president’s son testifying in the near future.

The development follows Biden’s surprise appearance at a congressional oversight committee meeting last week during which the Republicans complained he was refusing to make himself available in defiance of their subpoena for closed-door testimony.

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Congress agrees on stopgap bill to fund federal government into March

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US media reports congressional leaders have agreed on a ‘continuing resolution’, which extends deadlines

US congressional leaders have agreed on a two-tranche stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government funded into March and avert a partial government shutdown starting late next week, US media reported on Saturday.

Politico, CNN and Punchbowl reported that congressional leaders have agreed on what is called a “continuing resolution” or “CR”, that would fund the government – extending two deadlines through 1 March and 8 March. The media outlets reported that House of Representatives Republicans will unveil the plan Sunday night.

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‘Unacceptable’: Biden denounced for bypassing Congress over Yemen strikes

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Critics on left and right furious that president failed to seek congressional approval for strikes against Houthi militants

A bipartisan chorus of lawmakers assailed Joe Biden for failing to seek congressional approval before authorizing military strikes against targets in Yemen controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi militants, reigniting a long-simmering debate over who has the power to declare war in America.

The US president announced on Thursday night that the US and the UK, with support from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Bahrain, had launched a series of air and naval strikes on more than a dozen sites in Yemen. The retaliatory action was in response to relentless Houthi attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.

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Will hard-right Republicans derail the fragile US spending deal?

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Mike Johnson and Chuck Schumer say they have a deal to avert a shutdown – but a divided Congress could yet stall its progress

Congressional leaders reached an agreement on overall spending levels to fund the federal government in 2024, a significant step toward averting a shutdown later this month. But political divisions on immigration and other domestic priorities could stall its progress.

The deal is separate from bipartisan Senate negotiations that would pair new border security measures with additional funding for Israel and Ukraine. That proposal is expected to be released sometime this week.

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Lauren Boebert denies allegations that she punched ex-husband in restaurant

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Colorado police reportedly arrived after Jayson Boebert called and claimed he was ‘victim of domestic violence’ and punched in face

Rightwing US congresswoman Lauren Boebert is denying allegations that she punched her ex-husband in the face in public after police in Colorado were reportedly called out to an encounter involving the pair Saturday night at a restaurant.

The incident was first reported by the Daily Beast. The news site said that Jayson Boebert called police claiming that he was a “victim of domestic violence”. In an interview with the Daily Beast, Jayson Boebert alleged that the congresswoman had “punched” him in the face several times. He claimed to have a witness to the events.

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Bernie Sanders calls on Congress to block funding to Israel

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Israel’s response ‘has been grossly disproportionate, immoral and in violation of international law’, senator says

Bernie Sanders, the progressive senator of Vermont, issued a statement Tuesday calling on Congress to block additional funding to Israel amid the war in Gaza, where more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks after Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October.

“While we recognize that Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attack began this war, we must also recognize that Israel’s military response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral and in violation of international law,” Sanders said.

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Harvard Corporation condemns ‘racist vitriol’ directed at Claudine Gay and says she ‘acknowledged missteps’ – as it happened

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The Democrats are, unsurprisingly, laying into Republican House majority leader Steve Scalise for his endorsement of Donald Trump today.

Even before his endorsement, Scalise was among the many House Republicans who have cast doubt on the validity of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and supported the Trump campaign’s failed effort to get the supreme court to interfere in the vote result four years ago.

MAGA House Republicans keep showing America they’ve turned the House into little more than an arm of Donald Trump’s campaign – so it’s no surprise Steve Scalise, who called himself ‘David Duke without the baggage,’ is joining the parade of House extremists backing Trump’s bid. Scalise’s top priority has always been pushing Trump’s unpopular agenda: He voted against certifying the 2020 election, is hellbent on banning abortion nationwide, and worked with Trump to try to rip away Americans’ health care. Scalise’s endorsement is the latest proof that while the House GOP is unable to accomplish anything on behalf of the American people, they are laser-focused on advancing Trump’s MAGA agenda and ripping away freedoms.

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How 2023 became the year Congress forgot to ban TikTok

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Momentum seemed to be on their side of US lawmakers this year to stop 150 million Americans from using TikTok. What happened?

Banning TikTok in the US seemed almost inevitable at the start of 2023. The previous year saw a trickle of legislative actions against the short-form video app, after dozens of individual states barred TikTok from government devices in late 2022 over security concerns. At the top of the new year, the US House followed suit, and four universities blocked TikTok from campus wifi.

The movement to prohibit TikTok grew into a flash flood by spring. CEO Shou Zi Chew was called before Congress for brutal questioning in March. By April – with support from the White House (and Joe Biden’s predecessor) – it seemed a federal ban of the app was not just possible, but imminent.

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Liars, expulsions and near-fistfights: Congress plumbs the depths in 2023

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From removing a House speaker and expelling an indicted member, it was not a great year for America’s representatives

Before House Republicans left for their holiday recess this month, they addressed one last matter of business. They did not take up an aid package for Ukraine or pass an appropriations bill to fully fund the government through the fiscal year.

The House chose instead to vote along party lines to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, even though Republicans have failed to uncover any proof that the president financially benefited from his family’s business dealings.

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US Congress passes stripped-down measure to release UFO records

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National Archives directed to collect reports but measure gives government departments broad authority to keep them secret

If the truth about UFOs is out there, the American government doesn’t want you to see it yet.

Just months after US space agency Nasa appointed a research director of unidentified anomalous phenomena, and promised more transparency about what it knows, the US Congress has acted to throttle the flow of information that ultimately reaches the public.

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Bernie Sanders demands answers on Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ Gaza bombing

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Senator introduces resolution to investigate ‘humanitarian cataclysm … being done with American bombs and money’

The US’s support for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza is facing new scrutiny in Washington following a resolution by the independent senator Bernie Sanders that could ultimately be used to curtail military assistance.

It is far from clear whether Sanders has the support to pass the resolution, but its introduction in the Senate this week – by an important progressive ally of the US president Joe Biden – highlights mounting human rights and political concerns by Democrats on Capitol Hill.

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Giuliani’s defamatory claims have ‘significant, negative and long-lasting impact’ on election workers, expert witness says – live

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Ashlee Humphreys, a Northwestern professor, testifies that Giuliani’s claims against plaintiffs have significant effects on their reputations

Ashlee Humphreys said in court that prior to 3 December, 2020, there was almost no search traffic for “Ruby Freeman”, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports.

Afterwards, there was an increase, she said.

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New York high court orders new state congressional maps for 2024 elections

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The 4-3 decision could have major ramifications for the control of the US House as Democrats angle to gain control of it

New York’s highest court on Tuesday ordered the state to draw new congressional districts ahead of the 2024 elections, giving Democrats a potential advantage in what is expected to be a battleground for control of the US House.

The 4-3 decision from the New York court of appeals could have major ramifications as Democrats angle for more favorable district lines in the state next year. Republicans, who won control of the House after flipping seats in New York, sought to keep the map in place.

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Giuliani defamation trial: election worker testifies ex-Trump lawyer’s 2020 lies ruined her life – as it happened

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The Giuliani defamation trial is one of the first tests of the many prongs pro-democracy groups are using in the courts to try to hold purveyors of election lies accountable.

Several lawsuits use anti-defamation laws in civil lawsuits against big names who joined with Trump to deny the results of the 2020 election, including Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Dinesh D’Souza.

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Republicans to meet allies of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán on ending Ukraine aid

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Hungarian appearance at two-day event part of Orbán’s transatlantic attempt to bolster Russia’s war

Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned.

Márton Ugrósdy, the deputy state secretary for the prime minister’s political director’s office, and Attila Demkó, a leading pro-Orbán academic, along with members of the Hungarian embassy in Washington, will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank.

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US university presidents face firestorm over evasive answers on antisemitism

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Congressional testimony on campus policies by heads of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT draws criticism

The presidents of three of the nation’s top universities are facing intense backlash, including from the White House, after they appeared to evade questions during a congressional hearing about whether calls by students for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools’ codes of conduct.

In a contentious, hours-long debate on Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sought to address the steps they were taking to combat rising antisemitism on campus since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. But it was their careful, indirect response to a question posed by the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York that drew scathing criticism.

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Jamaal Bowman on his censure: ‘This Republican House is unserious and unproductive’ – as it happened

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Here is the moment House speaker Mike Johnson announced the votes on the censure of New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman:

The House has voted to censure Jamaal Bowman with 214 yeas and 191 nays.

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Kevin McCarthy, ousted House speaker, says he will leave Congress at end of the year – US politics live

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McCarthy, who was ousted from the House weeks ago, said in his announcement, ‘I’m leaving the House but not the fight’

Former speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced that he will resign from the House at the end of the year.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Wednesday and titled “I’m leaving the House but not the fight,” McCarthy said that he had decided to depart the House at the end of this year and “serve America in new ways”.

I know my work is only getting started. I will continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office. The Republican Party is expanding every day, and I am committed to lending my experience to support the next generation of leaders.”

“I never could have imagined the journey when I first threw my hat into the ring. I go knowing I left it all on the field—as always, with a smile on my face. And looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Only in America.”

“Common sense should dictate that we need to secure our own border in addition to helping Ukraine and Israel secure theirs. In the greatest country on Earth, we do not have to choose between protecting our homeland and defending our allies.

My support for Israel and Ukraine is unwavering but it does not supersede my commitment to my own country. We need major, structural reforms to limit the number of illegal crossings at our southern border and regain operational control.

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US ‘out of money’ for Ukraine: six things to know about the aid standoff

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White House urges Congress to approve extra funding for war against Russia – but hard-right Republicans are holding out

The White House issued an urgent warning to Congress on Monday, predicting that Ukraine will soon lose ground in its war against Russia without another infusion of financial aid from the US.

“I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in her letter to congressional leaders.

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